Integrated Programs and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Tiffany

2008-01-01

Research suggested that "nature experience as an education method played a role in developing environmental value and attitudes, and was influential in pro-environmental behaviour." Few of these studies however, assessed the long-term influences of outdoor education experiences on participants' pro-environmental behaviour. The Outward…

Eighth Graders Explore Form and Function of Modern and Fossil Organisms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Teske, Jolene K.; Pittman, Phoebe J. Z.

2016-01-01

Arts integration into science has been shown to motivate students and promote long-term retention of content. To add to the literature addressing arts integration, an experiment was conducted with middle school students studying the anatomical similarities and differences between modern and fossil marine invertebrates and different types of extant…

Teachers' Perceived Influences on Technology Integration Decisions: A Grounded Theory on Instructional Decisions after Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greenhaus, Karen Larsen

2014-01-01

This qualitative grounded theory study explored teachers' instructional decisions around planning and practice for technology integration after participation in professional development. The purpose of this study was to determine how a long-term hybrid professional development experience influenced, if at all, math teachers' instructional…

Temporal integration in nasal lateralization of ethanol.

PubMed

Wise, Paul M; Canty, Thomas M; Wysocki, Charles J

2006-03-01

Two experiments examined the trade-off between concentration and stimulus duration in nasal lateralization of n-ethyl alcohol. In nasal lateralization, a common measure of irritation threshold, subjects receive chemical vapor in one nostril and clean air in the other. Subjects try to determine which nostril received the chemical. Within experimental runs, subjects received fixed concentrations (1650-5000 ppm) of ethanol, and duration was varied to find the shortest, lateralizable stimulus. In Experiment 1, a small group of subjects was tested intensively to obtain stable individual data. In Experiment 2, a larger group was studied using more rapid methods. In both cases, subjects could lateralize increasingly weaker concentrations with longer stimulus presentations. Hence integration occurred. However, more than a twofold increase in duration was required to compensate for a twofold decrease in concentration to maintain threshold lateralization. These results suggest that an imperfect, mass-integrator model can describe short-term integration of nasal lateralization of ethanol.

Spatial integration and cortical dynamics.

PubMed

Gilbert, C D; Das, A; Ito, M; Kapadia, M; Westheimer, G

1996-01-23

Cells in adult primary visual cortex are capable of integrating information over much larger portions of the visual field than was originally thought. Moreover, their receptive field properties can be altered by the context within which local features are presented and by changes in visual experience. The substrate for both spatial integration and cortical plasticity is likely to be found in a plexus of long-range horizontal connections, formed by cortical pyramidal cells, which link cells within each cortical area over distances of 6-8 mm. The relationship between horizontal connections and cortical functional architecture suggests a role in visual segmentation and spatial integration. The distribution of lateral interactions within striate cortex was visualized with optical recording, and their functional consequences were explored by using comparable stimuli in human psychophysical experiments and in recordings from alert monkeys. They may represent the substrate for perceptual phenomena such as illusory contours, surface fill-in, and contour saliency. The dynamic nature of receptive field properties and cortical architecture has been seen over time scales ranging from seconds to months. One can induce a remapping of the topography of visual cortex by making focal binocular retinal lesions. Shorter-term plasticity of cortical receptive fields was observed following brief periods of visual stimulation. The mechanisms involved entailed, for the short-term changes, altering the effectiveness of existing cortical connections, and for the long-term changes, sprouting of axon collaterals and synaptogenesis. The mutability of cortical function implies a continual process of calibration and normalization of the perception of visual attributes that is dependent on sensory experience throughout adulthood and might further represent the mechanism of perceptual learning.

Trusting early learners with critical professional activities through emergency medical technician certification.

PubMed

Brenner, Judith; Bird, Jeffrey; Ginzburg, Samara B; Kwiatkowski, Thomas; Papasodero, Vincent; Rennie, William; Schlegel, Elisabeth; Ten Cate, Olle; Willey, Joanne M

2018-03-08

Two dominant themes face medical education: developing integrated curricula and improving the undergraduate medical education (UME) to graduate medical education (GME) transition. An innovative solution to both of these challenges at the Zucker School of Medicine has been the application of the cognitive apprenticeship framework in requiring emergency medical technician (EMT) certification during the first course in medical school as the core on which to build an integrated curriculum and provide entrustable clinical skills. Beginning with the Class of 2011, student feedback about the short-term impact of the experience was collected annually. In addition, perceptions of near graduates and alumni were surveyed in 2017 to explore the long-term impact of the experience. Theme analysis was conducted via inductive coding. Both first-year and more experienced learners report the value of the EMT curriculum as an integrated component of the first course of medical school. Reported positive long-term impacts included the first-hand observation of social determinants of health and interprofessionalism. Negative comments by early learners focused on course logistics, whereas older learners recalled the variability of clinical experiences during ambulance runs. The integration of the EMT curriculum as a core component of the first course serves multiple purposes: 1) it provides the foundation of a spiral learning approach; 2) it contextualizes the basic sciences within clinical practice; 3) it provides opportunities for students to engage in authentic clinical activities under the guidance of mentors; 4) it introduces students to the interdisciplinary nature of medicine; and 5) it serves as the first entrustable professional activity (EPA) for our students.

Components of Line-Drawing Interpretation: A Developmental Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Enns, James T.; King, Katherine A.

1990-01-01

Experiment 1 suggested that age differences in line-drawing interpretation among subjects between 6 and 24 years reflected changes in short-term memory for features and changes in strategies used to integrate features over space and time. Experiment 2 suggested that older observers were more active in their attempts to interpret drawings and that…

The Developmental Impact of Not Integrating Childhood Peak Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schlarb, Craig W.

2007-01-01

Much prior groundbreaking research has been done in recent years highlighting the qualities, quantities and means children have to enter transpersonal states of awareness. As important as this precedent research has been, in many ways it has yet to fully appreciate the gravity of childhood transpersonal experiences in terms of the impact on…

Becoming Physics People: Development of Integrated Physics Identity through the Learning Assistant Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Close, Eleanor W.; Conn, Jessica; Close, Hunter G.

2016-01-01

In this study, we analyze the experience of students in the Physics Learning Assistant (LA) program at Texas State University in terms of the existing theoretical frameworks of "community of practice" and "physics identity," and explore the implications suggested by these theories for LA program adoption and adaptation.…

Science Data Report for the Optical Properties Monitor (OPM) Experiment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilkes, Donald R.; Zwiener, James M.

1999-01-01

Long term stability of spacecraft materials when exposed to the space environment continues to be a major area of investigation. The natural and induced environment surrounding a spacecraft can decrease material performance and limit useful lifetimes. The Optical Properties Monitor (OPM) experiment provided the capability to perform the important flight testing of materials and was flown on the Russian Mir Station to study the long term effects of the natural and induced space environment on materials. The core of the OPM in-flight analysis was three independent optical instruments. These instruments included an integrating sphere spectral reflectometer, a vacuum ultraviolet spectrometer, and a Total Integrated Scatter instrument. The OPM also monitored selected components of the environment including molecular contamination. The OPM was exposed on the exterior of the Mir Docking Module for approximately 8-1/2 months. This report describes the OPM experiment, a brief background of its development, program organization, experiment description, mission overview including space environment definition, performance overview, materials data including flight and ground data, in-depth post flight analysis including ground analysis measurements and a summary discussion of the findings and results.

[Consensus paper on the terminological differentiation of various aspect of body experience].

PubMed

Röhricht, Frank; Seidler, Klaus-Peter; Joraschky, Peter; Borkenhagen, Ada; Lausberg, Hedda; Lemche, Erwin; Loew, Thomas; Porsch, Udo; Schreiber-Willnow, Karin; Tritt, Karin

2005-01-01

In the past, phenomenological research on subjective body experience was characterised by vaguely defined terminology and methodological shortcomings. The term "body image" has been applied heterogeneously in literature in order to describe a variety of bodily phenomena. In this paper, the German terminology applied to the phenomenology of body experiences is described systematically. In developing a systematic terminology the authors refer to scientific evidence as well as recent reviews, and closely adhere to definitions commonly used in English literature. Different perspectives are utilised, particularly anthropological concepts and theories from developmental and self-psychology. Distinct aspects of body experience are described within the context of a network of external determinants and along a continuum between somatic and mental anchor points. Applying the term "body experience" as umbrella term, different aspects are defined: perceptive (body schema/-perceive), affective (body-cathexis), cognitive-evaluative (body-image, body-ego) and body-consciousness. It is emphasized, that the distinct description of functional levels has to be taken as an approximation of the reality of integrated body experience.

Matter-wave diffraction approaching limits predicted by Feynman path integrals for multipath interference

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barnea, A. Ronny; Cheshnovsky, Ori; Even, Uzi

2018-02-01

Interference experiments have been paramount in our understanding of quantum mechanics and are frequently the basis of testing the superposition principle in the framework of quantum theory. In recent years, several studies have challenged the nature of wave-function interference from the perspective of Born's rule—namely, the manifestation of so-called high-order interference terms in a superposition generated by diffraction of the wave functions. Here we present an experimental test of multipath interference in the diffraction of metastable helium atoms, with large-number counting statistics, comparable to photon-based experiments. We use a variation of the original triple-slit experiment and accurate single-event counting techniques to provide a new experimental bound of 2.9 ×10-5 on the statistical deviation from the commonly approximated null third-order interference term in Born's rule for matter waves. Our value is on the order of the maximal contribution predicted for multipath trajectories by Feynman path integrals.

How high is visual short-term memory capacity for object layout?

PubMed

Sanocki, Thomas; Sellers, Eric; Mittelstadt, Jeff; Sulman, Noah

2010-05-01

Previous research measuring visual short-term memory (VSTM) suggests that the capacity for representing the layout of objects is fairly high. In four experiments, we further explored the capacity of VSTM for layout of objects, using the change detection method. In Experiment 1, participants retained most of the elements in displays of 4 to 8 elements. In Experiments 2 and 3, with up to 20 elements, participants retained many of them, reaching a capacity of 13.4 stimulus elements. In Experiment 4, participants retained much of a complex naturalistic scene. In most cases, increasing display size caused only modest reductions in performance, consistent with the idea of configural, variable-resolution grouping. The results indicate that participants can retain a substantial amount of scene layout information (objects and locations) in short-term memory. We propose that this is a case of remote visual understanding, where observers' ability to integrate information from a scene is paramount.

The Black Professor Abroad: Long-Term Teaching Experiences in Foreign Lands

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fikes, Robert, Jr.

2006-01-01

The experiences of African American professors reach back nearly 150 years beginning with their pioneering efforts to educate Africans in Liberia. With the gradual racial integration of the American professoriate in the post-World War II era and the redoubled effort of the federal government and private agencies, along with the support of colleges…

Effect of pH on the Heat-Induced Denaturation and Renaturation of Green Fluorescent Protein: A Laboratory Experiment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flores, Rosa V.; Sola, Hilda M.; Torres, Juan C.; Torres, Rafael E.; Guzman, Ernick E.

2013-01-01

A fluorescence spectroscopy experiment is described where students integrated biochemistry and instrumental analysis, while characterizing the green fluorescent protein excitation and emission spectra in terms of its phenolic and phenolate chromophores. Students studied the combined effect of pH and temperature on the protein's fluorescence,…

Exploring Electrochromics: A Series of Eye-Catching Experiments to Introduce Students to Multidisciplinary Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Small, Leo J.; Wolf, Steven; Spoerke, Erik D.

2014-01-01

Introducing students to a multidisciplinary research laboratory presents challenges in terms of learning specific technical skills and concepts but also with respect to integrating different technical elements to form a coherent picture of the research. Here we present a multidisciplinary series of experiments we have developed in the Electronic,…

Integrated, Marginal, and Resilient: Race, Class, and the Diverse Experiences of White First-Generation College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stuber, Jenny Marie

2011-01-01

While first-generation college students are "at risk", the majority "do" persist. Using in-depth interviews with 28 white college students I ask: How do white, first-generation, working-class students understand their college experiences, especially in terms of their academic, social, and cultural adjustment? Moreover, what kinds of factors seem…

A scalable, self-analyzing digital locking system for use on quantum optics experiments.

PubMed

Sparkes, B M; Chrzanowski, H M; Parrain, D P; Buchler, B C; Lam, P K; Symul, T

2011-07-01

Digital control of optics experiments has many advantages over analog control systems, specifically in terms of the scalability, cost, flexibility, and the integration of system information into one location. We present a digital control system, freely available for download online, specifically designed for quantum optics experiments that allows for automatic and sequential re-locking of optical components. We show how the inbuilt locking analysis tools, including a white-noise network analyzer, can be used to help optimize individual locks, and verify the long term stability of the digital system. Finally, we present an example of the benefits of digital locking for quantum optics by applying the code to a specific experiment used to characterize optical Schrödinger cat states.

Effects of Early Bilingual Experience with a Tone and a Non-Tone Language on Speech-Music Integration

PubMed Central

Asaridou, Salomi S.; Hagoort, Peter; McQueen, James M.

2015-01-01

We investigated music and language processing in a group of early bilinguals who spoke a tone language and a non-tone language (Cantonese and Dutch). We assessed online speech-music processing interactions, that is, interactions that occur when speech and music are processed simultaneously in songs, with a speeded classification task. In this task, participants judged sung pseudowords either musically (based on the direction of the musical interval) or phonologically (based on the identity of the sung vowel). We also assessed longer-term effects of linguistic experience on musical ability, that is, the influence of extensive prior experience with language when processing music. These effects were assessed with a task in which participants had to learn to identify musical intervals and with four pitch-perception tasks. Our hypothesis was that due to their experience in two different languages using lexical versus intonational tone, the early Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals would outperform the Dutch control participants. In online processing, the Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals processed speech and music more holistically than controls. This effect seems to be driven by experience with a tone language, in which integration of segmental and pitch information is fundamental. Regarding longer-term effects of linguistic experience, we found no evidence for a bilingual advantage in either the music-interval learning task or the pitch-perception tasks. Together, these results suggest that being a Cantonese-Dutch bilingual does not have any measurable longer-term effects on pitch and music processing, but does have consequences for how speech and music are processed jointly. PMID:26659377

Effects of Early Bilingual Experience with a Tone and a Non-Tone Language on Speech-Music Integration.

PubMed

Asaridou, Salomi S; Hagoort, Peter; McQueen, James M

2015-01-01

We investigated music and language processing in a group of early bilinguals who spoke a tone language and a non-tone language (Cantonese and Dutch). We assessed online speech-music processing interactions, that is, interactions that occur when speech and music are processed simultaneously in songs, with a speeded classification task. In this task, participants judged sung pseudowords either musically (based on the direction of the musical interval) or phonologically (based on the identity of the sung vowel). We also assessed longer-term effects of linguistic experience on musical ability, that is, the influence of extensive prior experience with language when processing music. These effects were assessed with a task in which participants had to learn to identify musical intervals and with four pitch-perception tasks. Our hypothesis was that due to their experience in two different languages using lexical versus intonational tone, the early Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals would outperform the Dutch control participants. In online processing, the Cantonese-Dutch bilinguals processed speech and music more holistically than controls. This effect seems to be driven by experience with a tone language, in which integration of segmental and pitch information is fundamental. Regarding longer-term effects of linguistic experience, we found no evidence for a bilingual advantage in either the music-interval learning task or the pitch-perception tasks. Together, these results suggest that being a Cantonese-Dutch bilingual does not have any measurable longer-term effects on pitch and music processing, but does have consequences for how speech and music are processed jointly.

Experiment-specific cosmic microwave background calculations made easier - Approximation formula for smoothed delta T/T windows

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gorski, Krzysztof M.

1993-01-01

Simple and easy to implement elementary function approximations are introduced to the spectral window functions needed in calculations of model predictions of the cosmic microwave backgrond (CMB) anisotropy. These approximations allow the investigator to obtain model delta T/T predictions in terms of single integrals over the power spectrum of cosmological perturbations and to avoid the necessity of performing the additional integrations. The high accuracy of these approximations is demonstrated here for the CDM theory-based calculations of the expected delta T/T signal in several experiments searching for the CMB anisotropy.

Location perception: the X-Files parable.

PubMed

Prinzmetal, William

2005-01-01

Three aspects of visual object location were investigated: (1) how the visual system integrates information for locating objects, (2) how attention operates to affect location perception, and (3) how the visual system deals with locating an object when multiple objects are present. The theories were described in terms of a parable (the X-Files parable). Then, computer simulations were developed. Finally, predictions derived from the simulations were tested. In the scenario described in the parable, we ask how a system of detectors might locate an alien spaceship, how attention might be implemented in such a spaceship detection system, and how the presence of one spaceship might influence the location perception of another alien spaceship. Experiment 1 demonstrated that location information is integrated with a spatial average rule. In Experiment 2, this rule was applied to a more-samples theory of attention. Experiment 3 demonstrated how the integration rule could account for various visual illusions.

An expectancy-value theory approach to the long-term modification of smoking behavior.

PubMed

Rogers, R W; Deckner, C W; Mewborn, C R

1978-04-01

Despite the research interest in modifying smoking behavior, therapeutic treatments that can produce long-term cessation have not been demonstrated rigorously. A follow-up study of two attitude change experiments (N = 173) examined the effects of a fear appeal, that is, increasing smokers' awareness and appreciation of the highly noxious consequences of smoking. Although this familiar type of information may be an integral component of many smoking treatment programs, its long-term suppressive effect has not been demonstrated in well-controlled experiments. The results disclosed that 3 months and also 1 year after treatment, a high-fear manipulation had increased significantly the percentage of smokers who were able to stop smoking completely.

Evidence integration in model-based tree search

PubMed Central

Solway, Alec; Botvinick, Matthew M.

2015-01-01

Research on the dynamics of reward-based, goal-directed decision making has largely focused on simple choice, where participants decide among a set of unitary, mutually exclusive options. Recent work suggests that the deliberation process underlying simple choice can be understood in terms of evidence integration: Noisy evidence in favor of each option accrues over time, until the evidence in favor of one option is significantly greater than the rest. However, real-life decisions often involve not one, but several steps of action, requiring a consideration of cumulative rewards and a sensitivity to recursive decision structure. We present results from two experiments that leveraged techniques previously applied to simple choice to shed light on the deliberation process underlying multistep choice. We interpret the results from these experiments in terms of a new computational model, which extends the evidence accumulation perspective to multiple steps of action. PMID:26324932

Exogenous spatial attention decreases audiovisual integration.

PubMed

Van der Stoep, N; Van der Stigchel, S; Nijboer, T C W

2015-02-01

Multisensory integration (MSI) and spatial attention are both mechanisms through which the processing of sensory information can be facilitated. Studies on the interaction between spatial attention and MSI have mainly focused on the interaction between endogenous spatial attention and MSI. Most of these studies have shown that endogenously attending a multisensory target enhances MSI. It is currently unclear, however, whether and how exogenous spatial attention and MSI interact. In the current study, we investigated the interaction between these two important bottom-up processes in two experiments. In Experiment 1 the target location was task-relevant, and in Experiment 2 the target location was task-irrelevant. Valid or invalid exogenous auditory cues were presented before the onset of unimodal auditory, unimodal visual, and audiovisual targets. We observed reliable cueing effects and multisensory response enhancement in both experiments. To examine whether audiovisual integration was influenced by exogenous spatial attention, the amount of race model violation was compared between exogenously attended and unattended targets. In both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, a decrease in MSI was observed when audiovisual targets were exogenously attended, compared to when they were not. The interaction between exogenous attention and MSI was less pronounced in Experiment 2. Therefore, our results indicate that exogenous attention diminishes MSI when spatial orienting is relevant. The results are discussed in terms of models of multisensory integration and attention.

What Is Everyday Ethics? A Review and a Proposal for an Integrative Concept.

PubMed

Zizzo, Natalie; Bell, Emily; Racine, Eric

2016-01-01

"Everyday ethics" is a term that has been used in the clinical and ethics literature for decades to designate normatively important and pervasive issues in healthcare. In spite of its importance, the term has not been reviewed and analyzed carefully. We undertook a literature review to understand how the term has been employed and defined, finding that it is often contrasted to "dramatic ethics." We identified the core attributes most commonly associated with everyday ethics. We then propose an integrative model of everyday ethics that builds on the contribution of different ethical theories. This model proposes that the function of everyday ethics is to serve as an integrative concept that (1) helps to detect current blind spots in bioethics (that is, shifts the focus from dramatic ethics) and (2) mobilizes moral agents to address these shortcomings of ethical insight. This novel integrative model has theoretical, methodological, practical, and pedagogical implications, which we explore. Because of the pivotal role that moral experience plays in this integrative model, the model could help to bridge empirical ethics research with more conceptual and normative work. Copyright 2016 The Journal of Clinical Ethics. All rights reserved.

Memory integration in amnesia: prior knowledge supports verbal short-term memory.

PubMed

Race, Elizabeth; Palombo, Daniela J; Cadden, Margaret; Burke, Keely; Verfaellie, Mieke

2015-04-01

Short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) have traditionally been considered cognitively distinct. However, it is known that STM can improve when to-be-remembered information appears in contexts that make contact with prior knowledge, suggesting a more interactive relationship between STM and LTM. The current study investigated whether the ability to leverage LTM in support of STM critically depends on the integrity of the hippocampus. Specifically, we investigated whether the hippocampus differentially supports between-domain versus within-domain STM-LTM integration given prior evidence that the representational domain of the elements being integrated in memory is a critical determinant of whether memory performance depends on the hippocampus. In Experiment 1, we investigated hippocampal contributions to within-domain STM-LTM integration by testing whether immediate verbal recall of words improves in MTL amnesic patients when words are presented in familiar verbal contexts (meaningful sentences) compared to unfamiliar verbal contexts (random word lists). Patients demonstrated a robust sentence superiority effect, whereby verbal STM performance improved in familiar compared to unfamiliar verbal contexts, and the magnitude of this effect did not differ from that in controls. In Experiment 2, we investigated hippocampal contributions to between-domain STM-LTM integration by testing whether immediate verbal recall of digits improves in MTL amnesic patients when digits are presented in a familiar visuospatial context (a typical keypad layout) compared to an unfamiliar visuospatial context (a random keypad layout). Immediate verbal recall improved in both patients and controls when digits were presented in the familiar compared to the unfamiliar keypad array, indicating a preserved ability to integrate activated verbal information with stored visuospatial knowledge. Together, these results demonstrate that immediate verbal recall in amnesia can benefit from two distinct types of semantic support, verbal and visuospatial, and that the hippocampus is not critical for leveraging stored semantic knowledge to improve memory performance. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Memory integration in amnesia: Prior knowledge supports verbal short-term memory

PubMed Central

Race, Elizabeth; Palombo, Daniela J.; Cadden, Margaret; Burke, Keely; Verfaellie, Mieke

2015-01-01

Short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) have traditionally been considered cognitively distinct. However, it is known that STM can improve when to-be-remembered information appears in contexts that make contact with prior knowledge, suggesting a more interactive relationship between STM and LTM. The current study investigated whether the ability to leverage LTM in support of STM critically depends on the integrity of the hippocampus. Specifically, we investigated whether the hippocampus differentially supports between-domain versus within-domain STM–LTM integration given prior evidence that the representational domain of the elements being integrated in memory is a critical determinant of whether memory performance depends on the hippocampus. In Experiment 1, we investigated hippocampal contributions to within-domain STM–LTM integration by testing whether immediate verbal recall of words improves in MTL amnesic patients when words are presented in familiar verbal contexts (meaningful sentences) compared to unfamiliar verbal contexts (random word lists). Patients demonstrated a robust sentence superiority effect, whereby verbal STM performance improved in familiar compared to unfamiliar verbal contexts, and the magnitude of this effect did not differ from that in controls. In Experiment 2, we investigated hippocampal contributions to between-domain STM–LTM integration by testing whether immediate verbal recall of digits improves in MTL amnesic patients when digits are presented in a familiar visuospatial context (a typical keypad layout) compared to an unfamiliar visuospatial context (a random keypad layout). Immediate verbal recall improved in both patients and controls when digits were presented in the familiar compared to the unfamiliar keypad array, indicating a preserved ability to integrate activated verbal information with stored visuospatial knowledge. Together, these results demonstrate that immediate verbal recall in amnesia can benefit from two distinct types of semantic support, verbal and visuospatial, and that the hippocampus is not critical for leveraging stored semantic knowledge to improve memory performance. PMID:25752585

Experience Of Implementing The Integrated Management System In Manufacturing Companies In Slovakia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lestyánszka Škůrková, Katarína; Kučerová, Marta; Fidlerová, Helena

2015-06-01

In corporate practice, the term of Integrated Management System means a system the aim of which is to manage an organization regarding the quality, environment, health and safety at work. In the first phase of the VEGA project No. 1/0448/13 "Transformation of ergonomics program into the company management structure through interaction and utilization QMS, EMS, HSMS", we focused on obtaining information about the way or procedure of implementing the integrated management systems in manufacturing companies in Slovakia. The paper considers characteristics of integrated management system, specifies the possibilities for successive integration of the management systems and also describes the essential aspects of the practical implementation of integrated management systems in companies in Slovakia.

The Performance of Desire: Gender and Sexual Negotiation in Long-Term Marriages.

PubMed

Elliott, Sinikka; Umberson, Debra

2008-05-01

We integrate theoretical traditions on the social construction of gender, heterosexuality, and marriage with research and theory on emotion work to guide a qualitative investigation of how married people understand and experience sex in marriage. Results, based on 62 in-depth interviews, indicate that married men and women tend to believe that sex is integral to a good marriage and that men are more sexual than women. Moreover, husbands and wives commonly experience conflict around sex and undertake emotion work to manage their own and their spouse's feelings about sex. We refer to this emotion work as "performing desire" and show how it is linked to gendered experiences in marriage and to competing cultural discourses around gender, heterosexuality, and marriage.

Transformative Performing Arts and Mentorship Pedagogy: Nurturing Developmental Relationships in a Multidisciplinary Dance Theatre Program for Youth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kane, Kevin M.

2014-01-01

A multidisciplinary dance and theatre arts program geared for high school-aged youth can result in both short-term and the long-term outcomes for its students if it seeks to offer a life-changing peak experience as part of the arts training and performance process. By integrating a combination of dance, movement, theater, music, creative and…

An integrative view of storage of low- and high-level visual dimensions in visual short-term memory.

PubMed

Magen, Hagit

2017-03-01

Efficient performance in an environment filled with complex objects is often achieved through the temporal maintenance of conjunctions of features from multiple dimensions. The most striking finding in the study of binding in visual short-term memory (VSTM) is equal memory performance for single features and for integrated multi-feature objects, a finding that has been central to several theories of VSTM. Nevertheless, research on binding in VSTM focused almost exclusively on low-level features, and little is known about how items from low- and high-level visual dimensions (e.g., colored manmade objects) are maintained simultaneously in VSTM. The present study tested memory for combinations of low-level features and high-level representations. In agreement with previous findings, Experiments 1 and 2 showed decrements in memory performance when non-integrated low- and high-level stimuli were maintained simultaneously compared to maintaining each dimension in isolation. However, contrary to previous findings the results of Experiments 3 and 4 showed decrements in memory performance even when integrated objects of low- and high-level stimuli were maintained in memory, compared to maintaining single-dimension objects. Overall, the results demonstrate that low- and high-level visual dimensions compete for the same limited memory capacity, and offer a more comprehensive view of VSTM.

Design and Operation of Power Systems with Large Amounts of Wind Power: Final Summary Report, IEA WIND Task 25, Phase Three 2012-2014

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

Holttinen, Hannele; Kiviluoma, Juha; Forcione, Alain

2016-06-01

This report summarizes recent findings on wind integration from the 16 countries participating in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind collaboration research Task 25 in 2012-2014. Both real experience and studies are reported. The national case studies address several impacts of wind power on electric power systems. In this report, they are grouped under long-term planning issues and short-term operational impacts. Long-term planning issues include grid planning and capacity adequacy. Short-term operational impacts include reliability, stability, reserves, and maximizing the value in operational timescales (balancing related issues). The first section presents variability and uncertainty of power system-wide wind power, andmore » the last section presents recent wind integration studies for higher shares of wind power. Appendix 1 provides a summary of ongoing research in the national projects contributing to Task 25 in 2015-2017.« less

Surface Information Loss in Comprehension

PubMed Central

Gernsbacher, Morton Ann

2014-01-01

Shortly after a sentence has been comprehended, information about its exact surface form (e.g., its word order) becomes less available. The present research demonstrated this phenomenon during the comprehension of nonverbal stimuli (picture stories). In Experiment 1, significantly more surface (left/right orientation) information was lost after comprehending several picture stories than just one; in Experiment 2, more was lost after comprehending an entire picture story than half of one. In Experiment 3, subjects segmented the picture stories into their constituents; in Experiment 4, significantly more surface information was lost after crossing these constituents’ boundaries than before. The present research also investigated why surface information is lost. Four explanations were considered: Surface information loss is the result of performing grammatical transformations (the linguistic hypothesis), exceeding short-term memory limitations (the memory limitations hypothesis), integrating information into gist (the integration hypothesis), shifting from building one substructure to initiating another (the processing shift hypothesis). The linguistic and memory limitations hypotheses were considered inadequate; the integration and the processing shift hypotheses were tested in the last set of experiments. In Experiment 5 (using nonverbal stimuli), the predictions made by the processing shift hypothesis were confirmed; in Experiment 6 (using verbal stimuli), these results were replicated. Other implications of the processing shift hypothesis concerning surface information loss are discussed. PMID:25308975

Effectiveness of Integrative Modalities for Pain and Anxiety in Children and Adolescents with Cancer: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Thrane, Susan

2014-01-01

Throughout the trajectory of the cancer experience, children and adolescents will likely face pain and anxiety in a variety of circumstances. Integrative therapies may be used either alone or as an adjunct to standard analgesics. Children are often very receptive to integrative therapies such as music, art, guided imagery, massage, therapeutic play, distraction, and other modalities (Doellman, 2003). The effect of integrative modalities on pain and anxiety in children with cancer has not been systematically examined across the entire cancer experience. An in-depth search of PubMed, CINAHL, MedLine, PsychInfo, and Web of Science, integrative medicine journals, and the reference lists of review articles using the search terms pain, anxiety, pediatric, child*, oncology, cancer, neoplasm, complementary, integrative, non-conventional, and unconventional yielded 164 articles. Of these, 25 warranted full-text review. Cohen’s d calculations show medium (d=.70) to extremely large (8.57) effect sizes indicating that integrative interventions may be very effective for pain and anxiety in children undergoing cancer treatment. Integrative modalities warrant further study with larger sample sizes to better determine their effectiveness in this population. PMID:24371260

The Experience of Emotion

PubMed Central

Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Mesquita, Batja; Ochsner, Kevin N.; Gross, James J.

2007-01-01

Experiences of emotion are content-rich events that emerge at the level of psychological description, but must be causally constituted by neurobiological processes. This chapter outlines an emerging scientific agenda for understanding what these experiences feel like and how they arise. We review the available answers to what is felt (i.e., the content that makes up an experience of emotion) and how neurobiological processes instantiate these properties of experience. These answers are then integrated into a broad framework that describes, in psychological terms, how the experience of emotion emerges from more basic processes. We then discuss the role of such experiences in the economy of the mind and behavior. PMID:17002554

Long-term microparticle flux variability indicated by comparison of Interplanetary Dust Experiment (IDE) timed impacts for LDEF's first year in orbit with impact data for the entire 5.77-year orbital lifetime

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Simon, Charles G.; Mulholland, J. Derral; Oliver, John P.; Cooke, William J.; Kassel, Philip C., Jr.

1993-01-01

The electronic sensors of the Interplanetary Dust Experiment (IDE) recorded precise impact times and approximate directions for submicron to approximately 100 micron size particles on all six primary sides of the spacecraft for the first 346 days of the LDEF orbital mission. Previously-reported analyses of the timed impact data have established their spatio-temporal features, including the demonstration that a preponderance of the particles in this regime are orbital debris and that a large fraction of the debris particles are encountered in megameter-size clouds. Short-term fluxes within such clouds can rise several orders of magnitude above the long-term average. These unexpectedly large short-term variations in debris flux raise the question of how representative an indication of the multi-year average flux is given by the nearly one year of timed data. One of the goals of the IDE was to conduct an optical survey of impact sites on detectors that remained active during the entire LDEF mission, to obtain full-mission fluxes. We present here the comparisons and contrasts among the new IDE optical survey impact data, the IDE first-year timed impact data, and impact data from other LDEF micrometeoroid and debris experiments. The following observations are reported: (1) the 5.77 year long-term integrated microparticle impact fluxes recorded by IDE detectors matched the integrated impact fluxes measured by other LDEF investigators for the same period; (2) IDE integrated microparticle impact fluxes varied by factors from 0.5 to 8.3 for LDEF days 1-346, 347-2106 and 1-2106 (5.77 years) on rows 3 (trailing edge, or West), 6 (South side), 12 (North side), and the Earth and Space ends; and (3) IDE integrated microparticle impact fluxes varied less than 3 percent for LDEF days 1-346, 347-2106 and 1-2106 (5.77 years) on row 9 (leading edge, or East). These results give further evidence of the accuracy and internal consistency of the recorded IDE impact data. This leads to the further conclusion that the utility of long-term ratios for impacts on various sides of a stabilized satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO) is extremely limited. These observations and their consequences highlight the need for continuous, real time monitoring of the dynamic microparticle environment in LEO.

Integrated learning of mathematics, science and technology concepts through LEGO/Logo projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Lina

This dissertation examined integrated learning in the domains of mathematics, science and technology based on Piaget's constructivism, Papert's constructionism, and project-based approach to education. Ten fifth grade students were involved in a two-month long after school program where they designed and built their own computer-controlled LEGO/Logo projects that required the use of gears, ratios and motion concepts. The design of this study centered on three notions of integrated learning: (1) integration in terms of what educational materials/settings provide, (2) integration in terms of students' use of those materials, and (3) integration in the psychological sense. In terms of the first notion, the results generally showed that the LEGO/Logo environment supported the integrated learning of math, science and technology concepts. Regarding the second notion, the students all completed impressive projects of their own design. They successfully combined gears, motors, and LEGO parts together to create motion and writing control commands to manipulate the motion. But contrary to my initial expectations, their successful designs did not require numerical reasoning about ratios in designing effective gear systems. When they did reason about gear relationships, they worked with "qualitative" ratios, e.g., "a larger driver gear with a smaller driven gear increases the speed." In terms of the third notion of integrated learning, there was evidence in all four case study students of the psychological processes involved in linking mathematical, scientific, and/or technological concepts together to achieve new conceptual units. The students not only made connections between ideas and experiences, but also recognized decisive patterns and relationships in their project work. The students with stronger overall project performances showed more evidence of synthesis than the students with relatively weaker performances did. The findings support the conclusion that all three notions of the integrated learning are important for understanding what the students learned from their project work. By considering these notions together, and by deliberating about their interrelations, we take a step towards understanding the integrated learning.

The Performance of Desire: Gender and Sexual Negotiation in Long-Term Marriages

PubMed Central

Elliott, Sinikka; Umberson, Debra

2011-01-01

We integrate theoretical traditions on the social construction of gender, heterosexuality, and marriage with research and theory on emotion work to guide a qualitative investigation of how married people understand and experience sex in marriage. Results, based on 62 in-depth interviews, indicate that married men and women tend to believe that sex is integral to a good marriage and that men are more sexual than women. Moreover, husbands and wives commonly experience conflict around sex and undertake emotion work to manage their own and their spouse’s feelings about sex. We refer to this emotion work as “performing desire” and show how it is linked to gendered experiences in marriage and to competing cultural discourses around gender, heterosexuality, and marriage. PMID:21833150

Dealing with grief related to loss by death and chronic pain: An integrated theoretical framework. Part 1

PubMed Central

Furnes, Bodil; Dysvik, Elin

2010-01-01

Objective: Based on the present authors’ research and several approaches to grief related to loss by death and nonmalignant chronic pain, the paper suggests a new integrated theoretical framework for intervention in clinical settings. Methods: An open qualitative review of the literature on grief theories was performed searching for a new integrated approach in the phenomenological tradition. We then investigated the relationship between grief, loss and chronic nonmalignant pain, looking for main themes and connections and how these could be best understood in a more holistic manner. Results: Two main themes were formulated, “relearning the world” and “adaptation”. Between these themes a continuous movement emerged involving experience such as: “despair and hope”, “lack of understanding and insight”, “meaning disruption and increased meaning”, and “bodily discomfort and reintegrated body”. These were identified as paired subthemes. Conclusions: Grief as a distinctive experience means that health care must be aimed at each individual experience and situation. Grief experience and working with grief are considered in terms of relearning the world while walking backwards and living forwards, as described in our integrated model. We consider that this theoretical framework regarding grief should offer an integrated foundation for health care workers who are working with people experiencing grief caused by death or chronic pain. PMID:20622913

Diazepam and Its Effects on Psychophysiological Measures of Performance.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-04-01

effects and outlines recent research using diazepam to induce performance decrements. Results of the experiment showed no generalized substan- tive effect...or aspect of the evoked response at a time. To change, for example, from studying the evoked response to patterned stimuli to an experiment designed...tions in terms of the clinical assessment of neurological integrity and diagnosis. In experimental /human engineering settings, it is possible to

On the energy integral formulation of gravitational potential differences from satellite-to-satellite tracking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, J. Y.; Shang, K.; Jekeli, C.; Shum, C. K.

2015-04-01

Two approaches have been formulated to compute the gravitational potential difference using low-low satellite-to-satellite tracking data based on energy integral: one in the geocentric inertial reference system, and the other in the terrestrial reference system. The focus of this work is on the approach in the geocentric inertial reference system, where a potential rotation term appears in addition to the potential term. In former formulations, the contribution of the time-variable components of the gravitational potential to the potential term was included, but their contribution to the potential rotation term was neglected. In this work, an improvement to the former formulations is made by reformulating the potential rotation term to include the contribution of the time-variable components of the gravitational potential. A simulation shows that our more accurate formulation of the potential rotation term is necessary to achieve the accuracy for recovering the temporal variation of the Earth's gravity field, such as for use to the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment GRACE observation data based on this approach.

News for assimilation or integration? Examining the functions of news in shaping acculturation experiences of immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain

PubMed Central

Alencar, Amanda; Deuze, Mark

2017-01-01

This study investigates the functions of news media in shaping acculturation experiences of new economic and refugee immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain. Focus group data revealed that consumption of host country news media was mainly connected to immigrants’ deliberate strategies to assimilate the culture, politics and language of the host society, while exposure to transnational news was viewed in terms of strategies of integration in both countries. We also observed that participants’ educational background and language skills combined with their perceptions of the host country’s news have an impact on the use they make of news for assimilating and/or integrating into the host society. Finally, important sociopolitical conditions of the context influenced the ways participants use the news media in their process of acculturation. PMID:28579663

News for assimilation or integration? Examining the functions of news in shaping acculturation experiences of immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain.

PubMed

Alencar, Amanda; Deuze, Mark

2017-04-01

This study investigates the functions of news media in shaping acculturation experiences of new economic and refugee immigrants in the Netherlands and Spain. Focus group data revealed that consumption of host country news media was mainly connected to immigrants' deliberate strategies to assimilate the culture, politics and language of the host society, while exposure to transnational news was viewed in terms of strategies of integration in both countries. We also observed that participants' educational background and language skills combined with their perceptions of the host country's news have an impact on the use they make of news for assimilating and/or integrating into the host society. Finally, important sociopolitical conditions of the context influenced the ways participants use the news media in their process of acculturation.

Global climate change and the challenge to long-term sustainability

EPA Science Inventory

The paper provides a succinct integration of the projected warming the earth is likely to experience in the decades ahead, the emission reductions that may be needed to constrain this warming, and the technologies needed to help achieve these emission reduction. Population growth...

Audiovisual integration facilitates monkeys' short-term memory.

PubMed

Bigelow, James; Poremba, Amy

2016-07-01

Many human behaviors are known to benefit from audiovisual integration, including language and communication, recognizing individuals, social decision making, and memory. Exceptionally little is known about the contributions of audiovisual integration to behavior in other primates. The current experiment investigated whether short-term memory in nonhuman primates is facilitated by the audiovisual presentation format. Three macaque monkeys that had previously learned an auditory delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) task were trained to perform a similar visual task, after which they were tested with a concurrent audiovisual DMS task with equal proportions of auditory, visual, and audiovisual trials. Parallel to outcomes in human studies, accuracy was higher and response times were faster on audiovisual trials than either unisensory trial type. Unexpectedly, two subjects exhibited superior unimodal performance on auditory trials, a finding that contrasts with previous studies, but likely reflects their training history. Our results provide the first demonstration of a bimodal memory advantage in nonhuman primates, lending further validation to their use as a model for understanding audiovisual integration and memory processing in humans.

Situation models and retrieval interference: pictures and words.

PubMed

Radvansky, Gabriel A; Copeland, David E

2006-07-01

Previous studies have found that interference in long-term memory retrieval occurs when information cannot be integrated into a single situation model, but this interference is greatly reduced or absent when the information can be so integrated. The current study looked at the influence of presentation format-sentences or pictures-on this observed pattern. When sentences were used at memorisation and recognition, a spatial organisation was observed. In contrast, when pictures were used, a different pattern of results was observed. Specifically, there was an overall speed-up in response times, and consistent evidence of interference. Possible explanations for this difference were examined in a third experiment using pictures during learning, but sentences during recognition. The results from Experiment 3 were consistent with the organisation of information into situation models in long-term memory, even from pictures. This suggests that people do create situation models when learning pictures, but their recognition memory may be oriented around more "verbatim", surface-form memories of the pictures.

Analyzing the generality of conflict adaptation effects.

PubMed

Funes, Maria Jesús; Lupiáñez, Juan; Humphreys, Glyn

2010-02-01

Conflict adaptation effects refer to the reduction of interference when the incongruent stimulus occurs immediately after an incongruent trial, compared with when it occurs after a congruent trial. The present study analyzes the key conditions that lead to adaptation effects that are specific to the type of conflict involved versus those that are conflict general. In the first 2 experiments, we combined 2 types of conflict for which compatibility arises from clearly different sources in terms of dimensional overlap while keeping the task context constant across conflict types. We found a clear pattern of specificity on conflict adaptation across conflict types. In subsequent experiments, we tested whether this pattern could be accounted in terms of feature integration processes contributing differently to repetition versus alternation of conflict types. The results clearly indicated that feature integration was not key to generating conflict type specificity on conflict adaptation. The data are consistent with there being separate modes of control for different types of cognitive conflict.

The sense of body ownership relaxes temporal constraints for multisensory integration.

PubMed

Maselli, Antonella; Kilteni, Konstantina; López-Moliner, Joan; Slater, Mel

2016-08-03

Experimental work on body ownership illusions showed how simple multisensory manipulation can generate the illusory experience of an artificial limb as being part of the own-body. This work highlighted how own-body perception relies on a plastic brain representation emerging from multisensory integration. The flexibility of this representation is reflected in the short-term modulations of physiological states and perceptual processing observed during these illusions. Here, we explore the impact of ownership illusions on the temporal dimension of multisensory integration. We show that, during the illusion, the temporal window for integrating touch on the physical body with touch seen on a virtual body representation, increases with respect to integration with visual events seen close but separated from the virtual body. We show that this effect is mediated by the ownership illusion. Crucially, the temporal window for visuotactile integration was positively correlated with participants' scores rating the illusory experience of owning the virtual body and touching the object seen in contact with it. Our results corroborate the recently proposed causal inference mechanism for illusory body ownership. As a novelty, they show that the ensuing illusory causal binding between stimuli from the real and fake body relaxes constraints for the integration of bodily signals.

Audio-tactile integration and the influence of musical training.

PubMed

Kuchenbuch, Anja; Paraskevopoulos, Evangelos; Herholz, Sibylle C; Pantev, Christo

2014-01-01

Perception of our environment is a multisensory experience; information from different sensory systems like the auditory, visual and tactile is constantly integrated. Complex tasks that require high temporal and spatial precision of multisensory integration put strong demands on the underlying networks but it is largely unknown how task experience shapes multisensory processing. Long-term musical training is an excellent model for brain plasticity because it shapes the human brain at functional and structural levels, affecting a network of brain areas. In the present study we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate how audio-tactile perception is integrated in the human brain and if musicians show enhancement of the corresponding activation compared to non-musicians. Using a paradigm that allowed the investigation of combined and separate auditory and tactile processing, we found a multisensory incongruency response, generated in frontal, cingulate and cerebellar regions, an auditory mismatch response generated mainly in the auditory cortex and a tactile mismatch response generated in frontal and cerebellar regions. The influence of musical training was seen in the audio-tactile as well as in the auditory condition, indicating enhanced higher-order processing in musicians, while the sources of the tactile MMN were not influenced by long-term musical training. Consistent with the predictive coding model, more basic, bottom-up sensory processing was relatively stable and less affected by expertise, whereas areas for top-down models of multisensory expectancies were modulated by training.

More than what the eye can see: the emotional journey and experience of powerlessness of integrated care service users and their carers

PubMed Central

Boudioni, Markella; Hallett, Nina; Lora, Cristina; Couchman, Wendy

2015-01-01

Purpose This article presents the emotional journey and experience of powerlessness of integrated care service users and carers. Materials and methods The experiences of seven integrated care service users and carers affected by complex conditions in a London borough were captured as video stories. The integrated care service coordinated a system of health and social care: primary care, community matrons, social workers, and the voluntary sector. The service was designed to respond to identified cases of high-risk individuals with long-term, multiple, and age-related conditions needing preventive interventions. The video stories were analyzed by researchers in collaboration with service users using a visual thematic qualitative approach. This report is part of an independent analysis of the integrated care service evaluation that used the experience-based codesign model. Results The findings are presented in the respective contexts of people with complex conditions and their carers. The overwhelming feelings and emotions of both were loss of control and power throughout their emotional journey, with family carers adopting a protective attitude toward the patients. Their experience of powerlessness was variable throughout their emotional journey. They were affected more strongly when in need of extra help and support and while they were undergoing the process of receiving extra services. When they were receiving help and support outside and within hospitals, some participants were empowered, gaining skills and knowledge by being provided with the mechanisms to cope with their condition at present and in the future. Conclusion Feelings of powerlessness were very common among integrated care service users and their carers. Powerless/empowerment has been poorly investigated to date. Visual methods and collaborative visual analysis with service users have proved to be powerful methods too, but have been rarely reported. PMID:25848232

Large-scale flow experiments for managing river systems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Konrad, Christopher P.; Olden, Julian D.; Lytle, David A.; Melis, Theodore S.; Schmidt, John C.; Bray, Erin N.; Freeman, Mary C.; Gido, Keith B.; Hemphill, Nina P.; Kennard, Mark J.; McMullen, Laura E.; Mims, Meryl C.; Pyron, Mark; Robinson, Christopher T.; Williams, John G.

2011-01-01

Experimental manipulations of streamflow have been used globally in recent decades to mitigate the impacts of dam operations on river systems. Rivers are challenging subjects for experimentation, because they are open systems that cannot be isolated from their social context. We identify principles to address the challenges of conducting effective large-scale flow experiments. Flow experiments have both scientific and social value when they help to resolve specific questions about the ecological action of flow with a clear nexus to water policies and decisions. Water managers must integrate new information into operating policies for large-scale experiments to be effective. Modeling and monitoring can be integrated with experiments to analyze long-term ecological responses. Experimental design should include spatially extensive observations and well-defined, repeated treatments. Large-scale flow manipulations are only a part of dam operations that affect river systems. Scientists can ensure that experimental manipulations continue to be a valuable approach for the scientifically based management of river systems.

Client Retrospective Accounts of Corrective Experiences in Motivational Interviewing Integrated With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

PubMed

Macaulay, Christianne; Angus, Lynne; Khattra, Jasmine; Westra, Henny; Ip, Jennifer

2017-02-01

A corrective experience (CE) is one "in which a person comes to understand or experience affectively an event or relationship in a different and unexpected way" (Castonguay & Hill, 2012, p. 5). CEs disconfirm clients' expectations based on past problematic experiences, and can be emotional, relational, behavioral, and/or cognitive. This qualitative study explored corrective shifts among recovered participants (N = 8) who had received motivational interviewing (MI) integrated with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in a randomized controlled trial comparing CBT alone to MI-CBT for generalized anxiety disorder (Westra, Constantino, & Antony, 2016). We administered a posttherapy interview querying their experience of, and explanations for, any shifts in therapy. Grounded theory analysis yielded three core themes: in command of the worry train, experiencing myself in new ways in therapy, and oriented toward change. Findings are discussed in terms of MI theory, and clinical implications for therapists are provided. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cooperation, integration, and long-term commitment: what Solomon Islanders and development workers say about health sector aid.

PubMed

Martiniuk, Alexandra L C; Millar, Heather C; Malefoasi, George; Vergeer, Petra; Garland, Trevor; Knight, Simon

2008-01-01

The Solomon Islands is experiencing instability and insecurity and also a concomitant increase in aid. This article aims to address the need for theoretical coordination frameworks to be further informed by the actual experiences, requirements, and views of the recipients of aid. Qualitative research techniques were used to better understand governmental and nongovernmental leaders' views of health sector aid in the Solomon Islands. Data were collected using previously published literature, government and nongovernmental documents, and in-person interviews. Two key themes emerged from the interviews: the need for coordination and integration of aid and the need for this integration to occur over the long-term. These themes are presented using quotations from key informants. Themes and quotations arising from the analyses may assist in understanding theoretical frameworks for coordination, particularly in postconflict states. Future needs regarding mechanisms of collaboration in the Solomons are also discussed.

Naturalization fosters the long-term political integration of immigrants

PubMed Central

Hainmueller, Jens; Hangartner, Dominik; Pietrantuono, Giuseppe

2015-01-01

Does naturalization cause better political integration of immigrants into the host society? Despite heated debates about citizenship policy, there exists almost no evidence that isolates the independent effect of naturalization from the nonrandom selection into naturalization. We provide new evidence from a natural experiment in Switzerland, where some municipalities used referendums as the mechanism to decide naturalization requests. Balance checks suggest that for close naturalization referendums, which are decided by just a few votes, the naturalization decision is as good as random, so that narrowly rejected and narrowly approved immigrant applicants are similar on all confounding characteristics. This allows us to remove selection effects and obtain unbiased estimates of the long-term impacts of citizenship. Our study shows that for the immigrants who faced close referendums, naturalization considerably improved their political integration, including increases in formal political participation, political knowledge, and political efficacy. PMID:26417099

An accurate European option pricing model under Fractional Stable Process based on Feynman Path Integral

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Chao; Ma, Qinghua; Yao, Haixiang; Hou, Tiancheng

2018-03-01

In this paper, we propose to use the Fractional Stable Process (FSP) for option pricing. The FSP is one of the few candidates to directly model a number of desired empirical properties of asset price risk neutral dynamics. However, pricing the vanilla European option under FSP is difficult and problematic. In the paper, built upon the developed Feynman Path Integral inspired techniques, we present a novel computational model for option pricing, i.e. the Fractional Stable Process Path Integral (FSPPI) model under a general fractional stable distribution that tackles this problem. Numerical and empirical experiments show that the proposed pricing model provides a correction of the Black-Scholes pricing error - overpricing long term options, underpricing short term options; overpricing out-of-the-money options, underpricing in-the-money options without any additional structures such as stochastic volatility and a jump process.

Public health implications and risks for children and families resettled after exposure to armed conflict and displacement.

PubMed

Calam, Rachel

2017-05-01

Early adverse experiences can precede long-term negative effects on physical health. Children experiencing armed conflict, flight and displacement, and refugee life may be at enhanced risk. Recent psychobiological models integrating knowledge about perinatal and childhood stress with susceptibility to chronic illnesses in later life make clear the pressing need for protective provision for war-affected children, who experience multiple traumas and continuing stressors. There is increasing recognition of the mechanisms linking physical and mental health with adult diseases seen as developmental disorders with origins early in life. Biological embedding models propose links between early adversity and increased vulnerability to later disease and premature death. Threat is central for children and families whose lives are changed by war and displacement, and may activate biological and behavioural systems that could increase the risk of long-term ill-health. Applying these models to understanding the experiences of refugees and the translation of these into the care provided and ways of monitoring and protecting long-term population health could potentially promote interventions to reduce longer term and secondary harms.

Dilution jets in accelerated cross flows. Ph.D. Thesis Final Report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lipshitz, A.; Greber, I.

1984-01-01

Results of flow visualization experiments and measurements of the temperature field produced by a single jet and a row of dilution jets issued into a reverse flow combustor are presented. The flow in such combustors is typified by transverse and longitudinal acceleration during the passage through its bending section. The flow visualization experiments are designed to examine the separate effects of longitudinal and transverse acceleration on the jet trajectory and spreading rate. A model describing a dense single jet in a lighter accelerating cross flow is developed. The model is based on integral conservation equations, including the pressure terms appropriate to accelerating flows. It uses a modified entrainment correlation obtained from previous experiments of a jet in a cross stream. The flow visualization results are compared with the model calculations in terms of trajectories and spreading rates. Each experiment is typified by a set of three parameters: momentum ratio, density ratio and the densimetric Froude number.

Capability Description for NASA's F/A-18 TN 853 as a Testbed for the Integrated Resilient Aircraft Control Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hanson, Curt

2009-01-01

The NASA F/A-18 tail number (TN) 853 full-scale Integrated Resilient Aircraft Control (IRAC) testbed has been designed with a full array of capabilities in support of the Aviation Safety Program. Highlights of the system's capabilities include: 1) a quad-redundant research flight control system for safely interfacing controls experiments to the aircraft's control surfaces; 2) a dual-redundant airborne research test system for hosting multi-disciplinary state-of-the-art adaptive control experiments; 3) a robust reversionary configuration for recovery from unusual attitudes and configurations; 4) significant research instrumentation, particularly in the area of static loads; 5) extensive facilities for experiment simulation, data logging, real-time monitoring and post-flight analysis capabilities; and 6) significant growth capability in terms of interfaces and processing power.

