Ways to implement a health protective educational environment in higher education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mykytyuk O.M.

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The features of organization and creation of health protective educational environment are exposed in higher institute. They foresee creation of the special terms for realization structurally of functional model of organization of students' healthy way of life. A model plugs in itself pedagogical, organizational, material and technical, sanitary-hygenic, informatively-methodical, skilled and financial economic terms. A questionnaire is conducted 95 students of 1-3 courses. It is set that the level of factors of risk for the health of students is high enough: prevalence of smoking is 47%, swizzles use more than 20%. It is discovered that the number of students with active physical activity makes not more than 45%. Most students consider that for the health they are responsible, ready and want to get information on forming of healthy way of life. Principles of organization of health protective behave to the features of organization of health protective of educational environment, nature protective, valeological, sequence, integration, pedagogical support, flexibility.

Asset Mapping: A Course Assignment and Community Assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Crozier, Mary; Melchior, Florence

2013-01-01

Asset mapping is a relatively new data collection strategy to identify services, staff capacity, programs, resources, values, and other protective factors in a geographic area that can be juxtaposed to risk factors when initiating community planning. A substance abuse prevention course for undergraduates added an assignment of assessing community…

Linear Optimization of Frequency Spectrum Assignments Across System

Science.gov (United States)

2016-03-01

selection tools, frequency allocation, transmission optimization, electromagnetic maneuver warfare, electronic protection, assignment model 15. NUMBER ...Characteristics Modeled ...............................................................29 Table 10.   Antenna Systems Modeled , Number of Systems and...surveillance EW early warning GAMS general algebraic modeling system GHz gigahertz IDE integrated development environment ILP integer linear program

Position statement. The right to accept or reject an assignment. American Nurses Association.

Science.gov (United States)

1996-01-01

The American Nurses Association (ANA) believes that nurses should reject assignment that puts patients or themselves in serious, immediate jeopardy. ANA supports the nurses obligation to reject an assignment in these situations even where there is not a specific legal protection for rejecting such an assignment. The professional obligations to the nurse to safeguard clients are grounded in the ethical norms of the profession, the Standards of Clinical Nursing Practice and state nurse practice acts.

A multiobjective approach towards weapon assignment in a ground ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A typical ground-based air defence (GBAD) environment comprises defended assets on the ground which require protection from enemy aircraft entering the defended airspace. ... of computerised threat evaluation and weapon assignment (TEWA) decision support systems (DSSs) within the context of a GBAD system.

First Trimester Fetal Gender Assignment by Ultrasound

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sabahattin Altunyurt

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Objective: To investigate the efficiency of genital tubercule angle on detecting fetal gender in first trimester by ultrasonography. Material-Method: Fetal sex assignment by ultrasound was carried out in 172 pregnancies at 11-13+6 weeks between 2007 June and 2007 December. Gestational age was determined by the measurement of crown-rump length (CRL. The ultrasound predictions were compared with actual sex at birth. Mid-sagittal planes of a section of the fetal genital tubercle were performed to identify the gender. Results: 155 of 172 patients’ data were achieved. The overall success rate was 92.3 % in sonographic assignment of fetal sex. The correct assignment rate in female fetuses was significantly higher than males (95.9 % - 88.8 % [p=0,001]. The correct identification of fetal sex improved with advancing gestational age from 89.3 % between 11-11+6 weeks, 92.5 % between 12-12+6 weeks and 93.4 % between 13-13+6 weeks (p=0,96. Conclusion: The fetal sex assignment by ultrasonography between 11-13+6 weeks had high success rate. The sensitivity of fetal sex assignment was not affected with fetus position and gestational age.

Writing Assignments that Promote Active Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Narayanan, M.

2014-12-01

Encourage students to write a detailed, analytical report correlating classroom discussions to an important historical event or a current event. Motivate students interview an expert from industry on a topic that was discussed in class. Ask the students to submit a report with supporting sketches, drawings, circuit diagrams and graphs. Propose that the students generate a complete a set of reading responses pertaining to an assigned topic. Require each student to bring in one comment or one question about an assigned reading. The assignment should be a recent publication in an appropriate journal. Have the students conduct a web search on an assigned topic. Ask them to generate a set of ideas that can relate to classroom discussions. Provide the students with a study guide. The study guide should provide about 10 or 15 short topics. Quiz the students on one or two of the topics. Encourage the students to design or develop some creative real-world examples based on a chapter discussed or a topic of interest. Require that students originate, develop, support and defend a viewpoint using a specifically assigned material. Make the students practice using or utilizing a set of new technical terms they have encountered in an assigned chapter. Have students develop original examples explaining the different terms. Ask the students to select one important terminology from the previous classroom discussions. Encourage the students to explain why they selected that particular word. Ask them to talk about the importance of the terminology from the point of view of their educational objectives and future career. Angelo, T. A. (1991). Ten easy pieces: Assessing higher learning in four dimensions. In T. A. Angelo (Ed.), Classroom research: Early lessons from success (pp. 17-31). New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 46. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Protein secondary structure assignment revisited: a detailed analysis of different assignment methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

de Brevern Alexandre G

2005-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background A number of methods are now available to perform automatic assignment of periodic secondary structures from atomic coordinates, based on different characteristics of the secondary structures. In general these methods exhibit a broad consensus as to the location of most helix and strand core segments in protein structures. However the termini of the segments are often ill-defined and it is difficult to decide unambiguously which residues at the edge of the segments have to be included. In addition, there is a "twilight zone" where secondary structure segments depart significantly from the idealized models of Pauling and Corey. For these segments, one has to decide whether the observed structural variations are merely distorsions or whether they constitute a break in the secondary structure. Methods To address these problems, we have developed a method for secondary structure assignment, called KAKSI. Assignments made by KAKSI are compared with assignments given by DSSP, STRIDE, XTLSSTR, PSEA and SECSTR, as well as secondary structures found in PDB files, on 4 datasets (X-ray structures with different resolution range, NMR structures. Results A detailed comparison of KAKSI assignments with those of STRIDE and PSEA reveals that KAKSI assigns slightly longer helices and strands than STRIDE in case of one-to-one correspondence between the segments. However, KAKSI tends also to favor the assignment of several short helices when STRIDE and PSEA assign longer, kinked, helices. Helices assigned by KAKSI have geometrical characteristics close to those described in the PDB. They are more linear than helices assigned by other methods. The same tendency to split long segments is observed for strands, although less systematically. We present a number of cases of secondary structure assignments that illustrate this behavior. Conclusion Our method provides valuable assignments which favor the regularity of secondary structure segments.

Bacteria as bullies: effects of linguistic agency assignment in health message.

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, Robert A; McGlone, Matthew S; Dragojevic, Marko

2014-01-01

When describing health threats, communicators can assign agency to the threat (e.g., "Hepatitis C has infected 4 million Americans") or to humans (e.g., "Four million Americans have contracted hepatitis C"). In an online experiment, the authors explored how assignment of agency affects perceptions of susceptibility and severity of a health threat, response efficacy, self-efficacy, fear arousal, and intentions to adopt health-protective recommendations. Participants were 719 individuals recruited through Mechanical Turk ( www.mturk.com ), a crowdsource labor market run by Amazon ( www.amazon.com ). The participants were assigned randomly to read 1 of 8 flyers defined by a 2×4 (Agency Assignment×Topic) factorial design. Each flyer examined 1 health threat (E. coli, necrotizing fasciitis, salmonella, or Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae) and was written in language that emphasized bacterial or human agency. Perceived susceptibility and severity were highest when bacterial agency language was used. Response efficacy, self-efficacy, and fear arousal were not significantly affected by agency assignment. Participants reported stronger intentions to adopt recommendations when bacteria agency language was used, but this effect did not reach conventional standards of significance (p < .051). The authors concluded that health communicators can increase target audiences' perceptions of susceptibility and severity by assigning agency to the threat in question when devising health messages.

Grouping puts figure-ground assignment in context by constraining propagation of edge assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Brooks, Joseph L; Brook, Joseph L; Driver, Jon

2010-05-01

Figure-ground organization involves the assignment of edges to a figural shape on one or the other side of each dividing edge. Established visual cues for edge assignment primarily concern relatively local rather than contextual factors. In the present article, we show that an assignment for a locally unbiased edge can be affected by an assignment of a remote contextual edge that has its own locally biased assignment. We find that such propagation of edge assignment from the biased remote context occurs only when the biased and unbiased edges are grouped. This new principle, whereby grouping constrains the propagation of figural edge assignment, emerges from both subjective reports and an objective short-term edge-matching task. It generalizes from moving displays involving grouping by common fate and collinearity, to static displays with grouping by similarity of edge-contrast polarity, or apparent occlusion. Our results identify a new contextual influence on edge assignment. They also identify a new mechanistic relation between grouping and figure-ground processes, whereby grouping between remote elements can constrain the propagation of edge assignment between those elements. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://app.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

FLEET ASSIGNMENT MODELLING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to the airline scheduling process and methods of its modeling. This article describes the main stages of airline scheduling process (scheduling, fleet assignment, revenue management, operations, their features and interactions. The main part of scheduling process is fleet assignment. The optimal solution of the fleet assignment problem enables airlines to increase their incomes up to 3 % due to quality improving of connections and execution of the planned number of flights operated by less number of aircraft than usual or planned earlier. Fleet assignment of scheduling process is examined and Conventional Leg-Based Fleet Assignment Model is analyzed. Finally strong and weak aspects of the model (SWOT are released and applied. The article gives a critical analysis of FAM model, with the purpose of identi- fying possible options and constraints of its use (for example, in cases of short-term and long-term planning, changing the schedule or replacing the aircraft, as well as possible ways to improve the model.

Diurnal adjustment in ultraviolet sunscreen protection is widespread among higher plants.

Science.gov (United States)

Barnes, Paul W; Flint, Stephan D; Tobler, Mark A; Ryel, Ronald J

2016-05-01

The accumulation of ultraviolet (UV)-absorbing compounds (flavonoids and related phenylpropanoids) in the epidermis of higher plants reduces the penetration of solar UV radiation to underlying tissues and is a primary mechanism of acclimation to changing UV conditions resulting from ozone depletion and climate change. Previously we reported that several herbaceous plant species were capable of rapid, diurnal adjustments in epidermal UV transmittance (T UV), but how widespread this phenomenon is among plants has been unknown. In the present study, we tested the generality of this response by screening 37 species of various cultivated and wild plants growing in four locations spanning a gradient of ambient solar UV and climate (Hawaii, Utah, Idaho and Louisiana). Non-destructive measurements of adaxial T UV indicated that statistically significant midday decreases in T UV occurred in 49 % of the species tested, including both herbaceous and woody growth forms, and there was substantial interspecific variation in the magnitude of these changes. In general, plants in Louisiana exhibited larger diurnal changes in T UV than those in the other locations. Moreover, across all taxa, the magnitude of these changes was positively correlated with minimum daily air temperatures but not daily UV irradiances. Results indicate that diurnal changes in UV shielding are widespread among higher plants, vary both within and among species and tend to be greatest in herbaceous plants growing in warm environments. These findings suggest that plant species differ in their UV protection "strategies" though the functional and ecological significance of this variation in UV sunscreen protection remains unclear at present.

Combined group ECC protection and subgroup parity protection

Science.gov (United States)

Gara, Alan G.; Chen, Dong; Heidelberger, Philip; Ohmacht, Martin

2013-06-18

A method and system are disclosed for providing combined error code protection and subgroup parity protection for a given group of n bits. The method comprises the steps of identifying a number, m, of redundant bits for said error protection; and constructing a matrix P, wherein multiplying said given group of n bits with P produces m redundant error correction code (ECC) protection bits, and two columns of P provide parity protection for subgroups of said given group of n bits. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the matrix P is constructed by generating permutations of m bit wide vectors with three or more, but an odd number of, elements with value one and the other elements with value zero; and assigning said vectors to rows of the matrix P.

Does higher education protect against obesity? Evidence using Mendelian randomization.

Science.gov (United States)

Böckerman, Petri; Viinikainen, Jutta; Pulkki-Råback, Laura; Hakulinen, Christian; Pitkänen, Niina; Lehtimäki, Terho; Pehkonen, Jaakko; Raitakari, Olli T

2017-08-01

The aim of this explorative study was to examine the effect of education on obesity using Mendelian randomization. Participants (N=2011) were from the on-going nationally representative Young Finns Study (YFS) that began in 1980 when six cohorts (aged 30, 33, 36, 39, 42 and 45 in 2007) were recruited. The average value of BMI (kg/m 2 ) measurements in 2007 and 2011 and genetic information were linked to comprehensive register-based information on the years of education in 2007. We first used a linear regression (Ordinary Least Squares, OLS) to estimate the relationship between education and BMI. To identify a causal relationship, we exploited Mendelian randomization and used a genetic score as an instrument for education. The genetic score was based on 74 genetic variants that genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have found to be associated with the years of education. Because the genotypes are randomly assigned at conception, the instrument causes exogenous variation in the years of education and thus enables identification of causal effects. The years of education in 2007 were associated with lower BMI in 2007/2011 (regression coefficient (b)=-0.22; 95% Confidence Intervals [CI]=-0.29, -0.14) according to the linear regression results. The results based on Mendelian randomization suggests that there may be a negative causal effect of education on BMI (b=-0.84; 95% CI=-1.77, 0.09). The findings indicate that education could be a protective factor against obesity in advanced countries. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Incorporating breeding abundance into spatial assignments on continuous surfaces.

Science.gov (United States)

Rushing, Clark S; Marra, Peter P; Studds, Colin E

2017-06-01

Determining the geographic connections between breeding and nonbreeding populations, termed migratory connectivity, is critical to advancing our understanding of the ecology and conservation of migratory species. Assignment models based on stable isotopes historically have been an important tool for studying migratory connectivity of small-bodied species, but the low resolution of these assignments has generated interest into combining isotopes with other sources in information. Abundance is one of the most appealing data sources to include in isotope-based assignments, but there are currently no statistical methods or guidelines for optimizing the contribution of stable isotopes and abundance for inferring migratory connectivity. Using known-origin stable-hydrogen isotope samples of six Neotropical migratory bird species, we rigorously assessed the performance of assignment models that differentially weight the contribution of the isotope and abundance data. For two species with adequate sample sizes, we used Pareto optimality to determine the set of models that simultaneously minimized both assignment error rate and assignment area. We then assessed the ability of the top models from these two species to improve assignments of the remaining four species compared to assignments based on isotopes alone. We show that the increased precision of models that include abundance is often offset by a large increase in assignment error. However, models that optimally weigh the abundance data relative to the isotope data can result in higher precision and, in some cases, lower error than models based on isotopes alone. The top models, however, depended on the distribution of relative breeding abundance, with patchier distributions requiring stronger downweighting of abundance, and we present general guidelines for future studies. These results confirm that breeding abundance can be an important source of information for studies investigating broad-scale movements of

Evaluation of protection factor of respiratory protective equipment using indigenously developed protection factor test facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Patkulkar, D.S.; Ganesh, G.; Tripathi, R.M.

2018-01-01

Assigned protection factor (APF) is an indicator representing effectiveness of a respirator and it provides workplace level of respiratory protection for workers in providing protection against exposure to airborne contaminants Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) specifies 'Respirator APF' and 'Maximum Use Concentration' (MUC - a term derived using APF) shall be an integral part of Respirator Protection Standard. MUC establishes the maximum airborne concentration of a contaminant in which a respirator with a given APF may be used. The use of particulate respirators such as half face mask, full face mask and powered air purifying respirators is essential for radioactive jobs in nuclear facilities to prevent any intake of radionuclide. With this impetus, the Protection Factor Test Facility (PFTF) for testing and evaluation of respiratory protective equipment meeting relevant applicable standards was designed, fabricated and installed in Respiratory Protective Equipment Laboratory of Health Physics Division

Risk and Protective Factors in the Lives of Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Eisenberg, Marla E; Gower, Amy L; McMorris, Barbara J; Rider, G Nicole; Shea, Glynis; Coleman, Eli

2017-10-01

Research suggests that transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) youth may be at greatly increased risk of high-risk health behaviors compared with cisgender youth, but existing studies are limited by convenience samples and small numbers. This study uses a large school-based sample of adolescents to describe the prevalence of TGNC identity, associations with health risk behaviors and protective factors, and differences across birth-assigned sex. This study analyzes existing surveillance data provided by 9th and 11th grade students in Minnesota in 2016 (N = 81,885). Students who were transgender, genderqueer, genderfluid, or unsure about their gender identity (TGNC) were compared with those who were not, using χ 2 and t-tests. Outcome measures included four domains of high-risk behaviors and experiences and four protective factors. The prevalence of TGNC identity was 2.7% (n = 2,168) and varied significantly across gender, race/ethnicity, and economic indicators. Involvement in all types of risk behaviors and experiences was significantly higher, and reports of four protective factors were significantly lower among TGNC than cisgender youth. For example, almost two-thirds (61.3%) of TGNC youth reported suicidal ideation, which is over three times higher than cisgender youth (20.0%, χ 2  = 1959.9, p < .001). Among TGNC youth, emotional distress and bullying experience were significantly more common among birth-assigned females than males. This research presents the first large-scale, population-based evidence of substantial health disparities for TGNC adolescents in the United States, highlighting numerous multilevel points of intervention through established protective factors. Health care providers are advised to act as allies by creating a safe space for young people, bolstering protective factors, and supporting their healthy development. Copyright © 2017 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

UOP LDR 300 All Assignments New

OpenAIRE

ADMIN

2018-01-01

UOP LDR 300 All Assignments New Check this A+ tutorial guideline at http://www.ldr300assignment.com/ldr-300-uop/ldr-300-all-assignments-latest For more classes visit http://www.ldr300assignment.com LDR 300 Week 1 Assignment Leadership Assessment (2 Papers) LDR 300 Week 2 Assignment Leadership Theories Matrix (2 Set) LDR 300 Week 2 Assignment Formulating Leadership Part I (2 Papers) LDR 300 Week 3 Assignment Interaction and Influence Amo...

Validity and sensitivity of a model for assessment of impacts of river floodplain reconstruction on protected and endangered species

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nooij, R.J.W. de; Lotterman, K.M.; Sande, P.H.J. van de; Pelsma, T.; Leuven, R.S.E.W.; Lenders, H.J.R.

2006-01-01

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) must account for legally protected and endangered species. Uncertainties relating to the validity and sensitivity of EIA arise from predictions and valuation of effects on these species. This paper presents a validity and sensitivity analysis of a model (BIO-SAFE) for assessment of impacts of land use changes and physical reconstruction measures on legally protected and endangered river species. The assessment is based on links between species (higher plants, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, butterflies and dragon- and damselflies) and ecotopes (landscape ecological units, e.g., river dune, soft wood alluvial forests), and on value assignment to protected and endangered species using different valuation criteria (i.e., EU Habitats and Birds directive, Conventions of Bern and Bonn and Red Lists). The validity of BIO-SAFE has been tested by comparing predicted effects of landscape changes on the diversity of protected and endangered species with observed changes in biodiversity in five reconstructed floodplains. The sensitivity of BIO-SAFE to value assignment has been analysed using data of a Strategic Environmental Assessment concerning the Spatial Planning Key Decision for reconstruction of the Dutch floodplains of the river Rhine, aimed at flood defence and ecological rehabilitation. The weights given to the valuation criteria for protected and endangered species were varied and the effects on ranking of alternatives were quantified. A statistically significant correlation (p < 0.01) between predicted and observed values for protected and endangered species was found. The sensitivity of the model to value assignment proved to be low. Comparison of five realistic valuation options showed that different rankings of scenarios predominantly occur when valuation criteria are left out of the assessment. Based on these results we conclude that linking species to ecotopes can be used for adequate impact assessments

Rate Adaptive Selective Segment Assignment for Reliable Wireless Video Transmission

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sajid Nazir

2012-01-01

Full Text Available A reliable video communication system is proposed based on data partitioning feature of H.264/AVC, used to create a layered stream, and LT codes for erasure protection. The proposed scheme termed rate adaptive selective segment assignment (RASSA is an adaptive low-complexity solution to varying channel conditions. The comparison of the results of the proposed scheme is also provided for slice-partitioned H.264/AVC data. Simulation results show competitiveness of the proposed scheme compared to optimized unequal and equal error protection solutions. The simulation results also demonstrate that a high visual quality video transmission can be maintained despite the adverse effect of varying channel conditions and the number of decoding failures can be reduced.

Act concerning the establishment of a Federal Office for Radiation Protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1989-01-01

The Federal Office for Radiation Protection shall be placed under the competence of the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety, and shall have the powers of a higher federal authority. The Office shall have its seat in Salzgitter. The Office shall fulfil administrative tasks within the federal powers in the fields of radiation protection including preventive radiation protection, nuclear safety, transport of radioactive materials, and nuclear waste management including the construction and operation of installations under the competence of the Federal Covernment, for the collection and ultimate disposal of nuclear wastes. The Office shall fulfil such Federal tasks as are defined in these areas by the Atomic Energy Act, the Act on Preventive Radiation Protection, or any other federal act, or such tasks as will be assigned to the Office on the basis of said acts. Any amendments of the above acts required for proper fulfilment of tasks by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection shall be duly announced. (orig./HP) [de

Fair Package Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Lahaie, Sébastien; Parkes, David C.

We consider the problem of fair allocation in the package assignment model, where a set of indivisible items, held by single seller, must be efficiently allocated to agents with quasi-linear utilities. A fair assignment is one that is efficient and envy-free. We consider a model where bidders have superadditive valuations, meaning that items are pure complements. Our central result is that core outcomes are fair and even coalition-fair over this domain, while fair distributions may not even exist for general valuations. Of relevance to auction design, we also establish that the core is equivalent to the set of anonymous-price competitive equilibria, and that superadditive valuations are a maximal domain that guarantees the existence of anonymous-price competitive equilibrium. Our results are analogs of core equivalence results for linear prices in the standard assignment model, and for nonlinear, non-anonymous prices in the package assignment model with general valuations.

Macroecology of parental care in arthropods: higher mortality risk leads to higher benefits of offspring protection in tropical climates.

Science.gov (United States)

Santos, Eduardo S A; Bueno, Pedro P; Gilbert, James D J; Machado, Glauco

2017-08-01

The intensity of biotic interactions varies around the world, in such a way that mortality risk imposed by natural enemies is usually higher in the tropics. A major role of offspring attendance is protection against natural enemies, so the benefits of this behaviour should be higher in tropical regions. We tested this macroecological prediction with a meta-regression of field experiments in which the mortality of guarded and unguarded broods was compared in arthropods. Mortality of unguarded broods was higher, and parental care was more beneficial, in warmer, less seasonal environments. Moreover, in these same environments, additional lines of defence further reduced offspring mortality, implying that offspring attendance alone is not enough to deter natural enemies in tropical regions. These results help to explain the high frequency of parental care among tropical species and how biotic interactions influence the occurrence of parental care over large geographic scales. Finally, our findings reveal that additional lines of defences - an oftentimes neglected component of parental care - have an important effect on the covariation between the benefits of parental care and the climate-mediated mortality risk imposed by natural enemies. © 2016 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Exploring Undergraduate Gender Differences in Anxiety about Meeting Their Assigned Therapist

Science.gov (United States)

Blau, Gary; DiMino, John; DeMaria, Peter A., Jr.; Beverly, Clyde; Chessler, Marcy

2016-01-01

An online survey sample of 166 non-urgent undergraduates, N = 47 (male) and N = 119 (female) waiting to begin counseling after triage found that females had significantly higher anxiety about meeting their assigned (intake) therapist than males. This gender difference of females being higher in counselor meeting anxiety could not be accounted for…

A code reviewer assignment model incorporating the competence differences and participant preferences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Yanqing

2016-03-01

Full Text Available A good assignment of code reviewers can effectively utilize the intellectual resources, assure code quality and improve programmers’ skills in software development. However, little research on reviewer assignment of code review has been found. In this study, a code reviewer assignment model is created based on participants’ preference to reviewing assignment. With a constraint of the smallest size of a review group, the model is optimized to maximize review outcomes and avoid the negative impact of “mutual admiration society”. This study shows that the reviewer assignment strategies incorporating either the reviewers’ preferences or the authors’ preferences get much improvement than a random assignment. The strategy incorporating authors’ preference makes higher improvement than that incorporating reviewers’ preference. However, when the reviewers’ and authors’ preference matrixes are merged, the improvement becomes moderate. The study indicates that the majority of the participants have a strong wish to work with reviewers and authors having highest competence. If we want to satisfy the preference of both reviewers and authors at the same time, the overall improvement of learning outcomes may be not the best.

A feedback model of figure-ground assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Domijan, Drazen; Setić, Mia

2008-05-30

A computational model is proposed in order to explain how bottom-up and top-down signals are combined into a unified perception of figure and background. The model is based on the interaction between the ventral and the dorsal stream. The dorsal stream computes saliency based on boundary signals provided by the simple and the complex cortical cells. Output from the dorsal stream is projected to the surface network which serves as a blackboard on which the surface representation is formed. The surface network is a recurrent network which segregates different surfaces by assigning different firing rates to them. The figure is labeled by the maximal firing rate. Computer simulations showed that the model correctly assigns figural status to the surface with a smaller size, a greater contrast, convexity, surroundedness, horizontal-vertical orientation and a higher spatial frequency content. The simple gradient of activity in the dorsal stream enables the simulation of the new principles of the lower region and the top-bottom polarity. The model also explains how the exogenous attention and the endogenous attention may reverse the figural assignment. Due to the local excitation in the surface network, neural activity at the cued region will spread over the whole surface representation. Therefore, the model implements the object-based attentional selection.

Data Protection Issues in Higher Education with Technological Advancements

Science.gov (United States)

McKelvey, Nigel

2014-01-01

Adhering to laws whilst working or studying in an educational establishment is often fraught with challenges. The Irish Data Protection Act 1988 (Amendment 2003) strives to protect the individual where their personal data is potentially being abused. The advancements in technologies have facilitated educational establishments by improving…

Dynamic Sequence Assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

1983-12-01

D-136 548 DYNAMIIC SEQUENCE ASSIGNMENT(U) ADVANCED INFORMATION AND 1/2 DECISION SYSTEMS MOUNTAIN YIELW CA C A 0 REILLY ET AL. UNCLSSIIED DEC 83 AI/DS...I ADVANCED INFORMATION & DECISION SYSTEMS Mountain View. CA 94040 84 u ,53 V,..’. Unclassified _____ SCURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS PAGE REPORT...reviews some important heuristic algorithms developed for fas- ter solution of the sequence assignment problem. 3.1. DINAMIC MOGRAMUNIG FORMULATION FOR

Efficient Stereospecific Hβ2/3 NMR Assignment Strategy for Mid-Size Proteins

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Alexandra Born

2018-06-01

Full Text Available We present a strategy for stereospecific NMR assignment of Hβ2 and Hβ3 protons in mid-size proteins (~150 residues. For such proteins, resonance overlap in standard experiments is severe, thereby preventing unambiguous assignment of a large fraction of β-methylenes. To alleviate this limitation, assignment experiments may be run in high static fields, where higher decoupling power is required. Three-bond Hα–Hβ J-couplings (3JHα–Hβ are critical for stereospecific assignments of β-methylene protons, and for determining rotameric χ1 states. Therefore, we modified a pulse sequence designed to measure accurate 3JHα–Hβ couplings such that probe heating was reduced, while the decoupling performance was improved. To further increase the resolution, we applied non-uniform sampling (NUS schemes in the indirect 1H and 13C dimensions. The approach was applied to two medium-sized proteins, odorant binding protein 22 (OBP22; 14.4 kDa and Pin1 (18.2 kDa, at 900 MHz polarizing fields. The coupling values obtained from NUS and linear sampling were extremely well correlated. However, NUS decreased the overlap of Hβ2/3 protons, thus supplying a higher yield of extracted 3JHα-Hβ coupling values when compared with linear sampling. A similar effect could be achieved with linear prediction applied to the linearly sampled data prior to the Fourier transformation. Finally, we used 3JHα–Hβ couplings from Pin1 in combination with either conventional or exact nuclear Overhauser enhancement (eNOE restraints to determine the stereospecific assignments of β-methylene protons. The use of eNOEs further increased the fraction of unambiguously assigned resonances when compared with procedures using conventional NOEs.

relay coordination in the protection of radially-connected power

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... PROTECTION OF. RADIALLY-CONNECTED POWER SYSTEM NETWORK ... Protective relays detect intolerable or unwanted conditions within an assigned area, and then trip or open one ... time, and current transformer ratio errors. 2.2.1.

Reflective practice: assessment of assignments in English for Specific Purposes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Galina Kavaliauskiené

2007-10-01

Full Text Available The construct alternative assessment has been widely used in higher education. It is often defined as any type of assessment of learners who provide a response to an assignment. The key features of alternative assessment are active participation of learners in self-evaluation of their performance, and the development of reflective thinking through reflective thinking (Schön, 1983. The success of alternative assessment in language teaching is predetermined by student’s performance and demonstrates learner’s language proficiency in contemporary communicative classrooms. This paper aims at researching the influence of students’ evaluations of various assignments for their linguistic development in English for Specific Purposes (ESP. The study uses learners’ assessment of different assignments and learners’ in-course and post-course written reflections on benefits to language mastery. Learners’ assignments included were contributions to portfolios (dossiers, such as essays and summaries, oral presentations, short impromptu talks, creative tasks, tests, and self-assessment notes (reflections on activities in learning ESP. Findings were obtained for two streams of the project participants. Results showed that self-assessment was beneficial for learners’ linguistic development. The context of learners’ reflections reveals that the attitudes to various assignments are affected by success or failure in students’ performance. Reflective practice might help teachers develop ways of dealing with previously identified difficulties and improve the quality of teaching.

A Comparative Analysis of Pair-work and Individual Assignments In two ELT Grammar Classes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olcay Sert

2005-10-01

Full Text Available Assignments prepared in pair-work have long been evaluated to be more successful whencompared to individually prepared assignments in many respects in foreign language learningcontexts. However, there is not much research conducted to reveal the advantages of pair-work in preparing assignments and the linguistic characteristics of the finished texts. In this paper, depending upon an experimental study with the first year students in Department of EnglishLanguage Teaching at Hacettepe University, quality of pair-work assignments and the factors affecting the preparation process are discussed and compared to individual assignments. Results indicate a variety of advantages of student collaboration in preparing written work since outputsare far more grammatical, include less spelling mistakes, and indicate a higher level ofgrammatical awareness. Additionally, pair-work helps students build positive interpersonalrelationships and create a high level of academic solidarity and confidence.

Accuracy of administratively-assigned ancestry for diverse populations in an electronic medical record-linked biobank.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacob B Hall

Full Text Available Recently, the development of biobanks linked to electronic medical records has presented new opportunities for genetic and epidemiological research. Studies based on these resources, however, present unique challenges, including the accurate assignment of individual-level population ancestry. In this work we examine the accuracy of administratively-assigned race in diverse populations by comparing assigned races to genetically-defined ancestry estimates. Using 220 ancestry informative markers, we generated principal components for patients in our dataset, which were used to cluster patients into groups based on genetic ancestry. Consistent with other studies, we find a strong overall agreement (Kappa  = 0.872 between genetic ancestry and assigned race, with higher rates of agreement for African-descent and European-descent assignments, and reduced agreement for Hispanic, East Asian-descent, and South Asian-descent assignments. These results suggest caution when selecting study samples of non-African and non-European backgrounds when administratively-assigned race from biobanks is used.

Approaches to assign security levels for radioactive substances and radiation sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ivanov, M.V.; Petrovskij, N.P.; Pinchuk, G.N.; Telkov, S.N.; Kuzin, V.V.

2011-01-01

The article contains analyzed provisions on categorization of radioactive substances and radiation sources according to the extent of their potential danger. Above provisions are used in the IAEA documents and in Russian regulatory documents for differentiation of regulatory requirements to physical security. It is demonstrated that with the account of possible threats of violators, rules of physical protection of radiation sources and radioactive substances should be amended as regards the approaches to assign their categories and security levels [ru

Using HL7 in hospital staff assignments.

Science.gov (United States)

Unluturk, Mehmet S

2014-02-01

Hospital staff assignments are the instructions that allocate the hospital staff members to the hospital beds. Currently, hospital administrators make the assignments without accessing the information regarding the occupancy of the hospital beds and the acuity of the patient. As a result, administrators cannot distinguish between occupied and unoccupied beds, and may therefore assign staff to unoccupied beds. This gives rise to uneven and inefficient staff assignments. In this paper, the hospital admission-discharge-transfer (ADT) system is employed both as a data source and an assignment device to create staff assignments. When the patient data is newly added or modified, the ADT system updates the assignment software client with the relevant data. Based on the relevant data, the assignment software client is able to construct staff assignments in a more efficient way. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Investigating the relationship between quality, format and delivery of feedback for written assignments in higher education

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sopina, Liza Elizaveta; McNeill, Rob

2015-01-01

Feedback can have a great impact on student learning. However, in order for it to be effective, feedback needs to be of high quality. Electronic marking has been one of the latest adaptations of technology in teaching and offers a new format of delivering feedback. There is little research...... improved speed and consistency of marking. There was no increase or decrease in satisfaction with the feedback received. Overall, electronic marking was found to be an acceptable method of delivery of feedback on written assignments by both students and markers. The findings of this study suggest...

Koblenz Higher Administrative Court reproaches complainants with abusing legal protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1981-01-01

In its decision of November 18, 1980, the Koblenz Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate dismissed the appeal filed by the complaining party, members of the so-called 'Forum Humanum' against the decisions made by the Koblenz Administrative Court which dismissed their action filed against the partial licence issued for, and the licensing of, the Muelheim-Kaerlich reactor (comp. with first report in 'et' 2/81 p. 145). The complaining party was ordered to pay the costs of the proceedings, including the out-of-court costs of the parties invited to attend (constructor and operator). According to the decision, the value in litigation was fixed at DM 100 000 each for the appeal. Another appeal was not allowed. The substance of both decisions is identical. In decision 7 A II 78/80 it is pointed out that the complaining party appeared in court as a 'public agent' acting in the 'public interest'. Constitutionally, legal protection in administrative matters does not know of any class-action suit. (orig./HSCH) [de

Auditing the Assignments of Top-Level Semantic Types in the UMLS Semantic Network to UMLS Concepts.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Zhe; Perl, Yehoshua; Elhanan, Gai; Chen, Yan; Geller, James; Bian, Jiang

2017-11-01

The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is an important terminological system. By the policy of its curators, each concept of the UMLS should be assigned the most specific Semantic Types (STs) in the UMLS Semantic Network (SN). Hence, the Semantic Types of most UMLS concepts are assigned at or near the bottom (leaves) of the UMLS Semantic Network. While most ST assignments are correct, some errors do occur. Therefore, Quality Assurance efforts of UMLS curators for ST assignments should concentrate on automatically detected sets of UMLS concepts with higher error rates than random sets. In this paper, we investigate the assignments of top-level semantic types in the UMLS semantic network to concepts, identify potential erroneous assignments, define four categories of errors, and thus provide assistance to curators of the UMLS to avoid these assignments errors. Human experts analyzed samples of concepts assigned 10 of the top-level semantic types and categorized the erroneous ST assignments into these four logical categories. Two thirds of the concepts assigned these 10 top-level semantic types are erroneous. Our results demonstrate that reviewing top-level semantic type assignments to concepts provides an effective way for UMLS quality assurance, comparing to reviewing a random selection of semantic type assignments.

Assignments of rights and obligations under a gas sales contract

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kowch, J.R.M.

1996-01-01

A general overview of the principles of assignment in a gas sales contract was presented. Assignment is a process wherein the rights or obligations under a contract are transferred from one of the contracting parties to a third party. It is, in other words, the introduction of a new party to the original contractual relationship. Under the rights and obligations of a gas sales contract, the most important right of the seller is to have its gas taken and to be paid. Likewise, the most important obligation of the buyer is to take the gas and pay for it. An assignment by either party has the potential to alter the original expectations of the parties or the basis of which they committed to the contract in the first place. Prior to deregulation and unbundling initiatives, gas sellers and buyers could enter a 20 year sales contract and deal exclusively with each other over the entire 20 year term. Since deregulation, there are more players, and a higher level of corporate acquisitions, divestitures, rationalizations, and restructuring. Today, there are greater chances than ever before that the original party to a contract may change, or that certain rights and obligations may be assigned to a third party and affect the expectations under the contract

A note on ranking assignments using reoptimization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Christian Roed; Nielsen, L.R.; Andersen, K.A.

2005-01-01

We consider the problem of ranking assignments according to cost in the classical linear assignment problem. An algorithm partitioning the set of possible assignments, as suggested by Murty, is presented where, for each partition, the optimal assignment is calculated using a new reoptimization...

Child Protection Decision Making: A Factorial Analysis Using Case Vignettes

Science.gov (United States)

Stokes, Jacqueline; Schmidt, Glen

2012-01-01

This study explored decision making by child protection social workers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. A factorial survey method was used in which case vignettes were constructed by randomly assigning a number of key characteristics associated with decision making in child protection. Child protection social workers (n = 118) assessed…

Competitive Traffic Assignment in Road Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krylatov Alexander Y.

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Recently in-vehicle route guidance and information systems are rapidly developing. Such systems are expected to reduce congestion in an urban traffic area. This social benefit is believed to be reached by imposing the route choices on the network users that lead to the system optimum traffic assignment. However, guidance service could be offered by different competitive business companies. Then route choices of different mutually independent groups of users may reject traffic assignment from the system optimum state. In this paper, a game theoretic approach is shown to be very efficient to formalize competitive traffic assignment problem with various groups of users in the form of non-cooperative network game with the Nash equilibrium search. The relationships between the Wardrop’s system optimum associated with the traffic assignment problem and the Nash equilibrium associated with the competitive traffic assignment problem are investigated. Moreover, some related aspects of the Nash equilibrium and the Wardrop’s user equilibrium assignments are also discussed.

Real life working shift assignment problem

Science.gov (United States)

Sze, San-Nah; Kwek, Yeek-Ling; Tiong, Wei-King; Chiew, Kang-Leng

2017-07-01

This study concerns about the working shift assignment in an outlet of Supermarket X in Eastern Mall, Kuching. The working shift assignment needs to be solved at least once in every month. Current approval process of working shifts is too troublesome and time-consuming. Furthermore, the management staff cannot have an overview of manpower and working shift schedule. Thus, the aim of this study is to develop working shift assignment simulation and propose a working shift assignment solution. The main objective for this study is to fulfill manpower demand at minimum operation cost. Besides, the day off and meal break policy should be fulfilled accordingly. Demand based heuristic is proposed to assign working shift and the quality of the solution is evaluated by using the real data.

24 CFR 221.770 - Assignment option.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 24 Housing and Urban Development 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Assignment option. 221.770 Section... § 221.770 Assignment option. A mortgagee holding a conditional or firm commitment issued on or before... mortgagee's approved underwriter on or before November 30, 1983) has the option to assign, transfer and...

Protecting Government Works: The Copyright Issue

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Manz, Paul C; Zelenka, Michael J; Wittig, Raymond S; Smith, Sally A

2002-01-01

...; the alternatives that would permit the Government to own the copyright in government works ; the ability to allow private sector companies to assign coauthored works; and the importance to a federal technology manager of such protection.

Job Assignments under Moral Hazard

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Koch, Alexander; Nafziger, Julia

Inefficient job assignments are usually explained with incomplete information about employees' abilities or contractual imperfections. We show that inefficient assignments arise even without uncertainty about the employee's ability and with complete contracts. Building on this result we provide...

Higher cerebral oxygen saturation may provide higher urinary output during continuous regional cerebral perfusion

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomoyasu Takahiro

2008-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Objective We examined the hypothesis that higher cerebral oxygen saturation (rSO2 during RCP is correlated with urinary output. Methods Between December 2002 and August 2006, 12 patients aged 3 to 61 days and weighing 2.6 to 3.4 kg underwent aortic arch repair with RCP. Urinary output and rSO2 were analyzed retrospectively. Data were assigned to either of 2 groups according to their corresponding rSO2: Group A (rSO2 ≦ 75% and Group B (rSO2 Results Seven and 5 patients were assigned to Group A and Group B, respectively. Group A was characterized by mean radial arterial pressure (37.9 ± 9.6 vs 45.8 ± 7.8 mmHg; P = 0.14 and femoral arterial pressure (6.7 ± 6.1 vs 20.8 ± 14.6 mmHg; P = 0.09 compared to Group B. However, higher urinary output during CPB (1.03 ± 1.18 vs 0.10 ± 0.15 ml·kg-1·h-1; P = 0.03. Furthermore our results indicate that a higher dose of Chlorpromazine was used in Group A (2.9 ± 1.4 vs 1.7 ± 1.0 mg/kg; P = 0.03. Conclusion Higher cerebral oxygenation may provide higher urinary output due to higher renal blood flow through collateral circulation.

EZ-ASSIGN, a program for exhaustive NMR chemical shift assignments of large proteins from complete or incomplete triple-resonance data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zuiderweg, Erik R. P., E-mail: zuiderwe@umich.edu; Bagai, Ireena [The University of Michigan Medical School, Department of Biological Chemistry (United States); Rossi, Paolo [Rutgers University, Center for Integrative Proteomics Research (United States); Bertelsen, Eric B. [Arbor Communications, Inc. (United States)

2013-10-15

For several of the proteins in the BioMagResBank larger than 200 residues, 60 % or fewer of the backbone resonances were assigned. But how reliable are those assignments? In contrast to complete assignments, where it is possible to check whether every triple-resonance Generalized Spin System (GSS) is assigned once and only once, with incomplete data one should compare all possible assignments and pick the best one. But that is not feasible: For example, for 200 residues and an incomplete set of 100 GSS, there are 1.6 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 260} possible assignments. In 'EZ-ASSIGN', the protein sequence is divided in smaller unique fragments. Combined with intelligent search approaches, an exhaustive comparison of all possible assignments is now feasible using a laptop computer. The program was tested with experimental data of a 388-residue domain of the Hsp70 chaperone protein DnaK and for a 351-residue domain of a type III secretion ATPase. EZ-ASSIGN reproduced the hand assignments. It did slightly better than the computer program PINE (Bahrami et al. in PLoS Comput Biol 5(3):e1000307, 2009) and significantly outperformed SAGA (Crippen et al. in J Biomol NMR 46:281-298, 2010), AUTOASSIGN (Zimmerman et al. in J Mol Biol 269:592-610, 1997), and IBIS (Hyberts and Wagner in J Biomol NMR 26:335-344, 2003). Next, EZ-ASSIGN was used to investigate how well NMR data of decreasing completeness can be assigned. We found that the program could confidently assign fragments in very incomplete data. Here, EZ-ASSIGN dramatically outperformed all the other assignment programs tested.

24 CFR 221.255 - Assignment option.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 24 Housing and Urban Development 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Assignment option. 221.255 Section... Assignment option. (a) A mortgagee holding a mortgage insured pursuant to a conditional or firm commitment issued on or before November 30, 1983 has the option to assign, transfer and deliver to the Commissioner...

An algorithm for ranking assignments using reoptimization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Christian Roed; Nielsen, Lars Relund; Andersen, Kim Allan

2008-01-01

We consider the problem of ranking assignments according to cost in the classical linear assignment problem. An algorithm partitioning the set of possible assignments, as suggested by Murty, is presented where, for each partition, the optimal assignment is calculated using a new reoptimization...... technique. Computational results for the new algorithm are presented...

48 CFR 42.602 - Assignment and location.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Assignment and location... Assignment and location. (a) A CACO may be assigned only when (1) the contractor has at least two locations..., or a full-time CACO may be assigned. In determining the location of the CACO, the responsible agency...

4D experiments measured with APSY for automated backbone resonance assignments of large proteins

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krähenbühl, Barbara; Boudet, Julien; Wider, Gerhard

2013-01-01

Detailed structural and functional characterization of proteins by solution NMR requires sequence-specific resonance assignment. We present a set of transverse relaxation optimization (TROSY) based four-dimensional automated projection spectroscopy (APSY) experiments which are designed for resonance assignments of proteins with a size up to 40 kDa, namely HNCACO, HNCOCA, HNCACB and HN(CO)CACB. These higher-dimensional experiments include several sensitivity-optimizing features such as multiple quantum parallel evolution in a ‘just-in-time’ manner, aliased off-resonance evolution, evolution-time optimized APSY acquisition, selective water-handling and TROSY. The experiments were acquired within the concept of APSY, but they can also be used within the framework of sparsely sampled experiments. The multidimensional peak lists derived with APSY provided chemical shifts with an approximately 20 times higher precision than conventional methods usually do, and allowed the assignment of 90 % of the backbone resonances of the perdeuterated primase-polymerase ORF904, which contains 331 amino acid residues and has a molecular weight of 38.4 kDa.

EZ-ASSIGN, a program for exhaustive NMR chemical shift assignments of large proteins from complete or incomplete triple-resonance data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zuiderweg, Erik R. P.; Bagai, Ireena; Rossi, Paolo; Bertelsen, Eric B.

2013-01-01

For several of the proteins in the BioMagResBank larger than 200 residues, 60 % or fewer of the backbone resonances were assigned. But how reliable are those assignments? In contrast to complete assignments, where it is possible to check whether every triple-resonance Generalized Spin System (GSS) is assigned once and only once, with incomplete data one should compare all possible assignments and pick the best one. But that is not feasible: For example, for 200 residues and an incomplete set of 100 GSS, there are 1.6 × 10 260 possible assignments. In “EZ-ASSIGN”, the protein sequence is divided in smaller unique fragments. Combined with intelligent search approaches, an exhaustive comparison of all possible assignments is now feasible using a laptop computer. The program was tested with experimental data of a 388-residue domain of the Hsp70 chaperone protein DnaK and for a 351-residue domain of a type III secretion ATPase. EZ-ASSIGN reproduced the hand assignments. It did slightly better than the computer program PINE (Bahrami et al. in PLoS Comput Biol 5(3):e1000307, 2009) and significantly outperformed SAGA (Crippen et al. in J Biomol NMR 46:281–298, 2010), AUTOASSIGN (Zimmerman et al. in J Mol Biol 269:592–610, 1997), and IBIS (Hyberts and Wagner in J Biomol NMR 26:335–344, 2003). Next, EZ-ASSIGN was used to investigate how well NMR data of decreasing completeness can be assigned. We found that the program could confidently assign fragments in very incomplete data. Here, EZ-ASSIGN dramatically outperformed all the other assignment programs tested

Quality Assurance of UMLS Semantic Type Assignments Using SNOMED CT Hierarchies.

Science.gov (United States)

Gu, H; Chen, Y; He, Z; Halper, M; Chen, L

2016-01-01

The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is one of the largest biomedical terminological systems, with over 2.5 million concepts in its Metathesaurus repository. The UMLS's Semantic Network (SN) with its collection of 133 high-level semantic types serves as an abstraction layer on top of the Metathesaurus. In particular, the SN elaborates an aspect of the Metathesaurus's concepts via the assignment of one or more types to each concept. Due to the scope and complexity of the Metathesaurus, errors are all but inevitable in this semantic-type assignment process. To develop a semi-automated methodology to help assure the quality of semantic-type assignments within the UMLS. The methodology uses a cross-validation strategy involving SNOMED CT's hierarchies in combination with UMLS semantic types. Semantically uniform, disjoint concept groups are generated programmatically by partitioning the collection of all concepts in the same SNOMED CT hierarchy according to their respective semantic-type assignments in the UMLS. Domain experts are then called upon to review the concepts in any group having a small number of concepts. It is our hypothesis that a semantic-type assignment combination applicable only to a very small number of concepts in a SNOMED CT hierarchy is an indicator of potential problems. The methodology was applied to the UMLS 2013AA release along with the SNOMED CT from January 2013. An overall error rate of 33% was found for concepts proposed by the quality-assurance methodology. Supporting our hypothesis, that number was four times higher than the error rate found in control samples. The results show that the quality-assurance methodology can aid in effective and efficient identification of UMLS semantic-type assignment errors.

Radiation protection. Clothing for protection against radioactive contamination. Design, selection, testing and use

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1987-09-01

The present Standard gives the characteristics of clothing protecting the wearer against radioactive contamination brought about by contact with liquid or solid substances or by atmospheric pollutants, such as solid particles, mist, gases or vapours. The Standard applies to two types of clothing: firstly, ventilated-pressurized garments; secondly, unventilated-unpressurized garments. A test method according to which any new type of garment can be assigned a protection factor that makes it easier for the user to make a choice is described. The report also gives methods for measuring leak-tightness and air supply flow rates of ventilated-pressurized garments. For guidance purposes only, recommendations for choosing protective clothing are given. 5 figs, 2 tabs [fr

The Law on Preventive Radiation Protection. A link between environmental protection and civil defence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roewer, H.

