Sample records for selected information sources

  1. 48 CFR 603.104-4 - Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ..., and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. 603.104-4... contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. (a) The following classes of persons may be authorized to receive contractor bid or proposal information or source selection information by...

  2. 48 CFR 1303.104-4 - Disclosure, protection and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. 1303.104-4 Section... PRACTICES AND PERSONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Safeguards 1303.104-4 Disclosure, protection and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. Contractor bid or proposal...

  3. 48 CFR 3.104-4 - Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ..., and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. 3.104-4... BUSINESS PRACTICES AND PERSONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Safeguards 3.104-4 Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. (a) Except as...

  4. 48 CFR 2903.104-5 - Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ..., and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. 2903.104-5... PRACTICES AND PERSONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Safeguards 2903.104-5 Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. (a) Government employees serving in...

  5. Factors Related to the Selection of Information Sources: A Study of Ramkhamhaeng University Regional Campuses Graduate Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Angchun, Peemasak

    2011-01-01

    This study assessed students' satisfaction with Ramkhamhaeng University regional library services (RURLs) and the perceived quality of information retrieved from other information sources. In particular, this study investigated factors relating to regional students' selection of information sources to meet their information needs. The researcher…

  6. Relay selection in energy harvesting cooperative networks with rateless codes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zhu, Kaiyan; Wang, Fei

    2018-04-01

    This paper investigates the relay selection in energy harvesting cooperative networks, where the relays harvests energy from the radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted by a source, and the optimal relay is selected and uses the harvested energy to assist the information transmission from the source to its destination. Both source and the selected relay transmit information using rateless code, which allows the destination recover original information after collecting codes bits marginally surpass the entropy of original information. In order to improve transmission performance and efficiently utilize the harvested power, the optimal relay is selected. The optimization problem are formulated to maximize the achievable information rates of the system. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed relay selection scheme outperform other strategies.

  7. Parents' preferred child health information sources: implications for nursing practice.

    PubMed

    Keatinge, Diane

    2006-01-01

    To ascertain parents' preferences in sources of health information concerning their children's general health care needs, and caring for their children when they are sick. Exploratory/descriptive design. A telephone survey secured data for the study and qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics were used for analysis. Part 2 of a larger study in which Part I evaluated parents' satisfaction with a paediatric telephone triage service. One hundred of the 101 parents who were recruited for Part 1 of the study participated in Part 2, an examination of parents' preferences in information sources relating to their child's health. Parents' preferences in child health information sources varied according to the perceived severity of their child's illness. Parents frequently selected more than one item on a list of health information sources provided. In a non-urgent situation when children were sick a total of 170 selections were made by parents, with 'telephone advice line' the source most frequently selected (58, 34%), followed by general practitioner (27, 15.8%). In an emergency situation the most frequently selected information source was again 'telephone advice line' (74, n=129, 57.4%), followed by 'other' (31, n=129, 24.3%) often identified as relating to dialing '000' (Australia's emergency services number). Finally, when parents required information about the general health care needs of their child, 'other' (most frequently identified as books) was selected on 40 (n=185, 21.6%) occasions, followed by child health clinic (35, n= 185, 18.9%). Parents prefer to receive information about the health care needs of their child from another person rather than a printed or audio-visual source.

  8. Selective, but Only if It Is Free: Children Trust Inaccurate Individuals More When Alternative Sources Are Costly

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brosseau-Liard, Patricia E.

    2014-01-01

    The present research examines the effect of the costliness of an information source on children's selective learning. In three experiments (total N?=?112), 4-to 7-year-olds were given the opportunity to acquire and endorse information from one of two sources. One source, a computer, was described as always accurate; the other source, a…

  9. 48 CFR 703.104-5 - Disclosure, protection, and marking of proprietary and source information.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Safeguards 703.104-5 Disclosure, protection, and marking of proprietary and source information. A Contracting Office may authorize release of proprietary and/or source selection information..., and marking of proprietary and source information. 703.104-5 Section 703.104-5 Federal Acquisition...

  10. A Social Judgment Analysis of Information Source Preference Profiles: An Exploratory Study to Empirically Represent Media Selection Patterns.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stefl-Mabry, Joette

    2003-01-01

    Describes a study that empirically identified individual preferences profiles to understand information-seeking behavior among professional groups for six selected information sources. Highlights include Social Judgment Analysis; the development of the survey used, a copy of which is appended; hypotheses tested; results of multiple regression…

  11. Undergraduate Students' Justifications for Source Selection in a Digital Academic Context

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    List, Alexandra; Grossnickle, Emily M.; Alexander, Patricia A.

    2016-01-01

    To complete any academic tasks using information from the Internet, undergraduate students first have to select the appropriate sources. However, the types of justifications that undergraduates provide for source selection and how these justifications may be impacted by task characteristics have been underexamined. This study explored…

  12. Selecting and Using Information Sources: Source Preferences and Information Pathways of Israeli Library and Information Science Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bronstein, Jenny

    2010-01-01

    Introduction: The study investigated the source preference criteria of library and information science students for their academic and personal information needs. Method: The empirical study was based on two methods of data collection. Eighteen participants wrote a personal diary for four months in which they recorded search episodes and answered…

  13. Source memory in the rat

    PubMed Central

    Crystal, Jonathon D.; Alford, Wesley T.; Zhou, Wenyi; Hohmann, Andrea G.

    2013-01-01

    Summary Source memory is a representation of the origin (source) of information. When source information is bound together, it makes a memory episodic, allowing us to differentiate one event from another [1, 2]. Here we asked if rats remember the source of encoded information. Rats foraged for distinctive flavors of food that replenished (or failed to replenish) at its recently encountered location according to a source-information rule. To predict replenishment, rats needed to remember where they had encountered a preferred food type (chocolate) with self-generated (walking along a runway encountering chocolate) or experimenter-generated (placement of the rat at the chocolate site by an experimenter) cues. Three lines of evidence implicate the presence of source memory. First, rats selectively adjusted revisits to the chocolate location based on source information, under conditions in which familiarity of events could not produce successful performance. Second, source memory was dissociated from location memory by different decay rates. Third, temporary inactivation of the CA3 region of the hippocampus with lidocaine selectively eliminated source memory, suggesting that source memory is dependent upon an intact hippocampus. Development of an animal model of source memory may be valuable to probe the biological underpinnings of memory disorders marked by impairments in source memory. PMID:23394830

  14. 48 CFR 203.104-4 - Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ..., and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. 203.104-4..., DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE GENERAL IMPROPER BUSINESS PRACTICES AND PERSONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Safeguards 203.104-4 Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source...

  15. Pangenesis as a source of new genetic information. The history of a now disproven theory.

    PubMed

    Bergman, Gerald

    2006-01-01

    Evolution is based on natural selection of existing biological phenotypic traits. Natural selection can only eliminate traits. It cannot create new ones, requiring a theory to explain the origin of new genetic information. The theory of pangenesis was a major attempt to explain the source of new genetic information required to produce phenotypic variety. This theory, advocated by Darwin as the main source of genetic variety, has now been empirically disproved. It is currently a theory mainly of interest to science historians.

  16. A framework for characterizing drug information sources.

    PubMed

    Sharp, Mark; Bodenreider, Olivier; Wacholder, Nina

    2008-11-06

    Drug information is complex, voluminous, heterogeneous, and dynamic. Multiple sources are available, each providing some elements of information about drugs (usually for a given purpose), but there exists no integrated view or directory that could be used to locate sources appropriate to a given purpose. We examined 23 sources that provide drug information in the pharmacy, chemistry, biology, and clinical medicine domains. Their drug information content could be categorized with 39 dimensions. We propose this list of dimensions as a framework for characterizing drug information sources. As an evaluation, we show that this framework is useful for comparing drug information sources and selecting sources most relevant to a given use case.

  17. [Implementation of quality of care indicators for third-level public hospitals in Mexico].

    PubMed

    Saturno-Hernández, Pedro Jesús; Martínez-Nicolás, Ismael; Poblano-Verástegui, Ofelia; Vértiz-Ramírez, José de Jesús; Suárez-Ortiz, Erasto Cosme; Magaña-Izquierdo, Manuel; Kawa-Karasik, Simón

    2017-01-01

    To select, pilot test and implement a set of indicators for tertiary public hospitals. Quali-quantitative study in four stages: identification of indicators used internationally; selection and prioritization by utility, feasibility and reliability; exploration of the quality of sources of information in six hospitals; pilot feasibility and reliability, and follow-up measurement. From 143 indicators, 64 were selected and eight were prioritized. The scan revealed sources of information deficient. In the pilot, three indicators were feasible with reliability limited. Has conducted workshops to improve records and sources of information; nine hospitals reported measurements of a quarter. Eight priority indicators could not be measured immediately due to limitations in the data sources for its construction. It is necessary to improve mechanisms of registration and processing of data in this group of hospital.

  18. Central and peripheral information source use among rural and remote Registered Nurses.

    PubMed

    Kosteniuk, Julie G; D'Arcy, Carl; Stewart, Norma; Smith, Barbara

    2006-07-01

    This paper reports a study examining the use of central (colleagues, inservice and newsletters) and peripheral information sources (Internet, library, journal subscriptions and continuing education) among a large sample of rural and remote nurses and explores the factors associated with the use of particular peripheral information sources. There have been few studies of the specific sources of information accessed by Registered Nurses, particularly rural or remote nurses, and the characteristics of nurses and their organizations that are associated with the use of particular information sources. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 3933 Registered Nurses from all regions of rural and remote Canada between October 2001 and July 2002. We used frequencies and cross-tabulations to describe rates of information use, and forward selection logistic regression with likelihood ratio selection to build the best-fitting model of the variables that affected the odds of using each peripheral information source. Nursing colleagues ranked as the information source most frequently used, and the Internet and library ranked lowest. On average, nurses used a statistically significantly greater number of central than peripheral sources. Peripheral information source use was higher among nurses who had access to current information, opportunities to share their knowledge with others, higher education levels, were in positions of authority and worked with healthcare students. The associations between age and geographical location varied according to the peripheral information source under consideration. The vast majority of rural and remote nurses used at least one peripheral information source to inform their practice. Increasing the number of research sources used by these nurses requires attention to issues of information access in these areas, as well as issues of staff recruitment and retention of staff in under-serviced rural and remote regions.

  19. Source memory in the rat.

    PubMed

    Crystal, Jonathon D; Alford, Wesley T; Zhou, Wenyi; Hohmann, Andrea G

    2013-03-04

    Source memory is a representation of the origin (source) of information. When source information is bound together, it makes a memory episodic, allowing us to differentiate one event from another. Here, we asked whether rats remember the source of encoded information. Rats foraged for distinctive flavors of food that replenished (or failed to replenish) at its recently encountered location according to a source-information rule. To predict replenishment, rats needed to remember where they had encountered a preferred food type (chocolate) with self-generated (walking along a runway encountering chocolate) or experimenter-generated (placement of the rat at the chocolate site by an experimenter) cues. Three lines of evidence implicate the presence of source memory. First, rats selectively adjusted revisits to the chocolate location based on source information, under conditions in which familiarity of events could not produce successful performance. Second, source memory was dissociated from location memory by different decay rates. Third, temporary inactivation of the CA3 region of the hippocampus with lidocaine selectively eliminated source memory, suggesting that source memory is dependent upon an intact hippocampus. Development of an animal model of source memory may be valuable to probe the biological underpinnings of memory disorders marked by impairments in source memory. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Attention and Trust Biases in the Design of Augmented Reality Displays

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2000-04-01

    storage, selective attention , and their mutual constraints within the human information processing system. Psychological Bulletin, 104(2), 163-191...the pilots’ attention at the cost of processing other information in the far domain beyond the symbology, i.e., attentional tunneling (Fadden et al...need to select between two sources of information, attention is allocated to the one which facilitates the user’s task. When only a single source of

  1. Environmental Information Sources on the Net.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Raeder, Aggi

    1997-01-01

    Discusses environmental information needs of business professionals and provides an annotated list of Web sites serving as information sources. Highlights include "meta sites", government, health, law, engineering, education, organizations, and environmental news, as well as selected environmental "hot topics." (AEF)

  2. Perception and Selection of Information Sources by Undergraduate Students: Effects of Avoidant Style, Confidence, and Personal Control in Problem-Solving

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Kyung-Sun; Sin, Sei-Ching Joanna

    2007-01-01

    A survey of undergraduate students examined how students' beliefs about their problem-solving styles and abilities (including avoidant style, confidence, and personal control in problem-solving) influenced their perception and selection of sources, as reflected in (1) perceived characteristics of sources, (2) source characteristics considered…

  3. Sources of emergency water supplies in San Mateo County, California

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Wood, P.R.

    1975-01-01

    San Mateo County has several densely populated urban areas that get most of their water supplies from surface-water sources that could by damaged by a major earthquake or other general disaster. In the event of such a disaster, limited supplies of potable water may be obtained from selected wells, springs, and perennial streams. This report outlines the principal sources of existing water supplies, gives information on the need for emergency water-supply procedures, presents general criteria needed for selecting emergency water-supply wells, summarizes information for 60 selected water wells, numerous springs, and perennial streams that can be used as sources of water, and describes emergency water-purification procedures that can be used by individuals or small groups of people.

  4. Education: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources. Second Edition. Reference Sources in the Social Sciences Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Brien, Nancy Patricia

    The purpose of this guide is to provide information about the key reference and information resources in the field of education. Sources include items published from 1990 through 1998, with selective inclusion of significant or unique works published prior to 1990. The guide is divided into 14 categories that reflect different aspects of…

  5. The Humanities: A Selective Guide to Information Sources. Fifth Edition. Library and Information Science Text Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Blazek, Ron; Aversa, Elizabeth

    This book provides a guide to humanities information sources for teachers and students in schools of library and information science, reference librarians, collection development officers in libraries, humanities scholars, and others who have information needs in the broad discipline. This fifth edition represents a more comprehensive and updated…

  6. A Survey of Information Source Preferences of Parents of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    PubMed

    Gibson, Amelia N; Kaplan, Samantha; Vardell, Emily

    2017-07-01

    For parents of children with an Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), high quality, easily accessible information and a strong peer network can be the key to raising a happy, healthy child, and maintaining family well-being and emotional resilience. This article reports the findings of an anonymous survey examining the information source preferences for 935 parents of individuals with ASDs in North Carolina. Data indicates that parents show similar information seeking patterns across the age spectrum, that availability of information (as indicated by overall information source selection) decrease as children age. It also shows that parents rely heavily on local sources of information, preferring them to nonlocal sources (such as the internet) for many types of information.

  7. Information Resource Selection of Undergraduate Students in Academic Search Tasks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lee, Jee Yeon; Paik, Woojin; Joo, Soohyung

    2012-01-01

    Introduction: This study aims to investigate the selection of information sources and to identify factors associated with the resource selection of undergraduate students for academic search tasks. Also, user perceptions of some factors, such as credibility, usefulness, accessibility and familiarity, were examined to classify resources by their…

  8. Undergraduate Students' Use of Online Information in World Geography: Source Types and Selection Criteria

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hong, Jung Eun; Jo, Injeong

    2017-01-01

    Offering up-to-date information and diverse perspectives on issues, online information can be a valuable resource that supplements traditional course materials like textbooks. In this paper, the source types that students' use for a course assignment and the criteria they apply to determine usefulness of the online information are examined.…

  9. How Many Separable Sources? Model Selection In Independent Components Analysis

    PubMed Central

    Woods, Roger P.; Hansen, Lars Kai; Strother, Stephen

    2015-01-01

    Unlike mixtures consisting solely of non-Gaussian sources, mixtures including two or more Gaussian components cannot be separated using standard independent components analysis methods that are based on higher order statistics and independent observations. The mixed Independent Components Analysis/Principal Components Analysis (mixed ICA/PCA) model described here accommodates one or more Gaussian components in the independent components analysis model and uses principal components analysis to characterize contributions from this inseparable Gaussian subspace. Information theory can then be used to select from among potential model categories with differing numbers of Gaussian components. Based on simulation studies, the assumptions and approximations underlying the Akaike Information Criterion do not hold in this setting, even with a very large number of observations. Cross-validation is a suitable, though computationally intensive alternative for model selection. Application of the algorithm is illustrated using Fisher's iris data set and Howells' craniometric data set. Mixed ICA/PCA is of potential interest in any field of scientific investigation where the authenticity of blindly separated non-Gaussian sources might otherwise be questionable. Failure of the Akaike Information Criterion in model selection also has relevance in traditional independent components analysis where all sources are assumed non-Gaussian. PMID:25811988

  10. Putting the pieces together: endometriosis blogs, cognitive authority, and collaborative information behavior.

    PubMed

    Neal, Diane M; McKenzie, Pamela J

    2011-04-01

    A discourse analysis was conducted of peer-written blogs about the chronic illness endometriosis to understand how bloggers present information sources and make cases for and against the authority of those sources. Eleven blogs that were authored by endometriosis patients and focused exclusively or primarily on the authors' experiences with endometriosis were selected. After selecting segments in which the bloggers invoked forms of knowledge and sources of evidence, the text was discursively analyzed to reveal how bloggers establish and dispute the authority of the sources they invoke. When discussing and refuting authority, the bloggers invoked many sources of evidence, including experiential, peer-provided, biomedical, and intuitive ones. Additionally, they made and disputed claims of cognitive authority via two interpretive repertoires: a concern about the role and interests of the pharmaceutical industry and an understanding of endometriosis as extremely idiosyncratic. Affective authority of information sources was also identified, which presented as social context, situational similarity, or aesthetic or spiritual factors. Endometriosis patients may find informational value in blogs, especially for affective support and epistemic experience. Traditional notions of authority might need to be revised for the online environment. Guidelines for evaluating the authority of consumer health information, informed by established readers' advisory practices, are suggested.

  11. Selective Guide to Literature on Software Review Sources. Engineering Literature Guides, Number 8.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bean, Margaret H., Ed.

    This selective literature guide serves as a directory to software evaluation sources for all sizes of microcomputers. Information is provided on review sources and guides which deal with a variety of applications such as library, engineering, school, and business as well as a variety of systems, including DOS and CP/M. This document is intended to…

  12. 48 CFR 1403.104-4 - Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source...

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Disclosure, protection, and marking of contractor bid or proposal information and source selection information. 1403.104-4 Section 1403.104-4 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR GENERAL IMPROPER...

  13. What Engineering Sophomores Know and Would Like to Know about Engineering Information Sources and Access

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ercegovac, Zorana

    2009-01-01

    This exploratory study reports on what engineering undergraduate students know and would like to learn about engineering information sources and access. Responses were obtained on selected performance measures within the framework of "Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology" (ACRL/ALA/STS 2006). The results are based…

  14. A Selected List of Business and Economic Sources. Bibliographic Series No. 27.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ahrens, Joan

    Selected information sources in business and economics held by the Arkansas University library are listed. Items are organized by material type, including indexes, directories, atlases, bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, guides, handbooks, and newspapers. Separate listings of Moody's and Standard and Poor's looseleaf publications are…

  15. Guide for the Establishment and Evaluation of Services for Selective Dissemination of Information.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Poncelet, J.

    This guide describes the components of a selective dissemination of information (SDI) service which is designed to give developing countries access to international sources of bibliographic information and provides guidelines for the establishment and evaluation of this type of service. It defines the main features of a computerized documentation…

  16. 48 CFR 9.505-4 - Obtaining access to proprietary information.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... REGULATION ACQUISITION PLANNING CONTRACTOR QUALIFICATIONS Organizational and Consultant Conflicts of Interest... use or (2) available to the Government or contractor from other sources without restriction. (b) A... source selection information by acquiring the services of marketing consultants which, if used in...

  17. Applying an information literacy rubric to first-year health sciences student research posters.

    PubMed

    Goodman, Xan; Watts, John; Arenas, Rogelio; Weigel, Rachelle; Terrell, Tony

    2018-01-01

    This article describes the collection and analysis of annotated bibliographies created by first-year health sciences students to support their final poster projects. The authors examined the students' abilities to select relevant and authoritative sources, summarize the content of those sources, and correctly cite those sources. We collected images of 1,253 posters, of which 120 were sampled for analysis, and scored the posters using a 4-point rubric to evaluate the students' information literacy skills. We found that 52% of students were proficient at selecting relevant sources that directly contributed to the themes, topics, or debates presented in their final poster projects, and 64% of students did well with selecting authoritative peer-reviewed scholarly sources related to their topics. However, 45% of students showed difficulty in correctly applying American Psychological Association (APA) citation style. Our findings demonstrate a need for instructors and librarians to provide strategies for reading and comprehending scholarly articles in addition to properly using APA citation style.

  18. Applying an information literacy rubric to first-year health sciences student research posters*

    PubMed Central

    Goodman, Xan; Watts, John; Arenas, Rogelio; Weigel, Rachelle; Terrell, Tony

    2018-01-01

    Objective This article describes the collection and analysis of annotated bibliographies created by first-year health sciences students to support their final poster projects. The authors examined the students’ abilities to select relevant and authoritative sources, summarize the content of those sources, and correctly cite those sources. Methods We collected images of 1,253 posters, of which 120 were sampled for analysis, and scored the posters using a 4-point rubric to evaluate the students’ information literacy skills. Results We found that 52% of students were proficient at selecting relevant sources that directly contributed to the themes, topics, or debates presented in their final poster projects, and 64% of students did well with selecting authoritative peer-reviewed scholarly sources related to their topics. However, 45% of students showed difficulty in correctly applying American Psychological Association (APA) citation style. Conclusion Our findings demonstrate a need for instructors and librarians to provide strategies for reading and comprehending scholarly articles in addition to properly using APA citation style. PMID:29339940

  19. Performance Analysis of Physical Layer Security of Opportunistic Scheduling in Multiuser Multirelay Cooperative Networks

    PubMed Central

    Shim, Kyusung; Do, Nhu Tri; An, Beongku

    2017-01-01

    In this paper, we study the physical layer security (PLS) of opportunistic scheduling for uplink scenarios of multiuser multirelay cooperative networks. To this end, we propose a low-complexity, yet comparable secrecy performance source relay selection scheme, called the proposed source relay selection (PSRS) scheme. Specifically, the PSRS scheme first selects the least vulnerable source and then selects the relay that maximizes the system secrecy capacity for the given selected source. Additionally, the maximal ratio combining (MRC) technique and the selection combining (SC) technique are considered at the eavesdropper, respectively. Investigating the system performance in terms of secrecy outage probability (SOP), closed-form expressions of the SOP are derived. The developed analysis is corroborated through Monte Carlo simulation. Numerical results show that the PSRS scheme significantly improves the secure ability of the system compared to that of the random source relay selection scheme, but does not outperform the optimal joint source relay selection (OJSRS) scheme. However, the PSRS scheme drastically reduces the required amount of channel state information (CSI) estimations compared to that required by the OJSRS scheme, specially in dense cooperative networks. PMID:28212286

  20. Integration of genomic information into sport horse breeding programs for optimization of accuracy of selection.

    PubMed

    Haberland, A M; König von Borstel, U; Simianer, H; König, S

    2012-09-01

    Reliable selection criteria are required for young riding horses to increase genetic gain by increasing accuracy of selection and decreasing generation intervals. In this study, selection strategies incorporating genomic breeding values (GEBVs) were evaluated. Relevant stages of selection in sport horse breeding programs were analyzed by applying selection index theory. Results in terms of accuracies of indices (r(TI) ) and relative selection response indicated that information on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes considerably increases the accuracy of breeding values estimated for young horses without own or progeny performance. In a first scenario, the correlation between the breeding value estimated from the SNP genotype and the true breeding value (= accuracy of GEBV) was fixed to a relatively low value of r(mg) = 0.5. For a low heritability trait (h(2) = 0.15), and an index for a young horse based only on information from both parents, additional genomic information doubles r(TI) from 0.27 to 0.54. Including the conventional information source 'own performance' into the before mentioned index, additional SNP information increases r(TI) by 40%. Thus, particularly with regard to traits of low heritability, genomic information can provide a tool for well-founded selection decisions early in life. In a further approach, different sources of breeding values (e.g. GEBV and estimated breeding values (EBVs) from different countries) were combined into an overall index when altering accuracies of EBVs and correlations between traits. In summary, we showed that genomic selection strategies have the potential to contribute to a substantial reduction in generation intervals in horse breeding programs.

  1. A Guide for Finding Biographical Sources.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Huang, Samuel T., Comp.

    Intended to assist library users in finding biographical sources in various disciplines, this compilation lists selective biographical sources which are available in the Northern Illinois University Libraries. The compilation is divided into four major areas: indexes to biographies, sources of information on living persons, sources of information…

  2. Application of Selected Outcomes from PISA and PIAAC Researches to Czech Curriculum and Reading Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chudy, Stefan; Vicherková, Dana

    2016-01-01

    This article deals with problematic fields which influence the level of reading strategies of fifteen to nineteen years old pupils (e.g. selected productive learning activities, work with diverse types of texts and information sources etc.). Moreover, the paper provides information about efficiency testing of pupils in selected reading strategies…

  3. Information-Driven Active Audio-Visual Source Localization

    PubMed Central

    Schult, Niclas; Reineking, Thomas; Kluss, Thorsten; Zetzsche, Christoph

    2015-01-01

    We present a system for sensorimotor audio-visual source localization on a mobile robot. We utilize a particle filter for the combination of audio-visual information and for the temporal integration of consecutive measurements. Although the system only measures the current direction of the source, the position of the source can be estimated because the robot is able to move and can therefore obtain measurements from different directions. These actions by the robot successively reduce uncertainty about the source’s position. An information gain mechanism is used for selecting the most informative actions in order to minimize the number of actions required to achieve accurate and precise position estimates in azimuth and distance. We show that this mechanism is an efficient solution to the action selection problem for source localization, and that it is able to produce precise position estimates despite simplified unisensory preprocessing. Because of the robot’s mobility, this approach is suitable for use in complex and cluttered environments. We present qualitative and quantitative results of the system’s performance and discuss possible areas of application. PMID:26327619

  4. Register of specialized sources for information on mechanics of structural failure

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Carpenter, J. L., Jr.; Denny, F. J.

    1973-01-01

    Specialized information sources that generate information relative to six problem areas in aerospace mechanics of structural failure are identified. Selection for inclusion was based upon information obtained from the individual knowledge and professional contacts of Martin Marietta Aerospace staff members and the information uncovered by the staff of technical reviewers. Activities listed perform basic or applied research related to the mechanics of structural failure and publish the results of such research. The purpose of the register is to present, in easy reference form, original sources for dependable information regarding failure modes and mechanisms of aerospace structures.

  5. Subject Bibliographies and Research Guides. 1985-1987.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    San Francisco State Univ., CA. J. Paul Leonard Library.

    The 35 pathfinders in this collection provide selected information about information sources at the J. Paul Leonard Library for the following subjects: Biography; Book Reviews; Broadcasting; Business; Chemistry; Cinema; Computer Science; Corporations, Stocks and Industries; Costume and Fashion; Current Events and News Sources; Economic Censuses of…

  6. Source Evaluation of Domain Experts and Novices during Web Search

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brand-Gruwel, S.; Kammerer, Y.; van Meeuwen, L.; van Gog, T.

    2017-01-01

    Nowadays, almost everyone uses the World Wide Web (WWW) to search for information of any kind. In education, students frequently use the WWW for selecting information to accomplish assignments such as writing an essay or preparing a presentation. The evaluation of sources and information is an important sub-skill in this process. But many students…

  7. Information Seeking Behavior and User Education in Academic Libraries: Research, Theory, and Practice. A Selected List of Information Sources.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fridie, Stephanie, Comp.

    This document lists sources useful for academic reference and instruction librarians who are concerned with assisting and teaching novice or non-professional end-user searchers. The bibliography is organized in two lists: complete bibliographic citations and subject listing of references. The types of sources listed include journal articles,…

  8. Mass Media Consumption in a Bilingual Culture: Implications of the Literature for Further Research in the Canadian Context.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Grondin, Deirdre

    Previous studies of mass media consumption behavior within cultural boundaries have yielded important information regarding the selection of communication channels to obtain information by members of specific cultures. However, the selection of mass media information sources in a cross-cultural setting has received little attention in the…

  9. Selecting for memory? The influence of selective attention on the mnemonic binding of contextual information

    PubMed Central

    Uncapher, Melina R.; Rugg, Michael D.

    2009-01-01

    Not all of what is experienced is remembered later. Behavioral evidence suggests that the manner in which an event is processed influences which aspects of the event will later be remembered. The present experiment investigated the neural correlates of ‘selective encoding’, or the mechanisms that support the encoding of some elements of an event in preference to others. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired while volunteers selectively attended to one of two different contextual features of study items (color or location). A surprise memory test for the items and both contextual features was subsequently administered to determine the influence of selective attention on the neural correlates of contextual encoding. Activity in several cortical regions indexed later memory success selectively for color or location information, and this encoding-related activity was enhanced by selective attention to the relevant feature. Critically, a region in the hippocampus responded selectively to attended source information (whether color or location), demonstrating encoding-related activity for attended but not for nonattended source features. Together, the findings suggest that selective attention modulates the magnitude of activity in cortical regions engaged by different aspects of an event, and hippocampal encoding mechanisms seem to be sensitive to this modulation. Thus, the information that is encoded into a memory representation is biased by selective attention, and this bias is mediated by cortico-hippocampal interactions. PMID:19553466

  10. Selecting for memory? The influence of selective attention on the mnemonic binding of contextual information.

    PubMed

    Uncapher, Melina R; Rugg, Michael D

    2009-06-24

    Not all of what is experienced is remembered later. Behavioral evidence suggests that the manner in which an event is processed influences which aspects of the event will later be remembered. The present experiment investigated the neural correlates of "selective encoding," or the mechanisms that support the encoding of some elements of an event in preference to others. Event-related MRI data were acquired while volunteers selectively attended to one of two different contextual features of study items (color or location). A surprise memory test for the items and both contextual features was subsequently administered to determine the influence of selective attention on the neural correlates of contextual encoding. Activity in several cortical regions indexed later memory success selectively for color or location information, and this encoding-related activity was enhanced by selective attention to the relevant feature. Critically, a region in the hippocampus responded selectively to attended source information (whether color or location), demonstrating encoding-related activity for attended but not for nonattended source features. Together, the findings suggest that selective attention modulates the magnitude of activity in cortical regions engaged by different aspects of an event, and hippocampal encoding mechanisms seem to be sensitive to this modulation. Thus, the information that is encoded into a memory representation is biased by selective attention, and this bias is mediated by cortical-hippocampal interactions.

  11. Validation and calibration of structural models that combine information from multiple sources.

    PubMed

    Dahabreh, Issa J; Wong, John B; Trikalinos, Thomas A

    2017-02-01

    Mathematical models that attempt to capture structural relationships between their components and combine information from multiple sources are increasingly used in medicine. Areas covered: We provide an overview of methods for model validation and calibration and survey studies comparing alternative approaches. Expert commentary: Model validation entails a confrontation of models with data, background knowledge, and other models, and can inform judgments about model credibility. Calibration involves selecting parameter values to improve the agreement of model outputs with data. When the goal of modeling is quantitative inference on the effects of interventions or forecasting, calibration can be viewed as estimation. This view clarifies issues related to parameter identifiability and facilitates formal model validation and the examination of consistency among different sources of information. In contrast, when the goal of modeling is the generation of qualitative insights about the modeled phenomenon, calibration is a rather informal process for selecting inputs that result in model behavior that roughly reproduces select aspects of the modeled phenomenon and cannot be equated to an estimation procedure. Current empirical research on validation and calibration methods consists primarily of methodological appraisals or case-studies of alternative techniques and cannot address the numerous complex and multifaceted methodological decisions that modelers must make. Further research is needed on different approaches for developing and validating complex models that combine evidence from multiple sources.

  12. Euthanasia, Selective Abortion and Educability: A Survey of the Literature and the TASH Membership.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brown, Fredda

    The study explored what sources were responsible for exposing professionals to issues of euthanasia of handicapped infants, selective abortion of severely handicapped fetuses and the educability of profoundly retarded persons, and what sources professionals thought were most appropriate for the dissemination of information. The study consisted of…

  13. Higher Education Opportunities for Minorities and Women--Annotated Selections. 1989 Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Young, William C., Comp.; Hicks, Edward L., Comp.

    Developed to assist parents and students in finding sources of postsecondary financial aid, this annotated listing provides a brief summary of the basic information about a selected list of financial aid sources designed primarily for minority groups and women, or available to all students. The listings provide names and addresses, background…

  14. Quality of Information Approach to Improving Source Selection in Tactical Networks

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2017-02-01

    consider the performance of this process based on metrics relating to quality of information: accuracy, timeliness, completeness and reliability. These...that are indicators of that the network is meeting these quality requirements. We study effective data rate, social distance, link integrity and the...utility of information as metrics within a multi-genre network to determine the quality of information of its available sources. This paper proposes a

  15. DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF DEVELOPING A MODEL DESCRIBING THE FLOW OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ECONOMIC INFORMATION INTO THE SECONDARY VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL SCHOOL. FINAL REPORT.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    SILVERN, LEONARD C.

    THE MAJOR OBJECTIVES OF THIS FEASIBILITY STUDY WERE (1) TO IDENTIFY INFORMATION SOURCES WHICH FURNISH OCCUPATIONAL AND ECONOMIC DATA TO SECONDARY SCHOOLS, (2) TO SELECT THOSE SOURCES WHICH ARE BELIEVED TO HAVE A MEASURABLE INFLUENCE ON THE VOCATIONAL CURRICULUM, AND (3) TO CATEGORIZE, RELATE, AND COMBINE OR RESTRUCTURE THOSE SOURCES INTO A…

  16. Cortical reinstatement and the confidence and accuracy of source memory.

    PubMed

    Thakral, Preston P; Wang, Tracy H; Rugg, Michael D

    2015-04-01

    Cortical reinstatement refers to the overlap between neural activity elicited during the encoding and the subsequent retrieval of an episode, and is held to reflect retrieved mnemonic content. Previous findings have demonstrated that reinstatement effects reflect the quality of retrieved episodic information as this is operationalized by the accuracy of source memory judgments. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated whether reinstatement-related activity also co-varies with the confidence of accurate source judgments. Participants studied pictures of objects along with their visual or spoken names. At test, they first discriminated between studied and unstudied pictures and then, for each picture judged as studied, they also judged whether it had been paired with a visual or auditory name, using a three-point confidence scale. Accuracy of source memory judgments- and hence the quality of the source-specifying information--was greater for high than for low confidence judgments. Modality-selective retrieval-related activity (reinstatement effects) also co-varied with the confidence of the corresponding source memory judgment. The findings indicate that the quality of the information supporting accurate judgments of source memory is indexed by the relative magnitude of content-selective, retrieval-related neural activity. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  17. Nurses' Information Seeking Behavior for Clinical Practice: A Case Study in a Developing Country.

    PubMed

    Sarbaz, Masoumeh; Kimiafar, Khalil; Sheikhtaheri, Abbas; Taherzadeh, Zhila; Eslami, Saeid

    2016-01-01

    We used a valid questionnaire to survey Iranian nurses' seeking information behavior and their confidence on different information sources. The frequently used sources were Internet" and "personal experiences" (54.8% and 48.2% respectively). "English medical journals" (61.9%) and "English textbooks" (41.3%) were the least frequently used sources. Nurses felt high confidence in sources such as "International instructions/guidelines" (58.6%) and "English medical textbooks" (50.4%). The main reasons for selecting sources were easy accessibility, being up to date and reliability. Google, Pubmed and Up to Date were the most used electronic sources. In addition, there were differences in terms of using some of these resources and nurse' age and gender. In developing information sources for nurses, factors such as reliability level, availability, and updatedness of resources should be more emphasized.

  18. Information transmission in young children: when social information is more important than nonsocial information.

    PubMed

    McGuigan, Nicola; Cubillo, Marcus

    2013-01-01

    The authors' aim was to use a highly novel open diffusion paradigm to investigate the transmission of social information (i.e., gossip) and general knowledge within 2 groups of 10- and 11-year-old children. Four children, 2 from each group, acted as a primed information source, selected on the basis of sex and dominance ranking (high or low) within the group. Each source received 1 piece of gossip and 1 piece of general knowledge from the experimenter during natural class interaction, and the information was allowed to diffuse naturally within the group. Results revealed that gossip was transmitted more frequently than knowledge, and that male sources were more likely to transmit gossip than female sources. The relationship between characteristics of the source, and characteristics of the gossip recipient, also appeared influential with the dominant male source transmitting gossip to exclusively to friends, and the nondominant male source transmitting to individuals of higher peer regard than themselves.

  19. Buyer's Guide to Environmental Media: A Directory of Books, Magazines, Films and Information Sources. Energy.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gerber, Michael, Ed.

    This directory is designed to help locate energy and environmental resource materials, print and nonprint. The directory lists private and government information sources and provides an annotated guide to periodical literature. Citations of selected book titles published in 1973 include the topics of air pollution, chemical and biological…

  20. Profile of e-patients: analysis of their cancer information-seeking from a national survey.

    PubMed

    Kim, Kyunghye; Kwon, Nahyun

    2010-10-01

    Researchers have yet to fully understand how competent e-patients are in selecting and using health information sources, or, more importantly, who e-patients are. This study attempted to uncover how cancer e-patients differ from other cancer information seekers in terms of their sociodemographic background, social networks, information competence, and selection of cancer information sources. We analyzed data from the National Cancer Institute's 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey, and a series of chi-square tests showed that factors that distinguished cancer e-patients from other cancer information seekers were age, gender, education, employment status, health insurance, and membership in online support groups. They were not different in the other factors measured by the survey. Our logistic regression analysis revealed that the e-patients were older and talked about their health issues with friends or family more frequently compared with online health information seekers without cancer. While preferring information from their doctors over the Internet, e-patients used the Internet as their primary source. In contrast to previous literature, we found little evidence that e-patients were savvy health information consumers who could make informed decisions on their own health. The findings of this study addressed a need for a better design and delivery of health information literacy programs for cancer e-patients.

  1. Vocabulary Self-Selection: A Study of Middle-School Students' Word Selections from Expository Texts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harmon, Janis; Hedrick, Wanda; Wood, Karen; Gress, Michelle

    2005-01-01

    This study investigated students' decision-making as they self-selected important words from expository texts. Participants were 94 eighth graders and six adult readers. Data sources included students' written responses containing their word selections and reasons for selecting words from eight informational passages, student interviews, and word…

  2. Consider the source: Children link the accuracy of text-based sources to the accuracy of the author.

    PubMed

    Vanderbilt, Kimberly E; Ochoa, Karlena D; Heilbrun, Jayd

    2018-05-06

    The present research investigated whether young children link the accuracy of text-based information to the accuracy of its author. Across three experiments, three- and four-year-olds (N = 231) received information about object labels from accurate and inaccurate sources who provided information both in text and verbally. Of primary interest was whether young children would selectively rely on information provided by more accurate sources, regardless of the form in which the information was communicated. Experiment 1 tested children's trust in text-based information (e.g., books) written by an author with a history of either accurate or inaccurate verbal testimony and found that children showed greater trust in books written by accurate authors. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and extended them by showing that children's selective trust in more accurate text-based sources was not dependent on experience trusting or distrusting the author's verbal testimony. Experiment 3 investigated this understanding in reverse by testing children's trust in verbal testimony communicated by an individual who had authored either accurate or inaccurate text-based information. Experiment 3 revealed that children showed greater trust in individuals who had authored accurate rather than inaccurate books. Experiment 3 also demonstrated that children used the accuracy of text-based sources to make inferences about the mental states of the authors. Taken together, these results suggest children do indeed link the reliability of text-based sources to the reliability of the author. Statement of Contribution Existing knowledge Children use sources' prior accuracy to predict future accuracy in face-to-face verbal interactions. Children who are just learning to read show increased trust in text bases (vs. verbal) information. It is unknown whether children consider authors' prior accuracy when judging the accuracy of text-based information. New knowledge added by this article Preschool children track sources' accuracy across communication mediums - from verbal to text-based modalities and vice versa. Children link the reliability of text-based sources to the reliability of the author. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

  3. The role of health information sources in decision-making among Hispanic mothers during their children’s first 1000 days of life

    PubMed Central

    Criss, Shaniece; Woo Baidal, Jennifer A.; Goldman, Roberta E.; Perkins, Meghan; Cunningham, Courtney; Taveras, Elsie M.

    2015-01-01

    Objective This qualitative research aimed to explore how health information sources inform decision-making among Hispanic mothers during their children’s first 1000 days of life (conception-age 24 months), and to generate appropriate health information sources and communication strategies for future interventions. Methods We conducted 7 focus groups with 49 Hispanic women who were pregnant or had children < 2 years old. Domains included interpersonal and media sources, source trustworthiness, dealing with contradictory information, and how information affects decision-making. We used immersion/crystallization process for analysis. Results Trusted health information sources included health care providers, female and male family members, BabyCenter.com and other Internet sources, selected social media, and television. Some immigrant women reported preferring the Internet citing less established local support networks. Women highlighted the importance of validating health information through checking multiple sources for consistency and resolving contradictory information. Mothers expressed interest in receiving reliable website links from healthcare professionals and outreach to extended family. Conclusion Cultural factors, including immigration status, are important in understanding the use of health information sources and their role in decision-making about pregnancy and child health among Hispanic mothers. Healthcare providers and public health professionals should consider Hispanic mothers health information environment and provide culturally-relevant communication strategies and interventions during this high information-seeking time period. PMID:26122256

  4. aCGH-MAS: Analysis of aCGH by means of Multiagent System

    PubMed Central

    Benito, Rocío; Bajo, Javier; Rodríguez, Ana Eugenia; Abáigar, María

    2015-01-01

    There are currently different techniques, such as CGH arrays, to study genetic variations in patients. CGH arrays analyze gains and losses in different regions in the chromosome. Regions with gains or losses in pathologies are important for selecting relevant genes or CNVs (copy-number variations) associated with the variations detected within chromosomes. Information corresponding to mutations, genes, proteins, variations, CNVs, and diseases can be found in different databases and it would be of interest to incorporate information of different sources to extract relevant information. This work proposes a multiagent system to manage the information of aCGH arrays, with the aim of providing an intuitive and extensible system to analyze and interpret the results. The agent roles integrate statistical techniques to select relevant variations and visualization techniques for the interpretation of the final results and to extract relevant information from different sources of information by applying a CBR system. PMID:25874203

  5. Undergraduate Students Searching and Reading Web Sources for Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Yongyan

    2012-01-01

    With the Internet-evoked paradigm shift in the academy, there has been a growing interest in students' Web-based information-seeking and source-use practices. Nevertheless, little is known as to how individual students go about searching for sources online and selecting source material for writing particular assignments. This exploratory study…

  6. Selective Guide to Literature on Mining Engineering. Engineering Literature Guides, Number 6.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Erdmann, Charlotte A., Comp.

    The multidisciplinary field of mining engineering offers many challenges. Often, many sources must be used to solve a problem. This document is a survey of information sources in mining engineering and is intended to identify those core resources which can help engineers and librarians to find information about the discipline. Sections include:…

  7. Comprehending and Learning from Internet Sources: Processing Patterns of Better and Poorer Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Goldman, Susan R.; Braasch, Jason L. G.; Wiley, Jennifer; Graesser, Arthur C.; Brodowinska, Kamila

    2012-01-01

    Readers increasingly attempt to understand and learn from information sources they find on the Internet. Doing so highlights the crucial role that evaluative processes play in selecting and making sense of the information. In a prior study, Wiley et al. (2009, Experiment 1) asked undergraduates to perform a web-based inquiry task about volcanoes…

  8. Energy: An annotated selected bibliography

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Blow, S. J. (Compiler); Peacock, R. W. (Compiler); Sholy, J. J. (Compiler)

    1979-01-01

    This updated bibliography contains approximately 7,000 selected references on energy and energy related topics from bibliographic and other data sources from June 1977. Under each subject heading the entries are arranged by the data, with the latest works first. Subject headings include: resources supply/demand, and forecasting; policy, legislation, and regulation; environment; consumption, conservation, and economics; analysis, systems, and modeling, and information sources and documentation. Fossil fuels, hydrogen and other fuels, liquid/solid wastes and biomass, waste heat utilization, and nuclear power sources are also included.

  9. Future-year ozone prediction for the United States using updated models and inputs.

    PubMed

    Collet, Susan; Kidokoro, Toru; Karamchandani, Prakash; Shah, Tejas; Jung, Jaegun

    2017-08-01

    The relationship between emission reductions and changes in ozone can be studied using photochemical grid models. These models are updated with new information as it becomes available. The primary objective of this study was to update the previous Collet et al. studies by using the most up-to-date (at the time the study was done) modeling emission tools, inventories, and meteorology available to conduct ozone source attribution and sensitivity studies. Results show future-year, 2030, design values for 8-hr ozone concentrations were lower than base-year values, 2011. The ozone source attribution results for selected cities showed that boundary conditions were the dominant contributors to ozone concentrations at the western U.S. locations, and were important for many of the eastern U.S. Point sources were generally more important in the eastern United States than in the western United States. The contributions of on-road mobile emissions were less than 5 ppb at a majority of the cities selected for analysis. The higher-order decoupled direct method (HDDM) results showed that in most of the locations selected for analysis, NOx emission reductions were more effective than VOC emission reductions in reducing ozone levels. The source attribution results from this study provide useful information on the important source categories and provide some initial guidance on future emission reduction strategies. The relationship between emission reductions and changes in ozone can be studied using photochemical grid models, which are updated with new available information. This study was to update the previous Collet et al. studies by using the most current, at the time the study was done, models and inventory to conduct ozone source attribution and sensitivity studies. The source attribution results from this study provide useful information on the important source categories and provide some initial guidance on future emission reduction strategies.

  10. DNAPL Remediation: Selected Projects Approaching Regulatory Closure

    EPA Pesticide Factsheets

    This paper is a status update on the use of DNAPL source reduction remedial technologies, and provides information about recent projects where regulatory closure has been reached or projects are approaching regulatory closure, following source reduction.

  11. Use of Information: Getting to the Heart of the Matter

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eisenberg, Michael B.

    2005-01-01

    The Big6 approach to information problem solving is widely used by students in the US. Use of Information is the 4th stage and marks a shift in focus from selecting and accessing information sources to using the information itself in a process that involves "critical thinking."

  12. Biographical Sources in Science and Technology, Engineering Reference Books, and General Sources for Financial Ratios and Operating Ratios. Bibliographic Series No. 12.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ahrens, Joan

    The selected information sources held by the Arkansas University library which are listed include such general sources as Moody's and Standard and Poor's publications and bibliographies for financial and operating ratios. Reference books for engineering published between 1965-1976 include handbooks, dictionaries, manuals, encyclopedias,…

  13. Landmark vs. Geometry Learning: Explaining Female Rats' Selective Preference for a Landmark

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Torres, Marta N.; Rodríguez, Clara A.; Chamizo, V. D.; Mackintosh, N. J.

    2014-01-01

    Rats were trained in a triangular-shaped pool to find a hidden platform, whose location was defined in terms of two sources of information, a landmark outside the pool and a particular corner of the pool. Subsequent test trials without the platform pitted these two sources of information against one another. In Experiment 1 this test revealed a…

  14. Surfing for history: an annotated bibliography of select websites/pages on the history of dentistry.

    PubMed

    Matlak, Andrea

    2007-01-01

    The Internet includes many sites that provide secondary source information on the history of dentistry. These sites are maintained by diverse groups such as dental libraries, dental museums, commercial enterprises, dentists, dental offices, dental organizations and nondental related organizations and individuals. The information provided in this paper is as eclectic and diverse as the sources suggest.

  15. Teachers' Methodologies and Sources of Information on HIV/AIDS for Students with Visual Impairments in Selected Residential and Integrated Schools in Ghana

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hayford, Samuel K.; Ocansey, Frederick

    2017-01-01

    This study reports part of a national survey on sources of information, education and communication materials on HIV/AIDS available to students with visual impairments in residential, segregated, and integrated schools in Ghana. A multi-staged stratified random sampling procedure and a purposive and simple random sampling approach, where…

  16. HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Perception of Knowledge and Sources of Information among University Students in USA, Turkey, South Africa and Nigeria

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Abiona, Titilayo; Balogun, Joseph; Yohannes, Eden; Adefuye, Adedeji; Yakut, Yavuz; Amosun, Seyi; Frantz, Jose

    2014-01-01

    Objective: To examine HIV/AIDS knowledge, perceptions of knowledge and sources of HIV information among university students in four countries with different HIV prevalence rates. Methods: A survey was completed by 2,570 randomly selected university students from the USA, Turkey, South Africa and Nigeria. Logistic regression analysis was used to…

  17. Inventory of Data Sources in Science and Technology. A Preliminary Survey.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    International Council of Scientific Unions, Paris (France).

    Provided in this inventory are sources of numerical or factual data in selected fields of basic science and applied science/technology. The objective of the inventory is to provide organizations and individuals (scientists, engineers, and information specialists), particularly those in developing countries, with basic data sources relevant to…

  18. Exposure to Political Diversity Online

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Munson, Sean A.

    2012-01-01

    The Internet gives individuals more choice in political news and information sources and more tools to filter out disagreeable information. Citing the preference described by selective exposure theory--that people see and attend to information that supports their beliefs and avoid counter-attitudinal information--observers warn that people may use…

  19. 77 FR 4053 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Post-Award Contract Information

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2012-01-26

    ... technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic... Acquisition Regulation (FAR) (48 CFR chapter 1). Source selection documentation, Government estimate of... information that is collected are identified in pertinent sections of FAR 4.803, Contents of contract files...

  20. The influence of the mass media on the selection of physicians.

    PubMed

    Trandel-Korenchuk, D M

    1998-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine now media sources influence an individual's reported choice of a physician as compared to personal referral sources and how consumers use the Yellow Pages to search for health care information. A random sample of 762 residents was systematically selected from the Charlotte, North Carolina White Pages and was asked to participate in a 20-item descriptive phone survey designed and tested by the investigator. Five hundred and seventy-eight individuals completed the survey, with a response rate of 75.9%. This study supports previous research suggesting that personal referrals are the most influential sources in selecting health care services. Therefore, satisfying and delighting the physician's/practice's existing client base may be one of the most potent advertising resources at hand. Mass media sources played a relatively minor role in influencing provider selection in this study. Nevertheless, it should not be dismissed in as much as the media may be an important way for physicians to promote "brand recognition," a problem not considered in this study. Finally, approximately 28% of the participants were "Yellow Pages users"; that is, individuals who tended to be heavy users of the Yellow Pages and used it for multiple information-seeking tasks. The findings related to the Yellow Pages suggest that while it may be useful to advertise in the Yellow Pages, a more modest financial allocation to this source may be considered.