Mobile glasses-free 3D using compact waveguide hologram

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pyun, K.; Choi, C.; Morozov, A.; Putilin, A.; Bovsunovskiy, I.; Kim, S.; Ahn, J.; Lee, H.-S.; Lee, S.

2013-02-01

The exploding mobile communication devices make 3D data available anywhere anytime. However, to record and reconstruct 3D, the huge number of optical components is often required, which makes overall device size bulky and image quality degraded due to the error-prone tuning. In addition, if additional glass is required, then user experience of 3D is exhausting and unpleasant. Holography is the ultimate 3D that users experience natural 3D in every direction. For mobile glasses-free 3D experience, it is critical to make holography device that can be as compact and integrated as possible. For reliable and economical mass production, integrated optics is needed as integrated circuits in semiconductor industry. Thus, we propose mobile glasses-free 3D using compact waveguide hologram in terms of overall device sizes, quantity of elements and combined functionality of each element. The main advantages of proposed solution are as follows: First, this solution utilizes various integral optical elements, where each of them is a united not adjustable optical element, replacing separate and adjustable optical elements with various forms and configurations. Second, geometrical form of integral elements provides small sizes of whole device. Third, geometrical form of integral elements allows creating flat device. And finally, absence of adjustable elements provide rigidly of whole device. The usage of integrated optical means based on waveguide holographic elements allows creating a new type of compact and high functional devices for mobile glasses-free 3D applications such as mobile medical 3D data visualization.

Learning community health nursing concepts from clinical experience.

PubMed

Lasater, Kathie; Luce, Linda; Volpin, Miriam; Terwilliger, Allison; Wild, Jackson

2007-01-01

Clinical faculty often struggle to design competency demonstrations that promote quality learning experiences. A nursing program in Oregon combined mental health and community health nursing practica and required well-planned, integrated competency demonstrations. This requirement became the impetus for students to promote the health of clients and learn clinical concepts that are difficult to experience in a typical term. Faculty coached students to make a significant contribution that would last beyond their clinical practica. A case study in competency demonstration design is described, and implications for curriculum development are presented.

Surface electrical properties experiment. Part 2: Theory of radio-frequency interferometry in geophysical subsurface probing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kong, J. A.; Tsang, L.

1974-01-01

The radiation fields due to a horizontal electric dipole laid on the surface of a stratified medium were calculated using a geometrical optics approximation, a modal approach, and direct numerical integration. The solutions were obtained from the reflection coefficient formulation and written in integral forms. The calculated interference patterns are compared in terms of the usefulness of the methods used to obtain them. Scattering effects are also discussed and all numerical results for anisotropic and isotropic cases are presented.

Thrills, chills, frissons, and skin orgasms: toward an integrative model of transcendent psychophysiological experiences in music

PubMed Central

Harrison, Luke; Loui, Psyche

2014-01-01

Music has a unique power to elicit moments of intense emotional and psychophysiological response. These moments – termed “chills,” “thrills”, “frissons,” etc. – are subjects of introspection and philosophical debate, as well as scientific study in music perception and cognition. The present article integrates the existing multidisciplinary literature in an attempt to define a comprehensive, testable, and ecologically valid model of transcendent psychophysiological moments in music. PMID:25101043

Dissipative transport in superlattices within the Wigner function formalism

DOE PAGES

Jonasson, O.; Knezevic, I.

2015-07-30

Here, we employ the Wigner function formalism to simulate partially coherent, dissipative electron transport in biased semiconductor superlattices. We introduce a model collision integral with terms that describe energy dissipation, momentum relaxation, and the decay of spatial coherences (localization). Based on a particle-based solution to the Wigner transport equation with the model collision integral, we simulate quantum electronic transport at 10 K in a GaAs/AlGaAs superlattice and accurately reproduce its current density vs field characteristics obtained in experiment.

Exploring the Development of College Students' Situational Interest in Learning Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lin, Huann-shyang; Hong, Zuway-R; Chen, Ya-Chun

2013-01-01

This quasi-experimental study explores how student cumulative situational interest, short-term preference generated by particular conditions such as novel experiences can be developed into better individual interest, an enduring predisposition to engage in certain activity such as chemistry lessons. A continuous intervention of integrating novelty…

Notes about COOL: Analysis and Highlights of Complex View in Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Oliveira, C. A.

2012-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present principles from the complex approach in education and describe some practical pedagogic experiences enhancing how "real world" perspectives have influenced and contributed to curriculum development. Design/methodology/approach: Necessity of integration in terms of knowledge modeling is an…

Steam generator tubes integrity: In-service-inspection

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

Comby, R.J.

1997-02-01

The author`s approach to tube integrity is in terms of looking for flaws in tubes. The basis for this approach is that no simple rules can be fixed to adopt a universal inspection methodology because of various concepts related to experience, leak acceptance, leak before break approach, etc. Flaw specific management is probably the most reliable approach as a compromise between safety, availability and economic issues. In that case, NDE capabilities have to be in accordance with information required by structural integrity demonstration. The author discusses the types of probes which can be used to search for flaws in additionmore » to the types of flaws which are being sought, with examples of specific analysis experiences. The author also discusses the issue of a reporting level as it relates to avoiding false calls, classifying faults, and allowing for automation in analysis.« less

Psychophysiology of dissociated consciousness.

PubMed

Bob, Petr

2014-01-01

Recent study of consciousness provides an evidence that there is a limit of consciousness, which presents a barrier between conscious and unconscious processes. This barrier likely is specifically manifested as a disturbance of neural mechanisms of consciousness that through distributed brain processing, attentional mechanisms and memory processes enable to constitute integrative conscious experience. According to recent findings a level of conscious integration may change during certain conditions related to experimental cognitive manipulations, hypnosis, or stressful experiences that can lead to dissociation of consciousness. In psychopathological research the term dissociation was proposed by Pierre Janet for explanation of processes related to splitting of consciousness due to traumatic events or during hypnosis. According to several recent findings dissociation of consciousness likely is related to deficits in global distribution of information and may lead to heightened levels of "neural complexity" that reflects brain integration or differentiation based on numbers of independent neural processes in the brain that may be specifically related to various mental disorders.

An integrated course in pain management and palliative care bridging the basic sciences and pharmacy practice.

PubMed

Kullgren, Justin; Radhakrishnan, Rajan; Unni, Elizabeth; Hanson, Eric

2013-08-12

To describe the development of an integrated pain and palliative care course and to investigate the long-term effectiveness of the course during doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students' advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) and in their practice after graduation. Roseman University College of Pharmacy faculty developed a 3-week elective course in pain and palliative care by integrating relevant clinical and pharmaceutical sciences. Instructional strategies included lectures, team and individual activities, case studies, and student presentations. Students who participated in the course in 2010 and 2011 were surveyed anonymously to gain their perception about the class as well as the utility of the course during their APPEs and in their everyday practice. Traditional and nontraditional assessment of students confirmed that the learning outcomes objectives were achieved. Students taking the integrated course on pain management and palliative care achieved mastery of the learning outcome objectives. Surveys of students and practicing pharmacists who completed the course showed that the learning experience as well as retention was improved with the integrated mode of teaching. Integrating basic and clinical sciences in therapeutic courses is an effective learning strategy.

An Integrated Course in Pain Management and Palliative Care Bridging the Basic Sciences and Pharmacy Practice

PubMed Central

Kullgren, Justin; Unni, Elizabeth; Hanson, Eric

2013-01-01

Objective. To describe the development of an integrated pain and palliative care course and to investigate the long-term effectiveness of the course during doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students’ advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) and in their practice after graduation. Design. Roseman University College of Pharmacy faculty developed a 3-week elective course in pain and palliative care by integrating relevant clinical and pharmaceutical sciences. Instructional strategies included lectures, team and individual activities, case studies, and student presentations. Assessment. Students who participated in the course in 2010 and 2011 were surveyed anonymously to gain their perception about the class as well as the utility of the course during their APPEs and in their everyday practice. Traditional and nontraditional assessment of students confirmed that the learning outcomes objectives were achieved. Conclusions. Students taking the integrated course on pain management and palliative care achieved mastery of the learning outcome objectives. Surveys of students and practicing pharmacists who completed the course showed that the learning experience as well as retention was improved with the integrated mode of teaching. Integrating basic and clinical sciences in therapeutic courses is an effective learning strategy. PMID:23966724

The global Filipino nurse: An integrative review of Filipino nurses' work experiences.

PubMed

Montayre, Jed; Montayre, Jasmine; Holroyd, Eleanor

2018-05-01

To understand the work-related experiences of Philippine-trained nurses working globally. The Philippines is a major source country of foreign-trained nurses located globally. However, there is paucity of research on professional factors and career related issues affecting foreign-trained nurses' work experiences. An integrative review through a comprehensive search of literature was undertaken from November 2015 and was repeated in August 2016. Seven articles satisfied the selection criteria. Filipino nurses experienced differences in the practice of nursing in terms of work process, roles and autonomy. Moreover, they encountered challenges such as work-related discrimination and technical difficulties within the organisation. A clear understanding of Filipino nurses' work experiences and the challenges they have encountered suggests identification of important constructs influencing effective translation of nursing practice across cultures and health systems, which then form the basis for support strategies. It is critical to recognize foreign-trained nurses' experience of work-related differences and challenges as these foster favorable conditions for the management team to plan and continually evaluate policies around recruitment, retention and support offered to these nurses. Furthermore, findings suggest internationalization of nursing framework and standards integrating a transcultural paradigm among staff members within a work organisation. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Experimental investigation on AC unit integrated with sensible heat storage (SHS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aziz, N. A.; Amin, N. A. M.; Majid, M. S. A.; Hussin, A.; Zhubir, S.

2017-10-01

The growth in population and economy has increases the energy demand and raises the concerns over the sustainable energy source. Towards the sustainable development, energy efficiency in buildings has become a prime objective. In this paper, the integration of thermal energy storage was studied. This paper presents an experimental investigation on the performance of an air conditioning unit integrated with sensible heat storage (SHS) system. The results were compared to the conventional AC systems in the terms of average electricity usage, indoor temperature and the relative humidity inside the experimented room (cabin container). Results show that the integration of water tank as an SHS reduces the electricity usage by 5%, while the integration of well-insulated water tank saves up to 8% of the electricity consumption.

Accuracy Enhancement of Inertial Sensors Utilizing High Resolution Spectral Analysis

PubMed Central

Noureldin, Aboelmagd; Armstrong, Justin; El-Shafie, Ahmed; Karamat, Tashfeen; McGaughey, Don; Korenberg, Michael; Hussain, Aini

2012-01-01

In both military and civilian applications, the inertial navigation system (INS) and the global positioning system (GPS) are two complementary technologies that can be integrated to provide reliable positioning and navigation information for land vehicles. The accuracy enhancement of INS sensors and the integration of INS with GPS are the subjects of widespread research. Wavelet de-noising of INS sensors has had limited success in removing the long-term (low-frequency) inertial sensor errors. The primary objective of this research is to develop a novel inertial sensor accuracy enhancement technique that can remove both short-term and long-term error components from inertial sensor measurements prior to INS mechanization and INS/GPS integration. A high resolution spectral analysis technique called the fast orthogonal search (FOS) algorithm is used to accurately model the low frequency range of the spectrum, which includes the vehicle motion dynamics and inertial sensor errors. FOS models the spectral components with the most energy first and uses an adaptive threshold to stop adding frequency terms when fitting a term does not reduce the mean squared error more than fitting white noise. The proposed method was developed, tested and validated through road test experiments involving both low-end tactical grade and low cost MEMS-based inertial systems. The results demonstrate that in most cases the position accuracy during GPS outages using FOS de-noised data is superior to the position accuracy using wavelet de-noising.

The Limited Role of Number of Nested Syntactic Dependencies in Accounting for Processing Cost: Evidence from German Simplex and Complex Verbal Clusters

PubMed Central

Bader, Markus

2018-01-01

This paper presents three acceptability experiments investigating German verb-final clauses in order to explore possible sources of sentence complexity during human parsing. The point of departure was De Vries et al.'s (2011) generalization that sentences with three or more crossed or nested dependencies are too complex for being processed by the human parsing mechanism without difficulties. This generalization is partially based on findings from Bach et al. (1986) concerning the acceptability of complex verb clusters in German and Dutch. The first experiment tests this generalization by comparing two sentence types: (i) sentences with three nested dependencies within a single clause that contains three verbs in a complex verb cluster; (ii) sentences with four nested dependencies distributed across two embedded clauses, one center-embedded within the other, each containing a two-verb cluster. The results show that sentences with four nested dependencies are judged as acceptable as control sentences with only two nested dependencies, whereas sentences with three nested dependencies are judged as only marginally acceptable. This argues against De Vries et al.'s (2011) claim that the human parser can process no more than two nested dependencies. The results are used to refine the Verb-Cluster Complexity Hypothesis of Bader and Schmid (2009a). The second and the third experiment investigate sentences with four nested dependencies in more detail in order to explore alternative sources of sentence complexity: the number of predicted heads to be held in working memory (storage cost in terms of the Dependency Locality Theory [DLT], Gibson, 2000) and the length of the involved dependencies (integration cost in terms of the DLT). Experiment 2 investigates sentences for which storage cost and integration cost make conflicting predictions. The results show that storage cost outweighs integration cost. Experiment 3 shows that increasing integration cost in sentences with two degrees of center embedding leads to decreased acceptability. Taken together, the results argue in favor of a multifactorial account of the limitations on center embedding in natural languages. PMID:29410633

The Limited Role of Number of Nested Syntactic Dependencies in Accounting for Processing Cost: Evidence from German Simplex and Complex Verbal Clusters.

PubMed

Bader, Markus

2017-01-01

This paper presents three acceptability experiments investigating German verb-final clauses in order to explore possible sources of sentence complexity during human parsing. The point of departure was De Vries et al.'s (2011) generalization that sentences with three or more crossed or nested dependencies are too complex for being processed by the human parsing mechanism without difficulties. This generalization is partially based on findings from Bach et al. (1986) concerning the acceptability of complex verb clusters in German and Dutch. The first experiment tests this generalization by comparing two sentence types: (i) sentences with three nested dependencies within a single clause that contains three verbs in a complex verb cluster; (ii) sentences with four nested dependencies distributed across two embedded clauses, one center-embedded within the other, each containing a two-verb cluster. The results show that sentences with four nested dependencies are judged as acceptable as control sentences with only two nested dependencies, whereas sentences with three nested dependencies are judged as only marginally acceptable. This argues against De Vries et al.'s (2011) claim that the human parser can process no more than two nested dependencies. The results are used to refine the Verb-Cluster Complexity Hypothesis of Bader and Schmid (2009a). The second and the third experiment investigate sentences with four nested dependencies in more detail in order to explore alternative sources of sentence complexity: the number of predicted heads to be held in working memory (storage cost in terms of the Dependency Locality Theory [DLT], Gibson, 2000) and the length of the involved dependencies (integration cost in terms of the DLT). Experiment 2 investigates sentences for which storage cost and integration cost make conflicting predictions. The results show that storage cost outweighs integration cost. Experiment 3 shows that increasing integration cost in sentences with two degrees of center embedding leads to decreased acceptability. Taken together, the results argue in favor of a multifactorial account of the limitations on center embedding in natural languages.

Integrated information theory of consciousness: an updated account.

PubMed

Tononi, G

2012-12-01

This article presents an updated account of integrated information theory of consciousness (liT) and some of its implications. /IT stems from thought experiments that lead to phenomenological axioms (existence, compositionality, information, integration, exclusion) and corresponding ontological postulates. The information axiom asserts that every experience is spec~fic - it is what it is by differing in its particular way from a large repertoire of alternatives. The integration axiom asserts that each experience is unified- it cannot be reduced to independent components. The exclusion axiom asserts that every experience is definite - it is limited to particular things and not others and flows at a particular speed and resolution. /IT formalizes these intuitions with postulates. The information postulate states that only "differences that make a difference" from the intrinsic perpective of a system matter: a mechanism generates cause-effect information if its present state has selective past causes and selective future effects within a system. The integration postulate states that only information that is irreducible matters: mechanisms generate integrated information only to the extent that the information they generate cannot be partitioned into that generated within independent components. The exclusion postulate states that only maxima of integrated information matter: a mechanism specifies only one maximally irreducible set of past causes and future effects - a concept. A complex is a set of elements specifying a maximally irreducible constellation of concepts, where the maximum is evaluated over elements and at the optimal spatiatemporal scale. Its concepts specify a maximally integrated conceptual information structure or quale, which is identical with an experience. Finally, changes in information integration upon exposure to the environment reflect a system's ability to match the causal structure of the world. After introducing an updated definition of information integration and related quantities, the article presents some theoretical considerations about the relationship between information and causation and about the relational structure of concepts within a qua/e. It also explores the relationship between the temporal grain size of information integration and the dynamic of metastable states in the corticothalamic complex. Finally, it summarizes how liT accounts for empirical findings about the neural substrate of consciousness, and how various aspects of phenomenology may in principle be addressed in terms of the geometry of information integration.

The Role of Identity Integration in Hedonic Adaptation to a Beneficial Life Change: The Example of "Coming Out" for Lesbians and Gay Men.

PubMed

Coulombe, Simon; de la Sablonnière, Roxane

2015-01-01

After apparently beneficial life changes, people are expected to experience elevated well-being. However, research suggests that some individuals adapt quickly to change, so their well-being increases little in the long-term. We propose this phenomenon is explained by the integration of the changes into identity, in interaction with perceived valence of the changes. We hypothesized that higher integration would be associated with smaller increases in well-being for changes perceived as positive. For changes perceived as negative, higher integration would be associated with larger increases in well-being. Lesbians and gay men (N = 80) completed a questionnaire on well-being, perceived valence of coming out and its integration into identity. Moderated regressions supported the hypotheses, revealing the importance of considering identity integration and perceived valence in research on adaptation to changes. The results question the merits of interventions promoting identity integration.

Knowledge exchange and integrated services: experiences from an integrated community intellectual (learning) disability service for adults.

PubMed

Farrington, C; Clare, I C H; Holland, A J; Barrett, M; Oborn, E

2015-03-01

This paper examines knowledge exchange dynamics in a specialist integrated intellectual (learning) disability service, comprising specialist healthcare provision with social care commissioning and management, and considers their significance in terms of integrated service delivery. A qualitative study focusing on knowledge exchange and integrated services. Semi-structured interviews (n = 25) were conducted with members of an integrated intellectual disability service in England regarding their perceptions of knowledge exchange within the service and the way in which knowledge exchange impinges on the operation of the integrated service. Exchange of 'explicit' (codifiable) knowledge between health and care management components of the service is problematic because of a lack of integrated clinical governance and related factors such as IT and care record systems and office arrangements. Team meetings and workplace interactions allowed for informal exchange of explicit and 'tacit' (non-codifiable) knowledge, but presented challenges in terms of knowledge exchange completeness and sustainability. Knowledge exchange processes play an important role in the functioning of integrated services incorporating health and care management components. Managers need to ensure that knowledge exchange processes facilitate both explicit and tacit knowledge exchange and do not rely excessively on informal, 'ad hoc' interactions. Research on integrated services should take account of micro-scale knowledge exchange dynamics and relationships between social dynamics and physical factors. © 2014 MENCAP and International Association of the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Long-Term Network Experiments and Interdisciplinary Campaigns Conducted by the USDA-Agricultural Research Service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodrich, D. C.; Kustas, W. P.; Cosh, M. H.; Moran, S. M.; Marks, D. G.; Jackson, T. J.; Bosch, D. D.; Rango, A.; Seyfried, M. S.; Scott, R. L.; Prueger, J. H.; Starks, P. J.; Walbridge, M. R.

2014-12-01

The USDA-Agricultural Research Service has led, or been integrally involved in, a myriad of interdisciplinary field campaigns in a wide range of locations both nationally and internationally. Many of the shorter campaigns were anchored over the existing national network of ARS Experimental Watersheds and Rangelands. These long-term outdoor laboratories provided a critical knowledge base for designing the campaigns as well as historical data, hydrologic and meteorological infrastructure coupled with shop, laboratory, and visiting scientist facilities. This strong outdoor laboratory base enabled cost-efficient campaigns informed by historical context, local knowledge, and detailed existing watershed characterization. These long-term experimental facilities have also enabled much longer term lower intensity experiments, observing and building an understanding of both seasonal and inter-annual biosphere-hydrosphere-atmosphere interactions across a wide range of conditions. A sampling of these experiments include MONSOON'90, SGP97, SGP99, Washita'92, Washita'94, SMEX02-05 and JORNEX series of experiments, SALSA, CLASIC and longer-term efforts over the ARS Little Washita, Walnut Gulch, Little River, Reynolds Creek, and OPE3 Experimental Watersheds. This presentation will review some of the highlights and key findings of these campaigns and long-term efforts including the inclusion of many of the experimental watersheds and ranges in the Long-Term Agro-ecosystems Research (LTAR) network. The LTAR network also contains several locations that are also part of other observational networks including the CZO, LTER, and NEON networks. Lessons learned will also be provided for scientists initiating their participation in large-scale, multi-site interdisciplinary science.

Proof of concept demonstration of novel technologies for lunar spacesuit dust mitigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manyapu, Kavya K.; De Leon, Pablo; Peltz, Leora; Gaier, James R.; Waters, Deborah

2017-08-01

A recent report by NASA identified dust/particulate mitigation techniques as a highly relevant study for future long-term planetary exploration missions (NASA, 2015). The deleterious effects of lunar dust on spacesuits discovered during the Apollo missions has compelled NASA to identify dust mitigation as a critical path for potential future lunar, asteroid and Mars missions. The complexity of spacesuit design has however constrained integrating existing dust cleaning technologies, formerly demonstrated on rigid surfaces, into the spacesuit system. Accordingly, this research is investigating novel methods to integrate dust mitigation technologies for use on spacesuits. We examine utilizing a novel combination of active and passive technologies integrated into the spacesuit outerlayer to alleviate dust contamination. Leveraging two specific technologies, the Electrodynamics Dust Shield (EDS) active technology and Work Function Matching Coating (WFM) passive technology, developed by NASA for rigid surfaces, we apply new high performance materials such as the Carbon Nanotube (CNT) flexible fibers to develop a spacesuit-integrated dust cleaning system. Through experiments conducted using JSC-1A lunar dust simulant on coupons made of spacesuit outerlayer material, feasibility of integrating the proposed dust cleaning system and its performance were assessed. Results from these preliminary experiments show that the integrated dust cleaning system is capable of removing 80-95% of dust from the spacesuit material demonstrating proof of concept. This paper describes the techniques and results from the experiments. Future challenges of implementing the proposed approach into fight suits are identified.

Integrating primary care into community behavioral health settings: programs and early implementation experiences.

PubMed

Scharf, Deborah M; Eberhart, Nicole K; Schmidt, Nicole; Vaughan, Christine A; Dutta, Trina; Pincus, Harold Alan; Burnam, M Audrey

2013-07-01

This article describes the characteristics and early implementation experiences of community behavioral health agencies that received Primary and Behavioral Health Care Integration (PBHCI) grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to integrate primary care into programs for adults with serious mental illness. Data were collected from 56 programs, across 26 states, that received PBHCI grants in 2009 (N=13) or 2010 (N=43). The authors systematically extracted quantitative and qualitative information about program characteristics from grantee proposals and semistructured telephone interviews with core program staff. Quarterly reports submitted by grantees were coded to identify barriers to implementing integrated care. Grantees shared core features required by the grant but varied widely in terms of characteristics of the organization, such as size and location, and in the way services were integrated, such as through partnerships with a primary care agency. Barriers to program implementation at start-up included difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified staff and issues related to data collection and use of electronic health records, licensing and approvals, and physical space. By the end of the first year, some problems, such as space issues, were largely resolved, but other issues, including problems with staffing and data collection, remained. New challenges, such as patient recruitment, had emerged. Early implementation experiences of PBHCI grantees may inform other programs that seek to integrate primary care into behavioral health settings as part of new, large-scale government initiatives, such as specialty mental health homes.

Exploring the Use of a Social Network to Facilitate and Integrate Long-Term Interprofessional Educational Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pittenger, Amy L.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing interprofessional education to students from six health professional programs through use of an online social networking platform. Specifically, three pedagogical models (Minimally Structured, Facilitated, Highly Structured) were evaluated for impact on…

RZWQM2 Simulations of Alternative Cropping Systems With and Without Summer Crops in the Central Great Plains

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Integration and synthesis of data accruing from complex alternative crop rotation experiments across locations and climates is a challenge to agriculturists. System simulation models are potential tools to address this challenge. In this study, we simulated three long-term (1991 to 2008) dryland c...

Integrating Attachment Theory to Support a Client Coming to Terms with Infidelity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Claire, Carolyn A.

2010-01-01

Finding it difficult to overcome the emotional distress experienced when considering her husband's infidelity, a client seeks counselling support. The client's goal was to learn about herself and to use the experience as an opportunity for self transformation. The case study utilizes Attachment Theory and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help the…

Biases of Communication Systems: An Exploratory Approach to Studying New Communication Technologies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krendl, Kathy A.; Fredin, Eric S.

This field experiment begins to build a theoretical framework for exploring the effects of media characteristics on subjects' understanding and integration of information. Students in two eighth-grade science classes wrote term papers with one class using a print encyclopedia and the other an electronic encyclopedia to conduct their research. A…

Analyzing Student and Employer Satisfaction with Cooperative Education through Multiple Data Sources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jiang, Yuheng Helen; Lee, Sally Wai Yin; Golab, Lukasz

2015-01-01

This paper reports on the analysis of three years research of undergraduate cooperative work term postings and employer and employee evaluations. The objective of the analysis was to determine the factors affecting student and employer success and satisfaction with the work-integrated learning experience. It was found that students performed…

Developing Short-Term Study Abroad Programs: Achieving Successful International Student Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eckert, James; Luqmani, Mushtaq; Newell, Stephen; Quraeshi, Zahir; Wagner, Bret

2013-01-01

Most business schools in the U.S. are employing various initiatives to "internationalize" their curriculum in order to prepare students to participate more effectively in a globally interconnected business world. An integral part of these initiatives is to encourage more students to participate in study abroad programs. Though it maybe…

Promoting Creativity in the Kitchen: Digital Lessons from the Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Surgenor, Dawn; McMahon-Beattie, Una S. M.; Burns, Amy; Hollywood, Lynsey E.

2016-01-01

Creativity and learning are heightened when individuals are exposed to problem-solving activity (Y. Cho, Chung, Choi, Sea, & Baek, 2013); however, while creativity has historically been promoted in schools, educationalists experience difficulty in integrating it meaningfully to the curriculum (Y. Cho et al., 2013). This is relevant in terms of…

A 12-year (1987-1998) Ensemble Simulation of the US Climate with a Variable Resolution Stretched Grid GCM

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fox-Rabinovitz, Michael S.; Takacs, Lawrence L.; Govindaraju, Ravi C.

2002-01-01

The variable-resolution stretched-grid (SG) GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) GCM has been used for limited ensemble integrations with a relatively coarse, 60 to 100 km, regional resolution over the U.S. The experiments have been run for the 12-year period, 1987-1998, that includes the recent ENSO cycles. Initial conditions 1-2 days apart are used for ensemble members. The goal of the experiments is analyzing the long-term SG-GCM ensemble integrations in terms of their potential in reducing the uncertainties of regional climate simulation while producing realistic mesoscales. The ensemble integration results are analyzed for both prognostic and diagnostic fields. A special attention is devoted to analyzing the variability of precipitation over the U.S. The internal variability of the SG-GCM has been assessed. The ensemble means appear to be closer to the verifying analyses than the individual ensemble members. The ensemble means capture realistic mesoscale patterns, especially those of induced by orography. Two ENSO cycles have been analyzed in terms their impact on the U.S. climate, especially on precipitation. The ability of the SG-GCM simulations to produce regional climate anomalies has been confirmed. However, the optimal size of the ensembles depending on fine regional resolution used, is still to be determined. The SG-GCM ensemble simulations are performed as a preparation or a preliminary stage for the international SGMIP (Stretched-Grid Model Intercomparison Project) that is under way with participation of the major centers and groups employing the SG-approach for regional climate modeling.

A Well-Balanced Path-Integral f-Wave Method for Hyperbolic Problems with Source Terms

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Systems of hyperbolic partial differential equations with source terms (balance laws) arise in many applications where it is important to compute accurate time-dependent solutions modeling small perturbations of equilibrium solutions in which the source terms balance the hyperbolic part. The f-wave version of the wave-propagation algorithm is one approach, but requires the use of a particular averaged value of the source terms at each cell interface in order to be “well balanced” and exactly maintain steady states. A general approach to choosing this average is developed using the theory of path conservative methods. A scalar advection equation with a decay or growth term is introduced as a model problem for numerical experiments. PMID:24563581

When unconscious rewards boost cognitive task performance inefficiently: the role of consciousness in integrating value and attainability information

PubMed Central

Zedelius, Claire M.; Veling, Harm; Aarts, Henk

2012-01-01

Research has shown that high vs. low value rewards improve cognitive task performance independent of whether they are perceived consciously or unconsciously. However, efficient performance in response to high value rewards also depends on whether or not rewards are attainable. This raises the question of whether unconscious reward processing enables people to take into account such attainability information. Building on a theoretical framework according to which conscious reward processing is required to enable higher level cognitive processing, the present research tested the hypothesis that conscious but not unconscious reward processing enables integration of reward value with attainability information. In two behavioral experiments, participants were exposed to mask high and low value coins serving as rewards on a working memory (WM) task. The likelihood for conscious processing was manipulated by presenting the coins relatively briefly (17 ms) or long and clearly visible (300 ms). Crucially, rewards were expected to be attainable or unattainable. Requirements to integrate reward value with attainability information varied across experiments. Results showed that when integration of value and attainability was required (Experiment 1), long reward presentation led to efficient performance, i.e., selectively improved performance for high value attainable rewards. In contrast, in the short presentation condition, performance was increased for high value rewards even when these were unattainable. This difference between the effects of long and short presentation time disappeared when integration of value and attainability information was not required (Experiment 2). Together these findings suggest that unconsciously processed reward information is not integrated with attainability expectancies, causing inefficient effort investment. These findings are discussed in terms of a unique role of consciousness in efficient allocation of effort to cognitive control processes. PMID:22848198

Integrated information theory of consciousness: an updated account.

PubMed

Tononi, G

2012-01-01

This article presents an updated account of integrated information theory of consciousness (IIT) and some of its implications. IIT stems from thought experiments that lead to phenomenological axioms and ontological postulates. The information axiom asserts that every experience is one out of many, i.e. specific - it is what it is by differing in its particular way from a large repertoire of alternatives. The integration axiom asserts that each experience is one, i.e. unified - it cannot be reduced to independent components. The exclusion axiom asserts that every experience is definite - it is limited to particular things and not others and flows at a particular speed and resolution. IIT formalizes these intuitions with three postulates. The information postulate states that only "differences that make a difference" from the intrinsic perspective of a system matter: a mechanism generates cause-effect information if its present state has specific past causes and specific future effects within a system. The integration postulate states that only information that is irreducible matters: mechanisms generate integrated information only to the extent that the information they generate cannot be partitioned into that generated within independent components. The exclusion postulate states that only maxima of integrated information matter: a mechanism specifies only one maximally irreducible set of past causes and future effects - a concept. A complex is a set of elements specifying a maximally irreducible constellation of concepts, where the maximum is evaluated at the optimal spatio-temporal scale. Its concepts specify a maximally integrated conceptual information structure or quale, which is identical with an experience. Finally, changes in information integration upon exposure to the environment reflect a system's ability to match the causal structure of the world. After introducing an updated definition of information integration and related quantities, the article presents some theoretical considerations about the relationship between information and causation and about the relational structure of concepts within a quale. It also explores the relationship between the temporal grain size of information integration and the dynamic of metastable states in the corticothalamic complex. Finally, it summarizes how IIT accounts for empirical findings about the neural substrate of consciousness, and how various aspects of phenomenology may in principle be addressed in terms of the geometry of information integration.

Relational integrativity of prime-target pairs moderates congruity effects in evaluative priming.

PubMed

Ihmels, Max; Freytag, Peter; Fiedler, Klaus; Alexopoulos, Theodore

2016-05-01

In evaluative priming, positive or negative primes facilitate reactions to targets that share the same valence. While this effect is commonly explained as reflecting invariant structures in semantic long-term memory or in the sensorimotor system, the present research highlights the role of integrativity in evaluative priming. Integrativity refers to the ease of integrating two concepts into a new meaningful compound representation. In extended material tests using paired comparisons from two pools of positive and negative words, we show that evaluative congruity is highly correlated with integrativity. Therefore, in most priming studies, congruity and integrativity are strongly confounded. When both aspects are disentangled by manipulating congruity and integrativity orthogonally, three priming experiments show that evaluative-priming effects were confined to integrative prime-target pairs. No facilitation of prime-congruent targets was obtained for non-integrative stimuli. These findings are discussed from a broader perspective on priming conceived as flexible, context-dependent, and serving a generative adaptation function.

Adolescent postabortion groups: risk reduction in a school-based health clinic.

PubMed

Daly, Joan Ziegler; Ziegler, Robert; Goldstein, Donna J

2004-10-01

A short-term postabortion group for adolescents was developed. Three groups were conducted in an adolescent mental health clinic within an urban high school-based health clinic. The clinical group experiences offered the adolescents an opportunity to integrate the experience of pregnancy and the abortion decision into their lives. At follow up, adolescents who participated in th postabortion counseling group indicated that they chose and used a method of birth control, did not repeat an unplanned pregnancy, and remained in high school.

Integrative Review: Delivery of Healthcare Services to Adolescents and Young Adults During and After Foster Care.

PubMed

Collins, Jennifer L

The purpose of this integrative review is to summarize evidence describing delivery of healthcare services to adolescents while in foster care and to young adults after they exit foster care. The long-term, deleterious effect of abuse and/or neglect by caregivers among youth who have been placed in foster care is grounded in empirical evidence demonstrating the relationship between long-term health needs and exposure to trauma in childhood. Evidence is needed to provide culturally-specific care and also to identify knowledge gaps in the care of adolescents and young adults who have been in the foster care system. Peer-reviewed research studies published between 2004 and 2014 that include samples of youth 12 to 30 years of age are included in the review. Eighteen studies met inclusion criteria for the review. Physical and behavioral healthcare needs among youth with foster care experience are significant. The ability to adequately meet health needs are inextricable from the ability to negotiate resources and to successfully interact with adults. Challenges that youth with foster care histories experience when transitioning into young adulthood are comparable to other populations of vulnerable youth not in foster care. Nurses must use each healthcare encounter to assess how the social determinants of health facilitate or impede optimal health among youth with foster care experience. The development of integrated intervention strategies to inform best practice models is a priority for current and former foster care youth as they transition into young adulthood. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Learning STEM Through Integrative Visual Representations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Virk, Satyugjit Singh

Previous cognitive models of memory have not comprehensively taken into account the internal cognitive load of chunking isolated information and have emphasized the external cognitive load of visual presentation only. Under the Virk Long Term Working Memory Multimedia Model of cognitive load, drawing from the Cowan model, students presented with integrated animations of the key neural signal transmission subcomponents where the interrelationships between subcomponents are visually and verbally explicit, were hypothesized to perform significantly better on free response and diagram labeling questions, than students presented with isolated animations of these subcomponents. This is because the internal attentional cognitive load of chunking these concepts is greatly reduced and hence the overall cognitive load is less for the integrated visuals group than the isolated group, despite the higher external load for the integrated group of having the interrelationships between subcomponents presented explicitly. Experiment 1 demonstrated that integrating the subcomponents of the neuron significantly enhanced comprehension of the interconnections between cellular subcomponents and approached significance for enhancing comprehension of the layered molecular correlates of the cellular structures and their interconnections. Experiment 2 corrected time on task confounds from Experiment 1 and focused on the cellular subcomponents of the neuron only. Results from the free response essay subcomponent subscores did demonstrate significant differences in favor of the integrated group as well as some evidence from the diagram labeling section. Results from free response, short answer and What-If (problem solving), and diagram labeling detailed interrelationship subscores demonstrated the integrated group did indeed learn the extra material they were presented with. This data demonstrating the integrated group learned the extra material they were presented with provides some initial support for the assertion that chunking mediated the greater gains in learning for the neural subcomponent concepts over the control.

Cost-effective monolithic and hybrid integration for metro and long-haul applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clayton, Rick; Carter, Andy; Betty, Ian; Simmons, Timothy

2003-12-01

Today's telecommunication market is characterized by conservative business practices: tight management of costs, low risk investing and incremental upgrades, rather than the more freewheeling approach taken a few years ago. Optimizing optical components for the current and near term market involves substantial integration, but within particular bounds. The emphasis on evolution, in particular, has led to increased standardization of functions and so created extensive opportunities for integrated product offerings. The same standardization that enables commercially successful integrated functions also changes the competitive environment, and changes the emphasis for component development; shifting the innovation priority from raw performance to delivering the most effective integrated products. This paper will discuss, with specific examples from our transmitter, receiver and passives product families, our understanding of the issues based on extensive experience in delivering high end integrated products to the market, and the direction it drives optical components.

An integrative and functional framework for the study of animal emotion and mood

PubMed Central

Mendl, Michael; Burman, Oliver H. P.; Paul, Elizabeth S.

2010-01-01

A better understanding of animal emotion is an important goal in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to animal welfare science. The conscious experience of emotion cannot be assessed directly, but neural, behavioural and physiological indicators of emotion can be measured. Researchers have used these measures to characterize how animals respond to situations assumed to induce discrete emotional states (e.g. fear). While advancing our understanding of specific emotions, this discrete emotion approach lacks an overarching framework that can incorporate and integrate the wide range of possible emotional states. Dimensional approaches that conceptualize emotions in terms of universal core affective characteristics (e.g. valence (positivity versus negativity) and arousal) can provide such a framework. Here, we bring together discrete and dimensional approaches to: (i) offer a structure for integrating different discrete emotions that provides a functional perspective on the adaptive value of emotional states, (ii) suggest how long-term mood states arise from short-term discrete emotions, how they also influence these discrete emotions through a bi-directional relationship and how they may function to guide decision-making, and (iii) generate novel hypothesis-driven measures of animal emotion and mood. PMID:20685706

An integrative and functional framework for the study of animal emotion and mood.

PubMed

Mendl, Michael; Burman, Oliver H P; Paul, Elizabeth S

2010-10-07

A better understanding of animal emotion is an important goal in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to animal welfare science. The conscious experience of emotion cannot be assessed directly, but neural, behavioural and physiological indicators of emotion can be measured. Researchers have used these measures to characterize how animals respond to situations assumed to induce discrete emotional states (e.g. fear). While advancing our understanding of specific emotions, this discrete emotion approach lacks an overarching framework that can incorporate and integrate the wide range of possible emotional states. Dimensional approaches that conceptualize emotions in terms of universal core affective characteristics (e.g. valence (positivity versus negativity) and arousal) can provide such a framework. Here, we bring together discrete and dimensional approaches to: (i) offer a structure for integrating different discrete emotions that provides a functional perspective on the adaptive value of emotional states, (ii) suggest how long-term mood states arise from short-term discrete emotions, how they also influence these discrete emotions through a bi-directional relationship and how they may function to guide decision-making, and (iii) generate novel hypothesis-driven measures of animal emotion and mood.

Generation and the subjective feeling of "aha!" are independently related to learning from insight.

PubMed

Kizilirmak, Jasmin M; Galvao Gomes da Silva, Joana; Imamoglu, Fatma; Richardson-Klavehn, Alan

2016-11-01

It has been proposed that sudden insight into the solutions of problems can enhance long-term memory for those solutions. However, the nature of insight has been operationalized differently across studies. Here, we examined two main aspects of insight problem-solving-the generation of a solution and the subjective "aha!" experience-and experimentally evaluated their respective relationships to long-term memory formation (encoding). Our results suggest that generation (generated solution vs. presented solution) and the "aha!" experience ("aha!" vs. no "aha!") are independently related to learning from insight, as well as to the emotional response towards understanding the solution during encoding. Moreover, we analyzed the relationship between generation and the "aha!" experience and two different kinds of later memory tests, direct (intentional) and indirect (incidental). Here, we found that the generation effect was larger for indirect testing, reflecting more automatic retrieval processes, while the relationship with the occurrence of an "aha!" experience was somewhat larger for direct testing. Our results suggest that both the generation of a solution and the subjective experience of "aha!" indicate processes that benefit long-term memory formation, though differently. This beneficial effect is possibly due to the intrinsic reward associated with sudden comprehension and the detection of schema-consistency, i.e., that novel information can be easily integrated into existing knowledge.

The Effect of Dining Room Physical Environmental Renovations on Person-Centered Care Practice and Residents' Dining Experiences in Long-Term Care Facilities.

PubMed

Hung, Lillian; Chaudhury, Habib; Rust, Tiana

2016-12-01

This qualitative study evaluated the effect of dining room physical environmental changes on staff practices and residents' mealtime experiences in two units of a long-term care facility in Edmonton, Canada. Focus groups with staff (n = 12) and individual interviews with unit managers (n = 2) were conducted. We also developed and used the Dining Environment Assessment Protocol (DEAP) to conduct a systematic physical environmental evaluation of the dining rooms. Four themes emerged on the key influences of the renovations: (a) supporting independence and autonomy, (b) creating familiarity and enjoyment, (c) providing a place for social experience, and (d) challenges in supporting change. Feedback from the staff and managers provided evidence on the importance of physical environmental features, as well as the integral nature of the role of the physical environment and organizational support to provide person-centered care for residents. © The Author(s) 2015.

The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change.

PubMed

Rogers, Carl R

2007-09-01

This reprinted article originally appeared in Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1957(Apr), Vol 21(2), 95-103. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1959-00842-001.) "For constructive personality change to occur, it is necessary that these conditions exist and continue over a period of time: (1) Two persons are in psychological contact. (2) The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious. (3) The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship. (4) The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client. (5) The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience to the client. (6) The communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Backward masking, the suffix effect, and preperceptual storage.

PubMed

Kallman, H J; Massaro, D W

1983-04-01

This article considers the use of auditory backward recognition masking (ABRM) and stimulus suffix experiments as indexes of preperceptual auditory storage. In the first part of the article, two ABRM experiments that failed to demonstrate a mask disinhibition effect found previously in stimulus suffix experiments are reported. The failure to demonstrate mask disinhibition is inconsistent with an explanation of ABRM in terms of lateral inhibition. In the second part of the article, evidence is presented to support the conclusion that the suffix effect involves the contributions of later processing stages and does not provide an uncontaminated index of preperceptual storage. In contrast, it is claimed that ABRM experiments provide the most direct index of the temporal course of perceptual recognition. Partial-report tasks and other paradigms are also evaluated in terms of their contributions to an understanding of preperceptual auditory storage. Differences between interruption and integration masking are discussed along with the role of preperceptual auditory storage in speech perception.

Biological intrusion of low-level-waste trench covers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hakonson, T. E.; Gladney, E. S.

The long-term integrity of low-level waste shallow land burialsites is dependent on the interaction of physical, chemical, and biological factors that modify the waste containment system. The need to consider biological processes as being potentially important in reducing the integrity of waste burial site cover treatment is demonstrated. One approach to limiting biological intrusion through the waste cover is to apply a barrier within the profile to limit root and animal penetration with depth. Experiments in the Los Alamos Experimental Engineered Test Facility were initiated to develop and evaluate biological barriers that are effective in minimizing intrusion into waste trenches. The experiments that are described employ four different candidate barrier materials of geologic origin. Experimental variables that will be evaluated, in addition to barrier type, are barrier depth and sil overburden depth.

Integrating Fundamental Concepts of Obesity and Eating Disorders: Implications for the Obesity Epidemic

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Physiological mechanisms promote weight gain after famine. Because eating disorders, obesity, and dieting limit food intake, they are famine-like experiences. The development of the concept of meeting an ideal weight was the beginning of increasing obesity. Weight stigma, the perception of being fat, lack of understanding of normal growth and development, and increased concern about obesity on the part of health providers, parents, and caregivers have reinforced each other to promote dieting. Because weight suppression and disinhibition provoke long-term weight increase, dieting is a major factor producing the obesity epidemic. The integrated eating disorder–obesity theory included in this article emphasizes that, contrary to dieters, lifetime weight maintainers depend on physiological processes to control weight and experience minimal weight change. PMID:25713933

Findings from the Harvard Medical School Cambridge Integrated Clerkship, a Year-Long Longitudinal Psychiatry Experience.

PubMed

Cheng, Elisa; Hirsh, David; Gaufberg, Elizabeth; Griswold, Todd; Wesley Boyd, J

2018-06-01

The Harvard Medical School Cambridge Integrated Clerkship is a longitudinal integrated clerkship that has provided an alternative clinical model for medical education in psychiatry since its inception in 2004. This study was undertaken in an effort to better understand the student experience of the Cambridge Integrated Clerkship and how it may have impacted students' perceptions of and interest in psychiatry, as well as performance. Qualitative surveys were sent via e-mail to the first 11 student cohorts who had completed the Cambridge Integrated Clerkship (from 2004 to 2014) and for whom we had e-mail addresses (N = 100), and the free-text responses were coded thematically. All available standardized scoring data and residency match data for Cambridge Integrated Clerkship graduates were obtained. From 2006 to 2014, 12 out of 73 Cambridge Integrated Clerkship students who entered the match chose a psychiatry residency (16.4%), four times more than students in traditional clerkships at Harvard Medical School (3.8% of 1355 students) or the national average (4.1% of 146,066 US applicants). Thirty of the 100 surveyed Cambridge Integrated Clerkship graduates (30%) responded to the qualitative survey with free-text remarks on a number of themes. Cambridge Integrated Clerkship students compared positively to their classmates in terms of standardized test performance. Their fourfold higher match rate into psychiatry compared to other students raises intriguing questions as to what role a longitudinal clerkship might have played in developing interest in psychiatry as a career.

Studies on the integration of nanofiltration and soil treatment for municipal effluent reclamation as a groundwater supplement.

PubMed

Linlin, Wu; Xuan, Zhao; Meng, Zhang

2010-01-01

Water shortage leads to increasing attention to artificial groundwater recharge by reclaimed water. An injection well is the most common recharge approach. In this paper, a new kind of integrated technology-short-term vadose soil treatment followed by nanofiltration-is recommended as pretreatment for artificial groundwater recharge by an injection well. Laboratory-scale experiments demonstrate that the short-term vadose soil can remove approximately 30% of the total dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content and 40% of dissolved organic matter with a molecular weight less than 1 kDa. As a compensatory process of soil treatment, nanofiltration offers a favorable desalination and additional organics removal. The removal efficiencies for total dissolved solids and conductivity amount to 45 and 48%, respectively. The residual DOC in the final effluent is below 1.0 mg/L. In addition, short-term vadose soil offers effective elimination of aromatic protein-like and polysaccharide-like substances, which are detected as components of the membrane foulant.

Dementia and Friendship: The Quality and Nature of the Relationships That Remain

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harris, Phyllis Braudy

2013-01-01

Friendships are an integral part of the human experience. Yet, dementia often takes a toll on social relationships, and many friends withdraw. This research, however, focuses on friendships that remain, despite a diagnosis of dementia. It examines the quality of the friendships of people with dementia and long-term friendships. Data were collected…

Influences on and Obstacles to K-12 Administrators' Support for Environment-Based Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ernst, Julie

2012-01-01

The term environment-based education (EBE) describes a form of school-based environmental education that uses the environment as a context for integrating subjects and a source of real-world learning experiences. Because of the importance of administrator support in teachers' use of EBE (Ernst, 2009), survey research was conducted to explore…

All Shook Up: Sexuality of Mid- to Later Life Married Couples

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lodge, Amy C.; Umberson, Debra

2012-01-01

The authors integrate theoretical work on the performance of gender with a life course perspective to frame an analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 long-term married couples. The findings indicated that couples' sexual experiences are characterized by change over time, yet that change is shaped by the intersection of gender and age. Midlife…

Making fire and fire surrogate science available: a summary of regional workshops with clients

Treesearch

Andrew Youngblood; Heidi Bigler-Cole; Christopher J. Fettig; Carl Fiedler; Eric E. Knapp; John F. Lehmkuhl; Kenneth W. Outcalt; Carl N. Skinner; Scott L. Stephens; Thomas A. Waldrop

2007-01-01

Operational-scale experiments that evaluate the consequences of fire and mechanical "surrogates" for natural disturbance events are essential to better understand strategies for reducing the incidence and severity of wildfire. The national Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study was initiated in 1999 to establish an integrated network of long-term studies...

A Perspective on Third-Party Providers and Study Tour Programs: A Mixed Method Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hains-Wesson, Rachael; Appleby, Mary

2017-01-01

This article presents an evaluation research outcome that used a mixed method approach. The study evaluated a short-term, study tour unit that was offered as an elective, credit-bearing, work-integrated learning experience for second year undergraduate students at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. The unit of study offered…

Integrating Grant-Funded Research into the Undergraduate Biology Curriculum Using IMG-ACT

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ditty, Jayna L.; Williams, Kayla M.; Keller, Megan M.; Chen, Grischa Y.; Liu, Xianxian; Parales, Rebecca E.

2013-01-01

It has become clear in current scientific pedagogy that the emersion of students in the scientific process in terms of designing, implementing, and analyzing experiments is imperative for their education; as such, it has been our goal to model this active learning process in the classroom and laboratory in the context of a genuine scientific…

The Performance of Desire: Gender and Sexual Negotiation in Long-Term Marriages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Elliott, Sinikka; Umberson, Debra

2008-01-01

We integrate theoretical traditions on the social construction of gender, heterosexuality, and marriage with research and theory on emotion work to guide a qualitative investigation of how married people understand and experience sex in marriage. Results, based on 62 in-depth interviews, indicate that married men and women tend to believe that sex…

Addressing System Reconfiguration and Incremental Integration within IMA Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferrero, F.; Rodríques, A. I.

2009-05-01

Recently space industry is paying special attention to Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) systems due to the benefits that modular concepts could bring to the development of space applications, especially in terms of interoperability, flexibility and software reuse. Two important IMA goals to be highlighted are system reconfiguration, and incremental integration of new functionalities into a pre-existing system. The purpose of this paper is to show how system reconfiguration is conducted based on Allied Standard Avionics Architecture Council (ASAAC) concepts for IMA Systems. Besides, it aims to provide a proposal for addressing the incremental integration concept supported by our experience gained during European Technology Acquisition Program (ETAP) TDP1.7 programme. All these topics will be discussed taking into account safety issues and showing the blueprint as an appropriate technique to support these concepts.

Integration of Long term experiments on terrestrial ecosystem in AnaEE-France Research Infrastructure : concept and adding value

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chanzy, André; Chabbi, Abad; Houot, Sabine; Lafolie, François; Pichot, Christian; Raynal, Hélène; Saint-André, Laurent; Clobert, Jean; Greiveldinger, Lucile

2015-04-01

Continental ecosystems represent a critical zone that provide key ecological services to human populations like biomass production, that participate to the regulation of the global biogeochemical cycles and contribute and contribute to the maintenance of air and water quality. Global changes effects on continental ecosystems are likely to impact the fate of humanity, which is thus facing numerous challenges, such as an increasing demand for food and energy, competition for land and water use, or rapid climate warming. Hence, scientific progress in our understanding of the continental critical zone will come from studies that address how biotic and abiotic processes react to global changes. Long term experiments are required to take into account ecosystem inertia and feedback loops and to characterize trends and threshold in ecosystem dynamics. In France, 20 long-term experiments on terrestrial ecosystems are gathered within a single Research Infrastructure: ANAEE-France (http://www.anaee-s.fr), which is a part of AnaEE-Europe (http://www.anaee.com/). Each experiment consist in applying differentiated pressures on different plot over a long period (>20 years) representative of a range of management options. The originality of such infrastructure is a combination of experimental set up and long-term monitoring of simultaneous measurements of key ecosystem variables and parameters through a multi-disciplinary approach and replications of each treatment that improve the statistical strength of the results. The sites encompass gradients of climate conditions, ecosystem complexity and/or management, and can be used for calibration/validation of ecosystem functioning models as well as for the design of ecosystem management strategies. Gathering those experiments in a single research infrastructure is an important issue to enhance their visibility and increase the number of hosting scientific team by offering a range of services. These are: • Access to the ongoing long term experiments to implement novel observational systems. Through active collaboration with the teams in charge of the experiments, users will take advantage of the site characterization, historical data, monitoring setup and access to different treatments experimental field with differentiated properties induced by repeated treatment. • Access to soil and vegetation samples collected at different dates that may be reanalyzed a posteriori to take profit of technological progress. • Delivery of reference data on ecosystems subjected to a gradient of anthropogenic and climatic pressures. The research infrastructure level is appropriate to implement a harmonization policy for the measurement and observation protocols. Moreover it offers the possibility of developing an ambitious strategy in integrating data and models. These can contribute to the experimental process for protocol design or data quality control. Moreover, they offer an efficient way for promoting data reuse thus giving a strong added value to the existing data bases. Therefore, building interoperability between models and experimental platform data bases is an important objective to improve the quality of experimental infrastructure and provide users with seamless and integrated information systems. We present how this is operated in AnaEE-France with different tasks as the development of a controlled vocabulary, tools to annotate data and model variables with metadata based on ontologies and the development of webservice to harvest data from the data base to the modelling platform environment. Finally some examples of key results taking profit of the range of experiments are provided.