1988-01-01

The Law on Preventive Radiation Protection defines the legal framework of and the measures to be taken for achieving the purpose of the law, with competences being assigned to a variety of authorities of the Bund or Laender. The bill very quickly passed Parliament and this indeed is a very positive result, as the subject is a delicate one, politically speaking, but the disadvantages of the short law-making period are realized when going through the various provisions. There is a lack of exactness regarding terms and definitions, legal systematics, or assignment of competences. Also, lack of clear demarcation of applicability of the law against other laws in this field is likely to pose problems in practice. The article also presents a survey of tasks and competences assigned to the Bund or the Laender, and the relevant authorities concerned. (orig./HSCH) [de

Exogenous spatial attention influences figure-ground assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Vecera, Shaun P; Flevaris, Anastasia V; Filapek, Joseph C

2004-01-01

In a hierarchical stage account of vision, figure-ground assignment is thought to be completed before the operation of focal spatial attention. Results of previous studies have supported this account by showing that unpredictive, exogenous spatial precues do not influence figure-ground assignment, although voluntary attention can influence figure-ground assignment. However, in these studies, attention was not summoned directly to a region in a figure-ground display. In three experiments, we addressed the relationship between figure-ground assignment and visuospatial attention. In Experiment 1, we replicated the finding that exogenous precues do not influence figure-ground assignment when they direct attention outside of a figure-ground stimulus. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that exogenous attention can influence figure-ground assignment if it is directed to one of the regions in a figure-ground stimulus. In Experiment 3, we demonstrated that exogenous attention can influence figure-ground assignment in displays that contain a Gestalt figure-ground cue; this result suggests that figure-ground processes are not entirely completed prior to the operation of focal spatial attention. Exogenous spatial attention acts as a cue for figure-ground assignment and can affect the outcome of figure-ground processes.

The significance of socially-assigned ethnicity for self-identified Māori accessing and engaging with primary healthcare in New Zealand.

Science.gov (United States)

Reid, Jennifer; Cormack, Donna; Crowe, Marie

2016-03-01

Despite increased focus in New Zealand on reducing health inequities between Māori and New Zealand European ethnic groups, research on barriers and facilitators to primary healthcare access for Māori remains limited. In particular, there has been little interrogation of the significance of social-assignment of ethnicity for Māori in relation to engagement with predominantly non-Māori primary healthcare services and providers. A qualitative study was undertaken with a subsample (n = 40) of the broader Hauora Manawa Study to examine experiences of accessing and engaging with primary healthcare among adult urban Māori. Thematic analysis of in-depth interviews identified that participants perceived social-assignment as New Zealand European as an efficacious form of capital when interacting with predominantly non-Māori health professionals. Skin colour that was 'white' or was perceived to identify Māori as belonging to the 'dominant' New Zealand European ethnic group was reported as broadly advantageous and protective. In contrast, social-assignment as Māori was seen to be associated with risk of exposure to differential and discriminatory healthcare. Reducing the negative impacts of racialisation in a (neo)colonial society where 'White' cultural capital dominates requires increased recognition of the health-protective advantages of 'White' privilege and concomitant risks associated with socially-assigned categorisation of ethnicity as non-'White'. © The Author(s) 2015.

Protective intraoperative ventilation with higher versus lower levels of positive end-expiratory pressure in obese patients (PROBESE): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Bluth, T; Teichmann, R; Kiss, T; Bobek, I; Canet, J; Cinnella, G; De Baerdemaeker, L; Gregoretti, C; Hedenstierna, G; Hemmes, S N; Hiesmayr, M; Hollmann, M W; Jaber, S; Laffey, J G; Licker, M J; Markstaller, K; Matot, I; Müller, G; Mills, G H; Mulier, J P; Putensen, C; Rossaint, R; Schmitt, J; Senturk, M; Serpa Neto, A; Severgnini, P; Sprung, J; Vidal Melo, M F; Wrigge, H; Schultz, M J; Pelosi, P; Gama de Abreu, M

2017-04-28

Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) increase the morbidity and mortality of surgery in obese patients. High levels of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) with lung recruitment maneuvers may improve intraoperative respiratory function, but they can also compromise hemodynamics, and the effects on PPCs are uncertain. We hypothesized that intraoperative mechanical ventilation using high PEEP with periodic recruitment maneuvers, as compared with low PEEP without recruitment maneuvers, prevents PPCs in obese patients. The PRotective Ventilation with Higher versus Lower PEEP during General Anesthesia for Surgery in OBESE Patients (PROBESE) study is a multicenter, two-arm, international randomized controlled trial. In total, 2013 obese patients with body mass index ≥35 kg/m 2 scheduled for at least 2 h of surgery under general anesthesia and at intermediate to high risk for PPCs will be included. Patients are ventilated intraoperatively with a low tidal volume of 7 ml/kg (predicted body weight) and randomly assigned to PEEP of 12 cmH 2 O with lung recruitment maneuvers (high PEEP) or PEEP of 4 cmH 2 O without recruitment maneuvers (low PEEP). The occurrence of PPCs will be recorded as collapsed composite of single adverse pulmonary events and represents the primary endpoint. To our knowledge, the PROBESE trial is the first multicenter, international randomized controlled trial to compare the effects of two different levels of intraoperative PEEP during protective low tidal volume ventilation on PPCs in obese patients. The results of the PROBESE trial will support anesthesiologists in their decision to choose a certain PEEP level during general anesthesia for surgery in obese patients in an attempt to prevent PPCs. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02148692. Registered on 23 May 2014; last updated 7 June 2016.

Evaluation of Dynamic Channel and Power Assignment for Cognitive Networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Syed A. Ahmad; Umesh Shukla; Ryan E. Irwin; Luiz A. DaSilva; Allen B. MacKenzie

2011-03-01

In this paper, we develop a unifying optimization formulation to describe the Dynamic Channel and Power Assignment (DCPA) problem and evaluation method for comparing DCPA algorithms. DCPA refers to the allocation of transmit power and frequency channels to links in a cognitive network so as to maximize the total number of feasible links while minimizing the aggregate transmit power. We apply our evaluation method to five algorithms representative of DCPA used in literature. This comparison illustrates the tradeoffs between control modes (centralized versus distributed) and channel/power assignment techniques. We estimate the complexity of each algorithm. Through simulations, we evaluate the effectiveness of the algorithms in achieving feasible link allocations in the network, as well as their power efficiency. Our results indicate that, when few channels are available, the effectiveness of all algorithms is comparable and thus the one with smallest complexity should be selected. The Least Interfering Channel and Iterative Power Assignment (LICIPA) algorithm does not require cross-link gain information, has the overall lowest run time, and highest feasibility ratio of all the distributed algorithms; however, this comes at a cost of higher average power per link.

WebAssign: Assessing Your Students' Understanding Continuously

Science.gov (United States)

Risley, John S.

1999-11-01

Motivating students to learn is a constant challenge for faculty. Technology can play a significant role. One such solution is WebAssign — a web-based homework system that offers new teaching and learning opportunities for educators and their students. WebAssign delivers, collects, grades, and records customized homework assignments over the Internet. Students get immediate feedback with credit and instructors can implement "Just-in-Time" teaching. In this talk, I will describe how assignments can be generated with different numerical values for each question, giving each student a unique problem to solve. This feature encourages independent thinking with the benefit of collaborative learning. Example assignments taken from textbook questions and intellectually engaging Java applet simulations will be shown. Studies and first-hand experience on the educational impact of using WebAssign will also be discussed.

Partially-deuterated samples of HET-s(218–289) fibrils: assignment and deuterium isotope effect

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Smith, Albert A.; Ravotti, Francesco; Testori, Emilie; Cadalbert, Riccardo; Ernst, Matthias, E-mail: maer@ethz.ch [ETH Zürich, Physical Chemistry (Switzerland); Böckmann, Anja, E-mail: a.bockmann@ibcp.fr [Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, Bases Moléculaires et Structurales des Systèmes Infectieux, Labex Ecofect, UMR 5086 CNRS, Université de Lyon (France); Meier, Beat H., E-mail: beme@ethz.ch [ETH Zürich, Physical Chemistry (Switzerland)

2017-02-15

Fast magic-angle spinning and partial sample deuteration allows direct detection of {sup 1}H in solid-state NMR, yielding significant gains in mass sensitivity. In order to further analyze the spectra, {sup 1}H detection requires assignment of the {sup 1}H resonances. In this work, resonance assignments of backbone H{sup N} and Hα are presented for HET-s(218–289) fibrils, based on the existing assignment of Cα, Cβ, C’, and N resonances. The samples used are partially deuterated for higher spectral resolution, and the shifts in resonance frequencies of Cα and Cβ due to the deuterium isotope effect are investigated. It is shown that the deuterium isotope effect can be estimated and used for assigning resonances of deuterated samples in solid-state NMR, based on known resonances of the protonated protein.

Solving the rectangular assignment problem and applications

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bijsterbosch, J.; Volgenant, A.

2010-01-01

The rectangular assignment problem is a generalization of the linear assignment problem (LAP): one wants to assign a number of persons to a smaller number of jobs, minimizing the total corresponding costs. Applications are, e.g., in the fields of object recognition and scheduling. Further, we show

7 CFR 900.106 - Assignment of mediator.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Assignment of mediator. 900.106 Section 900.106 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing... Assignment of mediator. The Director of the Division shall assign a mediator, from the group designated by...

The state of radiation protection in Iran

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sohrabi, M.

1988-01-01

Historically, radiation protection in Iran can be related to when the first x-ray machine was applied for medical diagnosis. However, organized activities were started with the establishment of the Tehran University Nuclear Center (TUNC) in 1959, and within a broader scope when AEOI research reactor went into operation in 1967. In 1974, the Atomic Energy Organization Law of Iran was ascribed the responsibility for radiological safety and protection to the AEOI. Then this responsibility was assigned by AEOI to the Radiation Protection Department (RPD), as the national authority. The RPD's organization and functions have been divided into three main RPD divisions: Radiation Protection Control; Radiation Dosimetry Research and Development and Services; and Radiological Protection of the Environment

My Favorite Assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

ABCA Bulletin, 1983

1983-01-01

Describes three assignments for enticing business communication students to undertake library research: an analysis of a Fortune 500 company, a career choice report, and a report on an organization that offers potential employment. (AEA)

Higher Maternal Protectiveness Is Associated with Higher Odds of Child Overweight and Obesity: A Longitudinal Australian Study

Science.gov (United States)

Hancock, Kirsten J.; Lawrence, David; Zubrick, Stephen R.

2014-01-01

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in overprotective parenting and the potential role it plays in child development. While some have argued that a trend towards increased parental fear and reduced opportunity for independent mobility may be linked to increasing rates of child overweight and obesity, there is limited empirical information available to support this claim. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, this study aimed to examine the longitudinal relationships between maternal protectiveness and child overweight and obesity. A cohort of 4–5 year old children was followed up at 6–7, 8–9 and 10–11 years of age (n  =  2596). Measures included a protective parenting scale administered when children were 6–7 and 8–9 years of age, child body mass index (BMI), family characteristics including household income, neighbourhood disadvantage, child's position amongst siblings, and maternal BMI, education, employment, mental health and age at first birth. International Obesity Taskforce age- and sex-specific BMI cut points were used to determine if children were in the normal, overweight or obese BMI range. There was no association between maternal protectiveness and the odds of children being overweight or obese at age 4–5, 6–7 or 8–9 years. However at age 10–11 years, a 1 standard deviation increase in maternal protectiveness was associated with a 13% increase in the odds of children being overweight or obese. The results provide evidence of a relationship between maternal protectiveness and child overweight and obesity, however further research is required to understand the mechanism(s) that links the two concepts. PMID:24955586

Higher maternal protectiveness is associated with higher odds of child overweight and obesity: a longitudinal Australian study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kirsten J Hancock

Full Text Available In recent years there has been an increasing interest in overprotective parenting and the potential role it plays in child development. While some have argued that a trend towards increased parental fear and reduced opportunity for independent mobility may be linked to increasing rates of child overweight and obesity, there is limited empirical information available to support this claim. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, this study aimed to examine the longitudinal relationships between maternal protectiveness and child overweight and obesity. A cohort of 4-5 year old children was followed up at 6-7, 8-9 and 10-11 years of age (n  =  2596. Measures included a protective parenting scale administered when children were 6-7 and 8-9 years of age, child body mass index (BMI, family characteristics including household income, neighbourhood disadvantage, child's position amongst siblings, and maternal BMI, education, employment, mental health and age at first birth. International Obesity Taskforce age- and sex-specific BMI cut points were used to determine if children were in the normal, overweight or obese BMI range. There was no association between maternal protectiveness and the odds of children being overweight or obese at age 4-5, 6-7 or 8-9 years. However at age 10-11 years, a 1 standard deviation increase in maternal protectiveness was associated with a 13% increase in the odds of children being overweight or obese. The results provide evidence of a relationship between maternal protectiveness and child overweight and obesity, however further research is required to understand the mechanism(s that links the two concepts.

Minimum Interference Channel Assignment Algorithm for Multicast in a Wireless Mesh Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sangil Choi

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Wireless mesh networks (WMNs have been considered as one of the key technologies for the configuration of wireless machines since they emerged. In a WMN, wireless routers provide multi-hop wireless connectivity between hosts in the network and also allow them to access the Internet via gateway devices. Wireless routers are typically equipped with multiple radios operating on different channels to increase network throughput. Multicast is a form of communication that delivers data from a source to a set of destinations simultaneously. It is used in a number of applications, such as distributed games, distance education, and video conferencing. In this study, we address a channel assignment problem for multicast in multi-radio multi-channel WMNs. In a multi-radio multi-channel WMN, two nearby nodes will interfere with each other and cause a throughput decrease when they transmit on the same channel. Thus, an important goal for multicast channel assignment is to reduce the interference among networked devices. We have developed a minimum interference channel assignment (MICA algorithm for multicast that accurately models the interference relationship between pairs of multicast tree nodes using the concept of the interference factor and assigns channels to tree nodes to minimize interference within the multicast tree. Simulation results show that MICA achieves higher throughput and lower end-to-end packet delay compared with an existing channel assignment algorithm named multi-channel multicast (MCM. In addition, MICA achieves much lower throughput variation among the destination nodes than MCM.

Managing voluntary turnover through challenging assignments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Preenen, P.T.Y.; de Pater, I.E.; van Vianen, A.E.M.; Keijzer, L.

2011-01-01

This study examines employees’ challenging assignments as manageable means to reduce turnover intentions, job search behaviors, and voluntary turnover. Results indicate that challenging assignments are negatively related to turnover intentions and job search behaviors and that these relationships

Managing voluntary turnover through challenging assignments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Preenen, P.T.Y.; Pater, I.E. de; Vianen, A.E.M. van; Keijzer, L.

2011-01-01

This study examines employees' challenging assignments as manageable means to reduce turnover intentions, job search behaviors, and voluntary turnover. Results indicate that challenging assignments are negatively related to turnover intentions and job search behaviors and that these relationships

Effects of multiple viewings of an ultraviolet photo on sun protection behaviors.

Science.gov (United States)

Mahler, H I M

2018-05-02

To determine whether multiple viewings of one's ultraviolet (UV) facial photo differentially affects subsequent sun protection behaviors relative to a single viewing. Pretest-posttest control group. Southern California college students (N = 151) were randomly assigned to be shown their UV facial photo one time, multiple times over the course of 2 weeks, or not at all. Emotional reactions, perceived susceptibility to skin damage, and sun protection intentions were assessed immediately, and sun protection behaviors were assessed during a surprise telephonic follow-up 1 month later. Immediately after viewing a UV photo of their face, participants reported significantly greater perceived susceptibility to skin damage, greater intentions to engage in future sun protection, and more negative emotions than those who had not seen a UV photo. Moreover, 1 month later, those who had viewed their UV photo were less likely to report having sunbathed and reported significantly greater sun protection than did controls. There were no differences in sun protection behaviors between those who had been shown their UV photo only once during the initial intervention session and those who had been sent their UV photo several times thereafter. However, among those who had been sent their UV photo several times, those who reported having viewed their photo on additional occasions reported significantly greater sun protection behaviors than those who had not. Being randomly assigned to view a UV facial photo multiple times generally neither strengthened nor weakened effects on subsequent sun protection behaviors relative to being shown the photo just once. However, among those who were sent their photo and thus had the option of viewing it more often than they had been assigned to, those who chose to view their photo more frequently also engaged in more sun protection behaviors. Copyright © 2018 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Scaffolding students’ assignments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Slot, Marie Falkesgaard

2013-01-01

This article discusses scaffolding in typical student assignments in mother tongue learning materials in upper secondary education in Denmark and the United Kingdom. It has been determined that assignments do not have sufficient scaffolding end features to help pupils understand concepts and build...... objects. The article presents the results of empirical research on tasks given in Danish and British learning materials. This work is based on a further development of my PhD thesis: “Learning materials in the subject of Danish” (Slot 2010). The main focus is how cognitive models (and subsidiary explicit...... learning goals) can help students structure their argumentative and communica-tive learning processes, and how various multimodal representations can give more open-ended learning possibilities for collaboration. The article presents a short introduction of the skills for 21st century learning and defines...

Mars - robust automatic backbone assignment of proteins

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jung, Young-Sang; Zweckstetter, Markus

2004-01-01

MARS a program for robust automatic backbone assignment of 13 C/ 15 N labeled proteins is presented. MARS does not require tight thresholds for establishing sequential connectivity or detailed adjustment of these thresholds and it can work with a wide variety of NMR experiments. Using only 13 C α / 13 C β connectivity information, MARS allows automatic, error-free assignment of 96% of the 370-residue maltose-binding protein. MARS can successfully be used when data are missing for a substantial portion of residues or for proteins with very high chemical shift degeneracy such as partially or fully unfolded proteins. Other sources of information, such as residue specific information or known assignments from a homologues protein, can be included into the assignment process. MARS exports its result in SPARKY format. This allows visual validation and integration of automated and manual assignment

Assignment of element and isotope factors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schneider, R.A.

1984-01-01

Element and isotope factors are assigned in the NICS internal accounting system at the Exxon Fuel Fabrication Facility on the basis of coded information included on the material transfer documents. This paper explains more fully the manner in which NICS assigns these factors

Types of Sentences in EFL Students' Paragraph Assignments: A Quantitative Study on Teaching and Learning Writing at Higher Education Level

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Syayid Sandi Sukandi

2017-08-01

Full Text Available This research investigates Indonesian EFL students writing four types of English sentences in their paragraph writing assignments that were posted online in Writing 1 course of English Education at STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat. The analysed types of sentences are Simple Sentence (code: S.S., Compound Sentence (code: C.S.1, Complex Sentence (code: C.S.2, and Compound-Complex Sentence (code: C.C.S. The percentage of each type of sentences that appears in the students’ writings within each five genres represents the students’ syntactical composition. Moreover, this research focuses on quantitatively analysing the above five types of sentences that appeared in students’ assignments in each type of following genres: argumentative, descriptive, process, cause-effect, and comparison-contrast. Data are taken from 10% samples of all population. The finding shows that writing Simple Sentence in paragraphs is a common type of sentence that is used by the students. It indicates that the guiding process to teaching students about writing paragraphs with varied sentence types is important for further development of teaching process of writing.

Inferential backbone assignment for sparse data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vitek, Olga; Bailey-Kellogg, Chris; Craig, Bruce; Vitek, Jan

2006-01-01

This paper develops an approach to protein backbone NMR assignment that effectively assigns large proteins while using limited sets of triple-resonance experiments. Our approach handles proteins with large fractions of missing data and many ambiguous pairs of pseudoresidues, and provides a statistical assessment of confidence in global and position-specific assignments. The approach is tested on an extensive set of experimental and synthetic data of up to 723 residues, with match tolerances of up to 0.5 ppm for C α and C β resonance types. The tests show that the approach is particularly helpful when data contain experimental noise and require large match tolerances. The keys to the approach are an empirical Bayesian probability model that rigorously accounts for uncertainty in the data at all stages in the analysis, and a hybrid stochastic tree-based search algorithm that effectively explores the large space of possible assignments

Experimental RBE values of high LET radiations at low doses and the implications for quality factor assignment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sinclair, W.K.

1985-01-01

RBE determinations of special relevance to the quality factor assigned for radiation protection purposes are those relating to the effects of special importance at low doses, namely carcinogenesis and mutagenesis. Measurements of RBE that enable the maximum value of RBE, namely RBEsub(M), to be determined at low doses require data points as low as 0.1 Gy or even 0.01 Gy or high LET radiation. Corresponding data points as low as 0.5 Gy to 0.25 Gy or less of low LET radiation are also needed. Relatively few such measurements have been made, but many more are available now than formerly. A review of recent RBEs for tumour induction, life shortening, transformation, cytogenetics and genetic endpoints, which updated an earlier review, indicates a broad range of results. The principle findings are that X rays are more effective than hard γ rays at low doses by a factor of about 2, and that fission neutrons, alpha particles and heavy ions may be 30-50 times more effective, on the average, (some endpoints give higher, some lower values) than hard γ rays. The data would seem to indicate that in order to provide approximately equal protection against the risks at low doses from all radiations, adjustments upward in the quality factors for high LET radiations need to be considered. (author)

Radiation Protection: Introduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Loos, M.

2007-01-01

As a federal research Centre, SCK-CEN has the statutory assignment to give priority to research related to safety, radioactive waste management, protection of man and environment, management of fissile and other strategic materials and social implications as part of the pursuit of sustainable development and to develop and gather the necessary knowledge and spread this knowledge through formation and communication. At the Division of Radiation Protection at SCK-CEN we are therefore active to maintain and enhance knowledge and expertise in each aspect of radiation protection: we study the risk of exposure - the way that radioactive materials spread in the environment and the potential for human contact - and the risk from exposure - how radiation affects human health; we perform health physics measurements; we are involved in emergency planning and preparedness and support to risk governance and decision taking. These activities are supported by radiation specific analysis and measurement techniques. These activities are not performed in isolation but in context of national and international collaborations or demands

Protective versus Conventional Ventilation for Surgery: A Systematic Review and Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Serpa Neto, Ary; Hemmes, Sabrine N T; Barbas, Carmen S V; Beiderlinden, Martin; Biehl, Michelle; Binnekade, Jan M; Canet, Jaume; Fernandez-Bustamante, Ana; Futier, Emmanuel; Gajic, Ognjen; Hedenstierna, Göran; Hollmann, Markus W; Jaber, Samir; Kozian, Alf; Licker, Marc; Lin, Wen-Qian; Maslow, Andrew D; Memtsoudis, Stavros G; Reis Miranda, Dinis; Moine, Pierre; Ng, Thomas; Paparella, Domenico; Putensen, Christian; Ranieri, Marco; Scavonetto, Federica; Schilling, Thomas; Schmid, Werner; Selmo, Gabriele; Severgnini, Paolo; Sprung, Juraj; Sundar, Sugantha; Talmor, Daniel; Treschan, Tanja; Unzueta, Carmen; Weingarten, Toby N; Wolthuis, Esther K; Wrigge, Hermann; Gama de Abreu, Marcelo; Pelosi, Paolo; Schultz, Marcus J

2015-07-01

Recent studies show that intraoperative mechanical ventilation using low tidal volumes (VT) can prevent postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs). The aim of this individual patient data meta-analysis is to evaluate the individual associations between VT size and positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) level and occurrence of PPC. Randomized controlled trials comparing protective ventilation (low VT with or without high levels of PEEP) and conventional ventilation (high VT with low PEEP) in patients undergoing general surgery. The primary outcome was development of PPC. Predefined prognostic factors were tested using multivariate logistic regression. Fifteen randomized controlled trials were included (2,127 patients). There were 97 cases of PPC in 1,118 patients (8.7%) assigned to protective ventilation and 148 cases in 1,009 patients (14.7%) assigned to conventional ventilation (adjusted relative risk, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.46 to 0.88; P ventilation with low VT and high PEEP levels and 63 cases in 525 patients (12%) assigned to ventilation with low VT and low PEEP levels (adjusted relative risk, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.64 to 1.37; P = 0.72). A dose-response relationship was found between the appearance of PPC and VT size (R2 = 0.39) but not between the appearance of PPC and PEEP level (R2 = 0.08). These data support the beneficial effects of ventilation with use of low VT in patients undergoing surgery. Further trials are necessary to define the role of intraoperative higher PEEP to prevent PPC during nonopen abdominal surgery.

32 CFR 884.2 - Assigned responsibilities.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... OF PERSONNEL TO UNITED STATES CIVILIAN AUTHORITIES FOR TRIAL § 884.2 Assigned responsibilities. (a... 32 National Defense 6 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Assigned responsibilities. 884.2 Section 884.2... requests for return of members to the United States for delivery to civilian authorities when the request...

Radiation protection supervisors certification in Brazil

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mendonca Costa, Eduardo; Arraes Monteiro, Iara

2008-01-01

In order to accomplish its legal assignments CNEN certifies the qualification of radiation protection supervisors. The current certification process is presented and discussed in this paper. This paper discusses the main points of the certification process including: knowledge tests, stake holder's communication, standards, supervisor responsibilities and profiles. The importance of safety certification of nuclear facilities and radiation protection of public individuals and workers are also discussed. Taking into account the characteristics of the Brazilian Nuclear program, the future improvements and goals in the certification process is also presented. (author)

Lower versus Higher Hemoglobin Threshold for Transfusion in Septic Shock

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holst, Lars B; Haase, Nicolai; Wetterslev, Jørn

2014-01-01

BACKGROUND: Blood transfusions are frequently given to patients with septic shock. However, the benefits and harms of different hemoglobin thresholds for transfusion have not been established. METHODS: In this multicenter, parallel-group trial, we randomly assigned patients in the intensive care...... unit (ICU) who had septic shock and a hemoglobin concentration of 9 g per deciliter or less to receive 1 unit of leukoreduced red cells when the hemoglobin level was 7 g per deciliter or less (lower threshold) or when the level was 9 g per deciliter or less (higher threshold) during the ICU stay...... were similar in the two intervention groups. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with septic shock, mortality at 90 days and rates of ischemic events and use of life support were similar among those assigned to blood transfusion at a higher hemoglobin threshold and those assigned to blood transfusion...

Personnel dose assignment practices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fix, J.J.

1993-04-01

Implementation of DOE N 5480.6 Radiological Control Manual Article 511(3) requirements, to minimize the assignment of personnel dosimeters, should be done only under a broader context ensuring that capabilities are in place to monitor and record personnel exposure both for compliance and for potential litigation. As noted in NCRP Report No. 114, personnel dosimetry programs are conducted to meet four major objectives: radiation safety program control and evaluation; regulatory compliance; epidemiological research; and litigation. A change to Article 511(3) is proposed that would require that minimizing the assignment of personnel dosimeters take place only following full evaluation of overall capabilities (e.g., access control, area dosimetry, etc.) to meet the NCRP objectives

Computational Aspects of Assigning Agents to a Line

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aziz, Haris; Hougaard, Jens Leth; Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.

2017-01-01

-egalitarian assignments. The approach relies on an algorithm which is shown to be faster than general purpose algorithms for the assignment problem. We also extend the approach to probabilistic assignments and explore the computational features of existing, as well as new, methods for this setting....

Computational aspects of assigning agents to a line

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aziz, Haris; Hougaard, Jens Leth; Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.

2017-01-01

-egalitarian assignments. The approach relies on an algorithm which is shown to be faster than general purpose algorithms for the assignment problem. We also extend the approach to probabilistic assignments and explore the computational features of existing, as well as new, methods for this setting....

The usage of phase change materials in fire fighter protective clothing: its effect on thermal protection

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Mengmeng

2017-12-01

The thermal protective performance of the fire fighter protective clothing is of vital importance for fire fighters. In the study fabrics treated by phase change materials (PCMs) were applied in the multi-layered fabrics of the fire fighter protective clothing ensemble. The PCM fabrics were placed at the different layers of the clothing and their thermal protective performance were measured by a TPP tester. Results show that with the application of the PCM fabrics the thermal protection of the multi-layered fabrics was greatly increased. The time to reach a second degree burn was largely reduced. The location of the PCM fabrics at the different layers did not affect much on the thermal protective performance. The higher amount of the PCM adds on, the higher thermal protection was brought. The fabrics with PCMs of a higher melting temperature could contribute to higher thermal protection.

Detecting Plagiarism in MS Access Assignments

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Anil

2013-01-01

Assurance of individual effort from students in computer-based assignments is a challenge. Due to digitization, students can easily use a copy of their friend's work and submit it as their own. Plagiarism in assignments puts students who cheat at par with those who work honestly and this compromises the learning evaluation process. Using a…

The Impact of a Collaborative Wiki Assignment on Teaching and Learning in a Teacher Education Program

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vanessa Joy Bravo

2011-10-01

Full Text Available This study explored students’ perceptions and behaviors of public wiki use during a collaborative Wikipedia assignment in a graduate technology and literacy education course. Results confirmed that the majority of students had an overall positive experience posting content on Wikipedia. Students learned how to use Wikipedia through collaborative practice, including, how to adhere to its standards and cite work properly, the importance of critically evaluating online information, and the value of publishing work to an authentic audience. Students (prospective and current teachers reported numerous ways in which collaboration on Wikipedia could be integrated into their K-12 classrooms in order to promote higher order thinking and foster meaningful knowledge construction. Pedagogical practices for the effective integration of public wiki assignments in higher education and K-12 settings are recommended.

Feed-forward segmentation of figure-ground and assignment of border-ownership.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hans Supèr

Full Text Available Figure-ground is the segmentation of visual information into objects and their surrounding backgrounds. Two main processes herein are boundary assignment and surface segregation, which rely on the integration of global scene information. Recurrent processing either by intrinsic horizontal connections that connect surrounding neurons or by feedback projections from higher visual areas provide such information, and are considered to be the neural substrate for figure-ground segmentation. On the contrary, a role of feedforward projections in figure-ground segmentation is unknown. To have a better understanding of a role of feedforward connections in figure-ground organization, we constructed a feedforward spiking model using a biologically plausible neuron model. By means of surround inhibition our simple 3-layered model performs figure-ground segmentation and one-sided border-ownership coding. We propose that the visual system uses feed forward suppression for figure-ground segmentation and border-ownership assignment.

Feed-forward segmentation of figure-ground and assignment of border-ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

Supèr, Hans; Romeo, August; Keil, Matthias

2010-05-19

Figure-ground is the segmentation of visual information into objects and their surrounding backgrounds. Two main processes herein are boundary assignment and surface segregation, which rely on the integration of global scene information. Recurrent processing either by intrinsic horizontal connections that connect surrounding neurons or by feedback projections from higher visual areas provide such information, and are considered to be the neural substrate for figure-ground segmentation. On the contrary, a role of feedforward projections in figure-ground segmentation is unknown. To have a better understanding of a role of feedforward connections in figure-ground organization, we constructed a feedforward spiking model using a biologically plausible neuron model. By means of surround inhibition our simple 3-layered model performs figure-ground segmentation and one-sided border-ownership coding. We propose that the visual system uses feed forward suppression for figure-ground segmentation and border-ownership assignment.

Flexible taxonomic assignment of ambiguous sequencing reads

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jansson Jesper

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background To characterize the diversity of bacterial populations in metagenomic studies, sequencing reads need to be accurately assigned to taxonomic units in a given reference taxonomy. Reads that cannot be reliably assigned to a unique leaf in the taxonomy (ambiguous reads are typically assigned to the lowest common ancestor of the set of species that match it. This introduces a potentially severe error in the estimation of bacteria present in the sample due to false positives, since all species in the subtree rooted at the ancestor are implicitly assigned to the read even though many of them may not match it. Results We present a method that maps each read to a node in the taxonomy that minimizes a penalty score while balancing the relevance of precision and recall in the assignment through a parameter q. This mapping can be obtained in time linear in the number of matching sequences, because LCA queries to the reference taxonomy take constant time. When applied to six different metagenomic datasets, our algorithm produces different taxonomic distributions depending on whether coverage or precision is maximized. Including information on the quality of the reads reduces the number of unassigned reads but increases the number of ambiguous reads, stressing the relevance of our method. Finally, two measures of performance are described and results with a set of artificially generated datasets are discussed. Conclusions The assignment strategy of sequencing reads introduced in this paper is a versatile and a quick method to study bacterial communities. The bacterial composition of the analyzed samples can vary significantly depending on how ambiguous reads are assigned depending on the value of the q parameter. Validation of our results in an artificial dataset confirm that a combination of values of q produces the most accurate results.

Creating Protected Areas on Public Lands: Is There Room for Additional Conservation?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rodrigo A Arriagada

Full Text Available Most evaluations of the effectiveness of PAs have relied on indirect estimates based on comparisons between protected and unprotected areas. Such methods can be biased when protection is not randomly assigned. We add to the growing literature on the impact of PAs by answering the following research questions: What is the impact of Chilean PAs on deforestation which occurred between 1986 and 2011? How do estimates of the impact of PAs vary when using only public land as control units? We show that the characteristics of the areas in which protected and unprotected lands are located differ significantly. To satisfactorily estimate the effects of PAs, we use matching methods to define adequate control groups, but not as in previous research. We construct control groups using separately non-protected private areas and non-protected public lands. We find that PAs avoid deforestation when using unprotected private lands as valid controls, however results show no impact when the control group is based only on unprotected public land. Different land management regimes, and higher levels of enforcement inside public lands may reduce the opportunity to add additional conservation benefits when the national systems for PAs are based on the protection of previously unprotected public lands. Given that not all PAs are established to avoid deforestation, results also admit the potential for future studies to include other outcomes including forest degradation (not just deforestation, biodiversity, wildlife, primary forests (not forests in general, among others.

Creating Protected Areas on Public Lands: Is There Room for Additional Conservation?

Science.gov (United States)

Arriagada, Rodrigo A; Echeverria, Cristian M; Moya, Danisa E

2016-01-01

Most evaluations of the effectiveness of PAs have relied on indirect estimates based on comparisons between protected and unprotected areas. Such methods can be biased when protection is not randomly assigned. We add to the growing literature on the impact of PAs by answering the following research questions: What is the impact of Chilean PAs on deforestation which occurred between 1986 and 2011? How do estimates of the impact of PAs vary when using only public land as control units? We show that the characteristics of the areas in which protected and unprotected lands are located differ significantly. To satisfactorily estimate the effects of PAs, we use matching methods to define adequate control groups, but not as in previous research. We construct control groups using separately non-protected private areas and non-protected public lands. We find that PAs avoid deforestation when using unprotected private lands as valid controls, however results show no impact when the control group is based only on unprotected public land. Different land management regimes, and higher levels of enforcement inside public lands may reduce the opportunity to add additional conservation benefits when the national systems for PAs are based on the protection of previously unprotected public lands. Given that not all PAs are established to avoid deforestation, results also admit the potential for future studies to include other outcomes including forest degradation (not just deforestation), biodiversity, wildlife, primary forests (not forests in general), among others.

New radiation protection legislation in Sweden

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jender, M.; Persson, Lars

1984-01-01

The objective of the new Act is to protect humans, animals and the environment from the harmful effects of ionizing as well as non-ionizing radiation. As previously, the main responsibility for public radiation protection will rest with a single central radiation protection authority. According to the Act, the general obligations with regard to radiation protection will assign greater responsibility than in the past to persons carrying out activities involving radiation. Persons engaged in such activities will be responsible for the safe processing and storage of radioactive waste. The Act also contains rules governing decommissioning of technical equipment capable of generating radiation. The Act contains several rules providing for more effective supervision. The supervisory authority may, in particular, decide on the necessary regulations and prohibitions for each individual case. The scope for using penal provisions has been extended and a rule on the mandatory execution of orders regarding radiation protection measures has been introduced. (authors)

Historical WBAN ID Assignments

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — 4"x6" index cards represent the first written assignments of Weather Bureau Army Navy (WBAN) station identifier numbers by the National Climatic Data Center....

Dynamic online peer evaluations to improve group assignments in nursing e-learning environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Adwan, Jehad

2016-06-01

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the use of online peer evaluation forms for online group activities in improving group project outcomes. The investigator developed and used a web-based Google Forms® self and peer evaluation form of 2 group assignments' rubric for junior and senior nursing students. The form covered elements of the assignments including: research activity, analysis of the literature, writing of report, participation in making of presentation, overall contribution to the project, and participation in the weekly group discussions. Items were rated from 1 (did not contribute) to 5 (outstanding contribution) in addition to NA when one activity did not apply. The self and peer evaluation process was conducted twice: once after group assignment 1 and once after group assignment 2. The group assignments final products were done in the form of VoiceThread online presentations that were shared with the rest of the class reflecting the groups' work on a health informatics topic of interest. Data collected as the students completed self and peer evaluations for group assignments 1 and 2. Also, optional comments regarding member performance were collected to add contextual information in addition to ratings. Students received credit for completing the peer evaluations and the grade for the particular assignment was affected by their performance based on peer evaluations of their contributions. Students' peer evaluations showed in a color-coded spreadsheet which enabled the course faculty to view real time results of students' ratings after each assignment. The faculty provided timely and tailored feedback to groups or individuals as needed, using positive feedback and commending high performance while urging struggling individual students and groups to improve lower ratings in specific areas. Comparing evaluations of both assignments, there were statistically significant improvements among all students. The mean scores of the entire sample were

Lower versus higher hemoglobin threshold for transfusion in septic shock.

Science.gov (United States)

Holst, Lars B; Haase, Nicolai; Wetterslev, Jørn; Wernerman, Jan; Guttormsen, Anne B; Karlsson, Sari; Johansson, Pär I; Aneman, Anders; Vang, Marianne L; Winding, Robert; Nebrich, Lars; Nibro, Helle L; Rasmussen, Bodil S; Lauridsen, Johnny R M; Nielsen, Jane S; Oldner, Anders; Pettilä, Ville; Cronhjort, Maria B; Andersen, Lasse H; Pedersen, Ulf G; Reiter, Nanna; Wiis, Jørgen; White, Jonathan O; Russell, Lene; Thornberg, Klaus J; Hjortrup, Peter B; Müller, Rasmus G; Møller, Morten H; Steensen, Morten; Tjäder, Inga; Kilsand, Kristina; Odeberg-Wernerman, Suzanne; Sjøbø, Brit; Bundgaard, Helle; Thyø, Maria A; Lodahl, David; Mærkedahl, Rikke; Albeck, Carsten; Illum, Dorte; Kruse, Mary; Winkel, Per; Perner, Anders

2014-10-09

Blood transfusions are frequently given to patients with septic shock. However, the benefits and harms of different hemoglobin thresholds for transfusion have not been established. In this multicenter, parallel-group trial, we randomly assigned patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) who had septic shock and a hemoglobin concentration of 9 g per deciliter or less to receive 1 unit of leukoreduced red cells when the hemoglobin level was 7 g per deciliter or less (lower threshold) or when the level was 9 g per deciliter or less (higher threshold) during the ICU stay. The primary outcome measure was death by 90 days after randomization. We analyzed data from 998 of 1005 patients (99.3%) who underwent randomization. The two intervention groups had similar baseline characteristics. In the ICU, the lower-threshold group received a median of 1 unit of blood (interquartile range, 0 to 3) and the higher-threshold group received a median of 4 units (interquartile range, 2 to 7). At 90 days after randomization, 216 of 502 patients (43.0%) assigned to the lower-threshold group, as compared with 223 of 496 (45.0%) assigned to the higher-threshold group, had died (relative risk, 0.94; 95% confidence interval, 0.78 to 1.09; P=0.44). The results were similar in analyses adjusted for risk factors at baseline and in analyses of the per-protocol populations. The numbers of patients who had ischemic events, who had severe adverse reactions, and who required life support were similar in the two intervention groups. Among patients with septic shock, mortality at 90 days and rates of ischemic events and use of life support were similar among those assigned to blood transfusion at a higher hemoglobin threshold and those assigned to blood transfusion at a lower threshold; the latter group received fewer transfusions. (Funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council and others; TRISS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01485315.).

SCRAED - Simple and Complex Random Assignment in Experimental Designs

OpenAIRE

Alferes, Valentim R.

2009-01-01

SCRAED is a package of 37 self-contained SPSS syntax files that performs simple and complex random assignment in experimental designs. For between-subjects designs, SCRAED includes simple random assignment (no restrictions, forced equal sizes, forced unequal sizes, and unequal probabilities), block random assignment (simple and generalized blocks), and stratified random assignment (no restrictions, forced equal sizes, forced unequal sizes, and unequal probabilities). For within-subject...

Relationship between basic protective health behaviours and health related quality of life in Greek urban hospital employees.

Science.gov (United States)

Tountas, Yannis; Manios, Yannis; Dimitrakaki, Christine; Tzavara, Chara

2007-01-01

The study aimed to explore the association between the presence of several protective health behaviors and physical and mental wellbeing/functioning among healthy hospital employees in Greece. A randomly selected representative sample of 395 employees working in seven hospitals, both public and private, within the wider region of Athens participated in the study. Participants were assigned to the following professional categories: administrative, auxiliary and technical personnel, medical doctors and nurses. Four basic protective health behaviors were examined: following the Mediterranean diet, exercising, no smoking and moderate alcohol drinking. Employees' health related quality of life was assessed with the self-administered SF-36 generic health status measure. Technical and administrative hospital personnel reported more healthy behaviors than medical and auxiliary personnel. There was an increased likelihood of scoring higher in almost all SF-36 Physical health subscales in the accumulation of the above four protective heath behaviors. In terms of mental health, even the presence of two or more protective health behaviors significantly increase the score on most SF-36 Mental health subscales. Results indicate that the protective role of basic health behaviors extends beyond physical health to mental wellbeing.

GENERAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE ASSIGNMENT OF SOCIAL PARTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stela Mihăilescu

2012-11-01

Full Text Available By means of the present study, we try to offer a thorough image and an analysis concerning the assignment mode of social parts within a company having limited liability. The assignment of social parts is free and unrestricted except for the cases provided by article 202, paragraph 2 from Law no. 31/ 1990- the law of commercial companies with further modifications and completions and the ones provided in OUG no. 54/ 2010 concerning some measures for fighting fiscal evasion. By means of the assignment operation a transmission is made up by an assignment of social parts contract towards one or more already associated persons in the company or towards other individual or legal persons who are going to obtain the associate quality. The principle governing any assignment is the one of goods circulation freedom, a freedom restricted only by the public order and imperative judicial norms.

Midwifery students' evaluation of team-based academic assignments involving peer-marking.

Science.gov (United States)

Parratt, Jenny A; Fahy, Kathleen M; Hastie, Carolyn R

2014-03-01

Midwives should be skilled team workers in maternity units and in group practices. Poor teamwork skills are a significant cause of adverse maternity care outcomes. Despite Australian and International regulatory requirements that all midwifery graduates are competent in teamwork, the systematic teaching and assessment of teamwork skills is lacking in higher education. How do midwifery students evaluate participation in team-based academic assignments, which include giving and receiving peer feedback? First and third year Bachelor of Midwifery students who volunteered (24 of 56 students). Participatory Action Research with data collection via anonymous online surveys. There was general agreement that team based assignments; (i) should have peer-marking, (ii) help clarify what is meant by teamwork, (iii) develop communication skills, (iv) promote student-to-student learning. Third year students strongly agreed that teams: (i) are valuable preparation for teamwork in practice, (ii) help meet Australian midwifery competency 8, and (iii) were enjoyable. The majority of third year students agreed with statements that their teams were effectively coordinated and team members shared responsibility for work equally; first year students strongly disagreed with these statements. Students' qualitative comments substantiated and expanded on these findings. The majority of students valued teacher feedback on well-developed drafts of the team's assignment prior to marking. Based on these findings we changed practice and created more clearly structured team-based assignments with specific marking criteria. We are developing supporting lessons to teach specific teamwork skills: together these resources are called "TeamUP". TeamUP should be implemented in all pre-registration Midwifery courses to foster students' teamwork skills and readiness for practice. Copyright © 2013 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A simple biosynthetic method for stereospecific resonance assignment of prochiral methyl groups in proteins

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Plevin, Michael J.; Hamelin, Olivier; Boisbouvier, Jérôme; Gans, Pierre

2011-01-01

A new method for stereospecific assignment of prochiral methyl groups in proteins is presented in which protein samples are produced using U-[ 13 C]glucose and subsaturating amounts of 2-[ 13 C]methyl-acetolactate. The resulting non-uniform labeling pattern allows proR and proS methyl groups to be easily distinguished by their different phases in a constant-time two-dimensional 1 H- 13 C correlation spectra. Protein samples are conveniently prepared using the same media composition as the main uniformly-labeled sample and contain higher levels of isotope-enrichment than fractional labeling approaches. This new strategy thus represents an economically-attractive, robust alternative for obtaining isotopically-encoded stereospecific NMR assignments of prochiral methyl groups.

A Hybrid Unequal Error Protection / Unequal Error Resilience ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The quality layers are then assigned an Unequal Error Resilience to synchronization loss by unequally allocating the number of headers available for synchronization to them. Following that Unequal Error Protection against channel noise is provided to the layers by the use of Rate Compatible Punctured Convolutional ...

Stress Assignment in Reading Italian Polysyllabic Pseudowords

Science.gov (United States)

Sulpizio, Simone; Arduino, Lisa S.; Paizi, Despina; Burani, Cristina

2013-01-01

In 4 naming experiments we investigated how Italian readers assign stress to pseudowords. We assessed whether participants assign stress following distributional information such as stress neighborhood (the proportion and number of existent words sharing orthographic ending and stress pattern) and whether such distributional information affects…

Assigning breed origin to alleles in crossbred animals.

Science.gov (United States)

Vandenplas, Jérémie; Calus, Mario P L; Sevillano, Claudia A; Windig, Jack J; Bastiaansen, John W M

2016-08-22

For some species, animal production systems are based on the use of crossbreeding to take advantage of the increased performance of crossbred compared to purebred animals. Effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may differ between purebred and crossbred animals for several reasons: (1) differences in linkage disequilibrium between SNP alleles and a quantitative trait locus; (2) differences in genetic backgrounds (e.g., dominance and epistatic interactions); and (3) differences in environmental conditions, which result in genotype-by-environment interactions. Thus, SNP effects may be breed-specific, which has led to the development of genomic evaluations for crossbred performance that take such effects into account. However, to estimate breed-specific effects, it is necessary to know breed origin of alleles in crossbred animals. Therefore, our aim was to develop an approach for assigning breed origin to alleles of crossbred animals (termed BOA) without information on pedigree and to study its accuracy by considering various factors, including distance between breeds. The BOA approach consists of: (1) phasing genotypes of purebred and crossbred animals; (2) assigning breed origin to phased haplotypes; and (3) assigning breed origin to alleles of crossbred animals based on a library of assigned haplotypes, the breed composition of crossbred animals, and their SNP genotypes. The accuracy of allele assignments was determined for simulated datasets that include crosses between closely-related, distantly-related and unrelated breeds. Across these scenarios, the percentage of alleles of a crossbred animal that were correctly assigned to their breed origin was greater than 90 %, and increased with increasing distance between breeds, while the percentage of incorrectly assigned alleles was always less than 2 %. For the remaining alleles, i.e. 0 to 10 % of all alleles of a crossbred animal, breed origin could not be assigned. The BOA approach accurately assigns

Maintenance standards, care and control of the radiation protection material

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brasesco, L.

2004-01-01

The present protocol in Radiology, Tomography, surgical block and intensive care unit in the Britanic Hospital from Uruguay.Between their topics find care procedures in protective clothes, periodic and control methods, material record,and staff assigned

Integer Linear Programming for Constrained Multi-Aspect Committee Review Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Karimzadehgan, Maryam; Zhai, ChengXiang

2011-01-01

Automatic review assignment can significantly improve the productivity of many people such as conference organizers, journal editors and grant administrators. A general setup of the review assignment problem involves assigning a set of reviewers on a committee to a set of documents to be reviewed under the constraint of review quota so that the reviewers assigned to a document can collectively cover multiple topic aspects of the document. No previous work has addressed such a setup of committee review assignments while also considering matching multiple aspects of topics and expertise. In this paper, we tackle the problem of committee review assignment with multi-aspect expertise matching by casting it as an integer linear programming problem. The proposed algorithm can naturally accommodate any probabilistic or deterministic method for modeling multiple aspects to automate committee review assignments. Evaluation using a multi-aspect review assignment test set constructed using ACM SIGIR publications shows that the proposed algorithm is effective and efficient for committee review assignments based on multi-aspect expertise matching. PMID:22711970

Assignment and Correspondence Tracking System - Tactical / Operational Reporting

Data.gov (United States)

Social Security Administration — Reporting data store for the Assignment and Correspondence Tracking System (ACT). ACT automates the assignment and tracking of correspondence processing within the...

Statistical aspects of optimal treatment assignment

OpenAIRE

van der Linden, Willem J.

1980-01-01

The issues of treatment assignment is ordinarily dealt with within the framework of testing aptitude treatment interaction (ATI) hypothesis. ATI research mostly uses linear regression techniques, and an ATI exists when the aptitude treatment (AT) regression lines cross each other within the relevant interval of the aptitude variable. Consistent with this approach is the use of the points of interaction of AT regression lines as treatment-assignment rule. The replacement of such rules by monot...

One of My Favorite Assignments: Automated Teller Machine Simulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Oberman, Paul S.

2001-01-01

Describes an assignment for an introductory computer science class that requires the student to write a software program that simulates an automated teller machine. Highlights include an algorithm for the assignment; sample file contents; language features used; assignment variations; and discussion points. (LRW)

7 CFR 1900.5 - Assignment of cases.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 12 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Assignment of cases. 1900.5 Section 1900.5 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) RURAL HOUSING SERVICE, RURAL BUSINESS... REGULATIONS GENERAL Delegations of Authority § 1900.5 Assignment of cases. The State Director may, in writing...

