World Color Survey color naming reveals universal motifs and their within-language diversity

PubMed Central

Lindsey, Delwin T.; Brown, Angela M.

2009-01-01

We analyzed the color terms in the World Color Survey (WCS) (www.icsi.berkeley.edu/wcs/), a large color-naming database obtained from informants of mostly unwritten languages spoken in preindustrialized cultures that have had limited contact with modern, industrialized society. The color naming idiolects of 2,367 WCS informants fall into three to six “motifs,” where each motif is a different color-naming system based on a subset of a universal glossary of 11 color terms. These motifs are universal in that they occur worldwide, with some individual variation, in completely unrelated languages. Strikingly, these few motifs are distributed across the WCS informants in such a way that multiple motifs occur in most languages. Thus, the culture a speaker comes from does not completely determine how he or she will use color terms. An analysis of the modern patterns of motif usage in the WCS languages, based on the assumption that they reflect historical patterns of color term evolution, suggests that color lexicons have changed over time in a complex but orderly way. The worldwide distribution of the motifs and the cooccurrence of multiple motifs within languages suggest that universal processes control the naming of colors. PMID:19901327

STS-46 ESA MS Nicollier conducts IFM on OV-104's waste collection system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1992-01-01

STS-46 European Space Agency (ESA) Mission Specialist (MS) Claude Nicollier, wearing goggles, face mask, and rubber gloves, reviews inflight maintenance (IFM) checklist procedures before starting waste collection system (WCS) fan separator repair. One of two fan separators used to transfer waster water from the waste management compartment (WMC) to the waste water tank has failed. The suspected accumulation of water in the separator was believed to have occurred during a test dumping of waste water at a lower than normal pressure to evaluate the performance of new nozzles. The WMC is located on the middeck of Atlantis, Orbiter Vehicle (OV) 104.

Development of Arduino based wireless control system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Zhuoxiong; Dyke, Shirley J.; Pena, Francisco; Wilbee, Alana

2015-03-01

Over the past few decades, considerable attention has been given to structural control systems to mitigate structural vibration under natural hazards such as earthquakes and extreme weather conditions. Traditional wired structural control systems often employ a large amount of cables for communication among sensors, controllers and actuators. In such systems, implementation of wired sensors is usually quite complicated and expensive, especially on large scale structures such as bridges and buildings. To reduce the laborious installation and maintenance cost, wireless control systems (WCSs) are considered as a novel approach for structural vibration control. In this work, a WCS is developed based on the open source Arduino platform. Low cost, low power wireless sensing and communication components are built on the Arduino platform. Structural control algorithms are embedded within the wireless sensor board for feedback control. The developed WCS is first validated through a series of tests. Next, numerical simulations are performed simulating wireless control of a 3-story shear structure equipped with a semi-active control device (MR damper). Finally, experimental studies are carried out implementing the WCS on the 3-story shear structure in the Intelligent Infrastructure Systems Lab (IISL). A hydraulic shake table is used to generate seismic ground motions. The control performance is evaluated with the impact of modeling uncertainties, measurement noises as well as time delay and data loss induced by the wireless network. The developed WCS is shown to be effective in controlling structural vibrations under several historical earthquake ground motions.

47 CFR 27.72 - Information sharing requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... WCS licensees in the 2305-2320 MHz and 2345-2360 MHz bands. (a) Sites and frequency selections. WCS..., unless the SDARS licensee and all potentially affected WCS licensees reach a mutual agreement to provide... affected WCS licensees reach a mutual agreement to provide notification by some other means, that agreement...

Optically-tracked handheld fluorescence imaging platform for monitoring skin response in the management of soft tissue sarcoma

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chamma, Emilie; Qiu, Jimmy; Lindvere-Teene, Liis; Blackmore, Kristina M.; Majeed, Safa; Weersink, Robert; Dickie, Colleen I.; Griffin, Anthony M.; Wunder, Jay S.; Ferguson, Peter C.; DaCosta, Ralph S.

2015-07-01

Standard clinical management of extremity soft tissue sarcomas includes surgery with radiation therapy. Wound complications (WCs) arising from treatment may occur due to bacterial infection and tissue breakdown. The ability to detect changes in these parameters during treatment may lead to earlier interventions that mitigate WCs. We describe the use of a new system composed of an autofluorescence imaging device and an optical three-dimensional tracking system to detect and coregister the presence of bacteria with radiation doses. The imaging device visualized erythema using white light and detected bacterial autofluorescence using 405-nm excitation light. Its position was tracked relative to the patient using IR reflective spheres and registration to the computed tomography coordinates. Image coregistration software was developed to spatially overlay radiation treatment plans and dose distributions on the white light and autofluorescence images of the surgical site. We describe the technology, its use in the operating room, and standard operating procedures, as well as demonstrate technical feasibility and safety intraoperatively. This new clinical tool may help identify patients at greater risk of developing WCs and investigate correlations between radiation dose, skin response, and changes in bacterial load as biomarkers associated with WCs.

76 FR 3892 - Notice of Public Information Collection(s) Being Reviewed by the Federal Communications...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-01-21

... potential for harmful interference to adjacent Wireless Communications Service (WCS) spectrum users by...) average equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) to facilitate the flexible deployment of SDARS... qualifications of SDARS applicants or licensees to operate a station, transfer or assign a license, and to...

Covered Metallic Stents With an Anti-Migration Design vs. Uncovered Stents for the Palliation of Malignant Gastric Outlet Obstruction: A Multicenter, Randomized Trial

PubMed Central

Lee, Hyuk; Min, Byung-Hoon; Lee, Jeong Hoon; Shin, Cheol Min; Kim, Younjoo; Chung, Hyunsoo; Lee, Sang Hyub

2015-01-01

OBJECTIVES: Previous studies reported comparable stent patency between covered self-expandable metallic stents (SEMS) and uncovered SEMS (UCS) for palliation of malignant gastric outlet obstruction (GOO). The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the newly developed WAVE-covered SEMS (WCS), which has an anti-migration design, compared with UCS in gastric cancer patients with symptomatic GOO. METHODS: A total of 102 inoperable gastric cancer patients with symptomatic GOO were prospectively enrolled from five referral centers and randomized to undergo UCS or WCS placement. Stent patency and recurrence of obstructive symptoms were assessed at 8 weeks and 16 weeks after stent placement. RESULTS: At the 8-week follow-up, both stent patency rates (72.5% vs. 62.7%) and re-intervention rates (19.6% vs. 19.6%) were comparable between the WCS and the UCS groups. Both stent stenosis (2.4% vs. 8.1%) and migration rates (9.5% vs. 5.4%) were comparable between WCS and UCS groups. At the 16-week follow-up, however, the WCS group had a significantly higher stent patency rate than the UCS group (68.6% vs. 41.2%). Re-intervention rates in the WCS and UCS groups were 23.5% and 39.2%, respectively. Compared with the UCS group, the WCS group had a significantly lower stent restenosis rate (7.1% vs. 37.8%) and a comparable migration rate (9.5% vs. 5.4%). Overall stent patency was significantly longer in the WCS group than in the UCS group. No stent-associated significant adverse events occurred in either the WCS or UCS groups. In the multivariate analysis, WCS placement and chemotherapy were identified as independent predictors of 16-week stent patency. CONCLUSIONS: WCS group showed comparable migration rate and significantly more durable long-term stent patency compared with UCS group for the palliation of GOO in patients with inoperable gastric cancer. PMID:26372507

Supplementation with whole cottonseed causes long-term reduction of methane emissions from lactating dairy cows offered a forage and cereal grain diet.

PubMed

Grainger, C; Williams, R; Clarke, T; Wright, A-D G; Eckard, R J

2010-06-01

The objective of our work was to supplement a forage and cereal diet of lactating dairy cows with whole cottonseed (WCS) for 12 wk and to determine whether the expected reduction in CH(4) would persist. A secondary objective was to determine the effect of supplementing the diet with WCS on milk yield and rumen function over the 12-wk feeding period. Fifty lactating cows were randomly allocated to 1 of 2 diets (control or WCS). The 2 separate groups were each offered, on average, 4.2 kg of DM/cow per day of alfalfa hay (a.m.) and 6.6 kg of DM/cow per day of ryegrass silage (p.m.) on the ground in bare paddocks each day for 12 wk. Cows in each group were also individually offered dietary supplements for 12 wk in a feed trough at milking times of 5.4 kg of DM/cow per day of cracked wheat grain and 0.5 kg of DM/cow per day of cottonseed meal (control) or 2.8 kg of DM/cow per day of cracked wheat grain and 2.61 kg of DM/cow per day of WCS. The 2 diets were formulated to be similar in their concentrations of CP and ME, but the WCS diet was designed to have a higher fat concentration. Samples of rumen fluid were collected per fistula from the rumen approximately 4 h after grain feeding in the morning. Samples were taken from 8 cows (4 cows/diet) on 2 consecutive days in wk 2 of the covariate and wk 3, 6, 10, and 12 of treatment and analyzed for volatile fatty acids, ammonia-N, methanogens, and protozoa. The reduction in CH(4) emissions (g/d) because of WCS supplementation increased from 13% in wk 3 to 23% in wk 12 of treatment. Similarly, the reduction in CH(4) emissions (g/kg of DMI) increased from 5.1% in wk 3 to 14.5% in wk 12 of treatment. It was calculated that the average reduction in CH(4) emissions over the 12-wk period was 2.9% less CH(4) per 1% added fat, increasing from 1.5% in wk 3 to 4.4% less CH(4) in wk 12. There was no effect of WCS supplementation on rumen ammonia-N, rumen volatile fatty acids, rumen methanogens, and rumen protozoa. On average over the 12-wk period, supplementation with WCS decreased the yield of milk (10%), fat (11%), protein (14%), lactose (11%), and fat plus protein (12%) and BW gain (31%). The WCS supplementation had no effect on milk fat concentration but resulted in a decrease in concentration of protein (5%) and lactose (11%). The major finding from this study is that addition of WCS to the diet of lactating dairy cows resulted in a persistent reduction in CH(4) emissions (g of CH(4)/kg of DMI) over a 12-wk period and that these reductions in CH(4) are consistent with previous work that has studied the addition of oilseeds to ruminant diets. 2010 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bi-directional ROADM with one pair of NxN cyclic-AWGs for over N wavelength channels configuration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, Cheng-Mu

2018-01-01

This paper presents a bidirectional optical add-drop multiplexer (BROADM) with permitting white spectral channels input in bidirectional configuration. The filter routing rule of array waveguide grating (AWG) is applied for the wavelength channels (WCs) that need to be added and dropped by using the corresponding tunable fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). The other WCs pass through output by tuning FBG filter spectra away from the WCs. The bandwidth between two adjacent WCs of each pair of ports in AWG is wider than one channel spacing so that the filter spectra of FBG is tuned to free spectral range (FSR) region to realize the wavelength routing function without interfering other WCs. The WCs can be flexibly handled by installing the corresponding tunable FBG. Therefore, the proposed BROADM is more flexible and has higher transmission capacity in the optical network.

Effects of different sources and levels of dietary gossypol on gossypol residues in plasma and milk of lactating cows.

PubMed

Wang, A P; Zhang, J M; Meng, Y L; Deng, L Q; Lv, Y F; Li, C; Wang, J Q

2012-09-01

Free gossypol residues in tissues or milk from feeding whole cottonseed and cottonseed meal were measured for their effect on health of dairy cows and humans. Forty lactating cows were randomly assigned to 5 treatments in a 60-d experiment to investigate the effects of sources and dietary level of gossypol on plasma and milk gossypol concentrations in lactating cows. Five experimental diets had identical net energy for lactation and crude protein content on a dry matter (DM) basis. Soybean meal was the main protein ingredient used in the control diet. Cottonseed meal (CSM) or whole cottonseed (WCS) substituted for part of the soybean meal in the other 4 diets. Gossypol levels in the 5 diets were 0 (control), 91.15 mg/kg of DM in CSM1, 117.31mg/kg of DM in CSM2, 385.43 mg/kg of DM in WCS1, and 611.13 mg/kg in WCS2. Yields of 3.5% fat-corrected milk were significantly higher for cows in the WCS2 group; cows in the CSM1 and WCS1 groups showed no differences but both were numerically higher than the control and CSM2 groups. Milk protein concentration was lower for cows consuming WCS1 compared with the control group. Lactose concentration was lower for cows in the CSM2 group compared with the WCS2 group, but no differences were observed among other diets. Aspartate aminotransferase in serum was significantly higher for the WCS2 group compared with the control and WCS1 groups, but no difference was observed with the CSM1 and CSM2 groups. Concentrations of gossypol in plasma and milk of cows in the WCS1 and WCS2 groups were both higher than those of the other groups. No adverse effects were observed on cows fed diets containing 12.0% CSM, and no gossypol was found in plasma and milk. When WCS comprised 15% of the diet DM, yields of 3.5% fat-corrected milk were increased in cows and gossypol was detected in plasma and milk but not at harmful levels. Copyright © 2012 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

AST: World Coordinate Systems in Astronomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berry, David S.; Warren-Smith, Rodney F.

2014-04-01

The AST library provides a comprehensive range of facilities for attaching world coordinate systems to astronomical data, for retrieving and interpreting that information in a variety of formats, including FITS-WCS, and for generating graphical output based on it. Core projection algorithms are provided by WCSLIB (ascl:1108.003) and astrometry is provided by the PAL (ascl:1606.002) and SOFA (ascl:1403.026) libraries. AST bindings are available in Python (pyast), Java (JNIAST) and Perl (Starlink::AST). AST is used as the plotting and astrometry library in DS9 and GAIA, and is distributed separately and as part of the Starlink software collection.

Amplification of the groESL operon in Pseudomonas putida increases siderophore gene promoter activity.

PubMed

Venturi, V; Wolfs, K; Leong, J; Weisbeek, P J

1994-10-17

Pseudobactin 358 is the yellow-green fluorescent siderophore [microbial iron(III) transport agent] produced by Pseudomonas putida WCS358 under iron-limiting conditions. The genes encoding pseudobactin 358 biosynthesis are iron-regulated at the level of transcription. In this study, the molecular characterization is reported of a cosmid clone of WCS358 DNA that can stimulate, in an iron-dependent manner, the activity of a WCS358 siderophore gene promoter in the heterologous Pseudomonas strain A225. The functional region in the clone was identified by subcloning, transposon mutagenesis and DNA sequencing as the groESL operon of strain WCS358. This increase in promoter activity was not observed when the groESL genes of strain WCS358 were integrated via a transposon vector into the genome of Pseudomonas A225, indicating that multiple copies of the operon are necessary for the increase in siderophore gene promoter activity. Amplification of the Escherichia coli and WCS358 groESL genes also increased iron-regulated promoter activity in the parent strain WCS358. The groESL operon codes for the chaperone proteins GroES and GroEL, which are responsible for mediating the folding and assembly of many proteins.

77 FR 24355 - Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-04-24

... cracks found in the Web pockets of the wing center section (WCS) spanwise beams. This AD requires repetitive detailed inspections and high frequency eddy current inspections for cracks of the WCS spanwise beams, and repair if necessary. We are issuing this AD to detect and correct cracking in the WCS...

47 CFR 27.15 - Geographic partitioning and spectrum disaggregation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... license pursuant to § 1.948. (2) AWS and WCS licensees may apply to partition their licensed geographic... following rules apply to WCS and AWS licensees holding authorizations for purposes of implementing the... bands, the following rules apply to WCS and AWS licensees holding authorizations for purposes of...

STS-35 MS Hoffman and MS Parker on the middeck of Columbia, OV-102

NASA Image and Video Library

1990-12-10

STS035-49-029 (2-10 Dec 1990) --- Posing on the middeck of Columbia, Orbiter Vehicle (OV) 102, are Mission Specialist (MS) Jeffrey A. Hoffman (mustache) and MS Robert A. R. Parker. Determining who is right side up is complicated by the microgravity of space. Hoffman's head is at the middeck floor and his feet are at the ceiling. The two crewmembers are in front of OV-102's port side with the waste collection system (WCS) contingency unit, side hatch, and galley visible behind them.

Pseudomonas fluorescens WCS374r-Induced Systemic Resistance in Rice against Magnaporthe oryzae Is Based on Pseudobactin-Mediated Priming for a Salicylic Acid-Repressible Multifaceted Defense Response1[C][OA

PubMed Central

De Vleesschauwer, David; Djavaheri, Mohammad; Bakker, Peter A.H.M.; Höfte, Monica

2008-01-01

Selected strains of nonpathogenic rhizobacteria can reduce disease in foliar tissues through the induction of a defense state known as induced systemic resistance (ISR). Compared with the large body of information on ISR in dicotyledonous plants, little is known about the mechanisms underlying rhizobacteria-induced resistance in cereal crops. Here, we demonstrate the ability of Pseudomonas fluorescens WCS374r to trigger ISR in rice (Oryza sativa) against the leaf blast pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae. Using salicylic acid (SA)-nonaccumulating NahG rice, an ethylene-insensitive OsEIN2 antisense line, and the jasmonate-deficient mutant hebiba, we show that this WCS374r-induced resistance is regulated by an SA-independent but jasmonic acid/ethylene-modulated signal transduction pathway. Bacterial mutant analysis uncovered a pseudobactin-type siderophore as the crucial determinant responsible for ISR elicitation. Root application of WCS374r-derived pseudobactin (Psb374) primed naive leaves for accelerated expression of a pronounced multifaceted defense response, consisting of rapid recruitment of phenolic compounds at sites of pathogen entry, concerted expression of a diverse set of structural defenses, and a timely hyperinduction of hydrogen peroxide formation putatively driving cell wall fortification. Exogenous SA application alleviated this Psb374-modulated defense priming, while Psb374 pretreatment antagonized infection-induced transcription of SA-responsive PR genes, suggesting that the Psb374- and SA-modulated signaling pathways are mutually antagonistic. Interestingly, in sharp contrast to WCS374r-mediated ISR, chemical induction of blast resistance by the SA analog benzothiadiazole was independent of jasmonic acid/ethylene signaling and involved the potentiation of SA-responsive gene expression. Together, these results offer novel insights into the signaling circuitry governing induced resistance against M. oryzae and suggest that rice is endowed with multiple blast-effective resistance pathways. PMID:18945932

Precision Effects for Solar Image Coordinates Within the FITS World Coordinate System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thompson, W. T.

2010-01-01

The FITS world coordinate system (WCS) provides a number of tools for precisely specifying the spatial coordinates of an image. Many of the finer details that the WCS addresses have not historically been taken into account in solar image processing. This paper examines various effects which can affect the expression of coordinates in FITS headers, to determine under what conditions such effects need to be taken into account in data analysis, and under what conditions they can be safely ignored. Effects which are examined include perspective, parallax, spherical projection, optical axis determination, speed-of-light effects, stellar aberration, gravitational deflection, and scattering and refraction at radio wavelengths. Purely instrumental effects, such as misalignment or untreated optical aberrations, are not considered. Since the value of the solar radius is an experimental quantity, the effect of adopting a specific radius value is also examined. These effects are examined in the context of a previous paper outlining a WCS standard for encoding solar coordinates in FITS files. Aspects of that previous paper are clarified and extended in the present work.

Preliminary flight prototype waste collection subsystem. [performance of waste disposal system in weightless environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Swider, J. E., Jr.

1974-01-01

The zero gravity test program demonstrated the feasibility and practicability of collecting urine from both male and female crew members in a zero gravity environment in an earthlike manner not requiring any manual handling of urine containers. In addition, the testing demonstrated that a seat which is comfortable in both regimes of operation could be designed for use on the ground and in zero-gravity. Further, the tests showed that the vortex liquid/air separator is an effective liquid/air separation method in zero gravity. Visual observations indicate essentially zero liquid carry over. The system also demonstrated its ability to handle post elimination wipes without difficulty. The designs utilized in the WCS were verified as acceptable for usage in the space shuttle or other space vehicles.

Developing a Workflow Composite Score to Measure Clinical Information Logistics. A Top-down Approach.

PubMed

Liebe, J D; Hübner, U; Straede, M C; Thye, J

2015-01-01

Availability and usage of individual IT applications have been studied intensively in the past years. Recently, IT support of clinical processes is attaining increasing attention. The underlying construct that describes the IT support of clinical workflows is clinical information logistics. This construct needs to be better understood, operationalised and measured. It is therefore the aim of this study to propose and develop a workflow composite score (WCS) for measuring clinical information logistics and to examine its quality based on reliability and validity analyses. We largely followed the procedural model of MacKenzie and colleagues (2011) for defining and conceptualising the construct domain, for developing the measurement instrument, assessing the content validity, pretesting the instrument, specifying the model, capturing the data and computing the WCS and testing the reliability and validity. Clinical information logistics was decomposed into the descriptors data and information, function, integration and distribution, which embraced the framework validated by an analysis of the international literature. This framework was refined selecting representative clinical processes. We chose ward rounds, pre- and post-surgery processes and discharge as sample processes that served as concrete instances for the measurements. They are sufficiently complex, represent core clinical processes and involve different professions, departments and settings. The score was computed on the basis of data from 183 hospitals of different size, ownership, location and teaching status. Testing the reliability and validity yielded encouraging results: the reliability was high with r(split-half) = 0.89, the WCS discriminated between groups; the WCS correlated significantly and moderately with two EHR models and the WCS received good evaluation results by a sample of chief information officers (n = 67). These findings suggest the further utilisation of the WCS. As the WCS does not assume ideal workflows as a gold standard but measures IT support of clinical workflows according to validated descriptors a high portability of the WCS to other hospitals in other countries is very likely. The WCS will contribute to a better understanding of the construct clinical information logistics.

Weekly cycles of global fires—Associations with religion, wealth and culture, and insights into anthropogenic influences on global climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Earl, Nick; Simmonds, Ian; Tapper, Nigel

2015-11-01

One approach to quantifying anthropogenic influences on the environment and the consequences of those is to examine weekly cycles (WCs). No long-term natural process occurs on a WC so any such signal can be considered anthropogenic. There is much ongoing scientific debate as to whether regional-scale WCs exist above the statistical noise level, with most significant studies claiming that anthropogenic aerosols and their interaction with solar radiation and clouds (direct/indirect effect) is the controlling factor. A major source of anthropogenic aerosol, underrepresented in the literature, is active fire (AF) from anthropogenic burning for land clearance/management. WCs in AF have not been analyzed heretofore, and these can provide a mechanism for observed regional-scale WCs in several meteorological variables. We show that WCs in AFs are highly pronounced for many parts of the world, strongly influenced by the working week and particularly the day(s) of rest, associated with religious practices.

Datacube Services in Action, Using Open Source and Open Standards

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baumann, P.; Misev, D.

2016-12-01

Array Databases comprise novel, promising technology for massive spatio-temporal datacubes, extending the SQL paradigm of "any query, anytime" to n-D arrays. On server side, such queries can be optimized, parallelized, and distributed based on partitioned array storage. The rasdaman ("raster data manager") system, which has pioneered Array Databases, is available in open source on www.rasdaman.org. Its declarative query language extends SQL with array operators which are optimized and parallelized on server side. The rasdaman engine, which is part of OSGeo Live, is mature and in operational use databases individually holding dozens of Terabytes. Further, the rasdaman concepts have strongly impacted international Big Data standards in the field, including the forthcoming MDA ("Multi-Dimensional Array") extension to ISO SQL, the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS) standards, and the forthcoming INSPIRE WCS/WCPS; in both OGC and INSPIRE, OGC is WCS Core Reference Implementation. In our talk we present concepts, architecture, operational services, and standardization impact of open-source rasdaman, as well as experiences made.

Urine Monitoring System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Feedback, Daniel L.; Cibuzar, Branelle R.

2009-01-01

The Urine Monitoring System (UMS) is a system designed to collect an individual crewmember's void, gently separate urine from air, accurately measure void volume, allow for void sample acquisition, and discharge remaining urine into the Waste Collector Subsystem (WCS) onboard the International Space Station. The Urine Monitoring System (UMS) is a successor design to the existing Space Shuttle system and will resolve anomalies such as: liquid carry-over, inaccurate void volume measurements, and cross contamination in void samples. The crew will perform an evaluation of airflow at the ISS UMS urinal hose interface, a calibration evaluation, and a full user interface evaluation. o The UMS can be used to facilitate non-invasive methods for monitoring crew health, evaluation of countermeasures, and implementation of a variety of biomedical research protocols on future exploration missions.

76 FR 30706 - Information Collections Being Submitted for Review and Approval to the Office of Management and...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-26

... limit the potential for harmful interference to adjacent Wireless Communications Service (WCS) spectrum... (kW) average equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) to facilitate the flexible deployment of... and legal qualifications of SDARS applicants or licensees to operate a station, transfer or assign a...

Line identification studies using traditional techniques and wavelength coincidence statistics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cowley, Charles R.; Adelman, Saul J.

1990-01-01

Traditional line identification techniques result in the assignment of individual lines to an atomic or ionic species. These methods may be supplemented by wavelength coincidence statistics (WCS). The strength and weakness of these methods are discussed using spectra of a number of normal and peculiar B and A stars that have been studied independently by both methods. The present results support the overall findings of some earlier studies. WCS would be most useful in a first survey, before traditional methods have been applied. WCS can quickly make a global search for all species and in this way may enable identifications of an unexpected spectrum that could easily be omitted entirely from a traditional study. This is illustrated by O I. WCS is a subject to well known weakness of any statistical technique, for example, a predictable number of spurious results are to be expected. The danger of small number statistics are illustrated. WCS is at its best relative to traditional methods in finding a line-rich atomic species that is only weakly present in a complicated stellar spectrum.

Living in Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brown, Ray (Editor)

1993-01-01

In this educational video from the 'Liftoff to Learning' series, astronauts from the STS-56 Mission (Ken Cockrell, Mike Foale, Ellen Ochoa, Steve Oswald, and Ken Cameron) explain and show through demonstrations how microgravity affects the way astronauts live onboard the Space Shuttle, and how these same daily habits or processes differ on Earth. A tour of the Space Shuttle is given, including the sleeping compartments, the kitchen area, the storage compartments, and the Waste Collection System (or WCS, as they call it). Daily habits (brushing teeth, shampooing hair and bathing, eating,...) are explained and actively illustrated, along with reasons of how these applications differ from their employment on Earth.

Investigation of electron beam irradiation effects on anti-nutritional factors, chemical composition and digestion kinetics of whole cottonseed, soybean and canola seeds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ebrahimi-Mahmoudabad, S. R.; Taghinejad-Roudbaneh, M.

2011-12-01

This study was completed to determine effects of electron beam (EB) irradiation at doses of 15, 30 and 45 kGy on anti-nutritional factors, ruminal degradation and in vitro crude protein (CP) digestibility of whole cottonseed (WCS), soybean (SB) and canola seeds (CS). EB-irradiation eliminated completely ( P<0.001) phytic acid of WCS, SB and CS at a dose of 30 kGy. EB-irradiation decreased linearly ( P<0.001) the total glucosinolate content of CS. Trypsin inhibitor activity of 15, 30 and 45 kGy EB-irradiated SB was decreased by 19, 73 and 88%, respectively. Free gossypol content of WCS was reduced linearly ( P<0.001) by irradiation. EB-irradiation increased linearly ( P<0.001) CP digestibility of feeds. In conclusion, EB-irradiation was an effective processing method for improving the nutritive value of WCS, SB and CS.

Participatory design in the development of the wheelchair convoy system

PubMed Central

Sharma, Vinod; Simpson, Richard C; LoPresti, Edmund F; Mostowy, Casimir; Olson, Joseph; Puhlman, Jeremy; Hayashi, Steve; Cooper, Rory A; Konarski, Ed; Kerley, Barry

2008-01-01

Background In long-term care environments, residents who have severe mobility deficits are typically transported by having another person push the individual in a manual wheelchair. This practice is inefficient and encourages staff to hurry to complete the process, thereby setting the stage for unsafe practices. Furthermore, the time involved in assembling multiple individuals with disabilities often deters their participation in group activities. Methods The Wheelchair Convoy System (WCS) is being developed to allow a single caregiver to move multiple individuals without removing them from their wheelchairs. The WCS will consist of a processor, and a flexible cord linking each wheelchair to the wheelchair in front of it. A Participatory Design approach – in which several iterations of design, fabrication and evaluation are used to elicit feedback from users – was used. Results An iterative cycle of development and evaluation was followed through five prototypes of the device. The third and fourth prototypes were evaluated in unmanned field trials at J. Iverson Riddle Development Center. The prototypes were used to form a convoy of three wheelchairs that successfully completed a series of navigation tasks. Conclusion A Participatory Design approach to the project allowed the design of the WCS to quickly evolve towards a viable solution. The design that emerged by the end of the fifth development cycle bore little resemblance to the initial design, but successfully met the project's design criteria. Additional development and testing is planned to further refine the system. PMID:18171465

Control of Warm Compression Stations Using Model Predictive Control: Simulation and Experimental Results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bonne, F.; Alamir, M.; Bonnay, P.

2017-02-01

This paper deals with multivariable constrained model predictive control for Warm Compression Stations (WCS). WCSs are subject to numerous constraints (limits on pressures, actuators) that need to be satisfied using appropriate algorithms. The strategy is to replace all the PID loops controlling the WCS with an optimally designed model-based multivariable loop. This new strategy leads to high stability and fast disturbance rejection such as those induced by a turbine or a compressor stop, a key-aspect in the case of large scale cryogenic refrigeration. The proposed control scheme can be used to achieve precise control of pressures in normal operation or to avoid reaching stopping criteria (such as excessive pressures) under high disturbances (such as a pulsed heat load expected to take place in future fusion reactors, expected in the cryogenic cooling systems of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER or the Japan Torus-60 Super Advanced fusion experiment JT-60SA). The paper details the simulator used to validate this new control scheme and the associated simulation results on the SBTs WCS. This work is partially supported through the French National Research Agency (ANR), task agreement ANR-13-SEED-0005.

Body weight concerns: Cross-national study and identification of factors related to eating disorders.

PubMed

Silva, Wanderson Roberto da; Santana, Moema de Souza; Maroco, João; Maloa, Benvindo Felismino Samuel; Campos, Juliana Alvares Duarte Bonini

2017-01-01

Body weight concerns are common among individuals with eating disorders, and this construct can be assessed using psychometric instruments. The Weight Concerns Scale (WCS) is commonly used to assess body weight concerns. To evaluate the psychometric properties of the WCS with Brazilian, Portuguese, and Mozambican female college students; to estimate body weight concerns; and to identify factors related to eating disorders. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed. Factorial, convergent, concurrent, and divergent validity, as well as reliability, were assessed. Cross-national invariance was tested by means of multigroup analysis. Structural models were tested using the WCS as the dependent variable, while demographic and academic variables and body mass index were used as independent variables. Logistic models were tested to estimate the likelihood of eating disorders being developed in specific groups. Participants were 2,068 female students. The psychometric properties of the WCS were adequate for the Portuguese sample; however, for the Brazilian and Mozambican samples, it was necessary to correlate the errors of two items to improve model fit. The WCS did not show cross-national invariance. The variables "thoughts about dropping out of college," "medication use because of studies," "medication and supplements use for body change," "body mass index," "socioeconomic status," "age," and "performance in course" were significant predictors of body weight concerns. Overall, 24.4% (95% confidence interval = 22.9-26.7) of the students were likely to develop eating disorders. Students under 21 years old, who use medication and supplements for body change, and who were classified as overweight/obese have increased likelihood of developing eating disorders. The WCS showed good psychometric properties with Brazilian, Portuguese, and Mozambican students; however, it did not show cross-national invariance. We identified important aspects for investigating body weight concerns and factors related to eating disorders.

Antagonistic Effect of Nonpathogenic Fusarium oxysporum Fo47 and Pseudobactin 358 upon Pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. dianthi

PubMed Central

Lemanceau, Philippe; Bakker, Peter A. H. M.; De Kogel, Willem Jan; Alabouvette, Claude; Schippers, Bob

1993-01-01

Pseudobactin production by Pseudomonas putida WCS358 significantly improves biological control of fusarium wilt caused by nonpathogenic Fusarium oxysporum Fo47b10 (P. Lemanceau, P. A. H. M. Bakker, W. J. de Kogel, C. Alabouvette, and B. Schippers, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 58:2978-2982, 1992). The antagonistic effect of Fo47b10 and purified pseudobactin 358 was studied by using an in vitro bioassay. This bioassay allows studies on interactions among nonpathogenic F. oxysporum Fo47b10, pathogenic F. oxysporum f. sp. dianthi WCS816, and purified pseudobactin 358, the fluorescent siderophore produced by P. putida WCS358. Both nonpathogenic and pathogenic F. oxysporum reduced each other's growth when grown together. However, in these coinoculation experiments, pathogenic F. oxysporum WCS816 was relatively more inhibited in its growth than nonpathogenic F. oxysporum Fo47b10. The antagonism of nonpathogenic F. oxysporum against pathogenic F. oxysporum strongly depends on the ratio of nonpathogenic to pathogenic F. oxysporum densities: the higher this ratio, the stronger the antagonism. This fungal antagonism appears to be mainly associated with the competition for glucose. Pseudobactin 358 reduced the growth of both F. oxysporum strains, whereas ferric pseudobactin 358 did not; antagonism by pseudobactin 358 was then related to competition for iron. However, the pathogenic F. oxysporum strain was more sensitive to this antagonism than the nonpathogenic strain. Pseudobactin 358 reduced the efficiency of glucose metabolism by the fungi. These results suggest that pseudobactin 358 increases the intensity of the antagonism of nonpathogenic F. oxysporum Fo47b10 against pathogenic F. oxysporum WCS816 by making WCS816 more sensitive to the glucose competition by Fo47b10. PMID:16348860

The World Conservation Strategy and Environmental Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nature Conservation Education Committee, Rijswijk (Netherlands).

On March 5, 1980, the "World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development" (WCS) report was submitted to the Dutch government. The Nature Conservation Education Committee (CNBE) was then asked to prepare another report based on its initial reactions to the WCS, particularly to section 13, which deals…

47 CFR 25.263 - Information sharing requirements for SDARS terrestrial repeater operators.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... SDARS licensee and all potentially affected WCS licensees reach a mutual agreement to provide... SDARS licensee and all potentially affected WCS licensees reach a mutual agreement to provide... notice period. (e) Duty to cooperate. SDARS licensees must cooperate in good faith in the selection and...

47 CFR 27.73 - WCS, AMT, and Goldstone coordination requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... requirements. 27.73 Section 27.73 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON... must cooperate in good faith in the coordination and deployment of new facilities. WCS licensees must also cooperate in good faith in the selection and use of new station sites and new frequencies when...

47 CFR 27.73 - WCS, AMT, and Goldstone coordination requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... requirements. 27.73 Section 27.73 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON... must cooperate in good faith in the coordination and deployment of new facilities. WCS licensees must also cooperate in good faith in the selection and use of new station sites and new frequencies when...

Other Challenges in the Development of the Orbiter Environmental Control Hardware

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gibb, J. W.; Mcintosh, M. E.; Heinrich, S. R.; Thomas, E.; Steele, M.; Schubert, F.; Koszenski, E. P.; Wynveen, R. A.; Murray, R. W.; Schelkopf, J. D.

1985-01-01

Development of the Space Shuttle orbiter environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) included the identification and resolution of several interesting problems in several systems. Some of these problems occurred late in the program, including the flight phase. Problems and solutions related to the ammonia boiler system (ABS), smoke detector, water/hydrogen separator, and waste collector system (WCS) are addressed.

[Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Estimation Models for Pasture Quality].

PubMed

Ma, Wei-wei; Gong, Cai-lan; Hu, Yong; Wei, Yong-lin; Li, Long; Liu, Feng-yi; Meng, Peng

2015-10-01

Crude protein (CP), crude fat (CFA) and crude fiber (CFI) are key indicators for evaluation of the quality and feeding value of pasture. Hence, identification of these biological contents is an essential practice for animal husbandry. As current approaches to pasture quality estimation are time-consuming and costly, and even generate hazardous waste, a real-time and non-destructive method is therefore developed in this study using pasture canopy hyperspectral data. A field campaign was carried out in August 2013 around Qinghai Lake in order to obtain field spectral properties of 19 types of natural pasture using the ASD Field Spec 3, a field spectrometer that works in the optical region (350-2 500 nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum. In additional to the spectral data, pasture samples were also collected from the field and examined in laboratory to measure the relative concentration of CP (%), CFA (%) and CFI (%). After spectral denoising and smoothing, the relationship of pasture quality parameters with the reflectance spectrum, the first derivatives of reflectance (FDR), band ratio and the wavelet coefficients (WCs) was analyzed respectively. The concentration of CP, CFA and CFI of pasture was found closely correlated with FDR with wavebands centered at 424, 1 668, and 918 nm as well as with the low-scale (scale = 2, 4) Morlet, Coiflets and Gassian WCs. Accordingly, the linear, exponential, and polynomial equations between each pasture variable and FDR or WCs were developed. Validation of the developed equations indicated that the polynomial model with an independent variable of Coiflets WCs (scale = 4, wavelength =1 209 nm), the polynomial model with an independent variable of FDR, and the exponential model with an independent variable of FDR were the optimal model for prediction of concentration of CP, CFA and CFI of pasture, respectively. The R2 of the pasture quality estimation models was between 0.646 and 0.762 at the 0.01 significance level. Results suggest that the first derivatives or the wavelet coefficients of hyperspectral reflectance in visible and near-infrared regions can be used for pasture quality estimation, and that it will provide a basis for real-time prediction of pasture quality using remote sensing techniques.

47 CFR 27.58 - Interference to BRS/EBS receivers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... prior to commencing operations from any new WCS transmission site or with increased power from any... MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Technical Standards § 27.58 Interference to BRS/EBS receivers. (a... is located within a WCS transmitter's free space power flux density contour of −34 dBW/m2; and (5...

A Feminist Study of a Political Education Programme for Women

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clover, Darlene E.; McGregor, Catherine

2011-01-01

Women's Campaign School (WCS) is a non-partisan, non-formal three-day educational programme held annually in Vancouver, to empower and inspire women to enter politics and as a means towards socio-political change. Our findings show the WCS provides excellent practical and tactical skills and an experiential learning opportunity that is highly…

Influence of xanthan, guar, CMC and gum acacia on functional properties of water chestnut (Trapa bispinosa) starch.

PubMed

Lutfi, Zubala; Nawab, Anjum; Alam, Feroz; Hasnain, Abid; Haider, Syed Zia

2017-10-01

This study was performed to determine the effect of xanthan, guar, CMC and gum acacia on functional and pasting properties of starch isolated from water chestnut (Trapa bispinosa). Morphological properties of water chestnut starch with CMC were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The addition of hydrocolloids significantly enhanced the solubility of water chestnut starch (WCS) while reduced swelling power and freeze-thaw stability. The hydrophilic tendency of WCS was increased by xanthan gum; however, with addition of gum acacia it decreased significantly. Starch was modified with guar and gum acacia exhibited highest% syneresis. Guar gum was found to be effective in increasing the clarity of water chestnut starch paste. The addition of CMC significantly reduced the pasting temperature of WCS indicating ease of gelatinization. The setback was accelerated in the presence of xanthan gum but gum acacia delayed this effect during the cooling of the starch paste. Only xanthan gum was found to be effective in increasing breakdown showing good paste stability of WCS. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Parameter optimization in biased decoy-state quantum key distribution with both source errors and statistical fluctuations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Jian-Rong; Li, Jian; Zhang, Chun-Mei; Wang, Qin

2017-10-01

The decoy-state method has been widely used in commercial quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. In view of the practical decoy-state QKD with both source errors and statistical fluctuations, we propose a universal model of full parameter optimization in biased decoy-state QKD with phase-randomized sources. Besides, we adopt this model to carry out simulations of two widely used sources: weak coherent source (WCS) and heralded single-photon source (HSPS). Results show that full parameter optimization can significantly improve not only the secure transmission distance but also the final key generation rate. And when taking source errors and statistical fluctuations into account, the performance of decoy-state QKD using HSPS suffered less than that of decoy-state QKD using WCS.

Representations of time coordinates in FITS. Time and relative dimension in space

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rots, Arnold H.; Bunclark, Peter S.; Calabretta, Mark R.; Allen, Steven L.; Manchester, Richard N.; Thompson, William T.

2015-02-01

Context. In a series of three previous papers, formulation and specifics of the representation of world coordinate transformations in FITS data have been presented. This fourth paper deals with encoding time. Aims: Time on all scales and precisions known in astronomical datasets is to be described in an unambiguous, complete, and self-consistent manner. Methods: Employing the well-established World Coordinate System (WCS) framework, and maintaining compatibility with the FITS conventions that are currently in use to specify time, the standard is extended to describe rigorously the time coordinate. Results: World coordinate functions are defined for temporal axes sampled linearly and as specified by a lookup table. The resulting standard is consistent with the existing FITS WCS standards and specifies a metadata set that achieves the aims enunciated above.

Body weight concerns: Cross-national study and identification of factors related to eating disorders

PubMed Central

da Silva, Wanderson Roberto; Santana, Moema de Souza; Maroco, João; Maloa, Benvindo Felismino Samuel

2017-01-01

Background Body weight concerns are common among individuals with eating disorders, and this construct can be assessed using psychometric instruments. The Weight Concerns Scale (WCS) is commonly used to assess body weight concerns. Aims To evaluate the psychometric properties of the WCS with Brazilian, Portuguese, and Mozambican female college students; to estimate body weight concerns; and to identify factors related to eating disorders. Methods Confirmatory factor analysis was performed. Factorial, convergent, concurrent, and divergent validity, as well as reliability, were assessed. Cross-national invariance was tested by means of multigroup analysis. Structural models were tested using the WCS as the dependent variable, while demographic and academic variables and body mass index were used as independent variables. Logistic models were tested to estimate the likelihood of eating disorders being developed in specific groups. Results Participants were 2,068 female students. The psychometric properties of the WCS were adequate for the Portuguese sample; however, for the Brazilian and Mozambican samples, it was necessary to correlate the errors of two items to improve model fit. The WCS did not show cross-national invariance. The variables “thoughts about dropping out of college,” “medication use because of studies,” “medication and supplements use for body change,” “body mass index,” “socioeconomic status,” “age,” and “performance in course” were significant predictors of body weight concerns. Overall, 24.4% (95% confidence interval = 22.9–26.7) of the students were likely to develop eating disorders. Students under 21 years old, who use medication and supplements for body change, and who were classified as overweight/obese have increased likelihood of developing eating disorders. Conclusion The WCS showed good psychometric properties with Brazilian, Portuguese, and Mozambican students; however, it did not show cross-national invariance. We identified important aspects for investigating body weight concerns and factors related to eating disorders. PMID:28686602

Feed intake, ruminal fermentation, and animal behavior of beef heifers fed forage free diets containing nonforage fiber sources.

PubMed

Iraira, S P; Ruíz de la Torre, J L; Rodríguez-Prado, M; Calsamiglia, S; Manteca, X; Ferret, A

2013-08-01

Eight Simmental heifers (initial BW 313.4 ± 13.2 kg) were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental treatments in a 4 × 4 double Latin square design. The experiment was performed in four 28-d periods. Treatments tested were a control diet in which barley straw (BS) was used as a fiber source and 3 diets where the main difference was the nonforage fiber source used: soybean hulls (SH), beet pulp (BP) in pellets, and whole cottonseed (WCS). All ingredients, except the fiber sources, were ground through a 3-mm screen. Fiber ingredients were incorporated at 10, 17, 17, and 16% (on DM basis) in BS, SH, BP, and WCS, respectively. All diets were offered ad libitum as total mixed ration and designed to be isoenergetic (2.95 Mcal ME/kg DM), isonitrogenous (15% CP, DM basis), and with a NDF content of 20% (on DM basis) although there was a discrepancy between the theoretical and the actual chemical composition of the diets. Particle size separation was performed using the 3-screen Penn State Particle Separator. Animals were allotted in 8 individual roofed concrete pens equipped with a feedbunk and water trough. Intake was recorded over 7 d in the last week of each experimental period. Behavior was recorded for 24-h on d 2 and d 6 of each experimental week using a digital video recording device. A digital color camera was set up in front of each pen. Data recorded, except behavioral activities, were statistically analyzed using the MIXED procedure of SAS. To test treatment effect for each behavioral activity, analysis was performed using the GLIMMIX procedure of SAS. Diets ranked from greater to lesser proportion of particles of less than 1.18 mm as follows: SH, BS, WCS, and BP. Dry matter intake of heifers fed WCS was greater than the remaining treatments (P = 0.049). The greatest average ruminal pH was registered in heifers fed BS (6.4) and BP (6.3) whereas the smallest was recorded in SH diet (5.9), with WCS (6.2) occupying an intermediate position (P = 0.006). Total chewing time was greater (P = 0.001) in BS and WCS than in SH and BP. In conclusion, the nonforage fiber sources tested in this experiment can be used in forage-free diets fed to beef heifers as total mixed ration (TMR) without negative consequences in DMI in SH and BP diets and with an increased DMI in WCS diet. The WCS diet promoted rumination and total chewing time to the same degree as BS, which demonstrates that it is equally effective as this forage fiber source.

Operational Interoperable Web Coverage Service for Earth Observing Satellite Data: Issues and Lessons Learned

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, W.; Min, M.; Bai, Y.; Lynnes, C.; Holloway, D.; Enloe, Y.; di, L.

2008-12-01

In the past few years, there have been growing interests, among major earth observing satellite (EOS) data providers, in serving data through the interoperable Web Coverage Service (WCS) interface protocol, developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The interface protocol defined in WCS specifications allows client software to make customized requests of multi-dimensional EOS data, including spatial and temporal subsetting, resampling and interpolation, and coordinate reference system (CRS) transformation. A WCS server describes an offered coverage, i.e., a data product, through a response to a client's DescribeCoverage request. The description includes the offered coverage's spatial/temporal extents and resolutions, supported CRSs, supported interpolation methods, and supported encoding formats. Based on such information, a client can request the entire or a subset of coverage in any spatial/temporal resolutions and in any one of the supported CRSs, formats, and interpolation methods. When implementing a WCS server, a data provider has different approaches to present its data holdings to clients. One of the most straightforward, and commonly used, approaches is to offer individual physical data files as separate coverages. Such implementation, however, will result in too many offered coverages for large data holdings and it also cannot fully present the relationship among different, but spatially and/or temporally associated, data files. It is desirable to disconnect offered coverages from physical data files so that the former is more coherent, especially in spatial and temporal domains. Therefore, some servers offer one single coverage for a set of spatially coregistered time series data files such as a daily global precipitation coverage linked to many global single- day precipitation files; others offer one single coverage for multiple temporally coregistered files together forming a large spatial extent. In either case, a server needs to assemble an output coverage real-time by combining potentially large number of physical files, which can be operationally difficult. The task becomes more challenging if an offered coverage involves spatially and temporally un-registered physical files. In this presentation, we will discuss issues and lessons learned in providing NASA's AIRS Level 2 atmospheric products, which are in satellite swath CRS and in 6-minute segment granule files, as virtual global coverages. We"ll discuss the WCS server's on- the-fly georectification, mosaicking, quality screening, performance, and scalability.

Nutritional evaluation of transgenic cottonseed in the ration of lactating dairy cows.

PubMed

Mohanta, Ranjan K; Singhal, Kamal K; Tyagi, Amrish K; Rajput, Y S; Prasad, Shiv

2010-03-01

The effects of feeding transgenic (Bt) whole cottonseed (WCS) were studied in lactating cows. Twenty multiparous crossbred cows (Karan Swiss x Karan Fries) in early lactation were given a concentrate mixture containing 40% crushed delinted non-transgenic (non-Bt) WCS, 2 kg wheat straw and green fodder ad lib for a 15-day adaptation period. Thereafter, the cows were divided in two similar groups of 10 each on the basis of milk yield, body weight (BW) and date of calving. The non-Bt control group continued on same ration, while for the Bt group the non-Bt WCS was replaced by transgenic WCS, in a feeding trial of four weeks. The diets provided a minimum of 2 kg cottonseed/cow/d. Mean DMI/100 kg BW and milk yield of non-Bt and Bt groups was 3.48 and 3.45 kg and 11.4 and 12.0 kg/d, respectively. Intake of nutrients, digestibility, milk production and body condition score (BCS) did not differ between the groups (P > 0.05), but BW gain was higher (P < 0.05) in the Bt group than the non-Bt group, probably as a result of hoof problem in two cows of non-Bt group, which when compared excluding two animals from each group did not differ significantly (P > 0.05). Transgenic protein (Cry1C) was not detected in the weekly milk samples or in blood plasma at the end of the experiment, showing that delinted WCS containing Cry1C protein can safely be fed to lactating cows.

Design and optimization of all-optical networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, Gaoxi

1999-10-01

In this thesis, we present our research results on the design and optimization of all-optical networks. We divide our results into the following four parts: 1.In the first part, we consider broadcast-and-select networks. In our research, we propose an alternative and cheaper network configuration to hide the tuning time. In addition, we derive lower bounds on the optimal schedule lengths and prove that they are tighter than the best existing bounds. 2.In the second part, we consider all-optical wide area networks. We propose a set of algorithms for allocating a given number of WCs to the nodes. We adopt a simulation-based optimization approach, in which we collect utilization statistics of WCs from computer simulation and then perform optimization to allocate the WCs. Therefore, our algorithms are widely applicable and they are not restricted to any particular model and assumption. We have conducted extensive computer simulation on regular and irregular networks under both uniform and non-uniform traffic. We see that our method can get nearly the same performance as that of full wavelength conversion by using a much smaller number of WCs. Compared with the best existing method, the results show that our algorithms can significantly reduce (1)the overall blocking probability (i.e., better mean quality of service) and (2)the maximum of the blocking probabilities experienced at all the source nodes (i.e., better fairness). Equivalently, for a given performance requirement on blocking probability, our algorithms can significantly reduce the number of WCs required. 3.In the third part, we design and optimize the physical topology of all-optical wide area networks. We show that the design problem is NP-complete and we propose a heuristic algorithm called two-stage cut saturation algorithm for this problem. Simulation results show that (1)the proposed algorithm can efficiently design networks with low cost and high utilization, and (2)if wavelength converters are available to support full wavelength conversion, the cost of the links can be significantly reduced. 4.In the fourth part, we consider all-optical wide area networks with multiple fibers per link. We design a node configuration for all-optical networks. We exploit the flexibility that, to establish a lightpath across a node, we can select any one of the available channels in the incoming link and any one of the available channels in the outgoing link. As a result, the proposed node configuration requires a small number of small optical switches while it can achieve nearly the same performance as the existing one. And there is no additional crosstalk other than the intrinsic crosstalk within each single-chip optical switch.* (Abstract shortened by UMI.) *Originally published in DAI Vol. 60, No. 2. Reprinted here with corrected author name.

78 FR 9605 - Operation of Wireless Communications Services in the 2.3 GHz Band; Establishment of Rules and...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-02-11

...In this document, the Commission affirms, modifies, and clarifies its actions in response to various petitions for reconsideration and/or clarification. The revised rules are intended to enable Wireless Communications Service (WCS) licensees to deploy broadband services in the 2305-2320 MHz and 2345-2360 MHz (2.3 GHz) WCS bands while continuing to protect Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (SDARS) operator Sirius XM Radio Inc. (Sirius XM) and aeronautical mobile telemetry (AMT) operations in adjacent bands and the deep space network (DSN) earth station in Goldstone, California from harmful interference. In addition, the revised rules will facilitate the flexible deployment and operation of SDARS terrestrial repeaters in the 2320-2345 MHz SDARS band, while protecting adjacent bands WCS licensees from harmful interference.

75 FR 17349 - Operations of Wireless Communications Services in the 2.3 GHz Band

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-04-06

...The Federal Communications Commission (Commission) seeks comment on revising the performance requirements for the 2.3 GHz Wireless Communications Service (WCS) band. The Commission is seeking comment on possible revision of the performance requirements (also known as buildout or construction requirements) for the 2.3 GHz WCS band to ensure that that the spectrum is used intensively in the public interest.

Assessing Weather Curiosity in University Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stewart, A. E.

2017-12-01

This research focuses upon measuring an individual's level of trait curiosity about the weather using the Weather Curiosity Scale (WCS). The measure consists of 15 self-report items that describe weather preferences and/or behaviors that people may perform more or less frequently. The author reports on two initial studies of the WCS that have used the responses of 710 undergraduate students from a large university in the southeastern United States. In the first study, factor analysis of the 15 items indicated that the measure was unidimensional - suggesting that its items singularly assessed weather curiosity. The WCS also was internally consistent as evidenced by an acceptable Cronbach's alpha, a = .81). The second study sought to identify other personality variables that may relate with the WCS scores and thus illuminate the nature of weather curiosity. Several clusters of personality variables appear to underlie the curiosity levels people exhibited, the first of which related to perceptual curiosity (r = .59). Being curious about sights, sounds, smells, and textures generally related somewhat to curiosity about weather. Two measures of trait sensitivity to environmental stimulation, the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (r = .47) and the Orientation Sensitivity Scale of the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (r = .43), also predicted weather curiosity levels. Finally, possessing extraverted personality traits (r = .34) and an intense style of experiencing one's emotions (r = .33) related to weather curiosity. How can this measure be used in K-12 or post-secondary settings to further climate literacy? First, the WCS can identify students with natural curiosities about weather and climate so these students may be given more challenging instruction that will leverage their natural interests. Second, high-WCS students may function as weather and climate ambassadors during inquiry-based learning activities and thus help other students who are not as oriented to the atmosphere. Finally the results of this study reveal some of the underlying psychological mechanisms that are associated with weather curiosity. Building greater perceptual curiosity or increasing perceptual sensitivity and discrimination skills may make it possible to increase students' levels of weather curiosity.

IUE data reduction: Wavelength determinations and line identifications using a VAX/750 computer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Davidson, J. P.; Bord, D. J.

1982-01-01

A fully automated, interactive system for determining the wavelengths of features in extracted IUE spectra is described. Wavelengths are recorded from video displays of expanded plots of individual orders using a movable cursor, and then corrected for IUE wavelength scale errors. The estimated accuracy of an individual wavelength in the final tabulation is 0.050 A. Such lists are ideally suited for line identification work using the method of wavelength coincidence statistics (WCS). The results of WCS studies of the ultraviolet spectra of the chemically peculiar (CP) stars iota Coronae Borealis and kappa Camcri. Aside from confirming a number of previously reported aspects of the abundance patterns in these stars, the searches produced some interesting, new discoveries, notably the presence of Hf in the spectrum of kappa Camcri. The implications of this work for theories designed to account for anomalous abundances in chemically peculiar stars are discussed.

IUE data reduction: Wavelength determinations and line identifications using a VAX/750 computer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davidson, J. P.; Bord, D. J.

A fully automated, interactive system for determining the wavelengths of features in extracted IUE spectra is described. Wavelengths are recorded from video displays of expanded plots of individual orders using a movable cursor, and then corrected for IUE wavelength scale errors. The estimated accuracy of an individual wavelength in the final tabulation is 0.050 A. Such lists are ideally suited for line identification work using the method of wavelength coincidence statistics (WCS). The results of WCS studies of the ultraviolet spectra of the chemically peculiar (CP) stars iota Coronae Borealis and kappa Camcri. Aside from confirming a number of previously reported aspects of the abundance patterns in these stars, the searches produced some interesting, new discoveries, notably the presence of Hf in the spectrum of kappa Camcri. The implications of this work for theories designed to account for anomalous abundances in chemically peculiar stars are discussed.

Ca2+ activates glycogenolysis in isolated mantle storage cells of Mytilus galloprovincialis Lmk.

PubMed

Crespo, C A; García-Caballero, T; Beiras, A; Espinosa, J

1990-12-01

Glycogenolytic activity (GA) in isolated mantle storage cells (MSC) from Mytilus galloprovincialis was studied, while glycogen and free-glucose content, as well as glucose released from cells were tested. In the period studied (November-December), the glucose releasing activity measured can be considered as an output of GA. In both, whole cells system (WCS) and crude cell-free system (CFS), a non-stimulated GA was detected. In WCS, dopamine and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) stimulated glycogenolysis, while epinephrine, norepinephrine and isoproterenol did not show any effect. Furthermore, mellitin and the Ca(2+)-ionophore, A23187, had a stimulating effect on the GA. In CFS, the absence of Ca2+ ions was a sufficient condition to depress GA. These and other findings suggest that: 1) GA in MSC may be stimulated by dopamine and 5-HT and not by adrenergic agonists; 2) cytosolyc Ca2+ signalling may have become an absolute requirement for activation of the glycogenolytic cascade in MSC; 3) a rapid high-affinity glucose transport may occur in these cells.

Review on the Celestial Sphere Positioning of FITS Format Image Based on WCS and Research on General Visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Song, W. M.; Fan, D. W.; Su, L. Y.; Cui, C. Z.

2017-11-01

Calculating the coordinate parameters recorded in the form of key/value pairs in FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) header is the key to determine FITS images' position in the celestial system. As a result, it has great significance in researching the general process of calculating the coordinate parameters. By combining CCD related parameters of astronomical telescope (such as field, focal length, and celestial coordinates in optical axis, etc.), astronomical images recognition algorithm, and WCS (World Coordinate System) theory, the parameters can be calculated effectively. CCD parameters determine the scope of star catalogue, so that they can be used to build a reference star catalogue by the corresponding celestial region of astronomical images; Star pattern recognition completes the matching between the astronomical image and reference star catalogue, and obtains a table with a certain number of stars between CCD plane coordinates and their celestial coordinates for comparison; According to different projection of the sphere to the plane, WCS can build different transfer functions between these two coordinates, and the astronomical position of image pixels can be determined by the table's data we have worked before. FITS images are used to carry out scientific data transmission and analyze as a kind of mainstream data format, but only to be viewed, edited, and analyzed in the professional astronomy software. It decides the limitation of popular science education in astronomy. The realization of a general image visualization method is significant. FITS is converted to PNG or JPEG images firstly. The coordinate parameters in the FITS header are converted to metadata in the form of AVM (Astronomy Visualization Metadata), and then the metadata is added to the PNG or JPEG header. This method can meet amateur astronomers' general needs of viewing and analyzing astronomical images in the non-astronomical software platform. The overall design flow is realized through the java program and tested by SExtractor, WorldWide Telescope, picture viewer, and other software.

Towards Semantic Web Services on Large, Multi-Dimensional Coverages

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baumann, P.