  1. Development of an Air-Deployable Ocean Profiler

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2009-01-01

    select the most appropriate technology for each component; sanity check that the selected technolgies can meet the design goals; and detailed...collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources...gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information . Send comments regarding this burden estimate

  2. An Energy Resource List.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    VocEd, 1979

    1979-01-01

    Selected energy resource information, from both federal and private sources, is listed under funding, general information and assistance, recycling, solar, transportation, utilities, and wind power. Books, pamphlets, films, journals, newsletters, and other materials are included. (MF)

  3. Children Show Selective Trust in Technological Informants

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Danovitch, Judith H.; Alzahabi, Reem

    2013-01-01

    Although children are often exposed to technological devices early in life, little is known about how they evaluate these novel sources of information. In two experiments, children aged 3, 4, and 5 years old ("n" = 92) were presented with accurate and inaccurate computer informants, and they subsequently relied on information provided by…

  4. The Internet as a source of reproductive health information among adolescent girls in an urban city in Nigeria.

    PubMed

    Nwagwu, Williams E

    2007-12-20

    There exists some research evidence regarding how adolescents utilize the Internet for health information seeking purposes. The purpose of this study is to understand how in-school and out-of-school adolescent girls in Owerri, Nigeria use online resources to meet their reproductive health information needs. The result could be considered very crucial in assessing the potential role of the Internet in providing health information to adolescent girls in a typical Nigerian urban city. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 1011 adolescent girls in selected secondary schools in the communities, and also from 134 out-of-school girls selected from the same communities. More than 73% of the girls reported having ever used the Internet; more than 74% and 68% of them being in-school and out-of-school respectively. The in-school girls (43.9%) reported having home access more than the out-of-school (5.6%) although the out-of-school have used the Internet for finding reproductive and related information more than the in-school. While parents (66.22%) and teachers (56.15%) are the two sources most used to the in-school girls, friends (63.18%) and the Internet (55.19%) were reported by the out-of-school youth as the two most used sources of information to them. The Internet is not a first choice of source of reproductive health information for both the in-school and out-of-school adolescent girls in Owerri, Nigeria. The source is however, more commonly used by the out-of-school than the in-school, but the in-school have a more favorable assessment of the quality of information they obtain from the Internet.

  5. Practices Adopted, Interests, and Information Sources of Farmers and Their Wives in Tioga County. Extension Studies No. 37.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brown, Emory J.; And Others

    By random selection, 74 farm families in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, were interviewed to determine the use of recommended practices, interests of the farmers and their wives, and sources of information. Dairy farming was the major enterprise for 3/4 of the farmers. No Extension recommendations were used by 15% but 20% used seven or more of the…

  6. Sources of Malaria Information among Pregnant Women in Ebonyi State and Implications for Malaria Health Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Amari-Omaka, Lois Nnenna; Obande-Ogbuinya, Nkiru Edith

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine sources of malaria information among pregnant women in Ebonyi state and implications for malaria education. The cross sectional research design was adopted and stratified sampling technique was used to select a total of five hundred and four (504) pregnant women from 12 hospitals in the state. A self…

  7. Adverse-drug-event data provided by pharmaceutical companies.

    PubMed

    Cudny, Magdalena E; Graham, Angie S

    2008-06-01

    Pharmaceutical company drug information center (PCDIC) responses to queries about adverse drug events (ADEs) were studied to determine whether PCDICs search sources other than the prescribing information on the package insert (PI) and whether the PCDICs' approach differs according to whether an ADE is listed in the PI (labeled) or not (unlabeled). Companies were selected from a list of PCDICs in the Physicians' Desk Reference. One oral or injectable prescription drug from each company was selected. For each drug, a labeled ADE and an unlabeled ADE about which to query the PCDICs were randomly selected from the index of an annual publication on ADEs. The investigators telephoned the PCDICs with an open-ended inquiry about the incidence, timing, and management of the ADE as reported in the literature and the company's internal data; they clarified that the request did not concern a specific patient. Whether or not information was provided, the source searched was recorded (PI, literature, internal database), and the percentages of PCDICs that used each source for labeled and for unlabeled ADEs were analyzed. Results were obtained from 100 companies to questions about 100 drugs (200 ADEs). For ADEs overall, 80% used the PI, 50% the medical literature, and 38% internal data. For labeled versus unlabeled ADEs, respectively, the PI was used by 84% and 76%; literature, both 50%; and internal data, 35% and 41%. The PCDIC specialists referencing the PI did not always provide accurate or up-to-date information. Some specialists, when asked to query internal databases, said that was not an option. For both labeled and unlabeled ADEs, the PI was the primary source used by PCDICs to answer safety questions about their products, and internal data were the least-used source. Most resources used by PCDICs are readily available to practicing pharmacists.

  8. Reading Materials in Large Print: A Resource Guide. Reference Circular No. 97-02.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mendle, Gillian, Comp.

    This reference circular contains information about large-print materials. Section 1 is an annotated list of selected sources of large-print materials available for purchase or loan. The sources are publishers or distributors, specialized libraries, and associations for persons with visual impairments. Several of these sources also provide general…

  9. A Source-based Measurement Database for Occupational Exposure Assessment of Electromagnetic Fields in the INTEROCC Study: A Literature Review Approach

    PubMed Central

    Vila, Javier; Bowman, Joseph D.; Richardson, Lesley; Kincl, Laurel; Conover, Dave L.; McLean, Dave; Mann, Simon; Vecchia, Paolo; van Tongeren, Martie; Cardis, Elisabeth

    2016-01-01

    Introduction: To date, occupational exposure assessment of electromagnetic fields (EMF) has relied on occupation-based measurements and exposure estimates. However, misclassification due to between-worker variability remains an unsolved challenge. A source-based approach, supported by detailed subject data on determinants of exposure, may allow for a more individualized exposure assessment. Detailed information on the use of occupational sources of exposure to EMF was collected as part of the INTERPHONE-INTEROCC study. To support a source-based exposure assessment effort within this study, this work aimed to construct a measurement database for the occupational sources of EMF exposure identified, assembling available measurements from the scientific literature. Methods: First, a comprehensive literature search was performed for published and unpublished documents containing exposure measurements for the EMF sources identified, a priori as well as from answers of study subjects. Then, the measurements identified were assessed for quality and relevance to the study objectives. Finally, the measurements selected and complementary information were compiled into an Occupational Exposure Measurement Database (OEMD). Results: Currently, the OEMD contains 1624 sets of measurements (>3000 entries) for 285 sources of EMF exposure, organized by frequency band (0 Hz to 300 GHz) and dosimetry type. Ninety-five documents were selected from the literature (almost 35% of them are unpublished technical reports), containing measurements which were considered informative and valid for our purpose. Measurement data and complementary information collected from these documents came from 16 different countries and cover the time period between 1974 and 2013. Conclusion: We have constructed a database with measurements and complementary information for the most common sources of exposure to EMF in the workplace, based on the responses to the INTERPHONE-INTEROCC study questionnaire. This database covers the entire EMF frequency range and represents the most comprehensive resource of information on occupational EMF exposure. It is available at www.crealradiation.com/index.php/en/databases. PMID:26493616

  10. Accuracy of indexing coverage information as reported by serials sources.

    PubMed Central

    Eldredge, J D

    1993-01-01

    This article reports on the accuracy of indexing service coverage information listed in three serials sources: Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory, SERLINE, and The Serials Directory. The titles studied were randomly selected journals that began publication in either 1981 or 1986. Aggregate results reveal that these serials sources perform at 92%, 97%, and 95% levels of accuracy respectively. When the results are analyzed by specific indexing services by year, the performance scores ranged from 80% to 100%. All three serials sources tend to underreport index coverage. The author advances five recommendations for improving index coverage accuracy and four specific proposals for future research. The results suggest that, for the immediate future, librarians should treat index coverage information reported in these three serials sources with some skepticism. PMID:8251971

  11. Sources of Health Information among Select Asian American Immigrant Groups in New York City

    PubMed Central

    Islam, Nadia S.; Patel, Shilpa; Wyatt, Laura C.; Sim, Shao-Chee; Mukherjee-Ratnam, Runi; Chun, Kay; Desai, Bhairavi; Tandon, S. Darius; Trinh-Shevrin, Chau; Pollack, Henry; Kwon, Simona C.

    2015-01-01

    Health information can potentially mitigate adverse health outcomes among ethnic minority populations, but little research has examined how minorities access health information. The aim of this study was to examine variations in the use of health information sources among Asian American (AA) subgroups and to identify differences in characteristics associated with the use of these sources. We analyzed data from a foreign-born community sample of 219 Asian Indians, 216 Bangladeshis, 484 Chinese, and 464 Koreans living in New York City. Results found that use of health information sources varied by AA subgroup. Print media source use, which included newspapers, magazines and/or journals, was highest among Chinese (84%), Koreans (75%), and Bangladeshis (80%), while radio was most utilized by Chinese (48%) and Koreans (38%). Television utilization was highest among Bangladeshis (74%) and Koreans (64%). Koreans (52%) and Chinese (40%) were most likely to use the Internet to access health information. Radio use was best explained by older age and longer time lived in the US, while print media was more utilized by older individuals. Results also highlighted differences in native language versus non-native language media sources for health information by subgroup. Media sources can be used as a vehicle to disseminate health information among AAs. PMID:26266574

  12. Canadian Reference Sources 1980--A Selection.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ryder, Dorothy E.

    1981-01-01

    Provides a bibliography of 52 reference sources and 24 new editions and supplements, excluding annuals. Topics include science and technology, art, history, university courses, regional information, native languages, museums, law, geography, Canadian culture, dissertations, sports, antiques, botany, and a variety of directories. (CHC)

  13. A review and evaluation of the Langley Research Center's Scientific and Technical Information Program. Results of phase 5. Design and evaluation of STI systems: A selected, annotated bibliography

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Pinelli, T. E.; Hinnebusch, P. A.; Jaffe, J. M.

    1981-01-01

    A selected, annotated bibliography of literature citations related to the design and evaluation of STI systems is presented. The use of manual and machine-readable literature searches; the review of numerous books, periodicals reports, and papers; and the selection and annotation of literature citations were required. The bibliography was produced because the information was needed to develop the methodology for the review and evaluation project, and a survey of the literature did not reveal the existence of a single published source of information pertinent to the subject. Approximately 200 citations are classified in four subject areas. The areas include information - general; information systems - design and evaluation, including information products and services; information - use and need; and information - economics.

  14. Guidelines for the selection of chemical protective clothing. 1991 Update: Performance, availability, and sources of chemical protective clothing

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

    Johnson, J.S.; Schwope, A.D.; Goydan, R.

    1991-12-31

    The selection, acquisition, and use of chemical protective clothing (CPC) at Department of Energy (DOE) facilities require up-to-date data and information on the performance, availability, and sources of such clothing. There are hundreds of types and more than one hundred principal manufacturers of CPC. Information on CPC is published in manufacturers` brochures and the technical literature. These information sources, however, have no standard format or terminology for describing products or the results of product testing. Furthermore, the literature and information is continually changing and growing. Consequently, DOE`s industrial hygienists and safety specialists are frequently confounded in their efforts to providemore » effective CPC to workers, by they in the field, the laboratory, or the plant. In recognition of the many advances and changes that have occurred and of the need to provide current information to its health and safety staff, the DOE has updated and modified the key appendices of the Guidelines/Chemical Protective Clothing. The updates appendices compose the majority of this update document, wherein they are called Sections. Each Section begins with a description of its format, content, abbreviations, units, and links with other Sections, as appropriate.« less

  15. Guidelines for the selection of chemical-protective clothing. Volume 1. (3rd Edition). Report for January 1985-May 1987

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

    Schwope, A.D.; Costas, P.P.; Jackson, J.O.

    1987-02-01

    A variety of protective-clothing items are commerically available for emergency response and other applications where chemical hazards may be encountered. Data and information for selecting chemical-protective clothing is either not available or is inconsistant from source to source. In 1983, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sponsored the development of chemical-protective clothing selection guidelines to assist their own Office of Health and Safety in providing guidance to personnel, primarily EPA employees and contractors, working on hazardous-waste sites. These guidelines allowed a user to select an appropriate protective material for a specific chemical, select a clothing item (glove, suit, etc.) and thenmore » determine which manufacturers offered the clothing item in the selected material. The U.S. Coast Guard Office of Research and Development and the EPA have supplemented these guidelines with additional data on material chemical resistance, material physical properties, clothing design features, and specific-vendor products. A chapter has been added for selecting chemical protective suits. These guidelines contain data for over 750 chemicals and 700 clothing products. Volume I provides the performance information and recommendations for selecting different types of protective clothing.« less

  16. Simulations of the Far-infrared Sky

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Andreani, P.; Lutz, D.; Poglitsch, A.; Genzel, R.

    2001-07-01

    One of the main tasks of FIRST is to carry out shallow and deep surveys in the far-IR / submm spectral domain with unprecedented sensitivity. Selecting unbiased samples out of deep surveys will be crucial to determine the history of evolving dusty objects, and therefore of star-formation. However, the usual procedures to extract information from a survey, i.e. selection of sources, computing the number counts, the luminosity and the correlation functions, and so on, cannot lead to a fully satisfactory and rigorous determination of the source characteristics. This is expecially true in the far-IR where source identification and redshift determination are difficult. To check the reliability of results the simulation of a large number of mock surveys is mandatory. This provides information on the observational biases and instrumental effects introduced by the observing procedures and allows one to understand how the different parameters affect the source observation and detection. The project we are undertaking consists of (1) simulating the far-IR/submm surveys as PACS (and SPIRE) will observe, (2) extracting from these complete mock catalogues, (3) for the foreseen photometric bands selecting high-z candidates in colour-colour diagrams, and (4) testing different observing strategies to assess observational biases and understand how the different parameters affect source observation and detection.

  17. Selecting Stories for Multicultural Art Lessons (Kindergarten-2nd Grade Emphasis).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    DiSiena, Julie

    Storytelling has cultural roots and this can be employed to teach a culturally pluralistic curriculum. Stories can be selected from a variety of sources and used to match lesson objectives. Criteria for selecting stories should include the authenticity of cultural representation, the amount of cultural information, appropriateness, and the…

  18. Information Seeking and Satisfaction with Information Sources Among Spouses of Men with Newly Diagnosed Local-Stage Prostate Cancer.

    PubMed

    Bansal, Aasthaa; Koepl, Lisel M; Fedorenko, Catherine R; Li, Chunyu; Smith, Judith Lee; Hall, Ingrid J; Penson, David F; Ramsey, Scott D

    2018-04-01

    Information sources about prostate cancer treatment and outcomes are typically designed for patients. Little is known about the availability and utility of information for partners. The objectives of our study were to evaluate information sources used by partners to understand prostate cancer management options, their perceived usefulness, and the relationship between sources used and satisfaction with treatment experience. A longitudinal survey of female partners of men newly diagnosed with local-stage prostate cancer was conducted in three different geographic regions. Partners and associated patients were surveyed at baseline (after patient diagnosis but prior to receiving therapy) and at 12 months following diagnosis. Information sources included provider, literature, friends or family members, Internet websites, books, traditional media, and support groups. Utility of an information source was defined as whether the partner would recommend it to caregivers of other patients with local-stage prostate cancer. Our study cohort included 179 partner-patient pairs. At diagnosis, partners consulted an average of 4.6 information sources. Non-Hispanic white partners were more likely than others to use friends and family as an information source (OR = 2.44, 95% CI (1.04, 5.56)). More educated partners were less likely to use support groups (OR = 0.31, 95% CI (0.14, 0.71)). At 12-month follow-up, partners were less likely to recommend books (OR = 0.23, 95% CI (0.11, 0.49)) compared to baseline. Partners consulted a large number of information sources in researching treatment options for local-stage prostate cancer and the types of sources accessed varied by race/ethnicity and educational attainment. Additional resources to promote selection of high-quality non-provider information sources are warranted to enable partners to better aid patients in their treatment decision-making process.

  19. Information Seeking and Satisfaction with Information Sources Among Spouses of Men with Newly Diagnosed Local-Stage Prostate Cancer

    PubMed Central

    Bansal, Aasthaa; Koepl, Lisel M.; Fedorenko, Catherine R.; Li, Chunyu; Smith, Judith Lee; Hall, Ingrid J.; Penson, David F.; Ramsey, Scott D.

    2017-01-01

    Information sources about prostate cancer treatment and outcomes are typically designed for patients. Little is known about the availability and utility of information for partners. The objectives of our study were to evaluate information sources used by partners to understand prostate cancer management options, their perceived usefulness, and the relationship between sources used and satisfaction with treatment experience. A longitudinal survey of female partners of men newly diagnosed with local-stage prostate cancer was conducted in three different geographic regions. Partners and associated patients were surveyed at baseline (after patient diagnosis but prior to receiving therapy) and at 12 months following diagnosis. Information sources included provider, literature, friends or family members, Internet websites, books, traditional media, and support groups. Utility of an information source was defined as whether the partner would recommend it to caregivers of other patients with local-stage prostate cancer. Our study cohort included 179 partner-patient pairs. At diagnosis, partners consulted an average of 4.6 information sources. Non-Hispanic white partners were more likely than others to use friends and family as an information source (OR = 2.44, 95% CI (1.04, 5.56)). More educated partners were less likely to use support groups (OR = 0.31, 95% CI (0.14, 0.71)). At 12-month follow-up, partners were less likely to recommend books (OR = 0.23, 95% CI (0.11, 0.49)) compared to baseline. Partners consulted a large number of information sources in researching treatment options for local-stage prostate cancer and the types of sources accessed varied by race/ethnicity and educational attainment. Additional resources to promote selection of high-quality non-provider information sources are warranted to enable partners to better aid patients in their treatment decision-making process. PMID:28238032

  20. A Unified Framework for Periodic, On-Demand, and User-Specified Software Information

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Kolano, Paul Z.

    2004-01-01

    Although grid computing can increase the number of resources available to a user; not all resources on the grid may have a software environment suitable for running a given application. To provide users with the necessary assistance for selecting resources with compatible software environments and/or for automatically establishing such environments, it is necessary to have an accurate source of information about the software installed across the grid. This paper presents a new OGSI-compliant software information service that has been implemented as part of NASA's Information Power Grid project. This service is built on top of a general framework for reconciling information from periodic, on-demand, and user-specified sources. Information is retrieved using standard XPath queries over a single unified namespace independent of the information's source. Two consumers of the provided software information, the IPG Resource Broker and the IPG Neutralization Service, are briefly described.

  1. Information acquisition for women facing surgical treatment for breast cancer: influencing factors and selected outcomes.

    PubMed

    O'Leary, Katherine A; Estabrooks, Carole A; Olson, Kärin; Cumming, Ceinwen

    2007-12-01

    To examine, summarize, and critically assess the literature focusing on information use by early-stage breast cancer patients. Empirical articles reporting the information needs, sources used/preferred, and intervention-related outcomes experienced by patients in the context of making a treatment choice were chosen. Several healthcare databases were searched. Articles were limited to those published in English between January 1, 1986 and March 31, 2006. A total of 25 articles met the inclusion criteria. Information needs were consistent, and highest rankings were for (in order): information about chances for a cure, stage of disease, and treatment options. Results were equivocal regarding the factors found to influence information need: age, time since diagnosis, and preferred role in decision-making. The highest ranked information sources accessed and preferred were physicians. Age, education, and type of treatment chosen influenced source choice. Patients using consumer decision aids (CDAs) had less decisional conflict, higher satisfaction with the decision made and the decision process, and higher knowledge levels. Information needs and source use were influenced by several personal and contextual factors. A better understanding of source use could provide more effective ways of disseminating information to patients.

  2. Guide to Sources: American History, Anthropology, Folklore, Business Administration, Education, English, Food Science, French, German, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Maine Univ., Orono. Raymond H. Fogler Library.

    This group of 13 library guides, designed to introduce the student to some of the bibliographical tools available in various subject areas at Fogler Library, is not intended to be a complete listing, but rather a selective introduction to the many sources of information available to the beginning researcher. Information is provided on the use of…

  3. Fourteen-month-olds selectively search for and use information depending on the familiarity of the informant in both laboratory and home contexts.

    PubMed

    Schieler, Andy; Koenig, Melissa; Buttelmann, David

    2018-06-20

    Infants are selective in their learning from others. However, there is only very limited research on the possible factors that shape this selectivity, especially when it comes to the impact of infants' familiarity with the informant and the context. The current study investigated whether 14-month-olds preferred to receive and use information provided by an unfamiliar informant (experimenter) compared with a familiar informant (parent) and whether this pattern depended on the context (home vs. laboratory). We tested infants either in the laboratory (n = 67) or in their home (n = 70). When both informants presented a novel object with positive or negative emotions, we measured infants' gaze behavior as an indicator for information search. When infants acted on the novel object themselves, we measured their exploratory behavior as an indicator of information use. Results revealed no effect of context on infants' information search and use. Rather, we found that the familiarity of informant had distinct effects on infant attention and object exploration. Namely, infants looked longer at the unfamiliar informant across contexts, but they explored more when the familiar informant presented the object compared with when the unfamiliar informant did so. Thus, during information search, 14-month-olds paid most attention to an unfamiliar source of information. However, participants explored the objects more when they came from a familiar source than when they came from an unfamiliar one. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Extracting spatial information from large aperture exposures of diffuse sources

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Clarke, J. T.; Moos, H. W.

    1981-01-01

    The spatial properties of large aperture exposures of diffuse emission can be used both to investigate spatial variations in the emission and to filter out camera noise in exposures of weak emission sources. Spatial imaging can be accomplished both parallel and perpendicular to dispersion with a resolution of 5-6 arc sec, and a narrow median filter running perpendicular to dispersion across a diffuse image selectively filters out point source features, such as reseaux marks and fast particle hits. Spatial information derived from observations of solar system objects is presented.

  5. Integrating biological knowledge into variable selection: an empirical Bayes approach with an application in cancer biology

    PubMed Central

    2012-01-01

    Background An important question in the analysis of biochemical data is that of identifying subsets of molecular variables that may jointly influence a biological response. Statistical variable selection methods have been widely used for this purpose. In many settings, it may be important to incorporate ancillary biological information concerning the variables of interest. Pathway and network maps are one example of a source of such information. However, although ancillary information is increasingly available, it is not always clear how it should be used nor how it should be weighted in relation to primary data. Results We put forward an approach in which biological knowledge is incorporated using informative prior distributions over variable subsets, with prior information selected and weighted in an automated, objective manner using an empirical Bayes formulation. We employ continuous, linear models with interaction terms and exploit biochemically-motivated sparsity constraints to permit exact inference. We show an example of priors for pathway- and network-based information and illustrate our proposed method on both synthetic response data and by an application to cancer drug response data. Comparisons are also made to alternative Bayesian and frequentist penalised-likelihood methods for incorporating network-based information. Conclusions The empirical Bayes method proposed here can aid prior elicitation for Bayesian variable selection studies and help to guard against mis-specification of priors. Empirical Bayes, together with the proposed pathway-based priors, results in an approach with a competitive variable selection performance. In addition, the overall procedure is fast, deterministic, and has very few user-set parameters, yet is capable of capturing interplay between molecular players. The approach presented is general and readily applicable in any setting with multiple sources of biological prior knowledge. PMID:22578440

  6. Information Behaviour of Slovenian Researchers: Investigation of Activities, Preferences and Characteristics

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vilar, Polona; Juznic, Primoz; Bartol, Tomaz

    2015-01-01

    Introduction: The paper presents one segment of the first comprehensive national study investigating information behaviour of Slovenian researchers in all research disciplines in relation to selected demographic variables. Research questions addressed various types of information behaviour, format preferences, use of different types of sources,…

  7. 48 CFR 3.104-3 - Statutory and related prohibitions, restrictions, and requirements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... disclosing procurement information (subsection 27(a) of the Act). (1) A person described in paragraph (a)(2... proposal information or source selection information before the award of a Federal agency procurement... to, a Federal agency procurement; and (ii) By virtue of that office, employment, or relationship, has...

  8. Selected Information Resources on Scholarships, Fellowships, Grants and Loans.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hass, John Henry, Comp.

    For each organization that serves as a source of information on financial support for college students, research, and special projects, the directory gives the name, address, telephone number, and a brief description of the kinds of information available and the organization's other functions and general objectives. Any relevant publications of…

  9. Resource Guide to Literature on Barrier-Free Environments; With Selected Annotations.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, Washington, DC.

    The resource guide lists information on 1341 references (1960-1975) on barrier-free environments for elderly and/or handicapped persons. Each citation contains bibliographic information (author, title, ordering information and source), descriptors, and a brief abstract. Resources are arranged according to the following categories (sample subtopics…

  10. The Basal Ganglia Striosomes Affect the Modulation of Conflicts by Subliminal Information-Evidence from X-Linked Dystonia Parkinsonism.

    PubMed

    Beste, Christian; Mückschel, Moritz; Rosales, Raymond; Domingo, Aloysius; Lee, Lillian; Ng, Arlene; Klein, Christine; Münchau, Alexander

    2018-07-01

    Cognitive control is relevant when distracting information induces behavioral conflicts. Such conflicts can be produced consciously and by subliminally processed information. Interestingly, both sources of conflict interact suggesting that they share neural mechanisms. Here, we ask whether conjoint effects between different sources of conflict are modulated by microstructural basal ganglia dysfunction. To this end, we carried out an electroencephalography study and examined event-related potentials (ERPs) including source localization using a combined flanker-subliminal priming task in patients with X-linked dystonia Parkinsonism (XDP) and a group of healthy controls. XDP in its early stages is known to predominantly affect the basal ganglia striosomes. The results suggest that conjoint effects between subliminal and conscious sources of conflicts are modulated by the striosomes and were stronger in XDP patients. The neurophysiological data indicate that this effect is related to modulations in conflict monitoring and response selection (N2 ERP) mechanisms engaging the anterior cingulate cortex. Bottom-up perceptual gating, attentional selection, and motor response activation processes in response to the stimuli (P1, N1, and lateralized readiness potential ERPs) were unaffected. Taken together, these data indicate that striosomes modulate the processing of conscious and subliminal sources of conflict suggesting that microstructural basal ganglia properties are relevant for cognitive control.

  11. A dynamic data source selection system for smartwatch platform.

    PubMed

    Nemati, Ebrahim; Sideris, Konstantinos; Kalantarian, Haik; Sarrafzadeh, Majid

    2016-08-01

    A novel data source selection algorithm is proposed for ambulatory activity tracking of elderly people. The algorithm introduces the concept of dynamic switching between the data collection modules (a smartwatch and a smartphone) to improve accuracy and battery life using contextual information. We show that by making offloading decisions as a function of activity, the proposed algorithm improves power consumption and accuracy of the previous work by 7 hours and 5% respectively compared to the baseline.

  12. Internet information-seeking in mental health: population survey.

    PubMed

    Powell, John; Clarke, Aileen

    2006-09-01

    A major use of the of the internet is for health information-seeking. There has been little research into its use in relation to mental health. To investigate the prevalence of internet use for mental health information-seeking and its relative importance as a mental health information source. General population survey. Questions covered internet use, past psychiatric history and the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. Eighteen per cent of all internet users had used the internet for information related to mental health. The prevalence was higher among those with a past history of mental health problems and those with current psychological distress. Only 12% of respondents selected the internet as one of the three most accurate sources of information, compared with 24% who responded that it was one of the three sources they would use. The internet has a significant role in mental health information-seeking. The internet is used more than it is trusted.

  13. The Bologna complete sample of nearby radio sources. II. Phase referenced observations of faint nuclear sources

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Liuzzo, E.; Giovannini, G.; Giroletti, M.; Taylor, G. B.

    2009-10-01

    Aims: To study statistical properties of different classes of sources, it is necessary to observe a sample that is free of selection effects. To do this, we initiated a project to observe a complete sample of radio galaxies selected from the B2 Catalogue of Radio Sources and the Third Cambridge Revised Catalogue (3CR), with no selection constraint on the nuclear properties. We named this sample “the Bologna Complete Sample” (BCS). Methods: We present new VLBI observations at 5 and 1.6 GHz for 33 sources drawn from a sample not biased toward orientation. By combining these data with those in the literature, information on the parsec-scale morphology is available for a total of 76 of 94 radio sources with a range in radio power and kiloparsec-scale morphologies. Results: The fraction of two-sided sources at milliarcsecond resolution is high (30%), compared to the fraction found in VLBI surveys selected at centimeter wavelengths, as expected from the predictions of unified models. The parsec-scale jets are generally found to be straight and to line up with the kiloparsec-scale jets. A few peculiar sources are discussed in detail. Tables 1-4 are only available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org

  14. Oil and development in the Arabian Gulf: A selected annotated bibliography

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

    Sharif, W.I.

    1985-01-01

    This past decade has witnessed a vast proliferation of literature on the Arabian Gulf region. In this book the author provides a systematic guide to the literature in order to assist those conducting research on the area. The author is primarily concerned with the national, regional and international role of Arabian Gulf oil between 1973 and 1983. He includes more general sources, however, if they are partly devoted to the subject or if they provide information essential to the understanding of the particular economic systems or the place of Arabian Gulf oil within the world energy situation. Sources of amore » technical nature have been excluded, such as those dealing with the science and technology of Arab oil. The main languages of the material selected for inclusion are English and Arabic, with French, German, Italian, and Spanish sources in smaller number. The Arabic sources are appended separately after the Western language sections in each chapter. The sources of information cited include books, monographs, articles, journals, theses, annual reports, directories, government documents, and various unpublished papers and documents.« less

  15. Selection and application of microbial source tracking tools for water-quality investigations

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Stoeckel, Donald M.

    2005-01-01

    Microbial source tracking (MST) is a complex process that includes many decision-making steps. Once a contamination problem has been defined, the potential user of MST tools must thoroughly consider study objectives before deciding upon a source identifier, a detection method, and an analytical approach to apply to the problem. Regardless of which MST protocol is chosen, underlying assumptions can affect the results and interpretation. It is crucial to incorporate tests of those assumptions in the study quality-control plan to help validate results and facilitate interpretation. Detailed descriptions of MST objectives, protocols, and assumptions are provided in this report to assist in selection and application of MST tools for water-quality investigations. Several case studies illustrate real-world applications of MST protocols over a range of settings, spatial scales, and types of contamination. Technical details of many available source identifiers and detection methods are included as appendixes. By use of this information, researchers should be able to formulate realistic expectations for the information that MST tools can provide and, where possible, successfully execute investigations to characterize sources of fecal contamination to resource waters.

  16. The Role of Sensory Modality in Age-Related Distraction: A Critical Review and a Renewed View

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Guerreiro, Maria J. S.; Murphy, Dana R.; Van Gerven, Pascal W. M.

    2010-01-01

    Selective attention requires the ability to focus on relevant information and to ignore irrelevant information. The ability to inhibit irrelevant information has been proposed to be the main source of age-related cognitive change (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1988). Although age-related distraction by irrelevant information has been extensively…

  17. Reducing Stressful Aspects of Information Technology in Public Services.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Quinn, Brian

    1995-01-01

    Identifies sources of technological stress for public services librarians and patrons and proposes ways to reduce stress, including communicating with staff, implementing a system gradually, providing adequate training, creating proper documentation, planning, considering ergonomics in hardware and software selection, selecting a good interface,…

  18. Selected Sources on the Internet.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Scott, Ralph Lee; And Others

    1994-01-01

    Five articles describe specific Internet resources, including geoscience and science databases; economic and statistical information; the JANET (Joint Academic Network) Bulletin Board for Librarians; and White House communications. A sixth article describes how practical applications of Internet information create new roles for reference…

  19. Mercury in fish and macroinvertebrates from New York's streams and rivers: A compendium of data sources

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Riva-Murray, Karen; Burns, Douglas A.

    2016-01-01

    The U.S. Geological Survey has compiled a list of existing data sets, from selected sources, containing mercury (Hg) concentration data in fish and macroinvertebrate samples that were collected from flowing waters of New York State from 1970 through 2014. Data sets selected for inclusion in this report were limited to those that contain fish and (or) macroinvertebrate data that were collected across broad areas, cover relatively long time periods, and (or) were collected as part of a broader-scale (e.g. national) study or program. In addition, all data sets listed were collected, processed, and analyzed with documented methods, and contain critical sample information (e.g. fish species, fish size, Hg species) that is needed to analyze and interpret the reported Hg concentration data. Fourteen data sets, all from state or federal agencies, are listed in this report, along with selected descriptive information regarding each data source and data set contents. Together, these 14 data sets contain Hg and related data for more than 7,000 biological samples collected from more than 700 unique stream and river locations between 1970 and 2014.

  20. Selecting Communication Channels for Substance Misuse Prevention with At-Risk African-American Emerging Adults Living in the Southern United States

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tucker, Jalie A.; Cheong, JeeWon; Chandler, Susan D.

    2016-01-01

    Natural health information sources used by African-American emerging adults were investigated to identify sources associated with high and low substance-related risk. Participants (110 males, 234 females; M age = 18.9 years) were recruited using respondent-driven sampling, and structured interviews assessed substance use, sources of health…

  1. Disrupting gatekeeping practices: Journalists' source selection in times of crisis.

    PubMed

    van der Meer, Toni G L A; Verhoeven, Piet; Beentjes, Johannes W J; Vliegenthart, Rens

    2017-10-01

    As gatekeepers, journalists have the power to select the sources that get a voice in crisis coverage. The aim of this study is to find out how journalists select sources during a crisis. In a survey, journalists were asked how they assess the following sources during an organizational crisis: news agencies, an organization undergoing a crisis, and the general public. The sample consisted of 214 Dutch experienced journalists who at least once covered a crisis. Using structural equation modeling, sources' likelihood of being included in the news was predicted using five source characteristics: credibility, knowledge, willingness, timeliness, and the relationship with the journalist. Findings indicated that during a crisis, news agencies are most likely to be included in the news, followed by the public, and finally the organization. The significance of the five source characteristics is dependent on source type. For example, to be used in the news, news agencies and organizations should be mainly evaluated as knowledgeable, whereas information from the public should be both credible and timely. In addition, organizations should not be seen as too willing or too eager to communicate. The findings imply that, during a crisis, journalists remain critical gatekeepers; however, they rely mainly on familiar sources.

  2. Enhancing topology adaptation in information-sharing social networks

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cimini, Giulio; Chen, Duanbing; Medo, Matúš; Lü, Linyuan; Zhang, Yi-Cheng; Zhou, Tao

    2012-04-01

    The advent of the Internet and World Wide Web has led to unprecedent growth of the information available. People usually face the information overload by following a limited number of sources which best fit their interests. It has thus become important to address issues like who gets followed and how to allow people to discover new and better information sources. In this paper we conduct an empirical analysis of different online social networking sites and draw inspiration from its results to present different source selection strategies in an adaptive model for social recommendation. We show that local search rules which enhance the typical topological features of real social communities give rise to network configurations that are globally optimal. These rules create networks which are effective in information diffusion and resemble structures resulting from real social systems.

  3. Young Children's Reliance on Information from Inaccurate Informants

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Sunae; Paulus, Markus; Kalish, Chuck

    2017-01-01

    Prior work shows that children selectively learn from credible speakers. Yet little is known how they treat information from non-credible speakers. This research examined to what extent and under what conditions children may or may not learn from problematic sources. In three studies, we found that children displayed trust toward previously…

  4. A precedence effect resolves phantom sound source illusions in the parasitoid fly Ormia ochracea

    PubMed Central

    Lee, Norman; Elias, Damian O.; Mason, Andrew C.

    2009-01-01

    Localizing individual sound sources under reverberant environmental conditions can be a challenge when the original source and its acoustic reflections arrive at the ears simultaneously from different paths that convey ambiguous directional information. The acoustic parasitoid fly Ormia ochracea (Diptera: Tachinidae) relies on a pair of ears exquisitely sensitive to sound direction to localize the 5-kHz tone pulsatile calling song of their host crickets. In nature, flies are expected to encounter a complex sound field with multiple sources and their reflections from acoustic clutter potentially masking temporal information relevant to source recognition and localization. In field experiments, O. ochracea were lured onto a test arena and subjected to small random acoustic asymmetries between 2 simultaneous sources. Most flies successfully localize a single source but some localize a ‘phantom’ source that is a summed effect of both source locations. Such misdirected phonotaxis can be elicited reliably in laboratory experiments that present symmetric acoustic stimulation. By varying onset delay between 2 sources, we test whether hyperacute directional hearing in O. ochracea can function to exploit small time differences to determine source location. Selective localization depends on both the relative timing and location of competing sources. Flies preferred phonotaxis to a forward source. With small onset disparities within a 10-ms temporal window of attention, flies selectively localize the leading source while the lagging source has minimal influence on orientation. These results demonstrate the precedence effect as a mechanism to overcome phantom source illusions that arise from acoustic reflections or competing sources. PMID:19332794

  5. STSHV a teleinformatic system for historic seismology in Venezuela

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Choy, J. E.; Palme, C.; Altez, R.; Aranguren, R.; Guada, C.; Silva, J.

    2013-05-01

    From 1997 on, when the first "Jornadas Venezolanas de Sismicidad Historica" took place, a big interest awoke in Venezuela to organize the available information related to historic earthquakes. At that moment only existed one published historic earthquake catalogue, that from Centeno Grau published the first time in 1949. That catalogue had no references about the sources of information. Other catalogues existed but they were internal reports for the petroleum companies and therefore difficult to access. In 2000 Grases et al reedited the Centeno-Grau catalogue, it ended up in a new, very complete catalogue with all the sources well referenced and updated. The next step to organize historic seismicity data was, from 2004 to 2008, the creation of the STSHV (Sistema de teleinformacion de Sismologia Historica Venezolana, http://sismicidad.hacer.ula.ve ). The idea was to bring together all information about destructive historic earthquakes in Venezuela in one place in the internet so it could be accessed easily by a widespread public. There are two ways to access the system. The first one, selecting an earthquake or a list of earthquakes, and the second one, selecting an information source or a list of sources. For each earthquake there is a summary of general information and additional materials: a list with the source parameters published by different authors, a list with intensities assessed by different authors, a list of information sources, a short text summarizing the historic situation at the time of the earthquake and a list of pictures if available. There are searching facilities for the seismic events and dynamic maps can be created. The information sources are classified in: books, handwritten documents, transcription of handwritten documents, documents published in books, journals and congress memories, newspapers, seismologic catalogues and electronic sources. There are facilities to find specific documents or lists of documents with common characteristics. For each document general information is displayed together with an extract of the information relating to the earthquake. If the complete document was available and no problem with the publishers rights a pdf copy of the document was included. We found this system extremely useful for studying historic earthquakes, as one can access immediately previous research works about an earthquake and it allows to check easily the historic information and so to validate the intensity data. So far, the intensity data have not been completed for earthquakes after 2000. This information would be important for improving calibration of intensity - magnitude calibrations of historic events, and is a work in progress. On the other hand, it is important to mention that "El Catálogo Sismológico Venezolano del siglo XX" (The Seismological Venezuelan Catalog), published in 2012, updates seismic information up to 2007, and that the STSHV was one of its primary sources of information.

  6. Pushing the Boundaries: Zines and Libraries.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dodge, Chris

    1995-01-01

    Describes zines (self-published magazines); suggests librarians should regard zines as historical sources of culture and include them in materials selection. Discusses the role of technology in publication and distribution; the audience; cataloging problems; free speech; and zines on the Internet. Sidebars provide information on selected zines and…

  7. Targeted versus statistical approaches to selecting parameters for modelling sediment provenance

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Laceby, J. Patrick

    2017-04-01

    One effective field-based approach to modelling sediment provenance is the source fingerprinting technique. Arguably, one of the most important steps for this approach is selecting the appropriate suite of parameters or fingerprints used to model source contributions. Accordingly, approaches to selecting parameters for sediment source fingerprinting will be reviewed. Thereafter, opportunities and limitations of these approaches and some future research directions will be presented. For properties to be effective tracers of sediment, they must discriminate between sources whilst behaving conservatively. Conservative behavior is characterized by constancy in sediment properties, where the properties of sediment sources remain constant, or at the very least, any variation in these properties should occur in a predictable and measurable way. Therefore, properties selected for sediment source fingerprinting should remain constant through sediment detachment, transportation and deposition processes, or vary in a predictable and measurable way. One approach to select conservative properties for sediment source fingerprinting is to identify targeted tracers, such as caesium-137, that provide specific source information (e.g. surface versus subsurface origins). A second approach is to use statistical tests to select an optimal suite of conservative properties capable of modelling sediment provenance. In general, statistical approaches use a combination of a discrimination (e.g. Kruskal Wallis H-test, Mann-Whitney U-test) and parameter selection statistics (e.g. Discriminant Function Analysis or Principle Component Analysis). The challenge is that modelling sediment provenance is often not straightforward and there is increasing debate in the literature surrounding the most appropriate approach to selecting elements for modelling. Moving forward, it would be beneficial if researchers test their results with multiple modelling approaches, artificial mixtures, and multiple lines of evidence to provide secondary support to their initial modelling results. Indeed, element selection can greatly impact modelling results and having multiple lines of evidence will help provide confidence when modelling sediment provenance.

  8. Image Fusion Algorithms Using Human Visual System in Transform Domain

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Vadhi, Radhika; Swamy Kilari, Veera; Samayamantula, Srinivas Kumar

    2017-08-01

    The endeavor of digital image fusion is to combine the important visual parts from various sources to advance the visibility eminence of the image. The fused image has a more visual quality than any source images. In this paper, the Human Visual System (HVS) weights are used in the transform domain to select appropriate information from various source images and then to attain a fused image. In this process, mainly two steps are involved. First, apply the DWT to the registered source images. Later, identify qualitative sub-bands using HVS weights. Hence, qualitative sub-bands are selected from different sources to form high quality HVS based fused image. The quality of the HVS based fused image is evaluated with general fusion metrics. The results show the superiority among the state-of-the art resolution Transforms (MRT) such as Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT), Contourlet Transform (CT), and Non Sub Sampled Contourlet Transform (NSCT) using maximum selection fusion rule.

  9. Biographical Sources in the Sciences. LC Science Tracer Bullet.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Terner, Janet, Comp.; And Others

    This guide offers a systematic approach to the wide variety of published biographical information on men and women of science. Historical and contemporary scientists are covered, with emphasis on American scientists. Sources were selected on the basis of general availability through major public and institutional library systems. This publication…

  10. Operational Lessons from a Strategic Sourcing Project

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krob, Adam

    2008-01-01

    Sourcing decisions for information services departments have become an integral part of every school's IT strategy. Much has been written on what areas to outsource, which partner to select, and how to negotiate contracts and service agreements. In this article, the author shares the operational lessons learned by Tulane University during the…

  11. Guide to Reference Materials for School Library Media Centers. Fifth Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Safford, Barbara Ripp

    This publication lists current reference sources that serve the information needs of school library users, including books, CD-ROMs, and World Wide Web sources in all curricular and some extracurricular areas. Criteria for selection include usefulness for curricular applications by elementary and secondary students and teachers, interest for…

  12. What do popular Spanish women's magazines say about caesarean section? A 21-year survey.

    PubMed

    Torloni, M R; Campos Mansilla, B; Merialdi, M; Betrán, A P

    2014-04-01

    Caesarean section (CS) rates are increasing worldwide and maternal request is cited as one of the main reasons for this trend. Women's preferences for route of delivery are influenced by popular media, including magazines. We assessed the information on CS presented in Spanish women's magazines. Systematic review. Women's magazines printed from 1989 to 2009 with the largest national distribution. Articles with any information on CS. Articles were selected, read and abstracted in duplicate. Sources of information, scientific accuracy, comprehensiveness and women's testimonials were objectively extracted using a content analysis form designed for this study. Accuracy, comprehensiveness and sources of information. Most (67%) of the 1223 selected articles presented exclusively personal opinion/birth stories, 12% reported the potential benefits of CS, 26% mentioned the short-term and 10% mentioned the long-term maternal risks, and 6% highlighted the perinatal risks of CS. The most frequent short-term risks were the increased time for maternal recovery (n = 86), frustration/feelings of failure (n = 83) and increased post-surgical pain (n = 71). The most frequently cited long-term risks were uterine rupture (n = 57) and the need for another CS in any subsequent pregnancy (n = 42). Less than 5% of the selected articles reported that CS could increase the risks of infection (n = 53), haemorrhage (n = 31) or placenta praevia/accreta in future pregnancies (n = 6). The sources of information were not reported by 68% of the articles. The portrayal of CS in Spanish women's magazines is not sufficiently comprehensive and does not provide adequate important information to help the readership to understand the real benefits and risks of this route of delivery. © 2014 The Authors. BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

  13. What do popular Spanish women's magazines say about caesarean section? A 21-year survey

    PubMed Central

    Torloni, MR; Campos Mansilla, B; Merialdi, M; Betrán, AP

    2014-01-01

    Objectives Caesarean section (CS) rates are increasing worldwide and maternal request is cited as one of the main reasons for this trend. Women's preferences for route of delivery are influenced by popular media, including magazines. We assessed the information on CS presented in Spanish women's magazines. Design Systematic review. Setting Women's magazines printed from 1989 to 2009 with the largest national distribution. Sample Articles with any information on CS. Methods Articles were selected, read and abstracted in duplicate. Sources of information, scientific accuracy, comprehensiveness and women's testimonials were objectively extracted using a content analysis form designed for this study. Main outcome measures Accuracy, comprehensiveness and sources of information. Results Most (67%) of the 1223 selected articles presented exclusively personal opinion/birth stories, 12% reported the potential benefits of CS, 26% mentioned the short-term and 10% mentioned the long-term maternal risks, and 6% highlighted the perinatal risks of CS. The most frequent short-term risks were the increased time for maternal recovery (n = 86), frustration/feelings of failure (n = 83) and increased post-surgical pain (n = 71). The most frequently cited long-term risks were uterine rupture (n = 57) and the need for another CS in any subsequent pregnancy (n = 42). Less than 5% of the selected articles reported that CS could increase the risks of infection (n = 53), haemorrhage (n = 31) or placenta praevia/accreta in future pregnancies (n = 6). The sources of information were not reported by 68% of the articles. Conclusions The portrayal of CS in Spanish women's magazines is not sufficiently comprehensive and does not provide adequate important information to help the readership to understand the real benefits and risks of this route of delivery. PMID:24467797

  14. Vibration and acoustic frequency spectra for industrial process modeling using selective fusion multi-condition samples and multi-source features

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tang, Jian; Qiao, Junfei; Wu, ZhiWei; Chai, Tianyou; Zhang, Jian; Yu, Wen

    2018-01-01

    Frequency spectral data of mechanical vibration and acoustic signals relate to difficult-to-measure production quality and quantity parameters of complex industrial processes. A selective ensemble (SEN) algorithm can be used to build a soft sensor model of these process parameters by fusing valued information selectively from different perspectives. However, a combination of several optimized ensemble sub-models with SEN cannot guarantee the best prediction model. In this study, we use several techniques to construct mechanical vibration and acoustic frequency spectra of a data-driven industrial process parameter model based on selective fusion multi-condition samples and multi-source features. Multi-layer SEN (MLSEN) strategy is used to simulate the domain expert cognitive process. Genetic algorithm and kernel partial least squares are used to construct the inside-layer SEN sub-model based on each mechanical vibration and acoustic frequency spectral feature subset. Branch-and-bound and adaptive weighted fusion algorithms are integrated to select and combine outputs of the inside-layer SEN sub-models. Then, the outside-layer SEN is constructed. Thus, "sub-sampling training examples"-based and "manipulating input features"-based ensemble construction methods are integrated, thereby realizing the selective information fusion process based on multi-condition history samples and multi-source input features. This novel approach is applied to a laboratory-scale ball mill grinding process. A comparison with other methods indicates that the proposed MLSEN approach effectively models mechanical vibration and acoustic signals.

  15. [Gender identity, a factor of inequality forgotten by Spanish health information systems].

    PubMed

    Gil-Borrelli, Christian; Velasco, César; Martí-Pastor, Marc; Latasa, Pello

    The Spanish Health Information System (HIS) collects health information. Trans people have poorer health status. This paper aimed to assess the adequacy of the HIS to collect the health data on trans individuals. The HIS sources available in the Statistical Portal of the National Health System were reviewed. The sources containing population health data were selected. The variables "sex" and "gender identity" were searched. Nineteen sources were identified. In all of them the variable "sex" was found, whereas "gender identify" did not appear in any of the 19. In two sources, the variable "sex" allowed values of "transsexual". The SIS contains little information regarding gender identity. This leads to the invisibility of trans people in Spanish health statistics. Obtaining this information would allow for a better understanding of the barriers to health care access, and the health needs of one of the most discriminated groups in our society. Copyright © 2017 SESPAS. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  16. Anchoring in Numeric Judgments of Visual Stimuli

    PubMed Central

    Langeborg, Linda; Eriksson, Mårten

    2016-01-01

    This article investigates effects of anchoring in age estimation and estimation of quantities, two tasks which to different extents are based on visual stimuli. The results are compared to anchoring in answers to classic general knowledge questions that rely on semantic knowledge. Cognitive load was manipulated to explore possible differences between domains. Effects of source credibility, manipulated by differing instructions regarding the selection of anchor values (no information regarding anchor selection, information that the anchors are randomly generated or information that the anchors are answers from an expert) on anchoring were also investigated. Effects of anchoring were large for all types of judgments but were not affected by cognitive load or by source credibility in either one of the researched domains. A main effect of cognitive load on quantity estimations and main effects of source credibility in the two visually based domains indicate that the manipulations were efficient. Implications for theoretical explanations of anchoring are discussed. In particular, because anchoring did not interact with cognitive load, the results imply that the process behind anchoring in visual tasks is predominantly automatic and unconscious. PMID:26941684

  17. Memory Accessibility and Medical Decision-Making for Significant Others: The Role of Socially Shared Retrieval-Induced Forgetting

    PubMed Central

    Coman, Dora; Coman, Alin; Hirst, William

    2013-01-01

    Medical decisions will often entail a broad search for relevant information. No sources alone may offer a complete picture, and many may be selective in their presentation. This selectivity may induce forgetting for previously learned material, thereby adversely affecting medical decision-making. In the study phase of two experiments, participants learned information about a fictitious disease and advantages and disadvantages of four treatment options. In the subsequent practice phase, they read a pamphlet selectively presenting either relevant (Experiment 1) or irrelevant (Experiment 2) advantages or disadvantages. A final cued recall followed and, in Experiment 2, a decision as to the best treatment for a patient. Not only did reading the pamphlet induce forgetting for related and unmentioned information, the induced forgetting adversely affected decision-making. The research provides a cautionary note about the risks of searching through selectively presented information when making a medical decision. PMID:23785320

  18. Disrupting gatekeeping practices: Journalists’ source selection in times of crisis

    PubMed Central

    van der Meer, Toni G.L.A.; Verhoeven, Piet; Beentjes, Johannes W.J.; Vliegenthart, Rens

    2016-01-01

    As gatekeepers, journalists have the power to select the sources that get a voice in crisis coverage. The aim of this study is to find out how journalists select sources during a crisis. In a survey, journalists were asked how they assess the following sources during an organizational crisis: news agencies, an organization undergoing a crisis, and the general public. The sample consisted of 214 Dutch experienced journalists who at least once covered a crisis. Using structural equation modeling, sources’ likelihood of being included in the news was predicted using five source characteristics: credibility, knowledge, willingness, timeliness, and the relationship with the journalist. Findings indicated that during a crisis, news agencies are most likely to be included in the news, followed by the public, and finally the organization. The significance of the five source characteristics is dependent on source type. For example, to be used in the news, news agencies and organizations should be mainly evaluated as knowledgeable, whereas information from the public should be both credible and timely. In addition, organizations should not be seen as too willing or too eager to communicate. The findings imply that, during a crisis, journalists remain critical gatekeepers; however, they rely mainly on familiar sources. PMID:29278263

  19. AIDS: A Selective Bibliography.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Candaras, Barbara J.

    Intended for use primarily by the general adult public, this pathfinder lists selected information sources on the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) that are in the collections of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo Health Sciences Library, the Central Library-Buffalo, and the Erie County Public Library. A broad range of…

  20. The Reading Skills of Home Economics: Problems and Selected References.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cranney, A. Garr; And Others

    Since most secondary school reading textbooks give home economics only minimal attention, this paper identifies selected information sources in home economics reading skills and in home economics for high school reading specialists. The first portion of the paper discusses eight principle problems that home economics poses for secondary school…

  1. 48 CFR 3.701 - Purpose.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... PRACTICES AND PERSONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Voiding and Rescinding Contracts 3.701 Purpose. This subpart... final conviction for bribery, conflict of interest, disclosure or receipt of contractor bid or proposal information or source selection information in exchange for a thing of value or to give anyone a competitive...

