Formation of two-way shape memory effect in rapid-quenched TiNiCu alloys

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shelyakov, A.V.; Bykovsky, Yu.A.; Matveeva, N.M.; Kovneristy, Yu.K.

1995-01-01

Recently we have developed a number of devices for an optical radiation control based on the shape memory effect. A blind of rapid-quenched TiNiCu alloy having a two-way shape memory in bending was used as a basic element. So far as the rapid quenched alloy used is amorphous in initial state, it needs thermal annealing to form shape memory. This paper describes procedure of thermo-mechanical treatment, that allows to form desired two-way shape memory immediately during thermal annealing of amorphous alloy without training. It was shown that degree of two-way shape recovery depends critically on initial strain, temperature and duration of the annealing. It was experimentally determined optimum parameters of thermo-mechanical treatment to achieve maximum two-way shape memory. (orig.)

The effect of feed contamination with mycotoxins on animals and ways for prevention and degradation of mycotoxins

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oana Ciobotaru

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi that are capable of causing illness and sometimes death to animals and not only animals even humans. In 1960 it was established that some fungal metabolites, now called mycotoxins, that have a destructive effect on animal health, since then people were interested on the effect and the way to stop it. Among them, aflatoxins, B1, B2, G1 & G2 synthesized mainly byAspergillus flavus/ Aspergillus parasiticus are known to induce severe effects on animal: can cause liver damage, decreased milk production, reduced reproductively and suppressed immunity in animals consuming low dietary concentrations, decreased feed intake and efficiency, weight loss, jaundice, drop in milk production, nervous signs, bleeding and death. The aim of this work was the isolation of aflatoxin producing fungi in order to investigate new ways that can determinate, inhibit or degradation of aflatoxin, ochratoxin, using lactic bacteria and yeast. A number of 17Aspergillus spp. isolates were obtained from wheat, barley, triticale, oats, and sunflower seeds and identified, based on macroscopic and microscopic features as A.flavus/A.parasiticus. The ability of aflatoxin biosynthesis was detected on PDA medium with β cyclodextrine and sodium deoxycholate were evaluated by TLC and RIDA Screen R-biopharm. At this stage of experiments 3 fungal isolates, designated as GE2, G32, T11 were selected as aflatoxin B1, B2, G1 and used for further analysis (molecular identification, interactions with LAB and yeasts.

ESR technique for noninvasive way to quantify cyclodextrins effect on cell membranes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grammenos, A.; Mouithys-Mickalad, A.; Guelluy, P.H.; Lismont, M.; Piel, G.; Hoebeke, M.

2010-01-01

Research highlights: → ESR: a new tool for cyclodextrins study on living cells. → Cholesterol and phospholipid extraction by Rameb in a dose- and time-dependent way. → Extracted phospholipids and cholesterol form stable aggregates. → ESR spectra show that lipid rafts are damaged by Rameb. → Quantification of the cholesterol extraction on cell membranes in a noninvasive way. -- Abstract: A new way to study the action of cyclodextrin was developed to quantify the damage caused on cell membrane and lipid bilayer. The Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) spectroscopy was used to study the action of Randomly methylated-beta-cyclodextrin (Rameb) on living cells (HCT-116). The relative anisotropy observed in ESR spectrum of nitroxide spin probe (5-DSA and cholestane) is directly related to the rotational mobility of the probe, which can be further correlated with the microviscosity. The use of ESR probes clearly shows a close correlation between cholesterol contained in cells and cellular membrane microviscosity. This study also demonstrates the Rameb ability to extract cholesterol and phospholipids in time- and dose-dependent ways. In addition, ESR spectra enabled to establish that cholesterol is extracted from lipid rafts to form stable aggregates. The present work supports that ESR is an easy, reproducible and noninvasive technique to study the effect of cyclodextrins on cell membranes.

An effective way to reduce water absorption to terahertz

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Yaxiong; Su, Bo; He, Jingsuo; Zhang, Cong; Zhang, Hongfei; Zhang, Shengbo; Zhang, Cunlin

2018-01-01

Since many vibrations and rotational levels of biomolecules fall within the THz band, THz spectroscopy can be used to identify biological samples. In addition, most biomolecules need to maintain their biological activity in a liquid environment, but water as polar substance has strong absorption to the THz wave. Thus, it is difficult to detect the sample information in aqueous solution using THz wave. In order to prevent the information of biological samples were masked in the solution, many research methods were used to explore how to reduce the water absorption of terahertz. In this paper, we have developed a real-time chemical methodology through transmission Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) system. The material of Zeonor 1020r is used as substrate and cover plate, and PDMS as channel interlayer. The transmission of the empty microfluidic chip is more than 80% in the range of 0.2-2.6 THz by THz-TDS system. Then, experiments were carried out using chips, which were filled with different volumes of 1, 2- propanediol, and it has been proved that the microfluidic chip could reduce the water absorption of terahertz. Finally, in order to further explore the reduction of terahertz to water absorption, we inject different concentrations of electrolyte to the chip. The results show that with the addition of different electrolytes, terahertz transmission line has evident changes. It can be taken into account that the electrolyte has different effects about the hydrogen bonds in the aqueous solution. Some of them can promote water molecules clusters, while others destroy them. Based on the basis of microfluidic chip, the discovery of this phenomenon can provide a way that reduces water absorption of terahertz. This work has laid a solid foundation for the subsequent study in reducing water absorption of terahertz.

Unintended Effects in Genetically Modified Food/Feed Safety: A Way Forward.

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez, Antonio; Paoletti, Claudia

2018-04-20

Identifying and assessing unintended effects in genetically modified food and feed are considered paramount by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), and Codex Alimentarius, despite heated debate. This paper addresses outstanding needs: building consensus on the history-of-safe-use concept, harmonizing criteria to select appropriate conventional counterparts, and improving endpoint selection to identify unintended effects. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of indentation temperature on nickel-titanium indentation-induced two-way shape-memory surfaces

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brinckmann, Stephan A.; Frensemeier, Mareike; Laursen, Christopher M.; Maier, Hans J.; Britz, Dominik; Schneider, Andreas S.; Mücklich, Frank; Frick, Carl P.

2016-01-01

This study investigated the effect of temperature on indentation-induced one-way and two-way shape memory properties in Ti-50.3 at% Ni alloy. Indentation temperatures ranged from below the martensite finish temperature (M f ) to above the austenite finish temperature (A f ) with the explicit intent of varying the indented phase. Samples used in the study were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The topographical behavior of the shape memory effect was investigated through Vickers indentation and laser scanning 3D confocal measurements. The magnitudes of deformation recovery associated with the one-way and two-way shape-memory effect (OWSME, TWSME) decreased with increasing indentation temperatures, which is a reflection of the decreasing volume of material experiencing martensitic reorientation during indentation. Indented and subsequently planarized samples exhibited TWSME protrusions when thermally cycled. Laser scanning measurements were used to characterize the height of the protrusions as increasing depths of material were polished away, which provided insight into the overall affected volume beneath the indent. As indentation temperatures increased, both the height of the protrusions, and consequently the polish depth necessary to completely remove the effect, decreased. TEM investigations revealed that directly underneath a nanoindent the microstructure was very fine due to the high-strain deformation; this was contrasted with a much coarser grain size in the undeformed bulk material. Overall these results strongly imply that the deformation recovery associated with the OWSME and TWSME can be maximized by indenting at temperatures at M f or below because the volume of deformed microstructure beneath the indent is maximized. This finding has important practical value for any potential application that utilizes indentation-induced phase transformation deformation recovery in NiTi.

Effect of indentation temperature on nickel-titanium indentation-induced two-way shape-memory surfaces

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brinckmann, Stephan A. [University of Wyoming, Mechanical Engineering Department, Laramie (United States); Frensemeier, Mareike [INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Saarbrücken (Germany); Laursen, Christopher M. [University of Wyoming, Mechanical Engineering Department, Laramie (United States); Maier, Hans J. [Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Werkstoffkunde (Materials Science), Garbsen (Germany); Britz, Dominik [Saarland University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Saarbrücken (Germany); Schneider, Andreas S. [AG der Dillinger Hüttenwerke, Department for Research, Development and Plate-Design, Dillingen (Germany); Mücklich, Frank [Saarland University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Saarbrücken (Germany); Frick, Carl P., E-mail: cfrick@uwyo.edu [University of Wyoming, Mechanical Engineering Department, Laramie (United States)

2016-10-15

This study investigated the effect of temperature on indentation-induced one-way and two-way shape memory properties in Ti-50.3 at% Ni alloy. Indentation temperatures ranged from below the martensite finish temperature (M{sub f}) to above the austenite finish temperature (A{sub f}) with the explicit intent of varying the indented phase. Samples used in the study were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The topographical behavior of the shape memory effect was investigated through Vickers indentation and laser scanning 3D confocal measurements. The magnitudes of deformation recovery associated with the one-way and two-way shape-memory effect (OWSME, TWSME) decreased with increasing indentation temperatures, which is a reflection of the decreasing volume of material experiencing martensitic reorientation during indentation. Indented and subsequently planarized samples exhibited TWSME protrusions when thermally cycled. Laser scanning measurements were used to characterize the height of the protrusions as increasing depths of material were polished away, which provided insight into the overall affected volume beneath the indent. As indentation temperatures increased, both the height of the protrusions, and consequently the polish depth necessary to completely remove the effect, decreased. TEM investigations revealed that directly underneath a nanoindent the microstructure was very fine due to the high-strain deformation; this was contrasted with a much coarser grain size in the undeformed bulk material. Overall these results strongly imply that the deformation recovery associated with the OWSME and TWSME can be maximized by indenting at temperatures at M{sub f} or below because the volume of deformed microstructure beneath the indent is maximized. This finding has important practical value for any potential application that utilizes indentation-induced phase transformation deformation recovery in NiTi.

Lean construction management the Toyota way

CERN Document Server

Gao, Shang

2014-01-01

The book presents a mixed research method adopted to assess and present the Toyota Way practices within construction firms in general and for firms in China specifically. The results of an extensive structured questionnaire survey based on the Toyota Way-styled attributes identified were developed, and data collected from building professionals working in construction firms is presented. The quantitative data presented in the book explains the status quo of the Toyota Way-styled practices implemented in the construction industry, as well as the extent to which these attributes were perceived for lean construction management. The book highlights all the actionable attributes derived from the Toyota Way model appreciated by the building professionals, but alerts the readers that some attributes felled short of implementation. Further findings from in-depth interviews and case studies are also presented in the book to provide to readers an understanding how these Toyota Way practices can be implemented in real-l...

Wrong-way driving crashes on French divided roads.

Science.gov (United States)

Kemel, Emmanuel

2015-02-01

The objective of divided roads is to increase users' safety by posting unidirectional traffic flows. It happens however that drivers proceed in the wrong direction, endangering themselves as well as other users. The crashes caused by wrong-way drivers are generally spotlighted by the media and call for public intervention. This paper proposes a characterization of wrong-way driving crashes occurring on French divided road on the 2008-2012 period. The objective is to identify the factors that delineate between wrong-way driving crashes and other crashes. Building on the national injury road crash database, 266 crashes involving a wrong-way driver were identified. Their characteristics (related to timing, location, vehicle and driver) are compared to those of the 22,120 other crashes that occurred on the same roads over the same period. The comparison relies on descriptive statistics, completed by a logistic regression. Wrong-way driving crashes are rare but severe. They are more likely to occur during night hours and on non-freeway roads than other crashes. Wrong-way drivers are older, more likely to be intoxicated, to be locals, to drive older vehicles, mainly passenger cars without passengers, than other drivers. The differences observed across networks can help prioritizing public intervention. Most of the identified WW-driving factors deal with cognitive impairment. Therefore, the specific countermeasures such as alternative road signs should be designed for and tested on cognitively impaired drivers. Nevertheless, WW-driving factors are also risk factors for other types of crashes (e.g. elderly driving, drunk driving and age of the vehicle). This suggests that, instead of (or in addition to) developing WW-driving specific countermeasures, managing these risk factors would help reducing a larger number of crashes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ways of Viewing Pictorial Plasticity

OpenAIRE

Maarten W. A. Wijntjes

2017-01-01

The plastic effect is historically used to denote various forms of stereopsis. The vivid impression of depth often associated with binocular stereopsis can also be achieved in other ways, for example, using a synopter. Accounts of this go back over a hundred years. These ways of viewing all aim to diminish sensorial evidence that the picture is physically flat. Although various viewing modes have been proposed in the literature, their effects have never been compared. In the current study, we...

Ways of Viewing Pictorial Plasticity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wijntjes, M.W.A.

2017-01-01

The plastic effect is historically used to denote various forms of stereopsis. The vivid impression of depth often associated with binocular stereopsis can also be achieved in other ways, for example, using a synopter. Accounts of this go back over a hundred years. These ways of viewing all aim

Identifying Effectiveness Criteria for Internet Payment Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Shon, Tae-Hwan; Swatman, Paula M. C.

1998-01-01

Examines Internet payment systems (IPS): third-party, card, secure Web server, electronic token, financial electronic data interchange (EDI), and micropayment based. Reports the results of a Delphi survey of experts identifying and classifying IPS effectiveness criteria and classifying types of IPS providers. Includes the survey invitation letter…

Extending existing structural identifiability analysis methods to mixed-effects models.

Science.gov (United States)

Janzén, David L I; Jirstrand, Mats; Chappell, Michael J; Evans, Neil D

2018-01-01

The concept of structural identifiability for state-space models is expanded to cover mixed-effects state-space models. Two methods applicable for the analytical study of the structural identifiability of mixed-effects models are presented. The two methods are based on previously established techniques for non-mixed-effects models; namely the Taylor series expansion and the input-output form approach. By generating an exhaustive summary, and by assuming an infinite number of subjects, functions of random variables can be derived which in turn determine the distribution of the system's observation function(s). By considering the uniqueness of the analytical statistical moments of the derived functions of the random variables, the structural identifiability of the corresponding mixed-effects model can be determined. The two methods are applied to a set of examples of mixed-effects models to illustrate how they work in practice. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Intergenerational learning in organizations : An effective way to stimulate older employee learning and development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

dr. Donald Ropes

2014-01-01

Purpose – To illustrate the possibilities of implementing intergenerational learning as a strategy for promoting older worker learning and development. Design/methodology/approach – Review of literature. Findings – Intergenerational learning is theoretically a natural and effective way for

POEM: Identifying joint additive effects on regulatory circuits

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maya eBotzman

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Motivation: Expression Quantitative Trait Locus (eQTL mapping tackles the problem of identifying variation in DNA sequence that have an effect on the transcriptional regulatory network. Major computational efforts are aimed at characterizing the joint effects of several eQTLs acting in concert to govern the expression of the same genes. Yet, progress towards a comprehensive prediction of such joint effects is limited. For example, existing eQTL methods commonly discover interacting loci affecting the expression levels of a module of co-regulated genes. Such ‘modularization’ approaches, however, are focused on epistatic relations and thus have limited utility for the case of additive (non-epistatic effects.Results: Here we present POEM (Pairwise effect On Expression Modules, a methodology for identifying pairwise eQTL effects on gene modules. POEM is specifically designed to achieve high performance in the case of additive joint effects. We applied POEM to transcription profiles measured in bone marrow-derived dendritic cells across a population of genotyped mice. Our study reveals widespread additive, trans-acting pairwise effects on gene modules, characterizes their organizational principles, and highlights high-order interconnections between modules within the immune signaling network. These analyses elucidate the central role of additive pairwise effect in regulatory circuits, and provide computational tools for future investigations into the interplay between eQTLs.Availability: The software described in this article is available at csgi.tau.ac.il/POEM/.

The most effective way of delivering a Train-the-Trainers program: A systematic review

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pearce, Jennifer; Mann, Mala K.; Jones, Caryl; van Buschbach, Susanne; Olff, Miranda; Bisson, Jonathan I.

2012-01-01

Introduction: Previous literature has shown that multifaceted, interactive interventions may be the most effective way to train health and social care professionals. A Train-the-Trainer (TTT) model could incorporate all these components. We conducted a systematic review to determine the overall

Ways of Viewing Pictorial Plasticity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maarten W. A. Wijntjes

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The plastic effect is historically used to denote various forms of stereopsis. The vivid impression of depth often associated with binocular stereopsis can also be achieved in other ways, for example, using a synopter. Accounts of this go back over a hundred years. These ways of viewing all aim to diminish sensorial evidence that the picture is physically flat. Although various viewing modes have been proposed in the literature, their effects have never been compared. In the current study, we compared three viewing modes: monocular blur, synoptic viewing, and free viewing (using a placebo synopter. By designing a physical embodiment that was indistinguishable for the three experimental conditions, we kept observers naïve with respect to the differences between them; 197 observers participated in an experiment where the three viewing modes were compared by performing a rating task. Results indicate that synoptic viewing causes the largest plastic effect. Monocular blur scores lower than synoptic viewing but is still rated significantly higher than the baseline conditions. The results strengthen the idea that synoptic viewing is not due to a placebo effect. Furthermore, monocular blur has been verified for the first time as a way of experiencing the plastic effect, although the effect is smaller than synoptic viewing. We discuss the results with respect to the theoretical basis for the plastic effect. We show that current theories are not described with sufficient details to explain the differences we found.

Ways of Viewing Pictorial Plasticity.

Science.gov (United States)

Wijntjes, Maarten W A

2017-01-01

The plastic effect is historically used to denote various forms of stereopsis. The vivid impression of depth often associated with binocular stereopsis can also be achieved in other ways, for example, using a synopter. Accounts of this go back over a hundred years. These ways of viewing all aim to diminish sensorial evidence that the picture is physically flat. Although various viewing modes have been proposed in the literature, their effects have never been compared. In the current study, we compared three viewing modes: monocular blur, synoptic viewing, and free viewing (using a placebo synopter). By designing a physical embodiment that was indistinguishable for the three experimental conditions, we kept observers naïve with respect to the differences between them; 197 observers participated in an experiment where the three viewing modes were compared by performing a rating task. Results indicate that synoptic viewing causes the largest plastic effect. Monocular blur scores lower than synoptic viewing but is still rated significantly higher than the baseline conditions. The results strengthen the idea that synoptic viewing is not due to a placebo effect. Furthermore, monocular blur has been verified for the first time as a way of experiencing the plastic effect, although the effect is smaller than synoptic viewing. We discuss the results with respect to the theoretical basis for the plastic effect. We show that current theories are not described with sufficient details to explain the differences we found.

Identifying transposon insertions and their effects from RNA-sequencing data.

Science.gov (United States)

de Ruiter, Julian R; Kas, Sjors M; Schut, Eva; Adams, David J; Koudijs, Marco J; Wessels, Lodewyk F A; Jonkers, Jos

2017-07-07

Insertional mutagenesis using engineered transposons is a potent forward genetic screening technique used to identify cancer genes in mouse model systems. In the analysis of these screens, transposon insertion sites are typically identified by targeted DNA-sequencing and subsequently assigned to predicted target genes using heuristics. As such, these approaches provide no direct evidence that insertions actually affect their predicted targets or how transcripts of these genes are affected. To address this, we developed IM-Fusion, an approach that identifies insertion sites from gene-transposon fusions in standard single- and paired-end RNA-sequencing data. We demonstrate IM-Fusion on two separate transposon screens of 123 mammary tumors and 20 B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias, respectively. We show that IM-Fusion accurately identifies transposon insertions and their true target genes. Furthermore, by combining the identified insertion sites with expression quantification, we show that we can determine the effect of a transposon insertion on its target gene(s) and prioritize insertions that have a significant effect on expression. We expect that IM-Fusion will significantly enhance the accuracy of cancer gene discovery in forward genetic screens and provide initial insight into the biological effects of insertions on candidate cancer genes. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Protective effects of selenium on mercury induced immunotoxic effects in mice by way of concurrent drinking water exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Xuan; Yin, Daqiang; Li, Jiang; Wang, Rui

2014-07-01

Selenium (Se) has been recognized as one key to understanding mercury (Hg) exposure risks. To explore the effects of Se on Hg-induced immunotoxicity, female Balb/c mice were exposed to HgCl2- or MeHgCl-contaminated drinking water (0.001, 0.01, and 0.1 mM as Hg) with coexisting Na2SeO3 at different Se/Hg molar ratios (0:1, 1/3:1, 1:1 and 3:1). The potential immunotoxicity induced by Na2SeO3 exposure alone (by way of drinking water) was also determined within a wide range of concentrations. After 14 days' exposure, the effects of Hg or Se on the immune system of Balb/c mice were investigated by determining the proliferation of T and B lymphocytes and the activity of natural killer cells. Hg exposure alone induced a dose-dependent suppression effect, whereas Se provided promotion effects at low exposure level (0.03 mM). Under Hg and Se coexposure condition, the effects on immunotoxicity depended on the Hg species, Se/Hg ratio, and exposure concentration. At low Hg concentration (0.001 mM), greater Se ingestion exhibited stronger protective effects on Hg-induced suppression effect mainly by way of decreasing Hg concentrations in target organs. At greater Hg concentration (0.01 and 0.1 mM), immunotoxicity induced by Se (>0.03 mM) became evident, and the protective effects appeared more significant at an Se/Hg molar ratio of 1:1. The complex antagonistic effects between Se and Hg suggested that both Se/Hg molar ratio and concentration should be considered when evaluating the potential health risk of Hg-contaminated biota.

An Efficient, Noniterative Method of Identifying the Cost-Effectiveness Frontier.

Science.gov (United States)

Suen, Sze-chuan; Goldhaber-Fiebert, Jeremy D

2016-01-01

Cost-effectiveness analysis aims to identify treatments and policies that maximize benefits subject to resource constraints. However, the conventional process of identifying the efficient frontier (i.e., the set of potentially cost-effective options) can be algorithmically inefficient, especially when considering a policy problem with many alternative options or when performing an extensive suite of sensitivity analyses for which the efficient frontier must be found for each. Here, we describe an alternative one-pass algorithm that is conceptually simple, easier to implement, and potentially faster for situations that challenge the conventional approach. Our algorithm accomplishes this by exploiting the relationship between the net monetary benefit and the cost-effectiveness plane. To facilitate further evaluation and use of this approach, we also provide scripts in R and Matlab that implement our method and can be used to identify efficient frontiers for any decision problem. © The Author(s) 2015.

Ways of knowing: can I find a way of knowing that satisfies my search for meaning?

OpenAIRE

Walton, Joan

2008-01-01

My enquiry starts when I experience the suffering of young people in care, and realise I do not have the knowledge to help them. I find that traditional ways of knowing in western culture – Christian theistic religion and classical Newtonian science – do not provide me with the knowledge required to resolve this ignorance. Intuitively, I feel there must be more effective ways of knowing. This thesis records my search for a way of knowing that enables me to find meaning in a world where such s...

Behavior of one-way reinforced concrete slabs subjected to fire

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Said M. Allam

2013-12-01

Full Text Available A finite difference analysis was performed to investigate the behavior of one-way reinforced concrete slabs exposed to fire. The objective of the study was to investigate the fire resistance and the fire risk after extinguishing the fire. Firstly, the fire resistance was obtained using the ISO834 standard fire without cooling phase. Secondly, the ISO834 parametric fire with cooling phase was applied to study the effect of cooling time. Accordingly, the critical time for cooling was identified and the corresponding failure time was calculated. Moreover, the maximum risk time which is the time between the fire extinguishing and the collapse of slab was obtained. Sixteen one-way reinforced concrete slabs were considered to study the effect of important parameters namely: the concrete cover thickness; the plaster; and the live load ratio. Equations for heat transfer through the slab thickness were used in the fire resistance calculations. Studying the cooling time revealed that the slabs are still prone to collapse although they were cooled before their fire resistance. Moreover, increasing the concrete cover thickness and the presence of plaster led to an increase in the maximum risk time. However, the variation in the live load ratio has almost no effect on such time.

A side-effect free method for identifying cancer drug targets.

Science.gov (United States)

Ashraf, Md Izhar; Ong, Seng-Kai; Mujawar, Shama; Pawar, Shrikant; More, Pallavi; Paul, Somnath; Lahiri, Chandrajit

2018-04-27

Identifying effective drug targets, with little or no side effects, remains an ever challenging task. A potential pitfall of failing to uncover the correct drug targets, due to side effect of pleiotropic genes, might lead the potential drugs to be illicit and withdrawn. Simplifying disease complexity, for the investigation of the mechanistic aspects and identification of effective drug targets, have been done through several approaches of protein interactome analysis. Of these, centrality measures have always gained importance in identifying candidate drug targets. Here, we put forward an integrated method of analysing a complex network of cancer and depict the importance of k-core, functional connectivity and centrality (KFC) for identifying effective drug targets. Essentially, we have extracted the proteins involved in the pathways leading to cancer from the pathway databases which enlist real experimental datasets. The interactions between these proteins were mapped to build an interactome. Integrative analyses of the interactome enabled us to unearth plausible reasons for drugs being rendered withdrawn, thereby giving future scope to pharmaceutical industries to potentially avoid them (e.g. ESR1, HDAC2, F2, PLG, PPARA, RXRA, etc). Based upon our KFC criteria, we have shortlisted ten proteins (GRB2, FYN, PIK3R1, CBL, JAK2, LCK, LYN, SYK, JAK1 and SOCS3) as effective candidates for drug development.

ASTROBIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS IN THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gowanlock, Michael G.

2016-01-01

A planet having protective ozone within the collimated beam of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) may suffer ozone depletion, potentially causing a mass extinction event to existing life on a planet’s surface and oceans. We model the dangers of long GRBs to planets in the Milky Way and utilize a static statistical model of the Galaxy, which matches major observable properties, such as the inside-out star formation history (SFH), metallicity evolution, and three-dimensional stellar number density distribution. The GRB formation rate is a function of both the SFH and metallicity. However, the extent to which chemical evolution reduces the GRB rate over time in the Milky Way is still an open question. Therefore, we compare the damaging effects of GRBs to biospheres in the Milky Way using two models. One model generates GRBs as a function of the inside-out SFH. The other model follows the SFH, but generates GRB progenitors as a function of metallicity, thereby favoring metal-poor host regions of the Galaxy over time. If the GRB rate only follows the SFH, the majority of the GRBs occur in the inner Galaxy. However, if GRB progenitors are constrained to low-metallicity environments, then GRBs only form in the metal-poor outskirts at recent epochs. Interestingly, over the past 1 Gyr, the surface density of stars (and their corresponding planets), which survive a GRB is still greatest in the inner galaxy in both models. The present-day danger of long GRBs to life at the solar radius ( R ⊙ = 8 kpc) is low. We find that at least ∼65% of stars survive a GRB over the past 1 Gyr. Furthermore, when the GRB rate was expected to have been enhanced at higher redshifts, such as z ≳ 0.5, our results suggest that a large fraction of planets would have survived these lethal GRB events.

Identifying Requirements for Effective Human-Automation Teamwork

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jeffrey C. Joe; John O' Hara; Heather D. Medema; Johanna H. Oxstrand

2014-06-01

Previous studies have shown that poorly designed human-automation collaboration, such as poorly designed communication protocols, often leads to problems for the human operators, such as: lack of vigilance, complacency, and loss of skills. These problems often lead to suboptimal system performance. To address this situation, a considerable amount of research has been conducted to improve human-automation collaboration and to make automation function better as a “team player.” Much of this research is based on an understanding of what it means to be a good team player from the perspective of a human team. However, the research is often based on a simplified view of human teams and teamwork. In this study, we sought to better understand the capabilities and limitations of automation from the standpoint of human teams. We first examined human teams to identify the principles for effective teamwork. We next reviewed the research on integrating automation agents and human agents into mixed agent teams to identify the limitations of automation agents to conform to teamwork principles. This research resulted in insights that can lead to more effective human-automation collaboration by enabling a more realistic set of requirements to be developed based on the strengths and limitations of all agents.

The four-fold way

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terazawa, H.

1986-01-01

The four-fold way is proposed in a minimal composite model of quarks and leptons. Various new pictures and consequences are presented and discussed. They include 1) generation, 2) quark-lepton mass spectrum, 3) quark mixing, 4) supersymmetry, 5) effective gauge theory. (author)

The Effects of Gender and Loneliness Levels on Ways of Coping among University Students

Science.gov (United States)

Cecen, A. Rezan

2008-01-01

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of gender differences and levels of loneliness on ways of coping. The sample of the study is composed of 462 university students (245 male, 217 female) from different departments from the Education Faculty at Cukurova University. In this study to collect data related to loneliness as an…

Ways of Improvement of State Finance Control in Ukraine: Definition and Justification

OpenAIRE

Azarenkova Halyna M.

2013-01-01

The article proves urgency of the issue of improvement of the state finance control. It generalises and systemises shortcomings of the state finance control under modern conditions. It systemises generalised shortcomings and analysis of certain shortcomings with the purpose of identifying their weight. It identifies and justifies ways of improvement of the state finance control in Ukraine. It provides interrelation of the proposed ways of improvement of the state finance control with the spec...

Building Up the Milky Way's Skeleton

Science.gov (United States)

Kohler, Susanna

2016-09-01

A team of scientistshas now uncovered half of theentire skeleton of the Milky Way, using an automated method to identify large filaments of gas and dust hiding between stars in the galactic plane.Galactic distribution of 54 newly discovered filaments, plotted along with colored lines indicating six relevant spiral arms in our galaxy. The upper two plots show the consistency of the filaments motion with the spiral arms, while the lower shows their location within the galactic plane. [Wang et al. 2016]The Search for Nessie and FriendsThe Milky Ways interstellar medium is structured hierarchically into filaments. These structures are difficult to observe since they largely lie in the galactic plane, but if we can discover the distribution and properties of these filaments, we can better understand how our galaxy formed, and how the filaments affect star formation in our galaxy today.Some of the largest of the Milky Ways filaments are hundreds of light-years long like the infrared dark cloud nicknamed Nessie, declared in 2013 to be one of the bones of the Milky Way because of its position along the center of the Scutum-Centaurus spiral arm.Follow-up studies since the discovery of Nessie (like this one, or this) have found a number of additional large-scale filaments, but these studies all use different search methods and selection criteria, and the searches all start with visual inspection by humans to identify candidates.What if we could instead automate the detection process and build a homogeneous sample of the large filaments making up the skeleton of the Milky Way?Automated DetectionThis is exactly what a team of astronomers led by Ke Wang (European Southern Observatory) has done. The group used a customization of an algorithm called a minimum spanning tree the technique used to optimize the cost of internet networks, road networks, and electrical grids in our communities to perform an automated search of data from the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. The search was

Dark matter annihilation in the milky way galaxy: effects of baryonic compression.

Science.gov (United States)

Prada, F; Klypin, A; Flix, J; Martínez, M; Simonneau, E

2004-12-10

If the dark matter (DM), which is considered to constitute most of the mass of galaxies, is made of supersymmetric particles, the central region of our Galaxy should emit gamma rays produced by their annihilation. We use detailed models of the Milky Way to make accurate estimates of continuum gamma-ray fluxes. We argue that the most important effect, which was previously neglected, is the compression of the dark matter due to the infall of baryons to the galactic center: it boosts the expected signal by a factor 1000. To illustrate this effect, we computed the expected gamma fluxes in the minimal supergravity scenario. Our models predict that the signal could be detected at high confidence levels by imaging atmospheric C erenkov telescopes assuming that neutralinos make up most of the DM in the Universe.

Genes2WordCloud: a quick way to identify biological themes from gene lists and free text.

Science.gov (United States)

Baroukh, Caroline; Jenkins, Sherry L; Dannenfelser, Ruth; Ma'ayan, Avi

2011-10-13

Word-clouds recently emerged on the web as a solution for quickly summarizing text by maximizing the display of most relevant terms about a specific topic in the minimum amount of space. As biologists are faced with the daunting amount of new research data commonly presented in textual formats, word-clouds can be used to summarize and represent biological and/or biomedical content for various applications. Genes2WordCloud is a web application that enables users to quickly identify biological themes from gene lists and research relevant text by constructing and displaying word-clouds. It provides users with several different options and ideas for the sources that can be used to generate a word-cloud. Different options for rendering and coloring the word-clouds give users the flexibility to quickly generate customized word-clouds of their choice. Genes2WordCloud is a word-cloud generator and a word-cloud viewer that is based on WordCram implemented using Java, Processing, AJAX, mySQL, and PHP. Text is fetched from several sources and then processed to extract the most relevant terms with their computed weights based on word frequencies. Genes2WordCloud is freely available for use online; it is open source software and is available for installation on any web-site along with supporting documentation at http://www.maayanlab.net/G2W. Genes2WordCloud provides a useful way to summarize and visualize large amounts of textual biological data or to find biological themes from several different sources. The open source availability of the software enables users to implement customized word-clouds on their own web-sites and desktop applications.

Parameter trajectory analysis to identify treatment effects of pharmacological interventions.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian A Tiemann

Full Text Available The field of medical systems biology aims to advance understanding of molecular mechanisms that drive disease progression and to translate this knowledge into therapies to effectively treat diseases. A challenging task is the investigation of long-term effects of a (pharmacological treatment, to establish its applicability and to identify potential side effects. We present a new modeling approach, called Analysis of Dynamic Adaptations in Parameter Trajectories (ADAPT, to analyze the long-term effects of a pharmacological intervention. A concept of time-dependent evolution of model parameters is introduced to study the dynamics of molecular adaptations. The progression of these adaptations is predicted by identifying necessary dynamic changes in the model parameters to describe the transition between experimental data obtained during different stages of the treatment. The trajectories provide insight in the affected underlying biological systems and identify the molecular events that should be studied in more detail to unravel the mechanistic basis of treatment outcome. Modulating effects caused by interactions with the proteome and transcriptome levels, which are often less well understood, can be captured by the time-dependent descriptions of the parameters. ADAPT was employed to identify metabolic adaptations induced upon pharmacological activation of the liver X receptor (LXR, a potential drug target to treat or prevent atherosclerosis. The trajectories were investigated to study the cascade of adaptations. This provided a counter-intuitive insight concerning the function of scavenger receptor class B1 (SR-B1, a receptor that facilitates the hepatic uptake of cholesterol. Although activation of LXR promotes cholesterol efflux and -excretion, our computational analysis showed that the hepatic capacity to clear cholesterol was reduced upon prolonged treatment. This prediction was confirmed experimentally by immunoblotting measurements of SR-B1

Energy policy - way out and wrong way

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1989-01-01

The way out, i.e. the right solution of the energy supply problem, is solar energy. The wrong way are high-temperature reactors and nuclear fusion. Arguments are put forward that nuclear fusion, considered an alternative to the harmful nuclear fission even by some nuclear opponents, is in fact equally harmful. (qui)

ASTROBIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS IN THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gowanlock, Michael G., E-mail: gowanloc@mit.edu [Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Haystack Observatory, 99 Millstone Road, Westford, MA 01886 (United States)

2016-11-20

A planet having protective ozone within the collimated beam of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) may suffer ozone depletion, potentially causing a mass extinction event to existing life on a planet’s surface and oceans. We model the dangers of long GRBs to planets in the Milky Way and utilize a static statistical model of the Galaxy, which matches major observable properties, such as the inside-out star formation history (SFH), metallicity evolution, and three-dimensional stellar number density distribution. The GRB formation rate is a function of both the SFH and metallicity. However, the extent to which chemical evolution reduces the GRB rate over time in the Milky Way is still an open question. Therefore, we compare the damaging effects of GRBs to biospheres in the Milky Way using two models. One model generates GRBs as a function of the inside-out SFH. The other model follows the SFH, but generates GRB progenitors as a function of metallicity, thereby favoring metal-poor host regions of the Galaxy over time. If the GRB rate only follows the SFH, the majority of the GRBs occur in the inner Galaxy. However, if GRB progenitors are constrained to low-metallicity environments, then GRBs only form in the metal-poor outskirts at recent epochs. Interestingly, over the past 1 Gyr, the surface density of stars (and their corresponding planets), which survive a GRB is still greatest in the inner galaxy in both models. The present-day danger of long GRBs to life at the solar radius ( R {sub ⊙} = 8 kpc) is low. We find that at least ∼65% of stars survive a GRB over the past 1 Gyr. Furthermore, when the GRB rate was expected to have been enhanced at higher redshifts, such as z ≳ 0.5, our results suggest that a large fraction of planets would have survived these lethal GRB events.

An Efficient, Non-iterative Method of Identifying the Cost-Effectiveness Frontier

Science.gov (United States)

Suen, Sze-chuan; Goldhaber-Fiebert, Jeremy D.

2015-01-01

Cost-effectiveness analysis aims to identify treatments and policies that maximize benefits subject to resource constraints. However, the conventional process of identifying the efficient frontier (i.e., the set of potentially cost-effective options) can be algorithmically inefficient, especially when considering a policy problem with many alternative options or when performing an extensive suite of sensitivity analyses for which the efficient frontier must be found for each. Here, we describe an alternative one-pass algorithm that is conceptually simple, easier to implement, and potentially faster for situations that challenge the conventional approach. Our algorithm accomplishes this by exploiting the relationship between the net monetary benefit and the cost-effectiveness plane. To facilitate further evaluation and use of this approach, we additionally provide scripts in R and Matlab that implement our method and can be used to identify efficient frontiers for any decision problem. PMID:25926282

Two-way and three-way negativities of three-qubit entangled states

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharma, S. Shelly; Sharma, N. K.

2007-01-01

We propose to quantify three-qubit entanglement using global negativity along with K-way negativities, where K=2 and 3. The principle underlying the definition of K-way negativity for pure and mixed states of N subsystems is a positive partial transpose sufficient condition. However, K-way partial transpose with respect to a subsystem is defined so as to shift the focus to K-way coherences instead of K subsystems of the composite system. A quantum state of a three-qubit system is characterized by the coherences measured by global, two-way, and three-way negativities. For a canonical state of three-qubit system, entanglement measures for genuine tripartite entanglement, W-like entanglement, and bipartite entanglement can be related to two-way and three-way negativities

Effects of expression ways and traits of anger emotion on autonomic nerve in the emotion recovery stage

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

詹向红

2013-01-01

Objective To explore the effects of expression ways and traits of anger emotion on autonomic nerve in the emotion recovery stage.Methods The 48 healthy undergraduate students were recruited as subjects,who were

Genes2WordCloud: a quick way to identify biological themes from gene lists and free text

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ma'ayan Avi

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Word-clouds recently emerged on the web as a solution for quickly summarizing text by maximizing the display of most relevant terms about a specific topic in the minimum amount of space. As biologists are faced with the daunting amount of new research data commonly presented in textual formats, word-clouds can be used to summarize and represent biological and/or biomedical content for various applications. Results Genes2WordCloud is a web application that enables users to quickly identify biological themes from gene lists and research relevant text by constructing and displaying word-clouds. It provides users with several different options and ideas for the sources that can be used to generate a word-cloud. Different options for rendering and coloring the word-clouds give users the flexibility to quickly generate customized word-clouds of their choice. Methods Genes2WordCloud is a word-cloud generator and a word-cloud viewer that is based on WordCram implemented using Java, Processing, AJAX, mySQL, and PHP. Text is fetched from several sources and then processed to extract the most relevant terms with their computed weights based on word frequencies. Genes2WordCloud is freely available for use online; it is open source software and is available for installation on any web-site along with supporting documentation at http://www.maayanlab.net/G2W. Conclusions Genes2WordCloud provides a useful way to summarize and visualize large amounts of textual biological data or to find biological themes from several different sources. The open source availability of the software enables users to implement customized word-clouds on their own web-sites and desktop applications.

Graphical function mapping as a new way to explore cause-and-effect chains

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Mary Anne

2016-01-01

Graphical function mapping provides a simple method for improving communication within interdisciplinary research teams and between scientists and nonscientists. This article introduces graphical function mapping using two examples and discusses its usefulness. Function mapping projects the outcome of one function into another to show the combined effect. Using this mathematical property in a simpler, even cartoon-like, graphical way allows the rapid combination of multiple information sources (models, empirical data, expert judgment, and guesses) in an intuitive visual to promote further discussion, scenario development, and clear communication.

A quick and selected overview of the expert panel on effective ways of investing in health.

Science.gov (United States)

Barros, Pedro Pita

2017-01-01

The European Commission created the Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health (EXPH) in 2012. The EXPH started its activities in July 2013 and ended its first term in May 2016. A personal review of the Expert Panel contributions in its first term is provided.

Multi-way multi-group segregation and diversity indices.

Science.gov (United States)

Gorelick, Root; Bertram, Susan M

2010-06-01

How can we compute a segregation or diversity index from a three-way or multi-way contingency table, where each variable can take on an arbitrary finite number of values and where the index takes values between zero and one? Previous methods only exist for two-way contingency tables or dichotomous variables. A prototypical three-way case is the segregation index of a set of industries or departments given multiple explanatory variables of both sex and race. This can be further extended to other variables, such as disability, number of years of education, and former military service. We extend existing segregation indices based on Euclidean distance (square of coefficient of variation) and Boltzmann/Shannon/Theil index from two-way to multi-way contingency tables by including multiple summations. We provide several biological applications, such as indices for age polyethism and linkage disequilibrium. We also provide a new heuristic conceptualization of entropy-based indices. Higher order association measures are often independent of lower order ones, hence an overall segregation or diversity index should be the arithmetic mean of the normalized association measures at all orders. These methods are applicable when individuals self-identify as multiple races or even multiple sexes and when individuals work part-time in multiple industries. The policy implications of this work are enormous, allowing people to rigorously test whether employment or biological diversity has changed.

New Ways for EUROPRACTICE Training and Best Practice Service

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olesen, Ole

1997-01-01

.Among those should be mentioned intelligent use of internet, multimedia training and RF high speed low power training.TBPS is primarily a course broker negotiating with more than 45 course vendors to get highly qualified courses at different levels and at moderate prices in the 5 key microelectronics areas...... been organized to fill the gap, and information about the courses is distributed in different ways.Intelligent use of internet and multimedia technology promotes micro-electronics training in a very effective way.This is the most effective way to promote the large number of courses...

Companions for ``Nessie'' in the Milky Way's Skeleton

Science.gov (United States)

Kohler, Susanna

2015-12-01

The recent discovery of a purported bone of the Milky Way, a dark cloud nicknamed Nessie, has provided us with new clues for mapping out the spiral structure of our galaxy. It turns out that Nessie may not be alone: a follow-up study has identified more bones, potentially making up a skeleton of the Milky Way that traces out the densest parts of its spiral arms.Inconvenient Vantage PointHow many spiral arms does the Milky Way have? Where are they located? What does the structure look like between the arms? It may seem surprising that these fundamental questions dont yet have clear answers. But because were stuck in the galaxys disk, were forced to piece together our understanding of the Milky Ways structure based primarily on measurements of position and radial velocity of structures within the galactic plane.The discovery of Nessie presents an intriguing new tool to identify the layout of the galaxy. Nessie is a very long, thin, infrared-dark filament that runs along the modeled position of the Scutum-Centaurus arm and is believed therefore to trace the structure of the arm. In a new study led by Catherine Zucker (University of Virginia, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), the authors have searched for additional bones like Nessie, hoping to use them to map out the skeleton of the Milky Way.New Bones DiscoveredIn this map of radial velocity vs. galactic longitude, the bone candidates are indicated by the numbered points. The colored lines indicate the positions of two of the galactic spiral arms, according to various models. Click for a closer look! [Zucker et al. 2015]Zucker and collaborators began by using World Wide Telescope, a tool that facilitates visualization of multiple layers of data at a variety of scales, to search through Spitzer infrared data for additional structures like Nessie. Searching specifically along the predicted positions of galactic arms, they found 15 initial bone candidates.Next, the team obtained radial-velocity data for the

Challenges in Identifying Effects and Determinants of Corporate Tax Avoidance

OpenAIRE

Hüsecken, Birgit

2017-01-01

Policymakers worldwide try to hinder tax avoidance. In order to implement effective tax regulations, it is essential to completely understand why corporations avoid taxes and why some appear to be more effective than others. However, various challenges in identifying effects and determinants of corporate tax avoidance cause knowledge gaps. This thesis consists of three essays highlighting the necessity of refined identification strategies. The first essay “The Undersheltering Puzzle and its P...

MODERN PROBLEMS AND WAYS OF DEVELOPMENT OF COOPERATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mishchenko Tatyana Leonidovna

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the importance of cooperation on the current economic stage as one of the forms of cooperation in the arena of the market of small, medium and large businesses. The aim of this work is the study of contemporary problems of agricultural co-operation and development of effective ways of functioning of the cooperative sector, which is a sustainable development factor of socio-economic systems, contributes to the protection of the interests of its participants, increasing of competitiveness at the industry and national markets. In compliance of the objectives outlined the following objectives of its decision: - to justify the relevance of research in modern Economics; - to analyze the economic interdependence of market subjects and their effectiveness in key financial indicators; - identify the causes, constraining the effective development of the cooperative forms of management. The scientific novelty of the results of the study consists of the following: - it is proved that the basic idea of the cooperative movement is a transition from small businesses to large-scale activity, which today has a real embodiment in life; - it is proved that co-operation is a key element of sustainable development of rural areas and market institutions and is based on a solid social base of farms, individual farms; - as a result of the carried out estimation of parameters of functioning of the agrarian market subjects, proposed an alternative way of economic interaction of participants of the cooperative company. As a conclusion it should be noted that the development of the cooperative sector in economic realities increases significantly in the conditions of Russia's accession to the WTO, ensuring competitiveness of the domestic products and first of all the country's food security.

MODERN PROBLEMS AND WAYS OF DEVELOPMENT OF COOPERATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Татьяна Леонидовна Мищенко

2013-04-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the importance of cooperation on the current economic stage as one of the forms of cooperation in the arena of the market of small, medium and large businesses. The aim of this work is the study of contemporary problems of agricultural co-operation and development of effective ways of functioning of the cooperative sector, which is a sustainable development factor of socio-economic systems, contributes to the protection of the interests of its participants, increasing of competitiveness at the industry and national markets. In compliance of the objectives outlined the following objectives of its decision:- to justify the relevance of research in modern Economics;- to analyze the economic interdependence of market subjects and their effectiveness in key financial indicators;- identify the causes, constraining the effective development of the cooperative forms of management.The scientific novelty of the results of the study consists of the following:- it is proved that the basic idea of the cooperative movement is a transition from small businesses to large-scale activity, which today has a real embodiment in life;- it is proved that co-operation is a key element of sustainable development of rural areas and market institutions and is based on a solid social base of farms, individual farms;- as a result of the carried out estimation of parameters of functioning of the agrarian market subjects, proposed an alternative way of economic interaction of participants of the cooperative company. As a conclusion it should be noted that the development of the cooperative sector in economic realities increases significantly in the conditions of Russia's accession to the WTO, ensuring competitiveness of the domestic products and first of all the country's food security.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-1-28

Identifying potentially cost effective chronic care programs for people with COPD

NARCIS (Netherlands)

L.M.G. Steuten (Lotte); K.M.M. Lemmens (Karin); A.P. Nieboer (Anna); H.J.M. Vrijhoef (Hubertus)

2009-01-01

textabstractObjective: To review published evidence regarding the cost effectiveness of multi-component COPD programs and to illustrate how potentially cost effective programs can be identified. Methods: Systematic search of Medline and Cochrane databases for evaluations of multicomponent disease

Neural underpinnings of the identifiable victim effect: affect shifts preferences for giving.

Science.gov (United States)

Genevsky, Alexander; Västfjäll, Daniel; Slovic, Paul; Knutson, Brian

2013-10-23

The "identifiable victim effect" refers to peoples' tendency to preferentially give to identified versus anonymous victims of misfortune, and has been proposed to partly depend on affect. By soliciting charitable donations from human subjects during behavioral and neural (i.e., functional magnetic resonance imaging) experiments, we sought to determine whether and how affect might promote the identifiable victim effect. Behaviorally, subjects gave more to orphans depicted by photographs versus silhouettes, and their shift in preferences was mediated by photograph-induced feelings of positive arousal, but not negative arousal. Neurally, while photographs versus silhouettes elicited activity in widespread circuits associated with facial and affective processing, only nucleus accumbens activity predicted and could statistically account for increased donations. Together, these findings suggest that presenting evaluable identifiable information can recruit positive arousal, which then promotes giving. We propose that affect elicited by identifiable stimuli can compel people to give more to strangers, even despite costs to the self.

Is there a simple, definitive, and cost-effective way to diagnose osteomyelitis in the pressure ulcer patient?

Science.gov (United States)

Larson, David L; Gilstrap, Jarom; Simonelic, Kevin; Carrera, Guillermo F

2011-02-01

Despite advances in managing pressure ulcers, there is still no definitive way to diagnose bone infection (osteomyelitis) short of open biopsy. An effective, less invasive diagnostic method might result in cost savings and improved care; however, needle aspiration, computed tomography scan, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound, and bone scans have proven unsatisfactory in predicting osteomyelitis. The authors reviewed preoperative radiologic studies of stage IV pressure ulcer patients and their bone biopsy results to determine which radiologic studies are most diagnostic for osteomyelitis. Patients (n = 44) having surgical débridement of stage IV ulcers with open bone biopsy after prior radiographic imaging (plain films, ultrasound, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and/or nuclear bone scans) were included. Studies were interpreted by a single musculoskeletal radiologist blinded to information from the medical record and following standard radiologic criteria for the diagnosis of osteomyelitis. The percentage of patients with biopsy-proven osteomyelitis identified with imaging was 50 percent using a computed tomography scan and 88 percent using a plain film of the bony area of involvement. The overall sensitivity of either radiologic study was 61 percent. The percentage of patients without osteomyelitis identified as not having the condition by imaging was 85 percent for the computed tomography scan and 32 percent for the plain film. Overall specificity of both studies was 69 percent. Preoperative radiologic studies for osteomyelitis in a pressure ulcer are far from definitive; however, if a radiologic study is used to make that diagnosis in a stage IV pressure ulcer, it would appear that a plain film would suffice.

Identifying knowledge in decision-making processes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Anna Rose Vagn; Ahmed-Kristensen, Saeema

2010-01-01

Managing knowledge reflects the innovation capability of a company. Mapping decision processes and links to knowledge is a way to learn more in structuring knowledge in innovation processes. Through an empirical study the paper aims to identify knowledge...

Towards Understanding the Two Way Interaction Effects of Extraversion and Openness to Experience on Career Commitment

Science.gov (United States)

Arora, Ridhi; Rangnekar, Santosh

2016-01-01

In this study, we examined potential two-way interaction effects of the Big Five personality traits extraversion and openness to experience on career commitment measured in terms of three components of career identity, career resilience, and career planning. Participants included 450 managers from public and private sector organizations in North…

The Milky Way Project: A Census of Small Bubbles

Science.gov (United States)

Arvidsson, Kim; Wolf-Chase, G. A.; Way Project, Milky

2013-01-01

The first data release (DR1) from the Milky Way Project (MWP) contains 1362 visually identified small bubbles drawn by users. These small infrared bubbles typically have diameters MSX6C point source catalog; >90% of all small bubbles are MSX point sources.

EFFECTIVE WAYS OF POSTGRADUATE PEDAGOGICAL EDUCATION INSTITUTES TEACHERS’ TRAINING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liudmyla V. Kalachova

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The article presents the results of comparative analysis of training for teachers of postgraduate pedagogical education institutes for various forms of training: full-time, full-time- distance and distance after the author's program "Teacher training of postgraduate pedagogical education institutes for use of audiovisual teaching aids." The comparison was done on such indicators as the number of participants who completed the training, the pace of learning, quality control test mastery of the material of the course, the qualitative and quantitative performance indicators of individual case studies. As a result, the article identifies the main advantages and disadvantages of each form of education and recommended the most effective form of in-service training of the teaching load.

The Self in Movement: Being Identified and Identifying Oneself in the Process of Migration and Asylum Seeking.

Science.gov (United States)

Watzlawik, Meike; Brescó de Luna, Ignacio

2017-06-01

How migration influences the processes of identity development has been under longstanding scrutiny in the social sciences. Usually, stage models have been suggested, and different strategies for acculturation (e.g., integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization) have been considered as ways to make sense of the psychological transformations of migrants as a group. On an individual level, however, identity development is a more complex endeavor: Identity does not just develop by itself, but is constructed as an ongoing process. To capture these processes, we will look at different aspects of migration and asylum seeking; for example, the cultural-specific values and expectations of the hosting (European) countries (e.g., as identifier), but also of the arriving individuals/groups (e.g., identified as refugees). Since the two may contradict each other, negotiations between identities claims and identity assignments become necessary. Ways to solve these contradictions are discussed, with a special focus on the experienced (and often missing) agency in different settings upon arrival in a new country. In addition, it will be shown how sudden events (e.g., 9/11, the Charlie Hebdo attack) may challenge identity processes in different ways.

Effect of a timebase mismatch in two-way optical frequency transfer

Science.gov (United States)

Tampellini, Anna; Clivati, Cecilia; Levi, Filippo; Mura, Alberto; Calonico, Davide

2017-12-01

Two-way frequency transfer on optical fibers is a powerful technique for the comparison of distant clocks over long and ultra-long hauls. In contrast to traditional Doppler noise cancellation, it is capable of sustaining higher link attenuation, mitigating the need of optical amplification and regeneration and thus reducing the setup complexity. We investigate the ultimate limitations of the two-way approach on a 300 km multiplexed fiber haul, considering fully independent setups and acquisition systems at the two link ends. We derive a theoretical model to predict the performance deterioration due to a bad synchronisation of the measurements, which is confirmed by experimental results. This study demonstrates that two-way optical frequency transfer is a reliable and performing technique, capable of sustaining remote clocks comparisons at the 10-19 resolution, and is relevant for the development of a fiber network of continental scale for frequency metrology in Europe.

5 Ways Your Institution Can Be More Cost Effective

Science.gov (United States)

Lapovsky, Lucie

2012-01-01

College and university boards are well aware of the pressures facing their institutions today, ranging from diminished or uncertain financial support to competitors offering new and sometimes less-expensive educational services. To help meet those challenges, boards need to ask probing questions about all the possible ways their institutions can…

Antidiabetic Effects of Resveratrol: The Way Forward in Its Clinical Utility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Omolola R. Oyenihi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Despite recent advances in the understanding and management of diabetes mellitus, the prevalence of the disease is increasing unabatedly with resulting disabling and life-reducing consequences to the global human population. The limitations and side effects associated with current antidiabetic therapies have necessitated the search for novel therapeutic agents. Due to the multipathogenicity of diabetes mellitus, plant-derived compounds with proven multiple pharmacological actions have been postulated to “hold the key” in the search for an affordable, efficacious, and safer therapeutic agent in the treatment of the disease and associated complications. Resveratrol, a phytoalexin present in few plant species, has demonstrated beneficial antidiabetic effects in animals and humans through diverse mechanisms and multiple molecular targets. However, despite the enthusiasm and widespread successes achieved with the use of resveratrol in animal models of diabetes mellitus, there are extremely limited clinical data to confirm the antidiabetic qualities of resveratrol. This review presents an update on the mechanisms of action and protection of resveratrol in diabetes mellitus, highlights challenges in its clinical utility, and suggests the way forward in translating the promising preclinical data to a possible antidiabetic drug in the near future.