2009-04-01

Observed and simulated data in the Earth Sciences often come as coverages, the general term for space-time varying phenomena as set forth by standardization bodies like the Open GeoSpatial Consortium (OGC) and ISO. Among such data are 1-d time series, 2-D surface data, 3-D surface data time series as well as x/y/z geophysical and oceanographic data, and 4-D metocean simulation results. With increasing dimensionality the data sizes grow exponentially, up to Petabyte object sizes. Open standards for exploiting coverage archives over the Web are available to a varying extent. The OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) standard defines basic extraction operations: spatio-temporal and band subsetting, scaling, reprojection, and data format encoding of the result - a simple interoperable interface for coverage access. More processing functionality is available with products like Matlab, Grid-type interfaces, and the OGC Web Processing Service (WPS). However, these often lack properties known as advantageous from databases: declarativeness (describe results rather than the algorithms), safe in evaluation (no request can keep a server busy infinitely), and optimizable (enable the server to rearrange the request so as to produce the same result faster). WPS defines a geo-enabled SOAP interface for remote procedure calls. This allows to webify any program, but does not allow for semantic interoperability: a function is identified only by its function name and parameters while the semantics is encoded in the (only human readable) title and abstract. Hence, another desirable property is missing, namely an explicit semantics which allows for machine-machine communication and reasoning a la Semantic Web. The OGC Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS) language, which has been adopted as an international standard by OGC in December 2008, defines a flexible interface for the navigation, extraction, and ad-hoc analysis of large, multi-dimensional raster coverages. It is abstract in that it does not anticipate any particular protocol. One such protocol is given by the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) Processing Extension standard which ties WCPS into WCS. Another protocol which makes WCPS an OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) Profile is under preparation. Thereby, WCPS bridges WCS and WPS. The conceptual model of WCPS relies on the coverage model of WCS, which in turn is based on ISO 19123. WCS currently addresses raster-type coverages where a coverage is seen as a function mapping points from a spatio-temporal extent (its domain) into values of some cell type (its range). A retrievable coverage has an identifier associated, further the CRSs supported and, for each range field (aka band, channel), the interpolation methods applicable. The WCPS language offers access to one or several such coverages via a functional, side-effect free language. The following example, which derives the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) from given coverages C1, C2, and C3 within the regions identified by the binary mask R, illustrates the language concept: for c in ( C1, C2, C3 ), r in ( R ) return encode( (char) (c.nir - c.red) / (c.nir + c.red), H˜DF-EOS\\~ ) The result is a list of three HDF-EOS encoded images containing masked NDVI values. Note that the same request can operate on coverages of any dimensionality. The expressive power of WCPS includes statistics, image, and signal processing up to recursion, to maintain safe evaluation. As both syntax and semantics of any WCPS expression is well known the language is Semantic Web ready: clients can construct WCPS requests on the fly, servers can optimize such requests (this has been investigated extensively with the rasdaman raster database system) and automatically distribute them for processing in a WCPS-enabled computing cloud. The WCPS Reference Implementation is being finalized now that the standard is stable; it will be released in open source once ready. Among the future tasks is to extend WCPS to general meshes, in synchronization with the WCS standard. In this talk WCPS is presented in the context of OGC standardization. The author is co-chair of OGC's WCS Working Group (WG) and Coverages WG.

Implications of Using Computer-Based Training with the AN/SQQ-89(v) Sonar System: Operating and Support Costs

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-06-01

Visibility and Management of Operating and Support Costs (VAMOSC...VAMOSC Visibility and Management of Operating and Support Costs VMA Variant Manning Average WAP Weapons Alternate Processor WCS Work Center...Visibility and Management of Operating and Support Costs (VAMOSC), under Unit Level Consumption and Manhours—Organizational Corrective Maintenance. C

Surface Treatments to Minimize Concrete Deterioration. Report 2. Laboratory Evaluation of Surface Treatment Materials

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-09-01

Hydrocarbon 4 Moderate to severe scaling W-CS-58 Methyl 0+ No scaling--sealer’s color methacrylate changed from clear to cloudy white W-CS-59 Polyurethap 0+ No...years ago a manufacturer of polynmers introduced a high molecular-weight methacrylate (HMWM) monomer for sealing cracks by topical application. The...followed. Material Safety Data Sheets ( MSDS ) should be obtained from the manufacturers of such materials. In cases where the effects of a chemical

Pathway-selective sensitization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis for target-based whole-cell screening

PubMed Central

Abrahams, Garth L.; Kumar, Anuradha; Savvi, Suzana; Hung, Alvin W.; Wen, Shijun; Abell, Chris; Barry, Clifton E.; Sherman, David R.; Boshoff, Helena I.M.; Mizrahi, Valerie

2012-01-01

SUMMARY Whole-cell screening of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) remains a mainstay of drug discovery but subsequent target elucidation often proves difficult. Conditional mutants that under-express essential genes have been used to identify compounds with known mechanism of action by target-based whole-cell screening (TB-WCS). Here, the feasibility of TB-WCS in Mtb was assessed by generating mutants that conditionally express pantothenate synthetase (panC), diaminopimelate decarboxylase (lysA) and isocitrate lyase (icl1). The essentiality of panC and lysA, and conditional essentiality of icl1 for growth on fatty acids, was confirmed. Depletion of PanC and Icl1 rendered the mutants hypersensitive to target-specific inhibitors. Stable reporter strains were generated for use in high-throughput screening, and their utility demonstrated by identifying compounds that display greater potency against a PanC-depleted strain. These findings illustrate the power of TB-WCS as a tool for tuberculosis drug discovery. PMID:22840772

More than training: Community-based participatory research to reduce injuries among hispanic construction workers.

PubMed

Forst, Linda; Ahonen, Emily; Zanoni, Joseph; Holloway-Beth, Alfreda; Oschner, Michele; Kimmel, Louis; Martino, Carmen; Rodriguez, Eric; Kader, Adam; Ringholm, Elisa; Sokas, Rosemary

2013-08-01

Workplace mortality and severe injury are disproportionately distributed among foreign born and Hispanic construction workers. Worker Centers (WCs) provide services and advocacy for low-wage workers and a way for investigators to reach them. The goal of this project is to prevent occupational injuries by increasing awareness of hazards and self-efficacy among foreign born, Hispanic construction workers and by expanding the agenda of WCs to include occupational health and safety (H&S). Investigators partnered with eight WCs in seven cities to train worker leaders to deliver a modified OSHA 10-hr curriculum to their peers. Thirty-two worker leaders trained 446 workers over 3 years. There was a demonstrated improvement in knowledge, hazard identification, self-efficacy, and sustainable H&S activities. This study provides evidence for successful implementation of a training intervention for low wage, low literacy Hispanic construction workers using a community-based participatory research approach. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Model based multivariable controller for large scale compression stations. Design and experimental validation on the LHC 18KW cryorefrigerator

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bonne, François; Bonnay, Patrick; Alamir, Mazen

2014-01-29

In this paper, a multivariable model-based non-linear controller for Warm Compression Stations (WCS) is proposed. The strategy is to replace all the PID loops controlling the WCS with an optimally designed model-based multivariable loop. This new strategy leads to high stability and fast disturbance rejection such as those induced by a turbine or a compressor stop, a key-aspect in the case of large scale cryogenic refrigeration. The proposed control scheme can be used to have precise control of every pressure in normal operation or to stabilize and control the cryoplant under high variation of thermal loads (such as a pulsedmore » heat load expected to take place in future fusion reactors such as those expected in the cryogenic cooling systems of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER or the Japan Torus-60 Super Advanced fusion experiment JT-60SA). The paper details how to set the WCS model up to synthesize the Linear Quadratic Optimal feedback gain and how to use it. After preliminary tuning at CEA-Grenoble on the 400W@1.8K helium test facility, the controller has been implemented on a Schneider PLC and fully tested first on the CERN's real-time simulator. Then, it was experimentally validated on a real CERN cryoplant. The efficiency of the solution is experimentally assessed using a reasonable operating scenario of start and stop of compressors and cryogenic turbines. This work is partially supported through the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) Goal Oriented Training Program, task agreement WP10-GOT-GIRO.« less

Model based multivariable controller for large scale compression stations. Design and experimental validation on the LHC 18KW cryorefrigerator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bonne, François; Alamir, Mazen; Bonnay, Patrick; Bradu, Benjamin

2014-01-01

In this paper, a multivariable model-based non-linear controller for Warm Compression Stations (WCS) is proposed. The strategy is to replace all the PID loops controlling the WCS with an optimally designed model-based multivariable loop. This new strategy leads to high stability and fast disturbance rejection such as those induced by a turbine or a compressor stop, a key-aspect in the case of large scale cryogenic refrigeration. The proposed control scheme can be used to have precise control of every pressure in normal operation or to stabilize and control the cryoplant under high variation of thermal loads (such as a pulsed heat load expected to take place in future fusion reactors such as those expected in the cryogenic cooling systems of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER or the Japan Torus-60 Super Advanced fusion experiment JT-60SA). The paper details how to set the WCS model up to synthesize the Linear Quadratic Optimal feedback gain and how to use it. After preliminary tuning at CEA-Grenoble on the 400W@1.8K helium test facility, the controller has been implemented on a Schneider PLC and fully tested first on the CERN's real-time simulator. Then, it was experimentally validated on a real CERN cryoplant. The efficiency of the solution is experimentally assessed using a reasonable operating scenario of start and stop of compressors and cryogenic turbines. This work is partially supported through the European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) Goal Oriented Training Program, task agreement WP10-GOT-GIRO.

Next Generation Landsat Products Delivered Using Virtual Globes and OGC Standard Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neiers, M.; Dwyer, J.; Neiers, S.

2008-12-01

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is the next in the series of Landsat satellite missions and is tasked with the objective of delivering data acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI). The OLI instrument will provide data continuity to over 30 years of global multispectral data collected by the Landsat series of satellites. The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (USGS EROS) Center has responsibility for the development and operation of the LDCM ground system. One of the mission objectives of the LDCM is to distribute OLI data products electronically over the Internet to the general public on a nondiscriminatory basis and at no cost. To ensure the user community and general public can easily access LDCM data from multiple clients, the User Portal Element (UPE) of the LDCM ground system will use OGC standards and services such as Keyhole Markup Language (KML), Web Map Service (WMS), Web Coverage Service (WCS), and Geographic encoding of Really Simple Syndication (GeoRSS) feeds for both access to and delivery of LDCM products. The USGS has developed and tested the capabilities of several successful UPE prototypes for delivery of Landsat metadata, full resolution browse, and orthorectified (L1T) products from clients such as Google Earth, Google Maps, ESRI ArcGIS Explorer, and Microsoft's Virtual Earth. Prototyping efforts included the following services: using virtual globes to search the historical Landsat archive by dynamic generation of KML; notification of and access to new Landsat acquisitions and L1T downloads from GeoRSS feeds; Google indexing of KML files containing links to full resolution browse and data downloads; WMS delivery of reduced resolution browse, full resolution browse, and cloud mask overlays; and custom data downloads using WCS clients. These various prototypes will be demonstrated and LDCM service implementation plans will be discussed during this session.

Construction, Startup and Operation of a New LLRW Disposal Facility in Andrews County, Texas - 12151

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Van Vliet, James A.

2012-07-01

During this last year, Waste Control Specialists LLC (WCS) completed construction and achieved start of operations of a new low level radioactive waste (LLRW) disposal facility in Andrews County Texas. Disposal operations are underway for commercial LLRW, and start up evolutions are in progress for disposal of Department of Energy (DOE) LLRW. The overall approach to construction and start up are presented as well as some of the more significant challenges and how they were addressed to achieve initial operations of the first new commercial low level radioactive waste disposal facility in more than 30 years. The WCS disposal facilitymore » consists of two LLRW disposal cells, one for Texas Compact waste, and a separate disposal cell for DOE waste. Both disposal cells have very robust and unique designs. The cells themselves are constructed entirely in very low permeability red bed clay. The cell liners include a 0.91 meter thick clay liner meeting unprecedented permeability limits, 0.3 meter thick reinforced concrete barriers, as well as the standard geo-synthetic liners. Actions taken to meet performance criteria and install these liners will be discussed. Consistent with this highly protective landfill design, WCS chose to install a zero discharge site water management system. The considerations behind the design and construction of this system will be presented. Other activities essential to successful start of LLRW disposal operations included process and procedure development and refinement, staffing and staff development, and training. Mock ups were built and used for important evolutions and functions. Consistent with the extensive regulation of LLRW operations, engagement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) was continuous and highly interactive. This included daily activity conference calls, weekly coordination calls and numerous topical conference calls and meetings. TCEQ staff and consultants frequently observed specific construction evolutions, such as geological feature mapping of designated excavation faces, disposal cell clay liner installation, disposal cell concrete barrier construction, etc. (author)« less

Missing Data in Alcohol Clinical Trials with Binary Outcomes

PubMed Central

Hallgren, Kevin A.; Witkiewitz, Katie; Kranzler, Henry R.; Falk, Daniel E.; Litten, Raye Z.; O’Malley, Stephanie S.; Anton, Raymond F.

2017-01-01

Background Missing data are common in alcohol clinical trials for both continuous and binary endpoints. Approaches to handle missing data have been explored for continuous outcomes, yet no studies have compared missing data approaches for binary outcomes (e.g., abstinence, no heavy drinking days). The present study compares approaches to modeling binary outcomes with missing data in the COMBINE study. Method We included participants in the COMBINE Study who had complete drinking data during treatment and who were assigned to active medication or placebo conditions (N=1146). Using simulation methods, missing data were introduced under common scenarios with varying sample sizes and amounts of missing data. Logistic regression was used to estimate the effect of naltrexone (vs. placebo) in predicting any drinking and any heavy drinking outcomes at the end of treatment using four analytic approaches: complete case analysis (CCA), last observation carried forward (LOCF), the worst-case scenario of missing equals any drinking or heavy drinking (WCS), and multiple imputation (MI). In separate analyses, these approaches were compared when drinking data were manually deleted for those participants who discontinued treatment but continued to provide drinking data. Results WCS produced the greatest amount of bias in treatment effect estimates. MI usually yielded less biased estimates than WCS and CCA in the simulated data, and performed considerably better than LOCF when estimating treatment effects among individuals who discontinued treatment. Conclusions Missing data can introduce bias in treatment effect estimates in alcohol clinical trials. Researchers should utilize modern missing data methods, including MI, and avoid WCS and CCA when analyzing binary alcohol clinical trial outcomes. PMID:27254113

Missing Data in Alcohol Clinical Trials with Binary Outcomes.

PubMed

Hallgren, Kevin A; Witkiewitz, Katie; Kranzler, Henry R; Falk, Daniel E; Litten, Raye Z; O'Malley, Stephanie S; Anton, Raymond F

2016-07-01

Missing data are common in alcohol clinical trials for both continuous and binary end points. Approaches to handle missing data have been explored for continuous outcomes, yet no studies have compared missing data approaches for binary outcomes (e.g., abstinence, no heavy drinking days). This study compares approaches to modeling binary outcomes with missing data in the COMBINE study. We included participants in the COMBINE study who had complete drinking data during treatment and who were assigned to active medication or placebo conditions (N = 1,146). Using simulation methods, missing data were introduced under common scenarios with varying sample sizes and amounts of missing data. Logistic regression was used to estimate the effect of naltrexone (vs. placebo) in predicting any drinking and any heavy drinking outcomes at the end of treatment using 4 analytic approaches: complete case analysis (CCA), last observation carried forward (LOCF), the worst case scenario (WCS) of missing equals any drinking or heavy drinking, and multiple imputation (MI). In separate analyses, these approaches were compared when drinking data were manually deleted for those participants who discontinued treatment but continued to provide drinking data. WCS produced the greatest amount of bias in treatment effect estimates. MI usually yielded less biased estimates than WCS and CCA in the simulated data and performed considerably better than LOCF when estimating treatment effects among individuals who discontinued treatment. Missing data can introduce bias in treatment effect estimates in alcohol clinical trials. Researchers should utilize modern missing data methods, including MI, and avoid WCS and CCA when analyzing binary alcohol clinical trial outcomes. Copyright © 2016 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.

Center for Hybrid Communications and Networks

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-09-08

Transmission loop experimental setup to study coded modulation and turbo equalization for metro and long-haul networks, 3) Experimental setup for...undertaking fundamental studies of QKD systems that use ( hyper -) entangled photon pairs or weak coherent states (WCS) as the quantum resources...onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/047134608X.W8291/abstract] The real-time scope and AWG are also used in fiber-optics transmission loop experiment we

47 CFR 27.73 - WCS, AMT, and Goldstone coordination requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... protect AMT receive systems consistent with Recommendation ITU-R M.1459. The locations of the current and...) within 145 kilometers of the Goldstone, CA earth station site (35°25′33″ N, 116°53′23″ W). (c) After base...) receiving the complaint, no matter the distance from the NASA Goldstone, CA earth station or from an AMT...

JADDS - towards a tailored global atmospheric composition data service for CAMS forecasts and reanalysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stein, Olaf; Schultz, Martin G.; Rambadt, Michael; Saini, Rajveer; Hoffmann, Lars; Mallmann, Daniel

2017-04-01

Global model data of atmospheric composition produced by the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) is collected since 2010 at FZ Jülich and serves as boundary condition for use by Regional Air Quality (RAQ) modellers world-wide. RAQ models need time-resolved meteorological as well as chemical lateral boundary conditions for their individual model domains. While the meteorological data usually come from well-established global forecast systems, the chemical boundary conditions are not always well defined. In the past, many models used 'climatic' boundary conditions for the tracer concentrations, which can lead to significant concentration biases, particularly for tracers with longer lifetimes which can be transported over long distances (e.g. over the whole northern hemisphere) with the mean wind. The Copernicus approach utilizes extensive near-realtime data assimilation of atmospheric composition data observed from space which gives additional reliability to the global modelling data and is well received by the RAQ communities. An existing Web Coverage Service (WCS) for sharing these individually tailored model results is currently being re-engineered to make use of a modern, scalable database technology in order to improve performance, enhance flexibility, and allow the operation of catalogue services. The new Jülich Atmospheric Data Distributions Server (JADDS) adheres to the Web Coverage Service WCS2.0 standard as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium OGC. This enables the user groups to flexibly define datasets they need by selecting a subset of chemical species or restricting geographical boundaries or the length of the time series. The data is made available in the form of different catalogues stored locally on our server. In addition, the Jülich OWS Interface (JOIN) provides interoperable web services allowing for easy download and visualization of datasets delivered from WCS servers via the internet. We will present the prototype JADDS server and address the major issues identified when relocating large four-dimensional datasets into a RASDAMAN raster array database. So far the RASDAMAN support for data available in netCDF format is limited with respect to metadata related to variables and axes. For community-wide accepted solutions, selected data coverages shall result in downloadable netCDF files including metadata complying with the netCDF CF Metadata Conventions standard (http://cfconventions.org/). This can be achieved by adding custom metadata elements for RASDAMAN bands (model levels) on data ingestion. Furthermore, an optimization strategy for ingestion of several TB of 4D model output data will be outlined.

Pragmatic service development and customisation with the CEDA OGC Web Services framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pascoe, Stephen; Stephens, Ag; Lowe, Dominic

2010-05-01

The CEDA OGC Web Services framework (COWS) emphasises rapid service development by providing a lightweight layer of OGC web service logic on top of Pylons, a mature web application framework for the Python language. This approach gives developers a flexible web service development environment without compromising access to the full range of web application tools and patterns: Model-View-Controller paradigm, XML templating, Object-Relational-Mapper integration and authentication/authorization. We have found this approach useful for exploring evolving standards and implementing protocol extensions to meet the requirements of operational deployments. This paper outlines how COWS is being used to implement customised WMS, WCS, WFS and WPS services in a variety of web applications from experimental prototypes to load-balanced cluster deployments serving 10-100 simultaneous users. In particular we will cover 1) The use of Climate Science Modeling Language (CSML) in complex-feature aware WMS, WCS and WFS services, 2) Extending WMS to support applications with features specific to earth system science and 3) A cluster-enabled Web Processing Service (WPS) supporting asynchronous data processing. The COWS WPS underpins all backend services in the UK Climate Projections User Interface where users can extract, plot and further process outputs from a multi-dimensional probabilistic climate model dataset. The COWS WPS supports cluster job execution, result caching, execution time estimation and user management. The COWS WMS and WCS components drive the project-specific NCEO and QESDI portals developed by the British Atmospheric Data Centre. These portals use CSML as a backend description format and implement features such as multiple WMS layer dimensions and climatology axes that are beyond the scope of general purpose GIS tools and yet vital for atmospheric science applications.

Distinct Detoxification Mechanisms Confer Resistance to Mesotrione and Atrazine in a Population of Waterhemp1[C][W][OPEN

PubMed Central

Ma, Rong; Kaundun, Shiv S.; Tranel, Patrick J.; Riggins, Chance W.; McGinness, Daniel L.; Hager, Aaron G.; Hawkes, Tim; McIndoe, Eddie; Riechers, Dean E.

2013-01-01

Previous research reported the first case of resistance to mesotrione and other 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD) herbicides in a waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus) population designated MCR (for McLean County mesotrione- and atrazine-resistant). Herein, experiments were conducted to determine if target site or nontarget site mechanisms confer mesotrione resistance in MCR. Additionally, the basis for atrazine resistance was investigated in MCR and an atrazine-resistant but mesotrione-sensitive population (ACR for Adams County mesotrione-sensitive but atrazine-resistant). A standard sensitive population (WCS for Wayne County herbicide-sensitive) was also used for comparison. Mesotrione resistance was not due to an alteration in HPPD sequence, HPPD expression, or reduced herbicide absorption. Metabolism studies using whole plants and excised leaves revealed that the time for 50% of absorbed mesotrione to degrade in MCR was significantly shorter than in ACR and WCS, which correlated with previous phenotypic responses to mesotrione and the quantity of the metabolite 4-hydroxy-mesotrione in excised leaves. The cytochrome P450 monooxygenase inhibitors malathion and tetcyclacis significantly reduced mesotrione metabolism in MCR and corn (Zea mays) excised leaves but not in ACR. Furthermore, malathion increased mesotrione activity in MCR seedlings in greenhouse studies. These results indicate that enhanced oxidative metabolism contributes significantly to mesotrione resistance in MCR. Sequence analysis of atrazine-resistant (MCR and ACR) and atrazine-sensitive (WCS) waterhemp populations detected no differences in the psbA gene. The times for 50% of absorbed atrazine to degrade in corn, MCR, and ACR leaves were shorter than in WCS, and a polar metabolite of atrazine was detected in corn, MCR, and ACR that cochromatographed with a synthetic atrazine-glutathione conjugate. Thus, elevated rates of metabolism via distinct detoxification mechanisms contribute to mesotrione and atrazine resistance within the MCR population. PMID:23872617

Inhibition of ice recrystallization and cryoprotective activity of wheat proteins in liver and pancreatic cells

PubMed Central

Chow‐Shi‐Yée, Mélanie; Briard, Jennie G.; Grondin, Mélanie; Averill‐Bates, Diana A.

2016-01-01

Abstract Efficient cryopreservation of cells at ultralow temperatures requires the use of substances that help maintain viability and metabolic functions post‐thaw. We are developing new technology where plant proteins are used to substitute the commonly‐used, but relatively toxic chemical dimethyl sulfoxide. Recombinant forms of four structurally diverse wheat proteins, TaIRI‐2 (ice recrystallization inhibition), TaBAS1 (2‐Cys peroxiredoxin), WCS120 (dehydrin), and TaENO (enolase) can efficiently cryopreserve hepatocytes and insulin‐secreting INS832/13 cells. This study shows that TaIRI‐2 and TaENO are internalized during the freeze–thaw process, while TaBAS1 and WCS120 remain at the extracellular level. Possible antifreeze activity of the four proteins was assessed. The “splat cooling” method for quantifying ice recrystallization inhibition activity (a property that characterizes antifreeze proteins) revealed that TaIRI‐2 and TaENO are more potent than TaBAS1 and WCS120. Because of their ability to inhibit ice recrystallization, the wheat recombinant proteins TaIRI‐2 and TaENO are promising candidates and could prove useful to improve cryopreservation protocols for hepatocytes and insulin‐secreting cells, and possibly other cell types. TaENO does not have typical ice‐binding domains, and the TargetFreeze tool did not predict an antifreeze capacity, suggesting the existence of nontypical antifreeze domains. The fact that TaBAS1 is an efficient cryoprotectant but does not show antifreeze activity indicates a different mechanism of action. The cryoprotective properties conferred by WCS120 depend on biochemical properties that remain to be determined. Overall, our results show that the proteins' efficiencies vary between cell types, and confirm that a combination of different protection mechanisms is needed to successfully cryopreserve mammalian cells. PMID:26889747

Inhibition of ice recrystallization and cryoprotective activity of wheat proteins in liver and pancreatic cells.

PubMed

Chow-Shi-Yée, Mélanie; Briard, Jennie G; Grondin, Mélanie; Averill-Bates, Diana A; Ben, Robert N; Ouellet, François

2016-05-01

Efficient cryopreservation of cells at ultralow temperatures requires the use of substances that help maintain viability and metabolic functions post-thaw. We are developing new technology where plant proteins are used to substitute the commonly-used, but relatively toxic chemical dimethyl sulfoxide. Recombinant forms of four structurally diverse wheat proteins, TaIRI-2 (ice recrystallization inhibition), TaBAS1 (2-Cys peroxiredoxin), WCS120 (dehydrin), and TaENO (enolase) can efficiently cryopreserve hepatocytes and insulin-secreting INS832/13 cells. This study shows that TaIRI-2 and TaENO are internalized during the freeze-thaw process, while TaBAS1 and WCS120 remain at the extracellular level. Possible antifreeze activity of the four proteins was assessed. The "splat cooling" method for quantifying ice recrystallization inhibition activity (a property that characterizes antifreeze proteins) revealed that TaIRI-2 and TaENO are more potent than TaBAS1 and WCS120. Because of their ability to inhibit ice recrystallization, the wheat recombinant proteins TaIRI-2 and TaENO are promising candidates and could prove useful to improve cryopreservation protocols for hepatocytes and insulin-secreting cells, and possibly other cell types. TaENO does not have typical ice-binding domains, and the TargetFreeze tool did not predict an antifreeze capacity, suggesting the existence of nontypical antifreeze domains. The fact that TaBAS1 is an efficient cryoprotectant but does not show antifreeze activity indicates a different mechanism of action. The cryoprotective properties conferred by WCS120 depend on biochemical properties that remain to be determined. Overall, our results show that the proteins' efficiencies vary between cell types, and confirm that a combination of different protection mechanisms is needed to successfully cryopreserve mammalian cells. © 2016 The Protein Society.

Color naming across languages reflects color use

PubMed Central

Gibson, Edward; Futrell, Richard; Mahowald, Kyle; Bergen, Leon; Ratnasingam, Sivalogeswaran; Gibson, Mitchell; Piantadosi, Steven T.; Conway, Bevil R.

2017-01-01

What determines how languages categorize colors? We analyzed results of the World Color Survey (WCS) of 110 languages to show that despite gross differences across languages, communication of chromatic chips is always better for warm colors (yellows/reds) than cool colors (blues/greens). We present an analysis of color statistics in a large databank of natural images curated by human observers for salient objects and show that objects tend to have warm rather than cool colors. These results suggest that the cross-linguistic similarity in color-naming efficiency reflects colors of universal usefulness and provide an account of a principle (color use) that governs how color categories come about. We show that potential methodological issues with the WCS do not corrupt information-theoretic analyses, by collecting original data using two extreme versions of the color-naming task, in three groups: the Tsimane', a remote Amazonian hunter-gatherer isolate; Bolivian-Spanish speakers; and English speakers. These data also enabled us to test another prediction of the color-usefulness hypothesis: that differences in color categorization between languages are caused by differences in overall usefulness of color to a culture. In support, we found that color naming among Tsimane' had relatively low communicative efficiency, and the Tsimane' were less likely to use color terms when describing familiar objects. Color-naming among Tsimane' was boosted when naming artificially colored objects compared with natural objects, suggesting that industrialization promotes color usefulness. PMID:28923921

Husbandry protocols for the Band-tailed pigeon, Patagioenas fasciata albilinea, at the WCS, Bronx Zoo for future conservation management programs.

PubMed

Oehler, David A; Novak, Ben J; Schmid, Susan C; Huth, Ken J; Totha, Aniko I; Audhya, Tapan

2018-01-01

From 2015 to 2016 we determined the husbandry protocols involved in the captive rearing of the Band-tailed Pigeon (BTPI), Patagioenas fascinate albilinea, for use as a tool in the future management of like extant and extinct avian taxa. Current and historical ex-situ conservation management of BTPIs and the closely related Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, is limited in scope and required further examination. Focus on the BTPI within zoos and private aviculture facilities is currently lacking. New pressures on the wild populations and future examination of the parameters involved in the possible restoration of the Passenger Pigeon may rely on a complete understanding of these conservation management techniques. Here we report on the establishment of a colony of BTPIs, at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and detail the progress attained. A confiscated group of BTPIs was presented to WCS and allowed us to set up the colony, document the husbandry involved, and monitor neonatal development and the factors that influence that development. The information has provided a better understanding of the BTPI and has implications for the future conservation management of this and like species. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DATA.KNMI.NL - Status & Future Challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van de Vegte, John; Som de Cerff, Wim; Verhoef, Hans; Plieger, Maarten; de Vreede, Ernst; van der Neut, Ian; Bos, Jeroen; Ha, Siu-Siu; Sluiter, Raymond; Willem Noteboom, Jan; Klein Baltink, Henk; Reijmerink, Mieke

2015-04-01

The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) has over 150 years of knowledge and gathered information related to weather, Climate and Seismology. A huge part of this information is from numerical models, insitu sensor networks and remote sensing satellites. This digital collection is becoming more and more available in the newly developed KNMI Data Centre, that is now 2 years operational. The KNMI Data Centre project has a user driven development approach where SCRUM is chosen to get maximum user involvement in a relative short timeframe. The system is build on open standards and proven opensource technology (which includes in-house developed software like ADAGUC WMS and Portal). The presentation will focus on the aspects of developing the initial KNMI Data Centre, the operational use of the last 2 years, and how a major release for the coming year will be realized. The new release which will focus on better user experience and extending the technical data interfaces to the data centre. Keywords: Agile, Usage Statistics, Open Data, Inspire, DOI, WMS, WCS, OPeNDAP

SU-F-T-192: Study of Robustness Analysis Method of Multiple Field Optimized IMPT Plans for Head & Neck Patients

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Li, Y; Wang, X; Li, H

Purpose: Proton therapy is more sensitive to uncertainties than photon treatments due to protons’ finite range depending on the tissue density. Worst case scenario (WCS) method originally proposed by Lomax has been adopted in our institute for robustness analysis of IMPT plans. This work demonstrates that WCS method is sufficient enough to take into account of the uncertainties which could be encountered during daily clinical treatment. Methods: A fast and approximate dose calculation method is developed to calculate the dose for the IMPT plan under different setup and range uncertainties. Effects of two factors, inversed square factor and range uncertainty,more » are explored. WCS robustness analysis method was evaluated using this fast dose calculation method. The worst-case dose distribution was generated by shifting isocenter by 3 mm along x,y and z directions and modifying stopping power ratios by ±3.5%. 1000 randomly perturbed cases in proton range and x, yz directions were created and the corresponding dose distributions were calculated using this approximated method. DVH and dosimetric indexes of all 1000 perturbed cases were calculated and compared with the result using worst case scenario method. Results: The distributions of dosimetric indexes of 1000 perturbed cases were generated and compared with the results using worst case scenario. For D95 of CTVs, at least 97% of 1000 perturbed cases show higher values than the one of worst case scenario. For D5 of CTVs, at least 98% of perturbed cases have lower values than worst case scenario. Conclusion: By extensively calculating the dose distributions under random uncertainties, WCS method was verified to be reliable in evaluating the robustness level of MFO IMPT plans of H&N patients. The extensively sampling approach using fast approximated method could be used in evaluating the effects of different factors on the robustness level of IMPT plans in the future.« less

Genetic Background Has a Major Impact on Differences in Sleep Resulting from Environmental Influences in Drosophila

PubMed Central

Zimmerman, John E.; Chan, May T.; Jackson, Nicholas; Maislin, Greg; Pack, Allan I.

2012-01-01

Study Objectives: To determine the effect of different genetic backgrounds on demographic and environmental interventions that affect sleep and evaluate variance of these measures; and to evaluate sleep and variance of sleep behaviors in 6 divergent laboratory strains of common origin. Design: Assessment of the effects of age, sex, mating status, food sources, and social experience using video analysis of sleep behavior in 2 different strains of Drosophila, white1118ex (w1118ex) and white Canton-S (wCS10). Sleep was also determined for 6 laboratory strains of Canton-S and 3 inbred lines. The variance of total sleep was determined for all groups and conditions. Measurements and Results: The circadian periods and the effects of age upon sleep were the same between w1118ex and wCS10 strains. However, the w1118ex and wCS10 strains demonstrated genotype-dependent differences in the effects upon sleep of sex, mating status, social experience, and being on different foods. Variance of total sleep was found to differ in a genotype dependent manner for interventions between the w1118ex and wCS10 strains. Six different laboratory Canton-S strains were found to have significantly different circadian periods (P < 0.001) and sleep phenotypes (P < 0.001). Three inbred lines showed reduced variance for sleep measurements. Conclusions: One must control environmental conditions in a rigorously consistent manner to ensure that sleep data may be compared between experiments. Genetic background has a significant impact upon changes in sleep behavior and variance of behavior due to demographic factors and environmental interventions. This represents an opportunity to discover new genes that modify sleep/wake behavior. Citation: Zimmerman JE; Chan MT; Jackson N; Maislin G; Pack AI. Genetic background has a major impact on differences in sleep resulting from environmental influences in Drosophila. SLEEP 2012;35(4):545-557. PMID:22467993

Kepler Fine Guidance Sensor Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Van Cleve, Jeffrey; Campbell, Jennifer Roseanna

2017-01-01

The Kepler and K2 missions collected Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) data in addition to the science data, as discussed in the Kepler Instrument Handbook (KIH, Van Cleve and Caldwell 2016). The FGS CCDs are frame transfer devices (KIH Table 7) located in the corners of the Kepler focal plane (KIH Figure 24), which are read out 10 times every second. The FGS data are being made available to the user community for scientific analysis as flux and centroid time series, along with a limited number of FGS full frame images which may be useful for constructing a World Coordinate System (WCS) or otherwise putting the time series data in context. This document will describe the data content and file format, and give example MATLAB scripts to read the time series. There are three file types delivered as the FGS data.1. Flux and Centroid (FLC) data: time series of star signal and centroid data. 2. Ancillary FGS Reference (AFR) data: catalog of information about the observed stars in the FLC data. 3. FGS Full-Frame Image (FGI) data: full-frame image snapshots of the FGS CCDs.

WASP Model Tutorials

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Contains WASP tutorial videos. WASP Command Line, WASP, Modeling Dissolved Oxygen, Building a Steady State Example, Modeling Nutrients in Rivers, Nutrient Cycles, Interpreting Water Quality Models, Linking with LSPC, WRDB, BASINS, WCS, WASP Network Tool

Effects of cyanobacteria Synechocystis spp. in the host-parasite model Crassostrea gasar-Perkinsus marinus.

PubMed

Queiroga, Fernando Ramos; Marques-Santos, Luis Fernando; Hégaret, Hélène; Sassi, Roberto; Farias, Natanael Dantas; Santana, Lucas Nunes; da Silva, Patricia Mirella

2017-06-01

Perkinsosis is a disease caused by protozoan parasites from the Perkinsus genus. In Brazil, two species, P. beihaiensis and P. marinus, are frequently found infecting native oysters (Crassostrea gasar and C. rhizophorae) from cultured and wild populations in several states of the Northeast region. The impacts of this disease in bivalves from Brazil, as well as the interactions with environmental factors, are poorly studied. In the present work, we evaluated the in vitro effects of the cyanobacteria Synechocystis spp. on trophozoites of P. marinus and haemocytes of C. gasar. Four cyanobacteria strains isolated from the Northeast Brazilian coast were used as whole cultures (WCs) and extracellular products (ECPs). Trophozoites of P. marinus were exposed for short (4h) and long (48h and 7days, the latter only for ECPs) periods, while haemocytes were exposed for a short period (4h). Cellular and immune parameters, i.e. cell viability, cell count, reactive oxygen species production (ROS) and phagocytosis of inert (latex beads) and biological particles (zymosan and trophozoites of P. marinus) were measured by flow cytometry. The viability of P. marinus trophozoites was improved in response to WCs of Synechocystis spp., which could be a beneficial effect of the cyanobacteria providing nutrients and reducing reactive oxygen species. Long-term exposure of trophozoites to ECPs of cyanobacteria did not modify in vitro cell proliferation nor viability. In contrast, C. gasar haemocytes showed a reduction in cell viability when exposed to WCs, but not to ECPs. However, ROS production was not altered. Haemocyte ability to engulf latex particles was reduced when exposed mainly to ECPs of cyanobacteria; while neither the WCs nor the ECPs modified phagocytosis of the biological particles, zymosan and P. marinus. Our results suggest a negative effect of cyanobacteria from the Synechocystis genus on host immune cells, in contrast to a more beneficial effect on the parasite cell, which could together disrupt the balance of the host-parasite interaction and make oysters more susceptible to P. marinus as well as opportunistic infections. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Open Data, Jupyter Notebooks and Geospatial Data Standards Combined - Opening up large volumes of marine and climate data to other communities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clements, O.; Siemen, S.; Wagemann, J.

2017-12-01

The EU-funded Earthserver-2 project aims to offer on-demand access to large volumes of environmental data (Earth Observation, Marine, Climate data and Planetary data) via the interface standard Web Coverage Service defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium. Providing access to data via OGC web services (e.g. WCS and WMS) has the potential to open up services to a wider audience, especially to users outside the respective communities. Especially WCS 2.0 with its processing extension Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS) is highly beneficial to make large volumes accessible to non-expert communities. Users do not have to deal with custom community data formats, such as GRIB for the meteorological community, but can directly access the data in a format they are more familiar with, such as NetCDF, JSON or CSV. Data requests can further directly be integrated into custom processing routines and users are not required to download Gigabytes of data anymore. WCS supports trim (reduction of data extent) and slice (reduction of data dimension) operations on multi-dimensional data, providing users a very flexible on-demand access to the data. WCPS allows the user to craft queries to run on the data using a text-based query language, similar to SQL. These queries can be very powerful, e.g. condensing a three-dimensional data cube into its two-dimensional mean. However, the more processing-intensive the more complex the query. As part of the EarthServer-2 project, we developed a python library that helps users to generate complex WCPS queries with Python, a programming language they are more familiar with. The interactive presentation aims to give practical examples how users can benefit from two specific WCS services from the Marine and Climate community. Use-cases from the two communities will show different approaches to take advantage of a Web Coverage (Processing) Service. The entire content is available with Jupyter Notebooks, as they prove to be a highly beneficial tool to generate reproducible workflows for environmental data analysis.

The worst case scenario: Locomotor and collision demands of the longest periods of gameplay in professional rugby union

PubMed Central

Reardon, Cillian; Tobin, Daniel P.; Tierney, Peter; Delahunt, Eamonn

2017-01-01

A number of studies have used global positioning systems (GPS) to report on positional differences in the physical game demands of rugby union both on an average and singular bout basis. However, the ability of these studies to report quantitative data is limited by a lack of validation of certain aspects of measurement by GPS micro-technology. Furthermore no study has analyzed the positional physical demands of the longest bouts of ball-in-play time in rugby union. The aim of the present study is to compare the demands of the single longest period of ball-in-play, termed “worst case scenario” (WCS) between positional groups, which have previously been reported to have distinguishable game demands. The results of this study indicate that WCS periods follow a similar sporadic pattern as average demands but are played at a far higher pace than previously reported for average game demands with average meters per minute of 116.8 m. The positional differences in running and collision activity previously reported are perpetuated within WCS periods. Backs covered greater total distances than forwards (318 m vs 289 m), carried out more high-speed running (11.1 m·min-1 vs 5.5 m·min-1) and achieved higher maximum velocities (MaxVel). Outside Backs achieved the highest MaxVel values (6.84 m·sec-1). Tight Five and Back Row forwards underwent significantly more collisions than Inside Back and Outside Backs (0.73 & 0.89 collisions·min-1 vs 0.28 & 0.41 collisions·min-1 respectively). The results of the present study provide information on the positional physical requirements of performance in prolonged periods involving multiple high intensity bursts of effort. Although the current state of GPS micro-technology as a measurement tool does not permit reporting of collision intensity or acceleration data, the combined use of video and GPS provides valuable information to the practitioner. This can be used to match and replicate game demands in training. PMID:28510582

The worst case scenario: Locomotor and collision demands of the longest periods of gameplay in professional rugby union.

PubMed

Reardon, Cillian; Tobin, Daniel P; Tierney, Peter; Delahunt, Eamonn

2017-01-01

A number of studies have used global positioning systems (GPS) to report on positional differences in the physical game demands of rugby union both on an average and singular bout basis. However, the ability of these studies to report quantitative data is limited by a lack of validation of certain aspects of measurement by GPS micro-technology. Furthermore no study has analyzed the positional physical demands of the longest bouts of ball-in-play time in rugby union. The aim of the present study is to compare the demands of the single longest period of ball-in-play, termed "worst case scenario" (WCS) between positional groups, which have previously been reported to have distinguishable game demands. The results of this study indicate that WCS periods follow a similar sporadic pattern as average demands but are played at a far higher pace than previously reported for average game demands with average meters per minute of 116.8 m. The positional differences in running and collision activity previously reported are perpetuated within WCS periods. Backs covered greater total distances than forwards (318 m vs 289 m), carried out more high-speed running (11.1 m·min-1 vs 5.5 m·min-1) and achieved higher maximum velocities (MaxVel). Outside Backs achieved the highest MaxVel values (6.84 m·sec-1). Tight Five and Back Row forwards underwent significantly more collisions than Inside Back and Outside Backs (0.73 & 0.89 collisions·min-1 vs 0.28 & 0.41 collisions·min-1 respectively). The results of the present study provide information on the positional physical requirements of performance in prolonged periods involving multiple high intensity bursts of effort. Although the current state of GPS micro-technology as a measurement tool does not permit reporting of collision intensity or acceleration data, the combined use of video and GPS provides valuable information to the practitioner. This can be used to match and replicate game demands in training.

Improving the water solubility and antimicrobial activity of silymarin by nanoencapsulation.

PubMed

Lee, Ji-Soo; Hong, Da Young; Kim, Eun Suh; Lee, Hyeon Gyu

2017-06-01

The aims of this study were to improve the water solubility and antimicrobial activity of milk thistle silymarin by nanoencapsulation and to assess the functions of silymarin nanoparticle-containing film as an antimicrobial food-packaging agent. Silymarin nanoparticles were prepared using water-soluble chitosan (WCS) and poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA). As the WCS and silymarin concentrations increased, particle size and polydispersity index (PDI) significantly increased. Nanoencapsulation significantly improved the water solubility of silymarin 7.7-fold. Antimicrobial activity of silymarin was effectively improved when silymarin was entrapped within the nanocapsule compared to when it was not entrapped. Films incorporating silymarin nanoparticles had better antimicrobial activity than films incorporating free silymarin. The results suggest that silymarin nanoparticles have applications in antimicrobial food additives and food packing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Inoculation of tomato plants with rhizobacteria enhances the performance of the phloem-feeding insect Bemisia tabaci

PubMed Central

Shavit, Roee; Ofek-Lalzar, Maya; Burdman, Saul; Morin, Shai

2013-01-01

In their natural environment, plants experience multiple biotic interactions and respond to this complexity in an integrated manner. Therefore, plant responses to herbivory are flexible and depend on the context and complexity in which they occur. For example, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) can enhance plant growth and induce resistance against microbial pathogens and herbivorous insects by a phenomenon termed induced systemic resistance (ISR). In the present study, we investigated the effect of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) pre-inoculation with the PGPR Pseudomonas fluorescens WCS417r, on the performance of the generalist phloem-feeding insect Bemisia tabaci. Based on the ability of P. fluorescens WCS417r to prime for ISR against generalists chewing insects and necrotrophic pathogens, we hypothesized that pre-inoculated plants will strongly resist B. tabaci infestation. In contrast, we discovered that the pre-inoculation treatment increased the tomato plant suitability for B. tabaci which was emphasized both by faster developmental rate and higher survivability of nymph stages on pre-inoculated plants. Our molecular and chemical analyses suggested that the phenomenon is likely to be related to: (I) the ability of the bacteria to reduce the activity of the plant induced defense systems; (II) a possible manipulation by P. fluorescens of the plant quality (in terms of suitability for B. tabaci) through an indirect effect on the rhizosphere bacterial community. The contribution of our study to the pattern proposed for other belowground rhizobacteria and mycorrhizal fungi and aboveground generalist phloem-feeders is discussed. PMID:23964283

Effectiveness of beneficial plant-microbe interactions under hypobaric and hypoxic conditions in an advanced life support system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

MacIntyre, Olathe; Stasiak, Michael; Cottenie, Karl; Trevors, Jack; Dixon, Mike

An assembled microbial community in the hydroponics solution of an advanced life support system may improve plant performance and productivity in three ways: (1) exclusion of plant pathogens from the initial community, (2) resistance to infection, and (3) plant-growth promotion. However, the plant production area is likely to have a hypobaric (low pressure) and hypoxic (low oxygen) atmosphere to reduce structural mass and atmosphere leakage, and these conditions may alter plant-microbe interactions. Plant performance and productivity of radish (Raphanus sativus L. cv. Cherry Bomb II) grown under hypobaric and hypoxic conditions were investigated at the University of Guelph's Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility. Changes in the microbial communities that routinely colonized the re-circulated nutrient solution, roots, and leaves of radishes in these experiments were quantified in terms of similarity in community composition, abundance of bacteria, and community diversity before and after exposure to hypobaric and hypoxic conditions relative to communities maintained at ambient growth conditions. The microbial succession was affected by extreme hypoxia (2 kPa oxygen partial pressure) while hypobaria as low as 10 kPa total pressure had little effect on microbial ecology. There were no correlations found between the physiological profile of these unintentional microbial communities and radish growth. The effects of hypobaric and hypoxic conditions on specific plant-microbe interactions need to be determined before beneficial gnotobiotic communities can be developed for use in space. The bacterial strains Tal 629 of Bradyrhizobium japonicum and WCS417 of Pseudomonas fluorescens, and the plant pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. raphani will be used in future experiments. B. japonicum Tal 629 promotes radish growth in hydroponics systems and P. fluorescens WCS417 induces systemic resistance to fusarium wilt (F. oxysporum f. sp. raphani) in radish under ambient conditions. Techniques used to investigate the interactions between radish and these microbes under hypobaric and hypoxic conditions will be discussed.

Latent semantic analysis.

PubMed

Evangelopoulos, Nicholas E

2013-11-01

This article reviews latent semantic analysis (LSA), a theory of meaning as well as a method for extracting that meaning from passages of text, based on statistical computations over a collection of documents. LSA as a theory of meaning defines a latent semantic space where documents and individual words are represented as vectors. LSA as a computational technique uses linear algebra to extract dimensions that represent that space. This representation enables the computation of similarity among terms and documents, categorization of terms and documents, and summarization of large collections of documents using automated procedures that mimic the way humans perform similar cognitive tasks. We present some technical details, various illustrative examples, and discuss a number of applications from linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, education, information science, and analysis of textual data in general. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:683-692. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1254 CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Biased three-intensity decoy-state scheme on the measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution using heralded single-photon sources.

PubMed

Zhang, Chun-Hui; Zhang, Chun-Mei; Guo, Guang-Can; Wang, Qin

2018-02-19

At present, most of the measurement-device-independent quantum key distributions (MDI-QKD) are based on weak coherent sources and limited in the transmission distance under realistic experimental conditions, e.g., considering the finite-size-key effects. Hence in this paper, we propose a new biased decoy-state scheme using heralded single-photon sources for the three-intensity MDI-QKD, where we prepare the decoy pulses only in X basis and adopt both the collective constraints and joint parameter estimation techniques. Compared with former schemes with WCS or HSPS, after implementing full parameter optimizations, our scheme gives distinct reduced quantum bit error rate in the X basis and thus show excellent performance, especially when the data size is relatively small.

47 CFR 27.301 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.301 Section 27.301 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS § 27.301 [Reserved] ...

47 CFR 27.301 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.301 Section 27.301 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS § 27.301 [Reserved] ...

Joint Fire Support in 2020: Development of a Future Joint Fires Systems Architecture for Immediate, Unplanned Targets

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-12-01

Undersea Warfare Commander VHF Very High Frequency VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol WCS Weapons...USN surface and undersea warfare, USN and USA communications and networking operations, and USAF acquisition and aircraft maintenance projects. In...kin g 1 x x BN -R EG T- BD E Co or di na tio n 1 x x x x Pr ov id in g Ba tte ry Ta sk in g, E ng ag e, C oo rd in at io n 1 1 x x x Pr ov id in

47 CFR 27.1 - Basis and purpose.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS... rules for miscellaneous wireless communications services (WCS) in this part are promulgated under the... states the conditions under which spectrum is made available and licensed for the provision of wireless...

47 CFR 27.302 - Eligibility.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Eligibility. 27.302 Section 27.302 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS § 27.302 Eligibility. (a) General...

47 CFR 27.302 - Eligibility.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Eligibility. 27.302 Section 27.302 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS § 27.302 Eligibility. (a) General...

First Results from Contamination Monitoring with the WFC3 UVIS G280 Grism

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rothberg, B.; Pirzkal, N.; Baggett, S.

2011-11-01

The presence of contaminants within the optical light path of the instrument or telescope can alter photometric zeropoints and the observed flux levels of imaging and spectra, particularly at UV wavelengths. Regular monitoring of a spectro-photometric standard star using photometric filters has been used in the past to monitor the presence of contaminants and (when necessary) re-calibrate zeropoints. However, the use of the WFC3 UVIS Grism mode (G280 filter) may provide a more robust early alert detection system for the presence of contaminants, in particular, those that are photo-polymerized from the bright Earth. These contaminants may collect on surfaces in the optical light path of the telescope. The G280 grism is sensitive to light at wavelengths below the cutoff of the bluest UV filter (F218W). In this ISR, we present: 1) the first results from G280 monitoring for the period of 2010-November through 2011-August; 2) the discovery of an anomaly in the WCS header information of sub-array exposures; and 3) an outline for reducing standard G280 grism observations and the specialized case of observations obtained in sub-array mode.

EPA's Review of DOE's Inventory Tracking for TRU Wastes at Waste Control Specialists

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

On April 9, 2014, EPA's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) waste characterization team visited Waste Control Specialists (WCS) to determine whether DOE was meeting EPA's waste inventory tracking requirements at 40 CFR 194.24(c)(4).

47 CFR 27.308 - Technical content of applications.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Technical content of applications. 27.308 Section 27.308 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS § 27.308...

47 CFR 27.308 - Technical content of applications.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Technical content of applications. 27.308 Section 27.308 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS § 27.308...

47 CFR 27.57 - International coordination.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false International coordination. 27.57 Section 27.57 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Technical Standards § 27.57 International coordination. (a) WCS operations in the border...

Poverty and child (0-14 years) mortality in the USA and other Western countries as an indicator of "how well a country meets the needs of its children" (UNICEF).

PubMed

Pritchard, Colin; Williams, Richard

2011-01-01

Children's (0-14 years) mortality rates in the USA and 19 Western countries (WCs) were examined in the context of a nation-specific measure of relative poverty and the Gross Domestic Product Health Expenditure (GDPHE) of countries to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of health care systems "to meet the needs of its children" (UNICEF). World Health Organisation child mortality rates per million were analysed for 1979-1981 and 2003-2005 to determine any significant differences between the USA and the other WCs over these periods. Child mortality rates are correlated with all countries GDPHE and 'relative poverty', defined by 'Income Inequalities', i.e., the gap between top and bottom 20% of incomes. Outputs: The mortality rate of every country fell substantially ranging from falls of 46% in the USA to 78% in Portugal. The highest current mortality rates are: USA, 2436 per million (pm), New Zealand 2105 pm, Portugal 1929 pm, Canada 1877 pm and the UK 1834 pm; the lowest are: Japan 1073 pm and Sweden 1075 pm, Finland 1193 pm and Norway 1200 pm. A total of 16 countries rates fell significantly more than the USA over these periods. Inputs: The USA had the greatest GDPHE and widest Income Inequality gap. There was no significant correlation between GDPHE and mortality but highly significant correlations with children's deaths and income inequalities. The five widest income inequality countries had the six worst rates, the narrowest four had the lowest. Despite major improvements in every WC, based upon financial inputs and child mortality outputs, the USA health care system appears the least efficient and effective in "meeting the needs of its children".

Novel fiber optic sensor probe with a pair of highly reflected connectors and a vessel of water absorption material for water leak detection.

PubMed

Cho, Tae-Sik; Choi, Ki-Sun; Seo, Dae-Cheol; Kwon, Il-Bum; Lee, Jung-Ryul

2012-01-01

The use of a fiber optic quasi-distributed sensing technique for detecting the location and severity of water leakage is suggested. A novel fiber optic sensor probe is devised with a vessel of water absorption material called as water combination soil (WCS) located between two highly reflected connectors: one is a reference connector and the other is a sensing connector. In this study, the sensing output is calculated from the reflected light signals of the two connectors. The first reflected light signal is a reference and the second is a sensing signal which is attenuated by the optical fiber bending loss due to the WCS expansion absorbing water. Also, the bending loss of each sensor probe is determined by referring to the total number of sensor probes and the total power budget of an entire system. We have investigated several probe characteristics to show the design feasibility of the novel fiber sensor probe. The effects of vessel sizes of the probes on the water detection sensitivity are studied. The largest vessel probe provides the highest sensitivity of 0.267 dB/mL, while the smallest shows relatively low sensitivity of 0.067 dB/mL, and unstable response. The sensor probe with a high output value provides a high sensitivity with various detection levels while the number of total installable sensor probes decreases.

A flexible geospatial sensor observation service for diverse sensor data based on Web service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Nengcheng; Di, Liping; Yu, Genong; Min, Min

Achieving a flexible and efficient geospatial Sensor Observation Service (SOS) is difficult, given the diversity of sensor networks, the heterogeneity of sensor data storage, and the differing requirements of users. This paper describes development of a service-oriented multi-purpose SOS framework. The goal is to create a single method of access to the data by integrating the sensor observation service with other Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) services — Catalogue Service for the Web (CSW), Transactional Web Feature Service (WFS-T) and Transactional Web Coverage Service (WCS-T). The framework includes an extensible sensor data adapter, an OGC-compliant geospatial SOS, a geospatial catalogue service, a WFS-T, and a WCS-T for the SOS, and a geospatial sensor client. The extensible sensor data adapter finds, stores, and manages sensor data from live sensors, sensor models, and simulation systems. Abstract factory design patterns are used during design and implementation. A sensor observation service compatible with the SWE is designed, following the OGC "core" and "transaction" specifications. It is implemented using Java servlet technology. It can be easily deployed in any Java servlet container and automatically exposed for discovery using Web Service Description Language (WSDL). Interaction sequences between a Sensor Web data consumer and an SOS, between a producer and an SOS, and between an SOS and a CSW are described in detail. The framework has been successfully demonstrated in application scenarios for EO-1 observations, weather observations, and water height gauge observations.

Supplementation with Cashew Nut and Cottonseed Meal to Modify Fatty Acid Content in Lamb Meat.

PubMed

Pereira, Elzania S; Mizubuti, Ivone Y; Oliveira, Ronaldo L; Pinto, Andréa P; Ribeiro, Edson L A; Gadelha, Carla R F; Campos, Ana C N; Pereira, Marília F; Carneiro, Maria S S; Arruda, Paulo C; Silva, Luciano P

2016-09-01

This study evaluates the effect of cashew nut meal (CNM), whole cottonseed (WCS), and calcium salts of long-chain fatty acids (Ca-LCFA) on the fatty acid profiles of meat from hair lambs. Thirty-five 60-d-old, male, noncastrated Santa Ines lambs with an initial average body weight of 13.00 ± 1.80 kg were used in a randomized complete-block design with 7 blocks and 5 treatments. The experimental treatments consisted of a control diet (CON) without supplemental lipids and 4 test diets with different lipid supplements that were selected according to the degree of protection from ruminal hydrogenation and their polyunsaturated fatty acid richness. The tests diets included the following modifications: supplementation with WCS, supplementation with CNM, supplementation with both cottonseed and CNM (CSCNM), and supplementation with Ca-LCFA. The C18:1n9c content was highest in the meat of the animals fed the CNM diet (42.00%). The meat from lambs fed the WCS and Ca-LCFA diets had higher C18:0 contents (25.23 and 22.80%, respectively). The C16:1 content was higher in the meat from the animals fed the CNM and CON diets (1.54 and 1.49%, respectively). C18:2c9t11 concentration was higher in the meat from the animals fed the Ca-LCFA and CNM diets. The estimated enzyme activity of Δ9-desaturase C18 was highest in the muscles of the lambs fed the CON, CNM, and CSCNM diets. The use of cashew nuts in the diet resulted in an increase in the C18:2c9t11 content of the lamb meat, which improved the nutritional characteristics of the fat. © 2016 Institute of Food Technologists®

The use of plant stress biomarkers in assessing the effects of desiccation in zygotic embryos from recalcitrant seeds: challenges and considerations.

PubMed

Sershen; Varghese, B; Naidoo, C; Pammenter, N W

2016-05-01

Zygotic embryos from recalcitrant seeds are sensitive to desiccation. In spite of their sensitivity, rapid partial dehydration is necessary for their successful cryopreservation. However, dehydration to water contents (WCs) that preclude lethal ice crystal formation during cooling and rewarming generally leads to desiccation damage. This study investigated the effects of rapid dehydration on selected stress biomarkers (electrolyte leakage, respiratory competence, rate of protein synthesis, superoxide production, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant activity and degree of cellular vacuolation) in zygotic embryos of four recalcitrant-seeded species. Most biomarkers indicated differences in the levels of stress/damage incurred by embryos dried to WCs < and >0.4 g·g(-1) , within species; however, these changes were often unrelated to viability and percentage water loss when data for the four species were pooled for regression analyses. Dehydration-induced electrolyte leakage was, however, positively related with percentage water loss, while biomarkers of cellular vacuolation were positively related with both percentage water loss and viability. This suggests that electrolyte leakage and degree of cellular vacuolation can be used to quantify dehydration-induced stress/damage. Biomarkers such as superoxide production, whilst useful in establishing the nature of the dehydration stress incurred may not be able to distinguish the effects of different WCs/drying times. Irrespective of which biomarker is used, the data suggest that understanding differences in desiccation sensitivity across recalcitrant-seeded species will remain a challenge unless these biomarkers are related to a generic desiccation stress index that integrates the effects of percentage water loss and drying time. © 2016 German Botanical Society and The Royal Botanical Society of the Netherlands.

A New Look at Data Usage by Using Metadata Attributes as Indicators of Data Quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Won, Y. I.; Wanchoo, L.; Behnke, J.

2016-12-01

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) stores and distributes data from EOS satellites, as well as ancillary, airborne, in-situ, and socio-economic data. Twelve EOSDIS data centers support different scientific disciplines by providing products and services tailored to specific science communities. Although discipline oriented, these data centers provide common data management functions of ingest, archive and distribution, as well as documentation of their data and services on their web-sites. The Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project collects these metrics from the EOSDIS data centers on a daily basis through a tool called the ESDIS Metrics System (EMS). These metrics are used in this study. The implementation of the Earthdata Login - formerly known as the User Registration System (URS) - across the various NASA data centers provides the EMS additional information about users obtaining data products from EOSDIS data centers. These additional user attributes collected by the Earthdata login, such as the user's primary area of study can augment the understanding of data usage, which in turn can help the EOSDIS program better understand the users' needs. This study will review the key metrics (users, distributed volume, and files) in multiple ways to gain an understanding of the significance of the metadata. Characterizing the usability of data by key metadata elements such as discipline and study area, will assist in understanding how the users have evolved over time. The data usage pattern based on version numbers may also provide some insight into the level of data quality. In addition, the data metrics by various services such as the Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP), Web Map Service (WMS), Web Coverage Service (WCS), and subsets, will address how these services have extended the usage of data. Over-all, this study will present the usage of data and metadata by metrics analyses and will assist data centers in better supporting the needs of the users.

47 CFR 27.322-27.325 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.322-27.325 Section 27.322-27.325 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS §§ 27.322-27.325 [Reserved] ...

47 CFR 27.304-27.307 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.304-27.307 Section 27.304-27.307 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS §§ 27.304-27.307 [Reserved] ...