  2. 4 CFR 21.4 - Protective orders.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-01-01

    ... the applicant is not involved in competitive decision-making for any firm that could gain a... 4 Accounts 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Protective orders. 21.4 Section 21.4 Accounts GOVERNMENT... protected information. Such information may include proprietary, confidential, or source-selection-sensitive...

  3. Information about old growth for selected forest type groups in the eastern United States.

    Treesearch

    Lucy E. Tyrrell; Gregory J. Nowacki; David S. Buckley; Elizabeth A. Nauertz; Jeffrey N. Niese; Jeanette L. Rollinger; John C. Zasada; John C. Zasada

    1998-01-01

    Compiles information about old-growth attributes for nine forest type groups that occur in the eastern United States. A range of values for each old-growth attribute for each forest type is summarized regionally from published and unpublished sources.

  4. ALL RUSSIAN INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION (VINITI) OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

    PubMed Central

    Markusova, Valentina

    2012-01-01

    The aim of the paper is to overview the leading information processing domain in Russia and Eastern Europe, namely All Russian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI ) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Russian science structure is different from that in the Western Europe and the US. The main aim of VINITI is to collect, process and disseminate scientific information on various fields of science and technology, published in 70 countries in 40 languages, selected from books, journals, conference proceedings, and patents. A special attention is given to the journal selection and depositing manuscripts (a kind of grey literature), an important source for Russian research. VINITI has created the largest database containing about 30 million records dating back to 1980. About 80,000-100,000 new records are added monthly. VINITI publishes the Journal Abstract (JA) on 19 fields of science, including medicine, containing about a million publications annually. Two thirds of these records are foreign and 36.7% – Russian sources. PMID:23322964

  5. All Russian institute for scientific and technical information (viniti) of the Russian academy of sciences.

    PubMed

    Markusova, Valentina

    2012-06-01

    The aim of the paper is to overview the leading information processing domain in Russia and Eastern Europe, namely All Russian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI ) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Russian science structure is different from that in the Western Europe and the US. The main aim of VINITI is to collect, process and disseminate scientific information on various fields of science and technology, published in 70 countries in 40 languages, selected from books, journals, conference proceedings, and patents. A special attention is given to the journal selection and depositing manuscripts (a kind of grey literature), an important source for Russian research. VINITI has created the largest database containing about 30 million records dating back to 1980. About 80,000-100,000 new records are added monthly. VINITI publishes the Journal Abstract (JA) on 19 fields of science, including medicine, containing about a million publications annually. Two thirds of these records are foreign and 36.7% - Russian sources.

  6. Virtual shelves in a digital library: a framework for access to networked information sources.

    PubMed

    Patrick, T B; Springer, G K; Mitchell, J A; Sievert, M E

    1995-01-01

    Develop a framework for collections-based access to networked information sources that addresses the problem of location-dependent access to information sources. This framework uses a metaphor of a virtual shelf. A virtual shelf is a general-purpose server that is dedicated to a particular information subject class. The identifier of one of these servers identifies its subject class. Location-independent call numbers are assigned to information sources. Call numbers are based on standard vocabulary codes. The call numbers are first mapped to the location-independent identifiers of virtual shelves. When access to an information resource is required, a location directory provides a second mapping of these location-independent server identifiers to actual network locations. The framework has been implemented in two different systems. One system is based on the Open System Foundation/Distributed Computing Environment and the other is based on the World Wide Web. This framework applies in new ways traditional methods of library classification and cataloging. It is compatible with two traditional styles of selecting information searching and browsing. Traditional methods may be combined with new paradigms of information searching that will be able to take advantage of the special properties of digital information. Cooperation between the library-informational science community and the informatics community can provide a means for a continuing application of the knowledge and techniques of library science to the new problems of networked information sources.

  7. Remote sensing as a source of data for outdoor recreation planning

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Reed, W. E.; Goodell, H. G.; Emmitt, G. D.

    1972-01-01

    Specific data needs for outdoor recreation planning and the ability of tested remote sensors to provide sources for these data are examined. Data needs, remote sensor capabilities, availability of imagery, and advantages and problems of incorporating remote sensing data sources into ongoing planning data collection programs are discussed in detail. Examples of the use of imagery to derive data for a range of common planning analyses are provided. A selected bibliography indicates specific uses of data in planning, basic background materials on remote sensing technology, and sources of information on environmental information systems expected to use remote sensing to provide new environmental data of use in outdoor recreation planning.

  8. Double point source W-phase inversion: Real-time implementation and automated model selection

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Nealy, Jennifer; Hayes, Gavin

    2015-01-01

    Rapid and accurate characterization of an earthquake source is an extremely important and ever evolving field of research. Within this field, source inversion of the W-phase has recently been shown to be an effective technique, which can be efficiently implemented in real-time. An extension to the W-phase source inversion is presented in which two point sources are derived to better characterize complex earthquakes. A single source inversion followed by a double point source inversion with centroid locations fixed at the single source solution location can be efficiently run as part of earthquake monitoring network operational procedures. In order to determine the most appropriate solution, i.e., whether an earthquake is most appropriately described by a single source or a double source, an Akaike information criterion (AIC) test is performed. Analyses of all earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 and greater occurring since January 2000 were performed with extended analyses of the September 29, 2009 magnitude 8.1 Samoa earthquake and the April 19, 2014 magnitude 7.5 Papua New Guinea earthquake. The AIC test is shown to be able to accurately select the most appropriate model and the selected W-phase inversion is shown to yield reliable solutions that match published analyses of the same events.

  9. Addressing the changing sources of health information in iran.

    PubMed

    Alishahi-Tabriz, Amir; Sohrabi, Mohammad-Reza; Kiapour, Nazanin; Faramarzi, Nina

    2013-01-01

    Following the entrance of new technologies in health information era, this study aimed to assess changes in health information sources of Iranian people during past decade. Totally 3000 people were asked about their main sources of health information. They were selected as two community-based samples of 1500 people of more than 18-years-old in two different periods of time in August 2002 and August 2010 from the same locations in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Data analyzed based on age group, sex, educational level and household income in two different periods of time using Chi-square. Odds ratios associated with each basic characteristic were calculated using logistic regression. Most common sources of health information in 2002 were radio and television (17.7%), caregivers (14.9%) and internet (14.2%) and in 2010 were radio and television (19.3%), internet (19.3%) and caregivers (15.8%) (P < 0.001). In 2010, young adults female used television and radio and male used internet as the main source of health information (P = 0.003). In moderate educational level women got their health information from radio and television and caregivers; while men used radio and television and internet as main source of health information (P = 0.005). Highly educated women and men mainly got their health information from internet and radio and television (P > 0.05). Although during 8 years of study radio and television remained as main source of health information but there is an increasing tendency to use internet especially in men. Policymakers should revise their broadcasting strategies based on people demand.

  10. Unsorting Ourselves: A Critical Role for LIS Education. A Short Communication

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Turner, Deborah; Gorichanaz, Tim

    2016-01-01

    The way that information users select information and news sources is impacted upon by the way that information providers package their material. This packaging has the potential to reinforce already-held beliefs and diminish social diversity. A group of scholars convened at iConference 2016 in a session for interactive engagement to discuss how…

  11. Credibility and Usefulness of Health Information on Facebook: A Survey Study with U.S. College Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Sung Un; Syn, Sue Yeon

    2016-01-01

    Introduction: This study examines ways in which college students perceive the credibility and usefulness of health information on Facebook, depending on topic sensitivity, information source and demographic factors. Method: With self-selection sampling, data were collected from two universities through an online survey; 351 responses were used for…

  12. The role of external sources of information in children’s evaluative food categories

    PubMed Central

    Nguyen, Simone P.; McCullough, Mary Beth; Noble, Ashley

    2011-01-01

    Evaluative food categories are value-laden assessments which reflect the healthfulness and palatability of foods (e.g., healthy/unhealthy, yummy/yucky). In a series of three studies, this research examines how 3- to 4-year-old children (N = 147) form evaluative food categories based on input from external sources of information. The results indicate that children prefer to ask a mom and teacher over a cartoon and child for information about the evaluative status of foods. However, children are cautious to accept information about healthy foods from all of the external sources compared to unhealthy, yummy, and yucky foods. The results also indicate that providing information about the positive taste of healthy foods helps to encourage children to select healthy foods to eat. Taken together, these results have potential implications for children’s health and nutrition education. PMID:23049450

  13. 5 CFR 2635.703 - Use of nonpublic information.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-01-01

    ... source selection team assigned to review the proposals submitted by several companies in response to an Army solicitation for spare parts. As a member of the evaluation team, the employee has access to... newspaper reporter nonpublic information about long-range plans to build a particular dam. ...

  14. 5 CFR 2635.703 - Use of nonpublic information.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-01-01

    ... source selection team assigned to review the proposals submitted by several companies in response to an Army solicitation for spare parts. As a member of the evaluation team, the employee has access to... newspaper reporter nonpublic information about long-range plans to build a particular dam. ...

  15. 5 CFR 2635.703 - Use of nonpublic information.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-01-01

    ... source selection team assigned to review the proposals submitted by several companies in response to an Army solicitation for spare parts. As a member of the evaluation team, the employee has access to... newspaper reporter nonpublic information about long-range plans to build a particular dam. ...

  16. Pathways of information transmission among wild songbirds follow experimentally imposed changes in social foraging structure.

    PubMed

    Firth, Josh A; Sheldon, Ben C; Farine, Damien R

    2016-06-01

    Animals regularly use information from others to shape their decisions. Yet, determining how changes in social structure affect information flow and social learning strategies has remained challenging. We manipulated the social structure of a large community of wild songbirds by controlling which individuals could feed together at automated feeding stations (selective feeders). We then provided novel ephemeral food patches freely accessible to all birds and recorded the spread of this new information. We demonstrate that the discovery of new food patches followed the experimentally imposed social structure and that birds disproportionately learnt from those whom they could forage with at the selective feeders. The selective feeders reduced the number of conspecific information sources available and birds subsequently increased their use of information provided by heterospecifics. Our study demonstrates that changes to social systems carry over into pathways of information transfer and that individuals learn from tutors that provide relevant information in other contexts. © 2016 The Authors.

  17. The Literature of Geography: A Guide to Its Organization and Use.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brewer, J. Gordon

    This book provides an introduction to basic sources of selected information about geography for both student and librarian. The objective is to identify the most useful, significant, and authoritative sources of general geography and within each branch of the subject. Written in a narrative style, the book emphasizes recently published reference…

  18. Knowledge and Processes That Predict Proficiency in Digital Literacy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bulger, Monica E.; Mayer, Richard E.; Metzger, Miriam J.

    2014-01-01

    Proficiency in digital literacy refers to the ability to read and write using online sources, and includes the ability to select sources relevant to the task, synthesize information into a coherent message, and communicate the message with an audience. The present study examines the determinants of digital literacy proficiency by asking 150…

  19. Effective Marketing Strategies Flow from Sound Segmentation Data.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chen, Henry C. K.; And Others

    The paper investigates the potential market segments of an upper division university in transition to 4-year status, and explores selection criteria and the influence of various information sources on the choice of university by the potential target students. Data sources for the study included a survey of 142 freshmen students of whom 120…

  20. Film Library Information Management System.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Minnella, C. Vincent; And Others

    The computer program described not only allows the user to determine rental sources for a particular film title quickly, but also to select the least expensive of the sources. This program developed at SUNY Cortland's Sperry Learning Resources Center and Computer Center is designed to maintain accurate data on rental and purchase films in both…

  1. Public Information Use in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Children (Homo sapiens)

    PubMed Central

    Vale, Gill L.; Flynn, Emma G.; Lambeth, Susan P.; Schapiro, Steven J.; Kendal, Rachel L.

    2014-01-01

    The discernment of resource quality is pertinent to many daily decisions faced by animals. Public information is a critical information source that promotes quality assessments, attained by monitoring others’ performance. Here we provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) use public information to guide resource selection. Thirty-two chimpanzees were presented with two simultaneous video demonstrations depicting a conspecific acquiring resources at a fast (resource-rich) or slow (resource-poor) rate. Subsequently, subjects selected the resource-rich site above chance expectation. As a comparison, we report evidence of public information use in young children. Investigation of public information use in primates is pertinent, as it can enhance foraging success and potentially facilitate payoff-biased social learning. PMID:24060244

  2. Simultaneous attentional guidance by working-memory and selection history reveals two distinct sources of attention.

    PubMed

    Schwark, Jeremy D; Dolgov, Igor; Sandry, Joshua; Volkman, C Brooks

    2013-10-01

    Recent theories of attention have proposed that selection history is a separate, dissociable source of information that influences attention. The current study sought to investigate the simultaneous involvement of selection history and working-memory on attention during visual search. Experiments 1 and 2 used target feature probability to manipulate selection history and found significant effects of both working-memory and selection history, although working-memory dominated selection history when they cued different locations. Experiment 3 eliminated the contribution of voluntary refreshing of working-memory and replicated the main effects, although selection history became dominant. Using the same methodology, but with reduced probability cue validity, both effects were present in Experiment 4 and did not significantly differ in their contribution to attention. Effects of selection history and working-memory never interacted. These results suggest that selection history and working-memory are separate influences on attention and have little impact on each other. Theoretical implications for models of attention are discussed. © 2013.

  3. SPIDERS: selection of spectroscopic targets using AGN candidates detected in all-sky X-ray surveys

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Dwelly, T.; Salvato, M.; Merloni, A.; Brusa, M.; Buchner, J.; Anderson, S. F.; Boller, Th.; Brandt, W. N.; Budavári, T.; Clerc, N.; Coffey, D.; Del Moro, A.; Georgakakis, A.; Green, P. J.; Jin, C.; Menzel, M.-L.; Myers, A. D.; Nandra, K.; Nichol, R. C.; Ridl, J.; Schwope, A. D.; Simm, T.

    2017-07-01

    SPIDERS (SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources) is a Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) survey running in parallel to the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) cosmology project. SPIDERS will obtain optical spectroscopy for large numbers of X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) and galaxy cluster members detected in wide-area eROSITA, XMM-Newton and ROSAT surveys. We describe the methods used to choose spectroscopic targets for two sub-programmes of SPIDERS X-ray selected AGN candidates detected in the ROSAT All Sky and the XMM-Newton Slew surveys. We have exploited a Bayesian cross-matching algorithm, guided by priors based on mid-IR colour-magnitude information from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer survey, to select the most probable optical counterpart to each X-ray detection. We empirically demonstrate the high fidelity of our counterpart selection method using a reference sample of bright well-localized X-ray sources collated from XMM-Newton, Chandra and Swift-XRT serendipitous catalogues, and also by examining blank-sky locations. We describe the down-selection steps which resulted in the final set of SPIDERS-AGN targets put forward for spectroscopy within the eBOSS/TDSS/SPIDERS survey, and present catalogues of these targets. We also present catalogues of ˜12 000 ROSAT and ˜1500 XMM-Newton Slew survey sources that have existing optical spectroscopy from SDSS-DR12, including the results of our visual inspections. On completion of the SPIDERS programme, we expect to have collected homogeneous spectroscopic redshift information over a footprint of ˜7500 deg2 for >85 per cent of the ROSAT and XMM-Newton Slew survey sources having optical counterparts in the magnitude range 17 < r < 22.5, producing a large and highly complete sample of bright X-ray-selected AGN suitable for statistical studies of AGN evolution and clustering.

  4. Spent Sealed Sources Management in Switzerland - 12011

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

    Beer, H.F.

    2012-07-01

    Information is provided about the international recommendations for the safe management of disused and spent sealed radioactive sources wherein the return to the supplier or manufacturer is encouraged for large radioactive sources. The legal situation in Switzerland is described mentioning the demand of minimization of radioactive waste as well as the situation with respect to the interim storage facility at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). Based on this information and on the market situation with a shortage of some medical radionuclides the management of spent sealed sources is provided. The sources are sorted according to their activity in relation tomore » the nuclide-specific A2-value and either recycled as in the case of high active sources or conditioned as in the case for sources with lower activity. The results are presented as comparison between recycled and conditioned activity for three selected nuclides, i.e. Cs-137, Co-60 and Am-241. (author)« less

  5. A Conceptual Characterization of Online Videos Explaining Natural Selection

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bohlin, Gustav; Göransson, Andreas; Höst, Gunnar E.; Tibell, Lena A. E.

    2017-01-01

    Educational videos on the Internet comprise a vast and highly diverse source of information. Online search engines facilitate access to numerous videos claiming to explain natural selection, but little is known about the degree to which the video content match key evolutionary content identified as important in evolution education research. In…

  6. A Selected Bibliography on International Education.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Foreign Policy Association, New York, NY.

    This unannotated bibliography is divided into four major sections; 1) General Background Readings for Teachers; 2) Approaches and Methods; 3) Materials for the Classroom; and, 4) Sources of Information and Materials. It offers a highly selective list of items which provide wide coverage of the field. Included are items on foreign policy, war and…

  7. Sources of Interference from Irrelevant Information: A Developmental Study.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ridderinkhof, K. Richard; And Others

    1997-01-01

    Investigated mechanisms underlying reductions in susceptibility to interference from irrelevant information that are evident in the developing child. Used two experiments requiring attention to one stimulus out of many. Found that age changes in selective attention are mediated to an important extent by changes in the speed and efficiency of…

  8. 48 CFR 3.701 - Purpose.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... competitive advantage in the award of a Federal agency procurement contract; and (b) A means to deter similar... information or source selection information in exchange for a thing of value or to give anyone a competitive advantage in the award of a Federal agency procurement contract, or similar misconduct; or (2) An agency...

  9. Review and Analysis of Curricula for Occupations in Metalworking.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Snyder, Thomas R.; Butler, Roy L.

    To provide curriculum specialists and practitioners with specific information on the source and quality of instructional materials for the metal trades and area and to suggest areas of needed curriculum development, a selected review and analysis of previously processed Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) documents were made.…

  10. Perceiving environmental properties from motion information: Minimal conditions

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Proffitt, Dennis R.; Kaiser, Mary K.

    1989-01-01

    The status of motion as a minimal information source for perceiving the environmental properties of surface segregation, three-dimensional (3-D) form, displacement, and dynamics is discussed. The selection of these particular properties was motivated by a desire to present research on perceiving properties that span the range of dimensional complexity.

  11. Families and Work Institute.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Galinsky, Ellen

    This paper discusses the influences on parents' selection of child care. One study cited determined that in their search for child care, parents use informal sources of information, though educated parents are more likely to use resource and referral systems. Other studies have shown that parents are more concerned about cost, convenience, and…

  12. Report: Scientific Software.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Borman, Stuart A.

    1985-01-01

    Discusses various aspects of scientific software, including evaluation and selection of commercial software products; program exchanges, catalogs, and other information sources; major data analysis packages; statistics and chemometrics software; and artificial intelligence. (JN)

  13. On an Allan variance approach to classify VLBI radio-sources on the basis of their astrometric stability

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gattano, C.; Lambert, S.; Bizouard, C.

    2017-12-01

    In the context of selecting sources defining the celestial reference frame, we compute astrometric time series of all VLBI radio-sources from observations in the International VLBI Service database. The time series are then analyzed with Allan variance in order to estimate the astrometric stability. From results, we establish a new classification that takes into account the whole multi-time scales information. The algorithm is flexible on the definition of ``stable source" through an adjustable threshold.

  14. A Human Resource Inventory and Information System for Selected Illinois Community Colleges and Upper-Division Universities: A Feasibility Study.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wesley, Robert M.; And Others

    This report presents the results of a pilot study designed to test the feasibility and desirability of establishing a statewide human resources inventory and information system to support the community service role of Illinois community colleges and upper division universities. The information system would provide a centralized source of data on…

  15. Career Planning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chemical and Engineering News, 1976

    1976-01-01

    Provides the names and addresses of most of the nation's major employers of chemists and chemical engineers. Also lists sources of information and organizations that can supply guidance on selecting, obtaining, and changing careers. (MLH)

  16. Making "E" Visible: To Draw Patrons Past the Googles of the World, We Need to Revolutionize How Electronic Resources Are Promoted

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williams, Lesley

    2006-01-01

    In a survey of a representative sample of over 3300 online information consumers and their information-seeking behavior, survey findings indicate that 84 percent of information searches begin with a search engine. Library web sites were selected by just one percent of respondents as the source used to begin an information search and 72 percent had…

  17. Virtual shelves in a digital library: a framework for access to networked information sources.

    PubMed Central

    Patrick, T B; Springer, G K; Mitchell, J A; Sievert, M E

    1995-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Develop a framework for collections-based access to networked information sources that addresses the problem of location-dependent access to information sources. DESIGN: This framework uses a metaphor of a virtual shelf. A virtual shelf is a general-purpose server that is dedicated to a particular information subject class. The identifier of one of these servers identifies its subject class. Location-independent call numbers are assigned to information sources. Call numbers are based on standard vocabulary codes. The call numbers are first mapped to the location-independent identifiers of virtual shelves. When access to an information resource is required, a location directory provides a second mapping of these location-independent server identifiers to actual network locations. RESULTS: The framework has been implemented in two different systems. One system is based on the Open System Foundation/Distributed Computing Environment and the other is based on the World Wide Web. CONCLUSIONS: This framework applies in new ways traditional methods of library classification and cataloging. It is compatible with two traditional styles of selecting information searching and browsing. Traditional methods may be combined with new paradigms of information searching that will be able to take advantage of the special properties of digital information. Cooperation between the library-informational science community and the informatics community can provide a means for a continuing application of the knowledge and techniques of library science to the new problems of networked information sources. PMID:8581554

  18. Weather information network including graphical display

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Leger, Daniel R. (Inventor); Burdon, David (Inventor); Son, Robert S. (Inventor); Martin, Kevin D. (Inventor); Harrison, John (Inventor); Hughes, Keith R. (Inventor)

    2006-01-01

    An apparatus for providing weather information onboard an aircraft includes a processor unit and a graphical user interface. The processor unit processes weather information after it is received onboard the aircraft from a ground-based source, and the graphical user interface provides a graphical presentation of the weather information to a user onboard the aircraft. Preferably, the graphical user interface includes one or more user-selectable options for graphically displaying at least one of convection information, turbulence information, icing information, weather satellite information, SIGMET information, significant weather prognosis information, and winds aloft information.

  19. Information sources in biomedical science and medical journalism: methodological approaches and assessment.

    PubMed

    Miranda, Giovanna F; Vercellesi, Luisa; Bruno, Flavia

    2004-09-01

    Throughout the world the public is showing increasing interest in medical and scientific subjects and journalists largely spread this information, with an important impact on knowledge and health. Clearly, therefore, the relationship between the journalist and his sources is delicate: freedom and independence of information depend on the independence and truthfulness of the sources. The new "precision journalism" holds that scientific methods should be applied to journalism, so authoritative sources are a common need for journalists and scientists. We therefore compared the individual classifications and methods of assessing of sources in biomedical science and medical journalism to try to extrapolate scientific methods of evaluation to journalism. In journalism and science terms used to classify sources of information show some similarities, but their meanings are different. In science primary and secondary classes of information, for instance, refer to the levels of processing, but in journalism to the official nature of the source itself. Scientists and journalists must both always consult as many sources as possible and check their authoritativeness, reliability, completeness, up-to-dateness and balance. In journalism, however, there are some important differences and limits: too many sources can sometimes diminish the quality of the information. The sources serve a first filter between the event and the journalist, who is not providing the reader with the fact, but with its projection. Journalists have time constraints and lack the objective criteria for searching, the specific background knowledge, and the expertise to fully assess sources. To assist in understanding the wealth of sources of information in journalism, we have prepared a checklist of items and questions. There are at least four fundamental points that a good journalist, like any scientist, should know: how to find the latest information (the sources), how to assess it (the quality and authoritativeness), how to analyse and filter it (selection), how to deal with too many sources of information, sometimes case biased by conflicting interests (balance). The journalist must, in addition, know how to translate it to render it accessible and useful to the general public (dissemination), and how to use it best.

  20. International Data on Radiological Sources

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

    Martha Finck; Margaret Goldberg

    2010-07-01

    ABSTRACT The mission of radiological dispersal device (RDD) nuclear forensics is to identify the provenance of nuclear and radiological materials used in RDDs and to aid law enforcement in tracking nuclear materials and routes. The application of databases to radiological forensics is to match RDD source material to a source model in the database, provide guidance regarding a possible second device, and aid the FBI by providing a short list of manufacturers and distributors, and ultimately to the last legal owner of the source. The Argonne/Idaho National Laboratory RDD attribution database is a powerful technical tool in radiological forensics. Themore » database (1267 unique vendors) includes all sealed sources and a device registered in the U.S., is complemented by data from the IAEA Catalogue, and is supported by rigorous in-lab characterization of selected sealed sources regarding physical form, radiochemical composition, and age-dating profiles. Close working relationships with global partners in the commercial sealed sources industry provide invaluable technical information and expertise in the development of signature profiles. These profiles are critical to the down-selection of potential candidates in either pre- or post- event RDD attribution. The down-selection process includes a match between an interdicted (or detonated) source and a model in the database linked to one or more manufacturers and distributors.« less

  1. New (125)I brachytherapy source IsoSeed I25.S17plus: Monte Carlo dosimetry simulation and comparison to sources of similar design.

    PubMed

    Pantelis, Evaggelos; Papagiannis, Panagiotis; Anagnostopoulos, Giorgos; Baltas, Dimos

    2013-12-01

    To determine the relative dose rate distribution around the new (125)I brachytherapy source IsoSeed I25.S17plus and report results in a form suitable for clinical use. Results for the new source are also compared to corresponding results for other commercially available (125)I sources of similar design. Monte Carlo simulations were performed using the MCNP5 v.1.6 general purpose code. The model of the new source was prepared from information provided by the manufacturer and verified by imaging a sample of ten non-radioactive sources. Corresponding simulations were also performed for the 6711 (125)I brachytherapy source, using updated geometric information presented recently in the literature. The uncertainty of the dose distribution around the new source, as well as the dosimetric quantities derived from it according to the Task Group 43 formalism, were determined from the standard error of the mean of simulations for a sample of fifty source models. These source models were prepared by randomly selecting values of geometric parameters from uniform distributions defined by manufacturer stated tolerances. Results are presented in the form of the quantities defined in the update of the Task Group 43 report, as well as a relative dose rate table in Cartesian coordinates. The dose rate distribution of the new source is comparable to that of sources of similar design (IsoSeed I25.S17, Oncoseed 6711, SelectSeed 130.002, Advantage IAI-125A, I-Seed AgX100, Thinseed 9011). Noticeable differences were observed only for the IsoSeed I25.S06 and Best 2301 sources.

  2. Bayesian inverse modeling and source location of an unintended 131I release in Europe in the fall of 2011

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Tichý, Ondřej; Šmídl, Václav; Hofman, Radek; Šindelářová, Kateřina; Hýža, Miroslav; Stohl, Andreas

    2017-10-01

    In the fall of 2011, iodine-131 (131I) was detected at several radionuclide monitoring stations in central Europe. After investigation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed by Hungarian authorities that 131I was released from the Institute of Isotopes Ltd. in Budapest, Hungary. It was reported that a total activity of 342 GBq of 131I was emitted between 8 September and 16 November 2011. In this study, we use the ambient concentration measurements of 131I to determine the location of the release as well as its magnitude and temporal variation. As the location of the release and an estimate of the source strength became eventually known, this accident represents a realistic test case for inversion models. For our source reconstruction, we use no prior knowledge. Instead, we estimate the source location and emission variation using only the available 131I measurements. Subsequently, we use the partial information about the source term available from the Hungarian authorities for validation of our results. For the source determination, we first perform backward runs of atmospheric transport models and obtain source-receptor sensitivity (SRS) matrices for each grid cell of our study domain. We use two dispersion models, FLEXPART and Hysplit, driven with meteorological analysis data from the global forecast system (GFS) and from European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) weather forecast models. Second, we use a recently developed inverse method, least-squares with adaptive prior covariance (LS-APC), to determine the 131I emissions and their temporal variation from the measurements and computed SRS matrices. For each grid cell of our simulation domain, we evaluate the probability that the release was generated in that cell using Bayesian model selection. The model selection procedure also provides information about the most suitable dispersion model for the source term reconstruction. Third, we select the most probable location of the release with its associated source term and perform a forward model simulation to study the consequences of the iodine release. Results of these procedures are compared with the known release location and reported information about its time variation. We find that our algorithm could successfully locate the actual release site. The estimated release period is also in agreement with the values reported by IAEA and the reported total released activity of 342 GBq is within the 99 % confidence interval of the posterior distribution of our most likely model.

  3. Predicting forest attributes from climate data using a recursive partitioning and regression tree algorithm

    Treesearch

    Greg C. Liknes; Christopher W. Woodall; Charles H. Perry

    2009-01-01

    Climate information frequently is included in geospatial modeling efforts to improve the predictive capability of other data sources. The selection of an appropriate climate data source requires consideration given the number of choices available. With regard to climate data, there are a variety of parameters (e.g., temperature, humidity, precipitation), time intervals...

  4. Elder Abuse Prevention Project - Phase I. Literature Summary.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Draper, Lori; And Others

    This document summarizes information on elder abuse collected from various sources in Canada and the United States. It is noted that document entries are often representative of more than one source, and have been selected as each adds something new and valuable to the overall research on elder abuse. An attempt has been made to choose information…

  5. Where do teens go to get the 411 on sexual health? A teen intern in clinical research with teens.

    PubMed

    Reznik, Yana; Tebb, Kathleen

    2008-01-01

    Research Setting: The research for the study reported here was conducted in conjunction with the Biomedical and Health Sciences Internship for High School Students at the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Pediatrics. The eight-week intensive summer program promotes interest in science, medicine, and health among young people by introducing students to the professional world of science, broadly defined. Interns are expected to assist in a specific research project that addresses a scientific question. They participate in a variety of lectures and are exposed to faculty members, medical students, and college graduates working as research assistants in a rich academic and clinical research setting. This study was conducted within Kaiser Permanente (KP) of Northern California as part of a larger study aimed at increasing Chlamydia screening among sexually active adolescents. It was approved by Committee on Human Research, the institutional review board (IRB) for the University of California, San Francisco and the IRB for KP Northern California. There were two primary objectives of this study: first, we sought to identify where teenagers obtain information about sexual health; second, we examined whether aspects of a clinician's communication style with a teen during a health care visit were associated with the teen choosing that clinician as a primary source of sexual health information (as compared with parents, peers, teachers, the news media, and other sources). Teens who perceived that their clinician communicated with respect and explained information in ways that they could understand were more likely to cite their clinician as a source of sexual health information. Having time alone (confidentiality) with a physician was also associated with teens' selection of a clinician as a primary information source. Whether the clinician asked about sex during the health care visit was significantly associated with males selecting the clinician as a primary source of sexual health information. An important finding, at least for males, because teens do not always bring up the topic.

  6. Hippocampal activity during recognition memory co-varies with the accuracy and confidence of source memory judgments.

    PubMed

    Yu, Sarah S; Johnson, Jeffrey D; Rugg, Michael D

    2012-06-01

    It has been proposed that the hippocampus selectively supports retrieval of contextual associations, but an alternative view holds that the hippocampus supports strong memories regardless of whether they contain contextual information. We employed a memory test that combined the 'Remember/Know' and source memory procedures, which allowed test items to be segregated both by memory strength (recognition accuracy) and, separately, by the quality of the contextual information that could be retrieved (indexed by the accuracy/confidence of a source memory judgment). As measured by fMRI, retrieval-related hippocampal activity tracked the quality of retrieved contextual information and not memory strength. These findings are consistent with the proposal that the hippocampus supports contextual recollection rather than recognition memory more generally. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  7. A global earthquake discrimination scheme to optimize ground-motion prediction equation selection

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Garcia, Daniel; Wald, David J.; Hearne, Michael

    2012-01-01

    We present a new automatic earthquake discrimination procedure to determine in near-real time the tectonic regime and seismotectonic domain of an earthquake, its most likely source type, and the corresponding ground-motion prediction equation (GMPE) class to be used in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Global ShakeMap system. This method makes use of the Flinn–Engdahl regionalization scheme, seismotectonic information (plate boundaries, global geology, seismicity catalogs, and regional and local studies), and the source parameters available from the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in the minutes following an earthquake to give the best estimation of the setting and mechanism of the event. Depending on the tectonic setting, additional criteria based on hypocentral depth, style of faulting, and regional seismicity may be applied. For subduction zones, these criteria include the use of focal mechanism information and detailed interface models to discriminate among outer-rise, upper-plate, interface, and intraslab seismicity. The scheme is validated against a large database of recent historical earthquakes. Though developed to assess GMPE selection in Global ShakeMap operations, we anticipate a variety of uses for this strategy, from real-time processing systems to any analysis involving tectonic classification of sources from seismic catalogs.

  8. Ventral Fronto-Temporal Pathway Supporting Cognitive Control of Episodic Memory Retrieval

    PubMed Central

    Barredo, Jennifer; Öztekin, Ilke; Badre, David

    2015-01-01

    Achieving our goals often requires guiding access to relevant information from memory. Such goal-directed retrieval requires interactions between systems supporting cognitive control, including ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), and those supporting declarative memory, such as the medial temporal lobes (MTL). However, the pathways by which VLPFC interacts with MTL during retrieval are underspecified. Prior neuroanatomical evidence suggests that a polysynaptic ventral fronto-temporal pathway may support VLPFC–MTL interactions. To test this hypothesis, human participants were scanned using fMRI during performance of a source-monitoring task. The strength of source information was varied via repetition during encoding. Single encoding events should produce a weaker memory trace, thus recovering source information about these items should demand greater cognitive control. Results demonstrated that cortical targets along the ventral path—anterior VLPFC, temporal pole, anterior parahippocampus, and hippocampus—exhibited increases in univariate BOLD response correlated with increases in controlled retrieval demand, independent of factors related to response selection. Further, a functional connectivity analysis indicated that these regions functionally couple and are distinguishable from a dorsal pathway related to response selection demands. These data support a ventral retrieval pathway linking PFC and MTL. PMID:24177990

  9. Strategies for selecting effective patient nutrition education materials.

    PubMed

    Clayton, Laura H

    2010-10-01

    Nutrition and diet therapy are at the center of health promotion activities and self-management of chronic diseases. To assist an individual in making informed decisions regarding his or her diet and increase adherence to dietary recommendations or treatments, healthcare professionals must select health information that is appropriate to the client's level of understanding. A systematic approach in the evaluation of patient education material, whether in print or on the World Wide Web, must focus on the information's content, literacy level, graphical displays, layout and typography, motivating principles, cultural relevance, and feasibility. Additional criteria should be evaluated when accessing Web sites and include source, site credibility, conflict of interest, disclaimer, disclosure, navigation, and interactivity information.

  10. Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution with multiple crystal heralded source with post-selection

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Chen, Dong; Shang-Hong, Zhao; MengYi, Deng

    2018-03-01

    The multiple crystal heralded source with post-selection (MHPS), originally introduced to improve the single-photon character of the heralded source, has specific applications for quantum information protocols. In this paper, by combining decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) with spontaneous parametric downconversion process, we present a modified MDI-QKD scheme with MHPS where two architectures are proposed corresponding to symmetric scheme and asymmetric scheme. The symmetric scheme, which linked by photon switches in a log-tree structure, is adopted to overcome the limitation of the current low efficiency of m-to-1 optical switches. The asymmetric scheme, which shows a chained structure, is used to cope with the scalability issue with increase in the number of crystals suffered in symmetric scheme. The numerical simulations show that our modified scheme has apparent advances both in transmission distance and key generation rate compared to the original MDI-QKD with weak coherent source and traditional heralded source with post-selection. Furthermore, the recent advances in integrated photonics suggest that if built into a single chip, the MHPS might be a practical alternative source in quantum key distribution tasks requiring single photons to work.

  11. Increasing Planting Stock by Family Selection in California Ponderosa Pine

    Treesearch

    James L. Jenkison

    1975-01-01

    In the absence of test information to the contrary, the accepted guide for selecting seed for reforestation is "local source is best." This guide prevents plantation failures that result from using stock that is not adapted to the local environment, and it reflects the pronounced variation in growth and survival demonstrated in provenance trials (Silen 1970...

  12. Competitive Parallel Processing For Compression Of Data

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Diner, Daniel B.; Fender, Antony R. H.

    1990-01-01

    Momentarily-best compression algorithm selected. Proposed competitive-parallel-processing system compresses data for transmission in channel of limited band-width. Likely application for compression lies in high-resolution, stereoscopic color-television broadcasting. Data from information-rich source like color-television camera compressed by several processors, each operating with different algorithm. Referee processor selects momentarily-best compressed output.

  13. How do Consumers Search for and Appraise Information on Medicines on the Internet? A Qualitative Study Using Focus Groups

    PubMed Central

    Aslani, Parisa; Williams, Kylie A

    2003-01-01

    Background Many consumers use the Internet to find information about their medicines. It is widely acknowledged that health information on the Internet is of variable quality and therefore the search and appraisal skills of consumers are important for selecting and assessing this information. The way consumers choose and evaluate information on medicines on the Internet is important because it has been shown that written information on medicines can influence consumer attitudes to and use of medicines. Objective To explore consumer experiences in searching for and appraising Internet-based information on medicines. Methods Six focus groups (N = 46 participants) were conducted in metropolitan Sydney, Australia from March to May 2003 with consumers who had used the Internet for information on medicines. Verbatim transcripts of the group discussions were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Results All participants reported using a search engine to find information on medicines. Choice of search engine was determined by factors such as the workplace or educational environments, or suggestions by family or friends. Some participants found information solely by typing the medicine name (drug or brand name) into the search engine, while others searched using broader terms. Search skills ranged widely from more-advanced (using quotation marks and phrases) to less-than-optimal (such as typing in questions and full sentences). Many participants selected information from the first page of search results by looking for keywords and descriptions in the search results, and by looking for the source of the information as apparent in the URL. Opinions on credible sources of information on medicines varied with some participants regarding information by pharmaceutical companies as the "official" information on a medicine, and others preferring what they considered to be impartial sources such as governments, organizations, and educational institutions. It was clear that although most participants were skeptical of trusting information on the Internet, they had not paid conscious attention to how they selected information on medicines. Despite this, it was evident that participants viewed the Internet as an important source for information on medicines. Conclusions The results showed that there was a range of search and appraisal skills among participants, with many reporting a limited awareness of how they found and evaluated Internet-based information on medicines. Poor interpretation of written information on medicines has been shown to lead to anxiety and poor compliance to therapy. This issue is more important for Internet-based information since it is not subject to quality control and standardization as is written information on medicines. Therefore, there is a need for promoting consumer search and appraisal skills when using this information. Educating consumers in how to find and interpret Internet-based information on medicines may help them use their medicines in a safer and more-effective way. PMID:14713661

  14. Student information literacy: psychometric validation of a self-efficacy report.

    PubMed

    Brown, Gavin T L

    2005-06-01

    Psychometric characteristics of the Student Information Literacy Self-efficacy Report based on responses from 498 students ages 9 to 12 years are reported. Students report their self-efficacy (confidence and difficulty) in 11 different phases of being information literate, i.e., developing a topic, planning, self-management, locating sources, selecting sources, retrieving information, analysing information, evaluating information, synthesising knowledge, presenting knowledge, and self-evaluation using a positively packed rating scale. The data were strongly internally consistent (Cronbach alpha=.95) with a test-retest reliability of .78. The 11 phases, factors measured by a matching pair of self-efficacy questions, were confirmed (chi2=529.68; df= 198; RMSEA =.058; TLI=.940). Ratings were correlated low with teachers' ratings and test scores of information literacy skills and moderately correlated with academic self-concept. The test provides unique information about students' self-efficacy for information literacy. Its use in classrooms is warranted.

  15. Women and American Politics: A Selected Bibliography, 1965-1974.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chrisman, Sara B.

    This bibliography is intended to serve as a guide to information about women's participation in American politics. Emphasis is on materials published since 1965, but landmark works published earlier are also included. Many documents are from unpublished sources; information on obtaining them is available from the Center for the American Woman and…

  16. U.S.-State Agricultural Data. Agriculture Information Bulletin Number 512.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Womack, Letricia M.; Traub, Larry G.

    This report presents agricultural information for each state and the United States as a whole for the years 1981-1985. Included are data on population, land use, agricultural production, farm income, value of assets on farms, and selected characteristics of farms. The primary data sources are the "1982 Census of Agriculture," the…

  17. Selective Guide to Literature on Agricultural Engineering. Engineering Literature Guides, Number 4.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cloud, Gayla Staples, Comp.

    Agricultural engineering overlaps many other disciplines. This document is a survey of information sources in agricultural engineering and is intended to identify those core resources which can help engineers and librarians to find information about the discipline. Sections include: (1) "Guides to the Literature"; (2) "Bibliographies"; (3)…

  18. An overview of key silvicultural information for ponderosa pine

    Treesearch

    John Fiske; John Tappeiner

    2005-01-01

    This paper provides a selected list of classical references for the important silvicultural findings for ponderosa pine, and categorizes some of the key current literature, as well as some of the older, lesser known but important literature. The paper also provides some history of scientific developments, and sources of further information.

  19. HOW TO FIND OUT ABOUT PHYSICS.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    YATES, B.

    SOURCES OF PHYSICS INFORMATION ARE INCLUDED IN THIS GUIDE. IT WAS WRITTEN FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF PHYSICS, AT BOTH THE COLLEGE AND SECONDARY LEVELS, PHYSICISTS, LIBRARIANS, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. MATERIALS QUOTED WERE PUBLISHED PRIOR TO 1963 AND WERE SELECTED ON THE BASIS OF THE AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE AS AN INFORMATION SCIENTIST. DEWEY DECIMAL…

  20. Drug packaging. A key factor to be taken into account when choosing a treatment.

    PubMed

    2011-10-01

    A drug's packaging contributes to its harm-benefit balance. Highlighting the key practical information and identifying potential sources of error or mix-ups is part and parcel of the correct use of medicines. Select labelling that clearly and prominently displays the important information, including the international nonproprietary name (INN).

  1. X-33 Telemetry Best Source Selection, Processing, Display, and Simulation Model Comparison

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Burkes, Darryl A.

    1998-01-01

    The X-33 program requires the use of multiple telemetry ground stations to cover the launch, ascent, transition, descent, and approach phases for the flights from Edwards AFB to landings at Dugway Proving Grounds, UT and Malmstrom AFB, MT. This paper will discuss the X-33 telemetry requirements and design, including information on fixed and mobile telemetry systems, best source selection, and support for Range Safety Officers. A best source selection system will be utilized to automatically determine the best source based on the frame synchronization status of the incoming telemetry streams. These systems will be used to select the best source at the landing sites and at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center to determine the overall best source between the launch site, intermediate sites, and landing site sources. The best source at the landing sites will be decommutated to display critical flight safety parameters for the Range Safety Officers. The overall best source will be sent to the Lockheed Martin's Operational Control Center at Edwards AFB for performance monitoring by X-33 program personnel and for monitoring of critical flight safety parameters by the primary Range Safety Officer. The real-time telemetry data (received signal strength, etc.) from each of the primary ground stations will also be compared during each nu'ssion with simulation data generated using the Dynamic Ground Station Analysis software program. An overall assessment of the accuracy of the model will occur after each mission. Acknowledgment: The work described in this paper was NASA supported through cooperative agreement NCC8-115 with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.

  2. How women with high risk pregnancies use lay information when considering place of birth: A qualitative study.

    PubMed

    Lee, Suzanne; Holden, Des; Ayers, Susan

    2016-02-01

    Where to give birth is a key decision in pregnancy. Women use information from family, friends and other sources besides healthcare professionals when contemplating this decision. This study explored women's use of lay information during high risk pregnancies in order to examine differences and similarities in the use of information in relation to planned place of birth. Half the participants were planning hospital births and half were planning to give birth at home. A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews set in a hospital maternity department in South East England. Twenty-six participants with high risk pregnancies, at least 32 weeks pregnant. Results were analysed using thematic analysis. Three themes emerged: approaches to research - how much information women chose to seek out and from which sources; selection of sources - how women decided which sources they considered reliable; and unhelpful research - information they considered unhelpful. Women planning homebirths undertook more research than women planning to give birth in hospital and were more likely to seek out alternative sources of information. Women from both groups referred to deliberately seeking out sources of information which reflected their own values and so did not challenge their decisions. There are similarities and differences in the use of lay information between women who plan to give birth in hospital and those who plan homebirths. Professionals working with women with high risk pregnancies should consider these factors when interacting with these women. Copyright © 2015 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Where to find information about drugs

    PubMed Central

    Day, Richard O; Snowden, Leone

    2016-01-01

    SUMMARY Good medicines information is critical to medical practice. Choose high-quality, pre-appraised sources first and make sure they are current. Select the information that is most relevant to the needs of your particular patient. Take the time to become familiar with the features of the resources you use. Australian Medicines Handbook, Therapeutic Guidelines, Australian Prescriber and NPS MedicineWise cover most routine clinical practice needs. PMID:27346917

  4. Analysis of the iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method under a heuristic rule

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Jin, Qinian; Wang, Wei

    2018-03-01

    The iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method is one of the most prominent regularization methods for solving nonlinear ill-posed inverse problems when the data is corrupted by noise. In order to produce a useful approximate solution, this iterative method should be terminated properly. The existing a priori and a posteriori stopping rules require accurate information on the noise level, which may not be available or reliable in practical applications. In this paper we propose a heuristic selection rule for this regularization method, which requires no information on the noise level. By imposing certain conditions on the noise, we derive a posteriori error estimates on the approximate solutions under various source conditions. Furthermore, we establish a convergence result without using any source condition. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the performance of our heuristic selection rule.

  5. Selecting a provider: what factors influence patients' decision making?

    PubMed

    Abraham, Jean; Sick, Brian; Anderson, Joseph; Berg, Andrea; Dehmer, Chad; Tufano, Amanda

    2011-01-01

    Each year consumers make a variety of decisions relating to their healthcare. Some experts argue that stronger consumer engagement in decisions about where to obtain medical care is an important mechanism for improving efficiency in healthcare delivery and financing. Consumers' ability and motivation to become more active decision makers are affected by several factors, including financial incentives and access to information. This study investigates the set of factors that consumers consider when selecting a provider, including attributes of the provider and the care experience and the reputation of the provider. Additionally, the study evaluates consumers awareness and use of formal sources of provider selection information. Our results from analyzing data from a survey of 467 patients at four clinics in Minnesota suggest that the factors considered of greatest importance include reputation of the physician and reputation of the healthcare organization. Contractual and logistical factors also play a role, with respondents highlighting the importance of seeing a provider affiliated with their health plan and appointment availability. Few respondents indicated that advertisements or formal sources of quality information affected their decision making. The key implication for provider organizations is to carefully manage referral sources to ensure that they consistently meet the needs of referrers. Excellent service to existing patients and to the network of referring physicians yields patient and referrer satisfaction that is critical to attracting new patients. Finally, organizations more generally may want to explore the capabilities of new media and social networking sites for building reputation.

  6. Subliminally and consciously induced cognitive conflicts interact at several processing levels.

    PubMed

    Stock, Ann-Kathrin; Friedrich, Julia; Beste, Christian

    2016-12-01

    Controlled behavior is susceptible to conflicts that can emerge from subliminal or consciously processed information. While research suggests that both sources of conflicting information may interact in their modulation of controlled behavior, it has remained unclear which cognitive sub-processes involved in controlled behavior are affected by this interaction; i.e., at which processing level subliminally and consciously induced response conflicts interact in modulating controlled behavior. Moreover, we investigated whether this interaction of subliminally and consciously induced response conflicts was due to a nexus between the two types of conflict like a common cognitive process or factor. For this, n = 38 healthy young subjects completed a paradigm which combines subliminal primes and consciously perceived flankers while an electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. We show that the interaction of subliminal and conscious sources of conflict is not restricted to the response selection level (N2) but can already be shown at the earliest stages of perceptual and attentional processing (P1). While the degree of early attentional processing of subliminal information seems to depend on the absence of consciously perceived response conflicts, conflicts during the stage of response selection may be either reduced or enhanced by subliminal priming. Moreover, the results showed that even though the two different sources of conflict interact at the response selection level, they clearly originate from two distinct processes that interact before they detrimentally affect cognitive control. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Searching fee and non-fee toxicology information resources: an overview of selected databases.