Rock disposal problems identified

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Knox, R

1978-06-01

Mathematical models are the only way of examining the return of radioactivity from nuclear waste to the environment over long periods of time. Work in Britain has helped identify areas where more basic data is required, but initial results look very promising for final disposal of high level waste in hard rock repositories. A report by the National Radiological Protection Board of a recent study, is examined.

Effective Two-way Communication of Environmental Hazards: Understanding Public Perception in the UK

Science.gov (United States)

Lorono-Leturiondo, Maria; O'Hare, Paul; Cook, Simon; Hoon, Stephen R.; Illingworth, Sam

2017-04-01

Climate change intensified hazards, such as floods and landslides, require exploring renewed ways of protecting at-risk communities (World Economic Forum 2016). Scientists are being encouraged to explore new pathways to work closely with affected communities in search of experiential knowledge that is able to complement and extend scientific knowledge (see for instance Whatmore and Landström 2011 and Höpner et al. 2010). Effective two-way communication of environmental hazards is, however, a challenge. Besides considering factors such as the purpose of communication, or the characteristics of the different formats; effective communication has to carefully acknowledge the personal framework of the individuals involved. Existing experiences, values, beliefs, and needs are critical determinants of the way they perceive and relate to these hazards, and in turn, of the communication process in which they are involved (Longnecker 2016 and Gibson et al. 2016). Our study builds on the need to analyze how the public perceives environmental hazards in order to establish forms of communication that work. Here we present early findings of a survey analysing the UK public's perception and outline how survey results can guide more effective two-way communication practices between scientists and affected communities. We explore the perception of environmental hazards in terms of how informed and concerned the public is, as well as how much ownership they claim over these phenomena. In order to gain a more accurate image, we study environmental hazards in relation to other risks threatening the UK, such as large-scale involuntary migration or unemployment (World Economic Forum 2016, Bord et al. 1998). We also explore information consumption in relation to environmental hazards and the public's involvement in advancing knowledge. All these questions are accompanied by an extensive demographics section that allows us to ascertain how the context or environment in which an

Challenging the One-Way Paradigm for More Effective Science Communication: A Critical Review of Two Public Campaigns Addressing Contentious Environmental Issues

Science.gov (United States)

McEntee, Marie; Mortimer, Claire

2013-01-01

This article examines two large-scale public communication campaigns to explore the appropriateness and effectiveness of using one-way communication in contentious environmental issues. The findings show while one-way communication can be successfully employed in contentious issues, it is not appropriate for all contexts and may contribute to…

Identifying influential individuals on intensive care units: using cluster analysis to explore culture.

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Allan; Clark, Lindsey; Cheng, Tianyi; Franklin, Ella; Fernandez, Nicole; Ratwani, Raj; Parker, Sarah Henrickson

2017-07-01

The objective of this paper is to identify attribute patterns of influential individuals in intensive care units using unsupervised cluster analysis. Despite the acknowledgement that culture of an organisation is critical to improving patient safety, specific methods to shift culture have not been explicitly identified. A social network analysis survey was conducted and an unsupervised cluster analysis was used. A total of 100 surveys were gathered. Unsupervised cluster analysis was used to group individuals with similar dimensions highlighting three general genres of influencers: well-rounded, knowledge and relational. Culture is created locally by individual influencers. Cluster analysis is an effective way to identify common characteristics among members of an intensive care unit team that are noted as highly influential by their peers. To change culture, identifying and then integrating the influencers in intervention development and dissemination may create more sustainable and effective culture change. Additional studies are ongoing to test the effectiveness of utilising these influencers to disseminate patient safety interventions. This study offers an approach that can be helpful in both identifying and understanding influential team members and may be an important aspect of developing methods to change organisational culture. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Genomic Dissection of Leaf Angle in Maize (Zea mays L. Using a Four-Way Cross Mapping Population.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junqiang Ding

Full Text Available Increasing grain yield by the selection for optimal plant architecture has been the key focus in modern maize breeding. As a result, leaf angle, an important determinant of plant architecture, has been significantly improved to adapt to the ever-increasing plant density in maize production over the past several decades. To extend our understanding on the genetic mechanisms of leaf angle in maize, we developed the first four-way cross mapping population, consisting of 277 lines derived from four maize inbred lines with varied leaf angles. The four-way cross mapping population together with the four parental lines were evaluated for leaf angle in two environments. In this study, we reported linkage maps built in the population and quantitative trait loci (QTL on leaf angle detected by inclusive composite interval mapping (ICIM. ICIM applies a two-step strategy to effectively separate the cofactor selection from the interval mapping, which controls the background additive and dominant effects at the same time. A total of 14 leaf angle QTL were identified, four of which were further validated in near-isogenic lines (NILs. Seven of the 14 leaf angle QTL were found to overlap with the published leaf angle QTL or genes, and the remaining QTL were unique to the four-way population. This study represents the first example of QTL mapping using a four-way cross population in maize, and demonstrates that the use of specially designed four-way cross is effective in uncovering the basis of complex and polygenetic trait like leaf angle in maize.

Energy management and effective energy use in Ukraine: basic problems and ways to solve them

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gnedoy, M.V.

2003-01-01

In this paper, barriers in the way of energy efficiency are considered and classified. The classification is made in six blocks: financial, sociological, manufacturing, management-organisational, legal and market. A strategy to overcome these barriers and the achievement of more effective energetics in Ukraine are proposed. On the basis of the strategy, five indissoluble tasks are considered: energy supply reliability, pricing and tariff policy, the legislative and normative base, energy use efficiency, environmental protection and decrease in influence on climate change. Solving these problems will allow the construction of an effective system of energy management in Ukraine. (author)

Wrong-way driving.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

2006-01-01

Wrong-way driving is a phenomenon that mainly happens on motorways. Although the number of wrong-way crashes is relatively limited, their consequences are much more severe than the consequences of other motorway injury crashes. The groups most often causing wrong-way driving accidents are young,

Effects of new ways of working on work hours and work location, health and job-related outcomes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijp, Hylco H.; Beckers, Debby G. J.; van de Voorde, F.C.; Geurts, Sabine A. E.; Kompier, Michiel A. J.

2016-01-01

New ways of working (NWW) is a type of work organization that is characterized by temporal and spatial flexibility, often combined with extensive use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and performance-based management. In a three-wave intervention study, we examined the effects of

Effectively identifying user profiles in network and host metrics

Science.gov (United States)

Murphy, John P.; Berk, Vincent H.; Gregorio-de Souza, Ian

2010-04-01

This work presents a collection of methods that is used to effectively identify users of computers systems based on their particular usage of the software and the network. Not only are we able to identify individual computer users by their behavioral patterns, we are also able to detect significant deviations in their typical computer usage over time, or compared to a group of their peers. For instance, most people have a small, and relatively unique selection of regularly visited websites, certain email services, daily work hours, and typical preferred applications for mandated tasks. We argue that these habitual patterns are sufficiently specific to identify fully anonymized network users. We demonstrate that with only a modest data collection capability, profiles of individual computer users can be constructed so as to uniquely identify a profiled user from among their peers. As time progresses and habits or circumstances change, the methods presented update each profile so that changes in user behavior can be reliably detected over both abrupt and gradual time frames, without losing the ability to identify the profiled user. The primary benefit of our methodology allows one to efficiently detect deviant behaviors, such as subverted user accounts, or organizational policy violations. Thanks to the relative robustness, these techniques can be used in scenarios with very diverse data collection capabilities, and data privacy requirements. In addition to behavioral change detection, the generated profiles can also be compared against pre-defined examples of known adversarial patterns.

Identifying strategies to improve the effectiveness of booster seat laws

Science.gov (United States)

2008-05-01

The objective of this project was to identify strategies to improve the effectiveness of booster seat laws. The project explored the possible factors that relate to the use and nonuse of booster seats, and examined the attitudes of law enforcement of...

Procedures for identifying S-allele genotypes of Brassica.

Science.gov (United States)

Wallace, D H

1979-11-01

Procedures are described for efficient selection of: (1) homozygous and heterozygous S-allele genotypes; (2) homozygous inbreds with the strong self- and sib-incompatibility required for effective seed production of single-cross F1 hybrids; (3) heterozygous genotypes with the high self- and sib-incompatibility required for effective seed production of 3- and 4-way hybrids.From reciprocal crosses between two first generation inbred (I1) plants there are three potential results: both crosses are incompatible; one is incompatible and the other compatible; and both are compatible. Incompatibility of both crosses is useful information only when combined with data from other reciprocal crosses. Each compatible cross, depending on whether its reciprocal is incompatible or compatible, dictates alternative reasoning and additional reciprocal crosses for efficiently and simultaneously identifying: (A) the S-allele genotype of all individual I1 plants, and (B) the expressions of dominance or codominance in pollen and stigma (sexual organs) of an S-allele heterozygous genotype. Reciprocal crosses provide the only efficient means of identifying S-allele genotypes and also the sexual-organ x S-allele-interaction types.Fluorescent microscope assay of pollen tube penetration into the style facilitates quantitation within 24-48 hours of incompatibility and compatibility of the reciprocal crosses. A procedure for quantitating the reciprocal difference is described that maximizes informational content of the data about interactions between S alleles in pollen and stigma of the S-allele-heterozygous genotype.Use of the non-inbred Io generation parent as a 'known' heterozygous S-allele genotype in crosses with its first generation selfed (I1) progeny usually reduces at least 7 fold the effort required for achieving objectives 1, 2, and 3, compared to the method of making reciprocal crosses only among I1 plants.Identifying the heterozygous and both homozygous S-allele genotypes during

Identifying Students learning Styles as a Way to Promote Learning Quality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jafar Sadegh Tabrizi

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Introduction: The major part of peoples knowledge, skills and abilities are achieved during the complex process called learning. Learning is not simply the product of mere intelligence and capabilities of individual; it also depends on other factors such as personality traits, personal interests, and t ype of duty and di fferent methods and st yles. The understanding of each individual fits with his/her learning style. The aim of this study was to determine the learning st yles of Health Care Management students in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Methods: Learning styles of 55 Health Services Management students in Tabriz Health and Nutrition Faculty were evaluated in 2009 using a twelve-question Kolb questionnaire in a descriptive study. The data was anal yzed using SPSS. And the frequency of students learning styles was identified by their ages and averages. Results: In this study, 69% of the students were female and the dominant learning method was Assimilator (42%. Other styles with a regard to their frequency were Diverge (24%, Coverage (22%and Accommodator (12%. In the present study,no statistically significant relationship was found in learning styles between the gender (p= 0.644and average (p = 0.676of the students. Conclusion: Assimilator and Diverge methods were the most common ones among the management students. Hence, to improve the quality of learning in this group of students, it is proposed that the teachers use interactive and creative teaching methods such as small and la rge group discussion,brain storming, problem solving, debate-based learning, self-learning and lecturing.

Districts identify ways to increase customer feedback.

Science.gov (United States)

2009-11-01

Missouris rest areas and welcome centers attract approximately 23 million users annually, making them one of a primary destination for travelers in the state. As caretaker of these facilities, MoDOT seeks customer input at each location regarding ...

The Way of No-Way to Pursue Knowledge in Many Ways (Invited Paper

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jayanta Choudhury

2014-12-01

Full Text Available "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery."–Lao Tsu (B.C. 2500 The above is an English translation of the first verse of the book "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tsu. A working meaning of the word "Tao" is "way". The technical jargon "multidisciplinary research" or "interdisciplinary research" are research in many named established areas (i.e. chemistry, physics, sociology, mathematics, statistics, theology, philosophy, political science etc. by an individual or a group of individuals. This type of research has a mysterious common theme that cannot be isolated but is present in the manifestations in various research disciplines. One example of a common theme can be the goal of a new technological innovation. In this article, the problems and solutions of such endeavors are identified by practical analogies of living and nonliving natural phenomena to the above quoted verse by Lao Tsu.

The Effectiveness of Empowerment Program on Increasing Self-Esteem, Learned Resourcefulness, and Coping Ways in Women Exposed to Domestic Violence.

Science.gov (United States)

Bahadir-Yilmaz, Emel; Öz, Fatma

2018-02-01

This study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of empowerment program on increasing self-esteem, learned resourcefulness, and coping ways in women exposed to domestic violence. This experimental study was conducted between October 2012 and June 2014 in the obstetrics and gynaecology departments of the Giresun Maternity Hospital, and at the Family Counseling Center (FCC) in Turkey. Sixty women who agreed to participate in the study were randomly assigned into two groups. Data were collected by the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (SEI), The Rosenbaum's Learned Resourcefulness Scale (RLRS), and the Ways of Coping Inventory (WCI). The assessment of the women before and after the empowerment program showed that women in the intervention group showed significant improvements in the SEI, RLRS, and WCI scores compared with controls. These results suggest that the empowerment program is an effective practice for increasing the levels of self-esteem, learned resourcefulness, and coping ways of women exposed to domestic violence.

Food safety measurement issues. Way forward

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Venkatesh Iyengar

2013-01-01

Ensuring food safety (FS) is a persistent concern frequently faced by many countries. Safeguarding the quality of food that is fit for human consumption is the primary responsibility of the governmental regulatory agencies. For most part, agro-industries and food processors assume voluntary leadership for producing safe food. However, in the event of FS breach, the regulatory responsibility kicks into identify and rectify the situation. Notwithstanding whether it is the regulator or the industry that institutes the remedial action (e.g. improved hygiene and refined agricultural and manufacturing practices), the role of laboratory measurements is central in safeguarding the integrity of a functioning FS system. There are many analytical tools available to implement this task, such as validated analytical methods, natural matrix reference materials, field tested monitoring systems (proactive assessment) and effective surveillance systems (constant vigilance to prevent repeat safety violations). Way forward: existing FS tools are insufficient and should be strengthened with innovative approaches. Examples are: assembling swift intervention logistics to face FS breaches; rapid response systems including communication; robust metrology based measurement systems located at strategic locations in the country; and inter-disciplinary human resource to match the need for capacity development. These issues are discussed. (author)

Under What Assumptions Do Site-by-Treatment Instruments Identify Average Causal Effects?

Science.gov (United States)

Reardon, Sean F.; Raudenbush, Stephen W.

2013-01-01

The increasing availability of data from multi-site randomized trials provides a potential opportunity to use instrumental variables methods to study the effects of multiple hypothesized mediators of the effect of a treatment. We derive nine assumptions needed to identify the effects of multiple mediators when using site-by-treatment interactions…

Strategic Branching: Is There a Way out of a Dead End?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pavel Aleksandrovich Minakir

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The article discusses problems of choosing a strategy of Russia’s development. It is shown that the issue is not with choosing a rational way of economic behavior in macrosphere but ways of development in the economy that continues to close, all the mechanisms and relationships of which are oriented at the economy that functions in global production cycle. The article states that Russian economy is in systemic crisis that is a classical Marx’s crisis of overproduction when supporting the ratio and fulfilling balanced obligations (that became state’s obligations after the triumph of state monopoly is only possible in case of preserving the existing ratio of ‘prices’ (rent income of budget, savings, final expenses, corporate profits, ruble rate, interest rate, etc.. The main problem is identified as internal factors: lack of effective arbitration, stasis of political and social formats, conflict between pseudo-market and state-monopolistic sectors of economy; not the external ones, the existence of which is objective. Therefore numerous discussions about a new strategy of development that were supposed to establish a new effective economy are, in fact, raising a question of necessity of changing the meta-goal, that in turn will lead to the necessity of discussing the issue of content and form of social development in general

Tactile signage leads the way.

Science.gov (United States)

2004-10-01

As implementation of Part III of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act draws closer, service providers are looking to their obligations and how they can fulfil them in a cost-effective way. Most sighted people assume that blind or visually impaired people read Braille and therefore Braille signage is a perfectly adequate measure. In fact this is a misconception.

Identifying the Average Causal Mediation Effects with Multiple Mediators in the Presence of Treatment Non-Compliance

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Soojin

2015-01-01

Identifying the causal mechanisms is becoming more essential in social and medical sciences. In the presence of treatment non-compliance, the Intent-To-Treated effect (hereafter, ITT effect) is identified as long as the treatment is randomized (Angrist et al., 1996). However, the mediated portion of effect is not identified without additional…

Observation of the two-way shape memory effect in an atomistic model of martensitic transformation

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Eduardo Jagla

2017-05-01

Full Text Available We study a system of classical particles in two dimensions interacting through an isotropic pair potential that displays a martensitic phase transition between a triangular and a rhomboidal structure upon the change of a single parameter. Previously it was shown that this potential is able to reproduce the shape memory effect and super-elasticity, among other well known features of the phenomenology of martensites. Here we extend those previous studies and describe the development of the more subtle two-way shape memory effect. We show that in a poly-crystalline sample, the effect is mostly due to the existence of retained martensite within the austenite phase. We also study the case of a single crystal sample where the effect is associated to particular orientations of the dislocations, either induced by training or by an ad hoc construction of a starting sample.

Fundamentals of universality in one-way quantum computation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nest, M van den; Duer, W; Miyake, A; Briegel, H J

2007-01-01

In this paper, we build a framework allowing for a systematic investigation of the fundamental issue: 'Which quantum states serve as universal resources for measurement-based (one-way) quantum computation?' We start our study by re-examining what is exactly meant by 'universality' in quantum computation, and what the implications are for universal one-way quantum computation. Given the framework of a measurement-based quantum computer, where quantum information is processed by local operations only, we find that the most general universal one-way quantum computer is one which is capable of accepting arbitrary classical inputs and producing arbitrary quantum outputs-we refer to this property as CQ-universality. We then show that a systematic study of CQ-universality in one-way quantum computation is possible by identifying entanglement features that are required to be present in every universal resource. In particular, we find that a large class of entanglement measures must reach its supremum on every universal resource. These insights are used to identify several families of states as being not universal, such as one-dimensional (1D) cluster states, Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states, W states, and ground states of non-critical 1D spin systems. Our criteria are strengthened by considering the efficiency of a quantum computation, and we find that entanglement measures must obey a certain scaling law with the system size for all efficient universal resources. This again leads to examples of non-universal resources, such as, e.g. ground states of critical 1D spin systems. On the other hand, we provide several examples of efficient universal resources, namely graph states corresponding to hexagonal, triangular and Kagome lattices. Finally, we consider the more general notion of encoded CQ-universality, where quantum outputs are allowed to be produced in an encoded form. Again we provide entanglement-based criteria for encoded universality. Moreover, we present a

A new way to estimate the direct and indirect rebound effect and other rebound indicators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Freire-González, Jaume

2017-01-01

Some progress has been done during the last years on the methods and provision of empirical evidence on the direct and indirect rebound effect. However, these methods are complex, and sometimes require some specific economic knowledge. The development of risk and vulnerability rebound indicators for economies can be a useful tool to help the research community, policy-makers and other practitioners to understand and tackle the rebound effect. This research shows a new analytical way to obtain the direct and indirect rebound effect from the direct rebound effect and the use of energy input-output coefficients, and proposes three risk and vulnerability rebound indicators to show the effects of energy efficiency improvements in households on overall energy consumption. An estimation of these indicators has been conducted for the EU-27 countries. - Highlights: • A new method to estimate direct and indirect rebound effect is shown. • Three indicators are developed to assess risk and vulnerability to rebound. • An estimation of rebound indicators has been carried out for the EU-27 economies.

Use of rank sum method in identifying high occupational dose jobs for ALARA implementation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cho, Yeong Ho; Kang, Chang Sun

1998-01-01

The cost-effective reduction of occupational radiation exposure (ORE) dose at a nuclear power plant could not be achieved without going through an extensive analysis of accumulated ORE dose data of existing plants. It is necessary to identify what are high ORE jobs for ALARA implementation. In this study, the Rank Sum Method (RSM) is used in identifying high ORE jobs. As a case study, the database of ORE-related maintenance and repair jobs for Kori Units 3 and 4 is used for assessment, and top twenty high ORE jobs are identified. The results are also verified and validated using the Friedman test, and RSM is found to be a very efficient way of analyzing the data. (author)

Identifying determinants of effective complementary feeding behaviour change interventions in developing countries

Science.gov (United States)

Fabrizio, Cecilia S; van Liere, Marti; Pelto, Gretel

2014-01-01

As stunting moves to the forefront of the global agenda, there is substantial evidence that behaviour change interventions (BCI) can improve infant feeding practices and growth. However, this evidence has not been translated into improved outcomes on a national level because we do not know enough about what makes these interventions work, for whom, when, why, at what cost and for how long. Our objective was to examine the design and implementation of complementary feeding BCI, from the peer-reviewed literature, to identify generalisable key determinants. We identified 29 studies that evaluated BCI efficacy or effectiveness, were conducted in developing countries, and reported outcomes on infant and young children aged 6–24 months. Two potential determinants emerged: (1) effective studies used formative research to identify cultural barriers and enablers to optimal feeding practices, to shape the intervention strategy, and to formulate appropriate messages and mediums for delivery; (2) effective studies delineated the programme impact pathway to the target behaviour change and assessed intermediary behaviour changes to learn what worked. We found that BCI that used these developmental and implementation processes could be effective despite heterogeneous approaches and design components. Our analysis was constrained, however, by the limited published data on how design and implementation were carried out, perhaps because of publishing space limits. Information on cost-effectiveness, sustainability and scalability was also very limited. We suggest a more comprehensive reporting process and a more strategic research agenda to enable generalisable evidence to accumulate. PMID:24798264

WAYS OF REDUCTION OF ADVERSE FEEDING EFFECT ON ANIMALS

OpenAIRE

Коnоnеnко S. I.

2016-01-01

The successful development of livestock requires maintaining and further increasing of the genetic potential, the basis for the manifestation of which is the adequite balanced feeding. Currently, one of the most urgent problems of livestock breeding is to find ways for reduction of the negative impact of various feeding factors on the animals. In industrial conditions, it is difficult to exclude various feed stresses, which lead to a decrease in productivity, survival rate and ill health of a...

The identifiable victim effect in charitable giving: evidence from a natural field experiment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lesner, Tine; Rasmussen, O. D.

2014-01-01

or a statistical victim. Unlike much previous research, which has used only laboratory experiments, we find that the campaign letter focusing on one identifiable victim did not result in significantly larger donations than the campaign letter focusing on the statistical victim. In addition to the role......We design a natural field experiment to enhance our understanding of the role of the identifiable victim effect in charitable giving. Using direct mail solicitations to 25797 prior donors of a nonprofit charity, we tested the responsiveness of donors to make a contribution to either an identifiable...... campaigns. We find some evidence of crowding out, indicating that charitable giving could be a zero-sum game; however, the treatment letters did not have different effects on other payments....

Surface oxidation: an effective way to induce piezoelectricity in 2D black phosphorus

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jiabin; Zhao, Ting; He, Chaoyu; Zhang, Kaiwang

2018-03-01

In this letter, first-principles methods are employed to investigate the elastic stiffness and piezoelectric tensors of surface-oxidized black phosphorene. Our results show that the piezoelectric coefficients d 11 and d 12 for surface-oxidized black phosphorene are 88.54 pm V-1 and  -1.94 pm V-1, respectively, which are comparable to those of group-IV monochalcogenides and more remarkable than those of the experimentally viable h-BN and MoS2. These results indicate that surface-oxidization is an effective way to make black phosphorene into an excellent piezoelectric material for potential applications in sensors, actuators, electric field generators and any other applications requiring electrical and mechanical energy conversion. We expect further experimental exploration on this interesting result to confirm our predictions.

The Milky Way and the Local Group: playing with great circles.

Science.gov (United States)

Fusi Pecci, F.; Bellazzini, M.; Ferraro, F. R.

The small group of recently discovered galactic globular clusters (Pal 12, Ter 7, Rup 106, Arp 2) significantly younger than the average cluster population of the Galaxy are shown to lie near great circles passing in the proximity of most satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. Assuming that these great circles are in some way preferential planes of interaction between the Galaxy and its companions, the authors identified along one of them another candidate "young" globular cluster, IC 4499. Within this observational framework, the possibility that the sample of young globulars found in the halo of the Galaxy could have been captured from a satellite galaxy or formed during a close interaction between the Milky Way and one of its companions is briefly discussed.

A network analysis of the Chinese medicine Lianhua-Qingwen formula to identify its main effective components.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chun-Hua; Zhong, Yi; Zhang, Yan; Liu, Jin-Ping; Wang, Yue-Fei; Jia, Wei-Na; Wang, Guo-Cai; Li, Zheng; Zhu, Yan; Gao, Xiu-Mei

2016-02-01

Chinese medicine is known to treat complex diseases with multiple components and multiple targets. However, the main effective components and their related key targets and functions remain to be identified. Herein, a network analysis method was developed to identify the main effective components and key targets of a Chinese medicine, Lianhua-Qingwen Formula (LQF). The LQF is commonly used for the prevention and treatment of viral influenza in China. It is composed of 11 herbs, gypsum and menthol with 61 compounds being identified in our previous work. In this paper, these 61 candidate compounds were used to find their related targets and construct the predicted-target (PT) network. An influenza-related protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed and integrated with the PT network. Then the compound-effective target (CET) network and compound-ineffective target network (CIT) were extracted, respectively. A novel approach was developed to identify effective components by comparing CET and CIT networks. As a result, 15 main effective components were identified along with 61 corresponding targets. 7 of these main effective components were further experimentally validated to have antivirus efficacy in vitro. The main effective component-target (MECT) network was further constructed with main effective components and their key targets. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of the MECT network predicted key functions such as NO production being modulated by the LQF. Interestingly, five effective components were experimentally tested and exhibited inhibitory effects on NO production in the LPS induced RAW 264.7 cell. In summary, we have developed a novel approach to identify the main effective components in a Chinese medicine LQF and experimentally validated some of the predictions.

Identifying city PV roof resource based on Gabor filter

Science.gov (United States)

Ruhang, Xu; Zhilin, Liu; Yong, Huang; Xiaoyu, Zhang

2017-06-01

To identify a city’s PV roof resources, the area and ownership distribution of residential buildings in an urban district should be assessed. To achieve this assessment, remote sensing data analysing is a promising approach. Urban building roof area estimation is a major topic for remote sensing image information extraction. There are normally three ways to solve this problem. The first way is pixel-based analysis, which is based on mathematical morphology or statistical methods; the second way is object-based analysis, which is able to combine semantic information and expert knowledge; the third way is signal-processing view method. This paper presented a Gabor filter based method. This result shows that the method is fast and with proper accuracy.

Identifying influential spreaders in complex networks through local effective spreading paths

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xiaojie; Zhang, Xue; Yi, Dongyun; Zhao, Chengli

2017-05-01

How to effectively identify a set of influential spreaders in complex networks is of great theoretical and practical value, which can help to inhibit the rapid spread of epidemics, promote the sales of products by word-of-mouth advertising, and so on. A naive strategy is to select the top ranked nodes as identified by some centrality indices, and other strategies are mainly based on greedy methods and heuristic methods. However, most of those approaches did not concern the connections between nodes. Usually, the distances between the selected spreaders are very close, leading to a serious overlapping of their influence. As a consequence, the global influence of the spreaders in networks will be greatly reduced, which largely restricts the performance of those methods. In this paper, a simple and efficient method is proposed to identify a set of discrete yet influential spreaders. By analyzing the spreading paths in the network, we present the concept of effective spreading paths and measure the influence of nodes via expectation calculation. The numerical analysis in undirected and directed networks all show that our proposed method outperforms many other centrality-based and heuristic benchmarks, especially in large-scale networks. Besides, experimental results on different spreading models and parameters demonstrates the stability and wide applicability of our method.

The trends of modeling the ways of formation, distribution and exploitation of megapolis lands using geo-information systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kostyantyn Mamonov

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The areas of need for ways of modeling the formation, distribution and use of land metropolis using GIS are identified. The article is to define the areas of modeling ways of formation, distribution and use of land metropolis using GIS. In the study, the following objectives are set: to develop an algorithm process data base (Data System creation for pecuniary valuation of land settlements with the use of GIS; to offer process model taking into account the influence of one factor modules using geographic information systems; to identify components of geo providing expert money evaluation of land metropolis; to describe the general procedure for expert money assessment of land and property by using geographic information system software; to develop an algorithm methods for expert evaluation of land. Identified tools built algorithms used for modeling the ways of formation, distribution and use of land metropolis using GIS. Directions ways of modeling the formation, distribution and use of land metropolis using GIS.

Identifying Effective Components of Child Maltreatment Interventions: A Meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Put, Claudia E; Assink, Mark; Gubbels, Jeanne; Boekhout van Solinge, Noëlle F

2018-06-01

There is a lack of knowledge about specific components that make interventions effective in preventing or reducing child maltreatment. The aim of the present meta-analysis was to increase this knowledge by summarizing findings on effects of interventions for child maltreatment and by examining potential moderators of this effect, such as intervention components and study characteristics. Identifying effective components is essential for developing or improving child maltreatment interventions. A literature search yielded 121 independent studies (N = 39,044) examining the effects of interventions for preventing or reducing child maltreatment. From these studies, 352 effect sizes were extracted. The overall effect size was significant and small in magnitude for both preventive interventions (d = 0.26, p child maltreatment. For preventive interventions, larger effect sizes were found for short-term interventions (0-6 months), interventions focusing on increasing self-confidence of parents, and interventions delivered by professionals only. Further, effect sizes of preventive interventions increased as follow-up duration increased, which may indicate a sleeper effect of preventive interventions. For curative interventions, larger effect sizes were found for interventions focusing on improving parenting skills and interventions providing social and/or emotional support. Interventions can be effective in preventing or reducing child maltreatment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Two-way against one-way nesting for climate downscaling in Europe and the Mediterranean region using LMDZ4

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Shan; Li, Laurent; Le Treut, Hervé

2016-04-01

, particularly in the eastern boundary for temperature and geopotential height. A correlation analysis on the synoptic scale evaluates the relationship between the GCM and the RCM. The beginning of the simulations shows a great consistency of the two models. When dominant dynamics apply, RCM inherits most of the GCM signal with a consistent spatial structure. On the contrary, when the atmospheric circulation is weak, there are not that many effects transferred from the GCM to the RCM. When the RCM has its own dynamics, the boundary conflict is more pronounced. Winter season is chosen for the two-way nesting test due to the predominant role of the atmospheric dynamics in winter. The new approach of a two-way nesting system reduces boundary bias, having a influence in some cases in climate model projections. The effect of two-way nesting is enhanced when using a finer grid.

Identifying Competences and Their Sources in a Not-for-Profit Organization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vega, Diego; Sanchez, Ron

2017-01-01

Effective competence-based management (CBM) requires in the first instance an ability to identify an organization’s competences and the sources of those competences. Identifying competences can be especially challenging in the context of not-for-profit organizations, which have often been...... characterized as being “different” from for-profit organizations. In this paper we argue that not-for-profit organizations have fundamentally the same systemic requirements for survival and success as for-profit organizations – and therefore that not-for-profits ought to be amenable to competence identification...... and analysis through use of CBM concepts and theory in essentially the same way as for-profit organizations. We support this basic proposition through a case study of competence identification and analysis in a humanitarian relief organization (HRO), an increasingly important kind of not-for-profit...

Collaboration Between Universities: An effective way of sustaining community-university partnerships?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonathan Pratt

2011-11-01

Full Text Available This article highlights some of the opportunities and challenges that collaboration between higher education institutions (HEIs can bring to the development of sustainable community-university partnerships. In particular, it explores the potential for universities to collaborate on building effective engagement mechanisms (such as helpdesks, ‘hub and spoke’ contact models, and research groups to review ideas for activities that will support an ongoing flow of new projects and partnerships over time. It draws on evidence gathered from the evaluation and coordination of the South East Coastal Communities (SECC program, an almost unique experiment in collaboration between English universities. In an ‘age of austerity’, opportunities to reduce costs without damaging core services are of particular interest to public funding bodies. The article suggests that collaboration between universities may be an efficient and effective way of engaging with local communities, but that it is not cost-free, and high-level strategic buy-in within HEIs is required if community-university partnerships are to thrive in the current higher education funding environment. The article also suggests that there may be a geographic dimension to effective collaboration between universities in both community-university partnership work and the mechanisms that support community engagement. Inter-university collaboration across the whole region covered by the SECC program has been much weaker than collaboration at a subregional level and within ‘city-regions’ in particular. This raises a key question: does the natural geography for effective collaboration between universities need to reflect, at least in part, the geographies of communities themselves, in terms of lived experiences and/or community representation? Such a debate has interesting and timely parallels in the United Kingdom, where the new coalition government is bringing about a fundamental shift in the

Is Eradication of Helicobacter pylori the Feasible Way to Prevent Gastric Cancer? New Evidence and Progress, but Still a Long Way to Go

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yi-Chia Lee

2008-08-01

Full Text Available Epidemiological, animal and biological studies provide compelling evidence for the role of Helicobacter pylori infection in gastric carcinogenesis. The finding that H. pylori-induced chronic atrophic gastritis is the major cause of gastric cancer suggests that eradication of the bacterium may prevent this malignancy. Computer-simulation studies have confirmed the cost-effectiveness of eradication in high-risk subjects; however, unresolved issues complicate active testing for and treatment of H. pylori infection among asymptomatic carriers. Concerns include the enormous costs for developing countries to implement strategies, the inconclusiveness of data from randomized controlled studies, the potential induction of antimicrobial resistance, and the uncertain effect of eliminating this organism on the spectrum of modern disease. Although current evidence is insufficient to recommend universal testing and treatment, it is possible to identify highly susceptible individuals who are most likely to benefit from treatment. Novel biomarkers for predicting risk are under extensive investigation, including genetic, epigenetic and proteinomic factors. The emerging evidence suggests that treatment of H. pylori infection in asymptomatic carriers may decrease the burden of gastric cancer. However, confirmation of long-term benefits remains a long way off.

PDAs: Revolutionizing The Way We Learn and Teach

OpenAIRE

Kimberly McDONOUGH; Zane L. BERGE

2006-01-01

Miniature handheld computers called PDA’s are not only bombarding corporate America, but they are also noticeably making their mark on college campuses. The question is, how much impact are they making on the way students learn and instructors teach. These devices were born from a simple calculator and over two decades have transformed into a walking computer complete with Internet access. This paper identifies how PDAs have transformed over the years as well as their benefits and limitations...

PDAs: Revolutionizing The Way We Learn and Teach

OpenAIRE

McDONOUGH, Kimberly

2006-01-01

Miniature handheld computers called PDA’s are not only bombarding corporate America, but they are also noticeably making their mark on college campuses. The question is, how much impact are they making on the way students learn and instructors teach. These devices were born from a simple calculator and over two decades have transformed into a walking computer complete with Internet access. This paper identifies how PDAs have transformed over the years as well as their benefits and limitati...

Ex vivo analysis identifies effective HIV-1 latency–reversing drug combinations

Science.gov (United States)

Laird, Gregory M.; Bullen, C. Korin; Rosenbloom, Daniel I.S.; Martin, Alyssa R.; Hill, Alison L.; Durand, Christine M.; Siliciano, Janet D.; Siliciano, Robert F.

2015-01-01

Reversal of HIV-1 latency by small molecules is a potential cure strategy. This approach will likely require effective drug combinations to achieve high levels of latency reversal. Using resting CD4+ T cells (rCD4s) from infected individuals, we developed an experimental and theoretical framework to identify effective latency-reversing agent (LRA) combinations. Utilizing ex vivo assays for intracellular HIV-1 mRNA and virion production, we compared 2-drug combinations of leading candidate LRAs and identified multiple combinations that effectively reverse latency. We showed that protein kinase C agonists in combination with bromodomain inhibitor JQ1 or histone deacetylase inhibitors robustly induce HIV-1 transcription and virus production when directly compared with maximum reactivation by T cell activation. Using the Bliss independence model to quantitate combined drug effects, we demonstrated that these combinations synergize to induce HIV-1 transcription. This robust latency reversal occurred without release of proinflammatory cytokines by rCD4s. To extend the clinical utility of our findings, we applied a mathematical model that estimates in vivo changes in plasma HIV-1 RNA from ex vivo measurements of virus production. Our study reconciles diverse findings from previous studies, establishes a quantitative experimental approach to evaluate combinatorial LRA efficacy, and presents a model to predict in vivo responses to LRAs. PMID:25822022

Identifying the Multiple Intelligences of Your Students

Science.gov (United States)

McClellan, Joyce A.; Conti, Gary J.

2008-01-01

One way of addressing individual differences among adult learners is to identify the Multiple Intelligences of the learner. Multiple Intelligences refers to the concept developed by Howard Gardner that challenges the traditional view of intelligence and explains the presence of nine different Multiple Intelligences. The purpose of this study was…

Implementing New Ways of Working

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Granlien, Maren Sander; Hertzum, Morten

2009-01-01

Successful deployment of information technology (IT) involves implementation of new ways of working. Under-recognition of this organizational element of implementation entails considerable risk of not attaining the benefits that motivated deployment, yet knowledge of how to work systematically...... were devised and performed as part of the study, significantly lowered the number of records that violated the procedure. This positive effect was, however, not achieved until multiple interventions had been employed, and there is some indication that the effect may be wearing off after...... the interventions have ended. We discuss the implications of these results for efforts to work systematically with the organizational implementation of IT systems....

Identifying Colonial Discourses in Inupiat Young People's Narratives as a Way to Understand the No Future of Inupiat Youth Suicide

Science.gov (United States)

Wexler, Lisa

2009-01-01

Alaska Native youth suffer disproportionately from suicide. Some researchers explain this by pointing to social disintegration brought on by rapid social change, but few make the connection to an ongoing colonialism explicit. This paper articulates some of the ways that colonial discourses affect Inupiat young people's self-conceptions, perceived…

A Look at the Milky Way's Outskirts

Science.gov (United States)

Kohler, Susanna

2017-11-01

Studying the large-scale structure of the Milky Way is difficult given that were stuck in its interior which means we cant step back for a broad overview of our home. Instead, a recent study uses distant variable stars to map out a picture of whats happening in the outskirts of our galaxy.Mapping with TracersPhase-folded light curve for two of the RR Lyrae stars in the authors sample, each with hundreds of observations over 7 years. [Cohen et al. 2017]Since observing the Milky Way from the outside isnt an option, we have to take creative approaches to mapping its outer regions and measuring its total mass and dark matter content. One tool used by astronomers is tracers: easily identifiable stars that can be treated as massless markers moving only as a result of the galactic potential. Mapping the locations and motions of tracers allows us to measure the larger properties of the galaxy.RR Lyrae stars are low-mass, variable stars that make especially good tracers. They pulsate predictably on timescales of less than a day, creating distinctive light curves that can easily be distinguished and tracked in wide-field optical imaging surveys over long periods of time. Their brightness makes them detectable out to large distances, and their blue color helps to separate them from contaminating stars in the foreground.Best of all, RR Lyrae stars are very nearly standard candles: their distances can be determined precisely with only knowledge of their measured light curves.Locations on the sky of the several hundred outer-halo RR Lyrae stars in the authors original sample. The red curve shows the location of the Sagittarius stream, an ordered structure the authors avoided so as to only have unassociated stars in their sample. [Cohen et al. 2017]Distant VariablesIn a new study led by Judith Cohen (California Institute of Technology), the signals of hundreds of distant RR Lyrae stars were identified in observations of transient objects made with the Palomar Transient Factory

Towards an explanation of age-related difficulties in crossing a two-way street

OpenAIRE

Dommes , Aurélie; LE LAY , Tristan; Vienne , Fabrice; DANG , Nguyen-Thong; PERROT BEAUDOIN , Alexandra; Do , Manh Cuong

2015-01-01

Crossing a two-way street is a complex task that involves visual, cognitive and motor abilities, all of which are known to decline with ageing. In particular, older pedestrians may experience difficulties when crossing two-way streets because of incorrect gap acceptance choices and impossible or unperceived evasive actions. To understand the overrepresentation of older pedestrians in crash statistics, several experimental studies have sought to identify traffic-related factors as well as thos...

Possible way to check up superbanana transport effects in present-day stellarators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bykov, V.E.; Volkov, E.D.; Georgievskij, A.V.; Shishkin, A.A.

1986-01-01

An important, as yet unanswered question in stellarator research is the following: how dangerous is the superbanana transport to the plasma confinement? Comparison of experimental data with theoretical transport coefficients indicates that the superbanana transport does occur in experiments. But it is believed that the experimental plasma loss rates (W-VIIA) are considerably lower than those predicted by neoclassical theory. The existing inconsistencies make it necessary to search for additional ways to find out whether the superbanana transport is feasible. One of possible ways is connected with the fact that the neoclassical superbanana transport coefficients depend essentially on the harmonic composition of the magnetic field

FVCOM one-way and two-way nesting using ESMF: Development and validation

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Jianhua; Chen, Changsheng; Beardsley, Robert C.

2018-04-01

Built on the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF), the one-way and two-way nesting methods were implemented into the unstructured-grid Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM). These methods help utilize the unstructured-grid multi-domain nesting of FVCOM with an aim at resolving the multi-scale physical and ecosystem processes. A detail of procedures on implementing FVCOM into ESMF was described. The experiments were made to validate and evaluate the performance of the nested-grid FVCOM system. The first was made for a wave-current interaction case with a two-domain nesting with an emphasis on qualifying a critical need of nesting to resolve a high-resolution feature near the coast and harbor with little loss in computational efficiency. The second was conducted for the pseudo river plume cases to examine the differences in the model-simulated salinity between one-way and two-way nesting approaches and evaluate the performance of mass conservative two-way nesting method. The third was carried out for the river plume case in the realistic geometric domain in Mass Bay, supporting the importance for having the two-way nesting for coastal-estuarine integrated modeling. The nesting method described in this paper has been used in the Northeast Coastal Ocean Forecast System (NECOFS)-a global-regional-coastal nesting FVCOM system that has been placed into the end-to-end forecast and hindcast operations since 2007.

Registrar wellness in Botswana: Measuring burnout and identifying ways to improve wellness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K D Westmoreland

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Background. Burnout during registrar training is high, especially in resource-limited settings where stressors are intensified. Burnout leads to decreased quality of life for doctors, poor job and patient satisfaction, and difficulty retaining doctors. Objectives. Primary: to measure burnout among registrars working at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana. Secondary: to determine factors contributing to burnout and identify potential wellness interventions. Methods. The validated Maslach Burnout Inventory was used to measure the degree of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and personal accomplishment. Work-related difficulties and potential wellness interventions were explored through multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Results. Of 40 eligible registrars, 20 (50% completed the survey. High levels of burnout were reported for emotional exhaustion in 65% (13/20, depersonalisation in 45% (9/20, and personal accomplishment in 35% (7/20 of registrars. A high degree of burnout was reported by 75% (15/20 of registrars in one or more domains. In the previous 7 days, registrars worked an average of 77 hours, took 1.5 overnight calls, slept 5.7 hours per night, and 53% (10/19 had ≥1 of their patients die. Five (25% registrars considered leaving Botswana to work in another country, which correlated with those with the highest degree of burnout. The most common frustrations included insufficient salary and limited medical resources. Suggested interventions included improved mentorship and wellness lectures. Conclusions. There is a high degree of burnout, especially emotional exhaustion, among registrars. Encouragingly, most registrars have a desire to work in Botswana after training. Future research on improving registrar wellness in low-resource settings is urgently needed.

MIMO Four-Way Relaying

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Huaping; Sun, Fan; De Carvalho, Elisabeth

2013-01-01

Two-way relaying in wireless systems has initiated a large research effort during the past few years. Nevertheless, it represents only a specific traffic pattern and it is of interest to investigate other traffic patterns where such a simultaneous processing of information flows can bring...... performance advantage. In this paper we consider a \\emph{four-way relaying} multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scenario, where each of the two Mobile Stations (MSs) has a two-way connection to the same Base Station (BS), while each connection is through a dedicated Relay Station (RS). The RSs are placed...... the sum-rate of the new scheme for Decode-and-Forward (DF) operational model for the RS. We compare the performance with state-of-the-art reference schemes, based on two-way relaying with DF. The results indicate that the sum-rate of the two-phase four-way relaying scheme largely outperforms the four...

Simulated Milky Way analogues: implications for dark matter direct searches

Science.gov (United States)

Bozorgnia, Nassim; Calore, Francesca; Schaller, Matthieu; Lovell, Mark; Bertone, Gianfranco; Frenk, Carlos S.; Crain, Robert A.; Navarro, Julio F.; Schaye, Joop; Theuns, Tom

2016-05-01

We study the implications of galaxy formation on dark matter direct detection using high resolution hydrodynamic simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies simulated within the EAGLE and APOSTLE projects. We identify Milky Way analogues that satisfy observational constraints on the Milky Way rotation curve and total stellar mass. We then extract the dark matter density and velocity distribution in the Solar neighbourhood for this set of Milky Way analogues, and use them to analyse the results of current direct detection experiments. For most Milky Way analogues, the event rates in direct detection experiments obtained from the best fit Maxwellian distribution (with peak speed of 223-289 km/s) are similar to those obtained directly from the simulations. As a consequence, the allowed regions and exclusion limits set by direct detection experiments in the dark matter mass and spin-independent cross section plane shift by a few GeV compared to the Standard Halo Model, at low dark matter masses. For each dark matter mass, the halo-to-halo variation of the local dark matter density results in an overall shift of the allowed regions and exclusion limits for the cross section. However, the compatibility of the possible hints for a dark matter signal from DAMA and CDMS-Si and null results from LUX and SuperCDMS is not improved.

Identifying specific interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mulas, Giacomo; Malloci, Giuliano; Porceddu, Ignazio

2005-01-01

Interstellar Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been thought to be ubiquitous for more than twenty years, yet no single species in this class has been identified in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) to date. The unprecedented sensitivity and resolution of present Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) and forthcoming Herschel observations in the far infrared spectral range will offer a unique way out of this embarrassing impasse

Is there a third way? A response to Giddens's the Third Way.

Science.gov (United States)

Navarro, V

1999-01-01

Since the early 1990s, there has been in the United Kingdom and the United States a new political position referred to as the Third Way that claims to be intermediate between neoliberalism and social democracy, transcending both. This new position represented by the Clinton administration in the United States and the Blair Government in the United Kingdom, assumes that both social democracy and neoliberalism are obsolete and calls instead for a new set of public policies that are defined as the Third Way. This article analyzes the most detailed account of the Third Way in the English-speaking world, written by Professor Giddens. It shows that Giddens stereotypes both the neoliberal and the social democratic positions to an unrecognizable degree, failing to portray the varieties of social democratic policies in existence today in developed capitalist countries. The author shows how the Third Way is merely a recycling of liberal positions in some social policy areas and Christian democratic positions in others. Where the Third Way intends to be innovative--as in the U.K. New Deal program--the programs are pale copies of successful labor market policies carried out by northern European social democratic parties. The author concludes that the Third Way, with its questioning of the universalistic welfare state and its preference for assistential and means-tested programs, signifies a break with the social democratic tradition, transforming it into a hybrid between Christian democracy and neoliberalism.

A one-way text messaging intervention for obesity.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahn, Ahleum; Choi, Jaekyung

2016-04-01

Worldwide, there has been a startling increase in the number of people who are obese or overweight. Obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. Mobile phone messaging is an important means of human communication globally. Because the mobile phone can be used anywhere at any time, mobile phone messaging has the potential to manage obesity. We investigated the effectiveness of a one-way text messaging intervention for obesity. Participants' body mass index and waist circumference were measured at the beginning of the programme and again after 12 weeks. The text message group received text messages about exercise, dietary intake, and general information about obesity three times a week, while the control group did not receive any text messages from the study. Of the 80 participants, 25 subjects in the text message group and 29 participants in the control group completed the study. After adjusting for baseline body mass index, the body mass index was significantly lower in the text message group than in the control group (27.9 vs. 28.3; p = 0.02). After adjusting for the baseline waist circumference, the difference of waist circumference between the text message group and control group was not significant (93.4 vs. 94.6; p = 0.13). The one-way text messaging intervention was a simple and effective way to manage obesity. The one-way text messaging intervention may be a useful method for lifestyle modification in obese subjects. © The Author(s) 2015.

PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE WAY OF CONNECTING PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Božo Obradović

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The issue of linking educational theory to educational practice (educational work with young people is highly topical and important issue for the science of pedagogy. One way of achieving this task is a pedagogical practice (PP students. In paper we deal with identifying, comparing, and analyzing the curricula of vocational (Curriculum for Preschool Teacher (2007 and academic (Curriculum for Educators (2007. Studies Teacher Training in Serbia, as well as educational disciplines and areas of pedagogical science derived from them. The results showed many similarities, but also differences when it comes to educational disciplines that are taught, the name of pedagogical practice, the number of classes to implement, ECTS (European Credit Transfer System, which affect the quality and coherence of educational theory and educational practice. In order to identify similarities and overcome weaknesses that accompany the pedagogical practice analysis, we came to know about the specifics of each of the six pedagogical practice. For each pedagogical practice defined specific goals and tasks arising from the curriculum, and in particular pedagogical disciplines taught at university. Each of these pedagogical practices is the ability to connect educational theory and educational practice and direct way to increase the quality of training and competence of future teachers for direct work with children.

Comparative analysis of the performance of One-Way and Two-Way urban road networks

Science.gov (United States)

Gheorghe, Carmen

2017-10-01

The fact that the number of vehicles is increasing year after year represents a challenge in road traffic management because it is necessary to adjust the road traffic, in order to prevent any incidents, using mostly the same road infrastructure. At this moment one-way road network provides efficient traffic flow for vehicles but it is not ideal for pedestrians. Therefore, a proper solution must be found and applied when and where it is necessary. Replacing one-way road network with two-way road network may be a viable solution especially if in the area is high pedestrian traffic. The paper aims to highlight the influence of both, one-way and two-way urban road networks through an experimental research which was performed by using traffic data collected in the field. Each of the two scenarios analyzed were based on the same traffic data, the same geometrical conditions of the road (lane width, total road segment width, road slopes, total length of the road network) and also the same signaling conditions (signalised intersection or roundabout). The analysis which involves two-way scenario reveals changes in the performance parameters like delay average, stops average, delay stop average and vehicle speed average. Based on the values obtained, it was possible to perform a comparative analysis between the real, one-way, scenario and the theoretical, two-way, scenario.

Identifying Treatment Effect Modifiers in the STarT Back Trial: A Secondary Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Beneciuk, Jason M; Hill, Jonathan C; Campbell, Paul; Afolabi, Ebenezer; George, Steven Z; Dunn, Kate M; Foster, Nadine E

2017-01-01

Identification of patient characteristics influencing treatment outcomes is a top low back pain (LBP) research priority. Results from the STarT Back trial support the effectiveness of prognostic stratified care for LBP compared with current best care, however, patient characteristics associated with treatment response have not yet been explored. The purpose of this secondary analysis was to identify treatment effect modifiers within the STarT Back trial at 4-month follow-up (n = 688). Treatment response was dichotomized using back-specific physical disability measured using the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (≥7). Candidate modifiers were identified using previous literature and evaluated using logistic regression with statistical interaction terms to provide preliminary evidence of treatment effect modification. Socioeconomic status (SES) was identified as an effect modifier for disability outcomes (odds ratio [OR] = 1.71, P = .028). High SES patients receiving prognostic stratified care were 2.5 times less likely to have a poor outcome compared with low SES patients receiving best current care (OR = .40, P = .006). Education level (OR = 1.33, P = .109) and number of pain medications (OR = .64, P = .140) met our criteria for effect modification with weaker evidence (.20 > P ≥ .05). These findings provide preliminary evidence for SES, education, and number of pain medications as treatment effect modifiers of prognostic stratified care delivered in the STarT Back Trial. This analysis provides preliminary exploratory findings about the characteristics of patients who might least likely benefit from targeted treatment using prognostic stratified care for LBP. Copyright © 2016 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of Changes in Ghanaian Students' Attitudes Towards Science Following Neuroscience Outreach Activities: A Means to Identify Effective Ways to Inspire Interest in Science Careers.

Science.gov (United States)

Yawson, Nat Ato; Amankwaa, Aaron Opoku; Tali, Bernice; Shang, Velma Owusua; Batu, Emmanuella Nsenbah; Asiemoah, Kwame; Fuseini, Ahmed Denkeri; Tene, Louis Nana; Angaandi, Leticia; Blewusi, Isaac; Borbi, Makafui; Aduku, Linda Nana Esi; Badu, Pheonah; Abbey, Henrietta; Karikari, Thomas K

2016-01-01

The scientific capacity in many African countries is low. Ghana, for example, is estimated to have approximately twenty-three researchers per a million inhabitants. In order to improve interest in science among future professionals, appropriate techniques should be developed and employed to identify barriers and correlates of science education among pre-university students. Young students' attitudes towards science may affect their future career choices. However, these attitudes may change with new experiences. It is, therefore, important to evaluate potential changes in students' attitudes towards science after their exposure to experiences such as science outreach activities. Through this, more effective means of inspiring and mentoring young students to choose science subjects can be developed. This approach would be particularly beneficial in countries such as Ghana, where: (i) documented impacts of outreach activities are lacking; and (ii) effective means to develop scientist-school educational partnerships are needed. We have established an outreach scheme, aimed at helping to improve interaction between scientists and pre-university students (and their teachers). Outreach activities are designed and implemented by undergraduate students and graduate teaching assistants, with support from faculty members and technical staff. Through this, we aim to build a team of trainee scientists and graduates who will become ambassadors of science in their future professional endeavors. Here, we describe an approach for assessing changes in junior high school students' attitudes towards science following classroom neuroscience outreach activities. We show that while students tended to agree more with questions concerning their perceptions about science learning after the delivery of outreach activities, significant improvements were obtained for only two questions, namely "I enjoy science lessons" and "I want to be a scientist in the future." Furthermore, there was a

Students' Ways of Experiencing Human-Centered Design

Science.gov (United States)

Zoltowski, Carla B.

2010-01-01

This study investigated the qualitatively different ways which students experienced human-centered design. The findings of this research are important in developing effective design learning experiences and have potential impact across design education. This study provides the basis for being able to assess learning of human-centered design which…

Deterministic one-way simulation of two-way, real-time cellular automata and its related problems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Umeo, H; Morita, K; Sugata, K

1982-06-13

The authors show that for any deterministic two-way, real-time cellular automaton, m, there exists a deterministic one-way cellular automation which can simulate m in twice real-time. Moreover the authors present a new type of deterministic one-way cellular automata, called circular cellular automata, which are computationally equivalent to deterministic two-way cellular automata. 7 references.

PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE WAY OF CONNECTING PEDAGOGICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

OpenAIRE

Božo Obradović

2013-01-01

The issue of linking educational theory to educational practice (educational work with young people) is highly topical and important issue for the science of pedagogy. One way of achieving this task is a pedagogical practice (PP) students. In paper we deal with identifying, comparing, and analyzing the curricula of vocational (Curriculum for Preschool Teacher (2007) and academic (Curriculum for Educators (2007). Studies Teacher Training in Serbia, as well as educational disciplines and areas ...

Identifying Tracks Duplicates via Neural Network

CERN Document Server

Sunjerga, Antonio; CERN. Geneva. EP Department

2017-01-01

The goal of the project is to study feasibility of state of the art machine learning techniques in track reconstruction. Machine learning techniques provide promising ways to speed up the pattern recognition of tracks by adding more intelligence in the algorithms. Implementation of neural network to process of track duplicates identifying will be discussed. Different approaches are shown and results are compared to method that is currently in use.