METHOD FOR SOLVING FUZZY ASSIGNMENT PROBLEM USING MAGNITUDE RANKING TECHNIQUE

OpenAIRE

D. Selvi; R. Queen Mary; G. Velammal

2017-01-01

Assignment problems have various applications in the real world because of their wide applicability in industry, commerce, management science, etc. Traditional classical assignment problems cannot be successfully used for real life problem, hence the use of fuzzy assignment problems is more appropriate. In this paper, the fuzzy assignment problem is formulated to crisp assignment problem using Magnitude Ranking technique and Hungarian method has been applied to find an optimal solution. The N...

A probabilistic approach for validating protein NMR chemical shift assignments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Bowei; Wang, Yunjun; Wishart, David S.

2010-01-01

It has been estimated that more than 20% of the proteins in the BMRB are improperly referenced and that about 1% of all chemical shift assignments are mis-assigned. These statistics also reflect the likelihood that any newly assigned protein will have shift assignment or shift referencing errors. The relatively high frequency of these errors continues to be a concern for the biomolecular NMR community. While several programs do exist to detect and/or correct chemical shift mis-referencing or chemical shift mis-assignments, most can only do one, or the other. The one program (SHIFTCOR) that is capable of handling both chemical shift mis-referencing and mis-assignments, requires the 3D structure coordinates of the target protein. Given that chemical shift mis-assignments and chemical shift re-referencing issues should ideally be addressed prior to 3D structure determination, there is a clear need to develop a structure-independent approach. Here, we present a new structure-independent protocol, which is based on using residue-specific and secondary structure-specific chemical shift distributions calculated over small (3-6 residue) fragments to identify mis-assigned resonances. The method is also able to identify and re-reference mis-referenced chemical shift assignments. Comparisons against existing re-referencing or mis-assignment detection programs show that the method is as good or superior to existing approaches. The protocol described here has been implemented into a freely available Java program called 'Probabilistic Approach for protein Nmr Assignment Validation (PANAV)' and as a web server (http://redpoll.pharmacy.ualberta.ca/PANAVhttp://redpoll.pharmacy.ualberta.ca/PANAV) which can be used to validate and/or correct as well as re-reference assigned protein chemical shifts.

Testing the Effectiveness of Online Assignments in Theory of Finance

Science.gov (United States)

Batu, Michael; Bower, Nancy; Lun, Esmond; Sadanand, Asha

2018-01-01

The authors investigated the effectiveness of online versus paper assignments using final examination scores in three cohorts of theory of finance. In particular, two cohorts were exposed to online assignments while another cohort was exposed to traditional assignments. The central result is that exposure to online assignments robustly leads to…

Second Ordinance amending the Radiation Protection Ordinance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1989-01-01

The amendment of the Radiation Protection Ordinance brings about the following changes: (1) Introduction of the concept of effective dose, reduction of limits for partial body dose, adoption of the radiotoxicity values of radionuclides as established by the EC Basis Standards; (2) introduction of a working-life-related dose limit of 400 mSv; (3) supplementing provisions for the protection of the population, particularly by the standard procedure for radioecological impact assessment and determination of dose factors; (4) supplementing provisions on the use of radioactive substances in medicine and medical research; (5) supplementing provisions on health physics monitoring; (6) provisions for improving the supervision and controls in the transport of radioactive substances; (7) definition of activities and their assignment to the provisions of the Radiation Protection Ordinance; (8) revision of the waste management provisions of the Radiation Protection Ordinance. (HP) [de

12 CFR 563e.28 - Assigned ratings.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Assigned ratings. 563e.28 Section 563e.28 Banks... for Assessing Performance § 563e.28 Assigned ratings. (a) Ratings in general. Subject to paragraphs (b... performance under the lending, investment and service tests, the community development test, the small savings...

Privacy-Preserving Task Assignment in Spatial Crowdsourcing

KAUST Repository

Liu, An

2017-09-20

With the progress of mobile devices and wireless networks, spatial crowdsourcing (SC) is emerging as a promising approach for problem solving. In SC, spatial tasks are assigned to and performed by a set of human workers. To enable effective task assignment, however, both workers and task requesters are required to disclose their locations to untrusted SC systems. In this paper, we study the problem of assigning workers to tasks in a way that location privacy for both workers and task requesters is preserved. We first combine the Paillier cryptosystem with Yao’s garbled circuits to construct a secure protocol that assigns the nearest worker to a task. Considering that this protocol cannot scale to a large number of workers, we then make use of Geohash, a hierarchical spatial index to design a more efficient protocol that can securely find approximate nearest workers. We theoretically show that these two protocols are secure against semi-honest adversaries. Through extensive experiments on two real-world datasets, we demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our protocols.

Differences in motivation and adherence to a prescribed assignment after face-to-face and online psychoeducation: an experimental study.

Science.gov (United States)

Alfonsson, Sven; Johansson, Karin; Uddling, Jonas; Hursti, Timo

2017-01-26

Adherence to treatment homework is associated with positive outcomes in behavioral psychotherapy but compliance to assignments is still often moderate. Whether adherence can be predicted by different types of motivation for the task and whether motivation plays different roles in face-to-face compared to online psychotherapy is unknown. If models of motivation, such as Self-determination theory, can be used to predict patients' behavior, it may facilitate further research into homework promotion. The aims of this study were, therefore, to investigate whether motivation variables could predict adherence to a prescribed assignment in face-to-face and online interventions using a psychotherapy analog model. A total of 100 participants were included in this study and randomized to either a face-to-face or online intervention. Participants in both groups received a psychoeducation session and were given an assignment for the subsequent week. The main outcome measurements were self-reported motivation and adherence to the assignment. Participant in the face-to-face condition reported significantly higher levels of motivation and showed higher levels of adherence compared to participants in the online condition. Adherence to the assignment was positively associated with intrinsic motivation and intervention credibility in the whole sample and especially in the online group. This study shows that intrinsic motivation and intervention credibility are strong predictors of adherence to assignments, especially in online interventions. The results indicate that intrinsic motivation may be partly substituted with face-to-face contact with a therapist. It may also be possible to identify patients with low motivation in online interventions who are at risk of dropping out. Methods for making online interventions more intrinsically motivating without increasing external pressure are needed. clinicaltrials.gov NCT02895308 . Retrospectively registered 30 August 2016.

Radiation protection programme for uranium mining

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mbeye, M.J.

2014-04-01

The Radiation Protection Programme (RPP) was developed to ensure that measures are in place for the occupational protection and safety in uranium mining facility. This work has established a number of protective measures that should be taken by the individual miners, licensee and all staff. It is not known whether Kayerekera Uranium mine has the technical and administrative capability for an effective radiation protection programme. The key in the mining facility is the control of dust through various means to prevent the escape of radon gas. Personal hygiene and local operating rules have been discovered to be very important for the protection and safety of the workers. The following components have also been discovered to be vital in ensuring safety culture in the mining facility: classification of working areas, monitoring of individuals and workplace, assignment of responsibilities, emergency preparedness, education and training and health surveillance. The regulatory body (Environmental Affairs Department of Malawi) should examine the major areas outlined in the RPP for Kayerekera uranium mine to find out the effectiveness of the RPP that is in place. (au)

Adrenal activity in maned wolves is higher on farmlands and park boundaries than within protected areas.

Science.gov (United States)

Spercoski, Katherinne M; Morais, Rosana N; Morato, Ronaldo G; de Paula, Rogério C; Azevedo, Fernanda C; May-Júnior, Joares A; Santos, Jean P; Reghelin, Angela L; Wildt, David E; Songsasen, Nucharin

2012-11-01

In this study we measured excreted fecal corticoid metabolites (FCM) in maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus) living within a protected reserve, on farmlands or in a boundary zone between the two habitats, and determined the impacts of season and reproductive status on adrenal activity. Feces were collected within a national park (n=191 samples), a park boundary zone (n=39) and on nearby farmlands (n=27), processed and analyzed by enzyme immunoassay. FCM amounts from samples collected on farmlands were higher (Pwolf pairs were raising young. We then divided the samples collected during breeding season (March-August) into cycling females and male/non-cycling females based on fecal progesterone: fecal testosterone ratio. FCM concentrations of the former collected inside the park were higher than (P<0.05) than the latter group. However, there were no differences in FCM levels between the two groups for samples collected in the boundary zone and on farmlands. Furthermore, FCM concentrations of male/non-cycling females samples collected on farmlands were 2- to 5-fold higher (P<0.05) than in counterparts collected inside the park. The consistently high FCM concentrations in samples collected on farmlands indicate that, in addition to seasonality, gender and reproductive status, anthropogenic pressures also contribute to elevating adrenal steroid for individuals living in altered habitat. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Challenging the current strategy of radiological protection of the environment: arguments for an ecosystem approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brechignac, F.; Doi, Masahiro

2009-01-01

The system of radiological protection of the environment that is currently under development is one contribution to the general need to adequately protect the environment against stress. Dominated by operational goals, it emphasizes conceptual and methodological approaches that are readily accessible today: reference organisms supported by individual-based traditional ecotoxicological data. Whilst there are immediate advantages to this approach (pragmatism, consistency with other approaches in use for man and biota), there are also clear limitations, especially in a longer run perspective, that need to be acknowledged and further considered. One can mention a few: uncertainties generated by the need for various extrapolations (from lower to higher levels of biological organisation, ...), various features missed such as potential ecological impact through impairment of ecosystem processes, trans-generational impacts as mediated through genomic instability, indirect effects mediated through trophic interactions or disruption of ecological balances, ... Such limitations have already been faced in other fields of environmental protection against other stressors, pushing a number of environment professionals to assign stronger emphasis on more systemic approaches. This review discusses the advantages and limitations of the current approach designed for the radiological protection of non-human biota in the broader context of environment protection as a whole, with especial reference to upcoming trends and evolutions. This leads in particular to advocating the need to boost scientific and methodological approaches featuring the ecosystem concept as a mean to access a unified goal of protection: preserving life sustainability through protection of ecosystem structure and functioning.

Challenging the current strategy of radiological protection of the environment: arguments for an ecosystem approach

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brechignac, F., E-mail: francois.brechignac@irsn. [Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), Centre d' Etudes de Cadarache, Blg 229, 13115 Saint-Paul-lez-Durance (France); Doi, Masahiro [National Institute of Radiological Sciences, NIRS, Center for Radiation Protection, Regulatory Sciences Research Group, 4-9-1, Anagawa, Inage, Chiba, 263-8555 (Japan)

2009-12-15

The system of radiological protection of the environment that is currently under development is one contribution to the general need to adequately protect the environment against stress. Dominated by operational goals, it emphasizes conceptual and methodological approaches that are readily accessible today: reference organisms supported by individual-based traditional ecotoxicological data. Whilst there are immediate advantages to this approach (pragmatism, consistency with other approaches in use for man and biota), there are also clear limitations, especially in a longer run perspective, that need to be acknowledged and further considered. One can mention a few: uncertainties generated by the need for various extrapolations (from lower to higher levels of biological organisation, ...), various features missed such as potential ecological impact through impairment of ecosystem processes, trans-generational impacts as mediated through genomic instability, indirect effects mediated through trophic interactions or disruption of ecological balances, ... Such limitations have already been faced in other fields of environmental protection against other stressors, pushing a number of environment professionals to assign stronger emphasis on more systemic approaches. This review discusses the advantages and limitations of the current approach designed for the radiological protection of non-human biota in the broader context of environment protection as a whole, with especial reference to upcoming trends and evolutions. This leads in particular to advocating the need to boost scientific and methodological approaches featuring the ecosystem concept as a mean to access a unified goal of protection: preserving life sustainability through protection of ecosystem structure and functioning.

Manual on radiation protection in hospitals and general practice. Basic protection requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Braestrup, C.B.; Vikterloef, K.J.

1974-01-01

The manual as a whole deals with the radiation protection of patients, occupationally exposed persons, and the public. Volume 1, on basic protection requirements, is a general review common to all medical applications of ionizing radiation and radionuclides. Radiation protection is required for patients and staff, and with regard to medical research and chemical trials of new methods; radiation equipment and operating procedures are discussed in connection with diagnostic x-ray installations, x-ray beam therapy, gamma-ray installations for teletherapy, brachytherapy, unsealed sources for therapeutic use, and the diagnostic use of unsealed sources in nuclear medicine. In planning of radiation facilities, attention is paid to levels at which medical care is given, the centralization and decentralization of radiation facilities, diagnostic x-ray facilities and therapy facilities, and nuclear medicine and therapy with unsealed sources. Shielding design is discussed applicable to diagnostic radiology, radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and the therapeutic use of radionuclides. Assignment of responsibilities, legal responsibilities, safety checks, refresher courses and symposia are discussed in the context of organizing radiation protection. Radiation surveys are necessary, and such surveys are described for x-ray and gamma-ray beams, sealed radioactive sources and nuclear medicine. A whole section is devoted to personnel monitoring and health surveillance. An annex gives a list of commonly used radionuclides, another deals with the design of protective shielding

The current state of science in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kaul, A.

1985-01-01

The qualification 'according to the current state of science and technology' is regularly found in radiation protection laws. It is assumed that the state of science and technology is codified in the publications of ICRP and ICRU, the International Comissions on Radiological Protection and - Units respectively, and in the UN publication USCEAR. An investigation is made on the extent the regulations of FRD comply with this requirement. Stochastic and non-stochastic damages are differentiated and the problem of assigning equivalent whole-body doses to exposures of specific body organs is considered. (G.Q.)

Dual earners’ willingness to accept an international assignment.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Velde, E.G.; Bossink, C.J.H.; Jansen, P.G.W.

2005-01-01

Multinational organisations experience difficulties in finding managers willing to accept international assignments. This study has therefore focused on factors that can predict males' and females' willingness to accept international assignments, or to follow their partners on international

Task assignment and coaching

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dominguez-Martinez, S.

2009-01-01

An important task of a manager is to motivate her subordinates. One way in which a manager can give incentives to junior employees is through the assignment of tasks. How a manager allocates tasks in an organization, provides information to the junior employees about his ability. Without coaching

EG and G Idaho environmental protection implementation plan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stump, R.C.

1989-11-01

This report describes the EG ampersand G Idaho strategy for implementation of the Department of Energy (DOE) Order 5400.1 (a DOE-Headquarters directive establishing environmental protection program requirements, authorities, and responsibilities). Preparation of this Environmental Protection Implementation Plan is a requirement of DOE Order 5400.0 Additionally, this report is intended to supplement the Department of Energy -- Idaho Operations Office (DOE-ID) Environmental Protection Implementation Plan by detailing EG ampersand G Idaho Environmental Protection Program activities. This report describes the current status of the EG ampersand G Idaho Program, and the strategies for enhancing, as necessary, the current program to meet the requirements of DOE Order 5400.1. Aspects of the Environmental Protection Program included in this report are the assignment of responsibilities to specific EG ampersand G organizations, a schedule for completion of enhancements, if necessary, and requirements for documentation and reporting. 3 figs., 1 tab

The effect of reading assignments in guided inquiry learning on students’ critical thinking skills

Science.gov (United States)

Syarkowi, A.

2018-05-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of reading assignment in guided inquiry learning on senior high school students’ critical thinking skills. The research method which was used in this research was quasi-experiment research method with reading task as the treatment. Topic of inquiry process was Kirchhoff law. The instrument was used for this research was 25 multiple choice interpretive exercises with justification. The multiple choice test was divided on 3 categories such as involve basic clarification, the bases for a decision and inference skills. The result of significance test proved the improvement of students’ critical thinking skills of experiment class was significantly higher when compared with the control class, so it could be concluded that reading assignment can improve students’ critical thinking skills.

Calibrated peer review assignments for the earth sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Rudd, J.A.; Wang, V.Z.; Cervato, C.; Ridky, R.W.

2009-01-01

Calibrated Peer Review ??? (CPR), a web-based instructional tool developed as part of the National Science Foundation reform initiatives in undergraduate science education, allows instructors to incorporate multiple writing assignments in large courses without overwhelming the instructor. This study reports successful implementation of CPR in a large, introductory geology course and student learning of geoscience content. For each CPR assignment in this study, students studied web-based and paper resources, wrote an essay, and reviewed seven essays (three from the instructor, three from peers, and their own) on the topic. Although many students expressed negative attitudes and concerns, particularly about the peer review process of this innovative instructional approach, they also recognized the learning potential of completing CPR assignments. Comparing instruction on earthquakes and plate boundaries using a CPR assignment vs. an instructional video lecture and homework essay with extensive instructor feedback, students mastered more content via CPR instruction.

Subcarrier Group Assignment for MC-CDMA Wireless Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Le-Ngoc Tho

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Two interference-based subcarrier group assignment strategies in dynamic resource allocation are proposed for MC-CDMA wireless systems to achieve high throughput in a multicell environment. Least interfered group assignment (LIGA selects for each session the subcarrier group on which the user receives the minimum interference, while best channel ratio group assignment (BCRGA chooses the subcarrier group with the largest channel response-to-interference ratio. Both analytical framework and simulation model are developed for evaluation of throughput distribution of the proposed schemes. An iterative approach is devised to handle the complex interdependency between multicell interference profiles in the throughput analysis. Illustrative results show significant throughput improvement offered by the interference-based assignment schemes for MC-CDMA multicell wireless systems. In particular, under low loading conditions, LIGA renders the best performance. However, as the load increases BCRGA tends to offer superior performance.

Subcarrier Group Assignment for MC-CDMA Wireless Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tho Le-Ngoc

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Two interference-based subcarrier group assignment strategies in dynamic resource allocation are proposed for MC-CDMA wireless systems to achieve high throughput in a multicell environment. Least interfered group assignment (LIGA selects for each session the subcarrier group on which the user receives the minimum interference, while best channel ratio group assignment (BCRGA chooses the subcarrier group with the largest channel response-to-interference ratio. Both analytical framework and simulation model are developed for evaluation of throughput distribution of the proposed schemes. An iterative approach is devised to handle the complex interdependency between multicell interference profiles in the throughput analysis. Illustrative results show significant throughput improvement offered by the interference-based assignment schemes for MC-CDMA multicell wireless systems. In particular, under low loading conditions, LIGA renders the best performance. However, as the load increases BCRGA tends to offer superior performance.

RNA-PAIRS: RNA probabilistic assignment of imino resonance shifts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bahrami, Arash; Clos, Lawrence J.; Markley, John L.; Butcher, Samuel E.; Eghbalnia, Hamid R.

2012-01-01

The significant biological role of RNA has further highlighted the need for improving the accuracy, efficiency and the reach of methods for investigating RNA structure and function. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is vital to furthering the goals of RNA structural biology because of its distinctive capabilities. However, the dispersion pattern in the NMR spectra of RNA makes automated resonance assignment, a key step in NMR investigation of biomolecules, remarkably challenging. Herein we present RNA Probabilistic Assignment of Imino Resonance Shifts (RNA-PAIRS), a method for the automated assignment of RNA imino resonances with synchronized verification and correction of predicted secondary structure. RNA-PAIRS represents an advance in modeling the assignment paradigm because it seeds the probabilistic network for assignment with experimental NMR data, and predicted RNA secondary structure, simultaneously and from the start. Subsequently, RNA-PAIRS sets in motion a dynamic network that reverberates between predictions and experimental evidence in order to reconcile and rectify resonance assignments and secondary structure information. The procedure is halted when assignments and base-parings are deemed to be most consistent with observed crosspeaks. The current implementation of RNA-PAIRS uses an initial peak list derived from proton-nitrogen heteronuclear multiple quantum correlation ( 1 H– 15 N 2D HMQC) and proton–proton nuclear Overhauser enhancement spectroscopy ( 1 H– 1 H 2D NOESY) experiments. We have evaluated the performance of RNA-PAIRS by using it to analyze NMR datasets from 26 previously studied RNAs, including a 111-nucleotide complex. For moderately sized RNA molecules, and over a range of comparatively complex structural motifs, the average assignment accuracy exceeds 90%, while the average base pair prediction accuracy exceeded 93%. RNA-PAIRS yielded accurate assignments and base pairings consistent with imino resonances for a

RNA-PAIRS: RNA probabilistic assignment of imino resonance shifts

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bahrami, Arash; Clos, Lawrence J.; Markley, John L.; Butcher, Samuel E. [National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison (United States); Eghbalnia, Hamid R., E-mail: eghbalhd@uc.edu [University of Cincinnati, Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology (United States)

2012-04-15

The significant biological role of RNA has further highlighted the need for improving the accuracy, efficiency and the reach of methods for investigating RNA structure and function. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is vital to furthering the goals of RNA structural biology because of its distinctive capabilities. However, the dispersion pattern in the NMR spectra of RNA makes automated resonance assignment, a key step in NMR investigation of biomolecules, remarkably challenging. Herein we present RNA Probabilistic Assignment of Imino Resonance Shifts (RNA-PAIRS), a method for the automated assignment of RNA imino resonances with synchronized verification and correction of predicted secondary structure. RNA-PAIRS represents an advance in modeling the assignment paradigm because it seeds the probabilistic network for assignment with experimental NMR data, and predicted RNA secondary structure, simultaneously and from the start. Subsequently, RNA-PAIRS sets in motion a dynamic network that reverberates between predictions and experimental evidence in order to reconcile and rectify resonance assignments and secondary structure information. The procedure is halted when assignments and base-parings are deemed to be most consistent with observed crosspeaks. The current implementation of RNA-PAIRS uses an initial peak list derived from proton-nitrogen heteronuclear multiple quantum correlation ({sup 1}H-{sup 15}N 2D HMQC) and proton-proton nuclear Overhauser enhancement spectroscopy ({sup 1}H-{sup 1}H 2D NOESY) experiments. We have evaluated the performance of RNA-PAIRS by using it to analyze NMR datasets from 26 previously studied RNAs, including a 111-nucleotide complex. For moderately sized RNA molecules, and over a range of comparatively complex structural motifs, the average assignment accuracy exceeds 90%, while the average base pair prediction accuracy exceeded 93%. RNA-PAIRS yielded accurate assignments and base pairings consistent with imino

Interactive visual exploration and refinement of cluster assignments.

Science.gov (United States)

Kern, Michael; Lex, Alexander; Gehlenborg, Nils; Johnson, Chris R

2017-09-12

With ever-increasing amounts of data produced in biology research, scientists are in need of efficient data analysis methods. Cluster analysis, combined with visualization of the results, is one such method that can be used to make sense of large data volumes. At the same time, cluster analysis is known to be imperfect and depends on the choice of algorithms, parameters, and distance measures. Most clustering algorithms don't properly account for ambiguity in the source data, as records are often assigned to discrete clusters, even if an assignment is unclear. While there are metrics and visualization techniques that allow analysts to compare clusterings or to judge cluster quality, there is no comprehensive method that allows analysts to evaluate, compare, and refine cluster assignments based on the source data, derived scores, and contextual data. In this paper, we introduce a method that explicitly visualizes the quality of cluster assignments, allows comparisons of clustering results and enables analysts to manually curate and refine cluster assignments. Our methods are applicable to matrix data clustered with partitional, hierarchical, and fuzzy clustering algorithms. Furthermore, we enable analysts to explore clustering results in context of other data, for example, to observe whether a clustering of genomic data results in a meaningful differentiation in phenotypes. Our methods are integrated into Caleydo StratomeX, a popular, web-based, disease subtype analysis tool. We show in a usage scenario that our approach can reveal ambiguities in cluster assignments and produce improved clusterings that better differentiate genotypes and phenotypes.

Optimal erasure protection for scalably compressed video streams with limited retransmission.

Science.gov (United States)

Taubman, David; Thie, Johnson

2005-08-01

This paper shows how the priority encoding transmission (PET) framework may be leveraged to exploit both unequal error protection and limited retransmission for RD-optimized delivery of streaming media. Previous work on scalable media protection with PET has largely ignored the possibility of retransmission. Conversely, the PET framework has not been harnessed by the substantial body of previous work on RD optimized hybrid forward error correction/automatic repeat request schemes. We limit our attention to sources which can be modeled as independently compressed frames (e.g., video frames), where each element in the scalable representation of each frame can be transmitted in one or both of two transmission slots. An optimization algorithm determines the level of protection which should be assigned to each element in each slot, subject to transmission bandwidth constraints. To balance the protection assigned to elements which are being transmitted for the first time with those which are being retransmitted, the proposed algorithm formulates a collection of hypotheses concerning its own behavior in future transmission slots. We show how the PET framework allows for a decoupled optimization algorithm with only modest complexity. Experimental results obtained with Motion JPEG2000 compressed video demonstrate that substantial performance benefits can be obtained using the proposed framework.

Student generated assignments about electrical circuits in a computer simulation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vreman-de Olde, Cornelise; de Jong, Anthonius J.M.

2004-01-01

In this study we investigated the design of assignments by students as a knowledge-generating activity. Students were required to design assignments for 'other students' in a computer simulation environment about electrical circuits. Assignments consisted of a question, alternatives, and feedback on

On pole structure assignment in linear systems

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Loiseau, J.-J.; Zagalak, Petr

2009-01-01

Roč. 82, č. 7 (2009), s. 1179-1192 ISSN 0020-7179 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA102/07/1596 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10750506 Keywords : linear systems * linear state feedback * pole structure assignment Subject RIV: BC - Control Systems Theory Impact factor: 1.124, year: 2009 http://library.utia.cas.cz/separaty/2009/AS/zagalak-on pole structure assignment in linear systems.pdf

Expatriate Assignments: Understanding the Skill, Ability, Personality, and Behavioral Requirements of Working Abroad

OpenAIRE

Shin, Shung J.; Morgeson, Frederick P.; Campion, Michael A.

2003-01-01

It is often assumed that adjustment to the local working environment is essential for expatriate assignments. As such, it is surprising there is little empirical research identifying how skill, ability, and personality requirements might differ between expatriate and domestic jobs and how cultural values are related to expatriate behaviors. In a large sample of professionals (N = 1,312) working in comparable jobs in 156 different countries, we found higher social and perceptual skill requirem...

Personnel shift assignment: Existence conditions and network models

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van den Berg, Jeroen P.; van den Berg, J.P.; Panton, David M.

1994-01-01

The personnel scheduling problem is known to be a five-stage process in which the final stage involves the assignment of shifts to the days worked in the schedule. This paper discusses the existence conditions for both continuous and forward rotating shift assignments and heuristic network

75 FR 55355 - Delegation of Authority and Assignment of Responsibility

Science.gov (United States)

2010-09-10

... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Office of the Secretary Delegation of Authority and Assignment of Responsibility Secretary's Order 4-2010 Subject: Delegation of Authority and Assignment of Responsibility to the... delegations and assignments in full force and effect, except as expressly modified herein. 4. Delegation of...

Staff assignment practices in nursing homes: review of the literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Rahman, Anna; Straker, Jane K; Manning, Lydia

2009-01-01

Consistent assignment, whereby nursing home staff members, particularly certified nurse aides, are assigned to the same residents on most shifts, is increasingly viewed as a cornerstone of culture change in nursing homes. It has been advocated as a best-care model that increases residents' quality of life while contributing to a more stable frontline staff. Given these potential benefits, consistent assignment is now widely viewed as superior to rotating assignment, an alternative staffing model that aims to distribute care burden more fairly among staff and ensure that workers are familiar with most residents. Despite favorable anecdotal reports about the benefits of consistent assignment, the research literature reports mixed and sometimes contradictory findings for this staffing practice. This article reviews the research pertaining to staff assignment practices in nursing homes. Reviewed here are 13 reports on experimental trials (6 reports), evaluation research (4 reports), and nursing home surveys (3 reports). The review reveals broad diversity in staffing practices and raises questions that challenge popular assumptions about consistent assignment. The article closes with a discussion of the research, policy, and practice implications of the research findings.

75 FR 55354 - Delegation of Authority and Assignment of Responsibilities

Science.gov (United States)

2010-09-10

... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Office of the Secretary Delegation of Authority and Assignment of Responsibilities Secretary's Order 3-2010 Subject: Delegation of Authority and Assignment of Responsibilities to... Secretary to enforce sections 18A and 18B of the FLSA. 4. Delegation of Authority and Assignment of...

Quality Control Test for Sequence-Phenotype Assignments

Science.gov (United States)

Ortiz, Maria Teresa Lara; Rosario, Pablo Benjamín Leon; Luna-Nevarez, Pablo; Gamez, Alba Savin; Martínez-del Campo, Ana; Del Rio, Gabriel

2015-01-01

Relating a gene mutation to a phenotype is a common task in different disciplines such as protein biochemistry. In this endeavour, it is common to find false relationships arising from mutations introduced by cells that may be depurated using a phenotypic assay; yet, such phenotypic assays may introduce additional false relationships arising from experimental errors. Here we introduce the use of high-throughput DNA sequencers and statistical analysis aimed to identify incorrect DNA sequence-phenotype assignments and observed that 10–20% of these false assignments are expected in large screenings aimed to identify critical residues for protein function. We further show that this level of incorrect DNA sequence-phenotype assignments may significantly alter our understanding about the structure-function relationship of proteins. We have made available an implementation of our method at http://bis.ifc.unam.mx/en/software/chispas. PMID:25700273

25 CFR 225.33 - Assignment of minerals agreements.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Assignment of minerals agreements. 225.33 Section 225.33 Indians BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR ENERGY AND MINERALS OIL AND GAS, GEOTHERMAL, AND SOLID MINERALS AGREEMENTS Minerals Agreements § 225.33 Assignment of minerals agreements. An...

Automating Formative and Summative Feedback for Individualised Assignments

Science.gov (United States)

Hamilton, Ian Robert

2009-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on the rationale behind the use of a unique paper-based individualised accounting assignment, which automated the provision to students of immediate formative and timely summative feedback. Design/methodology/approach: As students worked towards completing their assignment, the package provided…

submission of art studio-based assignments: students experience

African Journals Online (AJOL)

PUBLICATIONS1

are reluctant to complete their studio assignments on time are critically ... tative and qualitative data, derived from survey and interviews were used to ... is therefore exploratory and studio based. It ... mogenous group of students who report pro- ... Assignment management .... The analyses in this study are based on data.

Heuristic for Task-Worker Assignment with Varying Learning Slopes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wipawee Tharmmaphornphilas

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Fashion industry has variety products, so the multi-skilled workers are required to improve flexibility in production and assignment. Generally the supervisor will assign task to the workers based on skill and skill levels of worker. Since in fashion industry new product styles are launched more frequently and the order size tends to be smaller, the workers always learn when the raw material and the production process changes. Consequently they require less time to produce the succeeding units of a task based on their learning ability. Since the workers have both experience and inexperience workers, so each worker has different skill level and learning ability. Consequently, the assignment which assumed constant skill level is not proper to use. This paper proposes a task-worker assignment considering worker skill levels and learning abilities. Processing time of each worker changes along production period due to a worker learning ability. We focus on a task-worker assignment in a fashion industry where tasks are ordered in series; the number of tasks is greater than the number of workers. Therefore, workers can perform multiple assignments followed the precedence restriction as an assembly line balancing problem. The problem is formulated in an integer linear programming model with objective to minimize makespan. A heuristic is proposed to determine the lower bound (LB and the upper bound (UB of the problem and the best assignment is determined. The performance of the heuristic method is tested by comparing quality of solution and computational time to optimal solutions.

The Impact of Color-Coding Freshmen Integrated-Science Assignments on Student Achievement

Science.gov (United States)

Sturdivant Allen, Anita Kay

Students in Grade 9 exhibit high rates of grade retention and absenteeism. Educators have used different strategies that will increase the achievement of those students. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a relationship existed between student achievement and the strategy to use colored paper for Grade 9 science assignments and tests. Itten's color theory provided the theoretical framework. Itten was one of the first researchers to explore the notion that the human eye can detect wavelengths as colors and that those colors can engage and create order in the human brain. A sample of students assigned to 4 classroom teachers at one high school who volunteered to take part in the study for 18 weeks were used in this quantitative study. Teachers administered student assessments on blue, green, yellow, and white paper. Each class was assigned 1 of the 4 colors for 4.5 weeks. The classes were then assigned a different color for the same length of time until each class had exposure to all 4 colors. Physical science exams given to students in the same grade or subject were used as the dependent variable. An ANOVA indicated that the groups using blue paper scored the highest on the physical science exams; students who used white paper earned the lowest scores. When comparing all 3 groups using colored paper (all three colored paper groups combined into one group) to the white paper groups, t-test results indicated that students using any colored paper scored higher than students using white paper. Further research on the impact of colored paper on student academic performance is necessary. Implications for positive social change indicate that new knowledge about instructional tools that impact student achievement deserves more attention.

The Effects of Accountability on Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Rezende, Marcelo

2010-01-01

This paper analyzes the effects of a higher education accountability system in Brazil. For each discipline, colleges were assigned a grade that depended on the scores of their students on the ENC, an annual mandatory exam. These grades were then disclosed to the public and colleges were rewarded or penalized based on them. I find that the ENC had…

Assignment Procedures in the Air Force Procurement Management Information System.

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Joe H., Jr.; And Others

An overview is presented of the procedure for offering jobs in the Air Force Procurement Management Information System (PROMIS), an assignment system which makes possible the use of human resources research findings to improve individual personnel assignments. A general framework for viewing personnel assignment systems is presented; then job…

A property of assignment type mixed integer linear programming problems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Benders, J.F.; van Nunen, J.A.E.E.

1982-01-01

In this paper we will proof that rather tight upper bounds can be given for the number of non-unique assignments that are achieved after solving the linear programming relaxation of some types of mixed integer linear assignment problems. Since in these cases the number of splitted assignments is

41 CFR 105-8.152 - Program accessibility: Assignment of space.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 41 Public Contracts and Property Management 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Program accessibility: Assignment of space. 105-8.152 Section 105-8.152 Public Contracts and Property Management Federal Property...-8.152 Program accessibility: Assignment of space. (a) When GSA assigns or reassigns space to an...

Scaffolding Assignments and Activities for Undergraduate Research Methods

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Sarah; Justwan, Florian

2018-01-01

This article details assignments and lessons created for and tested in research methods courses at two different universities, a large state school and a small liberal arts college. Each assignment or activity utilized scaffolding. Students were asked to push beyond their comfort zone while utilizing concrete and/or creative examples,…

Socially-assigned race, healthcare discrimination and preventive healthcare services.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tracy Macintosh

Full Text Available Race and ethnicity, typically defined as how individuals self-identify, are complex social constructs. Self-identified racial/ethnic minorities are less likely to receive preventive care and more likely to report healthcare discrimination than self-identified non-Hispanic whites. However, beyond self-identification, these outcomes may vary depending on whether racial/ethnic minorities are perceived by others as being minority or white; this perception is referred to as socially-assigned race.To examine the associations between socially-assigned race and healthcare discrimination and receipt of selected preventive services.Cross-sectional analysis of the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System "Reactions to Race" module. Respondents from seven states and the District of Columbia were categorized into 3 groups, defined by a composite of self-identified race/socially-assigned race: Minority/Minority (M/M, n = 6,837, Minority/White (M/W, n = 929, and White/White (W/W, n = 25,913. Respondents were 18 years or older, with 61.7% under age 60; 51.8% of respondents were female. Measures included reported healthcare discrimination and receipt of vaccinations and cancer screenings.Racial/ethnic minorities who reported being socially-assigned as minority (M/M were more likely to report healthcare discrimination compared with those who reported being socially-assigned as white (M/W (8.9% vs. 5.0%, p = 0.002. Those reporting being socially-assigned as white (M/W and W/W had similar rates for past-year influenza (73.1% vs. 74.3% and pneumococcal (69.3% vs. 58.6% vaccinations; however, rates were significantly lower among M/M respondents (56.2% and 47.6%, respectively, p-values<0.05. There were no significant differences between the M/M and M/W groups in the receipt of cancer screenings.Racial/ethnic minorities who reported being socially-assigned as white are more likely to receive preventive vaccinations and less likely to report

Sex assignment of lake sturgeon (Acipenser fluvescens) based on plasma sex hormone and vitellogenin levels

Science.gov (United States)

Craig, J.M.; Papoulias, D.M.; Thomas, M.V.; Annis, M.L.; Boase, J.

2009-01-01

This study focused on identifying the sex of lake sturgeon by measuring the sex hormones estradiol and testosterone, and the phosphoprotein vitellogenin (Vtg) in blood plasma by radioimmunoassay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively, and evaluating these techniques as tools in lake sturgeon population management. Surveys of the St Clair River (SCR) lake sturgeon population have characterized it as rebounding by having steady or increasing recruitment since 1997. However, researchers have not been able to effectively determine the sex for most of the sturgeon they capture because few fish caught during surveys are releasing gametes. A total of 115 fish were sampled from May through June in 2004 and 2005 from the SCR, Michigan, USA. Of these, only four females and eight males were verified (i.e. they were releasing gametes at time of capture), resulting in very few fish with which to validate blood hormone and Vtg biomarkers of sex. Fifty-six percent of the fish were assigned a sex designation based on biomarker criteria. Correspondence between actual gonadal sex and biomarker-directed classification was good for the small subset of fish for which gonadal sex was definitively determined. Moreover, application of the steroid values in a predictive sex assignment model developed for white sturgeon misclassified only the same two fish that were misclassified with the steroid and Vtg biomarkers. The experimental results suggest a sex ratio of 1 : 2.7 (F:M), however more conclusive methods are needed to confirm this ratio because so few fish were available for sex validation. Of the 43 males, 14 were within the legal slot limit, 11 were smaller than 1067 mm total length (TL), and 18 were larger than 1270 mm TL. All 15 females were larger than 1270 mm TL, and thus protected by the slot limit criteria. Considering that lake sturgeon are threatened in Michigan, an advantage to using blood plasma assays was that fish were not harmed, and sample collection was

The Presentation Assignment: Creating Learning Opportunities for Diverse Student Populations.

Science.gov (United States)

Spencer, Brenda H.; Bartle-Angus, Kathryn

2000-01-01

Finds the presentation assignment to be an effective method of providing students with the opportunity to apply the literacy skills they are learning in ways that are personally meaningful. Describes the presentation assignment framework and provides an example of an assignment that required students to analyze and interpret works of literature…

Triage level assignment and nurse characteristics and experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Gómez-Angelats, Elisenda; Miró, Òscar; Bragulat Baur, Ernesto; Antolín Santaliestra, Alberto; Sánchez Sánchez, Miquel

2018-06-01

To study the relation between nursing staff demographics and experience and their assignment of triage level in the emergency department. One-year retrospective observational study in the triage area of a tertiary care urban university hospital that applies the Andorran-Spanish triage model. Variables studied were age, gender, nursing experience, triage experience, shift, usual level of emergency work the nurse undertakes, number of triage decisions made, and percentage of patients assigned to each level. Fifty nurses (5 men, 45 women) with a mean (SD) age of 45 (9) years triaged 67 803 patients during the year. Nurses classified more patients in level 5 on the morning shift (7.9%) than on the afternoon shift (5.5%) (P=.003). The difference in the rate of level-5 triage classification became significant when nurses were older (β = 0.092, P=.037) and experience was greater (β = 0.103, P=.017). The number of triages recorded by a nurse was significantly and directly related to the percentage of patients assigned to level 3 (β = 0.003, P=.006) and inversely related to the percentages assigned to level 4 (β = -0.002, P=.008) and level 5 (β = -0.001, P=.017). We found that triage level assignments were related to age, experience, shift, and total number of patients triaged by a nurse.

Visual words assignment via information-theoretic manifold embedding.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Yue; Li, Yipeng; Qian, Yanjun; Ji, Xiangyang; Dai, Qionghai

2014-10-01

Codebook-based learning provides a flexible way to extract the contents of an image in a data-driven manner for visual recognition. One central task in such frameworks is codeword assignment, which allocates local image descriptors to the most similar codewords in the dictionary to generate histogram for categorization. Nevertheless, existing assignment approaches, e.g., nearest neighbors strategy (hard assignment) and Gaussian similarity (soft assignment), suffer from two problems: 1) too strong Euclidean assumption and 2) neglecting the label information of the local descriptors. To address the aforementioned two challenges, we propose a graph assignment method with maximal mutual information (GAMI) regularization. GAMI takes the power of manifold structure to better reveal the relationship of massive number of local features by nonlinear graph metric. Meanwhile, the mutual information of descriptor-label pairs is ultimately optimized in the embedding space for the sake of enhancing the discriminant property of the selected codewords. According to such objective, two optimization models, i.e., inexact-GAMI and exact-GAMI, are respectively proposed in this paper. The inexact model can be efficiently solved with a closed-from solution. The stricter exact-GAMI nonparametrically estimates the entropy of descriptor-label pairs in the embedding space and thus leads to a relatively complicated but still trackable optimization. The effectiveness of GAMI models are verified on both the public and our own datasets.

CHILDREN'S HEALTH PROTECTION IN INTERSECTORAL CONNECTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu.E. Lapin

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Recently discovered phenomenon of compensatory mechanism of absence of legislative durable national policy in health protection of children is described in this article. This mechanism was developed as a result of evolution of intersect oral connection for the sake of children's health protection. «National family policy», «national policy for the sake of children», «national policy in the field of circulation of narcotic, psychotropic substances and in the field of counteraction to its illegal use», «national policy of Russian federation in the field of education», «national policy in the field of labor relations» perform functions of such compensatory mechanism. Fact of regulation of social relations in the sphere of children's health protection with means of different active directions of national policy is evidence of legal assignment of a number of problems in children's health protection as real subject of policy. The negative feature of this problem is incomplete and fragmentary regulation of relationships in the field of children's health protection. This is the reason, which maintains a status of children's health protection service as passive dirigible object but not an active regulative factor.Key words: children, health, national policy.

Contact replacement for NMR resonance assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Fei; Pandurangan, Gopal; Bailey-Kellogg, Chris

2008-07-01

Complementing its traditional role in structural studies of proteins, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is playing an increasingly important role in functional studies. NMR dynamics experiments characterize motions involved in target recognition, ligand binding, etc., while NMR chemical shift perturbation experiments identify and localize protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions. The key bottleneck in these studies is to determine the backbone resonance assignment, which allows spectral peaks to be mapped to specific atoms. This article develops a novel approach to address that bottleneck, exploiting an available X-ray structure or homology model to assign the entire backbone from a set of relatively fast and cheap NMR experiments. We formulate contact replacement for resonance assignment as the problem of computing correspondences between a contact graph representing the structure and an NMR graph representing the data; the NMR graph is a significantly corrupted, ambiguous version of the contact graph. We first show that by combining connectivity and amino acid type information, and exploiting the random structure of the noise, one can provably determine unique correspondences in polynomial time with high probability, even in the presence of significant noise (a constant number of noisy edges per vertex). We then detail an efficient randomized algorithm and show that, over a variety of experimental and synthetic datasets, it is robust to typical levels of structural variation (1-2 AA), noise (250-600%) and missings (10-40%). Our algorithm achieves very good overall assignment accuracy, above 80% in alpha-helices, 70% in beta-sheets and 60% in loop regions. Our contact replacement algorithm is implemented in platform-independent Python code. The software can be freely obtained for academic use by request from the authors.

Application of the diagnostic radiological index of protection to protective garments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pasciak, Alexander S. [Department of Radiology, The University of Tennessee Medical Center at Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee 37922 (United States); Jones, A. Kyle, E-mail: kyle.jones@mdanderson.org [Department of Imaging Physics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030 (United States); Wagner, Louis K. [Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, Texas 77030 (United States)

2015-02-15

Purpose: Previously, the diagnostic radiological index of protection (DRIP) was proposed as a metric for quantifying the protective value of radioprotective garments. The DRIP is a weighted sum of the percent transmissions of different radiation beams through a garment. Ideally, the beams would represent the anticipated stray radiation encountered during clinical use. However, it is impractical to expect a medical physicist to possess the equipment necessary to accurately measure transmission of scattered radiation. Therefore, as a proof of concept, the authors tested a method that applied the DRIP to clinical practice. Methods: Primary beam qualities used in interventional cardiology and radiology were observed and catalogued. Based on the observed range of beam qualities, five representative clinical primary beam qualities, specified by kV and added filtration, were selected for this evaluation. Monte Carlo simulations were performed using these primary beams as source definitions to generate scattered spectra from the clinical primary beams. Using numerical optimization, ideal scatter mimicking primary beams, specified by kV and added aluminum filtration, were matched to the scattered spectra according to half- and quarter-value layers and spectral shape. To within reasonable approximation, these theoretical scatter-mimicking primary beams were reproduced experimentally in laboratory x ray beams and used to measure transmission through pure lead and protective garments. For this proof of concept, the DRIP for pure lead and the garments was calculated by assigning equal weighting to percent transmission measurements for each of the five beams. Finally, the areal density of lead and garments was measured for consideration alongside the DRIP to assess the protective value of each material for a given weight. Results: The authors identified ideal scatter mimicking primary beams that matched scattered spectra to within 0.01 mm for half- and quarter-value layers in

Application of the diagnostic radiological index of protection to protective garments.

Science.gov (United States)

Pasciak, Alexander S; Jones, A Kyle; Wagner, Louis K

2015-02-01

Previously, the diagnostic radiological index of protection (DRIP) was proposed as a metric for quantifying the protective value of radioprotective garments. The DRIP is a weighted sum of the percent transmissions of different radiation beams through a garment. Ideally, the beams would represent the anticipated stray radiation encountered during clinical use. However, it is impractical to expect a medical physicist to possess the equipment necessary to accurately measure transmission of scattered radiation. Therefore, as a proof of concept, the authors tested a method that applied the DRIP to clinical practice. Primary beam qualities used in interventional cardiology and radiology were observed and catalogued. Based on the observed range of beam qualities, five representative clinical primary beam qualities, specified by kV and added filtration, were selected for this evaluation. Monte Carlo simulations were performed using these primary beams as source definitions to generate scattered spectra from the clinical primary beams. Using numerical optimization, ideal scatter mimicking primary beams, specified by kV and added aluminum filtration, were matched to the scattered spectra according to half- and quarter-value layers and spectral shape. To within reasonable approximation, these theoretical scatter-mimicking primary beams were reproduced experimentally in laboratory x ray beams and used to measure transmission through pure lead and protective garments. For this proof of concept, the DRIP for pure lead and the garments was calculated by assigning equal weighting to percent transmission measurements for each of the five beams. Finally, the areal density of lead and garments was measured for consideration alongside the DRIP to assess the protective value of each material for a given weight. The authors identified ideal scatter mimicking primary beams that matched scattered spectra to within 0.01 mm for half- and quarter-value layers in copper and within 5% for the

Application of the diagnostic radiological index of protection to protective garments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pasciak, Alexander S.; Jones, A. Kyle; Wagner, Louis K.