47 CFR 27.310-27.320 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.310-27.320 Section 27.310-27.320 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS §§ 27.310-27.320 [Reserved] ...

47 CFR 27.322-27.325 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.322-27.325 Section 27.322-27.325 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS §§ 27.322-27.325 [Reserved] ...

47 CFR 27.310-27.320 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.310-27.320 Section 27.310-27.320 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS §§ 27.310-27.320 [Reserved] ...

47 CFR 27.304-27.307 - [Reserved

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false [Reserved] 27.304-27.307 Section 27.304-27.307 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (CONTINUED) COMMON CARRIER SERVICES MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Application, Licensing, and Processing Rules for WCS §§ 27.304-27.307 [Reserved] ...

Astrometry with A-Track Using Gaia DR1 Catalogue

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kılıç, Yücel; Erece, Orhan; Kaplan, Murat

2018-04-01

In this work, we built all sky index files from Gaia DR1 catalogue for the high-precision astrometric field solution and the precise WCS coordinates of the moving objects. For this, we used build-astrometry-index program as a part of astrometry.net code suit. Additionally, we added astrometry.net's WCS solution tool to our previously developed software which is a fast and robust pipeline for detecting moving objects such as asteroids and comets in sequential FITS images, called A-Track. Moreover, MPC module was added to A-Track. This module is linked to an asteroid database to name the found objects and prepare the MPC file to report the results. After these innovations, we tested a new version of the A-Track code on photometrical data taken by the SI-1100 CCD with 1-meter telescope at TÜBİTAK National Observatory, Antalya. The pipeline can be used to analyse large data archives or daily sequential data. The code is hosted on GitHub under the GNU GPL v3 license.

Missile Defense Certification: Examination of the U.S. Navy Aegis Warship and U.S. Army Patriot Crew Certification Process

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-09-01

C. Ensure FP Status indicators posted IAW SSTO : ___ (1) WCS ___ (2) DEFCON ___ (3) MOC ___ (4) Alert State ___ (5) ADW... SSTO . ___ 6. Denial and destruction plans. ___ 7. Missile hazard/misfire procedures. ___ 8. General Knowledge of TABS, Switch/Indicator

Let's Talk! ESL Students' Needs and Writing Centre Philosophy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moussu, Lucie

2013-01-01

When university/college faculty members believe that ESL students' writing skills are not equivalent to those of native speakers, they frequently send these ESL students to their institution's writing centres (WCs). However, this often results in frustration for WC staff, the students, and faculty members. This article first describes ESL…

47 CFR 27.63 - Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna patterns.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna... AM broadcast station antenna patterns. AWS and WCS licensees that construct or modify towers in the... the AM station antenna pattern which causes operation outside of the radiation parameters specified by...

47 CFR 27.63 - Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna patterns.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna... AM broadcast station antenna patterns. AWS and WCS licensees that construct or modify towers in the... the AM station antenna pattern which causes operation outside of the radiation parameters specified by...

47 CFR 27.63 - Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna patterns.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna... AM broadcast station antenna patterns. AWS and WCS licensees that construct or modify towers in the... the AM station antenna pattern which causes operation outside of the radiation parameters specified by...

47 CFR 27.63 - Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna patterns.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Disturbance of AM broadcast station antenna... AM broadcast station antenna patterns. AWS and WCS licensees that construct or modify towers in the... the AM station antenna pattern which causes operation outside of the radiation parameters specified by...

47 CFR 27.50 - Power limits and duty cycle.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... supporting frequency division duplex (FDD) mobile and portable operations are restricted to transmitting in... duty cycle must not exceed 38 percent; for WCS CPE using FDD technology, the duty cycle must not exceed... stations using frequency division duplex (FDD) technology, the duty cycle must not exceed 12.5 percent in...

47 CFR 27.50 - Power limits and duty cycle.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... supporting frequency division duplex (FDD) mobile and portable operations are restricted to transmitting in... duty cycle must not exceed 38 percent; for WCS CPE using FDD technology, the duty cycle must not exceed... stations using frequency division duplex (FDD) technology, the duty cycle must not exceed 12.5 percent in...

76 FR 38072 - Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Model 777 Airplanes

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-06-29

... above. This proposed AD would require repetitive detailed inspection and high frequency eddy current... high frequency eddy current (HFEC) inspection for cracks in the WCS web pockets of spanwise beams... = 160 frequency eddy current inspection per hour = $4,250 inspection cycle. airplanes x $4,250 of...

The GEOSS Clearinghouse based on the GeoNetwork opensource

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, K.; Yang, C.; Wu, H.; Huang, Q.

2010-12-01

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is established to support the study of the Earth system in a global community. It provides services for social management, quick response, academic research, and education. The purpose of GEOSS is to achieve comprehensive, coordinated and sustained observations of the Earth system, improve monitoring of the state of the Earth, increase understanding of Earth processes, and enhance prediction of the behavior of the Earth system. In 2009, GEO called for a competition for an official GEOSS clearinghouse to be selected as a source to consolidating catalogs for Earth observations. The Joint Center for Intelligent Spatial Computing at George Mason University worked with USGS to submit a solution based on the open-source platform - GeoNetwork. In the spring of 2010, the solution is selected as the product for GEOSS clearinghouse. The GEOSS Clearinghouse is a common search facility for the Intergovernmental Group on Ea rth Observation (GEO). By providing a list of harvesting functions in Business Logic, GEOSS clearinghouse can collect metadata from distributed catalogs including other GeoNetwork native nodes, webDAV/sitemap/WAF, catalog services for the web (CSW)2.0, GEOSS Component and Service Registry (http://geossregistries.info/), OGC Web Services (WCS, WFS, WMS and WPS), OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting 2.0, ArcSDE Server and Local File System. Metadata in GEOSS clearinghouse are managed in a database (MySQL, Postgresql, Oracle, or MckoiDB) and an index of the metadata is maintained through Lucene engine. Thus, EO data, services, and related resources can be discovered and accessed. It supports a variety of geospatial standards including CSW and SRU for search, FGDC and ISO metadata, and WMS related OGC standards for data access and visualization, as linked from the metadata.

Interoperable Data Access Services for NOAA IOOS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de La Beaujardiere, J.

2008-12-01

The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is intended to enhance our ability to collect, deliver, and use ocean information. The goal is to support research and decision-making by providing data on our open oceans, coastal waters, and Great Lakes in the formats, rates, and scales required by scientists, managers, businesses, governments, and the public. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the lead agency for IOOS. NOAA's IOOS office supports the development of regional coastal observing capability and promotes data management efforts to increase data accessibility. Geospatial web services have been established at NOAA data providers including the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS), and CoastWatch, and at regional data provider sites. Services established include Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OpenDAP), Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Observation Service (SOS), and OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS). These services provide integrated access to data holdings that have been aggregated at each center from multiple sources. We wish to collaborate with other groups to improve our service offerings to maximize interoperability and enhance cross-provider data integration, and to share common service components such as registries, catalogs, data conversion, and gateways. This paper will discuss the current status of NOAA's IOOS efforts and possible next steps.

Astrometric Measurements and Proper Motion Analysis for WDS 11582 +0335 HJ 1204

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Edwards, Erica; Garcia, Jose; Terronez, Cheyenne; Stuart, Melanie; Calanog, Jae; Boyce, Pat; Boyce, Grady

2018-04-01

We obtained and analyzed CCD images of the double star system WDS 11582 +0335 (HJ 1204) using the iTelescope network and a variety of specialized software. WCS coordinates were attached to each image, and the separation distance (ρ) and mean position angle (θ) were measured at ρ = 7.9" ± 0.03" and θ = 59.3° ± 0.2°. These results were compared to historical data, dating back 200 years and we find that HJ 1204 is currently exhibiting a linearly decreasing ρ and a constant θ. This suggests that HJ 1204 could be a visual double or an edge-on binary. Follow-up spectroscopic observations should resolve the two possibilities.

75 FR 45058 - Operation of Wireless Communications Services in the 2.3 GHz Band; Establishment of Rules and...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-08-02

... the 2310-2360 MHz Frequency Band AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission. ACTION: Final rule... communicate, the frequencies and emission designations of such communications, and the frequencies and...(4). 28. WCS Licensees. The Wireless Communication Service in the 2305- 2360 MHz (2.3 GHz) frequency...

MODELING PROCESSES CONTROLLING MERCURY FATE IN WATERSHEDS RECEIVING ATMOSPHERIC DEPOSITION - COMPARISON OF FIELD SCALE GLEAMS AND WATERSHED SCALE WCS-GBMM

EPA Science Inventory

Long-term simulations of mercury fate in watersheds are needed to support regulations such as TMDLs and to predict the effectiveness of regulatory proposals, such as the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR). Scientific uncertainties in mercury fate process descriptions combined with in...

47 CFR 27.73 - WCS, AMT, and Goldstone coordination requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... 202-741-6030, or go to: http://www/archives.gov/federal_ register/code_of_federal_regulations/ibr... Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) within 145 kilometers of the Goldstone, CA earth station site (35... the NASA Goldstone, CA earth station or from an AMT site, operating in the 2305-2320 or 2345-2360 MHz...

47 CFR 27.73 - WCS, AMT, and Goldstone coordination requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 202-741-6030, or go to: http://www/archives.gov/federal_ register/code_of_federal_regulations/ibr... Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) within 145 kilometers of the Goldstone, CA earth station site (35... the NASA Goldstone, CA earth station or from an AMT site, operating in the 2305-2320 or 2345-2360 MHz...

47 CFR 27.50 - Power limits and duty cycle.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Power limits and duty cycle. 27.50 Section 27... MISCELLANEOUS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES Technical Standards § 27.50 Power limits and duty cycle. (a) The... duty cycle must not exceed 38 percent; for WCS CPE using FDD technology, the duty cycle must not exceed...

Number of branch points in α-limit dextrins impact glucose generation rates by mammalian mucosal α-glucosidases.

PubMed

Lee, Byung-Hoo; Hamaker, Bruce R

2017-02-10

α-Amylase first hydrolyzes starch structures to linear maltooligosaccharides and branched α-limit dextrins, then complete hydrolysis to glucose takes place through the mucosal α-glucosidases. In this study, we hydrolyzed waxy corn starch (WCS) by human pancreatic α-amylase to determine the digestion and structural properties of different size fractions of the branched α-limit dextrins. The α-amylolyzed WCS was separated by size exclusion chromatography, and the analyzed chromatograms showed four main hydrolyzate fractions. The first three eluted peaks (regions I-III) corresponded to branched α-limit dextrins, while region IV was the linear maltooligosaccharides. Based on the chromatographic and NMR analyses of the individual peaks, Region I, II, and III had multiple (>2), two, and one α-1,6 linkages, respectively, and region I was the most slowly hydrolyzed to glucose by mucosal α-glucosidases (hydrolysis rate: Region I

Dual-systems and the development of reasoning: competence-procedural systems.

PubMed

Overton, Willis F; Ricco, Robert B

2011-03-01

Dual-system, dual-process, accounts of adult cognitive processing are examined in the context of a self-organizing relational developmental systems approaches to cognitive growth. Contemporary adult dual-process accounts describe a linear architecture of mind entailing two split-off, but interacting systems; a domain general, content-free 'analytic' system (system 2) and a domain specific highly contextualized 'heuristic' system (system 1). In the developmental literature on deductive reasoning, a similar distinction has been made between a domain general competence (reflective, algorithmic) system and a domain specific procedural system. In contrast to the linear accounts offered by empiricist, nativist, and/or evolutionary explanations, the dual competence-procedural developmental perspective argues that the mature systems emerge through developmental transformations as differentiations and intercoordinations of an early relatively undifferentiated action matrix. This development, whose microscopic mechanism is action-in-the-world, is characterized as being embodied, nonlinear, and epigenetic. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 231-237 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.120 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Spatial Data Services for Interdisciplinary Applications from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, R. S.; MacManus, K.; Vinay, S.; Yetman, G.

2016-12-01

The Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), one of 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) in the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), has developed a variety of operational spatial data services aimed at providing online access, visualization, and analytic functions for geospatial socioeconomic and environmental data. These services include: open web services that implement Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications such as Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), and Web Coverage Service (WCS); spatial query services that support Web Processing Service (WPS) and Representation State Transfer (REST); and web map clients and a mobile app that utilize SEDAC and other open web services. These services may be accessed from a variety of external map clients and visualization tools such as NASA's WorldView, NOAA's Climate Explorer, and ArcGIS Online. More than 200 data layers related to population, settlements, infrastructure, agriculture, environmental pollution, land use, health, hazards, climate change and other aspects of sustainable development are available through WMS, WFS, and/or WCS. Version 2 of the SEDAC Population Estimation Service (PES) supports spatial queries through WPS and REST in the form of a user-defined polygon or circle. The PES returns an estimate of the population residing in the defined area for a specific year (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, or 2020) based on SEDAC's Gridded Population of the World version 4 (GPWv4) dataset, together with measures of accuracy. The SEDAC Hazards Mapper and the recently released HazPop iOS mobile app enable users to easily submit spatial queries to the PES and see the results. SEDAC has developed an operational virtualized backend infrastructure to manage these services and support their continual improvement as standards change, new data and services become available, and user needs evolve. An ongoing challenge is to improve the reliability and performance of the infrastructure, in conjunction with external services, to meet both research and operational needs.

Estimating sediment yield in the southern Appalachians using WCS-SED

Treesearch

Paul Bolstad; Andrew Jenks; Mark Riedel; James M. Vose

2006-01-01

We measured and modeled sediment yield over two months on five watersheds in the southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. These watersheds contained first and second-order streams and are primarily forested, but span the development gradient common in this region, with up to 10 percent in suburban and transitional development and up to 27% low-intensity...

Human Populations and the World Conservation Strategy. Commission on Ecology Paper Number 11.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanks, J.

This document serves as a supplement to the World Conservation Strategy (WCS) and outlines some of the critical aspects of the interaction between human populations, natural resources, and social and economic conditions. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of planning with people, and on packaging conservation programs so they are more…

47 CFR 27.303 - Upper 700 MHz commercial and public safety coordination zone.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... safety coordinator. (1) The description must include, at a minimum; (i) The frequency or frequencies on... 47 Telecommunication 2 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Upper 700 MHz commercial and public safety... Rules for WCS § 27.303 Upper 700 MHz commercial and public safety coordination zone. (a) General. CMRS...

The International Space Station Urine Monitoring System (UMS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Feeback, Daniel L.; Cibuzar, Branelle R.; Milstead, Jeffery R.; Pietrzyk,, Robert A.; Clark, Mark S.F.

2009-01-01

A device capable of making in-flight volume measurements of single void urine samples, the Urine Monitoring System (UMS), was developed and flown on seven U.S. Space Shuttle missions. This device provided volume data for each urine void from multiple crewmembers and allowed samples of each to be taken and returned to Earth for post-flight analysis. There were a number of design flaws in the original instrument including the presence of liquid carry-over producing invalid "actual" micturition volumes and cross-contamination between successive users from residual urine in "dead" spots". Additionally, high or low volume voids could not be accurately measured, the on-orbit calibration and nominal use sequence was time intensive, and the unit had to be returned and disassembled to retrieve the volume data. These problems have been resolved in a new version, the International Space Station (ISS) UMS, that has been designed to provide real-time in-flight volume data with accuracy and precision equivalent to measurements made on Earth and the ability to provide urine samples that are unadulterated by the device. Originally conceived to be interfaced with a U.S.-built Waste Collection System (WCS), the unit now has been modified to interface with the Russian-supplied Sanitary Hygiene Device (ASY). The ISS UMS provides significant advantages over the current method of collecting urine samples into Urine Collection Devices (UCDs), from which samples are removed and returned to Earth for analyses. A significant future advantage of the UMS is that it can provide an interface to analytical instrumentation that will allow real-time measurement of urine bioanalytes allowing monitoring of crewmember health status during flight and the ability to provide medical interventions based on the results of these measurements. Currently, the ISS UMS is scheduled to launch along with Node-3 on STS-130 (20A) in December 2009. UMS will be installed and scientific/functional verification completed prior to placing the instrument into operation. Samples collected during the verification sequence will be returned for analyses on STS-131 (19A) currently scheduled for launch in March 2010. The presence of a UMS on ISS will provide the capability to conduct additional collaborative human life science investigations among the ISS International Partners.

Leveraging Open Standard Interfaces in Accessing and Processing NASA Data Model Outputs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Falke, S. R.; Alameh, N. S.; Hoijarvi, K.; de La Beaujardiere, J.; Bambacus, M. J.

2006-12-01

An objective of NASA's Earth Science Division is to develop advanced information technologies for processing, archiving, accessing, visualizing, and communicating Earth Science data. To this end, NASA and other federal agencies have collaborated with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to research, develop, and test interoperability specifications within projects and testbeds benefiting the government, industry, and the public. This paper summarizes the results of a recent effort under the auspices of the OGC Web Services testbed phase 4 (OWS-4) to explore standardization approaches for accessing and processing the outputs of NASA models of physical phenomena. Within the OWS-4 context, experiments were designed to leverage the emerging OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) specifications to access, filter and manipulate the outputs of the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) and Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) forecast models. In OWS-4, the intent is to provide the users with more control over the subsets of data that they can extract from the model results as well as over the final portrayal of that data. To meet that goal, experiments have been designed to test the suitability of use of OGC's Web Processing Service (WPS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) for filtering, processing and portraying the model results (including slices by height or by time), and to identify any enhancements to the specs to meet the desired objectives. This paper summarizes the findings of the experiments highlighting the value of the Web Processing Service in providing standard interfaces for accessing and manipulating model data within spatial and temporal frameworks. The paper also points out the key shortcomings of the WPS especially in terms in comparison with a SOAP/WSDL approach towards solving the same problem.

Spatial data standards meet meteorological data - pushing the boundaries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wagemann, Julia; Siemen, Stephan; Lamy-Thepaut, Sylvie

2017-04-01

The data archive of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) holds around 120 PB of data and is world's largest archive of meteorological data. This information is of great value for many Earth Science disciplines, but the complexity of the data (up to five dimensions and different time axis domains) and its native data format GRIB, while being an efficient archive format, limits the overall data uptake especially from users outside the MetOcean domain. ECMWF's MARS WebAPI is a very efficient and flexible system for expert users to access and retrieve meteorological data, though challenging for users outside the MetOcean domain. With the help of web-based standards for data access and processing, ECMWF wants to make more than 1 PB of meteorological and climate data easier accessible to users across different Earth Science disciplines. As climate data provider for the H2020 project EarthServer-2, ECMWF explores the feasibility to give on-demand access to it's MARS archive via the OGC standard interface Web Coverage Service (WCS). Despite the potential a WCS for climate and meteorological data offers, the standards-based modelling of meteorological and climate data entails many challenges and reveals the boundaries of the current Web Coverage Service 2.0 standard. Challenges range from valid semantic data models for meteorological data to optimal and efficient data structures for a scalable web service. The presentation reviews the applicability of the current Web Coverage Service 2.0 standard to meteorological and climate data and discusses challenges that are necessary to overcome in order to achieve real interoperability and to ensure the conformant sharing and exchange of meteorological data.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: HI4PI spectra and column density maps (HI4PI team+, 2016)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hi4PI Collaboration; Ben Bekhti, N.; Floeer, L.; Keller, R.; Kerp, J.; Lenz, D.; Winkel, B.; Bailin, J.; Calabretta, M. R.; Dedes, L.; Ford, H. A.; Gibson, B. K.; Haud, U.; Janowiecki, S.; Kalberla, P. M. W.; Lockman, F. J.; McClure-Griffiths, N. M.; Murphy, T.; Nakanishi, H.; Pisano, D. J.; Staveley-Smith, L.

2016-09-01

The HI4PI data release comprises 21-cm neutral atomic hydrogen data of the Milky Way (-600km/s0°; -470km/s

GSKY: A scalable distributed geospatial data server on the cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rozas Larraondo, Pablo; Pringle, Sean; Antony, Joseph; Evans, Ben

2017-04-01

Earth systems, environmental and geophysical datasets are an extremely valuable sources of information about the state and evolution of the Earth. Being able to combine information coming from different geospatial collections is in increasing demand by the scientific community, and requires managing and manipulating data with different formats and performing operations such as map reprojections, resampling and other transformations. Due to the large data volume inherent in these collections, storing multiple copies of them is unfeasible and so such data manipulation must be performed on-the-fly using efficient, high performance techniques. Ideally this should be performed using a trusted data service and common system libraries to ensure wide use and reproducibility. Recent developments in distributed computing based on dynamic access to significant cloud infrastructure opens the door for such new ways of processing geospatial data on demand. The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), hosted at the Australian National University (ANU), has over 10 Petabytes of nationally significant research data collections. Some of these collections, which comprise a variety of observed and modelled geospatial data, are now made available via a highly distributed geospatial data server, called GSKY (pronounced [jee-skee]). GSKY supports on demand processing of large geospatial data products such as satellite earth observation data as well as numerical weather products, allowing interactive exploration and analysis of the data. It dynamically and efficiently distributes the required computations among cloud nodes providing a scalable analysis framework that can adapt to serve large number of concurrent users. Typical geospatial workflows handling different file formats and data types, or blending data in different coordinate projections and spatio-temporal resolutions, is handled transparently by GSKY. This is achieved by decoupling the data ingestion and indexing process as an independent service. An indexing service crawls data collections either locally or remotely by extracting, storing and indexing all spatio-temporal metadata associated with each individual record. GSKY provides the user with the ability of specifying how ingested data should be aggregated, transformed and presented. It presents an OGC standards-compliant interface, allowing ready accessibility for users of the data via Web Map Services (WMS), Web Processing Services (WPS) or raw data arrays using Web Coverage Services (WCS). The presentation will show some cases where we have used this new capability to provide a significant improvement over previous approaches.

106 17 Telemetry Standards Chapter 2

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-07-31

high frequency STC space -time code SOQPSK shaped offset quadrature phase shift keying UHF ultra- high frequency US&P United States...and Possessions VCO voltage-controlled oscillator VHF very- high frequency WCS Wireless Communication Service Telemetry Standards, RCC Standard...get interference. a. Telemetry Bands Air and space -to-ground telemetering is allocated in the ultra- high frequency (UHF) bands 1435 to 1535, 2200

47 CFR 27.6 - Service areas.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... defined in paragraph (a) of this section. (c) 698-746 MHz band. WCS service areas for the 698-746 MHz band... paragraphs (a)(1) and (a)(2) of this section. (2) Service areas for Block C in the 746-757 MHz and 776-787... section. In the event that no licenses with respect to service areas for Block C in the 746-757 MHz and...

Characterization of Salmonella Typhimurium isolates associated with septicemia in swine.

PubMed

Bergeron, Nadia; Corriveau, Jonathan; Letellier, Ann; Daigle, France; Quessy, Sylvain

2010-01-01

Salmonella Typhimurium is frequently isolated from pigs and may also cause enteric disease in humans. In this study, 33 isolates of S. Typhimurium associated with septicemia in swine (CS) were compared to 33 isolates recovered from healthy animals at slaughter (WCS). The isolates were characterized using phenotyping and genotyping methods. For each isolate, the phage type, antimicrobial resistance, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) DNA profiles were determined. In addition, the protein profiles of each isolate grown in different conditions were studied by Coomassie Blue-stained sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and immunoblot. Various phage types were identified. The phage type PT 104 represented 36.4% of all isolates from septicemic pigs. Resistance to as many as 12 antimicrobial agents, including some natural resistances, was found in isolates from CS and WCS. Many genetic profiles were identified among the PT 104 phage types. Although it was not possible to associate one particular protein with septicemic isolates, several highly immunogenic proteins, present in all virulent isolates and in most isolates from clinically healthy animals, were identified. These results indicated that strains associated with septicemia belong to various genetic lineages that can also be recovered from asymptomatic animals at the time of slaughter.

UNIPIC code for simulations of high power microwave devices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jianguo; Zhang, Dianhui; Liu, Chunliang; Li, Yongdong; Wang, Yue; Wang, Hongguang; Qiao, Hailiang; Li, Xiaoze

2009-03-01

In this paper, UNIPIC code, a new member in the family of fully electromagnetic particle-in-cell (PIC) codes for simulations of high power microwave (HPM) generation, is introduced. In the UNIPIC code, the electromagnetic fields are updated using the second-order, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, and the particles are moved using the relativistic Newton-Lorentz force equation. The convolutional perfectly matched layer method is used to truncate the open boundaries of HPM devices. To model curved surfaces and avoid the time step reduction in the conformal-path FDTD method, CP weakly conditional-stable FDTD (WCS FDTD) method which combines the WCS FDTD and CP-FDTD methods, is implemented. UNIPIC is two-and-a-half dimensional, is written in the object-oriented C++ language, and can be run on a variety of platforms including WINDOWS, LINUX, and UNIX. Users can use the graphical user's interface to create the geometric structures of the simulated HPM devices, or input the old structures created before. Numerical experiments on some typical HPM devices by using the UNIPIC code are given. The results are compared to those obtained from some well-known PIC codes, which agree well with each other.

RTS2: a powerful robotic observatory manager

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kubánek, Petr; Jelínek, Martin; Vítek, Stanislav; de Ugarte Postigo, Antonio; Nekola, Martin; French, John

2006-06-01

RTS2, or Remote Telescope System, 2nd Version, is an integrated package for remote telescope control under the Linux operating system. It is designed to run in fully autonomous mode, picking targets from a database table, storing image meta data to the database, processing images and storing their WCS coordinates in the database and offering Virtual-Observatory enabled access to them. It is currently running on various telescope setups world-wide. For control of devices from various manufacturers we developed an abstract device layer, enabling control of all possible combinations of mounts, CCDs, photometers, roof and cupola controllers. We describe the evolution of RTS2 from Python-based RTS to C and later C++ based RTS2, focusing on the problems we faced during development. The internal structure of RTS2, focusing on object layering, which is used to uniformly control various devices and provides uniform reporting layer, is also discussed.

Health risks of vibration exposure to wheelchair users in the community

PubMed Central

Garcia-Mendez, Yasmin; Pearlman, Jonathan L.; Boninger, Michael L.; Cooper, Rory A.

2013-01-01

Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate whole-body vibration (WBV) exposure to wheelchair (WC) users in their communities and to determine the effect of WC frame type (folding, rigid, and suspension) in reducing WBV transmitted to the person. Design An observational case-control study of the WBV exposure levels among WC users. Participants Thirty-seven WC users, with no pressure sores, 18 years old or older and able to perform independent transfers. Main outcome measures WC users were monitored for 2 weeks to collect WBV exposure, as well as activity levels, by using custom vibration and activity data-loggers. Vibration levels were evaluated using ISO 2631-1 methods. Results All WC users who participated in this study were continuously exposed to WBV levels at the seat that were within and above the health caution zone specified by ISO 2631-1 during their day-to-day activities (0.83 ± 0.17 m/second2, weighted root-mean-squared acceleration, for 13.07 ± 3.85 hours duration of exposure). WCs with suspension did not attenuate vibration transmitted to WC users (V = 0.180, F(8, 56) = 0.692, P = 0.697). Conclusions WBV exposure to WC users exceeds international standards. Suspension systems need to be improved to reduce vibrations transmitted to the users. PMID:23820152

Lowering the Barriers to Using Data: Enabling Desktop-based HPD Science through Virtual Environments and Web Data Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Druken, K. A.; Trenham, C. E.; Steer, A.; Evans, B. J. K.; Richards, C. J.; Smillie, J.; Allen, C.; Pringle, S.; Wang, J.; Wyborn, L. A.

2016-12-01

The Australian National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) provides access to petascale data in climate, weather, Earth observations, and genomics, and terascale data in astronomy, geophysics, ecology and land use, as well as social sciences. The data is centralized in a closely integrated High Performance Computing (HPC), High Performance Data (HPD) and cloud facility. Despite this, there remain significant barriers for many users to find and access the data: simply hosting a large volume of data is not helpful if researchers are unable to find, access, and use the data for their particular need. Use cases demonstrate we need to support a diverse range of users who are increasingly crossing traditional research discipline boundaries. To support their varying experience, access needs and research workflows, NCI has implemented an integrated data platform providing a range of services that enable users to interact with our data holdings. These services include: - A GeoNetwork catalog built on standardized Data Management Plans to search collection metadata, and find relevant datasets; - Web data services to download or remotely access data via OPeNDAP, WMS, WCS and other protocols; - Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) built on a highly integrated on-site cloud with access to both the HPC peak machine and research data collections. The VDI is a fully featured environment allowing visualization, code development and analysis to take place in an interactive desktop environment; and - A Learning Management System (LMS) containing User Guides, Use Case examples and Jupyter Notebooks structured into courses, so that users can self-teach how to use these facilities with examples from our system across a range of disciplines. We will briefly present these components, and discuss how we engage with data custodians and consumers to develop standardized data structures and services that support the range of needs. We will also highlight some key developments that have improved user experience in utilizing the services, particularly enabling transdisciplinary science. This work combines with other developments at NCI to increase the confidence of scientists from any field to undertake research and analysis on these important data collections regardless of their preferred work environment or level of skill.

47 CFR 27.15 - Geographic partitioning and spectrum disaggregation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... licensees have agreed to a different signal level. (c) License term. The license term for a partitioned...) Except for WCS licensees holding authorizations for Block A in the 698-704 MHz and 728-734 MHz bands, Block B in the 704-710 MHz and 734-740 MHz bands, Block E in the 722-728 MHz band, Blocks C, C1, or C2...

SU-E-T-287: Robustness Study of Passive-Scattering Proton Therapy in Lung: Is Range and Setup Uncertainty Calculation On the Initial CT Enough to Predict the Plan Robustness?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ding, X; Dormer, J; Kenton, O

Purpose: Plan robustness of the passive-scattering proton therapy treatment of lung tumors has been studied previously using combined uncertainties of 3.5% in CT number and 3 mm geometric shifts. In this study, we investigate whether this method is sufficient to predict proton plan robustness by comparing to plans performed on weekly verification CT scans. Methods: Ten lung cancer patients treated with passive-scattering proton therapy were randomly selected. All plans were prescribed 6660cGy in 37 fractions. Each initial plan was calculated using +/− 3.5% range and +/− 0.3cm setup uncertainty in x, y and z directions in Eclipse TPS(Method-A). Throughout themore » treatment course, patients received weekly verification CT scans to assess the daily treatment variation(Method-B). After contours and imaging registrations are verified by the physician, the initial plan with the same beamline and compensator was mapped into the verification CT. Dose volume histograms (DVH) were evaluated for robustness study. Results: Differences are observed between method A and B in terms of iCTV coverage and lung dose. Method-A shows all the iCTV D95 are within +/− 1% difference, while 20% of cases fall outside +/−1% range in Method-B. In the worst case scenario(WCS), the iCTV D95 is reduced by 2.5%. All lung V5 and V20 are within +/−5% in Method-A while 15% of V5 and 10% of V20 fall outside of +/−5% in Method-B. In the WCS, Lung V5 increased by 15% and V20 increased by 9%. Method A and B show good agreement with regard to cord maximum and Esophagus mean dose. Conclusion: This study suggests that using range and setup uncertainty calculation (+/−3.5% and +/−3mm) may not be sufficient to predict the WCS. In the absence of regular verification scans, expanding the conventional uncertainty parameters(e.g., to +/−3.5% and +/−4mm) may be needed to better reflect plan actual robustness.« less

SU-F-T-188: A Robust Treatment Planning Technique for Proton Pencil Beam Scanning Cranial Spinal Irradiation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhu, M; Mehta, M; Badiyan, S

2016-06-15

Purpose: To propose a proton pencil beam scanning (PBS) cranial spinal irradiation (CSI) treatment planning technique robust against patient roll, isocenter offset and proton range uncertainty. Method: Proton PBS plans were created (Eclipse V11) for three previously treated CSI patients to 36 Gy (1.8 Gy/fractions). The target volume was separated into three regions: brain, upper spine and lower spine. One posterior-anterior (PA) beam was used for each spine region, and two posterior-oblique beams (15° apart from PA direction, denoted as 2PO-15) for the brain region. For comparison, another plan using one PA beam for the brain target (denoted as 1PA)more » was created. Using the same optimization objectives, 98% CTV was optimized to receive the prescription dose. To evaluate plan robustness against patient roll, the gantry angle was increased by 3° and dose was recalculated without changing the proton spot weights. On the re-calculated plan, doses were then calculated using 12 scenarios that are combinations of isocenter shift (±3mm in X, Y, and Z directions) and proton range variation (±3.5%). The worst-case-scenario (WCS) brain CTV dosimetric metrics were compared to the nominal plan. Results: For both beam arrangements, the brain field(s) and upper-spine field overlap in the T2–T5 region depending on patient anatomy. The maximum monitor unit per spot were 48.7%, 47.2%, and 40.0% higher for 1PA plans than 2PO-15 plans for the three patients. The 2PO-15 plans have better dose conformity. At the same level of CTV coverage, the 2PO-15 plans have lower maximum dose and higher minimum dose to the CTV. The 2PO-15 plans also showed lower WCS maximum dose to CTV, while the WCS minimum dose to CTV were comparable between the two techniques. Conclusion: Our method of using two posterior-oblique beams for brain target provides improved dose conformity and homogeneity, and plan robustness including patient roll.« less

Mirror systems.

PubMed

Fogassi, Leonardo; Ferrari, Pier Francesco

2011-01-01

Mirror neurons are a class of visuomotor neurons, discovered in the monkey premotor cortex and in an anatomically connected area of the inferior parietal lobule, that activate both during action execution and action observation. They constitute a circuit dedicated to match actions made by others with the internal motor representations of the observer. It has been proposed that this matching system enables individuals to understand others' behavior and motor intentions. Here we will describe the main features of mirror neurons in monkeys. Then we will present evidence of the presence of a mirror system in humans and of its involvement in several social-cognitive functions, such as imitation, intention, and emotion understanding. This system may have several implications at a cognitive level and could be linked to specific social deficits in humans such as autism. Recent investigations addressed the issue of the plasticity of the mirror neuron system in both monkeys and humans, suggesting also their possible use in rehabilitation. WIREs Cogn Sci 2011 2 22-38 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.89 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What do we learn about development from baby robots?

PubMed

Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves

2017-01-01

Understanding infant development is one of the great scientific challenges of contemporary science. In addressing this challenge, robots have proven useful as they allow experimenters to model the developing brain and body and understand the processes by which new patterns emerge in sensorimotor, cognitive, and social domains. Robotics also complements traditional experimental methods in psychology and neuroscience, where only a few variables can be studied at the same time. Moreover, work with robots has enabled researchers to systematically explore the role of the body in shaping the development of skill. All told, this work has shed new light on development as a complex dynamical system. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1395. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1395 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Design Description for Team-Based Execution of Autonomous Missions (TEAM), Spiral 1

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-11-18

TEAM), Spiral 1 Doc. #: Version: 1.0 Date: November 18, 2008 Page 12 of 39 Visualization Framework (WorldWind) Hibernate / Hibernate ...Spatial hibernate -properties XML Mapping WCS WFSWMS Enterprise Service Bus (Mule) Messaging, Data Transformation, Intelligent Routing Workflow Engine...government selected solutions. Neither these nor Mule® are deliverable, but the government may opt to use them if it so chooses. jBPM, java Business

DaCHS: Data Center Helper Suite

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demleitner, Markus

2018-04-01

DaCHS, the Data Center Helper Suite, is an integrated package for publishing astronomical data sets to the Virtual Observatory. Network-facing, it speaks the major VO protocols (SCS, SIAP, SSAP, TAP, Datalink, etc). Operator-facing, many input formats, including FITS/WCS, ASCII files, and VOTable, can be processed to publication-ready data. DaCHS puts particular emphasis on integrated metadata handling, which facilitates a tight integration with the VO's Registry

47 CFR 27.20 - Digital television transition education reports.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... WCS license authorizations in Block A in the 698-704 MHz and 728-734 MHz bands, Block B in the 704-710 MHz and 734-740 MHz bands, Block E in the 722-728 MHz band, Block C, C1, or C2 in the 746-757 MHz and... requirements of this section—and on a quarterly basis thereafter as specified in paragraph (c) of this section...

Characterization of Salmonella Typhimurium isolates associated with septicemia in swine

PubMed Central

Bergeron, Nadia; Corriveau, Jonathan; Letellier, Ann; Daigle, France; Quessy, Sylvain

2010-01-01

Salmonella Typhimurium is frequently isolated from pigs and may also cause enteric disease in humans. In this study, 33 isolates of S. Typhimurium associated with septicemia in swine (CS) were compared to 33 isolates recovered from healthy animals at slaughter (WCS). The isolates were characterized using phenotyping and genotyping methods. For each isolate, the phage type, antimicrobial resistance, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) DNA profiles were determined. In addition, the protein profiles of each isolate grown in different conditions were studied by Coomassie Blue-stained sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and immunoblot. Various phage types were identified. The phage type PT 104 represented 36.4% of all isolates from septicemic pigs. Resistance to as many as 12 antimicrobial agents, including some natural resistances, was found in isolates from CS and WCS. Many genetic profiles were identified among the PT 104 phage types. Although it was not possible to associate one particular protein with septicemic isolates, several highly immunogenic proteins, present in all virulent isolates and in most isolates from clinically healthy animals, were identified. These results indicated that strains associated with septicemia belong to various genetic lineages that can also be recovered from asymptomatic animals at the time of slaughter. PMID:20357952

OAJ 2.6m survey telescope: optical alignment and on-sky evaluation of IQ performances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lousberg, Gregory P.; Bastin, Christian; Moreau, Vincent; Pirnay, Olivier; Flebus, Carlo; Chueca, Sergio; Iñiguez, César; Ederoclite, Alessandro; Ramió, Héctor V.; Cenarro, A. Javier

2016-08-01

AMOS has recently completed the alignment campaign of the 2.6m telescope for the Observatorio Astrofisico de Javalambre (OAJ). AMOS developed an innovative alignment technique for wide field-of-view telescopes that has been successfully implemented on the OAJ 2.6m telescope with the active support of the team of CEFCA (Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón). The alignment relies on two fundamental techniques: (1) the wavefront-curvature sensing (WCS) for the evaluation of the telescope aberrations at arbitrary locations in the focal plane, and (2) the comafree point method for the adjustment of the position of the secondary mirror (M2) and of the focal plane (FP). The alignment campaign unfolds in three steps: (a) analysis of the repeatability of the WCS measurements, (b) assessment of the sensitivity of telescope wavefront error to M2 and FP position adjustments, and (c) optical alignment of the telescope. At the end of the campaign, seeing-limited performances are demonstrated in the complete focal plane. With the help of CEFCA team, the image quality of the telescope are investigated with a lucky-imaging method. Image sizes of less than 0.3 arcsec FWHM are obtained, and this excellent image quality is observed over the complete focal plane.

Tomato seed and root exudate sugars: composition, utilization by Pseudomonas biocontrol strains and role in rhizosphere colonization.

PubMed

Lugtenberg, B J; Kravchenko, L V; Simons, M

1999-10-01

The role of tomato seed and root exudate sugars as nutrients for Pseudomonas biocontrol bacteria was studied. To this end, the major exudate sugars of tomato seeds, seedlings and roots were identified and quantified using high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) analysis. Glucose, fructose and maltose were present in all studied growth stages of the plant, but the ratios of these sugars were strongly dependent on the developmental stage. In order to study the putative role of exudate sugar utilization in rhizosphere colonization, two approaches were adopted. First, after co-inoculation on germinated tomato seeds, the root-colonizing ability of the efficient root-colonizing P. fluorescens strain WCS365 in a gnotobiotic quartz sand-plant nutrient solution system was compared with that of other Pseudomonas biocontrol strains. No correlation was observed between the colonizing ability of a strain and its ability to use the major exudate sugars as the only carbon and energy source. Secondly, a Tn5lacZ mutant of P. fluorescens strain WCS365, strain PCL1083, was isolated, which is impaired in its ability to grow on simple sugars, including those found in exudate. The mutation appeared to reside in zwf, which encodes glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. The mutant grows as well as the parental strain on other media, including tomato root exudate. After inoculation of germinated sterile tomato seeds, the mutant cells reached the same population levels at the root tip as the wild-type strain, both alone and in competition, indicating that the ability to use exudate sugars does not play a major role in tomato root colonization, despite the fact that sugars have often been reported to represent the major exudate carbon source. This conclusion is supported by the observation that the growth of mutant PCL1083 in vitro is inhibited by glucose, a major exudate sugar, at a concentration of 0.001%, which indicates that the glucose concentration in the tomato rhizosphere is very low.

Collaborative Science Using Web Services and the SciFlo Grid Dataflow Engine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilson, B. D.; Manipon, G.; Xing, Z.; Yunck, T.

2006-12-01

The General Earth Science Investigation Suite (GENESIS) project is a NASA-sponsored partnership between the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, academia, and NASA data centers to develop a new suite of Web Services tools to facilitate multi-sensor investigations in Earth System Science. The goal of GENESIS is to enable large-scale, multi-instrument atmospheric science using combined datasets from the AIRS, MODIS, MISR, and GPS sensors. Investigations include cross-comparison of spaceborne climate sensors, cloud spectral analysis, study of upper troposphere-stratosphere water transport, study of the aerosol indirect cloud effect, and global climate model validation. The challenges are to bring together very large datasets, reformat and understand the individual instrument retrievals, co-register or re-grid the retrieved physical parameters, perform computationally-intensive data fusion and data mining operations, and accumulate complex statistics over months to years of data. To meet these challenges, we have developed a Grid computing and dataflow framework, named SciFlo, in which we are deploying a set of versatile and reusable operators for data access, subsetting, registration, mining, fusion, compression, and advanced statistical analysis. SciFlo leverages remote Web Services, called via Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) or REST (one-line) URLs, and the Grid Computing standards (WS-* &Globus Alliance toolkits), and enables scientists to do multi-instrument Earth Science by assembling reusable Web Services and native executables into a distributed computing flow (tree of operators). The SciFlo client &server engines optimize the execution of such distributed data flows and allow the user to transparently find and use datasets and operators without worrying about the actual location of the Grid resources. In particular, SciFlo exploits the wealth of datasets accessible by OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) Web Mapping Servers & Web Coverage Servers (WMS/WCS), and by Open Data Access Protocol (OpenDAP) servers. The scientist injects a distributed computation into the Grid by simply filling out an HTML form or directly authoring the underlying XML dataflow document, and results are returned directly to the scientist's desktop. Once an analysis has been specified for a chunk or day of data, it can be easily repeated with different control parameters or over months of data. Recently, the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Federation sponsored a collaborative activity in which several ESIP members advertised their respective WMS/WCS and SOAP services, developed some collaborative science scenarios for atmospheric and aerosol science, and then choreographed services from multiple groups into demonstration workflows using the SciFlo engine and a Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) workflow engine. For several scenarios, the same collaborative workflow was executed in three ways: using hand-coded scripts, by executing a SciFlo document, and by executing a BPEL workflow document. We will discuss the lessons learned from this activity, the need for standardized interfaces (like WMS/WCS), the difficulty in agreeing on even simple XML formats and interfaces, and further collaborations that are being pursued.

Generating Mosaics of Astronomical Images

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bergou, Attila; Berriman, Bruce; Good, John; Jacob, Joseph; Katz, Daniel; Laity, Anastasia; Prince, Thomas; Williams, Roy

2005-01-01

"Montage" is the name of a service of the National Virtual Observatory (NVO), and of software being developed to implement the service via the World Wide Web. Montage generates science-grade custom mosaics of astronomical images on demand from input files that comply with the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) standard and contain image data registered on projections that comply with the World Coordinate System (WCS) standards. "Science-grade" in this context signifies that terrestrial and instrumental features are removed from images in a way that can be described quantitatively. "Custom" refers to user-specified parameters of projection, coordinates, size, rotation, and spatial sampling. The greatest value of Montage is expected to lie in its ability to analyze images at multiple wavelengths, delivering them on a common projection, coordinate system, and spatial sampling, and thereby enabling further analysis as though they were part of a single, multi-wavelength image. Montage will be deployed as a computation-intensive service through existing astronomy portals and other Web sites. It will be integrated into the emerging NVO architecture and will be executed on the TeraGrid. The Montage software will also be portable and publicly available.

Remote Sensing Information Gateway: A free application and web service for fast, convenient, interoperable access to large repositories of atmospheric data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plessel, T.; Szykman, J.; Freeman, M.

2012-12-01

EPA's Remote Sensing Information Gateway (RSIG) is a widely used free applet and web service for quickly and easily retrieving, visualizing and saving user-specified subsets of atmospheric data - by variable, geographic domain and time range. Petabytes of available data include thousands of variables from a set of NASA and NOAA satellites, aircraft, ground stations and EPA air-quality models. The RSIG applet is used by atmospheric researchers and uses the rsigserver web service to obtain data and images. The rsigserver web service is compliant with the Open Geospatial Consortium Web Coverage Service (OGC-WCS) standard to facilitate data discovery and interoperability. Since rsigserver is publicly accessible, it can be (and is) used by other applications. This presentation describes the architecture and technical implementation details of this successful system with an emphasis on achieving convenience, high-performance, data integrity and security.

Phase-encoded measurement device independent quantum key distribution without a shared reference frame

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhuo-Dan, Zhu; Shang-Hong, Zhao; Chen, Dong; Ying, Sun

2018-07-01

In this paper, a phase-encoded measurement device independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) protocol without a shared reference frame is presented, which can generate secure keys between two parties while the quantum channel or interferometer introduces an unknown and slowly time-varying phase. The corresponding secret key rate and single photons bit error rate is analysed, respectively, with single photons source (SPS) and weak coherent source (WCS), taking finite-key analysis into account. The numerical simulations show that the modified phase-encoded MDI-QKD protocol has apparent superiority both in maximal secure transmission distance and key generation rate while possessing the improved robustness and practical security in the high-speed case. Moreover, the rejection of the frame-calibrating part will intrinsically reduce the consumption of resources as well as the potential security flaws of practical MDI-QKD systems.

Exploring NASA GES DISC Data with Interoperable Services

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zhao, Peisheng; Yang, Wenli; Hegde, Mahabal; Wei, Jennifer C.; Kempler, Steven; Pham, Long; Teng, William; Savtchenko, Andrey

2015-01-01

Overview of NASA GES DISC (NASA Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center) data with interoperable services: Open-standard and Interoperable Services Improve data discoverability, accessibility, and usability with metadata, catalogue and portal standards Achieve data, information and knowledge sharing across applications with standardized interfaces and protocols Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Data Services and Specifications Web Coverage Service (WCS) -- data Web Map Service (WMS) -- pictures of data Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) --- pictures of data tiles Styled Layer Descriptors (SLD) --- rendered styles.

[Report of the Ninth meeting of the WHO Technical Advisory Group of Leprosy Control].

PubMed

Ishii, Norihisa; Mori, Shuichi; Nagaoka, Yuzuru; Suzuki, Koichi

2009-02-01

The Ninth meeting of the WHO Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Leprosy Control was held in Cairo, Egypt on 6th and 7th March 2008. The meeting was chaired by Professor W.C.S. Smith and attended by national leprosy programme managers from Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cambodia, Egypt, Iran, India, Nigeria and Thailand. In addition, several experts and members of the Technical Commission of the International Federation ofAnti-Leprosy Associations (ILEP) also attended the meeting.

Game theory.

PubMed

Dufwenberg, Martin

2011-03-01

Game theory is a toolkit for examining situations where decision makers influence each other. I discuss the nature of game-theoretic analysis, the history of game theory, why game theory is useful for understanding human psychology, and why game theory has played a key role in the recent explosion of interest in the field of behavioral economics. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 167-173 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.119 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Brokering technologies to realize the hydrology scenario in NSF BCube

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boldrini, Enrico; Easton, Zachary; Fuka, Daniel; Pearlman, Jay; Nativi, Stefano

2015-04-01

In the National Science Foundation (NSF) BCube project an international team composed of cyber infrastructure experts, geoscientists, social scientists and educators are working together to explore the use of brokering technologies, initially focusing on four domains: hydrology, oceans, polar, and weather. In the hydrology domain, environmental models are fundamental to understand the behaviour of hydrological systems. A specific model usually requires datasets coming from different disciplines for its initialization (e.g. elevation models from Earth observation, weather data from Atmospheric sciences, etc.). Scientific datasets are usually available on heterogeneous publishing services, such as inventory and access services (e.g. OGC Web Coverage Service, THREDDS Data Server, etc.). Indeed, datasets are published according to different protocols, moreover they usually come in different formats, resolutions, Coordinate Reference Systems (CRSs): in short different grid environments depending on the original data and the publishing service processing capabilities. Scientists can thus be impeded by the burden of discovery, access and normalize the desired datasets to the grid environment required by the model. These technological tasks of course divert scientists from their main, scientific goals. The use of GI-axe brokering framework has been experimented in a hydrology scenario where scientists needed to compare a particular hydrological model with two different input datasets (digital elevation models): - the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) dataset, v.2. - the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) dataset, v.3. These datasets were published by means of Hyrax Server technology, which can provide NetCDF files at their original resolution and CRS. Scientists had their model running on ArcGIS, so the main goal was to import the datasets using the available ArcPy library and have EPSG:4326 with the same resolution grid as the reference system, so that model outputs could be compared. ArcPy however is able to access only GeoTIff datasets that are published by a OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS). The GI-axe broker has then been deployed between the client application and the data providers. It has been configured to broker the two different Hyrax service endpoints and republish the data content through a WCS interface for the use of the ArcPy library. Finally, scientists were able to easily run the model, and to concentrate on the comparison of the different results obtained according to the selected input dataset. The use of a third party broker to perform such technological tasks has also shown to have the potential advantage of increasing the repeatability of a study among different researchers.

rasdaman Array Database: current status

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Merticariu, George; Toader, Alexandru

2015-04-01

rasdaman (Raster Data Manager) is a Free Open Source Array Database Management System which provides functionality for storing and processing massive amounts of raster data in the form of multidimensional arrays. The user can access, process and delete the data using SQL. The key features of rasdaman are: flexibility (datasets of any dimensionality can be processed with the help of SQL queries), scalability (rasdaman's distributed architecture enables it to seamlessly run on cloud infrastructures while offering an increase in performance with the increase of computation resources), performance (real-time access, processing, mixing and filtering of arrays of any dimensionality) and reliability (legacy communication protocol replaced with a new one based on cutting edge technology - Google Protocol Buffers and ZeroMQ). Among the data with which the system works, we can count 1D time series, 2D remote sensing imagery, 3D image time series, 3D geophysical data, and 4D atmospheric and climate data. Most of these representations cannot be stored only in the form of raw arrays, as the location information of the contents is also important for having a correct geoposition on Earth. This is defined by ISO 19123 as coverage data. rasdaman provides coverage data support through the Petascope service. Extensions were added on top of rasdaman in order to provide support for the Geoscience community. The following OGC standards are currently supported: Web Map Service (WMS), Web Coverage Service (WCS), and Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS). The Web Map Service is an extension which provides zoom and pan navigation over images provided by a map server. Starting with version 9.1, rasdaman supports WMS version 1.3. The Web Coverage Service provides capabilities for downloading multi-dimensional coverage data. Support is also provided for several extensions of this service: Subsetting Extension, Scaling Extension, and, starting with version 9.1, Transaction Extension, which defines request types for inserting, updating and deleting coverages. A web client, designed for both novice and experienced users, is also available for the service and its extensions. The client offers an intuitive interface that allows users to work with multi-dimensional coverages by abstracting the specifics of the standard definitions of the requests. The Web Coverage Processing Service defines a language for on-the-fly processing and filtering multi-dimensional raster coverages. rasdaman exposes this service through the WCS processing extension. Demonstrations are provided online via the Earthlook website (earthlook.org) which presents use-cases from a wide variety of application domains, using the rasdaman system as processing engine.

Complex phytohormone responses during the cold acclimation of two wheat cultivars differing in cold tolerance, winter Samanta and spring Sandra.

PubMed

Kosová, Klára; Prášil, Ilja Tom; Vítámvás, Pavel; Dobrev, Petre; Motyka, Václav; Floková, Kristýna; Novák, Ondřej; Turečková, Veronika; Rolčik, Jakub; Pešek, Bedřich; Trávničková, Alena; Gaudinová, Alena; Galiba, Gabor; Janda, Tibor; Vlasáková, Eva; Prášilová, Pavla; Vanková, Radomíra

2012-04-15

Hormonal changes accompanying the cold stress (4°C) response that are related to the level of frost tolerance (FT; measured as LT50) and the content of the most abundant dehydrin, WCS120, were compared in the leaves and crowns of the winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cv. Samanta and the spring wheat cv. Sandra. The characteristic feature of the alarm phase (1 day) response was a rapid elevation of abscisic acid (ABA) and an increase of protective proteins (dehydrin WCS120). This response was faster and stronger in winter wheat, where it coincided with the downregulation of bioactive cytokinins and auxin as well as enhanced deactivation of gibberellins, indicating rapid suppression of growth. Next, the ethylene precursor aminocyclopropane carboxylic acid was quickly upregulated. After 3-7 days of cold exposure, plant adaptation to the low temperature was correlated with a decrease in ABA and elevation of growth-promoting hormones (cytokinins, auxin and gibberellins). The content of other stress hormones, i.e., salicylic acid and jasmonic acid, also began to increase. After prolonged cold exposure (21 days), a resistance phase occurred. The winter cultivar exhibited substantially enhanced FT, which was associated with a decline in bioactive cytokinins and auxin. The inability of the spring cultivar to further increase its FT was correlated with maintenance of a relatively higher cytokinin and auxin content, which was achieved during the acclimation period. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Big Geo Data Services: From More Bytes to More Barrels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Misev, Dimitar; Baumann, Peter

2016-04-01

The data deluge is affecting the oil and gas industry just as much as many other industries. However, aside from the sheer volume there is the challenge of data variety, such as regular and irregular grids, multi-dimensional space/time grids, point clouds, and TINs and other meshes. A uniform conceptualization for modelling and serving them could save substantial effort, such as the proverbial "department of reformatting". The notion of a coverage actually can accomplish this. Its abstract model in ISO 19123 together with the concrete, interoperable OGC Coverage Implementation Schema (CIS), which is currently under adoption as ISO 19123-2, provieds a common platform for representing any n-D grid type, point clouds, and general meshes. This is paired by the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) together with its datacube analytics language, the OGC Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS). The OGC WCS Core Reference Implementation, rasdaman, relies on Array Database technology, i.e. a NewSQL/NoSQL approach. It supports the grid part of coverages, with installations of 100+ TB known and single queries parallelized across 1,000+ cloud nodes. Recent research attempts to address the point cloud and mesh part through a unified query model. The Holy Grail envisioned is that these approaches can be merged into a single service interface at some time. We present both grid amd point cloud / mesh approaches and discuss status, implementation, standardization, and research perspectives, including a live demo.

What sign language creation teaches us about language.

PubMed

Brentari, Diane; Coppola, Marie

2013-03-01

How do languages emerge? What are the necessary ingredients and circumstances that permit new languages to form? Various researchers within the disciplines of primatology, anthropology, psychology, and linguistics have offered different answers to this question depending on their perspective. Language acquisition, language evolution, primate communication, and the study of spoken varieties of pidgin and creoles address these issues, but in this article we describe a relatively new and important area that contributes to our understanding of language creation and emergence. Three types of communication systems that use the hands and body to communicate will be the focus of this article: gesture, homesign systems, and sign languages. The focus of this article is to explain why mapping the path from gesture to homesign to sign language has become an important research topic for understanding language emergence, not only for the field of sign languages, but also for language in general. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:201-211. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1212 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Simulating Air-Entrapment in Low Permeability Mudrocks using a Macroscopic Invasion Percolation Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Singh, A.; Holt, R. M.; Ramarao, B.; Clemo, T.

2011-12-01

Three radioactive waste disposal landfills at the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) facility in Andrews County, Texas are constructed below grade, within the low-permeability Dockum Group mudrocks (Cooper Canyon Formation) of Triassic age. Recent site investigations at the WCS disposal facilities indicate the presence of a trapped and compressed gas phase in the mudrocks. The Dockum is a low-permeability medium with vertical and horizontal effective hydraulic conductivities of 1.2E-9 cm/s and 2.9E-7 cm/s. The upper 300+ feet of the Dockum is in the unsaturated zone, with an average saturation of 0.87 and average capillary pressure of 2.8 MPa determined from core samples. Air entry pressures on core samples range from from 0.016 to 9.8 MPa, with a mean of 1.0 MPa. Heat dissipation sensors, thermocouple psychrometers, and advanced tensiometers installed in Dockum borehole arrays generally show capillary pressures one order of magnitude less than those measured on core samples. These differences with core data are attributed to the presence of a trapped and compressed gas phase within Dockum materials. In the vicinity of an instrumented borehole, the gas phase pressure equilibrates with atmospheric pressure, lowering the capillary pressure. We have developed a new macroscopic invasion percolation (MIP) model to illustrate the origin of the trapped gas phase in the Dockum rocks. An MIP model differs from invasion percolation (IP) through the definition of macro-scale capillarity. Individual pore throats and necks are not considered. Instead, a near pore-scale block is defined and characterized by a local threshold spanning pressure (a local block-scale breakthrough pressure) that represents the behavior of the subscale network. The model domain is discretized into an array of grid blocks with assigned spanning pressures. An invasion pressure for each block is then determined by the sum of spanning pressure, buoyance forces, and viscous forces. An IP algorithm sorts the invadable blocks, selects the block connected to the growing cluster with the lowest invasion pressure, and invades it. Our new MIP model incorporates several new features, including an efficient three-dimensional clustering algorithm; simultaneous invasion/reinvasion of water and air phases; hysteresis in water and air drainage curves; capability for distributed porosities and drainage parameters; and gas-phase compression and trapping. We apply this model in simulations representing the WCS site and illustrate the origin of the trapped and compressed gas phase in Dockum mudrocks.

Standardizing Documentation of FITS Headers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hourcle, Joseph

2014-06-01

Although the FITS file format[1] can be self-documenting, human intervention is often needed to read the headers to write the necessary transformations to make a given instrument team's data compatible with our preferred analysis package. External documentation may be needed to determine what the values are of coded values or unfamiliar acronyms.Different communities have interpreted keywords slightly differently. This has resulted in ambiguous fields such as DATE-OBS, which could be either the start or mid-point of an observation.[2]Conventions for placing units and additional information within the comments of a FITS card exist, but they require re-writing the FITS file. This operation can be quite costly for large archives, and should not be taken lightly when dealing with issues of digital preservation.We present what we believe is needed for a machine-actionable external file describing a given collection of FITS files. We seek comments from data producers, archives, and those writing software to help develop a single, useful, implementable standard.References:[1] Pence, et.al. 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201015362[2] Rots, et.al, (in preparation), http://hea-www.cfa.harvard.edu arots/TimeWCS/

From big data to deep insight in developmental science

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

The use of the term ‘big data’ has grown substantially over the past several decades and is now widespread. In this review, I ask what makes data ‘big’ and what implications the size, density, or complexity of datasets have for the science of human development. A survey of existing datasets illustrates how existing large, complex, multilevel, and multimeasure data can reveal the complexities of developmental processes. At the same time, significant technical, policy, ethics, transparency, cultural, and conceptual issues associated with the use of big data must be addressed. Most big developmental science data are currently hard to find and cumbersome to access, the field lacks a culture of data sharing, and there is no consensus about who owns or should control research data. But, these barriers are dissolving. Developmental researchers are finding new ways to collect, manage, store, share, and enable others to reuse data. This promises a future in which big data can lead to deeper insights about some of the most profound questions in behavioral science. WIREs Cogn Sci 2016, 7:112–126. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1379 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. PMID:26805777

Exploring NASA Satellite Data with High Resolution Visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, J. C.; Yang, W.; Johnson, J. E.; Shen, S.; Zhao, P.; Gerasimov, I. V.; Vollmer, B.; Vicente, G. A.; Pham, L.