The NOAA Dataset Identifier Project

Science.gov (United States)

de la Beaujardiere, J.; Mccullough, H.; Casey, K. S.

2013-12-01

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiated a project in 2013 to assign persistent identifiers to datasets archived at NOAA and to create informational landing pages about those datasets. The goals of this project are to enable the citation of datasets used in products and results in order to help provide credit to data producers, to support traceability and reproducibility, and to enable tracking of data usage and impact. A secondary goal is to encourage the submission of datasets for long-term preservation, because only archived datasets will be eligible for a NOAA-issued identifier. A team was formed with representatives from the National Geophysical, Oceanographic, and Climatic Data Centers (NGDC, NODC, NCDC) to resolve questions including which identifier scheme to use (answer: Digital Object Identifier - DOI), whether or not to embed semantics in identifiers (no), the level of granularity at which to assign identifiers (as coarsely as reasonable), how to handle ongoing time-series data (do not break into chunks), creation mechanism for the landing page (stylesheet from formal metadata record preferred), and others. Decisions made and implementation experience gained will inform the writing of a Data Citation Procedural Directive to be issued by the Environmental Data Management Committee in 2014. Several identifiers have been issued as of July 2013, with more on the way. NOAA is now reporting the number as a metric to federal Open Government initiatives. This paper will provide further details and status of the project.

Ten ways for provider units to weather this economic downturn.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernard, Amy

2009-05-01

The current economic recession challenges all continuing nursing education provider units to review operational practices and explore ways to maintain and ensure financial viability. Adjustments in programs are likely, as nurses seek more cost-effective ways of meeting their continuing education requirements. Further, employers are reducing staff and budgets. As a result, provider units need to reassess operations and refocus outcomes.

Moments Based Framework for Performance Analysis of One-Way/Two-Way CSI-Assisted AF Relaying

KAUST Repository

Xia, Minghua

2012-09-01

When analyzing system performance of conventional one-way relaying or advanced two-way relaying, these two techniques are always dealt with separately and, thus, their performance cannot be compared efficiently. Moreover, for ease of mathematical tractability, channels considered in such studies are generally assumed to be subject to Rayleigh fading or to be Nakagami-$m$ channels with integer fading parameters, which is impractical in typical urban environments. In this paper, we propose a unified moments-based framework for general performance analysis of channel-state-information (CSI) assisted amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying systems. The framework is applicable to both one-way and two-way relaying over arbitrary Nakagami-$m$ fading channels, and it includes previously reported results as special cases. Specifically, the mathematical framework is firstly developed under the umbrella of the weighted harmonic mean of two Gamma-distributed variables in conjunction with the theory of Pad\\\\\\'e approximants. Then, general expressions for the received signal-to-noise ratios of the users in one-way/two-way relaying systems and the corresponding moments, moment generation function, and cumulative density function are established. Subsequently, the mathematical framework is applied to analyze, compare, and gain insights into system performance of one-way and two-way relaying techniques, in terms of outage probability, average symbol error probability, and achievable data rate. All analytical results are corroborated by simulation results as well as previously reported results whenever available, and they are shown to be efficient tools to evaluate and compare system performance of one-way and two-way relaying.

Cost-effectiveness of identifying aortoiliac and femoropopliteal arterial disease with angiography or duplex scanning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coffi, S.B.; Ubbink, D.Th.; Dijkgraaf, M.G.W.; Reekers, J.A.; Legemate, D.A.

2008-01-01

Objectives: Cost-effectiveness analysis of three diagnostic imaging strategies for the assessment of aortoiliac and femoropopliteal arteries in patients with peripheral arterial occlusive disease. The strategies were: angiography as the reference strategy, duplex scanning (DS) plus supplementary angiography (S1) and DS plus confirmative angiography (S2). Design, materials and methods: A decision model was built with sensitivity and specificity data from literature, supplemented with prospective hospital cost data in Euro ( Euro ). The probability of correctly identifying the status of a lesion was taken as the primary outcome. We compared strategies by assessing the extra costs per additional correctly identified case. Results: Assuming no false positive or false negative results, angiography is the most effective strategy if the prevalence of significant obstructive lesions in the aortoiliac and femoropopliteal tract exceeds 70%, or if the sensitivity of duplex scanning is lower than 83%. In case of lower prevalence, strategy S1 becomes equally or even more effective than angiography. At a prevalence of 75%, performing angiography costs Euro 8443 per extra correctly identified case compared with strategy S1. Conclusions: In most situations angiography is more effective than diagnostic strategy S1. However, if society is unwilling to pay more than Euro 8443 for knowing a patient's disease status, diagnostic strategy S1 is a cost-effective alternative to angiography, especially at lower prevalence values

Identifying the role of human-induced land-use change while assessing drought effects on groundwater recharge

Science.gov (United States)

Verbeiren, Boud; Weerasinghe, Imeshi; Vanderhaegen, Sven; Canters, Frank; Uljee, Inge; Engelen, Guy; Jacquemin, Ingrid; Tychon, Bernard; Vangelis, Harris; Tsakiris, George; Batelaan, Okke; Huysmans, Marijke

2015-04-01

Drought is mainly regarded as a purely natural phenomenon, driven by the natural variation in precipitation or rather the lack of precipitation. Nowadays many river catchments are, however, altered by human activities having direct effects on the catchment landscape and hydrological response. In case of the occurrence of drought events in those catchments it becomes more complex to determine the effects of drought. To what extent is the hydrological response a direct result of the natural phenomenon and what is the role of the human factor? In this study we focus on the effects of droughts on groundwater recharge. Reliable estimation of groundwater recharge in space and time is of utmost importance for sustainable management of groundwater resources. Groundwater recharge forms the main source for replenishing aquifers. The main factors influencing groundwater recharge are the soil and topographic characteristics, land use and climate. While the first two influencing factors are relatively static, the latter two are (highly) dynamic. Differentiating between the contributions of each of these influencing factors to groundwater recharge is a challenging but important task. On the one hand, the occurrence of meteorological drought events is likely to cause direct, potentially deteriorating, effects on groundwater recharge. On the other hand, this is also the case for on-going land-use dynamics such as extensive urbanisation. The presented methodology aims at distinguishing in space and time between climate (drought-related) and land-use (human-induced) effects, enabling to assess the effects of drought on groundwater recharge. The physically-based water balance model WetSpass is used to calculate groundwater recharge in a distributed way (space and time) for the Dijle-Demer catchments in Belgium. The key issue is to determine land-use dynamics in a consistent way. A land-use timeseries is build based on four base maps. Via a change trajectory analysis the consistency

Counting dementia: There is no one "best" way.

Science.gov (United States)

Launer, Lenore J

2011-01-01

The growing societal and individual burden of dementia means that counting the cases of dementia is critical. There are several approaches and methods that can be used to identify dementia cases. The ascertainment can range from very detailed characterization of the individual (deep) to a brief standardized assessment (wide) that emphasizes individual functioning. The choice of going deep or wide depends on the goal of the ascertainment. These goals are discussed, as well as the emerging issues that may change the way dementia cases are classified. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Indicators of ecosystem function identify alternate states in the sagebrush steppe.

Science.gov (United States)

Kachergis, Emily; Rocca, Monique E; Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria E

2011-10-01

Models of ecosystem change that incorporate nonlinear dynamics and thresholds, such as state-and-transition models (STMs), are increasingly popular tools for land management decision-making. However, few models are based on systematic collection and documentation of ecological data, and of these, most rely solely on structural indicators (species composition) to identify states and transitions. As STMs are adopted as an assessment framework throughout the United States, finding effective and efficient ways to create data-driven models that integrate ecosystem function and structure is vital. This study aims to (1) evaluate the utility of functional indicators (indicators of rangeland health, IRH) as proxies for more difficult ecosystem function measurements and (2) create a data-driven STM for the sagebrush steppe of Colorado, USA, that incorporates both ecosystem structure and function. We sampled soils, plant communities, and IRH at 41 plots with similar clayey soils but different site histories to identify potential states and infer the effects of management practices and disturbances on transitions. We found that many IRH were correlated with quantitative measures of functional indicators, suggesting that the IRH can be used to approximate ecosystem function. In addition to a reference state that functions as expected for this soil type, we identified four biotically and functionally distinct potential states, consistent with the theoretical concept of alternate states. Three potential states were related to management practices (chemical and mechanical shrub treatments and seeding history) while one was related only to ecosystem processes (erosion). IRH and potential states were also related to environmental variation (slope, soil texture), suggesting that there are environmental factors within areas with similar soils that affect ecosystem dynamics and should be noted within STMs. Our approach generated an objective, data-driven model of ecosystem dynamics

Do Payment Mechanisms Change the Way Consumers Perceive Products?

OpenAIRE

Promothesh Chatterjee; Randall L. Rose

2012-01-01

Do payment mechanisms change the way consumers perceive products? We argue that consumers for whom credit cards (cash) have been primed focus more on benefits (costs) when evaluating a product. In study 1, credit card (cash) primed participants made more (fewer) recall errors regarding cost attributes. In a word recognition task (study 2), participants primed with credit card (cash) identified more words related to benefits (costs) than those in the cash (credit card) condition. In study 3, p...

Identifying potentially cost effective chronic care programs for people with COPD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L M G Steuten

2008-12-01

Full Text Available L M G Steuten1, K M M Lemmens2, A P Nieboer2, H JM Vrijhoef31Maastricht University Medical Centre, School for Care and Public Health Research, Department of Health, Organisation, Policy and Economics, Maastricht, The Netherlands; 2Erasmus University Medical Centre, Institute of Health Policy and Management, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; 3Maastricht University Medical Centre, School for Care and Public Health Research, Department of Integrated Care, Maastricht, The NetherlandsObjective: To review published evidence regarding the cost effectiveness of multi-component COPD programs and to illustrate how potentially cost effective programs can be identified.Methods: Systematic search of Medline and Cochrane databases for evaluations of multi-component disease management or chronic care programs for adults with COPD, describing process, intermediate, and end results of care. Data were independently extracted by two reviewers and descriptively summarized.Results: Twenty articles describing 17 unique COPD programs were included. There is little evidence for significant improvements in process and intermediate outcomes, except for increased provision of patient self-management education and improved disease-specific knowledge. Overall, the COPD programs generate end results equivalent to usual care, but programs containing ≥3 components show lower relative risks for hospitalization. There is limited scope for programs to break-even or save money.Conclusion: Identifying cost effective multi-component COPD programs remains a challenge due to scarce methodologically sound studies that demonstrate significant improvements on process, intermediate and end results of care. Estimations of potential cost effectiveness of specific programs illustrated in this paper can, in the absence of ‘perfect data’, support timely decision-making regarding these programs. Nevertheless, well-designed health economic studies are needed to decrease the current decision

On the thermal degradation of the two way memory effect in Cu-Al-Be alloys

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Flores-Zuniga, H.; Rios-Jara, D.

1994-01-01

The mechanisms associated to such a degradation of the Two Way Shape Memory Effect (TWSME) are still being discussed. In Cu-Al-Ni alloys two different steps, with different rates of degradation of the TWSME, were observed on aging at temperatures between 200 and 220 C. The first step was associated with the annihilation of the dislocations created during the training process. The second step was attributed to an oriented bainitic type precipitation. In Cu-Zn-Al alloys, the observed degradation of the TWSME with aging at temperatures between 100 and 140 C, was also associated with two mechanisms: first to the annihilation of dislocations and next to the precipitation of an α phase. In the present work, the same type of study was performed for Cu-Al-Be alloys. However, in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations of the effect of temperature were included, which revealed the actual mechanisms driving the TWSME degradation process

Using instructional logs to identify quality in educational settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Rowan, Brian; Jacob, Robin; Correnti, Richard

2009-01-01

When attempting to identify educational settings that are most effective in improving student achievement, classroom process (that is, the way in which a teacher interacts with his or her students) is a key feature of interest. Unfortunately, high-quality assessment of the student-teacher interaction occurs all too infrequently, despite the critical role that understanding and measuring such processes can play in school improvement. This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of two common approaches to studying these processes-direct classroom observation and annual surveys of teachers-and then describes the ways in which instructional logs can be used to overcome some of the limitations of these two approaches when gathering data on curriculum content and coverage. Classroom observations are expensive, require extensive training of raters to ensure consistency in the observations, and because of their expense generally cannot be conducted frequently enough to enable the researcher to generalize observational findings to the entire school year or illuminate the patterns of instructional change that occur across the school year. Annual surveys are less expensive but often suffer from self-report bias and the bias that occurs when teachers are asked to retrospectively report on their activities over the course of a single year. Instructional logs offer a valid, reliable, and relatively cost-effective alternative for collecting detailed information about classroom practice and can overcome some of the limitations of both observations and annual surveys.

A better way to deliver bad news.

Science.gov (United States)

Manzoni, Jean-François

2002-09-01

In an ideal world, a subordinate would accept critical feedback from a manager with an open mind. He or she would ask a few clarifying questions, promise to work on certain performance areas, and show signs of improvement over time. But things don't always turn out that way. Such conversations can be unpleasant. Emotions can run high; tempers can flare. Fearing that the employee will become angry and defensive, the boss all too often inadvertently sabotages the meeting by preparing for it in a way that stifles honest discussion. This unintentional--indeed, unconscious--stress-induced habit makes it difficult to deliver corrective feedback effectively. Insead professor Jean-François Manzoni says that by changing the mind-set with which they develop and deliver negative feedback, managers can increase their odds of having productive conversations without damaging relationships. Manzoni describes two behavioral phenomena that color the feedback process--the fundamental attribution error and the false consensus effect--and uses real-world examples to demonstrate how bosses' critiques can go astray. Managers tend to frame difficult situations and decisions in a way that is narrow (alternatives aren't considered) and binary (there are only two possible outcomes--win or lose). And during the feedback discussion, managers' framing of the issues often remains frozen, regardless of the direction the conversation takes. Manzoni advises managers not to just settle on the first acceptable explanation for a behavior or situation they've witnessed. Bosses also need to consider an employee's circumstances rather than just attributing weak performance to a person's disposition. In short, delivering more effective feedback requires an open-minded approach, one that will convince employees that the process is fair and that the boss is ready for an honest conversation.

IDENTIFYING MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS METRICS (Case study: East Azerbaijan`s industrial units)

OpenAIRE

Faridyahyaie, Reza; Faryabi, Mohammad; Bodaghi Khajeh Noubar, Hossein

2012-01-01

The Paper attempts to identify marketing eff ectiveness metrics in industrial units. The metrics investigated in this study are completely applicable and comprehensive, and consequently they can evaluate marketing eff ectiveness in various industries. The metrics studied include: Market Share, Profitability, Sales Growth, Customer Numbers, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty. The findings indicate that these six metrics are impressive when measuring marketing effectiveness. Data was ge...

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE – WAY OF GOVERNANCE FOR MODERN COMPANIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alina HAGIU

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Through corporate governance is aimed the building of a structure enabling a wide degree of freedom, within the law, and includes several changes of principle in accordance with international standards of transparency. A good governance within an organization mitigate risk, increase performance, pave the way towards financial markets, brings competitive goods and services on market, improves management style, show transparency towards all stakeholders and social responsibility. The lack of some mandatory rules and structures can lead to chaos in business. The paper aims to present the role and the importance of the corporate governance for modern companies, as well as the principles on which this is based. In order to do that we also identified the main ways to quantificate the level of corporate governance, including also the non-financial performance criteria used by investors to assess companies listed on stock exchange.

Inter-hospital communications and transport: turning one-way funnels into two-way networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Rokos, Ivan C; Sanddal, Nels D; Pancioli, Arthur M; Wolff, Catherine; Gaieski, David F

2010-12-01

The Inter-hospital Communications and Transport workgroup was charged with exploring the current status, barriers, and data necessary to optimize the initial destination and subsequent transfer of patients between and among acute care settings. The subtitle, "Turning Funnels Into Two-way Networks," is descriptive of the approach that the workgroup took by exploring how and when smaller facilities in suburban, rural, and frontier areas can contribute to the daily business of caring for emergency patients across the lower-acuity spectrum-in some instances with consultant support from academic medical centers. It also focused on the need to identify high-acuity patients and expedite triage and transfer of those patients to facilities with specialty resources. Draft research recommendations were developed through an iterative writing process and presented to a breakout session of Academic Emergency Medicine's 2010 consensus conference, "Beyond Regionalization: Integrated Networks of Emergency Care." Priority research areas were determined by informal consensus of the breakout group. A subsequent iterative writing process was undertaken to complete this article. A number of broad research questions are presented. 2010 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

Perceptions of low-income mothers about the causes and ways to prevent overweight in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Danford, C A; Schultz, C M; Rosenblum, K; Miller, A L; Lumeng, J C

2015-11-01

Childhood overweight and obesity remain major health conditions, affecting nearly one-third of children in the USA. Multiple factors have been identified that contribute to children becoming overweight; however, little is known regarding what low-income mothers perceive to be the causes of and the ways to prevent children from becoming overweight. Low-income mothers (n = 286) with children aged 4-8 years participated in semi-structured interviews, during which they were asked for their opinions about the causes of and ways to prevent children from becoming overweight. After themes were identified, interviews were coded for the presence or absence of each theme. The majority of mothers were non-Hispanic White (69.2%) and overweight or obese (77.3%). Additionally, many of the children (41.9%) were overweight or obese. Six causes of children becoming overweight were identified by mothers: types or quantities of food eaten (90.9%); parenting behaviours (44.9%); lack of activity (42.3%); genetics, slow metabolism or medical issues (24.5%); stress or emotion (5.2%); and limited access to resources (3.5%). Five ways to prevent children from becoming overweight identified by mothers included the following: healthy eating (84.9%), more activity (54.8%), limiting screen time (19.9%), limiting sugar-sweetened beverages (12.2%) and drinking more water (6.6%). The majority of mothers (77.1%) reported that they carried out their suggestions to prevent their children from becoming overweight. Within this cohort with a high prevalence of maternal and child overweight, most mothers identified many of the evidence-based strategies for childhood obesity prevention. Future intervention development may benefit from focusing on content areas that were less commonly identified by mothers as well as helping mothers translate knowledge to implementation. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The dynamic programming high-order Dynamic Bayesian Networks learning for identifying effective connectivity in human brain from fMRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Dang, Shilpa; Chaudhury, Santanu; Lall, Brejesh; Roy, Prasun Kumar

2017-06-15

Determination of effective connectivity (EC) among brain regions using fMRI is helpful in understanding the underlying neural mechanisms. Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBNs) are an appropriate class of probabilistic graphical temporal-models that have been used in past to model EC from fMRI, specifically order-one. High-order DBNs (HO-DBNs) have still not been explored for fMRI data. A fundamental problem faced in the structure-learning of HO-DBN is high computational-burden and low accuracy by the existing heuristic search techniques used for EC detection from fMRI. In this paper, we propose using dynamic programming (DP) principle along with integration of properties of scoring-function in a way to reduce search space for structure-learning of HO-DBNs and finally, for identifying EC from fMRI which has not been done yet to the best of our knowledge. The proposed exact search-&-score learning approach HO-DBN-DP is an extension of the technique which was originally devised for learning a BN's structure from static data (Singh and Moore, 2005). The effectiveness in structure-learning is shown on synthetic fMRI dataset. The algorithm reaches globally-optimal solution in appreciably reduced time-complexity than the static counterpart due to integration of properties. The proof of optimality is provided. The results demonstrate that HO-DBN-DP is comparably more accurate and faster than currently used structure-learning algorithms used for identifying EC from fMRI. The real data EC from HO-DBN-DP shows consistency with previous literature than the classical Granger Causality method. Hence, the DP algorithm can be employed for reliable EC estimates from experimental fMRI data. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Promise of Virtual Teams: Identifying Key Factors in Effectiveness and Failure

Science.gov (United States)

Horwitz, Frank M.; Bravington, Desmond; Silvis, Ulrik

2006-01-01

Purpose: The aim of the investigation is to identify enabling and disenabling factors in the development and operation of virtual teams; to evaluate the importance of factors such as team development, cross-cultural variables, leadership, communication and social cohesion as contributors to virtual team effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach:…

WAYS TO INCREASE LEVERAGE RURAL TOURISM POTENTIAL OF THE HISTORICAL REGIONS CRIŞANA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

BARBU IONEL

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In this work we aimed to identify some ways of increasing the recovery of the tourism potential of the historical region Crisan. Given the multitude of economic implications, socio-cultural and environmental impacts of rural tourism by increasing recovery tourist potential, the positive impact of this economic activity will be felt by all concerned: residents, entrepreneurs, tourists and local public administration. By the way, tourists will benefit a greater diversity of services for accommodation, dining and leisure, causing them to disseminate their opinions among other tourists and even return to those places.

Thermomechanical behavior of a two-way shape memory composite actuator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ge, Qi; Westbrook, Kristofer K; Dunn, Martin L; Jerry Qi, H; Mather, Patrick T

2013-01-01

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are a class of smart materials that can fix a temporary shape and recover to their permanent (original) shape in response to an environmental stimulus such as heat, electricity, or irradiation, among others. Most SMPs developed in the past can only demonstrate the so-called one-way shape memory effect; i.e., one programming step can only yield one shape memory cycle. Recently, one of the authors (Mather) developed a SMP that exhibits both one-way shape memory (1W-SM) and two-way shape memory (2W-SM) effects (with the assistance of an external load). This SMP was further used to develop a free-standing composite actuator with a nonlinear reversible actuation under thermal cycling. In this paper, a theoretical model for the PCO SMP based composite actuator was developed to investigate its thermomechanical behavior and the mechanisms for the observed phenomena during the actuation cycles, and to provide insight into how to improve the design. (paper)

Does the Future Engineer Force Transition Engineer Units between Offensive and Stability Operations in Ways That Achieve Responsiveness, Versatility, Agility, Effectiveness, and Efficiency?

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

London, David T

2005-01-01

.... The main question is as follows: Does the FEF transition engineer units between offensive and stability operations in ways that achieve responsiveness, versatility, agility, effectiveness, and efficiency...

Emotion and anxiety potentiate the way attention alters visual appearance.

Science.gov (United States)

Barbot, Antoine; Carrasco, Marisa

2018-04-12

The ability to swiftly detect and prioritize the processing of relevant information around us is critical for the way we interact with our environment. Selective attention is a key mechanism that serves this purpose, improving performance in numerous visual tasks. Reflexively attending to sudden information helps detect impeding threat or danger, a possible reason why emotion modulates the way selective attention affects perception. For instance, the sudden appearance of a fearful face potentiates the effects of exogenous (involuntary, stimulus-driven) attention on performance. Internal states such as trait anxiety can also modulate the impact of attention on early visual processing. However, attention does not only improve performance; it also alters the way visual information appears to us, e.g. by enhancing perceived contrast. Here we show that emotion potentiates the effects of exogenous attention on both performance and perceived contrast. Moreover, we found that trait anxiety mediates these effects, with stronger influences of attention and emotion in anxious observers. Finally, changes in performance and appearance correlated with each other, likely reflecting common attentional modulations. Altogether, our findings show that emotion and anxiety interact with selective attention to truly alter how we see.

Discriminating talent-identified junior Australian football players using a video decision-making task.

Science.gov (United States)

Woods, Carl T; Raynor, Annette J; Bruce, Lyndell; McDonald, Zane

2016-01-01

This study examined if a video decision-making task could discriminate talent-identified junior Australian football players from their non-talent-identified counterparts. Participants were recruited from the 2013 under 18 (U18) West Australian Football League competition and classified into two groups: talent-identified (State U18 Academy representatives; n = 25; 17.8 ± 0.5 years) and non-talent-identified (non-State U18 Academy selection; n = 25; 17.3 ± 0.6 years). Participants completed a video decision-making task consisting of 26 clips sourced from the Australian Football League game-day footage, recording responses on a sheet provided. A score of "1" was given for correct and "0" for incorrect responses, with the participants total score used as the criterion value. One-way analysis of variance tested the main effect of "status" on the task criterion, whilst a bootstrapped receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve assessed the discriminant ability of the task. An area under the curve (AUC) of 1 (100%) represented perfect discrimination. Between-group differences were evident (P talent-identified and non-talent-identified participants, respectively. Future research should investigate the mechanisms leading to the superior decision-making observed in the talent-identified group.

A Wimba Way, A Wimba Way

OpenAIRE

Beck, Charlotte; Miller, Katherine; Taylor, Sally

2010-01-01

Wimba Classroom, like other online teaching tools, gives us a way to connect to our learners at a distance. This software can be used to share desktops, PowerPoint presentations, polls and more. Come and see a demonstration of the software and hear how we’re using Wimba Classroom to teach health care practitioners in a distance education program, undergraduate students in a first-year biology course and participants in an online RefWorks workshop. We’ll also talk about our “Train the Trainer”...

Joint Preprocesser-Based Detectors for One-Way and Two-Way Cooperative Communication Networks

KAUST Repository

Abuzaid, Abdulrahman I.

2014-05-01

Efficient receiver designs for cooperative communication networks are becoming increasingly important. In previous work, cooperative networks communicated with the use of L relays. As the receiver is constrained, channel shortening and reduced-rank techniques were employed to design the preprocessing matrix that reduces the length of the received vector from L to U. In the first part of the work, a receiver structure is proposed which combines our proposed threshold selection criteria with the joint iterative optimization (JIO) algorithm that is based on the mean square error (MSE). Our receiver assists in determining the optimal U. Furthermore, this receiver provides the freedom to choose U for each frame depending on the tolerable difference allowed for MSE. Our study and simulation results show that by choosing an appropriate threshold, it is possible to gain in terms of complexity savings while having no or minimal effect on the BER performance of the system. Furthermore, the effect of channel estimation on the performance of the cooperative system is investigated. In the second part of the work, a joint preprocessor-based detector for cooperative communication networks is proposed for one-way and two-way relaying. This joint preprocessor-based detector operates on the principles of minimizing the symbol error rate (SER) instead of minimizing MSE. For a realistic assessment, pilot symbols are used to estimate the channel. From our simulations, it can be observed that our proposed detector achieves the same SER performance as that of the maximum likelihood (ML) detector with all participating relays. Additionally, our detector outperforms selection combining (SC), channel shortening (CS) scheme and reduced-rank techniques when using the same U. Finally, our proposed scheme has the lowest computational complexity.

The Multiwavelength Milky Way Project

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, B. A.; Leisawitz, D.; Boyd, P. T.; Digel, S. W.; Friedlander, J.; Kessel, R. L.; Smale, A. P.

2000-12-01

We describe an ongoing effort to communicate what is known about the Milky Way, and how our understanding of the Galaxy has advanced in recent decades with observations across the electromagnetic spectrum. Our aim is to help students, educators, and the general public understand the structure of the Milky Way, and our location within it. Inspired by the warm reception to our Multiwavelength Milky Way poster (26,000 copies distributed; requested by people in over 50 countries) we created several related products and a new version of the poster. The updated poster contains ten Galactic plane maps and a legend that points out prominent features and objects. The Multiwavelength Milky Way web site at http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/mw provides an image browsing capability, links to data files and journal articles, lesson plans and suggested activities for teachers, and a poster order form. We created a slide set comprised of multiwavelength all-sky maps and a ``Multiwavelength Milky Way'' image corresponding to the poster. The Galactic plane maps featured on the poster raise questions in the minds of many non-astronomers: ``Where are we in this picture?'' and ``How do we know what we know?'' To help answer these questions we developed a realistic three-dimensional model of the Milky Way and used state-of-the-art animation techniques to create a 28-minute video called The Milky Way's Invisible Light. The viewer is taken on a tour of the Galaxy that ends at the Sun's location, from which the 3-D model is shown to resemble the Galactic plane surveys depicted on the Multiwavelength Milky Way poster. The video can be ordered on the web at http://space.gsfc.nasa.gov/astro/education/mw_film or from the ASP catalog. The Multiwavelength Milky Way project is sponsored by the Astrophysics Data Facility at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Tracing the first stars and galaxies of the Milky Way

Science.gov (United States)

Griffen, Brendan F.; Dooley, Gregory A.; Ji, Alexander P.; O'Shea, Brian W.; Gómez, Facundo A.; Frebel, Anna

2018-02-01

We use 30 high-resolution dark matter haloes of the Caterpillar simulation suite to probe the first stars and galaxies of Milky Way-mass systems. We quantify the environment of the high-z progenitors of the Milky Way and connect them to the properties of the host and satellites today. We identify the formation sites of the first generation of Population III (Pop III) stars (z ˜ 25) and first galaxies (z ˜ 22) with several different models based on a minimum halo mass. This includes a simple model for radiative feedback, the primary limitation of the model. Through this method we find approximately 23 000 ± 5000 Pop III potentially star-forming sites per Milky Way-mass host, though this number is drastically reduced to ˜550 star-forming sites if feedback is included. The majority of these haloes identified form in isolation (96 per cent at z = 15) and are not subject to external enrichment by neighbouring haloes (median separation ˜1 kpc at z = 15), though half merge with a system larger than themselves within 1.5 Gyr. Using particle tagging, we additionally trace the Pop III remnant population to z = 0 and find an order of magnitude scatter in their number density at small (i.e. r 50 kpc) galactocentric radii. We provide fitting functions for determining the number of progenitor minihalo and atomic cooling halo systems that present-day satellite galaxies might have accreted since their formation. We determine that observed dwarf galaxies with stellar masses below 104.6 M⊙ are unlikely to have merged with any other star-forming systems.

Two-way quantum key distribution at telecommunication wavelength

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kumar, Rupesh; Lucamarini, Marco; Di Giuseppe, Giovanni; Natali, Riccardo; Mancini, Giorgio; Tombesi, Paolo

2008-01-01

We report on a quantum key distribution effected with a two-way deterministic protocol over a standard telecommunication fiber. Despite the common belief of a prohibitive loss rate for such a scheme, our results show its feasibility on distances of few tenths of kilometers

The ways to improve state regulation of land turnover which are in a government and municipal property in Ukraine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. A. Serdyuk

2016-09-01

Full Text Available After comprehensive scientific exploration the ways of improvement of state regulation of land turnover which are in a government and state municipal property in Ukraine have been identified. Also it was proposed and justified the conceptual bases of strategy in development of state regulation. As a result of scientific exploration the directions of improvement of organizational mechanism have been formed also and wich a viev to improve legal mechanism of state regulation of land turnover it was suggested the modern approach of it. The main problem that constrains mechanical development of state regulation is non-compliance with legal principles, corruption and low motivation of officials. Approach to improvement is necessity of strategic development by the way of compliance law principles, realization of identified steps in development, using the practice of international regulation in land turnover. Strategic goals are in improvement of procedure of land turnover in public property by the way of advance mechanisms of state regulation; in a finding of effective approaches to improvement components of the legal mechanism; to produce and to offer propositions about development of components legal mechanism; to create clear and understandable procedure of land turnover for all participants in relationships in accordance with European legal traditions etc.Scenario of development that was elected is strategic and directed to solve the problems, perfection of economic, organizational and legal mechanisms of land turnover and also system development. But there are some risks that can interfere realization of strategic priorities. They are in outside threat, political instability, the economic downturn and corruption. We have chosen the next evaluation criteria: the level of investment attractiveness; the level of perception corruption in the society; the level of rating and satisfying quality of in land turnover process by the market participants with

Ways of the Jam

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brinck, Lars

In the PhD-dissertation Ways of the Jam I investigate jamming and learning as profoundly collective and improvisational matters. Bridging a theory of funk jamming with situated learning theoretical analyses of New Orleans second line, everyday leadership, and of a studio recording session...... demonstrate how looking at human activity from a jamming perspective enhances our understanding of learning as a complex collective and improvisational process. Ways of the Jam demonstrates how learning is a matter of changing improvisational participation in changing practice in analytically inseparable ways......’ of practice, on the collectivity of changing practice, on the improvisational aspects of participation, and on these analytic perspectives’ complex hegemony and subordination....

Safe, Effective Use of Pesticides, A Manual for Commercial Applicators: Right-of-Way Pest Control.

Science.gov (United States)

Extension Service (USDA), Washington, DC.

This manual is intended to assist pesticide applicators who are engaged in right-of-way pest control to meet the requirements of the Michigan Department of Agriculture for certification. While the majority of material in this guide pertains to vegetation management, the guide also addresses right-of-way insect and fungus control. An introduction…

The Analysis of Two-Way Functional Data Using Two-Way Regularized Singular Value Decompositions

KAUST Repository

Huang, Jianhua Z.

2009-12-01

Two-way functional data consist of a data matrix whose row and column domains are both structured, for example, temporally or spatially, as when the data are time series collected at different locations in space. We extend one-way functional principal component analysis (PCA) to two-way functional data by introducing regularization of both left and right singular vectors in the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the data matrix. We focus on a penalization approach and solve the nontrivial problem of constructing proper two-way penalties from oneway regression penalties. We introduce conditional cross-validated smoothing parameter selection whereby left-singular vectors are cross- validated conditional on right-singular vectors, and vice versa. The concept can be realized as part of an alternating optimization algorithm. In addition to the penalization approach, we briefly consider two-way regularization with basis expansion. The proposed methods are illustrated with one simulated and two real data examples. Supplemental materials available online show that several "natural" approaches to penalized SVDs are flawed and explain why so. © 2009 American Statistical Association.

Identifying Key Attributes for Protein Beverages.

Science.gov (United States)

Oltman, A E; Lopetcharat, K; Bastian, E; Drake, M A

2015-06-01

This study identified key attributes of protein beverages and evaluated effects of priming on liking of protein beverages. An adaptive choice-based conjoint study was conducted along with Kano analysis to gain insight on protein beverage consumers (n = 432). Attributes evaluated included label claim, protein type, amount of protein, carbohydrates, sweeteners, and metabolic benefits. Utility scores for levels and importance scores for attributes were determined. Subsequently, two pairs of clear acidic whey protein beverages were manufactured that differed by age of protein source or the amount of whey protein per serving. Beverages were evaluated by 151 consumers on two occasions with or without priming statements. One priming statement declared "great flavor," the other priming statement declared 20 g protein per serving. A two way analysis of variance was applied to discern the role of each priming statement. The most important attribute for protein beverages was sweetener type, followed by amount of protein, followed by type of protein followed by label claim. Beverages with whey protein, naturally sweetened, reduced sugar and ≥15 g protein per serving were most desired. Three consumer clusters were identified, differentiated by their preferences for protein type, sweetener and amount of protein. Priming statements positively impacted concept liking (P 0.05). Consistent with trained panel profiles of increased cardboard flavor with higher protein content, consumers liked beverages with 10 g protein more than beverages with 20 g protein (6.8 compared with 5.7, P appeal. © 2015 Institute of Food Technologists®

Holistic aspects of children's ways of understanding in making sense of genetics

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Hui-Ju

The study examined the nature of how children make sense of phenomena in the area of genetics and inheritance. I proposed the phrase, way of understanding to capture a unified entity which children use to make sense of phenomena. The methodology was semi-structured probing interviews with six sixth grade students. Seven specific ways of understanding were discussed in the results section. Overall, the study described and discovered children's ways of understanding in terms of five aspects: cognitive aspects, affective aspects, social aspects, playfulness, and mode of awareness. Students' propositional knowledge, a holistic view of looking at how people resemble each other, syntactic knowledge, and an extension of rational explanations belonged to the cognitive aspects. Four categories of affective expressions were: an enjoyment of thinking and learning, a special feeling about the instructional activity, a deep personal involvement, and an anxiety in finding correct answers. Two types of social context were identified, one had somewhat of a connection to the science world, and the other did not have much of an scientific tie. The playfulness and the mode of awareness were two emerging aspects through the study. The playfulness represented the spontaneity, freedom, and sense of fun associated with the social interaction activity, such as the playfulness in expressing ideas to others. The modes of awareness included two types of metacognition, one was a conscious reflection on one's cognitive abilities, and the other was a continuous process of monitoring knowledge. In addition, the importance of considering language aspect in science learning was an emerging issue. Students' talking about genetics was embedded in the larger framework of social relationships and social institutions. Their social identify might influence the development of concepts, ways of talking and science learning. The study reflects the richness of children's sense-making processes

Relay Selection and Resource Allocation in One-Way and Two-Way Cognitive Relay Networks

KAUST Repository

Alsharoa, Ahmad M.

2013-05-08

In this work, the problem of relay selection and resource power allocation in one- way and two-way cognitive relay networks using half duplex channels with different relaying protocols is investigated. Optimization problems for both single and multiple relay selection that maximize the sum rate of the secondary network without degrading the quality of service of the primary network by respecting a tolerated interference threshold were formulated. Single relay selection and optimal power allocation for two-way relaying cognitive radio networks using decode-and-forward and amplify-and-forward protocols were studied. Dual decomposition and subgradient methods were used to find the optimal power allocation. The transmission process to exchange two different messages between two transceivers for two-way relaying technique takes place in two time slots. In the first slot, the transceivers transmit their signals simultaneously to the relay. Then, during the second slot the relay broadcasts its signal to the terminals. Moreover, improvement of both spectral and energy efficiency can be achieved compared with the one-way relaying technique. As an extension, a multiple relay selection for both one-way and two-way relaying under cognitive radio scenario using amplify-and-forward were discussed. A strong optimization tool based on genetic and iterative algorithms was employed to solve the 
formulated optimization problems for both single and multiple relay selection, where discrete relay power levels were considered. Simulation results show that the practical and low-complexity heuristic approaches achieve almost the same performance of the optimal relay selection schemes either with discrete or continuous power distributions while providing a considerable saving in terms of computational complexity.

Vulnerable Family Meetings: A Way of Promoting Team Working in GPs’ Everyday Responses to Child Maltreatment?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jenny Woodman

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This study uses observations of team meetings and interviews with 17 primary care professionals in four GP practices in England to generate hypotheses about how “vulnerable family” team meetings might support responses by GPs to maltreatment-related concerns and joint working with other professionals. These meetings are also called “safeguarding meetings”. The study found that vulnerable family meetings were used as a way of monitoring children or young people and their families and supporting risk assessment by information gathering. Four factors facilitated the meetings: meaningful information flow into the meetings from other agencies, systematic ways of identifying cases for discussion, limiting attendance to core members of the primary care team and locating the meeting as part of routine clinical practice. Our results generate hypotheses about a model of care that can be tested for effectiveness in terms of service measures, child and family outcomes, and as a potential mechanism for other professionals to engage and support GPs in their everyday responses to vulnerable and maltreated children. The potential for adverse as well as beneficial effects should be considered from involving professionals outside the core primary care team (e.g., police, children’s social care, education and mental health services.

Chemical Alias: An Engaging Way to Examine Nomenclature

Science.gov (United States)

Kurushkin, Mikhail; Mikhaylenko, Maria

2015-01-01

An educational card game, "Chemical Alias," has been developed as an alternative method of reviewing students' knowledge of nomenclature. In contrast to conventional tests, this highly competitive activity is a fun and effective way to examine and reinforce nomenclature. The students play in pairs, using Clark's famous spiral arrangement…

Relay Selection and Resource Allocation in One-Way and Two-Way Cognitive Relay Networks

KAUST Repository

Alsharoa, Ahmad M.

2013-01-01

In this work, the problem of relay selection and resource power allocation in one- way and two-way cognitive relay networks using half duplex channels with different relaying protocols is investigated. Optimization problems for both single

The Milky Way Project: A Citizen Science Catalog of Infrared Bow Shock Nebulae

Science.gov (United States)

Dixon, Don; Jayasinghe, Tharindu; Povich, Matthew S.

2017-01-01

We present preliminary results from the first citizen-science search for infrared stellar-wind bow shock candidates. This search uses the Milky Way project, hosted by the Zooniverse, an online platform with over 1 million volunteer citizen scientists. Milky Way Project volunteers examine 77,000 randomly-distributed Spitzer image cutouts at varying zoom levels. Volunteers mark the infrared arc of potential bow shock candidates as well as the star likely driving the nebula. We produce lists of candidates from bow shocks flagged by multiple volunteers, which after merging and final visual review form the basis for our catalog. Comparing our new catalog to a recently-published catalog of 709 infrared bow shock candidates identified by a small team of (primarily undergraduate) researchers will allow us to assess the effectiveness of citizen science for this type of search and should yield a more complete catalog. Planned studies using these large catalogs will improve constraints on the mass-loss rates for the massive stars that create these bow shock nebulae. Mass-loss rates are highly uncertain but are a critical component of evolutionary models for massive stars. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under grants CAREER-1454334, AST-1411851 (RUI) and AST-1412845.

Perception and recognition memory of words and werds: two-way mirror effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, D Vaughn; Goldinger, Stephen D; Stone, Gregory O

2006-10-01

We examined associative priming of words (e.g., TOAD) and pseudohomophones of those words (e.g., TODE) in lexical decision. In addition to word frequency effects, reliable base-word frequency effects were observed for pseudohomophones: Those based on high-frequency words elicited faster and more accurate correct rejections. Associative priming had disparate effects on high- and low-frequency items. Whereas priming improved performance to high-frequency pseudohomophones, it impaired performance to low-frequency pseudohomophones. The results suggested a resonance process, wherein phonologic identity and semantic priming combine to undermine the veridical perception of infrequent items. We tested this hypothesis in another experiment by administering a surprise recognition memory test after lexical decision. When asked to identify words that were spelled correctly during lexical decision, the participants often misremembered pseudohomophones as correctly spelled items. Patterns of false memory, however, were jointly affected by base-word frequencies and their original responses during lexical decision. Taken together, the results are consistent with resonance accounts of word recognition, wherein bottom-up and top-down information sources coalesce into correct, and sometimes illusory, perception. The results are also consistent with a recent lexical decision model, REM-LD, that emphasizes memory retrieval and top-down matching processes in lexical decision.

The two way shape memory effect: influence of stabilization in single and polycrystals of Cu-based alloys

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cingolani, E.; Arneodo Larochette, P.; Ahlers, M.

2000-01-01

The possibility to obtain a two way shape memory effect (TWME) by stabilizing the martensite through diffusion controlled processes has been analysed in single and polycrystals of Cu-Zn-Al and in single crystals of Cu-Al-Be and Cu-Al-Ni. It is shown that the four systems behave very differently: Whereas in the Cu-Zn-Al single crystals sufficient vacancies remain available during extended times to obtain a perfect TWME, in Cu-Al-Be they anneal out fast, leading to a perfect TWME only right after quenching, and in Cu-Al-Ni they remain immobile below about 200 C. In polycrystals of Cu-Zn-Al the stabilization has only a negligible effect on the TWME, due to the formation of stable martensite configurations at the grain boundaries. (orig.)

Genome-Wide Prediction of the Performance of Three-Way Hybrids in Barley

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zuo Li

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Predicting the grain yield performance of three-way hybrids is challenging. Three-way crosses are relevant for hybrid breeding in barley ( L. and maize ( L. adapted to East Africa. The main goal of our study was to implement and evaluate genome-wide prediction approaches of the performance of three-way hybrids using data of single-cross hybrids for a scenario in which parental lines of the three-way hybrids originate from three genetically distinct subpopulations. We extended the ridge regression best linear unbiased prediction (RRBLUP and devised a genomic selection model allowing for subpopulation-specific marker effects (GSA-RRBLUP: general and subpopulation-specific additive RRBLUP. Using an empirical barley data set, we showed that applying GSA-RRBLUP tripled the prediction ability of three-way hybrids from 0.095 to 0.308 compared with RRBLUP, modeling one additive effect for all three subpopulations. The experimental findings were further substantiated with computer simulations. Our results emphasize the potential of GSA-RRBLUP to improve genome-wide hybrid prediction of three-way hybrids for scenarios of genetically diverse parental populations. Because of the advantages of the GSA-RRBLUP model in dealing with hybrids from different parental populations, it may also be a promising approach to boost the prediction ability for hybrid breeding programs based on genetically diverse heterotic groups.

Social network analysis in identifying influential webloggers: A preliminary study

Science.gov (United States)

Hasmuni, Noraini; Sulaiman, Nor Intan Saniah; Zaibidi, Nerda Zura

2014-12-01

In recent years, second generation of internet-based services such as weblog has become an effective communication tool to publish information on the Web. Weblogs have unique characteristics that deserve users' attention. Some of webloggers have seen weblogs as appropriate medium to initiate and expand business. These webloggers or also known as direct profit-oriented webloggers (DPOWs) communicate and share knowledge with each other through social interaction. However, survivability is the main issue among DPOW. Frequent communication with influential webloggers is one of the way to keep survive as DPOW. This paper aims to understand the network structure and identify influential webloggers within the network. Proper understanding of the network structure can assist us in knowing how the information is exchanged among members and enhance survivability among DPOW. 30 DPOW were involved in this study. Degree centrality and betweenness centrality measurement in Social Network Analysis (SNA) were used to examine the strength relation and identify influential webloggers within the network. Thus, webloggers with the highest value of these measurements are considered as the most influential webloggers in the network.

Identifying effective actions to guide volunteer-based and nationwide conservation efforts for a ground-nesting farmland bird.

Science.gov (United States)

Santangeli, Andrea; Arroyo, Beatriz; Millon, Alexandre; Bretagnolle, Vincent

2015-08-01

1. Modern farming practices threaten wildlife in different ways, and failure to identify the complexity of multiple threats acting in synergy may result in ineffective management. To protect ground-nesting birds in farmland, monitoring and mitigating impacts of mechanical harvesting is crucial. 2. Here, we use 6 years of data from a nationwide volunteer-based monitoring scheme of the Montagu's harrier, a ground-nesting raptor, in French farmlands. We assess the effectiveness of alternative nest protection measures and map their potential benefit to the species. 3. We show that unprotected nests in cultivated land are strongly negatively affected by harvesting and thus require active management. Further, we show that protection from harvesting alone (e.g. by leaving a small unharvested buffer around the nest) is impaired by post-harvest predation at nests that become highly conspicuous after harvest. Measures that simultaneously protect from harvesting and predation (by adding a fence around the nest) significantly enhance nest productivity. 4. The map of expected gain from nest protection in relation to available volunteers' workforce pinpoints large areas of high expected gain from nest protection that are not matched by equally high workforce availability. This mismatch suggests that the impact of nest protection can be further improved by increasing volunteer efforts in key areas where they are low relative to the expected gain they could have. 5. Synthesis and applications . This study shows that synergistic interplay of multiple factors (e.g. mechanical harvesting and predation) may completely undermine the success of well-intentioned conservation efforts. However, identifying areas where the greatest expected gains can be achieved relative to effort expended can minimize the risk of wasted volunteer actions. Overall, this study underscores the importance of citizen science for collecting large-scale data useful for producing science and ultimately informs

[Extracorporeal ventriculoatrial shunt with the use of one-way ball valve].

Science.gov (United States)

Kubo, Shigeki; Takimoto, Hiroshi; Hosoi, Kazuki; Toyota, Shingo; Takakura, Shuji; Hayashi, Yasuhiro; Ueno, Masato; Morisako, Toshitaka; Karasawa, Jun; Ninaga, Hideo; Yoshimine, Toshiki

2002-04-01

We developed a simple system of an "extracorporeal" ventriculoatrial (VA) shunt using a one-way ball valve (Acty valve II, Kaneka Medix) to release the patient from postoperative constraint during the ventricular drainage. The system is constructed in such a way that the ventricular drainage tube is connected to the central venous catheter via a one-way valve. The CSF is regulated by using the valve and is diverted into the systemic circulation as in the conventional ventriculoatrial shunt. After 2 or 3 weeks of CSF diversion through the extracorporeal VA shunt, a ventriculoperitoneal shunt is placed if hydrocephalus is apparent by temporary occlusion of the system. We applied this system to 4 patients with hydrocephalus, and we found it useful and free from adverse effects. The patient was freed from physical constraint involved in conventional ventricular drainage and an effective program of early rehabilitation was able to be started.

Five ways to enhance the impact of climate science

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, David Christian

2014-07-01

Embracing an 'evidence-informed' rather than 'evidence-based' attitude to policy-making should result in more effective action on climate change, recognizing that evidence must be used in such a way as to interact persuasively with other factors.

One-way quantum repeaters with quantum Reed-Solomon codes

Science.gov (United States)

Muralidharan, Sreraman; Zou, Chang-Ling; Li, Linshu; Jiang, Liang

2018-05-01

We show that quantum Reed-Solomon codes constructed from classical Reed-Solomon codes can approach the capacity on the quantum erasure channel of d -level systems for large dimension d . We study the performance of one-way quantum repeaters with these codes and obtain a significant improvement in key generation rate compared to previously investigated encoding schemes with quantum parity codes and quantum polynomial codes. We also compare the three generations of quantum repeaters using quantum Reed-Solomon codes and identify parameter regimes where each generation performs the best.

Ways of improving safety for future PWRs in France

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gros, G.; Jalouneix, J.; Manesse, D.; Mattei, J.M.

1994-06-01

Results of thinkings and studies, conducted within the Institute for Nuclear Safety and Protection (IPSN) on various fields of nuclear power plant safety, on the definition of safety objectives and principles for future PWRs. The aim of the studies is to identify ways of improving the design of future plants in France and Germany, with the main following objectives: significant reduction of the global probability of core damage, significant reduction of radioactive releases, mainly for severe accident conditions, and reduction of individual and collective doses received by workers. (R.P.) 3 refs., 1 tab

Identifying configurations of behavior change techniques in effective medication adherence interventions: a qualitative comparative analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kahwati, Leila; Viswanathan, Meera; Golin, Carol E; Kane, Heather; Lewis, Megan; Jacobs, Sara

2016-05-04

Interventions to improve medication adherence are diverse and complex. Consequently, synthesizing this evidence is challenging. We aimed to extend the results from an existing systematic review of interventions to improve medication adherence by using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to identify necessary or sufficient configurations of behavior change techniques among effective interventions. We used data from 60 studies in a completed systematic review to examine the combinations of nine behavior change techniques (increasing knowledge, increasing awareness, changing attitude, increasing self-efficacy, increasing intention formation, increasing action control, facilitation, increasing maintenance support, and motivational interviewing) among studies demonstrating improvements in adherence. Among the 60 studies, 34 demonstrated improved medication adherence. Among effective studies, increasing patient knowledge was a necessary but not sufficient technique. We identified seven configurations of behavior change techniques sufficient for improving adherence, which together accounted for 26 (76 %) of the effective studies. The intervention configuration that included increasing knowledge and self-efficacy was the most empirically relevant, accounting for 17 studies (50 %) and uniquely accounting for 15 (44 %). This analysis extends the completed review findings by identifying multiple combinations of behavior change techniques that improve adherence. Our findings offer direction for policy makers, practitioners, and future comparative effectiveness research on improving adherence.

Identifying resilient and non-resilient middle-adolescents in a ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The aim in this study was to develop a way of identifying resilient and non- resilient middle adolescents in a formerly black-only urban residential (township) school, in order to ultimately support the development of learners' resilience under stressful circumstances. A Resilience Scale was developed to screen for resilient ...

Persistent Identifiers as Boundary Objects

Science.gov (United States)

Parsons, M. A.; Fox, P. A.

2017-12-01

In 1989, Leigh Star and Jim Griesemer defined the seminal concept of `boundary objects'. These `objects' are what Latour calls `immutable mobiles' that enable communication and collaboration across difference by helping meaning to be understood in different contexts. As Star notes, they are a sort of arrangement that allow different groups to work together without (a priori) consensus. Part of the idea is to recognize and allow for the `interpretive flexibility' that is central to much of the `constructivist' approach in the sociology of science. Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) can clearly act as boundary objects, but people do not usually assume that they enable interpretive flexibility. After all, they are meant to be unambiguous, machine-interpretable identifiers of defined artifacts. In this paper, we argue that PIDs can fill at least two roles: 1) That of the standardized form, where there is strong agreement on what is being represented and how and 2) that of the idealized type, a more conceptual concept that allows many different representations. We further argue that these seemingly abstract conceptions actually help us implement PIDs more effectively to link data, publications, various other artifacts, and especially people. Considering PIDs as boundary objects can help us address issues such as what level of granularity is necessary for PIDs, what metadata should be directly associated with PIDs, and what purpose is the PID serving (reference, provenance, credit, etc.). In short, sociological theory can improve data sharing standards and their implementation in a way that enables broad interdisciplinary data sharing and reuse. We will illustrate this with several specific examples of Earth science data.

Mass extinction and the structure of the milky way

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Filipović M.D.

2013-01-01

Full Text Available We use the most up-to-date Milky Way model and solar orbit data in order to test the hypothesis that the Sun's galactic spiral arm crossings cause mass extinction events on Earth. To do this, we created a new model of the Milky Way's spiral arms by combining a large quantity of data from several surveys. We then combined this model with a recently derived solution for the solar orbit to determine the timing of the Sun's historical passages through the Galaxy's spiral arms. Our new model was designed with a symmetrical appearance, with the major alteration being the addition of a spur at the far side of the Galaxy. A correlation was found between the times at which the Sun crosses the spiral arms and six known mass extinction events. Furthermore, we identify five additional historical mass extinction events that might be explained by the motion of the Sun around our Galaxy. These five additional significant drops in marine genera that we find include significant reductions in diversity at 415, 322, 300, 145 and 33 Myr ago. Our simulations indicate that the Sun has spent ~60% of its time passing through our Galaxy's various spiral arms. Also, we briefly discuss and combine previous work on the Galactic Habitable Zone with the new Milky Way model.

A comparison between new ways of working and Ssociotechnical systems in new ways of working practices

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blok, M.; Meulen, F. van der; Dhondt, S.

2016-01-01

For various reasons many organisations are currently introducing the new ways of working (NWW). By now, this occurs on such a large scale, that it becomes relevant to investigate whether the new way of working leads to the best way of working: are the measurements taken by NWW really resulting in

Introduction of hydrogen in the Norwegian energy system. NorWays - Regional model analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rosenberg, Eva; Fidje, Audun; Espegren, Kari Aamodt

2008-12-15

The overall aim of the NorWays project has been to provide decision support for the introduction of hydrogen as an energy carrier in the Norwegian energy system. The NorWays project is a research project funded by the Research Council of Norway. An important task has been to develop alternative scenarios and identifying market segments and regions of the Norwegian energy system where hydrogen may play a significant role. The main scenarios in the project have been: Reference: Based on the assumptions of World Energy Outlook with no new transport technologies; HyWays: Basic assumptions with technology costs (H{sub 2}) based on results from the HyWays project; No tax: No taxes on transport energy ('revenue neutral'); CO{sub 2} reduction: Reduced CO{sub 2} emissions by 75% in 2050. Three regional models have been developed and used to analyse the introduction of hydrogen as energy carrier in competition with other alternatives such as natural gas, electricity, district heating and bio fuels.The focus of the analysis has been on the transportation sector. (Author)

What are the effective ways to translate clinical leadership into health care quality improvement?