2015-01-01

Purpose: Previously, the diagnostic radiological index of protection (DRIP) was proposed as a metric for quantifying the protective value of radioprotective garments. The DRIP is a weighted sum of the percent transmissions of different radiation beams through a garment. Ideally, the beams would represent the anticipated stray radiation encountered during clinical use. However, it is impractical to expect a medical physicist to possess the equipment necessary to accurately measure transmission of scattered radiation. Therefore, as a proof of concept, the authors tested a method that applied the DRIP to clinical practice. Methods: Primary beam qualities used in interventional cardiology and radiology were observed and catalogued. Based on the observed range of beam qualities, five representative clinical primary beam qualities, specified by kV and added filtration, were selected for this evaluation. Monte Carlo simulations were performed using these primary beams as source definitions to generate scattered spectra from the clinical primary beams. Using numerical optimization, ideal scatter mimicking primary beams, specified by kV and added aluminum filtration, were matched to the scattered spectra according to half- and quarter-value layers and spectral shape. To within reasonable approximation, these theoretical scatter-mimicking primary beams were reproduced experimentally in laboratory x ray beams and used to measure transmission through pure lead and protective garments. For this proof of concept, the DRIP for pure lead and the garments was calculated by assigning equal weighting to percent transmission measurements for each of the five beams. Finally, the areal density of lead and garments was measured for consideration alongside the DRIP to assess the protective value of each material for a given weight. Results: The authors identified ideal scatter mimicking primary beams that matched scattered spectra to within 0.01 mm for half- and quarter-value layers in

Resonance assignment of the NMR spectra of disordered proteins using a multi-objective non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, Yu; Fritzsching, Keith J.; Hong, Mei

2013-01-01

A multi-objective genetic algorithm is introduced to predict the assignment of protein solid-state NMR (SSNMR) spectra with partial resonance overlap and missing peaks due to broad linewidths, molecular motion, and low sensitivity. This non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) aims to identify all possible assignments that are consistent with the spectra and to compare the relative merit of these assignments. Our approach is modeled after the recently introduced Monte-Carlo simulated-annealing (MC/SA) protocol, with the key difference that NSGA-II simultaneously optimizes multiple assignment objectives instead of searching for possible assignments based on a single composite score. The multiple objectives include maximizing the number of consistently assigned peaks between multiple spectra (“good connections”), maximizing the number of used peaks, minimizing the number of inconsistently assigned peaks between spectra (“bad connections”), and minimizing the number of assigned peaks that have no matching peaks in the other spectra (“edges”). Using six SSNMR protein chemical shift datasets with varying levels of imperfection that was introduced by peak deletion, random chemical shift changes, and manual peak picking of spectra with moderately broad linewidths, we show that the NSGA-II algorithm produces a large number of valid and good assignments rapidly. For high-quality chemical shift peak lists, NSGA-II and MC/SA perform similarly well. However, when the peak lists contain many missing peaks that are uncorrelated between different spectra and have chemical shift deviations between spectra, the modified NSGA-II produces a larger number of valid solutions than MC/SA, and is more effective at distinguishing good from mediocre assignments by avoiding the hazard of suboptimal weighting factors for the various objectives. These two advantages, namely diversity and better evaluation, lead to a higher probability of predicting the correct

Resonance assignment of the NMR spectra of disordered proteins using a multi-objective non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Yu; Fritzsching, Keith J; Hong, Mei

2013-11-01

A multi-objective genetic algorithm is introduced to predict the assignment of protein solid-state NMR (SSNMR) spectra with partial resonance overlap and missing peaks due to broad linewidths, molecular motion, and low sensitivity. This non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) aims to identify all possible assignments that are consistent with the spectra and to compare the relative merit of these assignments. Our approach is modeled after the recently introduced Monte-Carlo simulated-annealing (MC/SA) protocol, with the key difference that NSGA-II simultaneously optimizes multiple assignment objectives instead of searching for possible assignments based on a single composite score. The multiple objectives include maximizing the number of consistently assigned peaks between multiple spectra ("good connections"), maximizing the number of used peaks, minimizing the number of inconsistently assigned peaks between spectra ("bad connections"), and minimizing the number of assigned peaks that have no matching peaks in the other spectra ("edges"). Using six SSNMR protein chemical shift datasets with varying levels of imperfection that was introduced by peak deletion, random chemical shift changes, and manual peak picking of spectra with moderately broad linewidths, we show that the NSGA-II algorithm produces a large number of valid and good assignments rapidly. For high-quality chemical shift peak lists, NSGA-II and MC/SA perform similarly well. However, when the peak lists contain many missing peaks that are uncorrelated between different spectra and have chemical shift deviations between spectra, the modified NSGA-II produces a larger number of valid solutions than MC/SA, and is more effective at distinguishing good from mediocre assignments by avoiding the hazard of suboptimal weighting factors for the various objectives. These two advantages, namely diversity and better evaluation, lead to a higher probability of predicting the correct assignment for a

28 CFR 545.23 - Inmate work/program assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... community living area, unless the pretrial inmate has signed a waiver of his or her right not to work (see... 28 Judicial Administration 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Inmate work/program assignment. 545.23... WORK AND COMPENSATION Inmate Work and Performance Pay Program § 545.23 Inmate work/program assignment...

Optimal assignment of incoming flights to baggage carousels at airports

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Barth, Torben C.

The problem considered in this report is an assignment problem occurring at airports. This problem concerns the assignment of baggage carousels in baggage claim halls to arriving aircraft (baggage carousel assignment problem). This is a highly dynamic problem since disruptions frequently occur du...... and in general is a substantial support in decision making....

PARETO OPTIMAL SOLUTIONS FOR MULTI-OBJECTIVE GENERALIZED ASSIGNMENT PROBLEM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Prakash

2012-01-01

Full Text Available

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Multi-Objective Generalized Assignment Problem (MGAP with two objectives, where one objective is linear and the other one is non-linear, has been considered, with the constraints that a job is assigned to only one worker – though he may be assigned more than one job, depending upon the time available to him. An algorithm is proposed to find the set of Pareto optimal solutions of the problem, determining assignments of jobs to workers with two objectives without setting priorities for them. The two objectives are to minimise the total cost of the assignment and to reduce the time taken to complete all the jobs.

AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ‘n Multi-doelwit veralgemeende toekenningsprobleem (“multi-objective generalised assignment problem – MGAP” met twee doelwitte, waar die een lineêr en die ander nielineêr is nie, word bestudeer, met die randvoorwaarde dat ‘n taak slegs toegedeel word aan een werker – alhoewel meer as een taak aan hom toegedeel kan word sou die tyd beskikbaar wees. ‘n Algoritme word voorgestel om die stel Pareto-optimale oplossings te vind wat die taaktoedelings aan werkers onderhewig aan die twee doelwitte doen sonder dat prioriteite toegeken word. Die twee doelwitte is om die totale koste van die opdrag te minimiseer en om die tyd te verminder om al die take te voltooi.

EG and G Idaho Environmental Protection Implementation Plan (1990)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wickham, L.E.

1990-11-01

This report describes the EG G Idaho strategy for implementation of the Department of Energy (DOE) Order 5400.1 (a DOE-Headquarters directive establishing environmental protection program requirements, authorities, and responsibilities). Preparation of this Environmental Protection Implementation Plan is a requirement of DOE Order 5400.1. Additionally, this report is intended to supplement the Department of Energy--Idaho Operations Office (DOE-ID) Environmental Protection Implementation Plan by detailing EG G Idaho Environmental Protection Program activities. This report describes the current status of the EG G Idaho program, and the strategies for enhancing, as necessary, the current program to meet the requirements of DOE Order 5400.1. Aspects of the Environmental Protection Program included in this report are the assignment of responsibilities to specific EG G organizations, a schedule for completion of enhancements, if necessary, and requirements for documentation and reporting. 4 figs., 1 tab.

EG and G Idaho Environmental Protection Implementation Plan (1991)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Graham, J.F.

1991-11-01

This report describes the EG G Idaho, Inc. strategy for implementation of the Department of Energy (DOE) Order 5400.1 (a DOE-Headquarters directive establishing environmental protection program requirements, authorities, and responsibilities). Preparation of this Environmental Protection Implementation Plan is a requirement of DOE Order 5400.1. Additionally, this report is intended to supplement the Department of Energy -- Field Office Idaho (DOE-ID) Environmental Protection Implementation Plan by detailing EG G Idaho Environmental Protection Program activities. This report describes the current status of the EG G Idaho Program, and the strategies for enhancing, as necessary, the current program to meet the requirements of DOE Order 5400.1. Aspects of the Environmental Protection Program included in this report are the assignment of responsibilities to specific EG G Idaho organizations, a schedule for completion of enhancements, if necessary, and requirements for documentation and reporting. 4 figs., 1 tab.

EG and G Idaho Environmental Protection Implementation Plan (1991)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Graham, J.F.

1991-11-01

This report describes the EG ampersand G Idaho, Inc. strategy for implementation of the Department of Energy (DOE) Order 5400.1 (a DOE-Headquarters directive establishing environmental protection program requirements, authorities, and responsibilities). Preparation of this Environmental Protection Implementation Plan is a requirement of DOE Order 5400.1. Additionally, this report is intended to supplement the Department of Energy -- Field Office Idaho (DOE-ID) Environmental Protection Implementation Plan by detailing EG ampersand G Idaho Environmental Protection Program activities. This report describes the current status of the EG ampersand G Idaho Program, and the strategies for enhancing, as necessary, the current program to meet the requirements of DOE Order 5400.1. Aspects of the Environmental Protection Program included in this report are the assignment of responsibilities to specific EG ampersand G Idaho organizations, a schedule for completion of enhancements, if necessary, and requirements for documentation and reporting. 4 figs., 1 tab

Game theory and traffic assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

2013-09-01

Traffic assignment is used to determine the number of users on roadway links in a network. While this problem has : been widely studied in transportation literature, its use of the concept of equilibrium has attracted considerable interest : in the f...

Relay Coordination in the Protection of Radially-Connected Power ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Protective relays detect intolerable or unwanted conditions within an assigned area, and then trip or open one or more circuit breakers to isolate the problem area before it can damage or otherwise interfere with the eective operation of the rest of the power system. It often happens that a substation feeder relay and ...

Simulated annealing algorithm for solving chambering student-case assignment problem

Science.gov (United States)

Ghazali, Saadiah; Abdul-Rahman, Syariza

2015-12-01

The problem related to project assignment problem is one of popular practical problem that appear nowadays. The challenge of solving the problem raise whenever the complexity related to preferences, the existence of real-world constraints and problem size increased. This study focuses on solving a chambering student-case assignment problem by using a simulated annealing algorithm where this problem is classified under project assignment problem. The project assignment problem is considered as hard combinatorial optimization problem and solving it using a metaheuristic approach is an advantage because it could return a good solution in a reasonable time. The problem of assigning chambering students to cases has never been addressed in the literature before. For the proposed problem, it is essential for law graduates to peruse in chambers before they are qualified to become legal counselor. Thus, assigning the chambering students to cases is a critically needed especially when involving many preferences. Hence, this study presents a preliminary study of the proposed project assignment problem. The objective of the study is to minimize the total completion time for all students in solving the given cases. This study employed a minimum cost greedy heuristic in order to construct a feasible initial solution. The search then is preceded with a simulated annealing algorithm for further improvement of solution quality. The analysis of the obtained result has shown that the proposed simulated annealing algorithm has greatly improved the solution constructed by the minimum cost greedy heuristic. Hence, this research has demonstrated the advantages of solving project assignment problem by using metaheuristic techniques.

Efficient Mechanisms to Allocate Assignment Incentives in the Navy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Nimon, R. W; Hall, Ricky D; Zaki, Hossam

2005-01-01

.... All assignments, however, may not necessarily be voluntary. These assignments (jobs) have been labeled as "hard to fill" by Navy leadership, and the Navy has implemented market-based, cash stipends to attract Sailors to these jobs...

Ant Colony Algorithm and Simulation for Robust Airport Gate Assignment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hui Zhao

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Airport gate assignment is core task for airport ground operations. Due to the fact that the departure and arrival time of flights may be influenced by many random factors, the airport gate assignment scheme may encounter gate conflict and many other problems. This paper aims at finding a robust solution for airport gate assignment problem. A mixed integer model is proposed to formulate the problem, and colony algorithm is designed to solve this model. Simulation result shows that, in consideration of robustness, the ability of antidisturbance for airport gate assignment scheme has much improved.

Y-12 Site environmental protection program implementation plan (EPPIP)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1996-11-01

The Y-12 Plant Environmental Protection Program is conducted to: (1) protect public health and the environment from chemical and radiological releases occurring from current plant operations and past waste management and operational practices; (2) ensure compliance with federal, state, and local environmental regulations and DOE directives; (3) identify potential environmental problems; (4) evaluate existing environmental contamination and determine the need for remedial actions and mitigative measures; (5) monitor the progress of ongoing remedial actions and cleanup measures; and (6) inform the public of environmental issues relating to DOE operations. DOE Order 5400.1, General Environmental Protection Program, defines the general requirements for environmental protection programs at DOE facilities. This Environmental Protection Program Implementation Plan (EPPIP) defines the methods by which the Y-12 Plant staff will comply with the order by: (1) referencing environmental protection goals and objectives and identifying strategies and timetables for attaining them; (2) providing the overall framework for the design and implementation of the Y-12 Environmental Protection Program; and (3) assigning responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the order. The EPPIP is revised and updated annually.

Y-12 Site environmental protection program implementation plan (EPPIP)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-11-01

The Y-12 Plant Environmental Protection Program is conducted to: (1) protect public health and the environment from chemical and radiological releases occurring from current plant operations and past waste management and operational practices; (2) ensure compliance with federal, state, and local environmental regulations and DOE directives; (3) identify potential environmental problems; (4) evaluate existing environmental contamination and determine the need for remedial actions and mitigative measures; (5) monitor the progress of ongoing remedial actions and cleanup measures; and (6) inform the public of environmental issues relating to DOE operations. DOE Order 5400.1, General Environmental Protection Program, defines the general requirements for environmental protection programs at DOE facilities. This Environmental Protection Program Implementation Plan (EPPIP) defines the methods by which the Y-12 Plant staff will comply with the order by: (1) referencing environmental protection goals and objectives and identifying strategies and timetables for attaining them; (2) providing the overall framework for the design and implementation of the Y-12 Environmental Protection Program; and (3) assigning responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the order. The EPPIP is revised and updated annually

An Overview: Consumer Protection in Higher Education. Why? For Whom? How?

Science.gov (United States)

Willett, Sandra L.

The protection of the student and prospective student at the postsecondary level is examined. Twenty-five possible educational abuses and concerns, such as discriminatory refund policies and misrepresentation, identified by the Federal Interagency on Education are listed. Ten issues selected as the thrust of the first National Conference on…

Evaluating Public Higher Education in Mexico

Science.gov (United States)

Varela-Petito, Gonzalo

2011-01-01

In an effort to ensure accountability, and in order to prepare students for a globalised world, the higher education sector in Mexico is seeking to implement an evaluation of public higher education. Higher education institutions (HEIs) need to balance this goal against the need to protect their autonomy. This would be preserved if each…

La protection réelle de l’embryon The real protection of the embryo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cosimo Marco Mazzoni

2009-04-01

Full Text Available Tutelle réelle de l’embryon signifie protection effective sur la base du droit positif en vigueur. L’étude cherche à affirmer que l’embryon humain est un objet sous tutelle, établi par l’ordre juridique. Elle conteste que l’embryon soit titulaire de droits subjectifs et donc qu’il puisse acquérir la qualification juridique de personne. La signification du terme de vie est conceptuellement différente au sens biologique et au sens juridique. Les Codes civils européens assignent la capacité juridique au fœtus qui est né vivant. Avant cet instant, le système juridique est en mesure d’accorder une protection à l’embryon toutefois différente de la norme qui protège la vie humaine de la personne déjà née. Bref, la protection de l’embryon est indépendante de sa qualification comme sujet.Real protection means effective protection through existing positive law. The article attempts to demonstrate that the embryo is an object entitled to a safeguards attributed by the law to human life as such. It denies that the embryo has subjective rights and therefore can acquire the legal qualification of subject of law or a person. The meaning of the concept of life is different, be it from the biological or legal point of view. European civil codes give legal capacity to the foetus who was born alive. Before this moment, the legal system has the possibility to give protection to the embryo but this protection is different from the norm protecting human life of an already born person. Consequently the protection of the embryo is independent from the qualification of the embryo as a subject.

Assigning agents to a line

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hougaard, Jens Leth; Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.; Østerdal, Lars Peter Raahave

2014-01-01

minimizing modification of the classic random priority method to solve this class of problems. We also provide some logical relations in our setting among standard axioms in the literature on assignment problems, and explore the robustness of our results to several extensions of our setting....

The ICAP (Interactive Course Assignment Pages Publishing System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kim Griggs

2008-03-01

Full Text Available The ICAP publishing system is an open source custom content management system that enables librarians to easily and quickly create and manage library help pages for course assignments (ICAPs, without requiring knowledge of HTML or other web technologies. The system's unique features include an emphasis on collaboration and content reuse and an easy-to-use interface that includes in-line help, simple forms and drag and drop functionality. The system generates dynamic, attractive course assignment pages that blend Web 2.0 features with traditional library resources, and makes the pages easier to find by providing a central web page for the course assignment pages. As of December 2007, the code is available as free, open-source software under the GNU General Public License.

Algorithms for selecting informative marker panels for population assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenberg, Noah A

2005-11-01

Given a set of potential source populations, genotypes of an individual of unknown origin at a collection of markers can be used to predict the correct source population of the individual. For improved efficiency, informative markers can be chosen from a larger set of markers to maximize the accuracy of this prediction. However, selecting the loci that are individually most informative does not necessarily produce the optimal panel. Here, using genotypes from eight species--carp, cat, chicken, dog, fly, grayling, human, and maize--this univariate accumulation procedure is compared to new multivariate "greedy" and "maximin" algorithms for choosing marker panels. The procedures generally suggest similar panels, although the greedy method often recommends inclusion of loci that are not chosen by the other algorithms. In seven of the eight species, when applied to five or more markers, all methods achieve at least 94% assignment accuracy on simulated individuals, with one species--dog--producing this level of accuracy with only three markers, and the eighth species--human--requiring approximately 13-16 markers. The new algorithms produce substantial improvements over use of randomly selected markers; where differences among the methods are noticeable, the greedy algorithm leads to slightly higher probabilities of correct assignment. Although none of the approaches necessarily chooses the panel with optimal performance, the algorithms all likely select panels with performance near enough to the maximum that they all are suitable for practical use.

A Novel Adjustable Concept for Permeable Gas/Vapor Protective Clothing: Balancing Protection and Thermal Strain.

Science.gov (United States)

Bogerd, Cornelis Peter; Langenberg, Johannes Pieter; DenHartog, Emiel A

2018-02-13

Armed forces typically have personal protective clothing (PPC) in place to offer protection against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) agents. The regular soldier is equipped with permeable CBRN-PPC. However, depending on the operational task, these PPCs pose too much thermal strain to the wearer, which results in a higher risk of uncompensable heat stress. This study investigates the possibilities of adjustable CBRN-PPC, consisting of different layers that can be worn separately or in combination with each other. This novel concept aims to achieve optimization between protection and thermal strain during operations. Two CBRN-PPC (protective) layers were obtained from two separate manufacturers: (i) a next-to-skin (NTS) and (ii) a low-burden battle dress uniform (protective BDU). In addition to these layers, a standard (non-CBRN protective) BDU (sBDU) was also made available. The effect of combining clothing layers on the levels of protection were investigated with a Man-In-Simulant Test. Finally, a mechanistic numerical model was employed to give insight into the thermal burden of the evaluated CBRN-PPC concepts. Combining layers results in substantially higher protection that is more than the sum of the individual layers. Reducing the airflow on the protective layer closest to the skin seems to play an important role in this, since combining the NTS with the sBDU also resulted in substantially higher protection. As expected, the thermal strain posed by the different clothing layer combinations decreases as the level of protection decreases. This study has shown that the concept of adjustable protection and thermal strain through multiple layers of CBRN-PPC works. Adjustable CBRN-PPC allows for optimization of the CBRN-PPC in relation to the threat level, thermal environment, and tasks at hand in an operational setting. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society.

Covariance NMR Processing and Analysis for Protein Assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Harden, Bradley J; Frueh, Dominique P

2018-01-01

During NMR resonance assignment it is often necessary to relate nuclei to one another indirectly, through their common correlations to other nuclei. Covariance NMR has emerged as a powerful technique to correlate such nuclei without relying on error-prone peak peaking. However, false-positive artifacts in covariance spectra have impeded a general application to proteins. We recently introduced pre- and postprocessing steps to reduce the prevalence of artifacts in covariance spectra, allowing for the calculation of a variety of 4D covariance maps obtained from diverse combinations of pairs of 3D spectra, and we have employed them to assign backbone and sidechain resonances in two large and challenging proteins. In this chapter, we present a detailed protocol describing how to (1) properly prepare existing 3D spectra for covariance, (2) understand and apply our processing script, and (3) navigate and interpret the resulting 4D spectra. We also provide solutions to a number of errors that may occur when using our script, and we offer practical advice when assigning difficult signals. We believe such 4D spectra, and covariance NMR in general, can play an integral role in the assignment of NMR signals.

Genetics of traffic assignment models for strategic transport planning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bliemer, M.C.J.; Raadsen, M.P.H.; Brederode, L.J.N.; Bell, M.G.H.; Wismans, Luc Johannes Josephus; Smith, M.J.

2016-01-01

This paper presents a review and classification of traffic assignment models for strategic transport planning purposes by using concepts analogous to genetics in biology. Traffic assignment models share the same theoretical framework (DNA), but differ in capability (genes). We argue that all traffic

Method of and device for querying of protected structured data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jonker, Willem; Brinkman, Richard; Doumen, J.M.; Schoenmakers, Berry

2005-01-01

Method of and device for querying of protected data structured in the form of a tree. A corresponding tree of node polynomials is constructed such that each node polynomial evaluates to zero for an input equal to an identifier assigned to a node name occurring in a branch of the data tree starting

Method of and device for querying of protected structured data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brinkman, Richard; Doumen, J.M.; Jonker, Willem; Schoenmakers, B.

Method of and device for querying of protected data structured in the form of a tree. A corresponding tree of node polynomials is constructed such that each node polynomial evaluates to zero for an input equal to an identifier assigned to a node name occurring in a branch of the data tree starting

Designing Internet research assignments: building a framework for instructor collaboration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David Ward

2000-01-01

Full Text Available Internet knowledge is increasing steadily among instructors in the academic world. As courses incorporate more instructional technology, traditional undergraduate research assignments are adapting to reflect the changing world of information and information access. New library assignments reflect this shift as well, with term papers and research projects asking students to use Web sites as an information resource, in addition to the standard literature of periodicals and monographs. But the many pitfalls the library profession has learned in its own metamorphosis during the past decade are often repeated in these newer course assignments. The authors in this paper present a framework for librarians to interact with instructors to incorporate Internet resources into traditional term paper and research assignments. They suggest a framework for creating sample assignments librarians can take to campus instructional units, to show the teaching community at large what the library profession has learned from first-hand experience.

Postgraduate diploma collaborative assignment: Implications for ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Postgraduate diploma collaborative assignment: Implications for ESL students ... and collaborative teaching/learning model involving the major course convenors. ... The quality of the work and mood of all concerned improved tremendously.

Automated backbone assignment of labeled proteins using the threshold accepting algorithm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leutner, Michael; Gschwind, Ruth M.; Liermann, Jens; Schwarz, Christian; Gemmecker, Gerd; Kessler, Horst

1998-01-01

The sequential assignment of backbone resonances is the first step in the structure determination of proteins by heteronuclear NMR. For larger proteins, an assignment strategy based on proton side-chain information is no longer suitable for the use in an automated procedure. Our program PASTA (Protein ASsignment by Threshold Accepting) is therefore designed to partially or fully automate the sequential assignment of proteins, based on the analysis of NMR backbone resonances plus C β information. In order to overcome the problems caused by peak overlap and missing signals in an automated assignment process, PASTA uses threshold accepting, a combinatorial optimization strategy, which is superior to simulated annealing due to generally faster convergence and better solutions. The reliability of this algorithm is shown by reproducing the complete sequential backbone assignment of several proteins from published NMR data. The robustness of the algorithm against misassigned signals, noise, spectral overlap and missing peaks is shown by repeating the assignment with reduced sequential information and increased chemical shift tolerances. The performance of the program on real data is finally demonstrated with automatically picked peak lists of human nonpancreatic synovial phospholipase A 2 , a protein with 124 residues

Assigning spectra of chaotic molecules with diabatic correlation diagrams

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rose, J.P.; Kellman, M.E.

1996-01-01

An approach for classifying and organizing spectra of highly excited vibrational states of molecules is investigated. As a specific example, we analyze the spectrum of an effective spectroscopic fitting Hamiltonian for H 2 O. In highly excited spectra, multiple resonance couplings and anharmonicity interact to give branching of the N original normal modes into new anharmonic modes, accompanied by the onset of widespread chaos. The anharmonic modes are identified by means of a bifurcation analysis of the spectroscopic Hamiltonian. A diabatic correlation diagram technique is developed to assign the levels with approximate open-quote open-quote dynamical close-quote close-quote quantum numbers corresponding to the dynamics determined from the bifurcation analysis. The resulting assignment shows significant disturbance from the conventional spectral pattern organization into sequences and progressions. The open-quote open-quote dynamical close-quote close-quote assignment is then converted into an assignment in terms of open-quote open-quote nominal close-quote close-quote quantum numbers that function like the N normal mode quantum numbers at low energy. The nominal assignments are used to reconstruct, as much as possible, an organization of the spectrum resembling the usual separation into sequences and progressions. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics

Analysis of NPP protection structure reliability under impact of a falling aircraft

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shul'man, G.S.

1996-01-01

Methodology for evaluation of NPP protection structure reliability by impact of aircraft fall down is considered. The methodology is base on the probabilistic analysis of all potential events. The problem is solved in three stages: determination of loads on structural units, calculation of local reliability of protection structures by assigned loads and estimation of the structure reliability. The methodology proposed may be applied at the NPP design stage and by determination of reliability of already available structures

Financial protection mechanisms for inpatients at selected Philippine hospitals.

Science.gov (United States)

Caballes, Alvin B; Söllner, Walter; Nañagas, Juan

2012-11-01

The study was undertaken to determine, from the patient's perspective, the comparative effectiveness of locally established financial protection mechanisms particularly for indigent and severely-ill hospitalized patients. Data was obtained from a survey conducted in 2010 in Philippine provinces which were part of the Health Systems Development Project and involved 449 patients from selected private and public hospitals. Direct medical expenses incurred during the confinement period, whether already paid for prior to or only billed upon discharge, were initially considered. Expenses were found to be generally larger for the more severely ill and lower for the poor. Hospital-provided discounts and social health insurance (PhilHealth) reimbursements were the financial protection mechanisms evaluated in this study. In average terms, only up to 46% of inpatient expenses were potentially covered by the combined financial support. Depending on the hospital type, 28-42% of submitted PhilHealth claims were invalidated. Multiple linear regression analysis was utilized to determine the relationship of the same set of patients' demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, severity of illness, and hospital assignments with selected expense categories and financial protection measures. Pre-discharge expenditures were significantly higher in public hospitals. The very ill also faced significantly larger expenses, including those for final hospital charges. Hospital-derived discounts provided significantly more support for indigent as well as very sick patients. The amounts for verified PhilHealth claims were significantly greater for the moderately-ill and, incongruously, the financially better-off patients. Sponsored Program members, supposed indigents enjoying fully-subsidized PhilHealth enrollment, qualified for higher mean reimbursements. However, there was a weak correlation between such patients and those identified as poor by the hospital social service staff. Thus

Parentage assignment of progeny in mixed milt fertilization of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Administrator

2011-06-13

Jun 13, 2011 ... individuals. Overall, 98.8% of progeny were assigned to their parents using Family Assignment. Program (FAP). Selection of hyper-variable microsatellites in Caspian brown trout to identify unique alleles was effective for unambiguous parentage determination and estimation of genetic diversity in this study.

Empirical Equation Based Chirality (n, m Assignment of Semiconducting Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes from Resonant Raman Scattering Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Md Shamsul Arefin

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This work presents a technique for the chirality (n, m assignment of semiconducting single wall carbon nanotubes by solving a set of empirical equations of the tight binding model parameters. The empirical equations of the nearest neighbor hopping parameters, relating the term (2n, m with the first and second optical transition energies of the semiconducting single wall carbon nanotubes, are also proposed. They provide almost the same level of accuracy for lower and higher diameter nanotubes. An algorithm is presented to determine the chiral index (n, m of any unknown semiconducting tube by solving these empirical equations using values of radial breathing mode frequency and the first or second optical transition energy from resonant Raman spectroscopy. In this paper, the chirality of 55 semiconducting nanotubes is assigned using the first and second optical transition energies. Unlike the existing methods of chirality assignment, this technique does not require graphical comparison or pattern recognition between existing experimental and theoretical Kataura plot.

Empirical Equation Based Chirality (n, m) Assignment of Semiconducting Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes from Resonant Raman Scattering Data

Science.gov (United States)

Arefin, Md Shamsul

2012-01-01

This work presents a technique for the chirality (n, m) assignment of semiconducting single wall carbon nanotubes by solving a set of empirical equations of the tight binding model parameters. The empirical equations of the nearest neighbor hopping parameters, relating the term (2n− m) with the first and second optical transition energies of the semiconducting single wall carbon nanotubes, are also proposed. They provide almost the same level of accuracy for lower and higher diameter nanotubes. An algorithm is presented to determine the chiral index (n, m) of any unknown semiconducting tube by solving these empirical equations using values of radial breathing mode frequency and the first or second optical transition energy from resonant Raman spectroscopy. In this paper, the chirality of 55 semiconducting nanotubes is assigned using the first and second optical transition energies. Unlike the existing methods of chirality assignment, this technique does not require graphical comparison or pattern recognition between existing experimental and theoretical Kataura plot. PMID:28348319

Integrating Academic Journal Review Assignments into a Graduate Business Leadership Course

Science.gov (United States)

Schultz, Jennifer L.; Agrimonti, Lisa M.; Higbee, Jeanne L.

2016-01-01

Graduate course assignments that are pragmatic, challenging, scaffold prior learning, and support academic career aspirations can be difficult to create and even more problematic to assess for even the most experienced faculty. This paper presents a class assignment that incorporated a real-world journal reviewing assignment into an elective…

20 CFR 422.104 - Who can be assigned a social security number.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Who can be assigned a social security number... General Procedures § 422.104 Who can be assigned a social security number. (a) Persons eligible for SSN assignment. We can assign you a social security number if you meet the evidence requirements in § 422.107 and...

[Clinic management of public social protection policy in primary health care].

Science.gov (United States)

Arcos-Griffiths, Estela; Muñoz-González, Luz Angélica; Vollrath-Ramírez, Antonia; Sánchez-Segura, Ximena

2016-01-01

Knowing the effectiveness of clinical management of primary care health in the field of Integral Protection System for Children "Chile Crece Contigo" and "Red Protege". Observational, descriptive, with information available from secondary sources of Chile Crece Contigo system in the district of Pudahuel, Santiago de Chile. The population was 1,656 pregnant women assigned to Chile Crece Contigo system in 2009. Social vulnerability was measured with the Social Protection Record. Sociodemographic and Chile Crece Contigo system performance variables were selected. It featured a raw and refined database. Processing and analysis of data was performed using the statistical program Statistical Package for Social Sciences and Excel. Descriptive statistics for frequency, position and dispersion were calculated. Certification of Scientific Ethics Committee of the School of Nursing was granted. A 91.4% of institutional social vulnerability detected by screening social protection record was observed. Psychosocial risk was higher in women with social vulnerability (42.0 vs. 28.2%) more often recognized as inadequate family support, depressive symptoms, domestic violence, substance abuse and conflicts with motherhood. In the universal, specific and integrated performance it was not met with 100% access to benefits. The invisibility of the social vulnerability and low effectiveness of the transfer of benefits to socially vulnerable women/children deserves skills development of contextualized and integrated clinical management professionals in primary health care. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

32 CFR 644.396 - Assignment of personnel to administer.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 32 National Defense 4 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 true Assignment of personnel to administer. 644.396... PROPERTY REAL ESTATE HANDBOOK Disposal Predisposal Action § 644.396 Assignment of personnel to administer... responsible representative to each installation, or group of installations, to act under his staff supervision...

A Poster Assignment Connects Information Literacy and Writing Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Waters, Natalie

2015-01-01

This paper describes the implementation of a poster assignment in a writing and information literacy course required for undergraduate Life Sciences and Environmental Biology majors with the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at McGill University. The assignment was introduced in response to weaknesses identified through course…

42 CFR 421.114 - Assignment and reassignment of providers by CMS.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 42 Public Health 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Assignment and reassignment of providers by CMS. 421.114 Section 421.114 Public Health CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH... Assignment and reassignment of providers by CMS. CMS may assign or reassign any provider to any intermediary...

28 CFR 0.153 - Selection and assignment of employees for training.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 28 Judicial Administration 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Selection and assignment of employees for... Selection and assignment of employees for training. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the....S.C. 4109, with respect to the selection and assignment of employees for training by, in, or through...

26 CFR 1.401(a)-13 - Assignment or alienation of benefits.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 26 Internal Revenue 5 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Assignment or alienation of benefits. 1.401(a...)-13 Assignment or alienation of benefits. (a) Scope of the regulations. This section applies only to..., provided for employer contributions. (b) No assignment or alienation—(1) General rule. Under section 401(a...

DNATCO: assignment of DNA conformers at dnatco.org.

Science.gov (United States)

Černý, Jiří; Božíková, Paulína; Schneider, Bohdan

2016-07-08

The web service DNATCO (dnatco.org) classifies local conformations of DNA molecules beyond their traditional sorting to A, B and Z DNA forms. DNATCO provides an interface to robust algorithms assigning conformation classes called NTC: to dinucleotides extracted from DNA-containing structures uploaded in PDB format version 3.1 or above. The assigned dinucleotide NTC: classes are further grouped into DNA structural alphabet NTA: , to the best of our knowledge the first DNA structural alphabet. The results are presented at two levels: in the form of user friendly visualization and analysis of the assignment, and in the form of a downloadable, more detailed table for further analysis offline. The website is free and open to all users and there is no login requirement. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Effective Homework Assignments. Research Brief

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Harris

2008-01-01

Perhaps more than any question other than "How much time should students spend doing homework?" parents and educators want to know, "What kinds of homework assignments are most effective?" Clearly, the answers to this question vary according to many factors, especially the developmental level of students and the topic area. Generally, answers are…

A Legal Analysis of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Its Impact on Ballot Initiatives and Affirmative Action Programs in Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Waters, Harold Davon

2012-01-01

This dissertation explores the controversial issues surrounding affirmative action in higher education. Are anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by restructuring the political process of minorities in such a way that places special burden on their ability to secure…

Dynamic traffic assignment : genetic algorithms approach

Science.gov (United States)

1997-01-01

Real-time route guidance is a promising approach to alleviating congestion on the nations highways. A dynamic traffic assignment model is central to the development of guidance strategies. The artificial intelligence technique of genetic algorithm...

On some special cases of the restricted assignment problem

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, C. (Chao); R.A. Sitters (René)

2016-01-01

textabstractWe consider some special cases of the restricted assignment problem. In this scheduling problem on parallel machines, any job j can only be assigned to one of the machines in its given subset Mj of machines. We give an LP-formulation for the problem with two job sizes and show that it

13 CFR 500.210 - Assignment or transfer of loans.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... has the effect of distributing the risks of the credit among other Lenders if: (i) Neither the loan... be modified, assigned, conveyed, sold or otherwise transferred by the Lender, in whole or in part... assignment or transfer of less than 100 percent of a Lender's interest in the Loan Documents and Guarantee...

A parametric visualization software for the assignment problem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Papamanthou Charalampos

2005-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper we present a parametric visualization software used to assist the teaching of the Network Primal Simplex Algorithm for the assignment problem (AP. The assignment problem is a special case of the balanced transportation problem. The main functions of the algorithm and design techniques are also presented. Through this process, we aim to underline the importance and necessity of using such educational methods in order to improve the teaching of Computer Algorithms.

The Utility of Writing Assignments in Undergraduate Bioscience

Science.gov (United States)

Libarkin, Julie; Ording, Gabriel

2012-01-01

We tested the hypothesis that engagement in a few, brief writing assignments in a nonmajors science course can improve student ability to convey critical thought about science. A sample of three papers written by students (n = 30) was coded for presence and accuracy of elements related to scientific writing. Scores for different aspects of scientific writing were significantly correlated, suggesting that students recognized relationships between components of scientific thought. We found that students' ability to write about science topics and state conclusions based on data improved over the course of three writing assignments, while the abilities to state a hypothesis and draw clear connections between human activities and environmental impacts did not improve. Three writing assignments generated significant change in student ability to write scientifically, although our results suggest that three is an insufficient number to generate complete development of scientific writing skills. PMID:22383616

A search asymmetry reversed by figure-ground assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Humphreys, G W; Müller, H

2000-05-01

We report evidence demonstrating that a search asymmetry favoring concave over convex targets can be reversed by altering the figure-ground assignment of edges in shapes. Visual search for a concave target among convex distractors is faster than search for a convex target among concave distractors (a search asymmetry). By using shapes with ambiguous local figure-ground relations, we demonstrated that search can be efficient (with search slopes around 10 ms/item) or inefficient (with search slopes around 30-40 ms/item) with the same stimuli, depending on whether edges are assigned to concave or convex "figures." This assignment process can operate in a top-down manner, according to the task set. The results suggest that attention is allocated to spatial regions following the computation of figure-ground relations in parallel across the elements present. This computation can also be modulated by top-down processes.

Review of the effects of protection in marine protected areas: current knowledge and gaps

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ojeda–Martínez, C.

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The effectiveness of marine protected areas (MPAs and the conservation of marine environments must be based on reliable information on the quality of the marine environment that can be obtained in a reasonable timeframe. We reviewed studies that evaluated all aspects related to the effectiveness of MPAs in order to describe how the studies were conducted and to detect fields in which research is lacking. Existing parameters used to evaluate the effectiveness of MPAs are summarised. Two-hundred and twenty-two publications were reviewed. We identified the most commonly used study subjects and methodological approaches. Most of the studies concentrated on biological parameters. Peer reviewed studies were based on control vs. impact design. BACI and mBACI designs were used in very few studies. Through this review, we have identified gaps in the objectives assigned to MPAs and the way in which they have been evaluated. We suggest some guidelines aimedat improving the assessment of the effects of protection in MPAs.

Interactive Level Design for iOS Assignment Delivery: A Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anson Brown

2014-02-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an application of an iOS-based online gaming assignment in a real classroom. The core concept of the project is a gameplay environment involving two players that have full control over creation and modification of levels. This level design mechanism was implemented in an iOS-based game in the area of genetics and based on an existing written assignment. The game includes support for both instructors, who have the ability to create and post assignments and students, who can take the assignments. Two trials of the iOS application consisted of in-class testing of twenty- one students. Students first took the original paper assignment, followed by the iOS version. Start times, end times, and grades were recorded for both versions. A comprehensive study of the grades and times for the iOS version of the assignment versus the paper version was conducted and is presented in this paper. Our Study showed that the iOS version was completed much faster in nearly every case while a strong delivery mechanism is needed to ensure student grades and completion of the assignment will not be affected. These results are not unexpected due to some major difference between the two formats. Future updates and additions will address any currently existing issues.

Offsetting deficit conceptualisations: methodological considerations for higher education research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lynn Coleman

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This paper contributes to the current introspection in the academic development community that critiques the persistent conceptualisations of students as deficient. Deficit discourses are also implicated in many of the student support, curriculum and pedagogic initiatives employed across the higher education sector. The argument developed here, unlike most of the existing debates which focus on pedagogic or institutional initiatives, explores how the research interests and methodological choices of academic developers and researchers could incorporate sensitivity against deficit conceptions and foster more contextualised accounts of students and their learning. This article uses an ethnographic study into the assignment practices of vocational higher education students to show how certain methodological and theoretical choices engender anti-deficit conceptualisations. The study’s analytic framework uses the concepts of literacy practices and knowledge recontextualisation to place analytic attention on both the students’ assignment practices and the influence of curriculum decision making on such practices. The significance of this dual focus is its ability to capture the complexity of students’ meaning-making during assignment production, without remaining silent about the structuring influence of the curriculum. I argue in this paper that the focus on both students and curriculum is able to offer contextualised accounts of students’ interpretations and enacted experiences of their assessment and curriculum environment. Exploring the multidimensional nature of student learning experiences in ways that accommodate the influence of various contextual realities brings researchers and their research agendas closer to offsetting deficit conceptualisation.

14 CFR 1245.109 - Assignment of title to NASA.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 14 Aeronautics and Space 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Assignment of title to NASA. 1245.109... INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS Patent Waiver Regulations § 1245.109 Assignment of title to NASA. (a) The instrument of waiver set forth in § 1245.115(c) shall be voided by NASA with respect to the domestic title to...

Cue competition affects temporal dynamics of edge-assignment in human visual cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Brooks, Joseph L; Palmer, Stephen E

2011-03-01

Edge-assignment determines the perception of relative depth across an edge and the shape of the closer side. Many cues determine edge-assignment, but relatively little is known about the neural mechanisms involved in combining these cues. Here, we manipulated extremal edge and attention cues to bias edge-assignment such that these two cues either cooperated or competed. To index their neural representations, we flickered figure and ground regions at different frequencies and measured the corresponding steady-state visual-evoked potentials (SSVEPs). Figural regions had stronger SSVEP responses than ground regions, independent of whether they were attended or unattended. In addition, competition and cooperation between the two edge-assignment cues significantly affected the temporal dynamics of edge-assignment processes. The figural SSVEP response peaked earlier when the cues causing it cooperated than when they competed, but sustained edge-assignment effects were equivalent for cooperating and competing cues, consistent with a winner-take-all outcome. These results provide physiological evidence that figure-ground organization involves competitive processes that can affect the latency of figural assignment.

Task assignment and coaching

OpenAIRE

Dominguez-Martinez, S.

2009-01-01

An important task of a manager is to motivate her subordinates. One way in which a manager can give incentives to junior employees is through the assignment of tasks. How a manager allocates tasks in an organization, provides information to the junior employees about his ability. Without coaching from a manager, the junior employee only has information about his past performance. Based on his past performance, a talented junior who has performed a difficult task sometimes decides to leave the...

Implementing a cornerstone of culture change: Consistent staff assignment in VHA community living centers.

Science.gov (United States)

Lemke, Sonne; Brennan, Penny L; SooHoo, Sonya; Schutte, Kathleen K

2017-08-01

In 2011, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) began implementing consistent staff assignment in its nursing homes (called Community Living Centers or CLCs). Consistent assignment, a cornerstone of culture change, minimizes the number of staff who provide a resident's care. The present research assessed the level and stability of consistent assignment in units within VHA CLCs and identified unit characteristics related to implementation of this staff assignment model. Schedulers in 185 of 335 organizational units that make up VHA CLCs completed a Staffing Practices Survey. For the month prior to the survey, 53% of CLC units had full implementation of consistent assignment. Tracked back over time, 37% of CLC units had stable high consistent assignment, 29% had stable low consistent assignment, and 34% were variable. Units with stable high consistent assignment were most likely to use care teams with stable membership and to obtain staff input for care assignments. Schedulers in these units reported more positive experiences with consistent staff assignment and better unit functioning in terms of staff absences, complaints about workload fairness, and resolution of scheduling problems. Units with stable low and variable consistent assignment were similar in most of these respects; however, units with variable consistent assignment made greater use of stable care teams and were less likely to change assignments at a staff member's request. Overall, consistent assignment implementation was not related to unit size, nursing hours per resident day, or specialty focus. Findings can help guide consistent staff assignment implementation in VHA and community nursing homes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The impact of taxation on international assignment decisions: A principal-agent approach

OpenAIRE

Martini, Jan Thomas; Niemann, Rainer

2013-01-01

In many industries like management consulting, IT consulting, or construction highly qualified employees, i.e., experts or executive managers, have to be assigned to temporary projects. In firms with many employees and various different projects, this assignment decision involves a complex optimization procedure. Obviously, the employees’ productivities in the respective projects are crucial for the employer’s optimal assignment decision, but assignment can also be affected by risk-incent...

Automated Bug Assignment: Ensemble-based Machine Learning in Large Scale Industrial Contexts

OpenAIRE

Jonsson, Leif; Borg, Markus; Broman, David; Sandahl, Kristian; Eldh, Sigrid; Runeson, Per

2016-01-01

Bug report assignment is an important part of software maintenance. In particular, incorrect assignments of bug reports to development teams can be very expensive in large software development projects. Several studies propose automating bug assignment techniques using machine learning in open source software contexts, but no study exists for large-scale proprietary projects in industry. The goal of this study is to evaluate automated bug assignment techniques that are based on machine learni...

An integer programming model for gate assignment problem at airline terminals

Science.gov (United States)

Chun, Chong Kok; Nordin, Syarifah Zyurina

2015-05-01

In this paper, we concentrate on a gate assignment problem (GAP) at the airlines terminal. Our problem is to assign an arrival plane to a suitable gate. There are two considerations needed to take. One of its is passenger walking distance from arrival gate to departure gate while another consideration is the transport baggage distance from one gate to another. Our objective is to minimize the total distance between the gates that related to assign the arrival plane to the suitable gates. An integer linear programming (ILP) model is proposed to solve this gate assignment problem. We also conduct a computational experiment using CPLEX 12.1 solver in AIMMS 3.10 software to analyze the performance of the model. Results of the computational experiments are presented. The efficiency of flights assignment is depends on the ratio of the weight for both total passenger traveling distances and total baggage transport distances.

Automated solid-state NMR resonance assignment of protein microcrystals and amyloids

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schmidt, Elena [Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Center for Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance, Institute of Biophysical Chemistry (Germany); Gath, Julia [ETH Zurich, Physical Chemistry (Switzerland); Habenstein, Birgit [UMR 5086 CNRS/Universite de Lyon 1, Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Proteines (France); Ravotti, Francesco; Szekely, Kathrin; Huber, Matthias [ETH Zurich, Physical Chemistry (Switzerland); Buchner, Lena [Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Center for Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance, Institute of Biophysical Chemistry (Germany); Boeckmann, Anja, E-mail: a.bockmann@ibcp.fr [UMR 5086 CNRS/Universite de Lyon 1, Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Proteines (France); Meier, Beat H., E-mail: beme@ethz.ch [ETH Zurich, Physical Chemistry (Switzerland); Guentert, Peter, E-mail: guentert@em.uni-frankfurt.de [Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Center for Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance, Institute of Biophysical Chemistry (Germany)

2013-07-15

Solid-state NMR is an emerging structure determination technique for crystalline and non-crystalline protein assemblies, e.g., amyloids. Resonance assignment constitutes the first and often very time-consuming step to a structure. We present ssFLYA, a generally applicable algorithm for automatic assignment of protein solid-state NMR spectra. Application to microcrystals of ubiquitin and the Ure2 prion C-terminal domain, as well as amyloids of HET-s(218-289) and {alpha}-synuclein yielded 88-97 % correctness for the backbone and side-chain assignments that are classified as self-consistent by the algorithm, and 77-90 % correctness if also assignments classified as tentative by the algorithm are included.

Web-Based Problem-Solving Assignment and Grading System

Science.gov (United States)

Brereton, Giles; Rosenberg, Ronald

2014-11-01

In engineering courses with very specific learning objectives, such as fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, it is conventional to reinforce concepts and principles with problem-solving assignments and to measure success in problem solving as an indicator of student achievement. While the modern-day ease of copying and searching for online solutions can undermine the value of traditional assignments, web-based technologies also provide opportunities to generate individualized well-posed problems with an infinite number of different combinations of initial/final/boundary conditions, so that the probability of any two students being assigned identical problems in a course is vanishingly small. Such problems can be designed and programmed to be: single or multiple-step, self-grading, allow students single or multiple attempts; provide feedback when incorrect; selectable according to difficulty; incorporated within gaming packages; etc. In this talk, we discuss the use of a homework/exam generating program of this kind in a single-semester course, within a web-based client-server system that ensures secure operation.

Lower region: a new cue for figure-ground assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Vecera, Shaun P; Vogel, Edward K; Woodman, Geoffrey F

2002-06-01

Figure-ground assignment is an important visual process; humans recognize, attend to, and act on figures, not backgrounds. There are many visual cues for figure-ground assignment. A new cue to figure-ground assignment, called lower region, is presented: Regions in the lower portion of a stimulus array appear more figurelike than regions in the upper portion of the display. This phenomenon was explored, and it was demonstrated that the lower-region preference is not influenced by contrast, eye movements, or voluntary spatial attention. It was found that the lower region is defined relative to the stimulus display, linking the lower-region preference to pictorial depth perception cues. The results are discussed in terms of the environmental regularities that this new figure-ground cue may reflect.

75 FR 55352 - Delegation of Authorities and Assignment of Responsibilities

Science.gov (United States)

2010-09-10

... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Office of the Secretary Delegation of Authorities and Assignment of Responsibilities Secretary's Order 5-2010 Subject: Delegation of Authorities and Assignment of Responsibilities to... rather than the Administrator, WHD (see also Secretary's Order 3-2010). 5. Delegations of Authority and...

Smartnotebook: A semi-automated approach to protein sequential NMR resonance assignments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Slupsky, Carolyn M.; Boyko, Robert F.; Booth, Valerie K.; Sykes, Brian D.

2003-01-01

Complete and accurate NMR spectral assignment is a prerequisite for high-throughput automated structure determination of biological macromolecules. However, completely automated assignment procedures generally encounter difficulties for all but the most ideal data sets. Sources of these problems include difficulty in resolving correlations in crowded spectral regions, as well as complications arising from dynamics, such as weak or missing peaks, or atoms exhibiting more than one peak due to exchange phenomena. Smartnotebook is a semi-automated assignment software package designed to combine the best features of the automated and manual approaches. The software finds and displays potential connections between residues, while the spectroscopist makes decisions on which connection is correct, allowing rapid and robust assignment. In addition, smartnotebook helps the user fit chains of connected residues to the primary sequence of the protein by comparing the experimentally determined chemical shifts with expected shifts derived from a chemical shift database, while providing bookkeeping throughout the assignment procedure

ZAP: a distributed channel assignment algorithm for cognitive radio networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Munaretto Anelise

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract We propose ZAP, an algorithm for the distributed channel assignment in cognitive radio (CR networks. CRs are capable of identifying underutilized licensed bands of the spectrum, allowing their reuse by secondary users without interfering with primary users. In this context, efficient channel assignment is challenging as ideally it must be simple, incur acceptable communication overhead, provide timely response, and be adaptive to accommodate frequent changes in the network. Another challenge is the optimization of network capacity through interference minimization. In contrast to related work, ZAP addresses these challenges with a fully distributed approach based only on local (neighborhood knowledge, while significantly reducing computational costs and the number of messages required for channel assignment. Simulations confirm the efficiency of ZAP in terms of (i the performance tradeoff between different metrics and (ii the fast achievement of a suitable assignment solution regardless of network size and density.