    PubMed

    Wright, L L

    2001-01-12

    Toxicology profiles organize information by broad subjects, the first of which affirms identity of the agent studied. Studies here show two non-fee databases (ChemFinder and ChemIDplus) verify the identity of compounds with high efficiency (63% and 73% respectively) with the fee-based Chemical Abstracts Registry file serving well to fill data gaps (100%). Continued searching proceeds using knowledge of structure, scope and content to select databases. Valuable sources for information are factual databases that collect data and facts in special subject areas organized in formats available for analysis or use. Some sources representative of factual files are RTECS, CCRIS, HSDB, GENE-TOX and IRIS. Numerous factual databases offer a wealth of reliable information; however, exhaustive searches probe information published in journal articles and/or technical reports with records residing in bibliographic databases such as BIOSIS, EMBASE, MEDLINE, TOXLINE and Web of Science. Listed with descriptions are numerous factual and bibliographic databases supplied by 11 producers. Given the multitude of options and resources, it is often necessary to seek service desk assistance. Questions were posed by telephone and e-mail to service desks at DIALOG, ISI, MEDLARS, Micromedex and STN International. Results of the survey are reported.

  8. A Decision-Making Method with Grey Multi-Source Heterogeneous Data and Its Application in Green Supplier Selection

    PubMed Central

    Dang, Yaoguo; Mao, Wenxin

    2018-01-01

    In view of the multi-attribute decision-making problem that the attribute values are grey multi-source heterogeneous data, a decision-making method based on kernel and greyness degree is proposed. The definitions of kernel and greyness degree of an extended grey number in a grey multi-source heterogeneous data sequence are given. On this basis, we construct the kernel vector and greyness degree vector of the sequence to whiten the multi-source heterogeneous information, then a grey relational bi-directional projection ranking method is presented. Considering the multi-attribute multi-level decision structure and the causalities between attributes in decision-making problem, the HG-DEMATEL method is proposed to determine the hierarchical attribute weights. A green supplier selection example is provided to demonstrate the rationality and validity of the proposed method. PMID:29510521

  9. A Decision-Making Method with Grey Multi-Source Heterogeneous Data and Its Application in Green Supplier Selection.

    PubMed

    Sun, Huifang; Dang, Yaoguo; Mao, Wenxin

    2018-03-03

    In view of the multi-attribute decision-making problem that the attribute values are grey multi-source heterogeneous data, a decision-making method based on kernel and greyness degree is proposed. The definitions of kernel and greyness degree of an extended grey number in a grey multi-source heterogeneous data sequence are given. On this basis, we construct the kernel vector and greyness degree vector of the sequence to whiten the multi-source heterogeneous information, then a grey relational bi-directional projection ranking method is presented. Considering the multi-attribute multi-level decision structure and the causalities between attributes in decision-making problem, the HG-DEMATEL method is proposed to determine the hierarchical attribute weights. A green supplier selection example is provided to demonstrate the rationality and validity of the proposed method.

  10. Using electronic mail to improve MMR uptake amongst third level students.

    PubMed

    Cooney, F; Ryan, A; Schinaia, N; Breslin, A

    2010-03-01

    This study assessed the usefulness of email in informing third level students about special MMR clinics being provided on campus during a mumps outbreak in the North West of Ireland. Email messages were sent directly to students, informing them of the clinics, inviting them to make a clinic appointment by email and providing details of walk-in clinics. At the clinics, all 177 attendees were asked to fill out a questionnaire and the response rate was 89% (n=158). Regarding the main sources of information about the vaccination clinics, email was selected by 117 (74%) students, word-of-mouth by 27 (17%), posters/leaflets by 8 (5%), and other sources by 6 (4%). Use of email as a source of information was rated as very good/excellent by 115 (73%), as good by 35 (22%) and poor/fair by 8 (5%). This study demonstrates that email is a useful and acceptable way of informing third level students about immunisation clinics in an outbreak situation.

  11. Asymmetric information in health insurance: evidence from the National Medical Expenditure Survey.

    PubMed

    Cardon, J H; Hendel, I

    2001-01-01

    Adverse selection is perceived to be a major source of market failure in insurance markets. There is little empirical evidence on the extent of the problem. We estimate a structural model of health insurance and health care choices using data on single individuals from the NMES. A robust prediction of adverse-selection models is that riskier types buy more coverage and, on average, end up using more care. We test for unobservables linking health insurance status and health care consumption. We find no evidence of informational asymmetries.

  12. Going on to Graduate or Professional School: Sources of Financial Aid and Educational Programs for Native Americans.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McKusick, John A., Ed.

    The booklet provides brief information on about 250 sources of financial aid and educational programs for Native Americans wanting to enter graduate or professional level study. Most of those listed have been selected because they are earmarked for minority group students as a general group or Native Americans specifically. Section I contains…

  13. Google vs. the Library (Part II): Student Search Patterns and Behaviors When Using Google and a Federated Search Tool

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Georgas, Helen

    2014-01-01

    This study examines the information-seeking behavior of undergraduate students within a research context. Student searches were recorded while the participants used Google and a library (federated) search tool to find sources (one book, two articles, and one other source of their choosing) for a selected topic. The undergraduates in this study…

  14. Environmental Education Report: Empirical Evidence, Exemplary Models, and Recommendations on the Impact of Environmental Education on K-12 Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wheeler, Gilda; Thumlert, Colleen; Glaser, Lise; Schoellhamer, Matt; Bartosh, Oksana

    2007-01-01

    This study examined reports and programs from across the state, the nation and from international sources to gather a broad selection of published and unpublished environmental education research. A variety of sources were used, such as the internet, interviews with key informants and experts in the field of environmental and sustainability…

  15. Fluvial sediment fingerprinting: literature review and annotated bibliography

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Williamson, Joyce E.; Haj, Adel E.; Stamm, John F.; Valder, Joshua F.; Prautzch, Vicki L.

    2014-01-01

    The U.S. Geological Survey has evaluated and adopted various field methods for collecting real-time sediment and nutrient data. These methods have proven to be valuable representations of sediment and nutrient concentrations and loads but are not able to accurately identify specific source areas. Recently, more advanced data collection and analysis techniques have been evaluated that show promise in identifying specific source areas. Application of field methods could include studies of sources of fluvial sediment, otherwise referred to as sediment “fingerprinting.” The identification of sediment is important, in part, because knowing the primary sediment source areas in watersheds ensures that best management practices are incorporated in areas that maximize reductions in sediment loadings. This report provides a literature review and annotated bibliography of existing methodologies applied in the field of fluvial sediment fingerprinting. This literature review provides a bibliography of publications where sediment fingerprinting methods have been used; however, this report is not assumed to provide an exhaustive listing. Selected publications were categorized by methodology with some additional summary information. The information contained in the summary may help researchers select methods better suited to their particular study or study area, and identify methods in need of more testing and application.

  16. Guidelines for the selection of chemical-protective clothing. Volume 2. Technical and reference manual. (3rd Edition). Report for January 1985-March 1987

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

    Schwope, A.D.; Costas, P.P.; Jackson, J.O.

    1987-02-01

    A variety of protective-clothing items are commercially available for emergency response and other applications where chemical hazards may be encountered. Data and information for selecting chemical-protective clothing is either not available or is inconsistant from source to source. In 1983, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sponsored the development of chemical-protective clothing selection guidelines to assist their own Office of Health and Safety in providing guidance to personnel, primarily EPA employees and contractors, working on hazardous-waste sites. These guidelines allowed a user to select an appropriate protective material for a specific chemical, select a clothing item (glove, suit, etc.), and thenmore » determine which manufacturers offered the clothing item in the recommended material. The U.S, Coast Guard Office of Research and Development and the EPA have supplemented these guidelines with additional data on material chemical resistance, material physical properties, clothing design features, and specific-vendor products. A chapter has been added for selecting chemical-protective suits. These guidelines contain data for over 750 chemicals and 700 clothing products. Volume I provides performance information and recommendations for selecting different types of protective clothing. Volume II contains a detailed technical discussion, and the data on which Volume I recommendations are based. The U.S. Coast Guard intends to use these guidelines for protective-clothing selection by its National Strike Force and Marine Safety Offices.« less

  17. Algorithms for selecting informative marker panels for population assignment.

    PubMed

    Rosenberg, Noah A

    2005-11-01

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

  18. NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Report 4: Summary report to phase 1 respondents

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Pinelli, Thomas E.; Kennedy, John M.; White, Terry F.

    1991-01-01

    Phase 1 of a 4 part study was undertaken studying the use of scientific and technical information (STI) by U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists. Specific attention was paid to institutional and socioeconomic variables and to the step-by-step process of information gathering used by the respondents. Data were collected by means of three self administered mail-back questionnaires. The approximately 34,000 members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) served as the study population. More than 65 percent of the randomly selected respondents returned the questionnaires in each of the three groups. Respondents relied more heavily upon informal sources of information than formal sources and turned to librarians and other technical information specialists only when they did not obtain results via informal means or their own formal searches.

  19. Improved bioluminescence and fluorescence reconstruction algorithms using diffuse optical tomography, normalized data, and optimized selection of the permissible source region

    PubMed Central

    Naser, Mohamed A.; Patterson, Michael S.

    2011-01-01

    Reconstruction algorithms are presented for two-step solutions of the bioluminescence tomography (BLT) and the fluorescence tomography (FT) problems. In the first step, a continuous wave (cw) diffuse optical tomography (DOT) algorithm is used to reconstruct the tissue optical properties assuming known anatomical information provided by x-ray computed tomography or other methods. Minimization problems are formed based on L1 norm objective functions, where normalized values for the light fluence rates and the corresponding Green’s functions are used. Then an iterative minimization solution shrinks the permissible regions where the sources are allowed by selecting points with higher probability to contribute to the source distribution. Throughout this process the permissible region shrinks from the entire object to just a few points. The optimum reconstructed bioluminescence and fluorescence distributions are chosen to be the results of the iteration corresponding to the permissible region where the objective function has its global minimum This provides efficient BLT and FT reconstruction algorithms without the need for a priori information about the bioluminescence sources or the fluorophore concentration. Multiple small sources and large distributed sources can be reconstructed with good accuracy for the location and the total source power for BLT and the total number of fluorophore molecules for the FT. For non-uniform distributed sources, the size and magnitude become degenerate due to the degrees of freedom available for possible solutions. However, increasing the number of data points by increasing the number of excitation sources can improve the accuracy of reconstruction for non-uniform fluorophore distributions. PMID:21326647

  20. Locating People Diagnosed With HIV for Public Health Action: Utility of HIV Case Surveillance and Other Data Sources.

    PubMed

    Padilla, Mabel; Mattson, Christine L; Scheer, Susan; Udeagu, Chi-Chi N; Buskin, Susan E; Hughes, Alison J; Jaenicke, Thomas; Wohl, Amy Rock; Prejean, Joseph; Wei, Stanley C

    Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) case surveillance and other health care databases are increasingly being used for public health action, which has the potential to optimize the health outcomes of people living with HIV (PLWH). However, often PLWH cannot be located based on the contact information available in these data sources. We assessed the accuracy of contact information for PLWH in HIV case surveillance and additional data sources and whether time since diagnosis was associated with accurate contact information in HIV case surveillance and successful contact. The Case Surveillance-Based Sampling (CSBS) project was a pilot HIV surveillance system that selected a random population-based sample of people diagnosed with HIV from HIV case surveillance registries in 5 state and metropolitan areas. From November 2012 through June 2014, CSBS staff members attempted to locate and interview 1800 sampled people and used 22 data sources to search for contact information. Among 1063 contacted PLWH, HIV case surveillance data provided accurate telephone number, address, or HIV care facility information for 239 (22%), 412 (39%), and 827 (78%) sampled people, respectively. CSBS staff members used additional data sources, such as support services and commercial people-search databases, to locate and contact PLWH with insufficient contact information in HIV case surveillance. PLWH diagnosed <1 year ago were more likely to have accurate contact information in HIV case surveillance than were PLWH diagnosed ≥1 year ago ( P = .002), and the benefit from using additional data sources was greater for PLWH with more longstanding HIV infection ( P < .001). When HIV case surveillance cannot provide accurate contact information, health departments can prioritize searching additional data sources, especially for people with more longstanding HIV infection.

  1. Discrimination of correlated and entangling quantum channels with selective process tomography

    DOE PAGES

    Dumitrescu, Eugene; Humble, Travis S.

    2016-10-10

    The accurate and reliable characterization of quantum dynamical processes underlies efforts to validate quantum technologies, where discrimination between competing models of observed behaviors inform efforts to fabricate and operate qubit devices. We present a protocol for quantum channel discrimination that leverages advances in direct characterization of quantum dynamics (DCQD) codes. We demonstrate that DCQD codes enable selective process tomography to improve discrimination between entangling and correlated quantum dynamics. Numerical simulations show selective process tomography requires only a few measurement configurations to achieve a low false alarm rate and that the DCQD encoding improves the resilience of the protocol to hiddenmore » sources of noise. Lastly, our results show that selective process tomography with DCQD codes is useful for efficiently distinguishing sources of correlated crosstalk from uncorrelated noise in current and future experimental platforms.« less

  2. Health Information Needs and Reliability of Sources Among Nondegree Health Sciences Students: A Prerequisite for Designing eHealth Literacy.

    PubMed

    Haruna, Hussein; Tshuma, Ndumiso; Hu, Xiao

    Understanding health information needs and health-seeking behavior is a prerequisite for developing an electronic health information literacy (EHIL) or eHealth literacy program for nondegree health sciences students. At present, interest in researching health information needs and reliable sources paradigms has gained momentum in many countries. However, most studies focus on health professionals and students in higher education institutions. The present study was aimed at providing new insight and filling the existing gap by examining health information needs and reliability of sources among nondegree health sciences students in Tanzania. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 15 conveniently selected health training institutions, where 403 health sciences students were participated. Thirty health sciences students were both purposely and conveniently chosen from each health-training institution. The selected students were pursuing nursing and midwifery, clinical medicine, dentistry, environmental health sciences, pharmacy, and medical laboratory sciences courses. Involved students were either in their first year, second year, or third year of study. Health sciences students' health information needs focus on their educational requirements, clinical practice, and personal information. They use print, human, and electronic health information. They lack eHealth research skills in navigating health information resources and have insufficient facilities for accessing eHealth information, a lack of specialists in health information, high costs for subscription electronic information, and unawareness of the availability of free Internet and other online health-related databases. This study found that nondegree health sciences students have limited skills in EHIL. Thus, designing and incorporating EHIL skills programs into the curriculum of nondegree health sciences students is vital. EHIL is a requirement common to all health settings, learning environments, and levels of study. Our future intention is to design EHIL to support nondegree health sciences students to retrieve and use available health information resources on the Internet. Copyright © 2017 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Adult age differences in information foraging in an interactive reading environment.

    PubMed

    Liu, Xiaomei; Chin, Jessie; Payne, Brennan R; Fu, Wai-Tat; Morrow, Daniel G; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L

    2016-05-01

    When learning about a single topic in natural reading environments, readers are confronted with multiple sources varying in the type and amount of information. In this situation, readers are free to adaptively respond to the constraints of the environment (e.g., through selection of resources and time allocation for study), but there may be costs of exploring and switching between sources (e.g., disruption of attention, opportunity costs for study). From an ecological perspective, such properties of the environment are expected to influence learning strategies. In the current study, we used a novel reading paradigm to investigate age differences in the effects of information richness (i.e., sentence elaboration) and costs of switching between texts (i.e., time delay) on selection of sources and study time allocation. Consistent with the ecological view, participants progressed from less informative to more informative texts. Furthermore, increased switch cost led to a tendency to allocate more effort to easier materials and to greater persistence in reading, which in turn, led to better memory in both immediate and delayed recall. Older adults showed larger effects of switch cost, such that the age difference in delayed recall was eliminated in the high switch cost condition. Based on an ecological paradigm of reading that affords choice and self-regulation, our study provided evidence for preservation with age in the ability to adapt to changing learning environments so as to improve performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  4. Health Manpower Source Book. Manpower Supply and Educational Statistics for Selected Health Occupations: 1968. Public Health Service Publication Number 263, Section 20.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    National Institutes of Health (DHEW), Bethesda, MD. Bureau of Health Professions Education and Manpower Training.

    This publication is a compilation of statistics on supply and education of health manpower in medicine and osteopathy, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, podiatry, veterinary medicine, nursing, public health, and eight selected allied health occupations. The material is organized by occupations and the following information is presented for each…

  5. Individual Differences in Neural Mechanisms of Selective Auditory Attention in Preschoolers from Lower Socioeconomic Status Backgrounds: An Event-Related Potentials Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Isbell, Elif; Wray, Amanda Hampton; Neville, Helen J.

    2016-01-01

    Selective attention, the ability to enhance the processing of particular input while suppressing the information from other concurrent sources, has been postulated to be a foundational skill for learning and academic achievement. The neural mechanisms of this foundational ability are both vulnerable and enhanceable in children from lower…

  6. Supersonic wind tunnel nozzles: A selected, annotated bibliography to aid in the development of quiet wind tunnel technology

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Wolf, Stephen W. D.

    1990-01-01

    This bibliography, with abstracts, consists of 298 citations arranged in chronological order. The citations were selected to be helpful to persons engaged in the design and development of quiet (low disturbance) nozzles for modern supersonic wind tunnels. Author, subject, and corporate source indexes are included to assist with the location of specific information.

  7. The Role of Mother in Informing Girls About Puberty: A Meta-Analysis Study

    PubMed Central

    Sooki, Zahra; Shariati, Mohammad; Chaman, Reza; Khosravi, Ahmad; Effatpanah, Mohammad; Keramat, Afsaneh

    2016-01-01

    Context Family, especially the mother, has the most important role in the education, transformation of information, and health behaviors of girls in order for them to have a healthy transition from the critical stage of puberty, but there are different views in this regard. Objectives Considering the various findings about the source of information about puberty, a meta-analysis study was conducted to investigate the extent of the mother’s role in informing girls about puberty. Data Sources This meta-analysis study was based on English articles published from 2000 to February 2015 in the Scopus, PubMed, and Science direct databases and on Persian articles in the SID, Magiran, and Iran Medex databases with determined key words and their MeSH equivalent. Study Selection Quantitative cross-sectional articles were extracted by two independent researchers and finally 46 articles were selected based on inclusion criteria. STROBE list were used for evaluation of studies. Data Extraction The percent of mothers as the current and preferred source of gaining information about the process of puberty, menarche, and menstruation from the perspective of adolescent girls was extracted from the articles. The results of studies were analyzed using meta-analysis (random effects model) and the studies’ heterogeneity was analyzed using the I2 calculation index. Variance between studies was analyzed using tau squared (Tau2) and review manager 5 software. Results The results showed that, from the perspective of teenage girls in Iran and other countries, in 56% of cases, the mother was the current source of information about the process of puberty, menarche, and menstruation. The preferred source of information about the process of puberty, menarche, and menstruation was the mother in all studies at 60% (Iran 57%, and other countries 66%). Conclusions According to the findings of this study, it is essential that health professionals and officials of the ministry of health train mothers about the time, trends, and factors affecting the start of puberty using a multi-dimensional approach that involves religious organizations, community groups, and peer groups. PMID:27331056

  8. Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Abilities in Critically Identifying and Evaluating the Quality of Online Health Information.

    PubMed

    Theron, Maggie; Redmond, Anne; Borycki, Elizabeth M

    2017-01-01

    Both the Internet and social media have become important tools that patients and health professionals, including health professional students, use to obtain information and support their decision-making surrounding health care. Students in the health sciences require increased competence to select, appraise, and use online sources to adequately educate and support patients and advocate for patient needs and best practices. The purpose of this study was to ascertain if second year nursing students have the ability to critically identify and evaluate the quality of online health information through comparisons between student and expert assessments of selected online health information postings using an adapted Trust in Online Health Information scale. Interviews with experts provided understanding of how experts applied the selected criteria and what experts recommend for implementing nursing informatics literacy in curriculums. The difference between student and expert assessments of the quality of the online information is on average close to 40%. Themes from the interviews highlighted several possible factors that may influence informatics competency levels in students, specifically regarding the critical appraisal of the quality of online health information.

  9. Help or Hurt? Why We Select and How We Process Online Social Information about Health

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hocevar, Kristin Page

    2017-01-01

    Health information is increasingly being shared online not just by credentialed sources such as physicians or health organizations, but also by patients with personal experience with a health concern. This dissertation proposes a new measure of vigilance-avoidance, or tendency to approach or avoid threatening stimuli, in order to understand how…

  10. Women and Science: Issues and Resources [and] Women and Information Technology: A Selective Bibliography.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Searing, Susan, Comp.; Shult, Linda, Comp.

    Two bibliographies list over 120 books, journal articles, reference materials, statistical sources, organizations, and media relevant to women's roles in science and in information technology. The first bibliography emphasizes books, most of which were published in the late 1970's and the 1980's, that present a feminist critique of scientific…

  11. DRUG ABUSE, A SOURCE BOOK AND GUIDE FOR TEACHERS.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    HILL, PATRICIA J.; KITZINGER, ANGELA

    THIS SOURCEBOOK CONTAINS INFORMATION TO HELP TEACHERS INSTRUCT ABOUT DRUGS AND DISCOURAGE DRUG ABUSE. THE INFORMATION IS APPLICABLE TO ANY GROUP OR GRADE LEVEL BUT IT IS PRIMARILY DIRECTED AT A K-12 PROGRAM. THE CONTENT HAS BEEN SELECTED, ORGANIZED, AND PRESENTED IN TERMS OF PRESUMED TEACHER NEED AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR DIRECT PUPIL USE.…

  12. U.S.-State Agricultural Data. Agriculture Information Bulletin Number 501.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Womack, Letricia M.; And Others

    This report presents agricultural information for each of the 50 states and the United States. Data are provided on population, land use, agricultural production, farm income, value of assets on farms, and selected characteristics of farms, such as size, tenure, and farm organization. Primary data sources are the 1982 Census of Agriculture and the…

  13. School Meal Programs: Revenue and Expense Information from Selected States. Report to Congressional Requesters.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bellis, David D.

    In school year 1996-97, the Department of Agriculture instituted more stringent requirements for the nutritional content of school meals. The General Accounting Office was asked to study school food-service revenues and expenses and how they had changed since the requirements went into effect. This report contains information of the sources of…

  14. An Analysis of the Marine Corps Selection Process: Does Increased Competition Lead to Increased Quality

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2018-03-01

    collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instruction, searching existing data sources...gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information . Send comments regarding this burden estimate or...any other aspect of this collection of information , including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington headquarters Services, Directorate

  15. Top-down modulation: Bridging selective attention and working memory

    PubMed Central

    Gazzaley, Adam; Nobre, Anna C.

    2012-01-01

    Selective attention, the ability to focus our cognitive resources on information relevant to our goals, influences working memory (WM) performance. Indeed, attention and working memory are increasingly viewed as overlapping constructs. Here, we review recent evidence from human neurophysiological studies demonstrating that top-down modulation serves as a common neural mechanism underlying these two cognitive operations. The core features include activity modulation in stimulus-selective sensory cortices with concurrent engagement of prefrontal and parietal control regions that function as sources of top-down signals. Notably, top-down modulation is engaged during both stimulus-present and stimulus-absent stages of WM tasks, i.e., expectation of an ensuing stimulus to be remembered, selection and encoding of stimuli, maintenance of relevant information in mind and memory retrieval. PMID:22209601

  16. A qualitative study on health workers' and community members' perceived sources, role of information and communication on malaria treatment, prevention and control in southeast Nigeria.

    PubMed

    Umeano-Enemuoh, Jane C; Uzochukwu, Benjamim; Ezumah, Nkoli; Mangham-Jefferies, Lindsay; Wiseman, Virginia; Onwujekwe, Obinna

    2015-10-22

    It has been widely acknowledged that well-planned and executed communication programmes can contribute to achieving malaria prevention and treatment goals. This however requires a good understanding of current sources and roles of information used by both health workers and communities. The study aimed at determining health workers' and community members' sources, value and use of information on malaria prevention and treatment in Nigeria. Qualitative data was collected from six selected communities (three urban and three rural) in Enugu state, southeast Nigeria. A total of 18 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with 179 community members and 26 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with health workers in public and private health facilities were used to collect data on where people receive treatment for malaria and access information on malaria. The FGDS and IDIs also provided data on the values, uses and effects of information and communication on malaria treatment seeking and provision of services. The findings revealed that the major sources of information on malaria for health workers and community members were advertisements in the mass media, workshops and seminars organized by donor agencies, facility supervision, posters, other health workers, television and radio adverts. Community involvement in the design and delivery of information on malaria control was seen as a strong strategy for improving both consumer and provider knowledge. Information from the different sources catalyzed appropriate provision and consumption of malaria treatment amongst health workers and community members. Health workers and consumers receive information on malaria prevention and treatment from multiple sources of communication and information, which they find useful. Harnessing these information sources to encourage consistent and accurate messages around malaria prevention and treatment is a necessary first step in the design and implementation of malaria communication and behaviour change interventions and ultimately for the sustained control of malaria.

  17. A Systematic Review of the Factors that Patients Use to Choose their Surgeon.

    PubMed

    Yahanda, Alexander T; Lafaro, Kelly J; Spolverato, Gaya; Pawlik, Timothy M

    2016-01-01

    Given surgery's inherent risks, a patient should be able to make the most informed decisions possible in selecting surgical treatment. However, there is little information on what factors patients deem important when choosing a surgeon. We performed a systematic review of the literature focused on how patients select surgical care, focusing on identification of factors that influence patient choice as well as important sources of information used by patients. A search of all available literature on factors associated with choice of surgeon/surgical care, as well as sources of information used by patients before undergoing surgery, was conducted using the MEDLINE/PubMed electronic database. Of the 2315 publications identified, 86 studies met inclusion criteria. Overall, patients draw upon a wide range of factors when choosing surgical care. Surgeon reputation and competency stood out as the most valued professional attributes. Patients also often selected surgeons based on their interpersonal skills. Many patients chose surgical care using hospital, rather than surgeon, characteristics. For these patients, hospital reputation and hospital distance were factors of primary importance. Importantly, most patients relied on word-of-mouth and physician referrals when choosing a surgeon. Patients also expressed interest in quality information on surgeons, indicating that these data would be useful in decision-making. Patients draw upon a myriad of factors when choosing a surgeon and the circumstances surrounding patients' decisions maybe differ based on sociodemographic, cultural, as well as other factors. Additional information on how patients choose surgeons or hospitals will help providers assist patients in finding their preferred caregivers.

  18. Chronology of KSC and KSC related events for 1983

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Nail, K., Jr. (Compiler)

    1984-01-01

    Materials for this chronology were selected from Aviation Week and Space Technology, Defense Daily, Miami Herald, Sentinel Star (Orlando), Today (Cocoa), Spaceport News (KSC), NASA News Releases, and other sources. The document is intended to serve as a record of KSC events and as a reference source for historians and other researchers. Arrangement is by month; items are by date of the published sources. Actual date of the event may be indicated in parenthesis, when the article itself does not make that information explicit.

  19. Choosing your network: social preferences in an online health community.

    PubMed

    Centola, Damon; van de Rijt, Arnout

    2015-01-01

    A growing number of online health communities offer individuals the opportunity to receive information, advice, and support from peers. Recent studies have demonstrated that these new online contacts can be important informational resources, and can even exert significant influence on individuals' behavior in various contexts. However little is known about how people select their health contacts in these virtual domains. This is because selection preferences in peer networks are notoriously difficult to detect. In existing networks, unobserved pressures on tie formation--such as common organizational memberships, introductions to friends of friends, or limitations on accessibility--may mistakenly be interpreted as individual preferences for interacting/not interacting with others. We address these issues by adopting a social media approach to studying network formation. We study social selection using an in vivo study within an online exercise program, in which anonymous participants have equal opportunities for initiating relationships with other program members. This design allows us to identify individuals' preferences for health contacts, and to evaluate what these preferences imply for members' access to new kinds of health information, and for the kinds of social influences to which they are exposed. The study was conducted within a goal-oriented fitness competition, in which participation was greatest among a small core of active individuals. Our results show that the active participants displayed indifference to the fitness and exercise profiles of others, disregarding information about others' fitness levels, exercise preferences, and workout experiences, instead selecting partners almost entirely on the basis of similarities on gender, age, and BMI. Interestingly, the findings suggest that rather than expanding and diversifying their sources of health information, participants' choices limited the value of their online resources by selecting contacts based on characteristics that are common sources of homophily in offline relationships. In light of our findings, we discuss design principles that may be useful for organizations and policy makers trying to improve the value of participants' social capital within online health programs. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Finishes checklist : a guide to achieving optimum coating performance on exterior wood surfaces

    Treesearch

    Tony Bonura; Steve Bussjeager; Lynne Christensen; George Daisey; Tom Daniels; Mark Hirsch; Charles J. Jourdain; D. Douglas Mall; Bob Springate; Louis E. Wagner; Warren Harry; R. Sam Williams

    2004-01-01

    When the time comes for a consumer to select the wood and finish types for a given outdoor project, there is a wide variety of sources of information, articles, and opinions available. Occasionally, these sources will conflict, mostly due to the data available at the time of publication, or practical experience based on a snapshot of conditions at a given time period....

  1. PATHOPHYSIOLOGICAL PROGRESSION AND RELATIONSHIPS FOR SELECTED ENDPOINTS

    EPA Science Inventory

    The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Research and Development (ORD), National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) is currently developing methodologies and information sources to use as guidelines for acute exposure to various compounds, including air toxic...

  2. Finding the Right Educational Software for Your Child.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moore, Jack

    1990-01-01

    Ideas are presented for identifying, evaluating, and selecting instructional software for children with special needs. The article notes several library research tools as sources of information and lists specific questions to consider when evaluating software. (JDD)

  3. Two Decades of Negative Educational Selectivity of Mexican Migrants to the United States

    PubMed Central

    Rendall, Michael S.; Parker, Susan W.

    2015-01-01

    Immigration is commonly considered to be selective of more able individuals. Studies comparing the educational attainment of Mexican immigrants in the United States to that of the Mexican resident population support this characterization. Upward educational-attainment biases in both coverage and measurement, however, may be substantial in U.S. data sources. Moreover, differences in educational attainment by place size are very large within Mexico, and U.S. data sources provide no information on immigrants’ places of origin within Mexico. To address these problems, we use multiple sources of nationally-representative Mexican survey data to re-evaluate the educational selectivity of working-age Mexican migrants to the United States over the 1990s and 2000s. We document disproportionately rural and small-urban-area origins of Mexican migrants and a steep positive gradient of educational attainment by place size. We show that together these conditions induced strongly negative educational selection of Mexican migrants throughout the 1990s and 2000s. We interpret this finding as consistent with low returns to the education of unauthorized migrants and few opportunities for authorized migration. PMID:25995526

  4. Health information security: a case study of three selected medical centers in iran.

    PubMed

    Hajrahimi, Nafiseh; Dehaghani, Sayed Mehdi Hejazi; Sheikhtaheri, Abbas

    2013-03-01

    Health Information System (HIS) is considered a unique factor in improving the quality of health care activities and cost reduction, but today with the development of information technology and use of internet and computer networks, patients' electronic records and health information systems have become a source for hackers. This study aims at checking health information security of three selected medical centers in Iran using AHP fuzzy and TOPSIS compound model. To achieve that security measures were identified, based on the research literature and decision making matrix using experts' points of view. Among the 27 indicators, seven indicators were selected as effective indicators and Fuzzy AHP technique was used to determine the importance of security indicators. Based on the comparisons made between the three selected medical centers to assess the security of health information, it is concluded that Chamran hospital has the most acceptable level of security and attention in three indicators of "verification and system design, user access management, access control system", Al Zahra Hospital in two indicators of "access management and network access control" and Amin Hospital in "equipment safety and system design". In terms of information security, Chamran Hospital ranked first, Al-Zahra Hospital ranked second and Al- Zahra hospital has the third place.

  5. Health Information Security: A Case Study of Three Selected Medical Centers in Iran

    PubMed Central

    Hajrahimi, Nafiseh; Dehaghani, Sayed Mehdi Hejazi; Sheikhtaheri, Abbas

    2013-01-01

    Health Information System (HIS) is considered a unique factor in improving the quality of health care activities and cost reduction, but today with the development of information technology and use of internet and computer networks, patients’ electronic records and health information systems have become a source for hackers. Methods This study aims at checking health information security of three selected medical centers in Iran using AHP fuzzy and TOPSIS compound model. To achieve that security measures were identified, based on the research literature and decision making matrix using experts’ points of view. Results and discussion Among the 27 indicators, seven indicators were selected as effective indicators and Fuzzy AHP technique was used to determine the importance of security indicators. Based on the comparisons made between the three selected medical centers to assess the security of health information, it is concluded that Chamran hospital has the most acceptable level of security and attention in three indicators of “verification and system design, user access management, access control system”, Al Zahra Hospital in two indicators of “access management and network access control” and Amin Hospital in “equipment safety and system design”. In terms of information security, Chamran Hospital ranked first, Al-Zahra Hospital ranked second and Al- Zahra hospital has the third place. PMID:23572861

  6. Enabling Interoperable and Selective Data Sharing among Social Networking Sites

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Shin, Dongwan; Lopes, Rodrigo

    With the widespread use of social networking (SN) sites and even introduction of a social component in non-social oriented services, there is a growing concern over user privacy in general, how to handle and share user profiles across SN sites in particular. Although there have been several proprietary or open source-based approaches to unifying the creation of third party applications, the availability and retrieval of user profile information are still limited to the site where the third party application is run, mostly devoid of the support for data interoperability. In this paper we propose an approach to enabling interopearable and selective data sharing among SN sites. To support selective data sharing, we discuss an authenticated dictionary (ADT)-based credential which enables a user to share only a subset of her information certified by external SN sites with applications running on an SN site. For interoperable data sharing, we propose an extension to the OpenSocial API so that it can provide an open source-based framework for allowing the ADT-based credential to be used seamlessly among different SN sites.

  7. Water quality modeling using geographic information system (GIS) data

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Engel, Bernard A

    1992-01-01

    Protection of the environment and natural resources at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is of great concern. The potential for surface and ground water quality problems resulting from non-point sources of pollution was examined using models. Since spatial variation of parameters required was important, geographic information systems (GIS) and their data were used. The potential for groundwater contamination was examined using the SEEPAGE (System for Early Evaluation of the Pollution Potential of Agricultural Groundwater Environments) model. A watershed near the VAB was selected to examine potential for surface water pollution and erosion using the AGNPS (Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution) model.

  8. Developing a search engine for pharmacotherapeutic information that is not published in biomedical journals.

    PubMed

    Do Pazo-Oubiña, F; Calvo Pita, C; Puigventós Latorre, F; Periañez-Párraga, L; Ventayol Bosch, P

    2011-01-01

    To identify publishers of pharmacotherapeutic information not found in biomedical journals that focuses on evaluating and providing advice on medicines and to develop a search engine to access this information. Compiling web sites that publish information on the rational use of medicines and have no commercial interests. Free-access web sites in Spanish, Galician, Catalan or English. Designing a search engine using the Google "custom search" application. Overall 159 internet addresses were compiled and were classified into 9 labels. We were able to recover the information from the selected sources using a search engine, which is called "AlquimiA" and available from http://www.elcomprimido.com/FARHSD/AlquimiA.htm. The main sources of pharmacotherapeutic information not published in biomedical journals were identified. The search engine is a useful tool for searching and accessing "grey literature" on the internet. Copyright © 2010 SEFH. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

  9. [NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Report 5:] Summary report to phase 1 respondents including frequency distributions

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Pinelli, Thomas E.; Kennedy, John M.; White, Terry F.

    1991-01-01

    Phase 1 of a four part study was undertaken to investigate the use of scientific and technical information (STI) by U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists. Specific attention was paid to institutional and sociometric variables and to the step-by-step process of information gathering used by the respondents. Data were collected by means of three self-administered mail-back questionnaires. The approximately 34,000 members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics served as the study population. More than 65 percent of the randomly selected respondants returned the questionnaires in each of the three groups. Respondants relied more heavily on informal sources of information than formal sources and turned to librarians and other technical information specialists only when they did not obtain results via informal means or their own formal searches. The report includes frequency distributions for the questions.

  10. Identifying functionally informative evolutionary sequence profiles.

    PubMed

    Gil, Nelson; Fiser, Andras

    2018-04-15

    Multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) can provide essential input to many bioinformatics applications, including protein structure prediction and functional annotation. However, the optimal selection of sequences to obtain biologically informative MSAs for such purposes is poorly explored, and has traditionally been performed manually. We present Selection of Alignment by Maximal Mutual Information (SAMMI), an automated, sequence-based approach to objectively select an optimal MSA from a large set of alternatives sampled from a general sequence database search. The hypothesis of this approach is that the mutual information among MSA columns will be maximal for those MSAs that contain the most diverse set possible of the most structurally and functionally homogeneous protein sequences. SAMMI was tested to select MSAs for functional site residue prediction by analysis of conservation patterns on a set of 435 proteins obtained from protein-ligand (peptides, nucleic acids and small substrates) and protein-protein interaction databases. Availability and implementation: A freely accessible program, including source code, implementing SAMMI is available at https://github.com/nelsongil92/SAMMI.git. andras.fiser@einstein.yu.edu. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

  11. The Lives and Politics of Latinas in the United States: A Selective Bibliography [and] Women and Politics in Latin America: A Selective Bibliography.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Loeb, Catherine, Comp.; Searing, Susan, Comp.

    Two bibliographies list over 200 sources of information on Latin American women living in the United States and in Latin America. The first bibliography cites books, chapters from books, journal articles, pamphlets, dissertations, and theses dealing with the lives and politics of Mexican-American, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Central and South…

  12. Phylogenetic marker development for target enrichment from transcriptome and genome skim data: the pipeline and its application in southern African Oxalis (Oxalidaceae)

    Treesearch

    Roswitha Schmickl; Aaron Liston; Vojtěch Zeisek; Kenneth Oberlander; Kevin Weitemier; Shannon C. K. Straub; Richard C. Cronn; Léanne L. Dreyer; Jan Suda

    2016-01-01

    Phylogenetics benefits from using a large number of putatively independent nuclear loci and their combination with other sources of information, such as the plastid and mitochondrial genomes. To facilitate the selection of orthologous low-copy nuclear (LCN) loci for phylogenetics in nonmodel organisms, we created an automated and interactive script to select hundreds...

  13. Automated selection of relevant information for notification of incident cancer cases within a multisource cancer registry.

    PubMed

    Jouhet, V; Defossez, G; Ingrand, P

    2013-01-01

    The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a selection algorithm of relevant records for the notification of incident cases of cancer on the basis of the individual data available in a multi-source information system. This work was conducted on data for the year 2008 in the general cancer registry of Poitou-Charentes region (France). The selection algorithm hierarchizes information according to its level of relevance for tumoral topography and tumoral morphology independently. The selected data are combined to form composite records. These records are then grouped in respect with the notification rules of the International Agency for Research on Cancer for multiple primary cancers. The evaluation, based on recall, precision and F-measure confronted cases validated manually by the registry's physicians with tumours notified with and without records selection. The analysis involved 12,346 tumours validated among 11,971 individuals. The data used were hospital discharge data (104,474 records), pathology data (21,851 records), healthcare insurance data (7508 records) and cancer care centre's data (686 records). The selection algorithm permitted performances improvement for notification of tumour topography (F-measure 0.926 with vs. 0.857 without selection) and tumour morphology (F-measure 0.805 with vs. 0.750 without selection). These results show that selection of information according to its origin is efficient in reducing noise generated by imprecise coding. Further research is needed for solving the semantic problems relating to the integration of heterogeneous data and the use of non-structured information.

  14. How attention gates social interactions.

    PubMed

    Capozzi, Francesca; Ristic, Jelena

    2018-05-25

    Social interactions are at the core of social life. However, humans selectively choose their exchange partners and do not engage in all available opportunities for social encounters. In this review, we argue that attentional systems play an important role in guiding the selection of social interactions. Supported by both classic and emerging literature, we identify and characterize the three core processes-perception, interpretation, and evaluation-that interact with attentional systems to modulate selective responses to social environments. Perceptual processes facilitate attentional prioritization of social cues. Interpretative processes link attention with understanding of cues' social meanings and agents' mental states. Evaluative processes determine the perceived value of the source of social information. The interplay between attention and these three routes of processing places attention in a powerful role to manage the selection of the vast amount of social information that individuals encounter on a daily basis and, in turn, gate the selection of social interactions. © 2018 New York Academy of Sciences.

  15. A predictive assessment of genetic correlations between traits in chickens using markers.

    PubMed

    Momen, Mehdi; Mehrgardi, Ahmad Ayatollahi; Sheikhy, Ayoub; Esmailizadeh, Ali; Fozi, Masood Asadi; Kranis, Andreas; Valente, Bruno D; Rosa, Guilherme J M; Gianola, Daniel

    2017-02-01

    Genomic selection has been successfully implemented in plant and animal breeding programs to shorten generation intervals and accelerate genetic progress per unit of time. In practice, genomic selection can be used to improve several correlated traits simultaneously via multiple-trait prediction, which exploits correlations between traits. However, few studies have explored multiple-trait genomic selection. Our aim was to infer genetic correlations between three traits measured in broiler chickens by exploring kinship matrices based on a linear combination of measures of pedigree and marker-based relatedness. A predictive assessment was used to gauge genetic correlations. A multivariate genomic best linear unbiased prediction model was designed to combine information from pedigree and genome-wide markers in order to assess genetic correlations between three complex traits in chickens, i.e. body weight at 35 days of age (BW), ultrasound area of breast meat (BM) and hen-house egg production (HHP). A dataset with 1351 birds that were genotyped with the 600 K Affymetrix platform was used. A kinship kernel (K) was constructed as K = λ G + (1 - λ)A, where A is the numerator relationship matrix, measuring pedigree-based relatedness, and G is a genomic relationship matrix. The weight (λ) assigned to each source of information varied over the grid λ = (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1). Maximum likelihood estimates of heritability and genetic correlations were obtained at each λ, and the "optimum" λ was determined using cross-validation. Estimates of genetic correlations were affected by the weight placed on the source of information used to build K. For example, the genetic correlation between BW-HHP and BM-HHP changed markedly when λ varied from 0 (only A used for measuring relatedness) to 1 (only genomic information used). As λ increased, predictive correlations (correlation between observed phenotypes and predicted breeding values) increased and mean-squared predictive error decreased. However, the improvement in predictive ability was not monotonic, with an optimum found at some 0 < λ < 1, i.e., when both sources of information were used together. Our findings indicate that multiple-trait prediction may benefit from combining pedigree and marker information. Also, it appeared that expected correlated responses to selection computed from standard theory may differ from realized responses. The predictive assessment provided a metric for performance evaluation as well as a means for expressing uncertainty of outcomes of multiple-trait selection.

  16. Common Priority Map for Selection History, Reward and Emotion in the Oculomotor System.

    PubMed

    Belopolsky, Artem V

    2015-01-01

    In natural scenes, many objects compete for visual selection. However, it is not always clear why certain objects win this competition. I will demonstrate that the eye movement system lives in a constant state of competition among different oculomotor programs. This competition is not limited to the competition between the current goals of the observer and salient objects in the environment but incorporates independent influences from memory, reward, and emotional systems. These involuntary and automatic biases often overcome the goal-directed selection and expose severe limits in goal-driven control. There is also a striking similarity in the way that these very different sources of bias activate the oculomotor system and compete for representation. The inputs from various information sources are integrated in the common map in the oculomotor system for the sole purpose of improving the efficiency of oculomotor selection. © The Author(s) 2015.

  17. Implementing the EuroFIR Document and Data Repositories as accessible resources of food composition information.

    PubMed

    Unwin, Ian; Jansen-van der Vliet, Martine; Westenbrink, Susanne; Presser, Karl; Infanger, Esther; Porubska, Janka; Roe, Mark; Finglas, Paul

    2016-02-15

    The EuroFIR Document and Data Repositories are being developed as accessible collections of source documents, including grey literature, and the food composition data reported in them. These Repositories will contain source information available to food composition database compilers when selecting their nutritional data. The Document Repository was implemented as searchable bibliographic records in the Europe PubMed Central database, which links to the documents online. The Data Repository will contain original data from source documents in the Document Repository. Testing confirmed the FoodCASE food database management system as a suitable tool for the input, documentation and quality assessment of Data Repository information. Data management requirements for the input and documentation of reported analytical results were established, including record identification and method documentation specifications. Document access and data preparation using the Repositories will provide information resources for compilers, eliminating duplicated work and supporting unambiguous referencing of data contributing to their compiled data. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

    Dumitrescu, Eugene; Humble, Travis S.

    The accurate and reliable characterization of quantum dynamical processes underlies efforts to validate quantum technologies, where discrimination between competing models of observed behaviors inform efforts to fabricate and operate qubit devices. We present a protocol for quantum channel discrimination that leverages advances in direct characterization of quantum dynamics (DCQD) codes. We demonstrate that DCQD codes enable selective process tomography to improve discrimination between entangling and correlated quantum dynamics. Numerical simulations show selective process tomography requires only a few measurement configurations to achieve a low false alarm rate and that the DCQD encoding improves the resilience of the protocol to hiddenmore » sources of noise. Lastly, our results show that selective process tomography with DCQD codes is useful for efficiently distinguishing sources of correlated crosstalk from uncorrelated noise in current and future experimental platforms.« less

  19. Pediatric injury information seeking for mothers with young children: The role of health literacy and ehealth literacy.

    PubMed

    Manganello, Jennifer A; Falisi, Angela L; Roberts, Kristin J; Smith, Katherine C; McKenzie, Lara B

    2016-01-01

    An understanding of preferred sources of injury information among parents is needed to develop best practices for information dissemination. Yet, almost no research examines injury information seeking for a national sample of mothers. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in 2013 with 1081 mothers in the United States (U.S.) with at least one child <6 years. We measured self-report health literacy with the Morris Single-Item Screener (18% low), and eHealth literacy using the eHEALS (28% low). The internet was the most preferred source for injury information (76%), followed by health providers (44%), and family/friends (35%). Most mothers selected the internet as the first choice for information about bicycle helmets (65%) and car seats (63%). For poison prevention, preferences were mixed; 48% internet compared with 41% health providers. Mothers with low health literacy were more likely to have discussed injury prevention with their doctors ( P = 0.022) and searched for injury information ( P = 0.001), but less likely to report the internet as a top source ( P < .0001). Mothers with low eHealth literacy were less likely to search for injury information ( P < 0.0001) and report the internet as a top source ( P < 0.0001), and slightly more likely to rely on health providers for information ( P = 0.028). Findings suggest the internet is a common source of injury prevention information, but health providers remain a valuable resource for mothers, especially those with lower literacy skills. Despite widespread internet use, health providers should be sure to communicate injury prevention information to mothers, especially those at risk for low health literacy and eHealth literacy.

  20. Pediatric injury information seeking for mothers with young children: The role of health literacy and ehealth literacy

    PubMed Central

    Manganello, Jennifer A.; Falisi, Angela L.; Roberts, Kristin J.; Smith, Katherine C.; McKenzie, Lara B.

    2017-01-01

    Background An understanding of preferred sources of injury information among parents is needed to develop best practices for information dissemination. Yet, almost no research examines injury information seeking for a national sample of mothers. Methods A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in 2013 with 1081 mothers in the United States (U.S.) with at least one child <6 years. We measured self-report health literacy with the Morris Single-Item Screener (18% low), and eHealth literacy using the eHEALS (28% low). Results The internet was the most preferred source for injury information (76%), followed by health providers (44%), and family/friends (35%). Most mothers selected the internet as the first choice for information about bicycle helmets (65%) and car seats (63%). For poison prevention, preferences were mixed; 48% internet compared with 41% health providers. Mothers with low health literacy were more likely to have discussed injury prevention with their doctors (P = 0.022) and searched for injury information (P = 0.001), but less likely to report the internet as a top source (P < .0001). Mothers with low eHealth literacy were less likely to search for injury information (P < 0.0001) and report the internet as a top source (P < 0.0001), and slightly more likely to rely on health providers for information (P = 0.028). Conclusions Findings suggest the internet is a common source of injury prevention information, but health providers remain a valuable resource for mothers, especially those with lower literacy skills. Despite widespread internet use, health providers should be sure to communicate injury prevention information to mothers, especially those at risk for low health literacy and eHealth literacy. PMID:29051785

  1. How health information is received by diabetic patients?

    PubMed Central

    Zare-Farashbandi, Firoozeh; Lalazaryan, Anasik; Rahimi, Alireza; Zadeh, Akbar Hassan

    2015-01-01

    Background: Knowledge of correct information-seeking behavior by the patients can provide health specialists and health information specialists with valuable information in improving health care. This study aimed to investigate the passive receipt and active seeking of health information by diabetic patients. Materials and Methods: A survey method was used in this research on 6426 diabetic patients of whom 362 patients were selected by a no percentage stratified random sampling. The Longo information-seeking behavior questionnaire was used to collect data and they were analyzed by SPSS 20 software. Results: The most common information source by diabetic patients was practitioners (3.12). The minimum usage among the information sources were from charity organizations and emergency phone lines with a usage of close to zero. The amount of health information gained passively from each source has the lowest average of 4.18 and usage of this information in making health decision has the highest average score of 5.83. Analysis of the data related to active seeking of information showed that knowledge of available medical information from each source has the lowest average score of 3.95 and ability in using the acquired information for making medical decisions has the highest average score of 5.28. The paired t-test showed that differences between passive information receipt (41.68) and active information seeking (39.20) considered as statistically significant (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Because diabetic patients are more passive information receivers than active information seekers, the health information must be distributed by passive means to these patients. In addition, information-seeking behavior during different time periods should be investigated; to identify more effective distribution of health information. PMID:26261828

  2. A Study of the Adoption Process of a Family Living Practice by Homemakers in a Selected North Carolina County. Report No. 8.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stroud, Maidred Morris

    This study sought to determine the stage (awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, or adoption) reached by homemakers in adopting the water blanching of vegetables for freezing; to identify information sources (mass media, agencies, experts, informal personal contacts, and organizations); and to assess the relationship of certain personal, social,…

  3. Pacific Islands Mass Communications; Selected Information Sources.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Richstad, Jim; McMillan, Michael

    1977-01-01

    Presents a bibliography of materials on such area of mass communications in the Pacific Islands as broadcasting, radio and television, cinema, communication research, mass media in education, Honululu Media Council, newspapers and newspapermen, and printing and satellite communication. (JEG)

  4. Selected Intakes of Energy from Empty Calories, U.S. Population, 2001-04

    Cancer.gov

    This section provides information on population distributions of energy intakes from solid fats, alcoholic beverages and added sugars. These sources of energy comprise a major portion of the discretionary calories consumed by the US population.

