Fuzzy theory has been regarded as a very important technique for quality management (QM) of distributed manufacturing system and attracts the attentions of academic and industry; however, there is a lack of a comprehensive literature review and a classification scheme for it. This paper is the first academic literature review of the fuzzy theory applied in quality management of distributed manufacturing system. It involves five most popular databases in this research area and covers more than 20 journals, proposes a classification scheme using clustering analysis method. Sixty-one journal articles were finally selected, reviewed and classified. Each selected article was classified firstly based on four QM dimensions (quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and quality improvem...
125I-seeds are extensively used in ocular and interstitial brachytherapy for the treatment of various malignant lesions. Quality assurance and classification performance testing of indigenously produced 125I-seeds were carried out for ensuring their safety in different brachytherapy applications. The sources were found to qualify Class -43211 specifications, in accordance with AERB SS-3 and ISO-2919. (author)
With steam generator check testing, the numerous types of defect not only have to be detected reliably but also to be identified correctly and classified according to depth. A priori, no signals are provided by the physical eddy-current mechanism, i.e. the disturbance of an excited eddy-current field by a defect, which will allow unambiguous identification and classification of the defects. The task, therefore, consists in designing the eddy-current method in terms of measurement technology in such a way as to obtain useful detection, identification and classification by a translation of the signals as simple and as save as possible. Internal through-flow wils and internal rotating probes were examined for their suitability to fulfill this three-pronged task with steam generator inspection.
With steam generator check testing, the numerous types of defect not only have to be detected reliably but also to be identified correctly and classified according to depth. A priori, no signals are provided by the physical eddy-current mechanism, i.e. the disturbance of an excited eddy-current field by a defect, which will allow unambiguous identification and classification of the defects. The task, therefore, consists in designing the eddy-current method in terms of measurement technology in such a way as to obtain useful detection, identification and classification by a translation of the signals as simple and as save as possible. Internal through-flow wils and internal rotating probes were examined for their suitability to fulfill this three-pronged task with steam generator inspection. (orig./RW).
The primary objective of this study was to identify, characterize, and map the wetlands in the Bear Creek watershed. A preliminary wetland categorization system based on the Cowardin classification system (Cowardin et al. 1979) with additional site-specific topographic, vegetation, and disturbance characteristic modifiers was developed to characterize the type of wetlands that exist in the Bear Creek watershed. An additional objective was to detect possible relationships among site soils, hydrology, and the occurrence of wetlands in the watershed through a comparison of existing data with the field survey. Research needs are discussed in the context of wetland functions and values and regulatory requirements for wetland impact assessment and compensatory mitigation.
This paper describes the approach taken to the XML Mining track at INEX 2008 by a group at the Queensland University of Technology. We introduce the K-tree clustering algorithm in an Information Retrieval context by adapting it for document clustering. Many large scale problems exist in document clustering. K-tree scales well with large inputs due to its low complexity. It offers promising results both in terms of efficiency and quality. Document classification was completed using Support Vector Machines.
The report examines common ventilation and air conditioning systems and strategies for both domestic and commercial buildings; and covers issues such as energy conservation, indoor air quality and occupant comfort. Drawing data from many countries in Europe and the United States of America, various natural, mechanical and air conditioning systems were compared using criteria such as climate, level of occupant interaction, and level of system comfort. This classification system is evaluated and seen as a valuable framework for further research. (U.K.)
We describe features of the LSST science database that are amenable to scientific data mining, object classification, outlier identification, anomaly detection, image quality assurance, and survey science validation. The data mining research agenda includes: scalability (at petabytes scales) of existing machine learning and data mining algorithms; development of grid-enabled parallel data mining algorithms; designing a robust system for brokering classifications from the LSST event pipeline (which may produce 10,000 or more event alerts per night); multi-resolution methods for exploration of petascale databases; indexing of multi-attribute multi-dimensional astronomical databases (beyond spatial indexing) for rapid querying of petabyte databases; and more.
Copper alloys are a suitable tubing material for turbine condensers and heat exchangers. Due to problems with corrosions copper alloys increasingly are displaced by high-grade steel and titanium. Blockages and surface formation in the pipes, disturbance of the oxide coating formation, erosion and quality faults with the production are the causes for the corrosion. In the contribution under consideration counter measures are designated for the solution of the problems with corrosions. The application limits for different copper alloys are designated. Recommendations for the optimized operation are given.
To predict air quality properly at a given location, it is necessary to identify all emission sources that will have significant impact at that location. Furthermore, the atmospheric pollutants that are emitted by these sources must be identified and quantitatively characterized. Once the air-quality predictions have been made, it is desirable to have some historical air-quality data for comparison. An efficient means of obtaining this information is through the use of detailed emission inventories and an inventory of air-quality-monitoring stations. Therefore, as part of the Alberta Government/Industry Acid Deposition Research Program (ADRP), three comprehensive inventories have been developed, namely: a sulfur dioxide (SO/sub 2/) emission inventory, a nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission inventory, and an inventory of air-quality-monitoring stations. Volume 2, Design of the Emission ...
The first U.S. demonstration of the NGK sodium/sulfur battery technology was launched in August 2002 when a prototype system was installed at a commercial office building in Gahanna, Ohio. American Electric Power served as the host utility that provided the office space and technical support throughout the project. The system was used to both reduce demand peaks (peak-shaving operation) and to mitigate grid power disturbances (power quality operation) at the demonstration site. This report documents the results of the demonstration, provides an economic analysis of a commercial sodium/sulfur battery energy storage system at a typical site, and describes a side-by-side demonstration of the capabilities of the sodium/sulfur battery system, a lead-acid battery system, and a flywheel-based energy storage system in a power quality application.
Problems relating to electromagnetic compatibility and power quality were discussed, combined with a discussion of the role that consulting engineers can play in resolving them. The need for the consulting engineer to be aware of design specifications of equipment was considered essential. Similarly, the interrelationship between installations using variable speed drives, halogenous lighting systems, capacitor banks, high-voltage power lines, power transformers, etc., and the need for familiarity with the operating characteristics of different types of power systems were stressed as key ingredients to success in ascertaining events and causes of equipment failure or power system problems on the network. The main sources of disturbances, impact of voltage variations, the importance of controlling voltage imbalance, and system protection were summarized. 4 figs.
Three holes the size of deposition holes (depth 7.5 m and diameter 1.5 m) were bored in the Research Tunnel at Olkiluoto, Finland. A novel full-face boring technique was used based on rotary crushing of rock and removal of crushed rock by vacuum flushing through the drill string. The purpose of the work was to demonstrate the feasibility of the technique. During the boring test procedures were carried out in order to determine the effect of changes in operating parameters on the performance of the boring machine and the quality of the hole. The boring method was found to be technically feasible and efficient. Evaluation of the quality of the hole included studies of the geometry of the hole, measurements of the surface roughness using a laser profilometer and study of excavation disturbances in the zone adjacent to the surface of the holes using two novel methods, He-gas diffusion and the {sup 14}C-polymethylmethacrylate ...
Herbivores and pathogens impact the species composition, ecosystem function, and socioeconomic value of forests. Herbivores and pathogens are an integral part of forests, but sometimes produce undesirable effects and a degradation of forest resources. In the United States, a few species of forest pests routinely have significant impacts on up to 20 million ha of forest with economic costs that probably exceed $1 billion/year. Climatic change could alter patterns of disturbance from herbivores and pathogens through: (1) direct effects on the development and survival of herbivores and pathogens; (2) physiological changes in tree defenses; and (3) indirect effects from changes in the abundance of natural enemies (e.g. parasitoids of insect herbivores), mutualists (e.g. insect vectors of tree pathogens), and competitors. Because of their short life cycles, mobility, reproductive potential, and physiological sensitivity to temperature, even modest climate change will ...
Underground injection, compared to other waste disposal methods, is considered to have the advantages of isolating wastes in a confined brine aquifer well below the horizon of human activity and underground sources of drinking water (USDWs). While most of injected wastes move laterally in the injection zone, posing a long-term concern to the human health and environment, a small amount can migrate upward to the upper aquifers, causing a greater threat to the quality of USDWs. Both the dual porosity and the single porosity models were used to investigate the migration of injected wastes through these hydrologic conduits. The results indicate that regional upward migration through an extensive confining formation is a slow process. Nevertheless, injected wastes can move upward rapidly through microannuli and channels in the cement sheath and spread over a distance in the upper aquifer. The wastes can also migrate fast through fractures in the ...
PurposeThe purpose of the present study was to compare the effect of submucosal versus intramuscular administration of dexamethasone sodium phosphate on patients' quality of life after surgical removal of impacted lower third molars. Patients and MethodsA randomized, non-blind, clinical trial was planned. The sample was composed of patients requiring extraction under local anesthesia of a single partial bony impacted mandibular third molar with Class II or III and position B or C, according to the Pell and Gregory classification. The patients were randomly distributed into 1 of 3 groups: submucosal dexamethasone, intramuscular dexamethasone, and a control group that received no steroid. A modified translated questionnaire was used to assess the patients' perception regarding different qual...
The thymus is a key organ of the immune system in most vertebrates and, for this reason, it has been used in this paper for the generation of a normalized cDNA library from sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), one of the most extensively cultured species in South Mediterranean aquaculture. A total of 1632 ESTs from this library were initially analysed for sequence quality and vector sequences and, after this control, 1264 (77% of total clones sequenced) high-quality ESTs were further processed. The total collection of D. labrax thymus ESTs has been deposited in the EBI-GenBank-DBJ database (GenBank accession numbers from FN565576 to FN566839). The functional classification of ESTs was performed by Gene Ontology and KEGG annotation and, successively, the sequences were analysed using the Immuno...
Papers are presented on the modeling, dispersion, formation, transformation, monitoring and biological effects of atmospheric pollution. Specific topics include a prognostic mesoscale model for pollutant transport and diffusion, commuter exposure modeling, a Gaussian plume model for an urban area, carbon monoxide dispersion in an urbanized area, wind-tunnel modeling of flue gas dispersion, the regional-scale transport of fine aerosol components in eastern North America, and a Markov process for the generation of hourly average wind vectors. Attention is also given to photochemical aerosol formation in multicomponent systems, heterogeneous nitrogen oxide-particulate reactions, the generation and measurement of primary soot aerosols of size between 50 and 400 A, inertial particle size classification techniques, the design of air quality monitoring networks, visibilities in polluted and unpolluted areas, and monitoring air ...
Fitness, (biometric measurements, reproduction) and behaviour that are ecologically relevant biomarkers in assessing the quality of estuarine sediments were studied by comparing the responses of the polychaete worm Nereis diversicolor - a key species in estuaries - along a pollution gradient. Intersite differences were shown for all the measured parameters: size-weight relationships, energy reserves as glycogen and lipids, sexual maturation patterns, total number of oocytes per female, total and relative fecundity, burrowing behaviour. The physiological and behavioural status of N. diversicolor was consistently disturbed in the larger, most contaminated estuaries (Loire and Seine, Fr.) compared to reference sites (Bay of Bourgneuf, Goyen estuary, Fr.). Many classes of potentially toxic che...
Papers presented at the workshop include: the longterm viability of mined land in Queensland; the determination and achievement of rehabilitation objectives: a state government objective; monitoring native vegetation in regenerated bauxite mines at Weipa: a belt transect method; rehabilitation strategies at the Collinsville open cut coal mine; the alteration of the environment by the construction and operation of the coal export facility at Abbot Point; some aspects of the premining environment at Collinsville; the prospects for long term revegetation of acid coal mine spoil and reject materials; recovery and stability in disturbed and artificially revegetated plant communities: a theoretical viewpoint; revegetation in the arid tropics: Mount Isa Mines' experience; Nabralek and its rehabilitation; rehabilitation and management strategies for acid mine wastes; the purpose and design of water quality monitoring networks at mine sites; ...
In steel production lines such as pickling lines, cold rolling mills and coil processing lines, the needs for on-line continuous measurement of surface quality and property of products and on-line inspection of surface defects have become strong. This is because user requirements for the surface quality of various products have become severer than before and besides, expectations are running high on the side of manufacturers for higher speeds of production lines and higher quality by the adoption of automatic inspection. As for the measurement of surface quality, continuous measurements along the full length of a steel strip are required in order to overcome problems derived from off-line, batch measurements that cannot satisfy user's demands for quality assurance. As for surface defects detection, various kinds of methods have been practically applied to production lines. ...
In production systems where high-resolution harvest data are unavailable there is often a reliance on ancillary information to generate potential management units. In these situations correct identification of relevant sources of data is important to minimize cost to the grower. For three fields in a sweet corn production system in central NSW, Australia, several sets of high-resolution data were obtained using soil and crop canopy sensors. Management units were derived by k-means classification for 2?5 classes using three approaches: (1) with soil data, (2) with crop data and (3) a combination of both soil and crop data. Crop quantity and quality were sampled manually, and the sample data were related to the different management units using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The ...
This paper introduces the application of independent component analysis mixture modelling (ICAMM) in non-destructive testing (NDT). The application consists of discriminating patterns for material quality control from homogeneous and defective materials inspected by impact-echo testing. This problem is modelled as a mixture of independent component analysis (ICA) models, representing a class of defective or homogeneous material by an ICA model whose parameters are learned from the impact-echo signal spectrum. These parameters define a kind of particular signature for the different defects. The proposed procedure is intended to exploit to the maximum the information obtained with the cost efficiency of only a single impact. To illustrate this capability, four levels of classification detail...
In the present scenario of market driven business, power supply has become more like a commodity. Reliable and quality power need to be ensured to meet customer requirements. In such a situation, it is extremely important that transmission line faults be identified accurately, reliably and in quick time. Advanced signal processing tools such as discrete wavelet transform (DWT) can be used very effectively for parameterisation and characterization of the fault signals. On the other hand, properly configured neural network (NN) can be utilized for classification of the faults based on the DWT signal. The present contribution uses electromagnetic transient program (EMTP) for modeling of a real transmission system and MATLAB for DWT and NN. Various types of faults have been simulated at different locations along the transmission line and an attempt has been made to correctly identify and locate the fault. (author)
In the present scenario of market driven business, power supply has become more like a commodity. Reliable and quality power need to be ensured to meet customer requirements. In such a situation, it is extremely important that transmission line faults be identified accurately, reliably and in quick time. Advanced signal processing tools such as discrete wavelet transform (DWT) can be used very effectively for parameterisation and characterization of the fault signals. On the other hand, properly configured neural network (NN) can be utilized for classification of the faults based on the DWT signal. The present contribution uses electromagnetic transient program (EMTP) for modeling of a real transmission system and MATLAB for DWT and NN. Various types of faults have been simulated at differ...
This paper proposes a new approach based on missing value pattern discovery for classifying incomplete data. This approach is particularly designed for classification of datasets with a small...Full Text Available
Many real-world text classification tasks involve imbalanced training examples. The strategies proposed to address the imbalanced classification (e.g., resampling, instance weighting), however, have not been systematically evaluated in the text domain. In this paper, we conduct a comparative study on the effectiveness of these strategies in the context of imbalanced text classification using Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier. SVM is the interest in this study for its good classification accuracy reported in many text classification tasks. We propose a taxonomy to organize all proposed strategies following the training and the test phases in text classification tasks. Based on the taxonomy, we survey the methods proposed to address the imbalanced classification. Among them, 10 common...
Dec 9, 2005 ... Classification of high resolution imagery is not as straightforward as more ... The challenges of classifying high resolution imagery stems ...
This report is a summary of the contribution of nitrogen and phosphorus in the eutrophication process of inland and coastal waters. Special attention was paid to the mechanisms of these nutrients in regulating biological processes and to the methods available in estimating their effects in the eutrophication of water bodies. The report includes five chapters which are entitled: Introduction, which is a general background to the subject with special attention to the requirements of the Finnish Water Act. Phosphorus and nitrogen as factors regulating biological processes. The topics included are: definition of eutrophication, forms of phosphorus and nitrogen and their sources to inland and coastal waters, effects of these nutrients as growth factors of phytoplankton and macrophytes and consequences of eutrophication. Estimation of the effects of phosphorus and nitrogen. The topics discussed from the point of view of the tasks of the National Board of Waters and the Environment are: ...
Summary 1.-Traditional views of ecological disturbance emphasize the role that physical disturbances play in reducing competition between populations and maintaining species coexistence. I present an alternative view that employs a simple Lotka-Volterra model to demonstrate how disturbance resistance, disturbance resilience and resource storage can increase competition between individual perennial plants of similar growth form along a resource supply gradient. 2.-In contrasting the growth of individual genets of two hypothetical species, I assumed that traits associated with inherently low module (i.e. plant part) mortality in infertile soils resulted in greater resource storage, but traded off with maximum potential net photosynthesis rates and thus disturbance resilience. 3.-The species ...
Fitness, (biometric measurements, reproduction) and behaviour that are ecologically relevant biomarkers in assessing the quality of estuarine sediments were studied by comparing the responses of the polychaete worm Nereis diversicolor - a key species in estuaries - along a pollution gradient. Intersite differences were shown for all the measured parameters: size-weight relationships, energy reserves as glycogen and lipids, sexual maturation patterns, total number of oocytes per female, total and relative fecundity, burrowing behaviour. The physiological and behavioural status of N. diversicolor was consistently disturbed in the larger, most contaminated estuaries (Loire and Seine, Fr.) compared to reference sites (Bay of Bourgneuf, Goyen estuary, Fr.). Many classes of potentially toxic chemicals present in these estuaries most likely contribute to these impairments but food availability may act as a confounding factor, interfering with the ...
ObjectiveMusician's focal dystonia is usually considered to be task specific but secondary motor disturbances have been reported also. We carried out a detailed evaluation of the...Full Text Available
The importance of algal and detrital food supplies to the planktonic food web of a highly disturbed, estuarine ecosystem was evaluated in response to declining zooplankton and fish populations. We assessed...Full Text Available
The concept of the minimum propagating zone (MPZ) is used to examine the causes of quenches in ISABELLE cosine theta superconducting dipole magnets. The size of disturbances large enough to exceed the MPZ and initiate quenches is estimated and compared with the size of disturbances which may be produced in the magnets. A suggestion for reducing the size of these disturbances through individual support of the coil block is outlined.
AbstractOBJECTIVETo provide an overview of the 2009 edition of the Rourke Baby Record (RBR), which incorporates recent research in the literature relating to preventive health care for children aged 0 to 5 years.QUALITY OF EVIDENCERecommendations are identified as supported by good, fair, or consensus evidence, according to the classification of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care.MAIN MESSAGENew information and recommendations are given for growth monitoring, nutrition, developmental surveillance, physical examination maneuvers, immunization schedules, and advice for parents. Anticipatory guidance updates relate to injury prevention, infant swaddling, literacy facilitation, nonparental child care, parenting skills programs, serum lead levels, over-the-counter cough and cold medications, pacifiers, antipyretics, insect repellents, and dental care and oral health. The 2009 RBR is available in English and French in both National and ...
Many social Web sites allow users to publish content and annotate with descriptive metadata. In addition to flat tags, some social Web sites have recently began to allow users to organize their content and metadata hierarchically. The social photosharing site Flickr, for example, allows users to group related photos in sets, and related sets in collections. The social bookmarking site Del.icio.us similarly lets users group related tags into bundles. Although the sites themselves don't impose any constraints on how these hierarchies are used, individuals generally use them to capture relationships between concepts, most commonly the broader/narrower relations. Collective annotation of content with hierarchical relations may lead to an emergent classification system, called a folksonomy. While some researchers have explored using tags as evidence for learning folksonomies, we believe that hierarchical relations described above offer a ...
The previous judgment of eutrophic state, once proposed for the Trasimeno Lake (Umbria region, Italy), has been revised. According to Vollenweider-OECD classification criterion, the lake waters are at present to be classified as mesotrophic waters, with phosphorus limitation. However this level of moderate productivity results to be conditioned by the hydrochemical characteristics of the lake waters, that control phosphorus concentrations independently from the loading coming from the basin, and prevent dangerous and massive algal blooms. Different processes of chemical nature, regulating the phosphorus amount in the lake waters, are then reviewed: adsorption of P/P0(4) onto suspended materials, particularly clay mineral particles, and direct precipitation as hydroxylapatite or co-precipitation with carbonates, are found to be the principal mechanisms that determine chemical removal of phosphorus from the water column. A preliminary mass balance of phosphorus ...
A study of the joint evolution of the normal- and neutron-star components of massive binaries opens with a classification scheme and the analytic expressions to be applied in Paper II for computer simulation of the observable properties of such systems.
BackgroundMicroarray data are often used for patient classification and gene selection. An appropriate tool for end users and biomedical researchers should combine user friendliness...Full Text Available
The classification of rational conformal field theories is essentially equivalent to the classification of all possible four-point functions for the primary fields of the theories. An interesting set of parameters appearing in the latter classification is given by the number and the positions of so-called apparent singularities of the differential equations which are obeyed by the four-point functions. The subject of this paper is a detailed analysis of the role played by these parameters. In particular the restrictions imposed on them by general principles of two-dimensional conformal field theory are worked out, and the implications on the classification programme are discussed. (orig.).
... Southeastern Forests Feral Pig Fishes of Georgia: Georgia Freshwater Fish Distribution, Classification, and Information Flora of the Oconee National ... ...
Purpose of reviewTo summarize recent advances in the classification of preradiographic axial spondyloarthritis (SpA).Recent findingsFull Text Available
Malfunctions in machinery are often sources of reduced productivity and increased maintenance costs in various industrial applications. For this reason, machine condition monitoring is being pursued to recognise incipient faults. In this paper, the fault diagnostic problem is tackled within a neuro-fuzzy approach to pattern classification. Besides the primary purpose of a high rate of correct classification, the proposed neuro-fuzzy approach also aims at obtaining an easily interpretable classification model. The efficiency of the approach is verified with respect to a literature problem and then applied to a case of motor bearing fault classification.
The formulation of the problem of classification of lithologically heterogeneous rocks and rocks with mixed capacity space is analyzed under conditions of self-teaching. Using the example of one of the boreholes of the Pripyat trough we illustrated the possibilities of the Kompakt algorithm to classify deposits of the Frasnian stage without using standard data. Problems are listed for further study on the development of methods of application of self-teaching classification systems in the petroleum industry.
The language used by chronic benign pain patients to characterize their pain complaint was analyzed to determine the best predictor of psychiatric disturbance. Using the 78 adjectives provided by the McGill Pain Questionnaire, the number of affective descriptors used was the best predictor of psychiatric disturbance. Addition of sensory descriptors either to augment the total number of descriptors used (magnitude) or as a pattern of sensory greater than affective or sensory less than affective failed to increase predictive strength. PMID:6877847
A steady-state mathematical model was developed for a bare collector. Results obtained by previous authors for heat transfer and friction in rectangular ducts with periodic disturbances were employed to evaluate the effect of such disturbances on bare collector efficiency and on its pressure drop. An effective efficiency, which takes into account extra heat obtained and additional mechanical (electric) energy consumption for moving air when heat-transfer augmentation devices are employed, was defined. Simulation results are given for a bare collector, with and without perturbations, showing efficiency and effective efficiency dependence on collector dimensions, solar radiation intensity, disturbance diameter and pitch for collector performance optimization. (author).
although additional research is needed to corroborate such findings. Key words: Avicennia germinans; disturbance; downed wood; Everglades National Park; Hurricane Andrew;...
An elderly man receiving chlorambucil for chronic lymphatic leukaemia developed focal fits. The onset and frequency were dose related. There was no evidence of metabolic disturbance or of meningeal...Full Text Available
An important aspect of ecosystem sustainability is the ability to withstand and recover from disturbance or stress. In this study, we investigated the effect of a heat-disturbance on soil microbial biomass, microbial activity in response to the addition of organic acid (malate), and microbial community structure in a laboratory experiment. The soils investigated were from a jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest that had undergone rehabilitation following bauxite mining 12 years previously. Soils from a full factorial of two field treatments; contour ripping induced micro-topography (mound or furrow) and prior exposure to prescription fire (burnt or non-burnt), were sampled and found to exhibit treatment-dependent differences in soil biological and chemical properties. Exposure of soil micro...
The frequency of peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis in patients after surgical repair of tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) ranges from 20 to 40%. This can be either primary or secondary to the surgical intervention. The influence of resulting lung perfusion alterations on the life quality of patients is difficult to predict. The aim of this study was to compare the utility of the diagnostic procedures in this group of patients, with particular focus on lung perfusion scintigraphy. This study comprised 104 patients who underwent repair of TOF at ages from 5 months to 25 years. The patients have been followed up for from 4.2 to 25 years. On the basis of chest X-ray peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis was suspected in 11 patients, in 12 on the basis of echocardiography examination. Lung perfusion scintigraphy has been performed on 87 patients. The disturbances in lung perfusion (mostly in the left lung) were show by means of lung perfusion scintigraphy ...