Strategy-Proof Assignment Of Multiple Resources

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Erlanson, Albin; Szwagrzak, Karol

2015-01-01

We examine the strategy-proof allocation of multiple resources; an application is the assignment of packages of tasks, workloads, and compensations among the members of an organization. In the domain of multidimensional single-peaked preferences, we find that any allocation mechanism obtained by ...

Statistical aspects of optimal treatment assignment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Linden, Willem J.

The issues of treatment assignment is ordinarily dealt with within the framework of testing aptitude treatment interaction (ATI) hypothesis. ATI research mostly uses linear regression techniques, and an ATI exists when the aptitude treatment (AT) regression lines cross each other within the relevant

Privacy-Preserving Task Assignment in Spatial Crowdsourcing

KAUST Repository

Liu, An; Li, Zhi-Xu; Liu, Guan-Feng; Zheng, Kai; Zhang, Min; Li, Qing; Zhang, Xiangliang

2017-01-01

untrusted SC systems. In this paper, we study the problem of assigning workers to tasks in a way that location privacy for both workers and task requesters is preserved. We first combine the Paillier cryptosystem with Yao’s garbled circuits to construct a secure protocol that assigns the nearest worker to a task. Considering that this protocol cannot scale to a large number of workers, we then make use of Geohash, a hierarchical spatial index to design a more efficient protocol that can securely find approximate nearest workers. We theoretically show that these two protocols are secure against semi-honest adversaries. Through extensive experiments on two real-world datasets, we demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our protocols.

Automated solid-state NMR resonance assignment of protein microcrystals and amyloids

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schmidt, Elena; Gath, Julia; Habenstein, Birgit; Ravotti, Francesco; Székely, Kathrin; Huber, Matthias; Buchner, Lena; Böckmann, Anja; Meier, Beat H.; Güntert, Peter

2013-01-01

Solid-state NMR is an emerging structure determination technique for crystalline and non-crystalline protein assemblies, e.g., amyloids. Resonance assignment constitutes the first and often very time-consuming step to a structure. We present ssFLYA, a generally applicable algorithm for automatic assignment of protein solid-state NMR spectra. Application to microcrystals of ubiquitin and the Ure2 prion C-terminal domain, as well as amyloids of HET-s(218–289) and α-synuclein yielded 88–97 % correctness for the backbone and side-chain assignments that are classified as self-consistent by the algorithm, and 77–90 % correctness if also assignments classified as tentative by the algorithm are included

Protective effect of grifolin against brain injury in an acute cerebral ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Purpose: To evaluate the protective effects of grifolin against brain injury in an acute cerebral ischemia rat model. Methods: Rats were assigned to five groups: control, negative control, and grifolin (50, 100, and 200 mg/kg, p.o.) treated groups, which received the drug for 2 weeks. All the animals were sacrificed at the end of ...

AN EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHM FOR CHANNEL ASSIGNMENT PROBLEM IN WIRELESS MOBILE NETWORKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yee Shin Chia

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The channel assignment problem in wireless mobile network is the assignment of appropriate frequency spectrum to incoming calls while maintaining a satisfactory level of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC constraints. An effective channel assignment strategy is important due to the limited capacity of frequency spectrum in wireless mobile network. Most of the existing channel assignment strategies are based on deterministic methods. In this paper, an adaptive genetic algorithm (GA based channel assignment strategy is introduced for resource management and to reduce the effect of EMC interferences. The most significant advantage of the proposed optimization method is its capability to handle both the reassignment of channels for existing calls as well as the allocation of channel to a new incoming call in an adaptive process to maximize the utility of the limited resources. It is capable to adapt the population size to the number of eligible channels for a particular cell upon new call arrivals to achieve reasonable convergence speed. The MATLAB simulation on a 49-cells network model for both uniform and nonuniform call traffic distributions showed that the proposed channel optimization method can always achieve a lower average new incoming call blocking probability compared to the deterministic based channel assignment strategy.

The "Outsider/Insider" Assignment: A Pedagogical Innovation for Teaching Cross-Cultural Understanding

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Angela Cora

2014-01-01

In this paper, I describe an innovative assignment for teaching undergraduate students cross-cultural understanding. The Outsider/Insider assignment simultaneously teaches facts about cultural difference and skills for managing cross-cultural encounters. Briefly, the assignment is to write two short papers, one in which the student describes a…

Moving beyond "Bookish Knowledge": Using Film-Based Assignments to Promote Deep Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Olson, Joann S.; Autry, Linda; Moe, Jeffry

2016-01-01

This article investigates the effectiveness of a film-based assignment given to adult learners in a graduate-level group counseling class. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four students; data analysis suggested film-based assignments may promote deep approaches to learning (DALs). Participants indicated the assignment helped them…

Tabu search for target-radar assignment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hindsberger, Magnus; Vidal, Rene Victor Valqui

2000-01-01

In the paper the problem of assigning air-defense illumination radars to enemy targets is presented. A tabu search metaheuristic solution is described and the results achieved are compared to those of other heuristic approaches, implementation and experimental aspects are discussed. It is argued ...

Semi-infinite assignment and transportation games

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Timmer, Judith B.; Sánchez-Soriano, Joaqu´ın; Llorca, Navidad; Tijs, Stef; Goberna, Miguel A.; López, Marco A.

2001-01-01

Games corresponding to semi-infinite transportation and related assignment situations are studied. In a semi-infinite transportation situation, one aims at maximizing the profit from the transportation of a certain good from a finite number of suppliers to an infinite number of demanders. An

Single machine scheduling with slack due dates assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Weiguo; Hu, Xiangpei; Wang, Xuyin

2017-04-01

This paper considers a single machine scheduling problem in which each job is assigned an individual due date based on a common flow allowance (i.e. all jobs have slack due date). The goal is to find a sequence for jobs, together with a due date assignment, that minimizes a non-regular criterion comprising the total weighted absolute lateness value and common flow allowance cost, where the weight is a position-dependent weight. In order to solve this problem, an ? time algorithm is proposed. Some extensions of the problem are also shown.

The complexity of intestinal permeability: Assigning the correct BCS classification through careful data interpretation.

Science.gov (United States)

Zur, Moran; Hanson, Allison S; Dahan, Arik

2014-09-30

While the solubility parameter is fairly straightforward when assigning BCS classification, the intestinal permeability (Peff) is more complex than generally recognized. In this paper we emphasize this complexity through the analysis of codeine, a commonly used antitussive/analgesic drug. Codeine was previously classified as a low-permeability compound, based on its lower LogP compared to metoprolol, a marker for the low-high permeability class boundary. In contrast, high fraction of dose absorbed (Fabs) was reported for codeine, which challenges the generally recognized Peff-Fabs correlation. The purpose of this study was to clarify this ambiguity through elucidation of codeine's BCS solubility/permeability class membership. Codeine's BCS solubility class was determined, and its intestinal permeability throughout the small intestine was investigated, both in vitro and in vivo in rats. Codeine was found to be unequivocally a high-solubility compound. All in vitro studies indicated that codeine's permeability is higher than metoprolol's. In vivo studies in rats showed similar permeability for both drugs throughout the entire small-intestine. In conclusion, codeine was found to be a BCS Class I compound. No Peff-Fabs discrepancy is involved in its absorption; rather, it reflects the risk of assigning BCS classification based on merely limited physicochemical characteristics. A thorough investigation using multiple experimental methods is prudent before assigning a BCS classification, to avoid misjudgment in various settings, e.g., drug discovery, formulation design, drug development and regulation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Decree of the 29. december 2003 relative to the education modes of the competent person in radiation protection and the trainer certification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-01-01

This decree details the content of the training of the radiation protection competent person that must allow to the applicant to execute the missions assigned by the article R.231-106 from the Labour code. The different chapters are as follow: radioactivity; radiation-matter interaction; protection principle against external exposure; protection principle against contamination; radiation detection; biological radiation effects; exposure sources for man; regulation; the work of the competent person in radiation protection; optimization in radiation protection. (N.C.)

Stoplight Grid: a color-coded visual system for per diem staff assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Ernst, P

1989-02-01

What is the best way to appropriately assign per diem nursing personnel? The author describes a systematic approach to per diem staff assignment called the Stoplight Grid. The Stoplight Grid correlates staff skills and preferences with unit needs and integrates this data into a color-coded system for staff assignment.

30 CFR 285.408 - May I assign my lease or grant interest?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... RENEWABLE ENERGY ALTERNATE USES OF EXISTING FACILITIES ON THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF Lease and Grant... application to MMS. The assignment application must include: (1) The MMS-assigned lease or grant number; (2) A... required financial assurance. (c) If you submit an application to assign a lease or grant, you will...

7 CFR 929.150 - Transfer or assignment of sales history.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 8 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Transfer or assignment of sales history. 929.150... MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements and Orders; Fruits, Vegetables, Nuts), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE... Transfer or assignment of sales history. (a) If indebtedness is incurred with regard to the acreage to...

1H NMR studies of plastocyanin from Scenedesmus obliquus: Complete sequence-specific assignment, secondary structure analysis, and global fold

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moore, J.M.; Chazin, W.J.; Wright, P.E.; Powls, R.

1988-01-01

Two-dimensional 1 H NMR methods have been used to make sequence-specific resonance assignments for the 97 amino acid residues of the plastocyanin from the green alga Scenedesmus obliquus. Assignments were obtained for all backbone protons and the majority of the side-chain protons. Spin system identification relied heavily on the observation of relayed connectivities to the backbone amide proton. Sequence-specific assignments were made by using the sequential assignment procedure. During this process, an extra valine residue was identified that had not been detected in the original amino acid sequence. Elements of regular secondary structure were identified from characteristic NOE connectivities between backbone protons, coupling constant values, and the observation of slowly exchanging amide protons. The protein in solution contains eight β-strands, one short segment of helix, five reverse turns, and five loops. The β-strands may be arranged into two βsheets on the basis of extensive cross-strand NOE connectivities. The chain-folding topology determined from the NMR experiments is that of a Greek key β-barrel and is similar to that observed for French bean plastocyanin in solution and poplar plastocyanin in the crystalline state. While the overall structures are similar, several differences in local structure between the S. obliquus and higher plant plastocyanins have been identified

Assigning Main Orientation to an EOH Descriptor on Multispectral Images.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yong; Shi, Xiang; Wei, Lijun; Zou, Junwei; Chen, Fang

2015-07-01

This paper proposes an approach to compute an EOH (edge-oriented histogram) descriptor with main orientation. EOH has a better matching ability than SIFT (scale-invariant feature transform) on multispectral images, but does not assign a main orientation to keypoints. Alternatively, it tends to assign the same main orientation to every keypoint, e.g., zero degrees. This limits EOH to matching keypoints between images of translation misalignment only. Observing this limitation, we propose assigning to keypoints the main orientation that is computed with PIIFD (partial intensity invariant feature descriptor). In the proposed method, SIFT keypoints are detected from images as the extrema of difference of Gaussians, and every keypoint is assigned to the main orientation computed with PIIFD. Then, EOH is computed for every keypoint with respect to its main orientation. In addition, an implementation variant is proposed for fast computation of the EOH descriptor. Experimental results show that the proposed approach performs more robustly than the original EOH on image pairs that have a rotation misalignment.

A hybrid path-oriented code assignment CDMA-based MAC protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Huifang; Fan, Guangyu; Xie, Lei; Cui, Jun-Hong

2013-11-04

Due to the characteristics of underwater acoustic channel, media access control (MAC) protocols designed for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWASNs) are quite different from those for terrestrial wireless sensor networks. Moreover, in a sink-oriented network with event information generation in a sensor field and message forwarding to the sink hop-by-hop, the sensors near the sink have to transmit more packets than those far from the sink, and then a funneling effect occurs, which leads to packet congestion, collisions and losses, especially in UWASNs with long propagation delays. An improved CDMA-based MAC protocol, named path-oriented code assignment (POCA) CDMA MAC (POCA-CDMA-MAC), is proposed for UWASNs in this paper. In the proposed MAC protocol, both the round-robin method and CDMA technology are adopted to make the sink receive packets from multiple paths simultaneously. Since the number of paths for information gathering is much less than that of nodes, the length of the spreading code used in the POCA-CDMA-MAC protocol is shorter greatly than that used in the CDMA-based protocols with transmitter-oriented code assignment (TOCA) or receiver-oriented code assignment (ROCA). Simulation results show that the proposed POCA-CDMA-MAC protocol achieves a higher network throughput and a lower end-to-end delay compared to other CDMA-based MAC protocols.

A Hybrid Path-Oriented Code Assignment CDMA-Based MAC Protocol for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huifang Chen

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Due to the characteristics of underwater acoustic channel, media access control (MAC protocols designed for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWASNs are quite different from those for terrestrial wireless sensor networks. Moreover, in a sink-oriented network with event information generation in a sensor field and message forwarding to the sink hop-by-hop, the sensors near the sink have to transmit more packets than those far from the sink, and then a funneling effect occurs, which leads to packet congestion, collisions and losses, especially in UWASNs with long propagation delays. An improved CDMA-based MAC protocol, named path-oriented code assignment (POCA CDMA MAC (POCA-CDMA-MAC, is proposed for UWASNs in this paper. In the proposed MAC protocol, both the round-robin method and CDMA technology are adopted to make the sink receive packets from multiple paths simultaneously. Since the number of paths for information gathering is much less than that of nodes, the length of the spreading code used in the POCA-CDMA-MAC protocol is shorter greatly than that used in the CDMA-based protocols with transmitter-oriented code assignment (TOCA or receiver-oriented code assignment (ROCA. Simulation results show that the proposed POCA-CDMA-MAC protocol achieves a higher network throughput and a lower end-to-end delay compared to other CDMA-based MAC protocols.

Higher Abundance Of Marine Predators And Changes In Fishers’ Behavior Following Spatial Protection Within The World’s Biggest Shark Fishery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vanessa Flora Jaiteh

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Fisheries are complex social-ecological systems, where managers struggle to balance the socio-economic interests of fishing communities with the biology and ecology of fisheries species. Spatial closures are a popular measure to address conservation and fisheries management goals, including the protection of shark populations. However, very little research has been published on the effectiveness of shark-specific closures to protect sharks, or their impacts on fisher behavior. Situated within the global center of tropical marine biodiversity, Indonesia’s shark fishery contributes more to the international shark fin trade than any other nation. Here we evaluate the effect of shark-specific closures on sharks and other species of interest, as well as shark fishers’ responses to losing access to their former fishing grounds. We assessed shark diversity and abundance in an open access zone (OAZ and two No-Take Zones (NTZs of a Marine Protected Area within the recently established shark sanctuary in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, where sharks have high monetary value as a tourism attraction. Shark abundance was significantly higher in the privately managed NTZs than in the OAZ. Across all management zones, neither zone size, depth nor reef complexity explained variations in shark abundance, suggesting that governance is the main driver of successful shark conservation areas. These trends were also reflected in species targeted by small-scale reef fisheries, including snappers, emperor, groupers, tunas, mackerels, and large-bodied wrasse and parrotfish. Interviews with shark fishers who lost access to their primary fishing grounds when the shark sanctuary was established showed that while most fishers (88% knew that sharks were protected in Raja Ampat, many were unsure about the purpose of the sanctuary. Few fishers felt that the agencies implementing fishing bans understood their livelihood needs. We found that shark fishers adapted to the loss of former

PARAssign-paramagnetic NMR assignments of protein nuclei on the basis of pseudocontact shifts

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Skinner, Simon P., E-mail: skinnersp@chem.leidenuniv.nl [Leiden University, Gorlaeus Laboratories, Leiden Institute of Chemistry (Netherlands); Moshev, Mois, E-mail: mois@monomon.me [Leiden University, Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (Netherlands); Hass, Mathias A. S., E-mail: hassmas@chem.leidenuniv.nl; Ubbink, Marcellus, E-mail: m.ubbink@chem.leidenuniv.nl [Leiden University, Gorlaeus Laboratories, Leiden Institute of Chemistry (Netherlands)

2013-04-15

The use of paramagnetic NMR data for the refinement of structures of proteins and protein complexes is widespread. However, the power of paramagnetism for protein assignment has not yet been fully exploited. PARAssign is software that uses pseudocontact shift data derived from several paramagnetic centers attached to the protein to obtain amide and methyl assignments. The ability of PARAssign to perform assignment when the positions of the paramagnetic centers are known and unknown is demonstrated. PARAssign has been tested using synthetic data for methyl assignment of a 47 kDa protein, and using both synthetic and experimental data for amide assignment of a 14 kDa protein. The complex fitting space involved in such an assignment procedure necessitates that good starting conditions are found, both regarding placement and strength of paramagnetic centers. These starting conditions are obtained through automated tensor placement and user-defined tensor parameters. The results presented herein demonstrate that PARAssign is able to successfully perform resonance assignment in large systems with a high degree of reliability. This software provides a method for obtaining the assignments of large systems, which may previously have been unassignable, by using 2D NMR spectral data and a known protein structure.

LOW POWER RACE-FREE STATE ASSIGNMENT OF AN ASYNGHRONOUS AUTOMATON

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu. V. Pottosin

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The problem of a race free state assignment of an asynchronous automaton is considered. A method for the state assignment is suggested that provides the minimization of the number and theswitching activity of the memory elements along with the elimination of the critical races betweenthem.

Capacity constrained assignment in spatial databases

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

U, Leong Hou; Yiu, Man Lung; Mouratidis, Kyriakos

2008-01-01

large to fit in main memory. Motivated by this fact, we propose efficient algorithms for optimal assignment that employ novel edge-pruning strategies, based on the spatial properties of the problem. Additionally, we develop approximate (i.e., suboptimal) CCA solutions that provide a trade-off between...

A Method Based on Dial's Algorithm for Multi-time Dynamic Traffic Assignment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rongjie Kuang

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Due to static traffic assignment has poor performance in reflecting actual case and dynamic traffic assignment may incurs excessive compute cost, method of multi-time dynamic traffic assignment combining static and dynamic traffic assignment balances factors of precision and cost effectively. A method based on Dial's logit algorithm is proposed in the article to solve the dynamic stochastic user equilibrium problem in dynamic traffic assignment. Before that, a fitting function that can proximately reflect overloaded traffic condition of link is proposed and used to give corresponding model. Numerical example is given to illustrate heuristic procedure of method and to compare results with one of same example solved by other literature's algorithm. Results show that method based on Dial's algorithm is preferable to algorithm from others.

Effectiveness of author-assigned keywords to INIS indexing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yokoo, Hiroshi; Takahashi, Satoko; Habara, Tadashi

1977-01-01

A test was carried out on the quality of indexing data which is based only upon author-assigned keywords in order to appreciate effectiveness of the keywords. As measures of the quality, the retrievability and the consistency of the indexing data were evaluated by comparison with the case of the conventional indexing method under the circumstances of the INIS descriptor assignment to the journal articles of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan. The indexing consistency obtained was approximately 0.61 on an average (or 0.66 when the narrower-broader hierarchical relations were regarded as consistent ones). Of the hit, noise, or total documents retrieved with the conventional indexing data, 0.86, 0.27, or 0.71, respectively, were retrievable with the keywords-based indexing data. From the results the recall ratio for the keywords-based indexing is estimated to be no less than 0.86 of that for the conventional indexing method, and the consistency of the hit documents are to be 0.75 at least. Consequently, the author-assigned keywords proved to be very effective to the document indexing. (auth.)

Automated sequence-specific protein NMR assignment using the memetic algorithm MATCH

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Volk, Jochen; Herrmann, Torsten; Wuethrich, Kurt

2008-01-01

MATCH (Memetic Algorithm and Combinatorial Optimization Heuristics) is a new memetic algorithm for automated sequence-specific polypeptide backbone NMR assignment of proteins. MATCH employs local optimization for tracing partial sequence-specific assignments within a global, population-based search environment, where the simultaneous application of local and global optimization heuristics guarantees high efficiency and robustness. MATCH thus makes combined use of the two predominant concepts in use for automated NMR assignment of proteins. Dynamic transition and inherent mutation are new techniques that enable automatic adaptation to variable quality of the experimental input data. The concept of dynamic transition is incorporated in all major building blocks of the algorithm, where it enables switching between local and global optimization heuristics at any time during the assignment process. Inherent mutation restricts the intrinsically required randomness of the evolutionary algorithm to those regions of the conformation space that are compatible with the experimental input data. Using intact and artificially deteriorated APSY-NMR input data of proteins, MATCH performed sequence-specific resonance assignment with high efficiency and robustness

Automatic Assignment of Methyl-NMR Spectra of Supramolecular Machines Using Graph Theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Pritišanac, Iva; Degiacomi, Matteo T; Alderson, T Reid; Carneiro, Marta G; Ab, Eiso; Siegal, Gregg; Baldwin, Andrew J

2017-07-19

Methyl groups are powerful probes for the analysis of structure, dynamics and function of supramolecular assemblies, using both solution- and solid-state NMR. Widespread application of the methodology has been limited due to the challenges associated with assigning spectral resonances to specific locations within a biomolecule. Here, we present Methyl Assignment by Graph Matching (MAGMA), for the automatic assignment of methyl resonances. A graph matching protocol examines all possibilities for each resonance in order to determine an exact assignment that includes a complete description of any ambiguity. MAGMA gives 100% accuracy in confident assignments when tested against both synthetic data, and 9 cross-validated examples using both solution- and solid-state NMR data. We show that this remarkable accuracy enables a user to distinguish between alternative protein structures. In a drug discovery application on HSP90, we show the method can rapidly and efficiently distinguish between possible ligand binding modes. By providing an exact and robust solution to methyl resonance assignment, MAGMA can facilitate significantly accelerated studies of supramolecular machines using methyl-based NMR spectroscopy.

Organic Chemistry YouTube Writing Assignment for Large Lecture Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Franz, Annaliese K.

2012-01-01

This work describes efforts to incorporate and evaluate the use of a YouTube writing assignment in large lecture classes to personalize learning and improve conceptual understanding of chemistry through peer- and self-explanation strategies. Although writing assignments can be a method to incorporate peer- and self-explanation strategies, this…

Negotiating Languages and Cultures: Enacting Translingualism through a Translation Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Kiernan, Julia; Meier, Joyce; Wang, Xiqiao

2016-01-01

This collaborative project explores the affordances of a translation assignment in the context of a learner-centered pedagogy that places composition students' movement among languages and cultures as both a site for inquiry and subject of analysis. The translation assignment asks students to translate scholarly articles or culture stories from…

Students' Evaluation of Writing Assignments in an Abnormal Psychology Course.

Science.gov (United States)

Procidano, Mary E.

1991-01-01

Presents a study in which students in an abnormal psychology class rated the usefulness of drafts for two writing assignments. Reports that a research proposal was more effective than a case study in generating interest in psychology and opportunity for creativity. Concludes that writing assignments should reflect important aspects of a…

A Stone Resource Assignment Model under the Fuzzy Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liming Yao

2012-01-01

to tackle a stone resource assignment problem with the aim of decreasing dust and waste water emissions. On the upper level, the local government wants to assign a reasonable exploitation amount to each stone plant so as to minimize total emissions and maximize employment and economic profit. On the lower level, stone plants must reasonably assign stone resources to produce different stone products under the exploitation constraint. To deal with inherent uncertainties, the object functions and constraints are defuzzified using a possibility measure. A fuzzy simulation-based improved simulated annealing algorithm (FS-ISA is designed to search for the Pareto optimal solutions. Finally, a case study is presented to demonstrate the practicality and efficiency of the model. Results and a comparison analysis are presented to highlight the performance of the optimization method, which proves to be very efficient compared with other algorithms.

OSE inspection of protection program operations field perspective of inspections

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brown, R.W.; Martin, H.R.

1987-01-01

Protection Program Operations includes three functional areas: Physical Protection Systems, Protective Forces, and System Performance Testing. The Office of Security Evaluations (OSE) inspects field offices in these areas by evaluating programs relative to Standards and Criteria and by performing a variety of exercises and other types of tests to assure protective systems are effective and maintained at a proper level to meet the defined threat. Their perception of the OSE inspections has been positive. The approach taken by ID, with key areas/activities emphasized, during each phase of the field inspection process is described in this report. The most important areas for field offices to concentrate are: inspection preparations through self-evaluation, improving communications, assigning knowledgeable trusted agents, increasing awareness of facility procedures and operations, and assuring daily validations of inspected areas. Emphasis is placed on striving for a balance in reporting both positive and negative findings, and for consistency between ratings and the importance of report findings. OSE efforts to develop improved rating methodologies are encouraged

Using optimal combination of teaching-learning methods (open book assignment and group tutorials) as revision exercises to improve learning outcome in low achievers in biochemistry.

Science.gov (United States)

Rajappa, Medha; Bobby, Zachariah; Nandeesha, H; Suryapriya, R; Ragul, Anithasri; Yuvaraj, B; Revathy, G; Priyadarssini, M

2016-07-08

Graduate medical students of India are taught Biochemistry by didactic lectures and they hardly get any opportunity to clarify their doubts and reinforce the concepts which they learn in these lectures. We used a combination of teaching-learning (T-L) methods (open book assignment followed by group tutorials) to study their efficacy in improving the learning outcome. About 143 graduate medical students were classified into low (75%: group 3, n = 46) achievers, based on their internal assessment marks. After the regular teaching module on the topics "Vitamins and Enzymology", all the students attempted an open book assignment without peer consultation. Then all the students participated in group tutorials. The effects on the groups were evaluated by pre and posttests at the end of each phase, with the same set of MCQs. Gain from group tutorials and overall gain was significantly higher in the low achievers, compared to other groups. High and medium achievers obtained more gain from open book assignment, than group tutorials. The overall gain was significantly higher than the gain obtained from open book assignment or group tutorials, in all three groups. All the three groups retained the gain even after 1 week of the exercise. Hence, optimal use of novel T-L methods (open book assignment followed by group tutorials) as revision exercises help in strengthening concepts in Biochemistry in this oft neglected group of low achievers in graduate medical education. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 44(4):321-325, 2016. © 2016 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Teaching Complaint and Adjustment Letters--And Tact (My Favorite Assignment).

Science.gov (United States)

Deimling, Paula

1992-01-01

Describes a three-part assignment in which each student writes a complaint letter and an adjustment letter responding to another student's complaint letter. Discusses how the third part of the assignment--journal entries--allows students to formulate their own criteria for excellent letters based upon their reactions to the letters they receive.…

On the Use of Writing Assignments in Intermediate Microeconomic Theory

Science.gov (United States)

O'Neill, Patrick B.

2009-01-01

A typical writing assignment in upper level required courses is a term paper. However many economics majors, particularly those in business schools, need to develop skill at writing shorter pieces. In this paper I describe numerous examples of shorter writing assignments that I have incorporated into an Intermediate Microeconomic Theory course.…

Probabilistic validation of protein NMR chemical shift assignments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dashti, Hesam; Tonelli, Marco; Lee, Woonghee; Westler, William M.; Cornilescu, Gabriel; Ulrich, Eldon L.; Markley, John L.

2016-01-01

Data validation plays an important role in ensuring the reliability and reproducibility of studies. NMR investigations of the functional properties, dynamics, chemical kinetics, and structures of proteins depend critically on the correctness of chemical shift assignments. We present a novel probabilistic method named ARECA for validating chemical shift assignments that relies on the nuclear Overhauser effect data. ARECA has been evaluated through its application to 26 case studies and has been shown to be complementary to, and usually more reliable than, approaches based on chemical shift databases. ARECA is available online at http://areca.nmrfam.wisc.edu/ http://areca.nmrfam.wisc.edu/

Probabilistic validation of protein NMR chemical shift assignments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dashti, Hesam [University of Wisconsin-Madison, Graduate Program in Biophysics, Biochemistry Department (United States); Tonelli, Marco; Lee, Woonghee; Westler, William M.; Cornilescu, Gabriel [University of Wisconsin-Madison, Biochemistry Department, National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison (United States); Ulrich, Eldon L. [University of Wisconsin-Madison, BioMagResBank, Biochemistry Department (United States); Markley, John L., E-mail: markley@nmrfam.wisc.edu, E-mail: jmarkley@wisc.edu [University of Wisconsin-Madison, Biochemistry Department, National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison (United States)

2016-01-15

Data validation plays an important role in ensuring the reliability and reproducibility of studies. NMR investigations of the functional properties, dynamics, chemical kinetics, and structures of proteins depend critically on the correctness of chemical shift assignments. We present a novel probabilistic method named ARECA for validating chemical shift assignments that relies on the nuclear Overhauser effect data. ARECA has been evaluated through its application to 26 case studies and has been shown to be complementary to, and usually more reliable than, approaches based on chemical shift databases. ARECA is available online at http://areca.nmrfam.wisc.edu/ http://areca.nmrfam.wisc.edu/.

Student Plagiarism in Higher Education in Vietnam: An Empirical Study

Science.gov (United States)

Do Ba, Khang; Do Ba, Khai; Lam, Quoc Dung; Le, Dao Thanh Binh An; Nguyen, Phuong Lien; Nguyen, Phuong Quynh; Pham, Quoc Loc

2017-01-01

This paper assesses and compares the prevalence of plagiarism across different student and assignment characteristics at a university in Vietnam, using the similarity index reported by the text-matching software Turnitin as a proxy measure of plagiarism on a sample of 681 student papers. The findings present a level of match higher than reported…

Optimal Processor Assignment for Pipeline Computations

Science.gov (United States)

1991-10-01

the use of ratios: initially each task is assigned a procesbuor2 the remaining proceborb are distributed in proportion to the quantities f,(1), 1 < i...algorithmns. IEEE Trans. onl Parallel and Distributed Systemns, 1 (4):470-499, October 1990. [26] P. Al. Kogge. The Architeture of Pipelined Comnputers

7 CFR 1437.104 - Assigned production.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

...) Irrigation equipment is not capable of supplying adequate water to sustain the expected production of a... practice is not used. (7) For normal irrigated annual and biennial crops, the supply of available water at... determining losses under this section, assigned production will be used to offset the loss of production when...

Measuring the effectiveness of protected area networks in reducing deforestation.

Science.gov (United States)

Andam, Kwaw S; Ferraro, Paul J; Pfaff, Alexander; Sanchez-Azofeifa, G Arturo; Robalino, Juan A

2008-10-21

Global efforts to reduce tropical deforestation rely heavily on the establishment of protected areas. Measuring the effectiveness of these areas is difficult because the amount of deforestation that would have occurred in the absence of legal protection cannot be directly observed. Conventional methods of evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas can be biased because protection is not randomly assigned and because protection can induce deforestation spillovers (displacement) to neighboring forests. We demonstrate that estimates of effectiveness can be substantially improved by controlling for biases along dimensions that are observable, measuring spatial spillovers, and testing the sensitivity of estimates to potential hidden biases. We apply matching methods to evaluate the impact on deforestation of Costa Rica's renowned protected-area system between 1960 and 1997. We find that protection reduced deforestation: approximately 10% of the protected forests would have been deforested had they not been protected. Conventional approaches to evaluating conservation impact, which fail to control for observable covariates correlated with both protection and deforestation, substantially overestimate avoided deforestation (by over 65%, based on our estimates). We also find that deforestation spillovers from protected to unprotected forests are negligible. Our conclusions are robust to potential hidden bias, as well as to changes in modeling assumptions. Our results show that, with appropriate empirical methods, conservation scientists and policy makers can better understand the relationships between human and natural systems and can use this to guide their attempts to protect critical ecosystem services.

41 CFR 102-79.20 - What standard must Executive agencies promote when assigning space?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 41 Public Contracts and Property Management 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What standard must Executive agencies promote when assigning space? 102-79.20 Section 102-79.20 Public Contracts and Property... PROPERTY 79-ASSIGNMENT AND UTILIZATION OF SPACE Assignment and Utilization of Space Assignment of Space...

The gender problem in radiation protection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Persson, Lars [Nobel Inst. of Physics, Stockholm (Sweden)

2012-07-01

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. While the social sciences sometimes approach gender as a social construct, and some gender studies particularly do, research in the natural and medical sciences investigates whether biological differences in males and females influence the development of gender in humans. Radiation protection regulations also take into account the possibly different radiation risks of males and females. The following contribution investigates how far this is justified, and what are the consequences. (orig.)

The gender problem in radiation protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Persson, Lars

2012-01-01

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. While the social sciences sometimes approach gender as a social construct, and some gender studies particularly do, research in the natural and medical sciences investigates whether biological differences in males and females influence the development of gender in humans. Radiation protection regulations also take into account the possibly different radiation risks of males and females. The following contribution investigates how far this is justified, and what are the consequences. (orig.)

Assigning Main Orientation to an EOH Descriptor on Multispectral Images

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yong Li

2015-07-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes an approach to compute an EOH (edge-oriented histogram descriptor with main orientation. EOH has a better matching ability than SIFT (scale-invariant feature transform on multispectral images, but does not assign a main orientation to keypoints. Alternatively, it tends to assign the same main orientation to every keypoint, e.g., zero degrees. This limits EOH to matching keypoints between images of translation misalignment only. Observing this limitation, we propose assigning to keypoints the main orientation that is computed with PIIFD (partial intensity invariant feature descriptor. In the proposed method, SIFT keypoints are detected from images as the extrema of difference of Gaussians, and every keypoint is assigned to the main orientation computed with PIIFD. Then, EOH is computed for every keypoint with respect to its main orientation. In addition, an implementation variant is proposed for fast computation of the EOH descriptor. Experimental results show that the proposed approach performs more robustly than the original EOH on image pairs that have a rotation misalignment.

Radiation Protection, double-blind studies with radiopharmaceuticals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pujadas, M. C.; Camacho, C.; Guasp, M.; Villaescusa, J. I.

2009-01-01

In a double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) subjects and researchers do not know the assignment to treatment groups to ovoid the appearance of subjective biases of information. The employment of radiopharmaceuticals in double-blind RCTs raises a dilemma from the point ov view of the radiological protection. On the one hand, the obligation to act in cases of contamination and/or risk of irradiation exists, but on the other hand the duty of keeping the blind study also exists. In this paper some of the possible problems that arise when conducting a double-blind RCT with radiopharmaceuticals from the point of view of the radiological protection are presented. We comment our experience with the radiopharmaceutical Alpharadin and, in addition, we propose useful recommendations based on the randomness of the decontamination process. (Author) 7 refs.

46 CFR 42.05-10 - Assigning authority.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... Definition of Terms Used in This Subchapter § 42.05-10 Assigning authority. This term means the “American Bureau of Shipping” or such other recognized classification society which the Commandant may approve as...

Automation of block assignment planning using a diagram-based scenario modeling method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

In Hyuck Hwang

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Most shipbuilding scheduling research so far has focused on the load level on the dock plan. This is because the dock is the least extendable resource in shipyards, and its overloading is difficult to resolve. However, once dock scheduling is completed, making a plan that makes the best use of the rest of the resources in the shipyard to minimize any additional cost is also important. Block assignment planning is one of the midterm planning tasks; it assigns a block to the facility (factory/shop or surface plate that will actually manufacture the block according to the block characteristics and current situation of the facility. It is one of the most heavily loaded midterm planning tasks and is carried out manually by experienced workers. In this study, a method of representing the block assignment rules using a diagram was suggested through analysis of the existing manual process. A block allocation program was developed which automated the block assignment process according to the rules represented by the diagram. The planning scenario was validated through a case study that compared the manual assignment and two automated block assignment results.

Automation of block assignment planning using a diagram-based scenario modeling method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hwang In Hyuck

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Most shipbuilding scheduling research so far has focused on the load level on the dock plan. This is be¬cause the dock is the least extendable resource in shipyards, and its overloading is difficult to resolve. However, once dock scheduling is completed, making a plan that makes the best use of the rest of the resources in the shipyard to minimize any additional cost is also important. Block assignment planning is one of the midterm planning tasks; it assigns a block to the facility (factory/shop or surface plate that will actually manufacture the block according to the block characteristics and current situation of the facility. It is one of the most heavily loaded midterm planning tasks and is carried out manu¬ally by experienced workers. In this study, a method of representing the block assignment rules using a diagram was su¬ggested through analysis of the existing manual process. A block allocation program was developed which automated the block assignment process according to the rules represented by the diagram. The planning scenario was validated through a case study that compared the manual assignment and two automated block assignment results.

An Accurate and Impartial Expert Assignment Method for Scientific Project Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mingliang Yue

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This paper proposes an expert assignment method for scientific project review that considers both accuracy and impartiality. As impartial and accurate peer review is extremely important to ensure the quality and feasibility of scientific projects, enhanced methods for managing the process are needed. Design/methodology/approach: To ensure both accuracy and impartiality, we design four criteria, the reviewers’ fitness degree, research intensity, academic association, and potential conflict of interest, to express the characteristics of an appropriate peer review expert. We first formalize the expert assignment problem as an optimization problem based on the designed criteria, and then propose a randomized algorithm to solve the expert assignment problem of identifying reviewer adequacy. Findings: Simulation results show that the proposed method is quite accurate and impartial during expert assignment. Research limitations: Although the criteria used in this paper can properly show the characteristics of a good and appropriate peer review expert, more criteria/conditions can be included in the proposed scheme to further enhance accuracy and impartiality of the expert assignment. Practical implications: The proposed method can help project funding agencies (e.g. the National Natural Science Foundation of China find better experts for project peer review. Originality/value: To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first publication that proposes an algorithm that applies an impartial approach to the project review expert assignment process. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Radiation protection activities around the CERN accelerators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fasso, A.

1996-01-01

In 1995 several operational circumstances required careful watching by the Radiation Protection Group. Most of these were linked with new or recently started CERN activities: for instance the increasing importance assumed by ISOLDE operation and the breakdowns encountered which have given rise to contamination of the target region and to activity releases. In the SPS ring, several difficulties were brought about by a toilsome installation of a new interlock system, while lead ion operation marked the end of the year, as usual, with higher radiation levels in the SPS experimental areas, despite the fact that existing shielding had been improved. Also at the end of the year, the increase of LEP beam energy to 68 GeV caused a rise of dose rate levels from synchrotron radiation. This was expected, but studies are still needed to assess the full implications for different aspects of radiation protection. On the other hand, the ageing of magnet coils and other equipment (insulators, cables, flexible pipes), aggravated by the high proton beam intensities, has resulted in an increasing frequency of failures (mainly water leaks) both at the PS and at the SPS. If the apparent trend is confirmed, difficulties could be expected in the future for two reasons: the shortage of specialized staff, some of them approaching the CERN dose limit of 15 mSv annually, who can be assigned to repair work; and the lack of spare parts to replace the damaged items. Luckily, the long cooling times following high intensity proton runs provided by the operation with heavy-ions and by the winter shutdown mitigate this situation

A Web Support System for Submission and Handling of Programming Assignments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nørmark, Kurt

2011-01-01

Individual submission of programming assignments should be considered in all introductory programming courses. We describe a custom web support system for submission and management of programming assignments in an introductory C programming course. Experience from the first time use of the system...... is reported. In addition, we compare the pattern of use with the results of the final exam in order to reveal a possible impact of the programming assignments. We summarize the lessons learned in preparation for improving the system prior to the next round of use in the fall of 2011....

Impact of Protected Sleep Period for Internal Medicine Interns on Overnight Call on Depression, Burnout, and Empathy

Science.gov (United States)

Shea, Judy A.; Bellini, Lisa M.; Dinges, David F.; Curtis, Meredith L.; Tao, Yuanyuan; Zhu, Jingsan; Small, Dylan S.; Basner, Mathias; Norton, Laurie; Novak, Cristina; Dine, C. Jessica; Rosen, Ilene M.; Volpp, Kevin G.

2014-01-01

Background Patient safety and sleep experts advocate a protected sleep period for residents. Objective We examined whether interns scheduled for a protected sleep period during overnight call would have better end-of-rotation assessments of burnout, depression, and empathy scores compared with interns without protected sleep periods and whether the amount of sleep obtained during on call predicted end-of-rotation assessments. Methods We conducted a randomized, controlled trial with internal medicine interns at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC) and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) in academic year 2009–2010. Four-week blocks were randomly assigned to either overnight call permitted under the 2003 duty hour standards or a protected sleep period from 12:30 am to 5:30 am. Participants wore wrist actigraphs. At the beginning and end of the rotations, they completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-HSS), and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Results A total of 106 interns participated. There were no significant differences between groups in end-of-rotation BDI-II, MBI-HSS, or IRI scores at either location (P > .05). Amount of sleep while on call significantly predicted lower MBI-Emotional Exhaustion (P < .003), MBI-Depersonalization (P < .003), and IRI-Personal Distress (P < .006) at PVAMC, and higher IRI-Perspective Taking (P < .008) at HUP. Conclusions A protected sleep period produced few consistent improvements in depression, burnout, or empathy, although depression was already low at baseline. Possibly the amount of protected time was too small to affect these emotional states or sleep may not be directly related to these scores. PMID:24949128

Assigned experts with competitive goals withhold information in group decision making

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Toma, C.; Vasiljevic, D.; Oberlé, D.; Butera, F.

2013-01-01

Expertise assignment has been proposed to improve unshared information pooling in group decision making. The current research revises this view by hypothesizing that expertise assignment is beneficial when group members have cooperative goals, but is detrimental when group members have competitive

Metallic artifact mitigation and organ-constrained tissue assignment for Monte Carlo calculations of permanent implant lung brachytherapy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sutherland, J. G. H.; Miksys, N.; Thomson, R. M., E-mail: rthomson@physics.carleton.ca [Carleton Laboratory for Radiotherapy Physics, Department of Physics, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6 (Canada); Furutani, K. M. [Department of Radiation Oncology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota 55905 (United States)

2014-01-15

assignment within lung contours are employed in generated phantoms, this erroneous assignment is reduced, generally resulting in higher doses. Lung-constrained tissue assignment also results in increased doses in regions of interest due to a reduction in the erroneous assignment of adipose to voxels within lung contours. Differences in dose metrics calculated for different computational phantoms are sensitive to radionuclide photon spectra with the largest differences for{sup 103}Pd seeds and smallest but still considerable differences for {sup 131}Cs seeds. Conclusions: Despite producing differences in CT images, dose metrics calculated using the STR, fan beam + STR, and 3D median filter techniques produce similar dose metrics. Results suggest that the accuracy of dose distributions for permanent implant lung brachytherapy is improved by applying lung-constrained tissue assignment schemes to metallic artifact corrected images.

Assignment methodology for larger RNA oligonucleotides: Application to an ATP-binding RNA aptamer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dieckmann, Thorsten; Feigon, Juli

1997-01-01

The use of uniform 13C, 15N labeling in the NMR spectroscopic study of RNA structures has greatly facilitated the assignment process in small RNA oligonucleotides. For ribose spinsystem assignments, exploitation of these labels has followed previously developed methods for the study of proteins. However, for sequential assignment of the exchangeable and nonexchangeable protons of the nucleotides, it has been necessary to develop a variety of new NMR experiments. Even these are of limited utility in the unambiguous assignment of larger RNAs due to the short carbon relaxation times and extensive spectral overlap for all nuclei.These problems can largely be overcome by the additional use of base-type selectively 13C, 15N-labeled RNA in combination with a judicious use of related RNAs with base substitutions. We report the application of this approach to a 36-nucleotide ATP-binding RNA aptamer in complex with AMP. Complete sequential 1H assignments, as well as the majority of 13C and 15N assignments, were obtained

AUTOBA: automation of backbone assignment from HN(C)N suite of experiments.

Science.gov (United States)

Borkar, Aditi; Kumar, Dinesh; Hosur, Ramakrishna V

2011-07-01

Development of efficient strategies and automation represent important milestones of progress in rapid structure determination efforts in proteomics research. In this context, we present here an efficient algorithm named as AUTOBA (Automatic Backbone Assignment) designed to automate the assignment protocol based on HN(C)N suite of experiments. Depending upon the spectral dispersion, the user can record 2D or 3D versions of the experiments for assignment. The algorithm uses as inputs: (i) protein primary sequence and (ii) peak-lists from user defined HN(C)N suite of experiments. In the end, one gets H(N), (15)N, C(α) and C' assignments (in common BMRB format) for the individual residues along the polypeptide chain. The success of the algorithm has been demonstrated, not only with experimental spectra recorded on two small globular proteins: ubiquitin (76 aa) and M-crystallin (85 aa), but also with simulated spectra of 27 other proteins using assignment data from the BMRB.

Protection enhances community and habitat stability: evidence from a mediterranean marine protected area.

Science.gov (United States)

Fraschetti, Simonetta; Guarnieri, Giuseppe; Bevilacqua, Stanislao; Terlizzi, Antonio; Boero, Ferdinando

2013-01-01

Rare evidences support that Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) enhance the stability of marine habitats and assemblages. Based on nine years of observation (2001-2009) inside and outside a well managed MPA, we assessed the potential of conservation and management actions to modify patterns of spatial and/or temporal variability of Posidonia oceanica meadows, the lower midlittoral and the shallow infralittoral rock assemblages. Significant differences in both temporal variations and spatial patterns were observed between protected and unprotected locations. A lower temporal variability in the protected vs. unprotected assemblages was found in the shallow infralittoral, demonstrating that, at least at local scale, protection can enhance community stability. Macrobenthos with long-lived and relatively slow-growing invertebrates and structurally complex algal forms were homogeneously distributed in space and went through little fluctuations in time. In contrast, a mosaic of disturbed patches featured unprotected locations, with small-scale shifts from macroalgal stands to barrens, and harsh temporal variations between the two states. Opposite patterns of spatial and temporal variability were found for the midlittoral assemblages. Despite an overall clear pattern of seagrass regression through time, protected meadows showed a significantly higher shoot density than unprotected ones, suggesting a higher resistance to local human activities. Our results support the assumption that the exclusion/management of human activities within MPAs enhance the stability of the structural components of protected marine systems, reverting or arresting threat-induced trajectories of change.

Epidemiological tracking and population assignment of the non-clonal bacterium, Burkholderia pseudomallei.

Science.gov (United States)

Dale, Julia; Price, Erin P; Hornstra, Heidie; Busch, Joseph D; Mayo, Mark; Godoy, Daniel; Wuthiekanun, Vanaporn; Baker, Anthony; Foster, Jeffrey T; Wagner, David M; Tuanyok, Apichai; Warner, Jeffrey; Spratt, Brian G; Peacock, Sharon J; Currie, Bart J; Keim, Paul; Pearson, Talima

2011-12-01

Rapid assignment of bacterial pathogens into predefined populations is an important first step for epidemiological tracking. For clonal species, a single allele can theoretically define a population. For non-clonal species such as Burkholderia pseudomallei, however, shared allelic states between distantly related isolates make it more difficult to identify population defining characteristics. Two distinct B. pseudomallei populations have been previously identified using multilocus sequence typing (MLST). These populations correlate with the major foci of endemicity (Australia and Southeast Asia). Here, we use multiple Bayesian approaches to evaluate the compositional robustness of these populations, and provide assignment results for MLST sequence types (STs). Our goal was to provide a reference for assigning STs to an established population without the need for further computational analyses. We also provide allele frequency results for each population to enable estimation of population assignment even when novel STs are discovered. The ability for humans and potentially contaminated goods to move rapidly across the globe complicates the task of identifying the source of an infection or outbreak. Population genetic dynamics of B. pseudomallei are particularly complicated relative to other bacterial pathogens, but the work here provides the ability for broad scale population assignment. As there is currently no independent empirical measure of successful population assignment, we provide comprehensive analytical details of our comparisons to enable the reader to evaluate the robustness of population designations and assignments as they pertain to individual research questions. Finer scale subdivision and verification of current population compositions will likely be possible with genotyping data that more comprehensively samples the genome. The approach used here may be valuable for other non-clonal pathogens that lack simple group-defining genetic characteristics

Epidemiological tracking and population assignment of the non-clonal bacterium, Burkholderia pseudomallei.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julia Dale

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Rapid assignment of bacterial pathogens into predefined populations is an important first step for epidemiological tracking. For clonal species, a single allele can theoretically define a population. For non-clonal species such as Burkholderia pseudomallei, however, shared allelic states between distantly related isolates make it more difficult to identify population defining characteristics. Two distinct B. pseudomallei populations have been previously identified using multilocus sequence typing (MLST. These populations correlate with the major foci of endemicity (Australia and Southeast Asia. Here, we use multiple Bayesian approaches to evaluate the compositional robustness of these populations, and provide assignment results for MLST sequence types (STs. Our goal was to provide a reference for assigning STs to an established population without the need for further computational analyses. We also provide allele frequency results for each population to enable estimation of population assignment even when novel STs are discovered. The ability for humans and potentially contaminated goods to move rapidly across the globe complicates the task of identifying the source of an infection or outbreak. Population genetic dynamics of B. pseudomallei are particularly complicated relative to other bacterial pathogens, but the work here provides the ability for broad scale population assignment. As there is currently no independent empirical measure of successful population assignment, we provide comprehensive analytical details of our comparisons to enable the reader to evaluate the robustness of population designations and assignments as they pertain to individual research questions. Finer scale subdivision and verification of current population compositions will likely be possible with genotyping data that more comprehensively samples the genome. The approach used here may be valuable for other non-clonal pathogens that lack simple group-defining genetic

The contribution of emotional empathy to approachability judgements assigned to emotional faces is context specific

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Megan L Willis

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Previous research on approachability judgements has indicated that facial expressions modulate how these judgements are made, but the relationship between emotional empathy and context in this decision-making process has not yet been examined. This study examined the contribution of emotional empathy to approachability judgements assigned to emotional faces in different contexts. One hundred and twenty female participants completed the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy. Participants provided approachability judgements to faces displaying angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, neutral and sad expressions, in three different contexts – when evaluating whether they would approach another individual to: 1 receive help; 2 give help; or 3 when no contextual information was provided. In addition, participants were also required to provide ratings of perceived threat, emotional intensity and label facial expressions. Emotional empathy significantly predicted approachability ratings for specific emotions in each context, over and above the contribution of perceived threat and intensity, which were associated with emotional empathy. Higher emotional empathy predicted less willingness to approach people with angry and disgusted faces to receive help, and a greater willingness to approach people with happy faces to receive help. Higher emotional empathy also predicted a greater willingness to approach people with sad faces to offer help, and more willingness to approach people with happy faces when no contextual information was provided. These results highlight the important contribution of individual differences in emotional empathy in predicting how approachability judgements are assigned to facial expressions in context.