Integrated pressure and temperature sensor with high immunity against external disturbance for flexible endoscope operation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maeda, Yusaku; Maeda, Kohei; Kobara, Hideki; Mori, Hirohito; Takao, Hidekuni

2017-04-01

In this study, an integrated pressure and temperature sensor device for a flexible endoscope with long-term stability in in vivo environments was developed and demonstrated. The sensor, which is embedded in the thin wall of the disposable endoscope hood, is intended for use in endoscopic surgery. The device surface is coated with a Cr layer to prevent photoelectronic generation induced by the strong light of the endoscope. The integrated temperature sensor allows compensation for the effect of the temperature drift on a pressure signal. The fabricated device pressure resolution is 0.4 mmHg; the corresponding pressure error is 3.2 mmHg. The packaged device was used in a surgical simulation in an animal experiment. Pressure and temperature monitoring was achieved even in a pH 1 acid solution. The device enables intraluminal pressure and temperature measurements of the stomach, which facilitate the maintenance of internal stomach conditions. The applicability of the sensor was successfully demonstrated in animal experiments.

Incremental comprehension of pitch relationships in written music: Evidence from eye movements.

PubMed

Hadley, Lauren V; Sturt, Patrick; Eerola, Tuomas; Pickering, Martin J

2017-03-17

To investigate how proficient pianists comprehend pitch relationships in written music when they first encounter it we conducted two experiments in which proficient pianists' eyes were tracked while they read and played single-line melodies. In Experiment 1, participants played at their own speed; in Experiment 2 they played with an external metronome. The melodies were either congruent or anomalous, with the anomaly involving one bar being shifted in pitch to alter the implied harmonic structure (e.g., non-resolution of a dominant). In both experiments, anomaly led to rapid disruption in participants' eye-movements in terms of regressions from the target bar, indicating that pianists process written pitch relationships online. This is particularly striking because in musical sight-reading eye movement behaviour is constrained by the concurrent performance. Both experiments also showed that anomaly induced pupil dilation. Together these results indicate that proficient pianists rapidly integrate the music that they read into the prior context, and that anomalies in terms of pitch relationships lead to processing difficulty. These findings parallel those of text reading, suggesting that structural processing involves similar constraints across domains.

A Comparison of Training Experience, Training Satisfaction, and Job Search Experiences between Integrated Vascular Surgery Residency and Traditional Vascular Surgery Fellowship Graduates.

PubMed

Colvard, Benjamin; Shames, Murray; Schanzer, Andres; Rectenwald, John; Chaer, Rabih; Lee, Jason T

2015-10-01

The first 2 integrated vascular residents in the United States graduated in 2012, and in 2013, 11 more entered the job market. The purpose of this study was to compare the job search experiences of the first cohort of integrated 0 + 5 graduates to their counterparts completing traditional 5 + 2 fellowship programs. An anonymous, Web-based, 15-question survey was sent to all 11 graduating integrated residents in 2013 and to the 25 corresponding 5 + 2 graduating fellows within the same institution. Questions focused on the following domains: training experience, job search timelines and outcomes, and overall satisfaction with each training paradigm. Survey response was nearly 81% for the 0 + 5 graduates and 64% for the 5 + 2 graduates. Overall, there was no significant difference between residents and fellows in the operative experience obtained as measured by the number of open and endovascular cases logged. Dedicated research time during the entire training period was similar between residents and fellows. Nearly all graduates were extremely satisfied with their training and had positive experiences during their job searches with respect to starting salaries, numbers of offers, and desired practice type. More 0 + 5 residents chose academic and mixed practices over private practices compared with 5 + 2 fellowship graduates. Although longer term data are needed to understand the impact of the addition of 0 + 5 graduating residents to the vascular surgery work force, preliminary survey results suggest that both training paradigms (0 + 5 and 5 + 2) provide positive training experiences that result in excellent job search experiences. Based on the current and future need for vascular surgeons in the work force, the continued growth and expansion of integrated 0 + 5 vascular surgery residency positions as an alternative to traditional fellowship training is thus far justified. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An ERP study on whether semantic integration exists in processing ecologically unrelated audio-visual information.

PubMed

Liu, Baolin; Meng, Xianyao; Wang, Zhongning; Wu, Guangning

2011-11-14

In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine whether semantic integration occurs for ecologically unrelated audio-visual information. Videos with synchronous audio-visual information were used as stimuli, where the auditory stimuli were sine wave sounds with different sound levels, and the visual stimuli were simple geometric figures with different areas. In the experiment, participants were shown an initial display containing a single shape (drawn from a set of 6 shapes) with a fixed size (14cm(2)) simultaneously with a 3500Hz tone of a fixed intensity (80dB). Following a short delay, another shape/tone pair was presented and the relationship between the size of the shape and the intensity of the tone varied across trials: in the V+A- condition, a large shape was paired with a soft tone; in the V+A+ condition, a large shape was paired with a loud tone, and so forth. The ERPs results revealed that N400 effect was elicited under the VA- condition (V+A- and V-A+) as compared to the VA+ condition (V+A+ and V-A-). It was shown that semantic integration would occur when simultaneous, ecologically unrelated auditory and visual stimuli enter the human brain. We considered that this semantic integration was based on semantic constraint of audio-visual information, which might come from the long-term learned association stored in the human brain and short-term experience of incoming information. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Integrated ocean management as a strategy to meet rapid climate change: the Norwegian case.

PubMed

Hoel, Alf Håkon; Olsen, Erik

2012-02-01

The prospects of rapid climate change and the potential existence of tipping points in marine ecosystems where nonlinear change may result from them being overstepped, raises the question of strategies for coping with ecosystem change. There is broad agreement that the combined forces of climate change, pollution and increasing economic activities necessitates more comprehensive approaches to oceans management, centering on the concept of ecosystem-based oceans management. This article addresses the Norwegian experience in introducing integrated, ecosystem-based oceans management, emphasizing how climate change, seen as a major long-term driver of change in ecosystems, is addressed in management plans. Understanding the direct effects of climate variability and change on ecosystems and indirect effects on human activities is essential for adaptive planning to be useful in the long-term management of the marine environment.

Stable long-term indigo production by overexpression of dioxygenase genes using a chromosomal integrated cascade expression circuit.

PubMed

Royo, Jose Luis; Moreno-Ruiz, Emilia; Cebolla, Angel; Santero, Eduardo

2005-03-16

In our laboratory we have analyzed different factors to maximize the yield in heterologous protein expression for long-term cultivation, by combination of an efficient cascade expression system and stable integration in the bacterial chromosome. In this work, we have explored this system for the production of indigo dye as a model for biotechnological production, by expressing in Escherichia coli the thnA1A2A3A4 genes from Sphingomonas macrogolitabida strain TFA, which encode the components of a tetralin dioxygenase activity. We compared Ptac, and the Pm-based cascade expression circuit in a multicopy plasmid and stably integrated into the bacterial chromosome. Plasmid-based expression systems resulted in instability of indigo production when serially diluted batch experiments were performed without a selective pressure. This problem was solved by integrating the expression module in the chromosome. Despite the gene dosage reduction, the synergic effect of the cascade expression system produced comparable expression to the dioxygenase activity in the plasmid configuration but could be stably maintained for at least 5 days. Here, we show that the cascade amplification circuit integrated in the chromosome could be an excellent system for tight control and stable production of recombinant products.

A Probe into Key Points in the Planning and Design of Integrated Corridor at Large Civil Airports

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Qing

2018-05-01

If we compare an airport to our human body, all sorts of specialized pipelines and wires are to an airport as the vascular system and nervous system etc. to the human body, where each functional zone connecting the airport serves each major system of airport and provides “throughput like the function of driving out the processed for the new” and “central control and transmission function”. Guided by the master plan and the concept of progressive development of airports, it is critical to map out a plan to link near-term and long-term development of supporting utilities. The role and effect of integrated corridor is of significance to the construction of multi-runway large-sized new airports or to the expansion of an airport costing tens of billions. In view of the features of the fast growing civil aviation sector in China, this thesis argues for the necessity to plan for and build integrated corridor at large airports, suggests doing research on integrated corridor at the project consulting stage by drawing upon available airport design experiences and case studies and combining the plan for public utilities (or special plan), and analyzes and outlines key points in integrated corridor design based on special requirements and industrial standards for civil airport management.

Effect of integrating straw into agricultural soils on soil infiltration and evaporation.

PubMed

Cao, Jiansheng; Liu, Changming; Zhang, Wanjun; Guo, Yunlong

2012-01-01

Soil water movement is a critical consideration for crop yield in straw-integrated fields. This study used an indoor soil column experiment to determine soil infiltration and evaporation characteristics in three forms of direct straw-integrated soils (straw mulching, straw mixing and straw inter-layering). Straw mulching is covering the land surface with straw. Straw mixing is mixing straw with the top 10 cm surface soil. Then straw inter-layering is placing straw at the 20 cm soil depth. There are generally good correlations among the mulch integration methods at p < 0.05, and with average errors/biases <10%. Straw mixing exhibited the best effect in terms of soil infiltration, followed by straw mulching. Due to over-burden weight-compaction effect, straw inter-layering somehow retarded soil infiltration. In terms of soil water evaporation, straw mulching exhibited the best effect. This was followed by straw mixing and then straw inter-layering. Straw inter-layering could have a long-lasting positive effect on soil evaporation as it limited the evaporative consumption of deep soil water. The responses of the direct straw integration modes to soil infiltration and evaporation could lay the basis for developing efficient water-conservation strategies. This is especially useful for water-scarce agricultural regions such as the arid/semi-arid regions of China.

Charting the trajectory of domestic violence policy change in the Republic of Ireland since the mid-1990s - a path towards integration?

PubMed

Kearns, Noreen; Coen, Liam

2014-07-01

This paper assesses the policy developments pertaining to the implementation of an integrated approach to domestic violence over the past 15 years. The contextual setting is outlined in terms of the international policy response to the problem of domestic violence based on an ecological perspective. Periods of core strategic policy and related structural developments are considered illustrating the Irish experience of domestic violence policy-making and service provision. The value of adopting an integrated approach to domestic violence based on the rationale of improving strategic policy formulation, coordinating service provision and facilitating joined-up governance is set out. The core facilitators and challenges associated with such an approach are described. The policy framework and restructured landscape of domestic violence in Ireland has undergone significant change over the past decade and a half. The paper uses a three-dimensional matrix of domestic violence policy development and service integration as a means of addressing horizontal, vertical and resource aspects of collaboration and integration. While the changes have been characterised by significant phases of fluctuation in terms of coordinated action and the situation currently appears promising, however it is too early to judge the outcomes of the most recent reforms.

Charting the trajectory of domestic violence policy change in the Republic of Ireland since the mid-1990s – a path towards integration?

PubMed Central

Kearns, Noreen; Coen, Liam

2014-01-01

Introduction This paper assesses the policy developments pertaining to the implementation of an integrated approach to domestic violence over the past 15 years. The contextual setting is outlined in terms of the international policy response to the problem of domestic violence based on an ecological perspective. Description of policy and case Periods of core strategic policy and related structural developments are considered illustrating the Irish experience of domestic violence policy-making and service provision. The value of adopting an integrated approach to domestic violence based on the rationale of improving strategic policy formulation, coordinating service provision and facilitating joined-up governance is set out. The core facilitators and challenges associated with such an approach are described. Analysis and conclusion The policy framework and restructured landscape of domestic violence in Ireland has undergone significant change over the past decade and a half. The paper uses a three-dimensional matrix of domestic violence policy development and service integration as a means of addressing horizontal, vertical and resource aspects of collaboration and integration. While the changes have been characterised by significant phases of fluctuation in terms of coordinated action and the situation currently appears promising, however it is too early to judge the outcomes of the most recent reforms. PMID:25337062

Vicarious shame.

PubMed

Welten, Stephanie C M; Zeelenberg, Marcel; Breugelmans, Seger M

2012-01-01

We examined an account of vicarious shame that explains how people can experience a self-conscious emotion for the behaviour of another person. Two divergent processes have been put forward to explain how another's behaviour links to the self. The group-based emotion account explains vicarious shame in terms of an in-group member threatening one's social identity by behaving shamefully. The empathy account explains vicarious shame in terms of empathic perspective taking; people imagine themselves in another's shameful behaviour. In three studies using autobiographical recall and experimental inductions, we revealed that both processes can explain why vicarious shame arises in different situations, what variation can be observed in the experience of vicarious shame, and how all vicarious shame can be related to a threat to the self. Results are integrated in a functional account of shame.

A novel environmental chamber for neuronal network multisite recordings.

PubMed

Biffi, E; Regalia, G; Ghezzi, D; De Ceglia, R; Menegon, A; Ferrigno, G; Fiore, G B; Pedrocchi, A

2012-10-01

Environmental stability is a critical issue for neuronal networks in vitro. Hence, the ability to control the physical and chemical environment of cell cultures during electrophysiological measurements is an important requirement in the experimental design. In this work, we describe the development and the experimental verification of a closed chamber for multisite electrophysiology and optical monitoring. The chamber provides stable temperature, pH and humidity and guarantees cell viability comparable to standard incubators. Besides, it integrates the electronics for long-term neuronal activity recording. The system is portable and adaptable for multiple network housings, which allows performing parallel experiments in the same environment. Our results show that this device can be a solution for long-term electrophysiology, for dual network experiments and for coupled optical and electrical measurements. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

How to Establish a Bioregenerative Life Support System for Long-Term Crewed Missions to the Moon or Mars.

PubMed

Fu, Yuming; Li, Leyuan; Xie, Beizhen; Dong, Chen; Wang, Mingjuan; Jia, Boyang; Shao, Lingzhi; Dong, Yingying; Deng, Shengda; Liu, Hui; Liu, Guanghui; Liu, Bojie; Hu, Dawei; Liu, Hong

2016-12-01

To conduct crewed simulation experiments of bioregenerative life support systems on the ground is a critical step for human life support in deep-space exploration. An artificial closed ecosystem named Lunar Palace 1 was built through integrating efficient higher plant cultivation, animal protein production, urine nitrogen recycling, and bioconversion of solid waste. Subsequently, a 105-day, multicrew, closed integrative bioregenerative life support systems experiment in Lunar Palace 1 was carried out from February through May 2014. The results show that environmental conditions as well as the gas balance between O 2 and CO 2 in the system were well maintained during the 105-day experiment. A total of 21 plant species in this system kept a harmonious coexistent relationship, and 20.5% nitrogen recovery from urine, 41% solid waste degradation, and a small amount of insect in situ production were achieved. During the 105-day experiment, oxygen and water were recycled, and 55% of the food was regenerated. Key Words: Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS)-Space agriculture-Space life support-Waste recycle-Water recycle. Astrobiology 16, 925-936.

Experiment research of the temperature characteristics of transmissive silica waveguide ring resonator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Huilan; Yang, Jupeng; Feng, Lishuang; Wang, Qiwei

2016-01-01

The temperature-dependent polarization error occurred in the silica waveguide ring resonator (WRR) is a major factor that limits the long-term performance of resonator integrated optic gyro (RIOG). In this paper, the temperature characteristics of transmissive silica WRR are successfully measured using the experiment system and analyzed in detail by us. According to the experiment results, we accurately calculate the temperature-induced refractive index and birefringence variation coefficient of silica waveguide, and we have found that the interference dip and peak of resonance curves will appear alternatively in the period of temperature fluctuation, which had not be shown before.

Spacelab Life Sciences 1 - The stepping stone

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dalton, B. P.; Leon, H.; Hogan, R.; Clarke, B.; Tollinger, D.

1988-01-01

The Spacelab Life Sciences (SLS-1) mission scheduled for launch in March 1990 will study the effects of microgravity on physiological parameters of humans and animals. The data obtained will guide equipment design, performance of activities involving the use of animals, and prediction of human physiological responses during long-term microgravity exposure. The experiments planned for the SLS-1 mission include a particulate-containment demonstration test, integrated rodent experiments, jellyfish experiments, and validation of the small-mass measuring instrument. The design and operation of the Research Animal Holding Facility, General-Purpose Work Station, General-Purpose Transfer Unit, and Animal Enclosure Module are discussed and illustrated with drawings and diagrams.

Electrically Driven Thermal Management: Flight Validation, Experiment Development, Future Technologies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Didion, Jeffrey R.

2018-01-01

Electrically Driven Thermal Management is an active research and technology development initiative incorporating ISS technology flight demonstrations (STP-H5), development of Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) flight experiment, and laboratory-based investigations of electrically based thermal management techniques. The program targets integrated thermal management for future generations of RF electronics and power electronic devices. This presentation reviews four program elements: i.) results from the Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) Long Term Flight Demonstration launched in February 2017 ii.) development of the Electrically Driven Liquid Film Boiling Experiment iii.) two University based research efforts iv.) development of Oscillating Heat Pipe evaluation at Goddard Space Flight Center.

The bird dancer and the warrior king: Divergent lived experiences of Tourette syndrome in Bali.

PubMed

Lemelson, Robert; Tucker, Annie

2017-08-01

In the past two decades, ethnographic, epidemiological and interdisciplinary research has robustly established that culture is significant in determining the long-term outcomes of people with neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric and mood disorders. Yet these cultural factors are certainly not uniform across discrete individual experiences. Thus, in addition to illustrating meaningful differences for people with neuropsychiatric disorder between different cultures, ethnography should also help detail the variations within a culture. Different subjective experiences or outcomes are not solely due to biographical idiosyncrasies-rather, influential factors arising from the same culture can have different impacts on different people. When taking a holistic and intersectional perspective on lived experience, it is crucial to understand the interaction of these factors for people with neuropsychiatric disorders. This paper teases apart such interactions, utilizing comparative case studies of the disparate subjective experiences and illness trajectories of two Balinese people with Tourette syndrome who exhibit similar symptoms. Based on longitudinal person-centered ethnography integrating clinical, psychological, and visual anthropology, this intersectional approach goes beyond symptom interpretation and treatment modalities to identify gendered embodiment and marital practices as influenced by caste to be significant determinants in subjective experience and long-term outcome.

Ecological effects of variable retention harvests in the northwestern United States: the DEMO study.

Treesearch

Keith B. Aubry; Charles B. Halpern; Douglas A. Maguire

2004-01-01

The retention of trees in harvest units is an integral part of forest management practices on federal lands in the northwestern United States (U.S.), yet the ecological benefits that result from various levels or patterns of retained trees remain speculative. Large scale and long term silviculture experiments are needed to evaluate the effects of alternative forest...

Long-Term Ability to Interpret Facial Expression after Traumatic Brain Injury and Its Relation to Social Integration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knox, Lucy; Douglas, Jacinta

2009-01-01

There is considerable evidence that individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) experience problems interpreting the emotional state of others. However, the functional implications of these changes have not been fully investigated. A study of 13 individuals with severe TBI and an equal number of matched controls found that TBI participants had…

Randomized Trial of Social Rehabilitation and Integrated Health Care for Older People with Severe Mental Illness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mueser, Kim T.; Pratt, Sarah I.; Bartels, Stephen J.; Swain, Karin; Forester, Brent; Cather, Corinne; Feldman, James

2010-01-01

Objective: The Helping Older People Experience Success (HOPES) program was developed to improve psychosocial functioning and reduce long-term medical burden in older people with severe mental illness (SMI) living in the community. HOPES includes 1 year of intensive skills training and health management, followed by a 1-year maintenance phase.…

Examination of "Art Literacy" Levels of Students Studying in the Education Faculties

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koksoy, Aylin Mentis

2018-01-01

Art literacy refers to achieving artistic knowledge, evaluating this knowledge and integrating it with experiences. The aim of the study is to examine the ''art literacy'' levels of the students attending the educational faculty in terms of grade level, gender, the fact that they love art books, the fact that they love doing research in library,…

Chaos or Coherence? Further Education and Training College Governance in Post-Apartheid South Africa

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wedekind, Volker

2010-01-01

This article frames the lived experiences of management and educators in further education and training (FET) colleges in South Africa, against the backdrop of the radical transformation in the governance of this sector over the past twenty years. The reforms are first described and analysed in terms of their integration and rationale for agency.…

Decadal responses in soil N dynamics at the Bear Brook Watershed in Maine, USA

Treesearch

Sultana Jefts; Ivan J. Fernandez; Lindwey E. Rustad; D. Bryan Dail

2004-01-01

Atmospheric nitrogen deposition to forested ecosystems is a concern because of both geochemical and biological consequences for ecosystem integrity. High levels of prolonged N deposition can lead to "N saturation" of the ecosystem. The Bear Brook Watershed in Maine is a long-term, paired forested watershed experiment with over a decade of experimental N...

CHEMICAL EFFECTS IN BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS – DATA DICTIONARY (CEBS-DD): A COMPENDIUM OF TERMS FOR THE CAPTURE AND INTEGRATION OF BIOLOGICAL STUDY DESIGN DESCRIPTION, CONVENTIONAL PHENOTYPES AND ‘OMICS’ DATA

EPA Science Inventory

A critical component in the design of the Chemical Effects in Biological Systems (CEBS) Knowledgebase is a strategy to capture toxicogenomics study protocols and the toxicity endpoint data (clinical pathology and histopathology). A Study is generally an experiment carried out du...

Pre-Service Teachers' Shifting Perceptions of Cross-Curricular Practice: The Impact of School Experience in Mediating Professional Insight

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heywood, David; Parker, Joan; Jolley, Nina

2012-01-01

Contemporary educational debate in curriculum organisation and pedagogy has focused on the merits or otherwise of integrating disciplines for more effective learning. A wide range of terms is used to describe the various traditions associated with the presentation and structure of the curriculum and there are various perspectives on the purposes…

A New Nightly Build System for LHCb

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clemencic, M.; Couturier, B.

2014-06-01

The nightly build system used so far by LHCb has been implemented as an extension of the system developed by CERN PH/SFT group (as presented at CHEP2010). Although this version has been working for many years, it has several limitations in terms of extensibility, management and ease of use, so that it was decided to develop a new version based on a continuous integration system. In this paper we describe a new implementation of the LHCb Nightly Build System based on the open source continuous integration system Jenkins and report on the experience of configuring a complex build workflow in Jenkins.

Linking memory and language: Evidence for a serial-order learning impairment in dyslexia.

PubMed

Bogaerts, Louisa; Szmalec, Arnaud; Hachmann, Wibke M; Page, Mike P A; Duyck, Wouter

2015-01-01

The present study investigated long-term serial-order learning impairments, operationalized as reduced Hebb repetition learning (HRL), in people with dyslexia. In a first multi-session experiment, we investigated both the persistence of a serial-order learning impairment as well as the long-term retention of serial-order representations, both in a group of Dutch-speaking adults with developmental dyslexia and in a matched control group. In a second experiment, we relied on the assumption that HRL mimics naturalistic word-form acquisition and we investigated the lexicalization of novel word-forms acquired through HRL. First, our results demonstrate that adults with dyslexia are fundamentally impaired in the long-term acquisition of serial-order information. Second, dyslexic and control participants show comparable retention of the long-term serial-order representations in memory over a period of 1 month. Third, the data suggest weaker lexicalization of newly acquired word-forms in the dyslexic group. We discuss the integration of these findings into current theoretical views of dyslexia. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Two high accuracy digital integrators for Rogowski current transducers.

PubMed

Luo, Pan-dian; Li, Hong-bin; Li, Zhen-hua

2014-01-01

The Rogowski current transducers have been widely used in AC current measurement, but their accuracy is mainly subject to the analog integrators, which have typical problems such as poor long-term stability and being susceptible to environmental conditions. The digital integrators can be another choice, but they cannot obtain a stable and accurate output for the reason that the DC component in original signal can be accumulated, which will lead to output DC drift. Unknown initial conditions can also result in integral output DC offset. This paper proposes two improved digital integrators used in Rogowski current transducers instead of traditional analog integrators for high measuring accuracy. A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) feedback controller and an attenuation coefficient have been applied in improving the Al-Alaoui integrator to change its DC response and get an ideal frequency response. For the special design in the field of digital signal processing, the improved digital integrators have better performance than analog integrators. Simulation models are built for the purpose of verification and comparison. The experiments prove that the designed integrators can achieve higher accuracy than analog integrators in steady-state response, transient-state response, and temperature changing condition.

Two high accuracy digital integrators for Rogowski current transducers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luo, Pan-dian; Li, Hong-bin; Li, Zhen-hua

2014-01-01

The Rogowski current transducers have been widely used in AC current measurement, but their accuracy is mainly subject to the analog integrators, which have typical problems such as poor long-term stability and being susceptible to environmental conditions. The digital integrators can be another choice, but they cannot obtain a stable and accurate output for the reason that the DC component in original signal can be accumulated, which will lead to output DC drift. Unknown initial conditions can also result in integral output DC offset. This paper proposes two improved digital integrators used in Rogowski current transducers instead of traditional analog integrators for high measuring accuracy. A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) feedback controller and an attenuation coefficient have been applied in improving the Al-Alaoui integrator to change its DC response and get an ideal frequency response. For the special design in the field of digital signal processing, the improved digital integrators have better performance than analog integrators. Simulation models are built for the purpose of verification and comparison. The experiments prove that the designed integrators can achieve higher accuracy than analog integrators in steady-state response, transient-state response, and temperature changing condition.

Comparison of Physics Frameworks for WebGL-Based Game Engine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yogya, Resa; Kosala, Raymond

2014-03-01

Recently, a new technology called WebGL shows a lot of potentials for developing games. However since this technology is still new, there are still many potentials in the game development area that are not explored yet. This paper tries to uncover the potential of integrating physics frameworks with WebGL technology in a game engine for developing 2D or 3D games. Specifically we integrated three open source physics frameworks: Bullet, Cannon, and JigLib into a WebGL-based game engine. Using experiment, we assessed these frameworks in terms of their correctness or accuracy, performance, completeness and compatibility. The results show that it is possible to integrate open source physics frameworks into a WebGLbased game engine, and Bullet is the best physics framework to be integrated into the WebGL-based game engine.

Integrating across Episodes: Investigating the Long-term Accessibility of Self-derived Knowledge in 4-Year-Old Children

PubMed Central

Varga, Nicole L.; Stewart, Rebekah A.; Bauer, Patricia J.

2016-01-01

Semantic memory, defined as our store of knowledge about the world, provides representational support for all of our higher order cognitive functions. As such, it is crucial that the contents of semantic memory remain accessible over time. Although memory for knowledge learned through direct observation has been previously investigated, we know very little about the retention of knowledge derived through integration of information acquired across separate learning episodes. The present research investigated cross-episode integration in 4-year-old children. Participants were presented with novel facts via distinct story episodes and tested for knowledge extension through cross-episode integration, as well as for retention of the information over a 1-week delay. In Experiment 1, children retained the self-derived knowledge over the delay, though performance was primarily evidenced in a forced-choice format. In Experiment 2, we sought to facilitate the accessibility and robustness of self-derived knowledge by providing a verbal reminder after the delay. The accessibility of self-derived knowledge increased, irrespective of whether participants successfully demonstrated knowledge of the integration facts during the first visit. The results suggest knowledge extended through integration remains accessible after delays, even in a population in which this learning process is less robust. The findings also demonstrate the facilitative effect of reminders on the accessibility and further extension of knowledge over extended time periods. PMID:26774259

How to integrate the aging of employees into occupational health policies: the approach of a French company.

PubMed

Bonnet-Belfais, Monique; Cholat, Jean-François; Bouchard, Denis; Goulfier, Charles; Casselle, Adina; Schram, Jean

2014-01-01

Since 2010, French companies must integrate or retain seniors to avoid a fine of 1% of their payroll. This work examines how to integrate the aging of employees into occupational health policies. The literature on the complex relationships between age, work and health has been reviewed, and the feasibility of potential actions has been addressed. In the company setting, few diseases are specific to seniors. With retirement age postponing, chronic diseases may appear more frequently in people still working. Physiological aging linked to a functional decline is variable. Occupational wear and tear can result in some functional deterioration. Seniors can experience difficulties coping with heavy time demands that restrict their ability to organize the work, with physical stresses due to their diminished muscular capacity, and with unconventional schedules that have long-term deleterious effects on sleep quality and alertness. This position paper makes recommendations for adapting work organization and occupational medical care. Protective measures for seniors should be integrated in a global approach to improving work conditions for all. Aging employees need some leeway to develop experience-based strategies for bypassing new difficulties. Revising work rhythms and developing autonomy seem to be means for progress.

Parents' experiences of living with a child with a long-term condition: a rapid structured review of the literature.

PubMed

Smith, Joanna; Cheater, Francine; Bekker, Hilary

2015-08-01

Living with a child with a long-term condition can result in challenges above usual parenting because of illness-specific demands. A critical evaluation of research exploring parents' experiences of living with a child with a long-term condition is timely because international health policy advocates that patients with long-term conditions become active collaborators in care decisions. A rapid structured review was undertaken (January 1999-December 2009) in accordance with the United Kingdom Centre for Reviews and Dissemination guidance. Three data bases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PSYCINFO) were searched and also hand searching of the Journal of Advanced Nursing and Child: Care, Health and Development. Primary research studies written in English language describing parents' experiences of living with a child with a long-term condition were included. Thematic analysis underpinned data synthesis. Quality appraisal involved assessing each study against predetermined criteria. Thirty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. The impact of living with a child with a long-term condition related to dealing with immediate concerns following the child's diagnosis and responding to the challenges of integrating the child's needs into family life. Parents' perceived they are not always supported in their quest for information and forming effective relationships with health-care professionals can be stressful. Although having ultimate responsibility for their child's health can be overwhelming, parents developed considerable expertise in managing their child's condition. Parents' accounts suggest they not always supported in their role as manager for their child's long-term condition and their expertise, and contribution to care is not always valued. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

How to Link Brain and Experience? Spatiotemporal Psychopathology of the Lived Body

PubMed Central

Northoff, Georg; Stanghellini, Giovanni

2016-01-01

The focus of the present article is on sketching a psychopathology of the body in schizophrenia and linking it to brain activity. This is done providing converging data from psychopathological evidence (phenomenal), phenomenological contructs (trans-phenomenal) and neuroscientific measures (pre-phenomenal). The phenomenal level is the detailed documentation of the patients’ subjective anomalous experiences. These phenomena are explicit contents in the patients’ field of consciousness. The trans-phenomenal level targets the implicit yet operative matrix that underlies these anomalous subjective experiences. Abnormal phenomena are viewed as expressions of a modification of trans-phenomenal matrix, that is, in terms of an abnormal synthesis or integration through time of intero-, proprio- and extero-ceptive stimuli. Finally, we link the abnormalities of the trans-phenomenal matrix to pre-phenomenal alterations of the brain resting state and of its spatio-temporal organization, as documented by neurobiological methods providing spatial and temporal resolution of intrinsic brain activity (with many features of the resting state remaining yet unclear though). Based on phenomenological research, the body in schizophrenia is typically experienced in an itemized way as an object external to one’s self and unrelated to events in the external world. Based on neurobiological data, we tentatively hypothesize that such anomalies of the lived body are related to decreased integration between intero-, extero- and proprioceptive experiences by the brain’s spontaneous activity and its temporal structure. Taken all together, this suggests that we view abnormalities of bodily experience in terms of their underlying abnormal spatiotemporal features which, as we suppose, can be traced back to the spatiotemporal features of the brain’s spontaneous activity. PMID:27199695

Interactions between moist heating and dynamics in atmospheric predictability

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

Straus, D.M.; Huntley, M.A.

1994-02-01

The predictability properties of a fixed heating version of a GCM in which the moist heating is specified beforehand are studied in a series of identical twin experiments. Comparison is made to an identical set of experiments using the control GCM, a five-level R30 version of the COLA GCM. The experiments each contain six ensembles, with a single ensemble consisting of six 30-day integrations starting from slightly perturbed Northern Hemisphere wintertime initial conditions. The moist heating from each integration within a single control ensemble was averaged over the ensemble. This averaged heating (a function of three spatial dimensions and time)more » was used as the prespecified heating in each member of the corresponding fixed heating ensemble. The errors grow less rapidly in the fixed heating case. The most rapidly growing scales at small times (global wavenumber 6) have doubling times of 3.2 days compared to 2.4 days for the control experiments. The predictability times for the most energetic scales (global wavenumbers 9-12) are about two weeks for the fixed heating experiments, compared to 9 days for the control. The ratio of error energy in the fixed heating to the control case falls below 0.5 by day 8, and then gradually increases as the error growth slows in the control case. The growth of errors is described in terms of budgets of error kinetic energy (EKE) and error available potential energy (EAPE) developed in terms of global wavenumber n. The diabatic generation of EAPE (G[sub APE]) is positive in the control case and is dominated by midlatitude heating errors after day 2. The fixed heating G[sub APE] is negative at all times due to longwave radiative cooling. 36 refs., 9 figs., 1 tab.« less

The FP7 ULTimateCO2 project: a study of the long term fate of CO2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Audigane, Pascal; Waldmann, Svenja; Pearce, Jonathan; Dimier, Alain; Le Gallo, Yann; Frykman, Peter; Maurand, Nicolas; Gherardi, Fabrizio; Yalamas, Thierry; Cremer, Holger; Spiers, Chris; Nussbaum, Christophe

2014-05-01

The objectives of the European FP7 ULTimateCO2 project are to study specific processes that could influence the long-term fate of geologically stored CO2, mainly: the trapping mechanisms occurring in the storage reservoir, the influence of fluid-rock interactions on mechanical integrity of caprock and well vicinity, and also the modifications induced at the regional scale (brine displacement, fault reactivation, hydrogeology changes...). A comprehensive approach combining laboratory experiments, numerical modeling and natural analogue studies is developed to assess all the processes mentioned above. A collection of data has been generated from natural and industrial (oil industry) analogues on the fluid flow and mechanical properties, structure, and mineralogy of faults and fractures that could affect the long-term storage capacity of underground CO2 storage sites. To address geochemical trapping at reservoir scale, an experimental approach is developed using sandstone core materials in batch reactive mode with CO2 and impurities at reservoir pressure and temperature conditions. Three inter-related lines of laboratory experiments investigate the long-term evolution of the mechanical properties and sealing integrity of fractured and faulted caprocks using Opalinus clay of Mont Terri Gallery (Switzerland), an analogue for caprock well investigated in the past for nuclear waste disposal purpose. To evaluate the interactions between CO2 (and formation fluid) and the well environment (formation, cement, casing) and to assess the consequences of these interactions on the transport properties of well materials, a 1 to 1 scale experiment has been set in the Mont Terri Gallery Opalinus clay to reproduce classical well objects (cemented annulus, casing and cement plug) perforating caprock formations. An extensive program of numerical modeling is also developed to calibrate, to reproduce and to extrapolate the experimental results at longer time scales including uncertainty assessment methods. www.ultimateco2.eu

Enabling long-term oceanographic research: Changing data practices, information management strategies and informatics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, Karen S.; Chandler, Cynthia L.

2008-09-01

Interdisciplinary global ocean science requires new ways of thinking about data and data management. With new data policies and growing technological capabilities, datasets of increasing variety and complexity are being made available digitally and data management is coming to be recognized as an integral part of scientific research. To meet the changing expectations of scientists collecting data and of data reuse by others, collaborative strategies involving diverse teams of information professionals are developing. These changes are stimulating the growth of information infrastructures that support multi-scale sampling, data repositories, and data integration. Two examples of oceanographic projects incorporating data management in partnership with science programs are discussed: the Palmer Station Long-Term Ecological Research program (Palmer LTER) and the United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (US JGOFS). Lessons learned from a decade of data management within these communities provide an experience base from which to develop information management strategies—short-term and long-term. Ocean Informatics provides one example of a conceptual framework for managing the complexities inherent to sharing oceanographic data. Elements are introduced that address the economies-of-scale and the complexities-of-scale pertinent to a broader vision of information management and scientific research.

From diagnosis through survivorship: health-care experiences of colorectal cancer survivors with ostomies

PubMed Central

Grant, Marcia; McMullen, Carmit K.; Altschuler, Andrea; Mohler, M. Jane; Hornbrook, Mark C.; Herrinton, Lisa J.; Krouse, Robert S.

2014-01-01

Purpose The journey from diagnosis through treatment to survivorship can be challenging for colorectal cancer (CRC) survivors with permanent ostomies. Memories of both the positive and negative health-care interactions can persist years after the initial diagnosis and treatment. The purpose of this paper is to describe the health-care experiences of long-term (>5 years) CRC survivors with ostomies. Methods Thirty-three CRC survivors with ostomies who were members of Kaiser Permanente, an integrated care organization, in Oregon, southwestern Washington and northern California participated in eight focus groups. Discussions from the focus groups were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for potential categories and themes. Results Health-care-related themes described CRC survivors’ experiences with diagnosis, treatment decision-making, initial experiences with ostomy, and survivorship. Participants discussed both positive and negative health-care-related experiences, including the need for continued access to trained nurses for ostomy self-care, access to peer support, and resources related to managing persistent, debilitating symptoms. Conclusions Long-term CRC survivors with ostomies have both positive and negative health-care experiences, regardless of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and gender. Long-term support mechanisms and quality survivorship care that CRC survivors with ostomies can access are needed to promote positive adjustments and improved HRQOL. Structured abstract The current literature in CRC survivor-ship suggests that HRQOL concerns can persist years after treatment completion. The coordination of care to manage persistent late- and long-term effects are still lacking for CRC survivors living with an ostomy. Findings from this qualitative analysis will aid in the development of support strategies that foster more positive adjustments for CRC survivors living with an ostomy and support their ongoing ostomy-related needs. PMID:24442998

From diagnosis through survivorship: health-care experiences of colorectal cancer survivors with ostomies.

PubMed

Sun, Virginia; Grant, Marcia; McMullen, Carmit K; Altschuler, Andrea; Mohler, M Jane; Hornbrook, Mark C; Herrinton, Lisa J; Krouse, Robert S

2014-06-01

The journey from diagnosis through treatment to survivorship can be challenging for colorectal cancer (CRC) survivors with permanent ostomies. Memories of both the positive and negative health-care interactions can persist years after the initial diagnosis and treatment. The purpose of this paper is to describe the health-care experiences of long-term (>5 years) CRC survivors with ostomies. Thirty-three CRC survivors with ostomies who were members of Kaiser Permanente, an integrated care organization, in Oregon, southwestern Washington and northern California participated in eight focus groups. Discussions from the focus groups were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for potential categories and themes. Health-care-related themes described CRC survivors' experiences with diagnosis, treatment decision-making, initial experiences with ostomy, and survivorship. Participants discussed both positive and negative health-care-related experiences, including the need for continued access to trained nurses for ostomy self-care, access to peer support, and resources related to managing persistent, debilitating symptoms. Long-term CRC survivors with ostomies have both positive and negative health-care experiences, regardless of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and gender. Long-term support mechanisms and quality survivorship care that CRC survivors with ostomies can access are needed to promote positive adjustments and improved HRQOL. The current literature in CRC survivorship suggests that HRQOL concerns can persist years after treatment completion. The coordination of care to manage persistent late- and long-term effects are still lacking for CRC survivors living with an ostomy. Findings from this qualitative analysis will aid in the development of support strategies that foster more positive adjustments for CRC survivors living with an ostomy and support their ongoing ostomy-related needs.

Stability Analysis of the Planetary System Orbiting Upsilon Andromedae. 2; Simulations Using New Lick Observatory Fits

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lissauer, Jack J.; Rivera, Eugenio J.; DeVincenzi, Donald (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

We present results of long-term numerical orbital integrations designed to test the stability of the three-planet system orbiting upsilon Andromedae and short-term integrations to test whether mutual perturbations among the planets can be used to determine planetary masses. Our initial conditions are based on recent fits to the radial velocity data obtained by the planet search group at Lick Observatory. The new fits result in significantly more stable systems than did the initially announced planetary parameters. Our integrations using the 2000 February parameters show that if the system is nearly planar, then it is stable for at least 100 Myr for m(sub f) = 1/sin i less than or = 4. In some stable systems, the eccentricity of the inner planet experiences large oscillations. The relative periastra of the outer two planets' orbits librate about 0 deg. in most of the stable systems; if future observations imply that the periastron longitudes of these planets are very closely aligned at the present epoch, dynamical simulations may provide precise estimates for the masses and orbital inclinations of these two planets.

Trends in the management of residual municipal solid waste.

PubMed

Rada, E C; Istrate, I A; Ragazzi, M

2009-06-01

In agreement with European Union directives, the integrated management of municipal solid waste must be developed ensuring a balanced relationship between the streams of selective collection and the one regarding the residual waste. A theoretical scenario is made where the residual municipal solid waste is composed only of non-recyclable fractions. An important aspect concerns the role of the organic fraction as selective collection can significantly decrease its content in the residual waste. This paper focuses on the planning, design and management consequences of this unsteady scenario. The treatments that are considered are: combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, integrated thermal plants, aerobic mechanical-biological treatments, anaerobic mechanical-biological treatments and other types of treatment. The considerations are based on the experience of the authors not only in terms of development of research but also in terms of transfer of the research results to the real scale, and knowledge of the state-of-the-art of the sector.

Case Studies of Ecological Integrative Information Systems: The Luquillo and Sevilleta Information Management Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

San Gil, Inigo; White, Marshall; Melendez, Eda; Vanderbilt, Kristin

The thirty-year-old United States Long Term Ecological Research Network has developed extensive metadata to document their scientific data. Standard and interoperable metadata is a core component of the data-driven analytical solutions developed by this research network Content management systems offer an affordable solution for rapid deployment of metadata centered information management systems. We developed a customized integrative metadata management system based on the Drupal content management system technology. Building on knowledge and experience with the Sevilleta and Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research sites, we successfully deployed the first two medium-scale customized prototypes. In this paper, we describe the vision behind our Drupal based information management instances, and list the features offered through these Drupal based systems. We also outline the plans to expand the information services offered through these metadata centered management systems. We will conclude with the growing list of participants deploying similar instances.

A new treatment of nonlocality in scattering process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Upadhyay, N. J.; Bhagwat, A.; Jain, B. K.

2018-01-01

Nonlocality in the scattering potential leads to an integro-differential equation. In this equation nonlocality enters through an integral over the nonlocal potential kernel. The resulting Schrödinger equation is usually handled by approximating r,{r}{\\prime }-dependence of the nonlocal kernel. The present work proposes a novel method to solve the integro-differential equation. The method, using the mean value theorem of integral calculus, converts the nonhomogeneous term to a homogeneous term. The effective local potential in this equation turns out to be energy independent, but has relative angular momentum dependence. This method is accurate and valid for any form of nonlocality. As illustrative examples, the total and differential cross sections for neutron scattering off 12C, 56Fe and 100Mo nuclei are calculated with this method in the low energy region (up to 10 MeV) and are found to be in reasonable accord with the experiments.

Building international experiences into an engineering curriculum - a design project-based approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maldonado, Victor; Castillo, Luciano; Carbajal, Gerardo; Hajela, Prabhat

2014-07-01

This paper is a descriptive account of how short-term international and multicultural experiences can be integrated into early design experiences in an aerospace engineering curriculum. Such approaches are considered as important not only in fostering a student's interest in the engineering curriculum, but also exposing them to a multicultural setting that they are likely to encounter in their professional careers. In the broader sense, this programme is described as a model that can be duplicated in other engineering disciplines as a first-year experience. In this study, undergraduate students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Universidad del Turabo (UT) in Puerto Rico collaborated on a substantial design project consisting of designing, fabricating, and flight-testing radio-controlled model aircraft as a capstone experience in a semester-long course on Fundamentals of Flight. The two-week long experience in Puerto Rico was organised into academic and cultural components designed with the following objectives: (i) to integrate students in a multicultural team-based academic and social environment, (ii) to practise team-building skills and develop students' critical thinking and analytical skills, and finally (iii) to excite students about their engineering major through practical applications of aeronautics and help them decide if it is a right fit for them.

MiDas: Automatic Extraction of a Common Domain of Discourse in Sleep Medicine for Multi-center Data Integration

PubMed Central

Sahoo, Satya S.; Ogbuji, Chimezie; Luo, Lingyun; Dong, Xiao; Cui, Licong; Redline, Susan S.; Zhang, Guo-Qiang

2011-01-01

Clinical studies often use data dictionaries with controlled sets of terms to facilitate data collection, limited interoperability and sharing at a local site. Multi-center retrospective clinical studies require that these data dictionaries, originating from individual participating centers, be harmonized in preparation for the integration of the corresponding clinical research data. Domain ontologies are often used to facilitate multi-center data integration by modeling terms from data dictionaries in a logic-based language, but interoperability among domain ontologies (using automated techniques) is an unresolved issue. Although many upper-level reference ontologies have been proposed to address this challenge, our experience in integrating multi-center sleep medicine data highlights the need for an upper level ontology that models a common set of terms at multiple-levels of abstraction, which is not covered by the existing upper-level ontologies. We introduce a methodology underpinned by a Minimal Domain of Discourse (MiDas) algorithm to automatically extract a minimal common domain of discourse (upper-domain ontology) from an existing domain ontology. Using the Multi-Modality, Multi-Resource Environment for Physiological and Clinical Research (Physio-MIMI) multi-center project in sleep medicine as a use case, we demonstrate the use of MiDas in extracting a minimal domain of discourse for sleep medicine, from Physio-MIMI’s Sleep Domain Ontology (SDO). We then extend the resulting domain of discourse with terms from the data dictionary of the Sleep Heart and Health Study (SHHS) to validate MiDas. To illustrate the wider applicability of MiDas, we automatically extract the respective domains of discourse from 6 sample domain ontologies from the National Center for Biomedical Ontologies (NCBO) and the OBO Foundry. PMID:22195180

MiDas: automatic extraction of a common domain of discourse in sleep medicine for multi-center data integration.

PubMed

Sahoo, Satya S; Ogbuji, Chimezie; Luo, Lingyun; Dong, Xiao; Cui, Licong; Redline, Susan S; Zhang, Guo-Qiang

2011-01-01

Clinical studies often use data dictionaries with controlled sets of terms to facilitate data collection, limited interoperability and sharing at a local site. Multi-center retrospective clinical studies require that these data dictionaries, originating from individual participating centers, be harmonized in preparation for the integration of the corresponding clinical research data. Domain ontologies are often used to facilitate multi-center data integration by modeling terms from data dictionaries in a logic-based language, but interoperability among domain ontologies (using automated techniques) is an unresolved issue. Although many upper-level reference ontologies have been proposed to address this challenge, our experience in integrating multi-center sleep medicine data highlights the need for an upper level ontology that models a common set of terms at multiple-levels of abstraction, which is not covered by the existing upper-level ontologies. We introduce a methodology underpinned by a Minimal Domain of Discourse (MiDas) algorithm to automatically extract a minimal common domain of discourse (upper-domain ontology) from an existing domain ontology. Using the Multi-Modality, Multi-Resource Environment for Physiological and Clinical Research (Physio-MIMI) multi-center project in sleep medicine as a use case, we demonstrate the use of MiDas in extracting a minimal domain of discourse for sleep medicine, from Physio-MIMI's Sleep Domain Ontology (SDO). We then extend the resulting domain of discourse with terms from the data dictionary of the Sleep Heart and Health Study (SHHS) to validate MiDas. To illustrate the wider applicability of MiDas, we automatically extract the respective domains of discourse from 6 sample domain ontologies from the National Center for Biomedical Ontologies (NCBO) and the OBO Foundry.

Does Environmental Enrichment Reduce Stress? An Integrated Measure of Corticosterone from Feathers Provides a Novel Perspective

PubMed Central

Fairhurst, Graham D.; Frey, Matthew D.; Reichert, James F.; Szelest, Izabela; Kelly, Debbie M.; Bortolotti, Gary R.

2011-01-01

Enrichment is widely used as tool for managing fearfulness, undesirable behaviors, and stress in captive animals, and for studying exploration and personality. Inconsistencies in previous studies of physiological and behavioral responses to enrichment led us to hypothesize that enrichment and its removal are stressful environmental changes to which the hormone corticosterone and fearfulness, activity, and exploration behaviors ought to be sensitive. We conducted two experiments with a captive population of wild-caught Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) to assess responses to short- (10-d) and long-term (3-mo) enrichment, their removal, and the influence of novelty, within the same animal. Variation in an integrated measure of corticosterone from feathers, combined with video recordings of behaviors, suggests that how individuals perceive enrichment and its removal depends on the duration of exposure. Short- and long-term enrichment elicited different physiological responses, with the former acting as a stressor and birds exhibiting acclimation to the latter. Non-novel enrichment evoked the strongest corticosterone responses of all the treatments, suggesting that the second exposure to the same objects acted as a physiological cue, and that acclimation was overridden by negative past experience. Birds showed weak behavioral responses that were not related to corticosterone. By demonstrating that an integrated measure of glucocorticoid physiology varies significantly with changes to enrichment in the absence of agonistic interactions, our study sheds light on potential mechanisms driving physiological and behavioral responses to environmental change. PMID:21412426

Comparisons with observational and experimental manipulation data imply needed conceptual changes to ESM land models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riley, W. J.; Zhu, Q.; Tang, J.

2016-12-01

The land models integrated in Earth System Models (ESMs) are critical components necessary to predict soil carbon dynamics and carbon-climate interactions under a changing climate. Yet, these models have been shown to have poor predictive power when compared with observations and ignore many processes known to the observational communities to influence above and belowground carbon dynamics. Here I will report work to tightly couple observations and perturbation experiment results with development of an ESM land model (ALM), focusing on nutrient constraints of the terrestrial C cycle. Using high-frequency flux tower observations and short-term nitrogen and phosphorus perturbation experiments, we show that conceptualizing plant and soil microbe interactions as a multi-substrate, multi-competitor kinetic network allows for accurate prediction of nutrient acquisition. Next, using multiple-year FACE and fertilization response observations at many forest sites, we show that capturing the observed responses requires representation of dynamic allocation to respond to the resulting stresses. Integrating the mechanisms implied by these observations into ALM leads to much lower observational bias and to very different predictions of long-term soil and aboveground C stocks and dynamics, and therefore C-climate feedbacks. I describe how these types of observational constraints are being integrated into the open-source International Land Model Benchmarking (ILAMB) package, and end with the argument that consolidating as many observations of all sorts for easy use by modelers is an important goal to improve C-climate feedback predictions.

Integrated interdisciplinary training in the radiological sciences.

PubMed

Brenner, D J; Vazquez, M; Buonanno, M; Amundson, S A; Bigelow, A W; Garty, G; Harken, A D; Hei, T K; Marino, S A; Ponnaiya, B; Randers-Pehrson, G; Xu, Y

2014-02-01

The radiation sciences are increasingly interdisciplinary, both from the research and the clinical perspectives. Beyond clinical and research issues, there are very real issues of communication between scientists from different disciplines. It follows that there is an increasing need for interdisciplinary training courses in the radiological sciences. Training courses are common in biomedical academic and clinical environments, but are typically targeted to scientists in specific technical fields. In the era of multidisciplinary biomedical science, there is a need for highly integrated multidisciplinary training courses that are designed for, and are useful to, scientists who are from a mix of very different academic fields and backgrounds. We briefly describe our experiences running such an integrated training course for researchers in the field of biomedical radiation microbeams, and draw some conclusions about how such interdisciplinary training courses can best function. These conclusions should be applicable to many other areas of the radiological sciences. In summary, we found that it is highly beneficial to keep the scientists from the different disciplines together. In practice, this means not segregating the training course into sections specifically for biologists and sections specifically for physicists and engineers, but rather keeping the students together to attend the same lectures and hands-on studies throughout the course. This structure added value to the learning experience not only in terms of the cross fertilization of information and ideas between scientists from the different disciplines, but also in terms of reinforcing some basic concepts for scientists in their own discipline.

A Monte Carlo Simulation for Understanding Energy Measurements of Beta Particles Detected by the UCNb Experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Feng, Chi; UCNb Collaboration

2011-10-01

It is theorized that contributions to the Fierz interference term from scalar interaction beyond the Standard Model could be detectable in the spectrum of neutron beta-decay. The UCNb experiment run at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center aims to accurately measure the neutron beta-decay energy spectrum to detect a nonzero interference term. The instrument consists of a cubic ``integrating sphere'' calorimeter attached with up to 4 photomultiplier tubes. The inside of the calorimeter is coated with white paint and a thin UV scintillating layer made of deuterated polystyrene to contain the ultracold neutrons. A Monte Carlo simulation using the Geant4 toolkit is developed in order to provide an accurate method of energy reconstruction. Offline calibration with the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory 140 keV electron gun and conversion electron sources will be used to validate the Monte Carlo simulation to give confidence in the energy reconstruction methods and to better understand systematics in the experiment data.

Analysis of altimeter data jointly with seafloor electric data (vertically integrated velocity) and VCTD-yoyo data (detailed profiles of VCTD)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tarits, Pascal D.; Menvielle, M.; Provost, C.; Filloux, J. H.

1991-01-01

We propose simultaneous analyses of the TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry data, in situ data--mainly permanent seafloor electric recordings--and velocity, conductivity, temperature, density (VCTD)-yoyo data at several stations in areas of scientific interest. We are planning experiments in various areas of low and high energy levels. Several complementary and redundant methods will be used to characterize the ocean circulation and its short- and long-term variability. We shall emphasize long-term measurement using permanent stations. Our major initial objectives with the TOPEX/POSEIDON mission are the Confluence area in the Argentine Basin and the Circumpolar Antarctic Current. An early experiment was carried out in the Confluence zone in 1988 and 1990 (Confluence Principal Investigators, 1990) to prepare for an intensive phase later one. This intensive phase will include new types of instrumentation. Preliminary experiments will be carried out in the Mediterranean Sea (in 1991) and in the North Atlantic Ocean (in 1992, north of the Canary Islands) to test the new instrumentation.