2013-12-01

Satellite data products are important for a wide variety of applications that can bring far-reaching benefits to the science community and the broader society. These benefits can best be achieved if the satellite data are well utilized and interpreted, such as model inputs from satellite, or extreme event (such as volcano eruption, dust storm, ...etc) interpretation from satellite. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, despite the abundance and relative maturity of numerous satellite data products provided by NASA and other organizations. Such obstacles may be avoided by providing satellite data as ';Images' with accurate pixel-level (Level 2) information, including pixel coverage area delineation and science team recommended quality screening for individual geophysical parameters. We will present a prototype service from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) supporting various visualization and data accessing capabilities from satellite Level 2 data (non-aggregated and un-gridded) at high spatial resolution. Functionality will include selecting data sources (e.g., multiple parameters under the same measurement, like NO2 and SO2 from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), or same parameter with different methods of aggregation, like NO2 in OMNO2G and OMNO2D products), defining area-of-interest and temporal extents, zooming, panning, overlaying, sliding, and data subsetting and reformatting. The portal interface will connect to the backend services with OGC standard-compliant Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) calls. The interface will also be able to connect to other OGC WMS and WCS servers, which will greatly enhance its expandability to integrate additional outside data/map sources.

Shoulder Muscular Demand During Lever-Activated Vs Pushrim Wheelchair Propulsion in Persons With Spinal Cord Injury

PubMed Central

Requejo, Philip Santos; Lee, Sharon E; Mulroy, Sara J; Haubert, Lisa Lighthall; Bontrager, Ernest L; Gronley, JoAnne K; Perry, Jacquelin

2008-01-01

Background/Objective: The high demand on the upper limbs during manual wheelchair (WC) use contributes to a high prevalence of shoulder pathology in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). Lever-activated (LEVER) WCs have been presented as a less demanding alternative mode of manual WC propulsion. The objective of this study was to evaluate the shoulder muscle electromyographic activity and propulsion characteristics in manual WC users with SCI propelling a standard pushrim (ST) and LEVER WC design. Methods: Twenty men with complete injuries (ASIA A or B) and tetraplegia (C6, n = 5; C7, n = 7) or paraplegia (n = 8) secondary to SCI propelled ST and LEVER WCs at 3 propulsion conditions on a stationary ergometer: self-selected free, self-selected fast, and simulated graded resistance. Average velocity, cycle distance, and cadence; median and peak electromyographic intensity; and duration of electromyography of anterior deltoid, pectoralis major, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus muscles were compared between LEVER and ST WC propulsion. Results: Significant decreases in pectoralis major and supraspinatus activity were recorded during LEVER compared with ST WC propulsion. However, anterior deltoid and infraspinatus intensities tended to increase during LEVER WC propulsion. Participants with tetraplegia had similar or greater anterior deltoid, pectoralis major, and infraspinatus activity for both ST and LEVER WC propulsion compared with the men with paraplegia. Conclusions: Use of the LEVER WC reduced and shifted the shoulder muscular demands in individuals with paraplegia and tetraplegia. Further studies are needed to determine the impact of LEVER WC propulsion on long-term shoulder function. PMID:19086715

Niagara Falls Storage Site environmental report for calendar year 1992, 1397 Pletcher Road, Lewiston, New York. Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

1993-05-01

This report describes the environmental surveillance program at the Niagara Falls Storage Site (NFSS) and provides the results for 1992. From 1944 to the present, the primary use of NFSS has been storage of radioactive residues produced as a by-product of uranium production. All onsite areas of residual radioactivity above guidelines have been remediated. Materials generated during remediation are stored onsite in the 4-ha (10-acre) waste containment structure (WCS). The WCS is a clay-lined, clay-capped, and grass-covered storage pile. The environmental surveillance program at NFSS includes sampling networks for radon concentrations in air; external gamma radiation exposure; and total uraniummore » and radium-226 concentrations in surface water, sediments, and groundwater. Several chemical parameters, including seven metals, are also routinely measured in groundwater. This surveillance program assists in fulfilling the DOE policy of measuring and monitoring effluents from DOE activities and calculating hypothetical doses. Monitoring results are compared with applicable Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) standards, DOE derived concentration guides (DCGs), dose limits, and other DOE requirements. Results of environmental monitoring during 1992 indicate that levels of the parameters measured were in compliance with all but one requirement: Concentrations of iron and manganese in groundwater were above NYSDEC groundwater quality standards. However, these elements occur naturally in the soils and groundwater associated with this region. In 1992 there were no environmental occurrences or reportable quantity releases.« less

GENESIS SciFlo: Choreographing Interoperable Web Services on the Grid using a Semantically-Enabled Dataflow Execution Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilson, B. D.; Manipon, G.; Xing, Z.

2007-12-01

The General Earth Science Investigation Suite (GENESIS) project is a NASA-sponsored partnership between the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, academia, and NASA data centers to develop a new suite of Web Services tools to facilitate multi-sensor investigations in Earth System Science. The goal of GENESIS is to enable large-scale, multi-instrument atmospheric science using combined datasets from the AIRS, MODIS, MISR, and GPS sensors. Investigations include cross-comparison of spaceborne climate sensors, cloud spectral analysis, study of upper troposphere-stratosphere water transport, study of the aerosol indirect cloud effect, and global climate model validation. The challenges are to bring together very large datasets, reformat and understand the individual instrument retrievals, co-register or re-grid the retrieved physical parameters, perform computationally-intensive data fusion and data mining operations, and accumulate complex statistics over months to years of data. To meet these challenges, we have developed a Grid computing and dataflow framework, named SciFlo, in which we are deploying a set of versatile and reusable operators for data access, subsetting, registration, mining, fusion, compression, and advanced statistical analysis. SciFlo leverages remote Web Services, called via Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) or REST (one-line) URLs, and the Grid Computing standards (WS-* & Globus Alliance toolkits), and enables scientists to do multi- instrument Earth Science by assembling reusable Web Services and native executables into a distributed computing flow (tree of operators). The SciFlo client & server engines optimize the execution of such distributed data flows and allow the user to transparently find and use datasets and operators without worrying about the actual location of the Grid resources. In particular, SciFlo exploits the wealth of datasets accessible by OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) Web Mapping Servers & Web Coverage Servers (WMS/WCS), and by Open Data Access Protocol (OpenDAP) servers. SciFlo also publishes its own SOAP services for space/time query and subsetting of Earth Science datasets, and automated access to large datasets via lists of (FTP, HTTP, or DAP) URLs which point to on-line HDF or netCDF files. Typical distributed workflows obtain datasets by calling standard WMS/WCS servers or discovering and fetching data granules from ftp sites; invoke remote analysis operators available as SOAP services (interface described by a WSDL document); and merge results into binary containers (netCDF or HDF files) for further analysis using local executable operators. Naming conventions (HDFEOS and CF-1.0 for netCDF) are exploited to automatically understand and read on-line datasets. More interoperable conventions, and broader adoption of existing converntions, are vital if we are to "scale up" automated choreography of Web Services beyond toy applications. Recently, the ESIP Federation sponsored a collaborative activity in which several ESIP members developed some collaborative science scenarios for atmospheric and aerosol science, and then choreographed services from multiple groups into demonstration workflows using the SciFlo engine and a Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) workflow engine. We will discuss the lessons learned from this activity, the need for standardized interfaces (like WMS/WCS), the difficulty in agreeing on even simple XML formats and interfaces, the benefits of doing collaborative science analysis at the "touch of a button" once services are connected, and further collaborations that are being pursued.

Connecting long-tail scientists with big data centers using SaaS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Percivall, G. S.; Bermudez, L. E.

2012-12-01

Big data centers and long tail scientists represent two extremes in the geoscience research community. Interoperability and inter-use based on software-as-a-service (SaaS) increases access to big data holdings by this underserved community of scientists. Large, institutional data centers have long been recognized as vital resources in the geoscience community. Permanent data archiving and dissemination centers provide "access to the data and (are) a critical source of people who have experience in the use of the data and can provide advice and counsel for new applications." [NRC] The "long-tail of science" is the geoscience researchers that work separate from institutional data centers [Heidorn]. Long-tail scientists need to be efficient consumers of data from large, institutional data centers. Discussions in NSF EarthCube capture the challenges: "Like the vast majority of NSF-funded researchers, Alice (a long-tail scientist) works with limited resources. In the absence of suitable expertise and infrastructure, the apparently simple task that she assigns to her graduate student becomes an information discovery and management nightmare. Downloading and transforming datasets takes weeks." [Foster, et.al.] The long-tail metaphor points to methods to bridge the gap, i.e., the Web. A decade ago, OGC began building a geospatial information space using open, web standards for geoprocessing [ORM]. Recently, [Foster, et.al.] accurately observed that "by adopting, adapting, and applying semantic web and SaaS technologies, we can make the use of geoscience data as easy and convenient as consumption of online media." SaaS places web services into Cloud Computing. SaaS for geospatial is emerging rapidly building on the first-generation geospatial web, e.g., OGC Web Coverage Service [WCS] and the Data Access Protocol [DAP]. Several recent examples show progress in applying SaaS to geosciences: - NASA's Earth Data Coherent Web has a goal to improve science user experience using Web Services (e.g. W*S, SOAP, RESTful) to reduce barriers to using EOSDIS data [ECW]. - NASA's LANCE provides direct access to vast amounts of satellite data using the OGC Web Map Tile Service (WMTS). - NOAA's Unified Access Framework for Gridded Data (UAF Grid) is a web service based capability for direct access to a variety of datasets using netCDF, OPeNDAP, THREDDS, WMS and WCS. [UAF] Tools to access SaaS's are many and varied: some proprietary, others open source; some run in browsers, others are stand-alone applications. What's required is interoperability using web interfaces offered by the data centers. NOAA's UAF service stack supports Matlab, ArcGIS, Ferret, GrADS, Google Earth, IDV, LAS. Any SaaS that offers OGC Web Services (WMS, WFS, WCS) can be accessed by scores of clients [OGC]. While there has been much progress in the recent year toward offering web services for the long-tail of scientists, more needs to be done. Web services offer data access but more than access is needed for inter-use of data, e.g. defining data schemas that allow for data fusion, addressing coordinate systems, spatial geometry, and semantics for observations. Connecting long-tail scientists with large, data centers using SaaS and, in the future, semantic web, will address this large and currently underserved user community.

Usage of Wireless Sensor Networks in a service based spatial data infrastructure for Landslide Monitoring and Early Warning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arnhardt, C.; Fernandez-Steeger, T. M.; Walter, K.; Kallash, A.; Niemeyer, F.; Azzam, R.; Bill, R.

2007-12-01

The joint project Sensor based Landslide Early Warning System (SLEWS) aims at a systematic development of a prototyping alarm- and early warning system for the detection of mass movements by application of an ad hoc wireless sensor network (WSN). Next to the development of suitable sensor setups, sensor fusion and network fusion are applied to enhance data quality and reduce false alarm rates. Of special interest is the data retrieval, processing and visualization in GI-Systems. Therefore a suitable serviced based Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) will be developed with respect to existing and upcoming Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards.The application of WSN provides a cheap and easy to set up solution for special monitoring and data gathering in large areas. Measurement data from different low-cost transducers for deformation observation (acceleration, displacement, tilting) is collected by distributed sensor nodes (motes), which interact separately and connect each other in a self-organizing manner. Data are collected and aggregated at the beacon (transmission station) and further operations like data pre-processing and compression can be performed. The WSN concept provides next to energy efficiency, miniaturization, real-time monitoring and remote operation, but also new monitoring strategies like sensor and network fusion. Since not only single sensors can be integrated at single motes either cross-validation or redundant sensor setups are possible to enhance data quality. The planned monitoring and information system will include a mobile infrastructure (information technologies and communication components) as well as methods and models to estimate surface deformation parameters (positioning systems). The measurements result in heterogeneous observation sets that have to be integrated in a common adjustment and filtering approach. Reliable real-time information will be obtained using a range of sensor input and algorithms, from which early warnings and prognosis may be derived. Implementation of sensor algorithms is an important task to form the business logic. This will be represented in self-contained web-based processing services (WPS). In the future different types of sensor networks can communicate via an infrastructure of OGC services using an interoperable way by standardized protocols as the Sensor Markup Language (SensorML) and Observations & Measurements Schema (O&M). Synchronous and asynchronous information services as the Sensor Alert Service (SAS) and the Web Notification Services (WNS) will provide defined users and user groups with time-critical readings from the observation site. Techniques using services for visualizing mapping data (WMS), meta data (CSW), vector (WFS) and raster data (WCS) will range from high detailed expert based output to fuzzy graphical warning elements.The expected results will be an advancement regarding classical alarm and early warning systems as the WSN are free scalable, extensible and easy to install.

Montage Version 3.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jacob, Joseph; Katz, Daniel; Prince, Thomas; Berriman, Graham; Good, John; Laity, Anastasia

2006-01-01

The final version (3.0) of the Montage software has been released. To recapitulate from previous NASA Tech Briefs articles about Montage: This software generates custom, science-grade mosaics of astronomical images on demand from input files that comply with the Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) standard and contain image data registered on projections that comply with the World Coordinate System (WCS) standards. This software can be executed on single-processor computers, multi-processor computers, and such networks of geographically dispersed computers as the National Science Foundation s TeraGrid or NASA s Information Power Grid. The primary advantage of running Montage in a grid environment is that computations can be done on a remote supercomputer for efficiency. Multiple computers at different sites can be used for different parts of a computation a significant advantage in cases of computations for large mosaics that demand more processor time than is available at any one site. Version 3.0 incorporates several improvements over prior versions. The most significant improvement is that this version is accessible to scientists located anywhere, through operational Web services that provide access to data from several large astronomical surveys and construct mosaics on either local workstations or remote computational grids as needed.

Mother-daughter correlation of central obesity and other noncommunicable disease risk factors: Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study.

PubMed

Heidari, Zahra; Hosseinpanah, Farhad; Barzin, Maryam; Safarkhani, Maryam; Azizi, Fereidoun

2015-03-01

This study aimed to investigate the mother-daughter correlation for central obesity and other noncommunicable disease risk factors. The authors used metabolic and anthropometric data from the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study, enrolling 1041 mother-daughter pairs for the current study. Three age strata were defined: 3 to 9 years for childhood (146 mother-daughter pairs), 10 to 17 years for adolescence (395 mother-daughter pairs), and 18 to 25 years for early adulthood (500 mother-daughter pairs). Familial associations for central obesity and other noncommunicable disease risk factors were assessed. The prevalence of central obesity was 44.7% in mothers and 11.2% in daughters (6.2% in the 3-9, 19.2% in the 10-17, and 6.4% in the 18-25 years groups). Mothers with central obesity were more likely than nonobese mothers to have daughters with central obesity (10.5% and 1.7%, respectively; P = .0001). Central obesity indices among daughters were positively correlated with those of their mothers in all 3 age strata. Correlations for other noncommunicable disease risk factors were analyzed before and after adjusting the risk factor levels for mothers' and daughters' waist circumferences (WCs) within each group to determine whether risk factor correlations were, in part, a result of the central obesity correlations. After the non-communicable disease risk factor levels of participants were adjusted for their WCs, the mother-daughter correlations remained significant. The consistent association of central obesity between mothers and daughters may indicate the key role that could be played by the mother in the primary prevention of central obesity, particularly in high-risk families. © 2012 APJPH.

Evaluation of Modified 2-Tiered Serodiagnostic Testing Algorithms for Early Lyme Disease

PubMed Central

Strle, Klemen; Nigrovic, Lise E.; Lantos, Paul M.; Lepore, Timothy J.; Damle, Nitin S.; Ferraro, Mary Jane; Steere, Allen C.

2017-01-01

Abstract Background. The conventional 2-tiered serologic testing protocol for Lyme disease (LD), an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) followed by immunoglobulin M and immunoglobulin G Western blots, performs well in late-stage LD but is insensitive in patients with erythema migrans (EM), the most common manifestation of the illness. Western blots are also complex, difficult to interpret, and relatively expensive. In an effort to improve test performance and simplify testing in early LD, we evaluated several modified 2-tiered testing (MTTT) protocols, which use 2 assays designed as first-tier tests sequentially, without the need of Western blots. Methods. The MTTT protocols included (1) a whole-cell sonicate (WCS) EIA followed by a C6 EIA; (2) a WCS EIA followed by a VlsE chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA); and (3) a variable major protein-like sequence, expressed (VlsE) CLIA followed by a C6 EIA. Sensitivity was determined using serum from 55 patients with erythema migrans; specificity was determined using serum from 50 patients with other illnesses and 1227 healthy subjects. Results. Sensitivity of the various MTTT protocols in patients with acute erythema migrans ranged from 36% (95% confidence interval [CI], 25%–50%) to 54% (95% CI, 42%–67%), compared with 25% (95% CI, 16%–38%) using the conventional protocol (P = .003–0.3). Among control subjects, the 3 MTTT protocols were similarly specific (99.3%–99.5%) compared with conventional 2-tiered testing (99.5% specificity; P = .6–1.0). Conclusions. Although there were minor differences in sensitivity and specificity among MTTT protocols, each provides comparable or greater sensitivity in acute EM, and similar specificity compared with conventional 2-tiered testing, obviating the need for Western blots. PMID:28329259

Exploiting Aura OMI Level 2 Data with High Resolution Visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, J. C.; Yang, W.; Johnson, J. E.; Zhao, P.; Gerasimov, I. V.; Pham, L.; Vicente, G. A.; Shen, S.

2014-12-01

Satellite data products are important for a wide variety of applications that can bring far-reaching benefits to the science community and the broader society. These benefits can best be achieved if the satellite data are well utilized and interpreted, such as model inputs from satellite, or extreme event (such as volcano eruption, dust storm, …etc) interpretation from satellite. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, despite the abundance and relative maturity of numerous satellite data products provided by NASA and other organizations. One way to help users better understand the satellite data is to provide data along with 'Images', including accurate pixel-level (Level 2) information, pixel coverage area delineation, and science team recommended quality screening for individual geophysical parameters. Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) always strives to best support (i.e., Software-as-a-service, SaaS) the user-community for NASA Earth Science Data. In this case, we will present a new visualization tool that helps users exploiting Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) Level 2 data. This new visualization service utilizes Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard-compliant Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) calls in the backend infrastructure. The functionality of the service allows users to select data sources (e.g., multiple parameters under the same measurement, like NO2 and SO2 from OMI Level 2 or same parameter with different methods of aggregation, like NO2 in OMNO2G and OMNO2D products), defining area-of-interest and temporal extents, zooming, panning, overlaying, sliding, and data subsetting and reformatting. The interface will also be able to connect to other OGC WMS and WCS servers, which will greatly enhance its expandability to integrate additional outside data/map sources (such as Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS)).

Ethanol production from ensiled rice straw and whole-crop silage by the simultaneous enzymatic saccharification and fermentation process.

PubMed

Shinozaki, Yukiko; Kitamoto, Hiroko K

2011-03-01

Silage production from rice straw and whole-plant forage paddy rice is increasing in Japan because of decrease in rice consumption. One potential use for this silage is bioethanol production. In this study, we analyzed the effectiveness of three different commercially available cellulases at saccharification of sun-dried rice straw, ensiled rice straw, and rice whole-crop silage (WCS). Furthermore, the ethanol productivity of the simultaneous saccharification and ethanol fermentation process (SSF) from the same plant substrates was analyzed. Among the three kinds of cellulases tested (Novozymes NS50013, Genencor GC220, and Acremonium cellulase), Acremonium cellulase showed the highest ethanol production for the three plant substrates, and the WCS produced the highest ethanol level. Analysis of the enzymatic degradation activity of the cellulases revealed that Acremonium cellulase contained remarkably high glucoamylase and pectinase side activities relative to the other cellulase preparations. The addition of glucoamylase and pectinase to the other two cellulases significantly increased ethanol productivity to levels observed for the Acremonium cellulase preparation, which showed little enhanced performance with the addition of the same enzymes. Finally, we tested whether milling and sterilization had an effect on ethanol production and found that sterilized silage produced higher ethanol levels but that the milling process had no significant effect. These results show that (i) silage made from whole-plant rice can be used for bioethanol production and (ii) the proper selection and combination of commercially available enzymes can make SSF more cost efficient by removing the need for a pre-treatment step. Copyright © 2010 The Society for Biotechnology, Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Geospatial Data as a Service: The GEOGLAM Rangelands and Pasture Productivity Map Experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evans, B. J. K.; Antony, J.; Guerschman, J. P.; Larraondo, P. R.; Richards, C. J.

2017-12-01

Empowering end-users like pastoralists, land management specialists and land policy makers in the use of earth observation data for both day-to-day and seasonal planning needs both interactive delivery of multiple geospatial datasets and the capability of supporting on-the-fly dynamic queries while simultaneously fostering a community around the effort. The use of and wide adoption of large data archives, like those produced by earth observation missions, are often limited by compute and storage capabilities of the remote user. We demonstrate that wide-scale use of large data archives can be facilitated by end-users dynamically requesting value-added products using open standards (WCS, WMS, WPS), with compute running in the cloud or dedicated data-centres and visualizing outputs on web-front ends. As an example, we will demonstrate how a tool called GSKY can empower a remote end-user by providing the data delivery and analytics capabilities for the GEOGLAM Rangelands and Pasture Productivity (RAPP) Map tool. The GEOGLAM RAPP initiative from the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and its Agricultural Monitoring subgroup aims at providing practical tools to end-users focusing on the important role of rangelands and pasture systems in providing food production security from both agricultural crops and animal protein. Figure 1, is a screen capture from the RAPP Map interface for an important pasture area in the Namibian rangelands. The RAPP Map has been in production for six months and has garnered significant interest from groups and users all over the world. GSKY, being formulated around the theme of Open Geospatial Data-as-a-Service capabilities uses distributed computing and storage to facilitate this. It works behind the scenes, accepting OGC standard requests in WCS, WMS and WPS. Results from these requests are rendered on a web-front end. In this way, the complexities of data locality and compute execution are masked from an end user. On-the-fly computation of products such as NDVI, Leaf Area Index, vegetation cover and others from original source data including MODIS are achived, with Landsat and Sentinel-2 on the horizon. Innovative use of cloud computing and storage along with flexible front-ends, allow the democratization of data dissemination and we hope better outcomes for the planet.

AirNow Information Management System - Global Earth Observation System of Systems Data Processor for Real-Time Air Quality Data Products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haderman, M.; Dye, T. S.; White, J. E.; Dickerson, P.; Pasch, A. N.; Miller, D. S.; Chan, A. C.

2012-12-01

Built upon the success of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) AirNow program (www.AirNow.gov), the AirNow-International (AirNow-I) system contains an enhanced suite of software programs that process and quality control real-time air quality and environmental data and distribute customized maps, files, and data feeds. The goals of the AirNow-I program are similar to those of the successful U.S. program and include fostering the exchange of environmental data; making advances in air quality knowledge and applications; and building a community of people, organizations, and decision makers in environmental management. In 2010, Shanghai became the first city in China to run this state-of-the-art air quality data management and notification system. AirNow-I consists of a suite of modules (software programs and schedulers) centered on a database. One such module is the Information Management System (IMS), which can automatically produce maps and other data products through the use of GIS software to provide the most current air quality information to the public. Developed with Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) interoperability in mind, IMS is based on non-proprietary standards, with preference to formal international standards. The system depends on data and information providers accepting and implementing a set of interoperability arrangements, including technical specifications for collecting, processing, storing, and disseminating shared data, metadata, and products. In particular, the specifications include standards for service-oriented architecture and web-based interfaces, such as a web mapping service (WMS), web coverage service (WCS), web feature service (WFS), sensor web services, and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. IMS is flexible, open, redundant, and modular. It also allows the merging of data grids to create complex grids that show comprehensive air quality conditions. For example, the AirNow Satellite Data Processor (ASDP) was recently developed to merge PM2.5 estimates from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite data and AirNow observational data, creating more precise maps and gridded data products for under-monitored areas. The ASDP can easily incorporate other data feeds, including fire and smoke locations, to build enhanced real-time air quality data products. In this presentation, we provide an overview of the features and functions of IMS, an explanation of how data moves through IMS, the rationale of the system architecture, and highlights of the ASDP as an example of the modularity and scalability of IMS.

Proceedings of the fourth international conference and exhibition: World Congress on superconductivity. Volume 1

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Krishen, K.; Burnham, C.

1994-12-31

The goals of the World Congress on Superconductivity (WCS) have been to establish and foster the development and commercial application of superconductivity technology on a global scale by providing a non-adversarial, non-advocacy forum where scientists, engineers, businessmen and government personnel can freely exchange information and ideas on recent developments and directions for the future of superconductive research. Sessions were held on: accelerator technology, power and energy, persistent magnetic fields, performance characterization, physical properties, fabrication methodology, superconductive magnetic energy storage (SMES), thin films, high temperature materials, device applications, wire fabrication, and granular superconductors. Individual papers are indexed separately.

The development of causal reasoning.

PubMed

Kuhn, Deanna

2012-05-01

How do inference rules for causal learning themselves change developmentally? A model of the development of causal reasoning must address this question, as well as specify the inference rules. Here, the evidence for developmental changes in processes of causal reasoning is reviewed, with the distinction made between diagnostic causal inference and causal prediction. Also addressed is the paradox of a causal reasoning literature that highlights the competencies of young children and the proneness to error among adults. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:327-335. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1160 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Advancements in Open Geospatial Standards for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing from Ogc

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Percivall, George; Simonis, Ingo

2016-06-01

The necessity of open standards for effective sharing and use of remote sensing continues to receive increasing emphasis in policies of agencies and projects around the world. Coordination on the development of open standards for geospatial information is a vital step to insure that the technical standards are ready to support the policy objectives. The mission of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is to advance development and use of international standards and supporting services that promote geospatial interoperability. To accomplish this mission, OGC serves as the global forum for the collaboration of geospatial data / solution providers and users. Photogrammetry and remote sensing are sources of the largest and most complex geospatial information. Some of the most mature OGC standards for remote sensing include the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards, the Web Coverage Service (WCS) suite of standards, encodings such as NetCDF, GMLJP2 and GeoPackage, and the soon to be approved Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) standard. In collaboration with ISPRS, OGC working with government, research and industrial organizations continue to advance the state of geospatial standards for full use of photogrammetry and remote sensing.

APASS Data Release 10

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henden, Arne A.; Levine, Stephen; Terrell, Dirk; Welch, Douglas L.; Munari, Ulisse; Kloppenborg, Brian K.

2018-06-01

The AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS) has been underway since 2010. This survey covers the entire sky from 7.5 < V < 16.5 magnitude, and in the BVugrizY bandpasses. A northern and a southern site are used, each with twin ASA 20cm astrographs and Apogee Aspen CG16m cameras, covering 2.9x2.9 square degrees with 2.6arcsec pixels. Landolt and SDSS standards are used for all-sky solutions, with typical 0.02mag calibration errors on the bright end. DR9 is currently available through VizieR. DR10 is a complete reprocessing of all 500K images taken with the system, including hundreds of nights not part of DR9. Sextractor is used for star finding and centroiding; DAOPHOT is used for aperture photometry; the astrometry.net plate-solving library is used for basic astrometry, supplanted with more precise WCS that utilizes knowledge of the optical train distortions. With these changes, DR10 includes many more stars than prior releases. We describe the survey, its remaining limitations, and prospects for the future, including a very-bright-star extension.

Datacube Interoperability, Encoding Independence, and Analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baumann, Peter; Hirschorn, Eric; Maso, Joan

2017-04-01

Datacubes are commonly accepted as an enabling paradigm which provides a handy abstraction for accessing and analyzing the zillions of image files delivered by the manifold satellite instruments and climate simulations, among others. Additionally, datacubes are the classic model for statistical and OLAP datacubes, so a further information category can be integrated. From a standards perspective, spatio-temporal datacubes naturally are included in the concept of coverages which encompass regular and irregular grids, point clouds, and general meshes - or, more abstractly, digital representations of spatio-temporally varying phenomena. ISO 19123, which is identical to OGC Abstract Topic 6, gives a high-level abstract definition which is complemented by the OGC Coverage Implementation Schema (CIS) which is an interoperable, yet format independent concretization of the abstract model. Currently, ISO is working on adopting OGC CIS as ISO 19123-2; the existing ISO 19123 standard is under revision by one of the abstract authors and will become ISO 19123-1. The roadmap agreed by ISO further foresees adoption of the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) as an ISO standard so that a complete data and service model will exist. In 2016, INSPIRE has adopted WCS as Coverage Download Service, including the datacube analytics language Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS). The rasdaman technology (www.rasdaman.org) is both OGC and INSPIRE Reference Implementation. In the global EarthServer initiative rasdaman database sizes are exceeding 250 TB today, heading for the Petabyte frontier well in 2017. Technically, CIS defines a compact, efficient model for representing multi-dimensional datacubes in several ways. The classical coverage cube defines a domain set (where are values?), a range set (what are these values?), and range type (what do the values mean?), as well as a "bag" for arbitrary metadata. With CIS 1.1, coordinate/value pair sequences have been added, as well as tiled representations. Further, CIS 1.1 offers a unified model for any kind of regular and irregular grids, also allowing sensor models as per SensorML. Encodings include ASCII formats like GML, JSON, RDF as well as binary formats like GeoTIFF, NetCDF, JPEG2000, and GRIB2; further, a container concept allows mixed representations within one coverage file utilizing zip or other convenient package formats. Through the tight integration with the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE), a lossless "transport" from sensor into coverage world is ensured. The corresponding service model of WCS supports datacube operations ranging from simple data extraction to complex ad-hoc analytics with WPCS. Notably, W3C is working has set out on a coverage model as well; it has been designed relatively independently from the abovementioned standards, but there is informal agreement to link it into the CIS universe (which allows for different, yet interchangeable representations). Particularly interesting in the W3C proposal is the detailed semantic modeling of metadata; as CIS 1.1 supports RDF, a tight coupling seems feasible.

Right hand, left brain: genetic and evolutionary bases of cerebral asymmetries for language and manual action.

PubMed

Corballis, Michael C; Badzakova-Trajkov, Gjurgjica; Häberling, Isabelle S

2012-01-01

Most people are right-handed and left-cerebrally dominant for language. This pattern of asymmetry, as well as departures from it, have been reasonably accommodated in terms of a postulated gene with two alleles, one disposing to this common pattern and the other leaving the direction of handedness and language asymmetry to chance. There are some leads as to the location of the gene or genes concerned, but no clear resolution; one possibility is that the chance factor is achieved by epigenetic cancelling of the lateralizing gene rather than through a chance allele. Neurological evidence suggests that the neural basis of manual praxis, including pantomime and tool use, is more closely associated with cerebral asymmetry for language than with handedness, and is homologous with the so-called "mirror system" in the primate brain, which is specialized for manual grasping. The evidence reviewed supports the theory that language itself evolved within the praxic system, and became lateralized in humans, and perhaps to a lesser extent in our common ancestry with the great apes. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:1-17. doi: 10.1002/wcs.158 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Infusion of Dust Model Model Outputs into Public Health Decision Making - an Examination of Differential Adoption of SOAP and Open Geospatial Consortium Service Products into Public Health Decision Support Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benedict, K. K.

2008-12-01

Since 2004 the Earth Data Analysis Center, in collaboration with the researchers at the University of Arizona and George Mason University, with funding from NASA, has been developing a services oriented architecture (SOA) that acquires remote sensing, meteorological forecast, and observed ground level particulate data (EPA AirNow) from NASA, NOAA, and DataFed through a variety of standards-based service interfaces. These acquired data are used to initialize and set boundary conditions for the execution of the Dust Regional Atmospheric Model (DREAM) to generate daily 48-hour dust forecasts, which are then published via a combination of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) services (WMS and WCS), basic HTTP request-based services, and SOAP services. The goal of this work has been to develop services that can be integrated into existing public health decision support systems (DSS) to provide enhanced environmental data (i.e. ground surface particulate concentration estimates) for use in epidemiological analysis, public health warning systems, and syndromic surveillance systems. While the project has succeeded in deploying these products into the target systems, there has been differential adoption of the different service interface products, with the simple OGC and HTTP interfaces generating much greater interest by DSS developers and researchers than the more complex SOAP service interfaces. This paper reviews the SOA developed as part of this project and provides insights into how different service models may have a significant impact on the infusion of Earth science products into decision making processes and systems.

Bridging the gap between Hydrologic and Atmospheric communities through a standard based framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boldrini, E.; Salas, F.; Maidment, D. R.; Mazzetti, P.; Santoro, M.; Nativi, S.; Domenico, B.

2012-04-01

Data interoperability in the study of Earth sciences is essential to performing interdisciplinary multi-scale multi-dimensional analyses (e.g. hydrologic impacts of global warming, regional urbanization, global population growth etc.). This research aims to bridge the existing gap between hydrologic and atmospheric communities both at semantic and technological levels. Within the context of hydrology, scientists are usually concerned with data organized as time series: a time series can be seen as a variable measured at a particular point in space over a period of time (e.g. the stream flow values as periodically measured by a buoy sensor in a river); atmospheric scientists instead usually organize their data as coverages: a coverage can be seen as a multidimensional data array (e.g. satellite images acquired through time). These differences make non-trivial the set up of a common framework to perform data discovery and access. A set of web services specifications and implementations is already in place in both the scientific communities to allow data discovery and access in the different domains. The CUAHSI-Hydrologic Information System (HIS) service stack lists different services types and implementations: - a metacatalog (implemented as a CSW) used to discover metadata services by distributing the query to a set of catalogs - time series catalogs (implemented as CSW) used to discover datasets published by the feature services - feature services (implemented as WFS) containing features with data access link - sensor observation services (implemented as SOS) enabling access to the stream of acquisitions Within the Unidata framework, there lies a similar service stack for atmospheric data: - the broker service (implemented as a CSW) distributes a user query to a set of heterogeneous services (i.e. catalogs services, but also inventory and access services) - the catalog service (implemented as a CSW) is able to harvest the available metadata offered by THREDDS services, and executes complex queries against the available metadata. - inventory service (implemented as a THREDDS) being able to hierarchically organize and publish a local collection of multi-dimensional arrays (e.g. NetCDF, GRIB files), as well as publish auxiliary standard services to realize the actual data access and visualization (e.g. WCS, OPeNDAP, WMS). The approach followed in this research is to build on top of the existing standards and implementations, by setting up a standard-aware interoperable framework, able to deal with the existing heterogeneity in an organic way. As a methodology, interoperability tests against real services were performed; existing problems were thus highlighted and possibly solved. The use of flexible tools, able to deal in a smart way with heterogeneity has proven to be successful, in particular experiments were carried on with both GI-cat broker and ESRI GeoPortal frameworks. GI-cat discovery broker was proven successful at implementing the CSW interface, as well as federating heterogeneous resources, such as THREDDS and WCS services published by Unidata, HydroServer, WFS and SOS services published by CUAHSI. Experiments with ESRI GeoPortal were also successful: the GeoPortal was used to deploy a web interface able to distribute searches amongst catalog implementations from both the hydrologic and the atmospheric communities, including HydroServers and GI-cat, combining results from both the domains in a seamless way.

Effect of the Winter Wheat Cheyenne 5A Substituted Chromosome on Dynamics of Abscisic Acid and Cytokinins in Freezing-Sensitive Chinese Spring Genetic Background

PubMed Central

Kalapos, Balázs; Novák, Aliz; Dobrev, Petre; Vítámvás, Pavel; Marincs, Ferenc; Galiba, Gábor; Vanková, Radomira

2017-01-01

The effect of short- and long-term cold treatment on the abscisic acid (ABA) and cytokinin (CK) metabolism, and their main biosynthesis- and signaling-related genes were investigated in freezing-sensitive and freezing-tolerant wheat genotypes. Varieties Cheyenne and Chinese Spring substituted with the 5A Cheyenne chromosome, which represented freezing-tolerant genotypes, were compared with the freezing-sensitive Chinese Spring. Hormone levels and gene expression data indicated that the short- and long-term cold treatments are associated with specific regulation of the accumulation of cold-protective proteins and phytohormone levels, as well as the expression profiles of the hormone-related genes. The significant differences were observed between the genotypes, and between their leaf and crown tissues, too. The level of dehydrins, including WCS120 protein, and expression of WCS120 gene were considerably higher in the freezing-tolerant genotypes after 21 days of cold treatment. Expression of Cor14b and CBF14, cold-responsive regulator genes, was increased by cold treatment in all genotypes, to higher extent in freezing-tolerant genotypes. Cluster analysis revealed that the tolerant genotypes had a similar response to cold treatment, regarding expression of the ABA and CK metabolic genes, as well as hormone levels in leaves. As far as hormone levels in crowns are concerned, however, the strongly freezing-tolerant Cheyenne variety clustered separately from the Chinese Spring and the substitution line, which were more similar to each other after both 1 and 21 days of cold treatment than to Cheyenne. Based on these results we concluded that the 5A chromosome of wheat might have both a direct and an indirect impact on the phytohormone-dependent cold-induced freezing tolerance. Based on the gene expression data, novel genetic markers could be developed, which may be used to determine the freezing tolerance level in a wide range of wheat varieties. PMID:29238355

Diet soda intake is associated with long-term increases in waist circumference in a biethnic cohort of older adults: the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging.

PubMed

Fowler, Sharon P G; Williams, Ken; Hazuda, Helen P

2015-04-01

To examine the relationship between diet soda (DS) intake (DSI) and long-term waist circumference (WC) change (ΔWC) in the biethnic San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA). Prospective cohort study. San Antonio, Texas, neighborhoods. SALSA examined 749 Mexican-American and European-American individuals aged 65 and older at baseline (baseline, 1992-96); 474 (79.1%) survivors completed follow-up 1 (FU1, 2000-01), 413 (73.4%) completed FU2 (2001-03), and 375 (71.0%) completed FU3 (2003-04). Participants completed a mean of 2.64 follow-up intervals, for 9.4 total follow-up years. DSI, WC, height, and weight were measured at outset and at the conclusion of each interval: baseline, FU1, FU2, and FU3. Adjusted for initial WC, demographic characteristics, physical activity, diabetes mellitus, and smoking, mean interval ΔWC of DS users (2.11 cm, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.45-2.76 cm) was almost triple that of nonusers (0.77 cm, 95% CI = 0.29-1.23 cm) (P < .001). Adjusted interval ΔWCs were 0.77 cm (95% CI = 0.29-1.23 cm) for nonusers, 1.76 cm (95% CI = 0.96-2.57 cm) for occasional users, and 3.04 cm (95% CI = 1.82-4.26 cm) for daily users (P = .002 for trend). This translates to ΔWCs of 0.80 inches for nonusers, 1.83 inches for occasional users, and 3.16 for daily users over the total SALSA follow-up. In subanalyses stratified for selected covariates, ΔWC point estimates were consistently higher in DS users. In a striking dose-response relationship, increasing DSI was associated with escalating abdominal obesity, a potential pathway for cardiometabolic risk in this aging population. © 2015, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation © 2015, The American Geriatrics Society.

Work-Related Quality of Life of US General Surgery Residents: Is It Really so Bad?

PubMed

Zubair, Muhammad H; Hussain, Lala R; Williams, Kristen N; Grannan, Kevin J

The quality of working life of US surgical residents has not been studied, and given the complexity of interaction between work and personal life there is a need to assess this interaction. We utilized a validated Work Related Quality of Life (WRQoL) questionnaire to evaluate the perceived work-related quality of life of general surgery residents, using a large, nationally representative sample in the United States. Between January 2016 and March 2016, all US general surgery residents enrolled in an ACGME general surgery training program were invited to participate. The WRQoL scale measures perceived quality of life covering six domains: General Well-Being (GWB), Home-Work Interface (HWI), Job and Career Satisfaction (JCS), Control at Work (CAW), Working Conditions (WCS) and Stress at Work (SAW). After excluding for missing data, the final analysis included 738 residents. The average age was 30 (±3) years, of whom 287 (38.9%) were female, 272 (36.9%) were from a community hospital, and 477 (64.6%) were juniors (postgraduate year ≤ 3). Demographically, the respondents matched expected percentages. When male and female residents were compared, males had statistically better HWI (p<0.001), better GWB (p = 0.03), more CAW (p = 0.0003) and WCS (p = 0.001). Junior residents had a lower JCS (p = 0.002) and CAW (p = 0.04) compared to seniors. There were no differences between university and community residents in any of the domains of WRQoL. Although residents were more stressed than other professions but the overall WRQoL was comparable. The nature of surgical residency and a surgical career may in fact be more "stressful" than other professions, yet may not translate into a worsened Quality of Life. Our findings suggest further study is needed to elucidate why female residents have or experience a lower perceived WRQoL than their male colleagues. Copyright © 2017 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Analysis of Plant Growth-Promoting Effects of Fluorescent Pseudomonas Strains Isolated from Mentha piperita Rhizosphere and Effects of Their Volatile Organic Compounds on Essential Oil Composition

PubMed Central

Santoro, Maricel V.; Bogino, Pablo C.; Nocelli, Natalia; Cappellari, Lorena del Rosario; Giordano, Walter F.; Banchio, Erika

2016-01-01

Many species or strains of the genus Pseudomonas have been characterized as plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). We used a combination of phenotypic and genotypic techniques to analyze the community of fluorescent Pseudomonas strains in the rhizosphere of commercially grown Mentha piperita (peppermint). Biochemical techniques, Amplified rDNA Restriction Analysis (ARDRA), and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that the majority of the isolated native fluorescent strains were P. putida. Use of two Repetitive Sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR) techniques, BOX-PCR and ERIC-PCR, allowed us to evaluate diversity among the native strains and to more effectively distinguish among them. PGPR activity was tested for the native strains and reference strain P. fluorescens WCS417r. Micropropagated M. piperita plantlets were exposed to microbial volatile organic compounds (mVOCs) emitted by the bacterial strains, and plant biomass parameters and production of essential oils (EOs) were measured. mVOCs from 11 of the native strains caused an increase in shoot fresh weight. mVOCs from three native strains (SJ04, SJ25, SJ48) induced changes in M. pierita EO composition. The mVOCs caused a reduction of metabolites in the monoterpene pathway, for example menthofuran, and an increase in menthol production. Menthol production is the primary indicator of EO quality. The mVOCs produced by native strains SJ04, SJ25, SJ48, and strain WCS417r were analyzed. The obtained mVOC chromatographic profiles were unique for each of the three native strains analyzed, containing varying hydrocarbon, aromatic, and alogenic compounds. The differential effects of the strains were most likely due to the specific mixtures of mVOCs emitted by each strain, suggesting a synergistic effect occurs among the compounds present. PMID:27486441

EarthServer: Cross-Disciplinary Earth Science Through Data Cube Analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baumann, P.; Rossi, A. P.

2016-12-01

The unprecedented increase of imagery, in-situ measurements, and simulation data produced by Earth (and Planetary) Science observations missions bears a rich, yet not leveraged potential for getting insights from integrating such diverse datasets and transform scientific questions into actual queries to data, formulated in a standardized way.The intercontinental EarthServer [1] initiative is demonstrating new directions for flexible, scalable Earth Science services based on innovative NoSQL technology. Researchers from Europe, the US and Australia have teamed up to rigorously implement the concept of the datacube. Such a datacube may have spatial and temporal dimensions (such as a satellite image time series) and may unite an unlimited number of scenes. Independently from whatever efficient data structuring a server network may perform internally, users (scientist, planners, decision makers) will always see just a few datacubes they can slice and dice.EarthServer has established client [2] and server technology for such spatio-temporal datacubes. The underlying scalable array engine, rasdaman [3,4], enables direct interaction, including 3-D visualization, common EO data processing, and general analytics. Services exclusively rely on the open OGC "Big Geo Data" standards suite, the Web Coverage Service (WCS). Conversely, EarthServer has shaped and advanced WCS based on the experience gained. The first phase of EarthServer has advanced scalable array database technology into 150+ TB services. Currently, Petabyte datacubes are being built for ad-hoc and cross-disciplinary querying, e.g. using climate, Earth observation and ocean data.We will present the EarthServer approach, its impact on OGC / ISO / INSPIRE standardization, and its platform technology, rasdaman.References: [1] Baumann, et al. (2015) DOI: 10.1080/17538947.2014.1003106 [2] Hogan, P., (2011) NASA World Wind, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computing for Geospatial Research & Applications ACM. [3] Baumann, Peter, et al. (2014) In Proc. 10th ICDM, 194-201. [4] Dumitru, A. et al. (2014) In Proc ACM SIGMOD Workshop on Data Analytics in the Cloud (DanaC'2014), 1-4.

Prevention of Eating Disorders in At-risk College-Age Women

PubMed Central

Taylor, C. Barr; Bryson, Susan; Luce, Kristine H.; Cunning, Darby; Celio, Angela; Abascal, Liana B.; Rockwell, Roxanne; Dev, Pavarti; Winzelberg, Andrew J.; Wilfley, Denise E.

2013-01-01

Context Eating disorders, an important health problem among college-age women, may be preventable, given that modifiable risk factors for eating disorders have been identified and interventions have been evaluated to reduce these risk factors. Objective To determine if an Internet-based psychosocial intervention can prevent the onset of eating disorders (EDs) in young women at risk for developing EDs. Setting and Participants College-age women in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area. Women with high weight and shape concerns were recruited via campus e-mails, posters and mass media. Six hundred thirty-seven eligible participants were identified, of whom 157 were excluded, for a total sample of 480. Recruitment occurred between 11/13/00 and 10/10/03. Design and Intervention A randomized controlled trial of an eight-week Internet-based cognitive-behavioral intervention (Student Bodies; SB) that included a moderated online discussion group. Participants were followed for up to three years. Main Outcome Measures The main outcome measure was time to onset of a subclinical or clinical ED. Secondary measures included change in Weight Concerns Scale (WCS) scores, Global EDE-Q, EDI Drive for Thinness, EDI Bulimia, and depressed mood. Moderators of outcome were examined. Results There was a significant reduction in WCS scores in the SB intervention group compared to the control group at post intervention (p < 0.001), one year (p < 0.001) and two years (p <0.001). The slope for reducing WCS was significantly greater in the treatment compared to the control group (p = 0.023). Over the course of follow-up, 43 participants developed subclinical or clinical EDs. While there was no overall significant difference in onset of EDs between intervention and control groups, the intervention significantly reduced the onset of EDs in two subgroups identified through moderator analyses: 1) participants with an elevated body mass index (BMI ≥ 25) at baseline; and 2) at one site, participants with baseline compensatory behaviors (e.g. self-induced vomiting, laxative use, diuretic use, diet pill use, driven exercise). No intervention participant with an elevated baseline BMI developed an ED, while the rates of onset of ED in the comparable BMI control group (based on survival analysis) were 4.7% at one year and 11.9% at two years (CI = 2.7%–21.1%). In the BMI ≥ 25 subgroup, the cumulative survival incidence was significantly lower at two years for the intervention compared to the control group (CI = 0% for intervention; 2.7% – 21.1% for control). For the San Francisco Bay Area site sample with baseline compensatory behaviors, 4% of participants in the intervention group developed EDs at one year and 14.4% by two years. Rates for the comparable control group were 16% and 30.4%, respectively. Conclusions Among college-age women with high weight and shape concerns, an eight-week Internet-based cognitive-behavioral intervention can significantly reduce weight and shape concerns for up to two years and decrease risk for the onset of EDs, at least in some high-risk groups. This is the first study to show that EDs can be prevented in high risk groups. PMID:16894064

River Basin Standards Interoperability Pilot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pesquer, Lluís; Masó, Joan; Stasch, Christoph

2016-04-01

There is a lot of water information and tools in Europe to be applied in the river basin management but fragmentation and a lack of coordination between countries still exists. The European Commission and the member states have financed several research and innovation projects in support of the Water Framework Directive. Only a few of them are using the recently emerging hydrological standards, such as the OGC WaterML 2.0. WaterInnEU is a Horizon 2020 project focused on creating a marketplace to enhance the exploitation of EU funded ICT models, tools, protocols and policy briefs related to water and to establish suitable conditions for new market opportunities based on these offerings. One of WaterInnEU's main goals is to assess the level of standardization and interoperability of these outcomes as a mechanism to integrate ICT-based tools, incorporate open data platforms and generate a palette of interchangeable components that are able to use the water data emerging from the recently proposed open data sharing processes and data models stimulated by initiatives such as the INSPIRE directive. As part of the standardization and interoperability activities in the project, the authors are designing an experiment (RIBASE, the present work) to demonstrate how current ICT-based tools and water data can work in combination with geospatial web services in the Scheldt river basin. The main structure of this experiment, that is the core of the present work, is composed by the following steps: - Extraction of information from river gauges data in OGC WaterML 2.0 format using SOS services (preferably compliant to the OGC SOS 2.0 Hydrology Profile Best Practice). - Model floods using a WPS 2.0, WaterML 2.0 data and weather forecast models as input. - Evaluation of the applicability of Sensor Notification Services in water emergencies. - Open distribution of the input and output data as OGC web services WaterML, / WCS / WFS and with visualization utilities: WMS. The architecture tests the combination of Gauge data in a WPS that is triggered by a meteorological alert. The data is translated into OGC WaterML 2.0 time series data format and will be ingested in a SOS 2.0. SOS data is visualized in a SOS Client that is able to handle time series. The meteorological forecast data (with the supervision of an operator manipulating the WPS user interface) ingests with WaterML 2.0 time series and terrain data is input for a flooding modelling algorithm. The WPS is able to produce flooding datasets in the form of coverages that is offered to clients via a WCS 2.0 service or a WMS 1.3 service, and downloaded and visualized by the respective clients. The WPS triggers a notification or an alert that will be monitored from an emergency control response service. Acronyms AS: Alert Service ES: Event Service ICT: Information and Communication Technology NS: Notification Service OGC: Open Geospatial Consortium RIBASE: River Basin Standards Interoperability Pilot SOS: Sensor Observation Service WaterML: Water Markup Language WCS: Web Coverage Service WMS: Web Map Service WPS: Web Processing Service

Publishing Platform for Aerial Orthophoto Maps, the Complete Stack

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Čepický, J.; Čapek, L.

2016-06-01

When creating set of orthophoto maps from mosaic compositions, using airborne systems, such as popular drones, we need to publish results of the work to users. Several steps need to be performed in order get large scale raster data published. As first step, data have to be shared as service (OGC WMS as view service, OGC WCS as download service). But for some applications, OGC WMTS is handy as well, for faster view of the data. Finally the data have to become a part of web mapping application, so that they can be used and evaluated by non-technical users. In this talk, we would like to present automated line of those steps, where user puts in orthophoto image and as a result, OGC Open Web Services are published as well as web mapping application with the data. The web mapping application can be used as standard presentation platform for such type of big raster data to generic user. The publishing platform - Geosense online map information system - can be also used for combination of data from various resources and for creating of unique map compositions and as input for better interpretations of photographed phenomenons. The whole process is successfully tested with eBee drone with raster data resolution 1.5-4 cm/px on many areas and result is also used for creation of derived datasets, usually suited for property management - the records of roads, pavements, traffic signs, public lighting, sewage system, grave locations, and others.

Semantics and pragmatics.

PubMed

McNally, Louise

2013-05-01

The fields of semantics and pragmatics are devoted to the study of conventionalized and context- or use-dependent aspects of natural language meaning, respectively. The complexity of human language as a semiotic system has led to considerable debate about how the semantics/pragmatics distinction should be drawn, if at all. This debate largely reflects contrasting views of meaning as a property of linguistic expressions versus something that speakers do. The fact that both views of meaning are essential to a complete understanding of language has led to a variety of efforts over the last 40 years to develop better integrated and more comprehensive theories of language use and interpretation. The most important advances have included the adaptation of propositional analyses of declarative sentences to interrogative, imperative and exclamative forms; the emergence of dynamic, game theoretic, and multi-dimensional theories of meaning; and the development of various techniques for incorporating context-dependent aspects of content into representations of context-invariant content with the goal of handling phenomena such as vagueness resolution, metaphor, and metonymy. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:285-297. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1227 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The authors declare no conflict of interest. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Social learning and traditions in animals: evidence, definitions, and relationship to human culture.

PubMed

Galef, Bennett G

2012-11-01

The number of publications concerned with social learning in nonhuman animals has expanded dramatically in recent decades. In this article, recent literature addressing three issues that have been of particular concern to those with both an interest in social learning and a background in experimental psychology are reviewed: (1) the definition as well as (2) empirical investigation of the numerous behavioral processes that support social learning in animals, and (3) the relationship of the 'traditions' seen in animals to the 'culture' that is so important in shaping the development of behavioral repertoires in humans. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012 doi: 10.1002/wcs.1196 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

FOXP2

PubMed Central

Nudel, Ron; Newbury, Dianne F

2013-01-01

The forkhead box P2 gene, designated FOXP2, is the first gene implicated in a speech and language disorder. Since its discovery, many studies have been carried out in an attempt to explain the mechanism by which it influences these characteristically human traits. This review presents the story of the discovery of the FOXP2 gene, including early studies of the phenotypic implications of a disruption in the gene. We then discuss recent investigations into the molecular function of the FOXP2 gene, including functional and gene expression studies. We conclude this review by presenting the fascinating results of recent studies of the FOXP2 ortholog in other species that are capable of vocal communication. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:547–560. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1247 PMID:24765219

A coastal information system to propel emerging science and ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Estuary Data Mapper (EDM) is a free, interactive virtual gateway to coastal data aimed to promote research and aid in environmental management. The graphical user interface allows users to custom select and subset data based on their spatial and temporal interests giving them easy access to visualize, retrieve, and save data for further analysis. Data are accessible across estuarine systems of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific regions of the United States and includes: (1) time series data including tidal, hydrologic, and weather, (2) water and sediment quality, (3) atmospheric deposition, (4) habitat, (5) coastal exposure indices, (6) historic and projected land-use and population, (7) historic and projected nitrogen and phosphorous sources and load summaries. EDM issues Web Coverage Service Interface Standard queries (WCS; simple, standard one-line text strings) to a public web service to quickly obtain data subsets by variable, for a date-time range and area selected by user. EDM is continuously being enhanced with updated data and new options. Recent additions include a comprehensive suite of nitrogen source and loading data, and inputs for supporting a modeling approach of seagrass habitat. Additions planned for the near future include 1) support for Integrated Water Resources Management cost-benefit analysis, specifically the Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool and 2) visualization of the combined effects of climate change, land-use a

Estuary Data Mapper: A coastal information system to propel ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Estuary Data Mapper (EDM) is a free, interactive virtual gateway to coastal data aimed to promote research and aid in environmental management. The graphical user interface allows users to custom select and subset data based on their spatial and temporal interests giving them easy access to visualize, retrieve, and save data for further analysis. Data are accessible across estuarine systems of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific regions of the United States and includes: (1) time series data including tidal, hydrologic, and weather, (2) water and sediment quality, (3) atmospheric deposition, (4) habitat, (5) coastal exposure indices, (6) historic and projected land-use and population, (7) historic and projected nitrogen and phosphorous sources and load summaries. EDM issues Web Coverage Service Interface Standard queries (WCS; simple, standard one-line text strings) to a public web service to quickly obtain data subsets by variable, for a date-time range and area selected by user. EDM is continuously being enhanced with updated data and new options. Recent additions include a comprehensive suite of nitrogen source and loading data, and inputs for supporting a modeling approach of seagrass habitat. Additions planned for the near future include 1) support for Integrated Water Resources Management cost-benefit analysis, specifically the Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool and 2) visualization of the combined effects of climate change, land-use a

Exposure to dust-bound PAHs and associated carcinogenic risk in primitive and traditional cooking practices in Pakistan.

PubMed

Kamal, Atif; Malik, Riffat Naseem; Martellini, Tania; Cincinelli, Alessandra

2015-08-01

The aim of this study was to determine the abundance and distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in dust samples collected from the selected professional cooking workplaces (WCs) and residential household cooking areas (WRs), where traditional and primitive cooking practices are still prevelent. Another aim of this study was to investigate the carcinogenic risk for Pakistani human exposure to dust-bound PAHs via the routes of inhalation, ingestion, and dermal contact. Generally, the concentration of individual congeners of PAHs in surface dust samples of WC sites was higher than those measured in WR sites (p < 0.05). The benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P), a very high carcinogenic compound, was present in the dust samples from WC sites in the highest mean concentration (630 ng g(-1) dry weight (d.w.)). The BaP mean concentration in WC workplaces was almost eight times higher than the mean value found in WR exposure sites. Moreover, the average concentration of ∑PAHs, combustion origin PAHs (∑COMB) and sum total of 7-carcinogenic PAHs (∑7-carcinogens) were also significantly higher in WC dusts samples than that in WR workplaces. Principal component analysis (PCA) and diagnostic ratios suggested coal/wood combustion as major PAH emission sources in both exposure sites. The average incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) suggested a moderate to potential high cancer risk for adults and children exposed to dust-bound PAHs in both exposure sites, in particular via both dermal and ingestion contact pathways.

Children's episodic memory.

PubMed

Ghetti, Simona; Lee, Joshua

2011-07-01

Episodic memory develops during childhood and adolescence. This trajectory depends on several underlying processes. In this article, we first discuss the development of the basic binding processes (e.g., the processes by which elements are bound together to form a memory episode) and control processes (e.g., reasoning and metamemory processes) involved in episodic remembering. Then, we discuss the role of these processes in false-memory formation. In the subsequent sections, we examine the neural substrates of the development of episodic memory. Finally, we discuss atypical development of episodic memory. As we proceed through the article, we suggest potential avenues for future research. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 365-373 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.114 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and inference under uncertainty.

PubMed

Regier, Terry; Xu, Yang

2017-11-01

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that human thought is shaped by language, leading speakers of different languages to think differently. This hypothesis has sparked both enthusiasm and controversy, but despite its prominence it has only occasionally been addressed in computational terms. Recent developments support a view of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in terms of probabilistic inference. This view may resolve some of the controversy surrounding the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and may help to normalize the hypothesis by linking it to established principles that also explain other phenomena. On this view, effects of language on nonlinguistic cognition or perception reflect standard principles of inference under uncertainty. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1440. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1440 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Operational Use of OGC Web Services at the Met Office

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wright, Bruce

2010-05-01

The Met Office has adopted the Service-Orientated Architecture paradigm to deliver services to a range of customers through Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). The approach uses standard Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services to provide information to web-based applications through a range of generic data services. "Invent", the Met Office beta site, is used to showcase Met Office future plans for presenting web-based weather forecasts, product and information to the public. This currently hosts a freely accessible Weather Map Viewer, written in JavaScript, which accesses a Web Map Service (WMS), to deliver innovative web-based visualizations of weather and its potential impacts to the public. The intention is to engage the public in the development of new web-based services that more accurately meet their needs. As the service is intended for public use within the UK, it has been designed to support a user base of 5 million, the analysed level of UK web traffic reaching the Met Office's public weather information site. The required scalability has been realised through the use of multi-tier tile caching: - WMS requests are made for 256x256 tiles for fixed areas and zoom levels; - a Tile Cache, developed in house, efficiently serves tiles on demand, managing WMS request for the new tiles; - Edge Servers, externally hosted by Akamai, provide a highly scalable (UK-centric) service for pre-cached tiles, passing new requests to the Tile Cache; - the Invent Weather Map Viewer uses the Google Maps API to request tiles from Edge Servers. (We would expect to make use of the Web Map Tiling Service, when it becomes an OGC standard.) The Met Office delivers specialist commercial products to market sectors such as transport, utilities and defence, which exploit a Web Feature Service (WFS) for data relating forecasts and observations to specific geographic features, and a Web Coverage Service (WCS) for sub-selections of gridded data. These are locally rendered as maps or graphs, and combined with the WMS pre-rendered images and text, in a FLEX application, to provide sophisticated, user impact-based view of the weather. The OGC web services supporting these applications have been developed in collaboration with commercial companies. Visual Weather was originally a desktop application for forecasters, but IBL have developed it to expose the full range of forecast and observation data through standard web services (WCS and WMS). Forecasts and observations relating to specific locations and geographic features are held in an Oracle Database, and exposed as a WFS using Snowflake Software's GO-Publisher application. The Met Office has worked closely with both IBL and Snowflake Software to ensure that the web services provided strike a balance between conformance to the standards and performance in an operational environment. This has proved challenging in areas where the standards are rapidly evolving (e.g. WCS) or do not allow adequate description of the Met-Ocean domain (e.g. multiple time coordinates and parametric vertical coordinates). It has also become clear that careful selection of the features to expose, based on the way in which you expect users to query those features, in necessary in order to deliver adequate performance. These experiences are providing useful 'real-world' input in to the recently launched OGC MetOcean Domain Working Group and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) initiatives in this area.