Practical aspects of NMR signal assignment in larger and challenging proteins

Science.gov (United States)

Frueh, Dominique P.

2014-01-01

NMR has matured into a technique routinely employed for studying proteins in near physiological conditions. However, applications to larger proteins are impeded by the complexity of the various correlation maps necessary to assign NMR signals. This article reviews the data analysis techniques traditionally employed for resonance assignment and describes alternative protocols necessary for overcoming challenges in large protein spectra. In particular, simultaneous analysis of multiple spectra may help overcome ambiguities or may reveal correlations in an indirect manner. Similarly, visualization of orthogonal planes in a multidimensional spectrum can provide alternative assignment procedures. We describe examples of such strategies for assignment of backbone, methyl, and nOe resonances. We describe experimental aspects of data acquisition for the related experiments and provide guidelines for preliminary studies. Focus is placed on large folded monomeric proteins and examples are provided for 37, 48, 53, and 81 kDa proteins. PMID:24534088

An Efficient Side-Channel Protected AES Implementation with Arbitrary Protection Order

OpenAIRE

Groß, Hannes; Mangard, Stefan; Korak, Thomas

2017-01-01

Passive physical attacks, like power analysis, pose a serious threat to the security of digital circuits. In this work, we introduce an efficient sidechannel protected Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) hardware design that is completely scalable in terms of protection order. Therefore, we revisit the private circuits scheme of Ishai et al. [13] which is known to be vulnerable to glitches. We demonstrate how to achieve resistance against multivariate higher-order attacks in the presence of gl...

Protective mechanical ventilation during general anesthesia for open abdominal surgery improves postoperative pulmonary function.

Science.gov (United States)

Severgnini, Paolo; Selmo, Gabriele; Lanza, Christian; Chiesa, Alessandro; Frigerio, Alice; Bacuzzi, Alessandro; Dionigi, Gianlorenzo; Novario, Raffaele; Gregoretti, Cesare; de Abreu, Marcelo Gama; Schultz, Marcus J; Jaber, Samir; Futier, Emmanuel; Chiaranda, Maurizio; Pelosi, Paolo

2013-06-01

The impact of intraoperative ventilation on postoperative pulmonary complications is not defined. The authors aimed at determining the effectiveness of protective mechanical ventilation during open abdominal surgery on a modified Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score as primary outcome and postoperative pulmonary function. Prospective randomized, open-label, clinical trial performed in 56 patients scheduled to undergo elective open abdominal surgery lasting more than 2 h. Patients were assigned by envelopes to mechanical ventilation with tidal volume of 9 ml/kg ideal body weight and zero-positive end-expiratory pressure (standard ventilation strategy) or tidal volumes of 7 ml/kg ideal body weight, 10 cm H2O positive end-expiratory pressure, and recruitment maneuvers (protective ventilation strategy). Modified Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score, gas exchange, and pulmonary functional tests were measured preoperatively, as well as at days 1, 3, and 5 after surgery. Patients ventilated protectively showed better pulmonary functional tests up to day 5, fewer alterations on chest x-ray up to day 3 and higher arterial oxygenation in air at days 1, 3, and 5 (mmHg; mean ± SD): 77.1 ± 13.0 versus 64.9 ± 11.3 (P = 0.0006), 80.5 ± 10.1 versus 69.7 ± 9.3 (P = 0.0002), and 82.1 ± 10.7 versus 78.5 ± 21.7 (P = 0.44) respectively. The modified Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score was lower in the protective ventilation strategy at days 1 and 3. The percentage of patients in hospital at day 28 after surgery was not different between groups (7 vs. 15% respectively, P = 0.42). A protective ventilation strategy during abdominal surgery lasting more than 2 h improved respiratory function and reduced the modified Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score without affecting length of hospital stay.

Applications of random forest feature selection for fine-scale genetic population assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Sylvester, Emma V A; Bentzen, Paul; Bradbury, Ian R; Clément, Marie; Pearce, Jon; Horne, John; Beiko, Robert G

2018-02-01

Genetic population assignment used to inform wildlife management and conservation efforts requires panels of highly informative genetic markers and sensitive assignment tests. We explored the utility of machine-learning algorithms (random forest, regularized random forest and guided regularized random forest) compared with F ST ranking for selection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) for fine-scale population assignment. We applied these methods to an unpublished SNP data set for Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar ) and a published SNP data set for Alaskan Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ). In each species, we identified the minimum panel size required to obtain a self-assignment accuracy of at least 90% using each method to create panels of 50-700 markers Panels of SNPs identified using random forest-based methods performed up to 7.8 and 11.2 percentage points better than F ST -selected panels of similar size for the Atlantic salmon and Chinook salmon data, respectively. Self-assignment accuracy ≥90% was obtained with panels of 670 and 384 SNPs for each data set, respectively, a level of accuracy never reached for these species using F ST -selected panels. Our results demonstrate a role for machine-learning approaches in marker selection across large genomic data sets to improve assignment for management and conservation of exploited populations.

Optimisation of timetable-based, stochastic transit assignment models based on MSA

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Otto Anker; Frederiksen, Rasmus Dyhr

2006-01-01

(CRM), such a large-scale transit assignment model was developed and estimated. The Stochastic User Equilibrium problem was solved by the Method of Successive Averages (MSA). However, the model suffered from very large calculation times. The paper focuses on how to optimise transit assignment models...

48 CFR 832.805-70 - Distribution/notification of assignment of claims.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... assignment of payments for contracts under which payment for articles and services is certified and approved... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Distribution/notification... DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS GENERAL CONTRACTING REQUIREMENTS CONTRACT FINANCING Assignment of Claims 832...

Danish Public Construction Counselling Selection and Assignment Criteria in European Tendering

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Jesper Kranker; Ussing, Lene Faber; Brunø, Thomas Ditlev

2014-01-01

One of the largest customers in the Danish construction industry is public agencies that own and develop projects. For some of the counselling services, they recur to be put out in European tendering. The aim is to find which selection and assignment criteria are used most in public tendering. How...... projects use selection and assignment criteria for counselling services and finally if there is significant use of selection and assignment methods in public counselling. The method is based on 74 public counselling tenders from the European Tenders Electronic Daily database from January 2010 to March 2013...

Controversies of Sex Re-assignment in Genetic Males with Congenital Inadequacy of the Penis.

Science.gov (United States)

Raveenthiran, Venkatachalam

2017-09-01

Sex assignment in 46XY genetic male children with congenital inadequacy of the penis (CIP) is controversial. Traditionally, children with penile length less than 2 cm at birth are considered unsuitable to be raised as males. They are typically re-assigned to female-sex and feminizing genitoplasty is usually done in infancy. However, the concept of cerebral androgen imprinting has caused paradigm shift in the philosophy of sex re-assignment. Masculinization of the brain, rather than length of the penis, is the modern criterion of sex re-assignment in CIP. This review summarizes the current understanding of the complex issue. In 46XY children with CIP, male-sex assignment appears appropriate in non-hormonal conditions such as idiopathic micropenis, aphallia and exstrophy. Female-sex re-assignment appears acceptable in complete androgen insensitivity (CAIS), while partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS) patients are highly dissatisfied with the assignment of either sex. Children with 5-alpha reductase deficiency are likely to have spontaneous penile lengthening at puberty. Hence, they are better raised as males. Although female assignment is common in pure gonadal dysgenesis, long-term results are not known to justify the decision.

Work assignments, delegation of tasks and job satisfaction among Danish dental hygienists.

Science.gov (United States)

Hach, M; Aaberg, K B; Lempert, S M; Danielsen, B

2017-08-01

Recent legislation in Denmark has made it possible for dentists to delegate their tasks to dental hygienists. Previous studies have shown that Danish dental hygienists primarily were performing assignments within their own work field. These assignments include prophylaxis or instructing patients in oral health care. However, studies have also shown that Danish dental hygienists performed dental nurse assignments such as chair-side assistance, unit cleaning and disinfection of instruments. The objectives of this study were to investigate (i) the range of work assignments performed by Danish dental hygienists, (ii) the types of dentist tasks performed by Danish dental hygienists and (iii) job satisfaction among Danish dental hygienists. Dental hygienists graduating in 2004-2007 were invited to participate in this study. Participants answered an email-distributed questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of questions regarding job satisfaction, assignments performed, postgraduate course attendance, receiving assistance from a dental nurse and which work assignments Danish dental hygienists wish to perform in the future. The results of this study showed that 90% of Danish dental hygienists were satisfied with their job and 52% were performing dentists' tasks. Among dentists' tasks performed by Danish dental hygienists, invasive caries therapy was the most frequently performed task. The type of assignments performed by Danish dental hygienists today appears to be changing compared to previous studies. From initially performing prophylaxis and chair-side assistance for the dentist, Danish dental hygienists today are performing a wider range of tasks which includes dentists' tasks. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Model morphing and sequence assignment after molecular replacement.

Science.gov (United States)

Terwilliger, Thomas C; Read, Randy J; Adams, Paul D; Brunger, Axel T; Afonine, Pavel V; Hung, Li-Wei

2013-11-01

A procedure termed `morphing' for improving a model after it has been placed in the crystallographic cell by molecular replacement has recently been developed. Morphing consists of applying a smooth deformation to a model to make it match an electron-density map more closely. Morphing does not change the identities of the residues in the chain, only their coordinates. Consequently, if the true structure differs from the working model by containing different residues, these differences cannot be corrected by morphing. Here, a procedure that helps to address this limitation is described. The goal of the procedure is to obtain a relatively complete model that has accurate main-chain atomic positions and residues that are correctly assigned to the sequence. Residues in a morphed model that do not match the electron-density map are removed. Each segment of the resulting trimmed morphed model is then assigned to the sequence of the molecule using information about the connectivity of the chains from the working model and from connections that can be identified from the electron-density map. The procedure was tested by application to a recently determined structure at a resolution of 3.2 Å and was found to increase the number of correctly identified residues in this structure from the 88 obtained using phenix.resolve sequence assignment alone (Terwilliger, 2003) to 247 of a possible 359. Additionally, the procedure was tested by application to a series of templates with sequence identities to a target structure ranging between 7 and 36%. The mean fraction of correctly identified residues in these cases was increased from 33% using phenix.resolve sequence assignment to 47% using the current procedure. The procedure is simple to apply and is available in the Phenix software package.

Disentangling Mathematics Target and Access Skills: Implications for Accommodation Assignment Practices

Science.gov (United States)

Ketterlin-Geller, Leanne R.; Jamgochian, Elisa M.; Nelson-Walker, Nancy J.; Geller, Joshua P.

2012-01-01

Appropriate assignment of accommodations is predicated on a clear distinction between target skills and access skills. In this study, we examine the agreement between test developer/researchers' and educators' classification of target and access skills as a possible explanatory mechanism for assigning accommodations. Findings indicate that…

Written Assignments for Abnormal Psychology at Howard Community College, Fall 1988.

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, James

Designed for students enrolled in an Abnormal Psychology course at Howard Community College (Maryland), this booklet explains the requirements for the course's writing assignments, which are designed to teach the skills of comparison and contrast, analysis, critical thinking, and synthesis. Following an overview of class assignments and…

Improving Students’ Learning in Software Engineering Education through Multi-Level Assignments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dr. Leo Pruijt; Christian Köppe

2014-01-01

Author supplied: DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2691352.2691357 Assignments and exercises are an essential part of software engineering education. It usually requires a variety of these assignments to cover a desired wide range of educational objectives as defined in the revised Bloom's taxonomy.

The edge complex: implicit memory for figure assignment in shape perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Peterson, Mary A; Enns, James T

2005-05-01

Viewing a stepped edge is likely to prompt the perceptual assignment of one side of the edge as figure. This study demonstrates that even a single brief glance at a novel edge gives rise to an implicit memory regarding which side was seen as figure; this edge complex enters into the figure assignment process the next time the edge is encountered, both speeding same-different judgments when the figural side is repeated and slowing these judgments when the new figural side is identical to the former ground side (Experiments 1A and 1B). These results were obtained even when the facing direction of the repeated edge was mirror reversed (Experiment 2). This study shows that implicit measures can reveal the effects of past experience on figure assignment, following a single prior exposure to a novel shape, and supports a competitive model of figure assignment in which past experience serves as one of many figural cues.

A Statistical Programme Assignment Model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rosholm, Michael; Staghøj, Jonas; Svarer, Michael

When treatment effects of active labour market programmes are heterogeneous in an observable way  across the population, the allocation of the unemployed into different programmes becomes a particularly  important issue. In this paper, we present a statistical model designed to improve the present...... duration of unemployment spells may result if a statistical programme assignment model is introduced. We discuss several issues regarding the  plementation of such a system, especially the interplay between the statistical model and  case workers....

Integrated project scheduling and staff assignment with controllable processing times.

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez-Viagas, Victor; Framinan, Jose M

2014-01-01

This paper addresses a decision problem related to simultaneously scheduling the tasks in a project and assigning the staff to these tasks, taking into account that a task can be performed only by employees with certain skills, and that the length of each task depends on the number of employees assigned. This type of problems usually appears in service companies, where both tasks scheduling and staff assignment are closely related. An integer programming model for the problem is proposed, together with some extensions to cope with different situations. Additionally, the advantages of the controllable processing times approach are compared with the fixed processing times. Due to the complexity of the integrated model, a simple GRASP algorithm is implemented in order to obtain good, approximate solutions in short computation times.

Integrated Project Scheduling and Staff Assignment with Controllable Processing Times

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victor Fernandez-Viagas

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses a decision problem related to simultaneously scheduling the tasks in a project and assigning the staff to these tasks, taking into account that a task can be performed only by employees with certain skills, and that the length of each task depends on the number of employees assigned. This type of problems usually appears in service companies, where both tasks scheduling and staff assignment are closely related. An integer programming model for the problem is proposed, together with some extensions to cope with different situations. Additionally, the advantages of the controllable processing times approach are compared with the fixed processing times. Due to the complexity of the integrated model, a simple GRASP algorithm is implemented in order to obtain good, approximate solutions in short computation times.

Vibrational assignments for the Raman and the phosphorescence spectra of 9,10-anthraquinone and 9,10-anthraquinone-d81

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lehmann, K.K.; Smolarek, J.; Khalil, O.S.; Goodman, L.

1979-01-01

The Raman spectra of 9,10-anthraquinone (AQ) and 9,10-anthraquinone-d/sub 8/ are examined. Raman band assignments are made from this data and from a published normal coordinate analysis. The Raman spectra of AQ at 5K is reported and vibrational assignments for the phosphorescence spectra of AQ in n-hexane at 4.2 K are reexamined in light of new 3 B 1 /sub g/ → 1 A/sub g/ phosphorescence data. Contrary to previous work from this laboratory, it is concluded that although higher order vibronic interactions may be operative between the two closely spaced 3 A/sub u/- 3 B 1 /sub g/ electronic states, these interactions are not manifested in the phosphorescence spectra of AQ in n-hexane at 4.2 K

The Automatic Sweetheart: An Assignment in a History of Psychology Course

Science.gov (United States)

Sibicky, Mark E.

2007-01-01

This article describes an assignment in a History of Psychology course used to enhance student retention of material and increase student interest and discussion of the long-standing debate between humanistic and mechanistic models in psychology. Adapted from William James's (1955) automatic sweetheart question, the assignment asks students to…

A Case-Study Assignment to Teach Theoretical Perspectives in Abnormal Psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

Perkins, David V.

1991-01-01

Describes an assignment that requires students to organize, prepare, and revise a case study in abnormal behavior. Explains that students employ a single theoretical perspective in preparing a report on a figure from history, literature, the arts, or current events. Discusses the value of the assignment for students. (SG)

ZAP: a distributed channel assignment algorithm for cognitive radio networks

OpenAIRE

Junior , Paulo Roberto ,; Fonseca , Mauro; Munaretto , Anelise; Viana , Aline ,; Ziviani , Artur

2011-01-01

Abstract We propose ZAP, an algorithm for the distributed channel assignment in cognitive radio (CR) networks. CRs are capable of identifying underutilized licensed bands of the spectrum, allowing their reuse by secondary users without interfering with primary users. In this context, efficient channel assignment is challenging as ideally it must be simple, incur acceptable communication overhead, provide timely response, and be adaptive to accommodate frequent changes in the network. Another ...

Relationship Structures and Semantic Type Assignments of the UMLS Enriched Semantic Network

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Li; Halper, Michael; Perl, Yehoshua; Geller, James; Cimino, James J.

2005-01-01

Objective: The Enriched Semantic Network (ESN) was introduced as an extension of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Semantic Network (SN). Its multiple subsumption configuration and concomitant multiple inheritance make the ESN's relationship structures and semantic type assignments different from those of the SN. A technique for deriving the relationship structures of the ESN's semantic types and an automated technique for deriving the ESN's semantic type assignments from those of the SN are presented. Design: The technique to derive the ESN's relationship structures finds all newly inherited relationships in the ESN. All such relationships are audited for semantic validity, and the blocking mechanism is used to block invalid relationships. The mapping technique to derive the ESN's semantic type assignments uses current SN semantic type assignments and preserves nonredundant categorizations, while preventing new redundant categorizations. Results: Among the 426 newly inherited relationships, 326 are deemed valid. Seven blockings are applied to avoid inheritance of the 100 invalid relationships. Sixteen semantic types have different relationship structures in the ESN as compared to those in the SN. The mapping of semantic type assignments from the SN to the ESN avoids the generation of 26,950 redundant categorizations. The resulting ESN contains 138 semantic types, 149 IS-A links, 7,303 relationships, and 1,013,876 semantic type assignments. Conclusion: The ESN's multiple inheritance provides more complete relationship structures than in the SN. The ESN's semantic type assignments avoid the existing redundant categorizations appearing in the SN and prevent new ones that might arise due to multiple parents. Compared to the SN, the ESN provides a more accurate unifying semantic abstraction of the UMLS Metathesaurus. PMID:16049233

My Favorite Assignment: From the ABC 2010 Annual Convention, Chicago, Illinois

Science.gov (United States)

Whalen, D. Joel

2011-01-01

The seven Favorite Assignments featured in this article were originally presented at the 2010 ABC Annual Convention, Chicago, Illinois. The reader can consider a variety of learning objectives from team building to persuasion, application of electronic media to face-to-face communication, and much more. Some Favorite Assignments take a full…

20 CFR 658.411 - Filing and assignment of JS-related complaints.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Filing and assignment of JS-related... Agency Js Complaint System § 658.411 Filing and assignment of JS-related complaints. (a) JS-related... office personnel shall be as follows: (1) All JS-related complaints filed with a local office, and...

42 CFR 424.73 - Prohibition of assignment of claims by providers.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 42 Public Health 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Prohibition of assignment of claims by providers. 424.73 Section 424.73 Public Health CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND... and Reassignment of Claims § 424.73 Prohibition of assignment of claims by providers. (a) Basic...

76 FR 42706 - Amendment of Inspector General Operations & Reporting System Audit, Assignment, and Timesheet...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-07-19

... Operations & Reporting System Audit, Assignment, and Timesheet Files (EPA-42) AGENCY: Environmental... (IGOR) System Audit, Assignment, and Timesheet Files (EPA-42) to the Inspector General Enterprise Management System (IGEMS) Audit, Assignment, and Timesheet Modules. DATES: Effective Dates: Persons wishing...

Concurrent Mass Measurement and Laser Spectroscopy for Unambiguous Isomeric State Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Lascar, Daniel; Babcock, Carla; Henderson, Jack; Pearson, Matt

2017-09-01

Recent work by the TITAN group at TRIUMF on isomeric state mass measurements of odd-A, neutron-rich cadmium nuclei has shown a disconnect between experiment and theory in 127 g , mCd. The spin and parity assignments of the ground and isomeric states are assigned as 3/2+ and 11/2-, respectively, primarily via systematic arguments. Conversely, state of the art shell model and ab initio calculations show a reversal of the states, predicting a ground state of 11/2- and a 3/2+ isomer. Penning Trap Mass Spectrometry (PTMS) can measure the energy separation between the ground state and the isomer without ambiguity but cannot, on its own, comment on the spin and parity. Collinear Laser Spectroscopy (CLS) experiments have been performed on 127Cd and have elegantly demonstrated the existence of both 3/2+ and 11/2- states. What CLS cannot do, on its own, is assign an ordering to those states. If, however, a PTMS and CLS experiment could be performed concurrently using identical beams from the same facility then there exists sufficient information shared between both experiments that a definitive assignment can be made. We present a concept for a new slate of measurements using existing experimental facilities simultaneously, with shared resources, to definitively assign spin and parity for ground and isomeric states in short-lived nuclei.

Incentivized optimal advert assignment via utility decomposition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kelly, F.; Key, P.; Walton, N.

2014-01-01

We consider a large-scale Ad-auction where adverts are assigned over a potentially infinite number of searches. We capture the intrinsic asymmetries in information between advertisers, the advert platform and the space of searches: advertisers know and can optimize the average performance of their

9 CFR 355.10 - Assignment of inspectors.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... INSPECTION AND CERTIFICATION CERTIFIED PRODUCTS FOR DOGS, CATS, AND OTHER CARNIVORA; INSPECTION... 9 Animals and Animal Products 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Assignment of inspectors. 355.10 Section 355.10 Animals and Animal Products FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE...

A game theoretic approach to assignment problems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Klijn, F.

2000-01-01

Game theory deals with the mathematical modeling and analysis of conflict and cooperation in the interaction of multiple decision makers. This thesis adopts two game theoretic methods to analyze a range of assignment problems that arise in various economic situations. The first method has as

A career exploration assignment for first-year pharmacy students.

Science.gov (United States)

Sholy, Lydia; Zeenny, Rony

2013-11-12

To develop, implement, and assess student-learning outcomes from an assignment designed to expose first-year pharmacy students (P1) to a wide range of pharmacy career pathways. Students enrolled in a required Pharmacy Practice and Ethics course at the Lebanese American University chose 1 pharmacist career to investigate from a suggested list of 28 career pathways. Students completed a literature review on the selected career, interviewed a pharmacist practicing that career path in Lebanon, wrote a paper, and prepared and delivered a summary presentation to their classmates about the career pathway. Students peer evaluated their classmates after each presentation. More than 85% of the students scored ≥70% on the assignment based on their achievement of student learning outcomes. Responses on an anonymous questionnaire showed that more than 94.6% of students were satisfied with the extent to which the course allowed them to meet the established learning outcomes. A career exploration assignment provided pharmacy students with an opportunity to widen their knowledge and understanding of the different career pathways that are available for them.

Factors Controlling Vegetation Fires in Protected and Non-Protected Areas of Myanmar

Science.gov (United States)

Biswas, Sumalika; Vadrevu, Krishna Prasad; Lwin, Zin Mar; Lasko, Kristofer; Justice, Christopher O.

2015-01-01

Fire is an important disturbance agent in Myanmar impacting several ecosystems. In this study, we quantify the factors impacting vegetation fires in protected and non-protected areas of Myanmar. Satellite datasets in conjunction with biophysical and anthropogenic factors were used in a spatial framework to map the causative factors of fires. Specifically, we used the frequency ratio method to assess the contribution of each causative factor to overall fire susceptibility at a 1km scale. Results suggested the mean fire density in non-protected areas was two times higher than the protected areas. Fire-land cover partition analysis suggested dominant fire occurrences in the savannas (protected areas) and woody savannas (non-protected areas). The five major fire causative factors in protected areas in descending order include population density, land cover, tree cover percent, travel time from nearest city and temperature. In contrast, the causative factors in non-protected areas were population density, tree cover percent, travel time from nearest city, temperature and elevation. The fire susceptibility analysis showed distinct spatial patterns with central Myanmar as a hot spot of vegetation fires. Results from propensity score matching suggested that forests within protected areas have 11% less fires than non-protected areas. Overall, our results identify important causative factors of fire useful to address broad scale fire risk concerns at a landscape scale in Myanmar. PMID:25909632

Factors controlling vegetation fires in protected and non-protected areas of myanmar.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sumalika Biswas

Full Text Available Fire is an important disturbance agent in Myanmar impacting several ecosystems. In this study, we quantify the factors impacting vegetation fires in protected and non-protected areas of Myanmar. Satellite datasets in conjunction with biophysical and anthropogenic factors were used in a spatial framework to map the causative factors of fires. Specifically, we used the frequency ratio method to assess the contribution of each causative factor to overall fire susceptibility at a 1km scale. Results suggested the mean fire density in non-protected areas was two times higher than the protected areas. Fire-land cover partition analysis suggested dominant fire occurrences in the savannas (protected areas and woody savannas (non-protected areas. The five major fire causative factors in protected areas in descending order include population density, land cover, tree cover percent, travel time from nearest city and temperature. In contrast, the causative factors in non-protected areas were population density, tree cover percent, travel time from nearest city, temperature and elevation. The fire susceptibility analysis showed distinct spatial patterns with central Myanmar as a hot spot of vegetation fires. Results from propensity score matching suggested that forests within protected areas have 11% less fires than non-protected areas. Overall, our results identify important causative factors of fire useful to address broad scale fire risk concerns at a landscape scale in Myanmar.

Factors controlling vegetation fires in protected and non-protected areas of myanmar.

Science.gov (United States)

Biswas, Sumalika; Vadrevu, Krishna Prasad; Lwin, Zin Mar; Lasko, Kristofer; Justice, Christopher O

2015-01-01

Fire is an important disturbance agent in Myanmar impacting several ecosystems. In this study, we quantify the factors impacting vegetation fires in protected and non-protected areas of Myanmar. Satellite datasets in conjunction with biophysical and anthropogenic factors were used in a spatial framework to map the causative factors of fires. Specifically, we used the frequency ratio method to assess the contribution of each causative factor to overall fire susceptibility at a 1km scale. Results suggested the mean fire density in non-protected areas was two times higher than the protected areas. Fire-land cover partition analysis suggested dominant fire occurrences in the savannas (protected areas) and woody savannas (non-protected areas). The five major fire causative factors in protected areas in descending order include population density, land cover, tree cover percent, travel time from nearest city and temperature. In contrast, the causative factors in non-protected areas were population density, tree cover percent, travel time from nearest city, temperature and elevation. The fire susceptibility analysis showed distinct spatial patterns with central Myanmar as a hot spot of vegetation fires. Results from propensity score matching suggested that forests within protected areas have 11% less fires than non-protected areas. Overall, our results identify important causative factors of fire useful to address broad scale fire risk concerns at a landscape scale in Myanmar.

Evaluation of a Brief Homework Assignment Designed to Reduce Citation Problems

Science.gov (United States)

Schuetze, Pamela

2004-01-01

I evaluated a brief homework assignment designed to reduce citation problems in research-based term papers. Students in 2 developmental psychology classes received a brief presentation and handout defining plagiarism with tips on how to cite sources to avoid plagiarizing. In addition, students in 1 class completed 2 brief homework assignments in…

Integrating Graphing Assignments into a Money and Banking Course Using FRED

Science.gov (United States)

Staveley-O'Carroll, James

2018-01-01

Over the course of one semester, six empirical assignments that utilize FRED are used to introduce students of money and banking courses to the economic analysis required for the conduct of monetary policy. The first five assignments cover the following topics: inflation, bonds and stocks, monetary aggregates, the Taylor rule, and employment.…

A demand assignment control in international business satellite communications network

Science.gov (United States)

Nohara, Mitsuo; Takeuchi, Yoshio; Takahata, Fumio; Hirata, Yasuo

An experimental system is being developed for use in an international business satellite (IBS) communications network based on demand-assignment (DA) and TDMA techniques. This paper discusses its system design, in particular from the viewpoints of a network configuration, a DA control, and a satellite channel-assignment algorithm. A satellite channel configuration is also presented along with a tradeoff study on transmission rate, HPA output power, satellite resource efficiency, service quality, and so on.

An analysis of project selection and assignment criteria of Danish tenders in Europe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jasper Kranker Larsen

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Public construction agencies are one of the largest developers within the Danish construction industry, where such agencies own and develop new public construction projects. Most of these projects are put out in European tender. This study analyses the selection and assignment criteria employed by these agencies in different types of public sector projects. Some of the objectives pursued by the study include the determination of 1/ the selection and assignment criteria mostly used in Danish public tenders 2/ how different types of projects use selection and assignment criteria in the bidding process, and 3/ any significant difference between the use of selection and assignment criteria in Danish public construction projects. The study uses a quantitative research approach where 157 Danish public tender cases were selected from the European Tenders Electronic Daily database between the period: January 2010 to March 2013. Fisher's Exact Test was conducted to determine if there was any significant use of some selection and assignment criteria. The findings of the study showed that invited tenders with pre-qualification and lowest price in 69.8% of the tenders are the most used selection and assignment criteria, with little regard to project type.

Fluidity models in ancient Greece and current practices of sex assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Min-Jye; McCann-Crosby, Bonnie; Gunn, Sheila; Georgiadis, Paraskevi; Placencia, Frank; Mann, David; Axelrad, Marni; Karaviti, L P; McCullough, Laurence B

2017-06-01

Disorders of sexual differentiation such as androgen insensitivity and gonadal dysgenesis can involve an intrinsic fluidity at different levels, from the anatomical and biological to the social (gender) that must be considered in the context of social constraints. Sex assignment models based on George Engel's biopsychosocial aspects model of biology accept fluidity of gender as a central concept and therefore help establish expectations within the uncertainty of sex assignment and anticipate potential changes. The biology underlying the fluidity inherent to these disorders should be presented to parents at diagnosis, an approach that the gender medicine field should embrace as good practice. Greek mythology provides many accepted archetypes of change, and the ancient Greek appreciation of metamorphosis can be used as context with these patients. Our goal is to inform expertise and optimal approaches, knowing that this fluidity may eventually necessitate sex reassignment. Physicians should provide sex assignment education based on different components of sexual differentiation, prepare parents for future hormone-triggered changes in their children, and establish a sex-assignment algorithm. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edge-assignment and figure-ground segmentation in short-term visual matching.

Science.gov (United States)

Driver, J; Baylis, G C

1996-12-01

Eight experiments examined the role of edge-assignment in a contour matching task. Subjects judged whether the jagged vertical edge of a probe shape matched the jagged edge that divided two adjoining shapes in an immediately preceding figure-ground display. Segmentation factors biased assignment of this dividing edge toward a figural shape on just one of its sides. Subjects were faster and more accurate at matching when the probe edge had a corresponding assignment. The rapid emergence of this effect provides an on-line analog of the long-term memory advantage for figures over grounds which Rubin (1915/1958) reported. The present on-line advantage was found when figures were defined by relative contrast and size, or by symmetry, and could not be explained solely by the automatic drawing of attention toward the location of the figural region. However, deliberate attention to one region of an otherwise ambiguous figure-ground display did produce the advantage. We propose that one-sided assignment of dividing edges may be obligatory in vision.

Fluidity models in ancient Greece and current practices of sex assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Min-Jye; McCann-Crosby, Bonnie; Gunn, Sheila; Georgiadis, Paraskevi; Placencia, Frank; Mann, David; Axelrad, Marni; Karaviti, L.P; McCullough, Laurence B.

2018-01-01

Disorders of sexual differentiation such as androgen insensitivity and gonadal dysgenesis can involve an intrinsic fluidity at different levels, from the anatomical and biological to the social (gender) that must be considered in the context of social constraints. Sex assignment models based on George Engel’s biopsychosocial aspects model of biology accept fluidity of gender as a central concept and therefore help establish expectations within the uncertainty of sex assignment and anticipate potential changes. The biology underlying the fluidity inherent to these disorders should be presented to parents at diagnosis, an approach that the gender medicine field should embrace as good practice. Greek mythology provides many accepted archetypes of change, and the ancient Greek appreciation of metamorphosis can be used as context with these patients. Our goal is to inform expertise and optimal approaches, knowing that this fluidity may eventually necessitate sex reassignment. Physicians should provide sex assignment education based on different components of sexual differentiation, prepare parents for future hormone-triggered changes in their children, and establish a sex-assignment algorithm. PMID:28478088

Assignment of stock keeping units to parallel undirectional picking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthews, Jason

2015-05-01

Full Text Available An order picking system consisting of a number of parallel unidirectional picking lines is investigated. Stock keeping units (SKUs that are grouped by product type into distributions (DBNs are assigned daily to available picking lines. A mathematical programming formulation and its relaxations is presented. A greedy insertion and a greedy phased insertion are further introduced to obtain feasible results within usable computation times for all test cases. The walking distance of the pickers was shown to decrease by about 22 per cent compared with the current assignment approach. However, product handling and operational risk increases.

Distributed Schemes for Crowdsourcing-Based Sensing Task Assignment in Cognitive Radio Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linbo Zhai

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Spectrum sensing is an important issue in cognitive radio networks. The unlicensed users can access the licensed wireless spectrum only when the licensed wireless spectrum is sensed to be idle. Since mobile terminals such as smartphones and tablets are popular among people, spectrum sensing can be assigned to these mobile intelligent terminals, which is called crowdsourcing method. Based on the crowdsourcing method, this paper studies the distributed scheme to assign spectrum sensing task to mobile terminals such as smartphones and tablets. Considering the fact that mobile terminals’ positions may influence the sensing results, a precise sensing effect function is designed for the crowdsourcing-based sensing task assignment. We aim to maximize the sensing effect function and cast this optimization problem to address crowdsensing task assignment in cognitive radio networks. This problem is difficult to be solved because the complexity of this problem increases exponentially with the growth in mobile terminals. To assign crowdsensing task, we propose four distributed algorithms with different transition probabilities and use a Markov chain to analyze the approximation gap of our proposed schemes. Simulation results evaluate the average performance of our proposed algorithms and validate the algorithm’s convergence.

A New Approach to Weapon-Target Assignment in Cooperative Air Combat

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Yi-zhe Chang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A new approach to solving weapon-target assignment (WTA problem is proposed in this paper. Firstly, relative superiority that lays the foundation for assignment is calculated based on the combat power energy of the fighters. Based on the relative superiority, WTA problem is formulated. Afterwards, a hybrid algorithm consisting of improved artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA and improved harmony search (HS is introduced and furthermore applied to solve the assignment formulation. Finally, the proposed approach is validated by eight representative benchmark functions and two concrete cooperative air combat examples. The results show that the approach proposed in this paper achieves good performances in solving WTA problem in cooperative air combat.

Co-occurrence of protective health behaviours and perceived psychosocial job characteristics

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Vera J.C. Mc Carthy

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Little is known about the association between positive job characteristics of older workers and the co-occurrence of protective health behaviours. This study aims to investigate the association between perceived psychosocial job characteristics and the adoption of protective health behaviours. A population-based cross-sectional study was performed on a sample of 1025 males and females (age-range 50–69-years attending a primary healthcare clinic. Perceived job characteristics (job demands: quantitative and cognitive demands; resources: possibility for development and influence at work were determined using the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire. Each scale is presented in tertiles. Protective health behaviours were; consumption of five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, moderate alcohol, non/ex-smoker, and high and moderate physical activity. Each participant was scored 0–4 protective health behaviours. The majority of the sample had three protective health behaviours. Higher levels of influence at work and cognitive demands were associated with higher self-reported physical activity, but not with any number of protective health behaviours. Conversely, higher quantitative and higher cognitive demands were associated with reporting any number of protective health behaviours or above average number of protective health behaviours respectively. The findings on protective health behaviours were inconsistent in relation to the different measures of perceived psychosocial job characteristics and were largely confined to physical activity and diet.

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION IN THE DRC: EVIDENCE OFREVENUE ASSIGNMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angelita Kithatu-Kiwekete

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The rationalefor central government to devolve resources for service provisionhas been debated in decentralization literature. Decentralization enhancesdemocracy,encouragesparticipation in local development initiativesandpromotes local political accountability.This discourse has been complemented bythe implementation of fiscal decentralization to increase the ability of sub-nationalgovernment in financing municipal service delivery. Fiscal decentralization hasoften been adopted by African statessince the onset ofthe New PublicManagement erain an effortto improvethe standard ofgovernance. The concernis that African states have taken minimal steps to adopt fiscal devolution thatpromotes revenue assignment which in turn limits sub-nationalgovernments’ability to generate own source revenues.This article examines the revenue assignment function of fiscal decentralization inthe Democratic Republic of Congo(DRCinthelight of decentralizationconcerns that have been raised by civil society, as the country charts its course todemocracy. The article is a desktop study that will consider documents andpoliciesin theDRCon thenational, provincialand locallevel as far asstaterevenue sourcesare concerned. Revenue assignment should enable DRC’sprovinces and local authoritiestogeneratesignificantrevenueindependently.However, post-conflict reconstruction and development efforts in the Great Lakesregion and in the DRC have largely isolated decentralization which wouldotherwise entrench local fiscalautonomy infinancing for local services anddevelopment. The article concludes that revenue generation for local authoritiesandtheprovinces in the DRC is still very centralised by the national government.Thearticleproposes policy recommendations that will be useful for the country toensurethatdecentralization effortsinclude fiscal devolution toenhance thefinancing for local development initiatives.

Generalised Assignment Matrix Methodology in Linear Programming

Science.gov (United States)

Jerome, Lawrence

2012-01-01

Discrete Mathematics instructors and students have long been struggling with various labelling and scanning algorithms for solving many important problems. This paper shows how to solve a wide variety of Discrete Mathematics and OR problems using assignment matrices and linear programming, specifically using Excel Solvers although the same…

Proposed criteria for the evaluation of an address assignment scheme in Botswana

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Ditsela, J

2011-06-01

Full Text Available propose criteria for an address assignment scheme in Botswana: a single set of place or area names; different addresses types for urban, rural and farm areas; principles for address numbering assignment; integration of different referencing systems; and a...

Improvement in Student Data Analysis Skills after Out-of-Class Assignments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristen Lee Williams Walton

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The ability to understand and interpret data is a critical aspect of scientific thinking.  However, although data analysis is often a focus in biology majors classes, many textbooks for allied health majors classes are primarily content-driven and do not include substantial amounts of experimental data in the form of graphs and figures.  In a lower-division allied health majors microbiology class, students were exposed to data from primary journal articles as take-home assignments and their data analysis skills were assessed in a pre-/posttest format.  Students were given 3 assignments that included data analysis questions.  Assignments ranged from case studies that included a figure from a journal article to reading a short journal article and answering questions about multiple figures or tables.  Data were represented as line or bar graphs, gel photographs, and flow charts.  The pre- and posttest was designed incorporating the same types of figures to assess whether the assignments resulted in any improvement in data analysis skills.  The mean class score showed a small but significant improvement from the pretest to the posttest across three semesters of testing.  Scores on individual questions testing accurate conclusions and predictions improved the most.  This supports the conclusion that a relatively small number of out-of-class assignments through the semester resulted in a significant improvement in data analysis abilities in this population of students.

Protective Effects of Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid in Lead Acetate Exposed Diabetic Male Rats: Evaluation of Blood Biochemical Parameters and Testicular Histopathology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alireza AYOUBI

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effects of vitamin C against lead toxicity by measuring the blood parameters and studying histopathology of testis in diabetic male rats. Wister rats (42 were randomly assigned into7 groups: I healthy; II fed lead acetate only; III vitamin C administered only; IV diabetic; V diabetic rats administered by vitamin C; VI diabetic rats given lead acetate and VII diabetic rats received lead acetate and vitamin C. The diabetic and lead groups had higher glucose, cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides and lower insulin and HDL concentration than the control group. It was found that vitamin C administration led to a lower level of blood glucose, cholesterol, LDL and triglycerides and higher HDL concentration in diabetic rats significantly. It was concluded that the antioxidant property of vitamin C resulted in reducing the oxidative stress complications of toxic levels of lead acetate in diabetic rats.

Model morphing and sequence assignment after molecular replacement

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Terwilliger, Thomas C., E-mail: terwilliger@lanl.gov [Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop M888, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States); Read, Randy J. [University of Cambridge, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Cambridge CB2 0XY (United Kingdom); Adams, Paul D. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Bldg 64R0121, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Brunger, Axel T. [Stanford University, 318 Campus Drive West, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States); Afonine, Pavel V. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Bldg 64R0121, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Hung, Li-Wei [Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop M888, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States)

2013-11-01

A procedure for model building is described that combines morphing a model to match a density map, trimming the morphed model and aligning the model to a sequence. A procedure termed ‘morphing’ for improving a model after it has been placed in the crystallographic cell by molecular replacement has recently been developed. Morphing consists of applying a smooth deformation to a model to make it match an electron-density map more closely. Morphing does not change the identities of the residues in the chain, only their coordinates. Consequently, if the true structure differs from the working model by containing different residues, these differences cannot be corrected by morphing. Here, a procedure that helps to address this limitation is described. The goal of the procedure is to obtain a relatively complete model that has accurate main-chain atomic positions and residues that are correctly assigned to the sequence. Residues in a morphed model that do not match the electron-density map are removed. Each segment of the resulting trimmed morphed model is then assigned to the sequence of the molecule using information about the connectivity of the chains from the working model and from connections that can be identified from the electron-density map. The procedure was tested by application to a recently determined structure at a resolution of 3.2 Å and was found to increase the number of correctly identified residues in this structure from the 88 obtained using phenix.resolve sequence assignment alone (Terwilliger, 2003 ▶) to 247 of a possible 359. Additionally, the procedure was tested by application to a series of templates with sequence identities to a target structure ranging between 7 and 36%. The mean fraction of correctly identified residues in these cases was increased from 33% using phenix.resolve sequence assignment to 47% using the current procedure. The procedure is simple to apply and is available in the Phenix software package.

Model morphing and sequence assignment after molecular replacement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terwilliger, Thomas C.; Read, Randy J.; Adams, Paul D.; Brunger, Axel T.; Afonine, Pavel V.; Hung, Li-Wei

2013-01-01

A procedure for model building is described that combines morphing a model to match a density map, trimming the morphed model and aligning the model to a sequence. A procedure termed ‘morphing’ for improving a model after it has been placed in the crystallographic cell by molecular replacement has recently been developed. Morphing consists of applying a smooth deformation to a model to make it match an electron-density map more closely. Morphing does not change the identities of the residues in the chain, only their coordinates. Consequently, if the true structure differs from the working model by containing different residues, these differences cannot be corrected by morphing. Here, a procedure that helps to address this limitation is described. The goal of the procedure is to obtain a relatively complete model that has accurate main-chain atomic positions and residues that are correctly assigned to the sequence. Residues in a morphed model that do not match the electron-density map are removed. Each segment of the resulting trimmed morphed model is then assigned to the sequence of the molecule using information about the connectivity of the chains from the working model and from connections that can be identified from the electron-density map. The procedure was tested by application to a recently determined structure at a resolution of 3.2 Å and was found to increase the number of correctly identified residues in this structure from the 88 obtained using phenix.resolve sequence assignment alone (Terwilliger, 2003 ▶) to 247 of a possible 359. Additionally, the procedure was tested by application to a series of templates with sequence identities to a target structure ranging between 7 and 36%. The mean fraction of correctly identified residues in these cases was increased from 33% using phenix.resolve sequence assignment to 47% using the current procedure. The procedure is simple to apply and is available in the Phenix software package

Further exploration of the conformational space of α-synuclein fibrils: solid-state NMR assignment of a high-pH polymorph.

Science.gov (United States)

Verasdonck, Joeri; Bousset, Luc; Gath, Julia; Melki, Ronald; Böckmann, Anja; Meier, Beat H

2016-04-01

Polymorphism is a common and important phenomenon for protein fibrils which has been linked to the appearance of strains in prion and other neurodegenerative diseases. Parkinson disease is a frequently occurring neurodegenerative pathology, tightly associated with the formation of Lewy bodies. These deposits mainly consist of α-synuclein in fibrillar, β-sheet-rich form. α-synuclein is known to form numerous different polymorphs, which show distinct structural features. Here, we describe the chemical shift assignments, and derive the secondary structure, of a polymorph that was fibrillized at higher-than-physiological pH conditions. The fibrillar core contains residues 40-95, with both the C- and N-terminus not showing any ordered, rigid parts. The chemical shifts are similar to those recorded previously for an assigned polymorph that was fibrillized at neutral pH.

CAN HIGHER WAGES PROTECT YOUR HEART? REGIONAL EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cristian INCALTARAU

2015-11-01

Full Text Available There is a bilateral influence between health and economic development. On the one hand, population health influences economic performance, both at micro and macro levels. On the other, being reflected in higher wellbeing, economic performance also influences health of population. Therefore, according to the materialist view, health status is dependent on the standard of living, whereas low living standards can increase the probability of morbidity and mortality by feeding poverty, poor hygiene and restricting access to health care and education, which is truly important in preventing diseases. Being generally considered to be a representative indicator for the standards of living, we have assessed the impact of wage variations on cardiovascular diseases (CVD mortality, as CVD were proved to be more sensitive to socio-economic conditions, but also generally the main mortality cause in post-communist countries including Romania. Carrying out a panel data analysis over the 1995-2012 period on Romanian NUTSIII regions, the results showed a direct link between wage level and CVD mortality proving that the higher wages reach, the lower mortality is, thus confirming assumed materialist hypothesis.

28 CFR 345.35 - Assignments to FPI.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

..., color, religion, ethnic origin, age, or disability. (b) The SOI ordinarily makes assignments based on... course in pre-industrial training or on-the-job training (as available) before promotion to pay grade four. (2) An inmate who has not successfully completed pre-industrial or on-the-job training remains at...

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitic (NASH) mice are protected from higher hepatotoxicity of acetaminophen upon induction of PPARα with clofibrate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Donthamsetty, Shashikiran; Bhave, Vishakha S.; Mitra, Mayurranjan S.; Latendresse, John R.; Mehendale, Harihara M.

2008-01-01

The objective was to investigate if the hepatotoxic sensitivity in nonalcoholic steatohepatitic mice to acetaminophen (APAP) is due to downregulation of nuclear receptor PPARα via lower cell division and tissue repair. Male Swiss Webster mice fed methionine and choline deficient diet for 31 days exhibited NASH. On the 32nd day, a marginally toxic dose of APAP (360 mg/kg, ip) yielded 70% mortality in steatohepatitic mice, while all non steatohepatitic mice receiving the same dose survived. 14 C-APAP covalent binding, CYP2E1 protein, and enzyme activity did not differ from the controls, obviating increased APAP bioactivation as the cause of amplified APAP hepatotoxicity. Liver injury progressed only in steatohepatitic livers between 6 and 24 h. Cell division and tissue repair assessed by 3 H-thymidine incorporation and PCNA were inhibited only in the steatohepatitic mice given APAP suggesting that higher sensitivity of NASH liver to APAP-induced hepatotoxicity was due to lower tissue repair. The hypothesis that impeded liver tissue repair in steatohepatitic mice was due to downregulation of PPARα was tested. PPARα was downregulated in NASH. To investigate whether downregulation of PPARα in NASH is the critical mechanism of compromised liver tissue repair, PPARα was induced in steatohepatitic mice with clofibrate (250 mg/kg for 3 days, ip) before injecting APAP. All clofibrate pretreated steatohepatitic mice receiving APAP exhibited lower liver injury, which did not progress and the mice survived. The protection was not due to lower bioactivation of APAP but due to higher liver tissue repair. These findings suggest that inadequate PPARα expression in steatohepatitic mice sensitizes them to APAP hepatotoxicity

Fragment assignment in the cloud with eXpress-D

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background Probabilistic assignment of ambiguously mapped fragments produced by high-throughput sequencing experiments has been demonstrated to greatly improve accuracy in the analysis of RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq, and is an essential step in many other sequence census experiments. A maximum likelihood method using the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for optimization is commonly used to solve this problem. However, batch EM-based approaches do not scale well with the size of sequencing datasets, which have been increasing dramatically over the past few years. Thus, current approaches to fragment assignment rely on heuristics or approximations for tractability. Results We present an implementation of a distributed EM solution to the fragment assignment problem using Spark, a data analytics framework that can scale by leveraging compute clusters within datacenters–“the cloud”. We demonstrate that our implementation easily scales to billions of sequenced fragments, while providing the exact maximum likelihood assignment of ambiguous fragments. The accuracy of the method is shown to be an improvement over the most widely used tools available and can be run in a constant amount of time when cluster resources are scaled linearly with the amount of input data. Conclusions The cloud offers one solution for the difficulties faced in the analysis of massive high-thoughput sequencing data, which continue to grow rapidly. Researchers in bioinformatics must follow developments in distributed systems–such as new frameworks like Spark–for ways to port existing methods to the cloud and help them scale to the datasets of the future. Our software, eXpress-D, is freely available at: http://github.com/adarob/express-d. PMID:24314033

A Branch-and-Price algorithm for stable workforce assignments with hierarchical skills

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Firat, M.; Briskorn, D.; Laugier, A.