For visible-light-emitting laser diodes, InGaAsP double heterostructures have been grown on GaAs substrates using liquid-phase epitaxy. As the growth temperature is as high as about 780 /sup 0/C, a large amount of phosphorus evaporates from the solutions for the cladding layers during the growth process. The phosphorus vapor disturbs the solution composition for the active layer, so that very thin and uniform active layers cannot be obtained. By using In-P-Sn solution and supplying the phosphorus partial pressure around the graphite boat, the influence of phosphorus vapor ambient for InGaAsP (lambda/sub P//sub L/ = 805 nm) growth is confirmed. When the phosphorus partial pressure increases, the surface of epitaxial layer becomes rough and the substrate is partly etched back. From x-ray diffraction and photoluminescence spectral measurements, the composition of the grown layer is also found to be changed. As a result of increasing the flow rate of H/sub 2/ gas in ...
This book summarizes the research that has been conducted in Canada over the past five years on the issue of climate change impacts on key sectors such as water resources, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, coastal zones, transportation, and human health and well-being. The book refers to the growing evidence that climate change is occurring. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that these changes have already contributed to increases in annual precipitation, cloud cover and extreme temperatures over the last 50 years. It suggests that it in order to develop an effective strategy for adaptation, it is necessary to understand the vulnerability of each sector to climate change in terms of the nature of climate change, the climatic sensitivity of the region being considered, and the capacity to adapt to the changes. Adaptation will require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in order to lower the rate of climate change. Problems associated with water resources ...
The force exerted on the rotor by an active magnetic bearing (AMB) is determined by the current flow in the magnet coils. This force can be controlled very precisely, making magnetic bearings a potential benefit for grinding, where cutting forces act as external disturbances on the shaft, resulting in degraded part finish. It is possible to achieve precise shaft positioning, reduce vibration of the shaft caused by external disturbances, and even damp out resonant modes. Adaptive control is an appealing approach for these systems because the controller can tune itself to account for an unknown periodic disturbance, such as cutting or grinding forces, injected into the system. In this paper the authors show how one adaptive control algorithm can be applied to an AMB system with a periodic disturbance applied to the rotor. An adaptive algorithm was developed and implemented in both simulation and hardware, ...
The value of CT in respect of preoperative determination of tumour status and of tumour classification was studied using 127 histologically identified ovarial tumours as basis in a blind study via mutual image classification by the two participating institutes. The medium accuracy of diagnosis was 82%, but the results were found to be greatly dependent on tumour histology. Quotas of more than 90% were obtained in case of functional cysts, cystomas, cystadeno-carcinomas and dermoids, whereas classification was less successful with the other types of tumours such as germ cell tumours, tumours of the sexually differentiated stroma, metastases and tubo-ovarial abscesses.
The avalanche quantity of the information developed by mankind has led to concept of automation of knowledge extraction - Data Mining ([1]). This direction is connected with a wide spectrum of problems - from recognition of the fuzzy set to creation of search machines. Important component of Data Mining is processing of the text information. Such problems lean on concept of classification and clustering ([2]). Classification consists in definition of an accessory of some element (text) to one of in advance created classes. Clustering means splitting a set of elements (texts) on clusters which quantity are defined by localization of elements of the given set in vicinities of these some natural centers of these clusters. Realization of a problem of classification initially should lean on the given postulates, basic of which - the aprioristic information on primary set of texts and a measure of affinity of elements and ...
BackgroundFeature selection is an important pre-processing task in the analysis of complex data. Selecting an appropriate subset of features can improve classification or clustering...Full Text Available
Text mining, also known as discovering knowledge from the text, which has emerged as a possible solution for the current information explosion, refers to the process of extracting non-trivial and useful patterns from unstructured text. Among the general tasks of text mining such as text clustering, summarization, etc, text classification is a subtask of intelligent information processing, which employs unsupervised learning to construct a classifier from training text by which to predict the class of unlabeled text. Because of its simplicity and objectivity in performance evaluation, text classification was usually used as a standard tool to determine the advantage or weakness of a text processing method, such as text representation, text feature selection, etc. In this paper, text classif...
... TITLE (Include Security Classification) Sorption of Selected Volatile Organic Constituents of Jet Fuels and Solvents on Natural Sorbents from Gas ...
The classification of petrels (Pterodroma spp.) from Round Island, near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, has confounded researchers since their...Full Text Available
... Advances in Complex Systems ( ACS) 413 (413) 2001-2011 Springer Advances in Data Analysis and Classification 59 (59) 2008-2011 Advances in Management Advances In Management ...
Abstract: The NASA Landsat Pathfinder Humid Tropical Deforestation Project mapped global deforestation for the humid tropics. Data sets from both the TM ...
To evaluate a dose conversion factor from the `Working Level of Month` (WLM) of radon to the absorbed dose (mGy), the quality of radon and its progeny was assessed, and exposures controlled for each deposition region were planed as follows: 1) exposure of radon gas to the entire respiratory tract, 2) exposure of `unattached` fractions to the upper respiratory tract, 3) exposure of `attached` fractions onto ultrafine particles to the deep lung, 4) exposure of `attached` fractions onto fine particles to the lower respiratory tract, 5) exposure of `attached` fractions onto coarse particles to the upper respiratory tract. In this preliminary study, a prototype exposure system of radon and its progeny for small rodents was designed. A whole body exposure chamber with a volume of about 0.5 m{sup 3} was used, which it held 20 rats. The aging and mixing chamber separated by the exposure chamber had a volume of about 1 m{sup 3}. As career aerosols of radon progeny, carnauba ...
Groups are assigned or formed to perform tasks that one person cannot accomplish alone. This lesson describes the classification of work groups, group unity, leadership, motivation, recognition, conflict resolution, and remediation associated with managing groups and their activities. Advantages associated with group process include 1) the generation of better ideas, 2) ability to assume greater risks; make fewer errors; 3) the capacity for greater knowledge and 4) information, and for some problems, production of better decisions. Groups may be formal or informal. Formal groups may be organic, task-directed, or committees. Informal groups arise when it becomes obvious that a group will work better or may be formed by a discipline within the organization or through friendships. The size of the group its status within the organization, the goals established, and the dependence of the members on the group all may affect the cohesiveness of the group. Leadership of ...
In this thesis a study is made of the of voltage characteristics and reactive power control in the transmission network of the Electric Power Systems (EPS) with static compensators of VARs (SCVs). The necessity of voltage and reactive power control and the application of SCVs as a solution means for three representative operation stages of the EPS, considering balanced operation conditions and fundamental frequency is analyzed: Operation in the presence of incremental voltage changes, quasi-stationary operation or steady state and behavior at the occurrence of big disturbances. The application of SCVs to systems of integral transmission is in general a closed loop control system, reason why the analysis of the interaction of the system EPS-SCV is considered as an essential part of the voltage and reactive power control study. Firstly, the response analysis of the control loop is made for incremental voltage changes, representing the power system by means of its ...
The quality of fuel oils is discussed. The problems that the fuel oil marketer must deal with that relate to the quality of the fuel oil are described.
An operator of FE-closure is introduced on the set of functions of a multivalued logic based on the systems of functional equations. It is proved that, for every k ? 2, the FE-closure operator generates a finite classification on the set P k of functions of k-valued logic. The least class in this classification is shown to be the class H k of all homogeneous functions. Also a series of corollaries are obtained concerning the finite FE-generating sets in the FE-closed classes.
Infiltration of radon from the ground is usually the primary source of indoor radon pollution. A uniform method for radon risk classification of foundation soils based on soil-gas radon concentration measurements and on the determination of soil porosity, permeability and structure was proposed in 1990. Results of assessment of some areas in Czechoslovakia, containing more than 5000 radon concentration measurements, demonstrate the utility of the technique and confirm the link between geology and radon potential of the soil. (author)
In accordance with Public Law 95-217, Section 314 (the 'Clean Lakes' section of the 1977 Amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act), the Massachusetts Division of Water Pollution Control developed a lake classification program based upon the trophic condition of all publicly owned freshwater lakes and ponds in the Commonwealth. This publication, produced and updated on an annual basis since 1976, is the result of that program.
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.
An approach for classification of transmission line faults is presented. The approach is based on fuzzy logic and requires the consideration of the samples of three phase currents at one end of transmission line. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach extensive simulation studies, using EMTP and MATLAB, have been carried out for different types of fault considering wide variations in the operating conditions. (author)
MR images of steady and pulsatile disturbed flow, obtained with use of flow-compensated spin-echo (SE) and cine pulse sequences, revealed excellent flow visualization in three dimensions. Phantoms, built from molds of actual blood vessels, reproduced laminar, disturbed, or turbulent flow. Video recording (VR), performed under conditions equivalent to those of the MR experiments, showed separation zones identical to those seen on SE images. Pulsatile flow studies showed complex patterns of vortical flow on cine images and VR. Varying pulse sequence details changed contrast but not flow patterns. The validation of MR observations by VR has implications for clinical cine imaging and low abnormal signals observed on MR angiograms.
The state of prooxidant-antioxidant homeostasis in Guinea pigs exposed to whole-body fractionated X-irradiation (5 fractions of 0.2 Gy at a 24 hr interval, up to total dose of 1.0 Gy, at a dose rate of 0.425 R/min) and a possibility of its disturbance correction with the complex of vitamins C, E and P was studied. Accumulation of primary and secondary lipid peroxidation products, decrease of the ascorbic acid content, increase of the content of its oxidized forms (dehydroascorbic acid and diketogulonic acid) in radiosensitive and radioresistant organs were found. Antioxidant complex administration reduced the disturbances of prooxidant-antioxidant homeostasis, but did not provide complete normalization.
This paper addresses the stability aspects of several successful dc superconducting magnets such as large bubble chamber magnets, and magnets for the Mirror Fusion Test Facility and MHD Research Facility. Specifically, it will cover Argonne National Laboratory 12-Foot Bubble Chamber magnets, the 15-foot Bubble Chamber magnets at Fermi National Laboratory, the MFTF-B Magnet System at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the U-25B Bypass MHD Magnet, and the CFFF Superconducting MHD magnet built by Argonne National Laboratory. All of these magnets are cooled in pool-boiling mode. Magnet design is briefly reviewed. Discussed in detail are the adopted stability critera, analyses of stability and disturbance, stability simulation, and the final results of magnet performance and the observed coil disturbances.
The Eady problem of baroclinic instability as applicable to quasi-geostrophic oceanic flows with zero internal PV gradients is revisited by introducing a mild slope and Ekman pumping on the lower boundary. The solution behaviour is determined by the isopycnal slope relative to either the bottom slope or the ratio of Ekman depth to horizontal wavenumber. Attention is paid to the physical interpretation of the growing, decaying and stable disturbances, with emphasis on the intimate connection between the quasigeostrophic edge waves and Eady waves, and the role of the isopycnal slope for the stability properties as opposed to the bottom density gradient. The disturbance structure is found to be strongly influenced by the boundary conditions. For a sloping bottom boundary, the growth rate is enhanced for the most unstable waves if the isopycnals tilt in the same direction as the bottom, but in general non-standard boundary conditions tend to retard ...
In this paper the concept of a composite power system stabilizer is investigated. This stabilizer comprises a properly designed, robust, conventional power system stabilizer (CPSS) and an auxiliary stabilizer (AS) which can be either a self-tuning stabilizer (ASTS) or a fixed-parameter stabilizer (AFPS). For small disturbances, the CPSS performs satisfactorily over a wide range of operating conditions. When large disturbances occur the auxiliary stabilizer augments the performance of the CPSS. It has been demonstrated that the composite power system stabilizer can significantly improve the dynamic performance of the system when there is a major disturbance such as a short circuit in the system. Because in the case of a single-machine system the parameters of the ASTS do not vary appreciably, it can also be implemented as a fixed-parameter device; this simplifies significantly the implementation of the composite PSS. ...
Note the waste water ponds, road network, disturbed land, and undisturbed land. Credit: Image courtesy of NASA GSFC, MITI, ERSDAC, JAROS, and U.S./Japan ...
IntroductionSevere obstructive sleep apnea has been associated with sexual dysfunction; however, it is unclear whether milder forms of sleep disturbances might also...Full Text Available
Chemicals having a capacity to disturb the endocrine system have attracted considerable interest during recent years. There is a shortage of well-characterized in vivo tests with which to study such...Full Text Available
During 1975 we studied 100 patients--77 men and 23 women--who had a history of alcohol abuse and disturbed liver function test results. On presentation the women were less likely to be suspected of...Full Text Available
Effects of winter seismic exploration on arctic tundra were evaluated on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, four to five growing seasons after disturbance. Plant cover, active layer depths, and track depression were measured at plots representing major tundra plant communities and different levels of initial disturbance. Results are compared with the initial effects reported earlier. Little resilience was seen in any vegetation type, with no clearly decreasing trends in community dissimilarity. Active layer depths remained greater on plots in all nonriparian vegetation types, and most plots still had visible trails. Decreases in plant cover persisted on most plots, although a few species showed recovery or increases in cover above predisturbance level. Moist sedge-shrub tundra and dryas terraces had the largest community dissimilarities initially, showing the least resistance to high levels of winter vehicle ...
The authors shortly describe some basic aspects relating to probabilistic reliability calculation and to the derivation of component reliability data. (GL)
Aquaculture is increasing worldwide, however we have little understanding of its impacts on marine communities. A critical element of many marine communities are seagrasses, a group of globally distributed marine angiosperms that are drivers of many abiotic and biotic processes in estuarine and mari...
Vesical diverticula frequently result from bladder outlet obstructions. However, giant vesical diverticula which cause acute abdomen or intestinal obstruction are very rare. Our review of the English...Full Text Available
Recent studies have suggested that intrauterine undernutrition is closely associated with the pathogenesis of diseases after birth. Perinatal undernutrition is known to disturb the development of reproductive...Full Text Available
A paradoxical metabolic imbalance in inorganic phosphate occurs from the early onset of diabetes and may lead to a reduction of high energy phosphates and tissue hypoxia. These changes take place in...Full Text Available
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).
A full scale experiment was carried out to investigate the texture characteristics of the falling water of free falling and slope failing types. According to the increase of Reynolds number, the texture of falling water was classified into three categories for both types: stability of free surface, transition and whole turbulence. In the first category the stability of the free surface was related to the growth of minute disturbance. Surface tension works as a counter, force to the disturbance in free falling water, and gravity in slope falling water. 14 refs., 15 figs., 3 tabs.
An assessment of the accuracy of National Land Cover Data 2001 as compared to National Wetlands Inventory mapping of Mobile and Baldwin Counties conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC). Both classifications were checked against stratified randomly selected ground-based sites and with each other to compare the accuracy of the NLCD with NWI classification methods. For this accuracy comparison, numerous visits were made by photointerpreters to the Mobile Bay area to establish signatures for the modified NWI mapping. After all of the quadrangles in Baldwin and Mobile Counties were mapped, an accuracy assessment of those maps was conducted by field-checking the mapped classes with ground-based check sites. These same sites were used to check the accuracy of the NLCD and also as the basis for cross-walking the NLCD and NWI classification systems for direct comparison of the two ...
This paper is focused on TLP and Spar technology as applied to floating production applications. In particular, safety considerations as related to classification and certification requirements are addressed. This covers hull structures, marine systems, production facilities and the relevant mooring systems for each platform type from design approval on through construction, installation and ultimately the ongoing maintenance of the platform to acceptable standards throughout its operating life. The experience of the American Bureau of Shipping with these platforms will be utilized in supporting the practical application of classification and regulatory standards to ensure safe operations and concluding that use of such standards in conjunction with an experienced classification society provides a substantial benefit to companies utilizing these technologies. (author)
Hydrological classification constitutes the first step of a new holistic framework for developing regional environmental flow criteria: the ?Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA)?. The aim of this study was to develop a classification for 390 stream sections of the Segura River Basin based on 73 hydrological indices that characterize their natural flow regimes. The hydrological indices were calculated with 25?years of natural monthly flows (1980/81?2005/06) derived from a rainfall-runoff model developed by the Spanish Ministry of Environment and Public Works. These indices included, at a monthly or annual basis, measures of duration of droughts and central tendency and dispersion of flow magnitude (average, low and high flow conditions). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) indi...
We analyse the issues involved in the management and mining of astrophysical data. The traditional approach to data management in the astrophysical field is not able to keep up with the increasing size of the data gathered by modern detectors. An essential role in the astrophysical research will be assumed by automatic tools for information extraction from large datasets, i.e. data mining techniques, such as clustering and classification algorithms. This asks for an approach to data management based on data warehousing, emphasizing the efficiency and simplicity of data access; efficiency is obtained using multidimensional access methods and simplicity is achieved by properly handling metadata. Clustering and classification techniques, on large datasets, pose additional requirements: computational and memory scalability with respect to the data size, interpretability and objectivity of clustering or classification results. ...
Objective: To evaluate the effect of PTBD in treating malignant biliary obstruction caused by hilar cholangiocarcinoma. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data of 103 patients(M:62,F:41)with malignant obstructive jaundice caused by hilar cholangiocarcinoma. After taking percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography, metallic stent or plastic external catheter or external-internal catheter for drainage was deployed and then followed up was undertaken with clinical and radiographic evaluation and laboratory. examination. Results: All patients went though PTBD successfully (100%). According to Bismuth classification, all 103 cases consisted of I type(N=30), II type (N=30), III type (N=26) and IV type (N=17). Thirty-nine cases were placed with 47 stents and 64 eases with drainage tubes. 4 cases installed two stems for bilateral drainage, 2 cases installed two stents because of long segmental strictures with stent in stent, 1 case was placed with three stents, and 3 ...
Selection of the appropriate radiation quality is an important aspect of optimisation for every clinical imaging task in radiology, since it affects both image quality and patient dose. Spreadsheet...Full Text Available
Urethral duplication is a rare congenital anomaly of the lower urinary system and has varied presentation. According to the Effmann classification, type IIA2-Y urethral duplication is charcterized by...Full Text Available
The extensive reserves of mined coal types, their great variety and the complexity of the composition and properties, as well as their important role as an energy fuel and industrial feedstock, cause one to give special attention to their classification. Of course, one of the principal fields of technological processing of coal is coking. In addition to the production of blast furnace coke, in the future specialized plants will be developed for production of coke and other carbonized materials for non-blast-furnace processes (electrothermal processes, production of calcium carbide, ferroalloys, zinc, yellow phosphorus, copper, etc.). One important area is new nonfuel uses, including a number of processes for processing of coal feedstocks to obtain a wide range of carbonaceous materials (coal-graphite products, carbon black, adsorbents, etc.), liquid fuels, and chemical products. In choosing a given area of coal utilization a determining factor is the ...
BackgroundThe presence of enthesitis (insertional inflammation) in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is difficult to establish clinically and may influence classification...Full Text Available
The difficulties created by the lack of generally accepted views on classification, diagnostic criteria and natural history of the cutaneous lymphomata are discussed. Only the lymphomata which remain...Full Text Available
Accompanying rapid developments in hepatic surgery, the number of surgeries and identifications of histological types of primary hepatic space-occupying lesions (PHSOLs) have increased dramatically....Full Text Available
BackgroundSurface electromyography (sEMG) signals have been used in numerous studies for the classification of hand gestures and movements and successfully implemented in the position...Full Text Available
ObjectivesThe updated Rome III criteria for pediatric functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) include new FGID categories and changes to the Rome II criteria...Full Text Available
Percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) for migrated disc herniations is technically demanding due to the absence of the technical guideline. The purposes of this study were to propose a radiologic...Full Text Available
Several fixed classification experiments test the hypothesis that F1, f0, and closure voicing covary between intervocalic stops contrasting...Full Text Available
In Germany, the Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area (MAK Commission) generally sets maximum workplace concentration values (i.e., a proposed occupational...Full Text Available
This is a brief overview of researches of Dmitry Petrovich Zhelobenko (1934--2006). He is the best known for his book "Compact Lie groups and their representations" and for the classification of all irreducible representations of complex semisimple Lie groups. We tell also on other his works, especially on the spectral analysis of representations.
BackgroundThe proteomics approach termed proteome pattern analysis has been shown previously to have potential in the detection and classification of breast cancer. Here we aimed...Full Text Available
Posterior spinal ligament pathology is becoming increasingly recognized as a significant cause of low back pain. Despite the growing clinical importance of interspinous ligament degeneration in low...Full Text Available
We show how one can associate to a given class of finite type G-structures a classifying Lie algebroid. The corresponding Lie groupoid gives models for the different geometries that one can find in the class, and encodes also the different types of symmetry groups.
The ETS proteins are a family of transcription factors (TFs) that regulate a variety of biological processes. We made genome-wide analyses to explore the classification of the ETS gene family. We identified...Full Text Available
Microarray data has a high dimension of variables but available datasets usually have only a small number of samples, thereby making the study of such datasets interesting and challenging. In the task...Full Text Available
The connection between W-algebras and the algebra of differential operators is conjectured. The bosonized representation of the differential operator algebra with c=-2n and all the subalgebras are examined. The degenerate representations and null-state classifications for c=-2 are presented. (orig.).
The Gram-negative bacterium Francisella tularensis is the causative agent of tularemia. Interest in this zoonotic pathogen has increased due to its classification as a category A agent...Full Text Available
Background/Objective:Applying practice-based evidence research methodology to spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation requires taxonomy (typology or classification) of rehabilitation...Full Text Available
We describe a decision support system to distinguish among hematology cases directly from microscopic specimens. The system uses an image database containing digitized specimens from normal...Full Text Available
The diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV1)...Full Text Available
BackgroundWidespread availability of geographic information systems software has facilitated the use of disease mapping in academia, government and private sector. Maps that display...Full Text Available
BackgroundClassification systems may be useful to direct more aggressive treatment to cancer patients with a relatively poor prognosis. The definition of 'poor prognosis' often lacks...Full Text Available
BackgroundWe have recently introduced a predictive framework for studying gene transcriptional regulation in simpler organisms using a novel supervised learning algorithm called...Full Text Available
Gene expression profiling has played an important role in cancer risk classification and has shown promising results. Since gene expression profiling often involves determination of a set of...Full Text Available
This handbook provides guidance in the application of quality assurance to measurement activities. It is intended to help those persons making measurements in applying quality assurance to their work activities by showing how laboratory practices and quality assurance requirements are integrated to provide control within those activities. The use of the guidance found in this handbook should help provide consistency in the interpretation of quality assurance requirements across all types of measurement laboratories. This handbook also can assist quality assurance personnel in understanding the relationships between laboratory practices and quality assurance requirements. The handbook is composed of three chapters and several appendices. Basic guidance is provided by the three chapters. In Chapter 1, the role of quality assurance in obtaining ...
Problems of classification and regression estimation in which objects are represented by multidimensional arrays of features are considered. Many practical statements can be reduced to such problems, for example, the popular approach to the description of images as a set of patches and a set of descriptors in each patch or the description of an object in the form of a set of distances from it to certain support objects selected based on a set of features. For solving problems concerning the objects thus described, a generalization of the relevance vector model is proposed. In this generalization, specific regularization coefficients are defined for each dimension of the multidimensional array of the object description; the resultant regularization coefficient for a given element in the mul...
Accelerated aging tests have been conducted to evaluate the long-term durability of cementitious material against aggressive ions. In tests, cementitious specimens were immersed in the solutions containing concentrated aggressive ions at high temperature and it promoted diffusion of the ions in the specimen. This method would be suitable for the evaluation on the aging as the alteration of the specimen would be expected to resemble the natural behavior. This paper presents a classification of alteration mechanism in the immersion tests using MgCl{sub 2} and Na{sub 2}SO{sub 4} solution. This classification was done by relating the changes of compressive strength to microscopic and mineralogical changes.
This paper describes industrial aspects of combined inventory management and routing in maritime and road-based transportation, and gives a classification and comprehensive literature review of the current state of the research. The literature is contrasted with aspects of industrial applications from a constructive, but critical, viewpoint. Based on the status and trends within the field, future research is suggested with regard to both further development of the research area and industrial needs. By highlighting the industrial aspects, practitioners will hopefully see the benefit of using advanced decision support systems in complex situations related to combined inventory management and routing in their business. In addition, a classification and presentation of the research should hel...
Atmospheric and ionospheric perturbations associated with the acoustic-gravity waves (AGW) with typical frequencies of a few hertz -millihertz are considered. These events may be caused by the influence from space and atmosphere as well as by oscillations of the Earth surface and other near-surface phenomena. The surface sources include long-period oscillations of the Earth's surface, earthquakes, explosions, thermal heating, seisches and tsunami waves. The wavelike phenomena manifest themself as travelling disturbances of air (in the atmosphere) and of electron density (in the ionosphere). Travelling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) are well detected by radio physical methods. AGW generation by near-surface sources is modeled by the numerical solution of the equation of geophysical fluid dynamics for different sources in two-dimensional non-linear dissipative compressible atmosphere. The numerical calculations are based on the FCT (Flux ...
Clean Water Act You are here: Water Laws & Regulations Policy & Guidance Clean Water Act Water Quality and 401 Certification Water Quality and 401 Certification Water Quality...