Prognocean Plus: the Science-Oriented Sea Level Prediction System as a Tool for Public Stakeholders

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Świerczyńska, M. G.; Miziński, B.; Niedzielski, T.

2015-12-01

The novel real-time system for sea level prediction, known as Prognocean Plus, has been developed as a new generation service available through the Polish supercomputing grid infrastructure. The researchers can access the service at https://prognocean.plgrid.pl/. Although the system is science-oriented, we wish to discuss herein its potentials to enhance ocean management studies carried out routinely by public stakeholders. The system produces the short- and medium-term predictions of global altimetric gridded Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) time series, updated daily. The spatial resolution of the SLA forecasts is 1/4° x 1/4°, while the temporal resolution of prognoses is equal to 1 day. The system computes the predictions of time-variable ocean topography using five data-based models, which are not computationally demanding, enabling us to compare their skillfulness in respect to physically-based approaches commonly used by different sea level prediction systems. However, the aim of the system is not only to compute the predictions for science purposes, but primarily to build a user-oriented platform that serves the prognoses and their statistics to a broader community. Thus, we deliver the SLA forecasts as a rapid service available online. In order to provide potential users with the access to science results the Web Map Service (WMS) for Prognocean Plus is designed. We regularly publish the forecasts, both in the interactive graphical WMS service, available from the browser, as well as through the Web Coverage Service (WCS) standard. The Prognocean Plus system, as an early-response system, may be interesting for public stakeholders. It may be used for marine navigation as well as for climate risk management (delineate areas vulnerable to local sea level rise), marine management (advise offered for offshore activities) and coastal management (early warnings against coastal floodings).

A National Crop Progress Monitoring System Based on NASA Earth Science Results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Di, L.; Yu, G.; Zhang, B.; Deng, M.; Yang, Z.

2011-12-01

Crop progress is an important piece of information for food security and agricultural commodities. Timely monitoring and reporting are mandated for the operation of agricultural statistical agencies. Traditionally, the weekly reporting issued by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is based on reports from the knowledgeable state and county agricultural officials and farmers. The results are spatially coarse and subjective. In this project, a remote-sensing-supported crop progress monitoring system is being developed intensively using the data and derived products from NASA Earth Observing satellites. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Level 3 product - MOD09 (Surface Reflectance) is used for deriving daily normalized vegetation index (NDVI), vegetation condition index (VCI), and mean vegetation condition index (MVCI). Ratio change to previous year and multiple year mean can be also produced on demand. The time-series vegetation condition indices are further combined with the NASS' remote-sensing-derived Cropland Data Layer (CDL) to estimate crop condition and progress crop by crop. To facilitate the operational requirement and increase the accessibility of data and products by different users, each component of the system has being developed and implemented following open specifications under the Web Service reference model of Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. Sensor observations and data are accessed through Web Coverage Service (WCS), Web Feature Service (WFS), or Sensor Observation Service (SOS) if available. Products are also served through such open-specification-compliant services. For rendering and presentation, Web Map Service (WMS) is used. A Web-service based system is set up and deployed at dss.csiss.gmu.edu/NDVIDownload. Further development will adopt crop growth models, feed the models with remotely sensed precipitation and soil moisture information, and incorporate the model results with vegetation-index time series for crop progress stage estimation.

Diet soda intake is associated with long-term increases in waist circumference in a bi-ethnic cohort of older adults: The San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging

PubMed Central

Fowler, Sharon PG; Williams, Ken; Hazuda, Helen P

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES Diet soda (DS) intake (DSI) has been associated with increased cardiometabolic risk, but its specific impact in older adults has not been addressed. Because central obesity increases cardiovascular risk, we examined the relationship between DSI and long-term waist circumference (WC) change (ΔWC) in the bi-ethnic San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA). DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING San Antonio, Texas, neighborhoods PARTICIPANTS SALSA examined 749 Mexican-American and European-American individuals ≥ 65 years old at baseline (BL: 1992-1996); 79.1% of survivors completed follow-up 1 (FU1) (2000-2001, n=474); 73.4%, FU2 (2001-2003, n=413); and 71.0%, FU3 (2003-2004, n=375). Participants completed a mean of 2.64 follow-up intervals, for 9.41 total follow-up years. MEASUREMENTS DSI, WC, height and weight were measured at outset and conclusion of each interval: BL-FU1, FU1-FU2, and FU2-FU3. RESULTS Adjusted for initial WC, demographics, physical activity, diabetes, and smoking, mean interval ΔWC (95% confidence interval) for all DS users was almost triple that among non-users: 2.11 (1.45-2.76) vs. 0.77 (0.29-1.23) cm, respectively (p < 0.001). For non-, occasional, and daily DS users, adjusted interval ΔWCs were 0.77 (0.29-1.23), 1.76 (0.96-2.57), and 3.04 (1.82-4.26) cm, respectively (p=0.002 for trend). This translates to ΔWCs of 0.80, 1.83, and 3.16 inches, respectively, for these groups, over the total SALSA follow-up. In sub-analyses stratified separately by key covariates, ΔWC point estimates were consistently higher among DS users. CONCLUSION In a striking dose-response relationship, increasing diet soda intake was associated with escalating abdominal obesity, a potential pathway for heightened cardiometabolic risk in this aging population. PMID:25780952

VizieR Online Data Catalog: C/2012 F6 (Lemmon) and C/2012 S1 (ISON) maps (Cordiner+, 2014)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cordiner, M. A.; Remijan, A. J.; Boissier, J.; Milam, S. N.; Mumma, M. J.; Charnley, S. B.; Paganini, L.; Villanueva, G.; Bockelee-Morvan, D.; Kuan, Y.-J.; Chuang, Y.-L.; Lis, D. C.; Biver, N.; Crovisier, J.; Minniti, D.; Coulson, I. M.

2017-04-01

WCS-calibrated fits image files of the molecular flux maps shown in Figure 1 for HCN, HNC and H2CO observed in comets C/2012 F6 (Lemmon) and C/2012 S1 (ISON) using ALMA. The files are labeled with the corresponding comet and molecule names. The files are standard two-dimensional fits images, which can be opened in fits image viewers such as SAOimage DS9, CASA viewer, or Starlink Gaia. GIMP and Adobe Photoshop can also be used, provided the appropriate plugins are present. The images contain flux values (in units of Jansky km/s per beam), as a function of celestial coordinate in the J2000 equatorial system. Due to the cometary motions, the absolute coordinate systems are accurate only at the start of the observations (dates and times are given in Table 1). These images are the result of integrating the (3D) ALMA data cubes over the full widths of the observed spectral lines (equivalent to collapsing the data cubes along their respective spectral/velocity axes). The beam dimensions (BMAJ and BMIN), corresponding to the angular resolution of the images, are given in the image headers in units of degrees. object.dat : -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Code Name Elem q e i H1 d AU deg mag -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C/2012 F6 Lemmon 2456375.5 0.7312461 0.9985125 82.607966 7.96 C/2012 S1 Ison 2456624.5 0.0124515 0.9998921 64.401571 6.11 (2 data files).

GES DISC Greenhouse Gas Data Sets and Associated Services

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sherman, Elliot; Wei, Jennifer; Vollmer, Bruce; Meyer, David

2017-01-01

NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) archives and distributes rich collections of data on atmospheric greenhouse gases from multiple missions. Hosted data include those from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) mission (which has observed CO2, CH4, ozone, and water vapor since 2002); legacy water vapor and ozone retrievals from TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS); and Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) going back to the early 1980s. GES DISC also archives and supports data from seven projects of the Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program that have ozone and water vapor records. Greenhouse gases data from the A-Train satellite constellation is also available: (1) Aura-Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) ozone, nitrous oxide, and water vapor since 2004; (2) Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) CO2 observations since 2009 from the Atmospheric CO2 Observations from Space (ACOS) task; and (3) Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) CO2 data since 2014. The most recent related data set that the GES DISC archives is methane flux for North America, as part of NASAs Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) project. This dataset contains estimates of methane emission in North America based on an inversion of the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model constrained by GOSAT observations (Turner et al., 2015). Along with data stewardship, an important focus area of the GES DISC is to enhance the usability of its data and broaden its user base. Users have unrestricted access to a new user-friendly search interface, which includes many services such as variable subsetting, format conversion, quality screening, and quick browse. The majority of the GES DISC data sets are also accessible through Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP) and Web Coverage Service (WCS). The latter two services provide more options for specialized subsetting, format conversion, and image viewing. Additional data exploration, data preview, and preliminary analysis capabilities are available via NASA Giovanni, which obviates the need forusers to download the data (Acker and Leptoukh, 2007). Giovanni provides a bridge between the data and science and has been very successful in extending GES DISC data to educational users and to users with limited resources.

A case study in adaptable and reusable infrastructure at the Keck Observatory Archive: VO interfaces, moving targets, and more

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berriman, G. Bruce; Cohen, Richard W.; Colson, Andrew; Gelino, Christopher R.; Good, John C.; Kong, Mihseh; Laity, Anastasia C.; Mader, Jeffrey A.; Swain, Melanie A.; Tran, Hien D.; Wang, Shin-Ywan

2016-08-01

The Keck Observatory Archive (KOA) (https://koa.ipac.caltech.edu) curates all observations acquired at the W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO) since it began operations in 1994, including data from eight active instruments and two decommissioned instruments. The archive is a collaboration between WMKO and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI). Since its inception in 2004, the science information system used at KOA has adopted an architectural approach that emphasizes software re-use and adaptability. This paper describes how KOA is currently leveraging and extending open source software components to develop new services and to support delivery of a complete set of instrument metadata, which will enable more sophisticated and extensive queries than currently possible. In August 2015, KOA deployed a program interface to discover public data from all instruments equipped with an imaging mode. The interface complies with version 2 of the Simple Imaging Access Protocol (SIAP), under development by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), which defines a standard mechanism for discovering images through spatial queries. The heart of the KOA service is an R-tree-based, database-indexing mechanism prototyped by the Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO) and further developed by the Montage Image Mosaic project, designed to provide fast access to large imaging data sets as a first step in creating wide-area image mosaics (such as mosaics of subsets of the 4.7 million images of the SDSS DR9 release). The KOA service uses the results of the spatial R-tree search to create an SQLite data database for further relational filtering. The service uses a JSON configuration file to describe the association between instrument parameters and the service query parameters, and to make it applicable beyond the Keck instruments. The images generated at the Keck telescope usually do not encode the image footprints as WCS fields in the FITS file headers. Because SIAP searches are spatial, much of the effort in developing the program interface involved processing the instrument and telescope parameters to understand how accurately we can derive the WCS information for each instrument. This knowledge is now being fed back into the KOA databases as part of a program to include complete metadata information for all imaging observations. The R-tree program was itself extended to support temporal (in addition to spatial) indexing, in response to requests from the planetary science community for a search engine to discover observations of Solar System objects. With this 3D-indexing scheme, the service performs very fast time and spatial matches between the target ephemerides, obtained from the JPL SPICE service. Our experiments indicate these matches can be more than 100 times faster than when separating temporal and spatial searches. Images of the tracks of the moving targets, overlaid with the image footprints, are computed with a new command-line visualization tool, mViewer, released with the Montage distribution. The service is currently in test and will be released in late summer 2016.

Cognitive linguistics.

PubMed

Evans, Vyvyan

2012-03-01

Cognitive linguistics is one of the fastest growing and influential perspectives on the nature of language, the mind, and their relationship with sociophysical (embodied) experience. It is a broad theoretical and methodological enterprise, rather than a single, closely articulated theory. Its primary commitments are outlined. These are the Cognitive Commitment-a commitment to providing a characterization of language that accords with what is known about the mind and brain from other disciplines-and the Generalization Commitment-which represents a dedication to characterizing general principles that apply to all aspects of human language. The article also outlines the assumptions and worldview which arises from these commitments, as represented in the work of leading cognitive linguists. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:129-141. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1163 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

DEVELOPING THE NATIONAL GEOTHERMAL DATA SYSTEM ADOPTION OF CKAN FOR DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL DATA DEPLOYMENT

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Clark, Ryan J.; Kuhmuench, Christoph; Richard, Stephen M.

2013-03-01

The National Geothermal Data System (NGDS) De- sign and Testing Team is developing NGDS software currently referred to as the “NGDS Node-In-A-Box”. The software targets organizations or individuals who wish to host at least one of the following: • an online repository containing resources for the NGDS; • an online site for creating metadata to register re- sources with the NGDS • NDGS-conformant Web APIs that enable access to NGDS data (e.g., WMS, WFS, WCS); • NDGS-conformant Web APIs that support dis- covery of NGDS resources via catalog service (e.g. CSW) • a web site that supports discovery and under-more » standing of NGDS resources A number of different frameworks for development of this online application were reviewed. The NGDS Design and Testing Team determined to use CKAN (http://ckan.org/), because it provides the closest match between out of the box functionality and NGDS node-in-a-box requirements. To achieve the NGDS vision and goals, this software development project has been inititated to provide NGDS data consumers with a highly functional inter- face to access the system, and to ease the burden on data providers who wish to publish data in the sys- tem. It is important to note that this software package constitutes a reference implementation. The NGDS software is based on open standards, which means other server software can make resources available, and other client applications can utilize NGDS data. A number of international organizations have ex- pressed interest in the NGDS approach to data access. The CKAN node implementation can provide a sim- ple path for deploying this technology in other set- tings.« less

Building Geospatial Web Services for Ecological Monitoring and Forecasting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hiatt, S. H.; Hashimoto, H.; Melton, F. S.; Michaelis, A. R.; Milesi, C.; Nemani, R. R.; Wang, W.

2008-12-01

The Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS) at NASA Ames Research Center is a modeling system that generates a suite of gridded data products in near real-time that are designed to enhance management decisions related to floods, droughts, forest fires, human health, as well as crop, range, and forest production. While these data products introduce great possibilities for assisting management decisions and informing further research, realization of their full potential is complicated by their shear volume and by the need for a necessary infrastructure for remotely browsing, visualizing, and analyzing the data. In order to address these difficulties we have built an OGC-compliant WMS and WCS server based on an open source software stack that provides standardized access to our archive of data. This server is built using the open source Java library GeoTools which achieves efficient I/O and image rendering through Java Advanced Imaging. We developed spatio-temporal raster management capabilities using the PostGrid raster indexation engine. We provide visualization and browsing capabilities through a customized Ajax web interface derived from the kaMap project. This interface allows resource managers to quickly assess ecosystem conditions and identify significant trends and anomalies from within their web browser without the need to download source data or install special software. Our standardized web services also expose TOPS data to a range of potential clients, from web mapping applications to virtual globes and desktop GIS packages. However, support for managing the temporal dimension of our data is currently limited in existing software systems. Future work will attempt to overcome this shortcoming by building time-series visualization and analysis tools that can be integrated with existing geospatial software.

Is there a link between the crafting of tools and the evolution of cognition?

PubMed

Taylor, Alex H; Gray, Russell D

2014-11-01

The ability to craft tools is one of the defining features of our species. The technical intelligence hypothesis predicts that tool-making species should have enhanced physical cognition. Here we review how the physical problem-solving performance of tool-making apes and corvids compares to closely related species. We conclude that, while some performance differences have been found, overall the evidence is at best equivocal. We argue that increased sample sizes, novel experimental designs, and a signature-testing approach are required to determine the effect tool crafting has on the evolution of intelligence. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:693-703. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1322 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. © 2014 The Authors. WIREs Cognitive Science published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What does Pirahã grammar have to teach us about human language and the mind?

PubMed

Everett, Daniel L

2012-11-01

Pirahã is a language isolate of the Brazilian Amazon. Among the lessons it has to teach us about human language and the mind, two are highlighted here. The first is that recursion is not a necessary condition for human syntax, because there is no evidence for recursive sentential syntax in the language. This is a stark counterexample to the claims of Chomsky and others. The second lesson is that the influence of culture on Pirahã grammar, coupled with much established and newer research, indicates that the idea of an innate, universal grammar has little if any role to play in our understanding of the nature, origins, and use of human language. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012 doi: 10.1002/wcs.1195 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: New atmospheric parameters of MILES cool stars (Sharma+, 2016)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharma, K.; Prugniel, P.; Singh, H. P.

2015-11-01

MILES V2 spectral interpolator The FITS file is an improved version of MILES interpolator previously presented in PVK. It contains the coefficients of the interpolator, which allows one to compute an interpolated spectrum, giving an effective temperature, log of surface gravity and metallicity (Teff, logg, and [Fe/H]). The file consists of three extensions containing the three temperature regimes described in the paper. Extension Teff range 0 warm 4000-9000K 1 hot >7000K 2 cold <4550K The three functions are linearly interpolated in the Teff overlapping regions. Each extension contains a 2D image-type array, whose first axis is the wavelength described by a WCS (Air wavelength, starting at 3536Å, step=0.9Å). This FITS file can be used by the ULySS v1.3 or higher. (5 data files).

Web Services Implementations at Land Process and Goddard Earth Sciences Distributed Active Archive Centers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cole, M.; Bambacus, M.; Lynnes, C.; Sauer, B.; Falke, S.; Yang, W.

2007-12-01

NASA's vast array of scientific data within its Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) is especially valuable to both traditional research scientists as well as the emerging market of Earth Science Information Partners. For example, the air quality science and management communities are increasingly using satellite derived observations in their analyses and decision making. The Air Quality Cluster in the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) uses web infrastructures of interoperability, or Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), to extend data exploration, use, and analysis and provides a user environment for DAAC products. In an effort to continually offer these NASA data to the broadest research community audience, and reusing emerging technologies, both NASA's Goddard Earth Science (GES) and Land Process (LP) DAACs have engaged in a web services pilot project. Through these projects both GES and LP have exposed data through the Open Geospatial Consortiums (OGC) Web Services standards. Reusing several different existing applications and implementation techniques, GES and LP successfully exposed a variety data, through distributed systems to be ingested into multiple end-user systems. The results of this project will enable researchers world wide to access some of NASA's GES & LP DAAC data through OGC protocols. This functionality encourages inter-disciplinary research while increasing data use through advanced technologies. This paper will concentrate on the implementation and use of OGC Web Services, specifically Web Map and Web Coverage Services (WMS, WCS) at GES and LP DAACs, and the value of these services within scientific applications, including integration with the DataFed air quality web infrastructure and in the development of data analysis web applications.

The EarthServer Federation: State, Role, and Contribution to GEOSS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Merticariu, Vlad; Baumann, Peter

2016-04-01

The intercontinental EarthServer initiative has established a European datacube platform with proven scalability: known databases exceed 100 TB, and single queries have been split across more than 1,000 cloud nodes. Its service interface being rigorously based on the OGC "Big Geo Data" standards, Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS), a series of clients can dock into the services, ranging from open-source OpenLayers and QGIS over open-source NASA WorldWind to proprietary ESRI ArcGIS. Datacube fusion in a "mix and match" style is supported by the platform technolgy, the rasdaman Array Database System, which transparently federates queries so that users simply approach any node of the federation to access any data item, internally optimized for minimal data transfer. Notably, rasdaman is part of GEOSS GCI. NASA is contributing its Web WorldWind virtual globe for user-friendly data extraction, navigation, and analysis. Integrated datacube / metadata queries are contributed by CITE. Current federation members include ESA (managed by MEEO sr.l.), Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), Australia's National Computational Infrastructure, and Jacobs University (adding in Planetary Science). Further data centers have expressed interest in joining. We present the EarthServer approach, discuss its underlying technology, and illustrate the contribution this datacube platform can make to GEOSS.

Ecophysiological characterization of early successional biological soil crusts in heavily human-impacted areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szyja, Michelle; Büdel, Burkhard; Colesie, Claudia

2018-04-01

Ecophysiological characterizations of photoautotrophic communities are not only necessary to identify the response of carbon fixation related to different climatic factors, but also to evaluate risks connected to changing environments. In biological soil crusts (BSCs), the description of ecophysiological features is difficult, due to the high variability in taxonomic composition and variable methodologies applied. Especially for BSCs in early successional stages, the available datasets are rare or focused on individual constituents, although these crusts may represent the only photoautotrophic component in many heavily disturbed ruderal areas, such as parking lots or building areas with increasing surface area worldwide. We analyzed the response of photosynthesis and respiration to changing BSC water contents (WCs), temperature and light in two early successional BSCs. We investigated whether the response of these parameters was different between intact BSC and the isolated dominating components. BSCs dominated by the cyanobacterium Nostoc commune and dominated by the green alga Zygogonium ericetorum were examined. A major divergence between the two BSCs was their absolute carbon fixation rate on a chlorophyll basis, which was significantly higher for the cyanobacterial crust. Nevertheless, independent of species composition, both crust types and their isolated organisms had convergent features such as high light acclimatization and a minor and very late-occurring depression in carbon uptake at water suprasaturation. This particular setup of ecophysiological features may enable these communities to cope with a high variety of climatic stresses and may therefore be a reason for their success in heavily disturbed areas with ongoing human impact. However, the shape of the response was different for intact BSC compared to separated organisms, especially in absolute net photosynthesis (NP) rates. This emphasizes the importance of measuring intact BSCs under natural conditions for collecting reliable data for meaningful analysis of BSC ecosystem services.

Lessons Learned and Unlearned from the 2004 Great Sumatran Tsunami.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Synolakis, C.; Kanoglu, U.

2014-12-01

Huppert & Sparks (2006 Phil Trans Math Phys Eng Sci) wrote It is likely that in the future, we will experience several disasters per year that kill more than 10,000 people. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster alone resulted in more than 20,000 casualties. Synolakis & Bernard (2006 Phil Trans Math Phys Eng Sci) concluded that Before the next Sumatra-type tsunami strikes, we must resolve to create a world that can coexist with the tsunami hazard. The 2011 Japan tsunami dramatically showed that we are not there yet. Despite substantial advances after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, substantial challenges remain for improving tsunami hazard mitigation. If the tsunami community appeared at first perplexed in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, it was not due to the failure of recognized hydrodynamic paradigms, much as certain geophysical ones and scaling laws failed, but at the worst surprise, the lack of preparedness and education. Synolakis et al. (2008 Pure Appl Geophys) presented standards for tsunami modeling; for both warnings and inundation maps (IMs). Although at least one forecasting methodology has gone through extensive testing, and is now officially in use by the warning centers (WCs), standards need urgently to be formalized for warnings. In Europe, several WCs have been established, but none has yet to issue an operational warning for a hazardous event. If it happens, there might be confusion with possibly contradictory/competing warnings. Never again should there be a repeat of the TEPCO analysis for the safety of the Fukushima NPP. This was primarily due to lacks of familiarity with the context of numerical predictions and experience with real tsunami. The accident was the result of a cascade of stupid errors, almost impossible to ignore by anyone in the field (Synolakis, 26.03.2011 The New York Times). Current practices in tsunami studies for US NPPs and for IMs do not provide us with optimism that the Fukushima lessons have been absorbed and that bagatellomania is still rabid. What saves human lives is ancestral knowledge and community preparedness, as demonstrated repeatedly. Efforts need to be focused in improving education worldwide in the simple steps they can take. We acknowledge the partial supports from the 7th FP (ASTARTE, Grant 603839), TUBITAK, TR (109Y387) and GSRT, GR (10TUR/1-50-1) projects.

HELI-DEM portal for geo-processing services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cannata, Massimiliano; Antonovic, Milan; Molinari, Monia

2014-05-01

HELI-DEM (Helvetia-Italy Digital Elevation Model) is a project developed in the framework of Italy/Switzerland Operational Programme for Trans-frontier Cooperation 2007-2013 whose major aim is to create a unified digital terrain model that includes the alpine and sub-alpine areas between Italy and Switzerland. The partners of the project are: Lombardy Region, Piedmont Region, Polytechnic of Milan, Polytechnic of Turin and Fondazione Politecnico from Italy; Institute of Earth Sciences (SUPSI) from Switzerland. The digital terrain model has been produced by integrating and validating the different elevation data available for the areas of interest, characterized by different reference frame, resolutions and accuracies: DHM at 25 m resolution from Swisstopo, DTM at 20 m resolution from Lombardy Region, DTM at 5 m resolution from Piedmont Region and DTM LiDAR PST-A at about 1 m resolution, that covers the main river bed areas and is produced by the Italian Ministry of the Environment. Further results of the project are: the generation of a unique Italian Swiss geoid with an accuracy of few centimeters (Gilardoni et al. 2012); the establishment of a GNSS permanent network, prototype of a transnational positioning service; the development of a geo-portal, entirely based on open source technologies and open standards, which provides the cross-border DTM and offers some capabilities of analysis and processing through the Internet. With this talk, the authors want to present the main steps of the project with a focus on the HELI-DEM geo-portal development carried out by the Institute of Earth Sciences, which is the access point to the DTM outputted from the project. The portal, accessible at http://geoservice.ist.supsi.ch/helidem, is a demonstration of open source technologies combined for providing access to geospatial functionalities to wide non GIS expert public. In fact, the system is entirely developed using only Open Standards and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) both on the server side (services) and on the client side (interface). In addition to self developed code the system relies mainly on teh software GRASS 7 [1], ZOO-project [2], Geoserver [3] and OpenLayers [4] and the standards WMS [5], WCS [6] and WPS [7]. At the time of writing, the portal offers features like profiling, contour extraction, watershed delineation and analysis, derivatives calculation, data extraction, coordinate conversion but it is evolving and it is planned to extend to a series of environmental modeling that the IST developed in the past like dam break simulation, landslide run-out estimation and floods due to landslide impact in artificial basins. [1] Neteler M., Mitasova H., Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach. 3rd Ed. 406 pp, Springer, New York, 2008. [2] Fenoy G., Bozon N., Raghavan V., ZOO Project: The Open Wps Platform. Proceeding of 1st International Workshop on Pervasive Web Mapping, Geoprocessing and Services (WebMGS). Como, http://www.isprs.org/proceedings/XXXVIII/4-W13/ID_32.pdf, 26-27 agosto 2010. [3] Giannecchini S., Aime A., GeoServer, il server open source per la gestione interoperabile dei dati geospaziali. Atti 15a Conferenza Nazionale ASITA. Reggia di Colorno, 15-18 novembre 2011. [4] Perez A.S., OpenLayers Cookbook. Packt Publishing, 2012. ISBN 1849517843. [5] OGC, OpenGIS Web Map Server Implementation Specification, http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wms, 2006. [6] OGC, OGC WCS 2.0 Interface Standard - Core, http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=41437, 2010b. [7] OGC, OpenGIS Web Processing Service, http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=24151, 2007.

Coupling flood forecasting and social media crowdsourcing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kalas, Milan; Kliment, Tomas; Salamon, Peter

2016-04-01

Social and mainstream media monitoring is being more and more recognized as valuable source of information in disaster management and response. The information on ongoing disasters could be detected in very short time and the social media can bring additional information to traditional data feeds (ground, remote observation schemes). Probably the biggest attempt to use the social media in the crisis management was the activation of the Digital Humanitarian Network by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in response to Typhoon Yolanda. The network of volunteers performing rapid needs & damage assessment by tagging reports posted to social media which were then used by machine learning classifiers as a training set to automatically identify tweets referring to both urgent needs and offers of help. In this work we will present the potential of coupling a social media streaming and news monitoring application ( GlobalFloodNews - www.globalfloodsystem.com) with a flood forecasting system (www.globalfloods.eu) and the geo-catalogue of the OGC services discovered in the Google Search Engine (WMS, WFS, WCS, etc.) to provide a full suite of information available to crisis management centers as fast as possible. In GlobalFloodNews we use advanced filtering of the real-time Twitter stream, where the relevant information is automatically extracted using natural language and signal processing techniques. The keyword filters are adjusted and optimized automatically using machine learning algorithms as new reports are added to the system. In order to refine the search results the forecasting system will be triggering an event-based search on the social media and OGC services relevant for crisis response (population distribution, critical infrastructure, hospitals etc.). The current version of the system makes use of USHAHIDI Crowdmap platform, which is designed to easily crowdsource information using multiple channels, including SMS, email, Twitter and the web we want to show the potential of monitoring floods at the global scale.

Investigating interoperability of the LSST data management software stack with Astropy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jenness, Tim; Bosch, James; Owen, Russell; Parejko, John; Sick, Jonathan; Swinbank, John; de Val-Borro, Miguel; Dubois-Felsmann, Gregory; Lim, K.-T.; Lupton, Robert H.; Schellart, Pim; Krughoff, K. S.; Tollerud, Erik J.

2016-07-01

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will be an 8.4m optical survey telescope sited in Chile and capable of imaging the entire sky twice a week. The data rate of approximately 15TB per night and the requirements to both issue alerts on transient sources within 60 seconds of observing and create annual data releases means that automated data management systems and data processing pipelines are a key deliverable of the LSST construction project. The LSST data management software has been in development since 2004 and is based on a C++ core with a Python control layer. The software consists of nearly a quarter of a million lines of code covering the system from fundamental WCS and table libraries to pipeline environments and distributed process execution. The Astropy project began in 2011 as an attempt to bring together disparate open source Python projects and build a core standard infrastructure that can be used and built upon by the astronomy community. This project has been phenomenally successful in the years since it has begun and has grown to be the de facto standard for Python software in astronomy. Astropy brings with it considerable expectations from the community on how astronomy Python software should be developed and it is clear that by the time LSST is fully operational in the 2020s many of the prospective users of the LSST software stack will expect it to be fully interoperable with Astropy. In this paper we describe the overlap between the LSST science pipeline software and Astropy software and investigate areas where the LSST software provides new functionality. We also discuss the possibilities of re-engineering the LSST science pipeline software to build upon Astropy, including the option of contributing affliated packages.

Exploring NASA OMI Level 2 Data With Visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wei, Jennifer; Yang, Wenli; Johnson, James; Zhao, Peisheng; Gerasimov, Irina; Pham, Long; Vicente, Gilberto

2014-01-01

Satellite data products are important for a wide variety of applications that can bring far-reaching benefits to the science community and the broader society. These benefits can best be achieved if the satellite data are well utilized and interpreted, such as model inputs from satellite, or extreme events (such as volcano eruptions, dust storms,... etc.). Unfortunately, this is not always the case, despite the abundance and relative maturity of numerous satellite data products provided by NASA and other organizations. Such obstacles may be avoided by allowing users to visualize satellite data as "images", with accurate pixel-level (Level-2) information, including pixel coverage area delineation and science team recommended quality screening for individual geophysical parameters. We present a prototype service from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) supporting Aura OMI Level-2 Data with GIS-like capabilities. Functionality includes selecting data sources (e.g., multiple parameters under the same scene, like NO2 and SO2, or the same parameter with different aggregation methods, like NO2 in OMNO2G and OMNO2D products), user-defined area-of-interest and temporal extents, zooming, panning, overlaying, sliding, and data subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection. The system will allow any user-defined portal interface (front-end) to connect to our backend server with OGC standard-compliant Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) calls. This back-end service should greatly enhance its expandability to integrate additional outside data/map sources.

Exploring NASA OMI Level 2 Data With Visualization

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wei, Jennifer C.; Yang, Wenli; Johnson, James; Zhao, Peisheng; Gerasimov, Irina; Pham, Long; Vincente, Gilbert

2014-01-01

Satellite data products are important for a wide variety of applications that can bring far-reaching benefits to the science community and the broader society. These benefits can best be achieved if the satellite data are well utilized and interpreted, such as model inputs from satellite, or extreme events (such as volcano eruptions, dust storms, etc.).Unfortunately, this is not always the case, despite the abundance and relative maturity of numerous satellite data products provided by NASA and other organizations. Such obstacles may be avoided by allowing users to visualize satellite data as images, with accurate pixel-level (Level-2) information, including pixel coverage area delineation and science team recommended quality screening for individual geophysical parameters. We present a prototype service from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) supporting Aura OMI Level-2 Data with GIS-like capabilities. Functionality includes selecting data sources (e.g., multiple parameters under the same scene, like NO2 and SO2, or the same parameter with different aggregation methods, like NO2 in OMNO2G and OMNO2D products), user-defined area-of-interest and temporal extents, zooming, panning, overlaying, sliding, and data subsetting, reformatting, and reprojection. The system will allow any user-defined portal interface (front-end) to connect to our backend server with OGC standard-compliant Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) calls. This back-end service should greatly enhance its expandability to integrate additional outside data-map sources.

Domains and naïve theories.

PubMed

Gelman, Susan A; Noles, Nicholaus S

2011-09-01

Human cognition entails domain-specific cognitive processes that influence memory, attention, categorization, problem-solving, reasoning, and knowledge organization. This article examines domain-specific causal theories, which are of particular interest for permitting an examination of how knowledge structures change over time. We first describe the properties of commonsense theories, and how commonsense theories differ from scientific theories, illustrating with children's classification of biological and nonbiological kinds. We next consider the implications of domain-specificity for broader issues regarding cognitive development and conceptual change. We then examine the extent to which domain-specific theories interact, and how people reconcile competing causal frameworks. Future directions for research include examining how different content domains interact, the nature of theory change, the role of context (including culture, language, and social interaction) in inducing different frameworks, and the neural bases for domain-specific reasoning. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 490-502 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.124 This article is categorized under: Psychology > Reasoning and Decision Making. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Theory of mind.

PubMed

Carlson, Stephanie M; Koenig, Melissa A; Harms, Madeline B

2013-07-01

Theory of mind and its development has been a significantly important-and challenging-topic of research in cognitive science for three decades. This review summarizes our knowledge of when and how children come to understand their own and others' minds, including the developmental timetable, old and new measures, and foundational skills in infancy. We review recent research on theory-of-mind (ToM) and learning, that is, ways in which children's understanding of other minds informs how they learn about the world, as well as evidence for an important role of domain-general cognitive skills (executive function) in the development of ToM, and the neural networks that are most strongly implicated. Finally, we propose future directions for research in this vast and growing field. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:391-402. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1232 The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Validation of the Weight Concerns Scale Applied to Brazilian University Students.

PubMed

Dias, Juliana Chioda Ribeiro; da Silva, Wanderson Roberto; Maroco, João; Campos, Juliana Alvares Duarte Bonini

2015-06-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Portuguese version of the Weight Concerns Scale (WCS) when applied to Brazilian university students. The scale was completed by 1084 university students from Brazilian public education institutions. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. The stability of the model in independent samples was assessed through multigroup analysis, and the invariance was estimated. Convergent, concurrent, divergent, and criterion validities as well as internal consistency were estimated. Results indicated that the one-factor model presented an adequate fit to the sample and values of convergent validity. The concurrent validity with the Body Shape Questionnaire and divergent validity with the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Students were adequate. Internal consistency was adequate, and the factorial structure was invariant in independent subsamples. The results present a simple and short instrument capable of precisely and accurately assessing concerns with weight among Brazilian university students. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sociolinguistic variables and cognition.

PubMed

Thomas, Erik R

2011-11-01

Sociolinguistics has examined mental organization of language only sporadically. Meanwhile, areas of linguistics that deal with cognitive organization seldom delve deeply into language variation. Variation is essential for understanding how language is structured cognitively, however. Three kinds of evidence are discussed to illustrate this point. First, style shifting demonstrates that language users develop detailed associations of when to produce specific linguistic forms, depending on the pragmatic context. Second, variation in fine-grained phonetic cues shows that cognitive organization applies to linguistic forms not otherwise known to be under speakers' control. Finally, experiments on dialect comprehension and identification demonstrate that listeners have detailed cognitive associations of language variants with groups of people, whether or not they can produce the same variants themselves. A model is presented for how sociolinguistic knowledge can be viewed in relation to other parts of language with regard to cognitive and neural representations. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 701-716 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.152 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Metaphor and analogy in everyday problem solving.

PubMed

Keefer, Lucas A; Landau, Mark J

2016-11-01

Early accounts of problem solving focused on the ways people represent information directly related to target problems and possible solutions. Subsequent theory and research point to the role of peripheral influences such as heuristics and bodily states. We discuss how metaphor and analogy similarly influence stages of everyday problem solving: Both processes mentally map features of a target problem onto the structure of a relatively more familiar concept. When individuals apply this structure, they use a well-known concept as a framework for reasoning about real world problems and candidate solutions. Early studies found that analogy use helped people gain insight into novel problems. More recent research on metaphor goes further to show that activating mappings has subtle, sometimes surprising effects on judgment and reasoning in everyday problem solving. These findings highlight situations in which mappings can help or hinder efforts to solve problems. WIREs Cogn Sci 2016, 7:394-405. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1407 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Individual differences in human brain development.

PubMed

Brown, Timothy T

2017-01-01

This article discusses recent scientific advances in the study of individual differences in human brain development. Focusing on structural neuroimaging measures of brain morphology and tissue properties, two kinds of variability are related and explored: differences across individuals of the same age and differences across age as a result of development. A recent multidimensional modeling study is explained, which was able to use brain measures to predict an individual's chronological age within about one year on average, in children, adolescents, and young adults between 3 and 20 years old. These findings reveal great regularity in the sequence of the aggregate brain state across different ages and phases of development, despite the pronounced individual differences people show on any single brain measure at any given age. Future research is suggested, incorporating additional measures of brain activity and function. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1389. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1389 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 The Authors. WIREs Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Techniques of Photometry and Astrometry with APASS, Gaia, and Pan-STARRs Results (Abstract)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Green, W.

2017-12-01

(Abstract only) The databases with the APASS DR9, Gaia DR1, and the Pan-STARRs 3pi DR1 data releases are publicly available for use. There is a bit of data-mining involved to download and manage these reference stars. This paper discusses the use of these databases to acquire accurate photometric references as well as techniques for improving results. Images are prepared in the usual way: zero, dark, flat-fields, and WCS solutions with Astrometry.net. Images are then processed with Sextractor to produce an ASCII table of identifying photometric features. The database manages photometics catalogs and images converted to ASCII tables. Scripts convert the files into SQL and assimilate them into database tables. Using SQL techniques, each image star is merged with reference data to produce publishable results. The VYSOS has over 13,000 images of the ONC5 field to process with roughly 100 total fields in the campaign. This paper provides the overview for this daunting task.

Informal learning.

PubMed

Callanan, Maureen; Cervantes, Christi; Loomis, Molly

2011-11-01

We consider research and theory relevant to the notion of informal learning. Beginning with historical and definitional issues, we argue that learning happens not just in schools or in school-aged children. Many theorists have contrasted informal learning with formal learning. Moving beyond this dichotomy, and away from a focus on where learning occurs, we discuss five dimensions of informal learning that are drawn from the literature: (1) non-didactive, (2) highly socially collaborative, (3) embedded in meaningful activity, (4) initiated by learner's interest or choice, and (5) removed from external assessment. We consider these dimensions in the context of four sample domains: learning a first language, learning about the mind and emotions within families and communities, learning about science in family conversations and museum settings, and workplace learning. Finally, we conclude by considering convergences and divergences across the different literatures and suggesting areas for future research. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 646-655 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.143 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The role of sleep in cognitive processing: focusing on memory consolidation.

PubMed

Chambers, Alexis M

2017-05-01

Research indicates that sleep promotes various cognitive functions, such as decision-making, language, categorization, and memory. Of these, most work has focused on the influence of sleep on memory, with ample work showing that sleep enhances memory consolidation, a process that stores new memories in the brain over time. Recent psychological and neurophysiological research has vastly increased understanding of this process. Such work not only suggests that consolidation relies on plasticity-related mechanisms that reactivate and stabilize memory representations, but also that this process may be experimentally manipulated by methods that target which memory traces are reactivated during sleep. Furthermore, aside from memory storage capabilities, memory consolidation also appears to reorganize and integrate memories with preexisting knowledge, which may facilitate the discovery of underlying rules and associations that benefit other cognitive functioning, including problem solving and creativity. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1433. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1433 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Word learning mechanisms.

PubMed

He, Angela Xiaoxue; Arunachalam, Sudha

2017-07-01

How do children acquire the meanings of words? Many word learning mechanisms have been proposed to guide learners through this challenging task. Despite the availability of rich information in the learner's linguistic and extralinguistic input, the word-learning task is insurmountable without such mechanisms for filtering through and utilizing that information. Different kinds of words, such as nouns denoting object concepts and verbs denoting event concepts, require to some extent different kinds of information and, therefore, access to different kinds of mechanisms. We review some of these mechanisms to examine the relationship between the input that is available to learners and learners' intake of that input-that is, the organized, interpreted, and stored representations they form. We discuss how learners segment individual words from the speech stream and identify their grammatical categories, how they identify the concepts denoted by these words, and how they refine their initial representations of word meanings. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1435. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1435 This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Language. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Development evolving: the origins and meanings of instinct.

PubMed

Blumberg, Mark S

2017-01-01

How do migratory birds, herding dogs, and navigating sea turtles do the amazing things that they do? For hundreds of years, scientists and philosophers have struggled over possible explanations. In time, one word came to dominate the discussion: instinct. It became the catch-all explanation for those adaptive and complex abilities that do not obviously result from learning or experience. Today, various animals are said to possess a survival instinct, migratory instinct, herding instinct, maternal instinct, or language instinct. But a closer look reveals that these and other 'instincts' are not satisfactorily described as inborn, pre-programmed, hardwired, or genetically determined. Rather, research in this area teaches us that species-typical behaviors develop-and they do so in every individual under the guidance of species-typical experiences occurring within reliable ecological contexts. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1371. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1371 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Philosophical aesthetics and cognitive science.

PubMed

Meskin, Aaron; Robson, Jon; Ichino, Anna; Goffin, Kris; Monseré, Annelies

2018-01-01

Philosophical aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which explores issues having to do with art, beauty, and related phenomena. Philosophers have often been skeptical about the place of empirical investigation in aesthetics. However, in recent years many philosophical aestheticians have turned to cognitive science to enrich their understanding of their subject matter. Cognitive scientists have, in turn, been inspired by work in philosophical aesthetics. This essay focuses on a representative subset of the areas in which there has been fruitful dialog between philosophical aestheticians and cognitive scientists. We start with some general topics in philosophical aesthetics-the definition of art and the epistemic status of aesthetic judgments. We then move on to discussing research concerning the roles that imagination and perception play in our aesthetic engagement. We conclude with a discussion of the emerging field of experimental philosophical aesthetics. WIREs Cogn Sci 2018, 9:e1445. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1445 This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Value. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Game playing.

PubMed

Rosin, Christopher D

2014-03-01

Game playing has been a core domain of artificial intelligence research since the beginnings of the field. Game playing provides clearly defined arenas within which computational approaches can be readily compared to human expertise through head-to-head competition and other benchmarks. Game playing research has identified several simple core algorithms that provide successful foundations, with development focused on the challenges of defeating human experts in specific games. Key developments include minimax search in chess, machine learning from self-play in backgammon, and Monte Carlo tree search in Go. These approaches have generalized successfully to additional games. While computers have surpassed human expertise in a wide variety of games, open challenges remain and research focuses on identifying and developing new successful algorithmic foundations. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:193-205. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1278 CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Climate Data Service in the FP7 EarthServer Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mantovani, Simone; Natali, Stefano; Barboni, Damiano; Grazia Veratelli, Maria

2013-04-01

EarthServer is a European Framework Program project that aims at developing and demonstrating the usability of open standards (OGC and W3C) in the management of multi-source, any-size, multi-dimensional spatio-temporal data - in short: "Big Earth Data Analytics". In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach, six thematic Lighthouse Applications (Cryospheric Science, Airborne Science, Atmospheric/ Climate Science, Geology, Oceanography, and Planetary Science), each with 100+ TB, are implemented. Scope of the Atmospheric/Climate lighthouse application (Climate Data Service) is to implement the system containing global to regional 2D / 3D / 4D datasets retrieved either from satellite observations, from numerical modelling and in-situ observations. Data contained in the Climate Data Service regard atmospheric profiles of temperature / humidity, aerosol content, AOT, and cloud properties provided by entities such as the European Centre for Mesoscale Weather Forecast (ECMWF), the Austrian Meteorological Service (Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik - ZAMG), the Italian National Agency for new technologies, energies and sustainable development (ENEA), and the Sweden's Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska Institut -- SMHI). The system, through an easy-to-use web application permits to browse the loaded data, visualize their temporal evolution on a specific point with the creation of 2D graphs of a single field, or compare different fields on the same point (e.g. temperatures from different models and satellite observations), and visualize maps of specific fields superimposed with high resolution background maps. All data access operations and display are performed by means of OGC standard operations namely WMS, WCS and WCPS. The EarthServer project has just started its second year over a 3-years development plan: the present status the system contains subsets of the final database, with the scope of demonstrating I/O modules and visualization tools. At the end of the project all datasets will be available to the users.

Laparoscopic subtotal colectomy with antiperistaltic cecorectal anastomosis: a new step in the treatment of slow-transit constipation.

PubMed

Marchesi, Federico; Percalli, Luigi; Pinna, Ferdinando; Cecchini, Stefano; Ricco', Matteo; Roncoroni, Luigi

2012-06-01

Subtotal colectomy with antiperistaltic cecorectal anastomosis (SCCRA) has proved to be an effective alternative to total colectomy for the treatment of severe slow-transit constipation. The laparoscopic approach has made this procedure even more attractive. This is the first controlled trial on laparoscopic SCCRA. The study compares the laparoscopic and the open approach. Since 2001, all SCCRAs have been performed laparoscopically at our institution. Only severely symptomatic patients are offered surgery, after stringent patient selection. Laparoscopic SCCRA was performed following the same steps that we first described for the open approach, by utilizing a five-trocar technique. Outcome parameters were prospectively collected every 3 and 6 months. Wexner constipation and incontinence scales (WCS, WI) and gastrointestinal quality of life index (GIQLI) were adopted for functional results. We conducted a case-control study of 15 consecutive patients who underwent laparoscopic SCCRA (VL) and 15 patients previously operated on by the open approach (Op) to compare postoperative and functional outcomes. The VL group had better postoperative outcomes (pain, ileus) while complication rates were similar. Resolution of constipation was impressive in both groups, with no significant difference at follow-up. The VL group presented with a higher number of bowel movements at 3 months (3.8 vs. 2.8, p = 0.039), resulting in a significantly higher incontinence rate at 3 months (WI 6.4 vs. 2.73, p = 0.004), although the difference was no longer significant at 1-year follow-up. The quality of life was good for both groups; the VL group showed a significant improvement at 1-year follow-up (64.18 vs. 114.79, p < 0.01). Laparoscopic SCCRA confirmed the good functional results of the open approach, with no increase in morbidity rate and a faster postoperative recovery. An early higher incontinence rate did not affect quality of life.

The Competitiveness of Pseudomonas chlororaphis Carrying pJP4 Is Reduced in the Arabidopsis thaliana Rhizosphere

PubMed Central

Schmidt-Eisenlohr, Heike; Baron, Christian

2003-01-01

The effect of the large catabolic IncP plasmid pJP4 on the competitiveness of Pseudomonas chlororaphis SPR044 and on its derivatives SPR244 (GacS deficient), SPR344 (phenazine-1-carboxamide overproducer), and SPR644 (phenazine-1-carboxamide deficient) in the Arabidopsis thaliana rhizosphere was assessed. Solitary rhizosphere colonization by the wild type, SPR244, and SPR644 was not affected by the plasmid. The size of the population of SPR344 carrying pJP4, however, was significantly reduced compared to the size of the population of the plasmid-free derivative. The abiotic stress caused by phenazine-1-carboxamide overproduction probably resulted in a selective disadvantage for cells carrying pJP4. Next, the effect of biotic stress caused by coinoculation of other bacteria was analyzed. Cells carrying pJP4 had a selective disadvantage compared to plasmid-free cells in the presence of the efficient colonizer Pseudomonas fluorescens WCS417r. This effect was not observed after coinoculation with a variety of other bacteria, and it was independent of quorum sensing and phenazine-1-carboxamide production. Thus, the presence of large catabolic plasmids imposes a detectable metabolic burden in the presence of biotic stress. Plasmid transfer in the A. thaliana rhizosphere from P. chlororaphis and its derivatives to Ralstonia eutropha was determined by using culture-dependent and culture-independent techniques. With the cultivation-independent technique we detected a significantly higher portion of exconjugants, but pJP4 transfer was independent of the quorum-sensing system and of phenazine-1-carboxamide production. PMID:12620876

Activated Carbon Preparation and Modification for Adsorption

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cao, Yuhe

Butanol is considered a promising, infrastructure-compatible biofuel. Butanol has a higher energy content than ethanol and can be used in conventional gas engines without modifications. Unfortunately, the fermentation pathway for butanol production is restricted by its toxicity to the microbial strains used in the process. Butanol is toxic to the microbes, and this can slow fermentation rates and reduce butanol yields. Gas stripping technology can efficiently remove butanol from the fermentation broth as it is produced, thereby decreasing its inhibitory effects. Traditional butanol separation heavily depends on the energy intensive distillation method. One of the main issues in acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation is that butanol concentrations in the fermentation broth are low, ranging from 1 to 1.2 percent in weight, because of its toxicity to the microorganisms. Therefore distillation of butanol is even worse than distillation of corn ethanol. Even new separation methods, such as solid- extraction methods involve adding substances, such as polymer resin and zeolite or activated carbon, to biobutanol fermentatioon broth did not achieve energy efficient separation of butanol due to low adsorption selectivity and fouling in broth. Gas-stripping - condensation is another new butanol recovery method, however, the butanol in gas-stripping stream is too low to be condensed without using expensive and energy intensive liquid nitrogen. Adsorption can then be used to recover butanol from the vapor phase. Activated carbon (AC) samples and zeolite were investigated for their butanol vapor adsorption capacities. Commercial activated carbon was modified via hydrothermal H2O2 treatment, and the specific surface area and oxygen-containing functional groups of activated carbon were tested before and after treatment. Hydrothermal H2O 2 modification increased the surface oxygen content, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area, micropore volume, and total pore volume of active carbon. The adsorption capacities of these active carbon samples were almost three times that of zeolite. However, the un-modified active carbon had the highest adsorption capacity for butanol vapor (259.6 mg g-1), compared to 222.4 mg g-1 after 10% H2O2 hydrothermal treatment. Both modified and un-modified active carbon can be easily regenerated for repeatable adsorption by heating to 150 °C. Therefore, surface oxygen groups significantly reduced the adsorption capacity of active carbons for butanol vapor. In addition, original active carbon and AC samples modified by nitric acid hydrothermal modification were assessed for their ability to adsorb butanol vapor. The specific surface area and oxygen-containing functional groups of AC were tested before and after modification. The adsorption capacity of unmodified AC samples were the highest. Hydrothermal oxidation of AC with HNO3 increased the surface oxygen content, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, micropore, mesopore and total pore volume of AC. Although the pore structure and specific surface area were greatly improved after hydrothermal oxidization with 4 M HNO3, the increased oxygen on the surface of AC decreased the dynamic adsorption capacity. In order to get high adsorption capacity adsorbents, we used corn stalk as precursor to fabricate porous carbon. ACs were prepared through chemical activation of biochar from whole corn stalk (WCS) and corn stalk pith (CSP) at varying temperatures using potassium hydroxide as the activating agent. ACs were characterized via pore structural analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These adsorbents were then assessed for their adsorption capacity for butanol vapor. It was found that WCS activated at 900 °C for 1 h (WCS-900) had optimal butanol adsorption characteristics. The BET surface area and total pore volume of the WCS-900 were 2330 m2 g-1 and 1.29 cm3 g-1, respectively. The dynamic adsorption capacity of butanol vapor was 410.0 mg g-1, a 185.1 % increase compared to charcoal-based commercial AC (143.8 mg g -1). Based on the adsorption experiments of butanol vapor, we found the chemical properties of the AC surface play an important role in adsorbing molecules. The adsorption of creatinine on active carbons was also studied, which is a toxic compound generated by human. High levels of creatinine in the blood stream is normally caused by malfunction or failure of the kidneys. Activated carbons is taken by the patients orally to reduce creatinine level. In order to figure out whether chemical modification could increase the adsorption capacity of creatinine, AC samples modified by nitric acid hydrothermal modification were assessed for their ability to adsorb creatinine. The pore structure and surface properties of the AC samples were characterized by N 2 adsorption, temperature programmed desorption (TPD), Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS). It indicated that 4M HNO3 hydrothermal modification with 180 °C was an efficient method in improvement of the creatinine adsorption. The improved adsorption capacity can be attributed mainly to an increase in the acidic oxygen-containing functional groups. The adsorption of creatinine over AC may involve an interaction with the acidic oxygen-containing groups on AC. Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models were applied to describe the experimental isotherm and isotherm constants. Equilibrium data fitted very well to the Freundlich model in the entire saturation range (3.58-59.08 mg L-1 ). The maximum adsorption capacities of AC modified with 180 °C is 62.5 mg g-1 according to the Langmuir model. Pseudo first-order and second-order kinetic models were used to describe the kinetic data and the rate constants were evaluated. The experimental data fitted well to the second-order kinetic model, which indicates that the chemical adsorption was the rate-limiting step, instead of mass transfer. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

How NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) is operationally using the Esri ArcGIS Platform to improve data discoverability, accessibility and interoperability to meet the diversifying government, private, public and academic communities' driven requirements.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tisdale, M.

2016-12-01

NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) is operationally using the Esri ArcGIS Platform to improve data discoverability, accessibility and interoperability to meet the diversifying government, private, public and academic communities' driven requirements. The ASDC is actively working to provide their mission essential datasets as ArcGIS Image Services, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Mapping Services (WMS), OGC Web Coverage Services (WCS) and leveraging the ArcGIS multidimensional mosaic dataset structure. Science teams and ASDC are utilizing these services, developing applications using the Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS and ArcGIS API for Javascript, and evaluating restructuring their data production and access scripts within the ArcGIS Python Toolbox framework and Geoprocessing service environment. These capabilities yield a greater usage and exposure of ASDC data holdings and provide improved geospatial analytical tools for a mission critical understanding in the areas of the earth's radiation budget, clouds, aerosols, and tropospheric chemistry.

Improving data discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability with the Esri ArcGIS Platform at the NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC).

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tisdale, M.

2017-12-01

NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) is operationally using the Esri ArcGIS Platform to improve data discoverability, accessibility and interoperability to meet the diversifying user requirements from government, private, public and academic communities. The ASDC is actively working to provide their mission essential datasets as ArcGIS Image Services, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Mapping Services (WMS), and OGC Web Coverage Services (WCS) while leveraging the ArcGIS multidimensional mosaic dataset structure. Science teams at ASDC are utilizing these services through the development of applications using the Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS and the ArcGIS API for Javascript. These services provide greater exposure of ASDC data holdings to the GIS community and allow for broader sharing and distribution to various end users. These capabilities provide interactive visualization tools and improved geospatial analytical tools for a mission critical understanding in the areas of the earth's radiation budget, clouds, aerosols, and tropospheric chemistry. The presentation will cover how the ASDC is developing geospatial web services and applications to improve data discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability.

Word maturity indices with latent semantic analysis: why, when, and where is Procrustes rotation applied?

PubMed

Jorge-Botana, Guillermo; Olmos, Ricardo; Luzón, José M

2018-01-01

The aim of this paper is to describe and explain one useful computational methodology to model the semantic development of word representation: Word maturity. In particular, the methodology is based on the longitudinal word monitoring created by Kirylev and Landauer using latent semantic analysis for the representation of lexical units. The paper is divided into two parts. First, the steps required to model the development of the meaning of words are explained in detail. We describe the technical and theoretical aspects of each step. Second, we provide a simple example of application of this methodology with some simple tools that can be used by applied researchers. This paper can serve as a user-friendly guide for researchers interested in modeling changes in the semantic representations of words. Some current aspects of the technique and future directions are also discussed. WIREs Cogn Sci 2018, 9:e1457. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1457 This article is categorized under: Computer Science > Natural Language Processing Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Development and Aging. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Political psychology.

PubMed

Stone, Susanna; Johnson, Kate M; Beall, Erica; Meindl, Peter; Smith, Benjamin; Graham, Jesse

2014-07-01

Political psychology is a dynamic field of research that offers a unique blend of approaches and methods in the social and cognitive sciences. Political psychologists explore the interactions between macrolevel political structures and microlevel factors such as decision-making processes, motivations, and perceptions. In this article, we provide a broad overview of the field, beginning with a brief history of political psychology research and a summary of the primary methodological approaches in the field. We then give a more detailed account of research on ideology and social justice, two topics experiencing a resurgence of interest in current political psychology. Finally, we cover research on political persuasion and voting behavior. By summarizing these major areas of political psychology research, we hope to highlight the wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches of cognitive scientists working at the intersection of psychology and political science. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:373-385. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1293 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The simplicity principle in perception and cognition.

PubMed

Feldman, Jacob

2016-09-01

The simplicity principle, traditionally referred to as Occam's razor, is the idea that simpler explanations of observations should be preferred to more complex ones. In recent decades the principle has been clarified via the incorporation of modern notions of computation and probability, allowing a more precise understanding of how exactly complexity minimization facilitates inference. The simplicity principle has found many applications in modern cognitive science, in contexts as diverse as perception, categorization, reasoning, and neuroscience. In all these areas, the common idea is that the mind seeks the simplest available interpretation of observations- or, more precisely, that it balances a bias toward simplicity with a somewhat opposed constraint to choose models consistent with perceptual or cognitive observations. This brief tutorial surveys some of the uses of the simplicity principle across cognitive science, emphasizing how complexity minimization in a number of forms has been incorporated into probabilistic models of inference. WIREs Cogn Sci 2016, 7:330-340. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1406 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Bridging views in cinema: a review of the art and science of view integration.

PubMed

Levin, Daniel T; Baker, Lewis J

2017-09-01

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the relationship between film and cognitive science. This is reflected in a new science of cinema that can help us both to understand this art form, and to produce new insights about cognition and perception. In this review, we begin by describing how the initial development of cinema involved close observation of audience response. This allowed filmmakers to develop an informal theory of visual cognition that helped them to isolate and creatively recombine fundamental elements of visual experience. We review research exploring naturalistic forms of visual perception and cognition that have opened the door to a productive convergence between the dynamic visual art of cinema and science of visual cognition that can enrich both. In particular, we discuss how parallel understandings of view integration in cinema and in cognitive science have been converging to support a new understanding of meaningful visual experience. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1436. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1436 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Distributed Multi-interface Catalogue for Geospatial Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nativi, S.; Bigagli, L.; Mazzetti, P.; Mattia, U.; Boldrini, E.