  5. Roofing Source File.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    American School & University, 1998

    1998-01-01

    Provides guidelines for school administrators to aid in the selection of school-roofing systems, and information required to make specification and purchasing decisions. Low-slope roofing systems are examined, as are multiply systems such as modified bitumen, EPDM, thermoplastic, metal, and foam. (GR)

  6. Online health information search and evaluation: observations and semi-structured interviews with college students and maternal health experts.

    PubMed

    Kim, Hyojin; Park, Sun-Young; Bozeman, Ingrid

    2011-09-01

    While the Internet is a popular source of health information, health seekers' inadequate skills to locate and discern quality information pose a potential threat to their healthcare decision-making. We aimed to examine health information search and appraisal behaviours among young, heavy users of the Internet. In study 1, we observed and interviewed 11 college students about their search strategies and evaluation of websites. In study 2, three health experts evaluated two websites selected as the best information sources in study 1. Familiarity with health websites and confidence in search strategies were major factors affecting search and evaluation behaviours. Website quality was mostly judged by aesthetics and peripheral cues of source credibility and message credibility. In contrast to users' favourable website evaluation, the experts judged the websites to be inappropriate and untrustworthy. Our results highlight a critical need to provide young health seekers with resources and training that are specifically geared toward health information search and appraisal. The role of health seekers' knowledge and involvement with the health issue in search effort and success warrants future research. © 2011 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2011 Health Libraries Group.

  7. Health information-seeking behavior of seniors who use the Internet: a survey.

    PubMed

    Medlock, Stephanie; Eslami, Saeid; Askari, Marjan; Arts, Derk L; Sent, Danielle; de Rooij, Sophia E; Abu-Hanna, Ameen

    2015-01-08

    The Internet is viewed as an important source for health information and a medium for patient empowerment. However, little is known about how seniors use the Internet in relation to other sources for health information. The aim was to determine which information resources seniors who use the Internet use and trust for health information, which sources are preferred, and which sources are used by seniors for different information needs. Questions from published surveys were selected based on their relevance to the study objectives. The Autonomy Preference Index was used to assess information needs and preferences for involvement in health decisions. Invitation to participate in this online survey was sent to the email list of a local senior organization (298 addresses) in the Netherlands. There were 118 respondents with a median age of 72 years (IQR 67-78 years). Health professionals, pharmacists, and the Internet were the most commonly used and trusted sources of health information. Leaflets, television, newspapers, and health magazines were also important sources. Respondents who reported higher use of the Internet also reported higher use of other sources (P<.001). Use of health professionals, pharmacists, leaflets, telephone, television, and radio were not significantly different; use of all other resources was significantly higher in frequent Internet users. When in need of health information, preferred sources were the Internet (46/105, 43.8%), other sources (eg, magazines 38/105, 36.2%), health professionals (18/105, 17.1%), and no information seeking (3/105, 2.8%). Of the 51/107 respondents who indicated that they had sought health information in the last 12 months, 43 sought it after an appointment, 23 were preparing for an appointment, and 20 were deciding if an appointment was needed. The source used varied by the type of information sought. The Internet was used most often for symptoms (27/42, 64%), prognosis (21/31, 68%), and treatment options (23/41, 62%), whereas health professionals were asked for additional information on medications (20/36, 56%), side effects (17/36, 47%), coping (17/31, 55%), practical care (12/14, 86%), and nutrition/exercise (18/30, 60%). For these seniors who use the Internet, the Internet was a preferred source of health information. Seniors who report higher use of the Internet also report higher use of other information resources and were also the primary consumers of paper-based resources. Respondents most frequently searched for health information after an appointment rather than to prepare for an appointment. Resources used varied by health topic. Future research should seek to confirm these findings in a general elderly population, investigate how seniors seek and understand information on the Internet, and investigate how to reach seniors who prefer not to use the Internet for health information.

  8. [Health information on nutrition in newspaper articles].

    PubMed

    Shinada, Kayoko; Ariake, Motoko; Abe, Satoshi; Kawaguchi, Yoko

    2002-09-01

    The purpose of this study was to review health information on nutrition in Japanese newspaper articles. The Nikkei Database was used to select articles published in five major newspapers: Asahi, Sankei, Nikkei, Mainichi and Yomiuri. All these dailies have nationwide circulation. The search period was for 7 years, from January 1993 to December 1999. The keywords "diet," "health," and "nutrition" were used. Consequently, 182 articles were selected and analyzed by determining content and coverage. The articles were published to be targeted for the general population: 123 (67.6%), schoolchildren: 21 (11.5%), and elderly: 18 (9.9%). The main source of the newspaper articles on diet was health professionals, such as nutritionists and medical doctors. As diet related health problems, the lifestyle-related diseases, obesity, hypertension, and mental health were introduced in the newspapers. Few articles commented on the relationship between oral health and diet, and dental professionals were not much involved in providing health information on diet. The newspaper is a major source for the general public to obtain health information. It is clear that oral diseases and functional disorder influence daily eating habits. It was suggested that dental professionals should provide such information to the general public, using many occasions, such as conducting health guidance at dental clinics, health education at health centers or schools, and also through mass media.

  9. Private information alone can trigger trapping of ant colonies in local feeding optima.

    PubMed

    Czaczkes, Tomer J; Salmane, Anete K; Klampfleuthner, Felicia A M; Heinze, Jürgen

    2016-03-01

    Ant colonies are famous for using trail pheromones to make collective decisions. Trail pheromone systems are characterised by positive feedback, which results in rapid collective decision making. However, in an iconic experiment, ants were shown to become 'trapped' in exploiting a poor food source, if it was discovered earlier. This has conventionally been explained by the established pheromone trail becoming too strong for new trails to compete. However, many social insects have a well-developed memory, and private information often overrules conflicting social information. Thus, route memory could also explain this collective 'trapping' effect. Here, we disentangled the effects of social and private information in two 'trapping' experiments: one in which ants were presented with a good and a poor food source, and one in which ants were presented with a long and a short path to the same food source. We found that private information is sufficient to trigger trapping in selecting the poorer of two food sources, and may be sufficient to cause it altogether. Memories did not trigger trapping in the shortest path experiment, probably because sufficiently detailed memories did not form. The fact that collective decisions can be triggered by private information alone may require other collective patterns previously attributed solely to social information use to be reconsidered. © 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

  10. Why Latinas With Breast Cancer Select Specific Informal Caregivers to Participate With Them in Psychosocial Interventions.

    PubMed

    Badger, Terry; Segrin, Chris; Swiatkowski, Paulina; McNelis, Melissa; Weihs, Karen; Lopez, Ana Maria

    2017-07-01

    The purpose of this study is to describe the reasons 88 Latinas with breast cancer selected specific supportive others to participate in an 8-week psychosocial intervention. Participants were asked one open-ended question during the baseline assessment for a larger clinical trial: "Could you tell me more about why you selected [insert name] to participate in the study with you?" A content analysis of the responses found three thematic categories: source of informational or emotional support, concern for the informal caregiver's welfare, and special characteristics or qualities of the informal caregiver. These findings reflected both the cultural value of familism, the woman's role as caregiver to the family ( marianismo), and the man's role of provider ( machismo). Findings provide support for including the supportive person identified by the patient during a health crisis rather than the provider suggesting who that should be. Psychosocial services designed and implemented through such a cultural lens are more likely to be successful.

  11. Health Information–Seeking Behavior of Seniors Who Use the Internet: A Survey

    PubMed Central

    Eslami, Saeid; Askari, Marjan; Arts, Derk L; Sent, Danielle; de Rooij, Sophia E; Abu-Hanna, Ameen

    2015-01-01

    Background The Internet is viewed as an important source for health information and a medium for patient empowerment. However, little is known about how seniors use the Internet in relation to other sources for health information. Objective The aim was to determine which information resources seniors who use the Internet use and trust for health information, which sources are preferred, and which sources are used by seniors for different information needs. Methods Questions from published surveys were selected based on their relevance to the study objectives. The Autonomy Preference Index was used to assess information needs and preferences for involvement in health decisions. Invitation to participate in this online survey was sent to the email list of a local senior organization (298 addresses) in the Netherlands. Results There were 118 respondents with a median age of 72 years (IQR 67-78 years). Health professionals, pharmacists, and the Internet were the most commonly used and trusted sources of health information. Leaflets, television, newspapers, and health magazines were also important sources. Respondents who reported higher use of the Internet also reported higher use of other sources (P<.001). Use of health professionals, pharmacists, leaflets, telephone, television, and radio were not significantly different; use of all other resources was significantly higher in frequent Internet users. When in need of health information, preferred sources were the Internet (46/105, 43.8%), other sources (eg, magazines 38/105, 36.2%), health professionals (18/105, 17.1%), and no information seeking (3/105, 2.8%). Of the 51/107 respondents who indicated that they had sought health information in the last 12 months, 43 sought it after an appointment, 23 were preparing for an appointment, and 20 were deciding if an appointment was needed. The source used varied by the type of information sought. The Internet was used most often for symptoms (27/42, 64%), prognosis (21/31, 68%), and treatment options (23/41, 62%), whereas health professionals were asked for additional information on medications (20/36, 56%), side effects (17/36, 47%), coping (17/31, 55%), practical care (12/14, 86%), and nutrition/exercise (18/30, 60%). Conclusions For these seniors who use the Internet, the Internet was a preferred source of health information. Seniors who report higher use of the Internet also report higher use of other information resources and were also the primary consumers of paper-based resources. Respondents most frequently searched for health information after an appointment rather than to prepare for an appointment. Resources used varied by health topic. Future research should seek to confirm these findings in a general elderly population, investigate how seniors seek and understand information on the Internet, and investigate how to reach seniors who prefer not to use the Internet for health information. PMID:25574815

  12. The tell-tale: what do heart rate; skin temperature and skin conductance reveal about emotions of people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities?

    PubMed

    Vos, Pieter; De Cock, Paul; Munde, Vera; Petry, Katja; Van Den Noortgate, Wim; Maes, Bea

    2012-01-01

    Identifying emotions in people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities is a difficult challenge. Since self-reports are not available, behaviour is the most used source of information. Given the limitations and caveats associated with using behaviour as the sole source of information about their emotions, it is important to supplement behavioural information with information from another source. As it is accepted that emotions consist of language, behaviour and physiology, in this article we investigated if physiology could give information about the emotions of people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities. To this aim we tested hypotheses derived from the motivational model of Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, and Lang (2001) about the relation between heart rate and the valence of emotions and between heart rate, skin conductance and skin temperature and behavioural expressions of emotions of people with severe and profound intellectual disability. We presented 27 participants with 4 staff-selected negative and 4 staff-selected positive stimuli. The situations were videotaped and their heart rate, skin conductance and skin temperature was measured. Each behaviour of the participant was coded using the observational method developed by Petry and Maes (2006). As hypothesized, we found a lower heart rate when participants were presented with negative stimuli than when they were presented with positive stimuli in the first 6s of stimuli presentation. Their skin temperature was higher for the expression of low intensity negative emotions compared to the expression of low intensity positive emotions. The results suggest that, as with people without disability, heart rate and skin temperature can give information about the emotions of persons with severe and profound ID. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Contralateral delay activity tracks object identity information in visual short term memory.

    PubMed

    Gao, Zaifeng; Xu, Xiaotian; Chen, Zhibo; Yin, Jun; Shen, Mowei; Shui, Rende

    2011-08-11

    Previous studies suggested that ERP component contralateral delay activity (CDA) tracks the number of objects containing identity information stored in visual short term memory (VSTM). Later MEG and fMRI studies implied that its neural source lays in superior IPS. However, since the memorized stimuli in previous studies were displayed in distinct spatial locations, hence possibly CDA tracks the object-location information instead. Moreover, a recent study implied the activation in superior IPS reflected the location load. The current research thus explored whether CDA tracks the object-location load or the object-identity load, and its neural sources. Participants were asked to remember one color, four identical colors or four distinct colors. The four-identical-color condition was the critical one because it contains the same amount of identity information as that of one color while the same amount of location information as that of four distinct colors. To ensure the participants indeed selected four colors in the four-identical-color condition, we also split the participants into two groups (low- vs. high-capacity), analyzed late positive component (LPC) in the prefrontal area, and collected participant's subjective-report. Our results revealed that most of the participants selected four identical colors. Moreover, regardless of capacity-group, there was no difference on CDA between one color and four identical colors yet both were lower than 4 distinct colors. Besides, the source of CDA was located in the superior parietal lobule, which is very close to the superior IPS. These results support the statement that CDA tracks the object identity information in VSTM. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Freight transportation in Oklahoma : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Oklahoma and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases...

  15. Our nation's highways : selected facts and figures, 1993

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1995-01-01

    The information in this publication provides a condensed overview of facts and figures about our Nation's highways. It is considered to be of interest to the average citizen. Except where noted, the Federal Highway Administration is the source of the...

  16. Which Computer Is for You?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Staples, Betsy

    1981-01-01

    Presented are some guidelines for making intelligent selections when buying computers. The intended primary use of the equipment is seen as the primary point to consider when planning the purchase. Other important points to consider and possible sources of relevant information are noted. (MP)

  17. News Sources on Rhodesia: A Comparative Analysis.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McCoy, Jennifer; Cholawsky, Elizabeth

    1982-01-01

    Concludes that the "London Times" and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the United States government provide both comprehensive and unbiased coverage of events in Rhodesia, while the "New York Times" is less complete and the "Christian Science Monitor" is selective. (FL)

  18. Freight transportation in Mississippi : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Mississippi and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databa...

  19. The Effects of Consumer Education on Consumer Search.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fast, Janet; And Others

    1989-01-01

    A study investigated the relationship between selected consumer and marketplace characteristics and consumers' prepurchase allocation of search time among information sources (product test reports; dealer sales representatives; advertisements; family and friends). The household production model proved useful; written educational materials appeared…

  20. Freight transportation in Illinois : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Illinois and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases...

  1. Freight transportation in Wisconsin : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Wisconsin and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal database...

  2. Freight transportation in Missouri : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Missouri and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases...

  3. Freight transportation in Michigan : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Michigan and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases...

  4. Freight transportation in Washington : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Washington and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databas...

  5. Freight transportation in Pennsylvania : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Pennsylvania and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal datab...

  6. Freight transportation in Wyoming : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Wyoming and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases ...

  7. Freight transportation in Indiana : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Indiana and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases ...

  8. Freight transportation in Vermont : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Vermont and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases ...

  9. Freight transportation in Colorado : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Colorado and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases...

  10. Freight transportation in Minnesota : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Minnesota and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal database...

  11. Freight transportation in Arkansas : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight : transportation in Arkansas and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report : is to present the major Federal datab...

  12. Freight transportation in Virginia : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight : transportation in Virginia and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the : report is to present the major Federal datab...

  13. Freight transportation in Connecticut : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Connecticut and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databa...

  14. The sex-selective impact of the Black Death and recurring plagues in the Southern Netherlands, 1349-1450.

    PubMed

    Curtis, Daniel R; Roosen, Joris

    2017-10-01

    Although recent work has begun to establish that early modern plagues had selective mortality effects, it was generally accepted that the initial outbreak of Black Death in 1347-52 was a "universal killer." Recent bioarchaeological work, however, has argued that the Black Death was also selective with regard to age and pre-plague health status. The issue of the Black Death's potential sex selectivity is less clear. Bioarchaeological research hypothesizes that sex-selection in mortality was possible during the initial Black Death outbreak, and we present evidence from historical sources to test this notion. To determine whether the Black Death and recurring plagues in the period 1349-1450 had a sex-selective mortality effect. We present a newly compiled database of mortality information taken from mortmain records in Hainaut, Belgium, in the period 1349-1450, which not only is an important new source of information on medieval mortality, but also allows for sex-disaggregation. We find that the Black Death period of 1349-51, as well as recurring plagues in the 100 years up to 1450, often had a sex-selective effect-killing more women than in "non-plague years." Although much research tends to suggest that men are more susceptible to a variety of diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites, we cannot assume that the same direction of sex-selection in mortality applied to diseases in the distant past such as Second Pandemic plagues. While the exact reasons for the sex-selective effect of late-medieval plague are unclear in the absence of further data, we suggest that simple inequities between the sexes in exposure to the disease may not have been a key driver. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  15. Ranking sources of hospital quality information for orthopedic surgery patients: consequences for the system of managed competition.

    PubMed

    Bes, Romy Evelien; van den Berg, Bernard

    2013-01-01

    Healthcare quality information is crucial for the system of managed competition. Within a system of managed competition, health insurers can selectively contract care providers and are allowed to channel patients towards contracted providers. The idea is that insurers have a stronger bargaining position compared to care providers when they are able to channel patients. In the Dutch system of managed competition that was implemented in 2006, channelling patients to preferred providers has not yet been very successful. Empirical knowledge of which sources of hospital quality information they find important may help us to understand how to channel patients to preferred providers. The objective of this survey was to measure how patients rank various sources of information when they compare hospital quality in a system of managed competition. A written survey was conducted among clients of a large Dutch health insurance company. These clients underwent orthopedic surgery on the hip or knee no longer than 12 months ago. Two major players within a system of managed competition-health insurers and the government-were not seen as important sources of hospital quality information. In contrast, own experience and general practitioners (GPs) were seen as the most important sources of hospital quality information within the Dutch system of managed competition. Health insurers should take the main finding-that GPs are the most important source of hospital quality information-into account when they contract care providers and develop strategies for channeling patients towards preferred providers. A well-functioning system of managed competition will benefit patients, as it involves incentives for care providers to increase healthcare quality and to produce at the lowest cost per unit of quality.

  16. Enhancing Auditory Selective Attention Using a Visually Guided Hearing Aid.

    PubMed

    Kidd, Gerald

    2017-10-17

    Listeners with hearing loss, as well as many listeners with clinically normal hearing, often experience great difficulty segregating talkers in a multiple-talker sound field and selectively attending to the desired "target" talker while ignoring the speech from unwanted "masker" talkers and other sources of sound. This listening situation forms the classic "cocktail party problem" described by Cherry (1953) that has received a great deal of study over the past few decades. In this article, a new approach to improving sound source segregation and enhancing auditory selective attention is described. The conceptual design, current implementation, and results obtained to date are reviewed and discussed in this article. This approach, embodied in a prototype "visually guided hearing aid" (VGHA) currently used for research, employs acoustic beamforming steered by eye gaze as a means for improving the ability of listeners to segregate and attend to one sound source in the presence of competing sound sources. The results from several studies demonstrate that listeners with normal hearing are able to use an attention-based "spatial filter" operating primarily on binaural cues to selectively attend to one source among competing spatially distributed sources. Furthermore, listeners with sensorineural hearing loss generally are less able to use this spatial filter as effectively as are listeners with normal hearing especially in conditions high in "informational masking." The VGHA enhances auditory spatial attention for speech-on-speech masking and improves signal-to-noise ratio for conditions high in "energetic masking." Visual steering of the beamformer supports the coordinated actions of vision and audition in selective attention and facilitates following sound source transitions in complex listening situations. Both listeners with normal hearing and with sensorineural hearing loss may benefit from the acoustic beamforming implemented by the VGHA, especially for nearby sources in less reverberant sound fields. Moreover, guiding the beam using eye gaze can be an effective means of sound source enhancement for listening conditions where the target source changes frequently over time as often occurs during turn-taking in a conversation. http://cred.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2601621.

  17. Enhancing Auditory Selective Attention Using a Visually Guided Hearing Aid

    PubMed Central

    2017-01-01

    Purpose Listeners with hearing loss, as well as many listeners with clinically normal hearing, often experience great difficulty segregating talkers in a multiple-talker sound field and selectively attending to the desired “target” talker while ignoring the speech from unwanted “masker” talkers and other sources of sound. This listening situation forms the classic “cocktail party problem” described by Cherry (1953) that has received a great deal of study over the past few decades. In this article, a new approach to improving sound source segregation and enhancing auditory selective attention is described. The conceptual design, current implementation, and results obtained to date are reviewed and discussed in this article. Method This approach, embodied in a prototype “visually guided hearing aid” (VGHA) currently used for research, employs acoustic beamforming steered by eye gaze as a means for improving the ability of listeners to segregate and attend to one sound source in the presence of competing sound sources. Results The results from several studies demonstrate that listeners with normal hearing are able to use an attention-based “spatial filter” operating primarily on binaural cues to selectively attend to one source among competing spatially distributed sources. Furthermore, listeners with sensorineural hearing loss generally are less able to use this spatial filter as effectively as are listeners with normal hearing especially in conditions high in “informational masking.” The VGHA enhances auditory spatial attention for speech-on-speech masking and improves signal-to-noise ratio for conditions high in “energetic masking.” Visual steering of the beamformer supports the coordinated actions of vision and audition in selective attention and facilitates following sound source transitions in complex listening situations. Conclusions Both listeners with normal hearing and with sensorineural hearing loss may benefit from the acoustic beamforming implemented by the VGHA, especially for nearby sources in less reverberant sound fields. Moreover, guiding the beam using eye gaze can be an effective means of sound source enhancement for listening conditions where the target source changes frequently over time as often occurs during turn-taking in a conversation. Presentation Video http://cred.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2601621 PMID:29049603

  18. The perceived effects of drug messages on use patterns in adolescents.

    PubMed

    Mayton, D M; Nagel, E A; Parker, R

    1990-01-01

    Following a survey of over 5,000 students in north central Idaho and southeast Washington, an interviewing strategy was implemented with 223 adolescents randomly selected by their principals. The strategy was designed to learn: 1) which sources have utility and credibility with youth in providing drug information; 2) whether different message content and delivery style have differential effects upon that group; and 3) whether widely held perceptions voiced by parents and teachers about their ineffectiveness as information sources were accurate. Double-blind interviews, arranged to protect respondent anonymity, were conducted by trained interviewers from a research methods class. No interview was held when either an interviewer or respondent knew the other. Among the important findings of the study were that: 1) parents and teachers are trusted, credible sources of drug information; 2) doctors, nurses, law officers, and clergy are also credible but not visible to youth; 3) the evil media and celebrity fears of parents and teachers are largely ungrounded in adolescent perception; and 4) factual information from credible sources emphasizing the range of types of negative consequences associated with drug use can exert powerful effects upon adolescents' reported personal use of drugs.

  19. Feedback data sources that inform physician self-assessment.

    PubMed

    Lockyer, Jocelyn; Armson, Heather; Chesluk, Benjamin; Dornan, Timothy; Holmboe, Eric; Loney, Elaine; Mann, Karen; Sargeant, Joan

    2011-01-01

    Self-assessment is a process of interpreting data about one's performance and comparing it to explicit or implicit standards. To examine the external data sources physicians used to monitor themselves. Focus groups were conducted with physicians who participated in three practice improvement activities: a multisource feedback program; a program providing patient and chart audit data; and practice-based learning groups. We used grounded theory strategies to understand the external sources that stimulated self-assessment and how they worked. Data from seven focus groups (49 physicians) were analyzed. Physicians used information from structured programs, other educational activities, professional colleagues, and patients. Data were of varying quality, often from non-formal sources with implicit (not explicit) standards. Mandatory programs elicited variable responses, whereas data and activities the physicians selected themselves were more likely to be accepted. Physicians used the information to create a reference point against which they could weigh their performance using it variably depending on their personal interpretation of its accuracy, application, and utility. Physicians use and interpret data and standards of varying quality to inform self-assessment. Physicians may benefit from regular and routine feedback and guidance on how to seek out data for self-assessment.

  20. Guide to radioactive waste management literature

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

    Houser, B.L.; Holoway, C.F.; Madewell, D.G.

    Increased public concern about radioactive waste management has called attention to this aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle. Socio-economic planning and technical development are being undertaken to assure that such wastes will be managed safely. This Guide to Radioactive Waste Management Literature has been compiled to serve scientists, engineers, administrators, legislators, and private citizens by directing them to sources of information on various aspects of the subject. References were selected from about 6000 documents on waste management in the computerized information centers in Oak Ridge. The documents were selected, examined, indexed, and abstracted between 1966-1976 by several knowledgeable indexers, principallymore » at the Nuclear Safety Information Center. The selected references were further indexed and classified into 12 categories. Each category is discussed in enough detail to give some understandng of present technology in various phases of waste management and some appreciation of the attendant issues and problems. The bibliographic part of this guide exists in computerized form in the Health Physics Information System and is available through the Oak Ridge Information Center Complex for searching from remote terminals.« less

  1. Sümeyra Tosun: Psi Chi/APA Edwin B. Newman Graduate Research Award.

    PubMed

    2014-11-01

    The Edwin B. Newman Graduate Research Award is given jointly by Psi Chi and APA. The award was established to recognize young researchers at the beginning of their professional lives and to commemorate both the 50th anniversary of Psi Chi and the 100th anniversary of psychology as a science (dating from the founding of Wundt's laboratory). The 2014 recipient is Sümeyra Tosun. Tosun was chosen for "an outstanding research paper that examines the cognitive repercussions of obligatory versus optional marking of evidentiality, the linguistic coding of the source of information. In English, evidentiality is conveyed in the lexicon through the use of adverbs. In Turkish, evidentiality is coded in the grammar. In two experiments, it was found that English speakers were equally good at remembering and monitoring the source of firsthand information and the source of non-firsthand information. Turkish speakers were worse at remembering and monitoring non-firsthand information than firsthand information and were worse than English speakers at remembering and monitoring non-firsthand information." Tosun's award citation, biography, and a selected bibliography are presented here. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

  2. PeptidePicker: a scientific workflow with web interface for selecting appropriate peptides for targeted proteomics experiments.

    PubMed

    Mohammed, Yassene; Domański, Dominik; Jackson, Angela M; Smith, Derek S; Deelder, André M; Palmblad, Magnus; Borchers, Christoph H

    2014-06-25

    One challenge in Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM)-based proteomics is to select the most appropriate surrogate peptides to represent a target protein. We present here a software package to automatically generate these most appropriate surrogate peptides for an LC/MRM-MS analysis. Our method integrates information about the proteins, their tryptic peptides, and the suitability of these peptides for MRM which is available online in UniProtKB, NCBI's dbSNP, ExPASy, PeptideAtlas, PRIDE, and GPMDB. The scoring algorithm reflects our knowledge in choosing the best candidate peptides for MRM, based on the uniqueness of the peptide in the targeted proteome, its physiochemical properties, and whether it previously has been observed. The modularity of the workflow allows further extension and additional selection criteria to be incorporated. We have developed a simple Web interface where the researcher provides the protein accession number, the subject organism, and peptide-specific options. Currently, the software is designed for human and mouse proteomes, but additional species can be easily be added. Our software improved the peptide selection by eliminating human error, considering multiple data sources and all of the isoforms of the protein, and resulted in faster peptide selection - approximately 50 proteins per hour compared to 8 per day. Compiling a list of optimal surrogate peptides for target proteins to be analyzed by LC/MRM-MS has been a cumbersome process, in which expert researchers retrieved information from different online repositories and used their own reasoning to find the most appropriate peptides. Our scientific workflow automates this process by integrating information from different data sources including UniProt, Global Proteome Machine, NCBI's dbSNP, and PeptideAtlas, simulating the researchers' reasoning, and incorporating their knowledge of how to select the best proteotypic peptides for an MRM analysis. The developed software can help to standardize the selection of peptides, eliminate human error, and increase productivity. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Combined rule extraction and feature elimination in supervised classification.

    PubMed

    Liu, Sheng; Patel, Ronak Y; Daga, Pankaj R; Liu, Haining; Fu, Gang; Doerksen, Robert J; Chen, Yixin; Wilkins, Dawn E

    2012-09-01

    There are a vast number of biology related research problems involving a combination of multiple sources of data to achieve a better understanding of the underlying problems. It is important to select and interpret the most important information from these sources. Thus it will be beneficial to have a good algorithm to simultaneously extract rules and select features for better interpretation of the predictive model. We propose an efficient algorithm, Combined Rule Extraction and Feature Elimination (CRF), based on 1-norm regularized random forests. CRF simultaneously extracts a small number of rules generated by random forests and selects important features. We applied CRF to several drug activity prediction and microarray data sets. CRF is capable of producing performance comparable with state-of-the-art prediction algorithms using a small number of decision rules. Some of the decision rules are biologically significant.

  4. Application of satellite pictures to census operations. Bolivian experience in census-taking of population and residences

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    1978-01-01

    The use of photographs from satellites to assist in census operations is discussed. Principles of selecting the sources of cartographic information are outlined, and the use of LANDSAT pictures in census cartography is examined.

  5. Freight transportation in New Hampshire : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in New Hampshire and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal data...

  6. Freight transportation in New Mexico : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in New Mexico and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databas...

  7. Freight transportation in New Jersey : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in New Jersey and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databas...

  8. Freight transportation in West Virginia : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in West Virginia and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal data...

  9. Freight transportation in Oregon : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Oregon and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases r...

  10. Freight transportation in North Dakota : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in North Dakota and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal datab...

  11. Freight transportation in Utah : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Utah and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases rel...

  12. Freight transportation in Texas : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Texas and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases re...

  13. Freight transportation in New York : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in New York and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases...

  14. Freight transportation in Hawaii : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Hawaii and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases r...

  15. Freight transportation in Ohio : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Ohio and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases rel...

  16. Freight transportation in Iowa : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Iowa and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases rel...

  17. Freight transportation in Rhode Island : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Rhode Island and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal datab...

  18. Freight transportation in Idaho : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in Idaho and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal databases re...

  19. Freight transportation in South Carolina : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in South Carolina and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal dat...

  20. Freight transportation in North Carolina : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight : transportation in North Carolina and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the : report is to present the major Federal...

  1. Freight transportation in North Carolina : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in North Carolina and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal dat...

  2. Freight transportation in South Dakota : selected data from federal sources

    DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

    1996-10-01

    Welcome to the State Freight Transportation Profile. This report presents information on freight transportation in South Dakota and is part of a series of reports covering all 50 States. The purpose of the report is to present the major Federal datab...

  3. [People's interest in health information].

    PubMed

    Horch, K; Wirz, J

    2005-11-01

    Well-informed citizens and patients regard health policy innovations as a key element when it comes to reforms in the health service--both in health economics and with regard to prevention issues. We evaluated the data provided by the 2003 Telephone Health Survey (GSTel03) to examine demographic and social distinctions in the use of different information sources. At the same time we examined whether there are any population-related differences in people's interest in health information depending on their levels of health awareness, attitudes to prevention and related modes of behaviour. The data generated by the survey show that there is considerable interest in health-related topics. Only 2% of the people questioned used no information sources for this purpose. In addition to more traditional media (books, newspapers, information from pharmacies), information provided by health insurance companies and via the Internet is becoming increasingly important. With the exception of the Internet, all other sources of information are used more frequently by women than by men, and demand for most of the information media increases with age. The frequency of information use and the number of different media used increase from the lower to the upper strata of society. As far as selected variables of health-related behaviour are concerned (smoking, sport, alcohol), the results show a link between a more positive attitude to health and a greater interest in information.

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

    Houser, Kevin W.; Royer, Michael P.; David, Aurelien

    A system for evaluating the color rendition of light sources was recently published as IES TM-30-15 IES Method for Evaluating Light Source Color Rendition. The system includes a fidelity index (Rf) to quantify similarity to a reference illuminant, a relative-gamut index (Rg) to quantify saturation relative to a reference illuminant, and a color vector icon that visually presents information about color rendition. The calculation employs CAM02-UCS and uses a newly-developed set of reflectance functions, comprising 99 color evaluation samples (CES). The CES were down-selected from 105,000 real object samples and are uniformly distributed in color space (fairly representing different colors)more » and wavelength space (avoiding artificial increase of color rendition values by selective optimization).« less

  5. Krakow conference on low emissions sources: Proceedings

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

    Pierce, B.L.; Butcher, T.A.

    1995-12-31

    The Krakow Conference on Low Emission Sources presented the information produced and analytical tools developed in the first phase of the Krakow Clean Fossil Fuels and Energy Efficiency Program. This phase included: field testing to provide quantitative data on missions and efficiencies as well as on opportunities for building energy conservation; engineering analysis to determine the costs of implementing pollution control; and incentives analysis to identify actions required to create a market for equipment, fuels, and services needed to reduce pollution. Collectively, these Proceedings contain reports that summarize the above phase one information, present the status of energy system managementmore » in Krakow, provide information on financing pollution control projects in Krakow and elsewhere, and highlight the capabilities and technologies of Polish and American companies that are working to reduce pollution from low emission sources. It is intended that the US reader will find in these Proceedings useful results and plans for control of pollution from low emission sources that are representative of heating systems in central and Eastern Europe. Selected papers are indexed separately for inclusion in the Energy Science and Technology Database.« less

  6. Remote sensing impact on corridor selection and placement

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Thomson, F. J.; Sellman, A. N.

    1975-01-01

    Computer-aided corridor selection techniques, utilizing digitized data bases of socio-economic, census, and cadastral data, and developed for highway corridor routing are considered. Land resource data generated from various remote sensing data sources were successfully merged with the ancillary data files of a corridor selection model and prototype highway corridors were designed using the combined data set. Remote sensing derived information considered useful for highway corridor location, special considerations in geometric correction of remote sensing data to facilitate merging it with ancillary data files, and special interface requirements are briefly discussed.

  7. Register of specialized sources for information on selected fuels and oxidizers. [rocket propellants, bibliographies

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Ludtke, P. R.

    1975-01-01

    Thirty-eight (38) organizations are listed and described that catalog and file information in their data systems on fuel and oxidizers. The fuels include hydrogen, methane and hydrazine-type fuels; the oxidizers include oxygen, fluorine, flox, nitrogen tetroxide and ozone. The type of available information covers thermophysical properties, propellant systems, propellant fires-control-extinguishment, propellant explosions, propellant combustion, propellant safety, and fluorine chemistry. These organizations have assembled and collated their information so that it will be useful in the solution of engineering problems.

  8. Air Traffic and Operational Data on Selected US Airports with Parallel Runways

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Doyle, Thomas M.; McGee, Frank G.

    1998-01-01

    This report presents information on a number of airports in the country with parallel runways and focuses on those that have at least one pair of parallel runways closer than 4300 ft. Information contained in the report describes the airport's current operational activity as obtained through contact with the facility and from FAA air traffic tower activity data for FY 1997. The primary reason for this document is to provide a single source of information for research to determine airports where Airborne Information for Lateral Spacing (AILS) technology may be applicable.

  9. The WEAVE-LOFAR Survey

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Smith, D. J. B.; Best, P. N.; Duncan, K. J.; Hatch, N. A.; Jarvis, M. J.; Röttgering, H. J. A.; Simpson, C. J.; Stott, J. P.; Cochrane, R. K.; Coppin, K. E.; Dannerbauer, H.; Davis, T. A.; Geach, J. E.; Hale, C. L.; Hardcastle, M. J.; Hatfield, P. W.; Houghton, R. C. W.; Maddox, N.; McGee, S. L.; Morabito, L.; Nisbet, D.; Pandey-Pommier, M.; Prandoni, I.; Saxena, A.; Shimwell, T. W.; Tarr, M.; van Bemmel, I.; Verma, A.; White, G. J.; Williams, W. L.

    2016-12-01

    In these proceedings we highlight the primary scientific goals and design of the WEAVE-LOFAR survey, which will use the new WEAVE spectrograph on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope to provide the primary source of spectroscopic information for the LOFAR Surveys Key Science Project. Beginning in 2018, WEAVE-LOFAR will generate more than 10^6 R=5000 365-960nm spectra of low-frequency selected radio sources, across three tiers designed to efficiently sample the redshift-luminosity plane, and produce a data set of enormous legacy value. The radio frequency selection, combined with the high multiplex and throughput of the WEAVE spectrograph, make obtaining redshifts in this way very efficient, and we expect that the redshift success rate will approach 100 per cent at z < 1. This unprecedented spectroscopic sample - which will be complemented by an integral field component - will be transformational in key areas, including studying the star formation history of the Universe, the role of accretion and AGN-driven feedback, properties of the epoch of reionisation, cosmology, cluster haloes and relics, as well as the nature of radio galaxies and protoclusters. Each topic will be addressed in unprecedented detail, and with the most reliable source classifications and redshift information in existence.

  10. [Sources of finance for provincial occupational health services. Theory and practice].

    PubMed

    Rydlewska-Liszkowska, I; Jugo, B

    1999-01-01

    The financing of occupational health services (OHS) at the provincial level is an important issue in view of the transformation process going on not only in OHS but also in the overall health care system in Poland. New principles of financing must be now based on the cost and effects analyses. Thus, the question arises on how to provide financial means adequate to needs of health care institutions resulting from their tasks and responsibilities. The gaps existing in the information system have encouraged us to examine the situation in regard to the structure of financing and internal allocation of financial means. The objectives were formulated as follows: to characterise the sources of financial means received by provincial OHS centres; to analyse the structure of financial means derived from various sources, taking into account forms of financial administration, using the data provided by selected centres; to define the relation between the financial means being at the disposal of OHS centres and the scope of their activities; The information on the financing system was collected using a questionnaire mailed to directors of selected OHS centres. The information collected proved to be a valuable source of knowledge on the above mentioned issues as well as on how far the new system of financing associated with a new form of financial administration--an independent public health institution--has already been implemented. The studies indicated that at the present stage of the OHS system transformation it is very difficult to formulate conclusions on the financing administration in provincial OHS centres.

  11. The Internet as a source of health information among Singaporeans: prevalence, patterns of health surfing and impact on health behaviour.

    PubMed

    Siow, T R; Soh, I P; Sreedharan, S; Das De, S; Tan, P P; Seow, A; Lun, K C

    2003-11-01

    The Internet is an increasingly popular source of healthcare information. This study describes the prevalence of health surfers in Singapore and their health-surfing patterns. It also assesses their confidence in online health information and the impact the Internet has on health-seeking behaviour. A cross-sectional survey using a standardised questionnaire was carried out among residents aged 13 to 55 years in 1852 units in Bishan North. These units were selected by single-stage simple random cluster sampling method. The household response rate was 51% (n = 950) and the individual response rate was 69% (n = 1646). Responding and non-responding households were similar in terms of ethnicity and housing type. Of the responders, 62.9% surfed the Internet and 37.7% have surfed for health information. Health surfers tended to be younger (20 to 39 years) and have higher education status. Indians were also more likely than other ethnic groups to surf for health. Professional health-related sites comprised the majority (68%) of sites visited, and the most common search keywords concern chronic degenerative diseases, e.g. hypertension. The top preferred sources of health information were doctors (25.9%), the Internet (25.3%) and the traditional mass media (20.5%). Almost half (45.1%) considered online health information trustworthy if it was from a professional source or if the website displayed the source, while 10.6% trusted the information if it concurred with the doctors' advice. The vast majority (91.7%) had taken some action in response to the information. The Internet is being used as an accessible source of health information by a substantial proportion of the lay public. While this can facilitate greater partnership in healthcare, it underlines the need for doctors to be pro-active in the practice of evidence-based medicine, and for guidelines to enable patients to use this tool in a discerning manner.

  12. Pathogenic bacteria and microbial-source tracking markers in Brandywine Creek Basin, Pennsylvania and Delaware, 2009-10

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Duris, Joseph W.; Reif, Andrew G.; Olson, Leif E.; Johnson, Heather E.

    2011-01-01

    The City of Wilmington, Delaware, is in the downstream part of the Brandywine Creek Basin, on the main stem of Brandywine Creek. Wilmington uses this stream, which drains a mixed-land-use area upstream, for its main drinking-water supply. Because the stream is used for drinking water, Wilmington is in need of information about the occurrence and distribution of specific fecally derived pathogenic bacteria (disease-causing bacteria) and their relations to commonly measured fecal-indicator bacteria (FIB), as well as information regarding the potential sources of the fecal pollution and pathogens in the basin. This study focused on five routinely sampled sites within the basin, one each on the West Branch and the East Branch of Brandywine Creek and at three on the main stem below the confluence of the West and East Branches. These sites were sampled monthly for 1 year. Targeted event samples were collected on two occasions during high flow and two occasions during normal flow. On the basis of this study, high flows in the Brandywine Creek Basin were related to increases in FIB densities, and in the frequency of selected pathogen and source markers, in the West Branch and main stem of Brandywine Creek, but not in the East Branch. Water exceeding the moderate fullbody-contact single-sample recreational water-quality criteria (RWQC) for Escherichia coli (E. coli) was more likely to contain selected markers for pathogenic E. coli (eaeA,stx1, and rfbO157 gene markers) and bovine fecal sources (E. hirae and LTIIa gene markers), whereas samples exceeding the enterococci RWQC were more likely to contain the same pathogenic markers but also were more likely to carry a marker indicative of human source (esp gene marker). On four sample dates, during high flow between October and March, the West Branch was the only observed potential contributor of selected pathogen and bovine source markers to the main stem of Brandywine Creek. Indeed, the stx2 marker, which indicates a highly virulent type of pathogenic E. coli, was found only in the West Branch and main stem at high flow but was not found in the East Branch under similar conditions. However, it must be noted that throughout the entire year of sampling there were occasions, during both high and normal flows, when both the East and West Branches were potential contributors of pathogen and microbial-source tracking markers to the main stem. Therefore, this study indicates that under selected conditions (high flow, October through March), West Branch Brandywine Creek Basin was the most likely source of elevated FIB densities in the main stem. These elevated densities are associated with more frequent detection of selected pathogenic E. coli markers (rfbO157 stx1) and are associated with MST markers of bovine source. However, during other times of the year, both the West Branch and East Branch Basins are acting as potential sources of FIB and fecally derived pathogens.

  13. Selected Instrumentation Films, 1969-1970.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Simmons, Raymond L., Ed.

    This list of currently available films and filmstrips pertinent to instrumentation has been compiled from information solicited from many government and private sources. The 1969 compilation has been organized into the following eight categories: (1) principles of measurement and basic measurements; (2) analysis instrumentation; (3) automation and…

  14. Cryopreserved storage of clonal germplasm in the USDA National Plant Germplasm System

    USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) plant collections are a critical source of genetic diversity for breeding and selection of improved crops, including vegetatively propagated plants. Information on these collections is...

  15. How do quality information and cost affect patient choice of provider in a tiered network setting? Results from a survey.

    PubMed

    Sinaiko, Anna D

    2011-04-01

    To assess how quality information from multiple sources and financial incentives affect consumer choice of physicians in tiered physician networks. Survey of a stratified random sample of Massachusetts state employees. Respondents were assigned a hypothetical structure with differential copayments for "Tier 1" (preferred) and "Tier 2" (nonpreferred) physicians. Half of respondents were told they needed to select a cardiologist, and half were told they needed to select a dermatologist. Patients were asked whether they would choose a Tier 1 doctor, a Tier 2 doctor, or had no preference in a case where they had no further quality information, a case where a family member or friend recommended a Tier 2 doctor, and a case where their personal physician recommended a Tier 2 doctor. The effects of copayments, recommendations, physician specialty, and patient characteristics on the reported probability of selecting a Tier 1 doctor are analyzed using multinomial logit and logistic regression. Relative to a case where there is no copayment differential between tiers, copayment differences of U.S.$10-U.S.$35 increase the number of respondents indicating they would select a Tier 1 physician by 3.5-11.7 percent. Simulations suggest copayments must exceed U.S.$300 to counteract the recommendation for a lower tiered physician from friends, family, or a referring physician. Sensitivity to the copayments varied with physician specialty. Tiered provider networks with these copayment levels appear to have limited influence on physician choice when contradicted by other trusted sources. Consumers' response likely varies with physician specialty. © Health Research and Educational Trust.

  16. NASA Releases 'NASA App HD' for iPad

    NASA Image and Video Library

    2012-07-06

    The NASA App HD invites you to discover a wealth of NASA information right on your iPad. The application collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated mission information, images, videos and Twitter feeds from various online NASA sources in a convenient mobile package. Come explore with NASA, now on your iPad. 2012 Updated Version - HD Resolution and new features. Original version published on Sept. 1, 2010.

  17. Corrosion: It’s Your Fault

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2010-02-09

    the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data...sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden...Screw It Up  If You Start With a Corrosion Resistant Design…  No Skip Welds  Abundant Drain Holes  Sound Material Selection  State of the Art

  18. New Initiatives for Electronic Scholarly Publishing: Academic Information Sources on the Internet

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2004-12-01

    parallel with the changing economics of publishing. A strong movement, among researchers and academics ( user community), seeks to free scientific...interface between the user and a vast amount of published and unpublished information (Oppenheim 1997: 398), which was made available in hard copy, via...have implemented facilities that enable the user to exercise clear options for selectively retrieving material (OpCit), to discuss and rank the articles

  19. Human Systems Integration (HSI) in Acquisition. Acquisition Phase Guide

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2009-08-01

    information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and...maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of...available Concept of Operations (CONOPS) and other available data 1.1 Select and review Baseline Comparison System(s) (BCS) documentation 1.2 Assess

  20. Design and evaluation of a field study on the contamination of selected volatile organic compounds and wastewater-indicator compounds in blanks and groundwater samples

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Thiros, Susan A.; Bender, David A.; Mueller, David K.; Rose, Donna L.; Olsen, Lisa D.; Martin, Jeffrey D.; Bernard, Bruce; Zogorski, John S.

    2011-01-01

    The Field Contamination Study (FCS) was designed to determine the field processes that tend to result in clean field blanks and to identify potential sources of contamination to blanks collected in the field from selected volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and wastewater-indicator compounds (WICs). The VOCs and WICs analyzed in the FCS were detected in blanks collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program during 1996–2008 and 2002–08, respectively. To minimize the number of variables, the study required ordering of supplies just before sampling, storage of supplies and equipment in clean areas, and use of adequate amounts of purge-and-trap volatile-grade methanol and volatile pesticide-grade blank water (VPBW) to clean sampling equipment and to collect field blanks.Blanks and groundwater samples were collected during 2008–09 at 16 sites, which were a mix of water-supply and monitoring wells, located in 9 States. Five different sample types were collected for the FCS at each site: (1) a source-solution blank collected at the USGS National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) using laboratory-purged VPBW, (2) source-solution blanks collected in the field using laboratory-purged VPBW, (3) source-solution blanks collected in the field using field-purged VPBW, (4) a field blank collected using field-purged VPBW, and (5) a groundwater sample collected from a well. The source-solution blank and field-blank analyses were used to identify, quantify, and document extrinsic contamination and to help determine the sources and causes of data-quality problems that can affect groundwater samples.Concentrations of compounds detected in FCS analyses were quantified and results were stored in the USGS National Water Information System database after meeting rigorous identification and quantification criteria. The study also utilized information provided by laboratory analysts about evidence indicating the presence of selected compounds, using less rigorous identification criteria than is required for reporting data to the National Water Information System database. For the FCS, these data are considered adequate to indicate "evidence of presence," and were used only for diagnostic purposes. Evidence of VOCs and WICs at low concentrations near or less than the long-term method detection level can indicate a contamination problem that could affect future datasets if method detection levels were ever to be lowered.

  1. NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 34: Users and uses of DOD technical reports: A report from the field

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Pinelli, Thomas E.; Barclay, Rebecca O.; Kennedy, John M.

    1993-01-01

    The NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project attempts to understand the information environment in which U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists work, the information-seeking behavior of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists, and the factors that influence the use of scientific and technical information (STI) (Pinelli, Barclay, and Kennedy, 1991). Such an understanding could (1) lead to the development of practical theory, (2) contribute to the design and development of aerospace information systems, and (3) have practical implications for transferring the results of federally funded aerospace research and development (R&D) to the U.S. aerospace community. This paper presents data from two information-seeking behavior studies involving U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists that were undertaken as Phase 1 activities of the NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Responses from three groups of respondents - DoD, other government, and industry - are presented for two sets of selected questions. One set focuses on DoD technical reports: their use and importance, reasons for non-use, the factors affecting their use, the sources used to find out about them and the sources used to physically obtain them, and the quality of DoD technical reports. The second set focuses on information sources used in problem solving: the use of U.S. government technical reports in problem solving and the information sources used to find out about U.S. government technical reports.

  2. EFL/ESL Textbook Selection in Korea and East Asia - Relevant Issues and Literature Review

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Meurant, Robert C.

    EFL/ESL departments periodically face the problem of textbook selection. Cogent issues are that non-native speakers will use L2 English mainly to communicate with other non-native English speakers, so an American accent is becoming less important. L2 English will mainly be used in computer-mediated communication, hence the importance of L2 Digital Literacy. The convergence of Information Communication Technologies is radically impacting Second Language Acquisition, which is integrating web-hosted Assessment and Learning Management Systems. EFL/ESL textbooks need to be compatible with blended learning, prepare students for a globalized world, and foster autonomous learning. I summarize five papers on EFL/ESL textbook evaluation and selection, and include relevant material for adaptation. Textbooks are major sources of contact with the target language, so selection is an important decision. Educators need to be systematic and objective in their approach, adopting a selection process that is open, transparent, accountable, participatory, informed and rigorous.

  3. Performance Evaluation of Relay Selection Schemes in Beacon-Assisted Dual-Hop Cognitive Radio Wireless Sensor Networks under Impact of Hardware Noises.

    PubMed

    Hieu, Tran Dinh; Duy, Tran Trung; Dung, Le The; Choi, Seong Gon

    2018-06-05

    To solve the problem of energy constraints and spectrum scarcity for cognitive radio wireless sensor networks (CR-WSNs), an underlay decode-and-forward relaying scheme is considered, where the energy constrained secondary source and relay nodes are capable of harvesting energy from a multi-antenna power beacon (PB) and using that harvested energy to forward the source information to the destination. Based on the time switching receiver architecture, three relaying protocols, namely, hybrid partial relay selection (H-PRS), conventional opportunistic relay selection (C-ORS), and best opportunistic relay selection (B-ORS) protocols are considered to enhance the end-to-end performance under the joint impact of maximal interference constraint and transceiver hardware impairments. For performance evaluation and comparison, we derive the exact and asymptotic closed-form expressions of outage probability (OP) and throughput (TP) to provide significant insights into the impact of our proposed protocols on the system performance over Rayleigh fading channel. Finally, simulation results validate the theoretical results.