Science.gov (United States)

McSherry, Robert; Pearce, Paddy

2016-01-01

The presence and/or absence of effective leaders in health care can have a stark consequence on the quality and outcomes of care. The delivery of safe, quality, compassionate health care is dependent on having effective clinical leaders at the frontline. In light of the Kirkup and Francis reports, this article explores some ways of translating clinical leadership into health care quality improvement. This is achieved by exploring what is clinical leadership and why and how this is important to health care quality improvement, clinical leadership, and a duty of candor, along with the importance clinical leadership plays in the provision of quality care improvement and outcomes. Clinical leaders are not predefined roles but emerge from the complex clinical setting by gaining an acquired expertise and from how they then internalize this to develop and facilitate sound relationships within a team. Clinical leaders are effective in facilitating innovation and change through improvement. This is achieved by recognizing, influencing, and empowering individuals through effective communication in order to share and learn from and with each other in practice. The challenge for health care organizations in regard to creating organizational cultures where a duty of candor exists is not to reinvent the wheel by turning something that is simple into something complex, which can become confusing to health care workers, patients, and the public. By focusing on the clinical leader's role and responsibilities we would argue they play a crucial and pivotal role in influencing, facilitating, supporting, and monitoring that this duty of candor happens in practice. This may be possible by highlighting where and how the duty of candor can be aligned within existing clinical governance frameworks.

A New Autonomy-Supportive Way of Teaching That Increases Conceptual Learning: Teaching in Students' Preferred Ways

Science.gov (United States)

Jang, Hyungshim; Reeve, Johnmarshall; Halusic, Marc

2016-01-01

We tested the educational utility of "teaching in students' preferred ways" as a new autonomy-supportive way of teaching to enhance students' autonomy and conceptual learning. A pilot test first differentiated preferred versus nonpreferred ways of teaching. In the main study, a hired teacher who was blind to the purpose of the study…

A smarter way to network.

Science.gov (United States)

Cross, Rob; Thomas, Robert

2011-01-01

The adage "It's not what you know, it's who you know" is true. The right social network can have a huge impact on your success. But many people have misguided ideas about what makes a network strong: They believe the key is having a large circle filled with high-powered contacts. That's not the right approach, say Cross, of UVA's McIntire School of Commerce, and Thomas, of the Accenture Institute for High Performance. The authors, who have spent years researching how organizations can capitalize on employees' social networks, have seen that the happiest, highest-performing executives have a different kind of network: select but diverse, made up of high-quality relationships with people who come from varying spheres and from up and down the corporate ladder. Effective networks typically range in size from 12 to 18 people. They help managers learn, make decisions with less bias, and grow personally. Cross and Thomas have found that they include six critical kinds of connections: people who provide information, ideas, or expertise; formally and informally powerful people, who offer mentoring and political support; people who give developmental feedback; people who lend personal support; people who increase your sense of purpose or worth; and people who promote work/life balance. Moreover, the best kind of connections are "energizers"--positive, trustworthy individuals who enjoy other people and always see opportunities, even in challenging situations. If your network doesn't look like this, you can follow a four-step process to improve it. You'll need to identify who your connections are and what they offer you, back away from redundant and energy-draining connections, fill holes in your network with the right kind of people, and work to make the most of your contacts. Do this, and in due course, you'll have a network that steers the best opportunities, ideas, and talent your way.

THE MILKY WAY PROJECT: LEVERAGING CITIZEN SCIENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING TO DETECT INTERSTELLAR BUBBLES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beaumont, Christopher N.; Williams, Jonathan P.; Goodman, Alyssa A.; Kendrew, Sarah; Simpson, Robert

2014-01-01

We present Brut, an algorithm to identify bubbles in infrared images of the Galactic midplane. Brut is based on the Random Forest algorithm, and uses bubbles identified by >35,000 citizen scientists from the Milky Way Project to discover the identifying characteristics of bubbles in images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. We demonstrate that Brut's ability to identify bubbles is comparable to expert astronomers. We use Brut to re-assess the bubbles in the Milky Way Project catalog, and find that 10%-30% of the objects in this catalog are non-bubble interlopers. Relative to these interlopers, high-reliability bubbles are more confined to the mid-plane, and display a stronger excess of young stellar objects along and within bubble rims. Furthermore, Brut is able to discover bubbles missed by previous searches—particularly bubbles near bright sources which have low contrast relative to their surroundings. Brut demonstrates the synergies that exist between citizen scientists, professional scientists, and machine learning techniques. In cases where ''untrained' citizens can identify patterns that machines cannot detect without training, machine learning algorithms like Brut can use the output of citizen science projects as input training sets, offering tremendous opportunities to speed the pace of scientific discovery. A hybrid model of machine learning combined with crowdsourced training data from citizen scientists can not only classify large quantities of data, but also address the weakness of each approach if deployed alone

THE MILKY WAY PROJECT: LEVERAGING CITIZEN SCIENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING TO DETECT INTERSTELLAR BUBBLES

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Beaumont, Christopher N.; Williams, Jonathan P. [Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai' i, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822 (United States); Goodman, Alyssa A. [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Kendrew, Sarah; Simpson, Robert, E-mail: beaumont@ifa.hawaii.edu [Department of Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH (United Kingdom)

2014-09-01

We present Brut, an algorithm to identify bubbles in infrared images of the Galactic midplane. Brut is based on the Random Forest algorithm, and uses bubbles identified by >35,000 citizen scientists from the Milky Way Project to discover the identifying characteristics of bubbles in images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. We demonstrate that Brut's ability to identify bubbles is comparable to expert astronomers. We use Brut to re-assess the bubbles in the Milky Way Project catalog, and find that 10%-30% of the objects in this catalog are non-bubble interlopers. Relative to these interlopers, high-reliability bubbles are more confined to the mid-plane, and display a stronger excess of young stellar objects along and within bubble rims. Furthermore, Brut is able to discover bubbles missed by previous searches—particularly bubbles near bright sources which have low contrast relative to their surroundings. Brut demonstrates the synergies that exist between citizen scientists, professional scientists, and machine learning techniques. In cases where ''untrained' citizens can identify patterns that machines cannot detect without training, machine learning algorithms like Brut can use the output of citizen science projects as input training sets, offering tremendous opportunities to speed the pace of scientific discovery. A hybrid model of machine learning combined with crowdsourced training data from citizen scientists can not only classify large quantities of data, but also address the weakness of each approach if deployed alone.

New ways of working: Microsoft’s ‘mobility’ office

NARCIS (Netherlands)

H.W.G.M. van Heck (Eric)

2010-01-01

textabstractThere is a common expectation among forward-looking companies that through the use of information technology new ways of working can be created that will enhance workplace conditions with such an effect as to improve employee satisfaction levels, increase productivity and ultimately

Identifying Key Performance Indicators for Holistic Hospital Management with a Modified DEMATEL Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Si, Sheng-Li; You, Xiao-Yue; Liu, Hu-Chen; Huang, Jia

2017-08-19

Performance analysis is an important way for hospitals to achieve higher efficiency and effectiveness in providing services to their customers. The performance of the healthcare system can be measured by many indicators, but it is difficult to improve them simultaneously due to the limited resources. A feasible way is to identify the central and influential indicators to improve healthcare performance in a stepwise manner. In this paper, we propose a hybrid multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) approach to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for holistic hospital management. First, through integrating evidential reasoning approach and interval 2-tuple linguistic variables, various assessments of performance indicators provided by healthcare experts are modeled. Then, the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique is adopted to build an interactive network and visualize the causal relationships between the performance indicators. Finally, an empirical case study is provided to demonstrate the proposed approach for improving the efficiency of healthcare management. The results show that "accidents/adverse events", "nosocomial infection", ''incidents/errors", "number of operations/procedures" are significant influential indicators. Also, the indicators of "length of stay", "bed occupancy" and "financial measures" play important roles in performance evaluation of the healthcare organization. The proposed decision making approach could be considered as a reference for healthcare administrators to enhance the performance of their healthcare institutions.

Ways out of danger. Wege aus der Gefahr

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eppler, E

1981-01-01

The volume divides into five sections: ways out of danger; pressure leading into danger; what might save us, and will it grow to become effective; tedious paths out of danger; companions out of danger. The author puts the question whether the true art of politics will be restored. He shows that by reducing politics to mere crisis management we shall not be enabled to overcome the serious problems of the eighties. He points out future possibilities by making clear the chances and misdevelopments of energy policy, of foreign, development and defence policy. The political experience of recent years, the new approach showing different needs and ways of life should be taken seriously as hopeful signs and ought to be reflected in politics again.

THE MILKY WAY PROJECT: WHAT ARE YELLOWBALLS?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kerton, C. R. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, 12 Physics Hall, Ames, IA 50011 (United States); Wolf-Chase, G. [Astronomy Department, Adler Planetarium, 1300 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605 (United States); Arvidsson, K. [Trull School of Science and Mathematics, Schreiner University, 2100 Memorial Boulevard, Kerrville, TX 78028 (United States); Lintott, C. J.; Simpson, R. J., E-mail: kerton@iastate.edu, E-mail: gwolfchase@adlerplanetarium.org, E-mail: KDArvidsson@schreiner.edu, E-mail: cjl@astro.ox.ac.uk, E-mail: robert.simpson@astro.ox.ac.uk [Oxford Astrophysics, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH (United Kingdom)

2015-02-01

Yellowballs are a collection of approximately 900 compact, infrared sources identified and named by volunteers participating in the Milky Way Project (MWP), a citizen science project that uses GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL images from Spitzer to explore topics related to Galactic star formation. In this paper, through a combination of catalog cross-matching and infrared color analysis, we show that yellowballs are a mix of compact star-forming regions, including ultra-compact and compact H II regions, as well as analogous regions for less massive B-type stars. The resulting MWP yellowball catalog provides a useful complement to the Red MSX Source survey. It similarly highlights regions of massive star formation, but the selection of objects purely on the basis of their infrared morphology and color in Spitzer images identifies a signature of compact star-forming regions shared across a broad range of luminosities and, by inference, masses. We discuss the origin of their striking mid-infrared appearance and suggest that future studies of the yellowball sample will improve our understanding of how massive and intermediate-mass star-forming regions transition from compact to more extended bubble-like structures.

THE MILKY WAY PROJECT: WHAT ARE YELLOWBALLS?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kerton, C. R.; Wolf-Chase, G.; Arvidsson, K.; Lintott, C. J.; Simpson, R. J.

2015-01-01

Yellowballs are a collection of approximately 900 compact, infrared sources identified and named by volunteers participating in the Milky Way Project (MWP), a citizen science project that uses GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL images from Spitzer to explore topics related to Galactic star formation. In this paper, through a combination of catalog cross-matching and infrared color analysis, we show that yellowballs are a mix of compact star-forming regions, including ultra-compact and compact H II regions, as well as analogous regions for less massive B-type stars. The resulting MWP yellowball catalog provides a useful complement to the Red MSX Source survey. It similarly highlights regions of massive star formation, but the selection of objects purely on the basis of their infrared morphology and color in Spitzer images identifies a signature of compact star-forming regions shared across a broad range of luminosities and, by inference, masses. We discuss the origin of their striking mid-infrared appearance and suggest that future studies of the yellowball sample will improve our understanding of how massive and intermediate-mass star-forming regions transition from compact to more extended bubble-like structures

Identifiability Results for Several Classes of Linear Compartment Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Meshkat, Nicolette; Sullivant, Seth; Eisenberg, Marisa

2015-08-01

Identifiability concerns finding which unknown parameters of a model can be estimated, uniquely or otherwise, from given input-output data. If some subset of the parameters of a model cannot be determined given input-output data, then we say the model is unidentifiable. In this work, we study linear compartment models, which are a class of biological models commonly used in pharmacokinetics, physiology, and ecology. In past work, we used commutative algebra and graph theory to identify a class of linear compartment models that we call identifiable cycle models, which are unidentifiable but have the simplest possible identifiable functions (so-called monomial cycles). Here we show how to modify identifiable cycle models by adding inputs, adding outputs, or removing leaks, in such a way that we obtain an identifiable model. We also prove a constructive result on how to combine identifiable models, each corresponding to strongly connected graphs, into a larger identifiable model. We apply these theoretical results to several real-world biological models from physiology, cell biology, and ecology.

Child poverty. Ways forward for the paediatrician: A comprehensive overview of poverty reduction strategies requiring paediatric support.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharma, Suparna; Ford-Jones, Elizabeth

2015-05-01

The harmful effects of child poverty are well documented. Despite this, progress in poverty reduction in Canada has been slow. A significant gap exists between what is known about eradicating poverty and its implementation. Paediatricians can play an important role in bridging this gap by understanding and advancing child poverty reduction. Establishment of a comprehensive national poverty reduction plan is essential to improving progress. The present review identifies the key components of an effective poverty reduction strategy. These elements include effective poverty screening, promoting healthy child development and readiness to learn, ensuring food and housing security, providing extended health care coverage for the uninsured and using place-based solutions and team-level interventions. Specific economic interventions are also reviewed. Addressing the social determinants of health in these ways is crucial to narrowing disparities in wealth and health so that all children in Canada reach their full potential.

Normative study of theme identifiability: Instructions with and without explanation of the false memory effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Beato, Maria Soledad; Cadavid, Sara

2016-12-01

False-memory illusions have been widely studied using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM). In this paradigm, words semantically related to a single nonpresented critical word are studied. In a later memory test, critical words are often falsely recalled and recognized. The present normative study was conducted to measure the theme identifiability of 60 associative word lists in Spanish that include six words (e.g., stove, coat, blanket, scarf, chill, and bonnet) that are simultaneously associated with three critical words (e.g., HEAT, COLD, and WINTER; Beato & Díez, Psicothema, 26, 457-463, 2011). Different levels of backward associative strength were used in the construction of the DRM lists. In addition, we used two types of instructions to obtain theme identifiability. In the without-explanation condition, traditional instructions were used, requesting participants to write the theme list. In the with-explanation condition, the false-memory effect and how the lists were built were explained, and an example of a DRM list and critical words was shown. Participants then had to discover the critical words. The results showed that all lists produced theme identifiability. Moreover, some lists had a higher theme identifiability rate (e.g., 61 % for the critical words LOVE, BOYFRIEND, COUPLE) than others (e.g., 24 % for CITY, PLACE, VILLAGE). After comparing the theme identifiabilities in the different conditions, the results indicated higher theme identifiability when the false-memory effect was explained than without such an explanation. Overall, these new normative data provide a useful tool for those experiments that, for example, aim to analyze the wide differences observed in false memory with DRM lists and the role of theme identifiability.

The Baltics on Their Way towards a Circular Economy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Grigoryan A. A.

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Circular economy has been studied extensively both in Europe and worldwide. It is largely viewed as a potential strategy for societal development, aimed to increase prosperity while reducing dependence on raw materials and energy. Many businesses regard circular economy as a way to enhance economic growth and increase profits. Governments across the world actively engage in the discussion about the benefits of a transition to a circular economy and about its impact on employment, economic growth, and the environment. This paper aims to study the major issues of circular economy, to identify its advantages, and to offer an insight into the transition stage the Baltic States are undergoing today on their way to circular economy. It is stressed that the Baltic countries are not fully using the opportunities offered by a circular economy. For example, Latvia’s, Lithuania’s, and Estonia’s recycling rates are significantly below those of other European countries. The Baltics depend heavily on EU financial support. An increase in funding will contribute to the implementation of circular economy technologies.

SmartWay Mark Signature Page: Tractors & Trailers

Science.gov (United States)

This SmartWay agreement is for companies and organizations who wish to comply with the SmartWay Graphic Standards and Usage Guide guidelines and requirements for using the SmartWay logos on SmartWay designated Tractors and Trailers.

UF{sub 6} tiedowns for truck transport - right way/wrong way

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Stout, F.W. Jr. [Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc., Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

1991-12-31

Tiedown systems for truck transport of UF{sub 6} must be defined and controlled to assure the least risk for hauling the material over the highways. This paper and an associated poster display will present the current status of regulatory criteria for tiedowns, analyze the structural stresses involved in tiedowns for two major UF{sub 6} packaging systems, the 21PF series of overpacks and the 48 in. diameter shipping cylinders, and will present photographs showing some {open_quote}right ways{close_quotes} and some {open_quotes}wrong (or risky) ways{close_quotes} currently used for tiedown systems. Risky tiedown methods must be replaced with safer less risky methods to insure the safe transport of UF{sub 6}.

Four Ways of Thinking about Information

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wolfgang Hofkrichner

2011-10-01

Full Text Available There are four ways of thinking: reductionism, projectivism, disjunctivism, integrativism. The gap between the “hard” science perspective and the “soft” science perspective on information reflect these ways of thinking. The paper discusses how this gap might be bridged by applying the fourth way of thinking.

Logistics costs evaluation as a way of company’s efficiency improvement

OpenAIRE

Galina VOLOSCENCO; Natalia SESTENCO-DIACEK

2015-01-01

In Logistic systems, besides the usual costs for work forces, material and supplies, there are specific costs which are not always identified with the term classic meaning. These are transaction costs which influence on financial indicators of the company and on its efficiency and competitiveness accordingly. These costs classification, factors influencing on their amount, allows to find ways for their reduction methods and so that to improve the efficiency of the company.

Ants can learn to forage on one-way trails.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro Leite Ribeiro

Full Text Available The trails formed by many ant species between nest and food source are two-way roads on which outgoing and returning workers meet and touch each other all along. The way to get back home, after grasping a food load, is to take the same route on which they have arrived from the nest. In many species such trails are chemically marked by pheromones providing orientation cues for the ants to find their way. Other species rely on their vision and use landmarks as cues. We have developed a method to stop foraging ants from shuttling on two-way trails. The only way to forage is to take two separate roads, as they cannot go back on their steps after arriving at the food or at the nest. The condition qualifies as a problem because all their orientation cues -- chemical, visual or any other -- are disrupted, as all of them cannot but lead the ants back to the route on which they arrived. We have found that workers of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens rubropilosa can solve the problem. They could not only find the alternative way, but also used the unidirectional traffic system to forage effectively. We suggest that their ability is an evolutionary consequence of the need to deal with environmental irregularities that cannot be negotiated by means of excessively stereotyped behavior, and that it is but an example of a widespread phenomenon. We also suggest that our method can be adapted to other species, invertebrate and vertebrate, in the study of orientation, memory, perception, learning and communication.

What are the effective ways to translate clinical leadership into health care quality improvement?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

McSherry R

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Robert McSherry,1 Paddy Pearce2 1School of Health and Social Care, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, 2PKP Consulting, Yarm, United Kingdom Abstract: The presence and/or absence of effective leaders in health care can have a stark consequence on the quality and outcomes of care. The delivery of safe, quality, compassionate health care is dependent on having effective clinical leaders at the frontline. In light of the Kirkup and Francis reports, this article explores some ways of translating clinical leadership into health care quality improvement. This is achieved by exploring what is clinical leadership and why and how this is important to health care quality improvement, clinical leadership, and a duty of candor, along with the importance clinical leadership plays in the provision of quality care improvement and outcomes. Clinical leaders are not predefined roles but emerge from the complex clinical setting by gaining an acquired expertise and from how they then internalize this to develop and facilitate sound relationships within a team. Clinical leaders are effective in facilitating innovation and change through improvement. This is achieved by recognizing, influencing, and empowering individuals through effective communication in order to share and learn from and with each other in practice. The challenge for health care organizations in regard to creating organizational cultures where a duty of candor exists is not to reinvent the wheel by turning something that is simple into something complex, which can become confusing to health care workers, patients, and the public. By focusing on the clinical leader's role and responsibilities we would argue they play a crucial and pivotal role in influencing, facilitating, supporting, and monitoring that this duty of candor happens in practice. This may be possible by highlighting where and how the duty of candor can be aligned within existing clinical governance frameworks. Keywords: governance

Enhancing Mentoring Practices as a Framework for Effective Mentoring

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Marye Mathis

2013-01-01

Mentoring has been identified as an effective way to provide support for new teachers. As a strategy to support new teachers and to address teacher attrition, a rural high school in West Central Georgia sought to identify the concepts needed for an effective mentoring program. The purpose of this case study was to explore best practices in…

A three-way approach for protein function classification.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hafeez Ur Rehman

Full Text Available The knowledge of protein functions plays an essential role in understanding biological cells and has a significant impact on human life in areas such as personalized medicine, better crops and improved therapeutic interventions. Due to expense and inherent difficulty of biological experiments, intelligent methods are generally relied upon for automatic assignment of functions to proteins. The technological advancements in the field of biology are improving our understanding of biological processes and are regularly resulting in new features and characteristics that better describe the role of proteins. It is inevitable to neglect and overlook these anticipated features in designing more effective classification techniques. A key issue in this context, that is not being sufficiently addressed, is how to build effective classification models and approaches for protein function prediction by incorporating and taking advantage from the ever evolving biological information. In this article, we propose a three-way decision making approach which provides provisions for seeking and incorporating future information. We considered probabilistic rough sets based models such as Game-Theoretic Rough Sets (GTRS and Information-Theoretic Rough Sets (ITRS for inducing three-way decisions. An architecture of protein functions classification with probabilistic rough sets based three-way decisions is proposed and explained. Experiments are carried out on Saccharomyces cerevisiae species dataset obtained from Uniprot database with the corresponding functional classes extracted from the Gene Ontology (GO database. The results indicate that as the level of biological information increases, the number of deferred cases are reduced while maintaining similar level of accuracy.

Identify the Effective Wells in Determination of Groundwater Depth in Urmia Plain Using Principle Component Analysis

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Sahar Babaei Hessar

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Groundwater is the most important resource of providing sanitary water for potable and household consumption. So continuous monitoring of groundwater level will play an important role in water resource management. But because of the large amount of information, evaluation of water table is a costly and time consuming process. Therefore, in many studies, the data and information aren’t suitable and useful and so, must be neglected. The PCA technique is an optimized mathematical method that reserve data with the highest share in affirming variance with recognizing less important data and limits the original variables into to a few components. In this technique, variation factors called principle components are identified with considering data structures. Thus, variables those have the highest correlation coefficient with principal components are extracted as a result of identifying the components that create the greatest variance. Materials and Methods: The study region has an area of approximately 962 Km2 and area located between 37º 21´ N to 37º 49´ N and 44º 57´ E to 45º 16´ E in West Azerbaijan province of Iran. This area placed along the mountainous north-west of the country, which ends with the plane Urmia Lake and has vast groundwater resources. However, recently the water table has been reduced considerably because of the exceeded exploitation as a result of urbanization and increased agricultural and horticultural land uses. In the present study, the annual water table datasets in 51wells monitored by Ministry of Energy during statistical periods of 2002-2011 were used to data analysis. In order to identify the effective wells in determination of groundwater level, the PCA technique was used. In this research to compute the relative importance of each well, 10 wells were identified with the nearest neighbor for each one. The number of wells (p as a general rule must be less or equal to the maximum number of

Identifying Effective Methods of Instruction for Adult Emergent Readers through Community-Based Research

Science.gov (United States)

Blackmer, Rachel; Hayes-Harb, Rachel

2016-01-01

We present a community-based research project aimed at identifying effective methods and materials for teaching English literacy skills to adult English as a second language emergent readers. We conducted a quasi-experimental study whereby we evaluated the efficacy of two approaches, one based on current practices at the English Skills Learning…

The New Way of Working: An Empirical Assessment of Organizational and Technological Effects

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Kok, A.

2018-01-01

The advancement of information technologies is changing the work environment, forcing organizations to adapt more flexible work arrangements for their employees. The New Way of Working (NWOW) provides the context for these developments. It consists of three distinct pillars or dimensions: (1)

Goodwyn project under way off NW Australia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1992-01-01

This paper reports that the $2 billion (Australian) Goodwyn field development project on Australia's Northwest Shelf is under way with installation of a 17,500 metric ton steel platform jacket. Northwest Shelf project operator Woodside Petroleum Pty. Ltd. and partners are continuing with an extensive exploration program in the Northwest Shelf area. The group expects to begin soon a wide ranging 3-D seismic survey over the WA-28-P license area and the Northwest Shelf production permits. The goal is to identify new and appraise existing oil and gas prospects in the region for an exploratory drilling campaign to begin in first half 1993. Finding more gas reserves would bode well for extending existing LNG contracts with Japan or competing for new markets in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan

Thermomechanical cycling and two-way memory effect induced in Cu-Zn-Al

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pons, J.

1999-01-01

The two-way shape memory effect (TWME) has been induced by thermomechanical cycling in Cu-Zn-Al alloys using a dedicated hydraulic mechanical testing soft machine with complete computer control of force, elongation and temperature. The results concerning single crystals (composition Cu-16.9 wt.% Zn-7.7 wt.% Al, nominal M s of 273 K) and polycrystals (Cu-15.8 wt.% Zn-8.3 wt.% Al, nominal M s of 230 K, mean grain size of 1 mm) are reported for two training protocols (sequence of one thermomechanical cycle of education followed by one stress free thermal cycle to check the TWME or twenty consecutive thermomechanical cycles followed by one or two checking thermal cycles). The capacity of the trained specimen for producing work under an antagonist compressive stress is also studied and the behaviour of the deformation of the specimen under such a condition at different temperatures is analysed in terms of a competition between the contributions of the different variants: trained variants with an intrinsic deformation in the direction of the tensile stress of the training process, trained variants with an intrinsic deformation which is not well orientated with respect to this direction (in the polycrystal) and new variants with an intrinsic deformation in the direction of the compressive stress which can replace the educated variants. (orig.)

Assigning poetry reading as a way of introducing students to qualitative data analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Raingruber, Bonnie

2009-08-01

The aim of the paper is to explain how poetry reading can be used to teach interpretive analysis of qualitative data. A number of studies were located in the nursing literature that focused on using poetry to help students develop empathy for patients, to teach students to reflect on their own practice, and to assist them in developing self-understanding. No studies were found that described the use of poetry reading as a way of teaching the skill of interpretive analysis. There are, however, a number of parallels between the principles of poetry reading and qualitative analysis that suggest that this method of teaching would be successful. International papers published on PubMed, Medline, and CINAHL were reviewed to identify challenges facing educators and ways of teaching the process of qualitative data analysis using poetry reading. Using poetry reading to teach skills of qualitative data analysis helps motivate students, cultivates a reflective mindset, and develops the skill of working as a member of an interpretive group. Framing interpretive work as being like reading poetry helps students pick up more quickly on the art that is a major component of the work. This approach also helps students learn the importance of cultural and contextual particulars as they begin analyzing qualitative data. Using poetry reading to introduce students to the complex skill of qualitative data analysis is an effective pedagogical strategy.

A priori which-way information in quantum interference with unstable particles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krause, D.E.; Fischbach, E.; Rohrbach, Z.J.

2014-01-01

If an unstable particle used in a two-path interference experiment decays before reaching a detector, which-way information becomes available that reduces the detected interference fringe visibility V. Here we argue that even when an unstable particle does not decay while in the interferometer, a priori which-way information is still available in the form of path predictability P which depends on the particle's decay rate Γ. We further demonstrate that in a matter-wave Mach–Zehnder interferometer using an excited atom with an appropriately tuned cavity, P is related to V through the duality relation P 2 +V 2 =1. - Highlights: • Even undecayed unstable particles exhibit novel interference effects. • Interference is studied in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer with a cavity. • More which-way information is available when using unstable particles. • A relation between which-way information and interference is satisfied

Experiences of female partners of masculine-identifying trans persons.

Science.gov (United States)

Theron, Liesl; Collier, Kate L

2013-01-01

This paper explores the intimate relationship experiences of the cisgender (i.e., not transgender) female partners of masculine-identifying transgender persons, with a particular focus on these partners' self-understanding of their sexual orientation. Limited research about this topic has been conducted to date. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight South African women who are or have been cisgender female partners of masculine-identifying trans persons. Although the interviews showed that the relationship experiences of female partners of masculine-identifying trans persons are diverse, several common themes emerged in the narratives. The way that participants labelled their sexual orientation did not change from before to after their relationship with a transgender partner. The participants reported varied family and community responses to their relationships. Specific emotional and informational support needs for women with transgender partners were identified.

Towards an explanation of age-related difficulties in crossing a two-way street.

Science.gov (United States)

Dommes, Aurélie; Lay, Tristan Le; Vienne, Fabrice; Dang, Nguyen-Thong; Beaudoin, Alexandra Perrot; Do, Manh Cuong

2015-12-01

Crossing a two-way street is a complex task that involves visual, cognitive and motor abilities, all of which are known to decline with ageing. In particular, older pedestrians may experience difficulties when crossing two-way streets because of incorrect gap acceptance choices and impossible or unperceived evasive actions. To understand the overrepresentation of older pedestrians in crash statistics, several experimental studies have sought to identify traffic-related factors as well as those related to the abilities of the individuals themselves. However, none of these studies has required participants to actually walk across an experimental two-way street with curbs, which is a particularly challenging situation for older pedestrians. To fill this research gap, a quasi-experiment was conducted in a simulator including a total of 58 healthy aged participants (25 younger-old [age 60-72] and 33 older-old [age 72-92]) and 25 young adults (aged 18-25 years). Participants carried out a street-crossing task in a simulated two-way traffic environment; curbs were present on both sides of the experimental street. Participants also undertook a battery of tests to assess their visual and cognitive abilities. In addition, during the experiment, the participants' gait parameters were recorded. In line with earlier findings, the older-old group of participants made a higher number of decisions that led to collisions with approaching cars compared with the other groups. The two groups of older participants experienced specific difficulties when vehicles were in the far lane or when they approached rapidly. A regression analysis identified visual acuity, speed of processing (assessed using the UFOV(®) test), and step length as significant predictors of collisions. Our results have implications for understanding the difficulties experienced by older pedestrians and allow to draw up several recommendations for improving their safety. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights

Multivariate Analyses and Classification of Inertial Sensor Data to Identify Aging Effects on the Timed-Up-and-Go Test.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danique Vervoort

Full Text Available Many tests can crudely quantify age-related mobility decrease but instrumented versions of mobility tests could increase their specificity and sensitivity. The Timed-up-and-Go (TUG test includes several elements that people use in daily life. The test has different transition phases: rise from a chair, walk, 180° turn, walk back, turn, and sit-down on a chair. For this reason the TUG is an often used test to evaluate in a standardized way possible decline in balance and walking ability due to age and or pathology. Using inertial sensors, qualitative information about the performance of the sub-phases can provide more specific information about a decline in balance and walking ability. The first aim of our study was to identify variables extracted from the instrumented timed-up-and-go (iTUG that most effectively distinguished performance differences across age (age 18-75. Second, we determined the discriminative ability of those identified variables to classify a younger (age 18-45 and older age group (age 46-75. From healthy adults (n = 59, trunk accelerations and angular velocities were recorded during iTUG performance. iTUG phases were detected with wavelet-analysis. Using a Partial Least Square (PLS model, from the 72-iTUG variables calculated across phases, those that explained most of the covariance between variables and age were extracted. Subsequently, a PLS-discriminant analysis (DA assessed classification power of the identified iTUG variables to discriminate the age groups. 27 variables, related to turning, walking and the stand-to-sit movement explained 71% of the variation in age. The PLS-DA with these 27 variables showed a sensitivity and specificity of 90% and 85%. Based on this model, the iTUG can accurately distinguish young and older adults. Such data can serve as a reference for pathological aging with respect to a widely used mobility test. Mobility tests like the TUG supplemented with smart technology could be used in

Nursing's ways of knowing and dual process theories of cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Paley, John; Cheyne, Helen; Dalgleish, Len; Duncan, Edward A S; Niven, Catherine A

2007-12-01

This paper is a comparison of nursing's patterns of knowing with the systems identified by cognitive science, and evaluates claims about the equal-status relation between scientific and non-scientific knowledge. Ever since Carper's seminal paper in 1978, it has been taken for granted in the nursing literature that there are ways of knowing, or patterns of knowing, that are not scientific. This idea has recently been used to argue that the concept of evidence, typically associated with evidence-based practice, is inappropriately restricted because it is identified exclusively with scientific research. The paper reviews literature in psychology which appears to draw a comparable distinction between rule-based, analytical cognitive processes and other forms of cognitive processing which are unconscious, holistic and intuitive. There is a convincing parallel between the 'patterns of knowing' distinction in nursing and the 'cognitive processing' distinction in psychology. However, there is an important difference in the way the relation between different forms of knowing (or cognitive processing) is depicted. In nursing, it is argued that the different patterns of knowing have equal status and weight. In cognitive science, it is suggested that the rule-based, analytical form of cognition has a supervisory and corrective function with respect to the other forms. Scientific reasoning and evidence-based knowledge have epistemological priority over the other forms of nursing knowledge. The implications of this claim for healthcare practice are briefly indicated.

INNOVATIVE WAYS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OIL-FAT INDUSTRY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Onyshchenko Oksana

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Introduction. The article describes the state of agriculture and outlines the most influential branches which need economic development. It was investigated that important reference point is the access to new international markets, updating the material and technical base and the introduction of new technologies into production at the present stage for the economic development of consumer-oriented industries. Oil-fat industry is the most competitive among other branches of agriculture, therefore, it needs development, innovative ways of solving problems and introduction of the latest technologies. The purpose of the paper is to offer innovative ways of developing the oil-fat industry. Results. In order to introduce non-waste production in the industry, it has been proposed to identify a series of interdependent principles and identify strategic directions for the development of oil products production. Based on the method of structural adjustment in the direction of waste production, a conceptual model of the organizational and economic mechanism of non-waste production at the enterprises of oil and fat specialization has been constructed. Conclusions. Waste and production of organic oils are positive levers and directions in the development and modernization of the oil and fat industry. The introduction of such a mechanism will enable the oil and fat industry to expand its production by creating other types of products as a result of the use of oilseed production, and also increase its level of development thus creating more competition in international markets.

A More Effective Way to Advertise the Distance Education Programmes: Mobile Marketing Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Sabuncuoglu Aybar, Ayda; Gokaliler, Ebru

2011-01-01

Nowadays organizations strive to find the ways to communicate with their target audiences by using varied advertising mediums because of the developments on the information communication technologies and the globalization. In this context, like the other institutions, the distance education institutions has to execute communication activities by…

Effective spreading from multiple leaders identified by percolation in the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model

Science.gov (United States)

Ji, Shenggong; Lü, Linyuan; Yeung, Chi Ho; Hu, Yanqing

2017-07-01

Social networks constitute a new platform for information propagation, but its success is crucially dependent on the choice of spreaders who initiate the spreading of information. In this paper, we remove edges in a network at random and the network segments into isolated clusters. The most important nodes in each cluster then form a set of influential spreaders, such that news propagating from them would lead to extensive coverage and minimal redundancy. The method utilizes the similarities between the segmented networks before percolation and the coverage of information propagation in each social cluster to obtain a set of distributed and coordinated spreaders. Our tests of implementing the susceptible-infected-recovered model on Facebook and Enron email networks show that this method outperforms conventional centrality-based methods in terms of spreadability and coverage redundancy. The suggested way of identifying influential spreaders thus sheds light on a new paradigm of information propagation in social networks.

WAYS TO IMPROVE THE TRANSPORT OF LIVE FISH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. Chernik

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Purpose. To calculate the cost of transportation of live fish by various means of transport and to identify ways to improve the efficiency of their transport. Methodology. The studies were conducted using an economic analysis. Findings. Based on the study we estimated the prime cost of live fish delivery, which ranged from 3.7 to 6.5 UAH for 1 km for the delivery of 1 ton depending on the type of vehicle. The main backup to increase the efficiency of the transport is to increase the density of fish. Total economic effect from introduction of a modernized park of transportation of live fish vehicles in Ukraine can be assessed based on the amount of commodity fish and stocking fish. So, last years, enterprises which report their activity in the bodies of state statistics, rear up to 20 000 t of common carp and silver carp annually. Greater part of fish will be sold to the eventual consumer in alive condition and the mean distance where the fish is transported is about 100 km. The economic effect from the decrease of prime price of transportation will make to 2 000 000 UAH per year. In addition, more than 1000 t of rainbow trout is delivered from Western regions of Ukraine at distances greater than 100 km. cost saving during transport of trout will make up to 500 000 UAH per year. Originality. An analysis of the use of different types of vehicles for the transport of live fish has been performed. Practical Value. To ensure the safe transport of live fish it is necessary to use modernized live fish vehicles.

An information-gain approach to detecting three-way epistatic interactions in genetic association studies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hu, Ting; Chen, Yuanzhu; Kiralis, Jeff W

2013-01-01

Background Epistasis has been historically used to describe the phenomenon that the effect of a given gene on a phenotype can be dependent on one or more other genes, and is an essential element for understanding the association between genetic and phenotypic variations. Quantifying epistasis......-way epistasis. Methods Such a measure is based on information gain, and is able to separate all lower order effects from pure three-way epistasis. Results Our method was verified on synthetic data and applied to real data from a candidate-gene study of tuberculosis in a West African population....... In the tuberculosis data, we found a statistically significant pure three-way epistatic interaction effect that was stronger than any lower-order associations. Conclusion Our study provides a methodological basis for detecting and characterizing high-order gene-gene interactions in genetic association studies....

Voice Biometrics as a Way to Self-service Password Reset

Science.gov (United States)

Hohgräfe, Bernd; Jacobi, Sebastian

Password resets are time consuming. Especially when urgent jobs need to be done, it is cumbersome to inform the user helpdesk, to identify oneself and then to wait for response. It is easy to enter a wrong password multiple times, which leads to the blocking of the application. Voice biometrics is an easy and secure way for individuals to reset their own password. Read more about how you can ease the burden of your user helpdesk and how voice biometric password resets benefit your expense situation without harming your security.

Desain Penampang Sungai Way Besai Melalui Peningkatan Kapasitas Sungai Menggunakan Softwere HEC-RAS

OpenAIRE

Utami, Tri; Purwadi, Ofik Taufik; Susilo, Gatot Eko

2016-01-01

Way Besai river is located in Sumberjaya subdistrict, West Lampung district, Lampung. It is one of the sub river from Tulang Bawang river. Way Besai river has been used as a the electric power source, known as Besai hydropower. Besai Hydropower has decreased energy supply of 40 MW from the supply optimum can reachs 90 MW. his is due to the catcment area conditions of the Way Besai rivers are "metastable" so which effected in the shallowing of the cross-section quickly. So it needs the capacit...

Ultrasonicly identified seals for safeguards and physical protection purposes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Crutzen, S.

The paper provides a general review of an ultrasonic technique available for sealing, marking or otherwise identifying material in such a way that its recognition and guarantee of integrity are inequivocally ensured. Development work on several types of seals and their ultrasonic identification has been performed at Ispra in collaboration with external companies for application to MTRs, HWRs and FBRs

Structural Identifiability of Dynamic Systems Biology Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Villaverde, Alejandro F; Barreiro, Antonio; Papachristodoulou, Antonis

2016-10-01

A powerful way of gaining insight into biological systems is by creating a nonlinear differential equation model, which usually contains many unknown parameters. Such a model is called structurally identifiable if it is possible to determine the values of its parameters from measurements of the model outputs. Structural identifiability is a prerequisite for parameter estimation, and should be assessed before exploiting a model. However, this analysis is seldom performed due to the high computational cost involved in the necessary symbolic calculations, which quickly becomes prohibitive as the problem size increases. In this paper we show how to analyse the structural identifiability of a very general class of nonlinear models by extending methods originally developed for studying observability. We present results about models whose identifiability had not been previously determined, report unidentifiabilities that had not been found before, and show how to modify those unidentifiable models to make them identifiable. This method helps prevent problems caused by lack of identifiability analysis, which can compromise the success of tasks such as experiment design, parameter estimation, and model-based optimization. The procedure is called STRIKE-GOLDD (STRuctural Identifiability taKen as Extended-Generalized Observability with Lie Derivatives and Decomposition), and it is implemented in a MATLAB toolbox which is available as open source software. The broad applicability of this approach facilitates the analysis of the increasingly complex models used in systems biology and other areas.

Tools for monitoring aquatic environments to identify anthropic effects.

Science.gov (United States)

da Rocha, Monyque Palagano; Dourado, Priscila Leocadia Rosa; Cardoso, Claudia Andrea Lima; Cândido, Liliam Silva; Pereira, Joelson Gonçalves; de Oliveira, Kelly Mari Pires; Grisolia, Alexeia Barufatti

2018-01-05

Anthropic activities are directly related to the contamination of aquatic ecosystems owing to the release of numerous chemicals from agricultural and urban waste. These contaminants cause environmental degradation and a decrease in the availability of water quality. The objective of this search was to evaluate the efficiency of physicochemical, chemical, and microbiological tests; extraction of chlorophyll a; and genetic parameters to identify anthropic activities and weather condition effects on the stream water quality and the consequences of its use by the population. The physicochemical parameters were within the limits allowed by the Brazilian law. However, contamination by metals (Cd 0.510 mg L -1 , Co 0.405 mg L -1 , and Ni 0.316 mg L -1 ) has been found at various collection points to be more than the allowable values. The antibiotic oxytetracycline was detected in stream water in quantities of up to 89 μg L -1 . In relation to microbiological contamination, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas spp. have been isolated. The averages of chlorophyll a were up to 0.15558 mg cm -2 . Genetic tools identified greater number of micronuclei and DNA damage in periods that showed lower rainfall rates and lower amounts of metals. The analysis used for monitoring was efficient to verify the interference that animal breeding and planting of different cultures have caused on that stream. Thus, the continued use of this water for drinking, irrigation of vegetables, and recreational activities makes the population susceptible to contamination by bacteria and creates conditions for the development of genetic alterations in the long run.

Two-Way Outsourcing, International Migration, and Wage Inequality

OpenAIRE

Morihiro Yomogida; Laixun Zhao

2009-01-01

This paper develops a general equilibrium model with a vertical production structure to examine the relationship between offshore outsourcing and international migration,especially emphasizing their effects on the wages of skilled and unskilled workers. Two-way outsourcing (simultaneous insourcing and outsourcing) in skilled-labor intensive services arises due to product differentiation and scale economies, and outsourcing in unskilled-labor intensive processing occurs because of factor endow...

36 CFR 4.20 - Right of way.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Right of way. 4.20 Section 4... TRAFFIC SAFETY § 4.20 Right of way. An operator of a motor vehicle shall yield the right of way to pedestrians, saddle and pack animals and vehicles drawn by animals. Failure to yield the right of way is...

An Easy Way to Show Memory Color Effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Witzel, Christoph

2016-01-01

This study proposes and evaluates a simple stimulus display that allows one to measure memory color effects (the effect of object knowledge and memory on color perception). The proposed approach is fast and easy and does not require running an extensive experiment. It shows that memory color effects are robust to minor variations due to a lack of color calibration.

An Easy Way to Show Memory Color Effects

OpenAIRE

Witzel, Christoph

2016-01-01

This study proposes and evaluates a simple stimulus display that allows one to measure memory color effects (the effect of object knowledge and memory on color perception). The proposed approach is fast and easy and does not require running an extensive experiment. It shows that memory color effects are robust to minor variations due to a lack of color calibration.

Identifying Hotspots in Land and Water Resource Uses on the Way towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Science.gov (United States)

Palazzo, A.; Havlik, P.; Van Dijk, M.; Leclere, D.

2017-12-01

Agriculture plays a key role in achieving adequate food, water, and energy security (as summarized in the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs) as populations grow and incomes rise. Yet, agriculture is confronted with an enormous challenge to produce more using less. Land and water resources are projected to be strongly affected by climate change demand and agriculture faces growing competition in the demand for these resources. To formulate policies that contribute to achieving the SDGs, policy makers need assessments that can anticipate and navigate the trade-offs within the water/land/energy domain. Assessments that identify locations or hotspots where trade-offs between the multiple, competing users of resources may exist must consider both the local scale impacts of resource use as well as regional scale socioeconomic trends, policies, and international markets that further contribute to or mitigate the impacts of resource trade-offs. In this study, we quantify impacts of increased pressure on the land system to provide agricultural and bioenergy products under increasingly scarce water resources using a global economic and land use model, GLOBIOM. We model the supply and demand of agricultural products at a high spatial resolution in an integrated approach that considers the impacts of global change (socioeconomic and climatic) on the biophysical availability and the growing competition of land and water. We also developed a biodiversity module that relates changes in land uses to changes in local species richness and global species extinction risk. We find that water available for agriculture and freshwater ecosystems decreases due to climate change and growing demand from other sectors (domestic, energy and industry) (Fig 1). Climate change impacts will limit areas suitable for irrigation and may lead to an expansion of rainfed areas in biodiverse areas. Impacts on food security from climate change are significant in some regions (SSA and SA) and policies

Identifying clinical course patterns in SMS data using cluster analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kent, Peter; Kongsted, Alice

2012-01-01

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Recently, there has been interest in using the short message service (SMS or text messaging), to gather frequent information on the clinical course of individual patients. One possible role for identifying clinical course patterns is to assist in exploring clinically important...... showed that clinical course patterns can be identified by cluster analysis using all SMS time points as cluster variables. This method is simple, intuitive and does not require a high level of statistical skill. However, there are alternative ways of managing SMS data and many different methods...

2016 SmartWay Affiliate Challenge Recognition Webinar

Science.gov (United States)

This EPA presentation gives an overview of the SmartWay program and showcases the SmartWay Affiliate awardees raising awareness of the benefits of the SmartWay program and sustainable freight transportation.

Business Intelligence: The Smart Way to Track Academic Collections

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Debra

2005-01-01

University collections are a vital source of knowledge for researchers and often a source of pride for universities. Without an effective way to manage and query them, however, collections often go underutilized. Parts of a collection can remain untapped for years, and the larger it grows, the more difficult management becomes. Unfortunately,…

Numerical simulation of the optimal two-mode attacks for two-way continuous-variable quantum cryptography in reverse reconciliation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Yichen; Zhao, Yijia; Yu, Song; Li, Zhengyu; Guo, Hong

2017-01-01

We analyze the security of the two-way continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocol in reverse reconciliation against general two-mode attacks, which represent all accessible attacks at fixed channel parameters. Rather than against one specific attack model, the expression of secret key rates of the two-way protocol are derived against all accessible attack models. It is found that there is an optimal two-mode attack to minimize the performance of the protocol in terms of both secret key rates and maximal transmission distances. We identify the optimal two-mode attack, give the specific attack model of the optimal two-mode attack and show the performance of the two-way protocol against the optimal two-mode attack. Even under the optimal two-mode attack, the performances of two-way protocol are still better than the corresponding one-way protocol, which shows the advantage of making double use of the quantum channel and the potential of long-distance secure communication using a two-way protocol. (paper)

Ways of life analysis and food culture

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Land, Birgit

Executive Summary 1. People's food patterns are among other things influenced by their social environments. Analysing the relationship between the social environment and food culture is an important lead in trying to derive consumer objectives directed towards the food sector. 2. The way of life...... typology proposed by Højrup may be a useful device for analysing how the social environment impacts food patterns. Højrup proposes three ways of life: the independent way of life, the wage-earner way of life, and the career-bound way of life. He relates these types to empirical observation by qualitative...

Identifying research priorities for effective retention strategies in clinical trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Kearney, Anna; Daykin, Anne; Shaw, Alison R G; Lane, Athene J; Blazeby, Jane M; Clarke, Mike; Williamson, Paula; Gamble, Carrol

2017-08-31

The failure to retain patients or collect primary-outcome data is a common challenge for trials and reduces the statistical power and potentially introduces bias into the analysis. Identifying strategies to minimise missing data was the second highest methodological research priority in a Delphi survey of the Directors of UK Clinical Trial Units (CTUs) and is important to minimise waste in research. Our aim was to assess the current retention practices within the UK and priorities for future research to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies to reduce attrition. Seventy-five chief investigators of NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA)-funded trials starting between 2009 and 2012 were surveyed to elicit their awareness about causes of missing data within their trial and recommended practices for improving retention. Forty-seven CTUs registered within the UKCRC network were surveyed separately to identify approaches and strategies being used to mitigate missing data across trials. Responses from the current practice surveys were used to inform a subsequent two-round Delphi survey with registered CTUs. A consensus list of retention research strategies was produced and ranked by priority. Fifty out of seventy-five (67%) chief investigators and 33/47 (70%) registered CTUs completed the current practice surveys. Seventy-eight percent of trialists were aware of retention challenges and implemented strategies at trial design. Patient-initiated withdrawal was the most common cause of missing data. Registered CTUs routinely used newsletters, timeline of participant visits, and telephone reminders to mitigate missing data. Whilst 36 out of 59 strategies presented had been formally or informally evaluated, some frequently used strategies, such as site initiation training, have had no research to inform practice. Thirty-five registered CTUs (74%) participated in the Delphi survey. Research into the effectiveness of site initiation training, frequency of patient contact

Efficient Constructions for One-way Hash Chains

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Hu, Yih-Chun; Jakobsson, Markus; Perrig, Adrian

2003-01-01

.... Our first construction, the Sandwich-chain, provides a smaller bandwidth overhead for one-way chain values, and enables efficient verification of one-way chain values if the trusted one-way chain value is far away...

Triglyceride glucose-body mass index is effective in identifying nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in nonobese subjects.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Shujun; Du, Tingting; Li, Mengni; Jia, Jing; Lu, Huiming; Lin, Xuan; Yu, Xuefeng

2017-06-01

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an increasingly common condition that is highly correlated with obesity; however, it is not uncommon among nonobese individuals. Triglyceride (TG) and glucose index combined with body mass index (TyG-BMI) has been proposed as a favorable marker of insulin resistance. We sought to investigate the effectiveness of TyG-BMI in identifying NAFLD in nonobese subjects.We conducted a cross-sectional study in a nonobese (BMI glucose, for identifying nonobese subjects at risk for NAFLD.In this study, the prevalence of NAFLD was over one-fifth in the nonobese population. TyG-BMI was an effective marker to detect NAFLD in nonobese subjects.

“Boys Play War”: Game as a Way of Mastering the Space of War by Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ryblova Marina Aleksandrovna

2014-09-01

Full Text Available This article investigates various ways to help children adjust to war conditions through games and playful situations. During Soviet times this approach was established to aid children in war conditions. Then these techniques were applied to other areas of the populace. However, they did not take into account the differences in perception of military events between children and adults. It is obvious that there are some differences in the way children would adapt to war using these techniques, mostly because children’s adaptation process would always happen in a playful way. Based on the analysis of the personal sources, the article describes the games of the children of Stalingrad and the way they helped them to adapt to the hardest conditions of one of the bloodiest battles in history, and a way to create a proper child space in chaos and violence of the adult world. The authors also identified gender and age specifics of children’s war games, showing their abilities to deal with the war situation itself and its psychological consequences.

Removal Effectiveness of Co-mingling Off-site Flows with FDOT Right-of-Way Stormwater.

Science.gov (United States)

2017-09-22

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) manages runoff with best management practices (BMPs) in their right-of-way (onsite) to meet regulatory requirements for removal of nitrogen and phosphorus. In some situations, runoff water from outside ...

Framework for Identifying Key Environmental Concerns in Marine Renewable Energy Projects- Appendices

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kramer, Sharon; Previsic, Mirko; Nelson, Peter; Woo, Sheri

2010-06-17

Marine wave and tidal energy technology could interact with marine resources in ways that are not well understood. As wave and tidal energy conversion projects are planned, tested, and deployed, a wide range of stakeholders will be engaged; these include developers, state and federal regulatory agencies, environmental groups, tribal governments, recreational and commercial fishermen, and local communities. Identifying stakeholders’ environmental concerns in the early stages of the industry’s development will help developers address and minimize potential environmental effects. Identifying important concerns will also assist with streamlining siting and associated permitting processes, which are considered key hurdles by the industry in the U.S. today. In September 2008, RE Vision consulting, LLC was selected by the Department of Energy (DoE) to conduct a scenario-based evaluation of emerging hydrokinetic technologies. The purpose of this evaluation is to identify and characterize environmental impacts that are likely to occur, demonstrate a process for analyzing these impacts, identify the “key” environmental concerns for each scenario, identify areas of uncertainty, and describe studies that could address that uncertainty. This process is intended to provide an objective and transparent tool to assist in decision-making for siting and selection of technology for wave and tidal energy development. RE Vision worked with H. T. Harvey & Associates, to develop a framework for identifying key environmental concerns with marine renewable technology. This report describes the results of this study. This framework was applied to varying wave and tidal power conversion technologies, scales, and locations. The following wave and tidal energy scenarios were considered: 4 wave energy generation technologies 3 tidal energy generation technologies 3 sites: Humboldt coast, California (wave); Makapu’u Point, Oahu, Hawaii (wave); and the Tacoma Narrows, Washington (tidal

Identifying and Managing Undue Influence From Family Members in End-of-Life Decisions for Patients With Advanced Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Francis X; Gallagher, Colleen M

2017-10-01

Undue influence from family members of patients with advanced cancer remains a serious ethical problem in end-of-life decision making. Despite the wealth of articles discussing the problem of undue influence, little has been written by way of practical guidance to help clinicians identify and effectively manage situations of undue influence. This article briefly lays out how to identify and manage situations of undue influence sensitively and effectively. We explain how undue influence may present itself in the clinic and distinguish it from ethically permissible expressions of relational autonomy. In addition, we lay out a process by which any clinician suspecting undue influence may gather additional information and, if necessary, conduct a family meeting to address the undue influence. It is our hope that by providing clinicians at all levels of patient care with such guidance, they will feel empowered to respond to cases of undue influence when they arise.

Robust Inference with Multi-way Clustering

OpenAIRE

A. Colin Cameron; Jonah B. Gelbach; Douglas L. Miller; Doug Miller

2009-01-01

In this paper we propose a variance estimator for the OLS estimator as well as for nonlinear estimators such as logit, probit and GMM. This variance estimator enables cluster-robust inference when there is two-way or multi-way clustering that is non-nested. The variance estimator extends the standard cluster-robust variance estimator or sandwich estimator for one-way clustering (e.g. Liang and Zeger (1986), Arellano (1987)) and relies on similar relatively weak distributional assumptions. Our...

Mind Map: a new way to teach patients and staff.

Science.gov (United States)

Michelini, C A

2000-05-01

As home care agencies look for new ways to achieve patient outcomes and staff competencies in a cost-effective manner, Mind Map is a method that can be used to quickly organize patient and staff education while evaluating the learner's comprehension of critical information.

How way leads on to way.

Science.gov (United States)

Barash, Isaac

2014-01-01

In this article, I briefly recount the historical events in my native country that led me to become a plant pathologist. I started as a field pathologist specializing in fungal diseases of legumes, moved to biochemical research on virulence factors, and then on to molecular plant-microbe interactions. I describe the impact my graduate studies at the University of California (UC)-Davis had on my career. My life's work and teaching can be said to reflect the development in plant pathology during the past 40 years. I have included a concise review of the development of plant pathology in Israel and the ways it is funded. Dealing with administrative duties while conducting research has contributed to my belief in the importance of multidisciplinary approaches and of preserving the applied approach in the teaching of plant pathology.

Ways of Thinking, Ways of Seeing Mathematical and other Modelling in Engineering and Technology

CERN Document Server

Dillon, Chris

2012-01-01

This fascinating book examines some of the characteristics of technological/engineering models that are likely to be unfamiliar to those who are interested primarily in the history and philosophy of science and mathematics, and which differentiate technological models from scientific and mathematical ones. Themes that will be highlighted include: • the role of language: the models developed for engineering design have resulted in new ways of talking about technological systems • communities of practice: related to the previous point, particular engineering communities have particular ways of sharing and developing knowledge • graphical (re)presentation: engineers have developed many ways of reducing quite complex mathematical models to more simple representations • reification: highly abstract mathematical models are turned into ‘objects’ that can be manipulated almost like components of a physical system • machines: not only the currently ubiquitous digital computer, but also older analogue dev...