Full text: Introduction. Children, especially premature infants and neonates, are at a much higher risk to obtain an X ray induced disturbance of life - particularly cancer. On the one hand this is due to their longer life expectancy and on the other hand it is due to their higher cell proliferation rate. The paediatric radiology unit of the Inselspital Bern recently installed some of the most advanced X ray equipment nowadays available. It is based on the two latest digital technologies: double read computed radiography (CR) and direct digital radiography (DR). Only the implementation of these digital radiography systems permits the digital acquisition and additionally the analysis of acquired data. The systematic analysis of large amounts of biometric data and exposition data is the basis for further dose reduction and a systematic quality control (QC). Patients are increasingly critical concerning radiation exposure - especially parents ...
Sediment treatment and sediment storage may alter sediment toxicity, and consequently biotic response. Purpose of our study was to combine these three aspects (treatment-toxicity-biotic response) in one integrated approach. We used Acid Volatile Sulfide (AVS) concentrations as a proxy of the disturbance of the sediment. AVS and Simultaneously Extracted Metal (SEM) concentrations were compared to bioassay responses with the freshwater benthic macroinvertebrate Asellus aquaticus. Storage conditions and sediment treatment affected AVS but not SEM levels. AVS can be used as a proxy for sediment disturbance. The best way to pretreat the sediment for use in a bioassay in order to maintain initial AVS conditions was to sample the sediment with an Ekman grab, immediately store it in a jar without headspace, and freeze it as soon as possible. In a survey using seven different sediments, bioassay responses of A. aquaticus were correlated with SEM and AVS ...
This paper presents a set of robust PI tuning formulae for a first order plus dead time process using particle swarm optimization. Also, tuning formulae for an integrating process with dead time, which is a special case of a first order plus dead time process, is given. The design problem considers three essential requirements of control problems, namely load disturbance rejection, setpoint regulation and robustness of closed-loop system against model uncertainties. The primary design goal is to optimize load disturbance rejection. Robustness is guaranteed by requiring that the maximum sensitivity is less than or equal to a specified value. In the first step, PI controller parameters are determined such that the IAE criterion to a load disturbance step is minimized and the robustness constraint on maximum sensitivity is satisfied. Using a structure with two degrees of freedom which introduces an extra parameter, the ...
A three-dimensional numerical study is performed to explore the effect of pulsed spanwise-periodic surface thermal perturbation (also denoted as thermal bump) in a Mach 1.5 flat plate laminar boundary layer. A high-resolution upwind-biased Roe method is used with the compressive Van Leer harmonic limiter on a suitably refined mesh. The dependence of flow stability characteristics on the variation of thermal bump geometry (shape and dimension) and pulsing properties (disturbance amplitude and frequency) is assessed. It is shown that the finite-span thermal bumps generate streamwise vortices. When the thermal bump is pulsed, vortex shedding is observed, and the streamwise vorticity grows with the downstream distance. Analysis of the integrated disturbance energy indicates that the streamwise...
We analyzed ionospheric observations made with digisondes in Jicamarca, Ramey, Wallops Island, Ascension Island, and Kwajalein Island during the major magnetic storm of November 9-10, 2004, which was associated with rapid interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) Bz changes. The strongest ionospheric responses to the southward IMF Bz turning were observed at the dip equator at Jicamarca where during the magnetic disturbance a dramatic F2 peak density depletion occurred at around 15:00 local time, accompanied by a fast upward motion of the plasma. In this process, an additional ionospheric layer, the F3 layer, formed with peak densities NmF3 exceeding NmF2. This observation may be considered evidence of an equatorial plasma fountain enhancement caused by the magnetic field disturbance. Responses ...
Whereas in part 1 and 2 the detailed observation equations of terrestrial type for an integrated geodetic model are presented this paper will outline how the theory is transferred in an operational program. The main lines of functions of the FORTRAN IV program are discussed. Since the input specifications as well as the data requirements are described in detail and illustrated by example of input and output part 3 can serve as an user-guide for OPERA. OPERA is an acronym for operational adjustment. Besides the integrated determination of 3D-geocentric coordinates and the gravity disturbing potential the program can handle all cases of traditional geodesy (in total 13 variants of solution are provided) equivalent also with adjustments in ellipsoidal coordinates B, L or H, as well as constrained adjustments, pure prediction of the gravity disturbing field, etc.
As both computer and mobile phone reach nearly ubiquity in the U.S. market, the slow uptake of mobile video, in contrast to the thriving usage of PC-based video, warrants a deeper understanding of user-oriented factors contributing to the two diffusion paths. Unlike the majority of existing diffusion research practices, the dissertation examines the differences between mobile and PC video diffusion patterns through the lenses of user-oriented influences in the user-technology relationship. Built upon the established adoption user group classification, the research is informed by the Uses and Gratification theory, the Social Technical theory, and the Technical Affordance perspective. These synergistic theoretical arguments share the recognition of the role of user in the dynamic, usually socially intertwined user-technology interactions. The key research questions that the dissertation sets out to answer include: Does the importance of ...
We devised a three-dimensional method for estimation of cerebral development and myelination which measures cerebral volume using MRI. Accuracy of the system was estimated using cadaver brains. The mean percentage error in the calculated volumes compared with the real volumes was 2.33 %, range 0.00-5.33 %. We applied the method to the volume of both cerebral hemispheres (CH), basal ganglia, thalamus and internal capsule (BT), and myelinated white matter (WM) in 44 neurologically normal individuals (4 months to 28 years of age), 13 patients with spastic motor disturbances (2-25 years of age), and 9 patients with athetotic motor disturbances (2-23 years of age). In the neurologically normal cases, the volumes of CH, BT and WM increased with age; the volume of MW more slowly than that of CH. In cases with spastic motor disturbances, the volumes of CH, BT and WM were between -1.4 and 3.5 SD, -1.0 and -3.5 SD, and 0.0 and -5.2 ...
Numerical results on aeroelastic standard configurations are presented. The methods used for two dimensional configurations include the small perturbations approach for inviscid flow, coupling methods for unseparated flow, coupling methods for unseparated or separated, laminar or turbulent boundary layers, and a numerical solution of the Euler equations for inviscid flow. The three dimensional configurations are studied by the transonic small disturbance approach. The detailed results are given.
We present a scheme for three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication by using EPR pairs. In the scheme, three legitimate parties can simultaneously exchange their secret messages. It is also proved to be secure against the intercept-and-resend attack, the disturbance attack and the entangled-and-measure attack.
The results for development of methods and computer programs for integrated optimization of parameters of perspective fast reactors are given. The possibilities of the program for the reactor campaign calculation are analysed. This program is based on utilisation of the Bubnov-Galerkin method and Wigner disturbance theory. The possibility of application of approximation methods for the optimization researches is discussed. The results of development of the programs for complex reactor computations with account of control rods system and change of physical parameters in the reactor campaign are discussed. (author).
The heavy water reactor such as Wolsung No.1 and No.2 has a purification system to purify the reactor coolant. The control system regulates the coolant temperature to protect the ion exchanger. After the fuel exchanges of operating plant, the increase of the coolant pressure makes the purification temperature control difficult. In this paper, the controllability of the control dynamics of the purification system was analysed and the optimal parameters were proposed. To reduce the effects of the flow disturbance, the feedforward control structure was proposed and analysed.
Epidemiological studies of psychopathology in the first years of life are few, and the association between mental health problems in infancy and psychiatric disturbances later in life has not been systematically investigated. The aim of the present project was to study mental health problems and possibilities of intervention from infancy and onward.
Abstract Overall Numbers Small, But Study Finds SSRI Exposure, Autism Link Additional Drug Safety, Efficacy Data Needed for Pediatric Bipolar Disorder SGA Safety and Efficacy in Children and Adolescents Aripiprazole Safety and Tolerability for Irritability in Autism No Lisdexamfetamine Effect on Sleep Disturbances in Children With ADHD Sickle Cell Disease With Comorbid Depression Homeopathy in Psychiatry Manic Symptoms Induced by Marijuana in a Healthy Adolescent New Warnings Safety Labeling Changes
We describe exact cosmological solutions with rotation and expansion in the low-energy effective string theory. These models are spatially homogeneous (closed Bianchi type IX) and they belong to the family of shear-free metrics which are causal (no closed timelike curves are allowed), admit no parallax effects and do not disturb the isotropy of the background radiation. The dilaton and the axion fields are nontrivial, in general, and we consider both cases with and without the central charge (effective cosmological constant)
We describe exact cosmological solutions with rotation and expansion in the low-energy effective string theory. These models are spatially homogeneous (closed Bianchi type IX) and they belong to the family of shear-free metrics which are causal (no closed timelike curves are allowed), admit no parallax effects and do not disturb the isotropy of the background radiation. The dilaton and the axion fields are nontrivial, in general, and we consider both cases with and without the central charge (effective cosmological constant).
A micro-computer based fuzzy logic power system stabilizer is applied to a micro-machine system to investigate its efficiency in real time control. The stabilizing signal is determined by using measured speed or real power signals at every sampling time to damp the system oscillations. The results show the proposed stabilizer improves the system damping effectively subject to various types of disturbances.
This work presents a method to monitor the stability of a power system, after a major disturbance, using of adaptive time series approach. The model parameters are updated every time the prediction stage is completed. Besides, according to the values of the parameters, one may conclude the system will be unstable, will go to be a damped sine wave or even a damped exponential. (author) 29 refs., 12 figs., 3 tabs.
The paper intends to lay down the fundamentals of normal mineralisation in the perinatal phase as a basis for investigations of disturbed mineralisation. Data are presented on the percentage area of the mineralized osseous tissue, the osteocyte density, and the mineral contents of healthy bones at this age. Comparative morphological examinations of thin bone sections and microradiographs give a picture of bone development at this age. (orig./AJ).
Reputation and recommendation systems are fundamental for the formation of community market places. Yet, they are easy targets for attacks which disturb a market's equilibrium and are often based on cheap pseudonyms used to submit ratings. We present a method to price ratings using trusted computing, based on pseudonymous tickets.
The procedure for field corrosion tests in sea water is decribed in DIN 50 917, Part II. Distinction is made thereby between long-term undisturbed test specimens, which remain at the exposure site up to the time of sampling, and disturbed test specimens, which are cleaned at certain time intervals for intermediate examination and subsequently exposed again. The comparability of results obtained with the two different types of test was to be investigated at the Helgoland test installation. At an exposure period of up to four years, undisturbed specimens of unalloyed and low-alloy steel grades feature considerably lower corrosion losses than disturbed specimens. At a longer exposure period of up to seven years, the corrosion rate can increase substantially again with the exposure time. This can be attributed to sulphate reduction in the anaerobic zone under the top coating. An effect of the alloying elements is also possible. With good and ...
The paper presents a sequential procedure for coordinated stabilization of a multimachine power system with arbitrary complexity of the system model. The most effective machine to be equipped with a power system stabilizer is identified using eigenvalue analysis. The selection is based on the sensitivity of critical eigenvalues to increases in the coefficient of a damping term which is inserted in each equation of motion, in succession. The method is applied to a three-machine system and simulation studies show appreciable improvements in the small disturbance stability of the system.
Computed tomographic findings in developmental brain anomalies are more easily classified when the system used is based on embryogenesis related to morphology. Analysis of computed tomographic findings in a series of 154 patients with brain anomalies (Chiari malformation not included) revealed that specific examples of abnormalities occurring in major stages of brain development may be recognized by computed tomography. This paper deals with a group of patients with abnormalities that reflect a disturbance in neuronal migration. (orig.).
We present a study of 66 barred, early-type (S0-Sb) disk galaxies, focused on the disk surface brightness profile outside the bar region and the nature of Freeman Type I and II profiles, their origins, and their possible relation to disk truncations. This paper discusses the data and their reduction, outlines our classification system, and presents $R$-band profiles and classifications for all galaxies in the sample. The profiles are derived from a variety of different sources, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Data Release 5). For about half of the galaxies, we have profiles derived from more than one telescope; this allows us to check the stability and repeatability of our profile extraction and classification. The vast majority of the profiles are reliable down to levels of mu_R ~ 27 mag arcsec^-2; in exceptional cases, we can trace profiles down to mu_R > 28. We can typically follow disk profiles out to at ...
Skin sensitization is the most commonly reported occupational illness, causing much suffering to a wide range of people. Identification and labeling of environmental allergens is urgently required to protect people from skin sensitization. The guinea pig maximization test (GPMT) and murine local lymph node assay (LLNA) are the two most important in vivo models for identification of skin sensitizers. In order to reduce the number of animal tests, quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) are strongly encouraged in the assessment of skin sensitization of chemicals. This paper has investigated the skin sensitization potential of 162 compounds with LLNA results and 92 compounds with GPMT results using a support vector machine. A particle swarm optimization algorithm was implemented for feature selection from a large number of molecular descriptors calculated by Dragon. For the LLNA data set, the classification accuracies are 95.37% and 88.89% for the ...
Smooth (at least 1/2)-BPS Freund-Rubin backgrounds of eleven-dimensional supergravity of the form AdS_4 x X^7 have been recently classified. Requiring that amount of supersymmetry forces X to be a spherical space form, whence isometric to the quotient of the round 7-sphere by a freely-acting finite subgroup of SO(8). The classification is given in terms of ADE subgroups of the quaternions embedded in SO(8) as the graph of an automorphism. In this paper we extend this classification by dropping the requirement that the background be smooth, so that X is now allowed to be an orbifold of the round 7-sphere. We find that if the background is (more than 1/2)-BPS, then it is automatically smooth in accordance with the homogeneity conjecture, but that there are many half-BPS orbifolds, most of them new. The classification is now given in terms of pairs of ADE subgroups of quaternions fibred over the same finite group. We classify ...
Designed to provide international coverage of current research in library and information science, this quarterly journal indexes investigations, studies, surveys, and evaluated innovations. Doctoral, post-doctoral, and research staff-level work, and in-house or action research from practicing librarians, information workers, archivists, and documentalists are included in the main section, "Current Research, Development, and Investigation." Each standard entry provides information on personnel, expected duration of the work, funding, references, contacts, aims, and a full history of the project. Entries in the main section are arranged according to the Classification Research Group's "A Classification of Library and Information Science" (1971), and each project is assigned a serial number. Cross-references to main section entries are provided in the Alphabetical Subject Index and the Name Index. Sub-doctoral theses and dissertations are listed ...
In Hungary, legislation for nuclear power plants was developed at the end of the 1970s, among which is the quality assurance code for nuclear power plants. Hungarian practice is presented, including discussion of the requirements for quality assurance, qualification of the suppliers and inspection practices. The general requirements of quality assurance in the course of construction of a nuclear power plant are presented: quality assurance of technological equipment, fuel, electrical equipment, automatic instrumentations, building structures and technology.
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.
Motivation: It is commonplace for authors to propose a new classification rule, either the operator construction part or feature selection, and demonstrate its performance on real data sets, which often come from high-dimensional studies, such as from gene-expression microarrays, with small samples. Owing to the variability in feature selection and error estimation, individual reported performances are highly imprecise. Hence, if only the best test results are reported, then these will be biased relative to the overall performance of the proposed procedure. Results: This article characterizes reporting bias with several statistics and computes these statistics in a large simulation study using both modeled and real data. The results appear as curves giving the different reporting biases as...
In this paper we present the results of time series analysis for a coal mining region based on partial unmixing. We test the method also known as mixture tuned matched filtering on an eight image Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 7 ETM+ time series covering the period from 1987 to 2003. Common change detection methods often include the comparison of two interactively generated classification results, such as derived from Maximum Likelihood classification. These approaches often yield highly accurate results. However, disadvantages include a strong analyst bias and hardly repeatable results. For a quantitative monitoring of a single surface class' development over time they are often not recommendable. Our goal was to test an unbiased quantitative way to assess the development of coal surfaces, such...
The ubiquitous ADE classification has induced many proposals of often mysterious correspondences both in mathematics and physics. The mathematics side includes quiver theory and the McKay Correspondence which relates finite group representation theory to Lie algebras as well as crepant resolutions of Gorenstein singularities. On the physics side, we have the graph-theoretic classification of the modular invariants of WZW models, as well as the relation between the string theory nonlinear $\\sigma$-models and Landau-Ginzburg orbifolds. We here propose a unification scheme which naturally incorporates all these correspondences of the ADE type in two complex dimensions. An intricate web of inter-relations is constructed, providing a possible guideline to establish new directions of research or alternate pathways to the standing problems in higher dimensions.
The use of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods is proposed for characterization of transuranic (TRU) waste stored at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex. These NDE methods include real-time x-ray radiography, real-time neutron radiography, x-ray and neutron computed tomography, thermal imaging, container weighing, visual examination, and acoustic measurements. An integrated NDE system is proposed for characterization and certification of TRU waste destined for eventual shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Methods for automating both the classification waste and control of a complete nondestructive evaluation/nondestructive assay system are presented. Feasibility testing of the different NDE methods, including real-time x-ray radiography, and development of automated waste classification techniques are covered as part of a five year effort designed to yield a production waste characterization system.
We investigate how, and to what extent, morphological complexity of the language influences text classification using support vector machines (SVM). The Croatian-English parallel corpus provides the basis for direct comparison of two languages of radically different morphological complexity. We quantified, compared, and statistically tested the effects of morphological normalisation on SVM classifier performance based on a series of parallel experiments on both languages, carried over a large scale of different feature subset sizes obtained by different feature selection methods, and applying different levels of morphological normalisation. We also quantified the trade-off between feature space size and performance for different levels of morphological normalisation, and compared the resul...
Land cover change can be caused by human-induced activities and natural forces. Land cover change in watershed level has been a main concern for a long time in the world since watersheds play an important role in our life and environment. This paper is focused on how to apply Landsat Multi-Spectral Scanner (MSS) satellite image of 1973 and Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite image of 2001 to determine the land cover changes of coastal watersheds from 1973 to 2001. GIS and remote sensing are integrated to derive land cover information from Landsat satellite images of 1973 and 2001. The land cover classification is based on supervised classification method in remote sensing software ERDAS IMAGINE. Historical GIS data is used to replace the areas covered by clouds or shadows in the image o...
For a genus-1 1-bridge knot in the 3-sphere, that is, a (1,1)-knot, a middle tunnel is a tunnel that is not an upper or lower tunnel for some (1,1)-position. Most torus knots have a middle tunnel, and non-torus-knot examples were obtained by Goda, Hayashi, and Ishihara. In a previous paper, we generalized their construction and calculated the slope invariants for the resulting examples. We give an interated version of the construction that produces many more examples, and calculate their slope invariants. If one starts with the trivial knot, the iterated construction produces the 2-bridge knots, giving a new calculation of the slope invariants of their tunnels. Together with other information, the examples suggest a general classification conjecture for all tunnels of all tunnel number 1 knots.
An improved singular value decomposition method of gear fault identification based on Hilbert-Huang transform was proposed to overcome the problem of reconstructing a feature matrix of singular value decomposition. The method includes three steps. First, the instantaneous frequency and amplitude matrices were acquired by Hilbert-Huang transform from faulted gear signals. Second, after the matrices were decomposed by singular value decomposition, the defined distances of singular value vectors and the optimal threshold of the distance for classification were calculated. Third, the fault characteristics of a gearbox were identified and classified by the threshold of the distances. The result demonstrates that the proposed method effectively identifies the gear fault and can realize an automa...
A crack fault is one of the damage modes most frequently occurring in gears. Identifying different crack levels, especially for early cracks is a challenge in gear fault diagnosis. This paper aims to propose a method to classify the different levels of gear cracks automatically and reliably. In this method, feature parameters in time domain, specially designed for gear damage detection and in frequency domain are extracted to characterize the gear conditions. A two-stage feature selection and weighting technique (TFSWT) via Euclidean distance evaluation technique (EDET) is presented and adopted to select sensitive features and remove fault-unrelated features. A weighted K nearest neighbor (WKNN) classification algorithm is utilized to identify the gear crack levels. The gear crack experime...
Using an efficient criterion in selection of fuzzy conditional attributes (i.e. expanded attributes) is important for generation of fuzzy decision trees. Given a fuzzy information system (FIS), fuzzy conditional attributes play a crucial role in fuzzy decision making. Besides, different fuzzy conditional attributes have different influences on decision making, and some of them may be more important than the others. Two well-known criteria employed to select expanded attributes are fuzzy classification entropy and classification ambiguity, both of which essentially use the ratio of uncertainty to measure the significance of fuzzy conditional attributes. Based on fuzzy-rough technique, this paper proposes a new criterion, in which expanded attributes are selected by using significance of fuz...
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BackgroundThe aim of this study is to validate the questionnaire ECOS-16 (Assessment of health related quality of life in osteoporosis) for the evaluation of health related quality...Full Text Available
This report presents results from the soil inorganic analysis of the 44th set of environmental quality assessment samples, of the quality assessment program, that were received on or before June 3, 1996. The samples were analyzed for RCRA metals.
Quality reporting tools, integrated with ambulatory electronic health records, can help clinicians and administrators understand performance, manage populations, and improve quality. Report Central...Full Text Available
The status of the concept of controlling the quality of physicians is reviewed as are studies that have been done on methods to measure and improve quality. The conclusions are dismal given the rhetoric...Full Text Available
The `Procurement Quality Function` is an element of the Body of Knowledge of Quality Engineering, as defined by the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC). This paper describes the Procurement Quality function which has been installed as an integral part of the Quality Engineering group of the Technical and Management Support Services (T&MSS) contractor to the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project. Each of the elements of the T&MSS Procurement Quality Engineering (PQE) system is discussed along with the measurements obtained. With the installation and development of the PQE system we have attained more meaningful evaluation of supplier capability, reduction of procurement document review reject ratios from 31% to less than 2% per quarter, more effective measurement and control of supplier performance, ...
... tests, one often encounters, for instance, separated flows with large ... It is suspected that the flow-quality criteria given in AGARD Report No. ...
BACKGROUND: This prospective and retrospective study carried out over a period of one month (50 patients) looked at the quality of hospital records of urethral catheterisation with reference to the...Full Text Available
Amphibians are considered reliable indicators of environmental quality. In the western United States, a general decline of frog populations parallels an apparent worldwide decline. The factors thought...Full Text Available
As controlled clinical vocabularies assume an increasing role in modern clinical information systems, so the issue of their quality demands greater attention. In order to meet the resulting stringent...Full Text Available
The following aspects will be discussed: The main function of the Division of Inspection Services and its role in the Marketing of agricultural products; the shelf life of agricultural products: short review of present methods with a practical example of losses incurred due to limited keeping quality; irradiation and heat treatment: advantages of inhibited microbiological activities and undesirable chemical changes from a quality control point of view; quality standards: the basic principles of quality control; consequences of effective post-harvest treatment: export of deciduous and citrus fruit; the magnitude of the problem of poor keeping quality and quality requirements; other fruit; quantities and export limitations and vegetables; quantity and quality requirements; local marketing: fruit and vegetables subjected to inspection; quantity ...
...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. ...
An extension of data mining, text mining involves the extraction of information and knowledge from unstructured text. This constantly evolving field is increasingly used by major corporations, such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Featuring contributions from leading researchers in the field, this book provides a detailed overview of text mining theory, applications, and visualization. The theory section discusses text mining, information retrieval, latent semantic analysis, pagerank, latent Dirichlet allocation, and probabilistic relational models. In the section on text mining applications,
The article correlates CT and pathologic findings in 25 lung nodules with ground glass attenuation, which are small than 2 cm in diameter. They includes adenocarcinomas (Noguchi's classification type A, B, C) and a typical adenomatous hyperplasia. (author)
This paper introduces an occupational exposure information system in detail, which is developed and in operation presently by Daya Bay nuclear power plant. It is presented in the paper that individual dose monitoring items and method, design and classification of database configuration, statistics and analysis of individual dose, and management of staff entering and exiting controlled area. The system is instructive to analysing individual dose and optimizing radiation protection measures. (authors)
We prove the existence of defective secant varieties of three-factor and four-factor Segre-Veronese varieties embedded in certain multi-degree. These defective secant varieties were previously unknown and are of importance in the classification of defective secant varieties of Segre-Veronese varieties with three or more factors.
In this paper we propose a method for construction of feed-forward neural classifiers based on regularization and adaptive architectures. Using a penalized maximum likelihood scheme, we derive a modified form of the entropic error measure and an algebraic estimate of the test error. In conjunction with optimal brain damage pruning, a test error estimate is used to select the network architecture. The scheme is evaluated on four classification problems. PMID:12662736
Laparoscopic orchiopexy has gained popularity in recent years. However, the decision when to perform one-stage laparoscopic orchiopexy without division of the spermatic vessels versus initial ligation of the spermatic vessels followed later by orchiopexy is not clear. A new laparoscopic classification to facilitate decision-making during laparoscopy, according to the position of the impalpable testis and the relation of the spermatic vessels and vas deferens to the internal ring, with a management protocol based on this classification is presented. Over a 2-year period, a total of 37 boys with 52 impalpable gonads underwent a laparoscopic procedure. Four laparoscopic types of testis were noted: type I: no testis visualized; type II: a testis seen at the internal ring with the vas and vessels looping to the internal ring; type III: testis at the internal ring, with vas and vessels going to the testis directly; and type IV: intra-abdominal testis ...