Statistical mechanics of neocortical interactions. Derivation of short-term-memory capacity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ingber, Lester

1984-06-01

A theory developed by the author to describe macroscopic neocortical interactions demonstrates that empirical values of chemical and electrical parameters of synaptic interactions establish several minima of the path-integral Lagrangian as a function of excitatory and inhibitory columnar firings. The number of possible minima, their time scales of hysteresis and probable reverberations, and their nearest-neighbor columnar interactions are all consistent with well-established empirical rules of human short-term memory. Thus, aspects of conscious experience are derived from neuronal firing patterns, using modern methods of nonlinear nonequilibrium statistical mechanics to develop realistic explicit synaptic interactions.

GEWEX America Prediction Project (GAPP) Science and Implementation Plan

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2004-01-01

The purpose of this Science and Implementation Plan is to describe GAPP science objectives and the activities required to meet these objectives, both specifically for the near-term and more generally for the longer-term. The GEWEX Americas Prediction Project (GAPP) is part of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) initiative that is aimed at observing, understanding and modeling the hydrological cycle and energy fluxes at various time and spatial scales. The mission of GAPP is to demonstrate skill in predicting changes in water resources over intraseasonal-to-interannual time scales, as an integral part of the climate system.

Automated system for integration and display of physiological response data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1975-01-01

The system analysis approach was applied in a study of physiological systems in both 1-g and weightlessness, for short and long term experiments. A whole body, algorithm developed as the first step in the construction of a total body simulation system is described and an advanced biomedical computer system concept including interactive display/command consoles is discussed. The documentation of the design specifications, design and development studies, and user's instructions (which include program listings) for these delivered end-terms; the reports on the results of many research and feasibility studies; and many subcontract reports are cited in the bibliography.

Icons improve older and younger adults' comprehension of medication information.

PubMed

Morrow, D G; Hier, C M; Menard, W E; Leirer, V O

1998-07-01

We examined whether timeline icons improved older and younger adults' comprehension of medication information. In Experiment 1, comprehension of instructions with the icon (icon/text format) and without the icon (text-only format) was assessed by questions about information that was (a) implicit in the text but depicted explicitly by the icon (total dose in a 24 hour period), (b) stated and depicted in the icon/text condition (medication dose and times), and (c) stated but not depicted by the icon (e.g., side effects). In a separate task, participants also recalled medication instructions (with or without the icon) after a study period. We found that questions about dose and time information were answered more quickly and accurately when the icon was present in the instructions. Notably, icon benefits were greater for information that was implicit rather than stated in the text. This finding suggests that icons can improve older and younger adults' comprehension by reducing the need to draw some inferences. The icon also reduced effective study time (study time per item recalled). In Experiment 2, icon benefits did not occur for a less integrated version of the timeline icon that, like the text, required participants to integrate dose and time information in order to identify the total daily dose. The integrated version of the icon again improved comprehension, as in Experiment 1, as well as drawing inferences from memory. These findings show that integrated timeline icons improved comprehension primarily by aiding the integration of dose and time information. These findings are discussed in terms of a situation model approach to comprehension.

Long-Term Impacts of Professional Development on Teachers Using a Math-Enhanced Curriculum in Agricultural Power and Technology: A 10-Year Retrospect

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mukembo, Stephen C.; Edwards, M. Craig

2015-01-01

Professional development (PD) on approaches to curriculum integration (CI) continues to be essential for teachers to stay abreast of developments to improve student performance in their courses while also supporting learning and achievement in core subjects. We aimed to explore and derive meaning from the shared experiences of six agriculture…

The online appeal of the physical shop: How a physical store can benefit from a virtual representation.

PubMed

Moes, Anne; Vliet, Harry van

2017-06-01

Consumer behaviour in 2016 shows that (r)etailers need online/offline integration to better serve their clients. An important distinguishing feature of the physical shop is how it can offer consumers a shopping experience. This study uses two experiments to research the extent a fashion store's shopping experience can be presented to consumers via visual material (a regular photo, a 360-degree photo and a virtual reality photo of the shop) without the consumers being in the shop itself. The effects of these visual materials will also be measured in (among others) terms of purchase intention, visiting intention to the physical shop and online visit satisfaction. A theoretical framework is used to substantiate how the three types of pictures can be classified in terms of medium richness. The completed experiments show, among other outcomes, that consumers who saw the virtual reality photo of the shop have a more positive shopping experience, a higher purchase intention, a higher intention to visit the physical shop and more online visit satisfaction than people who have only seen the regular photo or the 360-degree photo of the shop. Enjoyment and novelty seem to partly explain these found effects.

Long-term monitoring and evaluation of a new system of community-based psychiatric care. Integrating research, teaching and practice at the University of Verona.

PubMed

Amaddeo, Francesco; Burti, Lorenzo; Ruggeri, Mirella; Tansella, Michele

2009-01-01

The South-Verona community psychiatric service (CPS) was implemented in 1978, according to Law 180, by the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Verona. Since then this CPS provides prompt, comprehensive and coherent answers to patients' needs, psychological and social, as well as practical, while trying to decrease and control symptoms. Special emphasis is given to integrating different interventions, such as medication, rehabilitation, family support, and social work. The South-Verona experience was from the beginning associated with a long-term research project of monitoring and evaluating the new system of care. The research team has grown and expanded over the years and presently includes the following research units: a) environmental, clinical and genetic determinants of the outcome of mental disorders; b) psychiatric register, economics and geography of mental health; c) clinical psychopharmacology and drug epidemiology; d) brain imaging and neuropsychology; e) clinical psychology and communication in medicine; and f) physical comorbidity and health promotion in psychiatric patients. This paper summarises the main results of the coordinated, long-term evaluative studies conducted so far.

A co-ordinated and synergistic analysis strategy for future ground-based and space helioseismology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ulrich, Roger K.

1991-01-01

The variety of helioseismology observational programs planned for the mid-1990s represents an unprecedented opportunity to improve understanding of the solar interior. This review discusses the coordination of the GONG, IRIS, Birmingham and other ground-based observational programs with the space experiments on the SOHO mission: GOLF, VIRGO, and MDI. The integration and coordination of the different data streams in terms of the spatial and temporal coverage as well as the implications of the different spectral resolution and stability characteristics of each experiment are discussed. The study of the effect of active regions on various helioseismology signals is presented as an example of how ground-based and space experiments can be coordinated.

EHR Learning - It's about Nursing, Leadership and Long-Term Commitments.

PubMed

Furlong, Karen E

2016-01-01

Despite a global commitment to the adoption of technologies, such as electronic health records (EHRs), to support the delivery of health services, there is little empirical guidance to support effective planning for the integration of these tools into practice settings (Suter et al. 2009). In particular, although EHR learning is known to positively influence integration (Byrne 2012), individual perspectives are often overlooked because of investigative designs that devalue such viewpoints by exploring the utility of technologies rather than the lived experiences of individual users of the technology. Therefore, this qualitative study offered nurse participants opportunities to make sense of EHR learning through talking about their experiences. This narrative inquiry was a collaborative interpretive method of discovery: stories and thematic analysis were the two separate yet complementary frames used to support data analysis. Finally, several practice implications and recommendations about EHR learning are presented with an emphasis placed upon patient safety as a way to impart accountability on behalf of learners, educators and those charged with governing responsibilities during times of EHR integration. Copyright © 2016 Longwoods Publishing.

Cloud-Assisted UAV Data Collection for Multiple Emerging Events in Distributed WSNs

PubMed Central

Cao, Huiru; Liu, Yongxin; Yue, Xuejun; Zhu, Wenjian

2017-01-01

In recent years, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) have been widely applied for data collection and image capture. Specifically, UAVs have been integrated with wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to create data collection platforms with high flexibility. However, most studies in this domain focus on system architecture and UAVs’ flight trajectory planning while event-related factors and other important issues are neglected. To address these challenges, we propose a cloud-assisted data gathering strategy for UAV-based WSN in the light of emerging events. We also provide a cloud-assisted approach for deriving UAV’s optimal flying and data acquisition sequence of a WSN cluster. We validate our approach through simulations and experiments. It has been proved that our methodology outperforms conventional approaches in terms of flying time, energy consumption, and integrity of data acquisition. We also conducted a real-world experiment using a UAV to collect data wirelessly from multiple clusters of sensor nodes for monitoring an emerging event, which are deployed in a farm. Compared against the traditional method, this proposed approach requires less than half the flying time and achieves almost perfect data integrity. PMID:28783100

Cloud-Assisted UAV Data Collection for Multiple Emerging Events in Distributed WSNs.

PubMed

Cao, Huiru; Liu, Yongxin; Yue, Xuejun; Zhu, Wenjian

2017-08-07

In recent years, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) have been widely applied for data collection and image capture. Specifically, UAVs have been integrated with wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to create data collection platforms with high flexibility. However, most studies in this domain focus on system architecture and UAVs' flight trajectory planning while event-related factors and other important issues are neglected. To address these challenges, we propose a cloud-assisted data gathering strategy for UAV-based WSN in the light of emerging events. We also provide a cloud-assisted approach for deriving UAV's optimal flying and data acquisition sequence of a WSN cluster. We validate our approach through simulations and experiments. It has been proved that our methodology outperforms conventional approaches in terms of flying time, energy consumption, and integrity of data acquisition. We also conducted a real-world experiment using a UAV to collect data wirelessly from multiple clusters of sensor nodes for monitoring an emerging event, which are deployed in a farm. Compared against the traditional method, this proposed approach requires less than half the flying time and achieves almost perfect data integrity.

Intensity moments by path integral techniques for wave propagation through random media, with application to sound in the ocean

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bernstein, D. R.; Dashen, R.; Flatte, S. M.

1983-01-01

A theory is developed which describes intensity moments for wave propagation through random media. It is shown using the path integral technique that these moments are significantly different from those of a Rayleigh distribution in certain asymptotic regions. The path integral approach is extended to inhomogeneous, anisotropic media possessing a strong deterministic velocity profile. The behavior of the corrections to Rayleigh statistics is examined, and it is shown that the important characteristics can be attributed to a local micropath focusing function. The correction factor gamma is a micropath focusing parameter defined in terms of medium fluctuations. The value of gamma is calculated for three ocean acoustic experiments, using internal waves as the medium fluctuations. It is found that all three experiments show excellent agreement as to the relative values of the intensity moments. The full curved ray is found to yield results that are significantly different from the straight-line approximations. It is noted that these methods are applicable to a variety of experimental situations, including atmospheric optics and radio waves through plasmas.

The case for integrating grounded theory and participatory action research: empowering clients to inform professional practice.

PubMed

Teram, Eli; Schachter, Candice L; Stalker, Carol A

2005-10-01

Grounded theory and participatory action research methods are distinct approaches to qualitative inquiry. Although grounded theory has been conceptualized in constructivist terms, it has elements of positivist thinking with an image of neutral search for objective truth through rigorous data collection and analysis. Participatory action research is based on a critique of this image and calls for more inclusive research processes. It questions the possibility of objective social sciences and aspires to engage people actively in all stages of generating knowledge. The authors applied both approaches in a project designed to explore the experiences of female survivors of childhood sexual abuse with physical therapy and subsequently develop a handbook on sensitive practice for clinicians that takes into consideration the needs and perspectives of these clients. Building on this experience, they argue that the integration of grounded theory and participatory action research can empower clients to inform professional practice.

Self and time.

PubMed

Meissner, W W

2008-01-01

This article explores the meaning of subjective time and its implications for the understanding of the nature of the self in psychoanalytic terms. Subjective time, the time experience of intrapsychic life, is distinguished from objective time. Its development and evolution in the course of the life cycle are examined, and various aspects of its phenomenology explored. Implications for the understanding of the structure and functioning of the self, especially the combined influence of physiological and environmental processes reflecting the integration of body-mind in the time experience and self-organization are discussed. Some implications for the engagement of the self in the analytic process are suggested, particularly the focusing of therapeutic interaction in the present moment and the implications of the meaning of structural change in reference to the modification of the self-concept through the revision and integration of memory systems in the present interaction between analyst and analysand.

eHXI: A permanently installed, hard x-ray imager for the National Ignition Facility

DOE PAGES

Doppner, T.; Bachmann, B.; Albert, F.; ...

2016-06-14

We have designed and built a multi-pinhole imaging system for high energy x-rays (≥ 50 keV) that is permanently installed in the equatorial plane outside of the target chamber at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). It records absolutely-calibrated, time-integrated x-ray images with the same line-of-sight as the multi-channel, spatially integrating hard x-ray detector FFLEX [McDonald et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 75 (2004) 3753], having a side view of indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosion targets. The equatorial hard x-ray imager (eHXI) has recorded images on the majority of ICF implosion experiments since May 2011. Lastly, eHXI provides valuable information onmore » hot electron distribution in hohlraum experiments, target alignment, potential hohlraum drive asymmetries and serves as a long term reference for the FFLEX diagnostics.« less

Communication in ecosystem management: a case study of cross-disciplinary integration in the assessment phase of the interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project.

PubMed

Jakobsen, Christine Haugaard; McLaughlin, William J

2004-05-01

Effective communication is essential to the success of collaborative ecosystem management projects. In this paper, we investigated the dynamics of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project's (ICBEMP) cross-disciplinary integration process in the assessment phase. Using a case study research design, we captured the rich trail of experience through conducting in-depth interviews and collecting information from internal and public documents, videos, and meetings related to the ICBEMP. Coding and analysis was facilitated by a qualitative analysis software, NVivo. Results include the range of internal perspectives on barriers and facilitators of cross-disciplinary integration in the Science Integration Team (SIT). These are arrayed in terms of discipline-based differences, organizational structures and activities, individual traits of scientists, and previous working relationships. The ICBEMP organization included a team of communication staffs (CT), and the data described the CT as a mixed group in terms of qualifications and educational backgrounds that played a major role in communication with actors external to the ICBEMP organization but a minor one in terms of internal communication. The data indicated that the CT-SIT communication was influenced by characteristics of actors and structures related to organizations and their cultures. We conclude that the ICBEMP members may not have had a sufficient level of shared understanding of central domains, such as the task at hand and ways and timing of information sharing. The paper concludes by suggesting that future ecosystem management assessment teams use qualified communications specialists to design and monitor the development of shared cognition among organization members in order to improve the effectiveness of communication and cross-disciplinary integration.

A multi-domain spectral method for time-fractional differential equations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Feng; Xu, Qinwu; Hesthaven, Jan S.

2015-07-01

This paper proposes an approach for high-order time integration within a multi-domain setting for time-fractional differential equations. Since the kernel is singular or nearly singular, two main difficulties arise after the domain decomposition: how to properly account for the history/memory part and how to perform the integration accurately. To address these issues, we propose a novel hybrid approach for the numerical integration based on the combination of three-term-recurrence relations of Jacobi polynomials and high-order Gauss quadrature. The different approximations used in the hybrid approach are justified theoretically and through numerical examples. Based on this, we propose a new multi-domain spectral method for high-order accurate time integrations and study its stability properties by identifying the method as a generalized linear method. Numerical experiments confirm hp-convergence for both time-fractional differential equations and time-fractional partial differential equations.

Prison Experiences and the Reintegration of Male Parolees

PubMed Central

Marlow, Elizabeth; Chesla, Catherine

2010-01-01

Approximately 60% to 70% of all individuals on parole are reincarcerated within 3 years of release from prison. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of parolees’ correctional experiences on their reintegration efforts. Qualitative data were collected via individual interviews with 17 male parolees. Findings revealed 3 types of correctional system adaptations—acquiescence, inaction, and aggression—and 2 patterns of system dependency—reluctant acceptance and complete reliance. Effective health and reintegration policy for individuals on parole must integrate the problems and issues of long-term involvement in correctional and criminal life into programs and interventions for these individuals. PMID:19461219

Numerical experiments on short-term meteorological effects on solar variability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Somerville, R. C. J.; Hansen, J. E.; Stone, P. H.; Quirk, W. J.; Lacis, A. A.

1975-01-01

A set of numerical experiments was conducted to test the short-range sensitivity of a large atmospheric general circulation model to changes in solar constant and ozone amount. On the basis of the results of 12-day sets of integrations with very large variations in these parameters, it is concluded that realistic variations would produce insignificant meteorological effects. Any causal relationships between solar variability and weather, for time scales of two weeks or less, rely upon changes in parameters other than solar constant or ozone amounts, or upon mechanisms not yet incorporated in the model.

Clinical experience with a high-performance ATM-connected DICOM archive for cardiology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Solomon, Harry P.

1997-05-01

A system to archive large image sets, such as cardiac cine runs, with near realtime response must address several functional and performance issues, including efficient use of a high performance network connection with standard protocols, an architecture which effectively integrates both short- and long-term mass storage devices, and a flexible data management policy which allows optimization of image distribution and retrieval strategies based on modality and site-specific operational use. Clinical experience with such as archive has allowed evaluation of these systems issues and refinement of a traffic model for cardiac angiography.

Opening the Door: The Experience of Chronic Critical Illness in a Long-Term Acute Care Hospital.

PubMed

Lamas, Daniela J; Owens, Robert L; Nace, R Nicholas; Massaro, Anthony F; Pertsch, Nathan J; Gass, Jonathon; Bernacki, Rachelle E; Block, Susan D

2017-04-01

Chronically critically ill patients have recurrent infections, organ dysfunction, and at least half die within 1 year. They are frequently cared for in long-term acute care hospitals, yet little is known about their experience in this setting. Our objective was to explore the understanding and expectations and goals of these patients and surrogates. We conducted semi-structured interviews with chronically critically ill long-term acute care hospital patients or surrogates. Conversations were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. One long-term acute care hospital. Chronically critically ill patients, defined by tracheotomy for prolonged mechanical ventilation, or surrogates. Semi-structured conversation about quality of life, expectations, and planning for setbacks. A total of 50 subjects (30 patients and 20 surrogates) were enrolled. Thematic analyses demonstrated: 1) poor quality of life for patients; 2) surrogate stress and anxiety; 3) optimistic health expectations; 4) poor planning for medical setbacks; and 5) disruptive care transitions. Nearly 80% of patient and their surrogate decision makers identified going home as a goal; 38% were at home at 1 year. Our study describes the experience of chronically critically ill patients and surrogates in an long-term acute care hospital and the feasibility of patient-focused research in this setting. Our findings indicate overly optimistic expectations about return home and unmet palliative care needs, suggesting the need for integration of palliative care within the long-term acute care hospital. Further research is also needed to more fully understand the challenges of this growing population of ICU survivors.

Geometric Integration of Weakly Dissipative Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Modin, K.; Führer, C.; Soöderlind, G.

2009-09-01

Some problems in mechanics, e.g. in bearing simulation, contain subsystems that are conservative as well as weakly dissipative subsystems. Our experience is that geometric integration methods are often superior for such systems, as long as the dissipation is weak. Here we develop adaptive methods for dissipative perturbations of Hamiltonian systems. The methods are "geometric" in the sense that the form of the dissipative perturbation is preserved. The methods are linearly explicit, i.e., they require the solution of a linear subsystem. We sketch an analysis in terms of backward error analysis and numerical comparisons with a conventional RK method of the same order is given.

Optical storage media data integrity studies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Podio, Fernando L.

1994-01-01

Optical disk-based information systems are being used in private industry and many Federal Government agencies for on-line and long-term storage of large quantities of data. The storage devices that are part of these systems are designed with powerful, but not unlimited, media error correction capacities. The integrity of data stored on optical disks does not only depend on the life expectancy specifications for the medium. Different factors, including handling and storage conditions, may result in an increase of medium errors in size and frequency. Monitoring the potential data degradation is crucial, especially for long term applications. Efforts are being made by the Association for Information and Image Management Technical Committee C21, Storage Devices and Applications, to specify methods for monitoring and reporting to the user medium errors detected by the storage device while writing, reading or verifying the data stored in that medium. The Computer Systems Laboratory (CSL) of the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) has a leadership role in the development of these standard techniques. In addition, CSL is researching other data integrity issues, including the investigation of error-resilient compression algorithms. NIST has conducted care and handling experiments on optical disk media with the objective of identifying possible causes of degradation. NIST work in data integrity and related standards activities is described.

Memory of childbirth in the second year: the long-term effect of a negative birth experience and its modulation by the perceived intranatal relationship with caregivers.

PubMed

Stadlmayr, W; Amsler, F; Lemola, S; Stein, S; Alt, M; Bürgin, D; Surbek, D; Bitzer, J

2006-12-01

To assess the memory of various subdimensions of the birth experience in the second year postpartum, and to identify women in the first weeks postpartum at risk of developing a long-term negative memory. DESIGN, METHOD, OUTCOME MEASURES: New mothers' birth experience (BE) was assessed 48-96 hours postpartum (T1) by means of the SIL-Ger and the BBCI (perception of intranatal relationships); early postnatal adjustment (week 3 pp: T1(bis)) was also assessed. Then, four subgroups of women were defined by means of a cluster-analysis, integrating the T1/T1(bis) variables. To evaluate the memory of the BE, the SIL-Ger was again applied in the second year after childbirth (T2). First, the ratings of the SIL-Ger dimensions of T1 were compared to those at T2 in the whole sample. Then, the four subgroups were compared with respect to their ratings of the birth experience at T2 (correlations, ANOVAs and t-tests). In general, fulfillment, emotional adaptation, physical discomfort, and anxiety improve spontaneously over the first year postpartum, whereas in negative emotional experience, control, and time-going-slowly no shift over time is observed. However, women with a negative overall birth experience and a low level of perceived intranatal relationship at T1 run a high risk of retaining a negative memory in all of the seven subdimensions of the birth experience. Women at risk of developing a negative long-term memory of the BE can be identified at the time of early postpartum, when the overall birth experience and the perceived intranatal relationship are taken into account.

Finite-part integration of the generalized Stieltjes transform and its dominant asymptotic behavior for small values of the parameter. I. Integer orders

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tica, Christian D.; Galapon, Eric A.

2018-02-01

The paper addresses the exact evaluation of the generalized Stieltjes transform Sn[f ] =∫0∞f (x ) (ω+x ) -nd x of integral order n = 1, 2, 3, … about ω = 0 from which the asymptotic behavior of Sn[f] for small parameters ω is directly extracted. An attempt to evaluate the integral by expanding the integrand (ω + x)-n about ω = 0 and then naively integrating the resulting infinite series term by term leads to an infinite series whose terms are divergent integrals. Assigning values to the divergent integrals, say, by analytic continuation or by Hadamard's finite part is known to reproduce only some of the correct terms of the expansion but completely misses out a group of terms. Here we evaluate explicitly the generalized Stieltjes transform by means of finite-part integration recently introduced in Galapon [Proc. R. Soc. A 473, 20160567 (2017)]. It is shown that, when f(x) does not vanish or has zero of order m at the origin such that (n - m) ≥ 1, the dominant terms of Sn[f] as ω → 0 come from contributions arising from the poles and branch points of the complex valued function f(z)(ω + z)-n. These dominant terms are precisely the terms missed out by naive term by term integration. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how finite-part integration leads to new series representations of special functions by exploiting their known Stieltjes integral representations. Finally, the application of finite part integration in obtaining asymptotic expansions of the effective diffusivity in the limit of high Peclet number, the Green-Kubo formula for the self-diffusion coefficient, and the antisymmetric part of the diffusion tensor in the weak noise limit is discussed.

Continuity and change?: Exploring reactions to a guided self-management intervention in a randomised controlled trial for IBS with reference to prior experience of managing a long term condition

PubMed Central

Rogers, Anne; Lee, Victoria; Kennedy, Anne

2007-01-01

Self-care interventions are promoted as effective strategies for improving the quality of life and health outcomes for individuals with long-term health conditions. Outcome measures used in evaluations using Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) are not designed to consider patients' prior management strategies and experience of illness. Yet the experience of illness literature suggests that adjusting to living with chronic illness, together with broader contextual influences, are likely to be relevant to understanding responses to self-management initiatives. Using group and individual interview data we attempt to illuminate the transposition of IBS from a condition unsatisfactorily managed by medicine to one successfully managed within the life worlds of individuals. If routine embedding of complex interventions depends on the accomplishment of integration and workability in patients' everyday lives then the design and evaluation of such interventions should view participation as part of a process of continuity as well as change. Responses to formal self-management can be extended beyond psychological and other quantitatively measured outcomes. A useful addendum to trial outcomes for self-management education is an understanding of change as being inextricably linked to people's previous attempts to, and experience of, managing long-term conditions. We suggest that the benefits of understanding the prior experience of managing illness and contact with health services include the acceptability and workability of complex interventions in patients' everyday lives. PMID:17316438

Learning from the experience: preliminary results of integration experiments within PRE-EARTHQUAKES EU-FP7 Project.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tramutoli, V.; Inan, S.; Jakowski, N.; Pulinets, S.; Romanov, A.; Filizzola, C.; Shagimuratov, I.; Pergola, N.; Genzano, N.; Lisi, M.; Alparslan, E.; Wilken, V.; Tsybulia, K.; Romanov, A.; Paciello, R.; Balasco, M.; Zakharenkova, I.; Ouzounov, D.; Papadopoulos, G. A.; Parrot, M.

2012-04-01

PRE-EARTHQUAKES (Processing Russian and European EARTH observations for earthQUAKE precursors Studies) EU-FP7 project is devoted to demonstrate - integrating different observational data, comparing and improving different data analysis methods - how it is possible to progressively increase reliability of short term seismic risk assessment. Three main testing area were selected (Italy, Turkey and Sakhalin ) in order to concentrate observations and integration efforts starting with a learning phase on selected event in the past devoted to identify the most suitable parameters, observations technologies, data analysis algorithms. To this aim events offering major possibilities (variety) of integration were particularly considered - Abruzzo EQ (April 6th 2009 Mw 6.3) for Italy, Elazig EQ (March 8th 2010 Mw 6.1) for Turkey and Nevelsk EQ (August 2nd 2007 Mw 6.2) for Sakhalin - without excluding other significant events occurred during 2011 like the ones of Tōhoku in Japan and Van in Turkey. For these events, different ground (80 radon and 29 spring water stations in Turkey region, 2 magneto-telluric in Italy) and satellite (18 different systems) based observations, 11 data analysis methods, for 7 measured parameters, have been compared and integrated. Results achieved by applying a validation/confutation approach devoted to evaluate the presence/absence of anomalous space-time transients in single and/or integrated observation time-series will be discussed also in comparison with results independently achieved by other authors.

Urban Middle School Instructional Special Education: Tenured versus Non-Tenured Teachers and the Impact on Academic Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Sheryl Marie

2010-01-01

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) is used in the Cahokia Unit School District No. 187 to give insight on student academic skill level in terms of years and months. Teacher strategies and expertise in the area of education are an integral part of the educational process. Tenure status, or the years of teaching experience, is plagued with the…

Integrating Sustainable Development Concept into Science Education Program Is Not Enough; We Need Competent Science Teachers for Education for Sustainable Development--Turkish Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karaarslan, Güliz; Teksöz, Gaye

2016-01-01

In order to educate science teachers for a sustainable future, recent discussions are going on related to collaboration between science education and education for sustainable development (ESD). Still, ESD has been in a development stage and needs to be improved in terms of developing teacher competencies. Therefore, in this study we focused on…

Parents' experiences of caring for a child with a cleft lip and/or palate: a review of the literature.

PubMed

Nelson, P; Glenny, A-M; Kirk, S; Caress, A-L

2012-01-01

This review brings together for the first time the existing quantitative and qualitative research evidence about the experiences of parents caring for a child with a cleft. It summarizes salient themes on the emotional, social and service-related experiences of parents and critiques the literature to date, comparing it with wider, selected literature from the field of children's long-term conditions, including disability. The review suggests that there are similarities and differences between the literatures, in terms of research focus and approach. Similarities are found across children's conditions in the perspectives of parents on emotional, social and service-related aspects, although much of the cleft literature is focused on the early stages of children's lives. However, the quality of cleft research to date about parents' experiences has also been variable, with a narrow emphasis on cross-sectional, deficit-orientated psychological approaches focused mainly on mothers. Despite a substantial literature, little qualitative research has examined parents' perspectives in-depth, particularly about their child's treatment journey. This contrasts with the wider children's literature, which has traditionally drawn not only on psychological approaches but also on the broader perspectives of sociology, social policy, nursing and health services research, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, often in integrated ways. Such approaches have been able to highlight a greater range of experiences from both mothers and fathers, about caring for a child with a long-term condition and views about treatment. The review identifies a lack of comparable research in the cleft field to examine parents' experiences and needs at different stages of their children's lives. Above all, research is needed to investigate how both mothers and fathers might experience the long-term and complex treatment journey as children become older and to elicit their views about decision making for cleft treatments, particularly elective surgeries. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Experimentation and evaluation of advanced integrated system concepts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ross, M.; Garrigus, K.; Gottschalck, J.; Rinearson, L.; Longee, E.

1980-09-01

This final report examines the implementation of a time-phased test bed for experimentation and evaluation of advanced system concepts relative to the future Defense Switched Network (DSN). After identifying issues pertinent to the DSN, a set of experiments which address these issues are developed. Experiments are ordered based on their immediacy and relative importance to DSN development. The set of experiments thus defined allows requirements for a time phased implementation of a test bed to be identified, and several generic test bed architectures which meet these requirements are examined. Specific architecture implementations are costed and cost/schedule profiles are generated as a function of experimental capability. The final recommended system consists of two separate test beds: a circuit switch test bed, configured around an off-the-shelf commercial switch, and directed toward the examination of nearer term and transitional issues raised by the evolving DSN; and a packet/hybrid test bed, featuring a discrete buildup of new hardware and software modules, and directed toward examination of the more advanced integrated voice and data telecommunications issues and concepts.

Evolving the SP-100 reactor in order to boost large payloads to GEO and to low lunar orbit via nuclear-electric propulsion

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

English, Robert E.

1991-01-01

In striving to reduce exploration cost and exploration risks, a crucial aspect of the plans is program continuity, i.e., the continuing application of a given technology over a long period so that experience will accumulate from extended testing here on Earth and from a diversity of applications in space. An integrated view needs to be formed of the missions SEI will carry out, near term as well as far, and of the ways in which these missions can mutually support one another. Near term programs should be so constituted as to provide for the long term missions both the enabling technologies and the accumulation of experience they need. In achieving this, missions in Earth orbit should both evolve and show the technologies crucial to long term missions on the lunar surface, and the program for the lunar labs should evolve and show the enabling technologies for exploration of the surface of Mars and for flights of human beings to Mars and return. In the near term, the program for the Space Station should be directed and funded to develop and demonstrate the solar Brayton power plant that will be most useful as the power generator for the SP-100 nuclear reactor.

Evolving the SP-100 reactor in order to boost large payloads to GEO and to low lunar orbit via nuclear-electric propulsion

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

English, Robert E.

1991-01-01

In striving to reduce exploration cost and exploration risks, a crucial aspect of the plans is program continuity, i.e., the continuing application of a given technology over a long period so that experience will accumulate from extended testing here on earth and from a diversity of applications in space. An integrated view needs to be formed of the missions SEI will carry out, near term as well as far, and of the ways in which these missions can mutually support one another. Near term programs should be so constituted as to provide for the long term missions both the enabling technologies and the accumulation of experience they need. In achieving this, missions in earth orbit should both evolve and show the technologies crucial to long term missions on the lunar surfaces, and the program for the lunar labs should evolve and show the enabling technologies for exploration of the surface of Mars and for flights of human beings to Mars and return. In the near term, the program for the Space Station should be directed and funded to develop and demonstrate the solar Brayton power plant that will be most useful as the power generator for the SP-100 nuclear reactor.

Phenomenological investigation of despair in depression.

PubMed

Bürgy, Martin

2008-01-01

In current psychopathological literature, the concept of despair is almost redundant. At most, the term is applied in a behavioral biological context as a synonym for helplessness and hopelessness. In light of the fact that the subjective experience of despair is neglected, the present paper adopts a phenomenological approach. The selection and hermeneutic investigation of philosophical concepts serve as tools for an initial delineation of the core structure of despair. On the basis of a growing deviation between desire and reality, target and actual status, an alternating development is initiated which increasingly constricts and leads to hopelessness and suicide. This phenomenological core structure is identified from a number of integral characteristics of depression and further developed. Despair, thus, becomes a psychopathological key term through which access can be gained to the subjective experience of the depressive individual and which can provide the basis for promoting understanding and communication as well as developing successful therapeutic interventions.

PolarTREC-Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating: Science Education from the Poles to the World

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Warnick, W. K.; Breen, K.; Warburton, J.; Fischer, K.; Wiggins, H.; Owens, R.; Polly, B.; Wade, B.; Buxbaum, T.

2007-12-01

PolarTREC-Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating is a three-year (2007-2009) teacher professional development program celebrating the International Polar Year (IPY) that advances polar science education by bringing K-12 educators and polar researchers together in hands-on field experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic. Currently in its second year, the program fosters the integration of research and education to produce a legacy of long-term teacher-researcher collaborations, improved teacher content knowledge through experiences in scientific inquiry, and broad public interest and engagement in polar science. Through PolarTREC, over 40 U.S. teachers will spend two to six weeks in the Arctic or Antarctic, working closely with researchers in the field as an integral part of the science team. Research projects focus on a wide range of IPY science themed topics such as sea-ice dynamics, terrestrial ecology, marine biology, atmospheric chemistry, and long-term climate change. While in the field, teachers and researchers will communicate extensively with their colleagues, communities, and hundreds of students of all ages across the globe, using a variety of tools including satellite phones, online journals, podcasts and interactive "Live from IPY" calls and web-based seminars. The online outreach elements of the project convey these experiences to a broad audience far beyond the classrooms of the PolarTREC teachers. In addition to field research experiences, PolarTREC will support teacher professional development and a sustained community of teachers, scientists, and the public through workshops, Internet seminars, an e-mail listserve, and teacher peer groups. To learn more about PolarTREC visit the website at: http://www.polartrec.com or contact info@polartrec.com or 907-474-1600. PolarTREC is funded by NSF and managed by the Arctic Research Consortium of the US (ARCUS).

A cloud-based production system for information and service integration: an internet of things case study on waste electronics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Xi Vincent; Wang, Lihui

2017-08-01

Cloud computing is the new enabling technology that offers centralised computing, flexible data storage and scalable services. In the manufacturing context, it is possible to utilise the Cloud technology to integrate and provide industrial resources and capabilities in terms of Cloud services. In this paper, a function block-based integration mechanism is developed to connect various types of production resources. A Cloud-based architecture is also deployed to offer a service pool which maintains these resources as production services. The proposed system provides a flexible and integrated information environment for the Cloud-based production system. As a specific type of manufacturing, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) remanufacturing experiences difficulties in system integration, information exchange and resource management. In this research, WEEE is selected as the example of Internet of Things to demonstrate how the obstacles and bottlenecks are overcome with the help of Cloud-based informatics approach. In the case studies, the WEEE recycle/recovery capabilities are also integrated and deployed as flexible Cloud services. Supporting mechanisms and technologies are presented and evaluated towards the end of the paper.

Impact of obesity on body image dissatisfaction and social integration difficulty in adolescent and young adult burn injury survivors

PubMed Central

Chondronikola, Maria; Sidossis, Labros S.; Richardson, Lisa M.; Temple, Jeff R.; van den Berg, Patricia A.; Herndon, David N.; Meyer, Walter J.

2012-01-01

Objective Burn injury deformities and obesity have been associated with social integration difficulty and body image dissatisfaction. However, the combined effects of obesity and burn injury in social integration difficulty and body image dissatisfaction are unknown. Methods Adolescent and young adults burn injury survivors were categorized as normal weight (n=47) or overweight and obese (n=21). Burn-related and anthropometric information was obtained from patients' medical records, while validated questionnaires were used to assess the main outcomes and possible confounders. Analysis of covariance and multiple linear regressions were performed to evaluate the objectives of this study. Results Obese and overweight burn injury survivors did not experience increased body image dissatisfaction (12 ± 4.3 vs 13.1 ± 4.4, p = 0.57) or social integration difficulty (17.5 ± 6.9 vs 15.5 ± 5.7, p=0.16) compared to normal weight burn injury survivors. Weight status was not a significant predictor of social integration difficulty or body image dissatisfaction (p=0.19 and p=0.24, respectively). However, mobility limitations predicted greater social integration difficulty (p=0.005) and body image dissatisfaction (p<0.001), while higher weight status at burn was a borderline significant predictor of body image dissatisfaction (p=0.05). Conclusions Obese and overweight adolescents and young adults, who sustained a major burn injury as children, do not experience greater social integration difficulty and body image dissatisfaction compared to normal weight burn injury survivors. Mobility limitations and higher weight status at burn are likely more important factors affecting the long-term social integration difficulty and body image dissatisfaction of these young people. PMID:23292577

ATTRIBUTES OF AESTHETIC QUALITY USED BY TEXTILE CONSERVATORS IN EVALUATING CONSERVATION INTERVENTIONS ON MUSEUM COSTUMES.

PubMed

Nilsson, Johanna; Axelsson, Östen

2015-08-01

Aesthetic quality is central to textile conservators when evaluating a conservation method. However, the literature on textile conservation chiefly focuses on physical properties, and little is known about what factors determine aesthetic quality according to textile conservators. The latter was explored through two experiments. Experiment 1 explored the underlying attributes of aesthetic quality of textile conservation interventions. Experiment 2 explored the relationships between these attributes and how well they predicted aesthetic quality. Rank-order correlation analyses revealed two latent factors called Coherence and Completeness. Ordinal regression analysis revealed that Coherence was the most important predictor of aesthetic quality. This means that a successful conservation intervention is visually well-integrated with the textile item in terms of the material and method.

Robot deployment in long-term care : Case study on using a mobile robot to support physiotherapy.

PubMed

Gerling, K; Hebesberger, D; Dondrup, C; Körtner, T; Hanheide, M

2016-06-01

Healthcare systems in industrialized countries face the challenge of providing care for a growing number of elderly people. Information technology has the possibility of facilitating this process by providing support for nursing staff and improving the well-being of the elderly through a variety of support systems. Little is known about the challenges that arise from the deployment of technology in care settings; however, the integration of technology into care is one of the core determinants of successful support. This article presents the challenges and options associated with the integration of technology into care using the example of a mobile robot to support physiotherapy for elderly people with cognitive impairment in the European project Spatio-Temporal Representations and Activities for Cognitive Control in Long-Term Scenarios (STRANDS). This article presents the technical challenges associated with the introduction of robots in the context of care as well as the perspectives of physiotherapists involved and an overview of information and experiences gained. It is hoped that this will provide useful information for the work of researchers and practitioners wishing to integrate robotic aids into the caregiving process.

Identifying enhanced cortico-basal ganglia loops associated with prolonged dance training

PubMed Central

Li, Gujing; He, Hui; Huang, Mengting; Zhang, Xingxing; Lu, Jing; Lai, Yongxiu; Luo, Cheng; Yao, Dezhong

2015-01-01

Studies have revealed that prolonged, specialized training combined with higher cognitive conditioning induces enhanced brain alternation. In particular, dancers with long-term dance experience exhibit superior motor control and integration with their sensorimotor networks. However, little is known about the functional connectivity patterns of spontaneous intrinsic activities in the sensorimotor network of dancers. Our study examined the functional connectivity density (FCD) of dancers with a mean period of over 10 years of dance training in contrast with a matched non-dancer group without formal dance training using resting-state fMRI scans. FCD was mapped and analyzed, and the functional connectivity (FC) analyses were then performed based on the difference of FCD. Compared to the non-dancers, the dancers exhibited significantly increased FCD in the precentral gyri, postcentral gyri and bilateral putamen. Furthermore, the results of the FC analysis revealed enhanced connections between the middle cingulate cortex and the bilateral putamen and between the precentral and the postcentral gyri. All findings indicated an enhanced functional integration in the cortico-basal ganglia loops that govern motor control and integration in dancers. These findings might reflect improved sensorimotor function for the dancers consequent to long-term dance training. PMID:26035693

Storing information in-the-world: Metacognition and cognitive offloading in a short-term memory task.

PubMed

Risko, Evan F; Dunn, Timothy L

2015-11-01

We often store to-be-remembered information externally (e.g., written down on a piece of paper) rather than internally. In the present investigation, we examine factors that influence the decision to store information in-the-world versus in-the-head using a variant of a traditional short term memory task. In Experiments 1a and 1b participants were presented with to-be-remembered items and either had to rely solely on internal memory or had the option to write down the presented information. In Experiments 2a and 2b participants were presented with the same stimuli but made metacognitive judgments about their predicted performance and effort expenditure. The spontaneous use of external storage was related both to the number of items to be remembered and an individual's actual and perceived short-term-memory capacity. Interestingly, individuals often used external storage despite its use affording no observable benefit. Implications for understanding how individuals integrate external resources in pursuing cognitive goals are discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Geographic information system development in the CARETS project

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mitchell, William B.; Fegeas, Robin G.; Fitzpatrick, Katherine A.; Hallam, Cheryl A.

1977-01-01

Experience in the development of a geographic information system to support the CARETS project has confirmed the considerable advantages that may accrue by paralleling the system development with a rational and balanced system production effort which permits the integration of the education and training of users with interim deliverable products to them. Those advantages include support for a long-term staff plan that recognizes substantial staff changes through system development and implementation, a fiscal plan that provides continuity in resources necessary for total system development, and a feedback system which allows the user to communicate his experiences in using the system. Thus far balance between system development and system production has not been achieved because of continuing large-scale spatial data processing requirements coupled with strong and insistent demands from users for immediately deliverable products from the system. That imbalance has refocussed staffing and fiscal plans from long-term system development to short- and near-term production requirements, continuously extends total system development time, and increases the possibility that later system development may reduce the usefulness of current interim products.

Scale-adaptive compressive tracking with feature integration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Wei; Li, Jicheng; Chen, Xiao; Li, Shuxin

2016-05-01

Numerous tracking-by-detection methods have been proposed for robust visual tracking, among which compressive tracking (CT) has obtained some promising results. A scale-adaptive CT method based on multifeature integration is presented to improve the robustness and accuracy of CT. We introduce a keypoint-based model to achieve the accurate scale estimation, which can additionally give a prior location of the target. Furthermore, by the high efficiency of data-independent random projection matrix, multiple features are integrated into an effective appearance model to construct the naïve Bayes classifier. At last, an adaptive update scheme is proposed to update the classifier conservatively. Experiments on various challenging sequences demonstrate substantial improvements by our proposed tracker over CT and other state-of-the-art trackers in terms of dealing with scale variation, abrupt motion, deformation, and illumination changes.

The measurement problem in quantum mechanics: A phenomenological investigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hunter, Joel Brooks

2008-10-01

This dissertation is a phenomenological investigation of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. The primary subject matter for description and analysis is scientific instruments and their use in experiments which elicit the measurement problem. A methodological critique is mounted against the ontological commitments taken for granted in the canonical interpretations of quantum theory and the scientific activity of measurement as the necessary interface between theoretical interest and perceptual results. I argue that an aesthetic dimension of reality functions as aproto-scientific establishment of sense-making that constantly operates to set integratively all other cognitively neat determinations, including scientifically rendered objects that are intrinsically non-visualizable. The way in which data "key in" to the original and originative register of the sensible in observation is clarified by examining prostheses, measuring apparatuses and instruments that are sense-conveying and -integrative with the human sensorium. Experiments, technology and instrumentation are examined in order to understand how knowing and that which is known is bonded by praxis-aisthesis. Quantum measurement is a praxic-dynamie activity and homologically structured and structur ing functional engagement in terms of instantiation, quantifiability, and spatiotemporal differentiation. The distinctions between a beauty-aesthetic and praxis-aisthesis are delineated. It is argued that a beauty-aesthetic is a construal of the economic dimension of scientific objects and work, and is not the primary manner in which the aesthetic dimension is disclosed. The economic dimension of abstractions reduces to an austere aesthetic of calculative economy. Nature itself, however, is not stingy; it is intrinsically capacious, extravagant, full of surprise, nuance, ambiguity and allusiveness. The capaciousness of Nature and the way in which we are integratively set within Nature in a materiality-phenomenality correlation discloses Nature's constituent potential, a condition more primitive than causal interplay. Finally, the relation between a physical mechanism or process and its functional mathematical representation is clarified. No physical mechanism or process accounts for the empirical effects of measurement outcomes in some quantum mechanical experiments. Within the milieu of ordinary perceptual experience, complete with its horizonal structure of spatiality and temporality, something uncaused is encountered which resists full determination in terms of mathematical representation. Keywords: Quantum Mechanics, Measurement Problem, Phenomenology, Prosthesis, Aesthetic

An Implementation of Integrated Logistic Support for Turkish Armed Forces

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-06-01

of systems available for sale by friendly countries. Usually the procurement decision is based upon procurement costs so the tendency is to buy the...result from various design alternatives. From the author’s personal experience, careful planning before buying a weapon system would have solved various...convincing the government of the long term advantages of buying the system which has the least life-cycle costs, especially when these costs are spread

The Role of Lactate-Mediated Metabolic Coupling between Astrocytes and Neurons in Long-Term Memory Formation

PubMed Central

Steinman, Michael Q.; Gao, Virginia; Alberini, Cristina M.

2016-01-01

Long-term memory formation, the ability to retain information over time about an experience, is a complex function that affects multiple behaviors, and is an integral part of an individual’s identity. In the last 50 years many scientists have focused their work on understanding the biological mechanisms underlying memory formation and processing. Molecular studies over the last three decades have mostly investigated, or given attention to, neuronal mechanisms. However, the brain is composed of different cell types that, by concerted actions, cooperate to mediate brain functions. Here, we consider some new insights that emerged from recent studies implicating astrocytic glycogen and glucose metabolisms, and particularly their coupling to neuronal functions via lactate, as an essential mechanism for long-term memory formation. PMID:26973477

Short-term responses of leaf growth rate to water deficit scale up to whole-plant and crop levels: an integrated modelling approach in maize.

PubMed

Chenu, Karine; Chapman, Scott C; Hammer, Graeme L; McLean, Greg; Salah, Halim Ben Haj; Tardieu, François

2008-03-01

Physiological and genetic studies of leaf growth often focus on short-term responses, leaving a gap to whole-plant models that predict biomass accumulation, transpiration and yield at crop scale. To bridge this gap, we developed a model that combines an existing model of leaf 6 expansion in response to short-term environmental variations with a model coordinating the development of all leaves of a plant. The latter was based on: (1) rates of leaf initiation, appearance and end of elongation measured in field experiments; and (2) the hypothesis of an independence of the growth between leaves. The resulting whole-plant leaf model was integrated into the generic crop model APSIM which provided dynamic feedback of environmental conditions to the leaf model and allowed simulation of crop growth at canopy level. The model was tested in 12 field situations with contrasting temperature, evaporative demand and soil water status. In observed and simulated data, high evaporative demand reduced leaf area at the whole-plant level, and short water deficits affected only leaves developing during the stress, either visible or still hidden in the whorl. The model adequately simulated whole-plant profiles of leaf area with a single set of parameters that applied to the same hybrid in all experiments. It was also suitable to predict biomass accumulation and yield of a similar hybrid grown in different conditions. This model extends to field conditions existing knowledge of the environmental controls of leaf elongation, and can be used to simulate how their genetic controls flow through to yield.

Personal control of privacy and data: Estonian experience.

PubMed

Priisalu, Jaan; Ottis, Rain

2017-01-01

The Republic of Estonia leads Europe in the provision of public digital services. The national communications and transactions platform allows for twenty-first century governance by allowing for transparency, e-safety (inter alia privacy), e-security, entrepreneurship and, among other things, rising levels of prosperity, and well-being for all its Citizens. However, a series of Information Infrastructure attacks against the Estonian e-society infrastructure in 2007 became one of best known incidents and experiences that fundamentally changed both Estonian and international discussions about Cyber Security and Privacy. Estonian experience shows that an open and transparent attitude provides a good foundation for trust between the Citizen and the State, and gives more control to the real owner of the data - the Citizen. Another important lesson is that the Citizen needs to be confident in the government's ability to keep their data safe -- in terms of confidentiality, integrity and availability - establishing a strong link between privacy and information security. This paper discusses certain critical choices, context, and events connected to the birth and growth of the Estonian e-society in terms of Privacy.

The Mexican National Programs on Teaching Mathematics and Science with Technology: The Legacy of a Decade of Experiences of Transformation of School Practices and Interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sacristán, Ana Isabel; Rojano, Teresa

Here we give an overview of the Mexican experience of a national program, begun in 1997, of gradual implementation of computational tools in the lower secondary-school classrooms (children 12-15 years-old) for mathematics and science. This project illustrates, through the benefit of long-term hindsight, the successes and difficulties of large-scale massive implementation of technologies in schools. The key factors for success and for transforming school practices seem to be: adequate planning, gradual implementation, continuous training and support, and enough time (years) for assimilation and integration.

A Longitudinal Study of How Quality Mentorship and Research Experience Integrate Underrepresented Minorities into STEM Careers.

PubMed

Estrada, Mica; Hernandez, Paul R; Schultz, P Wesley

2018-01-01

African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans are historically underrepresented minorities (URMs) among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree earners. Viewed from a perspective of social influence, this pattern suggests that URMs do not integrate into the STEM academic community at the same rate as non-URM students. Estrada and colleagues recently showed that Kelman's tripartite integration model of social influence (TIMSI) predicted URM persistence into science fields. In this paper, we longitudinally examine the integration of URMs into the STEM community by using growth-curve analyses to measure the development of TIMIS's key variables (science efficacy, identity, and values) from junior year through the postbaccalaureate year. Results showed that quality mentorship and research experience occurring in the junior and senior years were positively related to student science efficacy, identity, and values at that same time period. Longitudinal modeling of TIMSI further shows that, while efficacy is important, and perhaps a necessary predictor of moving toward a STEM career, past experiences of efficacy may not be sufficient for maintaining longer-term persistence. In contrast, science identity and values do continue to be predictive of STEM career pathway persistence up to 4 years after graduation. © 2018 M. Estrada et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2018 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Structural dissociation and its resolution among Holocaust survivors: a qualitative research study.

PubMed

Auerbach, Carl F; Mirvis, Shoshana; Stern, Susan; Schwartz, Jonathan

2009-01-01

This qualitative study investigated how Holocaust survivors managed to lead "normal" lives after experiencing incomprehensible horror. It was based on structural dissociation theory (O. Van der Hart, E. R. S. Nijenhuis, & K. Steele, 2006), which postulates that when people encounter traumatic events that they cannot integrate into their ongoing mental lives, their personalities may divide into 2 distinct action systems: the apparently normal part of the personality (ANP; involving systems that manage functions of daily life) and the emotional part of the personality (EP; involving systems related to the traumatic memory). Failure to integrate also leads to nonrealization of the traumatic experience. Research participants were 20 people randomly selected from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's oral history archives. Their interviews were analyzed in terms of structural dissociation and nonrealization in order to develop a narrative about the stages of their post-war lives. In the 1st stage (Surviving the Camps: Formation of Traumatic Memories), the experience of surviving the camps created traumatic emotional memories. In the 2nd stage (Post-War Adjustment: Creating the ANP by Splitting Off the Traumatic Memories Into an EP), survivors' desire to create a normal post-war life led them to split off their traumatic memories. In the 3rd stage (Developing the Motivation to Remember), survivors' changed life context motivated them to confront the previously split-off material. In the 4th stage (Creating a Historical Self: Integration of the ANP and EP), survivors integrated past experience into their lives, although the impact of the trauma never fully disappeared.

Analysis of real-time numerical integration methods applied to dynamic clamp experiments.

PubMed

Butera, Robert J; McCarthy, Maeve L

2004-12-01

Real-time systems are frequently used as an experimental tool, whereby simulated models interact in real time with neurophysiological experiments. The most demanding of these techniques is known as the dynamic clamp, where simulated ion channel conductances are artificially injected into a neuron via intracellular electrodes for measurement and stimulation. Methodologies for implementing the numerical integration of the gating variables in real time typically employ first-order numerical methods, either Euler or exponential Euler (EE). EE is often used for rapidly integrating ion channel gating variables. We find via simulation studies that for small time steps, both methods are comparable, but at larger time steps, EE performs worse than Euler. We derive error bounds for both methods, and find that the error can be characterized in terms of two ratios: time step over time constant, and voltage measurement error over the slope factor of the steady-state activation curve of the voltage-dependent gating variable. These ratios reliably bound the simulation error and yield results consistent with the simulation analysis. Our bounds quantitatively illustrate how measurement error restricts the accuracy that can be obtained by using smaller step sizes. Finally, we demonstrate that Euler can be computed with identical computational efficiency as EE.

Integrating Data and Networks: Human Factors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, R. S.

2012-12-01

The development of technical linkages and interoperability between scientific networks is a necessary but not sufficient step towards integrated use and application of networked data and information for scientific and societal benefit. A range of "human factors" must also be addressed to ensure the long-term integration, sustainability, and utility of both the interoperable networks themselves and the scientific data and information to which they provide access. These human factors encompass the behavior of both individual humans and human institutions, and include system governance, a common framework for intellectual property rights and data sharing, consensus on terminology, metadata, and quality control processes, agreement on key system metrics and milestones, the compatibility of "business models" in the short and long term, harmonization of incentives for cooperation, and minimization of disincentives. Experience with several national and international initiatives and research programs such as the International Polar Year, the Group on Earth Observations, the NASA Earth Observing Data and Information System, the U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure, the Global Earthquake Model, and the United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure provide a range of lessons regarding these human factors. Ongoing changes in science, technology, institutions, relationships, and even culture are creating both opportunities and challenges for expanded interoperability of scientific networks and significant improvement in data integration to advance science and the use of scientific data and information to achieve benefits for society as a whole.