  4. Vaccine Hesitancy and Online Information: The Influence of Digital Networks.

    PubMed

    Getman, Rebekah; Helmi, Mohammad; Roberts, Hal; Yansane, Alfa; Cutler, David; Seymour, Brittany

    2017-12-01

    This article analyzes the digital childhood vaccination information network for vaccine-hesitant parents. The goal of this study was to explore the structure and influence of vaccine-hesitant content online by generating a database and network analysis of vaccine-relevant content. We used Media Cloud, a searchable big-data platform of over 550 million stories from 50,000 media sources, for quantitative and qualitative study of an online media sample based on keyword selection. We generated a hyperlink network map and measured indegree centrality of the sources and vaccine sentiment for a random sample of 450 stories. 28,122 publications from 4,817 sources met inclusion criteria. Clustered communities formed based on shared hyperlinks; communities tended to link within, not among, each other. The plurality of information was provaccine (46.44%, 95% confidence interval [39.86%, 53.20%]). The most influential sources were in the health community (National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) or mainstream media ( New York Times); some user-generated sources also had strong influence and were provaccine (Wikipedia). The vaccine-hesitant community rarely interacted with provaccine content and simultaneously used primary provaccine content within vaccine-hesitant narratives. The sentiment of the overall conversation was consistent with scientific evidence. These findings demonstrate an online environment where scientific evidence online drives vaccine information outside of the vaccine-hesitant community but is also prominently used and misused within the robust vaccine-hesitant community. Future communication efforts should take current context into account; more information may not prevent vaccine hesitancy.

  5. Tools, information sources, and methods used in deciding on drug availability in HMOs.

    PubMed

    Barner, J C; Thomas, J

    1998-01-01

    The use and importance of specific decision-making tools, information sources, and drug-use management methods in determining drug availability and use in HMOs were studied. A questionnaire was sent to 303 randomly selected HMOs. Respondents were asked to rate their use of each of four formal decision-making tools and its relative importance, as well as the use and importance of eight information sources and 11 methods for managing drug availability and use, on a 5-point scale. The survey response rate was 28%. Approximately half of the respondents reported that their HMOs used decision analysis or multiattribute analysis in deciding on drug availability. If used, these tools were rated as very important. There were significant differences in levels of use by HMO type, membership size, and age. Journal articles and reference books were reported most often as information sources. Retrospective drug-use review was used very often and perceived to be very important in managing drug use. Other management methods were used only occasionally, but the importance placed on these tools when used ranged from moderately to very important. Older organizations used most of the management methods more often than did other HMOs. Decision analysis and multiattribute analysis were the most commonly used tools for deciding on which drugs to make available to HMO members, and reference books and journal articles were the most commonly used information sources. Retrospective and prospective drug-use reviews were the most commonly applied methods for managing HMO members' access to drugs.

  6. Social gating of sensory information during ongoing communication.

    PubMed

    Anders, Silke; Heussen, Yana; Sprenger, Andreas; Haynes, John-Dylan; Ethofer, Thomas

    2015-01-01

    Social context plays an important role in human communication. Depending on the nature of the source, the same communication signal might be processed in fundamentally different ways. However, the selective modulation (or "gating") of the flow of neural information during communication is not fully understood. Here, we use multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) and multivoxel connectivity analysis (MVCA), a novel technique that allows to analyse context-dependent changes of the strength interregional coupling between ensembles of voxels, to examine how the human brain differentially gates content-specific sensory information during ongoing perception of communication signals. In a simulated electronic communication experiment, participants received two alternative text messages during fMRI ("happy" or "sad") which they believed had been sent either by their real-life friend outside the scanner or by a computer. A region in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) selectively increased its functional coupling with sensory-content encoding regions in the visual cortex when a text message was perceived as being sent by the participant's friend, and decreased its functional coupling with these regions when a text message was perceived as being sent by the computer. Furthermore, the strength of neural encoding of content-specific information of text messages in the dmPFC was modulated by the social tie between the participant and her friend: the more of her spare time a participant reported to spend with her friend the stronger was the neural encoding. This suggests that the human brain selectively gates sensory information into the relevant network for processing the mental states of others, depending on the source of the communication signal. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Feature Selection Using Information Gain for Improved Structural-Based Alert Correlation

    PubMed Central

    Siraj, Maheyzah Md; Zainal, Anazida; Elshoush, Huwaida Tagelsir; Elhaj, Fatin

    2016-01-01

    Grouping and clustering alerts for intrusion detection based on the similarity of features is referred to as structurally base alert correlation and can discover a list of attack steps. Previous researchers selected different features and data sources manually based on their knowledge and experience, which lead to the less accurate identification of attack steps and inconsistent performance of clustering accuracy. Furthermore, the existing alert correlation systems deal with a huge amount of data that contains null values, incomplete information, and irrelevant features causing the analysis of the alerts to be tedious, time-consuming and error-prone. Therefore, this paper focuses on selecting accurate and significant features of alerts that are appropriate to represent the attack steps, thus, enhancing the structural-based alert correlation model. A two-tier feature selection method is proposed to obtain the significant features. The first tier aims at ranking the subset of features based on high information gain entropy in decreasing order. The‏ second tier extends additional features with a better discriminative ability than the initially ranked features. Performance analysis results show the significance of the selected features in terms of the clustering accuracy using 2000 DARPA intrusion detection scenario-specific dataset. PMID:27893821

  8. Knowledge and attitudes towards tuberculosis in non medical students University of Belgrade.

    PubMed

    Smolovic, Milos; Pesut, Dragica; Bulajic, Milica; Simic, Marija

    2012-01-01

    Population's knowledge on tuberculosis (TB) is crucial in early seeking of medical care. Delay in diagnosis for any reason contributes to advanced forms and TB transmission in the community. Knowledge about TB in general population of Serbia is poor, including vulnerable groups. to assess knowledge about TB in a group of non medical students in University of Belgrade, their attitudes towards TB patients, sources of medical information they use or desire. Observational, questionnaire based study. University students of the Faculty of Organizational Science and Faculty of Geography completed the 27-item questionnaires voluntarily and anonymously. The questions related to TB etiology, way of transmission, risk factors and the source of health information students preffer. Statistical analysis was performed. All the participants (69 students aged 20 +/- 0.777 years, 69.7% male, 30.3% female) previously heard about TB, mostly describing it as pulmonary disease. Only 22 (31.88%) selected bacillus as the only cause of TB, and 20% selected answer "I do not know". TB is curable (95%). One third does not know about TB symptoms and 45/69 (65%) think that TB is an infectious disease. Majority (78.3%) would pay visit to TB patient, 1/2 with fear of infection that is in positive correlation with knowledge on infectiousness (p=0.041). Television is the most common used source of health information. Students have the greatest confidence in doctors' information. Students' knowledge on TB is inadequate, especially on its cause and way of transmission. More effort is needed in university students' health education.

  9. Parameter estimation for compact binary coalescence signals with the first generation gravitational-wave detector network

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Aasi, J.; Abadie, J.; Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Abbott, T. D.; Abernathy, M.; Accadia, T.; Acernese, F.; Adams, C.; Adams, T.; Addesso, P.; Adhikari, R.; Affeldt, C.; Agathos, M.; Agatsuma, K.; Ajith, P.; Allen, B.; Allocca, A.; Amador Ceron, E.; Amariutei, D.; Anderson, S. B.; Anderson, W. G.; Arai, K.; Araya, M. C.; Ast, S.; Aston, S. M.; Astone, P.; Atkinson, D.; Aufmuth, P.; Aulbert, C.; Aylott, B. E.; Babak, S.; Baker, P.; Ballardin, G.; Ballmer, S.; Bao, Y.; Barayoga, J. C. B.; Barker, D.; Barone, F.; Barr, B.; Barsotti, L.; Barsuglia, M.; Barton, M. A.; Bartos, I.; Bassiri, R.; Bastarrika, M.; Basti, A.; Batch, J.; Bauchrowitz, J.; Bauer, Th. S.; Bebronne, M.; Beck, D.; Behnke, B.; Bejger, M.; Beker, M. G.; Bell, A. S.; Bell, C.; Belopolski, I.; Benacquista, M.; Berliner, J. M.; Bertolini, A.; Betzwieser, J.; Beveridge, N.; Beyersdorf, P. T.; Bhadbade, T.; Bilenko, I. A.; Billingsley, G.; Birch, J.; Biswas, R.; Bitossi, M.; Bizouard, M. A.; Black, E.; Blackburn, J. K.; Blackburn, L.; Blair, D.; Bland, B.; Blom, M.; Bock, O.; Bodiya, T. P.; Bogan, C.; Bond, C.; Bondarescu, R.; Bondu, F.; Bonelli, L.; Bonnand, R.; Bork, R.; Born, M.; Boschi, V.; Bose, S.; Bosi, L.; Bouhou, B.; Braccini, S.; Bradaschia, C.; Brady, P. R.; Braginsky, V. B.; Branchesi, M.; Brau, J. E.; Breyer, J.; Briant, T.; Bridges, D. O.; Brillet, A.; Brinkmann, M.; Brisson, V.; Britzger, M.; Brooks, A. F.; Brown, D. A.; Bulik, T.; Bulten, H. J.; Buonanno, A.; Burguet–Castell, J.; Buskulic, D.; Buy, C.; Byer, R. L.; Cadonati, L.; Cagnoli, G.; Calloni, E.; Camp, J. B.; Campsie, P.; Cannon, K.; Canuel, B.; Cao, J.; Capano, C. D.; Carbognani, F.; Carbone, L.; Caride, S.; Caudill, S.; Cavaglià, M.; Cavalier, F.; Cavalieri, R.; Cella, G.; Cepeda, C.; Cesarini, E.; Chalermsongsak, T.; Charlton, P.; Chassande-Mottin, E.; Chen, W.; Chen, X.; Chen, Y.; Chincarini, A.; Chiummo, A.; Cho, H. S.; Chow, J.; Christensen, N.; Chua, S. S. Y.; Chung, C. T. Y.; Chung, S.; Ciani, G.; Clara, F.; Clark, D. E.; Clark, J. A.; Clayton, J. H.; Cleva, F.; Coccia, E.; Cohadon, P.-F.; Colacino, C. N.; Colla, A.; Colombini, M.; Conte, A.; Conte, R.; Cook, D.; Corbitt, T. R.; Cordier, M.; Cornish, N.; Corsi, A.; Costa, C. A.; Coughlin, M.; Coulon, J.-P.; Couvares, P.; Coward, D. M.; Cowart, M.; Coyne, D. C.; Creighton, J. D. E.; Creighton, T. D.; Cruise, A. M.; Cumming, A.; Cunningham, L.; Cuoco, E.; Cutler, R. M.; Dahl, K.; Damjanic, M.; Danilishin, S. L.; D'Antonio, S.; Danzmann, K.; Dattilo, V.; Daudert, B.; Daveloza, H.; Davier, M.; Daw, E. J.; Dayanga, T.; De Rosa, R.; DeBra, D.; Debreczeni, G.; Degallaix, J.; Del Pozzo, W.; Dent, T.; Dergachev, V.; DeRosa, R.; Dhurandhar, S.; Di Fiore, L.; Di Lieto, A.; Di Palma, I.; Di Paolo Emilio, M.; Di Virgilio, A.; Díaz, M.; Dietz, A.; Donovan, F.; Dooley, K. L.; Doravari, S.; Dorsher, S.; Drago, M.; Drever, R. W. P.; Driggers, J. C.; Du, Z.; Dumas, J.-C.; Dwyer, S.; Eberle, T.; Edgar, M.; Edwards, M.; Effler, A.; Ehrens, P.; Endrőczi, G.; Engel, R.; Etzel, T.; Evans, K.; Evans, M.; Evans, T.; Factourovich, M.; Fafone, V.; Fairhurst, S.; Farr, B. F.; Farr, W. M.; Favata, M.; Fazi, D.; Fehrmann, H.; Feldbaum, D.; Feroz, F.; Ferrante, I.; Ferrini, F.; Fidecaro, F.; Finn, L. S.; Fiori, I.; Fisher, R. P.; Flaminio, R.; Foley, S.; Forsi, E.; Forte, L. A.; Fotopoulos, N.; Fournier, J.-D.; Franc, J.; Franco, S.; Frasca, S.; Frasconi, F.; Frede, M.; Frei, M. A.; Frei, Z.; Freise, A.; Frey, R.; Fricke, T. T.; Friedrich, D.; Fritschel, P.; Frolov, V. V.; Fujimoto, M.-K.; Fulda, P. J.; Fyffe, M.; Gair, J.; Galimberti, M.; Gammaitoni, L.; Garcia, J.; Garufi, F.; Gáspár, M. E.; Gelencser, G.; Gemme, G.; Genin, E.; Gennai, A.; Gergely, L. Á.; Ghosh, S.; Giaime, J. A.; Giampanis, S.; Giardina, K. D.; Giazotto, A.; Gil-Casanova, S.; Gill, C.; Gleason, J.; Goetz, E.; González, G.; Gorodetsky, M. L.; Goßler, S.; Gouaty, R.; Graef, C.; Graff, P. B.; Granata, M.; Grant, A.; Gray, C.; Greenhalgh, R. J. S.; Gretarsson, A. M.; Griffo, C.; Grote, H.; Grover, K.; Grunewald, S.; Guidi, G. M.; Guido, C.; Gupta, R.; Gustafson, E. K.; Gustafson, R.; Hallam, J. M.; Hammer, D.; Hammond, G.; Hanks, J.; Hanna, C.; Hanson, J.; Harms, J.; Harry, G. M.; Harry, I. W.; Harstad, E. D.; Hartman, M. T.; Haster, C.-J.; Haughian, K.; Hayama, K.; Hayau, J.-F.; Heefner, J.; Heidmann, A.; Heintze, M. C.; Heitmann, H.; Hello, P.; Hemming, G.; Hendry, M. A.; Heng, I. S.; Heptonstall, A. W.; Herrera, V.; Heurs, M.; Hewitson, M.; Hild, S.; Hoak, D.; Hodge, K. A.; Holt, K.; Holtrop, M.; Hong, T.; Hooper, S.; Hough, J.; Howell, E. J.; Hughey, B.; Husa, S.; Huttner, S. H.; Huynh-Dinh, T.; Ingram, D. R.; Inta, R.; Isogai, T.; Ivanov, A.; Izumi, K.; Jacobson, M.; James, E.; Jang, Y. J.; Jaranowski, P.; Jesse, E.; Johnson, W. W.; Jones, D. I.; Jones, R.; Jonker, R. J. G.; Ju, L.; Kalmus, P.; Kalogera, V.; Kandhasamy, S.; Kang, G.; Kanner, J. B.; Kasprzack, M.; Kasturi, R.; Katsavounidis, E.; Katzman, W.; Kaufer, H.; Kaufman, K.; Kawabe, K.; Kawamura, S.; Kawazoe, F.; Keitel, D.; Kelley, D.; Kells, W.; Keppel, D. G.; Keresztes, Z.; Khalaidovski, A.; Khalili, F. Y.; Khazanov, E. A.; Kim, B. K.; Kim, C.; Kim, H.; Kim, K.; Kim, N.; Kim, Y. M.; King, P. J.; Kinzel, D. L.; Kissel, J. S.; Klimenko, S.; Kline, J.; Kokeyama, K.; Kondrashov, V.; Koranda, S.; Korth, W. Z.; Kowalska, I.; Kozak, D.; Kringel, V.; Krishnan, B.; Królak, A.; Kuehn, G.; Kumar, P.; Kumar, R.; Kurdyumov, R.; Kwee, P.; Lam, P. K.; Landry, M.; Langley, A.; Lantz, B.; Lastzka, N.; Lawrie, C.; Lazzarini, A.; Le Roux, A.; Leaci, P.; Lee, C. H.; Lee, H. K.; Lee, H. M.; Leong, J. R.; Leonor, I.; Leroy, N.; Letendre, N.; Lhuillier, V.; Li, J.; Li, T. G. F.; Lindquist, P. E.; Litvine, V.; Liu, Y.; Liu, Z.; Lockerbie, N. A.; Lodhia, D.; Logue, J.; Lorenzini, M.; Loriette, V.; Lormand, M.; Losurdo, G.; Lough, J.; Lubinski, M.; Lück, H.; Lundgren, A. P.; Macarthur, J.; Macdonald, E.; Machenschalk, B.; MacInnis, M.; Macleod, D. M.; Mageswaran, M.; Mailand, K.; Majorana, E.; Maksimovic, I.; Malvezzi, V.; Man, N.; Mandel, I.; Mandic, V.; Mantovani, M.; Marchesoni, F.; Marion, F.; Márka, S.; Márka, Z.; Markosyan, A.; Maros, E.; Marque, J.; Martelli, F.; Martin, I. W.; Martin, R. M.; Marx, J. N.; Mason, K.; Masserot, A.; Matichard, F.; Matone, L.; Matzner, R. A.; Mavalvala, N.; Mazzolo, G.; McCarthy, R.; McClelland, D. E.; McGuire, S. C.; McIntyre, G.; McIver, J.; Meadors, G. D.; Mehmet, M.; Meier, T.; Melatos, A.; Melissinos, A. C.; Mendell, G.; Menéndez, D. F.; Mercer, R. A.; Meshkov, S.; Messenger, C.; Meyer, M. S.; Miao, H.; Michel, C.; Milano, L.; Miller, J.; Minenkov, Y.; Mingarelli, C. M. F.; Mitrofanov, V. P.; Mitselmakher, G.; Mittleman, R.; Moe, B.; Mohan, M.; Mohapatra, S. R. P.; Moraru, D.; Moreno, G.; Morgado, N.; Morgia, A.; Mori, T.; Morriss, S. R.; Mosca, S.; Mossavi, K.; Mours, B.; Mow–Lowry, C. M.; Mueller, C. L.; Mueller, G.; Mukherjee, S.; Mullavey, A.; Müller-Ebhardt, H.; Munch, J.; Murphy, D.; Murray, P. G.; Mytidis, A.; Nash, T.; Naticchioni, L.; Necula, V.; Nelson, J.; Neri, I.; Newton, G.; Nguyen, T.; Nishizawa, A.; Nitz, A.; Nocera, F.; Nolting, D.; Normandin, M. E.; Nuttall, L.; Ochsner, E.; O'Dell, J.; Oelker, E.; Ogin, G. H.; Oh, J. J.; Oh, S. H.; Oldenberg, R. G.; O'Reilly, B.; O'Shaughnessy, R.; Osthelder, C.; Ott, C. D.; Ottaway, D. J.; Ottens, R. S.; Overmier, H.; Owen, B. J.; Page, A.; Palladino, L.; Palomba, C.; Pan, Y.; Pankow, C.; Paoletti, F.; Paoletti, R.; Papa, M. A.; Parisi, M.; Pasqualetti, A.; Passaquieti, R.; Passuello, D.; Pedraza, M.; Penn, S.; Perreca, A.; Persichetti, G.; Phelps, M.; Pichot, M.; Pickenpack, M.; Piergiovanni, F.; Pierro, V.; Pihlaja, M.; Pinard, L.; Pinto, I. M.; Pitkin, M.; Pletsch, H. J.; Plissi, M. V.; Poggiani, R.; Pöld, J.; Postiglione, F.; Poux, C.; Prato, M.; Predoi, V.; Prestegard, T.; Price, L. R.; Prijatelj, M.; Principe, M.; Privitera, S.; Prodi, G. A.; Prokhorov, L. G.; Puncken, O.; Punturo, M.; Puppo, P.; Quetschke, V.; Quitzow-James, R.; Raab, F. J.; Rabeling, D. S.; Rácz, I.; Radkins, H.; Raffai, P.; Rakhmanov, M.; Ramet, C.; Rankins, B.; Rapagnani, P.; Raymond, V.; Re, V.; Reed, C. M.; Reed, T.; Regimbau, T.; Reid, S.; Reitze, D. H.; Ricci, F.; Riesen, R.; Riles, K.; Roberts, M.; Robertson, N. A.; Robinet, F.; Robinson, C.; Robinson, E. L.; Rocchi, A.; Roddy, S.; Rodriguez, C.; Rodruck, M.; Rolland, L.; Rollins, J. G.; Romano, R.; Romie, J. H.; Rosińska, D.; Röver, C.; Rowan, S.; Rüdiger, A.; Ruggi, P.; Ryan, K.; Salemi, F.; Sammut, L.; Sandberg, V.; Sankar, S.; Sannibale, V.; Santamaría, L.; Santiago-Prieto, I.; Santostasi, G.; Saracco, E.; Sassolas, B.; Sathyaprakash, B. S.; Saulson, P. R.; Savage, R. L.; Schilling, R.; Schnabel, R.; Schofield, R. M. S.; Schulz, B.; Schutz, B. F.; Schwinberg, P.; Scott, J.; Scott, S. M.; Seifert, F.; Sellers, D.; Sentenac, D.; Sergeev, A.; Shaddock, D. A.; Shaltev, M.; Shapiro, B.; Shawhan, P.; Shoemaker, D. H.; Sidery, T. L.; Siemens, X.; Sigg, D.; Simakov, D.; Singer, A.; Singer, L.; Sintes, A. M.; Skelton, G. R.; Slagmolen, B. J. J.; Slutsky, J.; Smith, J. R.; Smith, M. R.; Smith, R. J. E.; Smith-Lefebvre, N. D.; Somiya, K.; Sorazu, B.; Speirits, F. C.; Sperandio, L.; Stefszky, M.; Steinert, E.; Steinlechner, J.; Steinlechner, S.; Steplewski, S.; Stochino, A.; Stone, R.; Strain, K. A.; Strigin, S. E.; Stroeer, A. S.; Sturani, R.; Stuver, A. L.; Summerscales, T. Z.; Sung, M.; Susmithan, S.; Sutton, P. J.; Swinkels, B.; Szeifert, G.; Tacca, M.; Taffarello, L.; Talukder, D.; Tanner, D. B.; Tarabrin, S. P.; Taylor, R.; ter Braack, A. P. M.; Thomas, P.; Thorne, K. A.; Thorne, K. S.; Thrane, E.; Thüring, A.; Titsler, C.; Tokmakov, K. V.; Tomlinson, C.; Toncelli, A.; Tonelli, M.; Torre, O.; Torres, C. V.; Torrie, C. I.; Tournefier, E.; Travasso, F.; Traylor, G.; Tse, M.; Ugolini, D.; Vahlbruch, H.; Vajente, G.; van den Brand, J. F. J.; Van Den Broeck, C.; van der Putten, S.; van Veggel, A. A.; Vass, S.; Vasuth, M.; Vaulin, R.; Vavoulidis, M.; Vecchio, A.; Vedovato, G.; Veitch, J.; Veitch, P. J.; Venkateswara, K.; Verkindt, D.; Vetrano, F.; Viceré, A.; Villar, A. E.; Vinet, J.-Y.; Vitale, S.; Vocca, H.; Vorvick, C.; Vyatchanin, S. P.; Wade, A.; Wade, L.; Wade, M.; Waldman, S. J.; Wallace, L.; Wan, Y.; Wang, M.; Wang, X.; Wanner, A.; Ward, R. L.; Was, M.; Weinert, M.; Weinstein, A. J.; Weiss, R.; Welborn, T.; Wen, L.; Wessels, P.; West, M.; Westphal, T.; Wette, K.; Whelan, J. T.; Whitcomb, S. E.; White, D. J.; Whiting, B. F.; Wiesner, K.; Wilkinson, C.; Willems, P. A.; Williams, L.; Williams, R.; Willke, B.; Wimmer, M.; Winkelmann, L.; Winkler, W.; Wipf, C. C.; Wiseman, A. G.; Wittel, H.; Woan, G.; Wooley, R.; Worden, J.; Yablon, J.; Yakushin, I.; Yamamoto, H.; Yamamoto, K.; Yancey, C. C.; Yang, H.; Yeaton-Massey, D.; Yoshida, S.; Yvert, M.; Zadrożny, A.; Zanolin, M.; Zendri, J.-P.; Zhang, F.; Zhang, L.; Zhao, C.; Zotov, N.; Zucker, M. E.; Zweizig, J.

    2013-09-01

    Compact binary systems with neutron stars or black holes are one of the most promising sources for ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. Gravitational radiation encodes rich information about source physics; thus parameter estimation and model selection are crucial analysis steps for any detection candidate events. Detailed models of the anticipated waveforms enable inference on several parameters, such as component masses, spins, sky location and distance, that are essential for new astrophysical studies of these sources. However, accurate measurements of these parameters and discrimination of models describing the underlying physics are complicated by artifacts in the data, uncertainties in the waveform models and in the calibration of the detectors. Here we report such measurements on a selection of simulated signals added either in hardware or software to the data collected by the two LIGO instruments and the Virgo detector during their most recent joint science run, including a “blind injection” where the signal was not initially revealed to the collaboration. We exemplify the ability to extract information about the source physics on signals that cover the neutron-star and black-hole binary parameter space over the component mass range 1M⊙-25M⊙ and the full range of spin parameters. The cases reported in this study provide a snapshot of the status of parameter estimation in preparation for the operation of advanced detectors.

  10. All Information Is Not Equal: Using the Literature Databases PubMed and The Cochrane Library for Identifying the Evidence on Granulocyte Transfusion Therapy.

    PubMed

    Metzendorf, Maria-Inti; Schulz, Manuela; Braun, Volker

    2014-10-01

    To be able to take well-informed decisions or carry out sound research, clinicians and researchers alike require specific information seeking skills matching their respective information needs. Biomedical information is traditionally available via different literature databases. This article gives an introduction to two diverging sources, PubMed (23 million references) and The Cochrane Library (800,000 references), both of which offer sophisticated instruments for searching an increasing amount of medical publications of varied quality and ambition. Whereas PubMed as an unfiltered source of primary literature comprises all different kinds of publication types occurring in academic journals, The Cochrane Library is a pre-filtered source which offers access to either synthesized publication types or critically appraised and carefully selected references. A search approach has to be carried out deliberately and requires a good knowledge on the scope and features of the databases as well as on the ability to build a search strategy in a structured way. We present a specific and a sensitive search approach, making use of both databases within two application case scenarios in order to identify the evidence on granulocyte transfusions for infections in adult patients with neutropenia.

  11. Outage Performance Analysis of Relay Selection Schemes in Wireless Energy Harvesting Cooperative Networks over Non-Identical Rayleigh Fading Channels.

    PubMed

    Do, Nhu Tri; Bao, Vo Nguyen Quoc; An, Beongku

    2016-02-26

    In this paper, we study relay selection in decode-and-forward wireless energy harvesting cooperative networks. In contrast to conventional cooperative networks, the relays harvest energy from the source's radio-frequency radiation and then use that energy to forward the source information. Considering power splitting receiver architecture used at relays to harvest energy, we are concerned with the performance of two popular relay selection schemes, namely, partial relay selection (PRS) scheme and optimal relay selection (ORS) scheme. In particular, we analyze the system performance in terms of outage probability (OP) over independent and non-identical (i.n.i.d.) Rayleigh fading channels. We derive the closed-form approximations for the system outage probabilities of both schemes and validate the analysis by the Monte-Carlo simulation. The numerical results provide comprehensive performance comparison between the PRS and ORS schemes and reveal the effect of wireless energy harvesting on the outage performances of both schemes. Additionally, we also show the advantages and drawbacks of the wireless energy harvesting cooperative networks and compare to the conventional cooperative networks.

  12. Sources of contraceptive commodities for users in Nigeria.

    PubMed

    Oye-Adeniran, Boniface A; Adewole, Isaac F; Umoh, Augustine V; Oladokun, Adesina; Gbadegesin, Abidoye; Odeyemi, Kofo A; Ekanem, Ekanem E

    2005-11-01

    Understanding the sources of contraceptive commodities is an important aspect of the delivery of family planning services and is required by planning programme managers for strategic planning purposes. Findings from the 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey have previously showed that the private sector was the most frequently reported source of contraceptive supply, providing contraception to two and a half times as many women as the public sector. We conducted a community-based study to examine further the sources of contraceptive commodity for users in Nigeria with a view to identifying their preferences for distribution centres. This information would be useful to improve commodity distribution and to build the necessary capacity for satisfactory delivery of contraceptives. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used. A state was randomly selected to represent each of the four health zones in Nigeria. Two local government areas (LGAs) were then selected representing both urban and rural areas. Ten enumeration areas were subsequently selected from each LGA. Of the 2,001 respondents aged 15-49 years, 1,647 (82.3%) were sexually active, out of which 244 were found to be using contraceptive methods at the time of the study, giving a contraceptive prevalence of 14.8%. The commonest source of information on contraceptives was through friends (34%), followed by the radio (11.5%) and husbands (10.2%). Most respondents procured their contraceptives from chemist/patent medicine shops (19.7%), while only 0.8% obtained them from designated family planning clinics. The younger groups in this study (15-24 years), single people, Catholics, and Muslims, showed a greater preference for chemist/patent medicine shops for their sources of contraceptives. The older groups and married respondents, however, made use of government and private hospitals to obtain their contraceptives. Strategies to increase contraceptive use must take into consideration these identified sources of contraceptives with a view to enhancing the quality, quantity, and variety of methods available, and to building capacity for effective service delivery. There is also a need to encourage the establishment of adolescent-friendly clinics where young people can go for counselling and obtain contraceptives of their choice, including emergency contraceptive pills.

  13. Sources of Contraceptive Commodities for Users in Nigeria

    PubMed Central

    Oye-Adeniran, Boniface A; Adewole, Isaac F; Umoh, Augustine V; Oladokun, Adesina; Gbadegesin, Abidoye; Odeyemi, Kofo A; Ekanem, Ekanem E

    2005-01-01

    Background Understanding the sources of contraceptive commodities is an important aspect of the delivery of family planning services and is required by planning programme managers for strategic planning purposes. Findings from the 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey have previously showed that the private sector was the most frequently reported source of contraceptive supply, providing contraception to two and a half times as many women as the public sector. We conducted a community-based study to examine further the sources of contraceptive commodity for users in Nigeria with a view to identifying their preferences for distribution centres. This information would be useful to improve commodity distribution and to build the necessary capacity for satisfactory delivery of contraceptives. Methods and Findings A multi-stage random sampling technique was used. A state was randomly selected to represent each of the four health zones in Nigeria. Two local government areas (LGAs) were then selected representing both urban and rural areas. Ten enumeration areas were subsequently selected from each LGA. Of the 2,001 respondents aged 15–49 years, 1,647 (82.3%) were sexually active, out of which 244 were found to be using contraceptive methods at the time of the study, giving a contraceptive prevalence of 14.8%. The commonest source of information on contraceptives was through friends (34%), followed by the radio (11.5%) and husbands (10.2%). Most respondents procured their contraceptives from chemist/patent medicine shops (19.7%), while only 0.8% obtained them from designated family planning clinics. The younger groups in this study (15–24 years), single people, Catholics, and Muslims, showed a greater preference for chemist/patent medicine shops for their sources of contraceptives. The older groups and married respondents, however, made use of government and private hospitals to obtain their contraceptives. Conclusion Strategies to increase contraceptive use must take into consideration these identified sources of contraceptives with a view to enhancing the quality, quantity, and variety of methods available, and to building capacity for effective service delivery. There is also a need to encourage the establishment of adolescent-friendly clinics where young people can go for counselling and obtain contraceptives of their choice, including emergency contraceptive pills. PMID:16218768

  14. A compilation of research working groups on drug utilisation across Europe

    PubMed Central

    2014-01-01

    Background The assessment of the benefit-risk of medicines needs careful consideration concerning their patterns of utilization. Systems for the monitoring of medicines consumption have been established in many European countries, and several international groups have identified and described them. No other compilation of European working groups has been published. As part of the PROTECT project, as a first step in searching for European data sources on the consumption of five selected groups of medicines, we aimed to identify and describe the main characteristics of the existing collaborative European working groups. Findings Google and bibliographic searches (PubMed) of articles containing information on databases and other sources of drug consumption data were conducted. For each working group the main characteristics were recorded. Nineteen selected groups were identified, focusing on: a) general drug utilisation (DU) research (EuroDURG, CNC, ISPE’S SIG-DUR, EURO-MED-STAT, PIPERSKA Group, NorPEN, ENCePP, DURQUIM), b) specific DU research: b.1) antimicrobial drugs (ARPAC, ESAC, ARPEC, ESGAP, HAPPY AUDIT), b.2) cardiovascular disease (ARITMO, EUROASPIRE), b.3) paediatrics (TEDDY), and b.4) mental health/central nervous system effects (ESEMeD, DRUID, TUPP/EUPoMMe). Information on their aims, methods and activities is presented. Conclusions We assembled and updated information on European working groups in DU research and in the utilisation of five selected groups of drugs for the PROTECT project. This information should be useful for academic researchers, regulatory and health authorities, and pharmaceutical companies conducting and interpreting post-authorisation and safety studies. European health authorities should encourage national research and collaborations in this important field for public health. PMID:24625054

  15. The source of dual-task limitations: Serial or parallel processing of multiple response selections?

    PubMed Central

    Marois, René

    2014-01-01

    Although it is generally recognized that the concurrent performance of two tasks incurs costs, the sources of these dual-task costs remain controversial. The serial bottleneck model suggests that serial postponement of task performance in dual-task conditions results from a central stage of response selection that can only process one task at a time. Cognitive-control models, by contrast, propose that multiple response selections can proceed in parallel, but that serial processing of task performance is predominantly adopted because its processing efficiency is higher than that of parallel processing. In the present study, we empirically tested this proposition by examining whether parallel processing would occur when it was more efficient and financially rewarded. The results indicated that even when parallel processing was more efficient and was incentivized by financial reward, participants still failed to process tasks in parallel. We conclude that central information processing is limited by a serial bottleneck. PMID:23864266

  16. Hummingbirds Visit the Playground.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ard, Linda; Wilkerson, Kristen

    1996-01-01

    Tells how hummingbirds can serve as a source of information and fun for children, including a rationale for attracting and teaching about hummingbirds and the outdoors. Explains that children need first-hand knowledge of nature and gives details on attracting hummingbirds and selecting safe plants for a hummingbird garden. (BGC)

  17. 48 CFR 903.104-7 - Violations or possible violations.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... violation or possible violation of subsections 27 (a), (b), (c) or (d) of the Office of Federal Procurement... disclosure of proprietary or source selection information is the Assistant General Counsel for Procurement...) and (2) for Headquarters activities is the Agency Ethics Official (Designated Agency Ethics Official...

  18. 14 CFR 125.226 - Digital flight data recorders.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-01-01

    ... this section, no person may operate under this part a turbine-engine-powered transport category... selection; (37) Drift angle (when an information source is installed); (38) Wind speed and direction (when... rudder valve status. (b) For all turbine-engine powered transport category airplanes manufactured on or...

  19. 14 CFR 125.226 - Digital flight data recorders.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-01-01

    ... this section, no person may operate under this part a turbine-engine-powered transport category... selection; (37) Drift angle (when an information source is installed); (38) Wind speed and direction (when... rudder valve status. (b) For all turbine-engine powered transport category airplanes manufactured on or...

  20. 14 CFR 125.226 - Digital flight data recorders.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-01-01

    ... this section, no person may operate under this part a turbine-engine-powered transport category... selection; (37) Drift angle (when an information source is installed); (38) Wind speed and direction (when... rudder valve status. (b) For all turbine-engine powered transport category airplanes manufactured on or...

  1. 14 CFR 125.226 - Digital flight data recorders.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-01-01

    ... this section, no person may operate under this part a turbine-engine-powered transport category... selection; (37) Drift angle (when an information source is installed); (38) Wind speed and direction (when... rudder valve status. (b) For all turbine-engine powered transport category airplanes manufactured on or...

  2. 14 CFR 125.226 - Digital flight data recorders.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-01-01

    ... this section, no person may operate under this part a turbine-engine-powered transport category... selection; (37) Drift angle (when an information source is installed); (38) Wind speed and direction (when... rudder valve status. (b) For all turbine-engine powered transport category airplanes manufactured on or...

  3. 48 CFR 903.104-7 - Violations or possible violations.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Violations or possible violations. 903.104-7 Section 903.104-7 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY GENERAL... disclosure of proprietary or source selection information is the Assistant General Counsel for Procurement...

  4. VizieR Online Data Catalog: IR photometry of AGNs in Swift/BAT 70 month cat. (Ichikawa+, 2017)

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ichikawa, K.; Ricci, C.; Ueda, Y.; Matsuoka, K.; Toba, Y.; Kawamuro, T.; Trakhtenbrot, B.; Koss, M. J.

    2017-08-01

    Our initial sample contains the 834 AGNs reported in the 70 month Swift/BAT catalog (Baumgartner+ 2013, J/ApJS/207/19), 105 of which are blazars. Of the remaining 729 sources, 697 sources have secure redshift information as presented in Ricci et al. (2016, ApJ, submitted). Next, we removed galaxy pairs or interacting galaxies not resolved in the BAT survey. Further, the 606 sources located at higher galactic latitudes with |b|>10° were selected to reduce the contamination in the crowded region through IR catalog matching. (1 data file).

  5. Semantic Annotations and Querying of Web Data Sources

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Hornung, Thomas; May, Wolfgang

    A large part of the Web, actually holding a significant portion of the useful information throughout the Web, consists of views on hidden databases, provided by numerous heterogeneous interfaces that are partly human-oriented via Web forms ("Deep Web"), and partly based on Web Services (only machine accessible). In this paper we present an approach for annotating these sources in a way that makes them citizens of the Semantic Web. We illustrate how queries can be stated in terms of the ontology, and how the annotations are used to selected and access appropriate sources and to answer the queries.

  6. Inherited Representations are Read in Development

    PubMed Central

    Shea, Nicholas

    2013-01-01

    Recent theoretical work has identified a tightly constrained sense in which genes carry representational content. Representational properties of the genome are founded in the transmission of DNA over phylogenetic time and its role in natural selection. However, genetic representation is not just relevant to questions of selection and evolution. This article goes beyond existing treatments and argues for the heterodox view that information generated by a process of selection over phylogenetic time can be read in ontogenetic time, in the course of individual development. Recent results in evolutionary biology, drawn both from modelling work, and from experimental and observational data, support a role for genetic representation in explaining individual ontogeny: both genetic representations and environmental information are read by the mechanisms of development, in an individual, so as to lead to adaptive phenotypes. Furthermore, in some cases there appears to have been selection between individuals that rely to different degrees on the two sources of information. Thus, the theory of representation in inheritance systems like the genome is much more than just a coherent reconstruction of information talk in biology. Genetic representation is a property with considerable explanatory utility. 1 Introduction2 Inherited Representations3 Reading Genetic Representations   3.1 Do genes carry correlational information?4 Selection Between Genetic and Environmental Information   4.1 Modelling  4.2 Empirical applications  4.3 Maternal effects5 Genetic Representation and the Genome   5.1 Information capacity of organisms' genomes  5.2 Many amino acids, few nucleotides  5.3 A function of sex6 Explaining Further Aspects of Development   6.1 Canalization against environmental variation  6.2 An informational function for the nuclear membrane?7 Conclusion PMID:23526835

  7. Snow Tweets: Emergency Information Dissemination in a US County During 2014 Winter Storms

    PubMed Central

    Bonnan-White, Jess; Shulman, Jason; Bielecke, Abigail

    2014-01-01

    Introduction: This paper describes how American federal, state, and local organizations created, sourced, and disseminated emergency information via social media in preparation for several winter storms in one county in the state of New Jersey (USA). Methods: Postings submitted to Twitter for three winter storm periods were collected from selected organizations, along with a purposeful sample of select private local users. Storm-related posts were analyzed for stylistic features (hashtags, retweet mentions, embedded URLs). Sharing and re-tweeting patterns were also mapped using NodeXL. Results: Results indicate emergency management entities were active in providing preparedness and response information during the selected winter weather events. A large number of posts, however, did not include unique Twitter features that maximize dissemination and discovery by users. Visual representations of interactions illustrate opportunities for developing stronger relationships among agencies. Discussion: Whereas previous research predominantly focuses on large-scale national or international disaster contexts, the current study instead provides needed analysis in a small-scale context. With practice during localized events like extreme weather, effective information dissemination in large events can be enhanced. PMID:25685629

  8. Snow Tweets: Emergency Information Dissemination in a US County During 2014 Winter Storms.

    PubMed

    Bonnan-White, Jess; Shulman, Jason; Bielecke, Abigail

    2014-12-22

    This paper describes how American federal, state, and local organizations created, sourced, and disseminated emergency information via social media in preparation for several winter storms in one county in the state of New Jersey (USA). Postings submitted to Twitter for three winter storm periods were collected from selected organizations, along with a purposeful sample of select private local users. Storm-related posts were analyzed for stylistic features (hashtags, retweet mentions, embedded URLs). Sharing and re-tweeting patterns were also mapped using NodeXL. RESULTS indicate emergency management entities were active in providing preparedness and response information during the selected winter weather events. A large number of posts, however, did not include unique Twitter features that maximize dissemination and discovery by users. Visual representations of interactions illustrate opportunities for developing stronger relationships among agencies. Whereas previous research predominantly focuses on large-scale national or international disaster contexts, the current study instead provides needed analysis in a small-scale context. With practice during localized events like extreme weather, effective information dissemination in large events can be enhanced.

  9. How do patients with end-stage ankle arthritis decide between two surgical treatments? A qualitative study.

    PubMed

    Zaidi, Razi; Pfeil, Michael; Macgregor, Alexander J; Goldberg, Andy

    2013-01-01

    To examine how patients decide between ankle fusion and ankle replacement in end-stage ankle arthritis. Purposive patient selection, semistructured interviews, thematic analysis. Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore, UK. 14 patients diagnosed with end-stage ankle osteoarthritis. We interviewed 6 men and 8 women with a mean age of 58 years (range 41-83). All had opted for surgery after failure of at least 6 months of conservative management, sequentially trading-off daily activities to limit the evolving pain. To decide between two offered treatments of ankle fusion and total ankle replacement (TAR), three major sources informed the patients' decision-making process: their surgeon, peers and the internet. The treating surgeon was viewed as the most reliable and influential source of information. Information gleaned from other patients was also important, but with questionable reliability, as was information from the internet, both of which invariably required validation by the surgeon and in some cases the general practitioner. Patients seek knowledge from a wealth of sources including the internet, web forums and other patients. While they leverage each of these sources to guide decision-making, the most important and influential factor in governing how patients decide on any particular surgical intervention is their surgeon. A high quality doctor-patient relationship, coupled with clear, balanced and complete information is essential to enable shared decision-making to become a standard model of care.

  10. The Seismotectonic Model of Southern Africa

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Midzi, Vunganai; Mulabisana, Thifelimbulu; Manzunzu, Brassnavy

    2013-04-01

    Presented in this report is a summary of the major structures and seismotectonic zones in Southern Africa (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland), which includes available information on fault plane solutions and stress data. Reports published by several experts contributed much to the prepared zones. The work was prepared as part of the requirements for the SIDA/IGCP Project 601 titled "Seismotectonics and Seismic Hazards in Africa" as well as part of the seismic source characterisation of the GEM-Africa Seismic hazard study. The seismic data used are part of the earthquake catalogue being prepared for the GEM-Africa project, which includes historical and instrumental records as collected from various agencies. Seventeen seismic zones/sources were identified and demarcated using all the available information. Two of the identiied sources are faults with reliable evidence of their activity. Though more faults have been identified in unpublished material as being active, more work is being carried out to obtain information that can be used to characterise them before they are included in the seismotectonic model. Explanations for the selected boundaries of the zones are also given in the report. It should be noted that this information is the first draft of the seismic source zones of the region. Futher interpreation of the data is envisaged which might result in more than one version of the zones.

  11. Variable stars around selected open clusters in the VVV area: Young Stellar Objects

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Medina, Nicolas; Borissova, Jura; Bayo, Amelia; Kurtev, Radostin; Lucas, Philip

    2017-09-01

    Time-varying phenomena are one of the most substantial sources of astrophysical information, and led to many fundamental discoveries in modern astronomy. We have developed an automated tool to search and analyze variable sources in the near infrared Ks band, using the data from the Vista Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) ESO Public Survey ([5, 8]). One of our main goals is to investigate the Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) in the Galactic star forming regions, looking for: Variability. New pre-main sequence star clusters. Here we present the newly discovered YSOs within some selected stellar clusters in our Galaxy.

  12. [Not Available].

    PubMed

    González Pérez, Rocío; Teresa Gijón Sánchez, M; José Escudero Carretero, M; Angeles Prieto Rodríguez, M; Carles March Cerdá, Joan; Ruiz Azarola, Ainhoa

    2008-05-01

    Patients' need for health information is widely recognized. The aim of this study was to determine how patients currently receive and rate this information. Additionally, we aimed to identify the needs and expectations of citizens of the autonomous region of Andalusia in this regard. We performed a qualitative research study involving semi-structured telephone interviews with participants. A total of 48 interviews were performed in people with different social and health profiles from a structural sample. The final selection of persons to be interviewed was made using the snow-ball sampling method. Interview material was analyzed by means of NUDIST vivo 1.1 software-aided content analysis. The interviewees reported receiving health information mainly from healthcare personnel. Supplementary information sources were the internet, associations and publications. The interviewees expressed different degrees of satisfaction with the health information received, depending on its understandability and the amount of detail provided. The persons interviewed reported that they would like to receive all the information possible on their health-illness-care process and would prefer this information to come mainly from physicians. Information about the health-illness-care process should center on practical issues. Physicians are the first and principal source of medical information and consequently communication skills should be promoted in this collective through training courses. Additionally, alternative sources of information used by citizens should be strengthened to provide high-quality health information. Copyright © 2008 Sociedad Española de Calidad Asistencial. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

  13. Beyond the media: A new strategy for distributing scientific and technical information

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

    Preecs, B.L.

    Communications media -- newspapers, television, magazines, etc. -- may be the most powerful single influence on modern life. Certainly they are the most important source of information citizens use to form opinions about such complex scientific questions as global warming or nuclear waste cleanup. But commercial news media have built-in limitations on their effectiveness as information sources. Reliance on advertising for revenue means the media are limited in the volume of material they can cover. In addition, the need to attract the largest possible, or the most select, audience for advertisers limits the complexity of information that the media canmore » present. Finally, existing media organizations offer few, if any, ways for users to retrieve past information. These limitations deprive citizens of needed information, increase pressure on political leaders, and create the gridlock over scientific and public policy questions caused by the Not in My Backyard'' snydrome. Fortunately, modern communications technology is changing in ways that allow public policy makers to address these shortenings. Companies now barred from the information business are seeking to enter, existing media companies are looking for new sources of revenue, and new information products are seeking markets. Several changes to existing media and communications policy will be suggested and general principles for building a better overall communications system will be discussed. 18 refs.« less

  14. Organizations as Information Processing Systems. Environmental Characteristics, Company Performance, and Chief Executive Scanning: An Empirical Study.

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1986-04-01

    E le,irn,’ in Nystrm, r . C . and Starbuck, W. H., (eds.), Handbook...Organizations and Society, 3 (1978), pp. 47-64. Iickson, D. J., C . R . Hinings, C . A. Lee, R . E . Schneck, and J. M. Pennings, "A Strategic Contingencies...Conceprs, St. Pai : West Publishing, 1978. Holland, W. E ., Stead, B. A., and Leibrock, R . C ., "Information Channel/Source Selection as a Correlate

  15. Development of a database system for operational use in the selection of titanium alloys

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Han, Yuan-Fei; Zeng, Wei-Dong; Sun, Yu; Zhao, Yong-Qing

    2011-08-01

    The selection of titanium alloys has become a complex decision-making task due to the growing number of creation and utilization for titanium alloys, with each having its own characteristics, advantages, and limitations. In choosing the most appropriate titanium alloys, it is very essential to offer a reasonable and intelligent service for technical engineers. One possible solution of this problem is to develop a database system (DS) to help retrieve rational proposals from different databases and information sources and analyze them to provide useful and explicit information. For this purpose, a design strategy of the fuzzy set theory is proposed, and a distributed database system is developed. Through ranking of the candidate titanium alloys, the most suitable material is determined. It is found that the selection results are in good agreement with the practical situation.

  16. Selectivity of physiotherapist programs in the United States does not differ by institutional funding source or research activity level.

    PubMed

    Riley, Sean P; Covington, Kyle; Landry, Michel D; McCallum, Christine; Engelhard, Chalee; Cook, Chad E

    2016-01-01

    This study aimed to compare selectivity characteristics among institution characteristics to determine differences by institutional funding source (public vs. private) or research activity level (research vs. non-research). This study included information provided by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) and the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy. Data were extracted from all students who graduated in 2011 from accredited physical therapy programs in the United States. The public and private designations of the institutions were extracted directly from the classifications from the 'CAPTE annual accreditation report,' and high and low research activity was determined based on Carnegie classifications. The institutions were classified into four groups: public/research intensive, public/non-research intensive, private/research intensive, and private/non-research intensive. Descriptive and comparison analyses with post hoc testing were performed to determine whether there were statistically significant differences among the four groups. Although there were statistically significant baseline grade point average differences among the four categorized groups, there were no significant differences in licensure pass rates or for any of the selectivity variables of interest. Selectivity characteristics did not differ by institutional funding source (public vs. private) or research activity level (research vs. non-research). This suggests that the concerns about reduced selectivity among physiotherapy programs, specifically the types that are experiencing the largest proliferation, appear less warranted.

  17. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2008

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    ,

    2008-01-01

    Each chapter of the 2008 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The MCS is the earliest comprehensive source of 2007 mineral production data for the world. More than 90 individual minerals and materials are covered by two-page synopses. National reserves and reserve base information for most mineral commodities found in this report, including those for the United States, are derived from a variety of sources. The ideal source of such information would be comprehensive evaluations that apply the same criteria to deposits in different geographic areas and report the results by country. In the absence of such evaluations, national reserves and reserve base estimates compiled by countries for selected mineral commodities are a primary source of national reserves and reserve base information. Lacking national assessment information by governments, sources such as academic articles, company reports, common business practice, presentations by company representatives, and trade journal articles, or a combination of these, serve as the basis for national reserves and reserve base information reported in the mineral commodity sections of this publication. A national estimate may be assembled from the following: historically reported reserves and reserve base information carried for years without alteration because no new information is available; historically reported reserves and reserve base reduced by the amount of historical production; and company reported reserves. International minerals availability studies conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines, before 1996, and estimates of identified resources by an international collaborative effort (the International Strategic Minerals Inventory) are the basis for some reserves and reserve base estimates. The USGS collects information about the quantity and quality of mineral resources but does not directly measure reserves, and companies or governments do not directly report reserves or reserve base to the USGS. Reassessment of reserves and reserve base is a continuing process and the intensity of this process differs for mineral commodities, countries, and time period. Abbreviations and units of measure, and definitions of selected terms used in the report, are in Appendix A and Appendix B, respectively. A resource/reserve classification for minerals, based on USGS Circular 831 (published with the U.S. Bureau of Mines) is Appendix C, and a directory of USGS minerals information country specialists and their responsibilities is Appendix D. The USGS continually strives to improve the value of its publications to users. Constructive comments and suggestions by readers of the MCS 2008 are welcomed.