The role of Killing and Killing-Yano tensors for studying the geodesic motion of the particle and the superparticle in a curved background is reviewed. Additionally the Papadopoulos list [74] for Killing-Yano tensors in G structures is reproduced by studying the torsion types these structures admit. The Papadopoulos list deals with groups G appearing in the Berger classification, and we enlarge the list by considering additional G structures which are not of the Berger type. Possible applications of these results are outlined.
Described are the changes to ICD-10-CM and PCS and potential challenges regarding their use in the US for financial and administrative transaction coding under HIPAA in 2013. Using author constructed...Full Text Available
In 1996 Jespers and Wang classified finite semigroups whose integral semigroup ring has finitely many units. In a recent paper, Iwaki-Juriaans-Souza Filho continued this line of research by partially classifying the finite semigroups whose rational semigroup algebra %over a field of characteristic zero, contains a ${\\mathbb{Z}}$-order with hyperbolic unit group. In this paper we complete this classification by handling the case in which the semigroup is semi-simple.
This 2001 edition of the guide to UK renewable companies and equipment and service providers presents summaries of the different industry sectors covering wind power, photovoltaics, solar water heating, geothermal heat pump, hydroelectric power, marine current and wave technology, bioenergy, power generation from landfill gas, energy from waste, and cogeneration. A UK company classification listing and index is provided along with listing of UK organisations and companies and an index of advertisers.
In this paper we establish that every quantum field theory satisfying some basic axioms possesses a weak quasi Hopf algebra as gauge symmetry. We use a reconstruction theorem to find this symmetry algebra and show how it is sed to build a gauge covariant field algebra. We investigate the question of why this generality is necessary. The non-uniqueness of the reconstruction process is interpreted and a cohomological classification of possible global gauge symmetries is given. (author)
The article, following and completing the issues dealt with in part 1 (CH4 Energia Metano, 1/99, p. 7), describe the operating characteristic and construction features of molten carbonate and solid oxide fuel cells (MCFC and SOFC). For the latter type, construction cost are evaluated by various authors and research institutes. The article ends by presenting some tables showing the classification and the main characteristics of various fuel cells, and well as the effect of some gases on the behaviour of some of them.
DescriptionAs part of a wider effort to develop new approaches to evaluating and quantifying the benefits of chemicals regulation, this project will review the effectiveness of existing information provision tools (such as classification and labelling for hazardous properties) in terms of affecting user behaviour. As some EC legislation relating to regulation of chemicals has been in place for some time, an assumption is made that the information provided by it is leading to an improvement in the way chem [continued...
BackgroundSupport vector machine (SVM) has been widely used as accurate and reliable method to decipher brain patterns from functional MRI (fMRI) data. Previous studies have not...Full Text Available
The application of airborne sensors for providing environmental assessment and monitoring of a test site in an open cast mining area that is part of a lignite deposit in central Germany is described. Hyperspectral remote sensing data from three different sensors were tested. The hyperspectral scanner data was suitable for classification of different sediments and vegetation types and the water chemistry of residual mining lakes. Summary form only. 1 tab.
This paper presents a real-time wavelet-Fuzzy combined approach for digital relaying. The algorithm for fault classification employs wavelet multi resolution analysis (MRA) to overcome the difficulties associated with conventional voltage and current based measurements due to effect of factors such as fault inception angle, fault impedance and fault distance. The proposed algorithm for fault location, different from conventional algorithms that are based on deterministic computations on a well-defined model to be protected, employs wavelet transform together with fuzzy logic. The wavelet transform captures the dynamic characteristics of the non-stationary transient fault signals using wavelet MRA coefficients. The fuzzy logic is employed to incorporate expert evaluation through fuzzy inference system (FIS) so as to extract important features from wavelet MRA coefficients for obtaining coherent conclusions regarding fault location. Computer simulations using MATLAB ...
The title refers to the area of research which studies infinite groups using measure-theoretic tools, and studies the restrictions that group structure imposes on ergodic theory of their actions. The paper is a survey of recent developments focused on the notion of Measure Equivalence between groups, and Orbit Equivalence between group actions. We discuss known invariants and classification results (rigidity) in both areas.
We propose an extension of Gaussian mixture models in the statistical-mechanical point of view. The conventional Gaussian mixture models are formulated to divide all points in given data to some kinds of classes. We introduce some quantum states constructed by superposing conventional classes in linear combinations. Our extension can provide a new algorithm in classifications of data by means of linear response formulas in the statistical mechanics.
The high spatial resolution of state-of-the-art commercial satellite imagery provides a good basis for recognising and monitoring even small-scale structural changes within nuclear facilities and for planning of routine and/or challenge inspections of nuclear sites. Despite the advantages of the improved spatial resolution some problems exist that may make the interpretation of the changes more difficult: Firstly, the results of the change analysis can be very complex and unclear at a glance. Secondly, shadow formation and off-nadir images due to different sensor and solar conditions at the acquisition times can cause false signals or overlap real changes. In view to the fast-growing amount of data from different sensor types there are then some requirements of an effective change detection procedure for safeguards purposes: i. The techniques involved should possess a certain amount of robustness in terms of small misregistration errors, different atmospheric conditions at the ...
The quality assurance requirements in various countries and according to various international codes and standards are presented, compared and critically discussed. Cases of developing countries are also discussed, and the use of IAEA code of practice and other codes for quality assurance in these countries is reviewed. Recommendations are made regarding the quality assurance system to be applied for Egypt's nuclear power plants.
The general requirements applicable to the quality assurance of the Finnish nuclear power plants are presented in the Council of State Decision (395/91) and in the guide YVL 1.4. This guide specifies the quality assurance requirements to be applied during the operation of the nuclear power plants as well as of the other nuclear facilities. Quality assurance applies to all the activities and organizations with a bearing on the safe operation of the nuclear power plants. (5 refs.).
The present code requirements on quality assurance as well as the present praxice of quality assurance procedures in the operation of nuclear power plants are presented. On the example of recurring inspections the organizational and technical complications are shown with respect to the code and licensing requirements. Taking the present experiences into account suggestions are given how to transform the general requirements of KTA 1401 to quality assurance requirements during plant operation. (orig.).
The authors report here on an experimental study of heat transfer augmentation in turbulent flow. Enhancement strategies employed in this investigation are based on the near-wall mixing processes induced in the sublayer through appropriate wall and near-wall streamwise-periodic disturbances. Experiments are performed in a low-turbulence wind-tunnel with a high-aspect-ratio rectangular channel having either (a) two-dimensional periodic microgrooves on the wall, or (b) two-dimensional microcylinders placed in the immediate vicinity of the wall. It is found that microdisturbances placed inside the sublayer induce favorable heat-transport augmentation with respect to the smooth-wall case, in the near-analogous momentum and heat transfer behavior are preserved; a roughly commensurate increase in heat and momentum transport is termed favorable in that it leads to a reduction in the pumping power penalty at fixed heat removal rate. The study shows that this favorable ...
Open pit oil sands mining involves the disturbance of thin overburden covers of Boreal forest lands that must be returned to equivalent land capability after mining activities have ceased. Before mining starts, any wetlands are drained, timber is harvested, and peat, topsoils and subsoils are stockpiled for later use. This article discussed wetland reclamation activities conducted by Suncor Energy at its open pit mining operations. Research facilities were constructed in order to determine if wetlands constructed with consolidated tailings (CT) and pond effluent water (PEW) were able to support a sustainable vegetation community. Thirty-three cat-tail plots were established at the facility as well as unplanted plots in order to determine how quickly natural establishment occurred. Shoreline plug transplants and transplants from a natural saline lake were also introduced. Within 5 years, over 23 plant species had naturally colonized the CT wetlands. However, ...
A scintimetric study using Tc-99m MDP was made of 54 patients with delayed union, nonunion, or late segmental collapse of the femoral head, 4-92 months after femoral neck fracture. In radiographically verified collapse, the radionuclide uptake ratio between the femoral head on the fractured and on the intact side (HHR) was significantly higher than in fractures resulting in delayed union or nonunion. On the basis of scintimetric and radiographic findings, the patients with healing disturbances could be divided into three groups, characterized by the following features: (1) Satisfactory post-reduction position of the fracture without subsequent redisplacement and a high HHR, which as a rule turned out to be delayed union; (2) The same radiographic pattern but with a lower HHR, which in most cases resulted in nonunion; (3) Inadequate reduction or early redisplacement of the fracture with a high HHR, which resulted in nonunion. The fractional precision in ...
A pole placement technique for power system stabilizer (PSS) and thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC) based stabilizer using simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is presented in this paper. The proposed approach employs SA optimization technique to PSS (SAPSS) and TCSC-based stabilizer (SACSC) design. The design problem is formulated as an optimization problem where SA is applied to search for the optimal setting of the proposed SAPSS and SACSC parameters. A pole placement-based objective function to shift the dominant eigenvalues to the left in the s-plane is considered. The proposed SAPSS and SACSC have been examined on a weakly connected power system with different disturbances, loading conditions, and system parameter variations. Eigenvalue analysis and nonlinear simulation results show the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed stabilizers and their ability to provide efficient damping of low frequency oscillations. In addition, the performance ...
Eight patients who had received megavoltage therapy for Cushings' disease 5-12 years previously have been reviewed. The long term response to this therapy was assessed with respect to efficacy of treatment in inducing continued remission and disturbance of hypothalamic-pituitary function. One patient showed clear evidence of relapse of Cushings' disease. One patient had unequivocal hypopituitarism. Basal levels of growth hormone (GH), TSH, LH, and FSH were not statistically different from controls, but provocative testing revealed significant abnormalities of response of cortisol/ACTH, GH, prolactin and LH. Six out of eight patients had absent diurnal cortisol variation and five patients had elevated serum prolactin levels. Thus, in this group of patients normal pituitary-adrenal function has not been satisfactorily restored. It is clear that significant disturbances of hypothalamic-pituitary function follow megavoltage therapy and these may ...
Eight patients who had received megavoltage therapy for Cushings' disease 5-12 years previously have been reviewed. The long term response to this therapy was assessed with respect to efficacy of treatment in inducing continued remission and disturbance of hypothalamic-pituitary function. One patient showed clear evidence of relapse of Cushings' disease. One patient had unequivocal hypopituitarism. Basal levels of growth hormone (GH), TSH, LH, and FSH were not statistically different from controls, but provocative testing revealed significant abnormalities of response of cortisol/ACTH, GH, prolactin and LH. Six out of eight patients had absent diurnal cortisol variation and five patients had elevated serum prolactin levels. Thus, in this group of patients normal pituitary-adrenal function has not been satisfactorily restored. It is clear that significant disturbances of hypothalamic-pituitary function follow megavoltage ...
We evaluated the similarities between ozone-induced and mite-induced emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from lima beans, and tested the response of the natural enemies of herbivores to these emissions using trophic system of two-spotted spider mites and predatory mites. The acute ozone-exposure and spider mite-infestation induced the emission of two homoterpenes, (E)-4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene and (E,E)-4,8,12-trimethyl-1,3,7,11-tridecatetraene, and (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate. Only plants with spider mite-infestation emitted the monoterpene (E)-{beta}-ocimene. Predatory mites were equally attracted to ozone-exposed and unexposed plants, but discriminated between spider mite-infested and uninfested plants, when both were exposed to ozone. The similarities between ozone and herbivore-induced VOCs suggest that plant defence against phytotoxic ozone and the production of VOCs for attraction of the natural enemies of herbivores may have adaptive coevolution. However, the expected ...
The broad objective of the engineered barriers studies was to demonstrate and qualify the use of different materials and techniques for sealing water flow paths in the Stripa granite, the mine excavations and the excavation disturbed zones. As may be anticipated from the application of the observational method that forms the basis for design of geotechnical structures, the programme evolved with the finding being made at Stripa and other underground laboratories. During phase 1, the engineered barriers investigations focussed on the heat affected zone of the repository. Specifically, the response of clay buffers and the interactions between waste containers, clay buffer materials and the rock were studied. The phase 2 investigations examined the feasibility of sealing boreholes shafts and tunnels with clay sealants. The phase 3, studies of the ability to grout and seal fractured granite including the excavation disturbed zone were effected and ...
Radiowave scintillation in the presence of ionospheric disturbances has the potential to disrupt numerous transionospheric radio and radar systems. This report describes development of a model characterizing the plasma density irregularities that produce scintillation in the naturally disturbed mid-latitude F layer. The model will be incorporated into Program WBMOD, which includes subroutines for computing both link geometry and scintillation indices, the latter by means of phase screen diffraction theory. Earlier versions of WBMOD, were based on extensive analysis of scintillation data collected in the auroral and equatorial zones in Wideband Satellite Mission. The model described herein is based on similarly extensive analysis of Wideband data from one mid latitude station and of data collected from HiLat satellite at another mid latitude station. The model describes irregularities at an effective height of 350 km that are isotropic across ...
The most recently developed control technologies in a hot strip mill are described. Preview AGC has been developed with a preview control synthesis. It controls roll gaps by using the previous information of disturbances. The disturbances which are concerned are derived from the rolling force, the roll gap and the thickness of a previous stand. The thickness accuracy and the availability of mill have been improved by this technology. An on-line roll grinding (ORG) system with an on-line roll profile meter (OPM) has been developed for the purpose of achieving schedule-free rolling. The ORG smooths the worn and roughed surface of a work roll and OPM can measure the profile of a revolving roll without contact. The data obtained by the OPM are given as feedback information to the ORG. As a result, grinding accuracy has been improved and rolling restriction on width has been relaxed widely. (author)
A model-base expert system is presented for the processing of alarm messages in power networks' control centers. This alarm processor, called GESTAL, generates concise diagnoses identifying the causes(s) of network disturbances and describing the operation of the protection and alarm systems which operate to isolate faulty components. Essentially, the alarm processor is an agenda driven expert system which is composed of a model of the power network's alarm and protection systems as well as several sets of rules. Based on the nextwork model, graph structures are constructed which represent relationships between alarms as they are received. These graph structures are then analysed in order to diagnose the disturbances(s). The alarm processor has been developed using the ART 3.0 programming language in a Symbolics Lisp-machine environment. Background material on expert systems, electric power networks, and alarm processing ...
Bobbin-coil-type eddy current probes, which are conventionally used for nondestructive inspection of steam generator tubes in pressurized-water-type nuclear power plants, have poor detectability for circumferential flaws. Hence a new type of eddy current probe was proposed to detect effectively the magnetic flux component disturbed by a flaw and thus to eliminate the flaw direction dependency on the flaw detectability. In the course of development of the proposed method, structures of the probe were investigated based on the measurement of magnetic fields induced by exciting flat coils with several shapes. The new type of probe proposed here consists of differential pick-up coils detecting magnetic flux and exciting coils having a parallelogrammic shape, and its structure was fabricated experimentally in order to detect flaws independently of their directions. Nondestructive flaw detection tests was then conducted by using the probe. The results obtained showed ...
An Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for the Jharia Coalfield (JCF) was recently completed as part of a World Bank funded project. The JCF, 260 km west of Calcutta, comprises 450 km{sup 2}. Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) operates an area of 258 km{sup 2}. Coal mining has been conducted for more than 100 years. There are severe constraints to mining due to geology, coal fires and the large population. BCCL counterpart staff participated actively in all aspects of the work. Air and water are heavily polluted, however, mining operations contribute only to a limited extent to the total pollution. Water contamination is generally due to inadequate sewage treatment and discharge from non-mine facilities such as power plants. The large area disturbed by mining to date will increase, as open pit mining operations are expected to expand significantly. Reclamation to date is generally confined to planting of trees. Areas where cost effective reclamation can be done were ...
In this paper, we propose a simple method for controlling an electromagnetic levitation (Mag lev) system. The model of the Mag lev system under consideration in this paper is third order, inherently nonlinear and unstable. For designing a controller to obtain a good disturbance rejection and being insensitive to parameter variations, we use an inner-loop and an outer-loop configuration. The configuration is the key to solve this problem. By using a nonlinear state transformation in the feedback path, a cascaded PI controller and a redefined input in the inner loop, we obtain a linear second order system. Furthermore, to achieve a stable system with a good disturbance rejection, we design a Pid controller cascaded with the inner loop system in the negative unity feedback configuration in the outer loop. We show that the closed-loop system is robustly stabilized against the mass variation. Simulation results show that despite actuator saturation ...
The molar of guinea pigs was irradiated with /sup 60/Co-..gamma.. ray for daily observations of the manifestation of disturbed tooth formation by microradiography and the time registration by tetracycline-labelling. Irradiation first injured young blast cells of the dentin in the growth phase, dental pulp cells, and cells of the enamel. The portion composed of injured cells formed a depressed ''constriction'' from the dental pulp side toward the border between the enamel and dentin. The cells of the enamel injured by irradiation in the growth phase later formed a very thin irregular stroma. In contrast, cells in the differentiation or subsequent phase at the time of irradiation and cells probably having started to grow after irradiation proceeded with formation of a normal stroma and calcification. No uniform relation was obtained between the histological staining of the organic stroma of normal or abnormal dentin and ...
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), acting for the US Department of Energy (DOE), contracts for and administers programs for the purpose of promoting the development and commercialization of large scale, transportable battery energy storage systems. Under DOE Co-Op Agreement No. DE-FC04-94AL99852, SNL has contracted for the development and delivery of an initial prototype 250 kW bridge that becomes an integral subsystem of a 2 MW/10 Second System that can be used by utility customers to protect power sensitive equipment from power disturbances. Development work includes field installation and testing of the prototype unit at a participating utility site for extended product testing with subsequent relocation to an industrial or commercial participating utility customer site for additional evaluation. The program described by the referenced document calls for cost sharing with the successful bidder and eventual title transfer to the participating utility. Prototype ...
Distinguishing between effects of natural and anthropogenic environmental factors on ecosystems is a fundamental problem in environmental science. In river systems the longitudinal gradient of environmental factors is one of the most relevant sources of dissimilarity between communities that could be confounded with anthropogenic disturbances. To test the hypothesis that in macroinvertebrate communities the distribution of species' sensitivity to organic toxicants is independent of natural longitudinal factors, but depends on contamination with organic toxicants, we analysed the relationship between community sensitivity SPEARorganic (average community sensitivity to organic toxicants) and natural and anthropogenic environmental factors in a large-scale river system, from alpine streams to a lowland river. The results show that SPEARorganic is largely independent of natural longitudinal factors, but strongly dependent on contamination with organic toxicants ...
I. S. Kirbis, P. Maxwell, M. S. Flear, K. Miller and M. Ibrahim External quality control for immunocytochemistry on cytology samples: a review of UK NEQAS ICC (cytology module) results Objective:- To date, external quality control for immunocytochemistry on cytology samples is provided only by the United Kingdom national external quality assessment service for immunocytochemistry and in situ hybridisation (UK NEQAS ICC & ISH). For the purpose of this study a retrospective analysis of a comprehensive collection of quality-related data regarding immunocytochemistry on cytology samples collected through this service was analysed. Methods:- The quality of immunocytochemical reactions, using on-line collected data, was analysed for the last 23 UK NEQAS ICC cytology module external quality asses...
Purpose - Holding the number of outside directorships constant, this paper aims to test whether executive directors from superior performing firms are subsequently rewarded with better quality outside directorships. Design/methodology/approach - The quality of new outside directorship appointments is modelled using a two-step Heckman selection procedure to control for the probability of acquiring a new outside board seat. Outside directorship quality is estimated using an index formed from series of observable firm-specific characteristics proxying for the following three latent aspects of quality: prestige, reputational risk and monetary rewards. The index aggregates across these three dimensions to produce an overall quality score, with higher scores signifying higher quality directorshi...
Purpose: To compare the diagnostic quality and adverse events of the water-soluble, non-ionic, iso-osmolar, dimeric contrast media iodixanol and iotrolan in hysterosalpingography (HSG). Material and Methods: One hundred and twenty patients participated in a double-blind randomized parallel-group phase-III study. Questionnaires and patient interviews were used. Diagnostic quality was assessed using a visual analogue scale and the quality in specific regions was rated using a categorical scale. Results: Overall diagnostic quality was equal for the two groups. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in diagnostic quality in the specific regions of interest. No differences between the contrast media were found with regard to adverse events. Conclusion: Both contrast media provided images of high diagnostic quality in HSG. (orig.)
This paper, firstly, introduces the background in developing a high quality water supply system, in which the drinking water system is isolated inside a building. Results of questionnaire on the high quality service water are illustrated. The results of questionnaire have revealed that the high quality service water is extremely interested. Then, are described the target quality of high quality water, the constitution of high quality water supply system, the treatment process, the measures to secure safety and sanitary, and the method of maintenance. The high quality water is produced through the activated charcoal absorption treatment, membrane treatment, ozonation, cooling, mineral addition, and disinfection of city water. Furthermore, application examples of this system adopted to a department store and a bachelor apartment house are ...
The model of `ecological forestry' has evolved as a part of the development of the concept of ecosystem management. `Ecological forestry' emphasises that manipulation of a forest ecosystem should consider, and as far as practicable work within the limits of, natural disturbance patterns prior to extensive human alteration of the landscape. This paper evaluates the extent to which forest management practices in jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) and karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor) forests of south-western Australia align with this view of the characteristics and appropriate silviculture of `ecological forestry'. Characteristics and appropriate silviculture of `ecological forestry' are evaluated in relation to (i) the stand level decisions of stand structure and harvest timing and (ii) the landsc...
The purpose is to describe problems associated with the establishment of vegetation on mined lands and practical rehabilitation and restoration methods for establishing a rehabilitation plan. Land disturbed by mining should be restored to its original state, when the mine is decommissioned, but before that can be attained, site problems such as toxicity, moisture supply, and texture must be rectified. The land may need to pass through several conditioning stages, and links need to be formed to maintain a functioning ecosystem. A key aspect to rehabilitation is the need to increase the organic matter content of the substrate. This improves soil structure, increases the moisture holding ability, and provides a pool for nutrient cycling. 11 refs., 2 tabs.
This paper presents a novel design methodology, based on shaping the system frequency response, for the generation of an appropriate residual signal that is sensitive to sensor faults in the presence of model uncertainty and exogenous unknown (unmeasured) disturbances. An integrated feedback controller design and robust frequency-based fault detection approach is proposed for Single-Input/Single-Output systems. The effciency of the proposed method is demonstrated on a Single Machine Innite Bus (SMIB) power system that achieves a coordinate power system stabilizer with satisfactory sensor fault detection capabilities.
An annealing with the nanosecond laser light pulse is applied for crystal lattice reconstruction of a disturbed near-surface layer, which was created in semiconductor material as a result of the implantation process. Radiation with energy density higher than the threshold value causes the melting of the surface layer and than the epitaxial recrystallization from the melt on a different substrate. Structural changes occurring in the Ge implanted Si crystals after annealing with different energy densities are investigated by means of the cross-section high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. (author)
The importance of ecosystem restoration to land reclamation is discussed. If a plant community is to be self sustaining, natural diversity processes provide a useful model for restoration. Biodiversity is important for utilitarian, ecological, and ethical/aesthetic reasons. Issues that must be considered include sampling and management scales, the separate richness of the diverse array of species playing a role in ecosystem productivity and stability, and natural trends in diversity. Ecological restoration comprises two fundamental activities: management for some pre-disturbance level of biodiversity and the combination of species in a manner that is essentially experimental. Endeavours to restore biological diversity are a useful method of experimenting with the factors that control ecosystem structure and function. 21 refs.
Sex steroids and thyroid hormones play a key role in the development of the central nervous system. The critical role of these hormonal systems may explain the sensitivity of the hypothalamus, the cerebral cortex, and the hippocampus to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC). This review examines the evidence for endocrine disruption of glial-neuronal functions in the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and cerebral cortex. Focus was placed on two well-studied EDC, the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB). DDT is involved in neuroendocrine disruption of the reproductive axis, whereas polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) interact with both the thyroid hormone- and sex steroid-dependent systems and disturb the neuroendocrine control of reproduction and develo...
The development of new electro-optical instrumentation for studying the annular dispersed two-phase flow regime is described. The system measures the thickness of the water film and droplet size and velocity distributions which would be encountered in such a flow regime. The water film thickness is measured by an improved capacitance method with a short time constant using newly developed sensor electrodes. The electrodes are made flush with the inner wall of a cylindrical tube and do not disturb the flow. In the test equipment, steady, laminar flow of water along the inner wall of the tube is controlled by appropriate valves and a porous jacket while droplets are introduced by means of a special spray nozzle.