How is rehabilitation with and without an integrated self-management approach perceived by UK community-dwelling stroke survivors? A qualitative process evaluation to explore implementation and contextual variations

PubMed Central

Jones, Fiona; McKevitt, Christopher; Riazi, Afsane; Liston, Matthew

2017-01-01

Objective Self-management programmes could support long-term needs after stroke and using methods integrated into rehabilitation is one option. To explore theoretical assumptions and possible mechanisms of implementation a process evaluation was delivered alongside a cluster trial which has demonstrated feasibility of an integrated self-management programme (Bridges SMP) in community-dwelling stroke survivors. This paper aims to show the extent to which experiences from stroke survivors receiving rehabilitation in control (usual care) and intervention (integrated self-management) sites reflected the differences in rehabilitation received and whether their understandings aligned with the self-management approach employed. Design Semistructured qualitative interviews carried out as part of a process evaluation analysed thematically. Setting Study was based in South London; all interviews were carried out in participants' home setting. Participants 22 stroke participants recruited; 12 from integrated self-management sites and 10 from usual care sites. Results All participants revealed shared appreciation of knowledge and support from therapists but subtle differences emerged between sites in respect to perceptions about responsibility, control and how previous experiences were used. Accounts depicted a variance regarding who had structured and planned their rehabilitation, with greater flexibility about content and involvement perceived by participants from the integrated self-management sites. They also provided accounts and experiences which aligned with principles of the intervention, such as self-discovery and problem-solving. Conclusions The findings reflect our theoretical assumptions and possible mechanisms of implementation that rehabilitation with a focus on supporting self-management is reflected in accounts and understandings of stroke survivors. Taken together with our previous research this justifies evaluating the effectiveness of Bridges SMP in a larger sample to further contribute to an understanding of the functioning of the intervention, implementation, contextual factors and mechanisms of impact. Trial registration number ISRCTN42534180; Post-results. PMID:28373253

Integrative omics analysis. A study based on Plasmodium falciparum mRNA and protein data.

PubMed

Tomescu, Oana A; Mattanovich, Diethard; Thallinger, Gerhard G

2014-01-01

Technological improvements have shifted the focus from data generation to data analysis. The availability of large amounts of data from transcriptomics, protemics and metabolomics experiments raise new questions concerning suitable integrative analysis methods. We compare three integrative analysis techniques (co-inertia analysis, generalized singular value decomposition and integrative biclustering) by applying them to gene and protein abundance data from the six life cycle stages of Plasmodium falciparum. Co-inertia analysis is an analysis method used to visualize and explore gene and protein data. The generalized singular value decomposition has shown its potential in the analysis of two transcriptome data sets. Integrative Biclustering applies biclustering to gene and protein data. Using CIA, we visualize the six life cycle stages of Plasmodium falciparum, as well as GO terms in a 2D plane and interpret the spatial configuration. With GSVD, we decompose the transcriptomic and proteomic data sets into matrices with biologically meaningful interpretations and explore the processes captured by the data sets. IBC identifies groups of genes, proteins, GO Terms and life cycle stages of Plasmodium falciparum. We show method-specific results as well as a network view of the life cycle stages based on the results common to all three methods. Additionally, by combining the results of the three methods, we create a three-fold validated network of life cycle stage specific GO terms: Sporozoites are associated with transcription and transport; merozoites with entry into host cell as well as biosynthetic and metabolic processes; rings with oxidation-reduction processes; trophozoites with glycolysis and energy production; schizonts with antigenic variation and immune response; gametocyctes with DNA packaging and mitochondrial transport. Furthermore, the network connectivity underlines the separation of the intraerythrocytic cycle from the gametocyte and sporozoite stages. Using integrative analysis techniques, we can integrate knowledge from different levels and obtain a wider view of the system under study. The overlap between method-specific and common results is considerable, even if the basic mathematical assumptions are very different. The three-fold validated network of life cycle stage characteristics of Plasmodium falciparum could identify a large amount of the known associations from literature in only one study.

Integrative omics analysis. A study based on Plasmodium falciparum mRNA and protein data

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Technological improvements have shifted the focus from data generation to data analysis. The availability of large amounts of data from transcriptomics, protemics and metabolomics experiments raise new questions concerning suitable integrative analysis methods. We compare three integrative analysis techniques (co-inertia analysis, generalized singular value decomposition and integrative biclustering) by applying them to gene and protein abundance data from the six life cycle stages of Plasmodium falciparum. Co-inertia analysis is an analysis method used to visualize and explore gene and protein data. The generalized singular value decomposition has shown its potential in the analysis of two transcriptome data sets. Integrative Biclustering applies biclustering to gene and protein data. Results Using CIA, we visualize the six life cycle stages of Plasmodium falciparum, as well as GO terms in a 2D plane and interpret the spatial configuration. With GSVD, we decompose the transcriptomic and proteomic data sets into matrices with biologically meaningful interpretations and explore the processes captured by the data sets. IBC identifies groups of genes, proteins, GO Terms and life cycle stages of Plasmodium falciparum. We show method-specific results as well as a network view of the life cycle stages based on the results common to all three methods. Additionally, by combining the results of the three methods, we create a three-fold validated network of life cycle stage specific GO terms: Sporozoites are associated with transcription and transport; merozoites with entry into host cell as well as biosynthetic and metabolic processes; rings with oxidation-reduction processes; trophozoites with glycolysis and energy production; schizonts with antigenic variation and immune response; gametocyctes with DNA packaging and mitochondrial transport. Furthermore, the network connectivity underlines the separation of the intraerythrocytic cycle from the gametocyte and sporozoite stages. Conclusion Using integrative analysis techniques, we can integrate knowledge from different levels and obtain a wider view of the system under study. The overlap between method-specific and common results is considerable, even if the basic mathematical assumptions are very different. The three-fold validated network of life cycle stage characteristics of Plasmodium falciparum could identify a large amount of the known associations from literature in only one study. PMID:25033389

Evaluation of integrated assessment model hindcast experiments: a case study of the GCAM 3.0 land use module

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

Snyder, Abigail C.; Link, Robert P.; Calvin, Katherine V.

Hindcasting experiments (conducting a model forecast for a time period in which observational data are available) are being undertaken increasingly often by the integrated assessment model (IAM) community, across many scales of models. When they are undertaken, the results are often evaluated using global aggregates or otherwise highly aggregated skill scores that mask deficiencies. We select a set of deviation-based measures that can be applied on different spatial scales (regional versus global) to make evaluating the large number of variable–region combinations in IAMs more tractable. We also identify performance benchmarks for these measures, based on the statistics of the observationalmore » dataset, that allow a model to be evaluated in absolute terms rather than relative to the performance of other models at similar tasks. An ideal evaluation method for hindcast experiments in IAMs would feature both absolute measures for evaluation of a single experiment for a single model and relative measures to compare the results of multiple experiments for a single model or the same experiment repeated across multiple models, such as in community intercomparison studies. The performance benchmarks highlight the use of this scheme for model evaluation in absolute terms, providing information about the reasons a model may perform poorly on a given measure and therefore identifying opportunities for improvement. To demonstrate the use of and types of results possible with the evaluation method, the measures are applied to the results of a past hindcast experiment focusing on land allocation in the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) version 3.0. The question of how to more holistically evaluate models as complex as IAMs is an area for future research. We find quantitative evidence that global aggregates alone are not sufficient for evaluating IAMs that require global supply to equal global demand at each time period, such as GCAM. The results of this work indicate it is unlikely that a single evaluation measure for all variables in an IAM exists, and therefore sector-by-sector evaluation may be necessary.« less

Evaluation of integrated assessment model hindcast experiments: a case study of the GCAM 3.0 land use module

DOE PAGES

Snyder, Abigail C.; Link, Robert P.; Calvin, Katherine V.

2017-11-29

Hindcasting experiments (conducting a model forecast for a time period in which observational data are available) are being undertaken increasingly often by the integrated assessment model (IAM) community, across many scales of models. When they are undertaken, the results are often evaluated using global aggregates or otherwise highly aggregated skill scores that mask deficiencies. We select a set of deviation-based measures that can be applied on different spatial scales (regional versus global) to make evaluating the large number of variable–region combinations in IAMs more tractable. We also identify performance benchmarks for these measures, based on the statistics of the observationalmore » dataset, that allow a model to be evaluated in absolute terms rather than relative to the performance of other models at similar tasks. An ideal evaluation method for hindcast experiments in IAMs would feature both absolute measures for evaluation of a single experiment for a single model and relative measures to compare the results of multiple experiments for a single model or the same experiment repeated across multiple models, such as in community intercomparison studies. The performance benchmarks highlight the use of this scheme for model evaluation in absolute terms, providing information about the reasons a model may perform poorly on a given measure and therefore identifying opportunities for improvement. To demonstrate the use of and types of results possible with the evaluation method, the measures are applied to the results of a past hindcast experiment focusing on land allocation in the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) version 3.0. The question of how to more holistically evaluate models as complex as IAMs is an area for future research. We find quantitative evidence that global aggregates alone are not sufficient for evaluating IAMs that require global supply to equal global demand at each time period, such as GCAM. The results of this work indicate it is unlikely that a single evaluation measure for all variables in an IAM exists, and therefore sector-by-sector evaluation may be necessary.« less

Evaluation of integrated assessment model hindcast experiments: a case study of the GCAM 3.0 land use module

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Snyder, Abigail C.; Link, Robert P.; Calvin, Katherine V.

2017-11-01

Hindcasting experiments (conducting a model forecast for a time period in which observational data are available) are being undertaken increasingly often by the integrated assessment model (IAM) community, across many scales of models. When they are undertaken, the results are often evaluated using global aggregates or otherwise highly aggregated skill scores that mask deficiencies. We select a set of deviation-based measures that can be applied on different spatial scales (regional versus global) to make evaluating the large number of variable-region combinations in IAMs more tractable. We also identify performance benchmarks for these measures, based on the statistics of the observational dataset, that allow a model to be evaluated in absolute terms rather than relative to the performance of other models at similar tasks. An ideal evaluation method for hindcast experiments in IAMs would feature both absolute measures for evaluation of a single experiment for a single model and relative measures to compare the results of multiple experiments for a single model or the same experiment repeated across multiple models, such as in community intercomparison studies. The performance benchmarks highlight the use of this scheme for model evaluation in absolute terms, providing information about the reasons a model may perform poorly on a given measure and therefore identifying opportunities for improvement. To demonstrate the use of and types of results possible with the evaluation method, the measures are applied to the results of a past hindcast experiment focusing on land allocation in the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) version 3.0. The question of how to more holistically evaluate models as complex as IAMs is an area for future research. We find quantitative evidence that global aggregates alone are not sufficient for evaluating IAMs that require global supply to equal global demand at each time period, such as GCAM. The results of this work indicate it is unlikely that a single evaluation measure for all variables in an IAM exists, and therefore sector-by-sector evaluation may be necessary.

Knowledge and attitudes towards disability in Moldova: A qualitative study of young people's views.

PubMed

McLean, Kenneth A; Hardie, Samantha; Paul, Abigail; Paul, Gary; Savage, Iain; Shields, Paul; Symes, Rebecca; Wilson, Joanna; Winstanley, Catherine; Harden, Jeni

2017-10-01

People with disabilities in the Republic of Moldova continue to experience considerable discrimination and social exclusion. The Moldovan government recently affirmed their commitment to promote community integration. However, there remains limited evidence to facilitate understanding of these issues, and barriers to the integrative process. This study explored the knowledge and attitudes towards disability of young people within Moldova. A qualitative approach was adopted and 3 semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with schoolchildren (n = 12), aged 13-15 years. These interviews focussed on different aspects of disability, and community integration. Pictorial and written vignettes were used to stimulate discussion. The interviews were conducted and recorded in Romanian, and were subsequently translated into English to facilitate thematic data analysis. Identified themes included: (1) Knowledge and understanding of disability. The young people's knowledge was limited and framed by the medical model of disability; (2) Attitudes towards community integration. A bias against long-term care institutions, but differing views regarding integration; (3) Perceptions of barriers to community integration: (i) Cultural barriers. Negative, even hostile attitudes towards disability; (ii) Policy barriers. Poor support services; and (iii) Physical barriers. Ongoing issues regarding accessibility. People with disabilities in Moldova experience negative cultural attitudes linked to an outdated conception of disability itself. There are inadequate community support services and infrastructure which act as barriers to inclusion. At present, there can be limited interaction and participation of people with disabilities within local communities, and so few opportunities to refute persistent stereotypes and stigma surrounding disability. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Women’s Sleep Disorders: Integrative Care

PubMed Central

Frange, Cristina; Banzoli, Carolina Vicente; Colombo, Ana Elisa; Siegler, Marcele; Coelho, Glaury; Bezerra, Andréia Gomes; Csermak, Marcelo; Naufel, Maria Fernanda; Cesar-Netto, Cristiana; Andersen, Monica Levy; Girão, Manoel João Batista Castelo; Tufik, Sergio; Hachul, Helena

2017-01-01

The integrative care model is rooted in a biopsychosocial approach. Integrative is a term which refers to increasing the harmony and coherence of your whole being, and integrative care is therefore focused on the person, not on either the disease or a therapy. It is provided collaboratively by a health team comprising physicians, psychologists, physiotherapists, acupuncturists, and meditation, nutrition, and floral therapy. Previous studies have demonstrated that interventions based on the integrative care model improved womens lifestyle and quality of life. Our aim was to describe the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) alongside traditional medicine among women with sleep conditions in our Womens Sleep Disorders Integrative Treatment Outpatient Clinic. We are sharing our experiences and clinical practice as the model we developed seems to have both physical and psychological benefits for women with sleep problems. We discuss the wide range of benefits that result from this type of complex intervention, and the contextual factors that may influence these benefits. This will inform future practitioners and we hope to contribute to quantitative research in the clinical setting. The study highlights the importance of treating sleep complaints with a caring relationship and a CAM approach, alongside conventional medicine. Exploration of the lived experience of CAM and its meaning enables healthcare professionals to gain insights into the patients needs, preferences, and values. Gynecologists, clinicians, and health care providers should support and guide patients in their decision to use CAM by providing evidence-based and comprehensive advice on the potential benefits, risks and related safety issues of this approach. PMID:29410750

Ocean acidification and rising temperatures may increase biofilm primary productivity but decrease grazer consumption

PubMed Central

Russell, Bayden D.; Connell, Sean D.; Findlay, Helen S.; Tait, Karen; Widdicombe, Stephen; Mieszkowska, Nova

2013-01-01

Climate change may cause ecosystems to become trophically restructured as a result of primary producers and consumers responding differently to increasing CO2 and temperature. This study used an integrative approach using a controlled microcosm experiment to investigate the combined effects of CO2 and temperature on key components of the intertidal system in the UK, biofilms and their consumers (Littorina littorea). In addition, to identify whether pre-exposure to experimental conditions can alter experimental outcomes we explicitly tested for differential effects on L. littorea pre-exposed to experimental conditions for two weeks and five months. In contrast to predictions based on metabolic theory, the combination of elevated temperature and CO2 over a five-week period caused a decrease in the amount of primary productivity consumed by grazers, while the abundance of biofilms increased. However, long-term pre-exposure to experimental conditions (five months) altered this effect, with grazing rates in these animals being greater than in animals exposed only for two weeks. We suggest that the structure of future ecosystems may not be predictable using short-term laboratory experiments alone owing to potentially confounding effects of exposure time and effects of being held in an artificial environment over prolonged time periods. A combination of laboratory (physiology responses) and large, long-term experiments (ecosystem responses) may therefore be necessary to adequately predict the complex and interactive effects of climate change as organisms may acclimate to conditions over the longer term. PMID:23980241

Ocean acidification and rising temperatures may increase biofilm primary productivity but decrease grazer consumption.

PubMed

Russell, Bayden D; Connell, Sean D; Findlay, Helen S; Tait, Karen; Widdicombe, Stephen; Mieszkowska, Nova

2013-01-01

Climate change may cause ecosystems to become trophically restructured as a result of primary producers and consumers responding differently to increasing CO2 and temperature. This study used an integrative approach using a controlled microcosm experiment to investigate the combined effects of CO2 and temperature on key components of the intertidal system in the UK, biofilms and their consumers (Littorina littorea). In addition, to identify whether pre-exposure to experimental conditions can alter experimental outcomes we explicitly tested for differential effects on L. littorea pre-exposed to experimental conditions for two weeks and five months. In contrast to predictions based on metabolic theory, the combination of elevated temperature and CO2 over a five-week period caused a decrease in the amount of primary productivity consumed by grazers, while the abundance of biofilms increased. However, long-term pre-exposure to experimental conditions (five months) altered this effect, with grazing rates in these animals being greater than in animals exposed only for two weeks. We suggest that the structure of future ecosystems may not be predictable using short-term laboratory experiments alone owing to potentially confounding effects of exposure time and effects of being held in an artificial environment over prolonged time periods. A combination of laboratory (physiology responses) and large, long-term experiments (ecosystem responses) may therefore be necessary to adequately predict the complex and interactive effects of climate change as organisms may acclimate to conditions over the longer term.

A qualitative study of health care providers' perceptions and experiences of working together to care for children with medical complexity (CMC).

PubMed

Altman, Lisa; Zurynski, Yvonne; Breen, Christie; Hoffmann, Tim; Woolfenden, Susan

2018-01-31

Children with medical complexity (CMC) have a wide range of long term health problems and disabilities that have an adverse impact on their quality of life. They have high levels of family identified health care needs and health care utilisation. There is no Australian literature on the experiences of health care providers working in the Australian tertiary, secondary and primary health care system, whilst managing CMC. This information is essential to inform the design of integrated health care systems for these children. We address this knowledge gap by exploring the perceptions and experiences of health care providers on the provision of health care for CMC aged 0 to 18 years. A qualitative research study was undertaken. Stakeholder forums, group and individual in depth interviews were undertaken using a semi-structured interview guide. The stakeholder forums were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Field notes of the stakeholder forums, group and individual interviews were taken. Inductive thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key themes. One hundred and three providers took part in the stakeholder forums and interviews across 3 local health districts, a tertiary paediatric hospital network, and primary health care organisations. Providers expressed concern regarding family capacity to negotiate the system, which was impacted by the medical complexity of the children and psychosocial complexity of their families. Lack of health care provider capacity in terms of their skills, time and availability to manage CMC was also a key problem. These issues occurred within a health system that had impaired capacity in terms of fragmentation of care and limited communication among health care providers. When designing integrated care models for CMC, it is essential to understand and address the challenges experienced by their health care providers. This requires adequate training of providers, additional resources and time for coordination of care, improved systems of communication among services, with timely access to key information for parents and providers.

Creating environments that foster academic integrity.

PubMed

Tippitt, Michelle Pixley; Ard, Nell; Kline, Juanita Reese; Tilghman, Joan; Chamberlain, Barbara; Meagher, P Gail

2009-01-01

A number of studies related to academic dishonesty within the nursing student population have been published; however, little has been written in the nursing literature regarding academic integrity and means of promoting this value. In addition to the many short-term solutions to prevent cheating and dissuade academic misconduct that are offered, solutions that promote long-term affective changes underlying the acquisition of academic integrity are needed. This article provides a context for discussions related to academic integrity, explores issues facing faculty when dealing with this challenge, and offers short-term and long-term strategies for creating environments that foster academic integrity.

Attention in the processing of complex visual displays: detecting features and their combinations.

PubMed

Farell, B

1984-02-01

The distinction between operations in visual processing that are parallel and preattentive and those that are serial and attentional receives both theoretical and empirical support. According to Treisman's feature-integration theory, independent features are available preattentively, but attention is required to veridically combine features into objects. Certain evidence supporting this theory is consistent with a different interpretation, which was tested in four experiments. The first experiment compared the detection of features and feature combinations while eliminating a factor that confounded earlier comparisons. The resulting priority of access to combinatorial information suggests that features and nonlocal combinations of features are not connected solely by a bottom-up hierarchical convergence. Causes of the disparity between the results of Experiment 1 and the results of previous research were investigated in three subsequent experiments. The results showed that of the two confounded factors, it was the difference in the mapping of alternatives onto responses, not the differing attentional demands of features and objects, that underlaid the results of the previous research. The present results are thus counterexamples to the feature-integration theory. Aspects of this theory are shown to be subsumed by more general principles, which are discussed in terms of attentional processes in the detection of features, objects, and stimulus alternatives.

Local soil quality assessment of north-central Namibia: integrating farmers' and technical knowledge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prudat, Brice; Bloemertz, Lena; Kuhn, Nikolaus J.

2018-02-01

Soil degradation is a major threat for farmers of semi-arid north-central Namibia. Soil conservation practices can be promoted by the development of soil quality (SQ) evaluation toolboxes that provide ways to evaluate soil degradation. However, such toolboxes must be adapted to local conditions to reach farmers. Based on qualitative (interviews and soil descriptions) and quantitative (laboratory analyses) data, we developed a set of SQ indicators relevant for our study area that integrates farmers' field experiences (FFEs) and technical knowledge. We suggest using participatory mapping to delineate soil units (Oshikwanyama soil units, KwSUs) based on FFEs, which highlight mostly soil properties that integrate long-term productivity and soil hydrological characteristics (i.e. internal SQ). The actual SQ evaluation of a location depends on the KwSU described and is thereafter assessed by field soil texture (i.e. chemical fertility potential) and by soil colour shade (i.e. SOC status). This three-level information aims to reveal SQ improvement potential by comparing, for any location, (a) estimated clay content against median clay content (specific to KwSU) and (b) soil organic status against calculated optimal values (depends on clay content). The combination of farmers' and technical assessment cumulates advantages of both systems of knowledge, namely the integrated long-term knowledge of the farmers and a short- and medium-term SQ status assessment. The toolbox is a suggestion for evaluating SQ and aims to help farmers, rural development planners and researchers from all fields of studies understanding SQ issues in north-central Namibia. This suggested SQ toolbox is adapted to a restricted area of north-central Namibia, but similar tools could be developed in most areas where small-scale agriculture prevails.

Relational and conjunctive binding functions dissociate in short-term memory.

PubMed

Parra, Mario A; Fabi, Katia; Luzzi, Simona; Cubelli, Roberto; Hernandez Valdez, Maria; Della Sala, Sergio

2015-02-01

Remembering complex events requires binding features within unified objects (conjunctions) and holding associations between objects (relations). Recent studies suggest that the two functions dissociate in long-term memory (LTM). Less is known about their functional organization in short-term memory (STM). The present study investigated this issue in patient AE affected by a stroke which caused damage to brain regions known to be relevant for relational functions both in LTM and in STM (i.e., the hippocampus). The assessment involved a battery of standard neuropsychological tasks and STM binding tasks. One STM binding task (Experiment 1) presented common objects and common colors forming either pairs (relations) or integrated objects (conjunctions). Free recall of relations or conjunctions was assessed. A second STM binding task used random polygons and non-primary colors instead (Experiment 2). Memory was assessed by selecting the features that made up the relations or the conjunctions from a set of single polygons and a set of single colors. The neuropsychological assessment revealed impaired delayed memory in AE. AE's pronounced relational STM binding deficits contrasted with his completely preserved conjunctive binding functions in both Experiments 1 and 2. Only 2.35% and 1.14% of the population were expected to have a discrepancy more extreme than that presented by AE in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Processing relations and conjunctions of very elementary nonspatial features in STM led to dissociating performances in AE. These findings may inform current theories of memory decline such as those linked to cognitive aging.

Evaluating Niger's experience in strengthening supervision, improving availability of child survival drugs through cost recovery, and initiating training for Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI)

PubMed Central

Tawfik, Youssef M; Legros, Stephane; Geslin, Colette

2001-01-01

Background WHO and UNICEF have recently developed the "Integrated Management of Childhood Illness" (IMCI) as an efficient strategy to assist developing countries reduce childhood mortality. Early experience with IMCI implementation suggests that clinical training is essential but not sufficient for the success of the strategy. Attention needs to be given to strengthening health systems, such as supervision and drug supply. Results This paper presents results of evaluating an innovative approach for implementing IMCI in Niger. It starts with strengthening district level supervision and improving the availability of child survival drugs through cost recovery well before the beginning of IMCI clinical training. The evaluation documented the effectiveness of the initial IMCI clinical training and referral. Conclusions Strengthening supervision and assuring the availability of essential drugs need to precede the initiation of IMCI Clinical training. Longer term follow up is necessary to confirm the impact of the approach on IMCI preparation and implementation. PMID:11504567

Pericellular oxygen monitoring with integrated sensor chips for reproducible cell culture experiments.

PubMed

Kieninger, J; Aravindalochanan, K; Sandvik, J A; Pettersen, E O; Urban, G A

2014-04-01

Here we present an application, in two tumour cell lines, based on the Sensing Cell Culture Flask system as a cell culture monitoring tool for pericellular oxygen sensing. T-47D (human breast cancer) and T98G (human brain cancer) cells were cultured either in atmospheric air or in a glove-box set at 4% oxygen, in both cases with 5% CO2 in the gas phase. Pericellular oxygen tension was measured with the help of an integrated sensor chip comprising oxygen sensor arrays. Obtained results illustrate variation of pericellular oxygen tension in attached cells covered by stagnant medium. Independent of incubation conditions, low pericellular oxygen concentration levels, usually associated with hypoxia, were found in dense cell cultures. Respiration alone brought pericellular oxygen concentration down to levels which could activate hypoxia-sensing regulatory processes in cultures believed to be aerobic. Cells in culture believed to experience conditions of mild hypoxia may, in reality, experience severe hypoxia. This would lead to incorrect assumptions and suggests that pericellular oxygen concentration readings are of great importance to obtain reproducible results when dealing with hypoxic and normoxic (aerobic) incubation conditions. The Sensing Cell Culture Flask system allows continuous monitoring of pericellular oxygen concentration with outstanding long-term stability and no need for recalibration during cell culture experiments. The sensor is integrated into the flask bottom, thus in direct contact with attached cells. No additional equipment needs to be inserted into the flask during culturing. Transparency of the electrochemical sensor chip allows optical inspection of cells attached on top of the sensor. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A Policy Guide on Integrated Care (PGIC): Lessons Learned from EU Project INTEGRATE and Beyond

PubMed Central

Devroey, Dirk

2017-01-01

Efforts are underway in many European countries to channel efforts into creating improved integrated health and social care services. But most countries lack a strategic plan that is sustainable over time, and that reflects a comprehensive systems perspective. The Policy Guide on Integrated Care (PGIC) as presented in this paper resulted from experiences with the EU Project INTEGRATE and our own work with healthcare reform for patients with chronic conditions at the national and international level. This project is one of the largest EU funded projects on Integrated Care, conducted over a four-year period (2012–2016) and included partners from nine European countries. Project Integrate aimed to gain insights into the leadership, management and delivery of integrated care to support European care systems to respond to the challenges of ageing populations and the rise of people living with long-term conditions. The objective of this paper is to describe the PGIC as both a tool and a reasoning flow that aims at supporting policy makers at the national and international level with the development and implementation of integrated care. Any Policy Guide on Integrated should build upon three building blocks, being a mission, vision and a strategy that aim at capturing the large amount of factors that directly or indirectly influence the successful development of integrated care. PMID:29588631

A Policy Guide on Integrated Care (PGIC): Lessons Learned from EU Project INTEGRATE and Beyond.

PubMed

Borgermans, Liesbeth; Devroey, Dirk

2017-09-25

Efforts are underway in many European countries to channel efforts into creating improved integrated health and social care services. But most countries lack a strategic plan that is sustainable over time, and that reflects a comprehensive systems perspective. The Policy Guide on Integrated Care (PGIC) as presented in this paper resulted from experiences with the EU Project INTEGRATE and our own work with healthcare reform for patients with chronic conditions at the national and international level. This project is one of the largest EU funded projects on Integrated Care, conducted over a four-year period (2012-2016) and included partners from nine European countries. Project Integrate aimed to gain insights into the leadership, management and delivery of integrated care to support European care systems to respond to the challenges of ageing populations and the rise of people living with long-term conditions. The objective of this paper is to describe the PGIC as both a tool and a reasoning flow that aims at supporting policy makers at the national and international level with the development and implementation of integrated care. Any Policy Guide on Integrated should build upon three building blocks, being a mission, vision and a strategy that aim at capturing the large amount of factors that directly or indirectly influence the successful development of integrated care.

Protein-protein interaction inference based on semantic similarity of Gene Ontology terms.

PubMed

Zhang, Shu-Bo; Tang, Qiang-Rong

2016-07-21

Identifying protein-protein interactions is important in molecular biology. Experimental methods to this issue have their limitations, and computational approaches have attracted more and more attentions from the biological community. The semantic similarity derived from the Gene Ontology (GO) annotation has been regarded as one of the most powerful indicators for protein interaction. However, conventional methods based on GO similarity fail to take advantage of the specificity of GO terms in the ontology graph. We proposed a GO-based method to predict protein-protein interaction by integrating different kinds of similarity measures derived from the intrinsic structure of GO graph. We extended five existing methods to derive the semantic similarity measures from the descending part of two GO terms in the GO graph, then adopted a feature integration strategy to combines both the ascending and the descending similarity scores derived from the three sub-ontologies to construct various kinds of features to characterize each protein pair. Support vector machines (SVM) were employed as discriminate classifiers, and five-fold cross validation experiments were conducted on both human and yeast protein-protein interaction datasets to evaluate the performance of different kinds of integrated features, the experimental results suggest the best performance of the feature that combines information from both the ascending and the descending parts of the three ontologies. Our method is appealing for effective prediction of protein-protein interaction. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development and evaluation of a long-term, implantable, electrically actuated left ventricular assist system: THI/Gould LVAS.

PubMed

Norman, J C; McGee, M G; Fuqua, J M; Igo, S R; Turner, S A; Sterling, R; Urrutia, C O; Frazier, O H; Clay, W C; Chambers, J A

1983-02-01

A long-term, implantable, electrically actuated left ventricular assist system (THI/Gould LVAS) is being developed and characterized in vitro and in vivo for utilization in patients with end-stage heart disease. This system consists of five major components: a long-term, implantable blood pump (THI E-type ALVAD); an electrical-mechanical energy converter (Gould Model V); a control unit with batteries; a volume compensation system; and an external power supply and monitoring unit. Two of these components (blood pump and electrical-mechanical energy converter) have been integrated, and are undergoing chronic in vivo evaluations in calves. Thus far, 44 pneumatically and electrically actuated THI/Gould LVAS evaluations have been performed. This experience has resulted in greater than 6.5 years of actuation in vivo, with durations exceeding 1 year. System in vivo performance in terms of durability, mechanical reliability, hemodynamic effectiveness, and biocompatibility has been satisfactory. Demonstration of long-term (2-year) effectiveness in supporting the circulation is the ultimate goal.

Quantitative imaging biomarker ontology (QIBO) for knowledge representation of biomedical imaging biomarkers.

PubMed

Buckler, Andrew J; Liu, Tiffany Ting; Savig, Erica; Suzek, Baris E; Ouellette, M; Danagoulian, J; Wernsing, G; Rubin, Daniel L; Paik, David

2013-08-01

A widening array of novel imaging biomarkers is being developed using ever more powerful clinical and preclinical imaging modalities. These biomarkers have demonstrated effectiveness in quantifying biological processes as they occur in vivo and in the early prediction of therapeutic outcomes. However, quantitative imaging biomarker data and knowledge are not standardized, representing a critical barrier to accumulating medical knowledge based on quantitative imaging data. We use an ontology to represent, integrate, and harmonize heterogeneous knowledge across the domain of imaging biomarkers. This advances the goal of developing applications to (1) improve precision and recall of storage and retrieval of quantitative imaging-related data using standardized terminology; (2) streamline the discovery and development of novel imaging biomarkers by normalizing knowledge across heterogeneous resources; (3) effectively annotate imaging experiments thus aiding comprehension, re-use, and reproducibility; and (4) provide validation frameworks through rigorous specification as a basis for testable hypotheses and compliance tests. We have developed the Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Ontology (QIBO), which currently consists of 488 terms spanning the following upper classes: experimental subject, biological intervention, imaging agent, imaging instrument, image post-processing algorithm, biological target, indicated biology, and biomarker application. We have demonstrated that QIBO can be used to annotate imaging experiments with standardized terms in the ontology and to generate hypotheses for novel imaging biomarker-disease associations. Our results established the utility of QIBO in enabling integrated analysis of quantitative imaging data.

Perceptions of Smartphone User-Centered Mobile Health Tracking Apps Across Various Chronic Illness Populations: An Integrative Review.

PubMed

Birkhoff, Susan D; Smeltzer, Suzanne C

2017-07-01

This integrative review presents a synthesis of the current qualitative research addressing the motivating factors, usability, and experiences of mobile health tracking applications (apps) across various chronic disease populations. Integrative review of the literature. Databases used to conduct this integrative review included: PubMed Plus, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Google Scholar, Science Direct, and EBSCO megafile. The following search terms were used in all five databases: smartphone apps, apps, mHealth, eHealth, mobile health apps, health tracking apps, user-centered apps, wireless technology, engagement, qualitative, and usability. The initial literature review yielded 689 results. Once inclusion and exclusion criteria were employed, 11 studies met the criteria set forth for this review. The reviewed studies provided insight into users' perceptions, experiences, and motivations to incorporate smartphone mobile health apps into their daily lives when living with chronic illnesses. This review indicates the growing interest in user-centered mobile health tracking apps, but with little understanding of motivating factors that foster sustained app use. Mobile health tracking apps targeted to users with chronic conditions need to have a high level of usability in order to motivate users to sustain engagement with their mobile health tracking app. User-centered mobile health tracking app technology is being used with increasing frequency to potentially provide individualized support to chronic illness populations. © 2017 Sigma Theta Tau International.

Adapting the Quebecois method for assessing implementation to the French National Alzheimer Plan 2008–2012: lessons for gerontological services integration

PubMed Central

Somme, Dominique; Trouvé, Hélène; Perisset, Catherine; Corvol, Aline; Ankri, Joël; Saint-Jean, Olivier; de Stampa, Matthieu

2014-01-01

Introduction Many countries face ageing-related demographic and epidemiological challenges, notably neurodegenerative disorders, due to the multiple care services they require, thereby pleading for a more integrated system of care. The integrated Quebecois method issued from the Programme of Research to Integrate Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy inspired a French pilot experiment and the National Alzheimer Plan 2008–2012. Programme of Research to Integrate Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy method implementation was rated with an evaluation grid adapted to assess its successive degrees of completion. Discussion The approaching end of the president's term led to the method's institutionalization (2011–2012), before the implementation study ended. When the government changed, the study was interrupted. The results extracted from that ‘lost’ study (presented herein) have, nonetheless, ‘found’ some key lessons. Key lessons/conclusion It was possible to implement a Quebecois integrated-care method in France. We describe the lessons and pitfalls encountered in adapting this evaluation tool. This process is necessarily multidisciplinary and requires a test phase. A simple tool for quantitative assessment of integration was obtained. The first assessment of the tool was unsatisfactory but requires further studies. In the meantime, we recommend using mixed methodologies to assess the services integration level. PMID:24959112

Reflections on Centaur Upper Stage Integration by the NASA Lewis (Glenn) Research Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Graham, Scott R.

2015-01-01

The NASA Glenn (then Lewis) Research Center (GRC) led several expendable launch vehicle (ELV) projects from 1963 to 1998, most notably the Centaur upper stage. These major, comprehensive projects included system management, system development, integration (both payload and stage), and launch operations. The integration role that GRC pioneered was truly unique and highly successful. Its philosophy, scope, and content were not just invaluable to the missions and vehicles it supported, but also had significant Agency-wide benefits. An overview of the NASA Lewis Research Center (now the NASA Glenn Research Center) philosophy on ELV integration is provided, focusing on Atlas/Centaur, Titan/Centaur, and Shuttle/Centaur vehicles and programs. The necessity of having a stable, highly technically competent in-house staff is discussed. Significant depth of technical penetration of contractor work is another critical component. Functioning as a cohesive team was more than a concept: GRC senior management, NASA Headquarters, contractors, payload users, and all staff worked together. The scope, content, and history of launch vehicle integration at GRC are broadly discussed. Payload integration is compared to stage development integration in terms of engineering and organization. Finally, the transition from buying launch vehicles to buying launch services is discussed, and thoughts on future possibilities of employing the successful GRC experience in integrating ELV systems like Centaur are explored.

Reflections on Centaur Upper Stage Integration by the NASA Lewis (Glenn) Research Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Graham, Scott R.

2014-01-01

The NASA Glenn (then Lewis) Research Center (GRC) led several expendable launch vehicle (ELV) projects from 1963 to 1998, most notably the Centaur upper stage. These major, comprehensive projects included system management, system development, integration (both payload and stage), and launch operations. The integration role that GRC pioneered was truly unique and highly successful. Its philosophy, scope, and content were not just invaluable to the missions and vehicles it supported, but also had significant Agencywide benefits. An overview of the NASA Lewis Research Center (now the NASA Glenn Research Center) philosophy on ELV integration is provided, focusing on Atlas/Centaur, Titan/Centaur, and Shuttle/Centaur vehicles and programs. The necessity of having a stable, highly technically competent in-house staff is discussed. Significant depth of technical penetration of contractor work is another critical component. Functioning as a cohesive team was more than a concept: GRC senior management, NASA Headquarters, contractors, payload users, and all staff worked together. The scope, content, and history of launch vehicle integration at GRC are broadly discussed. Payload integration is compared to stage development integration in terms of engineering and organization. Finally, the transition from buying launch vehicles to buying launch services is discussed, and thoughts on future possibilities of employing the successful GRC experience in integrating ELV systems like Centaur are explored.

A bayesian translational framework for knowledge propagation, discovery, and integration under specific contexts.

PubMed

Deng, Michelle; Zollanvari, Amin; Alterovitz, Gil

2012-01-01

The immense corpus of biomedical literature existing today poses challenges in information search and integration. Many links between pieces of knowledge occur or are significant only under certain contexts-rather than under the entire corpus. This study proposes using networks of ontology concepts, linked based on their co-occurrences in annotations of abstracts of biomedical literature and descriptions of experiments, to draw conclusions based on context-specific queries and to better integrate existing knowledge. In particular, a Bayesian network framework is constructed to allow for the linking of related terms from two biomedical ontologies under the queried context concept. Edges in such a Bayesian network allow associations between biomedical concepts to be quantified and inference to be made about the existence of some concepts given prior information about others. This approach could potentially be a powerful inferential tool for context-specific queries, applicable to ontologies in other fields as well.

An Integrated Method Based on PSO and EDA for the Max-Cut Problem.

PubMed

Lin, Geng; Guan, Jian

2016-01-01

The max-cut problem is NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem with many real world applications. In this paper, we propose an integrated method based on particle swarm optimization and estimation of distribution algorithm (PSO-EDA) for solving the max-cut problem. The integrated algorithm overcomes the shortcomings of particle swarm optimization and estimation of distribution algorithm. To enhance the performance of the PSO-EDA, a fast local search procedure is applied. In addition, a path relinking procedure is developed to intensify the search. To evaluate the performance of PSO-EDA, extensive experiments were carried out on two sets of benchmark instances with 800 to 20,000 vertices from the literature. Computational results and comparisons show that PSO-EDA significantly outperforms the existing PSO-based and EDA-based algorithms for the max-cut problem. Compared with other best performing algorithms, PSO-EDA is able to find very competitive results in terms of solution quality.

A Bayesian Translational Framework for Knowledge Propagation, Discovery, and Integration Under Specific Contexts

PubMed Central

Deng, Michelle; Zollanvari, Amin; Alterovitz, Gil

2012-01-01

The immense corpus of biomedical literature existing today poses challenges in information search and integration. Many links between pieces of knowledge occur or are significant only under certain contexts—rather than under the entire corpus. This study proposes using networks of ontology concepts, linked based on their co-occurrences in annotations of abstracts of biomedical literature and descriptions of experiments, to draw conclusions based on context-specific queries and to better integrate existing knowledge. In particular, a Bayesian network framework is constructed to allow for the linking of related terms from two biomedical ontologies under the queried context concept. Edges in such a Bayesian network allow associations between biomedical concepts to be quantified and inference to be made about the existence of some concepts given prior information about others. This approach could potentially be a powerful inferential tool for context-specific queries, applicable to ontologies in other fields as well. PMID:22779044

Global scale diagnoses of FGGE data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Paegle, J.

1985-01-01

Descriptive global scale diagnoses of the First Global Atmospheric Research Experiment SOP-1 analyses were made and compared against controlled, real data integrations of the Goddard Laboratory of Atmospheric Science (GLAS) general circulation model (GCM) as well as other data sets. The effects of critical latitudes were studied; the influence of tropical wind data and latent heating upon the GLAS GCM was diagnosed; planetary wave structure on various time scales from the diurnal to the monthly was studied; and the GLAS analyses were compared with other analyses. Short term controlled GLAS GCM integrations show that: (1) the inclusion of tropical wind data in real data integrations has an important influence in the mid-latitude prediction in both hemispheres; and (2) the tropical divergent wind reacts almost immediately to alteration of the tropical latent heating. The presence or absence of zonally averaged easterlies depends strongly upon the presence of tropical latent heating.

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

Denholm, Paul

While it may seem obvious that wind and solar 'need' energy storage to be successfully integrated into the world's electricity grids, both detailed integration studies and real-world experience have shown that storage is only one of many options that could enable substantially increased growth of these renewable resources. This talk will discuss the potential role of energy storage in the integrating wind and solar, demonstrating that in the near term perhaps less exciting -- but often more cost-effective -- alternatives will likely provide much of the grid flexibility needed to add renewable resources. The talk will also demonstrate that themore » decreasing value of PV and wind and at increased penetration creates greater opportunities for storage. It also demonstrates the fact that 'the sun doesn't always shine and the wind always doesn't blow' is only one reason why energy storage may be an increasingly attractive solution to the challenges of operating the grid of the future.« less

Long-term social integration and community support.

PubMed

Gordon, Wayne A; Cantor, Joshua; Kristen, Dams-O'Connor; Tsaousides, Theodore

2015-01-01

TBI often results in reduced social participation. This decrease in social participation is independent of injury severity and time since injury. Thus, it is one of the many stable hallmarks of TBI. Changes in social participation have been related to many factors, including emotional dysregulation and disturbance and executive dysfunction. While there are evidenced-based treatments available to improve mood and executive functioning, none of the research has examined the impact of the various treatments on social participation or social integration. Therefore, while it is reasonable to expect that individuals who are feeling better about themselves and who improve their approach to day-to-day function will also experience increased social contact, there is no evidence to support this claim. This chapter reviews the literature on post-TBI social integration and its relationship to depression and executive dysfunction. In addition the intervention research in this area is briefly examined. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual and cross-modal cues increase the identification of overlapping visual stimuli in Balint's syndrome.

PubMed

D'Imperio, Daniela; Scandola, Michele; Gobbetto, Valeria; Bulgarelli, Cristina; Salgarello, Matteo; Avesani, Renato; Moro, Valentina

2017-10-01

Cross-modal interactions improve the processing of external stimuli, particularly when an isolated sensory modality is impaired. When information from different modalities is integrated, object recognition is facilitated probably as a result of bottom-up and top-down processes. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential effects of cross-modal stimulation in a case of simultanagnosia. We report a detailed analysis of clinical symptoms and an 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) brain positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) study of a patient affected by Balint's syndrome, a rare and invasive visual-spatial disorder following bilateral parieto-occipital lesions. An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of visual and nonvisual cues on performance in tasks involving the recognition of overlapping pictures. Four modalities of sensory cues were used: visual, tactile, olfactory, and auditory. Data from neuropsychological tests showed the presence of ocular apraxia, optic ataxia, and simultanagnosia. The results of the experiment indicate a positive effect of the cues on the recognition of overlapping pictures, not only in the identification of the congruent valid-cued stimulus (target) but also in the identification of the other, noncued stimuli. All the sensory modalities analyzed (except the auditory stimulus) were efficacious in terms of increasing visual recognition. Cross-modal integration improved the patient's ability to recognize overlapping figures. However, while in the visual unimodal modality both bottom-up (priming, familiarity effect, disengagement of attention) and top-down processes (mental representation and short-term memory, the endogenous orientation of attention) are involved, in the cross-modal integration it is semantic representations that mainly activate visual recognition processes. These results are potentially useful for the design of rehabilitation training for attentional and visual-perceptual deficits.

Short-term memory for order but not for item information is impaired in developmental dyslexia.

PubMed

Hachmann, Wibke M; Bogaerts, Louisa; Szmalec, Arnaud; Woumans, Evy; Duyck, Wouter; Job, Remo

2014-07-01

Recent findings suggest that people with dyslexia experience difficulties with the learning of serial order information during the transition from short- to long-term memory (Szmalec et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 37(5): 1270-1279, 2011). At the same time, models of short-term memory increasingly incorporate a distinction of order and item processing (Majerus et al. Cognition 107: 395-419, 2008). The current study is aimed to investigate whether serial order processing deficiencies in dyslexia can be traced back to a selective impairment of short-term memory for serial order and whether this impairment also affects processing beyond the verbal domain. A sample of 26 adults with dyslexia and a group of age and IQ-matched controls participated in a 2 × 2 × 2 experiment in which we assessed short-term recognition performance for order and item information, using both verbal and nonverbal material. Our findings indicate that, irrespective of the type of material, participants with dyslexia recalled the individual items with the same accuracy as the matched control group, whereas the ability to recognize the serial order in which those items were presented appeared to be affected in the dyslexia group. We conclude that dyslexia is characterized by a selective impairment of short-term memory for serial order, but not for item information, and discuss the integration of these findings into current theoretical views on dyslexia and its associated dysfunctions.

[Development of an incubation system for an inverted microscopy for long-term observation of cell cultures using chamber slides].

PubMed

Feicht, W; Buchner, A; Riesenberg, R

2001-05-01

Trifunctional bispecific antibodies open up new immunological possibilities in tumour treatment. Prior to clinical application, comprehensive investigations using animal models and in vitro examinations need to be done. To investigate long-term interactions between various immunologically active blood cells and individual tumour cells in the presence of antibodies, we developed an incubation system for experimental cell cultures on an inverted microscope. The system consists of a perspex box with a central moisture chamber with integrated water reservoir, external air circulation heating, and a CO2 supply. The sterile cell cultures are located in the wells of a slide positioned within a depression in the water reservoir. The newly developed incubation system enables continuous observation over the long term of experiments under optimal cell cultures conditions in combination with modern video techniques.

Introducing Ocean Science Research to Two-Year College (2YC) Students Through Inquiry-Based Experiences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gamage, K. R.

2016-02-01

An effective approach to introduce 2YC students to ocean science research is through propagating inquiry-based experiences into existing geosciences courses using a series of research activities. The proposed activity is based on scientific ocean drilling, where students begin their research experience (pre-field activity) by reading articles from scientific journals and analyzing and interpreting core and log data on a specific research topic. At the end of the pre-field activity, students will visit the Gulf Coast Repository to examine actual cores, smear slides, thin sections etc. After the visit, students will integrate findings from their pre-field and field activities to produce a term paper. These simple activities allow students to experience in the iterative process of scientific research, illuminates how scientists approach ocean science, and can be the hook to get students interested in pursuing ocean science as a career.

How perception guides action: Figure-ground segmentation modulates integration of context features into S-R episodes.

PubMed

Frings, Christian; Rothermund, Klaus

2017-11-01

Perception and action are closely related. Responses are assumed to be represented in terms of their perceptual effects, allowing direct links between action and perception. In this regard, the integration of features of stimuli (S) and responses (R) into S-R bindings is a key mechanism for action control. Previous research focused on the integration of object features with response features while neglecting the context in which an object is perceived. In 3 experiments, we analyzed whether contextual features can also become integrated into S-R episodes. The data showed that a fundamental principle of visual perception, figure-ground segmentation, modulates the binding of contextual features. Only features belonging to the figure region of a context but not features forming the background were integrated with responses into S-R episodes, retrieval of which later on had an impact upon behavior. Our findings suggest that perception guides the selection of context features for integration with responses into S-R episodes. Results of our study have wide-ranging implications for an understanding of context effects in learning and behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Characterization methods of integrated optics for mid-infrared interferometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Labadie, Lucas; Kern, Pierre Y.; Schanen-Duport, Isabelle; Broquin, Jean-Emmanuel

2004-10-01

his article deals with one of the important instrumentation challenges of the stellar interferometry mission IRSI-Darwin of the European Space Agency: the necessity to have a reliable and performant system for beam combination has enlightened the advantages of an integrated optics solution, which is already in use for ground-base interferometry in the near infrared. Integrated optics provides also interesting features in terms of filtering, which is a main issue for the deep null to be reached by Darwin. However, Darwin will operate in the mid infrared range from 4 microns to 20 microns where no integrated optics functions are available on-the-shelf. This requires extending the integrated optics concept and the undergoing technology in this spectral range. This work has started with the IODA project (Integrated Optics for Darwin) under ESA contract and aims to provide a first component for interferometry. In this paper are presented the guidelines of the characterization work that is implemented to test and validate the performances of a component at each step of the development phase. We present also an example of characterization experiment used within the frame of this work, is theoretical approach and some results.

An Analysis of Results of a High-Resolution World Ocean Circulation Model.

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-03-01

Level Experiments ............... 16 a. Baseline (Laplacian Mixing) Integration ........ 16 b. Isopycnal Mixing Integration ................... 18 3...One-Half Degree, Twenty Level Experiments .......... 18 a. Baseline (Three Year Interior Restoring) Integration...TWENTY LEVEL EXPERIMENTS .................... 21 1. Baseline (Laplacian Mixing) Integration ............. 21 2. Isopycnal Mixing Integration

CVT/PCS phase 1 integrated testing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mcbrayer, R. O.; Steadman, J. D.

1973-01-01

Five breadboard experiments representing three Sortie Lab experiment disciplines were installed in a payload carrier simulator. A description of the experiments and the payload carrier simulator was provided. An assessment of the experiment interface with the simulator and an assessment of the simulator experiment support systems were presented. The results indicate that a hardware integrator for each experiment is essential; a crew chief, or mission specialist, for systems management and experimenter liaison is a vital function; a payload specialist is a practical concept for experiment integration and operation; an integration fixture for a complex experiment is required to efficiently integrate the experiment and carrier; simultaneous experiment utilization of simulator systems caused unexpected problems in meeting individual experiment requirements; experimenter traffic inside the dual-floor simulator did not hamper experiment operations; and the requirement for zero-g operation will provide a significant design challenge for some experiments.

The Mediterranean Supersite Volcanoes (MED-SUV) Project: an overview

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Puglisi, Giuseppe

2013-04-01

In response to the EC call ENV.2012.6.4-2 (Long-term monitoring experiments in geologically active regions of Europe prone to natural hazards: the Supersite concept - FP7-ENV-2012-two-stage) a wide community of volcanological institutions proposed the project Mediterranean Supersite Volcanoes (MED-SUV), which is in the negotiation phase at the time of writing. The Consortium is composed by 18 European University and research institutes, four Small or Medium Enterprises (SME) and two non-European University and research institutes. MED-SUV will improve the consortium capacity of assessment of volcanic hazards in Supersites of Southern Italy by optimising and integrating existing and new observation/monitoring systems, by a breakthrough in understanding of volcanic processes and by increasing the effectiveness of the coordination between the scientific and end-user communities. More than 3 million of people are exposed to potential volcanic hazards in a large region in the Mediterranean Sea, where two among the largest European volcanic areas are located: Mt. Etna and Campi Flegrei/Vesuvius. This project will fully exploit the unique detailed long-term in-situ monitoring data sets available for these volcanoes and integrate with Earth Observation (EO) data, setting the basic tools for a significant step ahead in the discrimination of pre-, syn- and post-eruptive phases. The wide range of styles and intensities of volcanic phenomena observed on these volcanoes, which can be assumed as archetypes of 'closed conduit ' and 'open conduit' volcano, together with the long-term multidisciplinary data sets give an exceptional opportunity to improve the understanding of a very wide spectrum of geo-hazards, as well as implementing and testing a large variety of innovative models of ground deformation and motion. Important impacts on the European industrial sector are expected, arising from a partnership integrating the scientific community and SMEs to implement together new observation/monitoring sensors/systems. Specific experiments and studies will be carried out to improve our understanding of the volcanic internal structure and dynamics, as well as to recognise signals related to impending unrest or eruption. Hazard quantitative assessment will benefit by the outcomes of these studies and by their integration into the cutting edge monitoring approaches thus leading to a step-change in hazard awareness and preparedness and leveraging the close relationship between scientists, SMEs, and end-users.

Combined Experimental and Computational Approach to Predict the Glass-Water Reaction

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

Pierce, Eric M.; Bacon, Diana H.