  18. Digest of Education Statistics 2006. NCES 2007-017

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Snyder, Thomas D.; Dillow, Sally A.

    2007-01-01

    The primary purpose of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The "Digest" includes a selection of data from both government and private sources, and draws especially on the results…

  19. Mercury and Air Pollution: A Bibliography With Abstracts.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC. Office of Air Programs.

    The Air Pollution Technical Information Center (APTIC) of the Office of Air Programs has selected and compiled this bibliography of abstracts on mercury and air pollution. The abstracted documents are considered representative of available literature, although not all-inclusive. They are grouped into eleven categories: (1) Emission Sources, (2)…

  20. Characterizing SHP2 as a Novel Therapeutic Target in Breast Cancer

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2014-04-01

    data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing this collection of information. Send comments regarding this...1   Supporting Data ............................................................................................................................ 1...unprecedented in the design of small molecule inhibitors. Therefore, the substrate-derived peptide was shown to be significantly more selective for SHP2

  1. When Does Social Learning Become Cultural Learning?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Heyes, Cecilia

    2017-01-01

    Developmental research on selective social learning, or "social learning strategies", is currently a rich source of information about when children copy behaviour, and who they prefer to copy. It also has the potential to tell us when and how human social learning becomes cultural learning; i.e. mediated by psychological mechanisms that…

  2. 48 CFR 3.700 - Scope of subpart.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... source selection information in exchange for a thing of value or to give anyone a competitive advantage... or giving anyone a competitive advantage in the award of a Federal agency procurement contract. (b... available to the Government with respect to such contracts, including but not limited to, the common law...

  3. 48 CFR 3.700 - Scope of subpart.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... source selection information in exchange for a thing of value or to give anyone a competitive advantage... or giving anyone a competitive advantage in the award of a Federal agency procurement contract. (b... available to the Government with respect to such contracts, including but not limited to, the common law...

  4. Selected Annotated Bibliography of Deaf-Blind Prevocational Training Literature.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stoddard, Denis W.; Glazer, Jamie

    Presented is an annotated bibliography of 47 documents relating to prevocational training of deaf-blind children. Entries include books, journal articles, conference proceedings, and regional center reports and usually provide information on author, title, source, publication date, and a review (including a brief description of the type and…

  5. Bibliography of Environmental Design References.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wisconsin Univ., Madison. ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Facilities.

    A bibliography on sources related to the structuring of the physical environment has been developed based on professional and classroom experience. This initial selection of journals, books, and unpublished papers gives an overview of man and the environmental conditions which are part of his daily living pattern. Information leading to design…

  6. A Bibliography on American Indians. Bibliographic Series No. 36.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Perry, Larry S.

    The information sources on Indians of North and South America which are listed were selected from the holdings of the Arkansas University library. Materials are grouped by type, including bibliographies, biographies, catalogs and directories, documentary histories, laws and treaties, encyclopedias and guides, handbooks and sourcebooks, microfilm,…

  7. Assessment of Learning Outcomes: The Example of Spatial Analysis at Bowling Green State University

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smith, Bruce W.; Zhou, Yu

    2005-01-01

    This article provides an overview of a developing approach to assessing selected undergraduate geography courses at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). The assessment focuses on the students' skills in collecting, integrating, analysing, displaying, and communicating spatial information and data sources using mapping and geographic information…

  8. Topical Research: Africa.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lynn, Karen

    This lesson plan can be used in social studies, language arts, or library research. The instructional objective is for students to select a topic of study relating to Africa, write a thesis statement, collect information from media sources, and develop a conclusion. The teacher may assign the lesson for written or oral evaluation. The teacher…

  9. UNDELETE; a program to recover deleted RSX-11 disk files; program logic manual

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Baker, L.M.

    1986-01-01

    This report presents a list of selected publications pertaining to the water resources in Virginia. The report includes a source-agency listing by publication type, which is arranged in alphabetical order by author. Information concerning the availability of the publications also is provided. (USGS)

  10. Digest of Education Statistics, 2008. NCES 2009-020

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Snyder, Thomas D.; Dillow, Sally A.; Hoffman, Charlene M.

    2009-01-01

    The primary purpose of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The "Digest" includes a selection of data from both government and private sources, and draws especially on the results…

  11. CyberBytes: Highlighting Compelling Uses of Technology in Counseling.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Walz, Garry R., Ed.; Kirkman, Chris, Ed.

    This collection of resources focuses on several specific aspects of cybercounseling and its many ramifications. Some chapters are original articles written especially for this publication, while others were initially ERIC documents or articles in the ERIC/CASS Virtual Library. The sources were selected for their ability to present information on…

  12. Educational Opportunities for Adults in California

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    de Cos, Patricia L.

    2004-01-01

    Assembly member Carol Liu, Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Adult Education, requested that the California Research Bureau prepare a report on adult education. The legislative request specified that the following topics be covered: (1) a definition of adult education; (2) recent information on student enrollment, funding sources and…

  13. Digest of Education Statistics, 2007. NCES 2008-022

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Snyder, Thomas D.; Dillow, Sally A.; Hoffman, Charlene M.

    2008-01-01

    The primary purpose of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The "Digest" includes a selection of data from both government and private sources, and draws especially on the results…

  14. Signs of the Times: Signage in the Library.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnson, Carolyn

    1993-01-01

    Discusses the use of signs in libraries and lists 12 steps to create successful signage. Highlights include consistency, location, color, size, lettering, types of material, user needs, signage policy, planning, in-house fabrication versus vendors, and evaluation, A selected bibliography of 24 sources of information on library signage is included.…

  15. SCORE A: A Student Research Paper Writing Strategy.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Korinek, Lori; Bulls, Jill A.

    1996-01-01

    A mnemonic strategy for writing a research paper is explained. "SCORE A" reminds the student to select a subject, create categories, obtain sources, read and take notes, evenly organize the information, and apply process writing steps. Implementation of the strategy with five eighth graders with learning disabilities is reported. (DB)

  16. Installation, care, and maintenance of wood shake and shingle siding

    Treesearch

    Jack Dwyer; Tony Bonura; Arnie Nebelsick; Sam Williams; Christopher G. Hunt

    2011-01-01

    This article gives general guidelines for selection, installation, finishing, and maintenance of wood shakes and shingles. The authors gathered information from a variety of sources: research publications on wood finishing, technical data sheets from paint manufacturers, installation instructions for shake and shingle siding, and interviews with experts having...

  17. United States Air Force 611th Civil Engineer Squadron, Elmendorf, AFB, Alaska. Final engineering evaluation/cost analysis, million gallon hill source area of the West Unit, Galena Airport, Alaska

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

    NONE

    1996-02-05

    This decision document presents the selected removal action for the Million Gallon Hill source area of the Installation Restoration Program (IRP) site ST009, otherwise known as the West Unit at Galena Airport, Alaska. The information from the RI Report is summarized, along with an analysis of potential removal action alternatives in the Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis (EE/CA).

  18. Patients' perceptions of information and education for renal replacement therapy: an independent survey by the European Kidney Patients' Federation on information and support on renal replacement therapy.

    PubMed

    Van Biesen, Wim; van der Veer, Sabine N; Murphey, Mark; Loblova, Olga; Davies, Simon

    2014-01-01

    Selection of an appropriate renal replacement modality is of utmost importance for patients with end stage renal disease. Previous studies showed provision of information to and free modality choice by patients to be suboptimal. Therefore, the European Kidney Patients' Federation (CEAPIR) explored European patients' perceptions regarding information, education and involvement on the modality selection process. CEAPIR developed a survey, which was disseminated by the national kidney patient organisations in Europe. In total, 3867 patients from 36 countries completed the survey. Respondents were either on in-centre haemodialysis (53%) or had a functioning graft (38%) at the time of survey. The majority (78%) evaluated the general information about kidney disease and treatment as helpful, but 39% did not recall being told about alternative treatment options than their current one. Respondents were more often satisfied with information provided on in-centre haemodialysis (90%) and transplantation (87%) than with information provided on peritoneal dialysis (79%) or home haemodialysis (61%), and were more satisfied with information from health care professionals vs other sources such as social media. Most (75%) felt they had been involved in treatment selection, 29% perceived they had no free choice. Involvement in modality selection was associated with enhanced satisfaction with treatment (OR 3.13; 95% CI 2.72-3.60). Many respondents (64%) could not remember receiving education on how to manage their kidney disease in daily life. Perceptions on information seem to differ between countries. Kidney patients reported to be overall satisfied with the information they received on their disease and treatment, although information seemed mostly to have been focused on one modality. Patients involved in modality selection were more satisfied with their treatment. However, in the perception of the patients, the freedom to choose an alternative modality showed room for improvement.

  19. Unified method to integrate and blend several, potentially related, sources of information for genetic evaluation.

    PubMed

    Vandenplas, Jérémie; Colinet, Frederic G; Gengler, Nicolas

    2014-09-30

    A condition to predict unbiased estimated breeding values by best linear unbiased prediction is to use simultaneously all available data. However, this condition is not often fully met. For example, in dairy cattle, internal (i.e. local) populations lead to evaluations based only on internal records while widely used foreign sires have been selected using internally unavailable external records. In such cases, internal genetic evaluations may be less accurate and biased. Because external records are unavailable, methods were developed to combine external information that summarizes these records, i.e. external estimated breeding values and associated reliabilities, with internal records to improve accuracy of internal genetic evaluations. Two issues of these methods concern double-counting of contributions due to relationships and due to records. These issues could be worse if external information came from several evaluations, at least partially based on the same records, and combined into a single internal evaluation. Based on a Bayesian approach, the aim of this research was to develop a unified method to integrate and blend simultaneously several sources of information into an internal genetic evaluation by avoiding double-counting of contributions due to relationships and due to records. This research resulted in equations that integrate and blend simultaneously several sources of information and avoid double-counting of contributions due to relationships and due to records. The performance of the developed equations was evaluated using simulated and real datasets. The results showed that the developed equations integrated and blended several sources of information well into a genetic evaluation. The developed equations also avoided double-counting of contributions due to relationships and due to records. Furthermore, because all available external sources of information were correctly propagated, relatives of external animals benefited from the integrated information and, therefore, more reliable estimated breeding values were obtained. The proposed unified method integrated and blended several sources of information well into a genetic evaluation by avoiding double-counting of contributions due to relationships and due to records. The unified method can also be extended to other types of situations such as single-step genomic or multi-trait evaluations, combining information across different traits.

  20. Diabetes-related information-seeking behaviour: a systematic review.

    PubMed

    Kuske, Silke; Schiereck, Tim; Grobosch, Sandra; Paduch, Andrea; Droste, Sigrid; Halbach, Sarah; Icks, Andrea

    2017-10-24

    Information-seeking behaviour is necessary to improve knowledge on diabetes therapy and complications. Combined with other self-management skills and autonomous handling of the disease, it is essential for achieving treatment targets. However, a systematic review addressing this topic is lacking. The aims of this systematic review were to identify and analyse existing knowledge of information-seeking behaviour: (1) types information-seeking behaviour, (2) information sources, (3) the content of searched information, and (4) associated variables that may affect information-seeking behaviour. The systematic review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) requirements. MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, ScienceDirect, PsycInfo, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CCMed, ERIC, Journals@OVID, Deutsches Ärzteblatt and Karlsruher virtueller Katalog (KvK) databases were searched. Publications dealing with information-seeking behaviour of people with diabetes mellitus published up to June 2015 were included. A forward citation tracking was performed in September 2016 and June 2017. Additionally, an update of the two main databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL) was conducted, considering studies published up to July 2017. Studies published in languages other than English or German were excluded, as well as letters, short reports, editorials, comments and discussion papers. A study selection and the critical appraisal of the selected studies were performed independently by two reviewers. A third reviewer was consulted if any disagreement was found. Data extraction and content analysis were performed using selected dimensions of Wilson's 'model of information behaviour'. Twenty-six studies were included. Five 'types of information-seeking behaviour' were identified, e.g. passive and active search. The 'Internet' and 'healthcare professionals' were the most frequently reported sources. 'Diet', 'complications', 'exercise' and 'medications and pharmacological interactions' were the most frequently identified content of information. Seven main categories including associated variables were identified, e.g. 'socioeconomic', 'duration of DM', and 'lifestyle'. The systematic review provides a valuable overview of available knowledge on the information-seeking behaviour of people with diabetes mellitus, although there are only a few studies. There was a high heterogeneity regarding the research question, design, methods and participants. Although the Internet is often used to seek information, health professionals still play an important role in supporting their patients' information-seeking behaviour. Specific needs of people with diabetes must be taken into consideration. PROSPERO CRD42016037312.

  1. Selection and evaluation of reference genes for RT-qPCR expression studies on Burkholderia tropica strain Ppe8, a sugarcane-associated diazotrophic bacterium grown with different carbon sources or sugarcane juice.

    PubMed

    da Silva, Paula Renata Alves; Vidal, Marcia Soares; de Paula Soares, Cleiton; Polese, Valéria; Simões-Araújo, Jean Luís; Baldani, José Ivo

    2016-11-01

    Among the members of the genus Burkholderia, Burkholderia tropica has the ability to fix nitrogen and promote sugarcane plant growth as well as act as a biological control agent. There is little information about how this bacterium metabolizes carbohydrates as well as those carbon sources found in the sugarcane juice that accumulates in stems during plant growth. Reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) can be used to evaluate changes in gene expression during bacterial growth on different carbon sources. Here we tested the expression of six reference genes, lpxC, gyrB, recA, rpoA, rpoB, and rpoD, when cells were grown with glucose, fructose, sucrose, mannitol, aconitic acid, and sugarcane juice as carbon sources. The lpxC, gyrB, and recA were selected as the most stable reference genes based on geNorm and NormFinder software analyses. Validation of these three reference genes during strain Ppe8 growth on the same carbon sources showed that genes involved in glycogen biosynthesis (glgA, glgB, glgC) and trehalose biosynthesis (treY and treZ) were highly expressed when Ppe8 was grown in aconitic acid relative to other carbon sources, while otsA expression (trehalose biosynthesis) was reduced with all carbon sources. In addition, the expression level of the ORF_6066 (gluconolactonase) gene was reduced on sugarcane juice. The results confirmed the stability of the three selected reference genes (lpxC, gyrB, and recA) during the RT-qPCR and also their robustness by evaluating the relative expression of genes involved in glycogen and trehalose biosynthesis when strain Ppe8 was grown on different carbon sources and sugarcane juice.

  2. Clustering and Bayesian hierarchical modeling for the definition of informative prior distributions in hydrogeology

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cucchi, K.; Kawa, N.; Hesse, F.; Rubin, Y.

    2017-12-01

    In order to reduce uncertainty in the prediction of subsurface flow and transport processes, practitioners should use all data available. However, classic inverse modeling frameworks typically only make use of information contained in in-situ field measurements to provide estimates of hydrogeological parameters. Such hydrogeological information about an aquifer is difficult and costly to acquire. In this data-scarce context, the transfer of ex-situ information coming from previously investigated sites can be critical for improving predictions by better constraining the estimation procedure. Bayesian inverse modeling provides a coherent framework to represent such ex-situ information by virtue of the prior distribution and combine them with in-situ information from the target site. In this study, we present an innovative data-driven approach for defining such informative priors for hydrogeological parameters at the target site. Our approach consists in two steps, both relying on statistical and machine learning methods. The first step is data selection; it consists in selecting sites similar to the target site. We use clustering methods for selecting similar sites based on observable hydrogeological features. The second step is data assimilation; it consists in assimilating data from the selected similar sites into the informative prior. We use a Bayesian hierarchical model to account for inter-site variability and to allow for the assimilation of multiple types of site-specific data. We present the application and validation of the presented methods on an established database of hydrogeological parameters. Data and methods are implemented in the form of an open-source R-package and therefore facilitate easy use by other practitioners.

  3. BioFed: federated query processing over life sciences linked open data.

    PubMed

    Hasnain, Ali; Mehmood, Qaiser; Sana E Zainab, Syeda; Saleem, Muhammad; Warren, Claude; Zehra, Durre; Decker, Stefan; Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich

    2017-03-15

    Biomedical data, e.g. from knowledge bases and ontologies, is increasingly made available following open linked data principles, at best as RDF triple data. This is a necessary step towards unified access to biological data sets, but this still requires solutions to query multiple endpoints for their heterogeneous data to eventually retrieve all the meaningful information. Suggested solutions are based on query federation approaches, which require the submission of SPARQL queries to endpoints. Due to the size and complexity of available data, these solutions have to be optimised for efficient retrieval times and for users in life sciences research. Last but not least, over time, the reliability of data resources in terms of access and quality have to be monitored. Our solution (BioFed) federates data over 130 SPARQL endpoints in life sciences and tailors query submission according to the provenance information. BioFed has been evaluated against the state of the art solution FedX and forms an important benchmark for the life science domain. The efficient cataloguing approach of the federated query processing system 'BioFed', the triple pattern wise source selection and the semantic source normalisation forms the core to our solution. It gathers and integrates data from newly identified public endpoints for federated access. Basic provenance information is linked to the retrieved data. Last but not least, BioFed makes use of the latest SPARQL standard (i.e., 1.1) to leverage the full benefits for query federation. The evaluation is based on 10 simple and 10 complex queries, which address data in 10 major and very popular data sources (e.g., Dugbank, Sider). BioFed is a solution for a single-point-of-access for a large number of SPARQL endpoints providing life science data. It facilitates efficient query generation for data access and provides basic provenance information in combination with the retrieved data. BioFed fully supports SPARQL 1.1 and gives access to the endpoint's availability based on the EndpointData graph. Our evaluation of BioFed against FedX is based on 20 heterogeneous federated SPARQL queries and shows competitive execution performance in comparison to FedX, which can be attributed to the provision of provenance information for the source selection. Developing and testing federated query engines for life sciences data is still a challenging task. According to our findings, it is advantageous to optimise the source selection. The cataloguing of SPARQL endpoints, including type and property indexing, leads to efficient querying of data resources over the Web of Data. This could even be further improved through the use of ontologies, e.g., for abstract normalisation of query terms.

  4. Chronology of KSC and KSC related events, 1982

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Nail, K., Jr.

    1984-01-01

    The history of activities at the Kennedy Space Center in 1982 is presented as reflected in NASA News Releases and selected periodicals. Items are arranged in chronological order by date of the published sources. Actual data date of the event may be indicated in parenthesis when the article itself does not make that information explicit. Highlights of the year's activities include three launchings of the orbiter Columbia; successful launches of communications satellites using expendable vehicles; major changes in contracting; and the selection of a base operations contractor.

  5. Reengineering Best Value Source Selection Through Process Innovation and the Selected Application of Information Technology

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2001-12-01

    SWDIV’s current organizational structure is a direct result of a December 1995 customer survey, which revealed that SWDIV’s customers were not happy with...its services. They wanted SWDIV to be better, faster, cheaper, and easier to use. As a result of this customer feedback, and various OPNAV and...process of delivering products and services to 13 SWDIV’s customers . The RET was tasked with accomplishing the following three things: 1. Focus

  6. Selection of Russian Plutonium Beryllium Sources for Inclusion in the Nuclear Mateirals Information Program Archive

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

    Narlesky, Joshua E; Padilla, Dennis D; Watts, Joe

    2009-01-01

    Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the former Soviet Union produced and exported Plutonium-Beryllium (PuBe) neutron sources to various Eastern European countries. The Russian sources consist of an intermetallic compound of plutonium and beryllium encapsulated in an inner welded, sealed capsule and consisting of a body and one or more covers. The amount of plutonium in the sources ranges from 0.002 g up to 15 g. A portion of the sources was originally exported to East Germany. A portion of these sources were acquired by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in the late 1990s for destruction in the Offsite Source Recoverymore » Program. When the OSRP was canceled, the remaining 88 PuBe neutron sources were packaged and stored in a 55-gal drum at T A-55. This storage configuration is no longer acceptable for PuBe sources, and the sources must either be repackaged or disposed of. Repackaging would place the sources into Hagan container, and depending on the dose rates, some sources may be packaged individually increasing the footprint and cost of storage. In addition, each source will be subject to leak-checking every six months. Leaks have already been detected in some of the sources, and due to the age of these sources, it is likely that additional leaks may be detected over time, which will increase the overall complexity of handling and storage. Therefore, it was decided that the sources would be disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) due to the cost and labor associated with continued storage at TA-55. However, the plutonium in the sources is of Russian origin and needs to be preserved for research purposes. Therefore, it is important that a representative sample of the sources retained and archived for future studies. This report describes the criteria used to obtain a representative sample of the sources. Nine Russian PuBe neutron sources have been selected out of a collection of 77 sources for inclusion in the NMIP archive. Selection criteria were developed so that the largest sources that are representative of the collection are included. One representative source was chosen for every 20 sources in the collection, and effort was made to preserve sources unique to the collection. In total, four representative sources and five unique sources were selected for the archive. The archive samples contain 40 grams of plutonium with an isotopic composition similar to that of weapon grade material and three grams of plutonium with an isotopic composition similar to that of reactor grade plutonium.« less

  7. Classification of health webpages as expert and non expert with a reduced set of cross-language features.

    PubMed

    Grabar, Natalia; Krivine, Sonia; Jaulent, Marie-Christine

    2007-10-11

    Making the distinction between expert and non expert health documents can help users to select the information which is more suitable for them, according to whether they are familiar or not with medical terminology. This issue is particularly important for the information retrieval area. In our work we address this purpose through stylistic corpus analysis and the application of machine learning algorithms. Our hypothesis is that this distinction can be performed on the basis of a small number of features and that such features can be language and domain independent. The used features were acquired in source corpus (Russian language, diabetes topic) and then tested on target (French language, pneumology topic) and source corpora. These cross-language features show 90% precision and 93% recall with non expert documents in source language; and 85% precision and 74% recall with expert documents in target language.

  8. Successful Air Force Source Selections Start with an Effective Empowered Team

    DTIC Science & Technology

    responsibilities of the team that will conduct a source selection, there is less guidance and focus how to create an effective source selection team and...empower that team to successfully complete a source selection. This purpose of this research was to determine if an increased focus on the formation and...empowerment of source selection teams and not just processes and procedures contribute to the efficiency and success of Air Force source selections

  9. Much ado about flu: A mixed methods study of parental perceptions, trust and information seeking in a pandemic.

    PubMed

    King, Catherine L; Chow, Maria Y K; Wiley, Kerrie E; Leask, Julie

    2018-07-01

    Effective public health messaging is essential in both the planning phase and duration of a pandemic. This study aimed to gain an understanding of parental information seeking, trusted sources and needs in relation to pandemic influenza A 2009 (pH1N1) to inform future policy planning and resource development. We conducted a mixed methods study; parents from 16 childcare centres in Sydney, Australia, were surveyed between 16 November and 9 December 2009, and interviews were conducted with participants from six childcare centres between June 2009 and May 2011. From 972 surveys distributed, 431 were completed; a response rate of 44%. Most parents (90%) reported that doctors were "trusted a lot" as a source of influenza information, followed by nurses (59%), government (56%) and childcare centres (52%). Less trusted sources included media (7% selected "trusted a lot"), antivaccination groups (6%) and celebrities (1%). Parents identified a range of key search terms for influenza infection and vaccine. From 42 in-depth interviews, key themes were as follows: "Action trigger," "In an emergency, think Emergency," "Fright to hype" and "Dr Google and beyond." Parents relied heavily on media messages, but cynicism emerged when the pandemic was milder than expected. Parents viewed a range of information sources as trustworthy, including doctors, authoritative hospital or government websites, and childcare centres and schools. A user-centred orientation is vital for pandemic communications including tailored information provision, via trusted sources based on what parents want to know and how they can find it. © 2018 The Authors. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  10. Purchasing online journal access for a hospital medical library: how to identify value in commercially available products.

    PubMed

    Carter, Thomas P; Carter, Anne O; Broomes, Gwendolyn

    2006-07-12

    Medical practice today requires evaluating large amounts of information which should be available at all times. This information is found most easily in a digital form. Some information has already been evaluated for validity (evidence based medicine sources) and some is in unevaluated form (paper and online journals). In order to improve access to digital information, the School of Clinical Medicine and Research at the University of the West Indies and Queen Elizabeth Hospital decided to enhance the library by offering online full text medical articles and evidence based medicine sources. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the relative value of online journal commercial products available for a small hospital and medical school library. Three reference standards were chosen to represent the ideal list of core periodicals for a broad range of medical care: 2 Brandon/Hill selected lists of journals for the small medical library (BH and BH core) and the academic medical library core journal collection chosen for the Florida State University College of Medicine Medical Library. Six commercially available collections were compared to the reference standards and to the current paper journal subscription list as regards to number of journals matched and cost per journal matched. Ease of use and presence of secondary sources were also considered. The cost per journal matched ranged from US $3194 to $81. Because of their low subscription prices, the Biomedical Reference Collection and Proquest products were the most cost beneficial. However, they provided low coverage of the ideal lists (12-17% and 21-32% respectively) and contained significant embargoes on current editions, were not user friendly and contained no secondary sources. The Ovid Brandon/Hill Plus Collection overcame these difficulties but had a much higher cost-benefit range while providing higher coverage of the ideal lists (14-47%). After considering costs, benefits, ease of use, embargoes, presence of secondary sources (ACP Journal Club, DARE), the Ovid Brandon/Hill Plus Collection was the best choice for our hospital considering our budget. However, the option to individually select our own journal list from Ovid and pay per journal has a certain appeal as well.

  11. An Investigation of Spatial Hearing in Children with Normal Hearing and with Cochlear Implants and the Impact of Executive Function

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Misurelli, Sara M.

    The ability to analyze an "auditory scene"---that is, to selectively attend to a target source while simultaneously segregating and ignoring distracting information---is one of the most important and complex skills utilized by normal hearing (NH) adults. The NH adult auditory system and brain work rather well to segregate auditory sources in adverse environments. However, for some children and individuals with hearing loss, selectively attending to one source in noisy environments can be extremely challenging. In a normal auditory system, information arriving at each ear is integrated, and thus these binaural cues aid in speech understanding in noise. A growing number of individuals who are deaf now receive cochlear implants (CIs), which supply hearing through electrical stimulation to the auditory nerve. In particular, bilateral cochlear implants (BICIs) are now becoming more prevalent, especially in children. However, because CI sound processing lacks both fine structure cues and coordination between stimulation at the two ears, binaural cues may either be absent or inconsistent. For children with NH and with BiCIs, this difficulty in segregating sources is of particular concern because their learning and development commonly occurs within the context of complex auditory environments. This dissertation intends to explore and understand the ability of children with NH and with BiCIs to function in everyday noisy environments. The goals of this work are to (1) Investigate source segregation abilities in children with NH and with BiCIs; (2) Examine the effect of target-interferer similarity and the benefits of source segregation for children with NH and with BiCIs; (3) Investigate measures of executive function that may predict performance in complex and realistic auditory tasks of source segregation for listeners with NH; and (4) Examine source segregation abilities in NH listeners, from school-age to adults.

  12. Sediment sources in a small agricultural catchment: A composite fingerprinting approach based on the selection of potential sources

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zhou, Huiping; Chang, Weina; Zhang, Longjiang

    2016-08-01

    Fingerprinting techniques have been widely used as a reasonable and reliable means for investigating sediment sources, especially in relatively large catchments in which there are significant differences in surface materials. However, the discrimination power of fingerprint properties for small catchments, in which the surface materials are relatively homogeneous and human interference is marked, may be affected by fragmentary or confused source information. Using fingerprinting techniques can be difficult, and there is still a need for further studies to verify the effectiveness of such techniques in these small catchments. A composite fingerprinting approach was used in this study to investigate the main sources of sediment output, as well as their relative contributions, from a small catchment (30 km2) with high levels of farming and mining activities. The impact of the selection of different potential sediment sources on the derivation of composite fingerprints and its discrimination power were also investigated by comparing the results from different combinations of potential source types. The initial source types and several samples that could cause confusion were adjusted. These adjustments improved the discrimination power of the composite fingerprints. The results showed that the composite fingerprinting approach used in this study had a discriminatory efficiency of 89.2% for different sediment sources and that the model had a mean goodness of fit of 0.90. Cultivated lands were the main sediment source. The sediment contribution of the studied cultivated lands ranged from 39.9% to 87.8%, with a mean of 76.6%, for multiple deposited sediment samples. The mean contribution of woodlands was 21.7%. Overall, the sediment contribution from mining and road areas was relatively low. The selection of potential sources is an important factor in the application of fingerprinting techniques and warrants more attention in future studies, as is the case with other uncertainty factors.

  13. The STEP (Safety and Toxicity of Excipients for Paediatrics) database: part 2 - the pilot version.

    PubMed

    Salunke, Smita; Brandys, Barbara; Giacoia, George; Tuleu, Catherine

    2013-11-30

    The screening and careful selection of excipients is a critical step in paediatric formulation development as certain excipients acceptable in adult formulations, may not be appropriate for paediatric use. While there is extensive toxicity data that could help in better understanding and highlighting the gaps in toxicity studies, the data are often scattered around the information sources and saddled with incompatible data types and formats. This paper is the second in a series that presents the update on the Safety and Toxicity of Excipients for Paediatrics ("STEP") database being developed by Eu-US PFIs, and describes the architecture data fields and functions of the database. The STEP database is a user designed resource that compiles the safety and toxicity data of excipients that is scattered over various sources and presents it in one freely accessible source. Currently, in the pilot database data from over 2000 references/10 excipients presenting preclinical, clinical, regulatory information and toxicological reviews, with references and source links. The STEP database allows searching "FOR" excipients and "BY" excipients. This dual nature of the STEP database, in which toxicity and safety information can be searched in both directions, makes it unique from existing sources. If the pilot is successful, the aim is to increase the number of excipients in the existing database so that a database large enough to be of practical research use will be available. It is anticipated that this source will prove to be a useful platform for data management and data exchange of excipient safety information. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Meeting the information system demands of the future through outsourcing.

    PubMed

    Goldman, S J

    1994-05-01

    As managed care organizations work to meet the rigorous data and information requirements of a rapidly evolving health care system, many are recognizing the need to out-source their computer operations. Developing a cost-effective, efficient approach to outsourcing is a challenge to many organizations. This article offers an in-depth view of outsourcing as it relates to the managed health care industry as well as criteria for selecting an outsourcing consultant or vendor.

  15. Toward high-throughput phenotyping: unbiased automated feature extraction and selection from knowledge sources.

    PubMed

    Yu, Sheng; Liao, Katherine P; Shaw, Stanley Y; Gainer, Vivian S; Churchill, Susanne E; Szolovits, Peter; Murphy, Shawn N; Kohane, Isaac S; Cai, Tianxi

    2015-09-01

    Analysis of narrative (text) data from electronic health records (EHRs) can improve population-scale phenotyping for clinical and genetic research. Currently, selection of text features for phenotyping algorithms is slow and laborious, requiring extensive and iterative involvement by domain experts. This paper introduces a method to develop phenotyping algorithms in an unbiased manner by automatically extracting and selecting informative features, which can be comparable to expert-curated ones in classification accuracy. Comprehensive medical concepts were collected from publicly available knowledge sources in an automated, unbiased fashion. Natural language processing (NLP) revealed the occurrence patterns of these concepts in EHR narrative notes, which enabled selection of informative features for phenotype classification. When combined with additional codified features, a penalized logistic regression model was trained to classify the target phenotype. The authors applied our method to develop algorithms to identify patients with rheumatoid arthritis and coronary artery disease cases among those with rheumatoid arthritis from a large multi-institutional EHR. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) for classifying RA and CAD using models trained with automated features were 0.951 and 0.929, respectively, compared to the AUCs of 0.938 and 0.929 by models trained with expert-curated features. Models trained with NLP text features selected through an unbiased, automated procedure achieved comparable or slightly higher accuracy than those trained with expert-curated features. The majority of the selected model features were interpretable. The proposed automated feature extraction method, generating highly accurate phenotyping algorithms with improved efficiency, is a significant step toward high-throughput phenotyping. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  16. [French general practitioners and electromagnetic fields].

    PubMed

    Lambrozo, Jacques; Souques, Martine; Bourg, Fabrice; Guillaume, Xavier; Perrin, Anne

    2013-05-01

    To assess the perception of risk of general practitioners (GPs) about electromagnetic fields (EMF), their sources of information, as well as their patients' level of concern. Six hundred French GPs were selected according to the quotas method. They were asked to answer 24 items via an electronic questionnaire using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) method. The GPs know the main EMF sources: cell phone towers, cell phones, power-lines, microwave ovens and WiFi networks. Patients mostly complain or worry about the first three sources and ask their GP for information about these. GPs themselves search for information in the mainstream media rather than in the usual scientific and medical press. As a consequence, their knowledge about potential risks of EMF is deemed rather crude. The GPs are sensitive to environmental concerns, particularly regarding EMF exposure. However, according to the results analysis, they do not have the same approach because of an obvious lack of mastery in a complex and poorly informed situation. A serious educational effort is essential and would be welcomed by practitioners, who are aware of their responsibilities in terms of counseling, diagnosis and care. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  17. Non-ad-hoc decision rule for the Dempster-Shafer method of evidential reasoning

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cheaito, Ali; Lecours, Michael; Bosse, Eloi

    1998-03-01

    This paper is concerned with the fusion of identity information through the use of statistical analysis rooted in Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence to provide automatic identification aboard a platform. An identity information process for a baseline Multi-Source Data Fusion (MSDF) system is defined. The MSDF system is applied to information sources which include a number of radars, IFF systems, an ESM system, and a remote track source. We use a comprehensive Platform Data Base (PDB) containing all the possible identity values that the potential target may take, and we use the fuzzy logic strategies which enable the fusion of subjective attribute information from sensor and the PDB to make the derivation of target identity more quickly, more precisely, and with statistically quantifiable measures of confidence. The conventional Dempster-Shafer lacks a formal basis upon which decision can be made in the face of ambiguity. We define a non-ad hoc decision rule based on the expected utility interval for pruning the `unessential' propositions which would otherwise overload the real-time data fusion systems. An example has been selected to demonstrate the implementation of our modified Dempster-Shafer method of evidential reasoning.

  18. A Computational Tool to Detect and Avoid Redundancy in Selected Reaction Monitoring

    PubMed Central

    Röst, Hannes; Malmström, Lars; Aebersold, Ruedi

    2012-01-01

    Selected reaction monitoring (SRM), also called multiple reaction monitoring, has become an invaluable tool for targeted quantitative proteomic analyses, but its application can be compromised by nonoptimal selection of transitions. In particular, complex backgrounds may cause ambiguities in SRM measurement results because peptides with interfering transitions similar to those of the target peptide may be present in the sample. Here, we developed a computer program, the SRMCollider, that calculates nonredundant theoretical SRM assays, also known as unique ion signatures (UIS), for a given proteomic background. We show theoretically that UIS of three transitions suffice to conclusively identify 90% of all yeast peptides and 85% of all human peptides. Using predicted retention times, the SRMCollider also simulates time-scheduled SRM acquisition, which reduces the number of interferences to consider and leads to fewer transitions necessary to construct an assay. By integrating experimental fragment ion intensities from large scale proteome synthesis efforts (SRMAtlas) with the information content-based UIS, we combine two orthogonal approaches to create high quality SRM assays ready to be deployed. We provide a user friendly, open source implementation of an algorithm to calculate UIS of any order that can be accessed online at http://www.srmcollider.org to find interfering transitions. Finally, our tool can also simulate the specificity of novel data-independent MS acquisition methods in Q1–Q3 space. This allows us to predict parameters for these methods that deliver a specificity comparable with that of SRM. Using SRM interference information in addition to other sources of information can increase the confidence in an SRM measurement. We expect that the consideration of information content will become a standard step in SRM assay design and analysis, facilitated by the SRMCollider. PMID:22535207

  19. Quality and Labelling Information Moringa Oleifera Products Marketed for HIV-infected People in Zimbabwe

    PubMed Central

    Jani, Zvinji Tella; Maponga, Charles Chiedza; Mudzengi, Josephine; Morse, Gene D.; Nhachi, Charles Fungai Brian

    2016-01-01

    Labeling information and quality of marketed Moringa oleifera products were assessed. Personnel in 60 pharmacies and 11 herbal shops were interviewed about the sources, dosages, indications and counseling information of Moringa oleifera products. Content analysis of written information provided on Moringa oleifera products was also done. Three samples of Moringa from popular sources were acquired to determine heavy metal content and microbial contamination. The results were compared to specified limits in the European and Chinese pharmacopeia, World Health Organization guidelines and Bureau of Indian Standards. Moringa was available as capsules or powder in 73% of the premises. Moringa was recommended for seven different disease conditions. Four different dosage regimens were prescribed. The main references cited for the counseling information were unscientific literature (62%). The selected Moringa samples were contaminated with bacteria and fungi above the European Pharmacopeia specified limits. Escherichia coli and Salmonella species were present in all three samples. All three samples contained arsenic, nickel and cadmium above the permissible limits. Moringa oleifera with variable labeling information and poor microbial and heavy metal quality is widely available in Zimbabwe. PMID:28239441

  20. Quality and labeling information of Moringa oleifera products marketed for HIV-infected people in Zimbabwe.

    PubMed

    Monera-Penduka, Tsitsi Grace; Jani, Zvinji Tella; Maponga, Charles Chiedza; Mudzengi, Josephine; Morse, Gene D; Nhachi, Charles Fungai Brian

    2016-12-31

    Labeling information and quality of marketed Moringa oleifera products were assessed. Personnel in 60 pharmacies and 11 herbal shops were interviewed about the sources, dosages, indications and counseling information of Moringa oleifera products. Content analysis of written information provided on Moringa oleifera products was also done. Three samples of Moringa from popular sources were acquired to determine heavy metal content and microbial contamination. The results were compared to specified limits in the European and Chinese pharmacopeia, World Health Organization guidelines and Bureau of Indian Standards. Moringa was available as capsules or powder in 73% of the premises. Moringa was recommended for seven different disease conditions. Four different dosage regimens were prescribed. The main references cited for the counseling information were unscientific literature (62%). The selected Moringa samples were contaminated with bacteria and fungi above the European Pharmacopeia specified limits. Escherichia coli and Salmonella species were present in all three samples. All three samples contained arsenic, nickel and cadmium above the permissible limits. Moringa oleifera with variable labeling information and poor microbial and heavy metal quality is widely available in Zimbabwe.

  1. ESS++: a C++ objected-oriented algorithm for Bayesian stochastic search model exploration

    PubMed Central

    Bottolo, Leonardo; Langley, Sarah R.; Petretto, Enrico; Tiret, Laurence; Tregouet, David; Richardson, Sylvia

    2011-01-01

    Summary: ESS++ is a C++ implementation of a fully Bayesian variable selection approach for single and multiple response linear regression. ESS++ works well both when the number of observations is larger than the number of predictors and in the ‘large p, small n’ case. In the current version, ESS++ can handle several hundred observations, thousands of predictors and a few responses simultaneously. The core engine of ESS++ for the selection of relevant predictors is based on Evolutionary Monte Carlo. Our implementation is open source, allowing community-based alterations and improvements. Availability: C++ source code and documentation including compilation instructions are available under GNU licence at http://bgx.org.uk/software/ESS.html. Contact: l.bottolo@imperial.ac.uk Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:21233165

  2. Information retrieval for ecological syntheses.

    PubMed

    Bayliss, Helen R; Beyer, Fiona R

    2015-06-01

    Research syntheses are increasingly being conducted within the fields of ecology and environmental management. Information retrieval is crucial in any synthesis in identifying data for inclusion whilst potentially reducing biases in the dataset gathered, yet the nature of ecological information provides several challenges when compared with medicine that should be considered when planning and undertaking searches. We present ten recommendations for anyone considering undertaking information retrieval for ecological research syntheses that highlight the main differences with medicine and, if adopted, may help reduce biases in the dataset retrieved, increase search efficiency and improve reporting standards. They are as follows: (1) plan for information retrieval at an early stage, (2) identify and use sources of help, (3) clearly define the question to be addressed, (4) ensure that provisions for managing, recording and reporting the search are in place, (5) select an appropriate search type, (6) identify sources to be used, (7) identify limitations of the sources, (8) ensure that the search vocabulary is appropriate, (9) identify limits and filters that can help direct the search, and (10) test the strategy to ensure that it is realistic and manageable. These recommendations may be of value for other disciplines where search infrastructures are not yet sufficiently well developed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  3. All Information Is Not Equal: Using the Literature Databases PubMed and The Cochrane Library for Identifying the Evidence on Granulocyte Transfusion Therapy

    PubMed Central

    Metzendorf, Maria-Inti; Schulz, Manuela; Braun, Volker

    2014-01-01

    Summary To be able to take well-informed decisions or carry out sound research, clinicians and researchers alike require specific information seeking skills matching their respective information needs. Biomedical information is traditionally available via different literature databases. This article gives an introduction to two diverging sources, PubMed (23 million references) and The Cochrane Library (800,000 references), both of which offer sophisticated instruments for searching an increasing amount of medical publications of varied quality and ambition. Whereas PubMed as an unfiltered source of primary literature comprises all different kinds of publication types occurring in academic journals, The Cochrane Library is a pre-filtered source which offers access to either synthesized publication types or critically appraised and carefully selected references. A search approach has to be carried out deliberately and requires a good knowledge on the scope and features of the databases as well as on the ability to build a search strategy in a structured way. We present a specific and a sensitive search approach, making use of both databases within two application case scenarios in order to identify the evidence on granulocyte transfusions for infections in adult patients with neutropenia. PMID:25538539

  4. Optimum Strategies for Selecting Descent Flight-Path Angles

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Wu, Minghong G. (Inventor); Green, Steven M. (Inventor)

    2016-01-01

    An information processing system and method for adaptively selecting an aircraft descent flight path for an aircraft, are provided. The system receives flight adaptation parameters, including aircraft flight descent time period, aircraft flight descent airspace region, and aircraft flight descent flyability constraints. The system queries a plurality of flight data sources and retrieves flight information including any of winds and temperatures aloft data, airspace/navigation constraints, airspace traffic demand, and airspace arrival delay model. The system calculates a set of candidate descent profiles, each defined by at least one of a flight path angle and a descent rate, and each including an aggregated total fuel consumption value for the aircraft following a calculated trajectory, and a flyability constraints metric for the calculated trajectory. The system selects a best candidate descent profile having the least fuel consumption value while the fly ability constraints metric remains within aircraft flight descent flyability constraints.

  5. Residency selection process: description and annotated bibliography.

    PubMed Central

    Aaron, P R; Frye, T L

    1979-01-01

    Specialty and residency training choices of medical students will affect the quality, mode, and geographic location of their future practice; the importance of such choices should not be underestimated. Medical school librarians have largely ignored the opportunity to interact with both medical students and medical school officials in providing sources needed to assist these career decisions, and for the most part students and administrators have ignored the opportunity to utilize the medical library in this process. This article presents an overview of the processes and procedures in which third- and fourth-year medical students are involved in selecting specialty and residency training, and provides a detailed description of the resources which the medical student should consult in order to make thoughtful, informed career decisions. The article urges medical school advisers and medical librarians to work as partners in providing information on specialty and residency selection to medical students. PMID:385087

  6. Energy Savings in School Buildings: A Selected Checklist.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wismer, Don, Comp.

    The 43 references in this booklet emphasize practical, rather than theoretical, information. They were chosen on that basis from two computer-retrievable data bases maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy. The citations, for the most part, are arranged by source and include industry pamphlets, journal articles, and state and consultant…

  7. Pioneers of Early Childhood Education: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Peltzman, Barbara Ruth

    Previous works on educators who built the field of early childhood education do not provide the researcher with primary and secondary sources or information on multicultural educators, nor do they discuss some of the more current leading educators. This reference book provides biographies and bibliographies of selected pre-modern and modern men…

  8. A Selected Special Education Bibliography and Resource Guide.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Draper, Ingrid L., Comp.

    Presented is a bibliography and resource guide to assist Head Start personnel who are not experienced in special education to locate helpful resources and to provide listings of current literature and training materials for special educators. Listed in Chapter (1) are several national, state, and local sources of information and resources in each…

  9. The Educational Needs of Commercial Dairymen in Selected Northeastern Ohio Counties.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Knight, Calvin Dorr

    The problems of commercial dairymen in northeastern Ohio, their sources of occupational information, and the relationships between their perception of needs and a professional's perception of their needs were studied. Questionnaires designed to assess these needs were mailed to 400 commercial dairymen and 141 professionals. Major problems, as seen…

  10. Term Relevance Feedback and Mediated Database Searching: Implications for Information Retrieval Practice and Systems Design.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Spink, Amanda

    1995-01-01

    This study uses the human approach to examine the sources and effectiveness of search terms selected during 40 mediated interactive database searches and focuses on determining the retrieval effectiveness of search terms identified by users and intermediaries from retrieved items during term relevance feedback. (Author/JKP)

  11. Results of a Citation Analysis of Knowledge Management in Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Uzunboylu, Huseyin; Eris, Hasan; Ozcinar, Zehra

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine research and trends in knowledge management in education (KME) published in selected professional sources during the period 1990-2008. Citation analysis was used in this study to investigate documents related to KME, which were indexed in the Web of Science, Education Researches Information Center and…

  12. Selected References on Asbestos: Its Nature, Hazards, Detection, and Control.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    National Education Association, Washington, DC.

    This document provides teachers with sources of information about the nature, hazards, detection, and control of asbestos. Because many school buildings include asbestos-containing materials, teachers and other school personnel must be aware of the potential dangers to students and to themselves and take steps to have asbestos hazards contained or…

  13. Financing Options for Home Care for Children with Chronic Illness and Severe Disability. Technical Assistance Manual.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ellison, Marsha Langer; And Others

    This manual is intended to accompany technical assistance efforts aimed at improving selected states' home health care programs for children with chronic illness and severe disability. Summary descriptions of funding sources are presented, including purpose, eligibility guidelines, and services covered, as well as additional information as…

  14. Innovations in Continuing Education. 1981 Award-Winning New Programs.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    National Univ. Continuing Education Association, Washington, DC.

    Descriptions are provided of the six programs selected as award-winning innovations on the basis of universal application and potential for greatest impact for the improvement of continuing education. Each description contains this information: program name, name of principal person, name and institution to whom award would be made, source of…

  15. Key Financial Metrics on Australia's Higher Education Sector--December 2016

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Australian Government Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, 2016

    2016-01-01

    This report is the second release of financial information held by Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). It provides a snapshot of selected key financial metrics across the Australian higher education sector. Data in this report has been sourced from TEQSA's 2015 data collection and relates to financial years ended 31 December…

  16. 48 CFR 873.111 - Acquisition strategies for health-care resources.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... sources to promote competition to the maximum extent practicable and to ensure that the purchase is advantageous to the Government, based, as appropriate, on either price alone or price and other factors (e.g... the initial down-select decision. The notice may also inform offerors of the evaluation criteria or...

  17. The Australian Press and Education: A Survey of National and Global Perspectives.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Woolman, David C.

    The news media are often the main source of public information about education. This paper analyzes press coverage of selected issues in contemporary Australian education. From December 28, 1998, to February 17, 1999, daily educational reporting was surveyed in "The Australian" (a paper roughly equivalent to "USA Today") and in…

  18. Resources for Educational Materials Related to Environmental Education, K-12. ERIC/SMEAC Environmental Education Digest No. 4.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Howe, Robert W.; Disinger, John F.

    This digest identifies selected sources of materials for environmental education. Included are: the Educational Resources Information Center; the United States Environmental Protection Agency; the Public Broadcasting System; the National Wildlife Federation; and the National Science Teachers Association. References and reviews of print,…

  19. Host and habitat index for Phytophthora species in Oregon

    Treesearch

    Everett Hansen; Paul Reeser; Wendy Sutton; Laura Sims

    2012-01-01

    In this contribution we compile existing records from available sources of reliably identified Phytophthora species from forests and forest trees in Oregon, USA. A searchable version of this information may be found in the Forest Phytophthoras of the World Disease Finder (select USA-Oregon). We have included isolations from soil and streams in...

  20. Multi-Cultural Education: Selected Bibliography (Annotated). Research Report, Vol. 10, No. 1.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge. Bureau of Educational Materials and Research.

    This annotated bibliography contains citations of reports, papers, and journal articles in the ERIC data bases and from other sources, on the subject of multicultural education. The references cite works of both theoretical and practical natures. Information on availability of the materials is included in the citation. (JD)

  1. Recommendations for Health Reporting: Proposal of a Working Paper

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vercellesi, Luisa; Minghetti, Paola; Di Croce, Marianna; Bazzi, Adriana; Pieroni, Bruno; Centemeri, Carlo; Bruno, Flavia

    2010-01-01

    Objective: Media are a main source of medical information for the public, as well as for decision makers. This scenario demands a good selection of stories and correct medical reporting. Design: Our study aimed to analyze if journalistic guidelines or similar documents were already available and whether they provided satisfactory advice for…

  2. Placing Texts, Placing Writers: Sources of Readers' Judgments in University Placement-Testing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sullivan, Francis J.

    A study examined how pragmatic form influences evaluation of student essays in university placement testing. Specifically, the study documented how patterns in students' use of information (assumed to be either old, inferable, or new for readers) affected the holistic scores for quality given to the essays. Subjects, 99 randomly selected entering…

  3. The First NREL Conference on thermophotovoltaic generation of electricity: Proceedings

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

    Not Available

    1994-08-01

    This collection of abstracts from the July 1994 meeting contains various information on thermophotovoltaic (TPV) conversion and converters. Discussed topics include: the current status of TPV conversion, TPV tutorials, heat source and emitter technologies, advanced TPV devices, selective emitter theory and practice, programmatic and systems issues, device fundamentals, and device and material characterization.

  4. Collection Development for the School Library Media Program: A Beginner's Guide

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kerby, Mona

    2006-01-01

    A valuable resource for new or experienced school librarians, "Collection Development for the School Library Media Program: A Beginner's Guide" is an easy-to-use guide to collection development. It provides practical and relevant information about collection development issues such as: the school users, policies, selection criteria and sources,…

  5. Installation, care, and maintenance of wood shake and shingle roofs

    Treesearch

    Tony Bonura; Jack Dwyer; Arnie Nebelsick; Brent Stuart; R. Sam Williams; Christopher Hunt

    2011-01-01

    This article gives general guidelines for selection, installation, finishing, and maintenance of wood shake and shingle roofs. The authors have gathered information from a variety of sources: research publications on wood finishing, technical data sheets from paint manufacturers, installation instructions for shake and shingle roofs, and interviews with experts having...