The DNA Wideband satellite experiment provided extensive data on scintillation produced in high-altitude structured plasmas. A computer program, WBMOD, is being developed to summarize those data in an applications-oriented way. The program contains the phase-screen scattering theory of Rino and a morphological description of ionospheric irregularities (thus far only at auroral latitudes) based on Wideband observations. It permits a user to compute scintillation indices for both phase and intensity as a function of system operating parameters and solar-ionospheric disturbance level. Correction is made for multiple scatter, and the user may choose either one-way (communication) or two-way (radar) propagation.
The DNA Wideband satellite experiment provided extensive data on scintillation produced in high-altitude structured plasmas. A computer program, WBMOD, is being developed to summarize those data in an applications-oriented way. The program contains the phase-screen scattering theory of Rino and a morphological description of ionospheric irregularities (thus far only at auroral latitudes) based on Wideband observations. It permits a user to compute scintillation indices for both phase and intensity as a function of system operating parameters and solar-ionospheric disturbance level. Correction is made for multiple scatter, and the user may choose either one-way (communication) or two-way (radar) propagation.
The non linear electrical loads can give rise to a number of disturbances in electrical power networks. Among them, the high consumption of relative power is to be noted and so is the several harmonic components which may be injected in the industry system and very often in the utility system. So, by using appropriate technical considerations, as well as measurements in typical special electrical loads, such negative effects are analyzed and ways of minimizing them are suggested. (author) 3 refs., 11 figs., 6 tabs.
This article describes the steps taken to mitigate the impact to existing wetlands by creating new wetlands in an airport expansion project. The project addressed maintaining suitable amounts of wetlands to accommodate peak waterfowl populations, moving of high voltage power transmission towers, and maintaining agricultural and hunting interests. This project involved recreating of open water areas, marsh habitat, mud flat habitat, saline meadow habitat, maintaining two existing wetlands in the area of the new wetlands without disturbing them, and improving upland habitat surrounding the new wetlands.
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.
Huntsville, Alabama Utilities has successfully provided services for over 53 years. However, the quality of service demands from customers are changing every day! Part of this demand is due to updated digital appliances, home and business computers, and automated systems. A quality program was initiated in 1992 as a result of an internal assessment. The Malcolm Baldrige approach was selected which includes seven areas: (1) Leadership; (2) Information and Analysis; (3) Strategic Planning; (4) Human Resource Utilization; (5) Quality Assurance of Products and Services: (6) Quality Results: (7) Customer Satisfaction. Training for and implementation of the Quality program is discussed in detail.
This paper develops a model of nonlinear pricing with competition. The novel element is that each consumer's willingness to pay for quality is private information and is allowed to differ across brands. The consumer's preferences are represented by a multidimensional type containing the marginal value of quality for different products. Buyers with high willingness to pay for quality also display strong preferences for particular brands, and require higher discounts in order to switch away from their favorite product. Therefore, competition is fiercer for buyers with lower tastes for quality, and hence more elastic demands. This is in sharp contrast to earlier models in which competition is fiercer for higher-taste, more valuable buyers. In equilibrium, firms either compete intensively for ...
...com: The Art of Application Performance Testing : Help for Programmers and Quality Assurance (9780596520663): Ian Molyneaux: Books Amazon.com:...The Art of Application Performance Testing : Help for Programmers and Quality Assurance (9780596520663): Ian Molyneaux: Books Ian Molyneaux,The ...Art of Application Performance Testing : Help for Programmers and Quality Assurance,O'Reilly Media,0596520662,LA9780596520663,Computer Books: General,Application software,Computer software,...com: The Art of Application Performance Testing : Help for Programmers and Quality Assurance (9780596520663): Ian Molyneaux: Books ...
Urinary acidification, bone metabolism and urinary excretion of calcium and citrate were evaluated in 10 recurrent stone formers with incomplete renal tubular acidosis (iRTA), 10 recurrent stone formers with normal urinary acidification (NUA) and 10 normal controls (NC). Patients with iRTA had lower plasma standard bicarbonate after fasting (P <0.01) and lower urinary excretion of titratable acid (P <0.05) and citrate (P <0.01) compared with NUA patients and NC, and higher urinary excretion of ammonia (P <0.05) compared with NC (P <0.05). Hypercalciuria was found in 6 of 10 patients with iRTA compared with 3 of 10 with NUA, and 0 of 10 NC. The citrate/calcium ratio in urine was significantly reduced in iRTA compared with the value in NUA (P <0.01), and in NUA compared with NC (P <0.05). Biochemical markers of bone formation (serum osteocalcin) and bone resorption (urinary hydroxyproline) were significantly increased in iRTA compared with NUA and NC (P <0.01), ...
Proper use of quality assurance will provide the basis for an effective management control system for nuclear waste management programs. Control is essential for achieving successful programs free from costly losses and failures and for assuring the public and regulators that the environment and health and safety are being protected. The essence of quality assurance is the conscientious use of planned and systematic actions, based on selecting and applying appropriate requirements from an established quality assurance standard. Developing a quality assurance program consists of using knowledge of the technical and managerial aspects of a project to identify and evaluate risks of loss and failure and then to select appropriate quality assurance requirements that will minimize the risks. Those requirements are integrated into the project planning documents and are carried out as ...
This paper aims to explore consumer preference for fresh vegetables labelled as organic in combination with health and environment related quality traits. The study decomposes organic farming into its main quality aspects and measures consumers' preference structure for organic, in general, and for specific organic quality traits in particular. By means of stated choice preference modelling, the following hypotheses are tested: consumers prefer health over environment related quality traits; the organic label plays a significant role in consumers' choice for organic products; organic farming is perceived as healthier and more environmentally friendly than conventional farming; purchase intention is mainly driven by health related quality traits; both health and environmental concerns influ...
This study was designed to identify the relationship between free time management and quality of life, exploring whether the amount of free time or the way people using their free time relates to their quality of life. Data were collected from National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan. Of the 500 questionnaires distribute, 403 usable questionnaires were received with an 81% response rate. The result has found a positive relationship between free time management and quality of life. Contrary to this, there was no significant relationship between time allocation and quality of life. Results might indicate that people who manage their free time well lead to better quality of life. Suggestions based on the observed relationship and directions for future researches were d...
How does one assure that both quality and creativity are obtained in basic research environments QA theoreticians have attempted to develop workable definitions of quality, but in more reflective moments, these definitions often fail to capture the deeper essence of the idea of quality.'' This paper asserts that creativity (as a product of the human mind) is a concrete interface between perfunctory definitions of quality (conformance to specifications) and more philosophical speculations about the nature of quality- related ultimates'' like elegance or beauty. In addition, we describe the distinction between creative ideas and creative acts and highlight one of the major inhibitors of creativity, fear. Finally we show that highly creative people often have an irreverent attitude toward boundaries and established authority, and discuss how one can ...
Managing service quality is vital to retain customer satisfaction and augment revenues for any business organization. Often it is difficult to assess service quality due to lack of quantifiable measures and limited data. In this paper, we present a hybrid approach based on SERVQUAL and fuzzy TOPSIS for evaluating service quality of urban transportation systems. The proposed approach consists of three steps. The first step involves development of a SERVQUAL based questionnaire to collect data for measuring transportation service quality. The participants provide linguistic assessments to rate the service quality criteria and the alternatives. In step 2, the linguistic ratings are combined through fuzzy TOPSIS to generate an overall performance score for each alternative. The alternative wit...
We consider the (2, 0) supersymmetric theory of tensor multiplets and self-dual strings in six space-time dimensions. Space-time diffeomorphisms that leave the string world-sheet invariant appear as gauge transformations on the normal bundle of the world-sheet. The naive invariance of the model under such transformations is however explicitly broken by anomalies: The electromagnetic coupling of the string to the two-form gauge field of the tensor multiplet suffers from a classical anomaly, and there is also a one-loop quantum anomaly from the chiral fermions on the string world-sheet. Both of these contributions are proportional to the Euler class of the normal bundle of the string world-sheet, and consistency of the model requires that they cancel. This imposes strong constraints on possible models, which are found to obey an ADE-classification. We then consider the decoupled world-sheet theory that describes low-energy fluctuations (compared to the scale set by ...
We present the results of an isophotal shape analysis of three samples of galaxies in the Coma cluster. Quantitative morphology, together with structural and photometric parameters, is given for each galaxy. Special emphasis has been placed on the detailed classification of early-type galaxies. The three samples are: i) a sample of 97 early-type galaxies brighter than m_B = 17.00 falling within one degree from the center of the Coma cluster; these galaxies were observed with CCD cameras, mostly in good to excellent resolution conditions; ii) a magnitude complete sample of 107 galaxies of all morphological types down to m_B = 17.00 falling in a circular region of 50 arcmin diameter, slightly offcentered to the North-West of the cluster center; the images for this and the next sample come from digitized photographic plates; iii) a complete comparison sample of 26 galaxies of all morphological types down to m_R = 16.05 (or m_B \\simeq 17.5), also in a region of 50 ...
This hazard analysis (HA) has been prepared for the 300 Area N Reactor Fuel Fabrication and Storage Facility (Facility), in compliance with the requirements of Westinghouse Hanford Company (Westinghouse Hanford) controlled manual WHC-CM-4-46, Nonreactor Facility Safety Analysis Manual, and to the direction of WHC-IP-0690, Safety Analysis and Regulation Desk Instructions, (WHC 1992). An HA identifies potentially hazardous conditions in a facility and the associated potential accident scenarios. Unlike the Facility hazard classification documented in WHC-SD-NR-HC-004, Hazard Classification for 300 Area N Reactor Fuel Fabrication and Storage Facility, (Huang 1993), which is based on unmitigated consequences, credit is taken in an HA for administrative controls or engineered safety features planned or in place. The HA is the foundation for the accident analysis. The significant event scenarios identified by this HA will be further evaluated in a ...
The GeoSAR (geographic synthetic aperture radar) program is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored program organized in cooperation with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the California Department of Conservation. Some aspects of the program have been existent for almost two years. The technical goal of the program has been the development of rapid-mapping radar technologies, and has now, as its principal challenge, the development of a capability for terrain mapping under foliage. In this paper, we discuss validation of current technology and examine the utility of data products currently produced by the Environmental Research Institute of MIchigan's (ERIM) IFSARE, JPL's TOPSAR, and JPL's AIRSAR. We find that ERIM's X-band IFSARE system produces elevation maps to better than 2-m accuracy. Based on this we determine that TOPSAR elevation maps are accurate to at least 5 m. We also demonstrate the utility of JPL's AIRSAR's L-band radar polarimetry for terrain ...
A crack fault is one of the damage modes most frequently occurring in gears. Identifying different crack levels, especially for early cracks is a challenge in gear fault diagnosis. This paper aims to propose a method to classify the different levels of gear cracks automatically and reliably. In this method, feature parameters in time domain, specially designed for gear damage detection and in frequency domain are extracted to characterize the gear conditions. A two-stage feature selection and weighting technique (TFSWT) via Euclidean distance evaluation technique (EDET) is presented and adopted to select sensitive features and remove fault-unrelated features. A weighted K nearest neighbor (WKNN) classification algorithm is utilized to identify the gear crack levels. The gear crack experiments were conducted and the vibration signals were captured from the gears under different loads and motor speeds. The proposed method is applied to identifying the gear crack ...
This paper presents a novel feature extraction scheme for roller bearing fault diagnosis utilizing generalized S transform and two-dimensional non-negative matrix factorization (2DNMF). The generalized S transform, which can make up the poor energy concentration of the standard S transform, is introduced to generate the time-frequency representation (TFR). Experiment results on simulated signal and vibration signals measured from rolling element bearings have revealed that the generalized S transform can obtain a more satisfactory TFR than other similar techniques. Furthermore, a new technique called two-dimensional non-negative matrix factorization (2DNMF), which can reduce the computation cost and preserve more structure information hiding in original 2D matrices compared to the NMF, is developed to extract more informative features from the time-frequency matrixes for accurate fault classification. Experimental results on bearing faults ...
Since bearing is in wide use as basic parts for rotary machines, detection and diagnosis of its defects are important in practical use. To discriminate defect portions by early detection of roller bearing flaking, the conventional parameter method using peakedness is poor. Thus to directly obtain difference in waveform, the new method was applied to such detection which uses KDI as the scale of a difference in waveform, and a most neighborhood classification rule based on KDI. The detection and discrimination abilities of this method was studied mainly in experiment. The experiment used a bench scale rotor and a supporting bearing, and attempted detection and discrimination of no flaking, outer ring flaking and inner ring flaking. As a result, this method could detect and discriminate fine flaking which was never detected by conventional method. Since selection of standard data is essential for this method, a distance ratio was introduced as selection standard, and ...
The profusion of online digital images presents new challenges for image indexing. Images have always been problematic to describe and catalogue due to lack of inherent textual data and ambiguity of meaning. An alternative to time-consuming professionally-applied metadata has been sought in the form of tags, simple keywords that form a flat structure known as distributed classification, or more popularly as a folksonomy. This research aims to increase understanding of why people tag and how effective they find it for searching, using as the focus. Open-ended questionnaires were sent out to members of the photo-sharing website Flickr, with the opportunity to post comments to an online discussion space. There is also a systematic comparison between a tag-based system and a more traditional controlled vocabulary, to test out the claims made regarding the suitability of tagging for searching and browsing. For this purpose Flickr has been compared with Getty Images ...
Different calculated models are presented for turbulent break-off flows and their classification, reflecting the sequence of historical development. The study was done based on equations of viscous liquid of the Navier-Stokes type with development of special phenomenological models of turbulence which take into consideration real properties of the break-off flows based on simpler models of flow presented in the work. In order to calculate two-dimensional turbulent flows, a method of viscous-nonviscous interaction is used. It employs numerical solutions for nonviscous flow and integrated methods of calculating the dissipative region. This method can be extended for calculating the transonic break-off flows, and also break-off in an incompressible fluid when there is cavitation.
Characterisation of the classification of brain tumours authorised by the WHO. Method of appraisal: This classification was revised and published in its second version. In the revision, some tumours were regrouped histogenetically and some tumour variants were added. Radiologically relevant changes of the classification include the differentiation of four new tumour entities that are easily distinguished by MR imaging. These four tumours belong to the group of childhood tumours or tumours occurring in early adulthood and are characterized by a good prognosis after extirpation. Results of appraisal: Central neurocytomas are small-cyst ventricular tumours associated with the foramen of Monroi and show moderate contrast enhancement. Infantile desmoplastic gangliogliomas/astrocytomas commonly consist of a solid tumour portion related to the leptomeninges with pronounced contrast enhancement and a typically very large cyst. ...
This report presents the results of a systems failure analysis study of the CANDU 3 reactor design; the study was performed for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As part of the study a review of the CANDU 3 design documentation was performed, a plant assessment methodology was developed, representative plant initiating events were identified for detailed analysis, and a plant assessment was performed. The results of the plant assessment included classification of the CANDU 3 event sequences that were analyzed, determination of CANDU 3 systems that are ''significant to safety,'' and identification of key operator actions for the analyzed events.
Sixty-seven unresolved objects with flat blue spectra that had no apparent features on the plates of the Case Low-Dispersion Northern Sky Survey have been observed at higher dispersion and to shorter wavelengths in order to determine their nature. The following classifications are proposed: 20 low-redshift QSOs (z greater than 1.7), two Seyfert 2 galaxies, 23 stars, and two variable objects. The spectra obtained for the remaining 20 objects were flat with no obvious features, but noisy, and these will need further observation. 5 references.
The purpose of this document is to summarize the findings of recent studies on the security problem in statistical databases and examine their applicability to the specific needs of CEDR. The document is organized as follows: In Section 2 we describe some general control methods which are available on most commercial database software. In Section 3 we provide a classification of statistical security methods. In Section 4 we analyze the type of users of CEDR and the security control methods which may be applied to each type. In Section 5 we summarize the findings of this study and recommend possible solutions.
We introduce a family of rank functions and related notions of total transcendence for Galois types in abstract elementary classes. We focus, in particular, on abstract elementary classes satisfying the condition know as tameness (currently suspected to be a necessary condition for the development of a reasonable classification theory) where the connections between stability and total transcendence are most evident. As a byproduct, we obtain a partial upward stability transfer result for tame abstract elementary classes stable in a cardinal lambda satisfying lambda^{aleph_0}, a substantial generalization of a result of Baldwin, Kueker, and VanDieren.
Geochemical model is a kind of concept model which describes geochemical processes by means of chemical reaction equations and mathematical formula, and the software based on the concept model are called geochemical modeling code. Geochemical modeling codes can be divided into three categories: mass equilibrium, mass transfer and mass transport code. The major functions of geochemical codes include the calculation of forms of occurrence of elements, the prediction of direction of various geochemical reaction, the dissolution and precipitation of elements, the pH and Eh value, the rate and path of geochemical reaction in aqueous solution.
Open descendants extend conformal field theory to unoriented surfaces with boundaries. The construction rests on two types of generalizations of the fusion algebra. The first is needed even in the relatively simple case of diagonal models. It leads to a new tensor that satisfies the fusion algebra, but whose entries are signed integers. The second is needed when dealing with non-diagonal models, where Cardy's ansatz does not apply. It leads to a new tensor with positive integer entries, that satisfies a set of polynomial equations and encodes the classification of the allowed boundary operators. (orig.).
Simple recursion formulas are derived for the multiplicities of the dominant weight vectors appearing in a class of irreducible highest weight representations of the indecomposable affine Kac-Moody algebras. This class is characterized by the appearance of exactly two distinct infinite sequences of dominant weight vectors. The general procedure used for the enumeration of these representations and for the derivation of the corresponding multiplicity formulas is that presented by Capps for the analysis of those irreducible representations containing exactly one such infinite sequence. This procedure includes the classification of representations in terms of congruence and the identification of Weyl orbits by the norm of the dominant weight. Some of the results presented have application to physical theories such as string field theories.
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).
This chapter reports recent advances in the statistical learning literature that may be of interest for biometrics. In particular we discuss two different algorithmic settings, binary classification and multi-task learning, and analyze the two closely related problems of feature selection and feature learning. In the binary case the theoretical and algorithmic advances to feature selection are applied to solve face detection and face authentication problems. In the multi-task case we show how the data structure described by a group of features common to the various tasks can be effectively learned, and then we discuss how this approach could be used to address face recognition.
Purpose - The aim of the present study is to present in a systematic way the subject of industrial hazardous waste from the point-of-view of definitions in engineering, science and legislation. This analysis is necessary, as many different approaches and overlapping definitions are used for the classification of waste, leading to different results, a situation that often complicates the collection and interpretation of data on waste. Design/methodology/approach - The study is conducted by bringing together the extended experience of the authors and other experts in the field of environmental legislation and a wide variety of scientific and legislative sources as well as articles and research reports. The focus is the European Union, while several approaches from the international area are ...
The paper describes an application of the tree classification method Random Forest (RF), as used in the analysis of data from the ground-based gamma telescope MAGIC. In such telescopes, cosmic gamma-rays are observed and have to be discriminated against a dominating background of hadronic cosmic-ray particles. We describe the application of RF for this gamma/hadron separation. The RF method often shows superior performance in comparison with traditional semi-empirical techniques. Critical issues of the method and its implementation are discussed. An application of the RF method for estimation of a continuous parameter from related variables, rather than discrete classes, is also discussed.
This report aims at presenting a view upon uncertainty analysis of phenomenological models with an emphasis on the identification and documentation of various types of uncertainties and assumptions in the modelling of the phenomena. In an uncertainty analysis, it is essential to include and document all unclear issues, in order to obtain a maximal coverage of unresolved issues. This holds independently on their nature or type of the issues. The classification of uncertainties is needed in the decomposition of the problem and it helps in the identification of means for uncertainty reduction. Further, an enhanced documentation serves to evaluate the applicability of the results to various risk-informed applications. (au)
Objective: Results of reliability and agreement studies are intended to provide information about the amount of error inherent in any diagnosis, score, or measurement. The level of reliability and agreement among users of scales, instruments, or classifications is widely unknown. Therefore, there is a need for rigorously conducted interrater and intrarater reliability and agreement studies. Information about sample selection, study design, and statistical analysis is often incomplete. Because of inadequate reporting, interpretation and synthesis of study results are often difficult. Widely accepted criteria, standards, or guidelines for reporting reliability and agreement in the health care and medical field are lacking. The objective was to develop guidelines for reporting reliability and...
We carry out a Lie group analysis of the Sachs equations for a time-dependent axisymmetric non-rotating space-time in which the Ricci tensor vanishes. These equations, which are the first two members of the set of Newman-Penrose equations, define the characteristic initial-value problem for the space-time. We find a particular form for the initial data such that these equations admit a Lie symmetry, and so defines a geometrically special class of such spacetimes. These should additionally be of particular physical interest because of this special geometric feature.
The Rosebel gold district is hosted in a Paleoproterozoic greenstone belt of the Guiana Shield and has many characteristics that enable classification of the ores as an orogenic gold deposit. Host rocks have undergone several phases of deformation. However, gold deposition occurred late in the structural history of the belt, and is considered part of a late regional metallogenic event with respect to the geotectonic evolution of the Guiana Shield. Economic gold mineralization is hosted in felsic to mafic volcanic rocks and two sedimentary successions that are differentiated into turbiditic and arenitic depositional packages. The detailed lithostratigraphic characterization and the geochemistry enable the correlation of the local rock types with the Paramaka, the Armina, and the Rosebel for...
Flow cytogenetics is a rapidly developing technology which complements rather than supplants the traditional methods of cytogenetic analysis. As an adjunctive approach to chromosome classification, flow systems measurements of isolated chromosomes give new information relative to the enrichment of A-T or G-C base sequences on specific chromosomes. As a result, chromosomal fluorescence polymorphisms both within and among individuals that are not always associated with banding polymorphisms can be detected. Finally, flow sorting provides bulk quantities of highly purified chromosomes for use in biochemical studies. Methodology is detailed. (PSB)
We treated 13 patients for femoral neck fracture. They consisted of 2 males and 11 females, and were classified according to Garden stage classification; Stage I, 3 cases; Stage II, 2 cases; Stage III, 2 cases; Stage IV, 4 cases. Two trochanteric fracture cases were used by control. We evaluated perfusion of the femoral head after femoral neck fracture using bone scintigraphy, which is considered useful for evaluation of perfusion of the femoral neck before operation. (author)
National environmental policies have international repercussions: Thus the question arises as to how environmental policy should be designed in order to cope with international environmental problems in an efficient way. These topics were discussed in a conference held at the Kiel Institute of World Economics on July 5-6, 1990. The conference papers and comments are presented in this volume. Environmental scarcity has important international aspects. First, national environmental endowment and policy influence competitiveness and trade. Second, transfrontier pollution is a specific issue. Third, global environmental problems require a solution. This classification of the international aspects of the environmental issue provides the outline of the book. (orig./HSCH).
The booklet presents general information and practical hints for the task of acquiring and evaluating the data describing investments and other expenditure and activities for pollution abatement measures taken by electric utilities. The information is intended as an aid for establishing standard criteria for assignment and evaluation, and for comparison and classification of pollution abatement measures. As a line of orientation, a catalogue of pollution control measures is given, arranged into the following sections: Fossil-fueled power plants; nuclear power plants (BWR and PWR); hydroelectric power plants; power transmission and distribution. (HSCH)
Ontologies ? a form of structured and logically related knowledge or classification hierarchy embedded in a computer system ? are regarded by many scientists as having enormous promise for the consistent use and re-use of data. To realise this promise, however, is not straightforward. In this paper, based on ethnographic observation, we argue that the challenges for ontology building are ?social? as much as they are technical. By this we mean the routine work undertaken in the building process and the problems and difficulties entailed can be understood in terms of the practices of knowledge workers and the practical nature of ?sorting things out?. Getting a better sense of how, in practise, this work gets done gives a sense of the main challenges of building successful ontologies and how ...
I review findings of various research groups regarding perturbative heterotic string model building in the last 12 months. Attention is given to recent studies of extra U(1)'s and local discrete symmetries (LDS's) in generic string models. Issues covered include the role of U(1)'s and LDS's in limiting proton decay, developments in classification of models containing anomalous U(1), and possible complications resulting from kinetic mixing between observable and hidden sector U(1)'s. Additionally, recent string-derived and string-inspired models are briefly reviewed. Talk Presented at SUSY '97.
The author describes the purpose, classification and main process of acceptance test of full scope simulator of Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, including the correction of non-conformance items which are discovered during the performance of acceptance tests. The results of the acceptance tests show that the model accepted by the full scope simulator of Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant is fully able to cope with the simulation of normal transients and incidental transients and the performance of the simulator indeed compiled with the technical specifications which are defined n the relevant contracts.
In this paper we dealt with the comparison and linking between lexical resources with domain knowledge provided by ontologies. It is one of the issues for the combination of the Semantic Web Ontologies and Text Mining. We investigated the relations between the linguistics oriented and domain-specific semantics, by associating the GO biological process concepts to the FrameNet semantic frames. The result shows the gaps between the linguistics-oriented and domain-specific semantics on the classification of events and the grouping of target words. The result provides valuable information for the improvement of domain ontologies supporting for text mining systems. And also, it will result in benefits to language understanding technology.