2007-12-01

Several geosciences communities (e.g. atmospheric science, oceanography, hydrology) have developed tailored data and metadata models and service protocol specifications for enabling online data discovery, inventory, evaluation, access and download. These specifications are conceived either profiling geospatial information standards or extending the well-accepted geosciences data models and protocols in order to capture more semantics. These artifacts have generated a set of related catalog -and inventory services- characterizing different communities, initiatives and projects. In fact, these geospatial data catalogs are discovery and access systems that use metadata as the target for query on geospatial information. The indexed and searchable metadata provide a disciplined vocabulary against which intelligent geospatial search can be performed within or among communities. There exists a clear need to conceive and achieve solutions to implement interoperability among geosciences communities, in the context of the more general geospatial information interoperability framework. Such solutions should provide search and access capabilities across catalogs, inventory lists and their registered resources. Thus, the development of catalog clearinghouse solutions is a near-term challenge in support of fully functional and useful infrastructures for spatial data (e.g. INSPIRE, GMES, NSDI, GEOSS). This implies the implementation of components for query distribution and virtual resource aggregation. These solutions must implement distributed discovery functionalities in an heterogeneous environment, requiring metadata profiles harmonization as well as protocol adaptation and mediation. We present a catalog clearinghouse solution for the interoperability of several well-known cataloguing systems (e.g. OGC CSW, THREDDS catalog and data services). The solution implements consistent resource discovery and evaluation over a dynamic federation of several well-known cataloguing and inventory systems. Prominent features include: 1)Support to distributed queries over a hierarchical data model, supporting incremental queries (i.e. query over collections, to be subsequently refined) and opaque/translucent chaining; 2)Support to several client protocols, through a compound front-end interface module. This allows to accommodate a (growing) number of cataloguing standards, or profiles thereof, including the OGC CSW interface, ebRIM Application Profile (for Core ISO Metadata and other data models), and the ISO Application Profile. The presented catalog clearinghouse supports both the opaque and translucent pattern for service chaining. In fact, the clearinghouse catalog may be configured either to completely hide the underlying federated services or to provide clients with services information. In both cases, the clearinghouse solution presents a higher level interface (i.e. OGC CSW) which harmonizes multiple lower level services (e.g. OGC CSW, WMS and WCS, THREDDS, etc.), and handles all control and interaction with them. In the translucent case, client has the option to directly access the lower level services (e.g. to improve performances). In the GEOSS context, the solution has been experimented both as a stand-alone user application and as a service framework. The first scenario allows a user to download a multi-platform client software and query a federation of cataloguing systems, that he can customize at will. The second scenario support server-side deployment and can be flexibly adapted to several use-cases, such as intranet proxy, catalog broker, etc.

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Products and Services at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Z.; Ostrenga, D.; Vollmer, B.; Kempler, S.; Deshong, B.; Greene, M.

2015-01-01

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) hosts and distributes GPM data within the NASA Earth Observation System Data Information System (EOSDIS). The GES DISC is also home to the data archive for the GPM predecessor, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Over the past 17 years, the GES DISC has served the scientific as well as other communities with TRMM data and user-friendly services. During the GPM era, the GES DISC will continue to provide user-friendly data services and customer support to users around the world. GPM products currently and to-be available: -Level-1 GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and partner radiometer products, DPR products -Level-2 Goddard Profiling Algorithm (GPROF) GMI and partner products, DPR products -Level-3 daily and monthly products, DPR products -Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) products (early, late, and final) A dedicated Web portal (including user guides, etc.) has been developed for GPM data (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gpm). Data services that are currently and to-be available include Google-like Mirador (http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/) for data search and access; data access through various Web services (e.g., OPeNDAP, GDS, WMS, WCS); conversion into various formats (e.g., netCDF, HDF, KML (for Google Earth), ASCII); exploration, visualization, and statistical online analysis through Giovanni (http://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov); generation of value-added products; parameter and spatial subsetting; time aggregation; regridding; data version control and provenance; documentation; science support for proper data usage, FAQ, help desk; monitoring services (e.g. Current Conditions) for applications. The United User Interface (UUI) is the next step in the evolution of the GES DISC web site. It attempts to provide seamless access to data, information and services through a single interface without sending the user to different applications or URLs (e.g., search, access, subset, Giovanni, documents).

Motion perception: behavior and neural substrate.

PubMed

Mather, George

2011-05-01

Visual motion perception is vital for survival. Single-unit recordings in primate primary visual cortex (V1) have revealed the existence of specialized motion sensing neurons; perceptual effects such as the motion after-effect demonstrate their importance for motion perception. Human psychophysical data on motion detection can be explained by a computational model of cortical motion sensors. Both psychophysical and physiological data reveal at least two classes of motion sensor capable of sensing motion in luminance-defined and texture-defined patterns, respectively. Psychophysical experiments also reveal that motion can be seen independently of motion sensor output, based on attentive tracking of visual features. Sensor outputs are inherently ambiguous, due to the problem of univariance in neural responses. In order to compute stimulus direction and speed, the visual system must compare the responses of many different sensors sensitive to different directions and speeds. Physiological data show that this computation occurs in the visual middle temporal (MT) area. Recent psychophysical studies indicate that information about spatial form may also play a role in motion computations. Adaptation studies show that the human visual system is selectively sensitive to large-scale optic flow patterns, and physiological studies indicate that cells in the middle superior temporal (MST) area derive this sensitivity from the combined responses of many MT cells. Extraretinal signals used to control eye movements are an important source of signals to cancel out the retinal motion responses generated by eye movements, though visual information also plays a role. A number of issues remain to be resolved at all levels of the motion-processing hierarchy. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 305-314 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.110 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website Additional Supporting Information may be found in http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/George_Mather/Motion/index.html. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Changes in hydration status of elite Olympic class sailors in different climates and the effects of different fluid replacement beverages

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Olympic class sailing poses physiological challenges similar to other endurance sports such as cycling or running, with sport specific challenges of limited access to nutrition and hydration during competition. As changes in hydration status can impair sports performance, examining fluid consumption patterns and fluid/electrolyte requirements of Olympic class sailors is necessary to develop specific recommendations for these elite athletes. The purpose of this study was to examine if Olympic class sailors could maintain hydration status with self-regulated fluid consumption in cold conditions and the effect of fixed fluid intake on hydration status in warm conditions. Methods In our cold condition study (CCS), 11 elite Olympic class sailors were provided ad libitum access to three different drinks. Crystal Light (control, C); Gatorade (experimental control, G); and customized sailing-specific Infinit (experimental, IN) (1.0:0.22 CHO:PRO), were provided on three separate training days in cold 7.1°C [4.2 – 11.3]. Our warm condition study (WCS) examined the effect of fixed fluid intake (11.5 mL.kg.-1.h-1) of C, G and heat-specific experimental Infinit (INW)(1.0:0.074 CHO:PRO) on the hydration status of eight elite Olympic Laser class sailors in 19.5°C [17.0 - 23.3]. Both studies used a completely random design. Results In CCS, participants consumed 802 ± 91, 924 ± 137 and 707 ± 152 mL of fluid in each group respectively. This did not change urine specific gravity, but did lead to a main effect for time for body mass (p < 0.001), blood sodium, potassium and chloride with all groups lower post-training (p < 0.05). In WCS, fixed fluid intake increased participant’s body mass post-training in all groups (p < 0.01) and decreased urine specific gravity post-training (p < 0.01). There was a main effect for time for blood sodium, potassium and chloride concentration, with lower values observed post-training (p < 0.05). C blood sodium concentrations were lower than the INW group post-training (p = 0.031) with a trend towards significance in the G group (p = 0.069). Conclusion Ad libitum fluid consumption in cold conditions was insufficient in preventing a decrease in body mass and blood electrolyte concentration post-training. However, when a fixed volume of 11.5 mL.kg.-1.h-1 was consumed during warm condition training, hydration status was maintained by preventing changes in body mass and urine specific gravity. PMID:23432855

Changes in hydration status of elite Olympic class sailors in different climates and the effects of different fluid replacement beverages.

PubMed

Lewis, Evan Jh; Fraser, Sarah J; Thomas, Scott G; Wells, Greg D

2013-02-21

Olympic class sailing poses physiological challenges similar to other endurance sports such as cycling or running, with sport specific challenges of limited access to nutrition and hydration during competition. As changes in hydration status can impair sports performance, examining fluid consumption patterns and fluid/electrolyte requirements of Olympic class sailors is necessary to develop specific recommendations for these elite athletes. The purpose of this study was to examine if Olympic class sailors could maintain hydration status with self-regulated fluid consumption in cold conditions and the effect of fixed fluid intake on hydration status in warm conditions. In our cold condition study (CCS), 11 elite Olympic class sailors were provided ad libitum access to three different drinks. Crystal Light (control, C); Gatorade (experimental control, G); and customized sailing-specific Infinit (experimental, IN) (1.0:0.22 CHO:PRO), were provided on three separate training days in cold 7.1°C [4.2 - 11.3]. Our warm condition study (WCS) examined the effect of fixed fluid intake (11.5 mL.kg.-1.h-1) of C, G and heat-specific experimental Infinit (INW)(1.0:0.074 CHO:PRO) on the hydration status of eight elite Olympic Laser class sailors in 19.5°C [17.0 - 23.3]. Both studies used a completely random design. In CCS, participants consumed 802 ± 91, 924 ± 137 and 707 ± 152 mL of fluid in each group respectively. This did not change urine specific gravity, but did lead to a main effect for time for body mass (p < 0.001), blood sodium, potassium and chloride with all groups lower post-training (p < 0.05). In WCS, fixed fluid intake increased participant's body mass post-training in all groups (p < 0.01) and decreased urine specific gravity post-training (p < 0.01). There was a main effect for time for blood sodium, potassium and chloride concentration, with lower values observed post-training (p < 0.05). C blood sodium concentrations were lower than the INW group post-training (p = 0.031) with a trend towards significance in the G group (p = 0.069). Ad libitum fluid consumption in cold conditions was insufficient in preventing a decrease in body mass and blood electrolyte concentration post-training. However, when a fixed volume of 11.5 mL.kg.-1.h-1 was consumed during warm condition training, hydration status was maintained by preventing changes in body mass and urine specific gravity.

EarthServer - an FP7 project to enable the web delivery and analysis of 3D/4D models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Laxton, John; Sen, Marcus; Passmore, James

2013-04-01

EarthServer aims at open access and ad-hoc analytics on big Earth Science data, based on the OGC geoservice standards Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS). The WCS model defines "coverages" as a unifying paradigm for multi-dimensional raster data, point clouds, meshes, etc., thereby addressing a wide range of Earth Science data including 3D/4D models. WCPS allows declarative SQL-style queries on coverages. The project is developing a pilot implementing these standards, and will also investigate the use of GeoSciML to describe coverages. Integration of WCPS with XQuery will in turn allow coverages to be queried in combination with their metadata and GeoSciML description. The unified service will support navigation, extraction, aggregation, and ad-hoc analysis on coverage data from SQL. Clients will range from mobile devices to high-end immersive virtual reality, and will enable 3D model visualisation using web browser technology coupled with developing web standards. EarthServer is establishing open-source client and server technology intended to be scalable to Petabyte/Exabyte volumes, based on distributed processing, supercomputing, and cloud virtualization. Implementation will be based on the existing rasdaman server technology developed. Services using rasdaman technology are being installed serving the atmospheric, oceanographic, geological, cryospheric, planetary and general earth observation communities. The geology service (http://earthserver.bgs.ac.uk/) is being provided by BGS and at present includes satellite imagery, superficial thickness data, onshore DTMs and 3D models for the Glasgow area. It is intended to extend the data sets available to include 3D voxel models. Use of the WCPS standard allows queries to be constructed against single or multiple coverages. For example on a single coverage data for a particular area can be selected or data with a particular range of pixel values. Queries on multiple surfaces can be constructed to calculate, for example, the thickness between two surfaces in a 3D model or the depth from ground surface to the top of a particular geologic unit. In the first version of the service a simple interface showing some example queries has been implemented in order to show the potential of the technologies. The project aims to develop the services available in light of user feedback, both in terms of the data available, the functionality and the interface. User feedback on the services guides the software and standards development aspects of the project, leading to enhanced versions of the software which will be implemented in upgraded versions of the services during the lifetime of the project.

Enabling Web-Based GIS Tools for Internet and Mobile Devices To Improve and Expand NASA Data Accessibility and Analysis Functionality for the Renewable Energy and Agricultural Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ross, A.; Stackhouse, P. W.; Tisdale, B.; Tisdale, M.; Chandler, W.; Hoell, J. M., Jr.; Kusterer, J.

2014-12-01

The NASA Langley Research Center Science Directorate and Atmospheric Science Data Center have initiated a pilot program to utilize Geographic Information System (GIS) tools that enable, generate and store climatological averages using spatial queries and calculations in a spatial database resulting in greater accessibility of data for government agencies, industry and private sector individuals. The major objectives of this effort include the 1) Processing and reformulation of current data to be consistent with ESRI and openGIS tools, 2) Develop functions to improve capability and analysis that produce "on-the-fly" data products, extending these past the single location to regional and global scales. 3) Update the current web sites to enable both web-based and mobile application displays for optimization on mobile platforms, 4) Interact with user communities in government and industry to test formats and usage of optimization, and 5) develop a series of metrics that allow for monitoring of progressive performance. Significant project results will include the the development of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant web services (WMS, WCS, WFS, WPS) that serve renewable energy and agricultural application products to users using GIS software and tools. Each data product and OGC service will be registered within ECHO, the Common Metadata Repository, the Geospatial Platform, and Data.gov to ensure the data are easily discoverable and provide data users with enhanced access to SSE data, parameters, services, and applications. This effort supports cross agency, cross organization, and interoperability of SSE data products and services by collaborating with DOI, NRCan, NREL, NCAR, and HOMER for requirements vetting and test bed users before making available to the wider public.

AWS-Glacier As A Storage Foundation For AWS-EC2 Hosted Scientific Data Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gallagher, J. H. R.; Potter, N.

2016-12-01

Using AWS Glacier as a base level data store for a scientific data service presents new challenges for the web accessible data services, along with their software clients and human operators. All meaningful Glacier transactions take at least 4 hours to complete. This is in contrast to the various web APIs for data such as WMS, WFS, WCS, DAP2, and Netcdf tools which were all written based on the premise that the response will be (nearly) immediate. Only DAP4 and WPS contain an explicit asynchronous component to their respective protocols which allows for "return later" behaviors. We were able to put Hyrax (a DAP4 server) in front of Glacier-held resources, but there were significant issues. Any kind of probing of the datasets happens at the cost of the Glacier retrieval period, 4 hours. A couple of crucial things fall out of this: The first is that the service must cache metadata, including coordinate map arrays, so that a client can have enough information available in the "immediate" time frame to make a decisions about what to ask for from the dataset. This type of request planning is important because a data access request will take 4 hours to complete unless the data resource has been cached. The second thing is that the clients need to change their behavior when accessing datasets in an asynchronous system, even if the metadata is cached. Commonly, client applications will request a number of data components from a DAP2 service in the course of "discovering" the dataset. This may not be a well-supported model of interaction with Glacier or any other high latency data store.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: EBHIS spectra and HI column density maps (Winkel+, 2016)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winkel, B.; Kerp, J.; Floeer, L.; Kalberla, P. M. W.; Ben Bekhti, N.; Keller, R.; Lenz, D.

2015-11-01

The EBHIS 1st data release comprises 21-cm neutral atomic hydrogen data of the Milky Way (-600km/s

Array Databases: Agile Analytics (not just) for the Earth Sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baumann, P.; Misev, D.

2015-12-01

Gridded data, such as images, image timeseries, and climate datacubes, today are managed separately from the metadata, and with different, restricted retrieval capabilities. While databases are good at metadata modelled in tables, XML hierarchies, or RDF graphs, they traditionally do not support multi-dimensional arrays.This gap is being closed by Array Databases, pioneered by the scalable rasdaman ("raster data manager") array engine. Its declarative query language, rasql, extends SQL with array operators which are optimized and parallelized on server side. Installations can easily be mashed up securely, thereby enabling large-scale location-transparent query processing in federations. Domain experts value the integration with their commonly used tools leading to a quick learning curve.Earth, Space, and Life sciences, but also Social sciences as well as business have massive amounts of data and complex analysis challenges that are answered by rasdaman. As of today, rasdaman is mature and in operational use on hundreds of Terabytes of timeseries datacubes, with transparent query distribution across more than 1,000 nodes. Additionally, its concepts have shaped international Big Data standards in the field, including the forthcoming array extension to ISO SQL, many of which are supported by both open-source and commercial systems meantime. In the geo field, rasdaman is reference implementation for the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Big Data standard, WCS, now also under adoption by ISO. Further, rasdaman is in the final stage of OSGeo incubation.In this contribution we present array queries a la rasdaman, describe the architecture and novel optimization and parallelization techniques introduced in 2015, and put this in context of the intercontinental EarthServer initiative which utilizes rasdaman for enabling agile analytics on Petascale datacubes.

Prime Contract Awards Alphabetically by Contractor, by State or Country, and Place. Part 8. (General Contractor, Inc.-H and H Industrial Instruments)

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-01-01

4C>Qa0 QQ aQD1> 4 0-4 - 4 - 4-o4 - 4 - 4->Q0 o00 > > > Cell . 0c4 IC1 l’(0< 40 I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O (n3IU 1 m C𔃾 11.0 C3 xO O O O O...In it el4 យ C-4 il.J 4 44 4 4 4 44 4 4 4 X"""NI (D00)0) 000 (0 (04C) 1 U0I co-4 1I N4 4 4 4 4 44 4 4 4 r44 QNO 40 m NQ Is .1 II 0-4 11 0 0 0 0 00 0 0...C C II C0 1- 0 1- 11 to I MN 11 - 1-4 iil Wcs n z 2 i Z - I WNC 110010>C 20 C O>l 0 a 2 - 0- Oil El4 eJ 1140 1- 0 C’ I-i-i c Il linN - I it4 ". z - I

Models of neuromodulation for computational psychiatry.

PubMed

Iglesias, Sandra; Tomiello, Sara; Schneebeli, Maya; Stephan, Klaas E

2017-05-01

Psychiatry faces fundamental challenges: based on a syndrome-based nosology, it presently lacks clinical tests to infer on disease processes that cause symptoms of individual patients and must resort to trial-and-error treatment strategies. These challenges have fueled the recent emergence of a novel field-computational psychiatry-that strives for mathematical models of disease processes at physiological and computational (information processing) levels. This review is motivated by one particular goal of computational psychiatry: the development of 'computational assays' that can be applied to behavioral or neuroimaging data from individual patients and support differential diagnosis and guiding patient-specific treatment. Because the majority of available pharmacotherapeutic approaches in psychiatry target neuromodulatory transmitters, models that infer (patho)physiological and (patho)computational actions of different neuromodulatory transmitters are of central interest for computational psychiatry. This article reviews the (many) outstanding questions on the computational roles of neuromodulators (dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and noradrenaline), outlines available evidence, and discusses promises and pitfalls in translating these findings to clinical applications. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1420. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1420 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

FUSE Observations of Neutron-Capture Elements in Wolf-Rayet Planetary Nebulae

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dinerstein, H.

We propose to obtain FUSE observations of planetary nebula central stars of the WC Wolf-Rayet ([WC]) class, in order to search for the products of neutron-capture processes in these stars and provide constraints on their evolutionary status. Although the origin of the [WC]'s is controversial, their H-deficient, C-rich surface compositions indicate that they have experienced a high degree of mixing and/or mass loss. Thus one might expect the nebulae they produce to show enhanced concentrations of He-burning and other nuclear products, such as nuclei produced by slow neutron capture during the AGB phase. We have already detected an absorption line from one such element, Germanium (Sterling, Dinerstein, & Bowers 2002), while conducting a search for H2 absorption from nebular molecular material FUSE GI programs A085 and B069). Since the strongest Ge enhancements were found in PNe with [WC] central stars, we propose to enlarge the sample of such objects observed by FUSE. THIS TEMPORARY AND PARTIAL SCRIPT COVERS ONE TARGET, HE 2-99, AND REQUESTS AN EXPOSURE TIME OF 15 KSEC. PHASE 2 INFORMATION FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE PROGRAM'S TOTAL TIME ALLOCATION OF 60 KSEC WILL BE SUBMITTED AT A LATER TIME.

SHIELD: FITGALAXY -- A Software Package for Automatic Aperture Photometry of Extended Sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marshall, Melissa

2013-01-01

Determining the parameters of extended sources, such as galaxies, is a common but time-consuming task. Finding a photometric aperture that encompasses the majority of the flux of a source and identifying and excluding contaminating objects is often done by hand - a lengthy and difficult to reproduce process. To make extracting information from large data sets both quick and repeatable, I have developed a program called FITGALAXY, written in IDL. This program uses minimal user input to automatically fit an aperture to, and perform aperture and surface photometry on, an extended source. FITGALAXY also automatically traces the outlines of surface brightness thresholds and creates surface brightness profiles, which can then be used to determine the radial properties of a source. Finally, the program performs automatic masking of contaminating sources. Masks and apertures can be applied to multiple images (regardless of the WCS solution or plate scale) in order to accurately measure the same source at different wavelengths. I present the fluxes, as measured by the program, of a selection of galaxies from the Local Volume Legacy Survey. I then compare these results with the fluxes given by Dale et al. (2009) in order to assess the accuracy of FITGALAXY.

RANWAR: rank-based weighted association rule mining from gene expression and methylation data.

PubMed

Mallik, Saurav; Mukhopadhyay, Anirban; Maulik, Ujjwal

2015-01-01

Ranking of association rules is currently an interesting topic in data mining and bioinformatics. The huge number of evolved rules of items (or, genes) by association rule mining (ARM) algorithms makes confusion to the decision maker. In this article, we propose a weighted rule-mining technique (say, RANWAR or rank-based weighted association rule-mining) to rank the rules using two novel rule-interestingness measures, viz., rank-based weighted condensed support (wcs) and weighted condensed confidence (wcc) measures to bypass the problem. These measures are basically depended on the rank of items (genes). Using the rank, we assign weight to each item. RANWAR generates much less number of frequent itemsets than the state-of-the-art association rule mining algorithms. Thus, it saves time of execution of the algorithm. We run RANWAR on gene expression and methylation datasets. The genes of the top rules are biologically validated by Gene Ontologies (GOs) and KEGG pathway analyses. Many top ranked rules extracted from RANWAR that hold poor ranks in traditional Apriori, are highly biologically significant to the related diseases. Finally, the top rules evolved from RANWAR, that are not in Apriori, are reported.

Linguistic relativity.

PubMed

Wolff, Phillip; Holmes, Kevin J

2011-05-01

The central question in research on linguistic relativity, or the Whorfian hypothesis, is whether people who speak different languages think differently. The recent resurgence of research on this question can be attributed, in part, to new insights about the ways in which language might impact thought. We identify seven categories of hypotheses about the possible effects of language on thought across a wide range of domains, including motion, color, spatial relations, number, and false belief understanding. While we do not find support for the idea that language determines the basic categories of thought or that it overwrites preexisting conceptual distinctions, we do find support for the proposal that language can make some distinctions difficult to avoid, as well as for the proposal that language can augment certain types of thinking. Further, we highlight recent evidence suggesting that language may induce a relatively schematic mode of thinking. Although the literature on linguistic relativity remains contentious, there is growing support for the view that language has a profound effect on thought. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 253-265 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.104 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Two-step bioleaching of copper and gold from discarded printed circuit boards (PCB).

PubMed

Işıldar, Arda; van de Vossenberg, Jack; Rene, Eldon R; van Hullebusch, Eric D; Lens, Piet N L

2016-11-01

An effective strategy for environmentally sound biological recovery of copper and gold from discarded printed circuit boards (PCB) in a two-step bioleaching process was experimented. In the first step, chemolithotrophic acidophilic Acidithiobacillus ferrivorans and Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans were used. In the second step, cyanide-producing heterotrophic Pseudomonas fluorescens and Pseudomonas putida were used. Results showed that at a 1% pulp density (10g/L PCB concentration), 98.4% of the copper was bioleached by a mixture of A. ferrivorans and A. thiooxidans at pH 1.0-1.6 and ambient temperature (23±2°C) in 7days. A pure culture of P. putida (strain WCS361) produced 21.5 (±1.5)mg/L cyanide with 10g/L glycine as the substrate. This gold complexing agent was used in the subsequent bioleaching step using the Cu-leached (by A. ferrivorans and A. thiooxidans) PCB material, 44.0% of the gold was mobilized in alkaline conditions at pH 7.3-8.6, and 30°C in 2days. This study provided a proof-of-concept of a two-step approach in metal bioleaching from PCB, by bacterially produced lixiviants. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Vision in the natural world.

PubMed

Hayhoe, Mary M; Rothkopf, Constantin A

2011-03-01

Historically, the study of visual perception has followed a reductionist strategy, with the goal of understanding complex visually guided behavior by separate analysis of its elemental components. Recent developments in monitoring behavior, such as measurement of eye movements in unconstrained observers, have allowed investigation of the use of vision in the natural world. This has led to a variety of insights that would be difficult to achieve in more constrained experimental contexts. In general, it shifts the focus of vision away from the properties of the stimulus toward a consideration of the behavioral goals of the observer. It appears that behavioral goals are a critical factor in controlling the acquisition of visual information from the world. This insight has been accompanied by a growing understanding of the importance of reward in modulating the underlying neural mechanisms and by theoretical developments using reinforcement learning models of complex behavior. These developments provide us with the tools to understanding how tasks are represented in the brain, and how they control acquisition of information through use of gaze. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 158-166 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.113 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Automating Mapping Production for the Enterprise: from Contract to Delivery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Uebbing, R.; Xie, C.; Beshah, B.; Welter, J.

2012-07-01

The ever increasing volume and quality of geospatial data has created new challenges for mapping companies. Due to increased image resolution, fusion of different data sources and more frequent data update requirements, mapping production is forced to streamline the work flow to meet client deadlines. But the data volume alone is not the only barrier for an efficient production work flow. Processing geospatial information traditionally uses domain and vendor specific applications that do not interface with each other, often leading to data duplication and therefore creating sources for error. Also, it creates isolation between different departments within a mapping company resulting in additional communication barriers. North West Geomatics has designed and implemented a data centric enterprise solution for the flight acquisition and production work flow to combat the above challenges. A central data repository containing not only geospatial data in the strictest sense such as images, vector layers and 3D point clouds, but also other information such as product specifications, client requirements, flight acquisition data, production resource usage and much more has been deployed at the company. As there is only one instance of the database shared throughout the whole organization it allows all employees, given they have been granted the appropriate permission, to view the current status of any project with a graphical and table based interface through its life cycle from sales, through flight acquisition, production and product delivery. Not only can users track progress and status of various work flow steps, but the system also allows users and applications to actively schedule or start specific production steps such as data ingestion and triangulation with many other steps (orthorectification, mosaicing, accounting, etc.) in the planning stages. While the complete system is exposed to the users through a web interface and therefore allowing outside customers to also view their data, much of the design and development was focused on work flow automation, scalability and security. Ideally, users will interact with the system to retrieve a specific project status and summaries while the work flow processes are triggered automatically by modeling their dependencies. The enterprise system is built using open source technologies (PostGIS, Hibernate, OpenLayers, GWT and others) and adheres to OGC web services for data delivery (WMS/WFS/WCS) to third party applications.

Improving Data Catalogs with Free and Open Source Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schweitzer, R.; Hankin, S.; O'Brien, K.

2013-12-01

The Global Earth Observation Integrated Data Environment (GEO-IDE) is NOAA's effort to successfully integrate data and information with partners in the national US-Global Earth Observation System (US-GEO) and the international Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). As part of the GEO-IDE, the Unified Access Framework (UAF) is working to build momentum towards the goal of increased data integration and interoperability. The UAF project is moving towards this goal with an approach that includes leveraging well known and widely used standards, as well as free and open source software. The UAF project shares the widely held conviction that the use of data standards is a key ingredient necessary to achieve interoperability. Many community-based consensus standards fail, though, due to poor compliance. Compliance problems emerge for many reasons: because the standards evolve through versions, because documentation is ambiguous or because individual data providers find the standard inadequate as-is to meet their special needs. In addition, minimalist use of standards will lead to a compliant service, but one which is of low quality. In this presentation, we will be discussing the UAF effort to build a catalog cleaning tool which is designed to crawl THREDDS catalogs, analyze the data available, and then build a 'clean' catalog of data which is standards compliant and has a uniform set of data access services available. These data services include, among others, OPeNDAP, Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Mapping Service (WMS). We will also discuss how we are utilizing free and open source software and services to both crawl, analyze and build the clean data catalog, as well as our efforts to help data providers improve their data catalogs. We'll discuss the use of open source software such as DataNucleus, Thematic Realtime Environmental Distributed Data Services (THREDDS), ncISO and the netCDF Java Common Data Model (CDM). We'll also demonstrate how we are using free services such as Google Charts to create an easily identifiable visual metaphor which describes the quality of data catalogs. Using this rubric, in conjunction with the ncISO metadata quality rubric, will allow data providers to identify non-compliance issues in their data catalogs, thereby improving data availability to their users and to data discovery systems

Development of ITSASGIS-5D: seeking interoperability between Marine GIS layers and scientific multidimensional data using open source tools and OGC services for multidisciplinary research.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sagarminaga, Y.; Galparsoro, I.; Reig, R.; Sánchez, J. A.

2012-04-01

Since 2000, an intense effort was conducted in AZTI's Marine Research Division to set up a data management system which could gather all the marine datasets that were being produced by different in-house research projects. For that, a corporative GIS was designed that included a data and metadata repository, a database, a layer catalog & search application and an internet map viewer. Several layers, mostly dealing with physical, chemical and biological in-situ sampling, and basic and thematic cartography including bathymetry, geomorphology, different species habitat maps, and human pressure and activities maps, were successfully gathered in this system. Very soon, it was realised that new marine technologies yielding continuous multidimensional data, sometimes called FES (Fluid Earth System) data, were difficult to handle in this structure. The data affected, mainly included numerical oceanographic and meteorological models, remote sensing data, coastal RADAR data, and some in-situ observational systems such as CTD's casts, moored or lagrangian buoys, etc. A management system for gridded multidimensional data was developed using standardized formats (netcdf using CF conventions) and tools such as THREDDS catalog (UNIDATA/UCAR) providing web services such as OPENDAP, NCSS, and WCS, as well as ncWMS service developed by the Reading e-science Center. At present, a system (ITSASGIS-5D) is being developed, based on OGC standards and open-source tools to allow interoperability between all the data types mentioned before. This system includes, in the server side, postgresql/postgis databases and geoserver for GIS layers, and THREDDS/Opendap and ncWMS services for FES gridded data. Moreover, an on-line client is being developed to allow joint access, user configuration, data visualisation & query and data distribution. This client is using mapfish, ExtJS - GeoEXT, and openlayers libraries. Through this presentation the elements of the first released version of this system will be described and showed, together with the new topics to be developed in new versions that include among others, the integration of geoNetwork libraries and tools for both FES and GIS metadata management, and the use of new OGC Sensor Observation Services (SOS) to integrate non gridded multidimensional data such as time series, depth profiles or trajectories provided by different observational systems. The final aim of this approach is to contribute to the multidisciplinary access and use of marine data for management and research activities, and facilitate the implementation of integrated ecosystem based approaches in the fields of fisheries advice and management, marine spatial planning, or the implementation of the European policies such as the Water Framework Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive or the Habitat Framework Directive.

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Products and Services at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ostrenga, D.; Liu, Z.; Vollmer, B.; Teng, W.; Kempler, S.

2014-01-01

On February 27, 2014, the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission was launched to provide the next-generation global observations of rain and snow (http:pmm.nasa.govGPM). The GPM mission consists of an international network of satellites in which a GPM Core Observatory satellite carries both active and passive microwave instruments to measure precipitation and serve as a reference standard, to unify precipitation measurements from a constellation of other research and operational satellites. The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) hosts and distributes GPM data within the NASA Earth Observation System Data Information System (EOSDIS). The GES DISC is home to the data archive for the GPM predecessor, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Over the past 16 years, the GES DISC has served the scientific as well as other communities with TRMM data and user-friendly services. During the GPM era, the GES DISC will continue to provide user-friendly data services and customer support to users around the world. GPM products currently and to-be available include the following:Level-1 GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and partner radiometer productsLevel-2 Goddard Profiling Algorithm (GPROF) GMI and partner productsLevel-3 daily and monthly productsIntegrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) products (early, late, and final) A dedicated Web portal (including user guides, etc.) has been developed for GPM data (http:disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.govgpm). Data services that are currently and to-be available include Google-like Mirador (http:mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov) for data search and access; data access through various Web services (e.g., OPeNDAP, GDS, WMS, WCS); conversion into various formats (e.g., netCDF, HDF, KML (for Google Earth), ASCII); exploration, visualization, and statistical online analysis through Giovanni (http:giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov); generation of value-added products; parameter and spatial subsetting; time aggregation; regridding; data version control and provenance; documentation; science support for proper data usage, FAQ, help desk; monitoring services (e.g. Current Conditions) for applications.

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Products and Services at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Zhong; Ostrenga, D.; Vollmer, B.; Deshong, B.; Greene, M.; Teng, W.; Kempler, S. J.

2015-01-01

On February 27, 2014, the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission was launched to provide the next-generation global observations of rain and snow (http:pmm.nasa.govGPM). The GPM mission consists of an international network of satellites in which a GPM Core Observatory satellite carries both active and passive microwave instruments to measure precipitation and serve as a reference standard, to unify precipitation measurements from a constellation of other research and operational satellites. The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) hosts and distributes GPM data within the NASA Earth Observation System Data Information System (EOSDIS). The GES DISC is home to the data archive for the GPM predecessor, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Over the past 16 years, the GES DISC has served the scientific as well as other communities with TRMM data and user-friendly services. During the GPM era, the GES DISC will continue to provide user-friendly data services and customer support to users around the world. GPM products currently and to-be available include the following: 1. Level-1 GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and partner radiometer products. 2. Goddard Profiling Algorithm (GPROF) GMI and partner products. 3. Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) products. (early, late, and final)A dedicated Web portal (including user guides, etc.) has been developed for GPM data (http:disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.govgpm). Data services that are currently and to-be available include Google-like Mirador (http:mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov) for data search and access; data access through various Web services (e.g., OPeNDAP, GDS, WMS, WCS); conversion into various formats (e.g., netCDF, HDF, KML (for Google Earth), ASCII); exploration, visualization, and statistical online analysis through Giovanni (http:giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov); generation of value-added products; parameter and spatial subsetting; time aggregation; regridding; data version control and provenance; documentation; science support for proper data usage, FAQ, help desk; monitoring services (e.g. Current Conditions) for applications.In this presentation, we will present GPM data products and services with examples.

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Products and Services at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ostrenga, D.; Liu, Z.; Vollmer, B.; Teng, W. L.; Kempler, S. J.

2014-12-01

On February 27, 2014, the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission was launched to provide the next-generation global observations of rain and snow (http://pmm.nasa.gov/GPM). The GPM mission consists of an international network of satellites in which a GPM "Core Observatory" satellite carries both active and passive microwave instruments to measure precipitation and serve as a reference standard, to unify precipitation measurements from a constellation of other research and operational satellites. The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) hosts and distributes GPM data within the NASA Earth Observation System Data Information System (EOSDIS). The GES DISC is home to the data archive for the GPM predecessor, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Over the past 16 years, the GES DISC has served the scientific as well as other communities with TRMM data and user-friendly services. During the GPM era, the GES DISC will continue to provide user-friendly data services and customer support to users around the world. GPM products currently and to-be available include the following: Level-1 GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and partner radiometer products Goddard Profiling Algorithm (GPROF) GMI and partner products Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) products (early, late, and final) A dedicated Web portal (including user guides, etc.) has been developed for GPM data (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gpm). Data services that are currently and to-be available include Google-like Mirador (http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/) for data search and access; data access through various Web services (e.g., OPeNDAP, GDS, WMS, WCS); conversion into various formats (e.g., netCDF, HDF, KML (for Google Earth), ASCII); exploration, visualization, and statistical online analysis through Giovanni (http://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov); generation of value-added products; parameter and spatial subsetting; time aggregation; regridding; data version control and provenance; documentation; science support for proper data usage, FAQ, help desk; monitoring services (e.g. Current Conditions) for applications. In this presentation, we will present GPM data products and services with examples.

The climate4impact platform: Providing, tailoring and facilitating climate model data access

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pagé, Christian; Pagani, Andrea; Plieger, Maarten; Som de Cerff, Wim; Mihajlovski, Andrej; de Vreede, Ernst; Spinuso, Alessandro; Hutjes, Ronald; de Jong, Fokke; Bärring, Lars; Vega, Manuel; Cofiño, Antonio; d'Anca, Alessandro; Fiore, Sandro; Kolax, Michael

2017-04-01

One of the main objectives of climate4impact is to provide standardized web services and tools that are reusable in other portals. These services include web processing services, web coverage services and web mapping services (WPS, WCS and WMS). Tailored portals can be targeted to specific communities and/or countries/regions while making use of those services. Easier access to climate data is very important for the climate change impact communities. To fulfill this objective, the climate4impact (http://climate4impact.eu/) web portal and services has been developed, targeting climate change impact modellers, impact and adaptation consultants, as well as other experts using climate change data. It provides to users harmonized access to climate model data through tailored services. It features static and dynamic documentation, Use Cases and best practice examples, an advanced search interface, an integrated authentication and authorization system with the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF), a visualization interface with ADAGUC web mapping tools. In the latest version, statistical downscaling services, provided by the Santander Meteorology Group Downscaling Portal, were integrated. An innovative interface to integrate statistical downscaling services will be released in the upcoming version. The latter will be a big step in bridging the gap between climate scientists and the climate change impact communities. The climate4impact portal builds on the infrastructure of an international distributed database that has been set to disseminate the results from the global climate model results of the Coupled Model Intercomparison project Phase 5 (CMIP5). This database, the ESGF, is an international collaboration that develops, deploys and maintains software infrastructure for the management, dissemination, and analysis of climate model data. The European FP7 project IS-ENES, Infrastructure for the European Network for Earth System modelling, supports the European contribution to ESGF and contributes to the ESGF open source effort, notably through the development of search, monitoring, quality control, and metadata services. In its second phase, IS-ENES2 supports the implementation of regional climate model results from the international Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiments (CORDEX). These services were extended within the European FP7 Climate Information Portal for Copernicus (CLIPC) project, and some could be later integrated into the European Copernicus platform.

GIS Services, Visualization Products, and Interoperability at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baldwin, R.; Ansari, S.; Reid, G.; Lott, N.; Del Greco, S.

2007-12-01

The main goal in developing and deploying Geographic Information System (GIS) services at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is to provide users with simple access to data archives while integrating new and informative climate products. Several systems at NCDC provide a variety of climatic data in GIS formats and/or map viewers. The Online GIS Map Services provide users with data discovery options which flow into detailed product selection maps, which may be queried using standard "region finder" tools or gazetteer (geographical dictionary search) functions. Each tabbed selection offers steps to help users progress through the systems. A series of additional base map layers or data types have been added to provide companion information. New map services include: Severe Weather Data Inventory, Local Climatological Data, Divisional Data, Global Summary of the Day, and Normals/Extremes products. THREDDS Data Server technology is utilized to provide access to gridded multidimensional datasets such as Model, Satellite and Radar. This access allows users to download data as a gridded NetCDF file, which is readable by ArcGIS. In addition, users may subset the data for a specific geographic region, time period, height range or variable prior to download. The NCDC Weather Radar Toolkit (WRT) is a client tool which accesses Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) data locally or remotely from the NCDC archive, NOAA FTP server or any URL or THREDDS Data Server. The WRT Viewer provides tools for custom data overlays, Web Map Service backgrounds, animations and basic filtering. The export of images and movies is provided in multiple formats. The WRT Data Exporter allows for data export in both vector polygon (Shapefile, Well-Known Text) and raster (GeoTIFF, ESRI Grid, VTK, NetCDF, GrADS) formats. As more users become accustom to GIS, questions of better, cheaper, faster access soon follow. Expanding use and availability can best be accomplished through standards which promote interoperability. Our GIS related products provide Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant Web Map Services (WMS), Web Feature Services (WFS), Web Coverage Services (WCS) and Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata as a complement to the map viewers. KML/KMZ data files (soon to be compliant OGC specifications) also provide access.

E-DECIDER Decision Support Gateway For Earthquake Disaster Response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glasscoe, M. T.; Stough, T. M.; Parker, J. W.; Burl, M. C.; Donnellan, A.; Blom, R. G.; Pierce, M. E.; Wang, J.; Ma, Y.; Rundle, J. B.; Yoder, M. R.

2013-12-01

Earthquake Data Enhanced Cyber-Infrastructure for Disaster Evaluation and Response (E-DECIDER) is a NASA-funded project developing capabilities for decision-making utilizing remote sensing data and modeling software in order to provide decision support for earthquake disaster management and response. E-DECIDER incorporates earthquake forecasting methodology and geophysical modeling tools developed through NASA's QuakeSim project in order to produce standards-compliant map data products to aid in decision-making following an earthquake. Remote sensing and geodetic data, in conjunction with modeling and forecasting tools, help provide both long-term planning information for disaster management decision makers as well as short-term information following earthquake events (i.e. identifying areas where the greatest deformation and damage has occurred and emergency services may need to be focused). E-DECIDER utilizes a service-based GIS model for its cyber-infrastructure in order to produce standards-compliant products for different user types with multiple service protocols (such as KML, WMS, WFS, and WCS). The goal is to make complex GIS processing and domain-specific analysis tools more accessible to general users through software services as well as provide system sustainability through infrastructure services. The system comprises several components, which include: a GeoServer for thematic mapping and data distribution, a geospatial database for storage and spatial analysis, web service APIs, including simple-to-use REST APIs for complex GIS functionalities, and geoprocessing tools including python scripts to produce standards-compliant data products. These are then served to the E-DECIDER decision support gateway (http://e-decider.org), the E-DECIDER mobile interface, and to the Department of Homeland Security decision support middleware UICDS (Unified Incident Command and Decision Support). The E-DECIDER decision support gateway features a web interface that delivers map data products including deformation modeling results (slope change and strain magnitude) and aftershock forecasts, with remote sensing change detection results under development. These products are event triggered (from the USGS earthquake feed) and will be posted to event feeds on the E-DECIDER webpage and accessible via the mobile interface and UICDS. E-DECIDER also features a KML service that provides infrastructure information from the FEMA HAZUS database through UICDS and the mobile interface. The back-end GIS service architecture and front-end gateway components form a decision support system that is designed for ease-of-use and extensibility for end-users.

Parallel and convergent processing in grid cell, head-direction cell, boundary cell, and place cell networks

PubMed Central

Brandon, Mark P; Koenig, Julie; Leutgeb, Stefan

2014-01-01

The brain is able to construct internal representations that correspond to external spatial coordinates. Such brain maps of the external spatial topography may support a number of cognitive functions, including navigation and memory. The neuronal building block of brain maps are place cells, which are found throughout the hippocampus of rodents and, in a lower proportion, primates. Place cells typically fire in one or few restricted areas of space, and each area where a cell fires can range, along the dorsoventral axis of the hippocampus, from 30 cm to at least several meters. The sensory processing streams that give rise to hippocampal place cells are not fully understood, but substantial progress has been made in characterizing the entorhinal cortex, which is the gateway between neocortical areas and the hippocampus. Entorhinal neurons have diverse spatial firing characteristics, and the different entorhinal cell types converge in the hippocampus to give rise to a single, spatially modulated cell type—the place cell. We therefore suggest that parallel information processing in different classes of cells—as is typically observed at lower levels of sensory processing—continues up into higher level association cortices, including those that provide the inputs to hippocampus. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:207–219. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1272 PMID:24587849

Neurogenesis and pattern separation: time for a divorce.

PubMed

Becker, Suzanna

2017-05-01

The generation of new neurons in the adult mammalian brain has led to numerous theories as to their functional significance. One of the most widely held views is that adult neurogenesis promotes pattern separation, a process by which overlapping patterns of neural activation are mapped to less overlapping representations. While a large body of evidence supports a role for neurogenesis in high interference memory tasks, it does not support the proposed function of neurogenesis in mediating pattern separation. Instead, the adult-generated neurons seem to generate highly overlapping and yet distinct distributed representations for similar events. One way in which these immature, highly plastic, hyperactive neurons may contribute to novel memory formation while avoiding interference is by virtue of their extremely sparse connectivity with incoming perforant path fibers. Another intriguing proposal, awaiting empirical confirmation, is that the young neurons' recruitment into memory formation is gated by a novelty/mismatch mechanism mediated by CA3 or hilar back-projections. Ongoing research into the intriguing link between neurogenesis, stress-related mood disorders, and age-related neurodegeneration may lead to promising neurogenesis-based treatments for this wide range of clinical disorders. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1427. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1427 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Share Data with OPeNDAP Hyrax: New Features and Improvements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gallagher, James

2016-01-01

During the upcoming Summer 2016 meeting of the ESIP Federation (July 19-22), OpenDAP will hold a Developers and Users Workshop. While a broad set of topics will be covered, a key focus is capitalizing on recent EOSDIS-sponsored advances in Hyrax, OPeNDAPs own software for server-side realization of the DAP2 and DAP4 protocols. These Hyrax advances are as important to data users as to data providers, and the workshop will include hands-on experiences of value to both. Specifically, a balanced set of presentations and hands-on tutorials will address advances in 1. server installation, 2. server configuration, 3. Hyrax aggregation capabilities, 4. support for data-access from clients that are HTTP-based, JSON-based or OGC-compliant (especially WCS and WMS), 5. support for DAP4,6.use and extension of server-side computational capabilities, and7.several performance-affecting matters. Topics 2 through 7 will be relevant to data consumers, data providers and notably, due to the open-source nature of all OPeNDAP software to developers wishing to extend Hyrax, to build compatible clients and servers, and/or to employ Hyrax as middleware that enables interoperability across a variety of end-user and source-data contexts. A session for contributed talks will elaborate the topics listed above and embrace additional ones.

Advancing the Power and Utility of Server-Side Aggregation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fulker, Dave; Gallagher, James

2016-01-01

During the upcoming Summer 2016 meeting of the ESIP Federation (July 19-22), OpenDAP will hold a Developers and Users Workshop. While a broad set of topics will be covered, a key focus is capitalizing on recent EOSDIS-sponsored advances in Hyrax, OPeNDAPs own software for server-side realization of the DAP2 and DAP4 protocols. These Hyrax advances are as important to data users as to data providers, and the workshop will include hands-on experiences of value to both. Specifically, a balanced set of presentations and hands-on tutorials will address advances in1.server installation,2.server configuration,3.Hyrax aggregation capabilities,4.support for data-access from clients that are HTTP-based, JSON-based or OGC-compliant (especially WCS and WMS),5.support for DAP4,6.use and extension of server-side computational capabilities, and7.several performance-affecting matters.Topics 2 through 7 will be relevant to data consumers, data providers andnotably, due to the open-source nature of all OPeNDAP softwareto developers wishing to extend Hyrax, to build compatible clients and servers, andor to employ Hyrax as middleware that enables interoperability across a variety of end-user and source-data contexts. A session for contributed talks will elaborate the topics listed above and embrace additional ones.

Visual attention.

PubMed

Evans, Karla K; Horowitz, Todd S; Howe, Piers; Pedersini, Roccardo; Reijnen, Ester; Pinto, Yair; Kuzmova, Yoana; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2011-09-01

A typical visual scene we encounter in everyday life is complex and filled with a huge amount of perceptual information. The term, 'visual attention' describes a set of mechanisms that limit some processing to a subset of incoming stimuli. Attentional mechanisms shape what we see and what we can act upon. They allow for concurrent selection of some (preferably, relevant) information and inhibition of other information. This selection permits the reduction of complexity and informational overload. Selection can be determined both by the 'bottom-up' saliency of information from the environment and by the 'top-down' state and goals of the perceiver. Attentional effects can take the form of modulating or enhancing the selected information. A central role for selective attention is to enable the 'binding' of selected information into unified and coherent representations of objects in the outside world. In the overview on visual attention presented here we review the mechanisms and consequences of selection and inhibition over space and time. We examine theoretical, behavioral and neurophysiologic work done on visual attention. We also discuss the relations between attention and other cognitive processes such as automaticity and awareness. WIREs Cogni Sci 2011 2 503-514 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.127 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Associations Between Increasing Degrees of HOMA-IR and Measurements of Adiposity Among Euglycemic U.S. Adults.

PubMed

Boyer, William R; Johnson, Tammie M; Fitzhugh, Eugene C; Richardson, Michael R; Churilla, James R

2016-03-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between increasing degrees of insulin resistance (using the homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance [HOMA-IR]) and two measures of adiposity in a nationally representative sample of euglycemic U.S. adults. Sample included adult participants (≥ 20 years of age) [N = 1586 (body mass index, BMI model), N = 1577 (waist circumference, WC model)] from the 1999-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). HOMA-IR was categorized into quartiles. BMI and WC were examined continuously as the dependent variables. Following adjustment for covariates, those with HOMA-IR values in the second, third, and fourth quartiles had significantly higher BMIs (P < 0.001) compared with subjects in the first quartile. In the model using WC, significantly higher WCs were found in subjects in the second, third, and fourth quartiles of HOMA-IR (P < 0.001) compared with those in the first quartile. A significant moderate correlation was found between HOMA-IR and BMI (R(2) = 0.4171, P < 0.001), as well as HOMA-IR and WC (R(2) = 0.4826, P < 0.001). Having a higher HOMA-IR value is associated with higher BMI and WC values in euglycemic subjects.

Statistical learning: a powerful mechanism that operates by mere exposure.

PubMed

Aslin, Richard N

2017-01-01

How do infants learn so rapidly and with little apparent effort? In 1996, Saffran, Aslin, and Newport reported that 8-month-old human infants could learn the underlying temporal structure of a stream of speech syllables after only 2 min of passive listening. This demonstration of what was called statistical learning, involving no instruction, reinforcement, or feedback, led to dozens of confirmations of this powerful mechanism of implicit learning in a variety of modalities, domains, and species. These findings reveal that infants are not nearly as dependent on explicit forms of instruction as we might have assumed from studies of learning in which children or adults are taught facts such as math or problem solving skills. Instead, at least in some domains, infants soak up the information around them by mere exposure. Learning and development in these domains thus appear to occur automatically and with little active involvement by an instructor (parent or teacher). The details of this statistical learning mechanism are discussed, including how exposure to specific types of information can, under some circumstances, generalize to never-before-observed information, thereby enabling transfer of learning. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1373. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1373 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Are groups more rational than individuals? A review of interactive decision making in groups.

PubMed

Kugler, Tamar; Kausel, Edgar E; Kocher, Martin G

2012-07-01

Many decisions are interactive; the outcome of one party depends not only on its decisions or on acts of nature but also on the decisions of others. Standard game theory assumes that individuals are rational, self-interested decision makers-that is, decision makers are selfish, perfect calculators, and flawless executors of their strategies. A myriad of studies shows that these assumptions are problematic, at least when examining decisions made by individuals. In this article, we review the literature of the last 25 years on decision making by groups. Researchers have compared the strategic behavior of groups and individuals in many games: prisoner's dilemma, dictator, ultimatum, trust, centipede and principal-agent games, among others. Our review suggests that results are quite consistent in revealing that group decisions are closer to the game-theoretic assumption of rationality than individual decisions. Given that many real-world decisions are made by groups, it is possible to argue that standard game theory is a better descriptive model than previously believed by experimental researchers. We conclude by discussing future research avenues in this area. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:471-482. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1184 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Rhizobacterial colonization of roots modulates plant volatile emission and enhances the attraction of a parasitoid wasp to host-infested plants.

PubMed

Pangesti, Nurmi; Weldegergis, Berhane T; Langendorf, Benjamin; van Loon, Joop J A; Dicke, Marcel; Pineda, Ana

2015-08-01

Beneficial root-associated microbes modify the physiological status of their host plants and affect direct and indirect plant defense against insect herbivores. While the effects of these microbes on direct plant defense against insect herbivores are well described, knowledge of the effect of the microbes on indirect plant defense against insect herbivores is still limited. In this study, we evaluate the role of the rhizobacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens WCS417r in indirect plant defense against the generalist leaf-chewing insect Mamestra brassicae through a combination of behavioral, chemical, and gene-transcriptional approaches. We show that rhizobacterial colonization of Arabidopsis thaliana roots results in an increased attraction of the parasitoid Microplitis mediator to caterpillar-infested plants. Volatile analysis revealed that rhizobacterial colonization suppressed the emission of the terpene (E)-α-bergamotene and the aromatics methyl salicylate and lilial in response to caterpillar feeding. Rhizobacterial colonization decreased the caterpillar-induced transcription of the terpene synthase genes TPS03 and TPS04. Rhizobacteria enhanced both the growth and the indirect defense of plants under caterpillar attack. This study shows that rhizobacteria have a high potential to enhance the biocontrol of leaf-chewing herbivores based on enhanced attraction of parasitoids.

On the origin of the hierarchy of color names.

PubMed

Loreto, Vittorio; Mukherjee, Animesh; Tria, Francesca

2012-05-01

One of the fundamental problems in cognitive science is how humans categorize the visible color spectrum. The empirical evidence of the existence of universal or recurrent patterns in color naming across cultures is paralleled by the observation that color names begin to be used by individual cultures in a relatively fixed order. The origin of this hierarchy is largely unexplained. Here we resort to multiagent simulations, where a population of individuals, subject to a simple perceptual constraint shared by all humans, namely the human Just Noticeable Difference, categorizes and names colors through a purely cultural negotiation in the form of language games. We found that the time needed for a population to reach consensus on a color name depends on the region of the visible color spectrum. If color spectrum regions are ranked according to this criterion, a hierarchy with [red, (magenta)-red], [violet], [green/yellow], [blue], [orange], and [cyan], appearing in this order, is recovered, featuring an excellent quantitative agreement with the empirical observations of the WCS. Our results demonstrate a clear possible route to the emergence of hierarchical color categories, confirming that the theoretical modeling in this area has now attained the required maturity to make significant contributions to the ongoing debates concerning language universals.

Did Adult Diurnal Activity Influence the Evolution of Wing Morphology in Opoptera Butterflies?

PubMed

Penz, C M; Heine, K B

2016-02-01

The butterfly genus Opoptera includes eight species, three of which have diurnal habits while the others are crepuscular (the usual activity period for members of the tribe Brassolini). Although never measured in the field, it is presumed that diurnal Opoptera species potentially spend more time flying than their crepuscular relatives. If a shift to diurnal habits potentially leads to a higher level of activity and energy expenditure during flight, then selection should operate on increased aerodynamic and energetic efficiency, leading to changes in wing shape. Accordingly, we ask whether diurnal habits have influenced the evolution of wing morphology in Opoptera. Using phylogenetically independent contrasts and Wilcoxon rank sum tests, we confirmed our expectation that the wings of diurnal species have higher aspect ratios (ARs) and lower wing centroids (WCs) than crepuscular congeners. These wing shape characteristics are known to promote energy efficiency during flight. Three Opoptera wing morphotypes established a priori significantly differed in AR and WC values. The crepuscular, cloud forest dweller Opoptera staudingeri (Godman & Salvin) was exceptional in having an extended forewing tip and the highest AR and lowest WC within Opoptera, possibly to facilitate flight in a cooler environment. Our study is the first to investigate how butterfly wing morphology might evolve as a response to a behavioral shift in adult time of activity.

Developing a Metadata Infrastructure to facilitate data driven science gateway and to provide Inspire/GEMINI compliance for CLIPC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mihajlovski, Andrej; Plieger, Maarten; Som de Cerff, Wim; Page, Christian

2016-04-01

The CLIPC project is developing a portal to provide a single point of access for scientific information on climate change. This is made possible through the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme for Europe, which will deliver a new generation of environmental measurements of climate quality. The data about the physical environment which is used to inform climate change policy and adaptation measures comes from several categories: satellite measurements, terrestrial observing systems, model projections and simulations and from re-analyses (syntheses of all available observations constrained with numerical weather prediction systems). These data categories are managed by different communities: CLIPC will provide a single point of access for the whole range of data. The CLIPC portal will provide a number of indicators showing impacts on specific sectors which have been generated using a range of factors selected through structured expert consultation. It will also, as part of the transformation services, allow users to explore the consequences of using different combinations of driving factors which they consider to be of particular relevance to their work or life. The portal will provide information on the scientific quality and pitfalls of such transformations to prevent misleading usage of the results. The CLIPC project will develop an end to end processing chain (indicator tool kit), from comprehensive information on the climate state through to highly aggregated decision relevant products. Indicators of climate change and climate change impact will be provided, and a tool kit to update and post process the collection of indicators will be integrated into the portal. The CLIPC portal has a distributed architecture, making use of OGC services provided by e.g., climate4impact.eu and CEDA. CLIPC has two themes: 1. Harmonized access to climate datasets derived from models, observations and re-analyses 2. A climate impact tool kit to evaluate, rank and aggregate indicators Key is the availability of standardized metadata, describing indicator data and services. This will enable standardization and interoperability between the different distributed services of CLIPC. To disseminate CLIPC indicator data, transformed data products to enable impacts assessments and climate change impact indicators a standardized meta-data infrastructure is provided. The challenge is that compliance of existing metadata to INSPIRE ISO standards and GEMINI standards needs to be extended to further allow the web portal to be generated from the available metadata blueprint. The information provided in the headers of netCDF files available through multiple catalogues, allow us to generate ISO compliant meta data which is in turn used to generate web based interface content, as well as OGC compliant web services such as WCS and WMS for front end and WPS interactions for the scientific users to combine and generate new datasets. The goal of the metadata infrastructure is to provide a blueprint for creating a data driven science portal, generated from the underlying: GIS data, web services and processing infrastructure. In the presentation we will present the results and lessons learned.

EarthServer: Visualisation and use of uncertainty as a data exploration tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walker, Peter; Clements, Oliver; Grant, Mike

2013-04-01

The Ocean Science/Earth Observation community generates huge datasets from satellite observation. Until recently it has been difficult to obtain matching uncertainty information for these datasets and to apply this to their processing. In order to make use of uncertainty information when analysing "Big Data" we need both the uncertainty itself (attached to the underlying data) and a means of working with the combined product without requiring the entire dataset to be downloaded. The European Commission FP7 project EarthServer (http://earthserver.eu) is addressing the problem of accessing and ad-hoc analysis of extreme-size Earth Science data using cutting-edge Array Database technology. The core software (Rasdaman) and web services wrapper (Petascope) allow huge datasets to be accessed using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard interfaces including the well established standards, Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Map Service (WMS) as well as the emerging standard, Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS). The WCPS standard allows the running of ad-hoc queries on any of the data stored within Rasdaman, creating an infrastructure where users are not restricted by bandwidth when manipulating or querying huge datasets. The ESA Ocean Colour - Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) project (http://www.esa-oceancolour-cci.org/), is producing high-resolution, global ocean colour datasets over the full time period (1998-2012) where high quality observations were available. This climate data record includes per-pixel uncertainty data for each variable, based on an analytic method that classifies how much and which types of water are present in a pixel, and assigns uncertainty based on robust comparisons to global in-situ validation datasets. These uncertainty values take two forms, Root Mean Square (RMS) and Bias uncertainty, respectively representing the expected variability and expected offset error. By combining the data produced through the OC-CCI project with the software from the EarthServer project we can produce a novel data offering that allows the use of traditional exploration and access mechanisms such as WMS and WCS. However the real benefits can be seen when utilising WCPS to explore the data . We will show two major benefits to this infrastructure. Firstly we will show that the visualisation of the combined chlorophyll and uncertainty datasets through a web based GIS portal gives users the ability to instantaneously assess the quality of the data they are exploring using traditional web based plotting techniques as well as through novel web based 3 dimensional visualisation. Secondly we will showcase the benefits available when combining these data with the WCPS standard. The uncertainty data can be utilised in queries using the standard WCPS query language. This allows selection of data either for download or use within the query, based on the respective uncertainty values as well as the possibility of incorporating both the chlorophyll data and uncertainty data into complex queries to produce additional novel data products. By filtering with uncertainty at the data source rather than the client we can minimise traffic over the network allowing huge datasets to be worked on with a minimal time penalty.