2011-10-01

The use of mineral and glass dissolution rates measured in laboratory experiments to predict the weathering of primary minerals and volcanic and nuclear waste glasses in field studies requires the construction of rate models that accurately describe the weathering process over geologic timescales. Additionally, the need to model the long-term behavior of nuclear waste glass for the purpose of estimating radionuclide release rates requires that rate models be validated with long-term experiments. Several long-term test methods have been developed to accelerate the glass-water reaction [drip test, vapor hydration test, product consistency test B, and pressurized unsaturated flow (PUF)], thereby reducingmore » the duration required to evaluate long-term performance. Currently, the PUF test is the only method that mimics the unsaturated hydraulic properties expected in a subsurface disposal facility and simultaneously monitors the glass-water reaction. PUF tests are being conducted to accelerate the weathering of glass and validate the model parameters being used to predict long-term glass behavior. A one-dimensional reactive chemical transport simulation of glass dissolution and secondary phase formation during a 1.5-year-long PUF experiment was conducted with the Subsurface Transport Over Reactive Multiphases (STORM) code. Results show that parameterization of the computer model by combining direct bench scale laboratory measurements and thermodynamic data provides an integrated approach to predicting glass behavior over the length of the experiment. Over the 1.5-year-long test duration, the rate decreased from 0.2 to 0.01 g/(m2 day) based on B release for low-activity waste glass LAWA44. The observed decrease is approximately two orders of magnitude higher than the decrease observed under static conditions with the SON68 glass (estimated to be a decrease by four orders of magnitude) and suggests that the gel-layer properties are less protective under these dynamic conditions.« less

Combined Experimental and Computational Approach to Predict the Glass-Water Reaction

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

Pierce, Eric M; Bacon, Diana

2011-01-01

The use of mineral and glass dissolution rates measured in laboratory experiments to predict the weathering of primary minerals and volcanic and nuclear waste glasses in field studies requires the construction of rate models that accurately describe the weathering process over geologic time-scales. Additionally, the need to model the long-term behavior of nuclear waste glass for the purpose of estimating radionuclide release rates requires that rate models are validated with long-term experiments. Several long-term test methods have been developed to accelerate the glass-water reaction [drip test, vapor hydration test, product consistency test-B, and pressurized unsaturated flow (PUF)], thereby reducing themore » duration required to evaluate long-term performance. Currently, the PUF test is the only method that mimics the unsaturated hydraulic properties expected in a subsurface disposal facility and simultaneously monitors the glass-water reaction. PUF tests are being conducted to accelerate the weathering of glass and validate the model parameters being used to predict long-term glass behavior. A one-dimensional reactive chemical transport simulation of glass dissolution and secondary phase formation during a 1.5-year long PUF experiment was conducted with the subsurface transport over reactive multi-phases code. Results show that parameterization of the computer model by combining direct bench-scale laboratory measurements and thermodynamic data provides an integrated approach to predicting glass behavior over the length of the experiment. Over the 1.5-year long test duration, the rate decreased from 0.2 to 0.01 g/(m2 d) base on B release. The observed decrease is approximately two orders of magnitude higher than the decrease observed under static conditions with the SON68 glass (estimated to be a decrease by 4 orders of magnitude) and suggest the gel-layer properties are less protective under these dynamic conditions.« less

Short-term memory binding deficits in Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Parra, Mario A; Abrahams, Sharon; Fabi, Katia; Logie, Robert; Luzzi, Simona; Della Sala, Sergio

2009-04-01

Alzheimer's disease impairs long term memories for related events (e.g. faces with names) more than for single events (e.g. list of faces or names). Whether or not this associative or 'binding' deficit is also found in short-term memory has not yet been explored. In two experiments we investigated binding deficits in verbal short-term memory in Alzheimer's disease. Experiment 1: 23 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 23 age and education matched healthy elderly were recruited. Participants studied visual arrays of objects (six for healthy elderly and four for Alzheimer's disease patients), colours (six for healthy elderly and four for Alzheimer's disease patients), unbound objects and colours (three for healthy elderly and two for Alzheimer's disease patients in each of the two categories), or objects bound with colours (three for healthy elderly and two for Alzheimer's disease patients). They were then asked to recall the items verbally. The memory of patients with Alzheimer's disease for objects bound with colours was significantly worse than for single or unbound features whereas healthy elderly's memory for bound and unbound features did not differ. Experiment 2: 21 Alzheimer's disease patients and 20 matched healthy elderly were recruited. Memory load was increased for the healthy elderly group to eight items in the conditions assessing memory for single or unbound features and to four items in the condition assessing memory for the binding of these features. For Alzheimer's disease patients the task remained the same. This manipulation permitted the performance to be equated across groups in the conditions assessing memory for single or unbound features. The impairment in Alzheimer's disease patients in recalling bound objects reported in Experiment 1 was replicated. The binding cost was greater than that observed in the healthy elderly group, who did not differ in their performance for bound and unbound features. Alzheimer's disease grossly impairs the mechanisms responsible for holding integrated objects in verbal short-term memory.

Making the history of psychology clinically and philosophically relevant.

PubMed

Vande Kemp, Hendrika

2002-08-01

The author discusses ways to make the history of psychology course relevant for a clinical psychology doctoral program within a multidenominational Protestant theological seminary. She uses a personalist orientation to emphasize the need to integrate psychology, philosophy, and theology. She differentiates among the intrapersonal, interpersonal, impersonal, and transpersonal dimensions of experience. She illustrates the rich multidisciplinary historical roots of contemporary psychology by tracing the the history of the term psychology and examining its meanings in the existential psychology of Søren Kierkegaard and in the 19th-century novel. She includes brief histories of the "new psychology" and of the unconscious. She describes how she uses the field of psychotheological integration to illustrate principles of historiography and summarizes resources used to supplement traditional textbooks.

Modeling global vector fields of chaotic systems from noisy time series with the aid of structure-selection techniques.

PubMed

Xu, Daolin; Lu, Fangfang

2006-12-01

We address the problem of reconstructing a set of nonlinear differential equations from chaotic time series. A method that combines the implicit Adams integration and the structure-selection technique of an error reduction ratio is proposed for system identification and corresponding parameter estimation of the model. The structure-selection technique identifies the significant terms from a pool of candidates of functional basis and determines the optimal model through orthogonal characteristics on data. The technique with the Adams integration algorithm makes the reconstruction available to data sampled with large time intervals. Numerical experiment on Lorenz and Rossler systems shows that the proposed strategy is effective in global vector field reconstruction from noisy time series.

The prospect of modern thermomechanics in structural integrity calculations of large-scale pressure vessels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fekete, Tamás

2018-05-01

Structural integrity calculations play a crucial role in designing large-scale pressure vessels. Used in the electric power generation industry, these kinds of vessels undergo extensive safety analyses and certification procedures before deemed feasible for future long-term operation. The calculations are nowadays directed and supported by international standards and guides based on state-of-the-art results of applied research and technical development. However, their ability to predict a vessel's behavior under accidental circumstances after long-term operation is largely limited by the strong dependence of the analysis methodology on empirical models that are correlated to the behavior of structural materials and their changes during material aging. Recently a new scientific engineering paradigm, structural integrity has been developing that is essentially a synergistic collaboration between a number of scientific and engineering disciplines, modeling, experiments and numerics. Although the application of the structural integrity paradigm highly contributed to improving the accuracy of safety evaluations of large-scale pressure vessels, the predictive power of the analysis methodology has not yet improved significantly. This is due to the fact that already existing structural integrity calculation methodologies are based on the widespread and commonly accepted 'traditional' engineering thermal stress approach, which is essentially based on the weakly coupled model of thermomechanics and fracture mechanics. Recently, a research has been initiated in MTA EK with the aim to review and evaluate current methodologies and models applied in structural integrity calculations, including their scope of validity. The research intends to come to a better understanding of the physical problems that are inherently present in the pool of structural integrity problems of reactor pressure vessels, and to ultimately find a theoretical framework that could serve as a well-grounded theoretical foundation for a new modeling framework of structural integrity. This paper presents the first findings of the research project.

Interplay between Short- and Long-Term Plasticity in Cell-Assembly Formation

PubMed Central

Hiratani, Naoki; Fukai, Tomoki

2014-01-01

Various hippocampal and neocortical synapses of mammalian brain show both short-term plasticity and long-term plasticity, which are considered to underlie learning and memory by the brain. According to Hebb’s postulate, synaptic plasticity encodes memory traces of past experiences into cell assemblies in cortical circuits. However, it remains unclear how the various forms of long-term and short-term synaptic plasticity cooperatively create and reorganize such cell assemblies. Here, we investigate the mechanism in which the three forms of synaptic plasticity known in cortical circuits, i.e., spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), short-term depression (STD) and homeostatic plasticity, cooperatively generate, retain and reorganize cell assemblies in a recurrent neuronal network model. We show that multiple cell assemblies generated by external stimuli can survive noisy spontaneous network activity for an adequate range of the strength of STD. Furthermore, our model predicts that a symmetric temporal window of STDP, such as observed in dopaminergic modulations on hippocampal neurons, is crucial for the retention and integration of multiple cell assemblies. These results may have implications for the understanding of cortical memory processes. PMID:25007209

Rewarding leadership and fair procedures as determinants of self-esteem.

PubMed

De Cremer, David; van Knippenberg, Barbara; van Knippenberg, Daan; Mullenders, Danny; Stinglhamber, Florence

2005-01-01

In the present research, the authors examined the effect of procedural fairness and rewarding leadership style on an important variable for employees: self-esteem. The authors predicted that procedural fairness would positively influence people's reported self-esteem if the leader adopted a style of rewarding behavior for a job well done. Results from a scenario experiment, a laboratory experiment, and an organizational survey indeed show that procedural fairness and rewarding leadership style interacted to influence followers' self-esteem, such that the positive relationship between procedural fairness and self-esteem was more pronounced when the leadership style was high in rewarding behavior. Implications in terms of integrating the leadership and procedural fairness literature are discussed.

Effect of Tritium on Cracking Threshold in 7075 Aluminum

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

Duncan, A.; Morgan, M.

The effect of long-term exposure to tritium gas on the cracking threshold (K TH) of 7075 Aluminum Alloy was investigated. The alloy is the material of construction for a cell used to contain tritium in an accelerator at Jefferson Laboratory designed for inelastic scattering experiments on nucleons. The primary safety concerns for the Jefferson Laboratory tritium cell is a tritium leak due to mechanical failure of windows from hydrogen isotope embrittlement, radiation damage, or loss of target integrity from accidental excessive beam heating due to failure of the raster or grossly mis-steered beam. Experiments were conducted to investigate the potentialmore » for embrittlement of the 7075 Aluminum alloy from tritium gas.« less

Next-generation laser for inertial confinement fusion

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

Marshall, C; Bibeau, C; Bayramian, A

1998-03-13

We are developing and building the ''Mercury'' laser system as the first in a series of a new generation of diode-pumped solid-state lasers (DPSSL) for advanced high energy density (HED) physics experiments at LLNL. Mercury will be the first integrated demonstration of a scalable laser architecture compatible with advanced Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) goals. Primary performance goals include 10% efficiencies at 10 Hz and a <10 ns pulse with l {omega} energies of 100 J and with 2 {omega}/3 {omega} frequency conversion. Achieving this performance will provide a near term capability for HED experiments and prove the potential of DPSSLsmore » for inertial fusion energy (IFE).« less

Animal research facility for Space Station Freedom

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bonting, Sjoerd L.

1992-01-01

An integrated animal research facility is planned by NASA for Space Station Freedom which will permit long-term, man-tended experiments on the effects of space conditions on vertebrates. The key element in this facility is a standard type animal habitat which supports and maintains the animals under full bioisolation during transport and during the experiment. A holding unit accommodates the habitats with animals to be maintained at zero gravity; and a centrifuge, those to be maintained at artificial gravity for control purposes or for gravity threshold studies. A glovebox permits handling of the animals for experimental purposes and for transfer to a clean habitat. These facilities are described, and the aspects of environmental control, monitoring, and bioisolation are discussed.

Values and strategies: management of radical organizational change in a university hospital.

PubMed

Orvik, Arne

2017-04-01

Managers' experiences of radical change were studied in a Norwegian university hospital, which was relocated from a traditional building to a new, high-tech building. The university hospital was also accredited as a health promoting hospital. Thirteen managers at different levels in the organization and a personnel safety representative were interviewed as part of a trailing research project. The aim of the study was to elucidate the managers' value orientation and strategies for dealing with value tensions. A combination of a hermeneutical, reflective method and a template for quality, efficiency and integrity guided the analysis. The template was based not only on the main findings but also on the core values of a model of organizational health. The results show that clinical managers focus on quality and top managers, not unexpectedly, focus on efficiency. Managers at both levels were concerned about their own integrity, and also about the integrity of their clinician colleagues, as well as showing concern for the hospital's mission, in terms of organizational effectiveness. The discussion was conducted in terms of dominance, cycling and balancing strategies, of which the last was the most prevalent. However, sustainable strategies for dealing with value tensions also call for value-based management and value-conscious leadership. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What is the problem with medically unexplained symptoms for GPs? A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.

PubMed

Johansen, May-Lill; Risor, Mette Bech

2017-04-01

To gain a deeper understanding of challenges faced by GPs when managing patients with MUS. We used meta-ethnography to synthesize qualitative studies on GPs' perception and management of MUS. The problem with MUS for GPs is the epistemological incongruence between dominant disease models and the reality of meeting patients suffering from persistent illness. GPs have used flexible approaches to manage the situation, yet patients and doctors have had parallel negative experiences of being stuck, untrustworthy and helpless. In the face of cognitive incongruence, GPs have strived to achieve relational congruence with their patients. This has led to parallel positive experiences of mutual trust and validation. With more experience, some GPs seem to overcome the incongruences, and later studies point towards a reframing of the MUS problem. For GPs, the challenge with MUS is most importantly at an epistemological level. Hence, a full reframing of the problem of MUS for GPs (and for patients) implies broad changes in basic medical knowledge and education. Short-term: Improve management of patients with MUS by transferring experience-based, reality-adjusted knowledge from senior GPs to juniors. Long-term: Work towards new models of disease that integrate knowledge from all relevant disciplines. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neuroplasticity beyond Sounds: Neural Adaptations Following Long-Term Musical Aesthetic Experiences

PubMed Central

Reybrouck, Mark; Brattico, Elvira

2015-01-01

Capitalizing from neuroscience knowledge on how individuals are affected by the sound environment, we propose to adopt a cybernetic and ecological point of view on the musical aesthetic experience, which includes subprocesses, such as feature extraction and integration, early affective reactions and motor actions, style mastering and conceptualization, emotion and proprioception, evaluation and preference. In this perspective, the role of the listener/composer/performer is seen as that of an active “agent” coping in highly individual ways with the sounds. The findings concerning the neural adaptations in musicians, following long-term exposure to music, are then reviewed by keeping in mind the distinct subprocesses of a musical aesthetic experience. We conclude that these neural adaptations can be conceived of as the immediate and lifelong interactions with multisensorial stimuli (having a predominant auditory component), which result in lasting changes of the internal state of the “agent”. In a continuous loop, these changes affect, in turn, the subprocesses involved in a musical aesthetic experience, towards the final goal of achieving better perceptual, motor and proprioceptive responses to the immediate demands of the sounding environment. The resulting neural adaptations in musicians closely depend on the duration of the interactions, the starting age, the involvement of attention, the amount of motor practice and the musical genre played. PMID:25807006

Self-image resilience and dissonance: the role of affirmational resources.

PubMed

Steele, C M; Spencer, S J; Lynch, M

1993-06-01

It was predicted that high self-esteem Ss (HSEs) would rationalize an esteem-threatening decision less than low self-esteem Ss (LSEs), because HSEs presumably had more favorable self-concepts with which to affirm, and thus repair, their overall sense of self-integrity. This prediction was supported in 2 experiments within the "free-choice" dissonance paradigm--one that manipulated self-esteem through personality feedback and the other that varied it through selection of HSEs and LSEs, but only when Ss were made to focus on their self-concepts. A 3rd experiment countered an alternative explanation of the results in terms of mood effects that may have accompanied the experimental manipulations. The results were discussed in terms of the following: (a) their support for a resources theory of individual differences in resilience to self-image threats--an extension of self-affirmation theory, (b) their implications for self-esteem functioning, and (c) their implications for the continuing debate over self-enhancement versus self-consistency motivation.

Perceptions of desirable graduate competencies for science and technology new graduates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coll, Richard K.; Zegwaard, Karsten E.

2006-05-01

Work-integrated learning (WIL) programmes that combine on-campus classroom-based study with off-campus authentic work experience are a growing area of interest internationally. Despite widespread practice of WIL, there are few reports that shed light on appropriate pedagogies for the work experience in particular. As with any form of education, providers hold certain views as to desirable outcomes in terms of graduate profiles and of desirable graduate competencies. A complication for multi-party WIL programmes is that educational stakeholders (e.g., staff working in tertiary education provider institutions and employers) may hold different views as to desirable graduate competencies. Here we argue that an understanding of stakeholder views of desirable graduate competencies is an essential prerequisite of pedagogical design. The research reported here is an intrinsic case study and comprised an investigation of perceptions of 24 desirable graduate competencies for new science and technology graduates entering the workforce both today, and in ten years’ time. Stakeholders for four sector stakeholder groups (n = 458): undergraduate students (n = 71), recent graduates (n = 143), employers of graduates (n = 172), and faculty (n = 72), were surveyed using a previously reported and validated instrument. The research findings suggest that science and technology stakeholders see all 24 competencies as desirable, and see the importance of all skills and some skills in particular as likely to increase in ten years’ time. Despite emphasis on cognitive and technical skills (often termed ‘hard’ skills), the single most desirable skill is ability and willingness to learn, a behavioural skill (often termed ‘soft’ skills). It is proposed that classroom-based instruction is unlikely to produce graduates with the desired skills, and that work-integrated learning may have a role to play in the development of graduate competencies.

Survival and growth of juvenile Pacific lampreys tagged with passive integrated transponders (PIT) in freshwater and seawater

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mesa, Matthew G.; Copeland, Elizabeth S.; Christiansen, Helena E.; Gregg, Jacob L.; Roon, Sean R.; Hershberger, Paul K.

2012-01-01

Tagging methods are needed for both adult and juvenile life stages of Pacific lampreys Lampetra tridentata to better understand their biology and factors contributing to their decline. We developed a safe and efficient technique for tagging juvenile Pacific lampreys with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags. We tested the short-term survival of PIT-tagged juvenile lampreys in freshwater at four temperatures (9, 12, 15, and 18°C) and their long-term growth and survival in seawater. For both experiments there was little to no tag loss, and juvenile lampreys in freshwater showed high survival at all temperatures at 7 d (95–100%) and 14 d (88–100%) posttagging. Prolonged holding (40 d) resulted in significantly lower survival (28–79%) at warmer temperatures (12–18°C). For juvenile lampreys tagged in freshwater and then transitioned to seawater, survival was 97% for tagged fish until day 94, and at the end of 6 months, survival was about 58% for both tagged and control fish. About half of the tagged and control fish that survived in seawater grew, but there was no difference in growth between the two groups. In freshwater, but not in seawater, most fish that died had an aquatic fungal infection. In both experiments, survival increased with increasing fish length at tagging. Our results indicate that tags similar in size to a 9-mm PIT tag are a feasible option for tagging metamorphosed juvenile lampreys migrating downstream and that when fungal infections are mitigated—as in seawater—long-term (at least 6 months) survival of tagged juvenile lampreys is high.

Ocean regional circulation model sensitizes to resolution of the lateral boundary conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pham, Van Sy; Hwang, Jin Hwan

2017-04-01

Dynamical downscaling with nested regional oceanographic models is an effective approach for forecasting operationally coastal weather and projecting long term climate on the ocean. Nesting procedures deliver the unwanted in dynamic downscaling due to the differences of numerical grid sizes and updating steps. Therefore, such unavoidable errors restrict the application of the Ocean Regional Circulation Model (ORCMs) in both short-term forecasts and long-term projections. The current work identifies the effects of errors induced by computational limitations during nesting procedures on the downscaled results of the ORCMs. The errors are quantitatively evaluated for each error source and its characteristics by the Big-Brother Experiments (BBE). The BBE separates identified errors from each other and quantitatively assess the amount of uncertainties employing the same model to simulate for both nesting and nested model. Here, we focus on discussing errors resulting from two main matters associated with nesting procedures. They should be the spatial grids' differences and the temporal updating steps. After the diverse cases from separately running of the BBE, a Taylor diagram was adopted to analyze the results and suggest an optimization intern of grid size and updating period and domain sizes. Key words: lateral boundary condition, error, ocean regional circulation model, Big-Brother Experiment. Acknowledgement: This research was supported by grants from the Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries entitled "Development of integrated estuarine management system" and a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant (No. 2015R1A5A 7037372) funded by MSIP of Korea. The authors thank the Integrated Research Institute of Construction and Environmental Engineering of Seoul National University for administrative support.

What makes the hedonic experience of a meal in a top restaurant special and retrievable in the long term? Meal-related, social and personality factors.

PubMed

Muñoz, Francisco; Hildebrandt, Andrea; Schacht, Annekathrin; Stürmer, Birgit; Bröcker, Felix; Martín-Loeches, Manuel; Sommer, Werner

2018-06-01

Knowing what makes a top gastronomy experience unique and retrievable in the long term is of interest for scientific and economic reasons. Recent attempts to isolate predictors of the hedonic evaluation of food have afforded several factors, such as individual and social attributes, or liking/disliking profiles. However, in these studies relevant variables have been examined in isolation without an integrative perspective. Here we investigated 80 guests enjoying a 23-course meal in a top gastronomy restaurant, in groups of four. Our main question concerned the factors driving the overall evaluation of the meal at its conclusion and after three months. To this aim we administered the Big Five Personality Inventory before the meal, dish-by-dish hedonic ratings, and a multi-dimensional Meal Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) at the end of the meal. Hedonic evaluations of the meal were collected immediately after the meal and three months later. Better immediate overall evaluations were predicted by both the number of peaks in dish-by-dish ratings and by positive ratings of the final dish. Both factors and the number of troughs were also critical for the long-term evaluation after three months. The MEQ dimensions overall interest, valence and distraction predicted immediate evaluations, while the long-term evaluations were determined by interest and high scores on the personality traits agreeableness and conscientiousness. High consistency of the hedonic ratings within quartets indicated the relevance of commensality for the meal experience. The present findings highlight the simultaneous relevance of food- and personality-related factors and commensality for a top gastronomy meal experience in the short and long-run. The uncovered relationships are of theoretical interest and for those involved in designing meals for consumers in various settings. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

OECD MMCI 2-D Core Concrete Interaction (CCI) tests : CCCI-1 test data report-thermalhydraulic results. Rev 0 January 31, 2004.

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

Farmer, M. T.; Lomperski, S.; Aeschlimann, R. W.

The Melt Attack and Coolability Experiments (MACE) program addressed the issue of the ability of water to cool and thermally stabilize a molten core-concrete interaction when the reactants are flooded from above. These tests provided data regarding the nature of corium interactions with concrete, the heat transfer rates from the melt to the overlying water pool, and the role of noncondensable gases in the mixing processes that contribute to melt quenching. As a follow-on program to MACE, The Melt Coolability and Concrete Interaction Experiments (MCCI) project is conducting reactor material experiments and associated analysis to achieve the following objectives: (1)more » resolve the ex-vessel debris coolability issue through a program that focuses on providing both confirmatory evidence and test data for the coolability mechanisms identified in MACE integral effects tests, and (2) address remaining uncertainties related to long-term two-dimensional molten coreconcrete interactions under both wet and dry cavity conditions. Achievement of these two program objectives will demonstrate the efficacy of severe accident management guidelines for existing plants, and provide the technical basis for better containment designs for future plants. In terms of satisfying these objectives, the Management Board (MB) approved the conduct of two long-term 2-D Core-Concrete Interaction (CCI) experiments designed to provide information in several areas, including: (i) lateral vs. axial power split during dry core-concrete interaction, (ii) integral debris coolability data following late phase flooding, and (iii) data regarding the nature and extent of the cooling transient following breach of the crust formed at the melt-water interface. This data report provides thermal hydraulic test results from the CCI-1 experiment, which was conducted on December 19, 2003. Test specifications for CCI-1 are provided in Table 1-1. This experiment investigated the interaction of a fully oxidized 400 kg PWR core melt, initially containing 8 wt % calcined siliceous concrete, with a specially designed two-dimensional siliceous concrete test section with an initial cross-sectional area of 50 cm x 50 cm. The report begins by providing a summary description of the CCI-1 test apparatus and operating procedures, followed by presentation of the thermal-hydraulic results. The posttest debris examination results will be provided in a subsequent publication. Observations drawn within this report regarding the overall cavity erosion behavior may be subject to revision once the posttest examinations are completed, since these examinations will fully reveal the final cavity shape.« less

OECD MCCI 2-D Core Concrete Interaction (CCI) tests : CCI-2 test data report-thermalhydraulic results, Rev. 0 October 15, 2004.

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

Farmer, M. T.; Lomperski, S.; Kilsdonk, D. J.

The Melt Attack and Coolability Experiments (MACE) program addressed the issue of the ability of water to cool and thermally stabilize a molten core-concrete interaction when the reactants are flooded from above. These tests provided data regarding the nature of corium interactions with concrete, the heat transfer rates from the melt to the overlying water pool, and the role of noncondensable gases in the mixing processes that contribute to melt quenching. As a follow-on program to MACE, The Melt Coolability and Concrete Interaction Experiments (MCCI) project is conducting reactor material experiments and associated analysis to achieve the following objectives: (1)more » resolve the ex-vessel debris coolability issue through a program that focuses on providing both confirmatory evidence and test data for the coolability mechanisms identified in MACE integral effects tests, and (2) address remaining uncertainties related to long-term two-dimensional molten core-concrete interactions under both wet and dry cavity conditions. Achievement of these two program objectives will demonstrate the efficacy of severe accident management guidelines for existing plants, and provide the technical basis for better containment designs for future plants. In terms of satisfying these objectives, the Management Board (MB) approved the conduct of two long-term 2-D Core-Concrete Interaction (CCI) experiments designed to provide information in several areas, including: (i) lateral vs. axial power split during dry core-concrete interaction, (ii) integral debris coolability data following late phase flooding, and (iii) data regarding the nature and extent of the cooling transient following breach of the crust formed at the melt-water interface. This data report provides thermal hydraulic test results from the CCI-2 experiment, which was conducted on August 24, 2004. Test specifications for CCI-2 are provided in Table 1-1. This experiment investigated the interaction of a fully oxidized 400 kg PWR core melt, initially containing 8 wt % Limestone/Common Sand (LCS) concrete, with a specially designed two-dimensional LCS concrete test section with an initial cross-sectional area of 50 cm x 50 cm. The report begins by providing a summary description of the CCI-2 test apparatus and operating procedures, followed by presentation of the thermal-hydraulic results. Detailed posttest debris examination results will be provided in a subsequent publication. Observations drawn within this report regarding the overall cavity erosion behavior may be subject to revision once the posttest examinations are completed, since these examinations will fully reveal the final cavity shape.« less

Effect of different agronomic practises on greenhouse gas emissions, especially N2O and nutrient cycling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koal, Philipp; Schilling, Rolf; Gerl, Georg; Pritsch, Karin; Munch, Jean Charles

2014-05-01

In order to achieve a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, management practises need to be adapted by implementing sustainable land use. At first, reliable field data are required to assess the effect of different farming practises on greenhouse gas budgets. The conducted field experiment covers and compares two main aspects of agricultural management, namely an organic farming system and an integrated farming system, implementing additionally the effects of diverse tillage systems and fertilisation practises. Furthermore, the analysis of the alterable biological, physical and chemical soil properties enables a link between the impact of different management systems on greenhouse gas emissions and the monitored cycle of matter, especially the nitrogen cycle. Measurements were carried out on long-term field trials at the Research Farm Scheyern located in a Tertiary hilly landscape approximately 40 km north of Munich (South Germany). The long-term field trials of the organic and integrated farming system were started in 1992. Since then, parcels in a field (each around 0,2-0,4 ha) with a particular interior plot set-up have been conducted. So the 20 years impacts of different tillage and fertilisation practises on soil properties including trace gases were examined. Fluxes of CH4, N2O and CO2 are monitored since 2007 for the integrated farming system trial and since 2012 for the organic farming system trial using an automated system which consists of chambers (per point: 4 chambers, each covering 0,4 m2 area) with a motor-driven lid, an automated gas sampling unit, an on-line gas chromatographic analysis system, and a control and data logging unit (Flessa et al. 2002). Each chamber is sampled 3-4 times in 24 hours. The main outcomes are the analysis of temporal and spatial dynamics of greenhouse gas fluxes as influenced by management practice events (fertilisation and tillage) and weather effects (drying-rewetting, freezing-thawing, intense rainfall and dry periods) in both established systems and the creation of an impact study comparing the minimum tillage system with the conventional tillage system. Physical, chemical and biological soil properties (i.a. texture, mineral nitrogen and soil organic carbon) were monitored to aggregate the parameters and processes influencing the greenhouse gas fluxes. Moreover, to understand processes leading the greenhouse gas emissions, additional experiments under laboratory conditions (e.g. soil potential for trace gas formation) are included. Furthermore, with the comparison of the similar long-term field experiments (organic vs. integrated) more relevant data are ascertained to assess and calculate the global warming potential of different management and tillage systems.

Modelling seagrass growth and development to evaluate transplanting strategies for restoration.

PubMed

Renton, Michael; Airey, Michael; Cambridge, Marion L; Kendrick, Gary A

2011-10-01

Seagrasses are important marine plants that are under threat globally. Restoration by transplanting vegetative fragments or seedlings into areas where seagrasses have been lost is possible, but long-term trial data are limited. The goal of this study is to use available short-term data to predict long-term outcomes of transplanting seagrass. A functional-structural plant model of seagrass growth that integrates data collected from short-term trials and experiments is presented. The model was parameterized for the species Posidonia australis, a limited validation of the model against independent data and a sensitivity analysis were conducted and the model was used to conduct a preliminary evaluation of different transplanting strategies. The limited validation was successful, and reasonable long-term outcomes could be predicted, based only on short-term data. This approach for modelling seagrass growth and development enables long-term predictions of the outcomes to be made from different strategies for transplanting seagrass, even when empirical long-term data are difficult or impossible to collect. More validation is required to improve confidence in the model's predictions, and inclusion of more mechanism will extend the model's usefulness. Marine restoration represents a novel application of functional-structural plant modelling.

Gene Ontology annotation of the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae

PubMed Central

Meng, Shaowu; Brown, Douglas E; Ebbole, Daniel J; Torto-Alalibo, Trudy; Oh, Yeon Yee; Deng, Jixin; Mitchell, Thomas K; Dean, Ralph A

2009-01-01

Background Magnaporthe oryzae, the causal agent of blast disease of rice, is the most destructive disease of rice worldwide. The genome of this fungal pathogen has been sequenced and an automated annotation has recently been updated to Version 6 . However, a comprehensive manual curation remains to be performed. Gene Ontology (GO) annotation is a valuable means of assigning functional information using standardized vocabulary. We report an overview of the GO annotation for Version 5 of M. oryzae genome assembly. Methods A similarity-based (i.e., computational) GO annotation with manual review was conducted, which was then integrated with a literature-based GO annotation with computational assistance. For similarity-based GO annotation a stringent reciprocal best hits method was used to identify similarity between predicted proteins of M. oryzae and GO proteins from multiple organisms with published associations to GO terms. Significant alignment pairs were manually reviewed. Functional assignments were further cross-validated with manually reviewed data, conserved domains, or data determined by wet lab experiments. Additionally, biological appropriateness of the functional assignments was manually checked. Results In total, 6,286 proteins received GO term assignment via the homology-based annotation, including 2,870 hypothetical proteins. Literature-based experimental evidence, such as microarray, MPSS, T-DNA insertion mutation, or gene knockout mutation, resulted in 2,810 proteins being annotated with GO terms. Of these, 1,673 proteins were annotated with new terms developed for Plant-Associated Microbe Gene Ontology (PAMGO). In addition, 67 experiment-determined secreted proteins were annotated with PAMGO terms. Integration of the two data sets resulted in 7,412 proteins (57%) being annotated with 1,957 distinct and specific GO terms. Unannotated proteins were assigned to the 3 root terms. The Version 5 GO annotation is publically queryable via the GO site . Additionally, the genome of M. oryzae is constantly being refined and updated as new information is incorporated. For the latest GO annotation of Version 6 genome, please visit our website . The preliminary GO annotation of Version 6 genome is placed at a local MySql database that is publically queryable via a user-friendly interface Adhoc Query System. Conclusion Our analysis provides comprehensive and robust GO annotations of the M. oryzae genome assemblies that will be solid foundations for further functional interrogation of M. oryzae. PMID:19278556

Tropical Andean ecosystems and the need to keep warming limits below a +1.5°C threshold

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruiz-Carrascal, D.; Herzog, S. K.; Guitierrez Lagoueyte, M. E.; Gonzalez-Duque, D.; Cuevas-Moreno, J.; del Valle, J. I.; Andreu-Hayles, L.; Herrera, D. A.; Martínez, R.

2017-12-01

Long-term climate change and rapid land-use change are synergistically threatening the integrity and functioning of tropical Andean ecosystems. The main goal of our research was to integrate climate change projections, biodiversity data and anthropogenically driven ecosystem disruption assessments to quantify the vulnerability of Andean ecosystems and species to global change at a local scale. We merged discernible trends in local quality-controlled weather station data with reanalysis data, as well as with historical and prospective simulation outputs of five well-known GCMs to assess a long-term context for the analysis of climate change exposure (temperature severity intervals). Individual, medium-term, multi-member GCM simulations included: altitude-corrected 2046-2065 (IPCC-AR4) climate change scenarios for the A1B emission scenario; and spatially-downscaled 2040-2069 (IPCC-AR5) projections for the RCP4.5. Previous studies reported mean annual temperature anomaly intervals that resulted in exceedingly high thresholds: the lowest severity interval (< +2.06°C) and the highest (> +2.71°C). The least severe interval extended up to the threshold widely recognized as `dangerous' climate change, thereby leading to an underestimation of the true vulnerability of Andean species. Our analyses suggest that temperature anomalies for the full extent of the tropical Andes will likely range from low (< +1.60°C) to high (> +2.61°C), exceeding the threshold of 'natural' climate variability (+1.78°C). Our results suggest that most species that were used as proxies of ecosystem vulnerabilities will likely experience overall low-to-medium-to-high temperature increases. Since many of them have potentially high sensitivity to such long-term changes, Andean species will likely experience greatly increases in vulnerability. The already-disrupted Andean ecosystems will suffer a further climatic stress, which will worsen the well-known detrimental synergies between climate and land-use changes. There is an imperative need to prioritize high-risk areas for the implementation of conservation and adaptation actions. Equally important, there is an urgent need to keep warming limits well below 2.0°C, ideally below +1.5°C, if we expect to preserve the integrity of our unique Andean environments.

Deposition of InP on Si Substrates for Monolithic Integration of Advanced Electronics

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-05-01

radiation resistance of InP has been demonstrated (in terms of solar cell experiments) to be quite superior to that of either GaAs or Si.( 1 , 2) In fact... photovoltaic p/n junction devices irradiated by I MeV electrons have been shown to almost totallv recover their electrical performance by annealing at...in the literature.(l5 2 2) The NTT group has succeeded in growing InP films directly on Si substrates and in fabricating solar cells (approximately 3

Llinas’ Phase Reset Mechanism Delays the Onset of Chaos in Shark and Dolphin Wall Turbulence

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-02-10

eruption due to plate tectonics . (The plate becomes locally thin and is unable to prevent the high-pressure hot magma from erupting.) The vorticity...flat plate value. The spacing between riblet peaks s+= 10 is used unless noted. KM gives the "strength" of the riblets, where the terms "weak" and...exhibit spanwise variations in skin friction coefficients and integral boundary layer properties, even in flat plate experiments where great care has

Elements for successful sensor-based process control {Integrated Metrology}

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Butler, Stephanie Watts

1998-11-01

Current productivity needs have stimulated development of alternative metrology, control, and equipment maintenance methods. Specifically, sensor applications provide the opportunity to increase productivity, tighten control, reduce scrap, and improve maintenance schedules and procedures. Past experience indicates a complete integrated solution must be provided for sensor-based control to be used successfully in production. In this paper, Integrated Metrology is proposed as the term for an integrated solution that will result in a successful application of sensors for process control. This paper defines and explores the perceived four elements of successful sensor applications: business needs, integration, components, and form. Based upon analysis of existing successful commercially available controllers, the necessary business factors have been determined to be strong, measurable industry-wide business needs whose solution is profitable and feasible. This paper examines why the key aspect of integration is the decision making process. A detailed discussion is provided of the components of most importance to sensor based control: decision-making methods, the 3R's of sensors, and connectivity. A metric for one of the R's (resolution) is proposed to allow focus on this important aspect of measurement. A form for these integrated components which synergistically partitions various aspects of control at the equipment and MES levels to efficiently achieve desired benefits is recommended.

What do we know about sibling attended birth? An integrative literature review.

PubMed

Naber, Nora L; Miller, Suzanne; Baddock, Sally A

2018-05-08

to consolidate existing research in the field of sibling attended birth (SAB) into a body of knowledge to inform decision-making processes and guide midwifery practice throughout the sibling attended birth experience. An integrative literature review. CINAHL Complete, Cochrane Library, PubMed, Index New Zealand, Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre, grey literature databases REVIEW METHODS: An extensive search of five electronic databases as well as 17 grey literature databases was conducted. Abstracts of 2340 papers and full texts of 39 papers were scrutinised for inclusion criteria leading to 22 studies being included in this review. The Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool was used to facilitate a systematic quality appraisal process. This review included 22 studies (13 qualitative, 4 quantitative and 5 mixed methods). Studies were analysed using a narrative synthesis approach. Publications mainly focussed on families' motivations for choosing SAB, the preparation for the event, and the impact of SAB on children's behaviour and the infant/sibling relationship. This review identified that children experienced birth as a positive, exciting and important life event and parents viewed their SAB experiences as overwhelmingly positive and reported a heightened sense of family unity. Included studies did not address the long term effects of sibling attended birth, however, in the short-term, children did not show signs of trauma or severe distress, though differing levels of transient fear and anxiety were described. Families could benefit from receiving evidence based information to enable an informed decision regarding their children's involvement during pregnancy, birth and the immediate postpartum. Information shared by the midwife could focus on how families can achieve an optimal SAB experience for all family members. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Primary productivity by phytoplankton in the tidal, fresh Potomac River, Maryland, May 1980 to August 1981

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cohen, R.R.; Pollock, S.O.

1983-01-01

Primary productivity by phytoplankton was measured on samples collected from the Potomac Tidal River, Maryland. The studies were performed monthly from May 1980 to September 1981. Additional studies were done once a week in August 1980, twice a week from August 4 to 8, 1980 and twice in September 1980. Depth-integrated samples were collected at five stations and incubated in boxes that were exposed to natural sunlight. The boxes were covered with neutral density filters transmitting 100 , 65, 32, 16, and 6 percent surface light. River water was pumped continuously over the samples. The extinction of light in the water column by phytoplankton was measured when samples were collected. Experiments were performed to select a method for routine productivity analysis. No difference was found between productivity: (1) determined in situ and in boxes; (2) measured in 300 ml and (4) calculated from short term (4 hours) and long term (10-24 hours) incubations. There were higher productivity differences in samples that were rotated among different light intensities every 15 minutes (simulating mixing) than those remaining stationary. Respiration was significantly less in samples pumped through a hose from those collected using a depth-integrating sampler. Depth-integrated primary productivity was determined from the productivity data using an equation modified from one reported in the literature. Depth-integrated gross primary productivity was highest in August 1980 and 1981 and lowest in January 1980. (USGS)

Conceptual design of a moving belt radiator shuttle-attached experiments: Technical requirement Document

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Aguilar, Jerry L.

1989-01-01

The technical requirements for a shuttle-attached Moving Belt Radiator (MBR) experiment are defined. The MBR is an advanced radiator concept in which a rotating belt radiates thermal energy to space. The requirements for integrating the MBR experiment in the shuttle bay are discussed. Requirements for the belt material and working fluid are outlined along with some possible options. The proposed size and relationship to a full scale Moving Belt Radiator are defined. The experiment is defined with the primary goal of dynamic testing and a secondary goal of demonstrating the sealing and heat transfer characteristics. A perturbation system which will simulate a docking maneuver or other type of short term acceleration is proposed for inclusion in the experimental apparatus. A deployment and retraction capability which will aid in evaluating the dynamics of a belt during such a maneuver is also described. The proposed test sequence for the experiment is presented. Details of the conceptual design are not presented herein, but rather in a separate Final Report.

A model to forecast data centre infrastructure costs.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vernet, R.

2015-12-01

The computing needs in the HEP community are increasing steadily, but the current funding situation in many countries is tight. As a consequence experiments, data centres, and funding agencies have to rationalize resource usage and expenditures. CC-IN2P3 (Lyon, France) provides computing resources to many experiments including LHC, and is a major partner for astroparticle projects like LSST, CTA or Euclid. The financial cost to accommodate all these experiments is substantial and has to be planned well in advance for funding and strategic reasons. In that perspective, leveraging infrastructure expenses, electric power cost and hardware performance observed in our site over the last years, we have built a model that integrates these data and provides estimates of the investments that would be required to cater to the experiments for the mid-term future. We present how our model is built and the expenditure forecast it produces, taking into account the experiment roadmaps. We also examine the resource growth predicted by our model over the next years assuming a flat-budget scenario.

The European FP7 ULTimateCO2 project: A comprehensive approach to study the long term fate of CO2 geological storage sites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Audigane, P.; Brown, S.; Dimier, A.; Pearce, J.; Frykman, P.; Maurand, N.; Le Gallo, Y.; Spiers, C. J.; Cremer, H.; Rutters, H.; Yalamas, T.

2013-12-01

The European FP7 ULTimateCO2 project aims at significantly advance our knowledge of specific processes that could influence the long-term fate of geologically stored CO2: i) trapping mechanisms, ii) fluid-rock interactions and effects on mechanical integrity of fractured caprock and faulted systems and iii) leakage due to mechanical and chemical damage in the well vicinity, iv) brine displacement and fluid mixing at regional scale. A realistic framework is ensured through collaboration with two demonstration sites in deep saline sandstone formations: the onshore former NER300 West Lorraine candidate in France (ArcelorMittal GeoLorraine) and the offshore EEPR Don Valley (former Hatfield) site in UK operated by National Grid. Static earth models have been generated at reservoir and basin scale to evaluate both trapping mechanisms and fluid displacement at short (injection) and long (post injection) time scales. Geochemical trapping and reservoir behaviour is addressed through experimental approaches using sandstone core materials in batch reactive mode with CO2 and impurities at reservoir pressure and temperature conditions and through geochemical simulations. Collection of data has been generated from natural and industrial (oil industry) analogues on the fluid flow and mechanical properties, structure, and mineralogy of faults and fractures that could affect the long-term storage capacity of underground CO2 storage sites. Three inter-related lines of laboratory experiments investigate the long-term evolution of the mechanical properties and sealing integrity of fractured and faulted caprocks using Opalinus clay of Mont Terri Gallery (Switzerland) (OPA), an analogue for caprock well investigated in the past for nuclear waste disposal purpose: - Characterization of elastic parameters in intact samples by measuring strain during an axial experiment, - A recording of hydraulic fracture flow properties by loading and shearing samples in order to create a 'realistic' fracture, followed by a gas injection in the fracture plan, - An assessment of temperature influences on carbonate and water content which affect carbonate bearing fault gouge using shear experiments at 20C and 120C on simulated fault gouges prepared by crushed OPA samples. To evaluate the interactions between CO2 (and formation fluids) and the well environment (formation, cement, casing) and to assess the consequences of these interactions on the transport properties of well materials, a 1:1 scale experiment has been set in the OPA to reproduce classical well objects (cemented annulus, casing and cement plug) perforating caprock formations (OPA). Innovative probabilistic modelling tools are also under development in order to build robust calibration methods for uncertainty management of the simulated long term scenarios.

Commentary: Urgent need for large-scale warming manipulation experiments in tropical forests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cavaleri, M. A.; Wood, T. E.; Reed, S.

2013-12-01

Tropical forests represent the largest fluxes of carbon into and out of the atmosphere of any terrestrial ecosystem type on earth. Despite their clear biogeochemical importance, responses of tropical forests to global warming are more uncertain than for any other biome. This uncertainty stems primarily from a lack of mechanistic data, in part because warming manipulation field experiments have been located almost exclusively in higher latitude systems. As a result of the large fluxes, lack of data, and high uncertainty, recent studies have highlighted the tropics as a 'high priority region' for future climate change research. We argue that warming manipulation experiments are urgently needed in tropical forests that are: 1) single-factor, 2) large-scale, and 3) long-term. The emergence of a novel heat regime is predicted for the tropics within the next two decades, and tropical forest trees may be more susceptible to warming than previously thought. Over a decade of Free Air CO2 Enrichment experiments have shown that single-factor studies that integrate above- and belowground function can be the most informative and efficient means of informing models, which can then be used to determine interactive effects of multiple factors. Warming both above- and below-ground parts of an ecosystem would be fundamental to the understanding of whole-ecosystem and net carbon responses because of the multiple feedbacks between tree canopy, root, and soil function. Finally, evidence from high-latitude warming experiments highlight the importance of long-term studies by suggesting that key processes related to carbon cycling, like soil respiration, could acclimate with extended warming. Despite the fact that there has never been a long-term ecosystem-level warming experiment in any forest, the technology is available, and momentum is gathering. In order to study the effects of warming on tropical forests, which contribute disproportionately to global carbon balance, full-scale ecosystem warming experiments are imperative.

United we stand, divided we fall: a meta-analysis of experiments on clonal integration and its relationship to invasiveness.

PubMed

Song, Yao-Bin; Yu, Fei-Hai; Keser, Lidewij H; Dawson, Wayne; Fischer, Markus; Dong, Ming; van Kleunen, Mark

2013-02-01

Many ecosystems are dominated by clonal plants. Among the most distinctive characteristics of clonal plants is their potential for clonal integration (i.e. the translocation of resources between interconnected ramets), suggesting that integration may play a role in their success. However, a general synthesis of effects of clonal integration on plant performance is lacking. We conducted a meta-analysis on the effects of clonal integration on biomass production and asexual reproduction of the whole clone, the recipient part (i.e. the part of a clone that imports resources) and the donor part (i.e. the part of a clone that exports resources). The final dataset contained 389 effect sizes from 84 studies covering 57 taxa. Overall, clonal integration increased performance of recipient parts without decreasing that of donor parts, and thus increased performance of whole clones. Among the studies and taxa considered, the benefits of clonal integration did not differ between two types of experimental approaches, between stoloniferous and rhizomatous growth forms, between directions of resource translocation (from younger to older ramet or vice versa), or among types of translocated resources (water, nutrients and carbohydrates). Clonal taxa with larger benefits of integration on whole-clone performance were not more invasive globally, but taxa in which recipient parts in unfavorable patches benefited more from integration were. Our results demonstrate general performance benefits of clonal integration, at least in the short term, and suggest that clonal integration contributes to the success of clonal plants.

Mapping experiment with space station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wu, S. S. C.

1986-01-01

Mapping of the Earth from space stations can be approached in two areas. One is to collect gravity data for defining topographic datum using Earth's gravity field in terms of spherical harmonics. The other is to search and explore techniques of mapping topography using either optical or radar images with or without reference to ground central points. Without ground control points, an integrated camera system can be designed. With ground control points, the position of the space station (camera station) can be precisely determined at any instant. Therefore, terrestrial topography can be precisely mapped either by conventional photogrammetric methods or by current digital technology of image correlation. For the mapping experiment, it is proposed to establish four ground points either in North America or Africa (including the Sahara desert). If this experiment should be successfully accomplished, it may also be applied to the defense charting systems.

Effect of different agronomic management practices on greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient cycling in a long-term field trial

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koal, Philipp; Schilling, Rolf; Gerl, Georg; Pritsch, Karin; Munch, Jean Charles

2015-04-01

In order to achieve a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, modern agronomic management practices need to be established. Therefore, to assess the effect of different farming practices on greenhouse gas emissions, reliable data are required. The experiment covers and compares two main aspects of agricultural management for a better implementation of sustainable land use. The focus lies on the determination and interpretation of greenhouse gas emissions, however, regarding in each case a different agricultural management system, namely an organic farming system and an integrated farming system where the effect of diverse tillage systems and fertilisation practices are observed. In addition, with analysis of the alterable biological, physical and chemical soil properties a link between the impact of different management systems on greenhouse gas emissions and the observed cycle of matter in the soil, especially the nitrogen and carbon cycle, will be enabled. Measurements have been carried out on long-term field trials at the Research Farm Scheyern located in a Tertiary hilly landscape approximately 40 km north of Munich (South Germany). The long-term field trials of the organic and integrated farming system were started in 1992. Since then parcels of land (each around 0.2-0.4 ha) with a particular interior plot set-up have been conducted with the same crop rotation, tillage and fertilisation practice referring to organic and integrated farming management. Thus, the management impacts on the soil of more than 20 years are being examined. Fluxes of CH4, N2O and CO2 have been monitored since 2007 for the integrated farming system trial and since 2012 for the organic farming system trial using an automated system which consists of chambers (0.4 m2 area) with a motor-driven lid, an automated gas sampling unit, an on-line gas chromatographic analysis system, and a control and data logging unit. Precipitation and temperature data have been observed for each experimental field to include weather effects. The main outcomes are the analysis of temporal and spatial dynamics of greenhouse gas emissions influenced by management practice events (i.a. fertilisation, crop incorporation and tillage) and weather effects (drying-rewetting, freezing-thawing, intense rainfall and dry periods) and the creation of impact studies comparing the farming systems (organic vs integrated) and the management practices (minimum tillage vs conventional tillage; high vs low fertilisation). Physical, chemical and biological soil properties (i.a. texture, mineral nitrogen, soil organic carbon and microbial biomass) have been examined in short time intervals to aggregate the parameters and processes influencing the greenhouse gas emissions and to build a linkage between soil organic matter and greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, with the comparison of the investigated similar long-term field experiments and the collected agronomic data (harvest, tillage and fertilisation practices) the study could contribute to a contemporary set of "best management practices" and could provide a help to create decision tools for stakeholders such as farmers.

A model of "integrated scientific method" and its application for the analysis of instruction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rusbult, Craig Francis

A model of 'integrated scientific method' (ISM) was constructed as a framework for describing the process of science in terms of activities (formulating a research problem, and inventing and evaluating actions--such as selecting and inventing theories, evaluating theories, designing experiments, and doing experiments--intended to solve the problem) and evaluation criteria (empirical, conceptual, and cultural-personal). Instead of trying to define the scientific method, ISM is intended to serve as a flexible framework that--by varying the characteristics of its components, their integrated relationships, and their relative importance can be used to describe a variety of scientific methods, and a variety of perspectives about what constitutes an accurate portrayal of scientific methods. This framework is outlined visually and verbally, followed by an elaboration of the framework and my own views about science, and an evaluation of whether ISM can serve as a relatively neutral framework for describing a wide range of science practices and science interpretations. ISM was used to analyze an innovative, guided inquiry classroom (taught by Susan Johnson, using Genetics Construction Kit software) in which students do simulated scientific research by solving classical genetics problems that require effect-to-cause reasoning and theory revision. The immediate goal of analysis was to examine the 'science experiences' of students, to determine how the 'structure of instruction' provides opportunities for these experiences. Another goal was to test and improve the descriptive and analytical utility of ISM. In developing ISM, a major objective was to make ISM educationally useful. A concluding discussion includes controversies about "the nature of science" and how to teach it, how instruction can expand opportunities for student experience, and how goal-oriented intentional learning (using ISM might improve the learning, retention, and transfer of thinking skills. Potential educational applications of ISM could involve its use for instructional analysis or design, or for teaching students in the classroom; or ISM and IDM (a closely related, generalized 'integrated design method') could play valuable roles in a 'wide spiral' curriculum designed for the coordinated teaching of thinking skills, including creativity and critical thinking, across a wide range of subjects.

Psychiatric Management, Administration, and Leadership: a Continuum or Distinct Concepts?

PubMed

Saeed, Sy Atezaz; Silver, Stuart; Buwalda, Victor J A; Khin, Eindra Khin; Petit, Jorge R; Mohyuddin, Farooq; Weinberg, Pamela; Merlino, Joseph P; Lekwauwa, Nena; Levin, Saul

2018-06-01

To clarify the relationship between the concepts of management, administration, and leadership in psychiatry. The authors provide a review of the conceptual evolution of administrative psychiatry and develop operational definitions of these three domains. Based upon their experiences, they discuss relevant core competencies and personal attributes. The authors found that the terms psychiatric management, psychiatric administration, and psychiatric leadership are often used interchangeably, yet they each have a different and distinct focus. Additionally, some in the field consider the concepts overlapping, existing on a continuum, while others draw distinct conceptual boundaries between these terms. Psychiatrists in leadership positions function in all three domains. While these are distinct concepts, the authors recommend that administrative psychiatrists integrate all three in their everyday work. The authors suggest the distinctions among these concepts should inform training and identify core competencies related to these distinctions. Mentoring should focus on the practical integration of the concepts of management, administration, and leadership in administrative psychiatry. The authors present a cohesive framework for future development of a curriculum for education and research.

[Pay for performance (P4P). Long-term effects and perspectives].

PubMed

Schrappe, M; Gültekin, N

2011-02-01

After 10 years of experience and research, a wide array of results on evaluation and long-term effects of pay for performance (P4P) programs have been published. These data do not only give insight into most of the problems of implementation, but also into aspects which, in part, may attenuate the high expectations at the beginning of the discussion. P4P programs exhibit a ceiling effect, some improvements are reversed after incentives are cancelled, and improvements show opportunity costs as absent improvements for indicators, which are not object to financial incentives (in some cases for the same disease). These observations can be explained by the hypothesis that P4P programs have characteristics of fee-for-service reimbursement, if symmetric information is available for insurance and provider. P4P programs are local instruments. While integration of healthcare is considered as an important issue, they should be combined with programs and incentives which foster further vertical and horizontal integration. For Germany, further research in the implementation and effects of P4P programs is necessary.