A sifter is proposed, which includes a frame, a sifting surface in the form of transverse grates, positioned on a hinge and lever mechanism, one of the axis of the hinges of which is connected with the frame and the other, with a movable frame, which is adjoined with the drive pushrod for changing the width of the slots between the grates. To increase the effectiveness of initial classification through periodic cleaning of the sifting surface, the hinge and lever mechanism is made in the form of a multiple parallelogram, while the grates are formed by one of the peripheral axes of the hinges of the parallelogram. The movable frame is installed with the capability of attachment to different axes of the parallelogram hinges. The frame is U shaped.
The use and application of remote sensing data for monitoring the environmental impacts of open cast lignite mining in Eastern Germany is described. This investigation is based on the digital analysis of several Landsat-TM and ERS-1 data sets acquired from 1989 to 1994. The characteristics of the imagery enable quantitative analysis of different open cast mine features, such as waste, water bodies, change of land use, reclamation processes and estimation of vegetation cover in the affected areas. On the basis of the Maximum Likelihood Classification of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data the open cast mining areas were separated into bare open cast areas and areas of less and dense vegetation. The bare open cast areas were classified with respect to type of different sediments and the vegetation was seperated into different classes according to the age of the vegetation and the density cover. Apart from these, water bodies within the mining areas were classified into ...
BackgroundStrategies to accurately identify the occurrence of specific health care events in administrative data is central to many quality improvement and research efforts. Many...Full Text Available
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
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH) has continuously emphasized improvement in the quality of care provided in hospitals as the central purpose of the accreditation process. In...Full Text Available
ObjectivesThe objective of this paper is to describe the complex mixed-methods design of a study conducted to assess health-related quality of life (HRQOL) outcomes...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...
This paper presents a brief account of Lingling Hydroelectric Power Equipment General Works, the capacity of equipment production, the organization body, the quality assurance system and supervision of government department on its product quality.
Intended to be used in conjunction with ANSI N45.2 and addresses the quality assurance requirements related to subsurface investigations performed prior to the construction of safety related structures of nuclear power plants.
Requirements for the installation, inspection, and testing that assure the quality of important components of a nuclear power plant during construction are presented.
BackgroundHeterogeneous results for research investigating health-related quality of life (HRQL) in patients undergoing sphincter-ablating procedures for rectal cancer...Full Text Available
BackgroundQuality of Life measurements are necessary tools for effectively evaluating health services. In the population of patients afflicted with war-related blindness in Iran,...Full Text Available
OBJECTIVE: The aim was to assess the psychosocial effects on the quality of life (QOL) of adults with head and neck cancer (HNC) and any gender variations with predictive factors that may influence...Full Text Available
This guide describes an acceptable method of complying with the Commission's regulations with regard to the quality assurance requirements for the packaging, shipping, receiving, storage, and handling of items for water-cooled nuclear power plants.
The guide describes a method acceptable to the NRC staff for complying with the Commission's regulations with regard to quality assurance requirements for installation, inspection, and testing of mechanical equipment and systems for water-cooled and high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear power plants.
This paper discusses the quality assurance requirements for high-level canistered waste form products which would be acceptable for disposal in a deep geologic repository. A review plan and guidelines are provided.
Experience of the Westinghouse Water Reactors Division with indoctrination and training of quality engineers includes training of personnel from Westinghouse divisions in the USA and overseas as well as of customers' personnel. A written plan is prepared for each trainee in order to fit the training to the individual's needs, and to cover the full range of information and activities. The trainee is also given work assignments, working closely with experienced quality engineers. He may prepare inspection plans and audit check lists, assist in the preparation of QA training modules, write procedures, and perform supplier surveillance and data analyses, or make special studies of operating systems. The trainee attends seminars and special courses on work-related technical subjects. Throughout the training period, emphasis is placed on inculcating an attitude of team work in the trainee so that the result of the training is the achievement of both ...
BackgroundRandomized controlled trials (RCTs) which are of poor quality tend to exaggerate the effect estimate and lead to wrong or misleading conclusions. The aim of this study...Full Text Available
This plan describes the Quality Assurance Program which will be applied to spent fuel handling and packaging tests conducted at the Area 25 E-MAD facility, Nevada Test Site (NTS).
IntroductionHealth information on the Internet undergoes no quality control at the stage of production, thus its quality is highly variable, making it difficult...Full Text Available
AimsTo describe nurse burnout, job dissatisfaction, and quality of care in Japanese hospitals, and to determine how these outcomes are associated with work environment...Full Text Available
BackgroundAlthough considerable progress has been made in the treatment of chronic kidney disease, compromised quality of life continues to be a significant problem for patients...Full Text Available
...Agriculture Analysis of food supply chains and linkages in relation to quality and safety assurances Dept of Primary Industries, Australia Impact of food chain quality assurance requirements on farmer adoption and competitiveness UK Research Councils Review of environmental certification through farm assurance followed by industry developmental workshop Agriculture & ...
OBJECTIVE. This study was conducted to determine whether an index for measuring quality of care for psychiatric emergencies is reliable and valid. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING. The study used primary...Full Text Available
In the RIR (Risk-informed Regulation), PSA (Probabilistic Safety Assessment) plays a major role because it provides overall risk insights for the regulatory body and utility. Therefore, the scope, the level of details and the technical adequacy of PSA, i.e. the quality of PSA is to be ensured for the successful RIR. To improve the quality of Korean PSA, we evaluate the quality of the KSNP (Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plant) internal full-power PSA model based on the 'ASME PRA Standard' and the 'NEI PRA Peer Review Process Guidance.' As a working group, PSA experts of the regulatory body and industry also participated in the evaluation process. It is finally judged that the overall quality of the KSNP PSA is between the ASME Standard Capability Category I and II. We also derive some items to be improved for upgrading the quality of the PSA up to ...
BackgroundHealth related quality of life (HRQoL) is one of the most important outcomes to measure effectiveness of an intervention, especially for islet transplantation...Full Text Available
PURPOSE This study was designed to evaluate the impact of electronic medical record (EMR) implementation on quality of diabetes care.METHODS We conducted a 5-year longitudinal...Full Text Available
BackgroundMigrants everywhere face several demands for health and maintaining good health and quality of life could be challenging. Iraqis are the second largest refugee group that...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe aim of the study was to develop a menopause-specific, preference-based health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) index reflecting both menopausal symptoms and potential...Full Text Available
AIMS:This study aimed to determine the effect of 50 days of forced swimming stress on fertilization capacity of rat and subsequent offspring quality.SETTING...Full Text Available
Are economic resources related to relationship quality among young couples, and to what extent does this vary by relationship type? To answer these questions, we estimated regression models...Full Text Available
A numerical technique is developed for estimating water quality violation frequencies due to pollutant discharges from urban areas during combined sewer overflow events. The first four moments of in-stream pollutant concentration are found by integrating a pollutant loading - wat...
OBJECTIVES: To assess the subjective quality of life (QOL) of family caregivers of Sudanese type-1 and type-2 diabetic outpatients, using the WHO 26-item QOL instrument, compared with a general population...Full Text Available
Total quality management strategy and the worldwide introduction of the DIN/ISO 9000 (EN 29 000) series of standards have given new impetus to traditional quality assurance. The most important change must surely be seen in the holistic approach of total quality management and its strict orientation towards customer requirements and satisfaction. International codes and standards for the nuclear industry will also have to be brought into line as part of the process of harmonizing quality assurance system standards. One possible approach is simply to specify a supplementary 'delta' of nuclear-specific requirements to be appended to the broad range of conventional requirements. It is a particular feature of quality-assured procedures in Germany that product and/or component related quality requirements and quality verifications are defined in ...
Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of a program of repeated assessments, feedback, and training on the quality of coded clinical data in general practice.Design:...Full Text Available
Introduction:Although radical prostatectomy (RP) is an effective treatment for prostate cancer, it has potentially deleterious effects on health-related quality of life (HRQoL)....Full Text Available
BackgroundEvidence on human semen quality as it relates to exposure to various metals, both essential (e.g., zinc, copper) and nonessential (e.g., cadmium, lead), is inconsistent....Full Text Available
BackgroundThe effects of intervention programs on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with hip fracture have not been well studied. We hypothesized that older patients...Full Text Available
BackgroundParents of chronically ill children are at risk for a lower Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL). Insight in the dynamics of factors influencing parental HRQoL is necessary...Full Text Available
IAQ Tools for Schools Program Leaders in Improving Indoor Air Quality in Schools Baldwin Union Free School District, Baldwin, NY El Paso Independent School District, El Paso,...
Olive tree (Olea european L.) cultivation, the major tree crops in Mediterranean countries is being extended to irrigated lands. However, the limited water availability, the severe climatic conditions and the increased need for good water quality for urban and industrial sector uses are leading to the urgent use of less water qualities (brackish water and recycled wastewater) for olive tree irrigation. The aim of this work was to asses the effects of long term irrigation with treated waste water (TWW) on the soil chemical properties, on olive tree growth and on oil quality characteristics. (Author)
Scattered radiation generated in patient and imaging system has to be considered when quality-assurance tests involve dose detection or image-quality estimations. Measurement of automatic-exposure control dose can be altered by backscattering from intensifying screens of more than 10% and the equipment transmission factor can be overestimated up to a factor of 10 when only primary radiation is used. The sensitivity of intensifying screens depends on the angle of incidence of the radiation and so primary and scattered radiation are detected differently. The quality-control aspects of anti-scatter grids are discussed. (author).
Scattered radiation generated in patient and imaging system has to be considered when quality-assurance tests involve dose detection or image-quality estimations. Measurement of automatic-exposure control dose can be altered by backscattering from intensifying screens of more than 10% and the equipment transmission factor can be overestimated up to a factor of 10 when only primary radiation is used. The sensitivity of intensifying screens depends on the angle of incidence of the radiation and so primary and scattered radiation are detected differently. The quality-control aspects of anti-scatter grids are discussed. (author).
This document presents the basic Quality Assurance (QA) requirements which shall be included in the Quality Assurance Program established by sites planning to certify Transuranic (TRU) Waste to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Waste Acceptance Criteria. These QA requirements were modeled after ANSI/ASME NQA-1-1979. The application of quality assurance to Waste Certification Programs is required by WIPP-DOE-069 and DOE Order 5700.6A, as implemented by DOE Order AL 5700.6A.
A large number of fiber optic cables were used in support of a neutron imaging experiment at the Nevada Test Site. This paper describes the quality control testing of fiber components used on this experiment. The principal reason for quality control testing was to ensure reliable, high transmission fibers; a secondary reason was to gain data on a large sample of fiber cables in the field. Also described is the instrumentation developed for carrying out these field measurements. The design of the quality control instrumentation was a compromise between accuracy and simplicity of use.
The report is the second of three describing the geology of coal quality variations in the foothills and mountains region of Alberta. The Lower Cretaceous Luscar Group, Lower Paleocene Coalspur Formation, and the Upper Paleocene Paskapoo Formation (Obed-Marsh coal zone, which is classified as a foothills deposit) are evaluated. Data on proximate and ultimate analysis variables, calorific analysis, vitrinite reflectance, maceral analyses, and coal quality relationships are presented. The coals range from low volatile bituminous to subbituminous A. Regional and local in seam coal quality variations are examined. 49 refs., 39 figs., 6 tabs.
This document summarizes the degree to which State water quality standards include wetlands in their definitions of State waters. The detailed review of other elements of standards, such as uses, criteria and antidegradation, is beyond the scope of this review. The purpose of this review is to provide a baseline of information for the development of EPA guidance and policies related to water quality standards for wetlands.
... The colored background is an isopleth map showing change in sulfate concentrations as measured by the CASTNET rural air quality monitoring network , leading to significant improvements in air quality and human health. Wet sulfate deposition decreased 43 percent in the Northeast and 44 percent in the ...
Room air quality and thus thermal comfort for the occupiers in closed spaces depend on several factors: temperature and humidity of the air, temperature of the surrounding surfaces, content of foreign matter of the air, acoustical perceptions, electric fields and ions as well as colours and light. Air humidification, cleaning and ionization largely contributes to improved room air quality. The article goes into problems of too dry and polluted air as well as into measures with which these problems can be solved. (BWI).
With regard to the operation of nuclear power plants, Electricite de France formally recognized in 1973 that it was necessary for safety reasons and economically acceptable to adopt organizational principles of quality assurance that would be applicable both to its own activities and to those of its suppliers. Generally speaking, the form and spirit of the quality assurance programme chosen is based largely on the Code of Practice No. 50-C-QA. In particular, the programme focuses on the flexible character of quality assurance requirements and stresses that in the final analysis product quality depends above all on those to whom the project has been assigned, because it is they who are responsible for meeting the quality objectives set. Ten years of experience with the suppliers of Electricite de France has shown that these suppliers, after some initial difficulty, have been able to ...
The document reports the main issues discussed during the first course-debate on quality controls in radiotherapy, held in Rome in December 3-4, 1998 and May 3-5 1999 in collaboration between the Istituto Superiore di Sanita' and the Istituto Regina Elena. The points considered critical to the quality assurance in radiotherapy by the participants are presented in relation to the total radiotherapy procedure.
In this article, the authors recall the factors apt to influence image quality in NMR Imaging and present the european works that have been developed in MRIQA to set 5 quality assurance tests: EUROSPIN 1 to 5.
Apppendix B of 10 CFR Part 50 establishes quality assurance requirements for the operation of nuclear power plant safety-related structures, systems and components. This Guide describes an acceptable method for complying with these regulations with regard to overall quality assurance program requirements for the operation phase of nuclear power plants. Input to this Guide has been provided by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
Appendix B to 10 CFR Part 50 establishes overall quality assurance requirements for the design, construction and operation of safety-related structures, systems, and components. This guide presents a method acceptable to the Commission for complying with these regulations with regard to overall quality assurance program requirements during design and construction of nuclear power plants. Input to this guide has been provided by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
This paper discusses the clean-up of an Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) site utilized for disposal of transuranic contaminated waste from 1954 until 1970. The author presents requirements of the environmental protection statutes that have generated quality assurance requirements in addition to those historically implemented as a part of facility design, construction and operation. A hierarchy of program guidance quality documentation and procedures is discussed. Data qualification and computer database management are identified as requirements.
The Sodium Storage Facility Project Quality Assurance Plan delineates the quality assurance requirements for construction of a new facility, modifications to the sodium storage tanks, and tie-ins to the FFTF Plant. This plan provides direction for the types of verifications necessary to satisfy the functional requirements within the project scope and applicable regulatory requirements determined in the Project Functional Design Criteria (FDC), WHC-SD-FF-FDC-009.
...and supply ensuring better food quality for the consumer developing safer and more flexible food production processes and technologies raw materials for food production; production and processing systems; by-products and wastes from fisheries and agro-industry; new food sources; packaging systems; quality monitoring; traceability Food contamination detecting and eliminating infectious and toxic agents throughout the food chain establishing the hazards and origins of food contaminants producing food more safely rapid ...
Three HQE (High Quality of the Environment) realizations are presented to illustrate the environmental quality in the architecture, and to see how the natural gas answers the demands of the HQE. (A.L.B.)
This document describes the 2003 SNL ASCI Software Quality Engineering (SQE) assessment of twenty ASCI application code teams and the results of that assessment. The purpose of this assessment was to determine code team compliance with the Sandia National Laboratories ASCI Applications Software Quality Engineering Practices, Version 2.0 as part of an overall program assessment.
Three classes of solar emanations, namely, photon radiation from solar flares, solar energetic particles, and inhomogeneities in the solar wind that drive magnetic storms, are examined, and their effects on humans and technological systems are discussed. Solar flares may disrupt radio communications in the HF and VLF ranges. Energetic particles pose a special hazard at low-earth orbit and above, where they can penetrate barriers such as spacesuits and aluminum and destroy cells and solid state electronics. Energetic solar particles also influence terrestrial radio waves propagating through polar regions. Magnetic storms may disturb the operation of navigation instruments, power lines and pipelines, and satellites; they give rise to ionospheric storms which affect radio communication at all latitudes. There is also a growing body of evidence that changes in the geomagnetic field affect biological systems. 3 refs.
Riparian agricultural environments in eastern Australia are widely used for cattle grazing, but are also preferred habitat for native, soil-disturbing mammals such as the bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus). We examined the effects of mound construction by wombats, and track development by cattle and wombats, on soil displacement in a riparian landscape at high and low levels of cattle usage. Splash erosion was measured on mounds and inter-mounds with splashboards, and changes in the profiles of cattle-wombat tracks were assessed using a profilemeter. Twice as much soil was detached by splash erosion from mounds than inter-mounds, irrespective of cattle usage, and about three-times more coarse sand and 40% more fine sand was detached from mounds and inter-mounds at the high cattle sites. ...
The effect of W and V on the high temperature strength properties of 12%Cr-15%Mn austenitic steels was studied from the view point of precipitation hardening and internal stress. The contribution of W addition to the tensile and creep-rupture strength was not so large. By contrast the combined addition of W and V increased the strength considerably. These are resulted from the precipitation of fine vanadium nitride (VN) within grains and the enhancement of M_2_3C_6 type carbide precipitation at grain boundaries. The V added material had large internal stress value which is considered to be due to dislocation movement disturbed by fine vanadium nitrides. (author).
We report on the discovery of kinematic shock signatures associated with a localized radio jet interaction in the merging Seyfert galaxy NGC 5929. We explore the velocity-dependent ionization structure of the gas and find that low-ionization gas at the interaction site is significantly more disturbed than high-ionization gas, which we attribute to a local enhancement of shock ionization due to the influence of the jet. The characteristic width of the broad low-ionization emission is consistent with shock velocities predicted from the ionization conditions of the gas. We interpret the relative prominence of shocks to the high density of gas in the nuclear environment of the galaxy and place some constraints of their importance as feedback mechanisms in Seyferts.
In patients subjected to bone marrow transplantation the aggressive measures necessarily preceding this treatment lead to drastic metabolic changes which, in turn, are a cause of marked disturbances of homeostasis. The general preparatory measures in the form of cytoreduction by cytostatic drugs are broadened for leukaemic patients to include wholebody irradiation. During the study described here investigations were carried out into the resulting strain on the metabolism. One of the most essential changes observed in those patients was a nitrogen loss of up to approx. 20 g/day that occurred during the immunosuppressive phase. This was accompanied by markedly pronounced variations in fluid elimination, which partly were of an iatrogenic nature. An immediate and sufficient substitution of amino acids in connection with complete parenteral nutrition rapidly acted to compensate for the nitrogen losses, even though these could not be totally reversed to achieve a ...
For shut-down safety of the turbine generator (securing of auxiliary power operation after load shut-down and preventing the reaching of overspeed after load shut-down with disturbed turbine governing system) additional measures compared to those for superheated steam turbines are required for turbine generators in plants with pressurized water reactor (PWR) as well as those with boiling water reactor (BWR) . Equipment is described (e.g. overspeed govern or selecting connection, vacuum breaker, bypass valves, intercepting valves) which, depending on the own conditions of the individual turbine generator (e.g. run-up time, vacuum, enclosed energy), may be applied alone or in jointly. (orig.).
The contents include: Detailed index for 1991; Data for November 1991--Solar-terrestrial environment, IUWDS alert periods (advance and worldwide), Solar activity indices, Solar flares, Solar radio emission, Stanford mean solar magnetic field; Data for October 1991--Solar active regions, Sudden ionospheric disturbances, Solar radio spectral observations, Cosmic ray measurements by neutron monitor, Geomagnetic indices; Late data--Cosmic ray measurements by neutron monitor (Climax February and May 1990, Deep River May-August 1991), Geomagnetic indices (Sudden commencements/Solar flare effects January-May 1991); Errata--August 1991 Geomagnetic activity indices.
Contents include: index for 1970-1980; January 1981 data -- alert periods, daily solar indices, solar flares, solar radio emission, coronal holes, inferred interplanetary magnetic field polarities, mean solar magnetic field, spacecraft observations, December 1980 data -- daily solar-activity centers, sudden ionospheric disturbances, spacecraft observations, solar radio emission, cosmic rays, geomagnetic indices, radio-propagation indices; late data -- solar radio emission November, December 1980, spacecraft observations November 1980, cosmic rays, Huancayo Oct 1980 -- climax, alert, Deep River Nov 1980.
This paper describes the simulation of the operating environment of the New York Power Pool (NYPP) within the Dispatcher Training Simulator facility at the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation (NYSEG). The NYSEG control center uses real-time data received from the NYPP control center to control its internal generation. In addition, the NYSEG dispatchers work very closely with the NYPP dispatchers. The exact emulation of the Generation Control functions of the NYPP EMS, and the associated data exchange with the NYSEG ECS, contribute greatly to the high degree of realism achieved in the NYSEG DTS facility. The accuracy of the power system simulation in the DTS has been validated against actual power system disturbances recorded at NYSEG.
Dinarmus basalis Rondani (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae), an ectoparasitoid of bruchid pests of stored cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), is a potential biological control agent. We investigated whether grain protectants from Hyptis spicigera and H. suaveolens (Lamiaceae) disturb parasitism and post-embryonic growth of the parasitoid. When cowpeas containing bruchid larvae were treated before being placed in the presence of D. basalis females, the rate of parasitism decreased on average up to 24% and 47% in the presence of, respectively, leaf dry powder and essential oils from both plant species. The estimated larval mortality was higher on treated (9.55 to 28.6%) than on non-treated parasitized hosts (2.8%), depending on the plant species and the plant extract tested. Additional larval mortality wa...
We discuss the foundations of factor or regression models in the light of the self-consistency condition that the market portfolio (and more generally the risk factors) is (are) constituted of the assets whose returns it is (they are) supposed to explain. As already reported in several articles, self-consistency implies correlations between the return disturbances. As a consequence, the alpha's and beta's of the factor model are unobservable. Self-consistency leads to renormalized beta's with zero effective alpha's, which are observable with standard OLS regressions. Analytical derivations and numerical simulations show that, for arbitrary choices of the proxy which are different from the true market portfolio, a modified linear regression holds with a non-zero value $\\alpha_i$ at the origin between an asset $i$'s return and the proxy's return. Self-consistency also introduces ``orthogonality'' and ``normality'' conditions linking the beta's, alpha's (as well as ...
Reference failures, and their increase in affectively negative conditions (known as affective reactivity of speech), are more frequently observed in schizophrenia patients than in normal controls, but no information is available comparing schizophrenia with depression, ie, a mental disorder closely linked to the concept of affective reactivity. To address this gap in the literature, the present study compared 24 schizophrenia inpatients, 21 unipolar depression inpatients and 21 normal controls. Two 10-minute conversational speech samples (1 on negative and 1 on positive memories) were collected from each patient. The transcripts of the audiotaped interviews were analyzed blindly for frequencies of 6 types of referential failures, employing the Communication Disturbances Index, adapted for ...
Recovery of soil organic matter, organic matter turnover and mineral nutrient cycling is critical to the success of rehabilitation schemes following major ecosystem disturbance. We investigated successional changes in soil nutrient contents, microbial biomass and activity, C utilisation efficiency and N cycling dynamics in a chronosequence of seven ages (between 0 and 26 years old) of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest rehabilitation that had been previously mined for bauxite. Recovery was assessed by comparison of rehabilitation soils to non-mined jarrah forest references sites. Mining operations resulted in significant losses of soil total C and N, microbial biomass C and microbial quotients. Organic matter quantity recovered within the rehabilitation chronosequence soils to a level co...
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 controller damps the low frequency ...
The wind turbines with a flanged-diffuser shroud-so called ?wind lens turbine??-are developed as one of high performance wind turbines by Ohya et al. In order to investigate the flow characteristics and flow acceleration, the paper presents the flow velocity measurements of a long-type and a compact-type wind turbines with a flanged-diffuser shroud by particle image velocimetry. In the case of the long type wind turbine, the velocity vectors of the inner flow field of the diffuser for turbine blades rotating and no blades rotating are presented at Reynolds number, 0.9?105. Furthermore the flow fields between with and without rotating are compared. Through the PIV measurement results, one can realize that the turbine blades rotating affects as suppress the disturbance and the flow separatio...
The problem in perturbation theory in general relativity is finding a natural gauge which simplifies the equations considerably. We solved the first and second order perturbation equations in the ''Lorentz gauge'' using the two-timing method. The equations were deduced from the equations of Einstein in the presence of a matter energy-momentum tensor of a perfect fluid with equation of state p = (#gamma#-1) rho. It is found that the 0--0 component of the first order equations together with the gauge conditions are consistent with the Bianchi type V model, without axial symmetry. It represents a ''ground state'' situation of the Bianchi type IX model (Mixmaster model.) The second order equations, describing the reaction back of the gravitational waves on the slowly varying background, give rise to rotation and will disturb the isotropization mechanism. The numerical solutions show all the features which are expected to appear. Moreover, it is found that the frequency ...