Use of Open Standards and Technologies at the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Law, E.; Malhotra, S.; Bui, B.; Chang, G.; Goodale, C. E.; Ramirez, P.; Kim, R. M.; Sadaqathulla, S.; Rodriguez, L.

2011-12-01

The Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP), led by the Marshall Space Flight center (MSFC), is tasked by NASA. The project is responsible for the development of an information system to support lunar exploration activities. It provides lunar explorers a set of tools and lunar map and model products that are predominantly derived from present lunar missions (e.g., the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)) and from historical missions (e.g., Apollo). At Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), we have built the LMMP interoperable geospatial information system's underlying infrastructure and a single point of entry - the LMMP Portal by employing a number of open standards and technologies. The Portal exposes a set of services to users to allow search, visualization, subset, and download of lunar data managed by the system. Users also have access to a set of tools that visualize, analyze and annotate the data. The infrastructure and Portal are based on web service oriented architecture. We designed the system to support solar system bodies in general including asteroids, earth and planets. We employed a combination of custom software, commercial and open-source components, off-the-shelf hardware and pay-by-use cloud computing services. The use of open standards and web service interfaces facilitate platform and application independent access to the services and data, offering for instances, iPad and Android mobile applications and large screen multi-touch with 3-D terrain viewing functions, for a rich browsing and analysis experience from a variety of platforms. The web services made use of open standards including: Representational State Transfer (REST); and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)'s Web Map Service (WMS), Web Coverage Service (WCS), Web Feature Service (WFS). Its data management services have been built on top of a set of open technologies including: Object Oriented Data Technology (OODT) - open source data catalog, archive, file management, data grid framework; openSSO - open source access management and federation platform; solr - open source enterprise search platform; redmine - open source project collaboration and management framework; GDAL - open source geospatial data abstraction library; and others. Its data products are compliant with Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata standard. This standardization allows users to access the data products via custom written applications or off-the-shelf applications such as GoogleEarth. We will demonstrate this ready-to-use system for data discovery and visualization by walking through the data services provided through the portal such as browse, search, and other tools. We will further demonstrate image viewing and layering of lunar map images from the Internet, via mobile devices such as Apple's iPad.

A case study of packaging waste collection systems in Portugal - Part I: Performance and operation analysis.

PubMed

Martinho, Graça; Gomes, Ana; Santos, Pedro; Ramos, Mário; Cardoso, João; Silveira, Ana; Pires, Ana

2017-03-01

The need to increase packaging recycling rates has led to the study and analysis of recycling schemes from various perspectives, including technical, economic, social, and environmental. This paper is part one of a three-part study devoted to comparing two recyclable packaging waste collection systems operating in western Portugal: a mixed collection system, where curbside and drop-off collections are operated simultaneously (but where the curbside system was introduced after the drop-off system), and an exclusive drop-off system. This part of the study focuses on analyzing the operation and performance of the two waste collection systems. The mixed collection system is shown to yield higher material separation rates, higher recycling rates, and lower contamination rates compared with the exclusive drop-off system, a result of the curbside component in the former system. However, the operational efficiency of the curbside collection in the mixed system is lower than the drop-off collection in the mixed system and the exclusive drop-off system, mainly because of inefficiency of collection. A key recommendation is to ensure that the systems should be optimized in an attempt to improve performance. Optimization should be applied not only to logistical aspects but also to citizens' participation, which could be improved by conducting curbside collection awareness campaigns in the neighborhoods that have a mixed system. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The representation of self and person knowledge in the medial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Wagner, Dylan D; Haxby, James V; Heatherton, Todd F

2012-07-01

Nearly 40 years ago, social psychologists began applying the information processing framework of cognitive psychology to the question of how humans understand and represent knowledge about themselves and others. This approach gave rise to the immensely successful field of social cognition and fundamentally changed the way in which social psychological phenomena are studied. More recently, social scientists of many stripes have turned to the methods of cognitive neuroscience to understand the neural basis of social cognition. A pervasive finding from this research is that social knowledge, be it about one's self or of others, is represented in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). This review focuses on the social cognitive neuroscience of self and person knowledge in the MPFC. We begin with a brief historical overview of social cognition, followed by a review of recent and influential research on the brain basis of self and person knowledge. In the latter half of this review, we discuss the role of familiarity and similarity in person perception and of spontaneous processes in self and other-referential cognition. Throughout, we discuss the myriad ways in which the social cognitive neuroscience approach has provided new insights into the nature and structure of self and person knowledge. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:451-470. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1183 This article is categorized under: Neuroscience > Cognition. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Intro and Recent Advances: Remote Data Access via OPeNDAP Web Services

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fulker, David

2016-01-01

During the upcoming Summer 2016 meeting of the ESIP Federation (July 19-22), OpenDAP will hold a Developers and Users Workshop. While a broad set of topics will be covered, a key focus is capitalizing on recent EOSDIS-sponsored advances in Hyrax, OPeNDAPs own software for server-side realization of the DAP2 and DAP4 protocols. These Hyrax advances are as important to data users as to data providers, and the workshop will include hands-on experiences of value to both. Specifically, a balanced set of presentations and hands-on tutorials will address advances in1.server installation,2.server configuration,3.Hyrax aggregation capabilities,4.support for data-access from clients that are HTTP-based, JSON-based or OGC-compliant (especially WCS and WMS),5.support for DAP4,6.use and extension of server-side computational capabilities, and7.several performance-affecting matters. Topics 2 through 7 will be relevant to data consumers, data providers and notably, due to the open-source nature of all OPeNDAP software to developers wishing to extend Hyrax, to build compatible clients and servers, and/or to employ Hyrax as middleware that enables interoperability across a variety of end-user and source-data contexts. A session for contributed talks will elaborate the topics listed above and embrace additional ones.

Design for Connecting Spatial Data Infrastructures with Sensor Web (sensdi)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhattacharya, D.; M., M.

2016-06-01

Integrating Sensor Web With Spatial Data Infrastructures (SENSDI) aims to extend SDIs with sensor web enablement, converging geospatial and built infrastructure, and implement test cases with sensor data and SDI. It is about research to harness the sensed environment by utilizing domain specific sensor data to create a generalized sensor webframework. The challenges being semantic enablement for Spatial Data Infrastructures, and connecting the interfaces of SDI with interfaces of Sensor Web. The proposed research plan is to Identify sensor data sources, Setup an open source SDI, Match the APIs and functions between Sensor Web and SDI, and Case studies like hazard applications, urban applications etc. We take up co-operative development of SDI best practices to enable a new realm of a location enabled and semantically enriched World Wide Web - the "Geospatial Web" or "Geosemantic Web" by setting up one to one correspondence between WMS, WFS, WCS, Metadata and 'Sensor Observation Service' (SOS); 'Sensor Planning Service' (SPS); 'Sensor Alert Service' (SAS); a service that facilitates asynchronous message interchange between users and services, and between two OGC-SWE services, called the 'Web Notification Service' (WNS). Hence in conclusion, it is of importance to geospatial studies to integrate SDI with Sensor Web. The integration can be done through merging the common OGC interfaces of SDI and Sensor Web. Multi-usability studies to validate integration has to be undertaken as future research.

The Effect of Wearing White Coats on Patients' Appreciation of Physician Communication during Postpartum Rounds: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

PubMed

La Rosa, Mauricio; Spencer, Nicholas; Abdelwahab, Mahmoud; Zambrano, Gabriela; Saoud, Fawzi; Jelliffe, Katherine; Olson, Gayle; Munn, Mary; Saade, George R; Costantine, Maged

2018-06-08

 Wearing a white coat (WC) has been associated with risk of colonization and transmission of resistant pathogens. Also, studies have shown that physicians' attire in general affects patients' confidence in their physician and the patient-physician relationship. Our objective is to evaluate the hypothesis that not wearing a WC during physician postpartum rounds does not affect patient-physician communication scores.  This is an unblinded, randomized, parallel arms, controlled trial of postpartum women at a single university hospital. Women were randomly assigned to having their postpartum physicians' team wear a WC or not (no-WC) during rounds. Our primary outcome was "patient-physician communication" score. Univariable and multivariable analysis were used where appropriate.  One hundred and seventy-eight patients were enrolled (87 in WC and 91 in no-WC groups). Note that 40.4% of patients did not remember whether the physicians wore a WC or not. There was no difference in the primary outcome ( p  = 0.64) even after adjusting for possible confounders.  Not wearing a WC during postpartum rounds did not affect the patient-physician communication or patient satisfaction scores. In the setting of prior reports showing a risk of WC pathogen transmission between patients, our findings cannot support the routine wearing of WCs during postpartum rounds. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

The cognitive science of fiction.

PubMed

Oatley, Keith

2012-07-01

Fiction might be dismissed as observations that lack reliability and validity, but this would be a misunderstanding. Works of fiction are simulations that run on minds. They were the first kinds of simulation. All art has a metaphorical quality: a painting can be both pigments on canvas and a person. In literary art, this quality extends to readers who can be both themselves and, by empathetic processes within a simulation, also literary characters. On the basis of this hypothesis, it was found that the more fiction people read the better were their skills of empathy and theory-of-mind; the inference from several studies is that reading fiction improves social skills. In functional magnetic resonance imaging meta-analyses, brain areas concerned with understanding narrative stories were found to overlap with those concerned with theory-of-mind. In an orthogonal effect, reading artistic literature was found to enable people to change their personality by small increments, not by a writer's persuasion, but in their own way. This effect was due to artistic merit of a text, irrespective of whether it was fiction or non-fiction. An empirically based conception of literary art might be carefully constructed verbal material that enables self-directed personal change. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:425-430. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1185 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language learning, socioeconomic status, and child-directed speech.

PubMed

Schwab, Jessica F; Lew-Williams, Casey

2016-07-01

Young children's language experiences and language outcomes are highly variable. Research in recent decades has focused on understanding the extent to which family socioeconomic status (SES) relates to parents' language input to their children and, subsequently, children's language learning. Here, we first review research demonstrating differences in the quantity and quality of language that children hear across low-, mid-, and high-SES groups, but also-and perhaps more importantly-research showing that differences in input and learning also exist within SES groups. Second, in order to better understand the defining features of 'high-quality' input, we highlight findings from laboratory studies examining specific characteristics of the sounds, words, sentences, and social contexts of child-directed speech (CDS) that influence children's learning. Finally, after narrowing in on these particular features of CDS, we broaden our discussion by considering family and community factors that may constrain parents' ability to participate in high-quality interactions with their young children. A unification of research on SES and CDS will facilitate a more complete understanding of the specific means by which input shapes learning, as well as generate ideas for crafting policies and programs designed to promote children's language outcomes. WIREs Cogn Sci 2016, 7:264-275. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1393 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

77 FR 36294 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Accounting...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-18

... Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Accounting System and Financial Capability... change of a currently approved collection. (2) The title of the form/collection: Accounting System and... for-profit entities and not-for-profit institutions. Other: None. The purpose of the Accounting System...

Evolution of System Architectures: Where Do We Need to Fail Next?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bermudez, Luis; Alameh, Nadine; Percivall, George

2013-04-01

Innovation requires testing and failing. Thomas Edison was right when he said "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work". For innovation and improvement of standards to happen, service Architectures have to be tested and tested. Within the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), testing of service architectures has occurred for the last 15 years. This talk will present an evolution of these service architectures and a possible future path. OGC is a global forum for the collaboration of developers and users of spatial data products and services, and for the advancement and development of international standards for geospatial interoperability. The OGC Interoperability Program is a series of hands-on, fast paced, engineering initiatives to accelerate the development and acceptance of OGC standards. Each initiative is organized in threads that provide focus under a particular theme. The first testbed, OGC Web Services phase 1, completed in 2003 had four threads: Common Architecture, Web Mapping, Sensor Web and Web Imagery Enablement. The Common Architecture was a cross-thread theme, to ensure that the Web Mapping and Sensor Web experiments built on a base common architecture. The architecture was based on the three main SOA components: Broker, Requestor and Provider. It proposed a general service model defining service interactions and dependencies; categorization of service types; registries to allow discovery and access of services; data models and encodings; and common services (WMS, WFS, WCS). For the latter, there was a clear distinction on the different services: Data Services (e.g. WMS), Application services (e.g. Coordinate transformation) and server-side client applications (e.g. image exploitation). The latest testbed, OGC Web Service phase 9, completed in 2012 had 5 threads: Aviation, Cross-Community Interoperability (CCI), Security and Services Interoperability (SSI), OWS Innovations and Compliance & Interoperability Testing & Evaluation (CITE). Compared to the first testbed, OWS-9 did not have a separate common architecture thread. Instead the emphasis was on brokering information models, securing them and making data available efficiently on mobile devices. The outcome is an architecture based on usability and non-intrusiveness while leveraging mediation of information models from different communities. This talk will use lessons learned from the evolution from OGC Testbed phase 1 to phase 9 to better understand how global and complex infrastructures evolve to support many communities including the Earth System Science Community.

Modeling the impact of development and management options on future water resource use in the Nyangores sub-catchment of the Mara Basin in Kenya

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Omonge, Paul; Herrnegger, Mathew; Fürst, Josef; Olang, Luke

2016-04-01

Despite the increasing water insecurity consequent of competing uses, the Nyangores sub-catchment of Kenya is yet to develop an inclusive water use and allocation plan for its water resource systems. As a step towards achieving this, this contribution employed the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system to evaluate selected policy based water development and management options for future planning purposes. Major water resources of the region were mapped and quantified to establish the current demand versus supply status. To define a reference scenario for subsequent model projections, additional data on urban and rural water consumption, water demand for crop types, daily water use for existing factories and industries were also collated through a rigorous fieldwork procedure. The model was calibrated using the parameter estimation tool (PEST) and validated against observed streamflow data, and subsequently used to simulate feasible management options. Due to lack of up-to-date data for the current year, the year 2000 was selected as the base year for the scenario simulations up to the year 2030, which has been set by the country for realizing most flagship development projects. From the results obtained, the current annual water demand within the sub-catchment is estimated to be around 27.2 million m3 of which 24% is being met through improved and protected water sources including springs, wells and boreholes, while 76% is met through informal and unprotected sources which are insufficient to cater for future increases in demand. Under the reference scenario, the WEAP model predicted an annual total inadequate supply of 8.1 million m3 mostly in the dry season by the year 2030. The current annual unmet water demand is 1.3 million m3 and is noteworthy in the dry seasons of December through February at the irrigation demand site. The monthly unmet domestic demand under High Population Growth (HPG) was projected to be 1.06 million m3 by the year 2030. However, within the improved Water Conservation Scenario (WCS), the total water demand is projected to decline by 24.2% in the same period. Key words: Nyangores catchment, Water Resources, WEAP, Scenario Analysis, Kenya

Latest developments for the IAGOS database: Interoperability and metadata

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boulanger, Damien; Gautron, Benoit; Thouret, Valérie; Schultz, Martin; van Velthoven, Peter; Broetz, Bjoern; Rauthe-Schöch, Armin; Brissebrat, Guillaume

2014-05-01

In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS, http://www.iagos.org) aims at the provision of long-term, frequent, regular, accurate, and spatially resolved in situ observations of the atmospheric composition. IAGOS observation systems are deployed on a fleet of commercial aircraft. The IAGOS database is an essential part of the global atmospheric monitoring network. Data access is handled by open access policy based on the submission of research requests which are reviewed by the PIs. Users can access the data through the following web sites: http://www.iagos.fr or http://www.pole-ether.fr as the IAGOS database is part of the French atmospheric chemistry data centre ETHER (CNES and CNRS). The database is in continuous development and improvement. In the framework of the IGAS project (IAGOS for GMES/COPERNICUS Atmospheric Service), major achievements will be reached, such as metadata and format standardisation in order to interoperate with international portals and other databases, QA/QC procedures and traceability, CARIBIC (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container) data integration within the central database, and the real-time data transmission. IGAS work package 2 aims at providing the IAGOS data to users in a standardized format including the necessary metadata and information on data processing, data quality and uncertainties. We are currently redefining and standardizing the IAGOS metadata for interoperable use within GMES/Copernicus. The metadata are compliant with the ISO 19115, INSPIRE and NetCDF-CF conventions. IAGOS data will be provided to users in NetCDF or NASA Ames format. We also are implementing interoperability between all the involved IAGOS data services, including the central IAGOS database, the former MOZAIC and CARIBIC databases, Aircraft Research DLR database and the Jülich WCS web application JOIN (Jülich OWS Interface) which combines model outputs with in situ data for intercomparison. The optimal data transfer protocol is being investigated to insure the interoperability. To facilitate satellite and model validation, tools will be made available for co-location and comparison with IAGOS. We will enhance the JOIN application in order to properly display aircraft data as vertical profiles and along individual flight tracks and to allow for graphical comparison to model results that are accessible through interoperable web services, such as the daily products from the GMES/Copernicus atmospheric service.

78 FR 38096 - Fatality Analysis Reporting System Information Collection

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-06-25

... Number NHTSA-2012-0168] Fatality Analysis Reporting System Information Collection AGENCY: National... comments on the following proposed collections of information: (1) Title: Fatal Analysis Reporting System... comment on proposed collection of information. SUMMARY: Before a Federal agency can collect certain...

77 FR 51783 - Federal Acquisition Regulation; Information Collection; Contractors' Purchasing Systems Reviews

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-27

...; Information Collection; Contractors' Purchasing Systems Reviews AGENCY: Department of Defense (DOD), General... collection requirement concerning contractors' purchasing systems reviews. Public comments are particularly... Information Collection 9000- 0132, Contractors' Purchasing Systems Reviews, by any of the following methods...

A comparison of smartphones to paper-based questionnaires for routine influenza sentinel surveillance, Kenya, 2011-2012.

PubMed

Njuguna, Henry N; Caselton, Deborah L; Arunga, Geoffrey O; Emukule, Gideon O; Kinyanjui, Dennis K; Kalani, Rosalia M; Kinkade, Carl; Muthoka, Phillip M; Katz, Mark A; Mott, Joshua A

2014-12-24

For disease surveillance, manual data collection using paper-based questionnaires can be time consuming and prone to errors. We introduced smartphone data collection to replace paper-based data collection for an influenza sentinel surveillance system in four hospitals in Kenya. We compared the quality, cost and timeliness of data collection between the smartphone data collection system and the paper-based system. Since 2006, the Kenya Ministry of Health (MoH) with technical support from the Kenya Medical Research Institute/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KEMRI/CDC) conducted hospital-based sentinel surveillance for influenza in Kenya. In May 2011, the MOH replaced paper-based collection with an electronic data collection system using Field Adapted Survey Toolkit (FAST) on HTC Touch Pro2 smartphones at four sentinel sites. We compared 880 paper-based questionnaires dated Jan 2010-Jun 2011 and 880 smartphone questionnaires dated May 2011-Jun 2012 from the four surveillance sites. For each site, we compared the quality, cost and timeliness of each data collection system. Incomplete records were more likely seen in data collected using pen-and-paper compared to data collected using smartphones (adjusted incidence rate ratio (aIRR) 7, 95% CI: 4.4-10.3). Errors and inconsistent answers were also more likely to be seen in data collected using pen-and-paper compared to data collected using smartphones (aIRR: 25, 95% CI: 12.5-51.8). Smartphone data was uploaded into the database in a median time of 7 days while paper-based data took a median of 21 days to be entered (p < 0.01). It cost USD 1,501 (9.4%) more to establish the smartphone data collection system ($17,500) than the pen-and-paper system (USD $15,999). During two years, however, the smartphone data collection system was $3,801 (7%) less expensive to operate ($50,200) when compared to pen-and-paper system ($54,001). Compared to paper-based data collection, an electronic data collection system produced fewer incomplete data, fewer errors and inconsistent responses and delivered data faster. Although start-up costs were higher, the overall costs of establishing and running the electronic data collection system were lower compared to paper-based data collection system. Electronic data collection using smartphones has potential to improve timeliness, data integrity and reduce costs.

76 FR 69287 - National Instant Criminal Background Check System Section Agency Information Collection...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-11-08

... System Section Agency Information Collection Activities: Existing collection, comments requested the Voluntary Appeal File (VAF) Brochure ACTION: 60-Day Notice of Information Collection Under Review. The... Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Section has submitted the following information collection request...

Reliable Collection of Real-Time Patient Physiologic Data from less Reliable Networks: a "Monitor of Monitors" System (MoMs).

PubMed

Hu, Peter F; Yang, Shiming; Li, Hsiao-Chi; Stansbury, Lynn G; Yang, Fan; Hagegeorge, George; Miller, Catriona; Rock, Peter; Stein, Deborah M; Mackenzie, Colin F

2017-01-01

Research and practice based on automated electronic patient monitoring and data collection systems is significantly limited by system down time. We asked whether a triple-redundant Monitor of Monitors System (MoMs) to collect and summarize key information from system-wide data sources could achieve high fault tolerance, early diagnosis of system failure, and improve data collection rates. In our Level I trauma center, patient vital signs(VS) monitors were networked to collect real time patient physiologic data streams from 94 bed units in our various resuscitation, operating, and critical care units. To minimize the impact of server collection failure, three BedMaster® VS servers were used in parallel to collect data from all bed units. To locate and diagnose system failures, we summarized critical information from high throughput datastreams in real-time in a dashboard viewer and compared the before and post MoMs phases to evaluate data collection performance as availability time, active collection rates, and gap duration, occurrence, and categories. Single-server collection rates in the 3-month period before MoMs deployment ranged from 27.8 % to 40.5 % with combined 79.1 % collection rate. Reasons for gaps included collection server failure, software instability, individual bed setting inconsistency, and monitor servicing. In the 6-month post MoMs deployment period, average collection rates were 99.9 %. A triple redundant patient data collection system with real-time diagnostic information summarization and representation improved the reliability of massive clinical data collection to nearly 100 % in a Level I trauma center. Such data collection framework may also increase the automation level of hospital-wise information aggregation for optimal allocation of health care resources.

Environmental sustainability comparison of a hypothetical pneumatic waste collection system and a door-to-door system.

PubMed

Punkkinen, Henna; Merta, Elina; Teerioja, Nea; Moliis, Katja; Kuvaja, Eveliina

2012-10-01

Waste collection is one of the life cycle phases that influence the environmental sustainability of waste management. Pneumatic waste collection systems represent a new way of arranging waste collection in densely populated urban areas. However, limited information is available on the environmental impacts of this system. In this study, we compare the environmental sustainability of conventional door-to-door waste collection with its hypothetical pneumatic alternative. Furthermore, we analyse whether the size of the hypothetical pneumatic system, or the number of waste fractions included, have an impact on the results. Environmental loads are calculated for a hypothetical pneumatic waste collection system modelled on an existing dense urban area in Helsinki, Finland, and the results are compared to those of the prevailing, container-based, door-to-door waste collection system. The evaluation method used is the life-cycle inventory (LCI). In this study, we report the atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), SO(2) and NO(x). The results indicate that replacing the prevailing system with stationary pneumatic waste collection in an existing urban infrastructure would increase total air emissions. Locally, in the waste collection area, emissions would nonetheless diminish, as collection traffic decreases. While the electricity consumption of the hypothetical pneumatic system and the origin of electricity have a significant bearing on the results, emissions due to manufacturing the system's components prove decisive. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of recycling programmes in household waste collection systems.

PubMed

Dahlén, Lisa; Lagerkvist, Anders

2010-07-01

A case study and a literature review have been carried out to address the two questions: how can waste flow data from collection systems be interpreted and compared? and which factors are decisive in the results of recycling programmes in household waste collection systems? The aim is to contribute to the understanding of how recycling programmes affect the quantity of waste and sorting activities. It is shown how the results from various waste sorting systems can be interpreted and made comparable. A set of waste flow indicators is proposed, which together with generic system descriptions can facilitate comparisons of different collections systems. The evaluation of collection systems depends on the system boundaries and will always be site-specific to some degree. Various factors are relevant, e.g. environmental objectives, technical function, operating costs, types of recyclable materials collected separately, property-close collection or drop-off systems, economic incentives, information strategies, residential structure, social codes, etc. Kerbside collection of recyclables and weight-based billing led to increased waste sorting activities in the case study. Forty-three decisive factors are listed and discussed.

40 CFR 35.2116 - Collection system.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 1 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Collection system. 35.2116 Section 35... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Grants for Construction of Treatment Works § 35.2116 Collection system. Except as provided in § 35.2032(c), if the project involves collection system work, such work: (a) Shall...

40 CFR 35.2116 - Collection system.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 1 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Collection system. 35.2116 Section 35... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Grants for Construction of Treatment Works § 35.2116 Collection system. Except as provided in § 35.2032(c), if the project involves collection system work, such work: (a) Shall...

77 FR 50719 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Community...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-22

... System (GMS) ACTION: 30-Day Notice of Information Collection Under Review. The Department of Justice (DOJ... (1121-0243). (2) The Title of the Form/Collection: Community Partnership Grants Management System (GMS... system and award management system. GMS provides automated support throughout the award lifecycle. GMS...

Evaluation of open versus closed urine collection systems and development of nosocomial bacteriuria in dogs.

PubMed

Sullivan, Lauren A; Campbell, Vicki L; Onuma, Serene C

2010-07-15

To determine whether use of a closed urine collection system would decrease the incidence of nosocomial bacteriuria in hospitalized dogs, compared with use of an open urine collection system (used, sterile IV bags). Randomized controlled trial. 51 hospitalized dogs requiring indwelling urinary catheterization for >or= 24 hours. Dogs were randomly assigned to an open or closed urine collection system group. A standardized protocol for catheter placement and maintenance was followed for all dogs. A baseline urine sample was collected via cystocentesis for aerobic bacterial culture, with additional urine samples obtained daily from the urine collection reservoir. 27 dogs were assigned to the open urine collection system group, and 24 were assigned to the closed urine collection system group. The incidence of nosocomial bacteriuria in dogs with open urine collection systems (3/27 [11.1%]) was not significantly different from incidence in dogs with closed urine collection systems (2/24 [8.3%]). Median duration of catheterization was 2 days for dogs in both groups; the range was 1 to 7 days for dogs in the open group and 1 to 5 days for dogs in the closed group. Results suggested that for dogs requiring short-term indwelling urinary catheterization, the type of urine collection system (open vs closed) was not associated with likelihood of developing nosocomial bacteriuria. Use of a strict protocol for urinary catheter placement and maintenance was likely key in the low incidence of nosocomial bacteriuria in the present study.

40 CFR 60.3041 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection... collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages...

40 CFR 60.3041 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection... collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages...

78 FR 5477 - Agency Information Collection Activities: InfoPass System, No Form Number; Extension, Without...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-25

...-0113] Agency Information Collection Activities: InfoPass System, No Form Number; Extension, Without... Change, of a Currently Approved Collection. (2) Title of the Form/Collection: InfoPass System. (3) Agency...: Primary: Individuals or households. The InfoPass system allows an applicant or petitioner to schedule an...

21 CFR 864.9125 - Vacuum-assisted blood collection system.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. 864.9125... Blood and Blood Products § 864.9125 Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. (a) Identification. A vacuum-assisted blood collection system is a device intended for medical purposes that uses a vacuum to...

21 CFR 864.9125 - Vacuum-assisted blood collection system.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. 864.9125... Blood and Blood Products § 864.9125 Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. (a) Identification. A vacuum-assisted blood collection system is a device intended for medical purposes that uses a vacuum to...

21 CFR 864.9125 - Vacuum-assisted blood collection system.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. 864.9125... Blood and Blood Products § 864.9125 Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. (a) Identification. A vacuum-assisted blood collection system is a device intended for medical purposes that uses a vacuum to...

21 CFR 864.9125 - Vacuum-assisted blood collection system.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2012-04-01 2012-04-01 false Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. 864.9125... Blood and Blood Products § 864.9125 Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. (a) Identification. A vacuum-assisted blood collection system is a device intended for medical purposes that uses a vacuum to...

21 CFR 864.9125 - Vacuum-assisted blood collection system.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. 864.9125... Blood and Blood Products § 864.9125 Vacuum-assisted blood collection system. (a) Identification. A vacuum-assisted blood collection system is a device intended for medical purposes that uses a vacuum to...

A case study of packaging waste collection systems in Portugal - Part II: Environmental and economic analysis.

PubMed

Pires, Ana; Sargedas, João; Miguel, Mécia; Pina, Joaquim; Martinho, Graça

2017-03-01

An understanding of the environmental impacts and costs related to waste collection is needed to ensure that existing waste collection schemes are the most appropriate with regard to both environment and cost. This paper is Part II of a three-part study of a mixed packaging waste collection system (curbside plus bring collection). Here, the mixed collection system is compared to an exclusive curbside system and an exclusive bring system. The scenarios were assessed using life cycle assessment and an assessment of costs to the waste management company. The analysis focuses on the collection itself so as to be relevant to waste managers and decision-makers who are involved only in this step of the packaging life cycle. The results show that the bring system has lower environmental impacts and lower economic costs, and is capable of reducing the environmental impacts of the mixed system. However, a sensitivity analysis shows that these results could differ if the curbside collection were to be optimized. From economic and environmental perspectives, the mixed system has few advantages. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Platelet collection efficiencies of three different platelet-rich plasma preparation systems.

PubMed

Aydin, Fatma; Pancar Yuksel, Esra; Albayrak, Davut

2015-06-01

Different systems have been used for the preparation of platelet-rich plasma (PRP), but platelet collection efficiencies of these systems are not clear. To evaluate the platelet collection efficiencies of three different PRP preparation systems. Blood samples were obtained from the same 16 volunteers for each system. The samples were centrifuged and PRP was prepared by three systems. The ratio of the total number of platelets in PRP to the total number of platelets of the venous blood sample of the patient expressed in percentage was named as platelet collection efficiency and calculated for each system. Mean platelet collection efficiencies were 66.6 (min: 56.9, max: 76.9), 58.3 (min: 27.3, max: 102.8), 50.8 (min: 27.2, max: 73) for top and bottom bag system, system using citrated tube, and the system using tube with Ficoll and cell extraction kit, respectively. Statistically significant difference was found only between the platelet collection efficiencies of systems using the tube with ficoll and cell extraction kit and the top and bottom bag system (p = 0.002). All three systems could be used for PRP preparation, but top and bottom bag system offers a slight advantage over the system using Ficoll and cell extraction kit regarding the platelet collection efficiency.

40 CFR 60.1825 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection... must collect with my continuous parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous parameter monitoring systems are used, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages for...

40 CFR 60.1750 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems and is the data collection... I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages...

40 CFR 60.1825 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection... must collect with my continuous parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous parameter monitoring systems are used, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages for...

40 CFR 60.1750 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems and is the data collection... I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages...

Development of a waste collection system for the space shuttle.

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Behrend, A. F., Jr.; Swider, J. E., Jr.

1972-01-01

The development of a waste collection system to accommodate both male and female crew members for the space shuttle is discussed. The waste collection system, with emphasis on the collection and transfer of urine, is described. Human-interface requirements, zero-gravity influences and effects, and operational considerations required for total system design are discussed.

77 FR 69504 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Emergency Reinstatement of Previously Approved Collection

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-11-19

... MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD Agency Information Collection Activities; Emergency Reinstatement of Previously Approved Collection AGENCY: Merit Systems Protection Board. ACTION: Notice of emergency reinstatement. SUMMARY: The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is requesting approval from the Office of...

High-speed and high-fidelity system and method for collecting network traffic

DOEpatents

Weigle, Eric H [Los Alamos, NM

2010-08-24

A system is provided for the high-speed and high-fidelity collection of network traffic. The system can collect traffic at gigabit-per-second (Gbps) speeds, scale to terabit-per-second (Tbps) speeds, and support additional functions such as real-time network intrusion detection. The present system uses a dedicated operating system for traffic collection to maximize efficiency, scalability, and performance. A scalable infrastructure and apparatus for the present system is provided by splitting the work performed on one host onto multiple hosts. The present system simultaneously addresses the issues of scalability, performance, cost, and adaptability with respect to network monitoring, collection, and other network tasks. In addition to high-speed and high-fidelity network collection, the present system provides a flexible infrastructure to perform virtually any function at high speeds such as real-time network intrusion detection and wide-area network emulation for research purposes.

Collection of Data on Race, Ethnicity, Language, and Nativity by US Public Health Surveillance and Monitoring Systems: Gaps and Opportunities.

PubMed

Rodriguez-Lainz, Alfonso; McDonald, Mariana; Fonseca-Ford, Maureen; Penman-Aguilar, Ana; Waterman, Stephen H; Truman, Benedict I; Cetron, Martin S; Richards, Chesley L

Despite increasing diversity in the US population, substantial gaps in collecting data on race, ethnicity, primary language, and nativity indicators persist in public health surveillance and monitoring systems. In addition, few systems provide questionnaires in foreign languages for inclusion of non-English speakers. We assessed (1) the extent of data collected on race, ethnicity, primary language, and nativity indicators (ie, place of birth, immigration status, and years in the United States) and (2) the use of data-collection instruments in non-English languages among Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-supported public health surveillance and monitoring systems in the United States. We identified CDC-supported surveillance and health monitoring systems in place from 2010 through 2013 by searching CDC websites and other federal websites. For each system, we assessed its website, documentation, and publications for evidence of the variables of interest and use of data-collection instruments in non-English languages. We requested missing information from CDC program officials, as needed. Of 125 data systems, 100 (80%) collected data on race and ethnicity, 2 more collected data on ethnicity but not race, 26 (21%) collected data on racial/ethnic subcategories, 40 (32%) collected data on place of birth, 21 (17%) collected data on years in the United States, 14 (11%) collected data on immigration status, 13 (10%) collected data on primary language, and 29 (23%) used non-English data-collection instruments. Population-based surveys and disease registries more often collected data on detailed variables than did case-based, administrative, and multiple-source systems. More complete and accurate data on race, ethnicity, primary language, and nativity can improve the quality, representativeness, and usefulness of public health surveillance and monitoring systems to plan and evaluate targeted public health interventions to eliminate health disparities.

76 FR 43686 - Proposed Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-07-21

... FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM Proposed Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment Request AGENCY... collection. The Federal Reserve System needs the information collected to fulfill their obligations under the..., consistent with safe and sound banking practices. The Federal Reserve System uses the information in the...

21 CFR 864.3260 - OTC test sample collection systems for drugs of abuse testing.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false OTC test sample collection systems for drugs of... Instrumentation and Accessories § 864.3260 OTC test sample collection systems for drugs of abuse testing. (a) Identification. An over-the-counter (OTC) test sample collection system for drugs of abuse testing is a device...

TOASTing Your Images With Montage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berriman, G. Bruce; Good, John

2017-01-01

The Montage image mosaic engine is a scalable toolkit for creating science-grade mosaics of FITS files, according to the user's specifications of coordinates, projection, sampling, and image rotation. It is written in ANSI-C and runs on all common *nix-based platforms. The code is freely available and is released with a BSD 3-clause license. Version 5 is a major upgrade to Montage, and provides support for creating images that can be consumed by the World Wide Telescope (WWT). Montage treats the TOAST sky tessellation scheme, used by the WWT, as a spherical projection like those in the WCStools library. Thus images in any projection can be converted to the TOAST projection by Montage’s reprojection services. These reprojections can be performed at scale on high-performance platforms and on desktops. WWT consumes PNG or JPEG files, organized according to WWT’s tiling and naming scheme. Montage therefore provides a set of dedicated modules to create the required files from FITS images that contain the TOAST projection. There are two other major features of Version 5. It supports processing of HEALPix files to any projection in the WCS tools library. And it can be built as a library that can be called from other languages, primarily Python. http://montage.ipac.caltech.edu.GitHub download page: https://github.com/Caltech-IPAC/Montage.ASCL record: ascl:1010.036. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.49418 Montage is funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number ACI-1440620,

Transculturalization of a diabetes-specific nutrition algorithm: Asian application.

PubMed

Su, Hsiu-Yueh; Tsang, Man-Wo; Huang, Shih-Yi; Mechanick, Jeffrey I; Sheu, Wayne H-H; Marchetti, Albert

2012-04-01

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in Asia is growing at an alarming rate, posing significant clinical and economic risk to health care stakeholders. Commonly, Asian patients with T2D manifest a distinctive combination of characteristics that include earlier disease onset, distinct pathophysiology, syndrome of complications, and shorter life expectancy. Optimizing treatment outcomes for such patients requires a coordinated inclusive care plan and knowledgeable practitioners. Comprehensive management starts with medical nutrition therapy (MNT) in a broader lifestyle modification program. Implementing diabetes-specific MNT in Asia requires high-quality and transparent clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) that are regionally adapted for cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors. Respected CPGs for nutrition and diabetes therapy are available from prestigious medical societies. For cost efficiency and effectiveness, health care authorities can select these CPGs for Asian implementation following abridgement and cultural adaptation that includes: defining nutrition therapy in meaningful ways, selecting lower cutoff values for healthy body mass indices and waist circumferences (WCs), identifying the dietary composition of MNT based on regional availability and preference, and expanding nutrition therapy for concomitant hypertension, dyslipidemia, overweight/obesity, and chronic kidney disease. An international task force of respected health care professionals has contributed to this process. To date, task force members have selected appropriate evidence-based CPGs and simplified them into an algorithm for diabetes-specific nutrition therapy. Following cultural adaptation, Asian and Asian-Indian versions of this algorithmic tool have emerged. The Asian version is presented in this report.

Methanol electro-oxidation on platinum modified tungsten carbides in direct methanol fuel cells: a DFT study.

PubMed

Sheng, Tian; Lin, Xiao; Chen, Zhao-Yang; Hu, P; Sun, Shi-Gang; Chu, You-Qun; Ma, Chun-An; Lin, Wen-Feng

2015-10-14

In exploration of low-cost electrocatalysts for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), Pt modified tungsten carbide (WC) materials are found to be great potential candidates for decreasing Pt usage whilst exhibiting satisfactory reactivity. In this work, the mechanisms, onset potentials and activity for electrooxidation of methanol were studied on a series of Pt-modified WC catalysts where the bare W-terminated WC(0001) substrate was employed. In the surface energy calculations of a series of Pt-modified WC models, we found that the feasible structures are mono- and bi-layer Pt-modified WCs. The tri-layer Pt-modified WC model is not thermodynamically stable where the top layer Pt atoms tend to accumulate and form particles or clusters rather than being dispersed as a layer. We further calculated the mechanisms of methanol oxidation on the feasible models via methanol dehydrogenation to CO involving C-H and O-H bonds dissociating subsequently, and further CO oxidation with the C-O bond association. The onset potentials for the oxidation reactions over the Pt-modified WC catalysts were determined thermodynamically by water dissociation to surface OH* species. The activities of these Pt-modified WC catalysts were estimated from the calculated kinetic data. It has been found that the bi-layer Pt-modified WC catalysts may provide a good reactivity and an onset oxidation potential comparable to pure Pt and serve as promising electrocatalysts for DMFCs with a significant decrease in Pt usage.

Using our hands to change our minds.

PubMed

Goldin-Meadow, Susan

2017-01-01

Jean Piaget was a master at observing the routine behaviors children produce as they go from knowing less to knowing more about at a task, and making inferences not only about how children understand the task at each point, but also about how they progress from one point to the next. This article examines a routine behavior that Piaget overlooked-the spontaneous gestures speakers produce as they explain their solutions to a problem. These gestures are not mere hand waving. They reflect ideas that the speaker has about the problem, often ideas that are not found in that speaker's talk. Gesture can do more than reflect ideas-it can also change them. Observing the gestures that others produce can change a learner's ideas, as can producing one's own gestures. In this sense, gesture behaves like any other action. But gesture differs from many other actions in that it also promotes generalization of new ideas. Gesture represents the world rather than directly manipulating the world (gesture does not move objects around) and is thus a special kind of action. As a result, the mechanisms by which gesture and action promote learning may differ. Because it is both an action and a representation, gesture can serve as a bridge between the two and thus be a powerful tool for learning abstract ideas. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1368. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1368 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Educating executive function.

PubMed

Blair, Clancy

2017-01-01

Executive functions are thinking skills that assist with reasoning, planning, problem solving, and managing one's life. The brain areas that underlie these skills are interconnected with and influenced by activity in many different brain areas, some of which are associated with emotion and stress. One consequence of the stress-specific connections is that executive functions, which help us to organize our thinking, tend to be disrupted when stimulation is too high and we are stressed out, or too low when we are bored and lethargic. Given their central role in reasoning and also in managing stress and emotion, scientists have conducted studies, primarily with adults, to determine whether executive functions can be improved by training. By and large, results have shown that they can be, in part through computer-based videogame-like activities. Evidence of wider, more general benefits from such computer-based training, however, is mixed. Accordingly, scientists have reasoned that training will have wider benefits if it is implemented early, with very young children as the neural circuitry of executive functions is developing, and that it will be most effective if embedded in children's everyday activities. Evidence produced by this research, however, is also mixed. In sum, much remains to be learned about executive function training. Without question, however, continued research on this important topic will yield valuable information about cognitive development. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1403. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1403 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Parallel and convergent processing in grid cell, head-direction cell, boundary cell, and place cell networks.

PubMed

Brandon, Mark P; Koenig, Julie; Leutgeb, Stefan

2014-03-01

The brain is able to construct internal representations that correspond to external spatial coordinates. Such brain maps of the external spatial topography may support a number of cognitive functions, including navigation and memory. The neuronal building block of brain maps are place cells, which are found throughout the hippocampus of rodents and, in a lower proportion, primates. Place cells typically fire in one or few restricted areas of space, and each area where a cell fires can range, along the dorsoventral axis of the hippocampus, from 30 cm to at least several meters. The sensory processing streams that give rise to hippocampal place cells are not fully understood, but substantial progress has been made in characterizing the entorhinal cortex, which is the gateway between neocortical areas and the hippocampus. Entorhinal neurons have diverse spatial firing characteristics, and the different entorhinal cell types converge in the hippocampus to give rise to a single, spatially modulated cell type-the place cell. We therefore suggest that parallel information processing in different classes of cells-as is typically observed at lower levels of sensory processing-continues up into higher level association cortices, including those that provide the inputs to hippocampus. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:207-219. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1272 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

78 FR 21630 - Comment Request for Information Collection for a Youthful Offender Grants Management Information...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-04-11

... Collection for a Youthful Offender Grants Management Information System, New Collection AGENCY: Employment... is soliciting comments concerning the collection of data for a proposed management information system... permit the Department of Labor to implement a management information system for these various sets of...

DCS - A global satellite environmental data collection system.

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Claire, E. J.

1973-01-01

This paper presents a summary of the results of a comparative study of satellite data collection systems which utilize remote ground data collection platforms transmitting data directly to a satellite and down to low-cost direct read-out local user terminals. The general objective of the study was to evaluate cost and technical feasibility of five medium orbiting and six geo-synchronous satellite data collection system (DCS) configurations with varying degrees of spacecraft and local user terminal (LUT) complexity. The goal of trading spacecraft and LUT complexity was to determine practical feasible systems with low-cost terminals, yet with a reasonable overall system cost the would permit the broad worldwide utilization of a highly beneficial data collection system. Results presented include data collection system analyses, satellite and local user terminal designs, and estimated costs. A summary of the types of local users and their requirements is also included.

An evaluation of the ERTS data collection system as a potential operational tool. [automatic hydrologic data collection and processing system for geological surveys

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Paulson, R. W.

1974-01-01

The Earth Resources Technology Satellite Data Collection System has been shown to be, from the users vantage point, a reliable and simple system for collecting data from U.S. Geological Survey operational field instrumentation. It is technically feasible to expand the ERTS system into an operational polar-orbiting data collection system to gather data from the Geological Survey's Hydrologic Data Network. This could permit more efficient internal management of the Network, and could enable the Geological Survey to make data available to cooperating agencies in near-real time. The Geological Survey is conducting an analysis of the costs and benefits of satellite data-relay systems.

Tritium monitor and collection system

DOEpatents

Bourne, G.L.; Meikrantz, D.H.; Ely, W.E.; Tuggle, D.G.; Grafwallner, E.G.; Wickham, K.L.; Maltrud, H.R.; Baker, J.D.

1992-01-14

This system measures tritium on-line and collects tritium from a flowing inert gas stream. It separates the tritium from other non-hydrogen isotope contaminating gases, whether radioactive or not. The collecting portion of the system is constructed of various zirconium alloys called getters. These alloys adsorb tritium in any of its forms at one temperature and at a higher temperature release it as a gas. The system consists of four on-line getters and heaters, two ion chamber detectors, two collection getters, and two guard getters. When the incoming gas stream is valved through the on-line getters, 99.9% of it is adsorbed and the remainder continues to the guard getter where traces of tritium not collected earlier are adsorbed. The inert gas stream then exits the system to the decay chamber. Once the on-line getter has collected tritium for a predetermined time, it is valved off and the next on-line getter is valved on. Simultaneously, the first getter is heated and a pure helium purge is employed to carry the tritium from the getter. The tritium loaded gas stream is then routed through an ion chamber which measures the tritium activity. The ion chamber effluent passes through a collection getter that readsorbs the tritium and is removable from the system once it is loaded and is then replaced with a clean getter. Prior to removal of the collection getter, the system switches to a parallel collection getter. The effluent from the collection getter passes through a guard getter to remove traces of tritium prior to exiting the system. The tritium loaded collection getter, once removed, is analyzed by liquid scintillation techniques. The entire sequence is under computer control except for the removal and analysis of the collection getter. 7 figs.

Mixed Traffic Information Collection System based on Pressure Sensor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liao, Wenzhe; Liu, Mingsheng; Meng, Qingli

The traffic information collection is the base of Intelligent Traffic.At present, there exist mixed traffic situation in urban road in China. This paper researched and implemented a system through collecting the vehicle and bicycle mixed traffic flow parameters based on pressure sensor. According to information collection requirements, we selected pressure sensor, designed the data collection, storage and other hardware circuitries and information processing software. The experiment shows that the system can meet the demand of traffic information collection in the actual.

Development of a multicriteria assessment model for ranking biomass feedstock collection and transportation systems.

PubMed

Kumar, Amit; Sokhansanj, Shahab; Flynn, Peter C

2006-01-01

This study details multicriteria assessment methodology that integrates economic, social, environmental, and technical factors in order to rank alternatives for biomass collection and transportation systems. Ranking of biomass collection systems is based on cost of delivered biomass, quality of biomass supplied, emissions during collection, energy input to the chain operations, and maturity of supply system technologies. The assessment methodology is used to evaluate alternatives for collecting 1.8 x 10(6) dry t/yr based on assumptions made on performance of various assemblies of biomass collection systems. A proposed collection option using loafer/ stacker was shown to be the best option followed by ensiling and baling. Ranking of biomass transport systems is based on cost of biomass transport, emissions during transport, traffic congestion, and maturity of different technologies. At a capacity of 4 x 10(6) dry t/yr, rail transport was shown to be the best option, followed by truck transport and pipeline transport, respectively. These rankings depend highly on assumed maturity of technologies and scale of utilization. These may change if technologies such as loafing or ensiling (wet storage) methods are proved to be infeasible for large-scale collection systems.

40 CFR 60.2942 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection... with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages. Make sure...

40 CFR 60.1335 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection... parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous parameter monitoring systems are used, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages for three parameters: (1) Load...

40 CFR 60.1335 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection... parameter monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous parameter monitoring systems are used, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages for three parameters: (1) Load...

40 CFR 60.2942 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection... with my continuous emission monitoring systems, and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages. Make sure...

Solar energy collection system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Selcuk, M. K. (Inventor)

1977-01-01

An improved solar energy collection system, having enhanced energy collection and conversion capabilities, is delineated. The system is characterized by a plurality of receivers suspended above a heliostat field comprising a multiplicity of reflector surfaces, each being adapted to direct a concentrated beam of solar energy to illuminate a target surface for a given receiver. A magnitude of efficiency, suitable for effectively competing with systems employed in collecting and converting energy extracted from fossil fuels, is indicated.

A multi-structural and multi-functional integrated fog collection system in cactus

PubMed Central

Ju, Jie; Bai, Hao; Zheng, Yongmei; Zhao, Tianyi; Fang, Ruochen; Jiang, Lei

2012-01-01

Multiple biological structures have demonstrated fog collection abilities, such as beetle backs with bumps and spider silks with periodic spindle-knots and joints. Many Cactaceae species live in arid environments and are extremely drought-tolerant. Here we report that one of the survival systems of the cactus Opuntia microdasys lies in its efficient fog collection system. This unique system is composed of well-distributed clusters of conical spines and trichomes on the cactus stem; each spine contains three integrated parts that have different roles in the fog collection process according to their surface structural features. The gradient of the Laplace pressure, the gradient of the surface-free energy and multi-function integration endow the cactus with an efficient fog collection system. Investigations of the structure–function relationship in this system may help us to design novel materials and devices to collect water from fog with high efficiencies. PMID:23212376

A multi-structural and multi-functional integrated fog collection system in cactus.

PubMed

Ju, Jie; Bai, Hao; Zheng, Yongmei; Zhao, Tianyi; Fang, Ruochen; Jiang, Lei

2012-01-01

Multiple biological structures have demonstrated fog collection abilities, such as beetle backs with bumps and spider silks with periodic spindle-knots and joints. Many Cactaceae species live in arid environments and are extremely drought-tolerant. Here we report that one of the survival systems of the cactus Opuntia microdasys lies in its efficient fog collection system. This unique system is composed of well-distributed clusters of conical spines and trichomes on the cactus stem; each spine contains three integrated parts that have different roles in the fog collection process according to their surface structural features. The gradient of the Laplace pressure, the gradient of the surface-free energy and multi-function integration endow the cactus with an efficient fog collection system. Investigations of the structure-function relationship in this system may help us to design novel materials and devices to collect water from fog with high efficiencies.

75 FR 62098 - Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; Expanded Vessel Monitoring System Requirement...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-10-07

... Collection; Comment Request; Expanded Vessel Monitoring System Requirement in the Pacific Coast Groundfish... and use a vessel monitoring system (VMS) that automatically sends hourly position reports. Exemptions... declaration reporting system are not expected to change the public reporting burden. II. Method of Collection...

15 CFR 911.4 - Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Use of the NOAA Data Collection... POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.4 Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) Use of the NOAA DCS will only be authorized in accordance with the...

15 CFR 911.4 - Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Use of the NOAA Data Collection... POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.4 Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) Use of the NOAA DCS will only be authorized in accordance with the...

15 CFR 911.4 - Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Use of the NOAA Data Collection... POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.4 Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) Use of the NOAA DCS will only be authorized in accordance with the...

15 CFR 911.4 - Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Use of the NOAA Data Collection... POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.4 Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) Use of the NOAA DCS will only be authorized in accordance with the...

15 CFR 911.4 - Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Use of the NOAA Data Collection... POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.4 Use of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) Use of the NOAA DCS will only be authorized in accordance with the...

40 CFR 60.1260 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems and is the data collection... monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages. Make sure the averages for sulfur dioxide...

40 CFR 60.1260 - What is the minimum amount of monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... monitoring data I must collect with my continuous emission monitoring systems and is the data collection... monitoring systems and is the data collection requirement enforceable? (a) Where continuous emission monitoring systems are required, obtain 1-hour arithmetic averages. Make sure the averages for sulfur dioxide...

Rail Transit Fare Collection : Policy and Technology Assessment

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1982-12-01

In an attempt to resolve reliability problems, lower operation and maintenance costs, and simplify fare collection, transit authorities are focusing on their fare collection systems. Many transit properties have existing fare collection systems which...

Online information system for data collection of cattle quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sugiharti, E.; Arifudin, R.; Putra, A. T.

2018-03-01

Innovation and development of the science and technology which proclaimed by the government through Ristekdikti need to be supported. On the other hand, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries began introducing the Cattle Card system that contains the identity of each farm animal. Therefore, UNNES especially the Department of Computer Science of FMIPA UNNES, need to give positive contribution in the field of Science and Technology to support the manual system of Cattle Card, through the preparation of prototype of the online information system of data collection of cattle in Semarang regency. The main problem is how to monitor the data of cattle quality through online information system in Semarang regency? The purpose of this research is to produce the prototype of an online information system for data collection of cattle quality in Semarang regency. Main activities: (1) Prepare the flowchart of an online system for data collection of cattle quality. (2) Collecting data to obtain data on identity descriptions of each cattle, owners, mutation records, and health records of livestock cattle. (3) Creation of the prototype of an online information system for data collection of cattle quality in Semarang Regency. The results, (1) had been produced the prototype of an online information system for data collection of cattle in the region of Semarang regency. (2) Socialization of the online information system for cattle quality data collection and exploring input from various related stakeholders. (3) There had been a limited trial of prototypes of the system in Pabelan district in the working area of the Department of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries of Semarang regency and succeeded well.

Evaluation of Existing Methods for Human Blood mRNA Isolation and Analysis for Large Studies

PubMed Central

Meyer, Anke; Paroni, Federico; Günther, Kathrin; Dharmadhikari, Gitanjali; Ahrens, Wolfgang; Kelm, Sørge; Maedler, Kathrin

2016-01-01

Aims Prior to implementing gene expression analyses from blood to a larger cohort study, an evaluation to set up a reliable and reproducible method is mandatory but challenging due to the specific characteristics of the samples as well as their collection methods. In this pilot study we optimized a combination of blood sampling and RNA isolation methods and present reproducible gene expression results from human blood samples. Methods The established PAXgeneTM blood collection method (Qiagen) was compared with the more recent TempusTM collection and storing system. RNA from blood samples collected by both systems was extracted on columns with the corresponding Norgen and PAX RNA extraction Kits. RNA quantity and quality was compared photometrically, with Ribogreen and by Real-Time PCR analyses of various reference genes (PPIA, β-ACTIN and TUBULIN) and exemplary of SIGLEC-7. Results Combining different sampling methods and extraction kits caused strong variations in gene expression. The use of PAXgeneTM and TempusTM collection systems resulted in RNA of good quality and quantity for the respective RNA isolation system. No large inter-donor variations could be detected for both systems. However, it was not possible to extract sufficient RNA of good quality with the PAXgeneTM RNA extraction system from samples collected by TempusTM collection tubes. Comparing only the Norgen RNA extraction methods, RNA from blood collected either by the TempusTM or PAXgeneTM collection system delivered sufficient amount and quality of RNA, but the TempusTM collection delivered higher RNA concentration compared to the PAXTM collection system. The established Pre-analytix PAXgeneTM RNA extraction system together with the PAXgeneTM blood collection system showed lowest CT-values, i.e. highest RNA concentration of good quality. Expression levels of all tested genes were stable and reproducible. Conclusions This study confirms that it is not possible to mix or change sampling or extraction strategies during the same study because of large variations of RNA yield and expression levels. PMID:27575051

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Contract Payment System

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Contract Payment System collects contact information and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Learn how this data is collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, the purpose of data collection, and record retention.

Condition Assessment of Wastewater Collection Systems

EPA Science Inventory

Municipal sanitary sewer collection systems play a critical role in protecting public health in our municipalities. They are designed to convey wastewater from their sources to a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). Collection systems consist of house service laterals, sewers, pu...

eodataservice.org: how to enable cross-continental interoperability of the European Space Agency and Australian Geoscience Landsat datacubes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mantovani, Simone; Barboni, Damiano; Natali, Stefano; Evans, Ben; Steer, Adam; Hogan, Patrik; Baumann, Peter

2017-04-01

Globally, billions of dollars are invested annually in Earth observations that support public services, commercial activity, and scientific inquiry. The Common Data Framework [1] for Earth Observation data summarises the current standards for the international community to adopt a common approach so that this significant data can be readily accessible. Concurrently, the "Copernicus Cooperation Arrangement" between the European Commission and the Australian Government is just one in a number of recent agreements signed to facilitate Satellite Earth Observation data sharing among the users' communities. The typical approach implemented in these initiatives is the establishment of a regional data access hub managed by the regional entity to collect data at full scale or over the local region, improve access services and provide high-performance environment in which all the data can be analysed. Furthermore, a number of datacube-aware platforms and services have emerged that enable a new collaborative approach for analysing the vast quantities of satellite imagery and other Earth Observations, making it quicker and easier to explore a time series of image data. In this context, the H2020-funded EarthServer2 project brings together multiple organisations in Europe, Australia and United States to allow federated data holdings to be analysed using web-based access to petabytes of multidimensional geospatial datasets. The aim is to create and ensure that these large spatial data sources can be accessed based on OGC standards, namely Web Coverage Service (WCS) and Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS) that provide efficient&timely retrieval of large volumes of geospatial data as well as on-the-fly processing. In this study, we provide an overview of the existing European Space Agency and Australian Geoscience Landsat datacubes, how the regional datacube structures differ, how interoperability is enabled through standards, and finally how the datacubes can be visualized on a virtual globe (NASA - ESA WebWorldWind) based on a WC(P)S query via any standard internet browser. The current study is co-financed by the European Space Agency under the MaaS project (ESRIN Contract No. 4000114186/15/I-LG) and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the EarthServer-2 project (Grant Agreement No. 654367) [1] Common framework for Earth-Observation data, March 23, 2016 (https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/common_framework_for_earth_observation_data.pdf)

Best Practices for Preparing Interoperable Geospatial Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Y.; Santhana Vannan, S.; Cook, R. B.; Wilson, B. E.; Beaty, T. W.

2010-12-01

Geospatial data is critically important for a wide scope of research and applications: carbon cycle and ecosystem, climate change, land use and urban planning, environmental protecting, etc. Geospatial data is created by different organizations using different methods, from remote sensing observations, field surveys, model simulations, etc., and stored in various formats. So geospatial data is diverse and heterogeneous, which brings a huge barrier for the sharing and using of geospatial data, especially when targeting a broad user community. Many efforts have been taken to address different aspects of using geospatial data by improving its interoperability. For example, the specification for Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) catalog services defines a standard way for geospatial information discovery; OGC Web Coverage Services (WCS) and OPeNDAP define interoperable protocols for geospatial data access, respectively. But the reality is that only having the standard mechanisms for data discovery and access is not enough. The geospatial data content itself has to be organized in standard, easily understandable, and readily usable formats. The Oak Ridge National Lab Distributed Archived Data Center (ORNL DAAC) archives data and information relevant to biogeochemical dynamics, ecological data, and environmental processes. The Modeling and Synthesis Thematic Data Center (MAST-DC) prepares and distributes both input data and output data of carbon cycle models and provides data support for synthesis and terrestrial model inter-comparison in multi-scales. Both of these NASA-funded data centers compile and distribute a large amount of diverse geospatial data and have broad user communities, including GIS users, Earth science researchers, and ecosystem modeling teams. The ORNL DAAC and MAST-DC address this geospatial data interoperability issue by standardizing the data content and feeding them into a well-designed Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) which provides interoperable mechanisms to advertise, visualize, and distribute the standardized geospatial data. In this presentation, we summarize the experiences learned and the best practices for geospatial data standardization. The presentation will describe how diverse and historical data archived in the ORNL DAAC were converted into standard and non-proprietary formats; what tools were used to make the conversion; how the spatial and temporal information are properly captured in a consistent manor; how to name a data file or a variable to make it both human-friendly and semantically interoperable; how NetCDF file format and CF convention can promote the data usage in ecosystem modeling user community; how those standardized geospatial data can be fed into OGC Web Services to support on-demand data visualization and access; and how the metadata should be collected and organized so that they can be discovered through standard catalog services.