  6. Selected geohydrologic data from a regional aquifer-system analysis of the Northern Rocky Mountains intermontane basins in Idaho

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Stone, M.A.; Parliman, D.J.; Schaefer, J.L.

    1996-01-01

    The U.S. Geological Survey began a regional aquifer-system analysis of the Northern Rocky Mountains of northern and central Idaho and western Montana in 1990. The analysis helped establish a regional framework of information for aquifers in about 70 ntermontane basins in an area of 80,000 square miles. In many areas, ground water is the only suitable source of supply, yet little information is available about this resource. Selected geohydrologic data from 1,004 wells in 19 intermontane basins in Idaho were compiled as part of the regional analysis. Data consist of basin name and well number, altitude of land surface, date of well construction, geologic unit, depth of well, diameter of casing, type of finish, top of open interval, primary use of water, date of water level measurement, water level, discharge, specific capacity, source of discharge data, type of log available, date of water-quality constituent measurement, specific conductance, pH, and temperature. A similar report for intermontane basins in Montana has been published by the U.S. Geologcial Survey in Montana. (USGS)

  7. Near-optimal experimental design for model selection in systems biology.

    PubMed

    Busetto, Alberto Giovanni; Hauser, Alain; Krummenacher, Gabriel; Sunnåker, Mikael; Dimopoulos, Sotiris; Ong, Cheng Soon; Stelling, Jörg; Buhmann, Joachim M

    2013-10-15

    Biological systems are understood through iterations of modeling and experimentation. Not all experiments, however, are equally valuable for predictive modeling. This study introduces an efficient method for experimental design aimed at selecting dynamical models from data. Motivated by biological applications, the method enables the design of crucial experiments: it determines a highly informative selection of measurement readouts and time points. We demonstrate formal guarantees of design efficiency on the basis of previous results. By reducing our task to the setting of graphical models, we prove that the method finds a near-optimal design selection with a polynomial number of evaluations. Moreover, the method exhibits the best polynomial-complexity constant approximation factor, unless P = NP. We measure the performance of the method in comparison with established alternatives, such as ensemble non-centrality, on example models of different complexity. Efficient design accelerates the loop between modeling and experimentation: it enables the inference of complex mechanisms, such as those controlling central metabolic operation. Toolbox 'NearOED' available with source code under GPL on the Machine Learning Open Source Software Web site (mloss.org).

  8. Building a Progressive-Situational Model of Post-Diagnosis Information Seeking for Parents of Individuals With Down Syndrome

    PubMed Central

    Gibson, Amelia N.

    2016-01-01

    This grounded theory study used in-depth, semi-structured interview to examine the information-seeking behaviors of 35 parents of children with Down syndrome. Emergent themes include a progressive pattern of behavior including information overload and avoidance, passive attention, and active information seeking; varying preferences between tacit and explicit information at different stages; and selection of information channels and sources that varied based on personal and situational constraints. Based on the findings, the author proposes a progressive model of health information seeking and a framework for using this model to collect data in practice. The author also discusses the practical and theoretical implications of a responsive, progressive approach to understanding parents’ health information–seeking behavior. PMID:28462351

  9. An age-related attentuation of selectivity of choice in a modified guessing task.

    PubMed

    Sanford, A J; Jack, E; Maule, A J

    1977-01-01

    Previous research has shown that older Ss tend to be less selective in multi-source monitoring tasks in that they do not observe the more likely source of information as frequently as do the young. On the other hand, it has also been found that in a simple guessing-game or probability matching task older Ss are no different in their patterns of prediction. An experiment is described below in which old and young Ss take part in a simple quessing-game task where uncertainty as to the success of a guess is made artificially high by the introduction of a proportion of trials on which the stimulus event occurring could not be guessed. Under these conditions old Ss were less selective in their responses. It is suggested that the results support a view that older Ss are less selective at high levels of uncertainty in the likelihood of a guess being the correct one, and that the result is consistent with both types of earlier results, goes part-way towards clarifying the differences, and provides a further example of a situation in which attenuated guessing-selectivity is associated with age.

  10. The Relevance of Vocational High School Curriculum with the Requirement of the Heavy Equipment Industries

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Asfiyanur, E. P.; Sumardi, K.; Rahayu, Y.; Putra, R. C.

    2018-02-01

    This study aims to determine the relevance of competencies developed by vocational high schools with the needs of workers in the industrial world. This is to answer the statement from the world of industry that the competencies possessed by vocational secondary education graduates are not in accordance with industry standards. This research is a qualitative research conducted by collecting data, presenting accurate and objective information. Respondents of this research are industrial institutions in the field of heavy equipment, vocational education institutions and government agencies in charge of manpower. Selection of informants / sources of information used is purposive sample technique, which aims to give consideration to select informants who meet the criteria in providing accurate information. The results of this study provide insight and input to vocational secondary education managers about various information in developing vocational secondary education curriculum, major issues include curriculum content relevance, technological advances in the heavy equipment industry, updating of school facilities and collaboration between educational institutions and labor institutions and the industrial world in the development of vocational secondary education.

  11. Source recognition by stimulus content in the MTL.

    PubMed

    Park, Heekyeong; Abellanoza, Cheryl; Schaeffer, James; Gandy, Kellen

    2014-03-17

    Source memory is considered to be the cornerstone of episodic memory that enables us to discriminate similar but different events. In the present fMRI study, we investigated whether neural correlates of source retrieval differed by stimulus content in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) when the item and context had been integrated as a perceptually unitized entity. Participants were presented with a list of items either in verbal or pictorial form overlaid on a colored square and instructed to integrate both the item and context into a single image. At test, participants judged the study status of test items and the color in which studied items were presented. Source recognition invariant of stimulus content elicited retrieval activity in both the left anterior hippocampus extending to the perirhinal cortex and the right posterior hippocampus. Word-selective source recognition was related to activity in the left perirhinal cortex, whereas picture-selective source recognition was identified in the left posterior hippocampus. Neural activity sensitive to novelty detection common to both words and pictures was found in the left anterior and right posterior hippocampus. Novelty detection selective to words was associated with the left perirhinal cortex, while activity sensitive to new pictures was identified in the bilateral hippocampus and adjacent MTL cortices, including the parahippocampal, entorhinal, and perirhinal cortices. These findings provide further support for the integral role of the hippocampus both in source recognition and in detection of new stimuli across stimulus content. Additionally, novelty effects in the MTL reveal the integral role of the MTL cortex as the interface for processing new information. Collectively, the present findings demonstrate the importance of the MTL for both previously experienced and novel events. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Utility of correlation techniques in gravity and magnetic interpretation

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Chandler, V. W.; Koski, J. S.; Braice, L. W.; Hinze, W. J.

    1977-01-01

    Internal correspondence uses Poisson's Theorem in a moving-window linear regression analysis between the anomalous first vertical derivative of gravity and total magnetic field reduced to the pole. The regression parameters provide critical information on source characteristics. The correlation coefficient indicates the strength of the relation between magnetics and gravity. Slope value gives delta j/delta sigma estimates of the anomalous source. The intercept furnishes information on anomaly interference. Cluster analysis consists of the classification of subsets of data into groups of similarity based on correlation of selected characteristics of the anomalies. Model studies are used to illustrate implementation and interpretation procedures of these methods, particularly internal correspondence. Analysis of the results of applying these methods to data from the midcontinent and a transcontinental profile shows they can be useful in identifying crustal provinces, providing information on horizontal and vertical variations of physical properties over province size zones, validating long wavelength anomalies, and isolating geomagnetic field removal problems.

  13. The search and selection of assisted living facilities by elders and family.

    PubMed

    Castle, Nicholas G; Sonon, Kristen E

    2007-08-01

    In this study, we examine factors associated with the search, selection, and satisfaction of residents and family members in assisted living. Data were collected from 375 residents of 25 assisted living facilities matched with 375 family members. We conducted face-to-face interviews with the residents to determine: (1) the principal decision maker; (2) the process of searching for a facility; (3) the factors crucial to facility selection; (4) the time frame from the relocation decision to relocation; and (5) satisfaction with selection. Similar questions were asked of family members, using a mail survey. Residents described themselves as extremely influential in 39% of cases when searching for a facility, and in 27% of cases when selecting a facility. Quality, cost, and location were the most influential factors for both residents and family members in selecting a facility. Almost all residents and family would use different search and selection processes if they had to select a facility again, and almost all were dissatisfied with the sources of information available. Consumers and policy makers both favor the use of assisted living settings; but, the information available to choose a setting is far from ideal, and may represent a barrier to both consumer and policy makers' agendas.

  14. Co-PylotDB - A Python-Based Single-Window User Interface for Transmitting Information to a Database

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

    Barnette, Daniel W.

    2012-01-05

    Co-PylotDB, written completely in Python, provides a user interface (UI) with which to select user and data file(s), directories, and file content, and provide or capture various other information for sending data collected from running any computer program to a pre-formatted database table for persistent storage. The interface allows the user to select input, output, make, source, executable, and qsub files. It also provides fields for specifying the machine name on which the software was run, capturing compile and execution lines, and listing relevant user comments. Data automatically captured by Co-PylotDB and sent to the database are user, current directory,more » local hostname, current date, and time of send. The UI provides fields for logging into a local or remote database server, specifying a database and a table, and sending the information to the selected database table. If a server is not available, the UI provides for saving the command that would have saved the information to a database table for either later submission or for sending via email to a collaborator who has access to the desired database.« less

  15. Dissociation of item and source memory in rhesus monkeys.

    PubMed

    Basile, Benjamin M; Hampton, Robert R

    2017-09-01

    Source memory, or memory for the context in which a memory was formed, is a defining characteristic of human episodic memory and source memory errors are a debilitating symptom of memory dysfunction. Evidence for source memory in nonhuman primates is sparse despite considerable evidence for other types of sophisticated memory and the practical need for good models of episodic memory in nonhuman primates. A previous study showed that rhesus monkeys confused the identity of a monkey they saw with a monkey they heard, but only after an extended memory delay. This suggests that they initially remembered the source - visual or auditory - of the information but forgot the source as time passed. Here, we present a monkey model of source memory that is based on this previous study. In each trial, monkeys studied two images, one that they simply viewed and touched and the other that they classified as a bird, fish, flower, or person. In a subsequent memory test, they were required to select the image from one source but avoid the other. With training, monkeys learned to suppress responding to images from the to-be-avoided source. After longer memory intervals, monkeys continued to show reliable item memory, discriminating studied images from distractors, but made many source memory errors. Monkeys discriminated source based on study method, not study order, providing preliminary evidence that our manipulation of retention interval caused errors due to source forgetting instead of source confusion. Finally, some monkeys learned to select remembered images from either source on cue, showing that they did indeed remember both items and both sources. This paradigm potentially provides a new model to study a critical aspect of episodic memory in nonhuman primates. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. CFCS and electric chillers: Selection of large-capacity water chillers in the 1990s. Final report

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

    Niess, R.C.

    1992-03-01

    This handbook offers a single source of useful information for understanding CFC and HCFC phaseout issues and selecting large-capacity water chillers for cooling commercial buildings. It evaluates the performance of electric, absorption, and natural-gas-engine driven water chillers. An economic evaluation checklist and example are included, using the EPRI COMTECH screening tool. Peak shaving with gas chillers and load shifting with chilled water storage are examined. The handbook, written for a diverse audience, covers chiller hardware, function, performance, and typical installed costs. It provides guidelines and checklists for chiller selection, economic comparison, and operation and maintenance.

  17. CFCS and electric chillers: Selection of large-capacity water chillers in the 1990s

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

    Niess, R.C.

    1992-03-01

    This handbook offers a single source of useful information for understanding CFC and HCFC phaseout issues and selecting large-capacity water chillers for cooling commercial buildings. It evaluates the performance of electric, absorption, and natural-gas-engine driven water chillers. An economic evaluation checklist and example are included, using the EPRI COMTECH screening tool. Peak shaving with gas chillers and load shifting with chilled water storage are examined. The handbook, written for a diverse audience, covers chiller hardware, function, performance, and typical installed costs. It provides guidelines and checklists for chiller selection, economic comparison, and operation and maintenance.

  18. Sources of information on postgraduate medical training programs and medical specialty career resources-2006 update.

    PubMed

    Brazin, Lillian R

    2006-01-01

    This is the final biennial update listing directories, journal articles, Web sites, and general books that aid the librarian, house officer, or medical student in finding information on medical residency and fellowship programs. The World Wide Web provides the most complete and up-to-date source of information about postgraduate training programs and specialties. This update continues to go beyond postgraduate training resources to include selected Web sites and books on curriculum vitae writing, practice management, personal finances, the "Match," certification and licensure examination preparation, lifestyle issues, job hunting, and the DEA license application process. Print resources are included if they provide information not on the Internet, have features that are particularly useful, or cover too many relevant topics in depth to be covered in a journal article or on a Web site. The Internet is a major marketing tool for hospitals seeking to recruit the best and brightest physicians for their training programs. Even the smallest community hospital has a Web site.

  19. Image steganalysis using Artificial Bee Colony algorithm

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sajedi, Hedieh

    2017-09-01

    Steganography is the science of secure communication where the presence of the communication cannot be detected while steganalysis is the art of discovering the existence of the secret communication. Processing a huge amount of information takes extensive execution time and computational sources most of the time. As a result, it is needed to employ a phase of preprocessing, which can moderate the execution time and computational sources. In this paper, we propose a new feature-based blind steganalysis method for detecting stego images from the cover (clean) images with JPEG format. In this regard, we present a feature selection technique based on an improved Artificial Bee Colony (ABC). ABC algorithm is inspired by honeybees' social behaviour in their search for perfect food sources. In the proposed method, classifier performance and the dimension of the selected feature vector depend on using wrapper-based methods. The experiments are performed using two large data-sets of JPEG images. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed steganalysis technique compared to the other existing techniques.

  20. Constrained Source Apportionment of Coarse Particulate Matter and Selected Trace Elements in Three Cities from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

    PubMed Central

    Sturtz, Timothy M.; Adar, Sara D.; Gould, Timothy; Larson, Timothy V.

    2016-01-01

    PM10-2.5 mass and trace element concentrations were measured in Winston-Salem, Chicago, and St. Paul at up to 60 sites per city during two different seasons in 2010. Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) was used to explore the underlying sources of variability. Information on previously reported PM10-2.5 tire and brake wear profiles was used to constrain these features in PMF by prior specification of selected species ratios. We also modified PMF to allow for combining the measurements from all three cities into a single model while preserving city-specific soil features. Relatively minor differences were observed between model predictions with and without the prior ratio constraints, increasing confidence in our ability to identify separate brake wear and tire wear features. Brake wear, tire wear, fertilized soil, and re-suspended soil were found to be important sources of copper, zinc, phosphorus, and silicon respectively across all three urban areas. PMID:27468256

  1. 2008 Fuel Cell Technologies Market Report

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

    DOE

    Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, water, and heat. Unlike batteries, fuel cells continuously generate electricity, as long as a source of fuel is supplied. Moreover, fuel cells do not burn fuel, making the process quiet, pollution-free and two to three times more efficient than combustion. Fuel cell systems can be a truly zero-emission source of electricity, if the hydrogen is produced from non-polluting sources. Global concerns about climate change, energy security, and air pollution are driving demand for fuel cell technology. More than 630 companies and laboratories in the United States aremore » investing $1 billion a year in fuel cells or fuel cell component technologies. This report provides an overview of trends in the fuel cell industry and markets, including product shipments, market development, and corporate performance. It also provides snapshots of select fuel cell companies, including general business strategy and market focus, as well as, financial information for select publicly-traded companies.« less

  2. Constrained source apportionment of coarse particulate matter and selected trace elements in three cities from the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sturtz, Timothy M.; Adar, Sara D.; Gould, Timothy; Larson, Timothy V.

    2014-02-01

    PM10-2.5 mass and trace element concentrations were measured in Winston-Salem, Chicago, and St. Paul at up to 60 sites per city during two different seasons in 2010. Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) was used to explore the underlying sources of variability. Information on previously reported PM10-2.5 tire and brake wear profiles was used to constrain these features in PMF by prior specification of selected species ratios. We also modified PMF to allow for combining the measurements from all three cities into a single model while preserving city-specific soil features. Relatively minor differences were observed between model predictions with and without the prior ratio constraints, increasing confidence in our ability to identify separate brake wear and tire wear features. Brake wear, tire wear, fertilized soil, and resuspended soil were found to be important sources of copper, zinc, phosphorus, and silicon, respectively, across all three urban areas.

  3. Multicriteria analysis for sources of renewable energy using data from remote sensing

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Matejicek, L.

    2015-04-01

    Renewable energy sources are major components of the strategy to reduce harmful emissions and to replace depleting fossil energy resources. Data from remote sensing can provide information for multicriteria analysis for sources of renewable energy. Advanced land cover quantification makes it possible to search for suitable sites. Multicriteria analysis, together with other data, is used to determine the energy potential and socially acceptability of suggested locations. The described case study is focused on an area of surface coal mines in the northwestern region of the Czech Republic, where the impacts of surface mining and reclamation constitute a dominant force in land cover changes. High resolution satellite images represent the main input datasets for identification of suitable sites. Solar mapping, wind predictions, the location of weirs in watersheds, road maps and demographic information complement the data from remote sensing for multicriteria analysis, which is implemented in a geographic information system (GIS). The input spatial datasets for multicriteria analysis in GIS are reclassified to a common scale and processed with raster algebra tools to identify suitable sites for sources of renewable energy. The selection of suitable sites is limited by the CORINE land cover database to mining and agricultural areas. The case study is focused on long term land cover changes in the 1985-2015 period. Multicriteria analysis based on CORINE data shows moderate changes in mapping of suitable sites for utilization of selected sources of renewable energy in 1990, 2000, 2006 and 2012. The results represent map layers showing the energy potential on a scale of a few preference classes (1-7), where the first class is linked to minimum preference and the last class to maximum preference. The attached histograms show the moderate variability of preference classes due to land cover changes caused by mining activities. The results also show a slight increase in the more preferred classes for utilization of sources of renewable energy due to an increase area of reclaimed sites. Using data from remote sensing, such as the multispectral images and the CORINE land cover datasets, can reduce the financial resources currently required for finding and assessing suitable areas.

  4. Association Between a Wider Availability of Health Information and Health Care Utilization in Vietnam: Cross-Sectional Study

    PubMed Central

    Nguyen, Hoang Thuy Linh; Seino, Kaoruko; Vo, Van Thang

    2017-01-01

    Background The rapid and widespread development of mass media sources including the Internet is occurring worldwide. Users are being confronted with a flood of health information through a wide availability of sources. Studies on how the availability of health information has triggered users’ interest in utilizing health care services remain limited within the Vietnamese population. Objective This study examined the associations between the wider availability of sources for health information and health care utilization in Vietnam after adjusting for potential confounding variables. Methods The data for this study were drawn from a cross-sectional study conducted over a 6-month period in Hue, a city in central Vietnam. The participants were 993 randomly selected adults aged between 18 and 60 years. Information was collected through face-to-face interviews on the types of information sources that were consulted, including traditional media (television), Internet, and health education courses, as well as the impact of such information on health care use (emergency department visits, hospitalizations, doctor visits). Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed at a 95% confidence level. Results The prevalence of watching television, using the Internet, and attending health education courses to obtain health information were 50.9% (505/993), 32.9% (327/993), and 8.7% (86/993), respectively. After further adjustments for self-reported health status, the presence of health insurance, and monthly income, respondents who watched television and used the Internet to obtain health information were 1.7 times more likely to visit a doctor (television: adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.69, 95% CI 1.30-2.19; Internet: AOR 1.64, 95% CI 1.23-2.19), and also significantly associated with inpatient hospitalization (P=.003). Conclusions The use of widely available mass media sources (eg, television and the Internet) to obtain health information was associated with higher health care utilization. How this interest in health-related information can be used so that it will have a beneficial effect on care-seeking behavior should be a topic of concern to further health promotion in developing countries. PMID:29254911

  5. Revisiting the Effect of Marital Support on Depressive Symptoms in Mothers and Fathers: A Genetically Informed Study

    PubMed Central

    Beam, Christopher R.; Horn, Erin E.; Hunt, Stacy Karagis; Emery, Robert E.; Turkheimer, Eric; Martin, Nick

    2011-01-01

    This article uses a genetically informed design to evaluate whether (1) the well-documented association between marital support and depressive symptoms is accounted for by genetic and/or shared environmental selection, (2) gender differences are found after controlling for selection effects, and (3) parenthood moderates any nonshared environmental relation between depressive symptoms and marital support. We used a sample of 1,566 pairs of same-sexed, married twins from the Australian Twin Registry to evaluate our hypotheses that (1) the predicted effect of marital support on depressive symptoms is not fully an artifact of selection, (2) the etiological sources accounting for this effect differ between husbands and wives, and (3) parenthood status moderates the effect of marital support on depressive symptoms adjusting for selection effects. The results support the first hypotheses. However, after controlling for selection, the effect of marital support on depressive symptoms was not significantly different for husbands and wives. Parenthood moderated the effect of marital support, such that after controlling for selection, marital support is more strongly associated with depressive symptoms for full-time parents than nonfull-time parents. PMID:21553961

  6. A method for automatically abstracting visual documents

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Rorvig, Mark E.

    1994-01-01

    Visual documents--motion sequences on film, videotape, and digital recording--constitute a major source of information for the Space Agency, as well as all other government and private sector entities. This article describes a method for automatically selecting key frames from visual documents. These frames may in turn be used to represent the total image sequence of visual documents in visual libraries, hypermedia systems, and training algorithm reduces 51 minutes of video sequences to 134 frames; a reduction of information in the range of 700:1.

  7. Deadly Cold: Health Hazards Due to Cold Weather. An Information Paper by the Subcommittee on Health and Long-Term Care of the Select Committee on Aging. House of Representatives, Ninety-Eighth Congress, Second Session (February 1984).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. House Select Committee on Aging.

    This paper, on the health hazards of cold weather for elderly persons, presents information from various sources on the death rates in winter throughout the United States. After reviewing the scope of the problem, specific health hazards associated with cold weather are discussed, i.e., hypothermia, fires, carbon monoxide poisoning, and influenza…

  8. Selected aspects of health literacy among seniors.

    PubMed

    Šedová, Lenka; Doskočil, Ondřej; Brabcová, Iva; Hajduchová, Hana; Bártlová, Sylva

    2016-12-01

    This study aimed to map the selected indicators of health literacy in the senior population via a qualitative survey that focused specifically on its relationship with autonomy in the context of health literacy among seniors. A qualitative survey focused on the selected indicators of health literacy of seniors living in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic (R1-19). The snowball sampling method was intentionally selected. Completed interviews were transcribed and data was reduced, analyzed, and categorized. The identified categories were 1) information comprehension, 2) decision-making in healthcare, and 3) compliance with nonpharmacologic treatment. The 'information comprehension' category clearly shows that the seniors involved in this study rated the comprehensibility of information provided by medical professionals as being good. An especially positive finding was that seniors do seek information through the internet, print sources, or other media, even though, as one senior (80-year-old woman) said, comprehension of medical information is becoming "more and more complex". The 'decision-making in healthcare' category touched upon opinions regarding informed consent and opinions regarding seniors' own involvement in healthcare. Results from this category suggest that seniors accept informed consent as a routine necessity. Inhibition regarding personal involvement in healthcare was also apparent: "... I come from a family accustomed to not bothering the doctor unnecessarily, so I just stick out my arm..." The last category of 'compliance with nonpharmacologic treatment' clearly shows that respondents are informed regarding lifestyle modifications that would benefit their treatment, although, few respondents had achieved the desired lifestyle changes. Results of this qualitative research show clear health literacy limits among seniors. As shown in this study, age itself could also be a limiting factor of health literacy.

  9. Sediment source fingerprinting as an aid to catchment management: A review of the current state of knowledge and a methodological decision-tree for end-users

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Collins, A.L; Pulley, S.; Foster, I.D.L; Gellis, Allen; Porto, P.; Horowitz, A.J.

    2017-01-01

    The growing awareness of the environmental significance of fine-grained sediment fluxes through catchment systems continues to underscore the need for reliable information on the principal sources of this material. Source estimates are difficult to obtain using traditional monitoring techniques, but sediment source fingerprinting or tracing procedures, have emerged as a potentially valuable alternative. Despite the rapidly increasing numbers of studies reporting the use of sediment source fingerprinting, several key challenges and uncertainties continue to hamper consensus among the international scientific community on key components of the existing methodological procedures. Accordingly, this contribution reviews and presents recent developments for several key aspects of fingerprinting, namely: sediment source classification, catchment source and target sediment sampling, tracer selection, grain size issues, tracer conservatism, source apportionment modelling, and assessment of source predictions using artificial mixtures. Finally, a decision-tree representing the current state of knowledge is presented, to guide end-users in applying the fingerprinting approach.

  10. 2-DE combined with two-layer feature selection accurately establishes the origin of oolong tea.

    PubMed

    Chien, Han-Ju; Chu, Yen-Wei; Chen, Chi-Wei; Juang, Yu-Min; Chien, Min-Wei; Liu, Chih-Wei; Wu, Chia-Chang; Tzen, Jason T C; Lai, Chien-Chen

    2016-11-15

    Taiwan is known for its high quality oolong tea. Because of high consumer demand, some tea manufactures mix lower quality leaves with genuine Taiwan oolong tea in order to increase profits. Robust scientific methods are, therefore, needed to verify the origin and quality of tea leaves. In this study, we investigated whether two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and nanoscale liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectroscopy (nano-LC/MS/MS) coupled with a two-layer feature selection mechanism comprising information gain attribute evaluation (IGAE) and support vector machine feature selection (SVM-FS) are useful in identifying characteristic proteins that can be used as markers of the original source of oolong tea. Samples in this study included oolong tea leaves from 23 different sources. We found that our method had an accuracy of 95.5% in correctly identifying the origin of the leaves. Overall, our method is a novel approach for determining the origin of oolong tea leaves. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Data requirements for simulation of hydrogeologic effects of liquid waste injection, Harrison and Jackson Counties, Mississippi

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Rebich, Richard A.

    1994-01-01

    Available literature and data were reviewed to quantify data requirements for computer simulation of hydrogeologic effects of liquid waste injection in southeastern Mississippi. Emphasis of each review was placed on quantifying physical properties of current Class I injection zones in Harrison and Jackson Counties. Class I injection zones are zones that are used for injection of hazardous or non-hazardous liquid waste below a formation containing the lowermost underground source of drinking water located within one-quarter of a mile of the injection well. Several mathematical models have been developed to simulate injection effects. The Basic Plume Method was selected because it is commonly used in permit applications, and the Intercomp model was selected because it is generally accepted and used in injection-related research. The input data requirements of the two models were combined into a single data requirement list inclusive of physical properties of injection zones only; injected waste and well properties are not included because such information is site-specific by industry, which is beyond the scope of this report. Results of the reviews of available literature and data indicated that Class I permit applications and standard-reference chemistry and physics texts were the primary sources of information to quantify physical properties of injection zones in Harrison and Jackson Counties. With the exception of a few reports and supplementary data for one injection zone in Jackson County, very little additional information pertaining to physical properties of the injection zones was available in sources other than permit applications and standard-reference texts.

  12. Obstruction of critical information on over-the-counter medication packages by external tags.

    PubMed

    Sansgiry, Sujit S; Pawaskar, Manjiri D

    2005-02-01

    Over-the-counter (OTC) medication packages are important sources of information for consumers during product selection and use. Consumers may not be able to access information from OTC packages if external tags, namely price or anti-theft tags, are improperly placed. To determine the amount and type of information concealed by anti-theft tags and price tags affixed on OTC drug packages. A field study was performed by evaluating packages containing acetaminophen and combinations of acetaminophen in stores located in Houston. Five packages for 4 products selected from each store after an initial survey for presence of an external tag were examined. A data collection sheet was prepared that extracted the type and amount of information concealed by these tags. Data were analyzed by performing descriptive analyses to provide an understanding of the information obscured. A total of 24 stores were considered in the study, and 67 products and 285 packages were evaluated. External tags, both anti-theft and price tags, obscured significant amounts of information on the principal display panel (53.4%) and the Drug Facts panel (47.7%) of OTC packages. These tags concealed crucial information on various aspects of labels such as brand names (42.3%), product description (36.3%), warnings (51.5%), uses (10.4%), and purposes (7.2%). Results suggest that improper use of external tags clearly obscured important information on OTC medication packages necessary for consumers to make informed decisions regarding product selection and use. Tagging practices should be altered to allow consumers full access to drug information on the product.

  13. Social-cognitive processes in preschoolers' selective trust: three cultures compared.

    PubMed

    Lucas, Amanda J; Lewis, Charlie; Pala, F Cansu; Wong, Katie; Berridge, Damon

    2013-03-01

    Research on preschoolers' selective learning has mostly been conducted in English-speaking countries. We compared the performance of Turkish preschoolers (who are exposed to a language with evidential markers), Chinese preschoolers (known to be advanced in executive skills), and English preschoolers on an extended selective trust task (N = 144). We also measured children's executive function skills and their ability to attribute false belief. Overall we found a Turkish (rather than a Chinese) advantage in selective trust and a relationship between selective trust and false belief (rather than executive function). This is the 1st evidence that exposure to a language that obliges speakers to state the sources of their knowledge may sensitize preschoolers to informant reliability. It is also the first demonstration of an association between false belief and selective trust. Together these findings suggest that effective selective learning may progress alongside children's developing capacity to assess the knowledge of others.

  14. A Feature Selection Method Based on Fisher's Discriminant Ratio for Text Sentiment Classification

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wang, Suge; Li, Deyu; Wei, Yingjie; Li, Hongxia

    With the rapid growth of e-commerce, product reviews on the Web have become an important information source for customers' decision making when they intend to buy some product. As the reviews are often too many for customers to go through, how to automatically classify them into different sentiment orientation categories (i.e. positive/negative) has become a research problem. In this paper, based on Fisher's discriminant ratio, an effective feature selection method is proposed for product review text sentiment classification. In order to validate the validity of the proposed method, we compared it with other methods respectively based on information gain and mutual information while support vector machine is adopted as the classifier. In this paper, 6 subexperiments are conducted by combining different feature selection methods with 2 kinds of candidate feature sets. Under 1006 review documents of cars, the experimental results indicate that the Fisher's discriminant ratio based on word frequency estimation has the best performance with F value 83.3% while the candidate features are the words which appear in both positive and negative texts.

  15. Landfill site selection by using geographic information systems

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Şener, Başak; Süzen, M. Lütfi; Doyuran, Vedat

    2006-01-01

    One of the serious and growing potential problems in most large urban areas is the shortage of land for waste disposal. Although there are some efforts to reduce and recover the waste, disposal in landfills is still the most common method for waste destination. An inappropriate landfill site may have negative environmental, economic and ecological impacts. Therefore, it should be selected carefully by considering both regulations and constraints on other sources. In this study, candidate sites for an appropriate landfill area in the vicinity of Ankara are determined by using the integration of geographic information systems and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA). For this purpose, 16 input map layers including topography, settlements (urban centers and villages), roads (Highway E90 and village roads), railways, airport, wetlands, infrastructures (pipelines and power lines), slope, geology, land use, floodplains, aquifers and surface water are prepared and two different MCDA methods (simple additive weighting and analytic hierarchy process) are implemented to a geographical information system. Comparison of the maps produced by these two different methods shows that both methods yield conformable results. Field checks also confirm that the candidate sites agree well with the selected criteria.

  16. Toward a clarification of the taxonomy of "bias" in epidemiology textbooks.

    PubMed

    Schwartz, Sharon; Campbell, Ulka B; Gatto, Nicolle M; Gordon, Kirsha

    2015-03-01

    Epidemiology textbooks typically divide biases into 3 general categories-confounding, selection bias, and information bias. Despite the ubiquity of this categorization, authors often use these terms to mean different things. This hinders communication among epidemiologists and confuses students who are just learning about the field. To understand the sources of this problem, we reviewed current general epidemiology textbooks to examine how the authors defined and categorized biases. We found that much of the confusion arises from different definitions of "validity" and from a mixing of 3 overlapping organizational features in defining and differentiating among confounding, selection bias, and information bias: consequence, the result of the problem; cause, the processes that give rise to the problem; and cure, how these biases can be addressed once they occur. By contrast, a consistent taxonomy would provide (1) a clear and consistent definition of what unites confounding, selection bias, and information bias and (2) a clear articulation and consistent application of the feature that distinguishes these categories. Based on a distillation of these textbook discussions, we provide an example of a taxonomy that we think meets these criteria.

  17. Time and frequency for digital telecommunications

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Folts, H. C.

    1972-01-01

    Time and frequency (T and F) are fundamental and pervasive parameters of telecommunication technology. Advancing development of digital communications using data modulation rates above 2400 baud and time-division multiplex in complex network configurations is now requiring more accurate and precise T and F reference information for efficient operation of telecommunication systems. A schematic diagram of a general communication system is shown. This diagram is very general and can depict any type of communication. The information source selects a specific message which is encoded and sent through a communication channel. Enroute, the signal is subjected to perturbations from environmental noise. The received signal is then decoded and delivered to its destination. Through the process, the message may undergo many spurious changes, resulting in a loss of information content in the delivered message as compared to the original selected message. In digital telecommunication systems, loss of information content of the signals can be attributed to noise, distortion of waveshape, and loss of synchronization.

  18. Adaptive transmission based on multi-relay selection and rate-compatible LDPC codes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Su, Hualing; He, Yucheng; Zhou, Lin

    2017-08-01

    In order to adapt to the dynamical changeable channel condition and improve the transmissive reliability of the system, a cooperation system of rate-compatible low density parity check (RC-LDPC) codes combining with multi-relay selection protocol is proposed. In traditional relay selection protocol, only the channel state information (CSI) of source-relay and the CSI of relay-destination has been considered. The multi-relay selection protocol proposed by this paper takes the CSI between relays into extra account in order to obtain more chances of collabration. Additionally, the idea of hybrid automatic request retransmission (HARQ) and rate-compatible are introduced. Simulation results show that the transmissive reliability of the system can be significantly improved by the proposed protocol.

  19. Selective attention to phonology dynamically modulates initial encoding of auditory words within the left hemisphere.

    PubMed

    Yoncheva, Yuliya; Maurer, Urs; Zevin, Jason D; McCandliss, Bruce D

    2014-08-15

    Selective attention to phonology, i.e., the ability to attend to sub-syllabic units within spoken words, is a critical precursor to literacy acquisition. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence has demonstrated that a left-lateralized network of frontal, temporal, and posterior language regions, including the visual word form area, supports this skill. The current event-related potential (ERP) study investigated the temporal dynamics of selective attention to phonology during spoken word perception. We tested the hypothesis that selective attention to phonology dynamically modulates stimulus encoding by recruiting left-lateralized processes specifically while the information critical for performance is unfolding. Selective attention to phonology was captured by manipulating listening goals: skilled adult readers attended to either rhyme or melody within auditory stimulus pairs. Each pair superimposed rhyming and melodic information ensuring identical sensory stimulation. Selective attention to phonology produced distinct early and late topographic ERP effects during stimulus encoding. Data-driven source localization analyses revealed that selective attention to phonology led to significantly greater recruitment of left-lateralized posterior and extensive temporal regions, which was notably concurrent with the rhyme-relevant information within the word. Furthermore, selective attention effects were specific to auditory stimulus encoding and not observed in response to cues, arguing against the notion that they reflect sustained task setting. Collectively, these results demonstrate that selective attention to phonology dynamically engages a left-lateralized network during the critical time-period of perception for achieving phonological analysis goals. These findings suggest a key role for selective attention in on-line phonological computations. Furthermore, these findings motivate future research on the role that neural mechanisms of attention may play in phonological awareness impairments thought to underlie developmental reading disabilities. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Selective attention to phonology dynamically modulates initial encoding of auditory words within the left hemisphere

    PubMed Central

    Yoncheva; Maurer, Urs; Zevin, Jason; McCandliss, Bruce

    2015-01-01

    Selective attention to phonology, i.e., the ability to attend to sub-syllabic units within spoken words, is a critical precursor to literacy acquisition. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence has demonstrated that a left-lateralized network of frontal, temporal, and posterior language regions, including the visual word form area, supports this skill. The current event-related potential (ERP) study investigated the temporal dynamics of selective attention to phonology during spoken word perception. We tested the hypothesis that selective atten tion to phonology dynamically modulates stimulus encoding by recruiting left-lateralized processes specifically while the information critical for performance is unfolding. Selective attention to phonology was captured by ma nipulating listening goals: skilled adult readers attended to either rhyme or melody within auditory stimulus pairs. Each pair superimposed rhyming and melodic information ensuring identical sensory stimulation. Selective attention to phonology produced distinct early and late topographic ERP effects during stimulus encoding. Data- driven source localization analyses revealed that selective attention to phonology led to significantly greater re cruitment of left-lateralized posterior and extensive temporal regions, which was notably concurrent with the rhyme-relevant information within the word. Furthermore, selective attention effects were specific to auditory stimulus encoding and not observed in response to cues, arguing against the notion that they reflect sustained task setting. Collectively, these results demonstrate that selective attention to phonology dynamically engages a left-lateralized network during the critical time-period of perception for achieving phonological analysis goals. These findings support the key role of selective attention to phonology in the development of literacy and motivate future research on the neural bases of the interaction between phonological awareness and literacy, deemed central to both typical and atypical reading development. PMID:24746955

  1. Age-related differences in agenda-driven monitoring of format and task information

    PubMed Central

    Mitchell, Karen J.; Ankudowich, Elizabeth; Durbin, Kelly A.; Greene, Erich J.; Johnson, Marcia K.

    2013-01-01

    Age-related source memory deficits may arise, in part, from changes in the agenda-driven processes that control what features of events are relevant during remembering. Using fMRI, we compared young and older adults on tests assessing source memory for format (picture, word) or encoding task (self-, other-referential), as well as on old-new recognition. Behaviorally, relative to old-new recognition, older adults showed disproportionate and equivalent deficits on both source tests compared to young adults. At encoding, both age groups showed expected activation associated with format in posterior visual processing areas, and with task in medial prefrontal cortex. At test, the groups showed similar selective, agenda-related activity in these representational areas. There were, however, marked age differences in the activity of control regions in lateral and medial prefrontal cortex and lateral parietal cortex. Results of correlation analyses were consistent with the idea that young adults had greater trial-by-trial agenda-driven modulation of activity (i.e., greater selectivity) than did older adults in representational regions. Thus, under selective remembering conditions where older adults showed clear differential regional activity in representational areas depending on type of test, they also showed evidence of disrupted frontal and parietal function and reduced item-by-item modulation of test-appropriate features. This pattern of results is consistent with an age-related deficit in the engagement of selective reflective attention. PMID:23357375

  2. Library-based illumination synthesis for critical CMOS patterning.

    PubMed

    Yu, Jue-Chin; Yu, Peichen; Chao, Hsueh-Yung

    2013-07-01

    In optical microlithography, the illumination source for critical complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor layers needs to be determined in the early stage of a technology node with very limited design information, leading to simple binary shapes. Recently, the availability of freeform sources permits us to increase pattern fidelity and relax mask complexities with minimal insertion risks to the current manufacturing flow. However, source optimization across many patterns is often treated as a design-of-experiments problem, which may not fully exploit the benefits of a freeform source. In this paper, a rigorous source-optimization algorithm is presented via linear superposition of optimal sources for pre-selected patterns. We show that analytical solutions are made possible by using Hopkins formulation and quadratic programming. The algorithm allows synthesized illumination to be linked with assorted pattern libraries, which has a direct impact on design rule studies for early planning and design automation for full wafer optimization.

  3. Visualization tool for human-machine interface designers

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Prevost, Michael P.; Banda, Carolyn P.

    1991-06-01

    As modern human-machine systems continue to grow in capabilities and complexity, system operators are faced with integrating and managing increased quantities of information. Since many information components are highly related to each other, optimizing the spatial and temporal aspects of presenting information to the operator has become a formidable task for the human-machine interface (HMI) designer. The authors describe a tool in an early stage of development, the Information Source Layout Editor (ISLE). This tool is to be used for information presentation design and analysis; it uses human factors guidelines to assist the HMI designer in the spatial layout of the information required by machine operators to perform their tasks effectively. These human factors guidelines address such areas as the functional and physical relatedness of information sources. By representing these relationships with metaphors such as spring tension, attractors, and repellers, the tool can help designers visualize the complex constraint space and interacting effects of moving displays to various alternate locations. The tool contains techniques for visualizing the relative 'goodness' of a configuration, as well as mechanisms such as optimization vectors to provide guidance toward a more optimal design. Also available is a rule-based design checker to determine compliance with selected human factors guidelines.

  4. Spatially pooled depth-dependent reservoir storage, elevation, and water-quality data for selected reservoirs in Texas, January 1965-January 2010

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Burley, Thomas E.; Asquith, William H.; Brooks, Donald L.

    2011-01-01

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with Texas Tech University, constructed a dataset of selected reservoir storage (daily and instantaneous values), reservoir elevation (daily and instantaneous values), and water-quality data from 59 reservoirs throughout Texas. The period of record for the data is as large as January 1965-January 2010. Data were acquired from existing databases, spreadsheets, delimited text files, and hard-copy reports. The goal was to obtain as much data as possible; therefore, no data acquisition restrictions specifying a particular time window were used. Primary data sources include the USGS National Water Information System, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Surface Water-Quality Management Information System, and the Texas Water Development Board monthly Texas Water Condition Reports. Additional water-quality data for six reservoirs were obtained from USGS Texas Annual Water Data Reports. Data were combined from the multiple sources to create as complete a set of properties and constituents as the disparate databases allowed. By devising a unique per-reservoir short name to represent all sites on a reservoir regardless of their source, all sampling sites at a reservoir were spatially pooled by reservoir and temporally combined by date. Reservoir selection was based on various criteria including the availability of water-quality properties and constituents that might affect the trophic status of the reservoir and could also be important for understanding possible effects of climate change in the future. Other considerations in the selection of reservoirs included the general reservoir-specific period of record, the availability of concurrent reservoir storage or elevation data to match with water-quality data, and the availability of sample depth measurements. Additional separate selection criteria included historic information pertaining to blooms of golden algae. Physical properties and constituents were water temperature, reservoir storage, reservoir elevation, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, pH, unfiltered salinity, unfiltered total nitrogen, filtered total nitrogen, unfiltered nitrate plus nitrite, unfiltered phosphorus, filtered phosphorus, unfiltered carbon, carbon in suspended sediment, total hardness, unfiltered noncarbonate hardness, filtered noncarbonate hardness, unfiltered calcium, filtered calcium, unfiltered magnesium, filtered magnesium, unfiltered sodium, filtered sodium, unfiltered potassium, filtered potassium, filtered chloride, filtered sulfate, unfiltered fluoride, and filtered fluoride. When possible, USGS and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality water-quality properties and constituents were matched using the database parameter codes for individual physical properties and constituents, descriptions of each physical property or constituent, and their reporting units. This report presents a collection of delimited text files of source-aggregated, spatially pooled, depth-dependent, instantaneous water-quality data as well as instantaneous, daily, and monthly storage and elevation reservoir data.

  5. Selected basin characteristics and water-quality data of the Minnesota River basin

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Winterstein, T.A.; Payne, G.A.; Miller, R.A.; Stark, J.R.

    1993-01-01

    Selected basin characteristics and water-quality dam for the Minnesota River Basin are presented in this report as 71 maps, 22 graphs, and 8 tables. The data were compiled as part of a four-year study to identify non-point sources of pollution and the effect of this pollution on water quality. The maps were prepared from geographic information system data bases. Federal, State, and local agencies, and colleges and universities collected and assembled these data as part of the Minnesota River Assessment Project.

  6. Decisional needs assessment regarding Down syndrome prenatal testing: a systematic review of the perceptions of women, their partners and health professionals.

    PubMed

    St-Jacques, Sylvie; Grenier, Sonya; Charland, Marc; Forest, Jean-Claude; Rousseau, François; Légaré, France

    2008-12-01

    To identify decisional needs of women, their partners and health professionals regarding prenatal testing for Down syndrome through a systematic review. Articles reporting original data from real clinical situations on sources of difficulty and/or ease in making decisions regarding prenatal testing for Down syndrome were selected. Data were extracted using a taxonomy adapted from the Ottawa Decision-Support Framework and the quality of the studies was assessed using Qualsyst validated tools. In all 40 publications covering 32 unique studies were included. The majority concerned women. The most often reported sources of difficulty for decision-making in women were pressure from others, emotions and lack of information; in partners, emotion; in health professionals, lack of information, length of consultation, and personal values. The most important sources of ease were, in women, personal values, understanding and confidence in the medical system; in partners, personal values, information from external sources, and income; in health professionals, peer support and scientific meetings. Interventions regarding a decision about prenatal testing for Down syndrome should address many decisional needs, which may indeed vary among the parties involved, whether women, their partners or health professionals. Very little is known about the decisional needs of partners and health professionals.

  7. Understanding Mexicans and Americans: A Mexican-U.S. Communication Lexicon of Images, Meanings, and Cultural Frames of Reference.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Diaz-Guerrero, Rogelio; And Others

    This "communication lexicon," a new source of information in the field of language and area studies, describes how selected themes such as family, society, work, and entertainment are perceived and understood by members of the Mexican, Colombian, and United States cultures. It identifies broad trends of perceptions and evaluations…

  8. A selected and annotated bibliography of pitch pine (Pinus ridiga Mill.)

    Treesearch

    Silas Little; Jack McCormick; John W. Andresen; John W. Andresen

    1970-01-01

    The authors have attempted to include in this bibliography all articles that contain significant original information about pitch pine or that are comprehensive reviews. Secondary sources, such as textbooks that briefly review the literature on specific subjects, are omitted. Articles on local floras are included only if they provide new, revised, or more detailed...

  9. NASA patent abstracts bibliography: A continuing bibliography. Section 1: Abstracts (supplement 06)

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    1975-01-01

    Patents and applications for patent introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system are cited. Each entry consists of a citation, an abstract, and a key illustration selected from the patent or application for patent. The patent and application for patent citations are indexed according to subject, inventor, source, number, and accession number.

  10. Adolescents' Clothing Purchase Motivations, Information Sources, and Store Selection Criteria: A Comparison of Male/Female and Impulse/Nonimpulse Shoppers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chen-Yu, Jessie H.; Seock, Yoo-Kyoung

    2002-01-01

    Male (n=69) and female (n=68) adolescents spent similar amounts on clothing with similar conformity, sexual attractiveness, and recognition motivations. Females shopped significantly more often and were more influenced by friends and magazines. There were significant differences between impulse buyers and others in shopping frequency, expenditure,…

  11. Feline arrhythmias: an update.

    PubMed

    Côté, Etienne

    2010-07-01

    In the cat, electrocardiography is indicated for assessing the rhythm of the heartbeat and identifying and monitoring the effect of certain systemic disorders on the heart. Basic information regarding feline electrocardiography is contained in several textbooks, and the reader is referred to these sources for background reading. This article describes selected clinical advances in feline cardiac arrhythmias and electrocardiography from the past decade.

  12. Revenues and Expenditures: Peer and Benchmark Comparisons--University of Hawai'i Community Colleges, Fiscal Year 1995-96.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hawaii Univ., Honolulu. Institutional Research Office.

    This report presents information comparing the University of Hawaii Community Colleges (UHCC) to benchmark and peer-group institutions on selected financial measures. The primary data sources for this report were the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Finance Survey for the 1995-1996 fiscal year and the IPEDS Fall Enrollment…

  13. Contractor Past Performance Information (PPI) in Source Selection: A Comparison Study of Public and Private Sector

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2005-05-01

    efficiencies similar to those in the private sector . However, along the way, Government and private sector industry have begun to disagree about how PPI is...double that of the private sector due to an evaluation process that is cumbersome, time-consuming, and lacking the efficiencies enjoyed by private

  14. Self-Esteem, Creativity, and Music: Implications and Directions for Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    VanderArk, Sherman

    1989-01-01

    This paper seeks to give potentially pertinent information and ideas for the development of a model and of hypotheses that are relevant in terms of combining the areas of self-concept and creativity. Selected sources from the areas of psychology, education, and music education are presented as the basis for ideas and thoughts for further research.…

  15. Water Quality Instructional Resources Information System (IRIS): A Compilation of Abstracts to Water Quality and Water Resources Materials. Supplement VIII.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH. Information Reference Center for Science, Mathematics, and Environmental Education.

    Compiled are abstracts and indexes to selected print and non-print materials; related to wastewater treatment and water quality education and instruction, as well as materials related to pesticides, hazardous wastes, and public participation. Sources of abstracted/indexed materials include all levels of government, private concerns, and…

  16. Federal Funding Sources for Rural Areas: Fiscal Year 1998. Rural Information Center Publications Series, No. 59. Revised Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reynnells, M. Louise, Comp.

    This publication lists 265 federal funding programs available to rural areas. The programs were selected from the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, 1997, which is available online from FAPRS (the Federal Assistance Programs Retrieval System). Entries are listed under the following federal departments or agencies: Department of Agriculture,…

  17. Federal Funding Sources for Rural Areas. Rural Information Center Publication Series, No. 49. Revised Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reynnells, M. Louise, Comp.

    This document lists 248 federal funding programs available to rural areas. The programs were selected from the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, 1995, which is available online from the Federal Assistance Programs Retrieval System (FAPRS). Entries are listed under the following federal departments or agencies: Department of Agriculture,…

  18. Soil conservation service tests of Eucalyptus species for windbreaks

    Treesearch

    Gary L. Young

    1983-01-01

    The Soil Conservation Service is in the early stages of testing many species of Eucalyptus or windbreaks. Over 260 different species have been collected. The pre-planting selection criteria and process is described as well as the test conditions and procedures. Some sources of information on the use of the Eucalypts may be misleading through...

  19. Selective Guide to Literature on Engineering Geology. Engineering Literature Guides, Number 7.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mullen, Cecilia P., Comp.

    This guide has been prepared for use by the undergraduate or graduate student in engineering geology. Because of the broad scope of the field, the major disciplines of soil mechanics, rock mechanics, and foundations are primarily emphasized. This document is a survey of information sources in engineering geology and is intended to identify those…

  20. Life Sciences and Allied Fields: Indexes and Abstracts, Book Review Indexes, Serials Bibliographies, Translations. Bibliographic Series No. 32.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Colpitts, D. Corinne

    The information sources for the life sciences and allied fields listed were selected from the holdings of the Arkansas University library. Citations include indexes and abstracts dealing with national and international literature in medicine, the biological sciences, environmental science, veterinary medicine, agriculture, botany, and zoology, as…

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