An evolutionary model of dynamical processes in protostellar disks is described and illustrated with graphs of typical results. The effective transport mechanisms are discussed, including thermal convection, nonaxisymmetric gravitational instabilities in the outer regions of disks, and wave propagation. Consideration is then given to the stages of dynamical evolution, FU Ori outburst phenomena, unsteady accretion-disk flows, and nonlinear feedback as a mechanism to modulate mass transfer. The simulations show that mass redistribution is determined by angular-momentum transfer, which in turn is regulated by the effective viscosity generated by convectively driven turbulence. Significant mass transfer occurs as a result of mixing of infalling material with disk gas and is affected by the tidal torque associated with the growth of nonaxisymmetric disturbances in the outer disk. The time scale for disk evolution is found to be about 1 Myr. 72 refs.
Plants are capable of taking up nitrogen (N) in both organic and inorganic forms, so the concentrations and relative proportions of different N forms in soils are likely to be important determinants of their N nutrition. Therefore, there is a need for greater knowledge of the N profiles of soils. In the study presented here we examined the potential plant-available N in soils from four sites with various agricultural histories (one recently fertilized), using small tension lysimeters to collect free and bound amino acids and inorganic N forms in solution, with minimal soil disturbance and with intact plants present. Subsequent analysis showed that concentrations of free amino acids ranged from 0.1 to 12.7 ?M, whereas concentrations of bound amino acids were on average 50 times higher, and ...
Objectives(1) Evaluate various insitu techniques for determination of the permeability of slurry walls and investigate the extent of material disturbance and fracturing during drilling and testing.~%~~%~(2) Perform laboratory tests of block samples obtained from the field testing site and compare the results with field measurements.~%~~%~(3) Investigate the mechanisms of drilling using a newly developed instrumented self-boring device and develop a theoretical framework for drilling mechanisms in soils.~% [continued...]DescriptionCement-bentonite and clay liner systems are used as components of containment systems by the environmental industry to control the migration of pollution. In the interest of public safety, following construction, there is a requirement to test these structures in orde to assess if they meet the design critetia. At present this is done only indirectly via laboratory testing on samples obtained from the ...
This report is a scoping study to examine research opportunities to improve the accuracy of the system dynamic load and generator models, data and performance assessment tools used by CAISO operations engineers and planning engineers, as well as those used by their counterparts at the California utilities, to establish safe operating margins. Model-based simulations are commonly used to assess the impact of credible contingencies in order to determine system operating limits (path ratings, etc.) to ensure compliance with NERC and WECC reliability requirements. Improved models and a better understanding of the impact of uncertainties in these models will increase the reliability of grid operations by allowing operators to more accurately study system voltage problems and the dynamic stability response of the system to disturbances.
Contamination and blockages of the cooling tubes in the turbine condenser disturb the heat transfer, thereby causing power losses at the turbine and increasing the fuel demand. Corrosions cause tubing leakages which require operating downtimes and reduce the lifetime of the pipes. Tube cleaning systems and backflushing cooling water filters eliminate these problems. Nevertheless it can come to coatings in the condenser tubes, if the tube cleaning equipment does not operate optimally or if coarse dirt is entered. Under this aspect, the author of the contribution under consideration reports on these problems on the basis of practical examples. The author gives references to the optimized operation of the tube cleaning system and the cooling water filtration.
Water stress and fire disturbance can directly impact stand structure, biomass and composition by causing mortality and influencing competitive interactions among trees. However, open eucalypt forests of southwest Australia are highly resilient to fire and drought and may respond differently to increased fire frequency and aridity than forests dominated by non-eucalypt species. We measured the variation in stem density, basal area, stand biomass, sapwood area, leaf area and litterfall across 16 mixed jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) and marri (Corymbia calophylla) forest stands along an aridity gradient in southwest Australia that had variable fire histories. Fire frequency was defined as the total number of fires over a ~30-year period and aridity as the ratio of potential evapotranspiration...
Mowing a meadow is an example of an equalizing process that reduces differences among species by removing aboveground biomass approximately 5?cm above ground. This regular disturbance that affects all plants prevents competitive exclusion of small species and thus allows coexistence of numerous species differing in shoot size. In this paper we search for the mechanism behind this by comparing the shoot biomass of 41 common species in dry and wet species-rich meadows in mown and recently abandoned plots in June (before mowing) and in October. We asked the following questions: i) Do the plants differ in proportion of biomass lost by mowing? ii) Are the mown plants able to compensate for biomass lost by mowing? iii) Is the compensatory ability of mown plants related to their size? iv) Is the ...
The Gravity Probe-B (GP-B) spacecraft, designed to test predictions of general relativity, will fly in the mid 1990s. It will carry four electrostatically suspended gyroscopes in a cryogenic environment and will have a drag-free control system to minimize disturbances on the gyroscopes. The Stanford Test of Equivalence Principle (STEP) spacecraft, to fly later, will carry a set of test masses under very similar conditions. The possibility of using differential measurements of the GP-B gyroscopes suspension forces and the STEP tests mass displacement readout to form single-axis gravity gradiometers is explored. It is shown that the noise in the suspension systems is sufficiently small in the relevant frequency range, and that enough information is collected to compensate for the spacecrafts' attitude motion. Finally, using Breakwell's flat-earth approximation, these experiments are compared to other geodesy experiments and predict the contribution ...
Runit Island on Enewetak Atoll was very heavily impacted by the U.S. nuclear testing campaign in the northern Marshall Islands (1946?58). The primary source of contamination on Runit Island was the 1958 Quince safety test where a large quantity of device plutonium (Pu) was scattered over the area near the GZ. A second low-yield device was detonated on the same site 10?days later, further disturbing the soil and leaving behind a very heterogeneous pattern of contamination including milligram-size particles of plutonium. A limited cleanup of the Fig-Quince zone was carried out in 1979. During this period, the effectiveness of the cleanup operations was primarily evaluated on the basis of bulk soil concentration data with little consideration given to the heterogeneity and long-term material-...
Purpose: To eliminate the water level deviation due to the recycling flowrate, as well as enable a stable control to a reference value even upon changes in the recycling flowrate caused by the variation in the opening degree of a minimum flow valve. Constitution: Reactor recycling system comprises a feedwater pump, a flowrate control valve, a reactor water level detector, and a minimum flow line and a minimum flow valve for preventing the overheating of the feedwater pump at a low flowrate. A flowrate compensator is further disposed, in which a recycling flowrate signal is subtracted from a pump flow rate signal and the result is fedback as a compensated pump flowrate signal. This enables the control system to operate at a rapid response for suppressing the effect of the recycling flowrate as external disturbance, whereby the water level in the reactor can be controlled stably to the reference level and the possibility deviating from an allowable range is decreased ...
This paper presents a new method and newly developed stabilizing equipment to prevent the loss of synchronism of generators in pumped-storage plants from spreading. The proposed method includes functions to estimate the swing of each generator by using on-line generator output sampled at a rate of 600 times per second after an occurrence of disturbance such as fault, faulty equipment and so on, to predict generator swing 200-300 milliseconds ahead and loss of synchronism between generators in pumped-storage plants and those in thermal and nuclear plants, and to decide the number of generators that must be shed to maintain stability. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) installed the newly developed stabilizing equipment based on this method in the power system in June, 1986.
This paper presents a new method and newly developed stabilizing equipment to prevent the loss of synchronism of generators in pumped-storage plants from spreading. The proposed method includes functions to estimate the swing of each generator by using on-line generator output sampled at a rate of 600 times per second after an occurrence of disturbance such as fault, faulty equipment and so on, to predict generator swing 200-300 milliseconds ahead and loss of synchronism between generators in pumped-storage plants and those in thermal and nuclear plants, and to decide the number of generators that must be shed to maintain stability. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) installed the newly developed stabilizing equipment based on this method in the power system in June, 1986.
The archaeological excavation of a rock shelter (Abrigo del Pozo) in one of the slopes of the Segura River (SE Spain) has revealed a exceptionally preserved sedimentary record spanning from the Paleolithic to the present-day, which includes an anomalous layer of stones (RFB) fallen from the roof. The sedimentary analysis of the stratigraphic sequence exhumed by the excavation indicates that human occupation of the rock shelter was controlled by fluvial environmental evolution. However, the RFB level resulted in a disturbance of human occupation and normal fluvial sedimentation. From the sedimentary and archaeological pieces of evidence, the RFB level has been interpreted as related to a palaeoearthquake responsible for the collapse of the roof and walls of the rock shelter. The palaeoearth...
An integrated tabu-fuzzy knowledge based controller applied to enhance the performance of power system stabilizer (PSS) is presented in this paper. The fuzzy knowledge based controller (FKBC) has been developed to perform the function of a PSS and to provide a supplementary signal to the excitation system of the synchronous generator. The method used for storing and representing the fuzzy rules is called the fuzzy associative memory (FAM) matrix. The well-defined FAM determines the performance of the FKBC and hence the tabu search algorithm is proposed and applied to determine the construction and optimization of the FAM. The controller has been tested in the case of single machine infinite bus and multi-machine systems for various types of disturbance. To show the effectiveness of the proposed controller, the comparison with the conventional PSS is presented. (author)
Knowledge on environmental variability and how it is affected by disturbances is crucial for understanding patterns of biodiversity and determining adequate conservation strategies. The aim of this study is to assess environmental variability in patches undergoing post-fire vegetation recovery, identifying trends of change and their relevant drivers. We particularly evaluate: the value of three spectral indices derived from Landsat satellite data [Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Wetness Component of the Tasseled Cap Transformation (TCW)] for describing secondary succession; the effectiveness of three metrics (diversity, evenness and richness) as indicators of patch variability; and how thematic resolution can affect the perception of environme...
The fuel cell control problem was studied. Attempts were made to control the output current of the fuel cell by starving it of hydrogen and oxygen. The motivation of this work was to increase efficiency by minimizing waste of fuel. The following findings were obtained: H2 starvation works better than O2 starvation; An optimal H2 to O2 ratio exists for combined H2&O2 starvation; The control scheme for H2&O2 starvation works well for 3 different disturbance tests and at 25 degrees C, 60 degrees C, and 80 degrees C; Fuel cell under reactant starvation is stable for at least 72 hrs.
Examining the relationship between biodiversity and functional stability (resistance and resilience) of activated sludge bacterial communities following disturbance is an important first step towards developing strategies for the design of robust biological wastewater treatment systems. This study investigates the relationship between functional resistance and biodiversity of dominant bacterial taxa by subjecting activated sludge samples, with different levels of biodiversity, to toxic shock loading with cupric sulfate (Cu[II]), 3,5-dichlorophenol (3,5-DCP), or 4-nitrophenol (4-NP). Respirometric batch experiments were performed to determine the functional resistance of activated sludge bacterial community to the three toxicants. Functional resistance was estimated as the 30?min IC50 or th...
The development of new electro-optical instrumentation for studying the annular dispersed two-phase flow regime is described. The system measures the thickness of the water film and droplet size and velocity distributions which would be encountered in such a flow regime. The water film thickness is measured by an improved capacitance method with a short time constant using newly developed sensor electrodes. The electrodes are made flush with the inner wall of a cylindrical tube and do not disturb the flow. In the test equipment, steady, laminar flow of water along the inner wall of the tube is controlled by appropriate valves and a porous jacket while droplets are introduced by means of a special spray nozzle.
This paper presents the development of technical requirements for the design of aircraft-mounted sampling equipment for the airborne radioactivity monitoring. A design concept and internal equipments required for the sampling system will be described in detail to provide information for the development of technical requirements for aircraft-mounted sampling equipment. This will be followed by description of the exterior designing process. Difficulties of designing exterior of the sampling system lie in the fluid dynamics performance of the system. The objective of the design is to maximize the suction flow necessary for achieving high efficiency of radionuclide sampling, while minimizing disturbance to the aircraft which carries the system. The design optimization was performed with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FLUENT. The design options considered here were (1) diameter to head ratio of top and back head, (2) nozzle length and (3) nozzle diameter of ...
Perfect single-crystal neutron interferometers are adversely sensitive to environmental disturbances, particularly mechanical vibrations. The sensitivity to vibrations results from the slow velocity of thermal neutrons and the long measurement time that are encountered in a typical experiment. Consequently, to achieve a good interference solutions for reducing vibration other than those normally used in optical experiments must be explored. Here we introduce a geometry for a neutron interferometer that is less sensitive to low-frequency vibrations. This design may be compared with both dynamical decoupling methods and decoherence-free subspaces that are described in quantum information processing. By removing the need for bulky vibration isolation setups, this design will make it easier to adopt neutron interferometry to a wide range of applications and increase its sensitivity.
Pro-inflammatory cytokines may directly influence the viability and metabolic function of colonic epithelial cells (CEC) as an early event in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. We report here that TNF-alpha+IFN-gamma induced a synergistic, concentration-dependent decline in butyrate oxidation, an essential energy supply, in HT-29 and DLD-1 cells. TNF-alpha+IFN-gamma induced a parallel profound decline in cell viability in HT-29 cells, but not in DLD-1 cells, where impairment of butyrate oxidation seemed to precede later occurrence of cell damage. TNF-alpha+INF-gamma induced CEC damage was independent on NO formation and involved the IFN-gamma signalling pathway as well as induction of apoptosis. If cytokines have similar effects in vivo, these may lead to energy deficiency and thus contribute to CEC damage and disturbance of the epithelial integrity.
SummaryBackground Persistent Lyme Disease Symptoms (PLDS) have included fatigue, headaches, poor concentration and memory, lightheadedness, joint pain, and mood disturbances. Evidence-based guidelines committees disagree over the severity of PLDS. The 2004 International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) concluded that PLDS are severe. The 2006 Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) guidelines committee concluded that PLDS are nothing more than the "aches and pains of daily living" and an ad hoc International Lyme group concluded that PLDS are "symptoms common in persons who have never had Lyme disease." Hypothesis Clinical trials validate the severity of persistent Lyme disease symptoms. Evaluation of the Hypothesis There are 22 standardized instruments used to measure the...
Linear and nonlinear state feedback controllers are proposed to control the bifurcation of a phenomenon in power system, this phenomenon of electro-mechanical interaction between the series resonant circuits and torsional mechanical frequencies of the turbine-generator sections, which known as subsynchronous resonance (SSR). The first system of the IEEE second benchmark model is considered. The dynamics of the two axes damper windings, automatic voltage regulator and power system stabilizer are included. The linear controller gives better initial disturbance response than that of the nonlinear, but in a small narrow region of compensation factors. The nonlinear controller not only can be easily implemented, but also it stabilizes the operating point for all values of the bifurcation parameter.
A multivariate bioprocess control approach, capable of tracking a pre-set process trajectory correlated to the biomass or product concentration in the bioprocess is described. The trajectory was either a latent variable derived from multivariate statistical process monitoring (MSPC) based on partial least squares (PLS) modeling, or the absolute value of the process variable. In the control algorithm the substrate feed pump rate was calculated from on-line analyzer data. The only parameters needed were the substrate feed concentration and the substrate yield of the growth-limiting substrate. On-line near-infrared spectroscopy data were used to demonstrate the performance of the control algorithm on an Escherichia coli fed-batch cultivation for tryptophan production. The controller showed good ability to track a defined biomass trajectory during varying process dynamics. The robustness of the control was high, despite significant external disturbances on the ...
Circadian rhythms affect several processes in the body physiology. This commentary revisits the topic of `metabolic basis of diseases' with a view to shed light on how cellular energy requirements feed-forward to a sequential signaling of hormonal response, blood glucose metabolism, antioxidant activities, and pathophysiology. Attempt is made to explain how diseases that may not appear to be closely related, such as bone metabolism and vasculopathy, have an increase in oxidative damage as a common underlying biochemistry. Importantly, this article identifies oxidative damage as an outcome of sleep disturbance and hypothesize that sleep complaint is not merely one of many resulting symptoms of PTSD, but a core feature that arise from trauma and gives rise to the stress biochemistry, which i...
An artificial neural network (ANN), trained as an inverse of the controlled plant, to function as a power system stabilizer (PSS) is presented in this paper. In order to make the proposed ANN PSS work properly, it was trained over the full working range of the generating unit with a large variety of disturbances. Data used to train the ANN PSS consists of the control input and the synchronous machine response with an adaptive PSS (APSS) controlling the generator. During training, the ANN was required to memorize the reverse input/output mapping of the synchronous machine. After the training, the output of the synchronous machine was applied as the input of the ANN PSS and the output of the ANN PSS was used as the control signal. Simulation results show that the proposed ANN PSS can provide good damping of the power system over a wide operating range and significantly improve the system performance.
Mentougou District acts as a crucial component in the ecological buffer in western Beijing mountainous areas, Beijing, China. Using two Landsat MSS/TM images acquired on July 14, 1979 and July 23, 2005, the vegetation coverage of Mentougou District was calculated based on normalized difference vegetation index and spectral mixture analysis (NDVI-SMA) model. Its temporal and spatial changes were analyzed according to digital elevation model (DEM) image, social and economic data. The results showed that the vegetation coverage decreased from 76.4% in 1979 to 72.7% in 2005. Vegetation degradation was probably the result of human disturbance, such as outspreading of resident areas, and coal and stone mining activities, while vegetation restoration might be contributed by the combined effects o...
A robust adaptive Power System Stabilizer algorithm using a Generalized Multivariable Pole Shifting (GMPS) technique is presented in this paper. The algorithm handles systems with equal or unequal numbers of inputs and outputs, therefore both shaft speed as well as the generator power are used to derive the stabilizing control. The technique also provides a simple scheme of on-line self-searching pole shifting factor to meet the excitation control limits. The application of the proposed stabilizer to a simulated generator excitation control under a wide range of operating and disturbance conditions demonstrates that the new control strategy is superior to conventional Power System Stabilizer (PSS) and the widely accepted Minimum Variance Self-Tuning Controller (MVSTC).
Amphiphysin is a protein concentrated in neuronal synapses and peripherally associated with neurotransmitter vesicles. It is expressed in many neurons of the central and peripheral nervous systems, in the adrenal medulla, in the anterior and posterior pituitary, in cell lines of the endocrine pancreas, and in spermatocytes. Its subcellular localization and tissue distribution indicate a potential involvement in mechanisms of regulated exocytosis. A role in the dynamic organization of the membrane-associated cytoskeleton is suggested by structural homology to the products of two yeast genes, RVS161 and RVS167, whose mutation results in an abnormal actin distribution, disturbs budding morphology, and impairs cell entry into stationary phase. Limited stretches of sequence similarity, including an SH3 domain, are also shared with other actin-binding proteins. Amphiphysin is the dominant autoantigen in paraneoplastic Stiff-Man syndrome, a neurological autoimmune ...
Abstract A control framework was developed for real time implementation of optimal control of emulsion polymerization with multiple monomers by integrating model based algorithms with software engines. The developed system was applied for controlling conversion, particle size, molar mass, and polymer composition using model predictive control (MPC) based on mechanistic models for emulsion polymerization. The control formulation was extended to account for existing process constraints on the input, input moves, and solids content. On experimental testing, the developed control scheme was found to achieve the desired objectives without violating the process constraints and showed good robustness in rejecting disturbances. Improvements in the process operation and polymer property control wer...
BACKGROUND: Glyphosate resistance has been confirmed in 58 populations of Lolium rigidum (Gaud.), a major weed of crops in southern Australia. Extensive use of glyphosate in conjunction with minimal soil disturbance has been identified as high risk for resistance to that herbicide. Land managers need a simple method for rapid assessment of the risk of resistance occurring as a result of past and proposed future management practices. Modelled on risk assessment nomographs, a simple calculator for indicating the risk of evolved glyphosate resistance in L. rigidum is described.RESULTS: The calculator uses the generations since first use and the frequency of use of glyphosate in combination with historical cultivation levels as critical factors for determining the risk of glyphosate resistance...
A technique for designing an adaptive power system stabilizer is presented which improves the dynamic stability of power systems by effectively increasing the damping torque of the synchronous generator in the system. The proposed adaptive stabilizer is optimal in the sense of minimizing a specified performance condition. A characteristic feature of using a Lyapunov techniques is that it leads to stable adaptation loops. The dynamic responses following a step disturbance by digital simulations are obtained by means of three types of stabilizers: the conventional power system stabilizer, a frequency-response-based optimal adaptive stabilizer and the proposed Lyapunov stabilizer. Simulation results on a typical single-machine/infinite-bus system illustrate the superiority of the proposed technique. (author).
Large optical surveys provide an unprecedented census of galaxies in the local Universe, forming an invaluable framework into which more detailed studies of objects can be placed. But how useful are optical surveys for understanding the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies, given their limited wavelength coverage, selection criteria, and depth? In this conference paper I present work-in-progress comparing optical and mid-IR diagnostics of three "unusual" low redshift populations (luminous Seyferts, dusty Balmer-strong AGN, ULIRGs) with a set of ordinary star-forming galaxies from the SDSS. I address the questions: How well do the mid-infrared and optical diagnostics of star formation and AGN strength agree? To what extent do optical surveys allow us to include extreme, dusty, morphologically disturbed galaxies in our "complete" census of black hole-galaxy co-evolution?
This paper presents a design of fuzzy power system stabilizer (FPSS) using adaptive evolutionary computation (AEC). We have proposed an adaptive evolutionary algorithm which uses a genetic algorithm (GA) and an evolution strategy (ES) in an adaptive manner in order to take merits of two different evolutionary computations. FPSS shows better control performances than conventional power system stabilizer (CPSS) in three-phase fault with heavy load which is used when tuning FPSS. To show there robustness of the proposed FPSS, it is applied to damp the low frequency oscillations caused by disturbances such as three-phase fault with normal and light load, the angle deviation of generator with normal and light load and the angle deviation of generator with heavy load. Proposed FPSS shows better robustness than CPSS. (author). 15 refs., 13 figs., 3 tabs.
Counter-current regeneration of 2-stage sodium zeolite softeners has been employed in reducing hardness leakage level of steamflooding water to less than 1 ppm when raw water contains as much as 5,000 ppm of the total dissolved solids. Hardness leakage is caused by sodium displacement of calcium and magnesium from the bottom of the exchanger bed. This study presents nomographs providing for rapid calculations to be made, for which a convenient operational mode does not already exist. The nomographs relate the hardness leakage as a function of salt quality and influent water quality and present solutions for predicting the leakage level, salt quality requirement or the treatability of raw water required for steamflooding projects.
Given the important role of parent-youth communication in adolescent well-being and quality of life, we sought to examine the relationship between specific communication variables and youth perceived quality of life in general and as a deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) individual. A convenience sample of 230 youth (mean age = 14.1, standard deviation = 2.2; 24% used sign only, 40% speech only, and 36% sign + speech) was surveyed on communication-related issues, generic and DHH-specific quality of life, and depression symptoms. Higher youth perception of their ability to understand parents' communication was significantly correlated with perceived quality of life as well as lower reported depressive symptoms and lower perceived stigma. Youth who use speech as their single mode of communication ...
The present Manual provides guidance and illustrative examples for applying a method by which graded quality assurance requirements may be determined and adapted to the items and services of a nuclear power plant in conformance with the requirements of the IAEA Nuclear Safety Standards (NUSS) Code and Safety Guides on quality assurance. The Manual replaces the previous publication IAEA-TECDOC-303 on the same subject. Various methods of grading quality assurance are available in a number of Member States. During the development of the present Manual it was not considered practical to attempt to resolve the differences between those methods and it was preferred to identify and benefit from the good practices available in all the methods. The method presented in this Manual deals with the aspects of management, documentation, control, verification and administration which affect quality. 1 fig., 4 tabs.
This paper reported on a study in which rapeseeds were separated into high quality seed for food oil and low quality seed for biofuels. A laboratory-scale oilseed screw press was then used to examine the effects of choke opening and seed preheating on the rapeseed pressing performance and the quality of food oil and biofuels oil. Oil recovery and chlorophyll content was found to increase as maximum pressure increased. In terms of pressing performance, the rapeseed heated by microwaves yielded more oil and chlorophyll than without heating. The NEB ratio of microwave heating press with an 8.0 mm choke opening was advantageous. Rapeseed oil extracted from low quality seeds was found to have a high acid value. The quality of oil extracted by oilseed screw press was found to be good and met the requirements of the Codex Alimentarius for edible oils.
Real-time neutron radiography (NTV) has been used for practical applications at the Kyoto University Reactor (KUR). At present, however, the direct image from the TV system is still poor in resolution and low in contrast. In this paper several image improvements are demonstrated, such as a frame summing technique, which are effective in increasing image quality in neutron radiography. Image integration before the A/D converter has a beneficial effect on image quality and the high quality image reveals details invisible in direct images, such as: small holes by a reversed image, defects in a neutron converter screen through a high quality image, a moving object in a contoured image, a slight difference between two low-contrast images by a subtraction technique, and so on. For the real-time application a contouring operation and an averaging approach can also be utilized effectively.