[Effects of Two Placement Ways for Storage of Blood Bag on Biochemical Indexes of Leukodepleted Red Blood Cells].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Rui-Jun; Duan, Bing-Zheng; Ju, Chun-Mei; Sui, Su-Qin; Bai, Yan; Cao, Huan

2016-04-01

To investigate the effects of 2 different ways of storage bag placement on some biochemical indexes of leukodepleted red blood cells (LD-RBC) to as to ensure the efficacy and safety of clinical blood transfusion. The whole blood samples of 20 donors (400 ml/donor) were selected for preparating the LP-RBC, which were divided evenly into 10 bags. The 10 bags were randomly divided into 2 groups; the bags in 1 group were placed uprightly, while the bags in another group were placed horizontally. The bags of 2 groups were stored in the same conditions. One storage bag from each group was taken randomly on day 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 respectively, and then the biochemical indexes of samples were detected and analyzed. The values of K(+) and LAC on day 14, the value of LDH on day 28 in the uprightly placed group were higher than those in the horizontally placed group (P value of Na(+) on day 28, and the value of Glu on day 35 in the uprightly placed group were lower than those in horizontally placed group (P 0.05). The storage bags placed by different ways during the storage show different influence on some biochemical indexes of LD-RBC in the storage period.

Motivation and Ways to Motivate Students of Middle School

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

朱洪琼

2012-01-01

Motivation is critical in English learning of middle school,thus,how to effectively motivate students in English learning is an important problem.This study intends to find ways to motivate students of middle school.Self-report data were collected from 45 students in The Experiment Middle School Attached to Yunnan Normal University by using a close-ended questionnaire.

Changing the Way We Work

Science.gov (United States)

Coote, Anna

2010-01-01

A 21-hour working week is a long way from today's standard of 40 hours or more, but not so far-fetched when people consider the infinitely varied ways in which they actually spend their time. On average, people of working age spend 19.6 hours a week in paid employment and 20.4 hours in unpaid housework and childcare. These averages mask huge…

Automatically Identifying and Predicting Unplanned Wind Turbine Stoppages Using SCADA and Alarms System Data: Case Study and Results

Science.gov (United States)

Leahy, Kevin; Gallagher, Colm; Bruton, Ken; O'Donovan, Peter; O'Sullivan, Dominic T. J.

2017-11-01

Using 10-minute wind turbine SCADA data for fault prediction offers an attractive way of gaining additional prognostic capabilities without needing to invest in extra hardware. To use these data-driven methods effectively, the historical SCADA data must be labelled with the periods when the turbine was in faulty operation as well the sub-system the fault was attributed to. Manually identifying faults using maintenance logs can be effective, but is also highly time consuming and tedious due to the disparate nature of these logs across manufacturers, operators and even individual maintenance events. Turbine alarm systems can help to identify these periods, but the sheer volume of alarms and false positives generated makes analysing them on an individual basis ineffective. In this work, we present a new method for automatically identifying historical stoppages on the turbine using SCADA and alarms data. Each stoppage is associated with either a fault in one of the turbine’s sub-systems, a routine maintenance activity, a grid-related event or a number of other categories. This is then checked against maintenance logs for accuracy and the labelled data fed into a classifier for predicting when these stoppages will occur. Results show that the automated labelling process correctly identifies each type of stoppage, and can be effectively used for SCADA-based prediction of turbine faults.

In situ TEM observations of the thermal degradation of the two way memory effect in a Cu-Al-Be alloy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Flores-Zuniga, H.; Guenin, G.

1995-01-01

A Cu-Al-Be alloy with a martensitic transformation temperature (M S ) lower than room temperature, was trained to induce the two way memory effect (TWME) and the aging effects in austenitic phase were studied by in-situ observations in a Transmission Electron Microscope. The results show movements of dislocations at temperatures where the TWME deformation is well known to decrease after short aging times (about an hour). Since the Burgers vector of these dislocations does not change during aging, and precipitates have been not observed, we concluded that the TWME degrades as a result of modifications in the internal stresses field distribution associated with dislocation movements, that produces a more random orientation of martensitic plates on cooling. (orig.)

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a "Five Ways to Well-Being" Group Run with People with Learning Disabilities

Science.gov (United States)

Mahoney-Davies, Gerwyn; Dixon, Clare; Tynan, Hannah; Mann, Sian

2017-01-01

Background: The "Five Ways to Well-being" document presents five ways in which people in the general population may be able to improve their well-being. This study evaluates the use of a "Five Ways to Well-being" group in a population of people with learning disabilities. Materials and Methods: Twelve participants who attend a…

This Way Brouwn

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

van der Meijden, Peter Alexander

2013-01-01

Artiklen udforsker den surinamsk/hollandske kunstner Stanley Brouwns værk "This Way Brouwn" (1962-nu) som en hybrid mellem arkiv og performance. Mere specifikt stiller artiklen, primært igennem Jacques Derridas essay "Archive Fever" skarpt på arkivets og performancekunstens tidsmæssige aspekt, fo...

Learning as way-finding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dau, Susanne

motions of humans and non-human agencies. The findings reveal that learning; formal and informal can be conceptualized by the metaphor of way-finding; embodied, emotionally and/or cognitive both individually and socially. Way-finding, is argued, to be a contemporary concept for learning processes......, knowledge development and identity-shaping, where learning emerges through motions, feeling and thinking within an information rich world in constant change.......Based on empirical case-study findings and the theoretical framework of learning by Illeris coupled with Nonaka & Takeuchis´s perspectives on knowledge creation, it is stressed that learning are conditioned by contextual orientations-processes in spaces near the body (peripersonal spaces) through...

Ways of life analysis and food culture

OpenAIRE

Land, Birgit

1994-01-01

Executive Summary 1. People's food patterns are among other things influenced by their social environments. Analysing the relationship between the social environment and food culture is an important lead in trying to derive consumer objectives directed towards the food sector. 2. The way of life typology proposed by Højrup may be a useful device for analysing how the social environment impacts food patterns. Højrup proposes three ways of life: the independent way of life, the wage-earner way ...

Changing the way employee benefit communications are produced: outsourcing, a more efficient, less costly process.

Science.gov (United States)

Herren, K

1995-12-01

Outsourcing may offer employers an efficient, cost-effective way to produce employee benefit communications. It offers a way to utilize the latest technology to produce personalized benefit statements or to target an announcement of benefit changes to a specific group of employees.

The Use of a Performance Assessment for Identifying Gifted Lebanese Students: Is DISCOVER Effective?

Science.gov (United States)

Sarouphim, Ketty M.

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of DISCOVER, a performance- based assessment in identifying gifted Lebanese students. The sample consisted of 248 students (121 boys, 127 girls) from Grades 3-5 at two private schools in Beirut, Lebanon. Students were administered DISCOVER and the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices…

Semi-Supervised Learning to Identify UMLS Semantic Relations.

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Yuan; Uzuner, Ozlem

2014-01-01

The UMLS Semantic Network is constructed by experts and requires periodic expert review to update. We propose and implement a semi-supervised approach for automatically identifying UMLS semantic relations from narrative text in PubMed. Our method analyzes biomedical narrative text to collect semantic entity pairs, and extracts multiple semantic, syntactic and orthographic features for the collected pairs. We experiment with seeded k-means clustering with various distance metrics. We create and annotate a ground truth corpus according to the top two levels of the UMLS semantic relation hierarchy. We evaluate our system on this corpus and characterize the learning curves of different clustering configuration. Using KL divergence consistently performs the best on the held-out test data. With full seeding, we obtain macro-averaged F-measures above 70% for clustering the top level UMLS relations (2-way), and above 50% for clustering the second level relations (7-way).

Eight ways to go "e" without launching a Web service.

Science.gov (United States)

Toth, C L; Goldstein, D

2000-01-01

With more than 100 million Americans on the Internet, the physician-patient relationship is evolving. The Net brings with it unlimited potential for communication and information dissemination, but these benefits do come with some side effects. No everything on the Net is reliable or credible, but many patients don't understand that. For this reason and others, physicians must involve themselves with online communication and e-commerce. There are many realistic and practical ways for physicians to do this, and not all of them involve building a Web site. Sending patients clinical information in a cost-effective manner, improving receivables management, and decreasing the volume of phone calls are just some of the many ways the Net can enhance your practice. Think of the Net as just another business tool--not a replacement for physician-patient relationships. Like the telephone before it, the Net affords improved communication, patient education, and relationship-building with patients.

3 Ways to Increase Positive Emotions

Science.gov (United States)

... Search English Español 3 Ways to Increase Positive Emotions KidsHealth / For Teens / 3 Ways to Increase Positive ... to give yourself a boost. Track Your Positive Emotions Name the positive emotions you're already familiar ...

Are comic books an effective way to engage nonmajors in learning and appreciating science?

Science.gov (United States)

Hosler, Jay; Boomer, K B

2011-01-01

Comic books employ a complex interplay of text and images that gives them the potential to effectively convey concepts and motivate student engagement. This makes comics an appealing option for educators trying to improve science literacy about pressing societal issues involving science and technology. Here, we report results from the first systematic assessment of how a science comic book can affect student learning and attitudes about biology. We used pre- and postinstruction instruments to measure students' attitudes about biology, attitudes about comics, and content knowledge about evolution before and after using the science comic book Optical Allusions in their classes. On the preinstruction instrument, nonmajors reported the lowest scores on the content test and attitude surveys relative to the other groups. However, on the postinstruction instrument, nonmajors' content scores and attitudes showed a statistically significant improvement after using the comic book, particularly among those with lower content knowledge at the start of the semester. The improvement in attitudes about biology was correlated to attitudes about comics, suggesting that the comic may have played a role in engaging and shaping student attitudes in a positive way.

Sculpting- an experiential way of learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Helle Elisabeth; Larsen, Kirsten Vendelbo

2014-01-01

of students in sculpting can be very emotionally intense. Methods: An evaluation tool was designed as an open-ended questionnaire. During autumn 2012 and spring 2013, 114 undergraduate nursing students were enrolled in the study. Findings: Sculpting seems to be a good way to learn about complex family...... dynamics in palliative care. Nursing students find that sculpting is:•An eye-opener (89%)•Of great value in their future nursing profession (96%)•Not too emotionally intense (91 %)•A great tool that fosters good reflections•A good way to challenge underlying assumptions •An interesting way to link theory......Title: Sculpting- an experiential way of learning Authors & affiliations: Helle Elisabeth Andersen & Kirsten Vendelbo Larsen, Senior Lecturers. Department of Nursing, Odense, University College Lillebaelt, Denmark. Mail:hean@ucl.dk Abstract: Aim:To explore undergraduate nursing students...

Characterizing Milky Way Tidal Streams and Dark Matter with MilkyWay@home

Science.gov (United States)

Newberg, Heidi Jo; Shelton, Siddhartha; Weiss, Jake

2018-01-01

MilkyWay@home is a 0.5 PetaFLOPS volunteer computing platform that is mapping out the density substructure of the Sagittarius Dwarf Tidal Stream, the so-called bifurcated portion of the Sagittarius Stream, and the Virgo Overdensity, using turnoff stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. It is also using the density of stars along tidal streams such as the Orphan Stream to constrain properties of the dwarf galaxy progenitor of this stream, including the dark matter portion. Both of these programs are enabled by a specially-built optimization package that uses differential evolution or particle swarm methods to find the optimal model parameters to fit a set of data. To fit the density of tidal streams, 20 parameters are simultaneously fit to each 2.5-degree-wide stripe of SDSS data. Five parameters describing the stellar and dark matter profile of the Orphan Stream progenitor and the time that the dwarf galaxy has been evolved through the Galactic potential are used in an n-body simulation that is then fit to observations of the Orphan Stream. New results from MilkyWay@home will be presented. This project was supported by NSF grant AST 16-15688, the NASA/NY Space Grant fellowship, and contributions made by The Marvin Clan, Babette Josephs, Manit Limlamai, and the 2015 Crowd Funding Campaign to Support Milky Way Research.

The milky way an insider's guide

CERN Document Server

Waller, William H

2013-01-01

This book offers an intimate guide to the Milky Way, taking readers on a grand tour of our home Galaxy's structure, genesis, and evolution, based on the latest astronomical findings. In engaging language, it tells how the Milky Way congealed from blobs of gas and dark matter into a spinning starry abode brimming with diverse planetary systems--some of which may be hosting myriad life forms and perhaps even other technologically communicative species. William Waller vividly describes the Milky Way as it appears in the night sky, acquainting readers with its key components and telling

A Way to More Effective Marketing Strategies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carola Grebitus

2011-09-01

Full Text Available To create successful marketing strategies, it is essential to be familiar with consumers’ cognitive structures. In this article, the qualitative method of concept mapping is applied in a consumer survey (N = 132 to elicit cognitive structures and dimensionality of cognitive structures. The authors present methods to analyze dimensionality of cognitive structures descriptively and microeconometrically. An indicator for measuring cognitive structure dimensionality including weighted links is applied. To test the methodology, effects of sociodemographics on dimensionality are analyzed regarding a chosen food product. Results show that consumers’ age and education determine whether cognitive structures are more or less complex, whereas gender has no effect on the dimensionality of cognitive structures. To offer tailored marketing strategies based on dimensionality, emotional marketing strategies should be applied to reach customers with less complex cognitive structures. For consumers with more complex cognitive structures, marketers might focus on providing more detailed, information-based promotion.

Book Review: The X-Ways Forensics Practitioner's Guide

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linda Lau

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Shavers, B., and Zimmerman, E. (2013. The X-Ways Forensics Practitioner's Guide. Waltham, MA: Syngress, 242 pages. ISBN: 978-0-12-411605-4. Print: US $50.90. Includes exercises, case studies, references, and index. Reviewed by Linda K. Lau, Longwood UniversityBrett Shavers is a former law enforcement officer, a digital forensics examiner, an adjunct instructor, and a frequent speaker at many conferences. After writing his first book, titled Placing the Suspect Behind the Keyboard: Using Digital Forensics and Investigative Techniques to Identify Cybercrime Suspects, he co-wrote his 2nd book with Eric Zimmerman and Jimmy Weg, who is a knowledgeable technical editor. Both Brett and Eric are experts in cyber forensics, with many years of law enforcement experience at both the state and federal levels.

Physical Premium Principle: A New Way for Insurance Pricing

Science.gov (United States)

Darooneh, Amir H.

2005-03-01

In our previous work we suggested a way for computing the non-life insurance premium. The probable surplus of the insurer company assumed to be distributed according to the canonical ensemble theory. The Esscher premium principle appeared as its special case. The difference between our method and traditional principles for premium calculation was shown by simulation. Here we construct a theoretical foundation for the main assumption in our method, in this respect we present a new (physical) definition for the economic equilibrium. This approach let us to apply the maximum entropy principle in the economic systems. We also extend our method to deal with the problem of premium calculation for correlated risk categories. Like the Buhlman economic premium principle our method considers the effect of the market on the premium but in a different way.

Dynamic performance of self-operated three-way valve used in a hybrid air conditioner

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Penglei; Zhou, Dehai; Shi, Wenxing; Li, Xianting; Wang, Baolong

2014-01-01

A hybrid air conditioner combining a thermosyphon cycle with a vapor compression refrigeration cycle has a large energy saving potential compared with a common air conditioner for spaces requiring year-round cooling. The performance of the switch between the vapor compression mode and the thermosyphon mode largely impacts the safety and reliability of hybrid air conditioners. Therefore, a self-operated three-way valve is proposed. A thermodynamic model and a kinetic model are developed in this paper to evaluate the dynamic performance of the switch valve. The effects of the spring force constant, compressor discharging volume, fit clearance and piston length on the dynamic performance of the switch valve are analyzed. In conclusion, the proposed self-operated three-way valve can realize the switch operation accurately. - Highlights: •A self-operated three-way valve is proposed for hybrid air conditioners. •The thermodynamic model and kinetic model of the self-operated three-way valve are developed. •The validity of models is verified by experiments. •Effects of four main design parameters on the operating performance of the valve are researched

Dissecting galaxy formation models with sensitivity analysis—a new approach to constrain the Milky Way formation history

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gómez, Facundo A.; O'Shea, Brian W.; Coleman-Smith, Christopher E.; Tumlinson, Jason; Wolpert, Robert L.

2014-01-01

We present an application of a statistical tool known as sensitivity analysis to characterize the relationship between input parameters and observational predictions of semi-analytic models of galaxy formation coupled to cosmological N-body simulations. We show how a sensitivity analysis can be performed on our chemo-dynamical model, ChemTreeN, to characterize and quantify its relationship between model input parameters and predicted observable properties. The result of this analysis provides the user with information about which parameters are most important and most likely to affect the prediction of a given observable. It can also be used to simplify models by identifying input parameters that have no effect on the outputs (i.e., observational predictions) of interest. Conversely, sensitivity analysis allows us to identify what model parameters can be most efficiently constrained by the given observational data set. We have applied this technique to real observational data sets associated with the Milky Way, such as the luminosity function of the dwarf satellites. The results from the sensitivity analysis are used to train specific model emulators of ChemTreeN, only involving the most relevant input parameters. This allowed us to efficiently explore the input parameter space. A statistical comparison of model outputs and real observables is used to obtain a 'best-fitting' parameter set. We consider different Milky-Way-like dark matter halos to account for the dependence of the best-fitting parameter selection process on the underlying merger history of the models. For all formation histories considered, running ChemTreeN with best-fitting parameters produced luminosity functions that tightly fit their observed counterpart. However, only one of the resulting stellar halo models was able to reproduce the observed stellar halo mass within 40 kpc of the Galactic center. On the basis of this analysis, it is possible to disregard certain models, and their

Ways to Reduce the Proceeding Load, Alternative to Decriminalization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kirill V. Muravyev

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This article analyzes the initiative of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation concerning the decriminalization of certain crimes and increasing the amount of the theft of another's property for criminal responsibility. The author notes the expected positive effect and disadvantages of decriminalization, draws the attention to alternative ways to reduce load of pre-trial investigation and court proceedings

Is the Milky Way an interacting galaxy?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Verschuur, G.L.

1988-01-01

The Milky Way Galaxy is an interacting galaxy, according to radio astronomers. The disk of stars we live in is linked to the Magellanic Clouds, our Galaxy's satellites, by an enormous arc of neutral hydrogen called the Magellanic Stream. These startling facts have recently been established by piecing together many seemingly unrelated bits of evidence into a new picture of our Milky Way Galaxy. The discoveries that led up to this grand picture of the Milky Way's interaction data back over fifty years to create one of the best detective stories in modern astronomy. The realization that ours is an interacting galaxy is only the latest result of an intensive effort to map the Milky Way. Since the 1930s, astronomers have tried to discover just how our Galaxy is built. Charting the Milky Way hasn't been easy, because we are inside it and our view of the Milky Way is obscured by cosmic dust. This dust creates a region called the zone of avoidance, a band centered along the galactic plane that blocks visible light from objects beyond nearby objects in the Galaxy. Thus radio astronomers have become the Milky Way mappers because cosmic radio waves penetrate the dust and reveal the grand scheme of our Galaxy

Effective use of forensic science in volume crime investigations: identifying recurring themes in the literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Ludwig, Anika; Fraser, Jim

2014-01-01

New scientific, technological and legal developments, particularly the introduction of national databases for DNA and fingerprints, have led to increased use of forensic science in the investigation of crime. There is an assumption, and in some instances specific assertions, that such developments bring improvements either in broad criminal justice terms or more narrowly in terms of economic or practical efficiencies. The underlying presumption is that the new technological opportunities will be understood and effectively implemented. This research investigates whether such increases in activity have also been accompanied by improvements in the effective use of forensic science. A systematic review of thirty-six reports published (predominantly in England and Wales) since the 1980s, which have considered the use of forensic science in the investigation of volume crimes, was carried out. These reports have identified a number of recurrent themes that influenced how effectively forensic science was used in investigations. The themes identified included forensic knowledge and training of investigators, communication and information exchange between specialists and investigators, timeliness of forensic results, interagency relationships and deployment of crime scene examiner resources. The research findings suggest that these factors continue to hinder the effective use of forensic science despite technological advances and this paper considers their potential causes. © 2013.

Infant hearing screening in India: Current status and way forward

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suneela Garg

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Loss or impairment of auditory sense is the most prevalent deficit of all the sensory organs. With virtually no mortality, hearing impairment causes huge impact on one′s social, educational and economic well-being. There are 5-6 infants who are hard of hearing out of 1000 neonates. They will not be identified till they attain 2 or more years of age, by then irreversible damage would have been done. Universal screening for hearing of new-borns is the only way to decrease the burden of deafness in our society. There are tools available which can be administered by health workers after initial training for screening the infants for hearing impairment. Under the aegis of National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD of India universal screening can and should be applied. The programme would entail additional financial burden for the initial purchase of screening machines and rehabilitating the identified children.

Information literacy in science writing: how students find, identify, and use scientific literature

Science.gov (United States)

Klucevsek, Kristin M.; Brungard, Allison B.

2016-11-01

For undergraduate students to achieve science literacy, they must first develop information literacy skils. These skills align with Information Literacy Standards and include determining appropriate databases, distinguishing among resource types, and citing resources ethically. To effectively improve information literacy and science literacy, we must identify how students interact with authentic scientific texts. In this case study, we addressed this aim by embedding a science librarian into a science writing course, where students wrote a literature review on a research topic of their choice. Library instruction was further integrated through the use of an online guide and outside assistance. To evaluate the evolution of information literacy in our students and provide evidence of student practices, we used task-scaffolded writing assessments, a reflection, and surveys. We found that students improved their ability and confidence in finding research articles using discipline-specific databases as well as their ability to distinguish primary from secondary research articles. We also identified ways students improperly used and cited resources in their writing assignments. While our results reveal a better understanding of how students find and approach scientific research articles, additional research is needed to develop effective strategies to improve long-term information literacy in the sciences.

Strategizing in multiple ways

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Mette Vinther; Madsen, Charlotte Øland; Rasmussen, Jørgen Gulddahl

2013-01-01

Strategy processes are kinds of wayfaring where different actors interpret a formally defined strat-egy differently. In the everyday practice of organizations strategizing takes place in multiple ways through narratives and sensible actions. This forms a meshwork of polyphonic ways to enact one...... and the same strategy. The paper focusses on such processes as they develop in a Danish service company. It is done on the basis of an empirical and longitudinal study of a strategy process in the Service Company where the strategic purpose was to implement value-based management. The theme to be developed...... based on this development paper is whether one can understand these diver-gent strategic wayfaring processes as constructive for organizations....

Ways to Use ICT in Schools to Optimize the Impact on Teaching and Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Fredriksson, Ulf; Gajek, Elzbieta; Jedeskog, Gunilla

2009-01-01

The European eLearning Forum for Education 2 (ELFE2) is a project initiated by the ETUCE (European Trade Union Committee on Education) and builds on the conclusion of its predecessor ELFE1. ELFE2 aims, as ELFE1, to contribute to a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of using ICT in education. It identifies ways used to optimize…

Wildland fire and fuel management: principles for effective communication

Science.gov (United States)

Eric Toman; Bruce Shindler

2006-01-01

In this paper we discuss four principles identified through recent research for effective citizen-agency communication and examine their use in accomplishing fire management objectives. Principles include the following: (1) effective communication is a product of effective planning; (2) both unidirectional (one-way) and interactive approaches are part of successful...

The Way in Which Leadership Is Conceived

Science.gov (United States)

Ryan, Jim

2010-01-01

There are many important priorities for leadership education in a democratic society. In this article, the author concentrates on just one--the way in which leadership is conceived. This is an important issue. Indeed, the way in which potential leaders perceive leadership will shape the way in which they eventually practice it. The problem to date…

36 CFR 1004.20 - Right of way.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Right of way. 1004.20 Section 1004.20 Parks, Forests, and Public Property PRESIDIO TRUST VEHICLES AND TRAFFIC SAFETY § 1004.20 Right of way. An operator of a motor vehicle shall yield the right of way to pedestrians, saddle and pack...

Use of demand for and spatial flow of ecosystem services to identify priority areas.

Science.gov (United States)

Verhagen, Willem; Kukkala, Aija S; Moilanen, Atte; van Teeffelen, Astrid J A; Verburg, Peter H

2017-08-01

Policies and research increasingly focus on the protection of ecosystem services (ESs) through priority-area conservation. Priority areas for ESs should be identified based on ES capacity and ES demand and account for the connections between areas of ES capacity and demand (flow) resulting in areas of unique demand-supply connections (flow zones). We tested ways to account for ES demand and flow zones to identify priority areas in the European Union. We mapped the capacity and demand of a global (carbon sequestration), a regional (flood regulation), and 3 local ESs (air quality, pollination, and urban leisure). We used Zonation software to identify priority areas for ESs based on 6 tests: with and without accounting for ES demand and 4 tests that accounted for the effect of ES flow zone. There was only 37.1% overlap between the 25% of priority areas that encompassed the most ESs with and without accounting for ES demand. The level of ESs maintained in the priority areas increased from 23.2% to 57.9% after accounting for ES demand, especially for ESs with a small flow zone. Accounting for flow zone had a small effect on the location of priority areas and level of ESs maintained but resulted in fewer flow zones without ES maintained relative to ignoring flow zones. Accounting for demand and flow zones enhanced representation and distribution of ESs with local to regional flow zones without large trade-offs relative to the global ES. We found that ignoring ES demand led to the identification of priority areas in remote regions where benefits from ES capacity to society were small. Incorporating ESs in conservation planning should therefore always account for ES demand to identify an effective priority network for ESs. © 2016 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.

Would vaccination against nicotine be a cost-effective way to prevent smoking uptake in adolescents?

Science.gov (United States)

Gartner, Coral E; Barendregt, Jan J; Wallace, Angela; Hall, Wayne D

2012-04-01

We used epidemiological modelling to assess whether nicotine vaccines would be a cost-effective way of preventing smoking uptake in adolescents. We built an epidemiological model using Australian data on age-specific smoking prevalence; smoking cessation and relapse rates; life-time sex-specific disability-adjusted life years lived for cohorts of 100,000 smokers and non-smokers; government data on the costs of delivering a vaccination programme by general practitioners; and a range of plausible and optimistic estimates of vaccine cost, efficacy and immune response rates based on clinical trial results. We first estimated the smoking uptake rates for Australians aged 12-19 years. We then used these estimates to predict the expected smoking prevalence in a birth cohort aged 12 in 2003 by age 20 under (i) current policy and (ii) different vaccination scenarios that varied in cost, initial vaccination uptake, yearly re-vaccination rates, efficacy and a favourable vaccine immune response rate. Under the most optimistic assumptions, the cost to avert a smoker at age 20 was $44,431 [95% confidence interval (CI) $40,023-49,250]. This increased to $296,019 (95% CI $252,307-$355,930) under more plausible scenarios. The vaccine programme was not cost-effective under any scenario. A preventive nicotine vaccination programme is unlikely to be cost-effective. The total cost of a universal vaccination programme would be high and its impact on population smoking prevalence negligible. For these reasons, such a programme is unlikely to be publicly funded in Australia or any other developed country. © 2011 The Authors, Addiction © 2011 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Head-on crashes on two-way interurban roads: a public health concern in road safety.

Science.gov (United States)

Olabarria, Marta; Santamariña-Rubio, Elena; Marí-Dell'Olmo, Marc; Gotsens, Mercè; Novoa, Ana M; Borrell, Carme; Pérez, Katherine

2015-09-01

To describe the magnitude and characteristics of crashes and drivers involved in head-on crashes on two-way interurban roads in Spain between 2007 and 2012, and to identify the factors associated with the likelihood of head-on crashes on these roads compared with other types of crash. A cross-sectional study was conducted using the National Crash Register. The dependent variables were head-on crashes with injury (yes/no) and drivers involved in head-on crashes (yes/no). Factors associated with head-on crashes and with being a driver involved in a head-on crash versus other types of crash were studied using a multivariate robust Poisson regression model to estimate proportion ratios (PR) and confidence intervals (95% CI). There were 9,192 head-on crashes on two-way Spanish interurban roads. A total of 15,412 men and 3,862 women drivers were involved. Compared with other types of crash, head-on collisions were more likely on roads 7 m or more wide, on road sections with curves, narrowings or drop changes, on wet or snowy surfaces, and in twilight conditions. Transgressions committed by drivers involved in head-on crashes were driving in the opposite direction and incorrectly overtaking another vehicle. Factors associated with a lower probability of head-on crashes were the existence of medians (PR=0.57; 95%CI: 0.48-0.68) and a paved shoulder of less than 1.5 meters (PR=0.81; 95%CI: 0.77-0.86) or from 1.5 to 2.45 meters (PR=0.90; 95%CI: 0.84-0.96). This study allowed the characterization of crashes and drivers involved in head-on crashes on two-way interurban roads. The lower probability observed on roads with median strips point to these measures as an effective way to reduce these collisions. Copyright © 2014 SESPAS. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

A Numerical Procedure for Model Identifiability Analysis Applied to Enzyme Kinetics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Daele, Timothy, Van; Van Hoey, Stijn; Gernaey, Krist

2015-01-01

The proper calibration of models describing enzyme kinetics can be quite challenging. In the literature, different procedures are available to calibrate these enzymatic models in an efficient way. However, in most cases the model structure is already decided on prior to the actual calibration...... and Pronzato (1997) and which can be easily set up for any type of model. In this paper the proposed approach is applied to the forward reaction rate of the enzyme kinetics proposed by Shin and Kim(1998). Structural identifiability analysis showed that no local structural model problems were occurring......) identifiability problems. By using the presented approach it is possible to detect potential identifiability problems and avoid pointless calibration (and experimental!) effort....

Identification of directions and ways to transform the scientific and innovation space in different regions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Gusakov

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The article proposes an approach to the definition of the directions of transformation of scientific and innovation space, and ways of its development from the viewpoint of improving the interaction between different regions, expansion of the involvement of regions in the research and innovation process for ensuring greater dissemination of research findings and innovation. The research is conducted in the context of the necessity to expand the role of science in the post-industrial era. This approach is based on the author’s methodology of selecting different regions by assessing their innovation development. The methodology consists in making the statistical distribution of Russian regions by selected indicators, identifying groups of regions that are close to each other by the degree of innovation development, on the basis of the standard deviation, and establishing the link between the identified groups of regions that reflects the possibility of interaction between the groups of regions on creating scientific results and their promotion in the spatial dimension. The author analyzes directions and ways of implementation of polarization of scientific and innovation space, development of scientific-innovation activity in the regions, also in the regions with similar competitive advantages, ways of participation of a larger number of medium-sized and small towns in the scientific and innovation activities, integration of the regions’ activities seeking to increase the degree of innovation development and so on. The author identified a number of opportunities for the improvement of organization of scientific and innovation space by specifying the possible links of the groups of regions between the stages of the research and innovation process, comparison of the regions, included into one group, which gives a real opportunity to shape the innovation strategy in the regions

Around the Way: Testing ΛCDM with Milky Way Stellar Stream Constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Dai, Biwei; Robertson, Brant E.; Madau, Piero

2018-05-01

Recent analyses of the Pal 5 and GD-1 tidal streams suggest that the inner dark matter halo of the Milky Way is close to spherical, in tension with predictions from collisionless N-body simulations of cosmological structure formation. We use the Eris simulation to test whether the combination of dissipative physics and hierarchical structure formation can produce Milky Way–like galaxies whose dark matter halos match the tidal stream constraints from the GD-1 and Pal 5 clusters. We use a dynamical model of the simulated Eris galaxy to generate many realizations of the GD-1 and Pal 5 tidal streams, marginalize over observational uncertainties in the cluster galactocentric positions and velocities, and compare with the observational constraints. We find that the total density and potential of Eris contributed by baryons and dark matter satisfies constraints from the existing Milky Way stellar stream data, as the baryons both round and redistribute the dark matter during the dissipative formation of the galaxy, and provide a centrally concentrated mass distribution that rounds the inner potential. The Eris dark matter halo or a spherical Navarro–Frenk–White dark matter work comparably well in modeling the stream data. In contrast, the equivalent dark matter–only ErisDark simulation produces a prolate halo that cannot reproduce the observed stream data. The ongoing Gaia mission will provide decisive tests of the consistency between {{Λ }}{CDM} and Milky Way streams, and should distinguish between models like Eris and more spherical halos.

A MORE EFFECTIVE WAY TO ADVERTISE THE DISTANCE EDUCATION PROGRAMMES: Mobile Marketing Approach

OpenAIRE

Ayda SABUNCUOGLU AYBAR; Ebru GOKALILER

2011-01-01

Nowadays organizations strive to find the ways to communicate with their target audiences by using varied advertising mediums because of the developments on the information communication technologies and the globalization. In this context, like the other institutions, the distance education institutions has to execute communication activities by using different advertising mediums to create a positive position in their consumers minds. In this sense, the increase on the ownership of mobile ph...

State of the art on targeted memory reactivation: Sleep your way to enhanced cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Schouten, Daphne I; Pereira, Sofia I R; Tops, Mattie; Louzada, Fernando M

2017-04-01

Targeted memory reactivation is a fairly simple technique that has the potential to influence the course of memory formation through application of cues during sleep. Studies have shown that cueing memory during sleep can lead to either an enhanced or decreased representation of the information encoded in the targeted networks, depending on experimental variations. The effects have been associated with sleep parameters and accompanied by activation of memory related brain areas. The findings suggest a causal role of neuronal replay in memory consolidation and provide evidence for the active system consolidation hypothesis. However, the observed inconsistencies across studies suggest that further research is warranted regarding the underlying neural mechanisms and optimal conditions for the application of targeted memory reactivation. The goal of the present review is to integrate the currently available experimental data and to provide an overview of this technique's limitations and pitfalls, as well as its potential applications in everyday use and clinical treatment. Exploring the open questions herein identified should lead to insight into safer and more effective ways of adjusting memory representations to better suit individual needs. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Physical Premium Principle: A New Way for Insurance Pricing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amir H. Darooneh

2005-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract: In our previous work we suggested a way for computing the non-life insurance premium. The probable surplus of the insurer company assumed to be distributed according to the canonical ensemble theory. The Esscher premium principle appeared as its special case. The difference between our method and traditional principles for premium calculation was shown by simulation. Here we construct a theoretical foundation for the main assumption in our method, in this respect we present a new (physical definition for the economic equilibrium. This approach let us to apply the maximum entropy principle in the economic systems. We also extend our method to deal with the problem of premium calculation for correlated risk categories. Like the Buhlman economic premium principle our method considers the effect of the market on the premium but in a different way.

Mediterranean Way of Competitiveness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Art Kovacic

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The Mediterranean area have a special concept of competitiveness topic. Normally is that region not so industrial and knowledge based oriented as a North Europe.That countries can't reach the same development level as the north one. Lisbon's and Goethenburg's strategies create the main framework of development programme. Mediterranean programme is such a case. European internal market has forced the EU countries to increase competitiveness. The economic prosperity of countries is associated with their ability to generate or attract economic activities which are able to increase income by performing well on themarket. Financial crisis in the EU has changed the look on the competitiveness research. Economy in the main countries has to find way of recovery. Former giants of the financial world have found themselves suddenly facing bankruptcy.Inevitably, the crisis is also having an effect on households and businesses - economic growth has slowed sharply and in some EU countries unemployment has begun to increase for the first time in several years. Form that perspective we have to find the right solution of European competitiveness.

Identifying inaccuracy of MS Project using system analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Fachrurrazi; Husin, Saiful; Malahayati, Nurul; Irzaidi

2018-05-01

The problem encountered in project owner’s financial accounting report is the difference in total project costs of MS Project to the Indonesian Standard (Standard Indonesia Standard / Cost Estimating Standard Book of Indonesia). It is one of the MS Project problems concerning to its cost accuracy, so cost data cannot be used in an integrated way for all project components. This study focuses on finding the causes of inaccuracy of the MS Projects. The aim of this study, which is operationally, are: (i) identifying cost analysis procedures for both current methods (SNI) and MS Project; (ii) identifying cost bias in each element of the cost analysis procedure; and (iii) analysing the cost differences (cost bias) in each element to identify what the cause of inaccuracies in MS Project toward SNI is. The method in this study is comparing for both the system analysis of MS Project and SNI. The results are: (i) MS Project system in Work of Resources element has limitation for two decimal digits only, have led to its inaccuracy. Where the Work of Resources (referred to as effort) in MS Project represents multiplication between the Quantities of Activities and Requirements of resources in SNI; (ii) MS Project and SNI have differences in the costing methods (the cost estimation methods), in which the SNI uses the Quantity-Based Costing (QBC), meanwhile MS Project uses the Time-Based Costing (TBC). Based on this research, we recommend to the contractors who use SNI should make an adjustment for Work of Resources in MS Project (with correction index) so that it can be used in an integrated way to the project owner’s financial accounting system. Further research will conduct for improvement the MS Project as an integrated tool toward all part of the project participant.

Multi-way Communications: An Information Theoretic Perspective

KAUST Repository

Chaaban, Anas

2015-09-15

Multi-way communication is a means to significantly improve the spectral efficiency of wireless networks. For instance, in a bi-directional (or two-way) communication channel, two users can simultaneously use the transmission medium to exchange information, thus achieving up to twice the rate that would be achieved had each user transmitted separately. Multi-way communications provides an overview on the developments in this research area since it has been initiated by Shannon. The basic two-way communication channel is considered first, followed by the two-way relay channel obtained by the deployment of an additional cooperative relay node to improve the overall communication performance. This basic setup is then extended to multi-user systems. For all these setups, fundamental limits on the achievable rates are reviewed, thereby making use of a linear high-SNR deterministic channel model to provide valuable insights which are helpful when discussing the coding schemes for Gaussian channel models in detail. Several tools and communication strategies are used in the process, including (but not limited to) computation, signal-space alignment, and nested-lattice codes. Finally, extensions of multi-way communication channels to multiple antenna settings are discussed. © 2015 A. Chaaban and A. Sezgin.

Effectively identifying regulatory hotspots while capturing expression heterogeneity in gene expression studies

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) mapping is a tool that can systematically identify genetic variation affecting gene expression. eQTL mapping studies have shown that certain genomic locations, referred to as regulatory hotspots, may affect the expression levels of many genes. Recently, studies have shown that various confounding factors may induce spurious regulatory hotspots. Here, we introduce a novel statistical method that effectively eliminates spurious hotspots while retaining genuine hotspots. Applied to simulated and real datasets, we validate that our method achieves greater sensitivity while retaining low false discovery rates compared to previous methods. PMID:24708878

On Determinism and Unambiguity of Weighted Two-way Automata

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vincent Carnino

2014-05-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we first study the conversion of weighted two-way automata to one-way automata. We show that this conversion preserves the unambiguity but does not preserve the determinism. Yet, we prove that the conversion of an unambiguous weighted one-way automaton into a two-way automaton leads to a deterministic two-way automaton. As a consequence, we prove that unambiguous weighted two-way automata are equivalent to deterministic weighted two-way automata in commutative semirings.

Four-Way Relaying in Wireless Cellular Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Huaping; Popovski, Petar; De Carvalho, Elisabeth

2013-01-01

Two-way relaying in wireless systems has initiated a large research effort during the past few years. Nevertheless, it represents only a specific traffic pattern and it is of interest to investigate other traffic patterns where such a simultaneous processing of information flows can bring...... performance advantage. In this paper we consider a \\emph{four-way relaying} scenario, where each of the two Mobile Stations (MSs) has a two-way connection to the same Base Station (BS), while each connection is through a dedicated Relay Station (RS). The RSs are placed in such a way that one RS...... of the new scheme for Decode-and-Forward (DF) operational model for the RS. We compare the performance with a state-of-the-art reference scheme, based on two-way relaying with DF. The results indicate that the achievable rate regions are significantly enlarged for the new scheme....

Analog of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Kohler, Susanna

2017-11-01

A hunt for merging dwarf galaxies has yielded an intriguing result: 180 million light-years away, a galaxy very similar to the Milky Way with two dwarf-galaxy satellites just like our own Magellanic clouds.Unusual SatellitesThe Large and Small Magellanic clouds, as observed from Earth. [ESO/S. Brunier]The Large and Small Magellanic clouds (LMC and SMC), the only bright and star-forming satellite galaxies around the Milky Way, have proven unusual in the universe: satellite pairs of LMCSMC mass are neither common in observation nor typically produced in numerical simulations of galaxy formation and evolution.Since the probability of having such an interacting pair of satellites in a massive halo is so low, this raises questions about how our system came about. Did the Magellanic clouds form independently around the Milky Way and then interact? Were they more recently captured as an already-merging pair of dwarf galaxies? Or is there some other explanation?If we could find other systems that look like the LMCSMCMilky-Way system, we might be able to learn more about pairs of dwarf galaxies and how they interact near the halos of large galaxies like the Milky Way. Conveniently, two researchers from Yonsei University in South Korea, Sanjaya Paudel and Chandreyee Sengupta, have now identified exactly such a system.The UGC 4703 pair of dwarf galaxies show a stellar bridge connecting them a sign of their past interaction, when tidal forces stripped material from them as they passed each other. [Adapted from Paudel Sengupta 2017]An Interacting PairHunting for merging dwarf galaxies in various environments, Paudel and Sengupta found UGC 4703, an interacting pair of dwarf galaxies that are located near the isolated spiral galaxy NGC 2718. This pair of satellites around the massive spiral bear a striking resemblance to the LMCSMC system around the Milky-Way.The authors performed a multi-wavelength study of the system using archival images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, The

DNA Three-Way Junction for Differentiation of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms with Fluorescent Copper Nanoparticles.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Feifei; You, Ying; Liu, Jie; Song, Quanwei; Shen, Xiaotong; Na, Na; Ouyang, Jin

2017-05-23

A label- and enzyme-free fluorescent sensor for the detection of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at room temperature is proposed, using new copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) as fluorescent reporters. The CuNPs were constructed by using a DNA three-way junction (3WJ) template. In this assay, two complementary adenine/thymine-rich probes can hybridize with the wild-type target simultaneously to construct a 3WJ structure, serving as an efficient scaffold for the generation of CuNPs. However, the CuNPs produce weak fluorescence when the probes bind with a mutant-type target. SNPs can be identified by the difference in fluorescence intensity of the CuNPs. This SNPs detection strategy is straightforward, cost-effective, and avoids the complicated procedures of labeling or enzymatic reactions. The fluorescent sensor is versatile and can be applied to all types of mutation because the probes are programmable. Moreover, the sensor exhibits good detection performance in biological samples. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Maritime insurance as a way to struggle piracy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ekaterina S. Anyanova

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Objective to research the features of maritime insurance from the viewpoint of fighting piracy at international level and to define the ways to improve the legal norms in this sphere. Methods dialectic method of cognition and private scientific research methods formallegal systemicstructural sociallegal comparativelegal statistical. Results basing on the analysis of normative legal acts regulating the relations in the sphere of maritime insurance as one of the ways to struggle against piracy the insufficiency of unified insurance norms at internationallegal level is revealed features of modern piracy are identified as well as the dependence of the insurance cost on the piratesrsquo activity the state of legal protection of the shipownerrsquos interests in case of piratesrsquo attacks at international routes a conclusion is made that the difficulties with the ldquopiracyrdquo notion do not hinder its fullfledged research in international law the drawbacks of the piracy concept in international law are reflected the insurance legal norms are studied as well as the drawbacks in insufficient unification and stronger protection of shipowners in case of ransom payments especially in RF. Scientific novelty for the first time in the article the internationallegal features of maritime piracy are viewed as one of the measures of struggle against piracy. Practical significance the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in practical scientific and educational activity when dealing with the issues of maritime insurance of piracy risks.

Updating the MACHO fraction of the Milky Way dark halo with improved mass models

Science.gov (United States)

Calcino, Josh; García-Bellido, Juan; Davis, Tamara M.

2018-05-01

Recent interest in primordial black holes as a possible dark matter candidate has motivated the reanalysis of previous methods for constraining massive astrophysical compact objects in the Milky Way halo and beyond. In order to derive these constraints, a model for the dark matter distribution around the Milky Way must be used. Previous microlensing searches have assumed a semi-isothermal density sphere for this task. We show this model is no longer consistent with data from the Milky Way rotation curve, and test two replacement models, namely NFW and power-law. The power-law model is the most flexible as it can break spherical symmetry, and best fits the data. Thus, we recommend the power-law model as a replacement, although it still lacks the flexibility to fully encapsulate all possible shapes of the Milky Way halo. We then use the power-law model to rederive some previous microlensing constraints in the literature, while propagating the primary halo-shape uncertainties through to our final constraints. Our analysis reveals that the microlensing constraints towards the Large Magellanic Cloud weaken somewhat for MACHO masses around 10 M⊙ when this uncertainty is taken into account, but the constraints tighten at lower masses. Exploring some of the simplifying assumptions of previous constraints we also study the effect of wide mass distributions of compact halo objects, as well as the effect of spatial clustering on microlensing constraints. We find that both effects induce a shift in the constraints towards smaller masses, and can effectively remove the microlensing constraints from M ˜ 1 - 10M⊙ for certain MACHO populations.

A Model to Identify the Most Effective Business Rule in Information Systems using Rough Set Theory: Study on Loan Business Process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Aghdasi

2011-09-01

In this paper, a practical model is used to identify the most effective rules in information systems. In this model, first, critical business attributes which fit to strategic expectations are taken into account. These are the attributes which their changes are more important than others in achieving the strategic expectations. To identify these attributes we utilize rough set theory. Those business rules which use critical information attribute in their structures are identified as the most effective business rules. The Proposed model helps information system developers to identify scope of effective business rules. It causes a decrease in time and cost of information system maintenance. Also it helps business analyst to focus on managing critical business attributes in order to achieve a specific goal.

PDAs: Revolutionizing The Way We Learn and Teach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kimberly McDONOUGH

2006-04-01

Full Text Available Miniature handheld computers called PDA’s are not only bombarding corporate America, but they are also noticeably making their mark on college campuses. The question is, how much impact are they making on the way students learn and instructors teach. These devices were born from a simple calculator and over two decades have transformed into a walking computer complete with Internet access. This paper identifies how PDAs have transformed over the years as well as their benefits and limitations. Although there are many pros and cons to using PDAs, it was clear that they can be used to enhance both learning and teaching if used and accepted in the appropriate manner. With the advancement in technology and data speeds it is evident PDA’s will continue to add value to education in the future.

Is There a Disk of Satellites around the Milky Way?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maji, Moupiya; Zhu, Qirong; Li, Yuexing [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States); Marinacci, Federico, E-mail: moupiya@psu.edu [Department of Physics, Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)

2017-07-01

The “disk of satellites” (DoS) around the Milky Way is a highly debated topic with conflicting interpretations of observations and their theoretical models. We perform a comprehensive analysis of all of the dwarfs detected in the Milky Way and find that the DoS structure depends strongly on the plane identification method and the sample size. In particular, we demonstrate that a small sample size can artificially produce a highly anisotropic spatial distribution and a strong clustering of the angular momentum of the satellites. Moreover, we calculate the evolution of the 11 classical satellites with proper motion measurements and find that the thin DoS in which they currently reside is transient. Furthermore, we analyze two cosmological simulations using the same initial conditions of a Milky-Way-sized galaxy, an N -body run with dark matter only, and a hydrodynamic one with both baryonic and dark matter, and find that the hydrodynamic simulation produces a more anisotropic distribution of satellites than the N -body one. Our results suggest that an anisotropic distribution of satellites in galaxies can originate from baryonic processes in the hierarchical structure formation model, but the claimed highly flattened, coherently rotating DoS of the Milky Way may be biased by the small-number selection effect. These findings may help resolve the contradictory claims of DoS in galaxies and the discrepancy among numerical simulations.

Is There a Disk of Satellites around the Milky Way?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maji, Moupiya; Zhu, Qirong; Li, Yuexing; Marinacci, Federico

2017-01-01

The “disk of satellites” (DoS) around the Milky Way is a highly debated topic with conflicting interpretations of observations and their theoretical models. We perform a comprehensive analysis of all of the dwarfs detected in the Milky Way and find that the DoS structure depends strongly on the plane identification method and the sample size. In particular, we demonstrate that a small sample size can artificially produce a highly anisotropic spatial distribution and a strong clustering of the angular momentum of the satellites. Moreover, we calculate the evolution of the 11 classical satellites with proper motion measurements and find that the thin DoS in which they currently reside is transient. Furthermore, we analyze two cosmological simulations using the same initial conditions of a Milky-Way-sized galaxy, an N -body run with dark matter only, and a hydrodynamic one with both baryonic and dark matter, and find that the hydrodynamic simulation produces a more anisotropic distribution of satellites than the N -body one. Our results suggest that an anisotropic distribution of satellites in galaxies can originate from baryonic processes in the hierarchical structure formation model, but the claimed highly flattened, coherently rotating DoS of the Milky Way may be biased by the small-number selection effect. These findings may help resolve the contradictory claims of DoS in galaxies and the discrepancy among numerical simulations.

An Introduction to Topic Modeling as an Unsupervised Machine Learning Way to Organize Text Information

Science.gov (United States)

Snyder, Robin M.

2015-01-01

The field of topic modeling has become increasingly important over the past few years. Topic modeling is an unsupervised machine learning way to organize text (or image or DNA, etc.) information such that related pieces of text can be identified. This paper/session will present/discuss the current state of topic modeling, why it is important, and…

Sacred Way (Greek World)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Williamson, Christina

2015-01-01

Sacred ways were roads that led to major sanctuaries, typically those located at a distance from the urban center, and were the vehicles for the processions involved in civic festivals at these shrines.

Identifying tier one key suppliers.

Science.gov (United States)

Wicks, Steve

2013-01-01

In today's global marketplace, businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on suppliers for the provision of key processes, activities, products and services in support of their strategic business goals. The result is that now, more than ever, the failure of a key supplier has potential to damage reputation, productivity, compliance and financial performance seriously. Yet despite this, there is no recognised standard or guidance for identifying a tier one key supplier base and, up to now, there has been little or no research on how to do so effectively. This paper outlines the key findings of a BCI-sponsored research project to investigate good practice in identifying tier one key suppliers, and suggests a scalable framework process model and risk matrix tool to help businesses effectively identify their tier one key supplier base.

Design considerations for computationally constrained two-way real-time video communication

Science.gov (United States)

Bivolarski, Lazar M.; Saunders, Steven E.; Ralston, John D.

2009-08-01

Today's video codecs have evolved primarily to meet the requirements of the motion picture and broadcast industries, where high-complexity studio encoding can be utilized to create highly-compressed master copies that are then broadcast one-way for playback using less-expensive, lower-complexity consumer devices for decoding and playback. Related standards activities have largely ignored the computational complexity and bandwidth constraints of wireless or Internet based real-time video communications using devices such as cell phones or webcams. Telecommunications industry efforts to develop and standardize video codecs for applications such as video telephony and video conferencing have not yielded image size, quality, and frame-rate performance that match today's consumer expectations and market requirements for Internet and mobile video services. This paper reviews the constraints and the corresponding video codec requirements imposed by real-time, 2-way mobile video applications. Several promising elements of a new mobile video codec architecture are identified, and more comprehensive computational complexity metrics and video quality metrics are proposed in order to support the design, testing, and standardization of these new mobile video codecs.

Recursive N-way partial least squares for brain-computer interface.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrey Eliseyev

Full Text Available In the article tensor-input/tensor-output blockwise Recursive N-way Partial Least Squares (RNPLS regression is considered. It combines the multi-way tensors decomposition with a consecutive calculation scheme and allows blockwise treatment of tensor data arrays with huge dimensions, as well as the adaptive modeling of time-dependent processes with tensor variables. In the article the numerical study of the algorithm is undertaken. The RNPLS algorithm demonstrates fast and stable convergence of regression coefficients. Applied to Brain Computer Interface system calibration, the algorithm provides an efficient adjustment of the decoding model. Combining the online adaptation with easy interpretation of results, the method can be effectively applied in a variety of multi-modal neural activity flow modeling tasks.

Political, socio-economic, legal and civilizational risks on the way of Russia and the slavonic world towards sustainable development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergey N. Baburin

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Objective to identify the political socioeconomic and legal risks on the way of Russia and the Slavonic world towards sustainable development. Methods dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena allowing to analyze them in historical development and functioning in the context of the totality of objective and subjective factors that determined the choice of the following research methods systematic and structural formallegal and comparativelegal. Results the article views the system of risks on the way of Russia and the Slavonic world towards sustainable development which includes political socioeconomic legal and civilizational risks. Scientific recommendations are formulated for the identification analysis and elimination of risks. The main tendencies of the world order are identified changes in the structure of the statesrsquo national interests strengthening the role of nonstate actors promotion of democratic values and ideals the increasing role of international and interstate cooperation. Scientific novelty the article proposes a classification of risks that stand in the way of Russia and the Slavonic world towards sustainable development the necessity of their complex including constitutional overcoming and identifies the causes and conditions contributing to the emergence of the risks. Practical significance the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific and educational activities in addressing the issues of planning and predicting the state and legal phenomena and processes.

A MORE EFFECTIVE WAY TO ADVERTISE THE DISTANCE EDUCATION PROGRAMMES: Mobile Marketing Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ayda SABUNCUOGLU AYBAR

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Nowadays organizations strive to find the ways to communicate with their target audiences by using varied advertising mediums because of the developments on the information communication technologies and the globalization. In this context, like the other institutions, the distance education institutions has to execute communication activities by using different advertising mediums to create a positive position in their consumers minds. In this sense, the increase on the ownership of mobile phones and the new specialties of mobile phone technologies like accessing to the internet made mobile marketing efforts important on the advertising investments of distance education institutions. Especially with the mobile marketing, distance education institutions can create personalized informative and promotion messages for their target audiences. Mobile marketing approach has lots of advantages for the institutions and the most important advantages that helps the institutions are; the formats of the approach are forming according to the newest technological developments and it gives chance to create messages for specific target audiences. But mobile marketing has also disadvantages like; the target audience’s mobile phones can be incompatible with the messages and the target audience can ignore these messages. However much the approach has some disadvantages, the distance education institutions- which are based on the technological developments also like the mobile marketing approach- has to invest on mobile marketing according to send personalized and effective advertising messages about their programs’ contents, benefits etc.