Integrated bioenergy conversion concepts for small scale gasification power systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aldas, Rizaldo Elauria

Thermal and biological gasification are promising technologies for addressing the emerging concerns in biomass-based renewable energy, environmental protection and waste management. However, technical barriers such as feedstock quality limitations, tars, and high NOx emissions from biogas fueled engines impact their full utilization and make them suffer at the small scale from the need to purify the raw gas for most downstream processes, including power generation other than direct boiler use. The two separate gasification technologies may be integrated to better address the issues of power generation and waste management and to complement some of each technologies' limitations. This research project investigated the technical feasibility of an integrated thermal and biological gasification concept for parameters critical to appropriately matching an anaerobic digester with a biomass gasifier. Specific studies investigated the thermal gasification characteristics of selected feedstocks in four fixed-bed gasification experiments: (1) updraft gasification of rice hull, (2) indirect-heated gasification of rice hull, (3) updraft gasification of Athel wood, and (4) downdraft gasification of Athel and Eucalyptus woods. The effects of tars and other components of producer gas on anaerobic digestion at mesophilic temperature of 36°C and the biodegradation potentials and soil carbon mineralization of gasification tars during short-term aerobic incubation at 27.5°C were also examined. Experiments brought out the ranges in performance and quality and quantity of gasification products under different operating conditions and showed that within the conditions considered in the study, these gasification products did not adversely impact the overall digester performance. Short-term aerobic incubation demonstrated variable impacts on carbon mineralization depending on tar and soil conditions. Although tars exhibited low biodegradation indices, degradation may be improved if the microorganisms used to deal with tars are selected and pre-conditioned to the tar environment. Overall, the results provided a basis for operational and design strategy for a combined gasification system but further study is recommended such as determination of the impacts in terms of emissions, power, efficiency and costs associated with the use of producer gas-enriched biogas taking advantage of hydrogen enrichment to reduce NOx and other pollutants in reciprocating engines and other energy conversion systems.

Neuroplasticity as a function of second language learning: anatomical changes in the human brain.

PubMed

Li, Ping; Legault, Jennifer; Litcofsky, Kaitlyn A

2014-09-01

The brain has an extraordinary ability to functionally and physically change or reconfigure its structure in response to environmental stimulus, cognitive demand, or behavioral experience. This property, known as neuroplasticity, has been examined extensively in many domains. But how does neuroplasticity occur in the brain as a function of an individual's experience with a second language? It is not until recently that we have gained some understanding of this question by examining the anatomical changes as well as functional neural patterns that are induced by the learning and use of multiple languages. In this article we review emerging evidence regarding how structural neuroplasticity occurs in the brain as a result of one's bilingual experience. Our review aims at identifying the processes and mechanisms that drive experience-dependent anatomical changes, and integrating structural imaging evidence with current knowledge of functional neural plasticity of language and other cognitive skills. The evidence reviewed so far portrays a picture that is highly consistent with structural neuroplasticity observed for other domains: second language experience-induced brain changes, including increased gray matter (GM) density and white matter (WM) integrity, can be found in children, young adults, and the elderly; can occur rapidly with short-term language learning or training; and are sensitive to age, age of acquisition, proficiency or performance level, language-specific characteristics, and individual differences. We conclude with a theoretical perspective on neuroplasticity in language and bilingualism, and point to future directions for research. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Chromosomes on the move: The educational and neurological advantages of using body movement to teach cellular division

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baumwoll, Alma Aron

As education and neuroscience begin to merge, creating the new field of brain-based education, teachers are working to integrate scientific research into the classroom. While working to improve my own teaching, I developed a lesson plan to teach mitosis and meiosis through movement. My thesis reviews education theory and neuroscience to support using movement as a teaching tool in high-level, subject-based classrooms. I then outline my lesson plan and present my investigations of its effectiveness as demonstrated through short-term memory, long-term memory, and students' personal responses to the class. Two experiments were completed with biology lab sections at Northeastern University between 2009 and 2012; I taught my lesson to experimental groups while control groups learned through video-based lessons. The short-term study showed significant improvement in both the grades and enjoyment of the experimental groups. The long-term, retroactive study yielded no significant data, possibly due to weaknesses in the experimental design.

Short-term incorporation of organic manures and biofertilizers influences biochemical and microbial characteristics of soils under an annual crop [Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.)].

PubMed

Dinesh, R; Srinivasan, V; Hamza, S; Manjusha, A

2010-06-01

The study was conducted to determine whether short-term incorporation of organic manures and biofertilizers influence biochemical and microbial variables reflecting soil quality. For the study, soils were collected from a field experiment conducted on turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) involving organic nutrient management (ONM), chemical nutrient management (CNM) and integrated nutrient management (INM). The findings revealed that application of organic manures and biofertilizers (ONM and INM) positively influenced microbial biomass C, N mineralization, soil respiration and enzymes activities. Contrarily, greater metabolic quotient levels in CNM indicated a stressed soil microbial community. Principal component analysis indicated the strong relationship between microbial activity and the availability of labile and easily mineralizable organic matter. The findings imply that even short-term incorporation of organic manures and biofertilizers promoted soil microbial and enzyme activities and these parameters are sensitive enough to detect changes in soil quality due to short-term incorporation of biological fertilizers. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Universal Health Coverage and Primary Healthcare: Lessons From Japan

PubMed Central

Bloom, Gerald

2017-01-01

A recent editorial by Naoki Ikegami has proposed three key lessons from Japan’s experience of achieving virtually universal coverage with primary healthcare services: the need to integrate the existing providers of primary healthcare services into the organised health system; the need to limit government commitments to finance hospital services and the need to empower providers of primary healthcare to influence decisions that influence their livelihoods. Although the context of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) differs in many ways from Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the lesson that short-term initiatives to achieve universal coverage need to be complemented by an understanding of the factors influencing long-term change management remains highly relevant. PMID:28812806

From Geometry to Diagnosis: Experiences of Geomatics in Structural Engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riveiro, B.; Arias, P.; Armesto, J.; Caamaño, J. C.; Solla, M.

2012-07-01

Terrestrial photogrammetry and laser scanning are technologies that have been successfully used for metric surveying and 3D modelling in many different fields (archaeological and architectural documentation, industrial retrofitting, mining, structural monitoring, road surveying, etc.). In the case of structural applications, these techniques have been successfully applied to 3D modelling and sometimes monitoring; but they have not been sufficiently implemented to date, as routine tools in infrastructure management systems, in terms of automation of data processing and integration in the condition assessment procedures. In this context, this paper presents a series of experiences in the usage of terrestrial photogrammetry and laser scanning in the context of dimensional and structural evaluation of structures. These experiences are particularly focused on historical masonry structures, but modern prestressed concrete bridges are also investigated. The development of methodological procedures for data collection, and data integration in some cases, is tackled for each particular structure (with access limitations, geometrical configuration, range of measurement, etc.). The accurate geometrical information provided by both terrestrial techniques motivates the implementation of such results in the complex, and sometimes slightly approximated, geometric scene that is frequently used in structural analysis. In this sense, quantitative evaluating of the influence of real and accurate geometry in structural analysis results must be carried out. As main result in this paper, a series of experiences based on the usage of photogrammetric and laser scanning to structural engineering are presented.

Neurocognitive Predictors of Academic Outcomes among Childhood Leukemia Survivors

PubMed Central

(Ki) Moore, Ida M.; Lupo, Philip J.; Insel, Kathleen; Harris, Lynnette L.; Pasvogel, Alice; Koerner, Kari M.; Adkins, Kristin B.; Taylor, Olga A.; Hockenberry, Marilyn J.

2015-01-01

Background Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common pediatric cancer and survival approaches 90%. ALL survivors are more likely than healthy peers or siblings to experience academic underachievement yet little is known about neurocognitive predictors of academic outcomes. Objective Objectives were to compare neurocognitive abilities to age-adjusted standardized norms; to examine change over time in neurocognitive abilities; and to establish neurocognitive predictors of academic outcomes. Methods Seventy-one children were followed over the course of therapy. Cognitive abilities were assessed during Induction when the child was in remission (Baseline) and annually for 3 years (Year 1, Year 2, Year 3). Reading and mathematics abilities were assessed at Year 3. Results Fine motor dexterity was significantly below age-adjusted norms at all data points, but showed improvement over time. Baseline visual-motor integration was within the normal range but significantly declined by Year 3, and mean scores at Years 2 and 3 were significantly below age-adjusted norms. Verbal short-term memory was significantly below age-adjusted norms at all assessments. Visual-motor integration predicted reading and mathematic abilities. Verbal short-term memory predicted reading abilities, and visual short-term memory predicted mathematic abilities. Conclusions CNS-directed therapy is associated with specific neurocognitive problems. Visual spatial skills, verbal and visual short term memory predict academic outcomes. Implications for practice Early assessment of visual spatial perception and short-term memory can identify children at risk for academic problems. Children who are at risk for academic problems could benefit from a school based Individual Educational Program and/or educational intervention. PMID:26166361

A critical assessment of flux and source term closures in shallow water models with porosity for urban flood simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guinot, Vincent

2017-11-01

The validity of flux and source term formulae used in shallow water models with porosity for urban flood simulations is assessed by solving the two-dimensional shallow water equations over computational domains representing periodic building layouts. The models under assessment are the Single Porosity (SP), the Integral Porosity (IP) and the Dual Integral Porosity (DIP) models. 9 different geometries are considered. 18 two-dimensional initial value problems and 6 two-dimensional boundary value problems are defined. This results in a set of 96 fine grid simulations. Analysing the simulation results leads to the following conclusions: (i) the DIP flux and source term models outperform those of the SP and IP models when the Riemann problem is aligned with the main street directions, (ii) all models give erroneous flux closures when is the Riemann problem is not aligned with one of the main street directions or when the main street directions are not orthogonal, (iii) the solution of the Riemann problem is self-similar in space-time when the street directions are orthogonal and the Riemann problem is aligned with one of them, (iv) a momentum balance confirms the existence of the transient momentum dissipation model presented in the DIP model, (v) none of the source term models presented so far in the literature allows all flow configurations to be accounted for(vi) future laboratory experiments aiming at the validation of flux and source term closures should focus on the high-resolution, two-dimensional monitoring of both water depth and flow velocity fields.

Integration of XRootD into the cloud infrastructure for ALICE data analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kompaniets, Mikhail; Shadura, Oksana; Svirin, Pavlo; Yurchenko, Volodymyr; Zarochentsev, Andrey

2015-12-01

Cloud technologies allow easy load balancing between different tasks and projects. From the viewpoint of the data analysis in the ALICE experiment, cloud allows to deploy software using Cern Virtual Machine (CernVM) and CernVM File System (CVMFS), to run different (including outdated) versions of software for long term data preservation and to dynamically allocate resources for different computing activities, e.g. grid site, ALICE Analysis Facility (AAF) and possible usage for local projects or other LHC experiments. We present a cloud solution for Tier-3 sites based on OpenStack and Ceph distributed storage with an integrated XRootD based storage element (SE). One of the key features of the solution is based on idea that Ceph has been used as a backend for Cinder Block Storage service for OpenStack, and in the same time as a storage backend for XRootD, with redundancy and availability of data preserved by Ceph settings. For faster and easier OpenStack deployment was applied the Packstack solution, which is based on the Puppet configuration management system. Ceph installation and configuration operations are structured and converted to Puppet manifests describing node configurations and integrated into Packstack. This solution can be easily deployed, maintained and used even in small groups with limited computing resources and small organizations, which usually have lack of IT support. The proposed infrastructure has been tested on two different clouds (SPbSU & BITP) and integrates successfully with the ALICE data analysis model.

Bilinearity in Spatiotemporal Integration of Synaptic Inputs

PubMed Central

Li, Songting; Liu, Nan; Zhang, Xiao-hui; Zhou, Douglas; Cai, David

2014-01-01

Neurons process information via integration of synaptic inputs from dendrites. Many experimental results demonstrate dendritic integration could be highly nonlinear, yet few theoretical analyses have been performed to obtain a precise quantitative characterization analytically. Based on asymptotic analysis of a two-compartment passive cable model, given a pair of time-dependent synaptic conductance inputs, we derive a bilinear spatiotemporal dendritic integration rule. The summed somatic potential can be well approximated by the linear summation of the two postsynaptic potentials elicited separately, plus a third additional bilinear term proportional to their product with a proportionality coefficient . The rule is valid for a pair of synaptic inputs of all types, including excitation-inhibition, excitation-excitation, and inhibition-inhibition. In addition, the rule is valid during the whole dendritic integration process for a pair of synaptic inputs with arbitrary input time differences and input locations. The coefficient is demonstrated to be nearly independent of the input strengths but is dependent on input times and input locations. This rule is then verified through simulation of a realistic pyramidal neuron model and in electrophysiological experiments of rat hippocampal CA1 neurons. The rule is further generalized to describe the spatiotemporal dendritic integration of multiple excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs. The integration of multiple inputs can be decomposed into the sum of all possible pairwise integration, where each paired integration obeys the bilinear rule. This decomposition leads to a graph representation of dendritic integration, which can be viewed as functionally sparse. PMID:25521832

Targeted gene insertion for molecular medicine.

PubMed

Voigt, Katrin; Izsvák, Zsuzsanna; Ivics, Zoltán

2008-11-01

Genomic insertion of a functional gene together with suitable transcriptional regulatory elements is often required for long-term therapeutical benefit in gene therapy for several genetic diseases. A variety of integrating vectors for gene delivery exist. Some of them exhibit random genomic integration, whereas others have integration preferences based on attributes of the targeted site, such as primary DNA sequence and physical structure of the DNA, or through tethering to certain DNA sequences by host-encoded cellular factors. Uncontrolled genomic insertion bears the risk of the transgene being silenced due to chromosomal position effects, and can lead to genotoxic effects due to mutagenesis of cellular genes. None of the vector systems currently used in either preclinical experiments or clinical trials displays sufficient preferences for target DNA sequences that would ensure appropriate and reliable expression of the transgene and simultaneously prevent hazardous side effects. We review in this paper the advantages and disadvantages of both viral and non-viral gene delivery technologies, discuss mechanisms of target site selection of integrating genetic elements (viruses and transposons), and suggest distinct molecular strategies for targeted gene delivery.

Integrated response toward HIV: a health promotion case study from China.

PubMed

Jiang, Zhen; Wang, Debin; Yang, Sen; Duan, Mingyue; Bu, Pengbin; Green, Andrew; Zhang, Xuejun

2011-06-01

Integrated HIV response refers to a formalized, collaborative process among organizations in communities with HIV at-risk populations. It is a both comprehensive and flexible scheme, which may include community-based environment promotion, skill coalition, fund linkage, human resource collaboration and service system jointly for both HIV prevention and control. It enables decisions and actions responds over time. In 1997, the Chinese government developed a 10-year HIV project supported by World Bank Loan (H9-HIV/AIDS/STIs). It was the first integrated STI/HIV intervention project in China and provides a unique opportunity to explore the long-term comprehensive STI/HIV intervention in a low-middle income country setting. Significant outcomes were identified as development and promotion of the national strategic plan and its ongoing implementation; positive knowledge, behavioral and STI/HIV prevalence rate change; and valuable experiences for managing integrated HIV/STI intervention projects. Essential factors for the success of the project and the key tasks for the next step were identified and included well-designed intervention in rural and low economic regions, unified program evaluation framework and real-time information collection and assessment.

Bridging the Engineering and Medicine Gap

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walton, M.; Antonsen, E.

2018-01-01

A primary challenge NASA faces is communication between the disparate entities of engineers and human system experts in life sciences. Clear communication is critical for exploration mission success from the perspective of both risk analysis and data handling. The engineering community uses probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) models to inform their own risk analysis and has extensive experience managing mission data, but does not always fully consider human systems integration (HSI). The medical community, as a part of HSI, has been working 1) to develop a suite of tools to express medical risk in quantitative terms that are relatable to the engineering approaches commonly in use, and 2) to manage and integrate HSI data with engineering data. This talk will review the development of the Integrated Medical Model as an early attempt to bridge the communication gap between the medical and engineering communities in the language of PRA. This will also address data communication between the two entities in the context of data management considerations of the Medical Data Architecture. Lessons learned from these processes will help identify important elements to consider in future communication and integration of these two groups.

A high-performance photovoltaic concentrator array - The mini-dome Fresnel lens concentrator with 30 percent efficient GaAs/GaSb tandem cells

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Piszczor, M. F.; Brinker, D. J.; Flood, D. J.; Avery, J. E.; Fraas, L. M.; Fairbanks, E. S.; Yerkes, J. W.; O'Neill, M. J.

1991-01-01

A high-efficiency, lightweight space photovoltaic concentrator array is described. Previous work on the minidome Fresnel lens concentrator concept is being integrated with Boeing's 30 percent efficient tandem GaAs/GaSb concentrator cells into a high-performance photovoltaic array. Calculations indicate that, in the near term, such an array can achieve 300 W/sq m at a specific power of 100 W/kg. Emphasis of the program has now shifted to integrating the concentrator lens, tandem cell, and supporting panel structure into a space-qualifiable array. A description is presented of the current status of component and prototype panel testing and the development of a flight panel for the Photovoltaic Array Space Power Plus Diagnostics (PASP PLUS) flight experiment.

Deweyan integration: moving beyond place attachment in elderly migration theory.

PubMed

Cutchin, M P

2001-01-01

The fact that aging-in-place and elderly migration are intricately linked has been overlooked by behavioral approaches to elderly migration. "Humanistic" inquiry has provided important insights into aging-in-place and elderly migration as well as the connection between the two. Humanistic approaches, however, do not encapsulate the full range of experience involved in elders' lives. To move beyond humanistic research and key concepts such as place attachment, the philosophy of John Dewey is introduced. Dewey's viewpoint is merged with the geographical concept of place into what is termed "place integration." This perspective is subsequently compared with humanistic perspectives on aging-in-place and elderly migration decision-making. Fundamental differences such as temporal orientation and substantive focus are illustrated and discussed. Conclusions address the utility of such a perspective.

Fusion Materials Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Fiscal Year 2014

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

Wiffen, Frederick W.; Noe, Susan P.; Snead, Lance Lewis

2014-10-01

The realization of fusion energy is a formidable challenge with significant achievements resulting from close integration of the plasma physics and applied technology disciplines. Presently, the most significant technological challenge for the near-term experiments such as ITER, and next generation fusion power systems, is the inability of current materials and components to withstand the harsh fusion nuclear environment. The overarching goal of the ORNL fusion materials program is to provide the applied materials science support and understanding to underpin the ongoing DOE Office of Science fusion energy program while developing materials for fusion power systems. In doing so the programmore » continues to be integrated both with the larger U.S. and international fusion materials communities, and with the international fusion design and technology communities.« less

Ethnical discrimination in Europe: Field evidence from the finance industry

PubMed Central

Stefan, Matthias; Holzmeister, Felix; Müllauer, Alexander

2018-01-01

The integration of ethnical minorities has been a hotly discussed topic in the political, societal, and economic debate. Persistent discrimination of ethnical minorities can hinder successful integration. Given that unequal access to investment and financing opportunities can cause social and economic disparities due to inferior economic prospects, we conducted a field experiment on ethnical discrimination in the finance sector with 1,218 banks in seven European countries. We contacted banks via e-mail, either with domestic or Arabic sounding names, asking for contact details only. We find pronounced discrimination in terms of a substantially lower response rate to e-mails from Arabic senders. Remarkably, the observed discrimination effect is robust for loan- and investment-related requests, across rural and urban locations of banks, and across countries. PMID:29377964

Bioresorbable Electronic Stent Integrated with Therapeutic Nanoparticles for Endovascular Diseases.

PubMed

Son, Donghee; Lee, Jongha; Lee, Dong Jun; Ghaffari, Roozbeh; Yun, Sumin; Kim, Seok Joo; Lee, Ji Eun; Cho, Hye Rim; Yoon, Soonho; Yang, Shixuan; Lee, Seunghyun; Qiao, Shutao; Ling, Daishun; Shin, Sanghun; Song, Jun-Kyul; Kim, Jaemin; Kim, Taeho; Lee, Hakyong; Kim, Jonghoon; Soh, Min; Lee, Nohyun; Hwang, Cheol Seong; Nam, Sangwook; Lu, Nanshu; Hyeon, Taeghwan; Choi, Seung Hong; Kim, Dae-Hyeong

2015-06-23

Implantable endovascular devices such as bare metal, drug eluting, and bioresorbable stents have transformed interventional care by providing continuous structural and mechanical support to many peripheral, neural, and coronary arteries affected by blockage. Although effective in achieving immediate restoration of blood flow, the long-term re-endothelialization and inflammation induced by mechanical stents are difficult to diagnose or treat. Here we present nanomaterial designs and integration strategies for the bioresorbable electronic stent with drug-infused functionalized nanoparticles to enable flow sensing, temperature monitoring, data storage, wireless power/data transmission, inflammation suppression, localized drug delivery, and hyperthermia therapy. In vivo and ex vivo animal experiments as well as in vitro cell studies demonstrate the previously unrecognized potential for bioresorbable electronic implants coupled with bioinert therapeutic nanoparticles in the endovascular system.

A high-performance photovoltaic concentrator array - The mini-dome Fresnel lens concentrator with 30 percent efficient GaAs/GaSb tandem cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Piszczor, M. F.; Brinker, D. J.; Flood, D. J.; Avery, J. E.; Fraas, L. M.; Fairbanks, E. S.; Yerkes, J. W.; O'Neill, M. J.

A high-efficiency, lightweight space photovoltaic concentrator array is described. Previous work on the minidome Fresnel lens concentrator concept is being integrated with Boeing's 30 percent efficient tandem GaAs/GaSb concentrator cells into a high-performance photovoltaic array. Calculations indicate that, in the near term, such an array can achieve 300 W/sq m at a specific power of 100 W/kg. Emphasis of the program has now shifted to integrating the concentrator lens, tandem cell, and supporting panel structure into a space-qualifiable array. A description is presented of the current status of component and prototype panel testing and the development of a flight panel for the Photovoltaic Array Space Power Plus Diagnostics (PASP PLUS) flight experiment.

Ethnical discrimination in Europe: Field evidence from the finance industry.

PubMed

Stefan, Matthias; Holzmeister, Felix; Müllauer, Alexander; Kirchler, Michael

2018-01-01

The integration of ethnical minorities has been a hotly discussed topic in the political, societal, and economic debate. Persistent discrimination of ethnical minorities can hinder successful integration. Given that unequal access to investment and financing opportunities can cause social and economic disparities due to inferior economic prospects, we conducted a field experiment on ethnical discrimination in the finance sector with 1,218 banks in seven European countries. We contacted banks via e-mail, either with domestic or Arabic sounding names, asking for contact details only. We find pronounced discrimination in terms of a substantially lower response rate to e-mails from Arabic senders. Remarkably, the observed discrimination effect is robust for loan- and investment-related requests, across rural and urban locations of banks, and across countries.

Variations in eco-enzymatic stoichiometric and microbial characteristics in paddy soil as affected by long-term integrated organic-inorganic fertilization

PubMed Central

Lin, Sen; Wang, Shaoxian; Si, Yuanli; Yang, Wenhao; Zhu, Shaowei

2017-01-01

To investigate the effects of different nutrient management regimes on the soil chemical, eco-enzymatic stoichiometric and microbial characteristics, soil samples were collected from a 30-year, long-term field experiment with six plots growing rice. The results showed that as integrated fertilization increased, so did the concentrations of soil total or available nutrients and microbial biomass carbon (MBC). Our results also found enhanced soil basal respiration and cumulative carbon mineralization compared to chemical fertilization alone at the same nutrient doses. The activities of soil protease (Pro), β-glucosidase (βG), N-acetyl-glucosaminidase (NAG) and acid phosphatase (AP) from the integrated fertilization treatments were significantly higher than those of the treatments without organic manure, so did the activities of soil leucyl aminopeptidase (LAP) and urease (Ure) from the treatment with organic manure in addition to farmer practise fertilization (NPKM2). The stoichiometric ratios, expressed as lnβG/ln(NAG+LAP)/lnPro/lnUre/lnAP, ranged from 1:0.94:1.04:0.67:1.01 to 1:0.98:1.10:0.78:1.25, indicating that the acquisition of C, N and P changed consistently and synchronously under different nutrient management strategies. Integrated fertilization was more beneficial to the acquisition and utilization of soil organic carbon compared to low-molecular-weight organic nitrogen. We concluded that protease and urease should be considered in eco-enzymatic stoichiometric assessments for the hydrolysis of proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates and phosphomonoesters in soil, and integrated fertilization with chemical fertilizers and organic manure should be recommended as a preferable nutrient management system for intensive rice cultivation. PMID:29253000

The long term importance of English primary care groups for integration in primary health care and deinstitutionalisation of hospital care.

PubMed

Goodwin, N

2001-01-01

This article reviews the impact of successive experiments in the development of primary care organisations in England and assesses the long-term importance of English primary care groups for the integration of health and community and health and social care and the deinstitutionalisation of hospital care. Governments in a number of Western countries are attempting to improve the efficiency, appropriateness and equity of their health systems. One of the main ways of doing this is to devolve provision and commissioning responsibility from national and regional organisations to more local agencies based in primary care. Such primary care organisations are allocated budgets that span both primary and secondary (hospital) services and also, potentially, social care. This article is based on a systematic review of the literature forthcoming from the UK Government's Department of Health-funded evaluations of successive primary care organisational developments. These include total purchasing pilots, GP commissioning group pilots, personal medical services pilots and primary care groups and trusts. Primary care organisations in England have proved to be a catalyst in facilitating the development of integrated care working between primary and community health services. Conversely, primary care organisations have proved less effective in promoting integration between health and social care agencies where most progress has been made at the strategic commissioning level. The development of primary care trusts in England is heralding an end to traditional community hospitals. The development of primary care groups in England are but an intermediate step of a policy progression towards future primary care-based organisations that will functionally integrate primary and community health services with local authority services under a single management umbrella.

Variations in eco-enzymatic stoichiometric and microbial characteristics in paddy soil as affected by long-term integrated organic-inorganic fertilization.

PubMed

Lin, Sen; Wang, Shaoxian; Si, Yuanli; Yang, Wenhao; Zhu, Shaowei; Ni, Wuzhong

2017-01-01

To investigate the effects of different nutrient management regimes on the soil chemical, eco-enzymatic stoichiometric and microbial characteristics, soil samples were collected from a 30-year, long-term field experiment with six plots growing rice. The results showed that as integrated fertilization increased, so did the concentrations of soil total or available nutrients and microbial biomass carbon (MBC). Our results also found enhanced soil basal respiration and cumulative carbon mineralization compared to chemical fertilization alone at the same nutrient doses. The activities of soil protease (Pro), β-glucosidase (βG), N-acetyl-glucosaminidase (NAG) and acid phosphatase (AP) from the integrated fertilization treatments were significantly higher than those of the treatments without organic manure, so did the activities of soil leucyl aminopeptidase (LAP) and urease (Ure) from the treatment with organic manure in addition to farmer practise fertilization (NPKM2). The stoichiometric ratios, expressed as lnβG/ln(NAG+LAP)/lnPro/lnUre/lnAP, ranged from 1:0.94:1.04:0.67:1.01 to 1:0.98:1.10:0.78:1.25, indicating that the acquisition of C, N and P changed consistently and synchronously under different nutrient management strategies. Integrated fertilization was more beneficial to the acquisition and utilization of soil organic carbon compared to low-molecular-weight organic nitrogen. We concluded that protease and urease should be considered in eco-enzymatic stoichiometric assessments for the hydrolysis of proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates and phosphomonoesters in soil, and integrated fertilization with chemical fertilizers and organic manure should be recommended as a preferable nutrient management system for intensive rice cultivation.

Practical experience with full-scale structured sheet media (SSM) integrated fixed-film activated sludge (IFAS) systems for nitrification.

PubMed

Li, Hua; Zhu, Jia; Flamming, James J; O'Connell, Jack; Shrader, Michael

2015-01-01

Many wastewater treatment plants in the USA, which were originally designed as secondary treatment systems with no or partial nitrification requirements, are facing increased flows, loads, and more stringent ammonia discharge limits. Plant expansion is often not cost-effective due to either high construction costs or lack of land. Under these circumstances, integrated fixed-film activated sludge (IFAS) systems using both suspended growth and biofilms that grow attached to a fixed plastic structured sheet media are found to be a viable solution for solving the challenges. Multiple plants have been retrofitted with such IFAS systems in the past few years. The system has proven to be efficient and reliable in achieving not only consistent nitrification, but also enhanced bio-chemical oxygen demand removal and sludge settling characteristics. This paper presents long-term practical experiences with the IFAS system design, operation and maintenance, and performance for three full-scale plants with distinct processes; that is, a trickling filter/solids contact process, a conventional plug flow activated sludge process and an extended aeration process.

The DAQ system for the AEḡIS experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prelz, F.; Aghion, S.; Amsler, C.; Ariga, T.; Bonomi, G.; Brusa, R. S.; Caccia, M.; Caravita, R.; Castelli, F.; Cerchiari, G.; Comparat, D.; Consolati, G.; Demetrio, A.; Di Noto, L.; Doser, M.; Ereditato, A.; Evans, C.; Ferragut, R.; Fesel, J.; Fontana, A.; Gerber, S.; Giammarchi, M.; Gligorova, A.; Guatieri, F.; Haider, S.; Hinterberger, A.; Holmestad, H.; Kellerbauer, A.; Krasnický, D.; Lagomarsino, V.; Lansonneur, P.; Lebrun, P.; Malbrunot, C.; Mariazzi, S.; Matveev, V.; Mazzotta, Z.; Müller, S. R.; Nebbia, G.; Nedelec, P.; Oberthaler, M.; Pacifico, N.; Pagano, D.; Penasa, L.; Petracek, V.; Prevedelli, M.; Ravelli, L.; Rienaecker, B.; Robert, J.; Røhne, O. M.; Rotondi, A.; Sacerdoti, M.; Sandaker, H.; Santoro, R.; Scampoli, P.; Simon, M.; Smestad, L.; Sorrentino, F.; Testera, G.; Tietje, I. C.; Widmann, E.; Yzombard, P.; Zimmer, C.; Zmeskal, J.; Zurlo, N.

2017-10-01

In the sociology of small- to mid-sized (O(100) collaborators) experiments the issue of data collection and storage is sometimes felt as a residual problem for which well-established solutions are known. Still, the DAQ system can be one of the few forces that drive towards the integration of otherwise loosely coupled detector systems. As such it may be hard to complete with off-the-shelf components only. LabVIEW and ROOT are the (only) two software systems that were assumed to be familiar enough to all collaborators of the AEḡIS (AD6) experiment at CERN: working out of the GXML representation of LabVIEW Data types, a semantically equivalent representation as ROOT TTrees was developed for permanent storage and analysis. All data in the experiment is cast into this common format and can be produced and consumed on both systems and transferred over TCP and/or multicast over UDP for immediate sharing over the experiment LAN. We describe the setup that has been able to cater to all run data logging and long term monitoring needs of the AEḡIS experiment so far.

Innovative Networking Concepts Tested on the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Friedman, Daniel; Gupta, Sonjai; Zhang, Chuanguo; Ephremides, Anthony

1996-01-01

This paper describes a program of experiments conducted over the advanced communications technology satellite (ACTS) and the associated TI-VSAT (very small aperture terminal). The experiments were motivated by the commercial potential of low-cost receive only satellite terminals that can operate in a hybrid network environment, and by the desire to demonstrate frame relay technology over satellite networks. The first experiment tested highly adaptive methods of satellite bandwidth allocation in an integrated voice-data service environment. The second involved comparison of forward error correction (FEC) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) methods of error control for satellite communication with emphasis on the advantage that a hybrid architecture provides, especially in the case of multicasts. Finally, the third experiment demonstrated hybrid access to databases and compared the performance of internetworking protocols for interconnecting local area networks (LANs) via satellite. A custom unit termed frame relay access switch (FRACS) was developed by COMSAT Laboratories for these experiments; the preparation and conduct of these experiments involved a total of 20 people from the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado and COMSAT Laboratories, from late 1992 until 1995.

Finding Freedom: Exploring the Relationship Between Agency, Motility, and Aggression.

PubMed

Wooldridge, Tom

2018-02-01

After an overview of the opposed concepts of freedom and psychic determinism, and of the compatibilist reconciliation between the two that is most appropriate for psychoanalysis, the importance of agency as a psychoanalytic idea is considered. In particular, two ways in which the term agency may be used are examined: agency as fact and agency as experience. The former refers to the degree of relative freedom an individual possesses from "inner" constraints, whereas the latter refers to the experience of oneself as having an active impact on the self, other people, and/or the world. Importantly, these two senses are not coextensive. With this distinction in place, it is argued that agency as experience is rooted in the infant's earliest experiences of motility. As an extension of Winnicott's reflections (1950) on the relation between motility and aggression, it is argued that inasmuch as it involves the overcoming of opposition, aggression is integral to the developmental unfolding of the experience of agency. Further developmental conditions needed for a full experience of agency are noted. Ultimately, it is suggested, agency is central to the psychoanalytic project itself.

A qualitative systematic review of patients' experience of osteoporosis using meta-ethnography.

PubMed

Barker, K L; Toye, F; Lowe, C J Minns

2016-12-01

We aimed to systematically review qualitative studies exploring the experience of living with osteoporosis to develop new conceptual understanding. We identified themes about the invisibility/visibility of osteoporosis, the experience of uncertainty of living with osteoporosis (OP) and living with an ageing body and the place of gender. The aim of this review was to systematically review the body of qualitative studies exploring the experience of living with either osteoporosis or osteopenia and to use meta-ethnography to develop new conceptual understanding. We systematically reviewed and integrated the findings of qualitative research from four bibliographic databases (Medline, Embase, Cinahl, Psychinfo) to September 2015 in order to increase our conceptual understanding of the lived experience of osteoporosis and osteopenia. Articles were appraised for quality; each was independently read by two researchers to identify concepts which were compared and developed into a conceptual model. Our findings demonstrate that coming to terms with a diagnosis of osteoporosis is linked to its relative visibility or invisibility. For some, OP has not become manifest and self-identity is intact (biographical integrity). For others, OP is profoundly manifest and self-identity is no long intact (biographical fracture). We also demonstrate that overwhelming uncertainty pervades the experience of OP. Our final theme demonstrates how the experience of OP is set within a cultural context with certain views about ageing and gender. Our synthesis has highlighted the wealth of qualitative data about osteoporosis and osteopenia. Despite the increasing body of literature on the subject, there remains a need to adjust our interactions with patients. This will allow clinicians to understand how patients can be helped to receive and understand their diagnosis and move forward in partnership with healthcare providers to promote optimal management of the disease.

AmazonFACE: Assessing the Effects of Increasing Atmospheric CO2 on the Resilience of the Amazon Forest through Integrative Model-Experiment Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lapola, D. M.

2015-12-01

The existence, magnitude and duration of a supposed "CO2 fertilization" effect in tropical forests remains largely undetermined, despite being suggested for nearly 20 years as a key knowledge gap for understanding the future resilience of Amazonian forests and its impact on the global carbon cycle. Reducing this uncertainty is critical for assessing the future of the Amazon region as well as its vulnerability to climate change. The AmazonFACE (Free-Air CO2 Enrichment) research program is an integrated model-experiment initiative of unprecedented scope in an old-growth Amazon forest near Manaus, Brazil - the first of its kind in tropical forest. The experimental treatment will simulate an atmospheric CO2 concentration [CO2] of the future in order to address the question: "How will rising atmospheric CO2 affect the resilience of the Amazon forest, the biodiversity it harbors, and the ecosystem services it provides, in light of projected climatic changes?" AmazonFACE is divided into three phases: (I) pre-experimental ecological characterization of the research site; (II) pilot experiment comprised of two 30-m diameter plots, with one treatment plot maintained at elevated [CO2] (ambient +200 ppmv), and the other control plot at ambient [CO2]; and (III) a fully-replicated long-term experiment comprised of four pairs of control/treatment FACE plots maintained for 10 years. A team of scientists from Brazil, USA, Australia and Europe will employ state-of-the-art methods to study the forest inside these plots in terms of carbon metabolism and cycling, water use, nutrient cycling, forest community composition, and interactions with environmental stressors. All project phases also encompass ecosystem-modeling activities in a way such that models provide hypothesis to be verified in the experiment, which in turn will feed models to ultimately produce more accurate projections of the environment. Resulting datasets and analyses will be a valuable resource for a broad community, especially ecosystem and climate modelers, and policy-makers.

Strategies to facilitate integrated care for people with alcohol and other drug problems: a systematic review.

PubMed

Savic, Michael; Best, David; Manning, Victoria; Lubman, Dan I

2017-04-07

There is a growing body of research highlighting the potential benefits of integrated care as a way of addressing the needs of people with alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems, given the broad range of other issues clients often experience. However, there has been little academic attention on the strategies that treatment systems, agencies and clinicians could implement to facilitate integrated care. We synthesised the existing evidence on strategies to improve integrated care in an AOD treatment context by conducting a systematic review of the literature. We searched major academic databases for peer-reviewed articles that evaluated strategies that contribute to integrated care in an AOD context between 1990 and 2014. Over 2600 articles were identified, of which 14 met the study inclusion criteria of reporting on an empirical study to evaluate the implementation of integrated care strategies. The types of strategies utilised in included articles were then synthesised. We identified a number of interconnected strategies at the funding, organisational, service delivery and clinical levels. Ensuring that integrated care is included within service specifications of commissioning bodies and is adequately funded was found to be critical in effective integration. Cultivating positive inter-agency relationships underpinned and enabled the implementation of most strategies identified. Staff training in identifying and responding to needs beyond clinicians' primary area of expertise was considered important at a service level. However, some studies highlight the need to move beyond discrete training events and towards longer term coaching-type activities focussed on implementation and capacity building. Sharing of client information (subject to informed consent) was critical for most integrated care strategies. Case-management was found to be a particularly good approach to responding to the needs of clients with multiple and complex needs. At the clinical level, screening in areas beyond a clinician's primary area of practice was a common strategy for facilitating referral and integrated care, as was joint care planning. Despite considerable limitations and gaps in the literature in terms of the evaluation of integrated care strategies, particularly between AOD services, our review highlights several strategies that could be useful at multiple levels. Given the interconnectedness of integrated care strategies identified, implementation of multi-level strategies rather than single strategies is likely to be preferable.

Becoming physics people: Development of integrated physics identity through the Learning Assistant experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Close, Eleanor W.; Conn, Jessica; Close, Hunter G.

2016-06-01

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Preparing and Supporting University Physics Educators.] In this study, we analyze the experience of students in the Physics Learning Assistant (LA) program at Texas State University in terms of the existing theoretical frameworks of community of practice and physics identity, and explore the implications suggested by these theories for LA program adoption and adaptation. Regression models from physics identity studies show that the physics identity construct strongly predicts intended choice of a career in physics. The goal of our current project is to understand the details of the impacts of participation in the LA experience on participants' practice and self-concept, in order to identify critical elements of LA program structure that positively influence physics identity and physics career intentions for students. Our analysis suggests that participation in the LA program impacts LAs in ways that support both stronger "physics student" identity and stronger "physics instructor" identity, and that these identities are reconciled into a coherent integrated physics identity. Increased comfort in interactions with peers, near peers, and faculty seems to be an important component of this identity development and reconciliation, suggesting that a focus on supporting community membership is useful for effective program design.

Does emotion help or hinder reasoning? The moderating role of relevance.

PubMed

Blanchette, Isabelle; Gavigan, Sarah; Johnston, Kathryn

2014-06-01

Some prior research has shown that emotion impairs logicality in deductive reasoning tasks, while other research suggests improved performance with emotional contents. We suggest that relevance, whether the affective state is associated with the semantic contents of the reasoning task, may be crucial in explaining these apparently inconsistent findings. This hypothesis is based on a framework distinguishing between integral emotions, where affective responses are evoked by the semantic contents of the target task, and incidental emotions, where affective responses are not related to the task. In 4 experiments we examined the effect of emotion on conditional reasoning when affective responses were relevant and irrelevant. We used images presented simultaneously with the reasoning stimuli (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) or videos presented prior to the reasoning stimuli (Experiment 4) that were either emotional or neutral and semantically related or not to the conditional statements. Results showed that emotion decreased the proportion of normatively correct responses only in the irrelevant condition. In the relevant condition, emotion did not produce reliable deleterious effects. We used reaction time and skin conductance measures to investigate the physiological and cognitive correlates of these effects. Results are discussed in terms of the distinction between incidental and integral emotions. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Setting up spaces for collaboration in industry between researchers from the natural and social sciences.

PubMed

Flipse, Steven M; van der Sanden, Maarten C A; Osseweijer, Patricia

2014-03-01

Policy makers call upon researchers from the natural and social sciences to collaborate for the responsible development and deployment of innovations. Collaborations are projected to enhance both the technical quality of innovations, and the extent to which relevant social and ethical considerations are integrated into their development. This could make these innovations more socially robust and responsible, particularly in new and emerging scientific and technological fields, such as synthetic biology and nanotechnology. Some researchers from both fields have embarked on collaborative research activities, using various Technology Assessment approaches and Socio-Technical Integration Research activities such as Midstream Modulation. Still, practical experience of collaborations in industry is limited, while much may be expected from industry in terms of socially responsible innovation development. Experience in and guidelines on how to set up and manage such collaborations are not easily available. Having carried out various collaborative research activities in industry ourselves, we aim to share in this paper our experiences in setting up and working in such collaborations. We highlight the possibilities and boundaries in setting up and managing collaborations, and discuss how we have experienced the emergence of 'collaborative spaces.' Hopefully our findings can facilitate and encourage others to set up collaborative research endeavours.

A person-centered integrated care quality framework, based on a qualitative study of patients' evaluation of care in light of chronic care ideals.

PubMed

Berntsen, Gro; Høyem, Audhild; Lettrem, Idar; Ruland, Cornelia; Rumpsfeld, Markus; Gammon, Deede

2018-06-20

Person-Centered Integrated Care (PC-IC) is believed to improve outcomes and experience for persons with multiple long-term and complex conditions. No broad consensus exists regarding how to capture the patient-experienced quality of PC-IC. Most PC-IC evaluation tools focus on care events or care in general. Building on others' and our previous work, we outlined a 4-stage goal-oriented PC-IC process ideal: 1) Personalized goal setting 2) Care planning aligned with goals 3) Care delivery according to plan, and 4) Evaluation of goal attainment. We aimed to explore, apply, refine and operationalize this quality of care framework. This paper is a qualitative evaluative review of the individual Patient Pathways (iPP) experiences of 19 strategically chosen persons with multimorbidity in light of ideals for chronic care. The iPP includes all care events, addressing the persons collected health issues, organized by time. We constructed iPPs based on the electronic health record (from general practice, nursing services, and hospital) with patient follow-up interviews. The application of the framework and its refinement were parallel processes. Both were based on analysis of salient themes in the empirical material in light of the PC-IC process ideal and progressively more informed applications of themes and questions. The informants consistently reviewed care quality by how care supported/ threatened their long-term goals. Personal goals were either implicit or identified by "What matters to you?" Informants expected care to address their long-term goals and placed responsibility for care quality and delivery at the system level. The PC-IC process framework exposed system failure in identifying long-term goals, provision of shared long-term multimorbidity care plans, monitoring of care delivery and goal evaluation. The PC-IC framework includes descriptions of ideal care, key questions and literature references for each stage of the PC-IC process. This first version of a PC-IC process framework needs further validation in other settings. Gaps in care that are invisible with event-based quality of care frameworks become apparent when evaluated by a long-term goal-driven PC-IC process framework. The framework appears meaningful to persons with multimorbidity.

The multistream self: biophysical, mental, social, and existential.

PubMed

Deshmukh, Vinod D

2008-03-25

Self is difficult to define because of its multiple, constitutive streams of functional existence. A more comprehensive and expanded definition of self is proposed. The standard bio-psycho-social model of psyche is expanded to biophysical-mental-social and existential self. The total human experience is better understood and explained by adding the existential component. Existential refers to lived human experience, which is firmly rooted in reality. Existential living is the capacity to live fully in the present, and respond freely and flexibly to new experience without fear. Four common fears of isolation, insecurity, insignificance, and death can be overcome by developing a lifestyle of whole-hearted engagement in the present reality, creative problem solving, self-actualization, and altruism. Such integrative living creates a sense of presence with self-awareness, understanding, and existential well-being. Well-being is defined as a life of happiness, contentment, low distress, and good health with positive outlook. Self is a complex, integrative process of living organisms. It organizes, coordinates, and integrates energy-information within and around itself, spontaneously, unconsciously, and consciously. Self-process is understood in terms of synergetics, coordination dynamics, and energy-information-directed self-organization. It is dynamic, composite, ever renewing, and enduring. It can be convergent or divergent, and can function as the source or target of its own behavior-mentation. The experience of self is continuously generated by spontaneous activation of neural networks in the cerebral neocortex by the brainstem-diencephalic arousal system. The multiple constitutive behavioral-mental streams develop concurrently into a unique experience of self, specific for a person at his/her developmental stage. The chronological neuro-behavioral-mental development of self is described in detail from embryonic stage to old age. Self can be behaviorally-mentally oriented and realized in three complimentary modes of being: egocentric, allocentric, and ecosystemic or existential. The existential mode is both immanent and transcendent, and can be self-actualized, resulting in a healthy, creative, conflict-free, and meaningful life.

Calculation of the second term of the exact Green's function of the diffusion equation for diffusion-controlled chemical reactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plante, Ianik

2016-01-01

The exact Green's function of the diffusion equation (GFDE) is often considered to be the gold standard for the simulation of partially diffusion-controlled reactions. As the GFDE with angular dependency is quite complex, the radial GFDE is more often used. Indeed, the exact GFDE is expressed as a Legendre expansion, the coefficients of which are given in terms of an integral comprising Bessel functions. This integral does not seem to have been evaluated analytically in existing literature. While the integral can be evaluated numerically, the Bessel functions make the integral oscillate and convergence is difficult to obtain. Therefore it would be of great interest to evaluate the integral analytically. The first term was evaluated previously, and was found to be equal to the radial GFDE. In this work, the second term of this expansion was evaluated. As this work has shown that the first two terms of the Legendre polynomial expansion can be calculated analytically, it raises the question of the possibility that an analytical solution exists for the other terms.

CVT/GPL phase 3 integrated testing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shurney, R. E.; Cantrell, E.; Maybee, G.; Schmitt, S.

1975-01-01

The hardware for 20 candidate shuttle program life sciences experiments was installed in the GPL and experiments were conducted during a 5-day simulated mission. The experiments involved humans, primates, rats, chickens, and marigold plants. All experiments were completed to the satisfaction of the experimenters. In addition to the scientific data gathered for each experiment, information was obtained concerning experiment hardware design and integration, experiment procedures, GPL support systems, and test operations. The results of the integrated tests are presented.

Awareness is relative: dissociation as the organisation of meaning.

PubMed

Lesley, Joan

2006-09-01

This essay discusses how the organisation of mental material within the cognitive system can influence consciousness and awareness, and presents a theory of dissociation based on the premise that awareness is relative, contingent on the activated representation of the ongoing event being linked to the activated self-representation. It allows four possible variations of integration: (i) non-integrated experience--perceptions about an object/event are either not perceived or they remain at the sensory level: traditional dissociative states, amnesia, depersonalisation etc; (ii) variably integrated experience--activation of information of a specific valence about an object blocks activation of information of contrasting valence: splitting; (iii) alternatively integrated experience--experience is integrated into a specific, limited active self-representation: fugue and multiple identity states; (iv) dis-integrated experience-the ongoing experience of innate drives and needs is no longer consistently activated in the core self-representation: repression and isolation.

Development of episodic and autobiographical memory: The importance of remembering forgetting

PubMed Central

Bauer, Patricia J.

2015-01-01

Some memories of the events of our lives have a long shelf-life—they remain accessible to recollection even after long delays. Yet many other of our experiences are forgotten, sometimes very soon after they take place. In spite of the prevalence of forgetting, theories of the development of episodic and autobiographical memory largely ignore it as a potential source of variance in explanation of age-related variability in long-term recall. They focus instead on what may be viewed as positive developmental changes, that is, changes that result in improvements in the quality of memory representations that are formed. The purpose of this review is to highlight the role of forgetting as an important variable in understanding the development of episodic and autobiographical memory. Forgetting processes are implicated as a source of variability in long-term recall due to the protracted course of development of the neural substrate responsible for transformation of fleeting experiences into memory traces that can be integrated into long-term stores and retrieved at later points in time. It is logical to assume that while the substrate is developing, neural processing is relatively inefficient and ineffective, resulting in loss of information from memory (i.e., forgetting). For this reason, focus on developmental increases in the quality of representations of past events and experiences will tell only a part of the story of how memory develops. A more complete account is afforded when we also consider changes in forgetting. PMID:26644633

Regulating food service in North Carolina's long-term care facilities.

PubMed

DePorter, Cindy H

2005-01-01

Other commentaries in this issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal describe innovative food and dining practices in some of our state's long-term care facilities. Federal and state regulations do not prohibit these innovations, and DFS supports the concept of "enhancements" of the dining experience in these facilities. The Division of Facilities Services, therefore, encourages facilities to assess and operationalize various dining methods, allowing residents to select their foods, dining times, dining partners, and other preferences. The regulations allow facilities to utilize innovative dining approaches, such as buffet lines, or family-style serving options, which allow residents to order at the table as they would in a restaurant. The regulations do not dictate whether facilities should serve food to residents on trays, in buffet lines, or in a family style. While there are many regulations, they leave room for innovative new ideas as long as these ideas do not compromise resident health or safety.. Food consumption and the dining experience are an integral part of the resident's life in a nursing facility. It is important that resident preferences are being honored, and the dining experience is as pleasant and home-like as possible. The facility's responsibility is to provide adequate nutrition and hydration that assures the resident is at his/her highest level of functioning emotionally, functionally, and physically. Meeting the unique needs of each resident in a facility can be a daunting task, but one of immense importance to the quality long-term care.

Strain partitioning in shales during elastic and creep deformation observed by synchrotron X-ray micro-tomography.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sone, H.; Cheung, C.; Rivers, M. L.; Wang, Y.; Yu, T.

2016-12-01

Knowledge about the ductile time-dependent constitutive behavior of geological materials is essential when evaluating the long-term integrity of subsurface structures and predicting the long-term geomechanical response of the surrounding formations. To this end, it is not only important to measure the bulk time-dependent behavior but also essential to understand the microscale mechanism by which rocks exhibit time-dependence, because laboratory data needs to be extrapolated to time-scales much beyond laboratory experiments. We conducted long-term creep experiments using Green River shale samples and obtained synchrotron X-ray images during the tests in an attempt to capture the microscale strain-partitioning that occurs within the sample. Shale samples of few millimeter dimensions were stressed up to several tens of MPa by a spring-loaded device within an X-ray transparent load frame, and the load was held constant for up to several months to allow creep deformation. Tomographic images of about 5 micron resolution were reconstructed from images collected at different timings of the experiment, which allows us to investigate where and how much strain localized during elastic and creep deformation. Tracking the position of some outstanding features in the rock texture (e.g. pyrite grains, organic material patches) indicate that strain magnitudes expected from the sample elastic and relaxation modulus can be successfully recovered from the tomographic images. We also attempt to use digital volume correlation to track sub-voxel displacements and to characterize the spatial heterogeneity of the deformation.

Integrating Research and Education in a Study of Biocomplexity in Arctic Tundra Ecosystems: Costs, Results, and Benefits to the Research Agenda

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gould, W. A.; González, G.; Walker, D. A.

2006-12-01

The integration of research and education is one of the fundamental goals of our national science policy. There is strong interest to improve this integration at the graduate and undergraduate levels, with the general public, and with local and indigenous people. Efforts expended in integrating research and education can occur at the expense of research productivity and represent a cost. Results may include number of personnel involved, activities accomplished, research or other products produced. Benefits are difficult to quantify and may be short term and tangible, e.g. education-research projects enhancing research productivity with publications, or long-term and include intangibles such as personal interactions and experiences influencing career choices, the perception of research activities, enhanced communication, and direct or indirect influence on related research and educational projects. We have integrated the University field course Arctic Field Ecology with an interdisciplinary research project investigating the interactions of climate, vegetation, and permafrost in the study Biocomplexity of Arctic Tundra Ecosystems. The integration is designed to give students background in regional ecology; introduce students to the project objectives, methods, and personnel; provide for interaction with participating scientists; conduct research initiated by the class and instructors; and provide the opportunity to interact with indigenous people with interests in traditional ecological knowledge and land management. Our costs included increased logistical complexity and time-demands on the researchers and staff managing the integration. The educational component increased the size of the research group with the addition of 55 participants over the 4 field seasons of the study. Participants came from 7 countries and included 20 enrolled university students, 18 Inuit non student participants, 9 Inuit students, 3 visiting scientists, 3 staff, and 2 scientist-instructors. The educational component initiated 6 research studies at a series of eight sites along the complete climatic gradient of the North America Arctic. These include studies of variation in nonsorted circle morphology, climatic and cryoturbation effects on species diversity and community composition of plants and soil invertebrates, and an analysis of climatic and cryoturbation effects controls on litter decomposition and soil microbial biomass. A youth-elder-science camp was conducted which introduced Inuit students to permafrost and nonsorted circles. Four students have continued their involvement with the Biocomplexity study as graduate or post graduate students. Indirect benefits are difficult to assess but the integration has allowed a number of students to participate directly with the research team, drawn by the opportunity to gain education and experience over the course of a field season, and this participation has had synergistic benefits with the research agenda of the project.