Real-time neutron radiography (NTV) has been used for practical applications at the Kyoto University Reactor (KUR). At present, however, the direct image from the TV system is still poor in resolution and low in contrast. In this paper several image improvements are demonstrated, such as a frame summing technique, which are effective in increasing image quality in neutron radiography. Image integration before the A/D converter has a beneficial effect on image quality and the high quality image reveals details invisible in direct images, such as: small holes by a reversed image, defects in a neutron converter screen through a high quality image, a moving object in a contoured image, a slight difference between two low-contrast images by a subtraction technique, and so on. For the real-time application a contouring operation and an averaging approach can also be utilized effectively. (orig.).
New York State Electric and Gas Co. (NYSEG) has developed a tool called Coal Quality Engineering Analysis (CQEA) to evaluate the cost impacts of coal quality on its power plants. CQEA allows quantification of the effect of coal quality on plant operating costs and has become an important factor in coal purchasing. The article describes the development of the analysis method, including a logic diagram of CQEA relationships. The results of CQEA calculations on the impact of one coal on overall production costs of different units, the impact of different coals on overall production costs of one unit, and production cost vs. coal quality, are presented and discussed. The use of the CQEA system within NYSEG is described.
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 ...
A concept for the optimization of manufacturing processes of composite material components with regard to product's quality and cost is introduced and applied for the case of thermoplastic composite helicopter canopies produced by `Cold' Diaphragm Forming (CDF) process. The proposed methodology relies on the consideration of the processes thermal cycle as decisive for the component's quality and cost. Quality and cost sensitivity analyses were made to derive material dependent Quality Functions (QFs) and process dependent Cost Estimation Relationships (CERs). QFs and CERs are exploited to derive iteratively the optimal thermal cycle. The processes thermal cycle is numerically simulated to allow for its virtual application on the material. To perform the optimization procedure a new softwar...
This paper discusses the new quality assurance regulations of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for packaging and transportation of radioactive materials. These regulations became effective on October 18, 1977. Background information concerning these regulations and packaging and transportation history is included. The quality assurance program is described with indications of how it is composed of general (administrative) provisions which must meet the 18 quality assurance criteria and be approved by the NRC; specific provisions which appear in the DOT and NRC regulations and in the individual package design approval; and other specific procedures which are not required by regulations but which are necessary for the proper control of quality. The quality assurance program is to be developed using a graded approach for the application of pertinent criteria and optimizing the ...
The Quality Assurance Requirements and Description (QARD) is the principal quality assurance document for the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program (Program). It establishes the minimum requirements for the Quality Assurance Program. The QARD contains regulatory requirements and program commitments necessary for the development of an effective quality assurance program. Quality assurance implementing documents must be based on, and consistent with, QARD requirements. The QARD applies to the following: (1) acceptance of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste; (2) transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste; (3) the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) facility through application for an operating license; (4) Mined Geologic Disposal System (MGDS), including the site characterization activities (exploratory studies facility (ESF) and surface ...
In consistency with the increasing requests from Member States for establishing radiotherapy programmes, an IAEA Technical Co-operation project was initiated in Latin America aimed at improving the physical aspects (as a complement to the clinical issues) of quality assurance in radiotherapy; this ARCAL XXX project (RLA/6/032) was classified as a Model Project of the IAEA. Among the important outcomes of the project were (i) the training of a considerable number of medical physicists in hospitals of the region, (ii) the development of a protocol for quality control procedures, and (iii) the organization of quality audit site visits (to the participant countries) where the implementation in hospitals of the developed quality control procedures is verified. The present publication is the protocol for quality control of the physical aspects of radiotherapy. It contains detailed ...
This document defines the quality assurance program requirements for the US Department of Energy, Richland Field Office, Environmental Restoration program at the Hanford Site. This document integrates quality assurance requirements from US Department of Energy Orders, the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, and applicable industry standards into a single source document for the development of quality assurance programs applicable to the Environmental Restoration program items and activities. This document has been configured into three parts and fifteen criteria to provide user organizations with a workable document that best facilitates line operations. When developing individual user organization quality assurance programs, the document configuration provides each organization with the Flexibility to incorporate only those parts and criteria that are applicable to their individual ...
The Water Frame work Directive (December 2000) proposes integrated water management in regard to both quality and quality. A mathematical model has therefore been produced at the CEIT and EPTISA research centre, in collaboration with the Ebro Hydrographic. Confederation (CHE), to predict water quality and thus begin integrated management of it in the river basins. A description is given of the characteristics of the simulation tool. The hydraulic model is based on the numerical (weighted, four-point implicit) resolution of the complete Saint Venant equations. The quality model is based on the IWA River Water Quality Model Number 1 which has clear advantages (consistency, mass balance and easy integration with the biological models of the waste water treatment plants and the collector networks compared to traditional models. The experimental validation, which includes calibration in ...
Low energy buildings promise significant energy savings and help climate preservation by cutting down on annual heating requirements to values below 70 kWh per m{sup 2} dwelling space. It is expected that low energy constructions will become the common standard by the year 2000 as a result of the forthcoming energy saving ordinance. For making the introduction and implementation of this standard successful, practical experience will be essential. For this reason, the state government of Hesse has supported respective pilot projects 1987. In 1989 the funding programme `30 low energy buildings in Hesse` has been established. Consecutively - between 1989 and 1993 - 29 buildings were erected. At first, the thermal quality of the crafted building construction including the ventilation systems was checked. Consecutively, energy consumption, indoor and outdoor temperatures were measured over a time span of several years. The experience of the inhabitants was surveyed. The ...
The mechanisms involved in the glacial inception are still poorly constrained due to a lack of high resolution and cross-dated climate records at various locations. Using air isotopic measurements in the recently drilled NorthGRIP ice core, we show that no evidence exists for stratigraphic disturbance of the climate record of the last glacial inception ({proportional_to}123-100 kyears BP) encompassing Dansgaard-Oeschger events (DO) 25, 24 and 23, even if we lack sufficient resolution to completely rule out disturbance over DO 25. We quantify the rapid surface temperature variability over DO 23 and 24 with associated warmings of 10{+-}2.5 and 16{+-}2.5 C, amplitudes which mimic those observed in full glacial conditions. We use records of {delta}{sup 18}O of O{sub 2} to propose a common timescale for the NorthGRIP and the Antarctic Vostok ice cores, with a maximum uncertainty of 2,500 years, and to examine the interhemispheric sequence of events ...
A theoretical model was developed to simulate this phenomenon, under some specific assumptions. The model simulates: the generation and decay of radon within the soil; its transport throughout the soil due to diffusion and convection induced by the pressure disturbance applied at a crack in the basement; its entrance into the house through the crack; and the resultant indoor radon concentration. The most important assumptions adopted in the model were: a steady-state condition; a house with a basement; a geometrically well-defined crack at the wall-floor joint in the basement; and a constant negative pressure applied at the crack in relation to the outside atmospheric pressure. Two three-dimensional finite-difference computer programs were written to solve the mathematical equations of the model. The first program, called PRESSU, was used to calculate: the pressure distribution within the soil as a result of the applied disturbance pressure at ...
The resident bald eagles of the lower Columbia River have lower productivity and higher contaminant levels than other bald eagles of the Pacific Northwest. The primary population stressors are believed to be habitat loss, human disturbance, p,p{prime}DDE, PCBs, dioxins and furans. The primary effect of habitat loss is to reduce the carrying capacity of the region for nesting sites, and the primary effects of human disturbance and contamination by organic compounds are to reduce productivity. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the effects of all of, these potential stressors on the bald eagle population dynamics. A model of the population dynamics was developed. The model structure includes a physiologically-based toxicokinetic (PBTK) submodel to estimate the degree of contamination, which is linked via a toxicology submodel to a population dynamics submodel. The PBTK submodel is time-variable, incorporating ...
Background: Despite the fact that adverse health effects are not confirmed for exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RFEMF) levels below the limit values, as defined in the guidelines of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, many persons are worried about possible adverse health effects caused by the RF-EMF emitted from mobile phone base stations, or they attribute their unspecific health complaints like headache or sleep disturbances to these fields. Method: In the framework of a cross-sectional study a questionnaire was sent to 4150 persons living in predominantly urban areas. Participants were asked whether base stations affected their health. Health complaints were measured with standardized health questionnaires for sleep disturbances, headache, health complaints and mental and physical health. 3,526 persons responded (85%) to the questionnaire and 1,808 (51%) agreed to dosimetric measurements in ...
Radiowave scintillation in the presence of natural and/or high-altitude nuclear disturbances has the potential to disrupt numerous transionospheric radio and radar systems. This report develops a model characterizing the plasma-density irregularities that produce scintillation in the naturally disturbed equatorial F layer. The model is incorporated into Program WBMOD along with subroutines for computing both link geometry and scintillation indices, the latter by means of phase screen diffraction theory. The model is based on similarly extensive analysis of wideband data from two equatorial stations. It describes irregularities at an effective height of 350 km that are isotropic across the geomagnetic field and elongated by a factor of 50 along the field and whose one-dimensional spatial power spectrum obeys a single-regime power law with a (negative) spectral index of 1.5. The height-integrated spectral strength of the irregularities is modeled ...
Combustion in a ceramic tube produces a nearly discontinuous change in temperature of the premixed fuel and air at the flame front, from room temperature up to the adiabatic flame temperature ([approximately]2,100 K). The upstream Reynolds number for a stable flame in a 9.5-mm tube is in the range of 3,000-6,000, corresponding to turbulent flow. Owing to property changes that accompany the severe increase in temperature at the flame front, the downstream Reynolds number is reduced below the transitional value ([approximately]2,100); consequently the turbulence decays while the velocity profile approaches the parabolic one characteristic of laminar flow. A previous study of ours revealed that, far downstream from the flame front, the turbulent energy decayed exponentially with downstream distance. This paper examines the asymptotic behavior of the k-[epsilon] model and compares the results to that for two-dimensional (axisymmetric) disturbances in a laminar flow. ...
For purposes of assessing the dumpability of wastes, Article 1 - Ordinance on the Environmentally Responsible Landfilling of Household Wastes (AbfAblV) - of the Ordinance on the Environmentally Responsible Landfilling of Household Wastes and Biological Waste Treatment Plants defines classificaton criteria for biologically and mechanically treated wastes destined for landfilling. The practical experiences that have been gathered with these classification criteria and values were evaluated in a questionnaire-based survey. This was done in particular for the purpose of verifying and validating proposals on the methodology of respiration and fermentation tests. A general finding has been that the application and implementation of the regulations of the AbfAblV is fraught with difficulties. This is evident for one thing in the frequency of analyses and for another in the difficulty of complying with the limit values of the classification criteria. ...
The aim of this study was to estimate the sensitivity of biomarkers of stress and exposure in the bivalve mollusk Anodonta cygnea to spontaneous anthropogenic activities typical for the Western Ukraine. Three sites were examined during spring, summer and autumn: an agricultural site (A); the cooling pond of nuclear power plant (N) and a forestry close to the municipal water inlet (F). Common temporal changes of a battery of biochemical markers in the gills and hemolymph and morphological characteristics were shown by discriminant functional analysis. Classification trees built on the basis of the screened biomarkers demonstrated persistent peculiarities at each site: genotoxicity (nuclear abnormalities) at site A and endocrine disruption (high levels of vitellogenin-like proteins (Vtg-LP) ...
ABSTRACT. Field methods for determining the sex of birds are often limited due to morphometric overlap between sexes, intermediate plumages, seasonality, and reliance on subjective age classification. Interpubic distance, characterized in birds as the distance between the distal ends of the pubic bones, has not been formally tested as a method for determining the sex of birds, despite references among parrot breeders and the frequent use of analogous measurements in mammals. We developed a harmless and easily performed field method for measuring interpubic distance in studies involving bird capture, and compared the interpubic distances of known sex White-ruffed Manakins (Corapipo altera), Orange-collared Manakins (Manacus aurantiacus), and Blue-crowned Manakins (Lepidothrix coronata) to e...
Collection, analysis and quantification of human factor data are important compositions of human reliability analysis (HRA) and probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). Various human factor databases have been set up, but there are comparatively little human factor data management systems which can be uses for collection, classification, analysis, calculation and predication of the human factor data. Therefore, the human factor data management system for Daya Bay NPP is developed, with the following three modules and four databases: original data module, computing module, introduced data module, and basic database, other data source of the plant, external database and introduced database. The foundational problems about human factor data and the systemic structure and function are described. The data structure in the database is also discussed, because it is of the most importance in the system
Over the last few years, string theory has changed profoundly. Most importantly, novel duality relations have emerged which involve gauge theories of brane excitations on one side and various closed string backgrounds on the other. In this lecture, we introduce the fundamental ingredients of modern string theory and explain how they are modeled through 2D (boundary) conformal field theory. This so-called `microscopic description' of strings and branes is an active research area with new results ranging from the classification and construction of boundary conditions to studies of 2D renormalization group flows. We shall provide an overview of such developments before concluding the lecture with an extensive outlook on some research that is motivated by current problems in string theory. This includes investigations of non-rational and non-unitary conformal field theories.
Differentiation of the vertebrate communities almost coincides with the differentiation of ecosystems in vegetation at the type level, as judged by formalized classifications of various blocks of ecosystems of West Siberia by geobotanical map units, and it differs significantly from that in the underground component due to the greater effect of waterlogging on the latter. In invertebrate communities, significant differences are observed in the boreal-subboreal part, where waterlogging is more significant and greater similarity is found among middle and southern-taiga communities than among subtaiga-steppe ones. Over the groups of map units, the heterogeneity of the vertebrate communities differs from that in all the examined blocks of ecosystems in greater differentiation in the tundra zon...
In this study the soil/vegetation/atmosphere-model based on the formulation of Deardorff was refined to hour basis and applied to a field in Vihti. The effect of model parameters on model results (energy fluxes, temperatures) was also studied as well as the effect of atmospheric conditions. The estimation of atmospheric conditions on the soil-vegetation system as well as an estimation of the effect of vegetation parameters on the atmospheric climate was estimated. Areal surface fluxes, temperatures and moistures were also modelled for some river basins in southern Finland. Land-use and soil parameterisation was developed to include properties and yearly variation of all vegetation and soil types. One classification was selected to describe the hydrothermal properties of the soils. Evapotranspiration was verified against the water balance method
This study uses data from a random sample of births in the Netherlands during the period 1850-1922 to examine the relationships between social class, social mobility and mortality at middle and old age. Population registers and personal cards covering the period from 1850 to 2004 for all Dutch provinces were used to reconstruct individual life histories of 14,900 births. For men we did not find an effect of the social class of origin (using two different SES-classifications) on mortality in age group 18 to 35. We also did not observe an effect of own social class on mortality after age 35. For women effects of social class of origin and social class of husband were generally absent as well. Our conclusion is that the standard ideas about the negative effects of processes of industrializati...
A study was performed to examine currently recommended meteorological measurement programs and atmospheric transport and diffusion prediction models for nuclear power plants to determine their adequacy for plants located in coastal zones where meteorological conditions are normally more complex than at inland sites and to make recommendations for changes to improve current procedures. Recommendations were based on an extensive literature review and on studies of coastal meteorology and diffusion. The study was focused on the following areas: coastal internal boundary layers; tower location; instrument heights; atmospheric stability classification; plume meander; and diffusion calculations. Each of the areas is discussed with appropriate recommendations which were made with respect to either the scientific or the regulation aspects of current procedures or both. Other potential problem areas are also pointed out.
Summary Penile injury is common as an emergency and should be accurately diagnosed and treated. We analysed 22 patients with penile injury admitted to the emergency unit of Dubrava University Hospital during a 4-year period. According to the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma five-grade classification of penile injuries, there were 14 grade I, 6 grade II and 2 grade III cases. Diagnosis was mainly based on clinical and ultrasonography findings, and in some cases on cavernosography. Nineteen patients underwent immediate surgery and three patients received conservative therapy. On outpatient follow up, sexual function was assessed by use of the 5-item International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) test at 3 and 12-months of injury. At 3-month follow up, moderate, mild and no e...
The paper introduces scaled Bregman distances of probability distributions which admit non-uniform contributions of observed events. They are introduced in a general form covering not only the distances of discrete and continuous stochastic observations, but also the distances of random processes and signals. It is shown that the scaled Bregman distances extend not only the classical ones studied in the previous literature, but also the information divergence and the related wider class of convex divergences of probability measures. An information processing theorem is established too, but only in the sense of invariance w.r.t. statistically sufficient transformations and not in the sense of universal monotonicity. Pathological situations where coding can increase the classical Bregman distance are illustrated by a concrete example. In addition to the classical areas of application of the Bregman distances and convex divergences such as recognition, classification, ...
Lung cancer staging according to the TNM system is based on morphological assessment of the primary cancer, lymph nodes and metastases. All aspects of this important oncological classification are measurable with MRI. Pulmonary nodules can be detected at the clinically relevant size of 4-5 mm in diameter. The extent of mediastinal, hilar and supraclavicular lymph node affection can be assessed at the same time. The predominant metastatic spread to the adrenal glands and spine can be detected in coronal orientation during dedicated MRI of the lungs. Search focused whole body MRI completes the staging. Various additional MR imaging techniques provide further functional and clinically relevant information during a single examination. In the oncological context the most important techniques are imaging of perfusion and tumor motion. Functional MRI of the lungs complements the pure staging and improves surgical approaches and radiotherapy planning. (orig.)
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.
Two constructions due to Dr\\'apal produce a group by modifying exactly one quarter of the Cayley table of another group. We present these constructions in a compact way, and generalize them to Moufang loops, using loop extensions. Both constructions preserve associators, the associator subloop, and the nucleus. We conjecture that two Moufang 2-loops of finite order $n$ with equivalent associator can be connected by a series of constructions similar to ours, and offer empirical evidence that this is so for $n=16$, 24, 32; the only interesting cases with $n\\le 32$. We further investigate the way the constructions affect code loops and loops of type $M(G, 2)$. The paper closes with several conjectures and research questions concerning the distance of Moufang loops, classification of small Moufang loops, and generalizations of the two constructions.
The treatment of acetabular bone defects presents a great challenge in revision total hip arthroplasty (THA). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical and radiological outcome of revision THA using jumbo cups for acetabular reconstruction after applying the bone-grafting technique. We studied 17?patients with acetabular defects ranging from Type 2A to Type 3A according to Paprosky`s classification. According to the AAOS-score twelve patients were classified as Type II and five patients as Type III. Uncemented press-fit cups with an outer diameter larger than 64?mm were used in all cases. Fifteen patients received morselized bone allografts. In eight patients an additional screw fixation was necessary. The mean follow-up period was 82?months (range 33?149). The mean Harris Hip...
The aim of this review is to evaluate the role of inflammatory spine disease in patients with chronic back pain. The contribution of imaging modalities for the diagnostic evaluation of back pain is discussed. A systematic literature search based on the classification of seronegative spondyloarthropathies and rheumatoid arthritis was performed. The results of this search and the experiences in a large collective of rheumatological patients are analyzed. The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis (1-2%) is comparable to that of spondyloarthropathies (1.9%). The etiology of these entities is not fully elucidated. Magnetic resonance imaging is increasingly used for early detection and surveillance of therapy with TNF-#alpha# antagonists. Bone marrow edema, which is only detectable with MRI, represents an early sign of inflammation. Therapy with TNF-#alpha# antagonists is based on clinical and laboratory criteria, and signs of inflammation in MRI. MRI is useful for ...
Roller bearing is one of the most widely used elements in rotary machines. Condition monitoring of such elements is conceived as pattern recognition problem. Pattern recognition has three main phases: feature extraction, feature selection and feature classification. Histogram features can be used for fault diagnosis of roller bearing. This paper presents the use of decision tree for selecting best few histogram features (bin ranges) that will discriminate the fault conditions of the bearing from given train samples. These features are extracted from vibration signals. A rule set is formed from the extracted features and fed to a fuzzy classifier. The rule set necessary for building the fuzzy classifier is obtained largely by intuition and domain knowledge. This paper also presents the usag...
Shadow effect was used for investigating damage of uranium dioxide monocrystal. The dependence of shadow minimum parameters on fluence of "2"2Ne ions with 172 MeV energy was followed when detecting fission fragments. Ion dose responsible for sufficient microdamage of lattice structure, included into the classification of heavy ion damage effect on monocrystals was determined. The problem of radiation intensity effect on the character of occurred damages was studied. It was established that macroscopic sample failure, caused by generation of considerable mechanical stresses in monocrystal under beam effect could be observed along with microdamages of lattice structure at ion flux density >10"1"2 cm"-"2Xs"-"1.
It is very important to develop the design guidelines which can be applicable for Korean operators for the purpose of designing the KSNP more safely. The objective of this project is to provide the standards, guidelines and bases applicable for HF-010 through the within-subject experiment for obtaining Korean operators' population stereotype for direction-of-movement of controls associated with displays on the control panels. Through the survey of researches on display compatibility and the classification of types of displays and controls in the main control room of Uljin units 3 and 4, methods for an experiment on the stereotype were established. Experimental interface prototypes for a total of 108 combinations of display and control types were implemented. Experimental data collection and analysis system was built in association with the interface prototypes. The experiment was performed with participation of 250 students as subjects. About 20 guideline ...
With the aim to study and to improve LIBS capability for detecting residues of energetic compounds in air surrounding, nine types of explosives and some potential interferents, placed in small quantities on a metallic support, were interrogated by a laser. Shot-to-shot behavior of the line intensities relative to the sample constituents was studied. The detected plasma was not stoichiometric and the line intensities, as well as their ratios, were changing even for an order of magnitude from one sampling point to another, particularly in the case of aromatic compounds. We explained some sources of such LIBS signal's behavior and this allowed us to establish a data processing procedure, which leads to a good linearization among the data sets. In this way, it was possible to determine some re...
Abstract Purpose: We evaluated complications of urologic laparoscopic surgery at our institution. Patients and Methods: From December 1991 to January 2009, 1017 urologic laparoscopic surgical procedures were performed in Kansai Medical University, including 277 radical prostatectomies, 13 donor nephrectomies, 74 partial nephrectomies, 158 radical nephrectomies, 55 pyeloplasties, 97 nephrouretectomies, 54 simple nephrectomies, 128 adrenalectomies, 34 varicocelectomies, and 127 other procedures. Medical records of each procedure were retrospectively evaluated. The difficulty of each procedure was classified according to the European Scoring System (ESS). Intraoperative and postoperative complications were graded according to the Satava and Clavien classifications, respectively. Results: Amon...
We introduce the {\\sc classified stable matching} problem, a problem motivated by academic hiring. Suppose that a number of institutes are hiring faculty members from a pool of applicants. Both institutes and applicants have preferences over the other side. An institute classifies the applicants based on their research areas (or any other criterion), and, for each class, it sets a lower bound and an upper bound on the number of applicants it would hire in that class. The objective is to find a stable matching from which no group of participants has reason to deviate. Moreover, the matching should respect the upper/lower bounds of the classes. In the first part of the paper, we study classified stable matching problems whose classifications belong to a fixed set of ``order types.'' We show that if the set consists entirely of downward forests, there is a polynomial-time algorithm; otherwise, it is NP-complete to decide the existence of a stable matching. In the ...
Abstract We performed hydrodynamical simulations to investigate the formation and evolution of protostars and circumstellar discs from the pre-stellar cloud. As the initial state, we adopted the molecular cloud core with two non-dimensional parameters representing the thermal and rotational energies. With these parameters, we derived 17 models and calculated the cloud evolution--104 yr-after the protostar formation. We found that early evolution of the star-disc system can be qualitatively classified into four modes: the massive-disc, early-fragmentation, late-fragmentation, and protostar-dominant modes. In the -massive-disc mode-, to which the majority of models belong, the disc mass is greater than the protostellar mass for over 104 yr and no fragmentation occurs in the circumstellar dis...
Nuclear forensic science has become increasingly important for global nuclear security. However, many current laboratory analysis techniques are based on methods developed without the imperative for timely analysis that underlies the post-detonation forensics mission requirements. Current analysis of actinides, fission products, and fuel-specific materials requires time-consuming chemical separation coupled with nuclear counting or mass spectrometry. High-temperature gas-phase separations have been used in the past for the rapid separation of newly created elements/isotopes and as a basis for chemical classification of that element. We are assessing the utility of this method for rapid separation in the gas-phase to accelerate the separations of radioisotopes germane to post-detonation nuclear forensic investigations. The existing state of the art for thermo chromatographic separations, and its applicability to nuclear forensics, will be reviewed. (author)
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 required clearance level for the user.
Theoretical and experimental data which have defined and/or extended the effectiveness of remote sensing operations are explored, with consideration given to both scientific and commercial activities. The remote sensing of soil moisture, the sea surface, and oil slicks is discussed, as are programs using satellites for studying geodynamics and geodesy, currents and waves, and coastal zones. NASA, Canadian, and Japanese radar and microwave passive and active systems are described, together with algorithms and techniques for image processing and classification. The SAR-580 project is outlined, and attention is devoted to satellite applications in investigations of the structure of the atmosphere, agriculture and land use, and geology. Design and performance features of various optical scanner, radar, and multispectral data processing systems and procedures are detailed.