Relying on fin erosion to identify hatchery-reared brown trout in a Tennessee river

Science.gov (United States)

Meerbeek, Jonathan R.; Bettoli, Phillip William

2012-01-01

Hatchery-induced fin erosion can be used to identify recently stocked catchable-size brown trout Salmo trutta during annual surveys to qualitatively estimate contributions to a fishery. However, little is known about the longevity of this mark and its effectiveness as a short-term (≤ 1 year) mass-marking technique. We evaluated hatchery-induced pectoral fin erosion as a mass-marking technique for short-term stocking evaluations by stocking microtagged brown trout in a tailwater and repeatedly sampling those fish to observe and measure their pectoral fins. At Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery, 99.1% (228 of 230) of microtagged brown trout in outdoor concrete raceways had eroded pectoral fins 1 d prior to stocking. Between 34 and 68 microtagged and 26-35 wild brown trout were collected during eight subsequent electrofishing samples. In a blind test based on visual examination of pectoral fins at up to 322 d poststocking, one observer correctly identified 91.7% to 100.0% (mean of 96.9%) of microtagged brown trout prior to checking for microtags. In the laboratory, pectoral fin length and width measurements were recorded to statistically compare the fin measurements of wild and microtagged hatchery brown trout. With only one exception, all pectoral fin measurements on each date averaged significantly larger for wild trout than for microtagged brown trout. Based on the number of pectoral fin measurements falling below 95% prediction intervals, 93.7% (148 of 158) of microtagged trout were correctly identified as hatchery fish based on regression models up to 160 d poststocking. Only 72.2% (70 of 97) of microtagged trout were identified correctly after 160 d based on pectoral fin measurements and the regression models. We concluded that visual examination of pectoral fin erosion was a very effective way to identify stocked brown trout for up to 322 d poststocking.

Stress and ways of coping among nurse managers: An integrative review.

Science.gov (United States)

Labrague, Leodoro J; McEnroe-Petitte, Denise M; Leocadio, Michael C; Van Bogaert, Peter; Cummings, Greta G

2018-04-01

To appraise and synthesise empirical studies examining sources of occupational stress and ways of coping utilised by nurse managers when dealing with stress. The Nurse Manager's role is challenging yet draining and stressful and has adverse consequences on an individual's overall health and well-being, patients' outcomes and organisational productivity. Considerable research has been carried out; however, an updated and broader perspective on this critical organisational issue has not been performed. An integrative review. Five databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, SCOPUS, PubMed, PsychINFO and MEDLINE) were searched to identify relevant articles. Search terms and MeSH terms included: "charge nurse," "coping," "coping strategy," "coping style," "psychological adaptation," "psychological stress," "stressors," "nurse manager" and "unit manager." Twenty-two articles were included in this review. Reporting followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement guidelines. Four themes were identified: moderate stress levels, common sources of stress, ways of coping and the impact of nurses' characteristics on stress. Nurse managers experienced moderate levels of stress mainly from heavy workloads, lack of resources and financial responsibilities. Enhancing social support and promoting job control were seen as important in reducing work stress and its related consequences. Additional studies using a more rigorous method and a larger sample size preferably in multicultural settings would shed more light on this topic. Hospital and nurse administrators play an important role in promoting supportive structures for daily professional practice for nurse managers through staffing, organisational resources, support services, leadership and stress management training. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

El modo de ser cínico de los dirigentes The Way of Being Cynical of the Leaders

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Álvaro Zapata Domínguez

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Bédard (1995, 2002, ha identificado tres modos de ser que ella designa como “Modo de Ser mítico”, “Modo de Ser sistemático”, “Modo de Ser pragmático”, un cuarto modo de Ser, el “Modo de Ser relacional” ha sido propuesto por Alain Chanlat (1995. Estos modos de Ser, son para los autores, la manifestación de las grandes tendencias del pensamiento occidental. En este contexto en el presente artículo se desarrolla el “Modo de Ser Cínico” de los dirigentes. Los valores fundamentales que distinguen el cinismo, son: la resistencia, la impasibilidad, la maldad.Bédard (1995, 2002, has identified three manners of being, that she designates as the “Way of being mythical”, the “Way of being systematic”, and the “Way of being pragmatic”. A fourth way of being, the “Way of being relational” has been proposed by Alain Chanlat (1995. These ways of being, are for the authors, the manifestation of big trends in Western thought. In this context, in the present article, the “Way of being cynical” of the leaders is developed. The fundamental values that distinguish the cynicism are: resistance, impassivity and evil.

Case Report of Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) with Desensitization: the Strategy and Experience of 3-Way KPD in Samsung Medical Center.

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, Dongkyu; Kang, Eun Suk; Yu, Shinae; Chun, Kyoungsuk; Huh, Wooseong; Jang, Hye Ryoun; Cho, Chan Woo; Lee, Nuri; Lee, Kyo Won; Park, Hyojun; Park, Jae Berm; Kim, Sung Joo

2018-01-29

As the need for the organ donation increases, strategies to increase kidney transplantation (KT) through expanded living donation have become essential. These include kidney paired donation (KPD) programs and desensitization in incompatible transplantations. KPD enables kidney transplant candidates with incompatible living donors to join a registry with other incompatible pairs in order to find potentially compatible living donor. Positive cross match and ABO incompatible transplantation has been successfully accomplished in selective cases with several pre-conditionings. Patients who are both difficult-to-match due to broad sensitization and hard-to-desensitize because of donor conditions can often be successfully transplanted through a combination of KPD and desensitization. According to the existing data, KPD can increase the number of KTs from living donors with excellent clinical results. This is also a cost-effective treatment as compared with dialysis and desensitization protocols. We carried out 3-way KPD transplantation with one highly sensitized, positive cross match pair and with two ABO incompatible pairs. Herein we report our first successful 3-way KPD transplantation in a single center. To maximize donor-recipient matching and minimize immunologic risk, KPD programs should use proper algorithms with desensitization to identify optimal donor with simultaneous two-, three- or more complex multi-way exchanges. © 2018 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.

A large-scale assessment of two-way SNP interactions in breast cancer susceptibility using 46,450 cases and 42,461 controls from the breast cancer association consortium.

Science.gov (United States)

Milne, Roger L; Herranz, Jesús; Michailidou, Kyriaki; Dennis, Joe; Tyrer, Jonathan P; Zamora, M Pilar; Arias-Perez, José Ignacio; González-Neira, Anna; Pita, Guillermo; Alonso, M Rosario; Wang, Qin; Bolla, Manjeet K; Czene, Kamila; Eriksson, Mikael; Humphreys, Keith; Darabi, Hatef; Li, Jingmei; Anton-Culver, Hoda; Neuhausen, Susan L; Ziogas, Argyrios; Clarke, Christina A; Hopper, John L; Dite, Gillian S; Apicella, Carmel; Southey, Melissa C; Chenevix-Trench, Georgia; Swerdlow, Anthony; Ashworth, Alan; Orr, Nicholas; Schoemaker, Minouk; Jakubowska, Anna; Lubinski, Jan; Jaworska-Bieniek, Katarzyna; Durda, Katarzyna; Andrulis, Irene L; Knight, Julia A; Glendon, Gord; Mulligan, Anna Marie; Bojesen, Stig E; Nordestgaard, Børge G; Flyger, Henrik; Nevanlinna, Heli; Muranen, Taru A; Aittomäki, Kristiina; Blomqvist, Carl; Chang-Claude, Jenny; Rudolph, Anja; Seibold, Petra; Flesch-Janys, Dieter; Wang, Xianshu; Olson, Janet E; Vachon, Celine; Purrington, Kristen; Winqvist, Robert; Pylkäs, Katri; Jukkola-Vuorinen, Arja; Grip, Mervi; Dunning, Alison M; Shah, Mitul; Guénel, Pascal; Truong, Thérèse; Sanchez, Marie; Mulot, Claire; Brenner, Hermann; Dieffenbach, Aida Karina; Arndt, Volker; Stegmaier, Christa; Lindblom, Annika; Margolin, Sara; Hooning, Maartje J; Hollestelle, Antoinette; Collée, J Margriet; Jager, Agnes; Cox, Angela; Brock, Ian W; Reed, Malcolm W R; Devilee, Peter; Tollenaar, Robert A E M; Seynaeve, Caroline; Haiman, Christopher A; Henderson, Brian E; Schumacher, Fredrick; Le Marchand, Loic; Simard, Jacques; Dumont, Martine; Soucy, Penny; Dörk, Thilo; Bogdanova, Natalia V; Hamann, Ute; Försti, Asta; Rüdiger, Thomas; Ulmer, Hans-Ulrich; Fasching, Peter A; Häberle, Lothar; Ekici, Arif B; Beckmann, Matthias W; Fletcher, Olivia; Johnson, Nichola; dos Santos Silva, Isabel; Peto, Julian; Radice, Paolo; Peterlongo, Paolo; Peissel, Bernard; Mariani, Paolo; Giles, Graham G; Severi, Gianluca; Baglietto, Laura; Sawyer, Elinor; Tomlinson, Ian; Kerin, Michael; Miller, Nicola; Marme, Federik; Burwinkel, Barbara; Mannermaa, Arto; Kataja, Vesa; Kosma, Veli-Matti; Hartikainen, Jaana M; Lambrechts, Diether; Yesilyurt, Betul T; Floris, Giuseppe; Leunen, Karin; Alnæs, Grethe Grenaker; Kristensen, Vessela; Børresen-Dale, Anne-Lise; García-Closas, Montserrat; Chanock, Stephen J; Lissowska, Jolanta; Figueroa, Jonine D; Schmidt, Marjanka K; Broeks, Annegien; Verhoef, Senno; Rutgers, Emiel J; Brauch, Hiltrud; Brüning, Thomas; Ko, Yon-Dschun; Couch, Fergus J; Toland, Amanda E; Yannoukakos, Drakoulis; Pharoah, Paul D P; Hall, Per; Benítez, Javier; Malats, Núria; Easton, Douglas F

2014-04-01

Part of the substantial unexplained familial aggregation of breast cancer may be due to interactions between common variants, but few studies have had adequate statistical power to detect interactions of realistic magnitude. We aimed to assess all two-way interactions in breast cancer susceptibility between 70,917 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) selected primarily based on prior evidence of a marginal effect. Thirty-eight international studies contributed data for 46,450 breast cancer cases and 42,461 controls of European origin as part of a multi-consortium project (COGS). First, SNPs were preselected based on evidence (P 10(-10)). In summary, we observed little evidence of two-way SNP interactions in breast cancer susceptibility, despite the large number of SNPs with potential marginal effects considered and the very large sample size. This finding may have important implications for risk prediction, simplifying the modelling required. Further comprehensive, large-scale genome-wide interaction studies may identify novel interacting loci if the inherent logistic and computational challenges can be overcome.

Aspects of statistical spectroscopy relevant to effective-interaction theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

French, J.B.

1975-01-01

The three aspects of statistical spectroscopy discussed in this paper are the information content of complex spectra: procedures for spectroscopy in huge model spaces, useful in effective-interaction theory; and practical ways of identifying and calculating measurable parameters of the effective Hamiltonian and other operators, and of comparing different effective Hamiltonians. (4 figures) (U.S.)

A Preliminary Study of the Obstacles to, the Status of and Potential for Education for the Promotion of Disarmament. Seminar on the Obstacles to Disarmament and the Ways of Overcoming Them (3-7 April 1978).

Science.gov (United States)

Reardon, Betty

The booklet assesses the present status of education for the promotion of disarmament in various grade levels and learning environments throughout the world. It also identifies and recommends ways to make disarmament education more effective. Disarmament is interpreted as the process leading from the present system of armed nation states to an…

Exit-strategies - smart ways to release phospholipid vesicle cargo

OpenAIRE

Mellal Denia; Zumbuehl Andreas

2014-01-01

This highlight describes recent trends in fundamental phospholipid research towards possible future drug delivery technology. In particular it focuses on synthetic phospholipids and their vesicular constructs and describes selected “smart” ways to release cargo from liposomes. Various chemical and physical release triggers are discussed such as temperature changes, application of ultrasound, enzyme degradation, changes in pH, redox reactions, photochemical reactions, as well as the effects of...

5 Ways to Prepare for Your Sports Season

Science.gov (United States)

... English Español 5 Ways to Prepare for Your Sports Season KidsHealth / For Teens / 5 Ways to Prepare ... temporada deportiva 5 Ways to Prepare for Your Sports Season If you've ever played competitive sports, ...

The training and re-training procedures for the two way memory effect and its degradation in a Cu-Al-Be alloy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zuniga, H.F.; Belkahla, S.; Nika, V.; Guenin, G.

1996-01-01

The β phase of the Cu-Al-Be alloy, as other copper based alloys, presents a thermoelastic martensitic transformation. This transition (β → β) is responsible of different special effects: The shape memory effect (SME), the superelasticity, and the two way memory effect (TWME). The TWME corresponds to the memorization of two shapes: the low temperature one in the martensitic state and the high temperature one in the austenitic state. The change between one shape to the other is performed by simple temperature change. The TWME is not inherent to the martensitic transformation, it must be induced by a thermomechanical treatment called training. The aim of this work is first to demonstrate the ability of Cu-Al-Be alloys to display a good TWME, then to study its thermal degradation, and finally to explore the possibility of re-training a TWME aged sample

A Phenomenographic Investigation of the Ways Engineering Students Experience Innovation

Science.gov (United States)

Fila, Nicholas David

Innovation has become an important phenomenon in engineering and engineering education. By developing novel, feasible, viable, and valued solutions to complex technical and human problems, engineers support the economic competitiveness of organizations, make a difference in the lives of users and other stakeholders, drive societal and scientific progress, and obtain key personal benefits. Innovation is also a complex phenomenon. It occurs across a variety of contexts and domains, encompasses numerous phases and activities, and requires unique competency profiles. Despite this complexity, many studies in engineering education focus on specific aspects (e.g., engineering students' abilities to generate original concepts during idea generation), and we still know little about the variety of ways engineering students approach and understand innovation. This study addresses that gap by asking: 1. What are the qualitatively different ways engineering students experience innovation during their engineering projects? 2. What are the structural relationships between the ways engineering students experience innovation? This study utilized phenomenography, a qualitative research method, to explore the above research questions. Thirty-three engineering students were recruited to ensure thorough coverage along four factors suggested by the literature to support differences related to innovation: engineering project experience, academic major, year in school, and gender. Each participant completed a 1-2 hour, semi-structured interview that focused on experiences with and conceptions of innovation. Whole transcripts were analyzed using an eight-stage, iterative, and comparative approach meant to identify a limited number of categories of description (composite ways of experiencing innovation comprised of the experiences of several participants), and the structural relationships between these categories. Phenomenographic analysis revealed eight categories of description that were

A two-way regularization method for MEG source reconstruction

KAUST Repository

Tian, Tian Siva; Huang, Jianhua Z.; Shen, Haipeng; Li, Zhimin

2012-01-01

The MEG inverse problem refers to the reconstruction of the neural activity of the brain from magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurements. We propose a two-way regularization (TWR) method to solve the MEG inverse problem under the assumptions that only a small number of locations in space are responsible for the measured signals (focality), and each source time course is smooth in time (smoothness). The focality and smoothness of the reconstructed signals are ensured respectively by imposing a sparsity-inducing penalty and a roughness penalty in the data fitting criterion. A two-stage algorithm is developed for fast computation, where a raw estimate of the source time course is obtained in the first stage and then refined in the second stage by the two-way regularization. The proposed method is shown to be effective on both synthetic and real-world examples. © Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2012.

A two-way regularization method for MEG source reconstruction

KAUST Repository

Tian, Tian Siva

2012-09-01

The MEG inverse problem refers to the reconstruction of the neural activity of the brain from magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurements. We propose a two-way regularization (TWR) method to solve the MEG inverse problem under the assumptions that only a small number of locations in space are responsible for the measured signals (focality), and each source time course is smooth in time (smoothness). The focality and smoothness of the reconstructed signals are ensured respectively by imposing a sparsity-inducing penalty and a roughness penalty in the data fitting criterion. A two-stage algorithm is developed for fast computation, where a raw estimate of the source time course is obtained in the first stage and then refined in the second stage by the two-way regularization. The proposed method is shown to be effective on both synthetic and real-world examples. © Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2012.

Creating Competitive Advantage through Effective Management Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Longenecker, Clinton O.; Ariss, Sonny S.

2002-01-01

Managers trained in executive education programs (n=203) identified ways in which management education can increase an organization's competitive advantage: exposure to new ideas and practices, skill development, and motivation. Characteristics of effective management education included experience-based learning orientation, credible instructors,…

CO_2 valorization - Part. 2: chemical transformation ways

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dumergues, Laurent

2016-01-01

Carbon dioxide (CO_2) can be used in many ways as a raw material or chemical reagent. The chemical conversion of CO_2 used as a feedstock is achievable by different techniques: mineralization, organic synthesis, hydrogenation, dry reforming, electrolysis, thermolysis, etc. The products obtained have applications as energy products, chemicals, building materials, etc. Choosing an appropriate CO_2 reuse technology will depend on technical and economic requirements (such as the CO_2 purity needed, technological maturity, cost-effectiveness, etc.) and also environmental and social criteria

Identifying Impacts of Hydropower Regulation on Salmonid Habitats to Guide River Restoration for Existing Schemes and Mitigate Adverse Effects of Future Developments

Science.gov (United States)

Buddendorf, B.; Geris, J.; Malcolm, I.; Wilkinson, M.; Soulsby, C.

2015-12-01

A decrease in longitudinal connectivity in riverine ecosystems resulting from the construction of transverse barriers has been identified as a major threat to biodiversity. For example, Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) have a seasonal variety of hydraulic habitat requirements for their different life stages. However, hydropower impoundments impact the spatial and temporal connectivity of natural habitat along many salmon rivers in ways that are not fully understood. Yet, these changes may affect the sustainability of habitat at local and regional scales and so ultimately the conservation of the species. Research is therefore needed both to aid the restoration and management of rivers impacted by previous hydropower development and guide new schemes to mitigate potentially adverse effects. To this end we assessed the effects of hydropower development on the flow related habitat conditions for different salmon life stages in Scottish rivers at different spatial scales. We used GIS techniques to map the changes in structural connectivity at regional scales, applying a weighting for habitat quality. Next, we used hydrological models to simulate past and present hydrologic conditions that in turn drive reach-scale hydraulic models to assess the impacts of regulation on habitat suitability in both space and time. Preliminary results indicate that: 1) impacts on connectivity depend on the location of the barrier within the river network; 2) multiple smaller barriers may have a potentially lower impact than a single larger barrier; 3) there is a relationship between habitat and connectivity where losing less but more suitable habitat potentially has a disproportionally large impact; 4) the impact of flow regulation can lead to a deterioration of habitat quality, though the effects are spatially variable and the extent of the impact depends on salmon life stage. This work can form a basis for using natural processes to perform targeted and cost-effective restoration of rivers.

Calibrated photostimulated luminescence is an effective approach to identify irradiated orange during storage

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jo, Yunhee; Sanyal, Bhaskar; Chung, Namhyeok; Lee, Hyun-Gyu; Park, Yunji; Park, Hae-Jun; Kwon, Joong-Ho

2015-01-01

Photostimulated luminescence (PSL) has been employed as a fast screening method for various irradiated foods. In this study the potential use of PSL was evaluated to identify oranges irradiated with gamma ray, electron beam and X-ray (0–2 kGy) and stored under different conditions for 6 weeks. The effects of light conditions (natural light, artificial light, and dark) and storage temperatures (4 and 20 °C) on PSL photon counts (PCs) during post-irradiation periods were studied. Non-irradiated samples always showed negative values of PCs, while irradiated oranges exhibited intermediate results after first PSL measurements. However, the irradiated samples had much higher PCs. The PCs of all the samples declined as the storage time increased. Calibrated second PSL measurements showed PSL ratio <10 for the irradiated samples after 3 weeks of irradiation confirming their irradiation status in all the storage conditions. Calibrated PSL and sample storage in dark at 4 °C were found out to be most suitable approaches to identify irradiated oranges during storage. - Highlights: • Photostimulatedluminescence (PSL) was studied to identify irradiated orange for quarantine application. • PSL detection efficiency was compared amonggamma,electron, and X irradiation during shelf-life of oranges • PSL properties of samples were characterized by standard samples • Calibrated PSL gave a clear verdict on irradiation extending potential of PSL technique

Effectiveness of Germination on Protein Hydrolysis as a Way To Reduce Adverse Reactions to Wheat.

Science.gov (United States)

Boukid, Fatma; Prandi, Barbara; Buhler, Sofie; Sforza, Stefano

2017-11-15

In this work, the aim is to study the effectiveness of germination on wheat protein degradation, with a specific focus on proteins involved in adverse reactions to wheat. The effects of 8 days of germination at 25 °C on the chemical composition and the protein profile were determined. Germination did not have a significant effect on starch, protein, lipid, and ash contents. General protein profile, as indicated by SDS-PAGE analysis, revealed that germination induced a relevant degradation in protein fraction. After in vitro gastrointestinal digestion, gluten peptides involved in celiac disease (CD) were identified and quantified using UPLC/ESI-MS technique. Also, CM3 protein, involved in baker's asthma and intestinal inflammation, was quantified by measuring a marker peptide. Statistical analysis underlined that germination and genotype had significant impact on the amount of both components. Regarding gluten peptides related to CD, germination enabled an average reduction of 47% in peptides eliciting adaptive immune response and 46% in peptides eliciting innate immune response. CM3 protein showed also a high average reduction (56%). Thus, this study suggests that germination might be a good bioalternative to provide a low "impact" raw ingredient for special wheat-based foodstuffs.

Can the one-way speed of light be used for detection of violations of the relativity principle?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Spavieri, Gianfranco; Quintero, Jesús; Unnikrishnan, C.S.; Gillies, George T.; Cavalleri, Giancarlo; Tonni, Ernesto; Bosi, Leonardo

2012-01-01

Experimental attempts at measurement of the one-way speed of light are considered within the framework of relativistic theories. We show that if the effect of clock transport is taken into account, the observations from this class of experiment do not actually lead to either measurement of the one-way speed of light or determination of the absolute velocity of the preferred frame (even if, for non-entrained ether theories, such a frame were to exist). -- Highlights: ► We consider preferred frame theories that agree with experiments that support SR. ► Measurements of the one-way speed of light is discussed. ► The effect of clock transport is taken into account. ► These experiments do not lead to measurement of the one-way speed of light. ► The absolute velocity of the preferred frame cannot be detected.

Perspektif Karyawan Perbankan pada Komunikasi Internal dengan Two-Way Symmetrical Communication dan Internal Marketing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mia Angeline

2013-04-01

Full Text Available The article investigates the internal communication in the two branches of foreign banks in Kelapa Gading from the perspectives of two-way symmetrical communication and internal marketing. The second problem investigated is the effectiveness of the use of email as a means of internal communication. Data were collected through interviews and literature. The results showed that the perception of employees not in accordance with the concept of two-way communication and internal marketing, but this policy has led the organization to these concepts. In the use of email, employee perceptions still see that the email is an effective internal communication media despite having many weaknesses.  

Are Comic Books an Effective Way to Engage Nonmajors in Learning and Appreciating Science?1

Science.gov (United States)

Hosler, Jay; Boomer, K. B.

2011-01-01

Comic books employ a complex interplay of text and images that gives them the potential to effectively convey concepts and motivate student engagement. This makes comics an appealing option for educators trying to improve science literacy about pressing societal issues involving science and technology. Here, we report results from the first systematic assessment of how a science comic book can affect student learning and attitudes about biology. We used pre- and postinstruction instruments to measure students’ attitudes about biology, attitudes about comics, and content knowledge about evolution before and after using the science comic book Optical Allusions in their classes. On the preinstruction instrument, nonmajors reported the lowest scores on the content test and attitude surveys relative to the other groups. However, on the postinstruction instrument, nonmajors’ content scores and attitudes showed a statistically significant improvement after using the comic book, particularly among those with lower content knowledge at the start of the semester. The improvement in attitudes about biology was correlated to attitudes about comics, suggesting that the comic may have played a role in engaging and shaping student attitudes in a positive way. PMID:21885827

Bridging the Gap: Identifying Perceptions of Effective Teaching Methods for Age 50+ Baby Boomer Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Newberry, Sheila

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to identify effective teaching methods for age 50+ baby boomer learners. The study used a mixed methods research design. The qualitative paradigm used focus group sessions and the quantitative paradigm was completed through surveys. Fifteen age 50+ baby boomer learners and 11 faculty who teach them comprised the two…

To Stretch and Search for Better Ways

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, John W.

2000-06-01

Ambassadors. The response has been wonderful. Many people are willing and eager to show others what JCE has to offer and encourage them to subscribe. The program began in the latter half of 1999, and there were 37 Journal Ambassadors by year's end. Some are located as far away as South America and Europe, and requests for information packets for meetings and workshops now arrive several times a week. We thank everyone who has been involved in this program for getting it off to a great start. Our authors and reviewers actively search for better ways to teach chemistry and for better ways to communicate to other teachers what they have learned. This enriches their own classes first and then a much wider audience. Others have volunteered to help make JCE articles easier to find and more accessible on the Web. The ACS student affiliates at one college have taken on the project of assigning keywords to articles published in some of the years before 1995. We will add these to the JCE Index online, making it an even more effective means for finding articles on specified topics. There are many possibilities for collaboration with JCE. If you would like to contribute to an ongoing project or would like to initiate a new one, please let us know. We welcome anyone who would like to help us make this Journal better. It is important that students learn how to stretch and search for better ways. This will not happen unless we challenge them within a humane and supportive learning environment. We should expect more than memorization or unthinking application of algorithmic solutions to exercises. We should provide means by which those who do not succeed at first can try again and again. And we should provide an intellectual scaffold for those whose climb toward understanding is difficult. These are not easy goals to achieve, but the more we try and the more we communicate with others who are attempting similar tasks, the more likely we are to be successful. Most important of all is that

Understanding the hepatitis C virus life cycle paves the way for highly effective therapies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Scheel, Troels K H; Rice, Charles M

2013-01-01

More than two decades of intense research has provided a detailed understanding of hepatitis C virus (HCV), which chronically infects 2% of the world's population. This effort has paved the way for the development of antiviral compounds to spare patients from life-threatening liver disease......, such as HCV diversity, viral resistance, the influence of host genetics, advanced liver disease and other co-morbidities....

SPARQL-enabled identifier conversion with Identifiers.org.

Science.gov (United States)

Wimalaratne, Sarala M; Bolleman, Jerven; Juty, Nick; Katayama, Toshiaki; Dumontier, Michel; Redaschi, Nicole; Le Novère, Nicolas; Hermjakob, Henning; Laibe, Camille

2015-06-01

On the semantic web, in life sciences in particular, data is often distributed via multiple resources. Each of these sources is likely to use their own International Resource Identifier for conceptually the same resource or database record. The lack of correspondence between identifiers introduces a barrier when executing federated SPARQL queries across life science data. We introduce a novel SPARQL-based service to enable on-the-fly integration of life science data. This service uses the identifier patterns defined in the Identifiers.org Registry to generate a plurality of identifier variants, which can then be used to match source identifiers with target identifiers. We demonstrate the utility of this identifier integration approach by answering queries across major producers of life science Linked Data. The SPARQL-based identifier conversion service is available without restriction at http://identifiers.org/services/sparql. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

SPARQL-enabled identifier conversion with Identifiers.org

Science.gov (United States)

Wimalaratne, Sarala M.; Bolleman, Jerven; Juty, Nick; Katayama, Toshiaki; Dumontier, Michel; Redaschi, Nicole; Le Novère, Nicolas; Hermjakob, Henning; Laibe, Camille

2015-01-01

Motivation: On the semantic web, in life sciences in particular, data is often distributed via multiple resources. Each of these sources is likely to use their own International Resource Identifier for conceptually the same resource or database record. The lack of correspondence between identifiers introduces a barrier when executing federated SPARQL queries across life science data. Results: We introduce a novel SPARQL-based service to enable on-the-fly integration of life science data. This service uses the identifier patterns defined in the Identifiers.org Registry to generate a plurality of identifier variants, which can then be used to match source identifiers with target identifiers. We demonstrate the utility of this identifier integration approach by answering queries across major producers of life science Linked Data. Availability and implementation: The SPARQL-based identifier conversion service is available without restriction at http://identifiers.org/services/sparql. Contact: sarala@ebi.ac.uk PMID:25638809

Multi-way Communications: An Information Theoretic Perspective

KAUST Repository

Chaaban, Anas; Sezgin, Aydin

2015-01-01

Multi-way communication is a means to significantly improve the spectral efficiency of wireless networks. For instance, in a bi-directional (or two-way) communication channel, two users can simultaneously use the transmission medium to exchange

Milky Way Past Was More Turbulent Than Previously Known

Science.gov (United States)

2004-04-01

astronomers who study the birth and evolution of the Milky Way and other galaxies. Now the rich results of a 15 year-long marathon survey by a Danish-Swiss-Swedish research team [2] are providing some of the answers. 1,001 nights at the telescopes ESO PR Photo 10a/04 ESO PR Photo 10a/04 Sky distribution of the observed stars [Preview - JPEG: 518 x 400 pix - 96k] [Normal - JPEG: 1035 x 800 pix - 897k] Caption: ESO PR Photo 10a/04 shows the distribution on the sky of the approx. 14,000 observed stars. The region on the left that is denser than its surroundings is the nearby Hyades star cluster. The team spent more than 1,000 observing nights over 15 years at the Danish 1.5-m telescope of the European Southern Observatory at La Silla (Chile) and at the Swiss 1-m telescope of the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (France). Additional observations were made at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the USA. A total of more than 14,000 solar-like stars (so-called F- and G-type stars) were observed at an average of four times each - a total of no less than 63,000 individual spectroscopic observations! This now complete census of neighbourhood stars provides distances, ages, chemical analysis, space velocities and orbits in the general rotation of the Milky Way. It also identifies those stars (about 1/3 of them all) which the astronomers found to be double or multiple. This very complete data set for the stars in the solar neighbourhood will provide food for thought by astronomers for years to come. A dream come true ESO PR Photo 10b/04 ESO PR Photo 10b/04 Stars in the solar neighbourhood [Preview - JPEG: 459 x 400 pix - 29k] [Normal - JPEG: 918 x 800 pix - 441k] [FullRes - JPEG: 3000 x 2613 pix - 4.4Mb] Caption: ESO PR Photo 10b/04 provides an artist's view of the observed group of stars orbiting the Milky Way together with the Sun, as seen by an imaginary observer outside the Galaxy. The orbit of the Sun is shown. For clarity, the stars surrounding the local volume have

Identifying the Experimental and Theoretical Effective Characteristics of Nonaligned Anisotropic Metamaterials

Science.gov (United States)

2015-06-18

highly anisotropic. Jones matrix calculus and Generalized Ellipsometry ratios. In simple, isotropic samples, there is no way for one polarization state...better model to describe the data. A gradient - based approach is often used, analyzing each variable to determine what change will bring about a better...is a scaled version of the original vector. Going back to basic calculus , this means that over some infinitesimally small distance, the new vector will

Relativity on a two-way moving sidewalk

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jaccarini, Antoine

1989-01-01

Some classical thought experiments in Special Relativity are performed on a two-way moving sidewalk. Since each of the two sides moves at constant speed, this device provides a simple, intuitive way to illustrate relative velocity, time dilation, and length contraction. It should, therefore allow for a better understanding of the basic concepts of the theory. Furthermore, being a closed system the two-way sidewalk exhibits some of the characteristics of a rotating disc, and might therefore be helpful in an introduction to General Relativity. (author)

A User Centered Innovation Approach Identifying Key User Values for the E-Newspaper

OpenAIRE

Carina Ihlström Eriksson; Jesper Svensson

2009-01-01

We have studied the pre-adoption phase of the e-newspaper, i.e. a newspaper published with e-paper technology. The research question of this article is: In what way can a user centered innovation process contribute to identifying key values in mobile innovations? The aim of this article is threefold: firstly, to identify key values for the e-newspaper, secondly, to examine the intention to adopt a new possible innovation and thirdly, to explore user centered design processes ability to captur...

Identifying Effective Education Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Meta-Analysis of Rigorous Impact Evaluations

Science.gov (United States)

Conn, Katharine

2014-01-01

The aim of this dissertation is to identify effective educational interventions in Sub-Saharan African with an impact on student learning. This is the first meta-analysis in the field of education conducted for Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper takes an in-depth look at twelve different types of education interventions or programs and attempts to not…

Exploring the effects of spatial autocorrelation when identifying key drivers of wildlife crop-raiding.

Science.gov (United States)

Songhurst, Anna; Coulson, Tim

2014-03-01

Few universal trends in spatial patterns of wildlife crop-raiding have been found. Variations in wildlife ecology and movements, and human spatial use have been identified as causes of this apparent unpredictability. However, varying spatial patterns of spatial autocorrelation (SA) in human-wildlife conflict (HWC) data could also contribute. We explicitly explore the effects of SA on wildlife crop-raiding data in order to facilitate the design of future HWC studies. We conducted a comparative survey of raided and nonraided fields to determine key drivers of crop-raiding. Data were subsampled at different spatial scales to select independent raiding data points. The model derived from all data was fitted to subsample data sets. Model parameters from these models were compared to determine the effect of SA. Most methods used to account for SA in data attempt to correct for the change in P-values; yet, by subsampling data at broader spatial scales, we identified changes in regression estimates. We consequently advocate reporting both model parameters across a range of spatial scales to help biological interpretation. Patterns of SA vary spatially in our crop-raiding data. Spatial distribution of fields should therefore be considered when choosing the spatial scale for analyses of HWC studies. Robust key drivers of elephant crop-raiding included raiding history of a field and distance of field to a main elephant pathway. Understanding spatial patterns and determining reliable socio-ecological drivers of wildlife crop-raiding is paramount for designing mitigation and land-use planning strategies to reduce HWC. Spatial patterns of HWC are complex, determined by multiple factors acting at more than one scale; therefore, studies need to be designed with an understanding of the effects of SA. Our methods are accessible to a variety of practitioners to assess the effects of SA, thereby improving the reliability of conservation management actions.

A qualitative case study to identify possible barriers that limit effective elementary science education

Science.gov (United States)

Foster, Donald Carey

The purpose of this case study was to identify barriers that limit the effectiveness of elementary teachers in the teaching of science. It is of the utmost urgency that barriers be first identified, so that possible solutions can be explored to bring about the improvement of elementary science education. This urgency has been imposed by the scheduled national testing of students in science by 2007, as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Using qualitative case study methods, the researcher conducted interviews with 8 elementary teachers from two schools within one school district who taught 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. These interviews were designed to gain insight into barriers these elementary teachers perceived as factors limiting their effectiveness in teaching science and preparing students for high-stakes testing. Barriers in the areas of teacher background, typical teaching day, curriculum, inservices, and legislative influences were explored. This study concluded that the barriers explored do have a substantial negative affect on the teaching and learning of science in the elementary grades. Specifically, the barriers revealed in this study include the limited science background of elementary teachers, inadequate class time devoted to science, non-comprehensive curriculum, ineffective or lack of inservice training, and pressures from legislated mandates. But it is also clear that these barriers are so intertwined that one cannot remove these barriers one at a time. It will take a collective effort from all involved, including legislators, administrators, teachers, parents, and students, to alleviate these barriers and discover effective solutions to improve elementary science education.

"Why Am I the Way I Am?" Narrative Work in the Context of Stigmatized Identities.

Science.gov (United States)

Rance, Jake; Gray, Rebecca; Hopwood, Max

2017-12-01

There are particular complexities faced by people attempting to tell their stories in the context of social stigma, such as the hostility which often surrounds injecting drug use. In this article, we identify some of the distinct advantages of taking a narrative approach to understanding these complexities by exploring a single case study, across two life-history interviews, with "Jimmy," a young man with a history of social disadvantage, incarceration, and heroin dependence. Drawing on Miranda Fricker's notion of "hermeneutical injustice," we consider the effects of stigmatization on the sociocultural practice of storytelling. We note the way Jimmy appears both constrained and released by his story-how he conforms to but also resists the master narrative of the "drug user." Narrative analysis, we conclude, honors the complex challenges of the accounting work evident in interviews such as Jimmy's, providing a valuable counterpoint to other forms of qualitative inquiry in the addictions field.

Identifying irregularly shaped crime hot-spots using a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Xiaolan; Grubesic, Tony H.

2010-12-01

Spatial cluster detection techniques are widely used in criminology, geography, epidemiology, and other fields. In particular, spatial scan statistics are popular and efficient techniques for detecting areas of elevated crime or disease events. The majority of spatial scan approaches attempt to delineate geographic zones by evaluating the significance of clusters using likelihood ratio statistics tested with the Poisson distribution. While this can be effective, many scan statistics give preference to circular clusters, diminishing their ability to identify elongated and/or irregular shaped clusters. Although adjusting the shape of the scan window can mitigate some of these problems, both the significance of irregular clusters and their spatial structure must be accounted for in a meaningful way. This paper utilizes a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm to find clusters with maximum significance while quantitatively tracking their geographic structure. Crime data for the city of Cincinnati are utilized to demonstrate the advantages of the new approach and highlight its benefits versus more traditional scan statistics.

Identifying Topics in Microblogs Using Wikipedia.

Science.gov (United States)

Yıldırım, Ahmet; Üsküdarlı, Suzan; Özgür, Arzucan

2016-01-01

Twitter is an extremely high volume platform for user generated contributions regarding any topic. The wealth of content created at real-time in massive quantities calls for automated approaches to identify the topics of the contributions. Such topics can be utilized in numerous ways, such as public opinion mining, marketing, entertainment, and disaster management. Towards this end, approaches to relate single or partial posts to knowledge base items have been proposed. However, in microblogging systems like Twitter, topics emerge from the culmination of a large number of contributions. Therefore, identifying topics based on collections of posts, where individual posts contribute to some aspect of the greater topic is necessary. Models, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), propose algorithms for relating collections of posts to sets of keywords that represent underlying topics. In these approaches, figuring out what the specific topic(s) the keyword sets represent remains as a separate task. Another issue in topic detection is the scope, which is often limited to specific domain, such as health. This work proposes an approach for identifying domain-independent specific topics related to sets of posts. In this approach, individual posts are processed and then aggregated to identify key tokens, which are then mapped to specific topics. Wikipedia article titles are selected to represent topics, since they are up to date, user-generated, sophisticated articles that span topics of human interest. This paper describes the proposed approach, a prototype implementation, and a case study based on data gathered during the heavily contributed periods corresponding to the four US election debates in 2012. The manually evaluated results (0.96 precision) and other observations from the study are discussed in detail.

Beyond basic citation—What to identify, when, and why

Science.gov (United States)

Parsons, M. A.

2015-12-01

Persistent identifiers (and locators) have emerged as a critical component in designing and implementing information systems and networks. This is especially evident in the use of the Digital Object Identifier in association with formal bibliographic citation of literature and increasingly of data sets. Indeed, the principles and methods of data citation have been a hot topic in the informatics community over the last decade or so. To date the focus has typically been on closely linking data sets to associated literature and generally emulating bibliographic-style citation. To design a sustainable, trusted data infrastructure, however, requires us to unambiguously reference many things in many ways, be they data, software, instruments, methods, or people. Design of this infrastructure also requires us to consider the entire data lifecycle and when important elements come into play and need to be identified. This paper will advocate an "ecological" model of data sharing that takes a more holistic perspective than many traditional data publication approaches. It will explore a variety of use cases around what elements of an information ecosystem need to be unambiguously identified and located, at what point in the data production process, and to what explicit purpose.

Calibrated photostimulated luminescence is an effective approach to identify irradiated orange during storage

Science.gov (United States)

Jo, Yunhee; Sanyal, Bhaskar; Chung, Namhyeok; Lee, Hyun-Gyu; Park, Yunji; Park, Hae-Jun; Kwon, Joong-Ho

2015-06-01

Photostimulated luminescence (PSL) has been employed as a fast screening method for various irradiated foods. In this study the potential use of PSL was evaluated to identify oranges irradiated with gamma ray, electron beam and X-ray (0-2 kGy) and stored under different conditions for 6 weeks. The effects of light conditions (natural light, artificial light, and dark) and storage temperatures (4 and 20 °C) on PSL photon counts (PCs) during post-irradiation periods were studied. Non-irradiated samples always showed negative values of PCs, while irradiated oranges exhibited intermediate results after first PSL measurements. However, the irradiated samples had much higher PCs. The PCs of all the samples declined as the storage time increased. Calibrated second PSL measurements showed PSL ratio <10 for the irradiated samples after 3 weeks of irradiation confirming their irradiation status in all the storage conditions. Calibrated PSL and sample storage in dark at 4 °C were found out to be most suitable approaches to identify irradiated oranges during storage.

Perspectives on Psychological Science: Right Way/Wrong Way Symposium.

Science.gov (United States)

Gunnar, Megan R

2017-07-01

In unpredictable times, it is perhaps even more important to contemplate the direction different fields of science are headed. In this article, I contemplate two directions of psychological science: the increasing integration of the study of psychology with other sciences and the concern of many sciences, including ours, with improving the reproducibility of our findings. Both of these are argued to be "right ways," but these directions also have challenges that, unless carefully addressed, could detract from our ability to move the science of psychology forward. I detail these challenges along with a consideration of how to chart our science through the unpredictable waters we face at this point in history.

Identifying Barriers and Enablers in the Dietary Management of Type 2 Diabetes in M'Bour, Senegal.

Science.gov (United States)

Foley, Evan; BeLue, Rhonda

2017-07-01

The purpose of this study was to identify cultural enablers and barriers to dietary management of type 2 diabetes in M'Bour, Senegal. This qualitative study used the PEN-3 cultural model to explore diabetes dietary management within a cultural framework. Content analysis identified emergent themes based on the PEN-3 model. Forty-one individuals completed interviews. Themes reflecting ways that culture affects adherence to the diabetic diet included (a) having a different diet or eating separately from the communal family plate creates feelings of social isolation; (b) forgoing the diabetic diet sometimes occurs so that family members have enough food; (c) reducing servings of traditional foods feels like abandoning culture; and (d) women being responsible for preparing food, while men typically manage money for purchasing food yet do not provide input on what food is purchased. Results suggest that educating family units on the dietary management of diabetes may be more effective than individual education.

CLOUD TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF UKRAINIAN EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT

OpenAIRE

T. Zaytseva; T. Arkhipova

2014-01-01

This article is devoted to defining the forms and the required components cloud technology usage during studying of subject teachers. In order to improve the learning process it’s necessary to use such powerful technology as ‘cloud computing’. They support traditional forms of education and also are a new step in the development of education. Cloud technologies are-effective, efficient and flexible way to satisfy the needs of students during getting of new knowledge. Nowadays a characteris...

WFIRST: Resolving the Milky Way Galaxy

Science.gov (United States)

Kalirai, Jason; Conroy, Charlie; Dressler, Alan; Geha, Marla; Levesque, Emily; Lu, Jessica; Tumlinson, Jason

2018-01-01

WFIRST will yield a transformative impact in measuring and characterizing resolved stellar populations in the Milky Way. The proximity and level of detail that such populations need to be studied at directly map to all three pillars of WFIRST capabilities - sensitivity from a 2.4 meter space based telescope, resolution from 0.1" pixels, and large 0.3 degree field of view from multiple detectors. In this poster, we describe the activities of the WFIRST Science Investigation Team (SIT), "Resolving the Milky Way with WFIRST". Notional programs guiding our analysis include targeting sightlines to establish the first well-resolved large scale maps of the Galactic bulge aand central region, pockets of star formation in the disk, benchmark star clusters, and halo substructure and ultra faint dwarf satellites. As an output of this study, our team is building optimized strategies and tools to maximize stellar population science with WFIRST. This will include: new grids of IR-optimized stellar evolution and synthetic spectroscopic models; pipelines and algorithms for optimal data reduction at the WFIRST sensitivity and pixel scale; wide field simulations of Milky Way environments including new astrometric studies; and strategies and automated algorithms to find substructure and dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way through the WFIRST High Latitude Survey.

Mille modis morimur: We die in a thousand ways.

Science.gov (United States)

Banfalvi, Gaspar

2017-02-01

Dying cells subjected to apoptotic programs are engulfed by neighboring cells or by professional phagocytes, without inflammation or immunological reactions in the tissue where apoptosis takes place. Apoptotic cells release danger-associated project signals to their neighbours, through different molecular patterns, stimulate antigen production and immune responses. Microenvironmental effects with several functional consequences indicate that cell death is a complex process and may take place in several ways. This idea is expressed by the title of the Special Issue and by the title of the guest editorial "Mille modis morimur" meaning that not only multicellular organisms, but also single cells may die in a thousand ways. This idea is demonstrated by the papers serving as examples for cell death. Apoptosis was induced by clary sage oil in Candida cells. Heavy metal (Gd) induced cell motility and apoptosis was found in mammalian cells. RNA oxidation enhanced the reversion frequency of apoptosis in yeast mutants. The frequency of apoptotic micronucleus formation increased in a concentration-dependent manner by methotrexate. The antioxidant coenzyme Q10 protected renal proximal tubule cells against nicotine-induced apoptosis. The synergy of 2-deoxy-D-glucose combined with berberine induced lysosome/autophagy. The mitochondrial apoptotic pathway could be regulated by glucocorticoid receptor in collaboration with Bcl-2 family proteins in developing T cells. Cylindrospermopsin induced biochemical changes led to apoptosis in plants. Mechanisms of stress seriously impacted the risk of apoptosis. Transcriptional control of apoptotic cell clearance was achieved by macrophage nuclear receptors. Finally, the clinical aspects of apoptosis-induced lymphopenia were reviewed in sepsis and other severe injuries. These examples not only support the view of many ways of cell death, but predict further potential ways to induce or reduce the risk of cell death.

New ways of organizing innovation work

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grex, Sara; Møller, Niels

2006-01-01

There is an intensified focus in innovation and companies ability to create innovation. In many companies these activities are organized by projects, but studies show this innovation is stifled in this structure. In this paper we argue that there is a need for developing alternative ways of organ......There is an intensified focus in innovation and companies ability to create innovation. In many companies these activities are organized by projects, but studies show this innovation is stifled in this structure. In this paper we argue that there is a need for developing alternative ways...... of organizing innovative activities in project-based settings. We propose the Contextual Design method as a way of both studying innovation work processes and an approach to redesign the innovation work organization. We find that the method can contribute to a better understanding of the innovation work...

Clinical way method in treatment of out-patients with ischemic heart disease after cardiosurgery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vardosanidze S.L.

2010-12-01

Full Text Available 158 patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD have been understudy during the period of 12 months in out-patient conditions. After completion of the primary examination all the patients of basic group (118 patients received clinical way method of treatment. Patients of the comparison group (40 patients after provided treatment were cared by their local therapeutists (cardiologists. The findings proved the fact that treatment of patients after cardiosurgery by clinical way method in out-patient conditions enabled to raise patient motivation to treatment, thereby assisting them to feel better, promoting normalization of arterial pressure data. The research results stated that clinical way method of treatment may be considered as rational and effective

Two-way regularization for MEG source reconstruction via multilevel coordinate descent

KAUST Repository

Siva Tian, Tian

2013-12-01

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) source reconstruction refers to the inverse problem of recovering the neural activity from the MEG time course measurements. A spatiotemporal two-way regularization (TWR) method was recently proposed by Tian et al. to solve this inverse problem and was shown to outperform several one-way regularization methods and spatiotemporal methods. This TWR method is a two-stage procedure that first obtains a raw estimate of the source signals and then refines the raw estimate to ensure spatial focality and temporal smoothness using spatiotemporal regularized matrix decomposition. Although proven to be effective, the performance of two-stage TWR depends on the quality of the raw estimate. In this paper we directly solve the MEG source reconstruction problem using a multivariate penalized regression where the number of variables is much larger than the number of cases. A special feature of this regression is that the regression coefficient matrix has a spatiotemporal two-way structure that naturally invites a two-way penalty. Making use of this structure, we develop a computationally efficient multilevel coordinate descent algorithm to implement the method. This new one-stage TWR method has shown its superiority to the two-stage TWR method in three simulation studies with different levels of complexity and a real-world MEG data analysis. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company.

Identifying Key Stakeholder Groups for Implementing a Place Branding Policy in Saint Petersburg

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kulibanova V. V.

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Regional brands have become a valuable intangible asset and a crucial competitive resource for forging partnerships. An effective place branding policy is impossible without a precise understanding of the interests of stakeholder groups. It is essential to realize that each region is unique in its own way. Territories differ in the structure of stakeholders, their influence on regional development, and the range of leverages over regional decision-makers. This study aims to give a more precise definition of key groups of stakeholders in Saint Petersburg place branding, and to identify them. The authors employ the method of theoretical and empirical typology of a territory’s stakeholders within a theoretical framework proposed by E. Freeman, P. Kotler, S. Zenker, and E. Brown. The article defines the concept of key regional stakeholders and identifies them. The proposed target audience (stakeholder group model for a place branding policy is tested on the case of Saint Petersburg. The authors show that each target audience of place marketing requires an individual policy. This is explained by the fact that each group enjoys its unique features that should be taken into account when creating and transmitting messages.

Citation searches are more sensitive than keyword searches to identify studies using specific measurement instruments.

Science.gov (United States)

Linder, Suzanne K; Kamath, Geetanjali R; Pratt, Gregory F; Saraykar, Smita S; Volk, Robert J

2015-04-01

To compare the effectiveness of two search methods in identifying studies that used the Control Preferences Scale (CPS), a health care decision-making instrument commonly used in clinical settings. We searched the literature using two methods: (1) keyword searching using variations of "Control Preferences Scale" and (2) cited reference searching using two seminal CPS publications. We searched three bibliographic databases [PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS)] and one full-text database (Google Scholar). We report precision and sensitivity as measures of effectiveness. Keyword searches in bibliographic databases yielded high average precision (90%) but low average sensitivity (16%). PubMed was the most precise, followed closely by Scopus and WOS. The Google Scholar keyword search had low precision (54%) but provided the highest sensitivity (70%). Cited reference searches in all databases yielded moderate sensitivity (45-54%), but precision ranged from 35% to 75% with Scopus being the most precise. Cited reference searches were more sensitive than keyword searches, making it a more comprehensive strategy to identify all studies that use a particular instrument. Keyword searches provide a quick way of finding some but not all relevant articles. Goals, time, and resources should dictate the combination of which methods and databases are used. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Fingerprinting the Milky Way

Science.gov (United States)

2007-03-01

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has shown how to use the chemical composition of stars in clusters to shed light on the formation of our Milky Way. This discovery is a fundamental test for the development of a new chemical tagging technique uncovering the birth and growth of our Galactic cradle. The formation and evolution of galaxies, and in particular of the Milky Way - the 'island universe' in which we live, is one of the major puzzles of astrophysics: indeed, a detailed physical scenario is still missing and its understanding requires the joint effort of observations, theories and complex numerical simulations. ESO astronomer Gayandhi De Silva and her colleagues used the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) on ESO's VLT to find new ways to address this fundamental riddle. ESO PR Photo 15/07 ESO PR Photo 15/07 The Cluster Collinder 261 "We have analysed in great detail the chemical composition of stars in three star-clusters and shown that each cluster presents a high level of homogeneity and a very distinctive chemical signature," says De Silva, who started this research while working at the Mount Stromlo Observatory, Australia. "This paves the way to chemically tagging stars in our Galaxy to common formation sites and thus unravelling the history of the Milky Way," she adds. "Galactic star clusters are witnesses of the formation history of the Galactic disc," says Kenneth Freeman, also from Mount Stromlo and another member of the team. "The analysis of their composition is like studying ancient fossils. We are chasing pieces of galactic DNA!" Open star clusters are among the most important tools for the study of stellar and galactic evolution. They are composed of a few tens up to a few thousands of stars that are gravitationally bound, and they span a wide range of ages. The youngest date from a few million years ago, while the oldest (and more rare) can have ages up to ten billion years. The well

More Effective Way To Advertise 
The Distance Education Programmes:
Mobile Marketing Approach

OpenAIRE

AYBAR, Ayda SABUNCUOGLU; GOKALILER, Ebru

2011-01-01

Nowadays organizations strive to find the ways to communicate with their target audiences by using varied advertising mediums because of the developments on the information communication technologies and the globalization. In this context, like the other institutions, the distance education institutions has to execute communication activities by using different advertising mediums to create a positive position in their consumers minds. In this sense, the increase on the ownership of mobile ph...

Assessing urban potential flooding risk and identifying effective risk-reduction measures.

Science.gov (United States)

Cherqui, Frédéric; Belmeziti, Ali; Granger, Damien; Sourdril, Antoine; Le Gauffre, Pascal

2015-05-01

Flood protection is one of the traditional functions of any drainage system, and it remains a major issue in many cities because of economic and health impact. Heavy rain flooding has been well studied and existing simulation software can be used to predict and improve level of protection. However, simulating minor flooding remains highly complex, due to the numerous possible causes related to operational deficiencies or negligent behaviour. According to the literature, causes of blockages vary widely from one case to another: it is impossible to provide utility managers with effective recommendations on how to improve the level of protection. It is therefore vital to analyse each context in order to define an appropriate strategy. Here we propose a method to represent and assess the flooding risk, using GIS and data gathered during operation and maintenance. Our method also identifies potential management responses. The approach proposed aims to provide decision makers with clear and comprehensible information. Our method has been successfully applied to the Urban Community of Bordeaux (France) on 4895 interventions related to flooding recorded during the 2009-2011 period. Results have shown the relative importance of different issues, such as human behaviour (grease, etc.) or operational deficiencies (roots, etc.), and lead to identify corrective and proactive. This study also confirms that blockages are not always directly due to the network itself and its deterioration. Many causes depend on environmental and operating conditions on the network and often require collaboration between municipal departments in charge of roads, green spaces, etc. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The kidney cancer research priority-setting partnership: Identifying the top 10 research priorities as defined by patients, caregivers, and expert clinicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Jennifer; Bhatt, Jaimin; Avery, Jonathan; Laupacis, Andreas; Cowan, Katherine; Basappa, Naveen; Basiuk, Joan; Canil, Christina; Al-Asaaed, Sohaib; Heng, Daniel; Wood, Lori; Stacey, Dawn; Kollmannsberger, Christian; Jewett, Michael A S

2017-12-01

It is critically important to define disease-specific research priorities to better allocate limited resources. There is growing recognition of the value of involving patients and caregivers, as well as expert clinicians in this process. To our knowledge, this has not been done this way for kidney cancer. Using the transparent and inclusive process established by the James Lind Alliance, the Kidney Cancer Research Network of Canada (KCRNC) sponsored a collaborative consensus-based priority-setting partnership (PSP) to identify research priorities in the management of kidney cancer. The final result was identification of 10 research priorities for kidney cancer, which are discussed in the context of current initiatives and gaps in knowledge. This process provided a systematic and effective way to collaboratively establish research priorities with patients, caregivers, and clinicians, and provides a valuable resource for researchers and funding agencies.

Information systems in Chernobyl accident after-effect elimination: On the way from youth to maturity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chabanyuk, V.S.; Proskura, N.I.; Tabachny, L.Ya.