Spacelab 4: Primate experiment support hardware

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fusco, P. R.; Peyran, R. J.

1984-05-01

A squirrel monkey feeder and automatic urine collection system were designed to fly on the Spacelab 4 Shuttle Mission presently scheduled for January 1986. Prototypes of the feeder and urine collection systems were fabricated and extensively tested on squirrel monkeys at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Ames Research Center (ARC). The feeder design minimizes impact on the monkey's limited space in the cage and features improved reliability and biocompatibility over previous systems. The urine collection system is the first flight qualified, automatic urine collection device for squirrel monkeys. Flight systems are currently being fabricated.

Spacelab 4: Primate experiment support hardware

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fusco, P. R.; Peyran, R. J.

1984-01-01

A squirrel monkey feeder and automatic urine collection system were designed to fly on the Spacelab 4 Shuttle Mission presently scheduled for January 1986. Prototypes of the feeder and urine collection systems were fabricated and extensively tested on squirrel monkeys at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Ames Research Center (ARC). The feeder design minimizes impact on the monkey's limited space in the cage and features improved reliability and biocompatibility over previous systems. The urine collection system is the first flight qualified, automatic urine collection device for squirrel monkeys. Flight systems are currently being fabricated.

Reorganization of Elementary Educational System and Commutation of Children to Collective Commune Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Palonka, Krystyna Maria

Between 1973-1979, the elementary educational system in rural areas of Poland has been reorganized into a system of collective commune schools; students commute or are bused to the schools. Since September 1973, 944 new collective commune schools have been set up. A study of the data indicates that the process of setting up collective commune…

77 FR 65898 - Agency Information Collection Activities: InfoPass System, No Form Number; Extension, Without...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-10-31

...-0113] Agency Information Collection Activities: InfoPass System, No Form Number; Extension, Without...) Title of the Form/Collection: InfoPass System. (3) Agency form number, if any, and the applicable... InfoPass system allows an applicant or petitioner to schedule an interview appointment with USCIS...

77 FR 36294 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Office of...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-18

... Partnership Grants Management System (GMS) ACTION: 60-Day Notice of Information Collection under Review. The... Partnership Grants Management System (GMS). (3) The Agency Form Number, if any, and the Applicable Component... grants. GMS is the OJP web-based grants applications system and award management system. GMS provides...

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Integrated Contracts Management System

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Integrated Contracts Management System collects contact information and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Learn how this data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, and the purpose of data collection.

Wireless data collection system for real-time arterial travel time estimates.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2011-03-01

This project pursued several objectives conducive to the implementation and testing of a Bluetooth (BT) based system to collect travel time data, including the deployment of a BT-based travel time data collection system to perform comprehensive testi...

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Peer Reviewer Panelist Information System

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This system collects contact and employment information. Learn how this data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, the purpose of data collection, and record retention policies for this data.

micROS: a morphable, intelligent and collective robot operating system.

PubMed

Yang, Xuejun; Dai, Huadong; Yi, Xiaodong; Wang, Yanzhen; Yang, Shaowu; Zhang, Bo; Wang, Zhiyuan; Zhou, Yun; Peng, Xuefeng

2016-01-01

Robots are developing in much the same way that personal computers did 40 years ago, and robot operating system is the critical basis. Current robot software is mainly designed for individual robots. We present in this paper the design of micROS, a morphable, intelligent and collective robot operating system for future collective and collaborative robots. We first present the architecture of micROS, including the distributed architecture for collective robot system as a whole and the layered architecture for every single node. We then present the design of autonomous behavior management based on the observe-orient-decide-act cognitive behavior model and the design of collective intelligence including collective perception, collective cognition, collective game and collective dynamics. We also give the design of morphable resource management, which first categorizes robot resources into physical, information, cognitive and social domains, and then achieve morphability based on self-adaptive software technology. We finally deploy micROS on NuBot football robots and achieve significant improvement in real-time performance.

Study on an agricultural environment monitoring server system using Wireless Sensor Networks.

PubMed

Hwang, Jeonghwan; Shin, Changsun; Yoe, Hyun

2010-01-01

This paper proposes an agricultural environment monitoring server system for monitoring information concerning an outdoors agricultural production environment utilizing Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology. The proposed agricultural environment monitoring server system collects environmental and soil information on the outdoors through WSN-based environmental and soil sensors, collects image information through CCTVs, and collects location information using GPS modules. This collected information is converted into a database through the agricultural environment monitoring server consisting of a sensor manager, which manages information collected from the WSN sensors, an image information manager, which manages image information collected from CCTVs, and a GPS manager, which processes location information of the agricultural environment monitoring server system, and provides it to producers. In addition, a solar cell-based power supply is implemented for the server system so that it could be used in agricultural environments with insufficient power infrastructure. This agricultural environment monitoring server system could even monitor the environmental information on the outdoors remotely, and it could be expected that the use of such a system could contribute to increasing crop yields and improving quality in the agricultural field by supporting the decision making of crop producers through analysis of the collected information.

A novel approach to find and optimize bin locations and collection routes using a geographic information system.

PubMed

Erfani, Seyed Mohammad Hassan; Danesh, Shahnaz; Karrabi, Seyed Mohsen; Shad, Rouzbeh

2017-07-01

One of the major challenges in big cities is planning and implementation of an optimized, integrated solid waste management system. This optimization is crucial if environmental problems are to be prevented and the expenses to be reduced. A solid waste management system consists of many stages including collection, transfer and disposal. In this research, an integrated model was proposed and used to optimize two functional elements of municipal solid waste management (storage and collection systems) in the Ahmadabad neighbourhood located in the City of Mashhad - Iran. The integrated model was performed by modelling and solving the location allocation problem and capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) through Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The results showed that the current collection system is not efficient owing to its incompatibility with the existing urban structure and population distribution. Application of the proposed model could significantly improve the storage and collection system. Based on the results of minimizing facilities analyses, scenarios with 100, 150 and 180 m walking distance were considered to find optimal bin locations for Alamdasht, C-metri and Koohsangi. The total number of daily collection tours was reduced to seven as compared to the eight tours carried out in the current system (12.50% reduction). In addition, the total number of required crews was minimized and reduced by 41.70% (24 crews in the current collection system vs 14 in the system provided by the model). The total collection vehicle routing was also optimized such that the total travelled distances during night and day working shifts was cut back by 53%.

40 CFR 265.19 - Construction quality assurance program.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

...) Geomembranes (flexible membrane liners); (v) Leachate collection and removal systems and leak detection systems..., leachate collection and removal system, leak detection system, and final cover system, according to permit...

40 CFR 265.19 - Construction quality assurance program.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

...) Geomembranes (flexible membrane liners); (v) Leachate collection and removal systems and leak detection systems..., leachate collection and removal system, leak detection system, and final cover system, according to permit...

40 CFR 265.19 - Construction quality assurance program.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

...) Geomembranes (flexible membrane liners); (v) Leachate collection and removal systems and leak detection systems..., leachate collection and removal system, leak detection system, and final cover system, according to permit...

Sample collection system for gel electrophoresis

DOEpatents

Olivares, Jose A.; Stark, Peter C.; Dunbar, John M.; Hill, Karen K.; Kuske, Cheryl R.; Roybal, Gustavo

2004-09-21

An automatic sample collection system for use with an electrophoretic slab gel system is presented. The collection system can be used with a slab gel have one or more lanes. A detector is used to detect particle bands on the slab gel within a detection zone. Such detectors may use a laser to excite fluorescently labeled particles. The fluorescent light emitted from the excited particles is transmitted to low-level light detection electronics. Upon the detection of a particle of interest within the detection zone, a syringe pump is activated, sending a stream of buffer solution across the lane of the slab gel. The buffer solution collects the sample of interest and carries it through a collection port into a sample collection vial.

DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS FOR MANAGING WASTEWATER COLLECTION SYSTEMS

EPA Science Inventory

Wastewater collection systems are an extensive part of the nation's infrastructure. In the US approximately 150M people are served by about 19,000 municipal wastewater collection systems representing about 500,000 miles of sewer pipe (not including privately owned service lateria...

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Compass Financials IT System

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This system collects data on accounts receivable, accounts payable, human resources and travel data. This document describes how the data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, and the purpose of data collection.

40 CFR 243.204-2 - Recommended procedures: Operations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... collection system. These records should be used for scheduling maintenance and replacement, for budgeting, and for system evaluation and comparison. (b) The collection system should be reviewed on a regular...) SOLID WASTES GUIDELINES FOR THE STORAGE AND COLLECTION OF RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL...

76 FR 64382 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comments Requested

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-10-18

... Collection Under Review: Office for Victims of Crime Trafficking Information Management System (TIMS). The... following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and... Trafficking Information Management System (TIMS) Online. [[Page 64383

XV-15 Tilt Rotor fly-by-wire collective control demonstrator development specifications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Meuleners, R. J.

1981-01-01

A fly by wire system in the collective control system for XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft was evaluated. The collective control system was selected because it requires a system tracking accuracy between right and left rotors of approximately 0.1%. The performance characteristics of the collectors axel provide typical axis control response data. The demonstrator is bread boarded as a dual system instead of the triplex system.

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Case Management System for Suspension and Debarment

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This system collects contact information and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Learn how this data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, the purpose of data collection, and the record retention policies.

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Hotline Allegation System for the Office of Inspector General

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This system collects contact information and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Learn how this data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, the purpose of data collection, and record retention policies.

A cost-effective traffic data collection system based on the iDEN mobile telecommunication network.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2008-10-01

This report describes a cost-effective data collection system for Caltrans 170 traffic signal : controller. The data collection system is based on TCP/IP communication over existing : low-cost mobile communication networks and Motorola iDEN1 mobile...

Privacy Impact Assessment for the PC Label System

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The PC Label System collects contact information for individuals with an interest in EPA's Region 1. Learn how this data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, the purpose of data collection, and record retention policies

EarthServer - 3D Visualization on the Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wagner, Sebastian; Herzig, Pasquale; Bockholt, Ulrich; Jung, Yvonne; Behr, Johannes

2013-04-01

EarthServer (www.earthserver.eu), funded by the European Commission under its Seventh Framework Program, is a project to enable the management, access and exploration of massive, multi-dimensional datasets using Open GeoSpatial Consortium (OGC) query and processing language standards like WCS 2.0 and WCPS. To this end, a server/client architecture designed to handle Petabyte/Exabyte volumes of multi-dimensional data is being developed and deployed. As an important part of the EarthServer project, six Lighthouse Applications, major scientific data exploitation initiatives, are being established to make cross-domain, Earth Sciences related data repositories available in an open and unified manner, as service endpoints based on solutions and infrastructure developed within the project. Clients technology developed and deployed in EarthServer ranges from mobile and web clients to immersive virtual reality systems, all designed to interact with a physically and logically distributed server infrastructure using exclusively OGC standards. In this contribution, we would like to present our work on a web-based 3D visualization and interaction client for Earth Sciences data using only technology found in standard web browsers without requiring the user to install plugins or addons. Additionally, we are able to run the earth data visualization client on a wide range of different platforms with very different soft- and hardware requirements such as smart phones (e.g. iOS, Android), different desktop systems etc. High-quality, hardware-accelerated visualization of 3D and 4D content in standard web browsers can be realized now and we believe it will become more and more common to use this fast, lightweight and ubiquitous platform to provide insights into big datasets without requiring the user to set up a specialized client first. With that in mind, we will also point out some of the limitations we encountered using current web technologies. Underlying the EarthServer web client and on top of HTML5, WebGL and JavaScript we have developed the X3DOM framework (www.x3dom.org), which makes possible to embed declarative X3D scenegraphs, an ISO standard XML-based file format for representing 3D computer graphics, directly within HTML, thus enabling developers to rapidly design 3D content that blends seamlessly into HTML interfaces using Javascript. This approach (commonly referred to as a polyfill layer) is used to mimic native web browser support for declarative 3D content and is an important component in our web client architecture.

75 FR 80823 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request; Guidance for...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-12-23

...] Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request; Guidance for Industry on Updating Labeling for Susceptibility Test Information in Systemic Antibacterial Drug Products and... Industry on Updating Labeling for Susceptibility Test Information in Systemic Antibacterial Drug Products...

77 FR 50718 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Accounting...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-22

... DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Office of Justice Programs [OMB Number 1121-0021] Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Accounting System and Financial Capability...: Accounting System and Financial Capability Questionnaire. (3) Agency form number 7120/1. Component Sponsoring...

Environmental-benefit analysis of two urban waste collection systems.

PubMed

Aranda Usón, Alfonso; Ferreira, Germán; Zambrana Vásquez, David; Zabalza Bribián, Ignacio; Llera Sastresa, Eva

2013-10-01

Sustainable transportation infrastructure and travel policies aim to optimise the use of transportation systems to achieve economic and related social and environmental goals. To this end, a novel methodology based on life cycle assessment (LCA) has been developed in this study, with the aim of quantifying, in terms of CO2 emissions equivalent, the impact associated with different alternatives of waste collection systems in different urban typologies. This new approach is focussed on saving energy and raw materials and reducing the environmental impact associated with the waste collection system in urban areas, as well as allowing the design and planning of the best available technologies and most environment-friendly management. The methodology considers a large variety of variables from the point of view of sustainable urban transport such as the location and size of the urban area, the amount of solid waste generated, the level of social awareness on waste separation procedures, the distance between houses and waste collection points and the distance from the latter to the possible recovery plants and/or landfills, taking into account the material and energy recovery ratio within an integrated waste management system. As a case study, two different waste collection systems have been evaluated with this methodology in the ecocity Valdespartera located in Zaragoza, Spain, consisting of approximately 10,000 homes: (i) a system based on traditional truck transportation and manual collection, and (ii) a stationary vacuum waste collection system. Results show that, when operating at loads close to 100%, the stationary collection system has the best environmental performance in comparison with the conventional system. In contrast, when operating at load factors around 13% the environmental benefits in terms of net CO2-eq. emissions for the stationary collection system are around 60% lower in comparison with the conventional one. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Relativistic collective diffusion in one-dimensional systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, Gui-Wu; Lam, Yu-Yiu; Zheng, Dong-Qin; Zhong, Wei-Rong

2018-05-01

The relativistic collective diffusion in one-dimensional molecular system is investigated through nonequilibrium molecular dynamics with Monte Carlo methods. We have proposed the relationship among the speed, the temperature, the density distribution and the collective diffusion coefficient of particles in a relativistic moving system. It is found that the relativistic speed of the system has no effect on the temperature, but the collective diffusion coefficient decreases to zero as the velocity of the system approaches to the speed of light. The collective diffusion coefficient is modified as D‧ = D(1 ‑w2 c2 )3 2 for satisfying the relativistic circumstances. The present results may contribute to the understanding of the behavior of the particles transport diffusion in a high speed system, as well as enlighten the study of biological metabolism at relativistic high speed situation.

Decision analysis for a data collection system of patient-controlled analgesia with a multi-attribute utility model.

PubMed

Lee, I-Jung; Huang, Shih-Yu; Tsou, Mei-Yung; Chan, Kwok-Hon; Chang, Kuang-Yi

2010-10-01

Data collection systems are very important for the practice of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). This study aimed to evaluate 3 PCA data collection systems and selected the most favorable system with the aid of multiattribute utility (MAU) theory. We developed a questionnaire with 10 items to evaluate the PCA data collection system and 1 item for overall satisfaction based on MAU theory. Three systems were compared in the questionnaire, including a paper record, optic card reader and personal digital assistant (PDA). A pilot study demonstrated a good internal and test-retest reliability of the questionnaire. A weighted utility score combining the relative importance of individual items assigned by each participant and their responses to each question was calculated for each system. Sensitivity analyses with distinct weighting protocols were conducted to evaluate the stability of the final results. Thirty potential users of a PCA data collection system were recruited in the study. The item "easy to use" had the highest median rank and received the heaviest mean weight among all items. MAU analysis showed that the PDA system had a higher utility score than that in the other 2 systems. Sensitivity analyses revealed that both inverse and reciprocal weighting processes favored the PDA system. High correlations between overall satisfaction and MAU scores from miscellaneous weighting protocols suggested a good predictive validity of our MAU-based questionnaire. The PDA system was selected as the most favorable PCA data collection system by the MAU analysis. The item "easy to use" was the most important attribute of the PCA data collection system. MAU theory can evaluate alternatives by taking into account individual preferences of stakeholders and aid in better decision-making. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cost and implementation analysis of a personal digital assistant system for laboratory data collection.

PubMed

Blaya, J A; Gomez, W; Rodriguez, P; Fraser, H

2008-08-01

One hundred and twenty-six public health centers and laboratories in Lima, Peru, without internet. We have previously shown that a personal digital assistant (PDA) based system reduces data collection delays and errors for tuberculosis (TB) laboratory results when compared to a paper system. To assess the data collection efficiency of each system and the resources required to develop, implement and transfer the PDA-based system to a resource-poor setting. Time-motion study of data collectors using the PDA-based and paper systems. Cost analysis of developing, implementing and transferring the PDA-based system to a local organization and their redeployment of the system. Work hours spent collecting and processing results decreased by 60% (P < 0.001). Users perceived this decrease to be 70% and had no technical problems they failed to fix. The total cost and time to develop and implement the intervention was US$26092 and 22 weeks. The cost to extend the system to cover nine more districts was $1125 and to implement collecting patient weights was $4107. A PDA-based system drastically reduced the effort required to collect TB laboratory results from remote locations. With the framework described, open-source software and local development, organizations in resource-poor settings could reap the benefits of this technology.

Waste heat recovery system including a mechanism for collection, detection and removal of non-condensable gas

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ernst, Timothy C.; Zigan, James A.

2017-06-20

The disclosure describes a non-condensable gas collection, detection, and removal system for a WHR system that helps to maintain cycle efficiency of the WHR system across the life of an engine system associated with the WHR system. A storage volume is configured to collect non-condensable gas received from the working fluid circuit, and a release valve is configured to selectively release non-condensable gas contained within the storage volume.

75 FR 23271 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-05-03

... proposed information collection project: ``National Hospital Adverse Event Reporting System: Questionnaire...: Proposed Project National Hospital Adverse Event Reporting System: Questionnaire Redesign and Testing As... the impact of the PSOs and the Patient Safety Act on the use of adverse event reporting systems and...

75 FR 38102 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-07-01

... proposed information collection project: ``National Hospital Adverse Event Reporting System: Questionnaire...: Proposed Project National Hospital Adverse Event Reporting System: Questionnaire Redesign and Testing As... the impact of the PSOs and the Patient Safety Act on the use of adverse event reporting systems and...

75 FR 9211 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board Approval Under Delegated...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-03-01

... FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board Approval... Reserve System heading, the entry for Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board... information existed on the exposure of the banking system to those firms as this information was obscured by...

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Mailing System for the Office of Public Affairs

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Mailing System for the Office of Public Affairs collects contact and geographic information. Learn how this data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, the purpose of data collection, and record retention policies.

Method and device for removing a non-aqueous phase liquid from a groundwater system

DOEpatents

Looney, Brian B.; Rossabi, Joseph; Riha, Brian D.

2002-01-01

A device for removing a non-aqueous phase liquid from a groundwater system includes a generally cylindrical push-rod defining an internal recess therein. The push-rod includes first and second end portions and an external liquid collection surface. A liquid collection member is detachably connected to the push-rod at one of the first and second end portions thereof. The method of the present invention for removing a non-aqueous phase liquid from a contaminated groundwater system includes providing a lance including an external hydrophobic liquid collection surface, an internal recess, and a collection chamber at the bottom end thereof. The lance is extended into the groundwater system such that the top end thereof remains above the ground surface. The liquid is then allowed to collect on the liquid collection surface, and flow downwardly by gravity into the collection chamber to be pumped upwardly through the internal recess in the lance.

75 FR 69665 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board Approval Under Delegated...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-11-15

... FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board Approval... approval of proposed information collection by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board... the Public). Board-approved collections of information are incorporated into the official OMB...

78 FR 23935 - Federal Acquisition Regulation; Information Collection; Contractor Use of Interagency Fleet...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-04-23

...; Information Collection; Contractor Use of Interagency Fleet Management System Vehicles AGENCY: Department of... previously approved information collection requirement concerning contractor use of interagency fleet... Collection 9000- 0032, Contractor Use of Interagency Fleet Management System Vehicles, by any of the...

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Miller, Benjamin, E-mail: BenjaminMiller@nyc.rr.com; Spertus, Juliette, E-mail: Juliette.Spertus@gmail.com; Kamga, Camille, E-mail: CKamga@UTRC2.org

Highlights: • Pneumatic and truck collection were compared in three New York City locations. • Relative costs, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions varied significantly. • Variations were due to location-specific factors (e.g., route density, truck type). • Under appropriate conditions, pneumatic collection reduces TMT, BTU, and GHG. • Pneumatic capex may be offset by operating savings and externality benefits. - Abstract: Truck-based collection of municipal solid waste imposes significant negative externalities on cities and constrains the efficiency of separate collection of recyclables and organics and of unit-price-based waste-reduction systems. In recent decades, hundreds of municipal-scale pneumatic collection systems havemore » been installed in Europe and Asia. Relatively few prior studies have compared the economic or environmental impacts of these systems to those of truck collection. A critical factor to consider when making this comparison is the extent to which the findings reflect the specific geographic, demographic, and operational characteristics of the systems considered. This paper is based on three case studies that consider the specific characteristics of three locations, comparing pneumatic systems with conventional collection on the basis of actual waste tonnages, composition, sources, collection routes, truck trips, and facility locations. In one case, alternative upgrades to an existing pneumatic system are compared to a potential truck-collection operation. In the other cases, existing truck operations are compared to proposed pneumatic systems which, to reduce capital costs, would be installed without new trenching or tunneling through the use of existing linear infrastructure. For the two proposed retrofit pneumatic systems, up to 48,000 truck kilometers travelled would be avoided and energy use would be reduced by up to 60% at an incremental cost of up to $400,000 USD per year over the total operating-plus-capital cost of conventional collection. In the location where a greenfield pneumatic system is already in operation, truck collection would be both less expensive and more energy-efficient than pneumatic collection. The results demonstrate that local geographic, demographic, and operational conditions play a decisive role in determining whether pneumatic collection will reduce energy requirements, produce more or fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and cost more or less over the long-term. These findings point to the local factors that will determine the relative economic and environmental costs and benefits in specific situations.« less

Temporal evolution of the environmental performance of implementing selective collection in municipal waste management systems in developing countries: A Brazilian case study.

PubMed

Ibáñez-Forés, Valeria; Bovea, María D; Coutinho-Nóbrega, Claudia; de Medeiros-García, Hozana R; Barreto-Lins, Raissa

2018-02-01

The aim of this study is to analyse the evolution of the municipal solid waste management system of João Pessoa (Brazil), which was one of the Brazilian pioneers cities in implementing door-to-door selective collection programmes, in order to analyse the effect of policy decisions adopted in last decade with regard to selective collection. To do it, this study focuses on analysing the evolution, from 2005 to 2015, of the environmental performance of the municipal solid waste management (MSWM) system implemented in different sorting units with selective collection programmes by applying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and using as a starting point data collected directly from the different stakeholders involved in the MSWM system. This article presents the temporal evolution of environmental indicators measuring the environmental performance of the MSWM system implemented in João Pessoa by sorting unit, for each stage of the life cycle of the waste (collection, classification, intermediate transports, recycling and landfilling), for each waste fraction and for each collection method (selective collection or mixed collection), with the aim of identifying the key aspects with the greatest environmental impact and their causes. Results show on one hand, that environmental behaviour of waste management in a door-to-door selective collection programme significantly improves the behaviour of the overall waste management system. Consequently, the potential to reduce the existing environmental impact based on citizens' increased participation in selective collection is evidenced, so the implementation of awareness-raising campaigns should be one of the main issues of the next policies on solid waste. On the other hand, increasing the amount of recyclable wastes collected selectively, implementing alternative methods for valorising the organic fraction (compost/biomethanization) and improving the efficiency of the transportation stage by means of optimizing vehicles or routes, are essential actions to reduce the overall net environmental impact generated by the MSWM system. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lifecycle assessment of a system for food waste disposers to tank - A full-scale system evaluation.

PubMed

Bernstad Saraiva, A; Davidsson, Å; Bissmont, M

2016-08-01

An increased interest for separate collection of household food waste in Sweden has led to development of a number of different collection-systems - each with their particular benefits and drawbacks. In the present study, two systems for collection of food waste in households were compared; (a) use of food waste disposers (FWD) in kitchen sinks and (b) collection of food waste in paper bags for further treatment. The comparison was made in relation to greenhouse gas emissions as well as primary energy utilization. In both cases, collected food waste was treated through anaerobic digestion and digestate was used as fertilizer on farmland. Systems emissions of greenhouse gases from collection and treatment of 1ton of food waste (dry matter), are according to the performed assessment lower from the FWD-system compared to the reference system (-990 and -770kgCO2-eq./ton food waste dry matter respectively). The main reasons are a higher substitution of mineral nitrogen fertilizer followed by a higher substitution of diesel. Performed uncertainty analyses state that results are robust, but that decreasing losses of organic matter in pre-treatment of food waste collected in paper bags, as well as increased losses of organic matter and nutrients from the FWD-system could change the hierarchy in relation to greenhouse gas emissions. Owing to a higher use of electricity in the FWD-system, the paper bag collection system was preferable in relation to primary energy utilization. Due to the many questions still remaining regarding the impacts of an increased amount of nutrients and organic matter to the sewage system through an increased use of FWD, the later treatment of effluent from the FWD-system, as well as treatment of wastewater from kitchen sinks in the reference system, was not included in the assessment. In future work, these aspects would be of relevance to monitor. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Logistical management and private sector involvement in reducing the cost of municipal solid waste collection service in the Tubas area of the West Bank.

PubMed

El-Hamouz, Amer M

2008-01-01

This paper addresses the problems of the municipal solid waste (MSW) collection system in the Tubas district of Palestine. More specifically, it addresses the often-voiced concerns pertaining to low efficiency as well as environmental problems. This was carried out through a systematic methodological approach. The paper illustrates how a private company applied a logistical management strategy, by rescheduling the MSW collection system, reallocating street solid waste containers and minimizing vehicle routing. The way in which the MSW collection timetable was rescheduled decreased the operating expenses and thus reduced MSW collection costs. All data needed to reschedule the collection timetable and optimize vehicle routing were based on actual field measurements. The new MSW collection timetable introduced by a private company was monitored for a period of a month. The new system resulted in an improvement in the MSW collection system by reducing the collection cost to a level that is socially acceptable (US dollars 3.75/family/month), as well as economically and environmentally sound.

Privacy Impact Assessment for Withdrawal Petition Management for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This system collects the names and contact information of petition submitting persons. Learn how this data will be collected in the system, how it will be used, access to the data, the purpose of data collection, and record retention policies for this data

78 FR 54267 - 30-Day Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Disaster Recovery Grant Reporting System

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-09-03

... Information Collection: Disaster Recovery Grant Reporting System AGENCY: Office of the Chief Information...-free Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339. This is not a toll- free number. Copies of available... Title of Information Collection: Disaster Recovery Grant Reporting System. OMB Approval Number: 2506...

77 FR 3287 - Proposed Information Collection of the Tax Performance System Handbook ETA 407; Extension Without...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-01-23

... Tax Performance System Handbook ETA 407; Extension Without Change AGENCY: Employment and Training..., reporting burden (time and financial resources) is minimized, collection instruments are clearly understood... Tax Performance System (TPS). A copy of the proposed information collection request can be obtained by...

75 FR 43487 - Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; Vessel Monitoring System Requirements in...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-07-26

... Monitoring System Requirements in the Western Pacific Pelagic Longline Fishery), OMB Control No. 0648-0519... requirement from OMB Control No. 0648-0584 (Permitting, Vessel Identification and Vessel Monitoring System... one collection (OMB Control No. 0648-0441). II. Method of Collection Automatic. III. Data OMB Control...

Urine sampling and collection system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fogal, G. L.; Mangialardi, J. K.; Reinhardt, C. G.

1971-01-01

This specification defines the performance and design requirements for the urine sampling and collection system engineering model and establishes requirements for its design, development, and test. The model shall provide conceptual verification of a system applicable to manned space flight which will automatically provide for collection, volume sensing, and sampling of urine.

40 CFR 60.753 - Operational standards for collection and control systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... such that all collected gases are vented to a control system designed and operated in compliance with... and control systems. 60.753 Section 60.753 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY... Performance for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills § 60.753 Operational standards for collection and control...

40 CFR 60.753 - Operational standards for collection and control systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... such that all collected gases are vented to a control system designed and operated in compliance with... and control systems. 60.753 Section 60.753 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY... Performance for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills § 60.753 Operational standards for collection and control...

40 CFR 60.753 - Operational standards for collection and control systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... such that all collected gases are vented to a control system designed and operated in compliance with... and control systems. 60.753 Section 60.753 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY... Performance for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills § 60.753 Operational standards for collection and control...

34 CFR 303.124 - Data collection.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... 34 Education 2 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Data collection. 303.124 Section 303.124 Education... Statewide System § 303.124 Data collection. (a) Each statewide system must include a system for compiling and reporting timely and accurate data that meets the requirements in paragraph (b) of this section...

34 CFR 303.124 - Data collection.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... 34 Education 2 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Data collection. 303.124 Section 303.124 Education... Statewide System § 303.124 Data collection. (a) Each statewide system must include a system for compiling and reporting timely and accurate data that meets the requirements in paragraph (b) of this section...

34 CFR 303.124 - Data collection.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... 34 Education 2 2014-07-01 2013-07-01 true Data collection. 303.124 Section 303.124 Education... Statewide System § 303.124 Data collection. (a) Each statewide system must include a system for compiling and reporting timely and accurate data that meets the requirements in paragraph (b) of this section...

78 FR 35936 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-06-14

... Reporting System (PQRS) and Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program Under the Paperwork Reduction Act... Collection: Evaluation of the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program; Use: The Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) was first implemented in 2007 as an...

78 FR 48430 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget for...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-08-08

... Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) 2013- 2016 AGENCY: Department of Education (ED), Institute of... Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is a web-based data collection system designed to... DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION [Docket No.: ED-2013-ICCD-0029] Agency Information Collection Activities...

Approximation of clogging in a leachate collection system in municipal solid waste landfill in Osecna (Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic).

PubMed

Stibinger, Jakub

2017-05-01

The research was focused on approximation of clogging in a leachate collection system in municipal solid waste landfill in Osecna, situated near the location Osecna, region Liberec, Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic, by analysis of numerical experiment results. To approximate the clogging of the leachate collection system after fifteen years of landfill operation (1995-2009) were successfully tested modified De Zeeuw-Hellinga transient drainage theory. This procedure allows application of the reduction factors to express clogging of the leachate collection system in Osecna landfill. The results proved that the modified De Zeeuw-Hellinga method with reduction factors can serve as a good tool for clogging approximation in a leachate collection system in Osecna landfill. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Optimization of municipal solid waste collection and transportation routes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Das, Swapan, E-mail: swapan2009sajal@gmail.com; Bhattacharyya, Bidyut Kr., E-mail: bidyut53@yahoo.co.in

2015-09-15

Graphical abstract: Display Omitted - Highlights: • Profitable integrated solid waste management system. • Optimal municipal waste collection scheme between the sources and waste collection centres. • Optimal path calculation between waste collection centres and transfer stations. • Optimal waste routing between the transfer stations and processing plants. - Abstract: Optimization of municipal solid waste (MSW) collection and transportation through source separation becomes one of the major concerns in the MSW management system design, due to the fact that the existing MSW management systems suffer by the high collection and transportation cost. Generally, in a city different waste sources scattermore » throughout the city in heterogeneous way that increase waste collection and transportation cost in the waste management system. Therefore, a shortest waste collection and transportation strategy can effectively reduce waste collection and transportation cost. In this paper, we propose an optimal MSW collection and transportation scheme that focus on the problem of minimizing the length of each waste collection and transportation route. We first formulize the MSW collection and transportation problem into a mixed integer program. Moreover, we propose a heuristic solution for the waste collection and transportation problem that can provide an optimal way for waste collection and transportation. Extensive simulations and real testbed results show that the proposed solution can significantly improve the MSW performance. Results show that the proposed scheme is able to reduce more than 30% of the total waste collection path length.« less

Statistical analysis in MSW collection performance assessment.

PubMed

Teixeira, Carlos Afonso; Avelino, Catarina; Ferreira, Fátima; Bentes, Isabel

2014-09-01

The increase of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generated over the last years forces waste managers pursuing more effective collection schemes, technically viable, environmentally effective and economically sustainable. The assessment of MSW services using performance indicators plays a crucial role for improving service quality. In this work, we focus on the relevance of regular system monitoring as a service assessment tool. In particular, we select and test a core-set of MSW collection performance indicators (effective collection distance, effective collection time and effective fuel consumption) that highlights collection system strengths and weaknesses and supports pro-active management decision-making and strategic planning. A statistical analysis was conducted with data collected in mixed collection system of Oporto Municipality, Portugal, during one year, a week per month. This analysis provides collection circuits' operational assessment and supports effective short-term municipality collection strategies at the level of, e.g., collection frequency and timetables, and type of containers. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

75 FR 38096 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board Approval Under Delegated...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-07-01

... FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM Agency Information Collection Activities: Announcement of Board Approval... approval of a proposed information collection by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System... Burdens on the Public). Board-approved collections of information are incorporated into the official OMB...

Separate collection of household food waste for anaerobic degradation - Comparison of different techniques from a systems perspective

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bernstad, A., E-mail: Anna.bernstad@chemeng.lth.se; Cour Jansen, J. la

Highlight: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Four modern and innovative systems for household food waste collection are compared. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Direct emissions and resource use were based on full-scale data. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Conservation of nutrients/energy content over the system was considered. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Systems with high energy/nutrient recovery are most environmentally beneficial. - Abstract: Four systems for household food waste collection are compared in relation the environmental impact categories eutrophication potential, acidification potential, global warming potential as well as energy use. Also, a hotspot analysis is performed in order to suggest improvements in each of the compared collection systems. Separate collection of household food waste in papermore » bags (with and without drying prior to collection) with use of kitchen grinders and with use of vacuum system in kitchen sinks were compared. In all cases, food waste was used for anaerobic digestion with energy and nutrient recovery in all cases. Compared systems all resulted in net avoidance of assessed environmental impact categories; eutrophication potential (-0.1 to -2.4 kg NO{sub 3}{sup -}eq/ton food waste), acidification potential (-0.4 to -1.0 kg SO{sub 2}{sup -}eq/ton food waste), global warming potential (-790 to -960 kg CO{sub 2}{sup -}eq/ton food waste) and primary energy use (-1.7 to -3.6 GJ/ton food waste). Collection with vacuum system results in the largest net avoidance of primary energy use, while disposal of food waste in paper bags for decentralized drying before collection result in a larger net avoidance of global warming, eutrophication and acidification. However, both these systems not have been taken into use in large scale systems yet and further investigations are needed in order to confirm the outcomes from the comparison. Ranking of scenarios differ largely if considering only emissions in the foreground system, indicating the importance of taking also downstream emissions into consideration when comparing different collection systems. The hot spot identification shows that losses of organic matter in mechanical pretreatment as well as tank connected food waste disposal systems and energy in drying and vacuum systems reply to the largest impact on the results in each system respectively.« less

Collection Mode Lens System

DOEpatents

Fletcher, Daniel A.; Kino, Gordon S.

2002-11-05

A lens system including a collection lens and a microlens spaced from the collection lens adjacent the region to be observed. The diameter of the observablel region depends substantially on the radius of the microlens.

75 FR 24505 - Modernization of OSHA's Injury and Illness Data Collection Process

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-05-05

... data collected by an improved and modernized OSHA recordkeeping system and made public under the Open.... OSHA-2010-0024] Modernization of OSHA's Injury and Illness Data Collection Process AGENCY: Occupational... modernization of OSHA's injury and illness data collection system. OSHA encourages stakeholders who cannot...

STS payload data collection and accommodations analysis study. Volume 2: Payload data collection

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1978-01-01

A format developed for Space Transportation System payload data collection and a process for collecting the data are described along with payload volumes and a data deck to be used as input for the Marshall Interactive Planning System. Summary matrices of the data generated are included.

76 FR 28414 - Notice of Request for Approval of an Information Collection; National Animal Health Monitoring...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-17

...] Notice of Request for Approval of an Information Collection; National Animal Health Monitoring System... information collection; comment request. SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this... Epidemiologic Investigations, an information collection to support the National Animal Health Monitoring System...

76 FR 50499 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comments Requested; Office for...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-08-15

... Information Management System (TIMS) ACTION: 60-Day Notice of Information Collection Under Review. The... information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in...: Trafficking Information Management System (TIMS) Online. (3) The Agency form number, if any, and the...

75 FR 59686 - Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; NOAA Space-Based Data Collection System (DCS...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-09-28

... Collection; Comment Request; NOAA Space- Based Data Collection System (DCS) Agreements AGENCY: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, as... to Kay Metcalf, 301-817-4558 or [email protected]noaa.gov . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Abstract This...

Electronic Data Collection Options for Practice-Based Research Networks

PubMed Central

Pace, Wilson D.; Staton, Elizabeth W.

2005-01-01

PURPOSE We wanted to describe the potential benefits and problems associated with selected electronic methods of collecting data within practice-based research networks (PBRNs). METHODS We considered a literature review, discussions with PBRN researchers, industry information, and personal experience. This article presents examples of selected PBRNs’ use of electronic data collection. RESULTS Collecting research data in the geographically dispersed PBRN environment requires considerable coordination to ensure completeness, accuracy, and timely transmission of the data, as well as a limited burden on the participants. Electronic data collection, particularly at the point of care, offers some potential solutions. Electronic systems allow use of transparent decision algorithms and improved data entry and data integrity. These systems may improve data transfer to the central office as well as tracking systems for monitoring study progress. PBRNs have available to them a wide variety of electronic data collection options, including notebook computers, tablet PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and browser-based systems that operate independent of or over the Internet. Tablet PCs appear particularly advantageous for direct patient data collection in an office environment. PDAs work well for collecting defined data elements at the point of care. Internet-based systems work well for data collection that can be completed after the patient visit, as most primary care offices do not support Internet connectivity in examination rooms. CONCLUSIONS When planning to collect data electronically, it is important to match the electronic data collection method to the study design. Focusing an inappropriate electronic data collection method onto users can interfere with accurate data gathering and may also anger PBRN members. PMID:15928215

Electronic data collection options for practice-based research networks.

PubMed

Pace, Wilson D; Staton, Elizabeth W

2005-01-01

We wanted to describe the potential benefits and problems associated with selected electronic methods of collecting data within practice-based research networks (PBRNs). We considered a literature review, discussions with PBRN researchers, industry information, and personal experience. This article presents examples of selected PBRNs' use of electronic data collection. Collecting research data in the geographically dispersed PBRN environment requires considerable coordination to ensure completeness, accuracy, and timely transmission of the data, as well as a limited burden on the participants. Electronic data collection, particularly at the point of care, offers some potential solutions. Electronic systems allow use of transparent decision algorithms and improved data entry and data integrity. These systems may improve data transfer to the central office as well as tracking systems for monitoring study progress. PBRNs have available to them a wide variety of electronic data collection options, including notebook computers, tablet PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and browser-based systems that operate independent of or over the Internet. Tablet PCs appear particularly advantageous for direct patient data collection in an office environment. PDAs work well for collecting defined data elements at the point of care. Internet-based systems work well for data collection that can be completed after the patient visit, as most primary care offices do not support Internet connectivity in examination rooms. When planning to collect data electronically, it is important to match the electronic data collection method to the study design. Focusing an inappropriate electronic data collection method onto users can interfere with accurate data gathering and may also anger PBRN members.

Apraxia.

PubMed

Goldenberg, Georg

2013-09-01

The term apraxia refers to 'higher level' disorders of motor control. Apraxia differs from other motor symptoms of unilateral brain damage by the bilaterality of symptoms following unilateral lesions. Lesions causing apraxia are located predominantly in the left hemisphere and apraxia is frequently, although not invariably, associated with aphasia. Examination for apraxia traditionally assesses imitation of gestures, performance of communicative gestures on command, and use of tools and objects. It has, however, been amply demonstrated that these three domains can be affected more or less independently from each other. This review discusses current topics of research and controversy from each of these domains concentrating on questions that are relevant for determining the border between motor and cognitive mechanisms underlying apraxic errors. For imitation, the proposal of a direct link from perception to motor execution is confronted with the hypothesis that body part coding is interpolated between perception and motor replication of gestures. Discussion of communicative gestures concentrates on pantomime of tool use and argues that pantomime is not equivalent to reproduction of the motor programs of actual tool use but that pantomimes are created by selection and combination of distinctive features of the object and its use. For tool use the boundary between visuo-motor coordination and knowledge about tool use is addressed by discussion of the selection of grips for use or for transport of tools. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:453-462. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1241 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Phantom limbs: pain, embodiment, and scientific advances in integrative therapies.

PubMed

Lenggenhager, Bigna; Arnold, Carolyn A; Giummarra, Melita J

2014-03-01

Research over the past two decades has begun to identify some of the key mechanisms underlying phantom limb pain and sensations; however, this continues to be a clinically challenging condition to manage. Treatment of phantom pain, like all chronic pain conditions, demands a holistic approach that takes into consideration peripheral, spinal, and central neuroplastic mechanisms. In this review, we focus on nonpharmacological treatments tailored to reverse the maladaptive neuroplasticity associated with phantom pain. Recent scientific advances emerging from interdisciplinary research between neuroscience, virtual reality, robotics, and prosthetics show the greatest promise for alternative embodiment and maintaining the integrity of the multifaceted representation of the body in the brain. Importantly, these advances have been found to prevent and reduce phantom limb pain. In particular, therapies that involve sensory and/or motor retraining, most naturally through the use of integrative prosthetic devices, as well as peripheral (e.g., transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) or central (e.g., transcranial magnetic stimulation or deep brain stimulation) stimulation techniques, have been found to both restore the neural representation of the missing limb and to reduce the intensity of phantom pain. While the evidence for the efficacy of these therapies is mounting, but well-controlled and large-scale studies are still needed. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:221-231. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1277 CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have no financial or other relationship that might lead to a conflict of interest. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Factors that contribute to the body image concern of female college students.

PubMed

Silva, Wanderson Roberto; Dias, Juliana Chioda Ribeiro; Maroco, João; Campos, Juliana Alvares Duarte Bonini

2015-01-01

To estimate the contribution of sociodemographic and labor variables and body mass index to body image concern. In order to estimate body image concern, the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) and the Weight Concerns Scale (WCS) were applied. A confirmatory factor analysis of scales was carried out. The reason χ2 by degree of freedom ratio (χ2/df ), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) were used. Convergent validity was assessed through the average variance extracted and composed reliability and the internal consistency through standardized Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α). A structural model was developed, and the body image concern was the second-order main construct. The model appropriation was evaluated based on the goodness-of-fit indices. The z test was used to estimate the significance of trajectories (β) using a 5% significance level. Totally, 595 female college students participated in the study, with a mean age of 20.42 ± 2.44 years. The entire model, with the inclusion of all independent variables, showed unsatisfactory adjustment and was refined. The final model presented a satisfactory adjustment (χ2/df = 5.75; CFI = 0.87; NFI = 0.85; RMSEA = 0.09) with inclusion of medication use because of studies (β = 0.08; p = 0.04), academic performance (β = 0.09; p = 0.02), economic class (β = 0.08; p = 0.03), and body mass index (β = 0.44; p < 0.001). This model explained 22% of body image concern. Medication use due to studies, academic performance, economic class and body mass index significantly contribute to body image concern.

Factors influencing weight changes in callitrichids at the Bronx Zoo.

PubMed

Kaplan, Elena; Shelmidine, Nichole

2010-01-01

Callitrichids are small monkeys with high metabolic rates who appear to be susceptible to spontaneous diseases and possibly to environmental changes creating challenges in maintaining them in captivity. This study investigates whether life events (i.e. medical, social and housing changes) can influence weight. In previous research, body mass has been shown to be correlated with periods of illness, group composition changes and stress. Weights of 56 individual callitrichid monkeys (20 marmosets, 26 tamarins and 11 lion tamarins) at the WCS's Bronx Zoo were examined over approximately 2½ years. Weight fluctuations were scored based on 5%, 10% and 1 standard deviation criteria during periods of medical (illness and injury), social (introductions and separations), housing (movement within or between buildings) events and during periods when no-events occurred. Additionally, weights were examined for 3 months before and after periods of illness to look for trends in weight changes for 47 medical events (14 marmosets, 21 tamarins and 12 lion tamarins). Moreover, in five alloparenting males (four tamarins and one lion tamarin), weights were examined to determine if weight loss occurred after births as observed in earlier studies. The results show that a 5% and 1SD criterion may be too sensitive a criterion. We therefore deemed that a 10% weight loss may be the best criterion. For marmosets, a 10% weight loss occurred in association with all events. For tamarins, weight loss occurred with housing events. In lion tamarins, weight loss was observed with medical events. No significant weight loss was observed in alloparenting males. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

75 FR 39696 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-07-12

...; Title of Information Collection: QualityNet Identity Management System (QIMS) Account Form; Use: The QualityNet Identity Management System (QIMS) account registration form must be completed by any new...

77 FR 16076 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-03-19

... collections: Title: Accounting System and Financial Capability Questionnaire. OMB number: 3095-00XX. Agency... accounting controls and systems in managing and administering Federal funds. Some of the recipients of grants...

Tank-connected food waste disposer systems--current status and potential improvements.

PubMed

Bernstad, A; Davidsson, A; Tsai, J; Persson, E; Bissmont, M; la Cour Jansen, J

2013-01-01

An unconventional system for separate collection of food waste was investigated through evaluation of three full-scale systems in the city of Malmö, Sweden. Ground food waste is led to a separate settling tank where food waste sludge is collected regularly with a tank-vehicle. These tank-connected systems can be seen as a promising method for separate collection of food waste from both households and restaurants. Ground food waste collected from these systems is rich in fat and has a high methane potential when compared to food waste collected in conventional bag systems. The content of heavy metals is low. The concentrations of N-tot and P-tot in sludge collected from sedimentation tanks were on average 46.2 and 3.9 g/kg TS, equalling an estimated 0.48 and 0.05 kg N-tot and P-tot respectively per year and household connected to the food waste disposer system. Detergents in low concentrations can result in increased degradation rates and biogas production, while higher concentrations can result in temporary inhibition of methane production. Concentrations of COD and fat in effluent from full-scale tanks reached an average of 1068 mg/l and 149 mg/l respectively over the five month long evaluation period. Hydrolysis of the ground material is initiated between sludge collection occasions (30 days). Older food waste sludge increases the degradation rate and the risks of fugitive emissions of methane from tanks between collection occasions. Increased particle size decreases hydrolysis rate and could thus decrease losses of carbon and nutrients in the sewerage system, but further studies in full-scale systems are needed to confirm this. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Design of Information Collecting System Towards The Song Dynasty Wooden Hall of Baoguo Temple, Ningbo

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, S.; Tang, Z.; Yang, S.

2015-09-01

Baoguo Temple is located half way up Lingshan Mountain in Northern Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. The main hall of Baoguo Temple is Song dynasty wooden structure. As the oldest wooden architecture in Jiangnan, China, it is a national major protective historical relic. In 2005, Baoguo Temple Ancient Architecture Museum was set up and opens to the outside world. From 2007, to be able to protect it more effectively and foreseeably, Baoguo Temple Ancient Architecture Museum began to build information collecting systems towards historical architectures using modern information technology. After comparing correlated studies both at home and abroad, we found that: heritage protection abroad started earlier than us, and it has already established thorough protection system, relevant protection mechanism, and also issued relevant protection laws and regulations. The technology which was utilized in protection abroad was not only limited in RS, GIS, GPS, VR, but also included many emerging technology such as using a computational fluid dynamics model to simulate the condition of temperature and humidity. The main body of this paper are going to talk about four parts: the first one is existing information system. In this part, we'll introduce the information collecting system, which was preliminarily built in 2007 in Baoguo Temple Ancient Architecture Museum. Using the modern digital computer information technology, researchers can gradually check and acquire the information of the material of relics, the condition of the structure stress and the natural environmental information, which may probably affect the cultural architecture. And this part may be divided into information collection, information management and exhibition. The second part is update scheme design of original information collecting equipment and technology. Original information collecting system of microenvironment is relatively independent and data haven't been included in the management of the system. The original sensors transmit signal by wire and it would be interfered each other when they work together, and then it may cause congestion sometimes. Otherwise, the original system has been working continuously for seven years and it can't adapt to the new computer hardware and operating system. Then, this part may be divided into data integration of information collection, equipment upgrading and adding of information collecting point, upgrade of information management and exhibition system. The third part is scheme design of newly added information collecting projects. After understanding the exposed disadvantages before, the added projects may include real-time information collection of groundwater level and quantity, surface water quantity and velocity, mountain landslide, vibration of the main hall, material of wood construction of the main hall, structure of the main hall, the condition of key components of the main hall, air pollution such as the concentration of SO2, PM2.5, O2, CO2 and information collection of insect pest such as termite. After collecting information by many ways, the fourth part is to talk about comprehensive application of collecting information. This part may include comprehensive analysis of collecting information, management application of collecting information, publishing of collecting information and exhibition of information collecting system. Therefore, through this research, we want to develop information collecting work more perfectly and entirely and protect historical heritages more scientifically and effectively.

40 CFR 270.21 - Specific part B information requirements for landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... surface water at any future time; (ii) The double liner and leak (leachate) detection, collection, and... system, leachate collection and removal system, leak detection system, cover system, and appurtenances...

40 CFR 270.21 - Specific part B information requirements for landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... surface water at any future time; (ii) The double liner and leak (leachate) detection, collection, and... system, leachate collection and removal system, leak detection system, cover system, and appurtenances...

40 CFR 270.21 - Specific part B information requirements for landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... surface water at any future time; (ii) The double liner and leak (leachate) detection, collection, and... system, leachate collection and removal system, leak detection system, cover system, and appurtenances...

40 CFR 270.21 - Specific part B information requirements for landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... surface water at any future time; (ii) The double liner and leak (leachate) detection, collection, and... system, leachate collection and removal system, leak detection system, cover system, and appurtenances...

15 CFR 911.7 - Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Continuation of the NOAA Data... REGULATIONS POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.7 Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) NOAA expects to continue to operate DCS on its...

15 CFR 911.7 - Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Continuation of the NOAA Data... REGULATIONS POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.7 Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) NOAA expects to continue to operate DCS on its...

15 CFR 911.7 - Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Continuation of the NOAA Data... REGULATIONS POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.7 Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) NOAA expects to continue to operate DCS on its...

15 CFR 911.7 - Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Continuation of the NOAA Data... REGULATIONS POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.7 Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) NOAA expects to continue to operate DCS on its...

10 CFR 1008.22 - Use and collection of social security numbers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Use and collection of social security numbers. 1008.22... (PRIVACY ACT) Maintenance and Establishment of Systems of Records § 1008.22 Use and collection of social security numbers. (a) The System Manager of each system of records which utilizes social security numbers...

40 CFR 265.301 - Design and operating requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... landfill unit must install two or more liners and a leachate collection and removal system above and between such liners, and operate the leachate collection and removal system, in accordance with § 264.301... case of any unit in which the liner and leachate collection system has been installed pursuant to the...

40 CFR 265.301 - Design and operating requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... landfill unit must install two or more liners and a leachate collection and removal system above and between such liners, and operate the leachate collection and removal system, in accordance with § 264.301... case of any unit in which the liner and leachate collection system has been installed pursuant to the...

40 CFR 265.301 - Design and operating requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... landfill unit must install two or more liners and a leachate collection and removal system above and between such liners, and operate the leachate collection and removal system, in accordance with § 264.301... case of any unit in which the liner and leachate collection system has been installed pursuant to the...

40 CFR 265.301 - Design and operating requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... landfill unit must install two or more liners and a leachate collection and removal system above and between such liners, and operate the leachate collection and removal system, in accordance with § 264.301... case of any unit in which the liner and leachate collection system has been installed pursuant to the...

40 CFR 265.301 - Design and operating requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... landfill unit must install two or more liners and a leachate collection and removal system above and between such liners, and operate the leachate collection and removal system, in accordance with § 264.301... case of any unit in which the liner and leachate collection system has been installed pursuant to the...

40 CFR 60.752 - Standards for air emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... collection and control system design plan prepared by a professional engineer to the Administrator within 1 year: (A) The collection and control system as described in the plan shall meet the design requirements of paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of this section. (B) The collection and control system design plan shall...

40 CFR 60.752 - Standards for air emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... collection and control system design plan prepared by a professional engineer to the Administrator within 1 year: (A) The collection and control system as described in the plan shall meet the design requirements of paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of this section. (B) The collection and control system design plan shall...

40 CFR 60.752 - Standards for air emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... collection and control system design plan prepared by a professional engineer to the Administrator within 1 year: (A) The collection and control system as described in the plan shall meet the design requirements of paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of this section. (B) The collection and control system design plan shall...

40 CFR 60.752 - Standards for air emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... collection and control system design plan prepared by a professional engineer to the Administrator within 1 year: (A) The collection and control system as described in the plan shall meet the design requirements of paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of this section. (B) The collection and control system design plan shall...

40 CFR 60.752 - Standards for air emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... collection and control system design plan prepared by a professional engineer to the Administrator within 1 year: (A) The collection and control system as described in the plan shall meet the design requirements of paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of this section. (B) The collection and control system design plan shall...

10 CFR 1008.22 - Use and collection of social security numbers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Use and collection of social security numbers. 1008.22... (PRIVACY ACT) Maintenance and Establishment of Systems of Records § 1008.22 Use and collection of social security numbers. (a) The System Manager of each system of records which utilizes social security numbers...

10 CFR 1008.22 - Use and collection of social security numbers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Use and collection of social security numbers. 1008.22... (PRIVACY ACT) Maintenance and Establishment of Systems of Records § 1008.22 Use and collection of social security numbers. (a) The System Manager of each system of records which utilizes social security numbers...

10 CFR 1008.22 - Use and collection of social security numbers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Use and collection of social security numbers. 1008.22... (PRIVACY ACT) Maintenance and Establishment of Systems of Records § 1008.22 Use and collection of social security numbers. (a) The System Manager of each system of records which utilizes social security numbers...

10 CFR 1008.22 - Use and collection of social security numbers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Use and collection of social security numbers. 1008.22... (PRIVACY ACT) Maintenance and Establishment of Systems of Records § 1008.22 Use and collection of social security numbers. (a) The System Manager of each system of records which utilizes social security numbers...

15 CFR 911.7 - Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 15 Commerce and Foreign Trade 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Continuation of the NOAA Data... REGULATIONS POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING USE OF THE NOAA SPACE-BASED DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS § 911.7 Continuation of the NOAA Data Collection Systems. (a) NOAA expects to continue to operate DCS on its...

Revamping AK-Ashland gas cleaning system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brandes, H.; Koerbel, R.; Haberkamp, K.

1995-07-01

AK Steel`s (formerly Armco) BOF shop was using a static precipitator for the primary collection. The system was designed for full combustion in the gas collecting hoods. No secondary dust collection was in place. A detailed study on alternative solutions led to a completely different system in 1990, and an order was awarded to Mannesmann Demag Corp. (MDC) in Dec. 1990. The new gas collection system is using suppressed combustion with the capability to collect Co at a later stage. The gas cleaning uses the Mannesmann Demag Baumco scrubber with a venturi throat for gas flow control. All auxiliary components,more » water treatment plant, electric substations and sludge handling were designed and supplied by MDC. The secondary dust collection covers the hot metal and scrap charging into the BOF`s, reladling, desulfurization and deslagging by a pulse jet baghouse. All emission limits set by the EPA and guaranteed by MDC have been met by the systems installed.« less

Extending the Collection Duration of Breath Samples for Enteric Methane Emission Estimation Using the SF6 Tracer Technique

PubMed Central

Pinares-Patiño, César; Gere, José; Williams, Karen; Gratton, Roberto; Juliarena, Paula; Molano, German; MacLean, Sarah; Sandoval, Edgar; Taylor, Grant; Koolaard, John

2012-01-01

Simple Summary Extended sample collection for the SF6 tracer technique is desirable for extensive grazing systems. Breath samples from eight cows were collected while lucerne silage was fed to achieve fixed intakes among the cows. Samples were collected over a 10-day period, using either apparatuses used in New Zealand (NZL) or Argentina (ARG), and either daily, over two consecutive 5-day periods or over a 10-day period (in duplicate). The NZL system had a greater sampling success and more consistent CH4 emission estimates than the ARG system, with no differences in mean emissions among sample collection periods. This study showed that extended sample collection is feasible, but definitive evaluation under grazing situation is required before a decision on recommendation can be made. Abstract The daily sample collection protocol of the sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) tracer technique for the estimation of methane (CH4) emissions from ruminants may not be practical under extensive grazing systems. Here, under controlled conditions, we evaluated extended periods of sampling as an alternative to daily sample collections. Eight rumen-fistulated cows were housed and fed lucerne silage to achieve common daily feed intakes of 6.4 kg dry matter per cow. Following SF6 permeation tube dosing, eight sampling lines were fitted to the breath collection harness, so that a common gas mix was available to each line. Half of the lines collected samples into PVC yokes using a modified capillary system as commonly used in New Zealand (NZL), and half collected samples into stainless steel cylinders using a ball-bearing flow restrictor as used in Argentina (ARG), all within a 10-day time frame, either daily, across two consecutive 5-day periods or across one 10-day period (in duplicate). The NZL system had greater sampling success (97.3 vs. 79.5%) and yielded more consistent CH4 emission estimates than the ARG system. Emission estimates from NZL daily, NZL 5-day and NZL 10-day samplings were 114, 110 and 111 g d−1, respectively. Extended sample collection protocol may be feasible, but definitive evaluation of this alternative as well as sample collection systems is required under grazing situations before a decision on recommendation can be made. PMID:26486921

76 FR 21429 - Proposed Information Collection (Disability Benefits Questionnaires-Group 3) Activity: Comment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-04-15

... collection techniques or the use of other forms of information technology. Titles a. Central Nervous System... on the collection of information through Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) at http://www...

75 FR 57035 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-09-17

... collection; Title of Information Collection: QualityNet Identity Management System (QIMS) Account Form; Use: The QualityNet Identity Management System (QIMS) account registration form must be completed by any...

76 FR 64383 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comments Requested: Survey of the...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-10-18

... agencies with Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS). The proposed collection is the only... on the types and functionalities of fielded AFIS systems in State and Local agencies; the current...

77 FR 70185 - Notice of Proposed Information Collection for 1029-0119

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-11-23

... System (AVS) handbook. OSM is requesting a 3-year term of approval for this collection. This collection... automated Applicant/Violator System (AVS) and the contractor must be eligible under the regulations...

Bluetooth data collection system for planning and arterial management.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2014-08-01

This report presents the results of a research and development project of an implementable portable wireless traffic data collection system. Utilizing Bluetooth wireless technology as a platform, portable battery powered data collection units housed ...

A definition study of an Advanced Data Collection and Location System (ADCLS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1986-01-01

The technical and economic advantages of developing an Advanced Data Collection and Location System (ADCLS) to operate within the Earth Observation System (EOS) planned for Polar Platform, as a replacement and/or augmentation of the existing ARGOS data collection system were assessed. The cost/effectiveness of ADCLS with respect to ARGOS hinges on the traffic and quality of service demand of the future user constituency.