2016-01-01

This paper deals with assigning hierarchically skilled technicians to jobs by considering preferences. We investigate stability definitions in multi-skill workforce assignments stemming from the notion of blocking pairs as stated in the Marriage model of Gale–Shapley. We propose a Branch-and-Price

Statistical methods of spin assignment in compound nuclear reactions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mach, H.; Johns, M.W.

1984-01-01

Spin assignment to nuclear levels can be obtained from standard in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy techniques and in the case of compound nuclear reactions can be complemented by statistical methods. These are based on a correlation pattern between level spin and gamma-ray intensities feeding low-lying levels. Three types of intensity and level spin correlations are found suitable for spin assignment: shapes of the excitation functions, ratio of intensity at two beam energies or populated in two different reactions, and feeding distributions. Various empirical attempts are examined and the range of applicability of these methods as well as the limitations associated with them are given. 12 references

Statistical methods of spin assignment in compound nuclear reactions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mach, H.; Johns, M.W.

1985-01-01

Spin assignment to nuclear levels can be obtained from standard in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy techniques and in the case of compound nuclear reactions can be complemented by statistical methods. These are based on a correlation pattern between level spin and gamma-ray intensities feeding low-lying levels. Three types of intensity and level spin correlations are found suitable for spin assignment: shapes of the excitation functions, ratio of intensity at two beam energies or populated in two different reactions, and feeding distributions. Various empirical attempts are examined and the range of applicability of these methods as well as the limitations associated with them are given

Dynamic Passenger Assignment during Disruptions in Railway Systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zhu, Y.; Goverde, R.M.P.

2017-01-01

Passenger-oriented rescheduling problems receive increasing attention. However, the passenger assignment models used for evaluating the rescheduling solutions are usually simplified by many assumptions. To estimate passenger inconvenience more accurately, this paper establishes a dynamic passenger

Exploiting Group Symmetry in Semidefinite Programming Relaxations of the Quadratic Assignment Problem

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Klerk, E.; Sotirov, R.

2007-01-01

We consider semidefinite programming relaxations of the quadratic assignment problem, and show how to exploit group symmetry in the problem data. Thus we are able to compute the best known lower bounds for several instances of quadratic assignment problems from the problem library: [R.E. Burkard,

Radiological protection in interventional cardiology in Chile

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramirez, A.; Leyton, F.A.; Farias, E.; Silva, A.M.; Vano, E.; Oyarzun, C.; Gamarra, J.; Ortiz, P.

2001-01-01

In September 2000, an expert mission was assigned to Chile, under the regional project named 'International BBS in Medical Practices Radiation Protection and Quality Assurance In Interventional Radiology' (ARCAL XLIX). The objective of the mission was to evaluate the level of radiation protection (RP) and safety in interventional cardiology ( IC ) installations. A team of local cardiologists, medical physicists and technologists was created for this purpose and during one week, several cardiology laboratories were evaluated and some basic quality controls (QC) were carried out. A basic pilot training course in radiation protection was imparted at the Hospital of the University of Chile in Santiago de Chile and some of the key objectives for a future national quality assurance programme were presented during the national congress of IC. In addition, a national survey on radiation protection aspects was circulated and its results evaluated. These activities enabled the local team to become familiar with the methodology of assessment of the level of protection and the organization of a programme, which was illustrated with the examples of similar European programmes. As result of these actions, several proposals were made to both the local authorities and the IAEA. The most important were: a) to initiate a basic QC programme, b) to organize a training in RP for cardiologists in order to formalize their accreditation, c) to improve personal occupational dosimetry, d) to initiate a programme of patient dosimetry, e) to optimize the technical and clinical protocols, f) to create a national registry of incidents with skin injuries. (author)

Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection in France in 2005

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2006-04-01

In 2005, the Asn pursued its significant investment in radiation protection and reaffirms its ambition to become as efficient in radiation protection as it is in nuclear safety as of 2009. 2005 was a year of great progress for the Asn as it consolidated its organisation and working methods, in accordance with the 2005-2007 strategic plan it set for itself. The Asn continued progress in the field of radiation protection has given rise to various new regulations to improve the legislative and regulatory framework in this area. The Asn plans to step up its efforts to ensure better monitoring of patient exposure to ionizing radiation and to provide better management of radon-related risks, particularly in housing. Fully aware that its newfound power in this area requires outside evaluation, the Asn has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to organize an I.R.R.S. (Integrated Regulatory Review Service) assignment consisting of a peer-conducted audit. The IAEA has confirmed that this audit will take place in November 2006. (N.C.)

Students as Consumers: The Implications of the Consumer Protection Act for Higher Education Institutions in South Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, K.

2012-01-01

The Consumer Protection Act (CPA) lays the basis for the protection of consumer rights in South Africa and comprehensively sets out obligations for "suppliers". There have been differing views expressed as to whether a student should be seen as a consumer. It is clear, however, that this Act applies to HEIs. This article, firstly,…

Accounting for Sustainability: An Active Learning Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Gusc, Joanna; van Veen-Dirks, Paula

2017-01-01

Purpose: Sustainability is one of the newer topics in the accounting courses taught in university teaching programs. The active learning assignment as described in this paper was developed for use in an accounting course in an undergraduate program. The aim was to enhance teaching about sustainability within such a course. The purpose of this…

Assigned value improves memory of proper names.

Science.gov (United States)

Festini, Sara B; Hartley, Alan A; Tauber, Sarah K; Rhodes, Matthew G

2013-01-01

Names are more difficult to remember than other personal information such as occupations. The current research examined the influence of assigned point value on memory and metamemory judgements for names and occupations to determine whether incentive can improve recall of proper names. In Experiment 1 participants studied face-name and face-occupation pairs assigned 1 or 10 points, made judgements of learning, and were given a cued recall test. High-value names were recalled more often than low-value names. However, recall of occupations was not influenced by value. In Experiment 2 meaningless nonwords were used for both names and occupations. The name difficulty disappeared, and value influenced recall of both names and occupations. Thus value similarly influenced names and occupations when meaningfulness was held constant. In Experiment 3 participants were required to use overt rote rehearsal for all items. Value did not boost recall of high-value names, suggesting that differential processing could not be implemented to improve memory. Thus incentives may improve memory for proper names by motivating people to engage in selective rehearsal and effortful elaborative processing.

77 FR 16988 - Protection of Stratospheric Ozone: Amendment to HFO-1234yf SNAP Rule for Motor Vehicle Air...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-03-23

... procedure, Air pollution control, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Stratospheric ozone layer. Dated... FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Margaret Sheppard, Stratospheric Protection Division, Office of Atmospheric... Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq. and has assigned OMB control numbers 2060-0226 (EPA ICR No. 1596.08...

Psychology Students' Understanding of the Skill-Based Learning Fostered through University Assignments

Science.gov (United States)

Martini, Tanya S.; Rail, Ashley; Norton, Cole

2015-01-01

We examined first-year psychology majors' (N = 195) beliefs about the relevance of two types of university assignments (individual essay and group wiki) and their connection to the development of career-related skills. Students reported that assignments were only somewhat relevant to their career goals, and relevance ratings were typically…

Environmental protection directory. 3. rev. and enl. ed.

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schumacher, H.G.

1993-01-01

For the first time in this form in Germany, this handbook provides a comprehensive collection of mainly non-commercial environmental protection addresses. It covers the federal, community, scientific and jounalistic areas as well as business and society associations and groups, educational and advisory services and institutions. The addressbook contains the addresses and telephone numbers of the seperate institutions, as well as the names and extension numbers of public officials, representatives and media relations personned of the associations, the party environmental spokesperson and assigned people from the churches, and the ecology editors in media, radio and television. (orig.) [de

A method to assign failure rates for piping reliability assessments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gamble, R.M.; Tagart, S.W. Jr.

1991-01-01

This paper reports on a simplified method that has been developed to assign failure rates that can be used in reliability and risk studies of piping. The method can be applied on a line-by-line basis by identifying line and location specific attributes that can lead to piping unreliability from in-service degradation mechanisms and random events. A survey of service experience for nuclear piping reliability also was performed. The data from this survey provides a basis for identifying in-service failure attributes and assigning failure rates for risk and reliability studies

Waste-aware fluid volume assignment for flow-based microfluidic biochips

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schneider, Alexander Rüdiger; Pop, Paul; Madsen, Jan

2017-01-01

complex Fluidic Units (FUs) such as switches, micropumps, mixers and separators can be constructed. When running a biochemical application on a FBMB, fluid volumes are dispensed from input reservoirs and used by the FUs. Given a biochemical application and a biochip, we are interested in determining...... the fluid volume assignment for each operation of the application, such that the FUs volume requirements are satisfied, while over- and underflow are avoided and the total volume of fluid used is minimized. We propose an algorithm for this fluid assignment problem. Compared to previous work, our method...

Asymmetry in some common assignment algorithms: the dispersion factor solution

OpenAIRE

T de la Barra; B Pérez

1986-01-01

Many common assignment algorithms are based on Dial's original design to determine the paths that trip makers will follow from a given origin to destination centroids. The purpose of this paper is to show that the rules that have to be applied result in two unwanted properties. The first is that trips assigned from an origin centroid i to a destination j can be dramatically different to those resulting from centroid j to centroid i , even if the number of trips is the same and the network is ...

36 CFR 292.22 - Land category assignments.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... land. (iv) Commercial land. (2) Not later than August 12, 1994, a map or maps displaying the privately... availability of this map or maps in the local newspapers of record. (b) Changes in land category assignment.../grazing land so long as the intended use or development is consistent with the standards in § 292.23 and...

Transdisciplinary assignments in graduate health education as a model for future collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Christie, Catherine; Smith, A Russell; Bednarzyk, Michele

2007-01-01

Transdisciplinary health care continues to be at the forefront of patient treatment in the medical arena, in part due to escalating health care costs, an increasing aging population, and the development of multiple chronic diseases. Gaining the knowledge, experience, and principles associated with transdisciplinary teamwork to successfully prepare for modern-day practice is therefore essential for individuals of various health care professions. This report describes an assignment developed and implemented to facilitate professional interaction between graduate physical therapy, nutrition, and nursing students. The objectives of this assignment were to determine through student evaluation the effects of a transdisciplinary experience on students' understanding of the role of another discipline and students' communication skills across disciplines. When evaluating the assignment, students most often remarked that they developed a greater understanding of the roles of the included disciplines and reported a significant increase in communication skills. However, some students did not concur that this assignment was effective due to the scheduling conflicts and lack of teamwork that can occur during a collaborative project. The students' reports of their experiences in completing the assignment provide valuable insights for implementing and/or updating a preparatory transdisciplinary education component in other settings. Additional research can focus on the challenges faced by the majority of the students venturing into actual health care or "real-world" settings for comparative studies.

Workplace protection of air-fed visors used in paint spraying operations.

Science.gov (United States)

Bolsover, J; Rajan-Sithamparanadarajah, B; Vaughan, N

2006-04-01

Air-fed visors are commonly used for protection against exposure to airborne isocyanates during paint spraying. Protection levels for this class of equipment are theoretically adequate, yet isocyanate sensitization in this occupation still occurs. The work reported here set out to establish the level of respiratory protection that is achieved during real paint spraying activities when air-fed visors are used. The work also examined the effects of reduced air supply flow rates on this type of respiratory protection. The workplace study highlighted common problems that occur when attempting to measure protection factors, and process and interpret the collected data. Many of the environments included in this study did not exhibit challenge concentrations high enough to reliably measure the workplace protection factor of this class of device. When detection limits are taken into consideration, the remaining field data suggest that an assigned protection factor in the region of 40 may be appropriate. When well maintained and used in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, air-fed visors are capable of providing a good level of respiratory protection. The protection given by air-fed visors is strongly dependent on the air flow supplied to them. Laboratory measurements demonstrate that protection falls as the air supply falls. This is a gradual process and does not suddenly occur at any particular air supply flow. Observations made during the field tests indicate that there may be other activities associated with the spraying process that need to be taken into consideration when looking for sources of respiratory sensitization.

Bag-of-features based medical image retrieval via multiple assignment and visual words weighting

KAUST Repository

Wang, Jingyan

2011-11-01

Bag-of-features based approaches have become prominent for image retrieval and image classification tasks in the past decade. Such methods represent an image as a collection of local features, such as image patches and key points with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptors. To improve the bag-of-features methods, we first model the assignments of local descriptors as contribution functions, and then propose a novel multiple assignment strategy. Assuming the local features can be reconstructed by their neighboring visual words in a vocabulary, reconstruction weights can be solved by quadratic programming. The weights are then used to build contribution functions, resulting in a novel assignment method, called quadratic programming (QP) assignment. We further propose a novel visual word weighting method. The discriminative power of each visual word is analyzed by the sub-similarity function in the bin that corresponds to the visual word. Each sub-similarity function is then treated as a weak classifier. A strong classifier is learned by boosting methods that combine those weak classifiers. The weighting factors of the visual words are learned accordingly. We evaluate the proposed methods on medical image retrieval tasks. The methods are tested on three well-known data sets, i.e., the ImageCLEFmed data set, the 304 CT Set, and the basal-cell carcinoma image set. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed QP assignment outperforms the traditional nearest neighbor assignment, the multiple assignment, and the soft assignment, whereas the proposed boosting based weighting strategy outperforms the state-of-the-art weighting methods, such as the term frequency weights and the term frequency-inverse document frequency weights. © 2011 IEEE.

Bag-of-features based medical image retrieval via multiple assignment and visual words weighting

KAUST Repository

Wang, Jingyan; Li, Yongping; Zhang, Ying; Wang, Chao; Xie, Honglan; Chen, Guoling; Gao, Xin

2011-01-01

Bag-of-features based approaches have become prominent for image retrieval and image classification tasks in the past decade. Such methods represent an image as a collection of local features, such as image patches and key points with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptors. To improve the bag-of-features methods, we first model the assignments of local descriptors as contribution functions, and then propose a novel multiple assignment strategy. Assuming the local features can be reconstructed by their neighboring visual words in a vocabulary, reconstruction weights can be solved by quadratic programming. The weights are then used to build contribution functions, resulting in a novel assignment method, called quadratic programming (QP) assignment. We further propose a novel visual word weighting method. The discriminative power of each visual word is analyzed by the sub-similarity function in the bin that corresponds to the visual word. Each sub-similarity function is then treated as a weak classifier. A strong classifier is learned by boosting methods that combine those weak classifiers. The weighting factors of the visual words are learned accordingly. We evaluate the proposed methods on medical image retrieval tasks. The methods are tested on three well-known data sets, i.e., the ImageCLEFmed data set, the 304 CT Set, and the basal-cell carcinoma image set. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed QP assignment outperforms the traditional nearest neighbor assignment, the multiple assignment, and the soft assignment, whereas the proposed boosting based weighting strategy outperforms the state-of-the-art weighting methods, such as the term frequency weights and the term frequency-inverse document frequency weights. © 2011 IEEE.

Stereospecific assignments of glycine in proteins by stereospecific deuteration and {sup 15}N labeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hansen, A.P.; Curley, R.W. Jr.; Panigot, M.J.; Fesik, S.W. [Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)

1994-12-01

Stereospecific assignments are important for accurately determining the three-dimensional structures of proteins through the use of multidimensional NMR techniques. It is especially important to stereospecifically assign the glycine {alpha}-protons in proteins because of the potential for different backbone conformations of this residue. These stereospecific assignments are critical for interpreting the {sup 3}J{sub NH,{alpha}H} coupling constants and NOEs involving the glycine {alpha}-protons that determine the conformation of this part of the protein. However, it is often difficult to unambiguously obtain the stereospecific assignments for glycine residues by using only NOE data. In this poster, we present a method for unambiguous, stereospecific assignment of the {alpha}-protons of glycine residues. This method involves synthesis of stereo-specifically deuterated and {sup 15}N-labeled Gly using a slightly modified procedure originally described by Woodard and coworkers for the stereoselective deuteration of glycine. The stereospecifically deuterated and {sup 15}N-labeled Gy has been incorporated into recombinant proteins expressed in both bacterial systems (FKBP) and mammalian cells (u-PA). Two- and three-dimensional isotope-filtered and isotope-edited NMR experiments were used to obtain the stereospecific assignments of the glycine {alpha}-protons for these proteins.

Patients' Data Management System Protected by Identity-Based Authentication and Key Exchange.

Science.gov (United States)

Rivero-García, Alexandra; Santos-González, Iván; Hernández-Goya, Candelaria; Caballero-Gil, Pino; Yung, Moti

2017-03-31

A secure and distributed framework for the management of patients' information in emergency and hospitalization services is proposed here in order to seek improvements in efficiency and security in this important area. In particular, confidentiality protection, mutual authentication, and automatic identification of patients are provided. The proposed system is based on two types of devices: Near Field Communication (NFC) wristbands assigned to patients, and mobile devices assigned to medical staff. Two other main elements of the system are an intermediate server to manage the involved data, and a second server with a private key generator to define the information required to protect communications. An identity-based authentication and key exchange scheme is essential to provide confidential communication and mutual authentication between the medical staff and the private key generator through an intermediate server. The identification of patients is carried out through a keyed-hash message authentication code. Thanks to the combination of the aforementioned tools, a secure alternative mobile health (mHealth) scheme for managing patients' data is defined for emergency and hospitalization services. Different parts of the proposed system have been implemented, including mobile application, intermediate server, private key generator and communication channels. Apart from that, several simulations have been performed, and, compared with the current system, significant improvements in efficiency have been observed.

Final Evaluation of Assignment: Media Literacy. A Report to the Discovery Channel.

Science.gov (United States)

Kubey, Robert; Serafin, Gina Marcello

The Assignment: Media Literacy curriculum is a 6-module media literacy curriculum developed by Renee Hobbs of Babson College and her staff in collaboration with the Discovery Channel. There are three versions of Assignment: Media Literacy, one for elementary school students, one for middle school students, and one for high school students. Close…

LUBW. For 40 years now rendering good services for radiation protection; LUBW. Seit 40 Jahre im Dienste des Strahlenschutzes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kringler, Jochen [Landesanstalt fuer Umweltschutz Baden-Wuerttemberg (LUBW), Karlsruhe (Germany). Referat Radioaktivitaet, Strahlenschutz

2016-08-01

Formation, development and tasks of the ''State Institute for Environment, Measurements and Nature Conservation Baden-Wuerttemberg'' are described. They include, for instance, nature protection and climatic consequences as well as production safety, environmental techniques, water cleanliness and soil protection. However, above all the evaluation and recording of radioactivity and the measurement of ionizing radiation were from the beginning some of the main assignments. Today very important are research of the presence of radioactivity in the environment, measurement of radiation levels around nuclear facilities and support of the nuclear inspectorate in questions of radiation protection.

Modelling the Preferences of Students for Alternative Assignment Designs Using the Discrete Choice Experiment Methodology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brendan Kennelly

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This paper outlines how a discrete choice experiment (DCE can be used to learn more about how students are willing to trade off various features of assignments such as the nature and timing of feedback and the method used to submit assignments. A DCE identifies plausible levels of the key attributes of a good or service and then presents the respondent with alternative bundles of these attributes and their levels and asks the respondent to choose between particular bundles. We report results from a DCE we conducted with undergraduate business students regarding their preferences for assignment systems. We find that the most important features of assignments are how relevant the assignments are for exam preparation and the nature of the feedback that students receive. We also find that students generally prefer online to paper assignments. We argue that the DCE approach has a lot of potential in education research.

IAEA occupational radiation protection programme: current status

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deboodt, P.; Mrabit, K.

2006-01-01

As stated in Art.III.A.6 of its Statute, the International Atomic Energy Agency (commonly referred to as the Agency) is authorized to establish or adopt, in consultation and, where appropriate, in collaboration with the competent organs of the United Nations and with the specialized agencies concerned, standards of safety for protection of health and minimization of danger to life and property (including such standards for labour conditions), and to provide for the application of these standards to its own operation as well as to the operations making use of materials, services, equipment, facilities, and information made available by the Agency or at its request or under its control or supervision. The Agency s Occupational Radiation Protection Programme aims at harmonizing infrastructures for the control of radiation exposure of workers and for optimizing radiation protection in situation s of exposures due to external radiation and intakes of radionuclides from both artificial and natural sources of radiation. Under its regular and technical cooperation programmes, the Agency has been assigning high priority to both the establishment of safety standards for labour conditions and for the application of these standards through, Interalia, direct assistance under its technical cooperation (TC) programme, the rendering of services, the promotion of education and training, the fostering of information exchange and the coordination of research and development. The purpose of this paper is to present the current status and future IAEA activities in support of occupational radiation protection. (authors)

A Review on Eigenstructure Assignment Methods and Orthogonal Eigenstructure Control of Structural Vibrations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Rastgaar

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of eigenstructure assignment methods for vibration cancellation. Eigenstructure assignment techniques have been widely used during the past three decades for vibration suppression in structures, especially in large space structures. These methods work similar to mode localization in which global vibrations are managed such that they remain localized within the structure. Such localization would help reducing vibrations more effectively than other methods of vibration cancellation, by virtue of confining the vibrations close to the source of disturbance. The common objective of different methods of eigenstructure assignment is to provide controller design freedom beyond pole placement, and define appropriate shapes for the eigenvectors of the systems. These methods; however, offer a large and complex design space of options that can often overwhelm the control designer. Recent developments in orthogonal eigenstructure control offers a significant simplification of the design task while allowing some experience-based design freedom. The majority of the papers from the past three decades in structural vibration cancellation using eigenstructure assignment methods are reviewed, along with recent studies that introduce new developments in eigenstructure assignment techniques.

De novo protein structure generation from incomplete chemical shift assignments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shen Yang [National Institutes of Health, Laboratory of Chemical Physics, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (United States); Vernon, Robert; Baker, David [University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (United States); Bax, Ad [National Institutes of Health, Laboratory of Chemical Physics, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (United States)], E-mail: bax@nih.gov

2009-02-15

NMR chemical shifts provide important local structural information for proteins. Consistent structure generation from NMR chemical shift data has recently become feasible for proteins with sizes of up to 130 residues, and such structures are of a quality comparable to those obtained with the standard NMR protocol. This study investigates the influence of the completeness of chemical shift assignments on structures generated from chemical shifts. The Chemical-Shift-Rosetta (CS-Rosetta) protocol was used for de novo protein structure generation with various degrees of completeness of the chemical shift assignment, simulated by omission of entries in the experimental chemical shift data previously used for the initial demonstration of the CS-Rosetta approach. In addition, a new CS-Rosetta protocol is described that improves robustness of the method for proteins with missing or erroneous NMR chemical shift input data. This strategy, which uses traditional Rosetta for pre-filtering of the fragment selection process, is demonstrated for two paramagnetic proteins and also for two proteins with solid-state NMR chemical shift assignments.

Performance evaluation of distributed wavelength assignment in WDM optical networks

Science.gov (United States)

Hashiguchi, Tomohiro; Wang, Xi; Morikawa, Hiroyuki; Aoyama, Tomonori

2004-04-01

In WDM wavelength routed networks, prior to a data transfer, a call setup procedure is required to reserve a wavelength path between the source-destination node pairs. A distributed approach to a connection setup can achieve a very high speed, while improving the reliability and reducing the implementation cost of the networks. However, along with many advantages, several major challenges have been posed by the distributed scheme in how the management and allocation of wavelength could be efficiently carried out. In this thesis, we apply a distributed wavelength assignment algorithm named priority based wavelength assignment (PWA) that was originally proposed for the use in burst switched optical networks to the problem of reserving wavelengths of path reservation protocols in the distributed control optical networks. Instead of assigning wavelengths randomly, this approach lets each node select the "safest" wavelengths based on the information of wavelength utilization history, thus unnecessary future contention is prevented. The simulation results presented in this paper show that the proposed protocol can enhance the performance of the system without introducing any apparent drawbacks.

Scalable Task Assignment for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Teams

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paula García

2013-02-01

Full Text Available This work deals with the development of a dynamic task assignment strategy for heterogeneous multi-robot teams in typical real world scenarios. The strategy must be efficiently scalable to support problems of increasing complexity with minimum designer intervention. To this end, we have selected a very simple auction-based strategy, which has been implemented and analysed in a multi-robot cleaning problem that requires strong coordination and dynamic complex subtask organization. We will show that the selection of a simple auction strategy provides a linear computational cost increase with the number of robots that make up the team and allows the solving of highly complex assignment problems in dynamic conditions by means of a hierarchical sub-auction policy. To coordinate and control the team, a layered behaviour-based architecture has been applied that allows the reusing of the auction-based strategy to achieve different coordination levels.

P-wave assignment of 232Th neutron resonances

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Corvi, F.; Pasquariello, G.; Veen, T. van der

1978-01-01

A method of p-wave assignment which exploits the parity dependence of the primary capture γ-ray spectrum was applied to the 232 Th resonance. The yield of capture γ-rays above 4.4 MeV from a 6 mm thick metallic thorium disk was measured in the neutron energy range 20-2200 eV and compared to a similar run with γ-rays in the range 3.7 - 4.4 MeV. A total of 58 resonances showing an enhancement of the high energy γ-ray yield were assigned as p-waves. Assuming that their reduced neutron widths follow a Porter-Thomas distribution, their average value and then the p-wave strength function S 1 were estimated with a maximum likelihood method. The results are: average neutron width=3.4(+0.8 or -0.6)meV; S 1 = 2.0 (+0.5 or -0.4).10 -4

Measuring protected-area isolation and correlations of isolation with land-use intensity and protection status.

Science.gov (United States)

Seiferling, Ian S; Proulx, Raphaël; Peres-Neto, Pedro R; Fahrig, Lenore; Messier, Christian

2012-08-01

Protected areas cover over 12% of the terrestrial surface of Earth, and yet many fail to protect species and ecological processes as originally envisioned. Results of recent studies suggest that a critical reason for this failure is an increasing contrast between the protected lands and the surrounding matrix of often highly altered land cover. We measured the isolation of 114 protected areas distributed worldwide by comparing vegetation-cover heterogeneity inside protected areas with heterogeneity outside the protected areas. We quantified heterogeneity as the contagion of greenness on the basis of NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) values, for which a higher value of contagion indicates less heterogeneous land cover. We then measured isolation as the difference between mean contagion inside the protected area and mean contagion in 3 buffer areas of increasing distance from the protected-area border. The isolation of protected areas was significantly positive in 110 of the 114 areas, indicating that vegetation cover was consistently more heterogeneous 10-20 km outside protected areas than inside their borders. Unlike previous researchers, we found that protected areas in which low levels of human activity are allowed were more isolated than areas in which high levels are allowed. Our method is a novel way to assess the isolation of protected areas in different environmental contexts and regions. ©2011 Society for Conservation Biology.

Modeling multiple visual words assignment for bag-of-features based medical image retrieval

KAUST Repository

Wang, Jim Jing-Yan

2012-01-01

In this paper, we investigate the bag-of-features based medical image retrieval methods, which represent an image as a collection of local features, such as image patch and key points with SIFT descriptor. To improve the bag-of-features method, we first model the assignment of local descriptor as contribution functions, and then propose a new multiple assignment strategy. By assuming the local feature can be reconstructed by its neighboring visual words in vocabulary, we solve the reconstruction weights as a QP problem and then use the solved weights as contribution functions, which results in a new assignment method called the QP assignment. We carry our experiments on ImageCLEFmed datasets. Experiments\\' results show that our proposed method exceeds the performances of traditional solutions and works well for the bag-of-features based medical image retrieval tasks.

Modeling multiple visual words assignment for bag-of-features based medical image retrieval

KAUST Repository

Wang, Jim Jing-Yan; Almasri, Islam

2012-01-01

In this paper, we investigate the bag-of-features based medical image retrieval methods, which represent an image as a collection of local features, such as image patch and key points with SIFT descriptor. To improve the bag-of-features method, we first model the assignment of local descriptor as contribution functions, and then propose a new multiple assignment strategy. By assuming the local feature can be reconstructed by its neighboring visual words in vocabulary, we solve the reconstruction weights as a QP problem and then use the solved weights as contribution functions, which results in a new assignment method called the QP assignment. We carry our experiments on ImageCLEFmed datasets. Experiments' results show that our proposed method exceeds the performances of traditional solutions and works well for the bag-of-features based medical image retrieval tasks.

Infrared and Raman spectra, DFT-calculations and spectral assignments of germacyclohexane

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aleksa, V., E-mail: valdemaras.aleksa@ff.vu.lt; Ozerenskis, D.; Pucetaite, M.; Sablinskas, V. [Faculty of Physics, Vilnius University, Sauletekio av. 9, block 3, Vilnius, LT-10222 (Lithuania); Cotter, C.; Guirgis, G. A. [Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424 (United States)

2015-03-30

Raman spectra of germacyclohexane in liquid and solid states were recorded and depolarization data obtained. Infrared absorption spectra of the vapor and liquid have been studied. The wavenumbers of the vibrational modes were derived in the harmonic and anharmonic approximation in B3LYP/ccpVTZ calculations. According to the calculations, germacyclohexane exists in the stable chair conformation, whereas a possible twist form should have more than 15 kJ·mol{sup -1} higher enthalpy of formation what makes this conformer experimentally not observable. The 27 A' and 21 A'' fundamentals were assigned on the basis of the calculations and infrared and Raman band intensities, contours of gas phase infrared spectral bands and Raman depolarization measurements. An average discrepancy of ca. 0.77 % was found between the observed and the calculated anharmonic wavenumbers for the 48 modes. Substitution of carbon atom with Ge atom in the cyclohexane ring is reasoning flattening of the ring.

Characterizing Sailor and Command Enlisted Placement and Assignment Preferences

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Butler, Virginia

2002-01-01

.... DON currently matches sailors to billets using a labor-intensive detailing process. With evolving information technology, the assignment process could be accomplished using intelligent agents and web-based markets...

Symmetric Logic Synthesis with Phase Assignment

OpenAIRE

Benschop, N. F.

2001-01-01

Decomposition of any Boolean Function BF_n of n binary inputs into an optimal inverter coupled network of Symmetric Boolean functions SF_k (k \\leq n) is described. Each SF component is implemented by Threshold Logic Cells, forming a complete and compact T-Cell Library. Optimal phase assignment of input polarities maximizes local symmetries. The "rank spectrum" is a new BF_n description independent of input ordering, obtained by mapping its minterms onto an othogonal n \\times n grid of (transi...

Stereospecific assignment of the asparagine and glutamine sidechain amide protons in proteins from chemical shift analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Harsch, Tobias; Schneider, Philipp; Kieninger, Bärbel; Donaubauer, Harald; Kalbitzer, Hans Robert, E-mail: hans-robert.kalbitzer@biologie.uni-regensburg.de [University of Regensburg, Institute of Biophysics and Physical Biochemistry and Centre of Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry and Biomedicine (Germany)

2017-02-15

Side chain amide protons of asparagine and glutamine residues in random-coil peptides are characterized by large chemical shift differences and can be stereospecifically assigned on the basis of their chemical shift values only. The bimodal chemical shift distributions stored in the biological magnetic resonance data bank (BMRB) do not allow such an assignment. However, an analysis of the BMRB shows, that a substantial part of all stored stereospecific assignments is not correct. We show here that in most cases stereospecific assignment can also be done for folded proteins using an unbiased artificial chemical shift data base (UACSB). For a separation of the chemical shifts of the two amide resonance lines with differences ≥0.40 ppm for asparagine and differences ≥0.42 ppm for glutamine, the downfield shifted resonance lines can be assigned to H{sup δ21} and H{sup ε21}, respectively, at a confidence level >95%. A classifier derived from UASCB can also be used to correct the BMRB data. The program tool AssignmentChecker implemented in AUREMOL calculates the Bayesian probability for a given stereospecific assignment and automatically corrects the assignments for a given list of chemical shifts.

An Ultimatum Game Approach to Billet Assignments

Science.gov (United States)

2015-09-01

time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed , and completing and reviewing this...treatments are needed for this investigation. To conserve the subject pool and meet the budget, we elected to pursue treatments that covered salient...across billets can be partially offset through compensating wages ( hedonic wages) and/or the potential of future superior assignments. In the

Mining Staff Assignment Rules from Event-Based Data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ly, Linh Thao; Rinderle, Stefanie; Dadam, Peter; Reichert, Manfred; Bussler, Christoph J.; Haller, Armin

2006-01-01

Process mining offers methods and techniques for capturing process behaviour from log data of past process executions. Although many promising approaches on mining the control flow have been published, no attempt has been made to mine the staff assignment situation of business processes. In this

Design of an adaptive pole assignment controller for steam generators and its experimental study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Na, Man Gyun; No, Hee Cheon

1992-01-01

An adaptive observer is designed that both parameters and state variables of the steam generator are estimated simultaneously. A pole assignment controller is derived on the basis of the adaptive observer. The characteristics of the overall closed-loop control system can be expressed in terms of its poles, assigned poles. The troublesome tuning procedure of the P-I controller is reduced to the determination of the desired poles only. The proposed algorithm is compared with the conventional P-I controller through numerical simulation. Also, the adaptive pole assignment controller is studied experimentally by implementing it to the mock-up of the nuclear steam generator. The adaptive pole assignment controller shows better responses than the P-l controller does. (Author)

The use of writing assignments to help students synthesize content in upper-level undergraduate biology courses.

Science.gov (United States)

Sparks-Thissen, Rebecca L

2017-02-01

Biology education is undergoing a transformation toward a more student-centered, inquiry-driven classroom. Many educators have designed engaging assignments that are designed to help undergraduate students gain exposure to the scientific process and data analysis. One of these types of assignments is use of a grant proposal assignment. Many instructors have used these assignments in lecture-based courses to help students process information in the literature and apply that information to a novel problem such as design of an antiviral drug or a vaccine. These assignments have been helpful in engaging students in the scientific process in the absence of an inquiry-driven laboratory. This commentary discusses the application of these grant proposal writing assignments to undergraduate biology courses. © FEMS 2017. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Effects of pictures and textual arguments in sun protection public service announcements.

Science.gov (United States)

Boer, Henk; Ter Huurne, Ellen; Taal, Erik

2006-01-01

The effect of public service announcements aimed at promoting primary prevention of skin cancer may be limited by superficial cognitive processing. The use of both pictures and textual arguments in sun protection public service announcements were evaluated for their potentially beneficial effects on judgment, cognitive processing and persuasiveness. In a 2 x 2 factorial experimental design individuals were shown public service announcements that advocated the advantages of sun protection measures in different versions in which a picture was present or not present and a textual argument was present or not present. The 159 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. In each condition, participants were shown 12 different public service announcements designed according to the condition. Participants judged each public service announcement on attractiveness, credibility, clarity of communication and the required amount of reflection. After the judgment task, they completed a questionnaire to assess knowledge, perceived advantages and disadvantages of sun protection and intended use of sun protection measures. Pictures enhanced attractiveness, but diminished comprehension. Textual arguments enhanced attractiveness, credibility and comprehension. Pictures as well as textual arguments increased knowledge of sun protection measures. Pictures and textual arguments in public service announcements positively influence the individual's perception of the advantages of sun protection methods and the advantages of their adoption.

[Rapid assessment of critical quality attributes of Chinese materia medica (II): strategy of NIR assignment].

Science.gov (United States)

Pei, Yan-Ling; Wu, Zhi-Sheng; Shi, Xin-Yuan; Zhou, Lu-Wei; Qiao, Yan-Jiang

2014-09-01

The present paper firstly reviewed the research progress and main methods of NIR spectral assignment coupled with our research results. Principal component analysis was focused on characteristic signal extraction to reflect spectral differences. Partial least squares method was concerned with variable selection to discover characteristic absorption band. Two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy was mainly adopted for spectral assignment. Autocorrelation peaks were obtained from spectral changes, which were disturbed by external factors, such as concentration, temperature and pressure. Density functional theory was used to calculate energy from substance structure to establish the relationship between molecular energy and spectra change. Based on the above reviewed method, taking a NIR spectral assignment of chlorogenic acid as example, a reliable spectral assignment for critical quality attributes of Chinese materia medica (CMM) was established using deuterium technology and spectral variable selection. The result demonstrated the assignment consistency according to spectral features of different concentrations of chlorogenic acid and variable selection region of online NIR model in extract process. Although spectral assignment was initial using an active pharmaceutical ingredient, it is meaningful to look forward to the futurity of the complex components in CMM. Therefore, it provided methodology for NIR spectral assignment of critical quality attributes in CMM.

A branch-and-cut algorithm for the Time Window Assignment Vehicle Routing Problem

NARCIS (Netherlands)

K. Dalmeijer (Kevin); R. Spliet (Remy)

2016-01-01

textabstractThis paper presents a branch-and-cut algorithm for the Time Window Assignment Vehicle Routing Problem (TWAVRP), the problem of assigning time windows for delivery before demand volume becomes known. A novel set of valid inequalities, the precedence inequalities, is introduced and

Protection from space radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tripathi, R.K.; Wilson, J.W.; Shinn, J.L.

2000-01-01

The exposures anticipated for astronauts in the anticipated human exploration and development of space will be significantly higher (both annual and carrier) than for any other occupational group. In addition, the exposures in deep space result largely from galactic cosmic rays for which there is as yet little experience. Some evidence exists indicating that conventional linear energy transfer defined protection quantities (quality factors) may not be appropriate. The authors evaluate their current understanding of radiation protection with laboratory and flight experimental data and discuss recent improvements in interaction models and transport methods

33 CFR 5.33 - Training, examination, and assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 33 Navigation and Navigable Waters 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Training, examination, and... GENERAL COAST GUARD AUXILIARY § 5.33 Training, examination, and assignment. The Commandant will prescribe the type of training, qualifications and examinations required before a member of the Auxiliary shall...

Parental knowledge of child development and the assignment of tractor work to children.

Science.gov (United States)

Pickett, William; Marlenga, Barbara; Berg, Richard L

2003-07-01

Many childhood farm tractor injuries occur during the performance of work that was assigned by parents, and some tractor work is beyond the developmental capabilities of children. This has been highlighted recently by a policy statement authored by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The objective of this study was 1) to assess child development knowledge of farm parents who received a new resource, the North American Guidelines for Children's Agricultural Tasks (NAGCAT), and 2) to determine whether this knowledge was associated with use of NAGCAT in the assignment of tractor jobs and with compliance with 2 aspects of the NAGCAT tractor guideline. Secondary analysis of data collected during a randomized controlled trial that involved 450 farms in the United States and Canada was conducted. Variables assessed included 1) parental knowledge of child development across several age groups and 3 domains of child development (physical, cognitive, and psychosocial), 2) documentation of the most common tractor jobs assigned to each child, and 3) a report of whether NAGCAT was used in assigning these tractor jobs. High parental knowledge of child development was associated with enhanced use of NAGCAT and fewer violations when assigning tractor work to children. However, even in the presence of high knowledge, some farm parents still assigned to their children work that was in violation of NAGCAT. Educational interventions by themselves are not sufficient to remove many farm children from known occupational hazards. These findings are discussed in light of the recent policy statement on agricultural injuries from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Contextual effects on perceived contrast: figure-ground assignment and orientation contrast.

Science.gov (United States)

Self, Matthew W; Mookhoek, Aart; Tjalma, Nienke; Roelfsema, Pieter R

2015-02-02

Figure-ground segregation is an important step in the path leading to object recognition. The visual system segregates objects ('figures') in the visual scene from their backgrounds ('ground'). Electrophysiological studies in awake-behaving monkeys have demonstrated that neurons in early visual areas increase their firing rate when responding to a figure compared to responding to the background. We hypothesized that similar changes in neural firing would take place in early visual areas of the human visual system, leading to changes in the perception of low-level visual features. In this study, we investigated whether contrast perception is affected by figure-ground assignment using stimuli similar to those in the electrophysiological studies in monkeys. We measured contrast discrimination thresholds and perceived contrast for Gabor probes placed on figures or the background and found that the perceived contrast of the probe was increased when it was placed on a figure. Furthermore, we tested how this effect compared with the well-known effect of orientation contrast on perceived contrast. We found that figure-ground assignment and orientation contrast produced changes in perceived contrast of a similar magnitude, and that they interacted. Our results demonstrate that figure-ground assignment influences perceived contrast, consistent with an effect of figure-ground assignment on activity in early visual areas of the human visual system. © 2015 ARVO.

Protein secondary structure: category assignment and predictability

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Claus A.; Bohr, Henrik; Brunak, Søren

2001-01-01

In the last decade, the prediction of protein secondary structure has been optimized using essentially one and the same assignment scheme known as DSSP. We present here a different scheme, which is more predictable. This scheme predicts directly the hydrogen bonds, which stabilize the secondary......-forward neural network with one hidden layer on a data set identical to the one used in earlier work....

Walls of straw – the cyber risks to higher education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Phillip Wood

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Globally, in every facet of life, advances in communications technology and our reliance on computers and the internet allow us to live and work more efficiently than ever before. Higher education relies on the development of knowledge and the need to conduct and communicate research activity. Universities are often bound in research activity to business, government and other organizations whose interests need to be protected and managed. But is there a disparity in approach? Is research activity, security and the protection of privileged, proprietary and classified information appropriately implemented and managed in higher education? In this article the author questions: are there gaps open to cyberattack?

Novel elastic protection against DDF failures in an enhanced software-defined SIEPON

Science.gov (United States)

Pakpahan, Andrew Fernando; Hwang, I.-Shyan; Yu, Yu-Ming; Hsu, Wu-Hsiao; Liem, Andrew Tanny; Nikoukar, AliAkbar

2017-07-01

Ever-increasing bandwidth demands on passive optical networks (PONs) are pushing the utilization of every fiber strand to its limit. This is mandating comprehensive protection until the end of the distribution drop fiber (DDF). Hence, it is important to provide refined protection with an advanced fault-protection architecture and recovery mechanism that is able to cope with various DDF failures. We propose a novel elastic protection against DDF failures that incorporates a software-defined networking (SDN) capability and a bus protection line to enhance the resiliency of the existing Service Interoperability in Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (SIEPON) system. We propose the addition of an integrated SDN controller and flow tables to the optical line terminal and optical network units (ONUs) in order to deliver various DDF protection scenarios. The proposed architecture enables flexible assignment of backup ONU(s) in pre/post-fault conditions depending on the PON traffic load. A transient backup ONU and multiple backup ONUs can be deployed in the pre-fault and post-fault scenarios, respectively. Our extensively discussed simulation results show that our proposed architecture provides better overall throughput and drop probability compared to the architecture with a fixed DDF protection mechanism. It does so while still maintaining overall QoS performance in terms of packet delay, mean jitter, packet loss, and throughput under various fault conditions.

Development of a training programme for radiation protection officers in industrial irradiators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mumuni, I. I.

2014-01-01

The International Basic Safety Standards (BSS) for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Sources establish the basic requirements for protection against the risks associated with exposure to ionizing radiation and for the safety of radiation sources that may deliver such exposure. One important aspect of the Safety Standard is education and training of all personnel involved in the activities of radiation and radioactive sources. According to the BSS a Radiation Protection Officer is an individual technically competent in radiation protection matters relevant for a given type of practice who is designated by the registrant or licensee to oversee the application of the requirements of the standards. By this assigned role, radiation protection officers for industrial irradiators should be adequately trained since these facilities involve very high dose rates during irradiation, such that a person accidentally exposed can receive a lethal dose within minutes or seconds and fatalities can occur. This training among others things will enable the radiation protection officers to understand practical application of the IAEA Safety Standard to industrial irradiator facilities, understand the requirements for safety assessments and emergency plans, be able to develop a radiation protection programme for irradiators, be familiar with the different types of industrial irradiators and their applications and understand the safety philosophy and design requirements for industrial irradiators. (author)

Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College Entrance Exams and College Attendance: Random Assignment in Seoul High Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Hyunjoon; Behrman, Jere R.; Choi, Jaesung

2012-01-01

Despite the voluminous literature on the potentials of single-sex schools, there is no consensus on the effects of single-sex schools because of student selection of school types. We exploit a unique feature of schooling in Seoul—the random assignment of students into single-sex versus coeducational high schools—to assess causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exam scores and college attendance. Our validation of the random assignment shows comparable socioeconomic backgrounds and prior academic achievement of students attending single-sex schools and coeducational schools, which increases the credibility of our causal estimates of single-sex school effects. The three-level hierarchical model shows that attending all-boys schools or all-girls schools, rather than coeducational schools, is significantly associated with higher average scores on Korean and English test scores. Applying the school district fixed-effects models, we find that single-sex schools produce a higher percentage of graduates who attended four-year colleges and a lower percentage of graduates who attended two-year junior colleges than do coeducational schools. The positive effects of single-sex schools remain substantial, even after we take into account various school-level variables, such as teacher quality, the student-teacher ratio, the proportion of students receiving lunch support, and whether the schools are public or private. PMID:23073751

Causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exams and college attendance: random assignment in Seoul high schools.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Hyunjoon; Behrman, Jere R; Choi, Jaesung

2013-04-01

Despite the voluminous literature on the potentials of single-sex schools, there is no consensus on the effects of single-sex schools because of student selection of school types. We exploit a unique feature of schooling in Seoul-the random assignment of students into single-sex versus coeducational high schools-to assess causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exam scores and college attendance. Our validation of the random assignment shows comparable socioeconomic backgrounds and prior academic achievement of students attending single-sex schools and coeducational schools, which increases the credibility of our causal estimates of single-sex school effects. The three-level hierarchical model shows that attending all-boys schools or all-girls schools, rather than coeducational schools, is significantly associated with higher average scores on Korean and English test scores. Applying the school district fixed-effects models, we find that single-sex schools produce a higher percentage of graduates who attended four-year colleges and a lower percentage of graduates who attended two-year junior colleges than do coeducational schools. The positive effects of single-sex schools remain substantial, even after we take into account various school-level variables, such as teacher quality, the student-teacher ratio, the proportion of students receiving lunch support, and whether the schools are public or private.

A Qualitative Analysis of the Turkish Gendarmerie Assignment Process

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Soylemez, Kadir

2005-01-01

...; this number increases to 43 million (65% of the population) in the summer months. This study is an organizational analysis of the current assignment process of the Turkish General Command of the Gendarmerie...

Implementation of an agile maintenance mechanic assignment methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Jimenez, Jesus A.; Quintana, Rolando

2000-10-01

The objective of this research was to develop a decision support system (DSS) to study the impact of introducing new equipment into a medical apparel plant from a maintenance organizational structure perspective. This system will enable the company to determine if their capacity is sufficient to meet current maintenance challenges. The DSS contains two database sets that describe equipment and maintenance resource profiles. The equipment profile specifies data such as mean time to failures, mean time to repairs, and minimum mechanic skill level required to fix each machine group. Similarly, maintenance-resource profile reports information about the mechanic staff, such as number and type of certifications received, education level, and experience. The DSS will then use this information to minimize machine downtime by assigning the highest skilled mechanics to machines with higher complexity and product value. A modified version of the simplex method, the transportation problem, was used to perform the optimization. The DSS was built using the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language contained in the Microsoft Excel environment. A case study was developed from current existing data. The analysis consisted of forty-two machine groups and six mechanic categories with ten skill levels. Results showed that only 56% of the mechanic workforce was utilized. Thus, the company had available resources for meeting future maintenance requirements.

7 CFR 1425.24 - OMB control number assigned pursuant to Paperwork Reduction Act.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

...) COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE LOANS, PURCHASES, AND OTHER OPERATIONS COOPERATIVE MARKETING ASSOCIATIONS § 1425.24 OMB control number assigned pursuant to Paperwork Reduction Act. The... Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the provisions of 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35 and have been assigned...

28 CFR 0.196 - Procedures for resolving disagreements concerning mail or case assignments.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... concerning mail or case assignments. 0.196 Section 0.196 Judicial Administration DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ORGANIZATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Jurisdictional Disagreements § 0.196 Procedures for resolving... assigned, the disagreement, together with a statement of the view of the unit or units involved, shall be...

Joint Channel Assignment and Routing in Multiradio Multichannel Wireless Mesh Networks: Design Considerations and Approaches

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Omar M. Zakaria

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Multiradio wireless mesh network is a promising architecture that improves the network capacity by exploiting multiple radio channels concurrently. Channel assignment and routing are underlying challenges in multiradio architectures since both determine the traffic distribution over links and channels. The interdependency between channel assignments and routing promotes toward the joint solutions for efficient configurations. This paper presents an in-depth review of the joint approaches of channel assignment and routing in multiradio wireless mesh networks. First, the key design issues, modeling, and approaches are identified and discussed. Second, existing algorithms for joint channel assignment and routing are presented and classified based on the channel assignment types. Furthermore, the set of reconfiguration algorithms to adapt the network traffic dynamics is also discussed. Finally, the paper presents some multiradio practical implementations and test-beds and points out the future research directions.

Sun protection training based on a theater play for preschoolers: an effective method for imparting knowledge on sun protection?