1997-01-01

10-years period of Information Systems in the Chernobyl Accident after-effects elimination (these systems we name Chernobyl Information Systems (ChIS) for simplicity of reference) creation is analyzed. It is claimed that ChIS are introducing into the maturity phase now. The paper consists of Introduction, four paragraphs and Conclusion. Short history of ChIS creation on the example of radioecological component is described in Introduction. Two phases: youth and maturity, are identified. The youth phase is divided on three periods: 1986-1988, 1988-1992, 1993-1995. The maturity phase has started in 1994 with accepting of new Conception of ChIS implementation. Main characteristics of each phase and period are described

The Fourth Way in Finland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vesa Iitti

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on the general history of the Fourth Way in Finland. The Fourth Way, or simply ‘the Work’, began as a Greco-Armenian man named Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866?–1949 gathered groups of pupils in St Petersburg and Moscow in 1912. To these groups, Gurdjieff started to teach what he had learned and synthesized between ca 1896 and 1912 during his travels on spiritual search of Egypt, Crete, Sumeria, Assyria, the Holy Land, Mecca, Ethiopia, Sudan, India, Afghanistan, the northern valleys of Siberia, and Tibet. Neither Gurdjieff nor any of his disciples called themselves a church, a sect, or anything alike, but referred to themselves simply as ‘the Work’, or as ‘the Fourth Way’. The name ‘the Fourth Way’ originates in a Gurdjieffian view that there are essentially three traditional ways of spiritual work: those of a monk, a fakir, and a yogi. These ways do not literally refer to the activities of a monk, a fakir, and a yogi, but to similar types of spiritual work emphasizing exercise of emotion, body, or mind. Gurdjieff’s teaching is a blend of various influences that include Suf­ism, orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Kabbalah, and general elem­ents of various occult teachings of both the East and the West. Gurdjieff’s teaching is a blend of various influences that include Suf­ism, orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Kabbalah, and general elem­ents of various occult teachings of both the East and the West. It is a unique combination of cosmology, psychology, theory of evolution, and overall theory and practise aiming to help individ­uals in their efforts towards what is called ‘self-remembering’.

Rhodotron: the third way

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Langley-Danysz, P.

1992-01-01

A CEA Saclay laboratory proposes a third way for the food processing (compared with gamma radiations and accelerated electrons): X radiations with the Rhodotron accelerator. X radiations are obtained by conversion of accelerated electrons on a metallic target. The electron acceleration in rosace let hope for a profitable conversion

A Systematic Approach to Determining the Identifiability of Multistage Carcinogenesis Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Brouwer, Andrew F; Meza, Rafael; Eisenberg, Marisa C

2017-07-01

Multistage clonal expansion (MSCE) models of carcinogenesis are continuous-time Markov process models often used to relate cancer incidence to biological mechanism. Identifiability analysis determines what model parameter combinations can, theoretically, be estimated from given data. We use a systematic approach, based on differential algebra methods traditionally used for deterministic ordinary differential equation (ODE) models, to determine identifiable combinations for a generalized subclass of MSCE models with any number of preinitation stages and one clonal expansion. Additionally, we determine the identifiable combinations of the generalized MSCE model with up to four clonal expansion stages, and conjecture the results for any number of clonal expansion stages. The results improve upon previous work in a number of ways and provide a framework to find the identifiable combinations for further variations on the MSCE models. Finally, our approach, which takes advantage of the Kolmogorov backward equations for the probability generating functions of the Markov process, demonstrates that identifiability methods used in engineering and mathematics for systems of ODEs can be applied to continuous-time Markov processes. © 2016 Society for Risk Analysis.

New families of human regulatory RNA structures identified by comparative analysis of vertebrate genomes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Parker, Brian John; Moltke, Ida; Roth, Adam

2011-01-01

a comparative method, EvoFam, for genome-wide identification of families of regulatory RNA structures, based on primary sequence and secondary structure similarity. We apply EvoFam to a 41-way genomic vertebrate alignment. Genome-wide, we identify 220 human, high-confidence families outside protein...

Forestland owners’ willingness to consider multiple ways of supplying biomass simultaneously: Implications for biofuel incentive policies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wolde, Bernabas; Lal, Pankaj; Burli, Pralhad

2017-01-01

Because socioeconomic based approaches account for relevant limiting and motivating factors, they provide a more realistic measurement of forestland owners’ willingness to supply biomass for bioenergy production- information useful to policy makers in setting production targets and in designing relevant incentive programs. Although forestland owners can supply biomass using different means, including supplying biomass from existing stands and changing land use to establish feedstock plantation, among others, previous studies mostly focus only on a given way of supplying biomass at a time. This produces incomplete information that adversely affects its use. By presenting survey takers in Virginia and Texas three different ways of supplying biomass at the same time, we determine forestland owners’ willingness to consider multiple ways of supplying biomass simultaneously and identify the factors that predict such behavior, assess overlap in forestland owners across the different ways of supplying biomass, and assess if and how respondents’ forest management plans and sustainability concerns correspond with their supply decision. Our results show a higher and more articulated rate of willingness to supply biomass than reported in previous studies. The results also suggest that opportunities exist for synergizing programs that incentivize disparate ways of supplying biomass. - Highlights: • Forestland owners are more willing to supply biomass than previous estimated. • Forestland owners will consider multiple ways of supplying biomass simultaneously. • Socioeconomics, sustainability concerns, and management plans predict this behavior. • Incentive programs can target multiple means of supplying biomass simultaneously. • Considerable mismatches exist between the suppliers’ preferences and existing policies.

CMV retinitis in China and SE Asia: the way forward

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heiden David

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract AIDS-related CMV retinitis is a common clinical problem in patients with advanced HIV/AIDS in China and Southeast Asia. The disease is causing blindness, and current clinical management, commonly characterized by delayed diagnosis and inadequate treatment, results in poor clinical outcomes: 21% - 36% of eyes with CMV retinitis are already blind at the time the diagnosis is first established by an ophthalmologist. CMV retinitis also identifies a group of patients at extraordinary risk of mortality, and the direct or indirect contribution of extra-ocular CMV disease to AIDS-related morbidity and mortality is currently unmeasured and clinically often overlooked. The obvious way to improve clinical management of CMV retinitis is to screen all patients with CD4 counts

Fermionic One-Way Quantum Computation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cao Xin; Shang Yun

2014-01-01

Fermions, as another major class of quantum particles, could be taken as carriers for quantum information processing beyond spins or bosons. In this work, we consider the fermionic generalization of the one-way quantum computation model and find that one-way quantum computation can also be simulated with fermions. In detail, using the n → 2n encoding scheme from a spin system to a fermion system, we introduce the fermionic cluster state, then the universal computing power with a fermionic cluster state is demonstrated explicitly. Furthermore, we show that the fermionic cluster state can be created only by measurements on at most four modes with |+〉 f (fermionic Bell state) being free

Effects of presentation format and instructions on the ability of people with intellectual disability to identify faces

OpenAIRE

Manzanero, Antonio L.; Contreras, María José; Recio, María; Alemany, Alberto; Martorell, Almudena

2012-01-01

The aim of this work was to analyze the effect of presentation format and instructions on the ability of people with intellectual disability to identify individuals they did not know and had seen only briefly. With this objective in mind, 2 groups of subjects with mild to moderate intellectual disability were shown a photograph of a person and, after a distracting task, were asked to identify that person in 2 line-ups (target-absent and target-present) with 6 photographs each, where 2 types o...

Lean manufacturing: A better way for enhancement in productivity

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar Ahir, Pankaj; Kumar Yadav, Lalit; Singh Chandrawat, Saurabh

2012-03-01

Productivity is the impact of peoples working together. Machines are merely an extended way of collective imagination and energy. Lean Manufacturing is the most used method for continues improvement of business. Organization management philosophy focusing on the reduction of wastage to improve overall customer value. "Lean" operating principles began in manufacturing environments and are known by a variety of synonyms; Lean Manufacturing, Lean Production, Toyota Production System, etc. It is commonly believed that Lean started in Japan "The notable activities in keeping the price of Ford products low is the steady restriction of the production cycle. The longer an article is in the process of manufacture and the more it is moved about, the greater is its ultimate cost." "A systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement, flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection."

Mediterranean Way of Drinking and Longevity.

Science.gov (United States)

Giacosa, Attilio; Barale, Roberto; Bavaresco, Luigi; Faliva, Milena Anna; Gerbi, Vincenzo; La Vecchia, Carlo; Negri, Eva; Opizzi, Annalisa; Perna, Simone; Pezzotti, Mario; Rondanelli, Mariangela

2016-01-01

The relation between alcohol consumption and mortality is a J-shaped curve in most of the many studies published on this topic. The Copenhagen Prospective Population Studies demonstrated in the year 2000 that wine intake may have a beneficial effect on all cause mortality that is additive to that of alcohol. Wine contains various poliphenolic substances which may be beneficial for health and in particular flavonols (such as myricetin and quercetin), catechin and epicatechin, proanthocyanidins, anthocyanins, various phenolic acids and the stilbene resveratrol. In particular, resveratrol seems to play a positive effect on longevity because it increases the expression level of Sirt1, besides its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticarcinogenic properties. Moderate wine drinking is part of the Mediterranean diet, together with abundant and variable plant foods, high consumption of cereals, olive oil as the main (added) fat and a low intake of (red) meat. This healthy diet pattern involves a "Mediterranean way of drinking," that is a regular, moderate wine consumption mainly with food (up to two glasses a day for men and one glass for women). Moderate wine drinking increases longevity, reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases and does not appreciably influence the overall risk of cancer.

Using a measure of person-perception skills to identify outstanding home care workers.

Science.gov (United States)

Grosch, Kerry; Medvene, Louis; Walker, Diane

2011-01-01

This study involved university-community collaboration with an international home care company for the purpose of developing a tool to identify talented caregivers. Tested was the hypothesis that workers' ability to provide care in person-centered ways would be positively associated with their ability to describe others in complex ways--that is, their person-perception skills. Company coordinators functioning as supervisors used an innovative 10-item instrument to screen 554 home health aides for their person centeredness. The most and least person-centered workers were evaluated for their person-perception skills. Person centeredness was positively associated with the complexity of home care workers' descriptions of others.

Interactive Two-Way mHealth Interventions for Improving Medication Adherence: An Evaluation Using The Behaviour Change Wheel Framework

Science.gov (United States)

Amico, K Rivet; Atkins, Lou; Lester, Richard T

2018-01-01

potential mechanisms of action. Results Our evaluation of WelTel using the Behavior Change Wheel suggests that most of its impact is delivered primarily through its personalized communication component, in which 8 different behavior change techniques were identified and linked with 5 intervention functions (environmental restructuring, enablement, education, persuasion, and training). Its mechanisms of action in promoting antiretroviral therapy adherence may involve addressing all Capability Opportunity Motivation-Behavior influences on behavior (physical and psychological capability, physical and social opportunity, reflective and automatic motivation). Conclusions Systematically unpacking the potential active ingredients of effective interventions facilitates the creation and implementation of more parsimonious, tailored, and targeted approaches. Evaluating WelTel using the Behavior Change Wheel has provided valuable insights into how and why such interactive two-way mHealth interventions may produce greater impact than one-way in addressing both nonintentional and intentional forms of nonadherence. The application of the Behavior Change Wheel for evidence synthesis across mHealth interventions targeting various conditions would contribute to strengthening the knowledge base regarding how they may work to impact medication adherence behavior. PMID:29650504

How far are we on the way to the superheavy nuclei?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Muenzenberg, G.

1989-10-01

The discovery of the elements 107, 108, and 109 in a region of dominating shell stabilization is the most important step on the way to the superheavy nuclei in recent years. These experiments leading to the presently upper end of the periodic table were possible with the velocity filter SHIP to separate the heavy nuclei produced in complete fusion reactions of heavy ions. The identification of the unknown nuclei was established by α-α mother-daughter correlation of the nuclei decaying after the implantation into position sensitive surface-barrier detectors. With this method it is possible to identify even single nuclei of unknown isotopes unambiguously. The limits of sensitivity are production cross-sections of a few picobarns and about 2 μs of nuclear lifetime. With this method the elements 107, 108, and 109 were observed for the first time by their α-decay and identified unambiguously. For element 107 the isotopes with masses 261 and 262, for the element 108 the isotopes with masses 264 and 265, and for element 109 the isotope with mass 266 were found. The halflives range from 0.1 ms to 0.1 s. The highly fissile transactinide nuclei were produced in cold fusion of heavy ions using 207,208 Pb and 209 Bi targets, respectively, and 50 Ti, 54 Cr, or 58 Fe beams. The evaluation of the excitation functions for the production of very heavy evaporation residues shows a strong decrease above 25 MeV excitation energy caused by a destruction of the groundstate shell effects at high excitation energies. The strong competition of barrier transmission and survival probability results in rather narrow excitation functions and small production cross sections. The maximum cross section is observed close to the Coulomb barrier and corresponding to projectile energies near 5 MeV/u. (orig.) [de

Combining analysis of variance and three‐way factor analysis methods for studying additive and multiplicative effects in sensory panel data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Romano, Rosaria; Næs, Tormod; Brockhoff, Per Bruun

2015-01-01

Data from descriptive sensory analysis are essentially three‐way data with assessors, samples and attributes as the three ways in the data set. Because of this, there are several ways that the data can be analysed. The paper focuses on the analysis of sensory characteristics of products while...... in the use of the scale with reference to the existing structure of relationships between sensory descriptors. The multivariate assessor model will be tested on a data set from milk. Relations between the proposed model and other multiplicative models like parallel factor analysis and analysis of variance...

Identifying high-redshift gamma-ray bursts with RATIR

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Littlejohns, O. M.; Butler, N. R. [School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, AZ 85287 (United States); Cucchiara, A. [Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Watson, A. M.; Lee, W. H.; Richer, M. G.; De Diego, J. A.; Georgiev, L.; González, J.; Román-Zúñiga, C. G. [Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 70-264, 04510 México, D. F. (Mexico); Kutyrev, A. S.; Troja, E.; Gehrels, N.; Moseley, H. [NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Klein, C. R.; Fox, O. D.; Bloom, J. S. [Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450 (United States); Prochaska, J. X.; Ramirez-Ruiz, E. [Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)

2014-07-01

We present a template-fitting algorithm for determining photometric redshifts, z {sub phot}, of candidate high-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Using afterglow photometry, obtained by the Reionization and Transients InfraRed (RATIR) camera, this algorithm accounts for the intrinsic GRB afterglow spectral energy distribution, host dust extinction, and the effect of neutral hydrogen (local and cosmological) along the line of sight. We present the results obtained by this algorithm and the RATIR photometry of GRB 130606A, finding a range of best-fit solutions, 5.6 < z {sub phot} < 6.0, for models of several host dust extinction laws (none, the Milky Way, Large Magellanic Clouds, and Small Magellanic Clouds), consistent with spectroscopic measurements of the redshift of this GRB. Using simulated RATIR photometry, we find that our algorithm provides precise measures of z {sub phot} in the ranges of 4 < z {sub phot} ≲ 8 and 9 < z {sub phot} < 10 and can robustly determine when z {sub phot} > 4. Further testing highlights the required caution in cases of highly dust-extincted host galaxies. These tests also show that our algorithm does not erroneously find z {sub phot} < 4 when z {sub sim} > 4, thereby minimizing false negatives and allowing us to rapidly identify all potential high-redshift events.

Identifying high-redshift gamma-ray bursts with RATIR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Littlejohns, O. M.; Butler, N. R.; Cucchiara, A.; Watson, A. M.; Lee, W. H.; Richer, M. G.; De Diego, J. A.; Georgiev, L.; González, J.; Román-Zúñiga, C. G.; Kutyrev, A. S.; Troja, E.; Gehrels, N.; Moseley, H.; Klein, C. R.; Fox, O. D.; Bloom, J. S.; Prochaska, J. X.; Ramirez-Ruiz, E.

2014-01-01

We present a template-fitting algorithm for determining photometric redshifts, z phot , of candidate high-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Using afterglow photometry, obtained by the Reionization and Transients InfraRed (RATIR) camera, this algorithm accounts for the intrinsic GRB afterglow spectral energy distribution, host dust extinction, and the effect of neutral hydrogen (local and cosmological) along the line of sight. We present the results obtained by this algorithm and the RATIR photometry of GRB 130606A, finding a range of best-fit solutions, 5.6 < z phot < 6.0, for models of several host dust extinction laws (none, the Milky Way, Large Magellanic Clouds, and Small Magellanic Clouds), consistent with spectroscopic measurements of the redshift of this GRB. Using simulated RATIR photometry, we find that our algorithm provides precise measures of z phot in the ranges of 4 < z phot ≲ 8 and 9 < z phot < 10 and can robustly determine when z phot > 4. Further testing highlights the required caution in cases of highly dust-extincted host galaxies. These tests also show that our algorithm does not erroneously find z phot < 4 when z sim > 4, thereby minimizing false negatives and allowing us to rapidly identify all potential high-redshift events.

Ecological Understanding 1: Ways of Experiencing Photosynthesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Carlsson, Britta

2002-01-01

Investigates 10 student teachers' understanding of the different ways in which the function of the ecosystem could be experienced. Explores the functional aspects of the ecosystem using a system approach. Concludes that the idea of transformation is crucial to more complex ways of understanding photosynthesis. (Contains 62 references.) (Author/YDS)

Give me five! - reasons for two-way communication between experts and citizens in relation to air pollution risk

Science.gov (United States)

Loroño-Leturiondo, Maria; O'Hare, Paul; Cook, Simon; Hoon, Stephen R.; Illingworth, Sam

2018-04-01

Air pollution is a major environmental concern for many populations worldwide. Communication efforts so far have been based on a one-way provision of evidence and information from experts to society, and have arguably failed in their mission to foster a more aware and engaged society, or to result in cleaner air. Globally we are facing both an air quality crisis and a communication emergency. This paper focuses on the communication of air pollution risk, from the threats it poses (e.g. severe impacts to human health) to the opportunities it can create (e.g. behavioural or technological alternatives that lead to cleaner air). It supports the case for moving away from one-way communication, and identifies five key benefits of a practical two-way communication between experts and citizens in order to engender positive change and improve global air quality.

The effect of stellar feedback on a Milky Way-like galaxy and its gaseous halo

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Marasco, Antonino; Debattista, Victor P.; Fraternali, Filippo; van der Hulst, Thijs; Wadsley, James; Quinn, Thomas; Roškar, Rok

We present the study of a set of N-body+smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of a Milky Way-like system produced by the radiative cooling of hot gas embedded in a dark matter halo. The galaxy and its gaseous halo evolve for 10 Gyr in isolation, which allows us to study how internal processes

The formation of the two-way shape memory effect in rapidly quenched TiNiCu alloy under laser radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shelyakov, A V; Sitnikov, N N; Borodako, K A; Menushenkov, A P; Fominski, V Yu; Sheyfer, D V

2015-01-01

The effect of pulsed laser radiation (λ = 248 nm, τ = 20 ns) on structural properties and shape memory behavior of the rapidly quenched Ti 50 Ni 25 Cu 25 alloy ribbon was studied. The radiation energy density was varied from 2 to 20 mJ mm −2 . The samples were characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, microhardness measurements and shape memory bending tests. It was ascertained that the action of the laser radiation leads to the formation of a structural composite material due to amorphization or martensite modification in the surface layer of the ribbon. Two methods are proposed which allow one to generate the pronounced two-way shape memory effect (TWSME) in a local area of the ribbon by using only a single pulse of the laser radiation. With increasing energy density of laser treatment, the magnitude of the reversible angular displacement with realization of the TWSME increases. The developed techniques can be used for the creation of various micromechanical devices. (paper)

Identifying Topics in Microblogs Using Wikipedia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmet Yıldırım

Full Text Available Twitter is an extremely high volume platform for user generated contributions regarding any topic. The wealth of content created at real-time in massive quantities calls for automated approaches to identify the topics of the contributions. Such topics can be utilized in numerous ways, such as public opinion mining, marketing, entertainment, and disaster management. Towards this end, approaches to relate single or partial posts to knowledge base items have been proposed. However, in microblogging systems like Twitter, topics emerge from the culmination of a large number of contributions. Therefore, identifying topics based on collections of posts, where individual posts contribute to some aspect of the greater topic is necessary. Models, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA, propose algorithms for relating collections of posts to sets of keywords that represent underlying topics. In these approaches, figuring out what the specific topic(s the keyword sets represent remains as a separate task. Another issue in topic detection is the scope, which is often limited to specific domain, such as health. This work proposes an approach for identifying domain-independent specific topics related to sets of posts. In this approach, individual posts are processed and then aggregated to identify key tokens, which are then mapped to specific topics. Wikipedia article titles are selected to represent topics, since they are up to date, user-generated, sophisticated articles that span topics of human interest. This paper describes the proposed approach, a prototype implementation, and a case study based on data gathered during the heavily contributed periods corresponding to the four US election debates in 2012. The manually evaluated results (0.96 precision and other observations from the study are discussed in detail.

Capability of Public Organizationstructure After Regional Extention in Way Kanan Regency (a Study on Basic Service Organization)

OpenAIRE

Lustiadi, Yadi

2016-01-01

A primary issue in this study is that Way Kanan, a 13-year-old district, since it was formed from the expansion of the North Lampung Regency, is not strong enough to show the ability to carry out effective public services, even it is still categorized as a remote area.The public organization structure of Way Kanandistrict that is essential element of organizational capability, has not effectively supported the management of existing resources towards the achievement of the main objectives of ...

A Tale of Tidal Tales in the Milky Way

Science.gov (United States)

Casey, Andrew R.

2014-05-01

Hundreds of globular clusters and dwarf galaxies encircle the Milky Way. Many of these systems have undergone partial disruption due to tidal forces, littering the halo with stellar streams. These tidal tails are sensitive to the Galactic potential, facilitating an excellent laboratory to investigate galaxy formation and evolution. To better understand the emergence of the Milky Way, this thesis examines the dynamics and chemistry of a number of known stellar streams. In particular the Sagittarius, Orphan and Aquarius streams are investigated. Low-resolution spectra for hundreds of stars in the direction of the Virgo Over-Density and the Sagittarius northern leading arms have been obtained. Multiple significant kinematic groups are recovered in this accretion-dominated region, confirming detections by previous studies. A metal-poor population ([Fe/H] = -1.7) in the Sagittarius stream is discovered due to a photometric selection that was inadvertently biased towards more metal-poor stars. Positions and kinematics of Sagittarius stream members are compared with existing best-fitting dark matter models, and a triaxial dark matter halo distribution is favoured. The Orphan stream is appropriately named, as no parent system has yet been identified. The stream has an extremely low surface brightness, which makes distinguishing stream members from field stars particularly challenging. From low-resolution spectra obtained for hundreds of stars, we identify likely Orphan stream red giant branch stars on the basis of velocity, metallicity, surface gravity, and proper motions. A negligible intrinsic velocity dispersion is found, and a wide spread in metallicities is observed, which suggests the undiscovered parent is similar to the present-day dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way. High-resolution spectra were obtained for five Orphan stream candidates, and the intrinsic chemical dispersion found from low-resolution spectra is confirmed from these data. Detailed chemical abundances

RESPONSE OF LANDUSE CHANGE ON HYDROLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF WAY BETUNG WATERSHED - LAMPUNG

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zaenal Mubarok

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Change in landuse caused by a population increase from 114,973 people in 2007 to 134,792 people in 2012 (14.70% increased has influenced the hydrological characteristics of Way Betung watershed. The Soil and Water Assesment Tools (SWAT hydrological model could predict the hydrological characteristics influenced by the change in landuse. The aims of this study were: 1 to assess the impact of landuse change on hydrological characteristics; and, 2 to recommend the best landuse of Way Betung Watershed.The SWAT model was applied to simulate the change of landuse in Way Betung watershed. The effects of landuse change on the hydrological characteristics of Way Betung Watershed in 2001, 2006, and 2010 showed  the water yield of 874.66, 1047.70, and 774.04 mm respectively. The coefficient of surface runoff (C for those three years were 0.16, 0.31, and 0.23, whereas the coeficient of river regime were 30.65, 66.25, and 53.57 respectively. The application of agrotechnology on agricultural land and in line with the functions of forest area (scenario 4 gave the best response towards hydrological characteristics in the form of 709.69 mm of water yield with C being 0.14, whereas the coeficient of river regime value was 3.66. 

In search of the quickest way to disseminate health care innovations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guus Schrijvers

2003-10-01

Full Text Available Research Question: Innovations in health care are slowly disseminated in The Netherlands and elsewhere. That's why the researchers defined their research question: What is the quickest way of disseminating health care innovations? Research method: The design was a comparative, qualitative case study. The researchers invited a group of 52 authors to describe their 21 health care innovations. All case descriptions were published in a book of 261 pages [2]. Results: Six types of innovations were distinguished. Most innovations simultaneously improved quality from the patient's point of view (18 out of 21 cases, professional pride (18/21 and speed of introduction (16/21. Clinical outcomes were better or comparable in 13 of the 21 cases. Brainstorm sessions took place with the innovators and the 22 experts on the quickest way to disseminate the innovations more widely in The Netherlands. These sessions looked for the critical success factors for the dissemination of the 21 projects and identified nine. The following factors were identified: 1. A clear distribution of responsibilities between professionals within the innovation (20/21 2. Enough educational programs about the innovations for the professionals (18/21 3. Adequate ICT support for the running of the innovations (15/21 4. Suitable publicity for the innovations (12/21 5. An adequate payment system for innovative care providers (7/21 6. The right size of catchment's area for the innovations (6/21 7. Enough professional freedom to adopt the innovation (5/21 8. Fast managerial and public decision-making about the adoption of the innovation (3/21 9. The embedding of the innovations in quality management assurance policy (1/21. Discussion: The results of the study had some influence on the political health agenda in The Netherlands, leading to greater emphasis on innovations and quality of care.

The Way of the Sign

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Elias, Camelia

The Way of the Sign is a book about extraction, about reducing methods of inquiry to the bare bones. It guides students through 10 schools of theory and criticism. The focus is on ‘asking’ each theory to give its best in the simplest way, by making us see what is at stake and how we might respond...... to it. In simple Socratic dialogues, Elias invents scenarios: ‘What is happening?’ Deconstruction asks. And we answer with it: ‘We are buying a mythology.’ ‘How does it make us feel?’ ‘Dumb.’ ‘What is happening?’ Marxism asks. And we answer with it: ‘The rich cheat us.’ ‘How does it make us feel...

Justice And Law In Hegel: The Way Of Atonement And The Way Of Healing

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Mateus Salvadori

2015-02-01

Full Text Available There are two theories on hegelian philosophy to justify the punishment: the way of atonement and the way of healing. The route of the atonement of the agent of punishment and states that the responsibility for the crime is the criminal. This pathway is concerned essentially with the duty and the rules. Hegel differs from kantian retributivista position because, according to Kant, the penalty is an ethical necessity (categorical imperative and Hegel, the penalty is a logical necessity (denial of crime and affirmation of the sentence. Kant remains attached to the subjectivity; Hegel overcomes it through an objective explanation of criminal law. Have the path of healing part of the punishment and patient advocates that the punishment is a right of the criminal. Thus, the duty is secondary and the punishment is seen as suffering from the generator.

The Milky Way Skeleton

Science.gov (United States)

Zucker, Catherine; Battersby, Cara; Goodman, Alyssa A.

2015-01-01

Recently, Goodman et al. (2014) argued that a very long, very thin infrared dark cloud 'Nessie' lies directly in the Galactic mid-plane and runs along the Scutum-Centaurus arm in position-position-velocity space as traced by low density CO and high density NH3 gas. Nessie was presented as the first 'bone' of the Milky Way, an extraordinarily long, thin, high contrast filament that can be used to map our galaxy's 'skeleton.' We present the first evidence of additional 'bones' in the Milky Way Galaxy, arguing that Nessie is not a curiosity but one of many filaments that could potentially trace galactic structure. Our ten bone candidates are all long, filamentary, mid-infrared extinction features which lie parallel to, and no more than twenty parsecs from, the physical Galactic mid-plane. We use CO, N2H+, and NH3 radial velocity data to establish the location of the candidates in position-velocity space. Of the ten filaments, three candidates have a projected aspect ratio of >50:1 and run along, or extremely close to, the Scutum-Centaurus arm in position-velocity space. Evidence suggests that these three candidates are Nessie-like features which mark the location of the spiral arms in both physical space and position-velocity space. Other candidates could be spurs, feathers, or interarm clouds associated with the Milky Way's galactic structure. As molecular spectral-line and extinction maps cover more of the sky at increasing resolution and sensitivity, we hope to find more bones in future studies, to ultimately create a global-fit to the Galaxy's spiral arms by piecing together individual skeletal features. This work is supported in part by the NSF REU and DOD ASSURE programs under NSF grant no. 1262851 and by the Smithsonian Institution.

New ways to work.

Science.gov (United States)

2003-06-01

Flexible working, work-life balance, family friendliness; all are now familiar terms in today's NHS, and employers, managers and leaders are expected to be forging ahead in improving the working lives for all staff. If you are looking for new ideas to help tackle the challenge, you should try the New Ways to Work website.

Alternative way of life

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fischer, C.

1980-01-01

The volume describes the reasons why more and more people seek alternative ways of life, the theoretical background and what alternative life means in practice as well as the sociological significance and history of the alternative movement. It also contains statements of persons who have 'got out' and advice on energy-saving. (HSCH) [de

Enhancing regulatory effectiveness by improving the process for identifying and resolving generic issues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vander Molen, Harold J.

2001-01-01

The Generic Issues Program first began formally in response to a Commission directive in October of 1976. In 1983, it became one of the first programs to make successful use of probabilistic risk information to aid in regulatory decision-making. In the 16 years since the program became quantitative, 836 issues have been processed. Of these, 106 reactor safety issues were prioritized as requiring further evaluation to determine the final resolution. Approximately a dozen generic issues remain unresolved. Although there is far less reactor licensing activity than in the 1970s, new issues continue to be identified from research and operational experience. These issues often involve complex and controversial questions of safety and regulation, and an efficient and effective means of addressing these issues is essential for regulatory effectiveness. Issues that involve a significant safety question require swift, effective, enforceable, and cost-effective regulatory actions. Issues that are of little safety significance must be quickly shown to be so and dismissed in an expeditious manner so as to avoid unnecessary expenditure of limited resources and to reduce regulatory uncertainty. Additionally, in the time since the generic issue program began, probabilistic risk assessment techniques have advanced significantly while agency resources have continued to diminish. Accordingly, the paper discusses the steps that have been taken to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the generic issue resolution process. Additionally, four resolved issues are discussed, along with key elements of a proposed new procedure for resolving potential generic issues

Identifying and prioritizing the factors effective in customer satisfaction using the TOPSIS method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H Forougozar

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Customer satisfaction has been suggested as one of the interesting and challenging issues of management in the new millennium. In addition, oral and dental health and the quality of the services the health centers delivered to the patients directly affect the customer satisfaction. Therefore, the present study aimed to identify, investigate, and rank the factors affecting the customer satisfaction in the department of dentistry of Shiraz Farhangiyan health center. Method: The present descriptive study was conducted on the specialists and patients of the department of dentistry of Shiraz Farhangiyan health center. The validity of the questionnaire utilized in the study was confirmed by expert professors and its reliability was approved using the Cronbach’s alpha formula. Finally, the study data were analyzed in SPSS statistical software (v. 16, using inferential statistics. Results: All the hypotheses were confirmed by the results of the statistical analyses and quality, services, and expenditures revealed to affect the customer satisfaction in the department of dentistry of Shiraz Farhangiyan health center. Moreover, these factors were ranked using the TOPSIS method and the results showed quality and expenditures as the most and the least effective factors in customer satisfaction, respectively. Conclusion: Since restoring and arranging the organization based on the customer needs is among the main priorities of designing an organization, managers are suggested to take measures for organizational reformation based on the customers’ priorities. Of course, conducting such programs is of utmost importance in health and treatment environments, leading to provision of better services and facilitation of learning, education, and research. Thus, identifying the effective factors in customer satisfaction and ranking them are highly important.

The Elements Way: Empowering Parents, Educators, and Mentors in the Age of New Media

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gila Cohen Zilka

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Aim/Purpose: This study was designed to examine the effectiveness of mentor’s work with immigrant children and adolescents at risk, using the Elements Way. Background: The New Media offers our “screen kids” a lot of information, many behavioral models, and a new type of social communication. The Elements Way is an educational method designed to enhance openness, development, breakthroughs, goal achievement, and transformation in the age of media and social networks. Methodology: The Elements Way was developed following research on communication in the diversified media, especially new media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and television reality shows, and the study is an examination of the effectiveness of mentors’ work with immigrant children and adolescents at risk, using the Elements Way. All mentors had been trained in the Elements Way. The study population included 640 mentors working with immigrants’ children in Israel. The work was conducted in 2010-2013. The mixed-methods approach was selected to validate findings. Contribution: Empowering children and enhancing their ability to cope; Creating openness and sharing, making children more attentive to the significant adults in their lives; Supporting children who face the complex reality that characterizes our age. Findings: Significant differences were found in the mentors’ conduct with the children. Work programs were designed and implemented with care and consistency, and mentors succeeded in generating change within the children and achieving desired goals. Of the 640 participating mentors, 62 were not able to promote the child, and interviews with them revealed that their work with the children was not consistent with the Elements Way and began from a different vantage point. Recommendations for Practitioners: Success factors: Self-awareness and awareness of one’s surroundings. Empathy. Willingness to engage in significant interactions. Self-cleansing and self

A Transcriptomic Approach to Identify Novel Drug Efflux Pumps in Bacteria.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Liping; Tetu, Sasha G; Paulsen, Ian T; Hassan, Karl A

2018-01-01

The core genomes of most bacterial species include a large number of genes encoding putative efflux pumps. The functional roles of most of these pumps are unknown, however, they are often under tight regulatory control and expressed in response to their substrates. Therefore, one way to identify pumps that function in antimicrobial resistance is to examine the transcriptional responses of efflux pump genes to antimicrobial shock. By conducting complete transcriptomic experiments following antimicrobial shock treatments, it may be possible to identify novel drug efflux pumps encoded in bacterial genomes. In this chapter we describe a complete workflow for conducting transcriptomic analyses by RNA sequencing, to determine transcriptional changes in bacteria responding to antimicrobials.

Identifying the Structure and Effect of Drinking-Related Self-Schemas.

Science.gov (United States)

Domenico, Lisa H; Strobbe, Stephen; Stein, Karen Farchaus; Giordani, Bruno J; Hagerty, Bonnie M; Pressler, Susan J

2017-07-01

Self-schemas have received increased attention as favorable targets for therapeutic intervention because of their central role in self-perception and behavior. The purpose of this integrative review was to identify, evaluate, and synthesize existing research pertaining to drinking-related self-schemas. Russell's integrative review strategy guided the search. Sixteen published works were identified, meeting criteria for evaluation ( n = 12 data-based publications and n = 4 models). The retrieved data-based publications rated fair-good using Polit and Beck's criteria; the overall body of literature rated "B" using Grimes and Schulz criteria. Retrieved models rated 4 to 7 using Fitzpatrick and Whall's criteria. The existing literature strongly supports the availability of a drinking-related self-schema among moderate-to-heavy drinking samples, and suggests a positive relationship between elaboration and drinking behavior. The relationship between valenced content of the schema and drinking behavior remains unexplored. Identifying variation in the structural properties of drinking-related self-schemas could lay the foundation for future interventions.

Combining measures of dispersal to identify conservation strategies in fragmented landscapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Leidner, Allison K; Haddad, Nick M

2011-10-01

Understanding the way in which habitat fragmentation disrupts animal dispersal is key to identifying effective and efficient conservation strategies. To differentiate the potential effectiveness of 2 frequently used strategies for increasing the connectivity of populations in fragmented landscapes-corridors and stepping stones-we combined 3 complimentary methods: behavioral studies at habitat edges, mark-recapture, and genetic analyses. Each of these methods addresses different steps in the dispersal process that a single intensive study could not address. We applied the 3 methods to the case study of Atrytonopsis new species 1, a rare butterfly endemic to a partially urbanized stretch of barrier islands in North Carolina (U.S.A.). Results of behavioral analyses showed the butterfly flew into urban and forested areas, but not over open beach; mark-recapture showed that the butterfly dispersed successfully through short stretches of urban areas (5 km) were a dispersal barrier, but shorter stretches of urban areas (≤5 km) were not. Although results from all 3 methods indicated natural features in the landscape, not urbanization, were barriers to dispersal, when we combined the results we could determine where barriers might arise: forests restricted dispersal for the butterfly only when there were long stretches with no habitat. Therefore, urban areas have the potential to become a dispersal barrier if their extent increases, a finding that may have gone unnoticed if we had used a single approach. Protection of stepping stones should be sufficient to maintain connectivity for Atrytonopsis new species 1 at current levels of urbanization. Our research highlights how the use of complementary approaches for studying animal dispersal in fragmented landscapes can help identify conservation strategies. ©2011 Society for Conservation Biology.

MAXimising Involvement in MUltiMorbidity (MAXIMUM) in primary care: protocol for an observation and interview study of patients, GPs and other care providers to identify ways of reducing patient safety failures.

Science.gov (United States)

Daker-White, Gavin; Hays, Rebecca; Esmail, Aneez; Minor, Brian; Barlow, Wendy; Brown, Benjamin; Blakeman, Thomas; Bower, Peter

2014-08-18

Increasing numbers of older people are living with multiple long-term health conditions but global healthcare systems and clinical guidelines have traditionally focused on the management of single conditions. Having two or more long-term conditions, or 'multimorbidity', is associated with a range of adverse consequences and poor outcomes and could put patients at increased risk of safety failures. Traditionally, most research into patient safety failures has explored hospital or inpatient settings. Much less is known about patient safety failures in primary care. Our core aims are to understand the mechanisms by which multimorbidity leads to safety failures, to explore the different ways in which patients and services respond (or fail to respond), and to identify opportunities for intervention. We plan to undertake an applied ethnographic study of patients with multimorbidity. Patients' interactions and environments, relevant to their healthcare, will be studied through observations, diary methods and semistructured interviews. A framework, based on previous studies, will be used to organise the collection and analysis of field notes, observations and other qualitative data. This framework includes the domains: access breakdowns, communication breakdowns, continuity of care errors, relationship breakdowns and technical errors. Ethical approval was received from the National Health Service Research Ethics Committee for Wales. An individual case study approach is likely to be most fruitful for exploring the mechanisms by which multimorbidity leads to safety failures. A longitudinal and multiperspective approach will allow for the constant comparison of patient, carer and healthcare worker expectations and experiences related to the provision, integration and management of complex care. This data will be used to explore ways of engaging patients and carers more in their own care using shared decision-making, patient empowerment or other relevant models. Published by

A study of using smartphone to detect and identify construction workers' near-miss falls based on ANN

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Mingyuan; Cao, Tianzhuo; Zhao, Xuefeng

2018-03-01

As an effective fall accident preventive method, insight into near-miss falls provides an efficient solution to find out the causes of fall accidents, classify the type of near-miss falls and control the potential hazards. In this context, the paper proposes a method to detect and identify near-miss falls that occur when a worker walks in a workplace based on artificial neural network (ANN). The energy variation generated by workers who meet with near-miss falls is measured by sensors embedded in smart phone. Two experiments were designed to train the algorithm to identify various types of near-miss falls and test the recognition accuracy, respectively. At last, a test was conducted by workers wearing smart phones as they walked around a simulated construction workplace. The motion data was collected, processed and inputted to the trained ANN to detect and identify near-miss falls. Thresholds were obtained to measure the relationship between near-miss falls and fall accidents in a quantitate way. This approach, which integrates smart phone and ANN, will help detect near-miss fall events, identify hazardous elements and vulnerable workers, providing opportunities to eliminate dangerous conditions in a construction site or to alert possible victims that need to change their behavior before the occurrence of a fall accident.

Identifying self-interstitials of bcc and fcc crystals in molecular dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bukkuru, S.; Bhardwaj, U.; Warrier, M.; Rao, A.D.P.; Valsakumar, M.C.

2017-01-01

Identification of self-interstitials in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations is of critical importance. There exist several criteria for identifying the self-interstitial. Most of the existing methods use an assumed cut-off value for the displacement of an atom from its lattice position to identify the self-interstitial. The results obtained are affected by the chosen cut-off value. Moreover, these chosen cut-off values are independent of temperature. We have developed a novel unsupervised learning algorithm called Max-Space Clustering (MSC) to identify an appropriate cut-off value and its dependence on temperature. This method is compared with some widely used methods such as effective sphere (ES) method and nearest neighbor sphere (NNS) method. The cut-off radius obtained using our method shows a linear variation with temperature. The value of cut-off radius and its temperature dependence is derived for five bcc (Cr, Fe, Mo, Nb, W) and six fcc (Ag, Au, Cu, Ni, Pd, Pt) crystals. It is seen that the ratio of the cut-off values “r” to the lattice constant “a” lies between 0.23 and 0.3 at 300 K and this ratio is on an average smaller for the fcc crystals. Collision cascade simulations are carried out for Primary knock-on Atom (PKA) energies of 5 keV in Fe (at 300 K and 1000 K) and W (at 300 K and 2500 K) and the results are compared using the various methods. - Highlights: • Max-Space Clustering (MSC) method is developed to identify interstitials in crystals. • MSC provides a structured way to identify the temperature dependent cut-off radius. • It is compared with widely used sphere methods and found to be better. • MSC coupled with graph tree optimization can be used to obtain diffusion trajectory. • Cascade simulations of Fe, W are carried out and results are compared with various methods.

Identifying self-interstitials of bcc and fcc crystals in molecular dynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bukkuru, S., E-mail: srinivasaraobukkuru@gmail.com [Dept. of Nuclear Physics, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam 530003 (India); Bhardwaj, U., E-mail: haptork@gmail.com [Computational Analysis Division, BARC, Visakhapatnam 530012, Andhra Pradesh (India); Warrier, M., E-mail: manoj.warrier@gmail.com [Computational Analysis Division, BARC, Visakhapatnam 530012, Andhra Pradesh (India); Rao, A.D.P., E-mail: adp_rao_99@yahoo.com [Dept. of Nuclear Physics, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam 530003 (India); Valsakumar, M.C., E-mail: mc.valsakumar@gmail.com [IIT Palakkad, Kozhippara P.O., Palakkad 678557, Kerala (India)

2017-02-15

Identification of self-interstitials in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations is of critical importance. There exist several criteria for identifying the self-interstitial. Most of the existing methods use an assumed cut-off value for the displacement of an atom from its lattice position to identify the self-interstitial. The results obtained are affected by the chosen cut-off value. Moreover, these chosen cut-off values are independent of temperature. We have developed a novel unsupervised learning algorithm called Max-Space Clustering (MSC) to identify an appropriate cut-off value and its dependence on temperature. This method is compared with some widely used methods such as effective sphere (ES) method and nearest neighbor sphere (NNS) method. The cut-off radius obtained using our method shows a linear variation with temperature. The value of cut-off radius and its temperature dependence is derived for five bcc (Cr, Fe, Mo, Nb, W) and six fcc (Ag, Au, Cu, Ni, Pd, Pt) crystals. It is seen that the ratio of the cut-off values “r” to the lattice constant “a” lies between 0.23 and 0.3 at 300 K and this ratio is on an average smaller for the fcc crystals. Collision cascade simulations are carried out for Primary knock-on Atom (PKA) energies of 5 keV in Fe (at 300 K and 1000 K) and W (at 300 K and 2500 K) and the results are compared using the various methods. - Highlights: • Max-Space Clustering (MSC) method is developed to identify interstitials in crystals. • MSC provides a structured way to identify the temperature dependent cut-off radius. • It is compared with widely used sphere methods and found to be better. • MSC coupled with graph tree optimization can be used to obtain diffusion trajectory. • Cascade simulations of Fe, W are carried out and results are compared with various methods.

Identifying an outcome measure to assess the impact of Mobility Dogs.

Science.gov (United States)

Mudge, Suzie; Rewi, Dallas; Channon, Alexis

2017-01-01

Mobility Dogs® trains dogs to work with people with physical disabilities to increase independence, confidence, self-esteem and participation. Mobility Dogs® seeks to critically evaluate and improve its services as it grows. This study aimed to identify and implement a standardised outcome measure into practice at Mobility Dogs®. Based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research and guided by a steering group of key stakeholders, a three-phase approach was developed to identify and assess an outcome measure. The steering group highlighted the organisation's specific needs, selected participation as the assessment domain and identified core utility requirements of the measure. A comprehensive review of evidence was undertaken to identify and rank potential measures according to the specified needs. Of the seven participation outcome measures that met inclusion criteria, the three highest ranked measures were critically evaluated by the steering group to determine suitability against the organisation's needs. The Impact on Participation and Autonomy (IPA) was selected for implementation into practice at Mobility Dogs®. Use of the IPA is an important first step for Mobility Dogs® to test the benefits of trained service dogs. This process could be replicated by other service dog organisations to identify outcome measures to assess their own services. Implications for Rehabilitation Service dogs (such as Mobility Dogs® in New Zealand) assist people living with physical impairments by performing tasks, however there is limited evidence on outcomes. The process for selecting an appropriate outcome measure for Mobility Dogs® involving partnership between Mobility Dogs® personnel and academics was an effective way to steer the project by determining important properties of the measure, before a search of the literature was undertaken. While the IPA was selected as the most appropriate outcome measure for use at Mobility Dogs®, it was the process that

Drug Repurposing Screening Identifies Novel Compounds That Effectively Inhibit Toxoplasma gondii Growth

Science.gov (United States)

Dittmar, Ashley J.; Drozda, Allison A.

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT The urgent need to develop new antimicrobial therapies has spawned the development of repurposing screens in which well-studied drugs and other types of compounds are tested for potential off-label uses. As a proof-of-principle screen to identify compounds effective against Toxoplasma gondii, we screened a collection of 1,120 compounds for the ability to significantly reduce Toxoplasma replication. A total of 94 compounds blocked parasite replication with 50% inhibitory concentrations of parasite invasion and replication but did so independently of inhibition of dopamine or other neurotransmitter receptor signaling. Tamoxifen, which is an established inhibitor of the estrogen receptor, also reduced parasite invasion and replication. Even though Toxoplasma can activate the estrogen receptor, tamoxifen inhibits parasite growth independently of this transcription factor. Tamoxifen is also a potent inducer of autophagy, and we find that the drug stimulates recruitment of the autophagy marker light chain 3-green fluorescent protein onto the membrane of the vacuolar compartment in which the parasite resides and replicates. In contrast to other antiparasitic drugs, including pimozide, tamoxifen treatment of infected cells leads to a time-dependent elimination of intracellular parasites. Taken together, these data suggest that tamoxifen restricts Toxoplasma growth by inducing xenophagy or autophagic destruction of this obligate intracellular parasite. IMPORTANCE There is an urgent need to develop new therapies to treat microbial infections, and the repurposing of well-characterized compounds is emerging as one approach to achieving this goal. Using the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, we screened a library of 1,120 compounds and identified several compounds with significant antiparasitic activities. Among these were pimozide and tamoxifen, which are well-characterized drugs prescribed to treat patients with psychiatric disorders and breast cancer

Separating variables in two-way diffusion equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fisch, N.J.; Kruskal, M.D.

1979-10-01

It is shown that solutions to a class of diffusion equations of the two-way type may be found by a method akin to separation of variables. The difficulty with such equations is that the boundary data must be specified partly as initial and partly as final conditions. In contrast to the one-way diffusion equation, where the solution separates only into decaying eigenfunctions, the two-way equations separate into both decaying and growing eigenfunctions. Criteria are set forth for the existence of linear eigenfunctions, which may not be found directly by separating variables. A speculation with interesting ramifications is that the growing and decaying eigenfunctions are separately complete in an appropriate half of the problem domain

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Tutoring: An Easier Way

Science.gov (United States)

Holliday, Tacy

2012-01-01

Many learning center administrators understand the need to evaluate the effectiveness of their tutoring programs, but they do not have much free time to design and conduct meaningful research. This article presents a method of evaluation that can be used to determine whether students were able to demonstrate understanding after a tutoring…

NATURAL WAYS OF MOVING AS BASIS OF MOTORICAL DEVELOPMENT WITH KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN

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Bećir Šabotić

2006-06-01

Full Text Available Nowdays, the physical culture has become like an existing need for people.in everyday life people most often use the natural ways of moving like walking and running. The natural ways of moving are given and defined by the nature itself, anatomic-physiological and even phychological factors. Besides natural ways there are constructed ways which are more complex and which are taken out from the natural ones. The first thing, child does when is born, is to turn around, climb up, walk, run, jump, climb up the trees, throw, carry etc. These are the basic ways of moving that will say of natural moving. The natural ways of moving are used in PE in kinderkarten as we; as in the earlier grades in primary schools. They represent: - Spontaneous or conscious, forcable or free changes of mechanical state (condition and place human body or just some of his particular parts in the space out of it. - They are accomplished with the complex physical-chemical process of change (circulation of matter and energy inside the body, as well as between it and outer environment. Everyday moving is in the function existing, working-productive or devensively appropriate: we walk to come to a certain place, came and runaway, rising hand to reach for something, to give or take smthing etc. The aim of moves and moving in the physical exercises is consciously pointed on the inner physical changes and physical development of the organism.That is why the walking, which is used as a physical exercise, has no longer the purpose to the cariovascular and respiratoric system, strenghtening of the leg muscles etc.The natural ways of moving, as it appears in all domestic and foreign researches, with these children, effect very positevly on the development of bone system, cardiovascular, breathing device, muscular system and even on the positive development of organs and the whole organism. That is why these ways of moving are very much represented at this agethrough the elementary games

Constraints on the Dark Matter Particle Mass from the Number of Milky Way Satellites

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-12

assuming dark matter only simulations (we do not include the effect of baryons in our simulations). We adopted values for cosmological parameters from the...ar X iv :1 00 4. 14 59 v1 [ as tr o- ph .C O ] 9 A pr 2 01 0 Constraints on the Dark Matter Particle Mass from the Number of Milky Way...simulations of the growth of Milky Way-sized halos in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies. The number of dark matter satellites in our simulated Milky

Solving problems of modern land relations on the way of formation of competitive agrarian production in Ukraine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Skoruk Olena P.

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The goal of the article is identification of modern problems of conduct of the land reform and ways of their solution in the context of economic consequences for development of the competitive agrarian production in Ukraine. It identifies that the main task of completion of the land reform is creation of the land market, which would ensure transition of the right of ownership on land lots to an efficient land owner. The basis of this development are farms that combine the owner and master of land in one entity. The article shows that adoption of the Draft Law “On Agricultural Land Turnover” would facilitate development of this form of management. The article identifies main problems of the moratorium on agricultural land sales, namely: land black market activity, withdrawal from market turnover of land of about USD 40 thousand million cost and, as a result, impossibility for agrarians to apply mortgage. The article identifies gaps in the legislation with respect to state control over unclaimed shares and escheats, due to which the state budget does not receive significant amounts of money. It offers ways of solution of these problems through empowering the founded Goszembank, which should become a partner and support for development of small and medium farms after withdrawal of the moratorium on agricultural land sales, with relevant authorities.

Three ways of assembling a house

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beim, Anne; Nielsen, Jesper; Vibæk, Kasper Sánchez

The Scandinavian construction industry is characterised by high quality craftsmanship, but also by an array of highly industrialised, but not always coordinated building systems. This book aims to shed some light on these systems and their underlying concepts. By looking at both the systems...... themselves, the way they are produced and the business models behind them, the systems and concepts are assessed in their broader organisational context and not just as physical manifestations of their design intentions. Acknowledging that there is more than one possible way of enhancing the application...

Structural and mechanistic analysis of a β-glycoside phosphorylase identified by screening a metagenomic library.

Science.gov (United States)

Macdonald, Spencer S; Patel, Ankoor; Larmour, Veronica L C; Morgan-Lang, Connor; Hallam, Steven J; Mark, Brian L; Withers, Stephen G

2018-03-02

Glycoside phosphorylases have considerable potential as catalysts for the assembly of useful glycans for products ranging from functional foods and prebiotics to novel materials. However, the substrate diversity of currently identified phosphorylases is relatively small, limiting their practical applications. To address this limitation, we developed a high-throughput screening approach using the activated substrate 2,4-dinitrophenyl β-d-glucoside (DNPGlc) and inorganic phosphate for identifying glycoside phosphorylase activity and used it to screen a large insert metagenomic library. The initial screen, based on release of 2,4-dinitrophenyl from DNPGlc in the presence of phosphate, identified the gene bglP, encoding a retaining β-glycoside phosphorylase from the CAZy GH3 family. Kinetic and mechanistic analysis of the gene product, BglP, confirmed a double displacement ping-pong mechanism involving a covalent glycosyl-enzyme intermediate. X-ray crystallographic analysis provided insights into the phosphate-binding mode and identified a key glutamine residue in the active site important for substrate recognition. Substituting this glutamine for a serine swapped the substrate specificity from glucoside to N -acetylglucosaminide. In summary, we present a high-throughput screening approach for identifying β-glycoside phosphorylases, which was robust, simple to implement, and useful in identifying active clones within a metagenomics library. Implementation of this screen enabled discovery of a new glycoside phosphorylase class and has paved the way to devising simple ways in which enzyme specificity can be encoded and swapped, which has implications for biotechnological applications. © 2018 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

BENCHMARKING - PRACTICAL TOOLS IDENTIFY KEY SUCCESS FACTORS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga Ju. Malinina

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The article gives a practical example of the application of benchmarking techniques. The object of study selected fashion store Company «HLB & M Hennes & Mauritz», located in the shopping center «Gallery», Krasnodar. Hennes & Mauritz. The purpose of this article is to identify the best ways to develop a fashionable brand clothing store Hennes & Mauritz on the basis of benchmarking techniques. On the basis of conducted market research is a comparative analysis of the data from different perspectives. The result of the author’s study is a generalization of the ndings, the development of the key success factors that will allow to plan a successful trading activities in the future, based on the best experience of competitors.

The use of random-effects models to identify health care center-related characteristics modifying the effect of antipsychotic drugs.

Science.gov (United States)

Nordon, Clementine; Battin, Constance; Verdoux, Helene; Haro, Josef Maria; Belger, Mark; Abenhaim, Lucien; van Staa, Tjeerd Pieter

2017-01-01

A case study was conducted, exploring methods to identify drugs effects modifiers, at a health care center level. Data were drawn from the Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcome cohort, including hierarchical information on 6641 patients, recruited from 899 health care centers from across ten European countries. Center-level characteristics included the following: psychiatrist's gender, age, length of practice experience, practice setting and type, countries' Healthcare System Efficiency score, and psychiatrist density in the country. Mixed multivariable linear regression models were used: 1) to estimate antipsychotic drugs' effectiveness (defined as the association between patients' outcome at 3 months - dependent variable, continuous - and antipsychotic drug initiation at baseline - drug A vs other antipsychotic drug); 2) to estimate the similarity between clustered data (using the intra-cluster correlation coefficient); and 3) to explore antipsychotic drug effects modification by center-related characteristics (using the addition of an interaction term). About 23% of the variance found for patients' outcome was explained by unmeasured confounding at a center level. Psychiatrists' practice experience was found to be associated with patient outcomes ( p =0.04) and modified the relative effect of "drug A" ( p <0.001), independent of center- or patient-related characteristics. Mixed models may be useful to explore how center-related characteristics modify drugs' effect estimates, but require numerous assumptions.

Telerehabilitation in South Africa - is there a way forward?

Science.gov (United States)

Mars, Maurice

2011-01-01

South Africa, like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, has a disproportionate burden of disease and a shortage of health professionals. Telemedicine has been identified as a possible way of overcoming part of the problem but telemedicine has not been widely adopted. In the public sector hospitals in South Africa which serve 82% of the population there are 2.5 physiotherapists and 2 occupational therapists per 100,000 people served. The extent of telerehabilitation in South Africa is unknown. A literature review of telerehabilitation found no papers from South Africa. A survey of the heads of university departments of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language pathology revealed limited knowledge of telerehabilitation. Telerehabilitation services are confined to follow-up of patients at some institutions by telephone, fax or email. There is need to raise awareness among therapists if telerehabilitation is to become a reality in South Africa. Future actions are outlined.

"Business Ethics Everywhere": An Experiential Exercise to Develop Students' Ability to Identify and Respond to Ethical Issues in Business

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Susan D.; Comer, Debra R.

2012-01-01

This article introduces an experiential exercise that enhances students' ability to identify ethical issues and to respond to them in ways that consider the relationship between organizational factors and ethical action. Students identify a required number of ethical incidents in their workplaces during a specified period. Students submit a…

Bidirectional Active Learning: A Two-Way Exploration Into Unlabeled and Labeled Data Set.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xiao-Yu; Wang, Shupeng; Yun, Xiaochun

2015-12-01

In practical machine learning applications, human instruction is indispensable for model construction. To utilize the precious labeling effort effectively, active learning queries the user with selective sampling in an interactive way. Traditional active learning techniques merely focus on the unlabeled data set under a unidirectional exploration framework and suffer from model deterioration in the presence of noise. To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel bidirectional active learning algorithm that explores into both unlabeled and labeled data sets simultaneously in a two-way process. For the acquisition of new knowledge, forward learning queries the most informative instances from unlabeled data set. For the introspection of learned knowledge, backward learning detects the most suspiciously unreliable instances within the labeled data set. Under the two-way exploration framework, the generalization ability of the learning model can be greatly improved, which is demonstrated by the encouraging experimental results.

Dance your way to fitness

Science.gov (United States)

... ency/patientinstructions/000809.htm Dance your way to fitness To use the sharing features on this page, ... to rhythm and music. Many health clubs and fitness centers offer dance workout classes, such as Zumba. ...

Identifying attentional bias and emotional response after appearance-related stimuli exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, Ara; Kwak, Soo-Min; Lee, Jang-Han

2013-01-01

The effect of media images has been regarded as a significant variable in the construction or in the activation of body images. Individuals who have a negative body image use avoidance coping strategies to minimize damage to their body image. We identified attentional biases and negative emotional responses following exposure to body stimuli. Female university students were divided into two groups based on their use of avoidance coping strategies (high-level group: high avoidance [HA]; low-group: low avoidance [LA]), and were assigned to two different conditions (exposure to thin body pictures, ET, and exposure to oversized body pictures, EO). Results showed that the HA group paid more attention to slim bodies and reported more negative emotions than the LA group, and that the EO had more negative effects than the ET. We suggest that HAs may attend more to slim bodies as a way of avoiding overweight bodies, influenced by social pressure, and in the search for a compensation of a positive emotional balance. However, attentional bias toward slim bodies can cause an upward comparison process, leading to increased body dissatisfaction, which is the main factor in the development of eating disorders (EDs). Therefore, altering avoidance coping strategies should be considered for people at risk of EDs.

Color dispersion and Milky-Way-like reddening among type Ia supernovae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scolnic, Daniel M.; Riess, Adam G.; Rodney, Steven A.; Brout, Dillon J.; Jones, David O.; Foley, Ryan J.; Rest, Armin

2014-01-01

Past analyses of Type Ia supernovae have identified an irreducible scatter of 5%-10% in distance, widely attributed to an intrinsic dispersion in luminosity. Another equally valid source of this scatter is intrinsic dispersion in color. Misidentification of the true source of this scatter can bias both the retrieved color-luminosity relation and cosmological parameter measurements. The size of this bias depends on the magnitude of the intrinsic color dispersion relative to the distribution of colors that correlate with distance. We produce a realistic simulation of a misattribution of intrinsic scatter and find a negative bias in the recovered color-luminosity relation, β, of Δβ ≈ –1.0 (∼33%) and a positive bias in the equation of state parameter, w, of Δw ≈ +0.04 (∼4%). We re-analyze current published datasets with the assumption that the distance scatter is predominantly the result of color. Unlike previous analyses, we find that the data are consistent with a Milky-Way-like reddening law (R V = 3.1) and that a Milky-Way dust model better predicts the asymmetric color-luminosity trends than the conventional luminosity scatter hypothesis. We also determine that accounting for color variation reduces the correlation between various host galaxy properties and Hubble residuals by ∼20%.

Investigation of effective thermal conductivity for pebble beds by one-way coupled CFD-DEM method for CFETR WCCB

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Lei [Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031 (China); University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027 (China); Chen, Youhua [University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027 (China); Huang, Kai [Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031 (China); Liu, Songlin, E-mail: slliu@ipp.ac.cn [Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031 (China); University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027 (China)

2016-05-15

Highlights: • A CFD-DEM coupled numerical model is built based on the prototypical blanket pebble bed. • The numerical model can be applied to simulate heat transfer of a pebble bed and estimate effective thermal conductivity. • The numerical model agrees well with the theoretical SZB model. • Effective thermal conductivity of pebble beds for WCCB is estimated by the current model. - Abstract: The mono-sized beryllium pebble bed and the multi-sized Li{sub 2}TiO{sub 3}/Be{sub 12}Ti mixed pebble bed are the main schemes for the Water-cooled ceramic breeder blanket (WCCB) of China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR). And the effective thermal conductivity (k{sub eff}) of the pebble beds is important to characterize the thermal performance of WCCB. In this study, a one-way coupled CFD-DEM method was employed to simulate heat transfer and estimate k{sub eff}. The geometric topology of a prototypical blanket pebble bed was produced by the discrete element method (DEM). Based on the geometric topology, the temperature distribution and the k{sub eff} were obtained by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The current numerical model presented a good performance to calculate k{sub eff} of the beryllium pebble bed, and according to the modeling of the Li{sub 2}TiO{sub 3}/Be{sub 12}Ti mixed pebble bed, k{sub eff} was estimated with values ranged between 2.0 and 4.0 W/(m∙K).

Efficient quantum circuits for one-way quantum computing.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanamoto, Tetsufumi; Liu, Yu-Xi; Hu, Xuedong; Nori, Franco

2009-03-13

While Ising-type interactions are ideal for implementing controlled phase flip gates in one-way quantum computing, natural interactions between solid-state qubits are most often described by either the XY or the Heisenberg models. We show an efficient way of generating cluster states directly using either the imaginary SWAP (iSWAP) gate for the XY model, or the sqrt[SWAP] gate for the Heisenberg model. Our approach thus makes one-way quantum computing more feasible for solid-state devices.

On the Clouds: A New Way of Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yan Han

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This article introduces cloud computing and discusses the author’s experience “on the clouds.” The author reviews cloud computing services and providers, then presents his experience of running multiple systems (e.g., integrated library systems, content management systems, and repository software. He evaluates costs, discusses advantages, and addresses some issues about cloud computing. Cloud computing fundamentally changes the ways institutions and companies manage their computing needs. Libraries can take advantage of cloud computing to start an IT project with low cost, to manage computing resources cost-effectively, and to explore new computing possibilities.

Constraining the Milky Way dark matter density profile with gamma-rays with Fermi-LAT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bernal, Nicolás; Palomares-Ruiz, Sergio

2012-01-01

We study the abilities of the Fermi-LAT instrument on board of the Fermi mission to simultaneously constrain the Milky Way dark matter density profile and some dark matter particle properties, as annihilation cross section, mass and branching ratio into dominant annihilation channels. A single dark matter density profile is commonly assumed to determine the capabilities of gamma-ray experiments to extract dark matter properties or to set limits on them. However, our knowledge of the Milky Way halo is far from perfect, and thus in general, the obtained results are too optimistic. Here, we study the effect these astrophysical uncertainties would have on the determination of dark matter particle properties and conversely, we show how gamma-ray searches could also be used to learn about the structure of the Milky Way halo, as a complementary tool to other type of observational data that study the gravitational effect caused by the presence of dark matter. In addition, we also show how these results would improve if external information on the annihilation cross section and on the local dark matter density were included and compare our results with the predictions from numerical simulations

The effect of internal and external stress on two-way shape-memory behaviour in Co49Ni21.6Ga29.4 single crystals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, G D; Dai, X F; Luo, H Z; Liu, H Y; Meng, F B; Li, Y; Yu, X; Chen, J L; Wu, G H

2011-01-01

The effect of the internal stress on the two-way shape memory in Co 49 Ni 21.6 Ga 29.4 single crystals has been investigated. We found that the internal stress generated natively by the solidifying process works as a tensile force along the growth direction. Applying different compressive pre-stresses along the [0 0 1] direction, the shape-memory strain can be continuously changed from +1.0% to -2.3%. In the [1 1 0] direction, the strain monotonically increases from -2.0% to -4.0% due to a strong detwinning produced by the consistent effect of the external and internal stresses.

Recognizing the Capability of National and Traditional Images in Identifying the Packaging of Products for Export (Case Study: Iranian Edible Export

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leila Minaei

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Identity is a complicated and significant issue in contemporary era in such a way that attention to its status forms the basis of the present study. One of the areas that can play o role in representing identity is relying on images used in packaging. Packaging is an applied art known as essential in contemporary societies and it is present everywhere. Packaging with national and traditional visual components is an important way to create and transfer identity. The necessity of this research is to reach patterns and theoretical viewpoints related to the concept of identity and to focus on recognizing its aspects through the images on the packaging of products for export. On this basis, the present study was conducted to recognize identifying elements used in the packaging of Iranian edible products for export. This basic research is descriptive-analytic in nature. Observation and combination were used for data gathering. Along the conducted study and based on the findings of the research, the results show that among all identity aspects in this research, by representation geography aspect, Persian language and writing, Iranian arts and historical aspect are respectively the most effective agents in identifying the packaging of Iranian products for export.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis of HIV: A right way to go or a long way to go?

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Wenya; Wang, Lu; Han, Na; Zhang, Xiayan; Mahapatra, Tanmay; Mahapatra, Sanchita; Babu, Giridhara R.; Tang, Weiming; Detels, Roger; Zhao, Jinkou

2014-01-01

Antiretroviral drugs are being tried as candidates for the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) against HIV for a considerable period, due to their potential for immediate inhibition of viral replication. Discrepancies in the findings called for a critical review of the relevant efforts and their outcomes. A systematic literature search identified 143 eligible articles of which only 5 reported complete findings while another 11 were still on-going. Observed moderate efficacy and good safety profile seemed to identify PrEP as a promising step for minimizing the spread of HIV to relatively unaffected population and controlling the epidemic among high risk population groups. But the duration of this efficacy was found to depend heavily on the availability, adherence and other related issues like cost, political commitment, ethical consideration etc. To prevent potential cultural and behavioral modifications, proper pre-administration counseling also seemed critical for the success of PrEP as a cost-effective intervention with adequate coverage. PMID:25078629

Identifying MMORPG Bots: A Traffic Analysis Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Kuan-Ta; Jiang, Jhih-Wei; Huang, Polly; Chu, Hao-Hua; Lei, Chin-Laung; Chen, Wen-Chin

2008-12-01

Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) have become extremely popular among network gamers. Despite their success, one of MMORPG's greatest challenges is the increasing use of game bots, that is, autoplaying game clients. The use of game bots is considered unsportsmanlike and is therefore forbidden. To keep games in order, game police, played by actual human players, often patrol game zones and question suspicious players. This practice, however, is labor-intensive and ineffective. To address this problem, we analyze the traffic generated by human players versus game bots and propose general solutions to identify game bots. Taking Ragnarok Online as our subject, we study the traffic generated by human players and game bots. We find that their traffic is distinguishable by 1) the regularity in the release time of client commands, 2) the trend and magnitude of traffic burstiness in multiple time scales, and 3) the sensitivity to different network conditions. Based on these findings, we propose four strategies and two ensemble schemes to identify bots. Finally, we discuss the robustness of the proposed methods against countermeasures of bot developers, and consider a number of possible ways to manage the increasingly serious bot problem.

Identifying MMORPG Bots: A Traffic Analysis Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wen-Chin Chen

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs have become extremely popular among network gamers. Despite their success, one of MMORPG's greatest challenges is the increasing use of game bots, that is, autoplaying game clients. The use of game bots is considered unsportsmanlike and is therefore forbidden. To keep games in order, game police, played by actual human players, often patrol game zones and question suspicious players. This practice, however, is labor-intensive and ineffective. To address this problem, we analyze the traffic generated by human players versus game bots and propose general solutions to identify game bots. Taking Ragnarok Online as our subject, we study the traffic generated by human players and game bots. We find that their traffic is distinguishable by 1 the regularity in the release time of client commands, 2 the trend and magnitude of traffic burstiness in multiple time scales, and 3 the sensitivity to different network conditions. Based on these findings, we propose four strategies and two ensemble schemes to identify bots. Finally, we discuss the robustness of the proposed methods against countermeasures of bot developers, and consider a number of possible ways to manage the increasingly serious bot problem.

Impression Management in the Job Interview: An Effective Way of Mitigating Discrimination against Older Applicants?

Science.gov (United States)

Gioaba, Irina; Krings, Franciska

2017-01-01

The increasingly aging population in most industrialized societies, coupled with the rather age-diverse current workforce makes discrimination against older employees a prevalent issue, especially in employment contexts. This renders research on ways for reducing this type of discrimination a particularly pressing concern. Drawing on theories of social identity and impression management, our research examines the role of impression management, aimed at refuting common older worker stereotypes, in diminishing bias against older job applicants during the job interview. The study consisted in an experimental hiring simulation conducted on a sample of 515 undergraduate students. Results show that older applicants who used impression management to contradict common older worker stereotypes were perceived as more hirable than those who did not. However, despite this positive effect, discrimination persisted: older applicants were consistently rated as less hirable than their younger counterparts when displaying the same IM behavior. Taken together, this research demonstrates that older job seekers can indeed ameliorate biased interview outcomes by engaging in impression management targeting common age stereotypes; however, it also shows that this strategy is insufficient for overcoming age discrimination entirely. The current study has important implications for theory, by expanding research on the use of impression management in mitigating age discrimination, as well as for practice, by offering older employees a hands-on strategy to reduce bias and stereotyping against them.

Impression Management in the Job Interview: An Effective Way of Mitigating Discrimination against Older Applicants?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irina Gioaba

2017-05-01

Full Text Available The increasingly aging population in most industrialized societies, coupled with the rather age-diverse current workforce makes discrimination against older employees a prevalent issue, especially in employment contexts. This renders research on ways for reducing this type of discrimination a particularly pressing concern. Drawing on theories of social identity and impression management, our research examines the role of impression management, aimed at refuting common older worker stereotypes, in diminishing bias against older job applicants during the job interview. The study consisted in an experimental hiring simulation conducted on a sample of 515 undergraduate students. Results show that older applicants who used impression management to contradict common older worker stereotypes were perceived as more hirable than those who did not. However, despite this positive effect, discrimination persisted: older applicants were consistently rated as less hirable than their younger counterparts when displaying the same IM behavior. Taken together, this research demonstrates that older job seekers can indeed ameliorate biased interview outcomes by engaging in impression management targeting common age stereotypes; however, it also shows that this strategy is insufficient for overcoming age discrimination entirely. The current study has important implications for theory, by expanding research on the use of impression management in mitigating age discrimination, as well as for practice, by offering older employees a hands-on strategy to reduce bias and stereotyping against them.

SmartWay Featured Partner: Walmart

Science.gov (United States)

This EPA fact sheet spotlights Walmart as a SmartWay partner and their commitment to increase its’ transportation efficiency and safety; thereby reducing fuel and emissions, minimizing its environmental impact. (EPA publication # EPA-420-F-16-042)

Identifying the effects of parameter uncertainty on the reliability of riverbank stability modelling

Science.gov (United States)

Samadi, A.; Amiri-Tokaldany, E.; Darby, S. E.

2009-05-01

Bank retreat is a key process in fluvial dynamics affecting a wide range of physical, ecological and socioeconomic issues in the fluvial environment. To predict the undesirable effects of bank retreat and to inform effective measures to prevent it, a wide range of bank stability models have been presented in the literature. These models typically express bank stability by defining a factor of safety as the ratio of driving and resisting forces acting on the incipient failure block. These forces are affected by a range of controlling factors that include such aspects as the bank profile (bank height and angle), the geotechnical properties of the bank materials, as well as the hydrological status of the riverbanks. In this paper we evaluate the extent to which uncertainties in the parameterization of these controlling factors feed through to influence the reliability of the resulting bank stability estimate. This is achieved by employing a simple model of riverbank stability with respect to planar failure (which is the most common type of bank stability model) in a series of sensitivity tests and Monte Carlo analyses to identify, for each model parameter, the range of values that induce significant changes in the simulated factor of safety. These identified parameter value ranges are compared to empirically derived parameter uncertainties to determine whether they are likely to confound the reliability of the resulting bank stability calculations. Our results show that parameter uncertainties are typically high enough that the likelihood of generating unreliable predictions is typically very high (> ˜ 80% for predictions requiring a precision of < ± 15%). Because parameter uncertainties are derived primarily from the natural variability of the parameters, rather than measurement errors, much more careful attention should be paid to field sampling strategies, such that the parameter uncertainties and consequent prediction unreliabilities can be quantified more

CROWDFUNDING AS A WAY OF FINANCING START-UPS IN POLAND

OpenAIRE

Niznik-Klocek, Monika

2012-01-01

There is a capital gap existing in Poland which particularly affects the limited opportunities for establishment and development of new ventures. The relatively fresh concept of crowdfunding could be a solution to this problem. The purpose of the thesis was to contribute to the scarce literature on crowdfunding in Poland. The main objective of the research was the creation of some suggestions for Polish start-ups on how to use crowdfunding in the most effective way. Firstly, the literatur...

ROTATION OF THE MILKY WAY AND THE FORMATION OF THE MAGELLANIC STREAM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ruzicka, Adam; Theis, Christian; Palous, Jan

2010-01-01

We studied the impact of the revisited values for the local standard of rest (LSR) circular velocity of the Milky Way on the formation of the Magellanic Stream. The LSR circular velocity was varied within its observational uncertainties as a free parameter of the interaction between the Large (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC) and the Galaxy. We have shown that the large-scale morphology and kinematics of the Magellanic Stream may be reproduced as tidal features, assuming the recent values of the proper motions of the Magellanic Clouds. Automated exploration of the entire parameter space for the interaction was performed to identify all parameter combinations that allow for modeling the Magellanic Stream. Satisfactory models exist for the dynamical mass of the Milky Way within a wide range of 0.6 x 10 12 -3.0 x 10 12 M sun and over the entire 1σ errors of the proper motions of the Clouds. However, the successful models share a common interaction scenario. The Magellanic Clouds are satellites of the Milky Way, and in all cases two close LMC-SMC encounters occurred within the last 4 Gyr at t < -2.5 Gyr and t ∼ -150 Myr, triggering the formation of the Stream and of the Magellanic Bridge, respectively. The latter encounter is encoded in the observed proper motions and inevitable in any model of the interaction. We conclude that the tidal origin of the Magellanic Stream implies the previously introduced LMC/SMC orbital history, unless the parameters of the interaction are revised substantially.

On the identifiability of inertia parameters of planar Multi-Body Space Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Nabavi-Chashmi, Seyed Yaser; Malaek, Seyed Mohammad-Bagher

2018-04-01

This work describes a new formulation to study the identifiability characteristics of Serially Linked Multi-body Space Systems (SLMBSS). The process exploits the so called "Lagrange Formulation" to develop a linear form of Equations of Motion w.r.t the system Inertia Parameters (IPs). Having developed a specific form of regressor matrix, we aim to expedite the identification process. The new approach allows analytical as well as numerical identification and identifiability analysis for different SLMBSSs' configurations. Moreover, the explicit forms of SLMBSSs identifiable parameters are derived by analyzing the identifiability characteristics of the robot. We further show that any SLMBSS designed with Variable Configurations Joint allows all IPs to be identifiable through comparing two successive identification outcomes. This feature paves the way to design new class of SLMBSS for which accurate identification of all IPs is at hand. Different case studies reveal that proposed formulation provides fast and accurate results, as required by the space applications. Further studies might be necessary for cases where planar-body assumption becomes inaccurate.

Shape Optimization of Three-Way Reversing Valve for Cavitation Reduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Myeong Gon; Han, Seung Ho; Lim, Cha Suk

2015-01-01

A pair of two-way valves typically is used in automotive washing machines, where the water flow direction is frequently reversed and highly pressurized clean water is sprayed to remove the oil and dirt remaining on machined engine and transmission blocks. Although this valve system has been widely used because of its competitive price, its application is sometimes restricted by surging effects, such as pressure ripples occurring in rapid changes in water flow caused by inaccurate valve control. As an alternative, one three-way reversing valve can replace the valve system because it provides rapid and accurate changes to the water flow direction without any precise control device. However, a cavitation effect occurs because of the complicated bottom plug shape of the valve. In this study, the cavitation index and percent of cavitation (POC) were introduced to numerically evaluate fluid flows via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. To reduce the cavitation effect generated by the bottom plug, the optimal shape design was carried out through a parametric study, in which a simple computer-aided engineering (CAE) model was applied to avoid time consuming CFD analysis and difficulties in achieving convergence. The optimal shape design process using full factorial design of experiments (DOEs) and an artificial neural network meta-model yielded the optimal waist and tail length of the bottom plug with a POC value of less than 30%, which meets the requirement of no cavitation occurrence. The optimal waist length, tail length and POC value were found to 6.42 mm, 6.96 mm and 27%, respectively

Shape optimization of three-way reversing valve for cavitation reduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Myeong Gon; Han, Seung Ho; Lim, Cha Suk

2015-01-01

A pair of two-way valves typically is used in automotive washing machines, where the water flow direction is frequently reversed and highly pressurized clean water is sprayed to remove the oil and dirt remaining on machined engine and transmission blocks. Although this valve system has been widely used because of its competitive price, its application is sometimes restricted by surging effects, such as pressure ripples occurring in rapid changes in water flow caused by inaccurate valve control. As an alternative, one three-way reversing valve can replace the valve system because it provides rapid and accurate changes to the water flow direction without any precise control device. However, a cavitation effect occurs because of the complicated bottom plug shape of the valve. In this study, the cavitation index and percent of cavitation (POC) were introduced to numerically evaluate fluid flows via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. To reduce the cavitation effect generated by the bottom plug, the optimal shape design was carried out through a parametric study, in which a simple computer-aided engineering (CAE) model was applied to avoid time-consuming CFD analysis and difficulties in achieving convergence. The optimal shape design process using full factorial design of experiments (DOEs) and an artificial neural network meta-model yielded the optimal waist and tail length of the bottom plug with a POC value of less than 30%, which meets the requirement of no cavitation occurrence. The optimal waist length, tail length and POC value were found to 6.42 mm, 6.96 mm and 27%, respectively

Shape Optimization of Three-Way Reversing Valve for Cavitation Reduction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Myeong Gon; Han, Seung Ho [Donga Univ., Busan (Korea, Republic of); Lim, Cha Suk [Baek San Hi-Tech Co., Ltd., Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2015-11-15

A pair of two-way valves typically is used in automotive washing machines, where the water flow direction is frequently reversed and highly pressurized clean water is sprayed to remove the oil and dirt remaining on machined engine and transmission blocks. Although this valve system has been widely used because of its competitive price, its application is sometimes restricted by surging effects, such as pressure ripples occurring in rapid changes in water flow caused by inaccurate valve control. As an alternative, one three-way reversing valve can replace the valve system because it provides rapid and accurate changes to the water flow direction without any precise control device. However, a cavitation effect occurs because of the complicated bottom plug shape of the valve. In this study, the cavitation index and percent of cavitation (POC) were introduced to numerically evaluate fluid flows via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. To reduce the cavitation effect generated by the bottom plug, the optimal shape design was carried out through a parametric study, in which a simple computer-aided engineering (CAE) model was applied to avoid time consuming CFD analysis and difficulties in achieving convergence. The optimal shape design process using full factorial design of experiments (DOEs) and an artificial neural network meta-model yielded the optimal waist and tail length of the bottom plug with a POC value of less than 30%, which meets the requirement of no cavitation occurrence. The optimal waist length, tail length and POC value were found to 6.42 mm, 6.96 mm and 27%, respectively.

Shape optimization of three-way reversing valve for cavitation reduction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Myeong Gon; Han, Seung Ho [Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Dong-A University, Busan (Korea, Republic of); Lim, Cha Suk [Baek San Hi-Tech Co., Ltd., Yangsan(Korea, Republic of)

2015-11-15

A pair of two-way valves typically is used in automotive washing machines, where the water flow direction is frequently reversed and highly pressurized clean water is sprayed to remove the oil and dirt remaining on machined engine and transmission blocks. Although this valve system has been widely used because of its competitive price, its application is sometimes restricted by surging effects, such as pressure ripples occurring in rapid changes in water flow caused by inaccurate valve control. As an alternative, one three-way reversing valve can replace the valve system because it provides rapid and accurate changes to the water flow direction without any precise control device. However, a cavitation effect occurs because of the complicated bottom plug shape of the valve. In this study, the cavitation index and percent of cavitation (POC) were introduced to numerically evaluate fluid flows via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. To reduce the cavitation effect generated by the bottom plug, the optimal shape design was carried out through a parametric study, in which a simple computer-aided engineering (CAE) model was applied to avoid time-consuming CFD analysis and difficulties in achieving convergence. The optimal shape design process using full factorial design of experiments (DOEs) and an artificial neural network meta-model yielded the optimal waist and tail length of the bottom plug with a POC value of less than 30%, which meets the requirement of no cavitation occurrence. The optimal waist length, tail length and POC value were found to 6.42 mm, 6.96 mm and 27%, respectively.

Impression Management in the Job Interview: An Effective Way of Mitigating Discrimination against Older Applicants?

OpenAIRE

Gioaba, Irina; Krings, Franciska

2017-01-01

The increasingly aging population in most industrialized societies, coupled with the rather age-diverse current workforce makes discrimination against older employees a prevalent issue, especially in employment contexts. This renders research on ways for reducing this type of discrimination a particularly pressing concern. Drawing on theories of social identity and impression management, our research examines the role of impression management, aimed at refuting common older worker stereotypes...

Redesigning the Way We Listen

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Søndergaard, Morten

2014-01-01

This paper is based on a research project-in-progress investigating curatorial practice as methodology for creating responsive interfaces to sound art practices. Sound art is a transdisciplinary practice. As such, it creates new domains that may be used for redesign-purposes. Not only do experien......This paper is based on a research project-in-progress investigating curatorial practice as methodology for creating responsive interfaces to sound art practices. Sound art is a transdisciplinary practice. As such, it creates new domains that may be used for redesign-purposes. Not only do...... experiences of sound alter; the way we listen to sound is transforming as well. Thus, the paper analyses and discusses two responsive sound interfaces and claim that curating as a transdisciplinary practice may frame what is termed in the paper as a domain-game redesigning the way the audience listens...

A New Way to Confirm Planet Candidates

Science.gov (United States)

Kohler, Susanna

2016-05-01

What was the big deal behind the Kepler news conference yesterday? Its not just that the number of confirmed planets found by Kepler has more than doubled (though thats certainly exciting news!). Whats especially interesting is the way in which these new planets were confirmed.Number of planet discoveries by year since 1995, including previous non-Kepler discoveries (blue), previous Kepler discoveries (light blue) and the newly validated Kepler planets (orange). [NASA Ames/W. Stenzel; Princeton University/T. Morton]No Need for Follow-UpBefore Kepler, the way we confirmed planet candidates was with follow-up observations. The candidate could be validated either by directly imaging (which is rare) or obtaining a large number radial-velocity measurements of the wobble of the planets host star due to the planets orbit. But once Kepler started producing planet candidates, these approaches to validation became less feasible. A lot of Kepler candidates are small and orbit faint stars, making follow-up observations difficult or impossible.This problem is what inspired the development of whats known as probabilistic validation, an analysis technique that involves assessing the likelihood that the candidates signal is caused by various false-positive scenarios. Using this technique allows astronomers to estimate the likelihood of a candidate signal being a true planet detection; if that likelihood is high enough, the planet candidate can be confirmed without the need for follow-up observations.A breakdown of the catalog of Kepler Objects of Interest. Just over half had previously been identified as false positives or confirmed as candidates. 1284 are newly validated, and another 455 have FPP of1090%. [Morton et al. 2016]Probabilistic validation has been used in the past to confirm individual planet candidates in Kepler data, but now Timothy Morton (Princeton University) and collaborators have taken this to a new level: they developed the first code thats designed to do fully

Hybrid OA – a way to go?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nol (Arnold Verhagen

2013-03-01

Full Text Available After publication of the report of the ‘Finch’ committee, publishers suddenly seem to recognize the potential of open access (OA as a viable business model for scholarly publishing and wish to promote ‘hybrid OA’ as a means to get from A to B. This article explores the potentially disruptive financial effects of hybrid OA, especially for research-intensive universities. Starting from the assumption that OA will lead to higher costs of dissemination for higher education (HE anyway, the author indicates two possible ways to get round the financials cliffs between toll access and open access. In both cases, it is necessary to construct a financial communication channel between costs of subscriptions and costs of article processing charges (APCs on the level of the individual university and/or the consortium.

LISA Sources in Milky Way Globular Clusters

Science.gov (United States)

Kremer, Kyle; Chatterjee, Sourav; Breivik, Katelyn; Rodriguez, Carl L.; Larson, Shane L.; Rasio, Frederic A.

2018-05-01

We explore the formation of double-compact-object binaries in Milky Way (MW) globular clusters (GCs) that may be detectable by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). We use a set of 137 fully evolved GC models that, overall, effectively match the properties of the observed GCs in the MW. We estimate that, in total, the MW GCs contain ˜21 sources that will be detectable by LISA. These detectable sources contain all combinations of black hole (BH), neutron star, and white dwarf components. We predict ˜7 of these sources will be BH-BH binaries. Furthermore, we show that some of these BH-BH binaries can have signal-to-noise ratios large enough to be detectable at the distance of the Andromeda galaxy or even the Virgo cluster.

Neocatastrophism and the milky way astrobiological landscape

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vukotić B.

2008-01-01

Full Text Available The number and distribution of habitable planets in the Milky Way is one of the foremost problems of contemporary astrobiological research. We investigate the effects of applying general neocatastrophic paradigm to the evolution of the Galactic Habitable Zone. In this paper, we investigate the limits of simple, 1-dimensional astrobiological models, and consider the role of regulation mechanisms in shapening the 'astrobiological landscape'. We show that the transition from predominantly gradualist to predominantly (neocatastrophist history of our Galaxy leads to the build-up of large-scale correlations between habitable sites, offering possible keys to such important problems as Carter's 'anthropic' argument and Fermi's paradox. In addition, we consider the possibilities for extending the present class of models into spatially realistic 3-dimensional case via probabilistic cellular automata.

Neocatastrophism and the Milky Way Astrobiological Landscape

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vukotić, B.

2008-06-01

Full Text Available The number and distribution of habitable planets in the Milky Way is one of the foremost problems of contemporary astrobiological research. We investigate the effects of applying general neocatastrophic paradigm to the evolution of the Galactic Habitable Zone. In this paper, we investigate the limits of simple, 1-dimensional astrobiological models, and consider the role of regulation mechanisms in shapening the "astrobiological landscape". We show that the transition from predominantly gradualist to predominantly (neocatastrophist history of our Galaxy leads to the build-up of large-scale correlations between habitable sites, offering possible keys to such important problems as Carter's "anthropic" argument and Fermi's paradox. In addition, we consider the possibilities for extending the present class of models into spatially realistic 3-dimensional case via probabilistic cellular automata.

Merging electricity and environment politics of Hong Kong: Identifying the barriers from the ways that sustainability is defined

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lo, Alex Y.H.

2008-01-01

The present paper presents a study of the electricity policy of Hong Kong in an environmental-political context. Through a critical review of the policy structure and rationale, it identifies the barriers to developing a truly sustainable electricity policy system and is expected to shed light on the forthcoming electricity market reform in the territory. The barriers stem from the path-dependent institutional set-ups that restrict a timely transformation of the roles of the actors. And this is coupled with the government's treatment that does not look beyond these structural constraints, overly appreciating scientific and economic rationalities than communicative actions. The author is of the view that these are intensified by the sharp changes in the local political economy. Positive signs of change are dampened by the minimal progress in democratic development in the near future and the extension of the power companies' monopolist status that will ruin the 'trust' between the stakeholders compounding the guilt of those rigid regulatory constraints

Identifying treatment effect heterogeneity in clinical trials using subpopulations of events: STEPP.

Science.gov (United States)

Lazar, Ann A; Bonetti, Marco; Cole, Bernard F; Yip, Wai-Ki; Gelber, Richard D

2016-04-01

Investigators conducting randomized clinical trials often explore treatment effect heterogeneity to assess whether treatment efficacy varies according to patient characteristics. Identifying heterogeneity is central to making informed personalized healthcare decisions. Treatment effect heterogeneity can be investigated using subpopulation treatment effect pattern plot (STEPP), a non-parametric graphical approach that constructs overlapping patient subpopulations with varying values of a characteristic. Procedures for statistical testing using subpopulation treatment effect pattern plot when the endpoint of interest is survival remain an area of active investigation. A STEPP analysis was used to explore patterns of absolute and relative treatment effects for varying levels of a breast cancer biomarker, Ki-67, in the phase III Breast International Group 1-98 randomized clinical trial, comparing letrozole to tamoxifen as adjuvant therapy for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Absolute treatment effects were measured by differences in 4-year cumulative incidence of breast cancer recurrence, while relative effects were measured by the subdistribution hazard ratio in the presence of competing risks using O-E (observed-minus-expected) methodology, an intuitive non-parametric method. While estimation of hazard ratio values based on O-E methodology has been shown, a similar development for the subdistribution hazard ratio has not. Furthermore, we observed that the subpopulation treatment effect pattern plot analysis may not produce results, even with 100 patients within each subpopulation. After further investigation through simulation studies, we observed inflation of the type I error rate of the traditional test statistic and sometimes singular variance-covariance matrix estimates that may lead to results not being produced. This is due to the lack of sufficient number of events within the subpopulations, which we refer to as instability of

10 Ways to Identify Hearing Loss | NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine

Science.gov (United States)

... Does a hearing problem cause you difficulty when listening to TV or radio? Do you feel that any difficulty with your hearing limits or hampers your personal or social life? Does a hearing problem cause you difficulty ...

An effective automatic procedure for testing parameter identifiability of HIV/AIDS models.

Science.gov (United States)

Saccomani, Maria Pia

2011-08-01

Realistic HIV models tend to be rather complex and many recent models proposed in the literature could not yet be analyzed by traditional identifiability testing techniques. In this paper, we check a priori global identifiability of some of these nonlinear HIV models taken from the recent literature, by using a differential algebra algorithm based on previous work of the author. The algorithm is implemented in a software tool, called DAISY (Differential Algebra for Identifiability of SYstems), which has been recently released (DAISY is freely available on the web site http://www.dei.unipd.it/~pia/ ). The software can be used to automatically check global identifiability of (linear and) nonlinear models described by polynomial or rational differential equations, thus providing a general and reliable tool to test global identifiability of several HIV models proposed in the literature. It can be used by researchers with a minimum of mathematical background.

THE BINARITY OF MILKY WAY F,G,K STARS AS A FUNCTION OF EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE AND METALLICITY

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gao, Shuang; Liu, Chao; Zhang, Xiaobin; Justham, Stephen; Deng, Licai; Yang, Ming [Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012 (China)

2014-06-20

We estimate the fraction of F,G,K stars with close binary companions by analysing multi-epoch stellar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and LAMOST for radial velocity variations. We employ a Bayesian method to infer the maximum likelihood of the fraction of binary stars with orbital periods of 1000 days or shorter, assuming a simple model distribution for a binary population with circular orbits. The overall inferred fraction of stars with such a close binary companion is 43.0% ± 2.0% for a sample of F,G,K stars from SDSS SEGUE, and 30% ± 8.0% in a similar sample from LAMOST. The apparent close binary fraction decreases with the stellar effective temperature. We divide the SEGUE and LEGUE data into three subsamples with different metallicity ([Fe/H] < –1.1; –1.1 < [Fe/H] < –0.6; –0.6 < [Fe/H]), for which the inferred close binary fractions are 56 ± 5.0%, 56.0 ± 3%, and 30 ± 5.7%. The metal-rich stars from our sample are therefore substantially less likely to possess a close binary companion than otherwise similar stars drawn from metal-poor populations. The different ages and formation environments of the Milky Way's thin disk, thick disk, and halo may contribute to explaining these observations. Alternatively, metallicity may have a significant effect on the formation and/or evolution of binary stars.

Effects of new ways of working on work hours and work location, health and job-related outcomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Nijp, Hylco H; Beckers, Debby G J; van de Voorde, Karina; Geurts, Sabine A E; Kompier, Michiel A J

2016-01-01

New ways of working (NWW) is a type of work organization that is characterized by temporal and spatial flexibility, often combined with extensive use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and performance-based management. In a three-wave intervention study, we examined the effects of NWW on both the organization of work (changes in control over time and place of work; working hours and work location; and other key job characteristics), and on employees' outcomes (work-nonwork balance; health and well-being; and job-related outcomes). We applied a quasi-experimental design within a large Dutch financial company (N = 2,912). We studied an intervention group (n = 2,391) and made comparisons with a reference group (n = 521). There were three study waves: (i) one/two months before, and (ii) 4 months and (iii) 10 months after implementation of NWW. Repeated measures analyses of covariance (involving 361 participants from the intervention group and 80 participants from the reference group) showed a large and significant shift from hours worked at the office to hours worked at home after implementation of NWW. Accordingly, commuting time was reduced. Employees remained working on week days and during day time. Psychosocial work-characteristics, work-nonwork balance, stress, fatigue, and job-related outcomes remained favourable and largely unaffected, but the health score in the intervention group decreased (medium effect). These findings suggest that the implementation of NWW does not necessarily lead to changes in psychosocial work characteristics, well-being or job-related outcomes.

Interactive Two-Way mHealth Interventions for Improving Medication Adherence: An Evaluation Using The Behaviour Change Wheel Framework.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiang, Nicole; Guo, Michael; Amico, K Rivet; Atkins, Lou; Lester, Richard T

2018-04-12

evaluation of WelTel using the Behavior Change Wheel suggests that most of its impact is delivered primarily through its personalized communication component, in which 8 different behavior change techniques were identified and linked with 5 intervention functions (environmental restructuring, enablement, education, persuasion, and training). Its mechanisms of action in promoting antiretroviral therapy adherence may involve addressing all Capability Opportunity Motivation-Behavior influences on behavior (physical and psychological capability, physical and social opportunity, reflective and automatic motivation). Systematically unpacking the potential active ingredients of effective interventions facilitates the creation and implementation of more parsimonious, tailored, and targeted approaches. Evaluating WelTel using the Behavior Change Wheel has provided valuable insights into how and why such interactive two-way mHealth interventions may produce greater impact than one-way in addressing both nonintentional and intentional forms of nonadherence. The application of the Behavior Change Wheel for evidence synthesis across mHealth interventions targeting various conditions would contribute to strengthening the knowledge base regarding how they may work to impact medication adherence behavior. ©Nicole Chiang, Michael Guo, K Rivet Amico, Lou Atkins, Richard T Lester. Originally published in JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 12.04.2018.

‘One Way to Holland’

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marselis, Randi; Schütze, Laura Maria

2013-01-01

museums, but is also relevant to ongoing collection practices. An important theme in relation to source communities is ownership and repatriation of cultural objects. Furthermore, working with source communities implies a two-way information process through which groups are given access to memory...

A systems change: leading the way to meeting health needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Deisher, Mirella

2013-01-01

Demonstrating the efficacy of our practice requires a paradigm shift. Becoming an effective leader and clinician can facilitate opportunities for program development and clinical research. The use of strategic planning strategies, such as needs assessment and SWOT analysis, can help lead the way to such change. The following illustrates the use of strategic planning to develop The Carpal and Cubital Tunnel Syndrome Program (CCTSP) within a growing orthopedic practice. Copyright © 2013 Hanley & Belfus. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Identifying the mechanism : is there a bank lending channel of monetary transmission in the Netherlands?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kakes, J

The paper investigates the role of bank lending in the monetary transmission process in the Netherlands. The Johansen approach is used to identify supply and demand relationships in the credit market, and it is concluded from the short-run dynamics that this market is demand-determined. In this way,

Reggio Emilia: New Ways To Think About Schooling.

Science.gov (United States)

New, Rebecca S.

2003-01-01

The Reggio Emilia approach to education reveals new ways for promoting children's academic learning; offers documentation as a tool for studying, sharing, and planning children's education experiences; and provokes a new way to think about the role of the teacher. (Contains 17 references.) (MLF)

Investigation of gamma-ray fingerprint identifying mechanism for the types of radiation sources

CERN Document Server

Liu Su Ping; Gu Dang Chang; Gong-Jian; Hao Fan Hua; Hu Guang Chun

2002-01-01

Radiation fingerprints sometimes can be used to label and identify the radiation resources. For instance, in a future nuclear reduction treaty that requires verification of irreversible dismantling of reduced nuclear warheads, the radiation fingerprints of nuclear warheads are expected to play a key role in labelling and identifying the reduced warheads. It would promote the development of nuclear warheads deep-cuts verification technologies if authors start right now some investigations on the issues related to the radiation fingerprints. The author dedicated to the investigation of gamma-ray fingerprint identifying mechanism for the types of radiation resources. The purpose of the identifying mechanism investigation is to find a credible way to tell whether any two gamma-ray spectral fingerprints that are under comparison are radiated from the same resource. The authors created the spectrum pattern comparison (SPC) to study the comparability of the two radiation fingerprints. Guided by the principle of SPC,...

Women scientists' scientific and spiritual ways of knowing

Science.gov (United States)

Buffington, Angela Cunningham

While science education aims for literacy regarding scientific knowledge and the work of scientists, the separation of scientific knowing from other knowing may misrepresent the knowing of scientists. The majority of science educators K-university are women. Many of these women are spiritual and integrate their scientific and spiritual ways of knowing. Understanding spiritual women of science would inform science education and serve to advance the scientific reason and spirituality debate. Using interviews and grounded theory, this study explores scientific and spiritual ways of knowing in six women of science who hold strong spiritual commitments and portray science to non-scientists. From various lived experiences, each woman comes to know through a Passive knowing of exposure and attendance, an Engaged knowing of choice, commitment and action, an Mindful/Inner knowing of prayer and meaning, a Relational knowing with others, and an Integrated lifeworld knowing where scientific knowing, spiritual knowing, and other ways of knowing are integrated. Consequences of separating ways of knowing are discussed, as are connections to current research, implications to science education, and ideas for future research. Understanding women scientists' scientific/ spiritual ways of knowing may aid science educators in linking academic science to the life-worlds of students.

Ways of art appropriation by the advertising

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roberta Fernandes Esteves

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Based on the different ways of appropriation of the artistic visualrepresentations by the advertising communication, proposed by Lucia Santaella (2005 – imitation of the ways of composing and incorporation of the artistic image – this article presents, as of the examination of advertisements broadcast in different countries, seven new categories outlined on the basis of partial or total use of the appropriated image and the interference performed in them.

Outage Analysis and Optimization of SWIPT in Network-Coded Two-Way Relay Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ruihong Jiang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the outage performance of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT in network-coded two-way relay systems, where a relay first harvests energy from the signals transmitted by two sources and then uses the harvested energy to forward the received information to the two sources. We consider two transmission protocols, power splitting two-way relay (PS-TWR and time switching two-way relay (TS-TWR protocols. We present two explicit expressions for the system outage probability of the two protocols and further derive approximate expressions for them in high and low SNR cases. To explore the system performance limits, two optimization problems are formulated to minimize the system outage probability. Since the problems are nonconvex and have no known solution methods, a genetic algorithm- (GA- based algorithm is designed. Numerical and simulation results validate our theoretical analysis. It is shown that, by jointly optimizing the time assignment and SWIPT receiver parameters, a great performance gain can be achieved for both PS-TWR and TS-TWR. Moreover, the optimized PS-TWR always outperforms the optimized TS-TWR in terms of outage performance. Additionally, the effects of parameters including relay location and transmit powers are also discussed, which provide some insights for the SWIPT-enabled two-way relay networks.

Interactive Ways of Becoming a Specialist Fine Art of the Ukrainian Danube Region

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivan Pastyr

2016-08-01

Full Text Available In modern conditions the method of education is especially effective if it is built on the intensification of mental activity and is aimed at developing a creative personality. The study presents a system of interactive ways of becoming a specialist in Izmail State Liberal Arts University.

Ways of improving the quality of planning radiotherapy with modulated intensity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khvorostenko, M.I.; Kikhtenko, I.N.; Khvorostenko, Yu.M.; Volokitin, S.V.; Sklyar, N.V.

2017-01-01

3D planning standards do not exclude the presence of sections of the tumor with absorbed dose less than planned, which is considered as a prerequisite for relapse. To improve radiation therapy outcomes in cancer patients through the enhancing (intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) radiation planning quality, identifying areas of the tumor with minimal optical density exposed to lower absorbed dose in comparison with the planned one and assessment of the ways to eliminate it. Due to identified locations with a minimum optical density and the absorbed dose lower than the planned one, the ''resale'' was carried out. It was aimed to achieve the values recorded in the plan. The percentage of coverage isodose GTV and PTV was increased; on the area, where the total focal dose was lower than the planned, the dose absorbed was increased in comparison with the recorded one. Assessment of the tumor areas with minimal optical density makes it possible to detect areas with likely lower value of the total focal dose in comparison with the target on; correction of the total focal dose in these areas will improve the quality of radiation therapy.

DESIGNERLY WAYS TO THEORETICAL INSIGHT

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bang, Anne Louise; Gelting, Anne Katrine Gøtzsche; Friis, Silje Alberthe Kamille

2014-01-01

visualisation exercise. In addition, theories for how to understand designerly ways of knowing and constructing knowledge have been applied as tools to think with in the discussion. The educational approach where design students read, analyse, and visualise theory, appears to be beneficial to the students...

DETERMINING AND VERIFYING THE GEOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF HELICAL GROOVES IN THE WORM IN PLANETARY TOROIDAL DRIVES IN A MORE EFFECTIVE WAY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jarmila VOJTKOVÁ

2017-09-01

Full Text Available In the toroidal drive, a screw-shaped groove is cut into the globoid worm. There is contact with the rolling element in this groove. This helix can be described by parametric equations. When calculating the values of the first and second curvature of the curve, as well as the radius of curvature, we must calculate the individual derivations. A new, more effective way is to determine the values already mentioned by using NX software only. When using Siemens PLM NX software, it is not necessary to determine individual derivations and their values, although the NX software determines the radii of the first and second curvature, based on the defined helix curve.

Ecosystem Biomimicry: A way to achieve thermal comfort in architecture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Abaeian

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The strategies to reduce the consumption of non-renewable energies in buildings are becoming increasingly important. In the meantime, nature-inspired approaches have emerged as a new strategy to achieve thermal comfort in the interiors. However, the use of these approaches in architecture and buildings requires a proper understanding regarding the features of ecosystems. Although acquiring this knowledge requires a high degree of familiarity with the fields such as biology and environmental science, review of achievements made by the use of these features could facilitate the understanding of ecomimicry processes and thereby contribute to environmental sustainability in buildings. In other words, this paper concerns the relationship between these features and the thermal comfort inside the building. Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. The objective of this paper is to use such review to provide an approach to the use of natural features for achieving thermal comfort in the buildings of hot and dry climates. In this review, the successful examples are analyzed to identify and examine the principles that influence the thermal comfort in both building and urban levels. The results show that the three elements of water, wind, sun are the effective natural resources that must be utilized in the design in a way proportional and consistent with the natural features. In addition, functional features of ecosystem can be of value only in the presence of a processual  relationship between them.

Give me five! – reasons for two-way communication between experts and citizens in relation to air pollution risk

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Loroño-Leturiondo

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Air pollution is a major environmental concern for many populations worldwide. Communication efforts so far have been based on a one-way provision of evidence and information from experts to society, and have arguably failed in their mission to foster a more aware and engaged society, or to result in cleaner air. Globally we are facing both an air quality crisis and a communication emergency. This paper focuses on the communication of air pollution risk, from the threats it poses (e.g. severe impacts to human health to the opportunities it can create (e.g. behavioural or technological alternatives that lead to cleaner air. It supports the case for moving away from one-way communication, and identifies five key benefits of a practical two-way communication between experts and citizens in order to engender positive change and improve global air quality.

Secretome Characterization and Correlation Analysis Reveal Putative Pathogenicity Mechanisms and Identify Candidate Avirulence Genes in the Wheat Stripe Rust Fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici.

Science.gov (United States)

Xia, Chongjing; Wang, Meinan; Cornejo, Omar E; Jiwan, Derick A; See, Deven R; Chen, Xianming

2017-01-01

Stripe (yellow) rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici ( Pst ), is one of the most destructive diseases of wheat worldwide. Planting resistant cultivars is an effective way to control this disease, but race-specific resistance can be overcome quickly due to the rapid evolving Pst population. Studying the pathogenicity mechanisms is critical for understanding how Pst virulence changes and how to develop wheat cultivars with durable resistance to stripe rust. We re-sequenced 7 Pst isolates and included additional 7 previously sequenced isolates to represent balanced virulence/avirulence profiles for several avirulence loci in seretome analyses. We observed an uneven distribution of heterozygosity among the isolates. Secretome comparison of Pst with other rust fungi identified a large portion of species-specific secreted proteins, suggesting that they may have specific roles when interacting with the wheat host. Thirty-two effectors of Pst were identified from its secretome. We identified candidates for Avr genes corresponding to six Yr genes by correlating polymorphisms for effector genes to the virulence/avirulence profiles of the 14 Pst isolates. The putative AvYr76 was present in the avirulent isolates, but absent in the virulent isolates, suggesting that deleting the coding region of the candidate avirulence gene has produced races virulent to resistance gene Yr76 . We conclude that incorporating avirulence/virulence phenotypes into correlation analysis with variations in genomic structure and secretome, particularly presence/absence polymorphisms of effectors, is an efficient way to identify candidate Avr genes in Pst . The candidate effector genes provide a rich resource for further studies to determine the evolutionary history of Pst populations and the co-evolutionary arms race between Pst and wheat. The Avr candidates identified in this study will lead to cloning avirulence genes in Pst , which will enable us to understand molecular mechanisms

DID THE MILKY WAY DWARF SATELLITES ENTER THE HALO AS A GROUP?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Metz, Manuel; Kroupa, Pavel; Theis, Christian; Hensler, Gerhard; Jerjen, Helmut

2009-01-01

The dwarf satellite galaxies in the Local Group are generally considered to be hosted in dark matter subhalos that survived the disruptive processes during infall onto their host halos. It has recently been argued that if the majority of satellites entered the Milky Way (MW) halo in a group rather than individually, this could explain the spatial and dynamical peculiarities of its satellite distribution. Such groups were identified as dwarf galaxy associations that are found in the nearby universe. In this paper, we address the question whether galaxies in such associations can be the progenitors of the MW satellite galaxies. We find that the dwarf associations are much more extended than would be required to explain the disklike distribution of the MW and Andromeda satellite galaxies. We further identify a possible minor filamentary structure, perpendicular to the supergalactic plane, in which the dwarf associations are located, that might be related to the direction of infall of a progenitor galaxy of the MW satellites, if they are of tidal origin.

Merging electricity and environment politics of Hong Kong: Identifying the barriers from the ways that sustainability is defined

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lo, Alex Y.H. [Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Hui Oi Chow Science Building, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR (China)

2008-04-15

The present paper presents a study of the electricity policy of Hong Kong in an environmental-political context. Through a critical review of the policy structure and rationale, it identifies the barriers to developing a truly sustainable electricity policy system and is expected to shed light on the forthcoming electricity market reform in the territory. The barriers stem from the path-dependent institutional set-ups that restrict a timely transformation of the roles of the actors. And this is coupled with the government's treatment that does not look beyond these structural constraints, overly appreciating scientific and economic rationalities than communicative actions. The author is of the view that these are intensified by the sharp changes in the local political economy. Positive signs of change are dampened by the minimal progress in democratic development in the near future and the extension of the power companies' monopolist status that will ruin the 'trust' between the stakeholders compounding the guilt of those rigid regulatory constraints. (author)

Bacterial cytological profiling rapidly identifies the cellular pathways targeted by antibacterial molecules

OpenAIRE

Nonejuie, Poochit; Burkart, Michael; Pogliano, Kit; Pogliano, Joe

2013-01-01

Some bacteria have evolved resistance to nearly every known class of antibiotic, creating an urgent need for new ones that work by different mechanisms. However, there has been no simple way to determine how new antibiotics work. We have developed a unique method that provides a shortcut for understanding how antibiotics kill bacteria. This method can be used to sift through compounds to rapidly identify and characterize antibiotics that work against multidrug-resistant pathogens.

Identifying effective pathways in a successful continuous quality improvement programme: the GEDAPS study.

Science.gov (United States)

Bodicoat, Danielle H; Mundet, Xavier; Gray, Laura J; Cos, Xavier; Davies, Melanie J; Khunti, Kamlesh; Cano, Juan-Franciso

2014-12-01

Continuous quality improvement programmes often target several aspects of care, some of which may be more effective meaning that resources could be focussed on these. The objective was to identify the effective and ineffective aspects of a successful continuous quality improvement programme for individuals with type 2 diabetes in primary care. Data were from a series of cross-sectional studies (GEDAPS) in primary care, Catalonia, Spain, in 55 centres (2239 participants) in 1993, and 92 centres (5819 participants) in 2002. A structural equation modelling approach was used. The intervention was associated with improved microvascular outcomes through microalbuminuria and funduscopy screening, which had a direct effect on microvascular outcomes, and through attending 2-4 nurse visits and having ≥1 blood pressure measurement, which acted through reducing systolic blood pressure. The intervention was associated with improved macrovascular outcomes through blood pressure measurement and attending 2-4 nurse visits (through systolic blood pressure) and having ≥3 education topics, ≥1 HbA1c measurement and adequate medication (through HbA1c). Cholesterol measurement, weight measurement and foot examination did not contribute towards the effectiveness of the intervention. The pathways through which a continuous quality improvement programme appeared to act to reduce microvascular and macrovascular complications were driven by reductions in systolic blood pressure and HbA1c, which were attained through changes in nurse and education visits, measurement and medication. This suggests that these factors are potential areas on which future quality improvement programmes should focus. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Strength in Ways: Finding Creativity in Routine Strategy Development

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-01

examples like Jerry Rice (sports), Thomas Edison (science) and Warren Buffet (business). Finally, even genius, of course, could benefit from being...our ways must theoretically increase to account for the difference. So expanding ends and declining means may require more creative ways to account ...expanding difference between national ends and means will demand--now more than ever--that our ways account for the delta. How do we do this? How do