Science.gov (United States)

Seidel, Nadja; Stoelzel, Friederike; Garzarolli, Marlene; Herrmann, Sandra; Breitbart, Eckhard Wilhelm; Berth, Hendrik; Baumann, Michael; Ehninger, Gerhard

2013-09-01

Sun protection in childhood is important to reduce the risk of developing skin cancer later in life. The "Periods-of-Life-Program" for primary prevention of skin cancer introduces a combination of individual and environmental interventions for the preschool period. Within this pilot study, an intervention group received cognitive-behavioral and environmental interventions. A control group had solely received the environmental intervention, and a wait-control group received no intervention. Nursery school children (n = 80, 3 to 6 years of age) of four nursery schools were randomly assigned to these groups on school level. The ability of the cognitive-behavioral intervention (a theater play) to enhance sun protection knowledge was examined. The theater play improved knowledge over all age groups (p < .05 η(2) = .06). Age-specific analyses showed better results for children aged 5 to 6 (p < .05 η(2) = .20) compared to children aged 3 to 4 years (p = .17 η(2) = .04). In combining cognitive-behavioral and environmental interventions, the "Periods-of-Life-Program" is a promising strategy for primary prevention of skin cancer.

Prediction and Assignment of Function for a Divergent N-succinyl Amino Acid Racemase

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Song,L.; Kalyanaraman, C.; Fedorov, A.; Fedorov, E.; Glasner, M.; Brown, S.; Imker, H.; Babbitt, P.; Almo, S.; et al.

2007-01-01

The protein databases contain many proteins with unknown function. A computational approach for predicting ligand specificity that requires only the sequence of the unknown protein would be valuable for directing experiment-based assignment of function. We focused on a family of unknown proteins in the mechanistically diverse enolase superfamily and used two approaches to assign function: (i) enzymatic assays using libraries of potential substrates, and (ii) in silico docking of the same libraries using a homology model based on the most similar (35% sequence identity) characterized protein. The results matched closely; an experimentally determined structure confirmed the predicted structure of the substrate-liganded complex. We assigned the N-succinyl arginine/lysine racemase function to the family, correcting the annotation (L-Ala-D/L-Glu epimerase) based on the function of the most similar characterized homolog. These studies establish that ligand docking to a homology model can facilitate functional assignment of unknown proteins by restricting the identities of the possible substrates that must be experimentally tested.

A Multi-Objective Decision Support Model for the Turkish Armed Forces Personnel Assignment System

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Cimen, Zubeyir

2001-01-01

.... TAF wants to obtain maximum utilization of its personnel by assigning the right person to the right job at the right time, To accomplish this task, decision-makers and personnel assignment staff...

75 FR 77535 - Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Steller Sea Lion Protection Measures for the...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-12-13

... (Steller sea lion sites). A lottery system assigned vessels to platoons that were allowed to fish inside.... 101006495-0498-01] RIN 0648-BA31 Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Steller Sea Lion... sea lion protection measures to insure that the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area (BSAI...

ENEA's role in environmental protection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-05-01

The 1990-1994 Five-Year Plan of ENEA (the Italian Agency for New Technology, Energy and the Environment) stipulates that the Agency must reconcile its objectives related to energy with those related to the environment by aiming at a more efficient and rational exploitation of energy sources. This necessity has been reiterated in Italian Law 282/91 which assigns ENEA the task of providing technical and scientific support to the Ministry of the Environment. The aims, work schedule and financing of this task have been laid down in an environmental protection program whose main goals include: the protection and use rationalization of water supplies; the development of waste processing and disposal systems which incorporate energy and materials recovery systems; and the setting up of environmental monitoring networks. Within the framework of these activities, this paper reports on the management and organization aspects of five integrated projects which involve research efforts on: the reduction of the environmental impact of industrial activities; the characterization, status and dynamics of the environment; the interrelationships between environmental quality and the health of human populations; the effects of agricultural-industrial activities on global climate; the effects of human activities on the environmental quality of the Mediterranean Sea

New assignment of 14N NQR spectral lines for tetrazoles derivatives

Science.gov (United States)

Mamadazizov, Sultonazar; Shelyapina, Marina G.; Kupriyanova, Galina S.; Mozzhukhin, George V.

2018-04-01

In recent years, considerable interest has been shown in the study of tetrazole derivatives, which attract attention as highly nitrogenous compounds for use as an isosteric substitutes for various functional groups that leads to creation of novel biologically active substances. NQR techniques, being sensitive to the local environment of 14N nuclei, provide great opportunities to study these new substances. To make investigation of complex compounds containing tetrazoles derivatives easier and more reliable a correctly assigned 14N NQR spectra of tetrazoles are required. Here we report on the results of our DFT B3LYP calculations of 14N NQR spectral parameters (quadrupole coupling constant Qcc and the asymmetry parameter of the electric field gradient η) for tetrazole, 5-aminotetrazole and 5-aminotetrazole monohydrate. It has been found that the commonly accepted assignment of the 14N NQR spectral lines for these molecules is incorrect. A new assignment for these molecules is proposed.

Application of Neutrosophic Set Theory in Generalized Assignment Problem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Supriya Kar

2015-09-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the application of Neutrosophic Set Theory (NST in solving Generalized Assignment Problem (GAP. GAP has been solved earlier under fuzzy environment. NST is a generalization of the concept of classical set, fuzzy set, interval-valued fuzzy set, intuitionistic fuzzy set. Elements of Neutrosophic set are characterized by a truth-membership function, falsity and also indeterminacy which is a more realistic way of expressing the parameters in real life problem. Here the elements of the cost matrix for the GAP are considered as neutrosophic elements which have not been considered earlier by any other author. The problem has been solved by evaluating score function matrix and then solving it by Extremum Difference Method (EDM [1] to get the optimal assignment. The method has been demonstrated by a suitable numerical example.

Using interviews to understand the assignment mechanism in a nonexperimental study: the case of eighth grade algebra.

Science.gov (United States)

Rickles, Jordan H

2011-10-01

Many inquiries regarding the causal effects of policies or programs are based on research designs where the treatment assignment process is unknown, and thus valid inferences depend on tenuous assumptions about the assignment mechanism. This article draws attention to the importance of understanding the assignment mechanism in policy and program evaluation studies, and illustrates how information collected through interviews can develop a richer understanding of the assignment mechanism. Focusing on the issue of student assignment to algebra in 8th grade, I show how a preliminary data collection effort aimed at understanding the assignment mechanism is particularly beneficial in multisite observational studies in education. The findings, based on ten interviews and administrative data from a large school district, draw attention to the often ignored heterogeneity in the assignment mechanism across schools. These findings likely extend beyond the current research project in question to related educational policy issues such as ability grouping, tracking, differential course taking, and curricular intensity, as well as other social programs in which the assignment mechanism can differ across sites.

Correlates of Sun Protection and Sunburn in Children of Melanoma Survivors.

Science.gov (United States)

Tripp, Mary K; Peterson, Susan K; Prokhorov, Alexander V; Shete, Sanjay S; Lee, Jeffrey E; Gershenwald, Jeffrey E; Gritz, Ellen R

2016-09-01

Sunburns during childhood increase melanoma risk. Children of melanoma survivors are at higher risk, but little is known about their sunburn and sun protection. One study showed that almost half of melanoma survivors' children experienced sunburn in the past year. This study evaluated sunburn and sun protection in melanoma survivors' children, and relevant survivor characteristics from Social Cognitive Theory and the Health Belief Model. Melanoma survivors (N=340) were recruited from a comprehensive cancer center. Survivors completed a baseline questionnaire administered by telephone to report on the behavior of their children (N=340) as part of an RCT of a sun protection intervention. Data were collected in 2008 and analyzed in 2015. In the prior 6 months, 28% of children experienced sunburn. "Always" or "frequent" sun protection varied by behavior: sunscreen, 69%; lip balm, 15%; wide-brimmed hats, 9%; sleeved shirts, 28%; pants, 48%; sunglasses, 10%; shade, 33%; and limiting time outdoors, 45%. Survivors' sunburn and sun protection were positively associated with these outcomes in children. Correlates of sunburn also included older child age and higher risk perceptions. Correlates of sun protection behaviors included younger child age; stronger intentions, higher self-efficacy, and more positive outcome expectations about sun protection; and greater number of melanomas in survivors. Melanoma survivors may have a heightened awareness of the importance of their children's sun protection, but their children are not routinely protected. Correlates of children's sunburn and sun protection suggest subgroups of survivors to target with interventions to improve sun protection. Copyright © 2016 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated Negotiation for Resource Assignment in Wireless Surveillance Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Enrique de la Hoz

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Due to the low cost of CMOS IP-based cameras, wireless surveillance sensor networks have emerged as a new application of sensor networks able to monitor public or private areas or even country borders. Since these networks are bandwidth intensive and the radioelectric spectrum is limited, especially in unlicensed bands, it is mandatory to assign frequency channels in a smart manner. In this work, we propose the application of automated negotiation techniques for frequency assignment. Results show that these techniques are very suitable for the problem, being able to obtain the best solutions among the techniques with which we have compared them.

Evoked Feelings, Assigned Meanings and Constructed Knowledge Based on Mistakes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luciane Guimarães Batistella Bianchini

2017-09-01

Full Text Available By means of Piaget's critical clinical method, the study investigated the meanings assigned to mistakes by four students in different activities and interactive situations. The research also analyzed the results of using self-regulatory situations in understanding mistakes initially committed by the students. Data collection instruments consisted of games, video recordings, diaries and interviews. Following intervention, the students were able to recognize their competence, establish positive interactions within the group, and avoid viewing mistakes as obstacles to learning. We concluded that the meanings assigned to mistakes depend on certain variables, among them feelings nurtured by the individuals about themselves, the other, and the object of knowledge.

29 CFR 785.37 - Home to work on special one-day assignment in another city.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 29 Labor 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Home to work on special one-day assignment in another city... WORKED Application of Principles Traveltime § 785.37 Home to work on special one-day assignment in..., DC, with regular working hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. may be given a special assignment in New York...

An efficient hybrid protection scheme with shared/dedicated backup paths on elastic optical networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nogbou G. Anoh

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Fast recovery and minimum utilization of resources are the two main criteria for determining the protection scheme quality. We address the problem of providing a hybrid protection approach on elastic optical networks under contiguity and continuity of available spectrum constraints. Two main hypotheses are used in this paper for backup paths computation. In the first case, it is assumed that backup paths resources are dedicated. In the second case, the assumption is that backup paths resources are available shared resources. The objective of the study is to minimize spectrum utilization to reduce blocking probability on a network. For this purpose, an efficient survivable Hybrid Protection Lightpath (HybPL algorithm is proposed for providing shared or dedicated backup path protection based on the efficient energy calculation and resource availability. Traditional First-Fit and Best-Fit schemes are employed to search and assign the available spectrum resources. The simulation results show that HybPL presents better performance in terms of blocking probability, compared with the Minimum Resources Utilization Dedicated Protection (MRU-DP algorithm which offers better performance than the Dedicated Protection (DP algorithm.

On the extreme points of the core of neighbour games and assignment games

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hamers, H.J.M.; Klijn, F.; Solymosi, T.; Tijs, S.H.; Pere Villar, J.

1999-01-01

Neighbour games arise from certain matching or sequencing situations in which only some specific pairs of players can obtain a positive gain. As a consequence, neighbour games are as well assignment games as line graph restricted games. We will show that the intersection of the class of assignment

Strategies to Support PGCE Mathematics and Science Students Preparing for Assignments at Masters Level

OpenAIRE

Tas, Maarten; Forsythe, Sue

2010-01-01

The main aim of this study was to analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of support strategies being put into place for students who need to write assignments at Masters Level. In preparation for writing a 5000 word assignment on an aspect of teaching Mathematics or Science, 57 Science and Mathematics PGCE students were asked to write a 500 word synopsis which included an introduction, description of the main focus, questions that the assignment would address and possible strategies for teach...

Calibration of a joint time assignment and mode choice model system

OpenAIRE

Greeven, Paulina; Jara-Diaz, Sergio R.; Munizaga, Marcela A.; Axhausen, Kay W.

2005-01-01

In this paper we report the results of applying a new microeconomic framework to model time assignment to activities, goods consumption and mode choice jointly (Jara-Díaz and Guevara, 2003; Jara-Díaz and Guerra, 2003) that identifies the links between these decisions and permits the calculation of all the components of the subjective value of time defined in the literature: the value of time as a resource, value of assigning time to a specific activity and the value of saving time in a specif...

Assignment about providing of substitute haptic interface for visually disabled persons

OpenAIRE

浅川, 貴史

2013-01-01

[Abstract] This paper is described about an assignment of haptic interface. We have made a proposal for a music baton system for visually disabled persons. The system is constituted by an acceleration sensor, a radio module, and a haptic interface device. We have carried out an experiment of comparing the visual and the haptic interface. The assignments are declared by the results that are rise-time of a motor and pre-motion. In the paper, we make a proposal for new method of the voltage cont...

Milk yield, feed efficiency and metabolic profiles in Jersey and Holstein cows assigned to different fat supplementation strategies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Alstrup, Lene; Nielsen, M.O.; Lund, Peter

2015-01-01

, compared to their lowest recorded weight after calving. Subsequently, the cows were randomly assigned to one of the four treatments until the end of lactation. There was no effect of feeding strategy on DM intake during week 9–40 of lactation. Fat supplemented rations (WCR; RPF) increased yield of milk...... energy efficiency in Jersey cows but increased energy efficiency in Holstein cows. Because fat supplementation reduced dietary protein concentration and increased milk production, protein intake was lower and N efficiency was higher on WCR and RPF than on CON. Metabolite concentrations in jugular vein...

Experimental and theoretical studies on radiation protective effect of a lighter non-lead protective apron

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takano, Yoshihisa; Ono, Koji; Okazaki, Keiichiro

2005-01-01

Non-lead aprons using composite materials are often used for radiation protective aprons instead of heavy lead aprons. However, the protective effect of the lighter, non-lead aprons has not been well evaluated, and it is not yet clear how they compare with lead aprons. Therefore, we investigated the protective performance of non-lead aprons theoretically and experimentally by comparing them with lead aprons under clinical conditions. We measured the energy spectra for direct and scattered-rays passing through protective aprons or not, and measured doses with glass dosimeters for validation of theoretical calculations based on the energy spectra. We found that the protective effect of non-lead aprons was higher than that of lead aprons at X-ray of tube voltages of 70-100 kV, which are often used for radiography and fluorography. This demonstrated that the non-lead aprons are more useful in many situations than heavy lead aprons. (author)

Study on store-space assignment based on logistic AGV in e-commerce goods to person picking pattern

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Lijuan; Zhu, Jie

2017-10-01

This paper studied on the store-space assignment based on logistic AGV in E-commerce goods to person picking pattern, and established the store-space assignment model based on the lowest picking cost, and design for store-space assignment algorithm after the cluster analysis based on similarity coefficient. And then through the example analysis, compared the picking cost between store-space assignment algorithm this paper design and according to item number and storage according to ABC classification allocation, and verified the effectiveness of the design of the store-space assignment algorithm.

Otolith growth of Springer's demoiselle, Chrysiptera springeri (Pomacentridae, Allen & Lubbock), on a protected and non-protected coral reef

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Retzel, A.; Hansen, A.D.; Grønkjær, P.

2007-01-01

The structural complexity of coral reefs is important for their function as shelter and feeding habitats for coral reef fishes, but physical disturbance by human activities often reduce complexity of the reefs by selectively destroying fragile and more complex coral species. The damselfish Springer......'s demoiselle Chrysiptera springeri primarily utilize complex coral heads for shelter and are hence vulnerable to human disturbance. In order to evaluate the potential effect of habitat degradation on juvenile fish growth, coral reef cover, fish age at settling and otolith growth, juvenile Springer's demoiselle...... was investigated on a protected and non-protected coral reef in Darvel Bay, Borneo. The protected reef had higher coverage of complex branching corals and exhibited a more complex 3-dimensional structure than the non-protected reef. Springer's demoiselle settled at the same age on non-protected and protected reefs...

Threat evaluation and weapon assignment decision support: A ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... stands within the context of a ground based air defence system (GBADS) at the turn of the twenty first century. However, much of the contents of the paper maye generalized to military environments other than a GBADS one. Keywords: Threat evaluation, weapon assignment, decision support. ORiON Vol. 23 (2) 2007: pp.

Optimal resource assignment in workflows for maximizing cooperation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kumar, Akhil; Dijkman, R.M.; Song, Minseok; Daniel, Fl.; Wang, J.; Weber, B.

2013-01-01

A workflow is a team process since many actors work on various tasks to complete an instance. Resource management in such workflows deals with assignment of tasks to workers or actors. In team formation, it is necessary to ensure that members of a team are compatible with each other. When a workflow

Optimal Weight Assignment for a Chinese Signature File.

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Tyne; And Others

1996-01-01

Investigates the performance of a character-based Chinese text retrieval scheme in which monogram keys and bigram keys are encoded into document signatures. Tests and verifies the theoretical predictions of the optimal weight assignments and the minimal false hit rate in experiments using a real Chinese corpus for disyllabic queries of different…

Development of a computer code system for selecting off-site protective action in radiological accidents based on the multiobjective optimization method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ishigami, Tsutomu; Oyama, Kazuo

1989-09-01

This report presents a new method to support selection of off-site protective action in nuclear reactor accidents, and provides a user's manual of a computer code system, PRASMA, developed using the method. The PRASMA code system gives several candidates of protective action zones of evacuation, sheltering and no action based on the multiobjective optimization method, which requires objective functions and decision variables. We have assigned population risks of fatality, injury and cost as the objective functions, and distance from a nuclear power plant characterizing the above three protective action zones as the decision variables. (author)

Sampling alien species inside and outside protected areas: Does it matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Moustakas, Aristides; Voutsela, Anneta; Katsanevakis, Stelios

2018-06-01

Data of alien species presences are generally more readily available in protected than non-protected areas due to higher sampling efforts inside protected areas. Are the results and conclusions based on analyses of data collected in protected areas representative of wider non-protected regions? We address this question by analysing some recently published data of alien plants in Greece. Mixed effects models were used with alien species presences in 8.25 x 8.25 km cells as dependent variable and the percentage of protected area, as well as the agricultural and artificial land cover types richness (as indicators of human presence) as independent variables. In addition, the spatial cross-correlation between the percentage of protected area and alien species richness was examined across scales. Results indicated that the percentage of protected area per cell is a poor predictor of alien species richness. Spatial analysis indicated that cells with higher percentage of protected areas have slightly less alien species than cells with lower percentage of protected areas. This result is likely to be driven by the overall negative correlation between habitat protection and anthropogenic activities. Thus, the conclusions deduced by data deriving from protected areas are likely to hold true for patterns of alien species in non-protected areas when the human pressures are accounted for.

United States Department of Energy Field Office, Richland, Environmental Protection Implementation Plan, November 9, 1990--November 9, 1991

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Paasch, R.A.

1991-09-01

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Order 5400.1 (DOE 1988a), General Environmental Protection Program, establishes environmental protection program requirements, authorities, and responsibilities to ensure that DOE operations are in compliance with applicable federal, state and local environmental protection laws and regulations, executive orders, and internal department policies. Chapter 3 of DOE Order 5400.1 requires that each field organization prepare a plan for implementing the requirements of this order and update this plan annually. Therefore, this update to the US Department of Energy -- Richland Operations Office Environmental Protection Implementation Plan for the Hanford Site, Richland, Washington, initially prepared November 9, 1989, is being issued. Responsibility for coordinating preparation of the annual update of this plan is assigned to the US Department of Energy Field Office, Richland, Safety and Environment Division's Environmental Oversight Branch

Patients’ Data Management System Protected by Identity-Based Authentication and Key Exchange

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandra Rivero-García

2017-03-01

Full Text Available A secure and distributed framework for the management of patients’ information in emergency and hospitalization services is proposed here in order to seek improvements in efficiency and security in this important area. In particular, confidentiality protection, mutual authentication, and automatic identification of patients are provided. The proposed system is based on two types of devices: Near Field Communication (NFC wristbands assigned to patients, and mobile devices assigned to medical staff. Two other main elements of the system are an intermediate server to manage the involved data, and a second server with a private key generator to define the information required to protect communications. An identity-based authentication and key exchange scheme is essential to provide confidential communication and mutual authentication between the medical staff and the private key generator through an intermediate server. The identification of patients is carried out through a keyed-hash message authentication code. Thanks to the combination of the aforementioned tools, a secure alternative mobile health (mHealth scheme for managing patients’ data is defined for emergency and hospitalization services. Different parts of the proposed system have been implemented, including mobile application, intermediate server, private key generator and communication channels. Apart from that, several simulations have been performed, and, compared with the current system, significant improvements in efficiency have been observed.

Patients’ Data Management System Protected by Identity-Based Authentication and Key Exchange

Science.gov (United States)

Rivero-García, Alexandra; Santos-González, Iván; Hernández-Goya, Candelaria; Caballero-Gil, Pino; Yung, Moti

2017-01-01

A secure and distributed framework for the management of patients’ information in emergency and hospitalization services is proposed here in order to seek improvements in efficiency and security in this important area. In particular, confidentiality protection, mutual authentication, and automatic identification of patients are provided. The proposed system is based on two types of devices: Near Field Communication (NFC) wristbands assigned to patients, and mobile devices assigned to medical staff. Two other main elements of the system are an intermediate server to manage the involved data, and a second server with a private key generator to define the information required to protect communications. An identity-based authentication and key exchange scheme is essential to provide confidential communication and mutual authentication between the medical staff and the private key generator through an intermediate server. The identification of patients is carried out through a keyed-hash message authentication code. Thanks to the combination of the aforementioned tools, a secure alternative mobile health (mHealth) scheme for managing patients’ data is defined for emergency and hospitalization services. Different parts of the proposed system have been implemented, including mobile application, intermediate server, private key generator and communication channels. Apart from that, several simulations have been performed, and, compared with the current system, significant improvements in efficiency have been observed. PMID:28362328

Likelihood of being seen within emergency departments’ assigned urgency times for poisoned and injured individuals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rachel L. Rosenthal

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The objective of the present study is to determine the likelihood of injured or poisoned patients in special populations, such as those patients that are elderly and self-injurious, being seen within an emergency department’s triage nurse assigned urgency. Data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (2007 was utilized in this study. Multi-level models and multivariate linear regression models were used; patient age, sex, reported pain levels, wait time, and injury type were examined as potential predictors of being seen within assigned urgency. From a random sample across all US Emergency Departments, 5616 patients nested in 312 hospital emergency departments were included into the study. Typically, approximately 1 in 5 emergency department patients were not seen within their triage nurse assigned urgencies. The typical patient in the average hospital had an 81% likelihood of being seen within their assigned urgency. P atients who were oldest [odds ratio (OR=0.0990] and had self-inflicted injuries (vs assault OR=1.246 and OR=1.596 had the least likelihood to be seen within their assigned urgencies. As actual wait-time increased for patients, they were less likely to be seen within their assigned urgencies. The most powerful predictors of the study’s outcome were injury type and age, indicating that patients from special populations such as the elderly or those with injuries resulting from deliberate self-harm are less likely to be actually priority patients independent of triage nurse assigned urgencies.

Sensor assignment to mission in AI-TECD

Science.gov (United States)

Ganger, Robert; de Mel, Geeth; Pham, Tien; Rudnicki, Ronald; Schreiber, Yonatan

2016-05-01

Sensor-mission assignment involves the allocation of sensors and other information-providing resources to missions in order to cover the information needs of the individual tasks within each mission. The importance of efficient and effective means to find appropriate resources for tasks is exacerbated in the coalition context where the operational environment is dynamic and a multitude of critically important tasks need to achieve their collective goals to meet the objectives of the coalition. The Sensor Assignment to Mission (SAM) framework—a research product of the International Technology Alliance in Network and Information Sciences (NIS-ITA) program—provided the first knowledge intensive resource selection approach for the sensor network domain so that contextual information could be used to effectively select resources for tasks in coalition environments. Recently, CUBRC, Inc. was tasked with operationalizing the SAM framework through the use of the I2WD Common Core Ontologies for the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) sponsored Actionable Intelligence Technology Enabled Capabilities Demonstration (AI-TECD). The demonstration event took place at Fort Dix, New Jersey during July 2015, and this paper discusses the integration and the successful demonstration of the SAM framework within the AI-TECD, lessons learned, and its potential impact in future operations.

The phase-resolved photoacoustic method to indicate chemical assignments of paracetamol

Science.gov (United States)

Camilotti, J. G.; Somer, A.; Costa, G. F.; Ribeiro, M. A.; Bonardi, C.; Cruz, G. K.; Gómez, S. L.; Beltrame, F. L.; Medina, A. N.; Sato, F.; Astrath, N. G. C.; Novatski, A.

2014-03-01

In this work, the phase-resolved photoacoustic method was applied to provide specific information on the chemical assignments of paracetamol in the near-infrared region. Two broad bands, centered at 1370 and 1130 nm, were well-resolved using this method, making it possible to assign the peaks centered at 1398, 1355 and 1295 nm to a C-H combination from a CH3 structure and the peak at 1305 nm to a C-H combination from the aromatic ring. This information represents a new finding in chemical studies regarding this medicament.

Comparing two K-category assignments by a K-category correlation coefficient

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gorodkin, Jan

2004-01-01

Predicted assignments of biological sequences are often evaluated by Matthews correlation coefficient. However, Matthews correlation coefficient applies only to cases where the assignments belong to two categories, and cases with more than two categories are often artificially forced into two...... categories by considering what belongs and what does not belong to one of the categories, leading to the loss of information. Here, an extended correlation coefficient that applies to K-categories is proposed, and this measure is shown to be highly applicable for evaluating prediction of RNA secondary...

Quality of Recovery Evaluation of the Protection Schemes for Fiber-Wireless Access Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Minglei; Chai, Zhicheng; Le, Zichun

2016-03-01

With the rapid development of fiber-wireless (FiWi) access network, the protection schemes have got more and more attention due to the risk of huge data loss when failures occur. However, there are few studies on the performance evaluation of the FiWi protection schemes by the unified evaluation criterion. In this paper, quality of recovery (QoR) method was adopted to evaluate the performance of three typical protection schemes (MPMC scheme, OBOF scheme and RPMF scheme) against the segment-level failure in FiWi access network. The QoR models of the three schemes were derived in terms of availability, quality of backup path, recovery time and redundancy. To compare the performance of the three protection schemes comprehensively, five different classes of network services such as emergency service, prioritized elastic service, conversational service, etc. were utilized by means of assigning different QoR weights. Simulation results showed that, for the most service cases, RPMF scheme was proved to be the best solution to enhance the survivability when planning the FiWi access network.

Assessment of Random Assignment in Training and Test Sets using Generalized Cluster Analysis Technique

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sorana D. BOLBOACĂ

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Aim: The properness of random assignment of compounds in training and validation sets was assessed using the generalized cluster technique. Material and Method: A quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship model using Molecular Descriptors Family on Vertices was evaluated in terms of assignment of carboquinone derivatives in training and test sets during the leave-many-out analysis. Assignment of compounds was investigated using five variables: observed anticancer activity and four structure descriptors. Generalized cluster analysis with K-means algorithm was applied in order to investigate if the assignment of compounds was or not proper. The Euclidian distance and maximization of the initial distance using a cross-validation with a v-fold of 10 was applied. Results: All five variables included in analysis proved to have statistically significant contribution in identification of clusters. Three clusters were identified, each of them containing both carboquinone derivatives belonging to training as well as to test sets. The observed activity of carboquinone derivatives proved to be normal distributed on every. The presence of training and test sets in all clusters identified using generalized cluster analysis with K-means algorithm and the distribution of observed activity within clusters sustain a proper assignment of compounds in training and test set. Conclusion: Generalized cluster analysis using the K-means algorithm proved to be a valid method in assessment of random assignment of carboquinone derivatives in training and test sets.

Final report on CCQM-K80: Comparison of value-assigned CRMs and PT materials: Creatinine in human serum

Science.gov (United States)

Camara, Johanna E.; Duewer, David L.; Gasca Aragon, Hugo; Lippa, Katrice A.; Toman, Blaza

2013-01-01

The 2009 CCQM-K80 'Comparison of value-assigned CRMs and PT materials: creatinine in human serum' is the first in a series of key comparisons directly testing the chemical measurement services provided to customers by National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) and Designated Institutes. CCQM-K80 compared the assigned serum creatinine values of certified reference materials (CRMs) using measurements made on these materials under repeatability conditions. Six NMIs submitted 17 CRM materials for evaluation, all intended for sale to customers. These materials represent nearly all of the higher-order CRMs then available for this clinically important measurand. The certified creatinine mass fraction in the materials ranged from 3 mg/kg to 57 mg/kg. All materials were stored and prepared according the specifications provided by each NMI. Samples were processed and analyzed under repeatability conditions by one analyst using isotope dilution liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The instrumental repeatability imprecision, expressed as a percent relative standard deviation, was 1.2%. Given the number of materials and the time required for each analysis, the measurements were made in two measurement campaigns ('runs'). In both campaigns, replicate analyses (two injections of one preparation separated in time) were made on each of two or three independently prepared aliquots from one randomly selected unit of each of the 17 materials. The mean value, between-campaign, between-aliquot and between-replicate variance components, standard uncertainty of the mean value, and the number of degrees of freedom associated with the standard uncertainty were estimated using a linear mixed model. Since several of the uncertainties estimated using this traditional frequentist approach were associated with a single degree of freedom, Markov Chain Monte Carlo Bayesian analysis was used to estimate 95% level-of-confidence coverage intervals, U95. Uncertainty-weighted generalized distance

Synthetical analysis of the spin assignment for the superdeformed bands in A≅190 region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Di Yaomin

2002-01-01

The spin assignment for the superdeformed bands of even-even nuclei in A ≅190 region is given by means of using the method of synthetical analysis. The I( I + 1) expression is used to fit the experimental data of the transition γ energies. In contrast to other procedure, the convergence process of the series expansions is put stress upon, whereas taking how many terms exactly in the expression does not emphasized. Moreover as well as the method of fitting the physical quantity, by use of these series expansions the moment of inertia of band heads is also calculated and then the systematics is used for the spin assignments. In practice, when the experimental data is abundant the systematics of the moment of inertia of band heads is more efficient than the method of fitting the physical quantity in the spin assignment. As for a few bands which spin assignment is difficult, the deviation from the typical rotational bands must be considered, which may be judged easily from the second class of moment of inertia of the bands. Finally the results of the spin assignment and the comparison with other literature are presented. These results should be more reliable

Combination of probiotics and coccidiosis vaccine enhances protection against an Eimeria challenge.

Science.gov (United States)

Ritzi, Miranda M; Abdelrahman, Wael; van-Heerden, Kobus; Mohnl, Michaela; Barrett, Nathaniel W; Dalloul, Rami A

2016-11-08

Coccidiosis is endemic in the commercial broiler industry capable of inflicting devastating economic losses to poultry operations. Vaccines are relatively effective in controlling the disease; their efficacy could potentially be improved with concurrent use of probiotics as evaluated in this study using an Eimeria challenge. Day of hatch 400 Cobb-500 male broilers were assigned to one of four treatment groups including control (CON), vaccine-only gel application (VNC), probiotic-only gel application (NPC), and vaccine-plus-probiotic gel application (VPC). Birds were placed in floor pens (6 replicate pens/treatment, 16-17 birds/pen). NPC and VPC birds received the probiotics in the water on days 2-4, 8, 14-20, 22, 29, and 34-36. On day 15, birds were mildly challenged with 0.5 mL of a mixed oral inoculum of Eimeria sp. prepared with the coccidiosis vaccine at 10× the vaccination dose. Performance measurements were recorded on first day and weekly afterwards, and lesion scores were evaluated 6 days post-challenge. Overall, the probiotics and coccidiosis vaccine resulted in an enhanced protective effect against the challenge, with VPC birds exhibiting lower lesion scores in the duodenum than VNC or NPC birds. Birds in the VPC treatment also demonstrated higher weight gains during days 1-15, days 7-15, and days 21-28 when compared to the VNC birds. These results suggest that the combination of probiotics and coccidiosis vaccines could enhance performance and provide an additional protective effect against a mixed Eimeria challenge.

Ner protein of phage Mu: Assignments using {sup 13}C/{sup 15}N-labeled protein

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Strzelecka, T.; Gronenborn, A.M.; Clore, G.M. [National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (United States)

1994-12-01

The Ner protein is a small (74-amino acid) DNA-binding protein that regulates a switch between the lysogenic and lytic stages of phage Mu. It inhibits expression of the C repressor gene and down-regulates its own expression. Two-dimensional NMR experiments on uniformly {sup 15}N-labeled protein provided most of the backbone and some of the sidechain proton assignments. The secondary structure determination using two-dimensional NOESY experiments showed that Ner consists of five {alpha}-helices. However, because most of the sidechain protons could not be assigned, the full structure was not determined. Using uniformly {sup 13}C/{sup 15}N-labeled Ner and a set of three-dimensional experiments, we were able to assign all of the backbone and 98% of the sidechain protons. In particular, the CBCANH and CBCA(CO)NH experiments were used to sequentially assign the C{alpha} and C{beta} resonances; the HCCH-CTOCSY and HCCH-COSY were used to assign sidechain carbon and proton resonances.

Probabilistic Identification of Spin Systems and their Assignments including Coil-Helix Inference as Output (PISTACHIO)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eghbalnia, Hamid R., E-mail: eghbalni@nmrfam.wisc.edu; Bahrami, Arash; Wang, Liya [National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison, Biochemistry Department (United States); Assadi, Amir [University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mathematics Department (United States); Markley, John L [National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison, Biochemistry Department (United States)

2005-07-15

We present a novel automated strategy (PISTACHIO) for the probabilistic assignment of backbone and sidechain chemical shifts in proteins. The algorithm uses peak lists derived from various NMR experiments as input and provides as output ranked lists of assignments for all signals recognized in the input data as constituting spin systems. PISTACHIO was evaluated by comparing its performance with raw peak-picked data from 15 proteins ranging from 54 to 300 residues; the results were compared with those achieved by experts analyzing the same datasets by hand. As scored against the best available independent assignments for these proteins, the first-ranked PISTACHIO assignments were 80-100% correct for backbone signals and 75-95% correct for sidechain signals. The independent assignments benefited, in a number of cases, from structural data (e.g. from NOESY spectra) that were unavailable to PISTACHIO. Any number of datasets in any combination can serve as input. Thus PISTACHIO can be used as datasets are collected to ascertain the current extent of secure assignments, to identify residues with low assignment probability, and to suggest the types of additional data needed to remove ambiguities. The current implementation of PISTACHIO, which is available from a server on the Internet, supports input data from 15 standard double- and triple-resonance experiments. The software can readily accommodate additional types of experiments, including data from selectively labeled samples. The assignment probabilities can be carried forward and refined in subsequent steps leading to a structure. The performance of PISTACHIO showed no direct dependence on protein size, but correlated instead with data quality (completeness and signal-to-noise). PISTACHIO represents one component of a comprehensive probabilistic approach we are developing for the collection and analysis of protein NMR data.

Probabilistic Identification of Spin Systems and their Assignments including Coil-Helix Inference as Output (PISTACHIO)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eghbalnia, Hamid R.; Bahrami, Arash; Wang, Liya; Assadi, Amir; Markley, John L.

2005-01-01

We present a novel automated strategy (PISTACHIO) for the probabilistic assignment of backbone and sidechain chemical shifts in proteins. The algorithm uses peak lists derived from various NMR experiments as input and provides as output ranked lists of assignments for all signals recognized in the input data as constituting spin systems. PISTACHIO was evaluated by comparing its performance with raw peak-picked data from 15 proteins ranging from 54 to 300 residues; the results were compared with those achieved by experts analyzing the same datasets by hand. As scored against the best available independent assignments for these proteins, the first-ranked PISTACHIO assignments were 80-100% correct for backbone signals and 75-95% correct for sidechain signals. The independent assignments benefited, in a number of cases, from structural data (e.g. from NOESY spectra) that were unavailable to PISTACHIO. Any number of datasets in any combination can serve as input. Thus PISTACHIO can be used as datasets are collected to ascertain the current extent of secure assignments, to identify residues with low assignment probability, and to suggest the types of additional data needed to remove ambiguities. The current implementation of PISTACHIO, which is available from a server on the Internet, supports input data from 15 standard double- and triple-resonance experiments. The software can readily accommodate additional types of experiments, including data from selectively labeled samples. The assignment probabilities can be carried forward and refined in subsequent steps leading to a structure. The performance of PISTACHIO showed no direct dependence on protein size, but correlated instead with data quality (completeness and signal-to-noise). PISTACHIO represents one component of a comprehensive probabilistic approach we are developing for the collection and analysis of protein NMR data

A singular value sensitivity approach to robust eigenstructure assignment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Søgaard-Andersen, Per; Trostmann, Erik; Conrad, Finn

1986-01-01

A design technique for improving the feedback properties of multivariable state feedback systems designed using eigenstructure assignment is presented. Based on a singular value analysis of the feedback properties a design parameter adjustment procedure is outlined. This procedure allows...

Developing Team Skills through a Collaborative Writing Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Theda Ann

2014-01-01

Employers want students who are able to work effectively as members of a team, and expect universities to develop this ability in their graduates. This paper proposes a framework for a collaborative writing assignment that specifically develops students' ability to work in teams. The framework has been tested using two iterations of an action…

Sun Protection Practices and Sun Exposure among Children with a Parental History of Melanoma

Science.gov (United States)

Glenn, Beth A.; Lin, Tiffany; Chang, L. Cindy; Okada, Ashley; Wong, Weng Kee; Glanz, Karen; Bastani, Roshan

2014-01-01

Background First-degree relatives of melanoma survivors have a substantially higher lifetime risk for melanoma than individuals with no family history. Exposure to ultraviolet radiation is the primary modifiable risk factor for the disease. Reducing UV exposure through sun protection may be particularly important for children with a parental history of melanoma. Nonetheless, limited prior research has investigated sun protection practices and sun exposure among these children. Methods The California Cancer Registry was used to identify melanoma survivors eligible to participate in a survey to assess their children's sun protection practices and sun exposure. The survey was administered by mail, telephone, or web to Latino and non-Latino white melanoma survivors with at least one child (0–17 years; N = 324). Results Sun exposure was high and the rate of sunburn was equivalent to or higher than estimates from average risk populations. Use of sun protection was suboptimal. Latino children were less likely to wear sunscreen and hats and more likely to wear sunglasses, although these differences disappeared in adjusted analyses. Increasing age of the child was associated with lower sun protection and higher risk for sunburn whereas higher objective risk for melanoma predicted improved sun protection and a higher risk for sunburns. Perception of high barriers to sun protection was the strongest modifiable correlate of sun protection. Conclusions Interventions to improve sun protection and reduce sun exposure and sunburns in high risk children are needed. Impact Intervening in high risk populations may help reduce the burden of melanoma in the U.S. PMID:25587110

Careerism, Committee Assignments and the Electoral Connection

OpenAIRE

Katz, Jonathan N.; Sala, Brian R.

1996-01-01

Most scholars agree that members of Congress are strongly motivated by their desire for reelection. This assumption implies that members of Congress adopt institutions, rules, and norms of behavior in part to serve their electoral interests. Direct tests of the electoral connection are rare, however, because significant, exogenous changes in the electoral environment are difficult to identify. We develop and test an electoral rationale for the norm of committee assignment "property rights...

Sun protection and sunbathing practices among at-risk family members of patients with melanoma

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background Despite the increased level of familial risk, research indicates that family members of patients with melanoma engage in relatively low levels of sun protection and high levels of sun exposure. The goal of this study was to evaluate a broad range of demographic, medical, psychological, knowledge, and social influence correlates of sun protection and sunbathing practices among first-degree relatives (FDRs) of melanoma patients and to determine if correlates of sun protection and sunbathing were unique. Methods We evaluated correlates of sun protection and sunbathing among FDRs of melanoma patients who were at increased disease risk due to low compliance with sun protection and skin surveillance behaviors. Participants (N = 545) completed a phone survey. Results FDRs who reported higher sun protection had a higher education level, lower benefits of sunbathing, greater sunscreen self-efficacy, greater concerns about photo-aging and greater sun protection norms. FDRs who reported higher sunbathing were younger, more likely to be female, endorsed fewer sunscreen barriers, perceived more benefits of sunbathing, had lower image norms for tanness, and endorsed higher sunbathing norms. Conclusion Interventions for family members at risk for melanoma might benefit from improving sun protection self-efficacy, reducing perceived sunbathing benefits, and targeting normative influences to sunbathe. PMID:21338483

A fuzzy-based particle swarm optimisation approach for task assignment in home healthcare

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mutingi, Michael

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Home healthcare (HHC organisations provide coordinated healthcare services to patients at their homes. Motivated by the ever-increasing need for home-based care, the assignment of tasks to available healthcare staff is a common and complex problem in homecare organisations. Designing high quality task schedules is critical for improving worker morale, job satisfaction, service efficiency, service quality, and competitiveness over the long term. The desire is to provide high quality task assignment schedules that satisfy the patient, the care worker, and the management. This translates to maximising schedule fairness in terms of workload assignments, avoiding task time window violation, and meeting management goals as much as possible. However, in practice, these desires are often subjective as they involve imprecise human perceptions. This paper develops a fuzzy multi-criteria particle swarm optimisation (FPSO approach for task assignment in a home healthcare setting in a fuzzy environment. The proposed approach uses a fuzzy evaluation method from a multi-criteria point of view. Results from illustrative computational experiments show that the approach is promising.

Systemic Glucose Level Changes with a Carbohydrate-Restricted and Higher Protein Diet Combined with Exercise

Science.gov (United States)

Bowden, Rodney G.; Lanning, Beth A.; Doyle, Eva I.; Slonaker, Becky; Johnston, Holly M.; Scanes, Georgene

2007-01-01

Objective: The authors' purpose in this study was to compare the effects of macronutrient intake on systemic glucose levels in previously sedentary participants who followed 1 of 4 diets that were either higher protein or high carbohydrate, while initiating an exercise program. Participants and Methods: The authors randomly assigned 94 sedentary…

Dynamic activity-travel assignment in multi-state supernetworks with road and location capacity constraints

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liu, P.; Liao, F.; Huang, H.; Timmermans, H.J.P.

2016-01-01

A unified framework coupling activity-based modelling and dynamic traffic assignment has recently been proposed. It formulates dynamic activity-travel assignment (DATA) in multi-state supernetworks as a dynamic user equilibrium. Choices of departure time, route, mode, activity sequence, and

A Simple Method for Solving Fully Intuitionistic Fuzzy Real Life Assignment Problem

OpenAIRE

Senthil Kumar, P.; Jahir Hussain, R.

2016-01-01

In solving real life assignment problem we often face the state of uncertainty as well as hesitation due to various uncontrollable factors. To deal with uncertainty and hesitation many authors have suggested the intuitionistic fuzzy representations for the data. So, in this paper, the authors consider the assignment problem having uncertainty and hesitation in cost/time/profit. They formulate the problem and utilize triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (TIFNs) to deal with uncertainty and ...

The Kinetics of Chirality Assignment in Catalytic Single Walled Carbon Nanotube Growth

OpenAIRE

Xu, Ziwei; Yan, Tianying; Ding, Feng

2014-01-01

Chirality-selected single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) ensure a great potential of building ~1 nm sized electronics. However, the reliable method for chirality-selected SWCNT is still pending. Here we present a theoretical study on the SWCNT's chirality assignment and control during the catalytic growth. This study reveals that the chirality of a SWCNT is determined by the kinetic incorporation of the pentagon formation during SWCNT nucleation. Therefore, chirality is randomly assigned on...

NEW CRITERIA FOR ASSIGNING WASTE CONTAINING TECH-NOGENIC RADIONUCLIDES TO THE RADIOACTIVE WASTE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. K. Romanovich

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The article contains detailed description of criteria for assigning of liquid and gaseous industrial waste containing technogenicradionuclides to the radioactive waste, presented in the new Basic Sanitary Rulesof Radiation Safety (OSPORB-99/2010. The analysisof shortcomings and discrepancies of the previously used in Russia system of criteria for assigning waste to the radioactive waste is given.

The (digital) natives are restless: designing and implementing an interactive digital media assignment.

Science.gov (United States)

Voge, Catherine; Hirvela, Kari; Jarzemsky, Paula

2012-01-01

To create an opportunity for students to connect with the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses competencies and demonstrate learning via knowledge transference, the authors piloted a digital media assignment. Students worked in small groups to create an unfolding patient care scenario with embedded decision points, using presentation software. The authors discuss the assignment and its outcomes.

APSY-NMR for protein backbone assignment in high-throughput structural biology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dutta, Samit Kumar; Serrano, Pedro; Proudfoot, Andrew; Geralt, Michael [The Scripps Research Institute, Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology (United States); Pedrini, Bill [Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), SwissFEL Project (Switzerland); Herrmann, Torsten [Université de Lyon, Institut des Sciences Analytiques, Centre de RMN à Très Hauts Champs, UMR 5280 CNRS, ENS Lyon, UCB Lyon 1 (France); Wüthrich, Kurt, E-mail: wuthrich@scripps.edu [The Scripps Research Institute, Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology (United States)

2015-01-15

A standard set of three APSY-NMR experiments has been used in daily practice to obtain polypeptide backbone NMR assignments in globular proteins with sizes up to about 150 residues, which had been identified as targets for structure determination by the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) under the auspices of the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI). In a representative sample of 30 proteins, initial fully automated data analysis with the software UNIO-MATCH-2014 yielded complete or partial assignments for over 90 % of the residues. For most proteins the APSY data acquisition was completed in less than 30 h. The results of the automated procedure provided a basis for efficient interactive validation and extension to near-completion of the assignments by reference to the same 3D heteronuclear-resolved [{sup 1}H,{sup 1}H]-NOESY spectra that were subsequently used for the collection of conformational constraints. High-quality structures were obtained for all 30 proteins, using the J-UNIO protocol, which includes extensive automation of NMR structure determination.

Towards higher intensities

CERN Multimedia

CERN Bulletin

2010-01-01

Over the past 2 weeks, commissioning of the machine protection system has advanced significantly, opening up the possibility of higher intensity collisions at 3.5 TeV. The intensity has been increased from 2 bunches of 1010 protons to 6 bunches of 2x1010 protons. Luminosities of 6x1028 cm-2s-1 have been achieved at the start of fills, a factor of 60 higher than those provided for the first collisions on 30 March.   The recent increase in LHC luminosity as recorded by the experiments. (Graph courtesy of the experiments and M. Ferro-Luzzi) To increase the luminosity further, the commissioning crews are now trying to push up the intensity of the individual proton bunches. After the successful injection of nominal intensity bunches containing 1.1x1011 protons, collisions were subsequently achieved at 450 GeV with these intensities. However, half-way through the first ramping of these nominal intensity bunches to 3.5 TeV on 15 May, a beam instability was observed, leading to partial beam loss...

More Districts Factoring Poverty into Student-Assignment Plans

Science.gov (United States)

Zehr, Mary Ann

2010-01-01

A growing number of school districts are trying to break up concentrations of poverty on their campuses by taking students' family income into consideration in school assignments. Some of the districts replaced race with socioeconomic status as a determining indicator after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that using race as the primary factor…

Ultraviolet damage to the eye revisited: eye-sun protection factor (E-SPF®), a new ultraviolet protection label for eyewear

Science.gov (United States)

Behar-Cohen, Francine; Baillet, Gilles; de Ayguavives, Tito; Garcia, Paula Ortega; Krutmann, Jean; Peña-García, Pablo; Reme, Charlotte; Wolffsohn, James S

2014-01-01

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation potentially damages the skin, the immune system, and structures of the eye. A useful UV sun protection for the skin has been established. Since a remarkable body of evidence shows an association between UV radiation and damage to structures of the eye, eye protection is important, but a reliable and practical tool to assess and compare the UV-protective properties of lenses has been lacking. Among the general lay public, misconceptions on eye-sun protection have been identified. For example, sun protection is mainly ascribed to sunglasses, but less so to clear lenses. Skin malignancies in the periorbital region are frequent, but usual topical skin protection does not include the lids. Recent research utilized exact dosimetry and demonstrated relevant differences in UV burden to the eye and skin at a given ambient irradiation. Chronic UV effects on the cornea and lens are cumulative, so effective UV protection of the eyes is important for all age groups and should be used systematically. Protection of children’s eyes is especially important, because UV transmittance is higher at a very young age, allowing higher levels of UV radiation to reach the crystalline lens and even the retina. Sunglasses as well as clear lenses (plano and prescription) effectively reduce transmittance of UV radiation. However, an important share of the UV burden to the eye is explained by back reflection of radiation from lenses to the eye. UV radiation incident from an angle of 135°–150° behind a lens wearer is reflected from the back side of lenses. The usual antireflective coatings considerably increase reflection of UV radiation. To provide reliable labeling of the protective potential of lenses, an eye-sun protection factor (E-SPF®) has been developed. It integrates UV transmission as well as UV reflectance of lenses. The E-SPF® compares well with established skin-sun protection factors and provides clear messages to eye health care providers and to