Expedite the Processing of Unpressurized Payloads to the International Space Station Using the ExPRESS Pallet

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bacskay, Allen S.; Gilbert, Paul A. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

The Expedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station (ExPRESS) Pallet will be used as an experiment platform for external/unpressurized payloads to be flown aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The purpose of the ExPRESS Pallet is to provide an easy access to the ISS for Scientific Investigators that require an external platform for their experiment hardware. As the name of the ExPRESS Pallet implies, the objective of the ExPRESS program is to provide a simplified integration process in a short time period (24 months) for payloads to be flown on the ISS. The ExPRESS Pallet provides unique opportunities for research across many science disciplines, including earth observation, communications, solar and deep space viewing, and long-term exposure. The ExPRESS Pallet provides access to Ram, Wake, Nadir, Zenith and Earth Limb for viewing and exposure to the space environment. The ExPRESS Pallet will provide standard physical payload interfaces, and a standard integration template. The ExPS consists of the Pallet structure, payload Adapters, a subsystem assembly that includes data controller, power distribution and conversion, and Extra Vehicular Robotics compatibility. The ExPRESS Pallet provides the capability to changeout payloads on-orbit via the ExPRESS Pallet Adapter (ExPA). The following paragraphs will describe the Services and Accommodations available to the Payload developers by the ExPRESS Pallet and a brief description of the Integration process. More detailed information on the ExPRESS Pallet can be found in the ExPRESS Pallet Payload Accommodations Handbook, SSP 52000-PAH-EPP.

Overview of the Calcium-45 Beta Spectrum Measurement at Los Alamos National Laboratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Royse, Camen; Nab/UNCB Teams Collaboration

2017-09-01

One smoking gun of BSM physics would be the observation of a non-zero Fierz interference term, a feature in the beta spectrum produced by scalar and tensor couplings. Calcium-45 is an almost ideal candidate with which to search for a Fierz term. It is a pure beta emitter with a low endpoint of 256 keV and a simple decay scheme, with a 7 / 2 - -> 7 / 2 - g.s. to g.s. branching ratio of 99.9981(11)%. Isospin selection rules ensure the decay is greater than about 98.5% pure Gamow-Teller and the integrated effect of the weak magnetism over the entire spectrum is expected to be only 0.13%. An experiment designed to precisely measure the beta spectrum of Ca-45 has been run over the past two summers at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The experiment is composed of a 4 π-capture magnetic spectrometer between two segmented arrays of hexagonal silicon detectors (similar to the Nab experiment), a helium gas cooling system, front end electronics and amplifiers, and a data acquisition system which synchronizes the timing from the signals coming from both detector arrays. Data is analyzed to account for the pile-up of signals and other physical and calibration factors. An overview of the design and execution of the experiment as divided into the above topics will be presented.

Using Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud to dynamically scale CMS computational resources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evans, D.; Fisk, I.; Holzman, B.; Melo, A.; Metson, S.; Pordes, R.; Sheldon, P.; Tiradani, A.

2011-12-01

Large international scientific collaborations such as the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider have traditionally addressed their data reduction and analysis needs by building and maintaining dedicated computational infrastructure. Emerging cloud computing services such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) offer short-term CPU and storage resources with costs based on usage. These services allow experiments to purchase computing resources as needed, without significant prior planning and without long term investments in facilities and their management. We have demonstrated that services such as EC2 can successfully be integrated into the production-computing model of CMS, and find that they work very well as worker nodes. The cost-structure and transient nature of EC2 services makes them inappropriate for some CMS production services and functions. We also found that the resources are not truely "on-demand" as limits and caps on usage are imposed. Our trial workflows allow us to make a cost comparison between EC2 resources and dedicated CMS resources at a University, and conclude that it is most cost effective to purchase dedicated resources for the "base-line" needs of experiments such as CMS. However, if the ability to use cloud computing resources is built into an experiment's software framework before demand requires their use, cloud computing resources make sense for bursting during times when spikes in usage are required.

Integration of photovoltaic units into electric utility grids: experiment information requirements and selected issues

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

Not Available

1980-09-01

A number of investigations, including those conducted by The Aerospace Corporation and other contractors, have led to the recognition of technical, economic, and institutional issues relating to the interface between solar electric technologies and electric utility systems. These issues derive from three attributes of solar electric power concepts, including (1) the variability and unpredictability of the solar resources, (2) the dispersed nature of those resources which suggests the feasible deployment of small dispersed power units, and (3) a high initial capital cost coupled with relatively low operating costs. It is imperative that these integration issues be pursued in parallel withmore » the development of each technology if the nation's electric utility systems are to effectively utilize these technologies in the near to intermediate term. Analyses of three of these issues are presented: utility information requirements, generation mix and production cost impacts, and rate structures in the context of photovoltaic units integrated into the utility system. (WHK)« less

Personalised Care Plan Management Utilizing Guideline-Driven Clinical Decision Support Systems.

PubMed

Laleci Erturkmen, Gokce Banu; Yuksel, Mustafa; Sarigul, Bunyamin; Lilja, Mikael; Chen, Rong; Arvanitis, Theodoros N

2018-01-01

Older age is associated with an increased accumulation of multiple chronic conditions. The clinical management of patients suffering from multiple chronic conditions is very complex, disconnected and time-consuming with the traditional care settings. Integrated care is a means to address the growing demand for improved patient experience and health outcomes of multimorbid and long-term care patients. Care planning is a prevalent approach of integrated care, where the aim is to deliver more personalized and targeted care creating shared care plans by clearly articulating the role of each provider and patient in the care process. In this paper, we present a method and corresponding implementation of a semi-automatic care plan management tool, integrated with clinical decision support services which can seamlessly access and assess the electronic health records (EHRs) of the patient in comparison with evidence based clinical guidelines to suggest personalized recommendations for goals and interventions to be added to the individualized care plans.

A lunar base reference mission for the phased implementation of bioregenerative life support system components

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dittmer, Laura N.; Drews, Michael E.; Lineaweaver, Sean K.; Shipley, Derek E.; Hoehn, A.

1991-01-01

Previous design efforts of a cost effective and reliable regenerative life support system (RLSS) provided the foundation for the characterization of organisms or 'biological processors' in engineering terms and a methodology was developed for their integration into an engineered ecological LSS in order to minimize the mass flow imbalances between consumers and producers. These techniques for the design and the evaluation of bioregenerative LSS have now been integrated into a lunar base reference mission, emphasizing the phased implementation of components of such a BLSS. In parallel, a designers handbook was compiled from knowledge and experience gained during past design projects to aid in the design and planning of future space missions requiring advanced RLSS technologies. The lunar base reference mission addresses in particular the phased implementation and integration of BLS parts and includes the resulting infrastructure burdens and needs such as mass, power, volume, and structural requirements of the LSS. Also, operational aspects such as manpower requirements and the possible need and application of 'robotics' were addressed.

Modelling seagrass growth and development to evaluate transplanting strategies for restoration

PubMed Central

Renton, Michael; Airey, Michael; Cambridge, Marion L.; Kendrick, Gary A.

2011-01-01

Background and Aims Seagrasses are important marine plants that are under threat globally. Restoration by transplanting vegetative fragments or seedlings into areas where seagrasses have been lost is possible, but long-term trial data are limited. The goal of this study is to use available short-term data to predict long-term outcomes of transplanting seagrass. Methods A functional–structural plant model of seagrass growth that integrates data collected from short-term trials and experiments is presented. The model was parameterized for the species Posidonia australis, a limited validation of the model against independent data and a sensitivity analysis were conducted and the model was used to conduct a preliminary evaluation of different transplanting strategies. Key Results The limited validation was successful, and reasonable long-term outcomes could be predicted, based only on short-term data. Conclusions This approach for modelling seagrass growth and development enables long-term predictions of the outcomes to be made from different strategies for transplanting seagrass, even when empirical long-term data are difficult or impossible to collect. More validation is required to improve confidence in the model's predictions, and inclusion of more mechanism will extend the model's usefulness. Marine restoration represents a novel application of functional–structural plant modelling. PMID:21821624

Why consent may not be needed for organ procurement.

PubMed

Delaney, James; Hershenov, David B

2009-08-01

Most people think it is wrong to take organs from the dead if the potential donors had previously expressed a wish not to donate. Yet people respond differently to a thought experiment that seems analogous in terms of moral relevance to taking organs without consent. We argue that our reaction to the thought experiment is most representative of our deepest moral convictions. We realize not everyone will be convinced by the conclusions we draw from our thought experiment. Therefore, we point out that the state ignores consent in performing mandatory autopsies in some cases. If readers are willing to give up the permissibility of mandatory autopsies, we then offer some metaphysical arguments against posthumous harm. Drawing upon claims about bodies ceasing to exist at death and Epicurean-inspired arguments against posthumous interests, we make a case for an organ conscription policy which respects fundamental liberal principles of autonomy, bodily integrity, and property.

Processing of the WLCG monitoring data using NoSQL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreeva, J.; Beche, A.; Belov, S.; Dzhunov, I.; Kadochnikov, I.; Karavakis, E.; Saiz, P.; Schovancova, J.; Tuckett, D.

2014-06-01

The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) today includes more than 150 computing centres where more than 2 million jobs are being executed daily and petabytes of data are transferred between sites. Monitoring the computing activities of the LHC experiments, over such a huge heterogeneous infrastructure, is extremely demanding in terms of computation, performance and reliability. Furthermore, the generated monitoring flow is constantly increasing, which represents another challenge for the monitoring systems. While existing solutions are traditionally based on Oracle for data storage and processing, recent developments evaluate NoSQL for processing large-scale monitoring datasets. NoSQL databases are getting increasingly popular for processing datasets at the terabyte and petabyte scale using commodity hardware. In this contribution, the integration of NoSQL data processing in the Experiment Dashboard framework is described along with first experiences of using this technology for monitoring the LHC computing activities.

Common Calibration Source for Monitoring Long-term Ozone Trends

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kowalewski, Matthew

2004-01-01

Accurate long-term satellite measurements are crucial for monitoring the recovery of the ozone layer. The slow pace of the recovery and limited lifetimes of satellite monitoring instruments demands that datasets from multiple observation systems be combined to provide the long-term accuracy needed. A fundamental component of accurately monitoring long-term trends is the calibration of these various instruments. NASA s Radiometric Calibration and Development Facility at the Goddard Space Flight Center has provided resources to minimize calibration biases between multiple instruments through the use of a common calibration source and standardized procedures traceable to national standards. The Facility s 50 cm barium sulfate integrating sphere has been used as a common calibration source for both US and international satellite instruments, including the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS), Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet 2 (SBUV/2) instruments, Shuttle SBUV (SSBUV), Ozone Mapping Instrument (OMI), Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) (ESA), Scanning Imaging SpectroMeter for Atmospheric ChartographY (SCIAMACHY) (ESA), and others. We will discuss the advantages of using a common calibration source and its effects on long-term ozone data sets. In addition, sphere calibration results from various instruments will be presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the long-term characterization of the source itself.

Cortical plasticity as a mechanism for storing Bayesian priors in sensory perception.

PubMed

Köver, Hania; Bao, Shaowen

2010-05-05

Human perception of ambiguous sensory signals is biased by prior experiences. It is not known how such prior information is encoded, retrieved and combined with sensory information by neurons. Previous authors have suggested dynamic encoding mechanisms for prior information, whereby top-down modulation of firing patterns on a trial-by-trial basis creates short-term representations of priors. Although such a mechanism may well account for perceptual bias arising in the short-term, it does not account for the often irreversible and robust changes in perception that result from long-term, developmental experience. Based on the finding that more frequently experienced stimuli gain greater representations in sensory cortices during development, we reasoned that prior information could be stored in the size of cortical sensory representations. For the case of auditory perception, we use a computational model to show that prior information about sound frequency distributions may be stored in the size of primary auditory cortex frequency representations, read-out by elevated baseline activity in all neurons and combined with sensory-evoked activity to generate a perception that conforms to Bayesian integration theory. Our results suggest an alternative neural mechanism for experience-induced long-term perceptual bias in the context of auditory perception. They make the testable prediction that the extent of such perceptual prior bias is modulated by both the degree of cortical reorganization and the magnitude of spontaneous activity in primary auditory cortex. Given that cortical over-representation of frequently experienced stimuli, as well as perceptual bias towards such stimuli is a common phenomenon across sensory modalities, our model may generalize to sensory perception, rather than being specific to auditory perception.

Connecting Arctic/Antarctic Researchers and Educators (CARE): Supporting Teachers and Researchers Beyond the Research Experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Warburton, J.; Warnick, W. K.; Breen, K.; Fischer, K.; Wiggins, H.

2007-12-01

Teacher research experiences (TREs) require long-term sustained support for successful transfer of research experiences into the classroom. Specifically, a support mechanism that facilitates focused discussion and collaboration among teachers and researchers is critical to improve science content and pedagogical approaches in science education. Connecting Arctic/Antarctic Researchers and Educators (CARE) is a professional development network that utilizes online web meetings to support the integration of science research experiences into classroom curriculum. CARE brings together teachers and researchers to discuss field experiences, current science issues, content, technology resources, and pedagogy. CARE is a component of the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) education program PolarTREC--Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating. PolarTREC is a three-year (2007-2009) teacher professional development program celebrating the International Polar Year (IPY) that advances polar science education by bringing K-12 educators and polar researchers together in hands-on field experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic. Currently in its second year, the program fosters the integration of research and education to produce a legacy of long-term teacher-researcher collaborations, improved teacher content knowledge through experiences in scientific inquiry, and broad public interest and engagement in polar science. The CARE network was established to develop a sustainable learning community through which teachers and researchers will further their work to bring polar research into classrooms. Through CARE, small groups of educators are formed on the basis of grade-level and geographic region; each group also contains a teacher facilitator. Although CARE targets educators with previous polar research experiences, it is also open to those who have not participated in a TRE but who are interested in bringing real-world polar science to the classroom. Researchers are regularly invited to attend the web meetings, and some CARE meetings host specific researchers to talk about their work and their experiences working with teachers in the field. Facilitated group meetings focus on discussions of field experiences, current scientific research, and application of experiences to classrooms and curriculum. CARE is designed to be mindful of participants' needs; the meeting agendas reflect the stated concerns of participating teachers and researchers, such as incorporating real data into everyday curriculum, teaching about the impacts of climate change in a meaningful and educational way, developing polar related lessons and units that include State and National standards, and incorporating scientific tools and instruments into everyday curriculum. In addition to the regularly scheduled CARE group meetings, a series of CARE Seminars will be held in spring 2008 and open to the public. The public CARE Seminars will focus on issues that are of interest to a wider range of educators (e.g. clues from past climates, impacts of climate change on the Arctic, cultural sensitivity and working with indigenous peoples, and women and minorities of polar science. CARE provides a mechanism for teachers and researchers to interact, leveraging their diverse experiences and expertise to form long-term professional relationships that continue beyond the research experience. To learn more about CARE and PolarTREC visit the website at: http://www.polartrec.com or contact info@polartrec.com or 907-474-1600. PolarTREC is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Logistics: An integral part of cost efficient space operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Montgomery, Ann D.

1996-01-01

The logistics of space programs and its history within NASA are discussed, with emphasis on manned space flight and the Space Shuttle program. The lessons learned and the experience gained during these programs are reported on. Key elements of logistics are highlighted, and the problems and issues that can be expected to arise in relation to the support of long-term space operations and future space programs, are discussed. Such missions include the International Space Station program and the reusable launch vehicle. Possible solutions to the problems identified are outlined.

A Modest Proposal to Move RCR Education Out of the Classroom and into Research.

PubMed

Kalichman, Michael

2014-12-01

Requirements for training in responsible conduct of research have significantly increased over the past 25 years, but worries about the integrity of science have only intensified. The approach to training has relied largely on short-term experiences, either online or in person. Even if done well, such strategies remain separate from, and a negligible fraction of, the practice of research. A proposed alternative is to empower faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate student leaders to foster conversations about research ethics in the research environment.

Upper Mississippi River System Environmental Management Program Definite Project Report (R-7F) with Integrated Environmental Assessment, Lake Chautauqua.

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-06-01

WE’RE PROUD M TO SIGN US Army Corps OUR WORK *of Engineers RoCk Wand Dd EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Lake Chautauqua is a 3,250-acre floodplain lake and wetland...Since 1978, there has been a documented, long-term decline in both the annual fall peak number of ducks in the refuge and the total fall use days. The...habitat value assessment methodologies. Aquatic models developed by the Waterways Experiment Station (WES) were used to evaluate existing aquatic and

List of U.S. Army Research Institute Research and Technical Publications. Fiscal Year 2005, October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005, With Author and Subject Index

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-05-01

Domains Legree, P.J., Psotka, J., Tremble, T.R Jr., and Bourne, D. January 2005. (AD A430810) Situational judgment tests have been developed in the fields ...consisting of 11 laboratory and field experiments, seeks to answer the question of how these technologies affect leaders’ ability to foster high trust...IMTS was a short-term project to speed the transition to field use of virtual simulation technology that specifically considered the integration of

Professionalism, bureaucracy and patriotism: the VA as a health care megasystem.

PubMed

Rosenheck, R

The Veterans Administration supports the largest integrated psychiatry service in the country. As our oldest and largest "megasystem," this service offers a unique opportunity for examining distinctive features of such large health care delivery systems. Characteristic experiences of mental health professionals in this system are described and the system is analyzed in terms of its organizational tasks, structure and cultures. Psychiatry will be practiced, in the future, in similarly large scale organizations. Understanding the nature and workings of such organizations is likely to become essential to effective and satisfying professional work.

Testing a bioenergetics-based habitat choice model: bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) responses to food availability and temperature

USGS Publications Warehouse

2011-01-01

Using an automated shuttlebox system, we conducted patch choice experiments with 32, 8–12 g bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus) to test a behavioral energetics hypothesis of habitat choice. When patch temperature and food levels were held constant within patches but different between patches, we expected bluegill to choose patches that maximized growth based on the bioenergetic integration of food and temperature as predicted by a bioenergetics model. Alternative hypotheses were that bluegill may choose patches based only on food (optimal foraging) or temperature (behavioral thermoregulation). The behavioral energetics hypothesis was not a good predictor of short-term (from minutes to weeks) patch choice by bluegill; the behavioral thermoregulation hypothesis was the best predictor. In the short-term, food and temperature appeared to affect patch choice hierarchically; temperature was more important, although food can alter temperature preference during feeding periods. Over a 19-d experiment, mean temperatures occupied by fish offered low rations did decline as predicted by the behavioral energetics hypothesis, but the decline was less than 1.0 °C as opposed to a possible 5 °C decline. A short-term, bioenergetic response to food and temperature may be precluded by physiological costs of acclimation not considered explicitly in the behavioral energetics hypothesis.

Distortion product otoacoustic emission (2f1-f2) amplitude growth in human adults and neonates.

PubMed

Abdala, C

2000-01-01

Distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) are thought to be by-products of an active amplification process in the cochlea and thus serve as a metric for evaluating the integrity of this process. Because the cochlear amplifier functions in a level-dependent fashion, DPOAEs recorded as a function of stimulus level (i.e., a DPOAE growth function) may provide important information about the range and operational characteristics of the cochlear amplifier. The DPOAE growth functions recorded in human adults and neonates may provide information about the maturation of these active cochlear processes. Two experiments were conducted. Experiment I included normal-hearing adults and term-born neonates. The 2f1-f2 DPOAE growth functions were recorded for both age groups at three f2 frequencies. Experiment II was an extension of the first experiment but added a subject group of premature neonates. The results of these studies indicate that DPOAE growth functions most often show amplitude saturation and nonmonotonic growth for all age groups. However, premature neonates show monotonic growth and the absence of amplitude saturation more often than adults. Those premature neonates who do show saturation also show an elevated threshold for amplitude saturation relative to adults. In contrast, term neonates are adultlike for most measures except that they show a larger percentage of nonsaturating growth functions than adults. These results may indicate immaturity in cochlear amplifier function prior to term birth in humans. Outer hair cell function and/or efferent regulation of outer hair cell function are hypothesized sources of this immaturity, although some contribution from the immature middle ear cannot be ruled out.

Discovery of Implementation Factors That Lead to Technology Adoption in Long-Term Care.

PubMed

Schoville, Rhonda R

2017-10-01

The current exploratory, qualitative study discovered and clarified implementation factors that led to technology adoption in long-term care (LTC). The Integrated Technology Implementation model guided the study of an electronic health record used in three LTC settings. Thirty key stakeholders (i.e., directors of nursing, nurses, and certified nurse aides) participated in focus groups or interviews. Findings indicated experiences were more similar than different among groups and facilities. Five major implementation themes supported by a variety of minor themes were identified. Implications for nursing include that leaders must be knowledgeable and committed to the change and engage staff throughout the implementation process. In addition, various communication and education strategies are required. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 43(10), 21-26.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

OECD MCCI project 2-D Core Concrete Interaction (CCI) tests : CCI-3 test data report-thermalhydraulic results. Rev. 0 October 15, 2005.

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

Farmer, M. T.; Lomperski, S.; Kilsdonk, D. J.

The Melt Attack and Coolability Experiments (MACE) program addressed the issue of the ability of water to cool and thermally stabilize a molten core-concrete interaction when the reactants are flooded from above. These tests provided data regarding the nature of corium interactions with concrete, the heat transfer rates from the melt to the overlying water pool, and the role of noncondensable gases in the mixing processes that contribute to melt quenching. As a follow-on program to MACE, The Melt Coolability and Concrete Interaction Experiments (MCCI) project is conducting reactor material experiments and associated analysis to achieve the following objectives: (1)more » resolve the ex-vessel debris coolability issue through a program that focuses on providing both confirmatory evidence and test data for the coolability mechanisms identified in MACE integral effects tests, and (2) address remaining uncertainties related to long-term two-dimensional molten core-concrete interactions under both wet and dry cavity conditions. Achievement of these two program objectives will demonstrate the efficacy of severe accident management guidelines for existing plants, and provide the technical basis for better containment designs for future plants. In terms of satisfying these objectives, the Management Board (MB) approved the conduct of a third long-term 2-D Core-Concrete Interaction (CCI) experiment designed to provide information in several areas, including: (i) lateral vs. axial power split during dry core-concrete interaction, (ii) integral debris coolability data following late phase flooding, and (iii) data regarding the nature and extent of the cooling transient following breach of the crust formed at the melt-water interface. This data report provides thermal hydraulic test results from the CCI-3 experiment, which was conducted on September 22, 2005. Test specifications for CCI-3 are provided in Table 1-1. This experiment investigated the interaction of a fully oxidized 375 kg PWR core melt, initially containing 15 wt% siliceous concrete, with a specially designed two-dimensional siliceous concrete test section with an initial cross-sectional area of 50 cm x 50 cm. The sand and aggregate constituents for this particular siliceous concrete were provided by CEA as an in-kind contribution to the program. The report begins by providing a summary description of the CCI-3 test apparatus and operating procedures, followed by presentation of the thermal-hydraulic results. Detailed posttest debris examination results will be provided in a subsequent publication. Observations drawn within this report regarding the overall cavity erosion behavior may be subject to revision once the posttest examinations are completed, since these examinations will fully reveal the final cavity shape.« less

Fast Readout Architectures for Large Arrays of Digital Pixels: Examples and Applications

PubMed Central

Gabrielli, A.

2014-01-01

Modern pixel detectors, particularly those designed and constructed for applications and experiments for high-energy physics, are commonly built implementing general readout architectures, not specifically optimized in terms of speed. High-energy physics experiments use bidimensional matrices of sensitive elements located on a silicon die. Sensors are read out via other integrated circuits bump bonded over the sensor dies. The speed of the readout electronics can significantly increase the overall performance of the system, and so here novel forms of readout architectures are studied and described. These circuits have been investigated in terms of speed and are particularly suited for large monolithic, low-pitch pixel detectors. The idea is to have a small simple structure that may be expanded to fit large matrices without affecting the layout complexity of the chip, while maintaining a reasonably high readout speed. The solutions might be applied to devices for applications not only in physics but also to general-purpose pixel detectors whenever online fast data sparsification is required. The paper presents also simulations on the efficiencies of the systems as proof of concept for the proposed ideas. PMID:24778588

Reflections on a vision for integrated research and monitoring after 15 years

USGS Publications Warehouse

Murdoch, Peter S.; McHale, Michael; Baron, Jill S.

2014-01-01

In May of 1998, Owen Bricker and his co-author Michael Ruggiero introduced a conceptual design for integrating the Nation’s environmental research and monitoring programs. The Framework for Integrated Monitoring and Related Research was an organizing strategy for relating data collected by various programs, at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and by multiple science disciplines to solve complex ecological issues that individual research or monitoring programs were not designed to address. The concept nested existing intensive monitoring and research stations within national and regional surveys, remotely sensed data, and inventories to produce a collaborative program for multi-scale, multi-network integrated environmental monitoring and research. Analyses of gaps in data needed for specific issues would drive decisions on network improvements or enhancements. Data contributions to the Framework from existing networks would help indicate critical research and monitoring programs to protect during budget reductions. Significant progress has been made since 1998 on refining the Framework strategy. Methods and models for projecting scientific information across spatial and temporal scales have been improved, and a few regional pilots of multi-scale data-integration concepts have been attempted. The links between science and decision-making are also slowly improving and being incorporated into science practice. Experiments with the Framework strategy since 1998 have revealed the foundational elements essential to its successful implementation, such as defining core measurements, establishing standards of data collection and management, integrating research and long-term monitoring, and describing baseline ecological conditions. They have also shown us the remaining challenges to establishing the Framework concept: protecting and enhancing critical long-term monitoring, filling gaps in measurement methods, improving science for decision support, and integrating the disparate integrated science efforts now underway. In the 15 years since the Bricker and Ruggiero (Ecol Appl 8(2):326–329, 1998) paper challenged us with a new paradigm for bringing sound and comprehensive science to environmental decisions, the scientific community can take pride in the progress that has been made, while also taking stock of the challenges ahead for completing the Framework vision.

Rosiglitazone Promotes White Matter Integrity and Long-Term Functional Recovery After Focal Cerebral Ischemia.

PubMed

Han, Lijuan; Cai, Wei; Mao, Leilei; Liu, Jia; Li, Peiying; Leak, Rehana K; Xu, Yun; Hu, Xiaoming; Chen, Jun

2015-09-01

Oligodendrogenesis is essential for white matter repair after stroke. Although agonists of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors γ confer neuroprotection in models of cerebral ischemia, it is not known whether this effect extends to white matter protection. This study tested the hypothesis that the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors γ agonist rosiglitazone enhances oligodendrogenesis and improves long-term white matter integrity after ischemia/reperfusion. Male adult C57/BL6 mice (25-30 g) were subjected to 60-minute middle cerebral artery occlusion and reperfusion. Rosiglitazone (3 mg/kg) was injected intraperitoneally once daily for 14 days beginning 2 hours after reperfusion. Sensorimotor and cognitive functions were evaluated ≤21 days after middle cerebral artery occlusion. Immunostaining was used to assess infarct volume, myelin loss, and microglial activation. Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) was injected for measurements of proliferating NG2(+) oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) and newly generated adenomatous polyposis coli(+) oligodendrocytes. Mixed glial cultures were used to confirm the effect of rosiglitazone on oligodendrocyte differentiation and microglial polarization. Rosiglitazone significantly reduced brain tissue loss, ameliorated white matter injury, and improved sensorimotor and cognitive functions for at least 21 days after middle cerebral artery occlusion. Rosiglitazone enhanced OPC proliferation and increased the numbers of newly generated mature oligodendrocytes after middle cerebral artery occlusion. Rosiglitazone treatment also reduced the numbers of Iba1(+)/CD16(+) M1 microglia and increased the numbers of Iba1(+)/CD206(+) M2 microglia after stroke. Glial culture experiments confirmed that rosiglitazone promoted oligodendrocyte differentiation, perhaps by promoting microglial M2 polarization. Rosiglitazone treatment improves long-term white matter integrity after cerebral ischemia, at least, in part, by promoting oligodendrogenesis and facilitating microglial polarization toward the beneficial M2 phenotype. © 2015 American Heart Association, Inc.

Thermal integration of Spacelab experiments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Patterson, W. C.; Hopson, G. D.

1978-01-01

The method of thermally integrating the experiments for Spacelab is discussed. The scientific payload consists of a combination of European and United States sponsored experiments located in the module as well as on a single Spacelab pallet. The thermal integration must result in accomodating the individual experiment requirements as well as ensuring that the total payload is within the Spacelab Environmental Control System (ECS) resource capability. An integrated thermal/ECS analysis of the module and pallet is performed in concert with the mission timeline to ensure that the agreed upon experiment requirements are accommodated and to ensure the total payload is within the Spacelab ECS resources.

Do predators cause frog deformities? The need for an eco-epidemiological approach.

PubMed

Johnson, Pieter T J; Bowerman, Jay

2010-11-15

Renewed controversy has emerged over the likely causes and consequences of deformed amphibians, particularly those with missing limbs. The results of a series of experiments by Ballengée and Sessions (2009) implicate aquatic predators (i.e. dragonfly larvae) in causing such abnormalities. Skelly and Benard (2010), however, argued that the small scale of these experiments and the absence of a correlation between predator abundance and deformity frequencies in natural amphibian populations undermine such a conclusion. Drawing upon our experiences with frog malformations, we suggest that the study of amphibian deformities has been hindered by two, interrelated problems. First, empirical studies often fail to critically define the expected baseline level of abnormalities and differentiate between "epidemic" and "endemic" frequencies of malformations. Second, recognizing the likelihood of multiple causes in driving amphibian malformations, continued research needs to embrace a "multiple lines of evidence" approach that allows for complex etiologies by integrating field surveys, diagnostic pathology, comparative modeling, and experiments across a range of ecological scales. We conclude by highlighting the results of a recent study that uses this approach to identify the role of aquatic predators (i.e., fishes and dragonflies) in causing high frequencies of deformed frogs in Oregon. By combining long-term data, comparative data and mechanistic experiments, this study provides compelling evidence that certain predators do cause deformities under ecologically relevant conditions. In light of continuing concerns about amphibian deformities and population declines, we emphasize the need to integrate ecological, epidemiological, and developmental tools in addressing such environmental enigmas. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company.

Humans Integrate Monetary and Liquid Incentives to Motivate Cognitive Task Performance

PubMed Central

Yee, Debbie M.; Krug, Marie K.; Allen, Ariel Z.; Braver, Todd S.

2016-01-01

It is unequivocal that a wide variety of incentives can motivate behavior. However, few studies have explicitly examined whether and how different incentives are integrated in terms of their motivational influence. The current study examines the combined effects of monetary and liquid incentives on cognitive processing, and whether appetitive and aversive incentives have distinct influences. We introduce a novel task paradigm, in which participants perform cued task-switching for monetary rewards that vary parametrically across trials, with liquid incentives serving as post-trial performance feedback. Critically, the symbolic meaning of the liquid was held constant (indicating successful reward attainment), while liquid valence was blocked. In the first experiment, monetary rewards combined additively with appetitive liquid feedback to improve subject task performance. Aversive liquid feedback counteracted monetary reward effects in low monetary reward trials, particularly in a subset of participants who tended to avoid responding under these conditions. Self-report motivation ratings predicted behavioral performance above and beyond experimental effects. A follow-up experiment replicated the predictive power of motivation ratings even when only appetitive liquids were used, suggesting that ratings reflect idiosyncratic subjective values of, rather than categorical differences between, the liquid incentives. Together, the findings indicate an integrative relationship between primary and secondary incentives and potentially dissociable influences in modulating motivational value, while informing hypotheses regarding candidate neural mechanisms. PMID:26834668

A case study of collaboration in science education: Integrating informal learning experiences into the school curriculum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robertson, Amy Michelle

This is a study of a collaboration between multiple stakeholders in science education for the purpose of creating educational field trip experiences. The collaboration involves four major facets of science education: formal education at the elementary and university levels, informal education, and educational research. The primary participants in the collaboration include two elementary school teachers, a scientist from a local university, an informal educator from an environmental education site, and the researcher acting as a participant observer. The coming together of these different sides of science education provided a unique opportunity to explore the issues and experiences that emerged as such a partnership was formed and developed. Strongly influenced by action research, this study is a qualitative case study. The data was collected by means of observation, semi-structured interviews, and written document review, in order to provide both a descriptive and an interpretive account of this collaboration. The final analysis integrates a description of the participants' experiences as evidenced in the data with the issues that arose from these experiences. The evolution of the collaborators' roles was examined, as was the development of shared vision. In this study, there were several factors that significantly affected the progress towards a shared vision and a successful collaboration. These factors include time, communication, understanding others' perspectives, dedication and ownership, as well as the collaborative environment. Each collaborator benefited both professionally and personally from their participation in the collaboration. In addition, the students gained cognitively, affectively, and socially from the educational experiences created through the collaboration. Steps, such as working towards communication and understanding others' perspectives, should continue to be taken to ensure the collaboration continues beyond the term of the current key participants.

Long-Term Environmental Research Programs - Evolving Capacity for Discovery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Swanson, F. J.

2008-12-01

Long-term forestry, watershed, and ecological research sites have become critical, productive nodes for environmental science research and in some cases for work in the social sciences and humanities. The Forest Service's century-old Experimental Forests and Ranges and the National Science Foundation's 28- year-old Long-Term Ecological Research program have been remarkably productive in both basic and applied sciences, including characterization of acid rain and old-growth ecosystems and development of forest, watershed, and range management systems for commercial and other land use objectives. A review of recent developments suggests steps to enhance the function of collections of long-term research sites as interactive science networks. The programs at these sites have evolved greatly, especially over the past few decades, as the questions addressed, disciplines engaged, and degree of science integration have grown. This is well displayed by small, experimental watershed studies, which first were used for applied hydrology studies then more fundamental biogeochemical studies and now examination of complex ecosystem processes; all capitalizing on the legacy of intensive studies and environmental monitoring spanning decades. In very modest ways these collections of initially independent sites have functioned increasingly as integrated research networks addressing inter-site questions by using common experimental designs, being part of a single experiment, and examining long-term data in a common analytical framework. The network aspects include data sharing via publicly-accessible data-harvester systems for climate and streamflow data. The layering of one research or environmental monitoring network upon another facilitates synergies. Changing climate and atmospheric chemistry highlight a need to use these networks as continental-scale observatory systems for assessing the impacts of environmental change on ecological services. To better capitalize on long-term research sites and networks, agencies and universities 1) need to encourage collaboration among sites and between science and land manager communities while 2) maintaining long- term studies and monitoring efforts, and staffing the collaboration in each partner organization, including positions specifically designated as liaisons among the participating communities.

The role of experience in location estimation: Target distributions shift location memory biases.

PubMed

Lipinski, John; Simmering, Vanessa R; Johnson, Jeffrey S; Spencer, John P

2010-04-01

Research based on the Category Adjustment model concluded that the spatial distribution of target locations does not influence location estimation responses [Huttenlocher, J., Hedges, L., Corrigan, B., & Crawford, L. E. (2004). Spatial categories and the estimation of location. Cognition, 93, 75-97]. This conflicts with earlier results showing that location estimation is biased relative to the spatial distribution of targets [Spencer, J. P., & Hund, A. M. (2002). Prototypes and particulars: Geometric and experience-dependent spatial categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131, 16-37]. Here, we resolve this controversy by using a task based on Huttenlocher et al. (Experiment 4) with minor modifications to enhance our ability to detect experience-dependent effects. Results after the first block of trials replicate the pattern reported in Huttenlocher et al. After additional experience, however, participants showed biases that significantly shifted according to the target distributions. These results are consistent with the Dynamic Field Theory, an alternative theory of spatial cognition that integrates long-term memory traces across trials relative to the perceived structure of the task space. Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Key to Unlocking the Virtual Body: Virtual Reality in the Treatment of Obesity and Eating Disorders

PubMed Central

Riva, Giuseppe

2011-01-01

Obesity and eating disorders are usually considered unrelated problems with different causes. However, various studies identify unhealthful weight-control behaviors (fasting, vomiting, or laxative abuse), induced by a negative experience of the body, as the common antecedents of both obesity and eating disorders. But how might negative body image—common to most adolescents, not only to medical patients—be behind the development of obesity and eating disorders? In this paper, I review the “allocentric lock theory” of negative body image as the possible antecedent of both obesity and eating disorders. Evidence from psychology and neuroscience indicates that our bodily experience involves the integration of different sensory inputs within two different reference frames: egocentric (first-person experience) and allocentric (third-person experience). Even though functional relations between these two frames are usually limited, they influence each other during the interaction between long- and short-term memory processes in spatial cognition. If this process is impaired either through exogenous (e.g., stress) or endogenous causes, the egocentric sensory inputs are unable to update the contents of the stored allocentric representation of the body. In other words, these patients are locked in an allocentric (observer view) negative image of their body, which their sensory inputs are no longer able to update even after a demanding diet and a significant weight loss. This article discusses the possible role of virtual reality in addressing this problem within an integrated treatment approach based on the allocentric lock theory. PMID:21527095

Memory Reactivation Enables Long-Term Prevention of Interference.

PubMed

Herszage, Jasmine; Censor, Nitzan

2017-05-22

The ability of the human brain to successively learn or perform two competing tasks constitutes a major challenge in daily function. Indeed, exposing the brain to two different competing memories within a short temporal offset can induce interference, resulting in deteriorated performance in at least one of the learned memories [1-4]. Although previous studies have investigated online interference and its effects on performance [5-13], whether the human brain can enable long-term prevention of future interference is unknown. To address this question, we utilized the memory reactivation-reconsolidation framework [2, 12] stemming from studies at the synaptic level [14-17], according to which reactivation of a memory enables its update. In a set of experiments, using the motor sequence learning task [18] we report that a unique pairing of reactivating the original memory (right hand) in synchrony with novel memory trials (left hand) prevented future interference between the two memories. Strikingly, these effects were long-term and observed a month following reactivation. Further experiments showed that preventing future interference was not due to practice per se, but rather specifically depended on a limited time window induced by reactivation of the original memory. These results suggest a mechanism according to which memory reactivation enables long-term prevention of interference, possibly by creating an updated memory trace integrating original and novel memories during the reconsolidation time window. The opportunity to induce a long-term preventive effect on memories may enable the utilization of strategies optimizing normal human learning, as well as recovery following neurological insults. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Long-term stabilization of place cell remapping produced by a fearful experience

PubMed Central

Wang, Melissa E.; Wann, Ellen G.; Yuan, Robin K.; Ramos Álvarez, Manuel M.; Stead, Squire M.; Muzzio, Isabel A.

2012-01-01

Fear is an emotional response to danger that is highly conserved throughout evolution because it is critical for survival. Accordingly, episodic memory for fearful locations is widely studied using contextual fear conditioning, a hippocampus-dependent task (Kim and Fanselow, 1992; Phillips and LeDoux, 1992). The hippocampus has been implicated in episodic emotional memory and is thought to integrate emotional stimuli within a spatial framework. Physiological evidence supporting the role of the hippocampus in contextual fear indicates that pyramidal cells in this region, which fire in specific locations as an animal moves through an environment, shift their preferred firing locations shortly after the presentation of an aversive stimulus (Moita et al., 2004). However, the long-term physiological mechanisms through which emotional memories are encoded by the hippocampus are unknown. Here we show that during and directly after a fearful experience, new hippocampal representations are established and persist in the long term. We recorded from the same place cells in mouse hippocampal area CA1 over several days during predator odor contextual fear conditioning and found that a subset of cells changed their preferred firing locations in response to the fearful stimulus. Furthermore, the newly formed representations of the fearful context stabilized in the long term. Our results demonstrate that place cells respond to the presence of an aversive stimulus, modify their firing patterns during emotional learning, and stabilize a long-term spatial representation in response to a fearful encounter. The persistent nature of these representations may contribute to the enduring quality of emotional memories. PMID:23136419

The social integration of healthcare agency workers in long-term care facilities: A cross-sectional study.

PubMed

Lapalme, Marie-Ève; Doucet, Olivier

2018-06-01

Patient care quality is a key concern for long-term care facilities and is directly related to effective collaboration between healthcare professionals. The use of agency staff in long-term care facilities creates important challenges in terms of coordination and communication within work units. The purpose of this study is to assess the mediating effect of common in-group identity in the relationship between permanent employees' perceptions regarding the use of agency workers -namely distributive justice, perceptions of threat, perceived similarities with agency workers, and leader inclusiveness toward agency staff- and the permanent employees' adoption of collaborative behaviours. Cross-sectional study. Three long-term care facilities. 290 regular healthcare employees (nurses and care attendants). Data were obtained through questionnaires filled out by employees. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation analyses. The results showed the indirect effects of perceived distributive justice, perceived similarity and leader inclusiveness toward agency workers on permanent employees' cooperation behaviours through common group identification. Perceptions of threat were not related to common group identification or collaborative behaviours. The results also showed that common in-group identification is related to cooperation behaviours only for employees without previous experience as agency workers. This study suggests that permanent healthcare employees who feel they are fairly compensated relative to agency workers, who consider these workers as similar to them, and who believe their supervisor appreciates agency workers' contributions tend to develop a common in-group identity, which fosters collaborative behaviours. Managers of long-term care facilities who wish to foster collaboration among their blended workforce should thus create an environment conducive of a more inclusive identity, particularly if their employees have no previous experience as agency workers. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social integration of people with intellectual disability: insights from a social psychological research programme.

PubMed

Dijker, A; van Alphen, L; Bos, A; van den Borne, B; Curfs, L

2011-09-01

Social integration of people with intellectual disability (ID) moving into regular neighbourhoods tends to be studied and evaluated without detailed knowledge about the social psychological aspects of everyday interaction between neighbours with and without ID. The goal of the present paper is to show how the authors' social psychological research programme may contribute to this field of inquiry. The different ways in which societies respond to features and behaviours that may be perceived as deviant are theoretically analysed. Results of empirical studies are reported to clarify how social responses to people with ID are special in terms of perceptions, emotions and interaction desires of people with and without ID during a pre-contact and contact phase. On the basis of the theoretical analysis, it is concluded that regular neighbouring in modern Western society often takes the form of benevolent tolerance, rather than stigmatisation and prejudice. However, empirical studies reveal that, prior to getting people with ID as new neighbours, prospective neighbours without ID experience a specific pattern of emotions that are associated with specific desires (e.g. with respect to information supply or a caring relationship). These anticipatory reactions are dependent on the expected size of the group moving in and on the severity of ID. Furthermore, while actually engaging in neighbouring, neighbours with and without ID appear to have experiences related to behaviour of residents, staff and features of housing facilities that are perceived as (in)congruent with regular neighbouring. It is concluded that interpersonal relationships between neighbours with and without ID should not be simplified in terms of attitudes that would be primarily prejudiced/stigmatising versus entirely accepting. Rather, our studies paint a more complex picture of sometimes ambivalent thoughts, feelings and interaction needs that all should be taken into account to make social integration a success. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Low-loss, compact, and fabrication-tolerant Si-wire 90° waveguide bend using clothoid and normal curves for large scale photonic integrated circuits.

PubMed

Fujisawa, Takeshi; Makino, Shuntaro; Sato, Takanori; Saitoh, Kunimasa

2017-04-17

Ultimately low-loss 90° waveguide bend composed of clothoid and normal curves is proposed for dense optical interconnect photonic integrated circuits. By using clothoid curves at the input and output of 90° waveguide bend, straight and bent waveguides are smoothly connected without increasing the footprint. We found that there is an optimum ratio of clothoid curves in the bend and the bending loss can be significantly reduced compared with normal bend. 90% reduction of the bending loss for the bending radius of 4 μm is experimentally demonstrated with excellent agreement between theory and experiment. The performance is compared with the waveguide bend with offset, and the proposed bend is superior to the waveguide bend with offset in terms of fabrication tolerance.

Strategies for Defining and Understanding Critical Technology Integration Terms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fagehi, Ahmed Yahya

2013-01-01

Educational technology scholars believe that teachers should understand how to effectively integrate technology in their teaching. This study identified key terms related to integrating technology in education and investigated the effectiveness of three online instructional strategies (Text-only, Text plus Video, and Text plus Video plus Question)…

Exploring New Ways to Deliver Value to Healthcare Organizations: Algorithmic Testing, Data Integration, and Diagnostic E-consult Service.

PubMed

Risin, Semyon A; Chang, Brian N; Welsh, Kerry J; Kidd, Laura R; Moreno, Vanessa; Chen, Lei; Tholpady, Ashok; Wahed, Amer; Nguyen, Nghia; Kott, Marylee; Hunter, Robert L

2015-01-01

As the USA Health Care System undergoes transformation and transitions to value-based models it is critical for laboratory medicine/clinical pathology physicians to explore opportunities and find new ways to deliver value, become an integral part of the healthcare team. This is also essential for ensuring financial health and stability of the profession when the payment paradigm changes from fee-for-service to fee-for-performance. About 5 years ago we started searching for ways to achieve this goal. Among other approaches, the search included addressing the laboratory work-ups for specialists' referrals in the HarrisHealth System, a major safety net health care organization serving mostly indigent and underserved population of Harris County, TX. We present here our experience in improving the efficiency of laboratory testing for the referral process and in building a prototype of a diagnostic e-consult service using rheumatologic diseases as a starting point. The service incorporates algorithmic testing, integration of clinical, laboratory and imaging data, issuing structured comprehensive consultation reports, incorporating all the relevant information, and maintaining personal contacts and an e-line of communications with the primary providers and referral center personnel. Ongoing survey of providers affords testimony of service value in terms of facilitating their work and increasing productivity. Analysis of the cost effectiveness and of other value indicators is currently underway. We also discuss our pioneering experience in building pathology residents and fellows training in integrated diagnostic consulting service. © 2015 by the Association of Clinical Scientists, Inc.

Intersections of Writing, Reflection, and Integration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herrington, Anne J.; Stassen, Martha L. A.

2016-01-01

In fall 2010, the University of Massachusetts Amherst instituted a new upper-division General Education requirement, the Integrative Experience (IE), designed to help students integrate the various components of their undergraduate experience and reflect upon their learning and development as a result of those experiences, both key dimensions of…

Predicting the integration of overlapping memories by decoding mnemonic processing states during learning

PubMed Central

Richter, Franziska R.; Chanales, Avi J. H.; Kuhl, Brice A.

2015-01-01

The hippocampal memory system is thought to alternate between two opposing processing states: encoding and retrieval. When present experience overlaps with past experience, this creates a potential tradeoff between encoding the present and retrieving the past. This tradeoff may be resolved by memory integration—that is, by forming a mnemonic representation that links present experience with overlapping past experience. Here, we used fMRI decoding analyses to predict when—and establish how—past and present experiences become integrated in memory. In an initial experiment, we alternately instructed subjects to adopt encoding, retrieval or integration states during overlapping learning. We then trained across-subject pattern classifiers to ‘read out’ the instructed processing states from fMRI activity patterns. We show that an integration state was clearly dissociable from encoding or retrieval states. Moreover, trial-by-trial fluctuations in decoded evidence for an integration state during learning reliably predicted behavioral expressions of successful memory integration. Strikingly, the decoding algorithm also successfully predicted specific instances of spontaneous memory integration in an entirely independent sample of subjects for whom processing state instructions were not administered. Finally, we show that medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus differentially contribute to encoding, retrieval, and integration states: whereas hippocampus signals the tradeoff between encoding vs. retrieval states, medial prefrontal cortex actively represents past experience in relation to new learning. PMID:26327243

Toward a theory of multilevel evolution: long-term information integration shapes the mutational landscape and enhances evolvability.

PubMed

Hogeweg, Paulien

2012-01-01

Most of evolutionary theory has abstracted away from how information is coded in the genome and how this information is transformed into traits on which selection takes place. While in the earliest stages of biological evolution, in the RNA world, the mapping from the genotype into function was largely predefined by the physical-chemical properties of the evolving entities (RNA replicators, e.g. from sequence to folded structure and catalytic sites), in present-day organisms, the mapping itself is the result of evolution. I will review results of several in silico evolutionary studies which examine the consequences of evolving the genetic coding, and the ways this information is transformed, while adapting to prevailing environments. Such multilevel evolution leads to long-term information integration. Through genome, network, and dynamical structuring, the occurrence and/or effect of random mutations becomes nonrandom, and facilitates rapid adaptation. This is what does happen in the in silico experiments. Is it also what did happen in biological evolution? I will discuss some data that suggest that it did. In any case, these results provide us with novel search images to tackle the wealth of biological data.

Reading strategies of fast and slow readers.

PubMed

Haberlandt, K F; Graesser, A C; Schneider, N J

1989-09-01

In three subject-paced experiments we evaluated reading patterns at the word, line, and sentence level for fast and slow readers. A moving-window method was used to collect word reading times for natural texts. At the word level, reading times of word N were influenced by features of word N-1 for fast readers but not for slow readers. The lag effect exhibited by fast readers indicates that they continue to process a word when it is no longer in view, thus limiting the notion of immediate processing. Contrary to our initial expectation that fast readers would process only a single new argument from a sentence, whereas slow readers would process several new arguments, we found that both reader groups adopted a many-argument strategy. However, fast and slow readers differed in terms of the text units (lines vs. sentences) defining the new-argument effects: Fast readers exhibited greater new-argument effects relative to lines, whereas slow readers exhibited greater new-argument effects relative to sentences. Specifically, slow readers integrated the new arguments primarily at the end of the sentence, whereas fast readers did so at line boundaries. These results are discussed in terms of a buffer-and-integrate model of reading comprehension.

Expert Recommender: Designing for a Network Organization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reichling, Tim; Veith, Michael; Wulf, Volker

Recent knowledge management initiatives focus on expertise sharing within formal organizational units and informal communities of practice. Expert recommender systems seem to be a promising tool in support of these initiatives. This paper presents experiences in designing an expert recommender system for a knowledge- intensive organization, namely the National Industry Association (NIA). Field study results provide a set of specific design requirements. Based on these requirements, we have designed an expert recommender system which is integrated into the specific software infrastructure of the organizational setting. The organizational setting is, as we will show, specific for historical, political, and economic reasons. These particularities influence the employees’ organizational and (inter-)personal needs within this setting. The paper connects empirical findings of a long-term case study with design experiences of an expertise recommender system.

Large-scale quantum photonic circuits in silicon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harris, Nicholas C.; Bunandar, Darius; Pant, Mihir; Steinbrecher, Greg R.; Mower, Jacob; Prabhu, Mihika; Baehr-Jones, Tom; Hochberg, Michael; Englund, Dirk

2016-08-01

Quantum information science offers inherently more powerful methods for communication, computation, and precision measurement that take advantage of quantum superposition and entanglement. In recent years, theoretical and experimental advances in quantum computing and simulation with photons have spurred great interest in developing large photonic entangled states that challenge today's classical computers. As experiments have increased in complexity, there has been an increasing need to transition bulk optics experiments to integrated photonics platforms to control more spatial modes with higher fidelity and phase stability. The silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanophotonics platform offers new possibilities for quantum optics, including the integration of bright, nonclassical light sources, based on the large third-order nonlinearity (χ(3)) of silicon, alongside quantum state manipulation circuits with thousands of optical elements, all on a single phase-stable chip. How large do these photonic systems need to be? Recent theoretical work on Boson Sampling suggests that even the problem of sampling from e30 identical photons, having passed through an interferometer of hundreds of modes, becomes challenging for classical computers. While experiments of this size are still challenging, the SOI platform has the required component density to enable low-loss and programmable interferometers for manipulating hundreds of spatial modes. Here, we discuss the SOI nanophotonics platform for quantum photonic circuits with hundreds-to-thousands of optical elements and the associated challenges. We compare SOI to competing technologies in terms of requirements for quantum optical systems. We review recent results on large-scale quantum state evolution circuits and strategies for realizing high-fidelity heralded gates with imperfect, practical systems. Next, we review recent results on silicon photonics-based photon-pair sources and device architectures, and we discuss a path towards large-scale source integration. Finally, we review monolithic integration strategies for single-photon detectors and their essential role in on-chip feed forward operations.

Incremental Ontology-Based Extraction and Alignment in Semi-structured Documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thiam, Mouhamadou; Bennacer, Nacéra; Pernelle, Nathalie; Lô, Moussa

SHIRIis an ontology-based system for integration of semi-structured documents related to a specific domain. The system’s purpose is to allow users to access to relevant parts of documents as answers to their queries. SHIRI uses RDF/OWL for representation of resources and SPARQL for their querying. It relies on an automatic, unsupervised and ontology-driven approach for extraction, alignment and semantic annotation of tagged elements of documents. In this paper, we focus on the Extract-Align algorithm which exploits a set of named entity and term patterns to extract term candidates to be aligned with the ontology. It proceeds in an incremental manner in order to populate the ontology with terms describing instances of the domain and to reduce the access to extern resources such as Web. We experiment it on a HTML corpus related to call for papers in computer science and the results that we obtain are very promising. These results show how the incremental behaviour of Extract-Align algorithm enriches the ontology and the number of terms (or named entities) aligned directly with the ontology increases.

Simplified pulse reactor for real-time long-term in vitro testing of biological heart valves.

PubMed

Schleicher, Martina; Sammler, Günther; Schmauder, Michael; Fritze, Olaf; Huber, Agnes J; Schenke-Layland, Katja; Ditze, Günter; Stock, Ulrich A

2010-05-01

Long-term function of biological heart valve prostheses (BHV) is limited by structural deterioration leading to failure with associated arterial hypertension. The objective of this work was development of an easy to handle real-time pulse reactor for evaluation of biological and tissue engineered heart valves under different pressures and long-term conditions. The pulse reactor was made of medical grade materials for placement in a 37 degrees C incubator. Heart valves were mounted in a housing disc moving horizontally in culture medium within a cylindrical culture reservoir. The microprocessor-controlled system was driven by pressure resulting in a cardiac-like cycle enabling competent opening and closing of the leaflets with adjustable pulse rates and pressures between 0.25 to 2 Hz and up to 180/80 mmHg, respectively. A custom-made imaging system with an integrated high-speed camera and image processing software allow calculation of effective orifice areas during cardiac cycle. This simple pulse reactor design allows reproducible generation of patient-like pressure conditions and data collection during long-term experiments.

methylPipe and compEpiTools: a suite of R packages for the integrative analysis of epigenomics data.

PubMed

Kishore, Kamal; de Pretis, Stefano; Lister, Ryan; Morelli, Marco J; Bianchi, Valerio; Amati, Bruno; Ecker, Joseph R; Pelizzola, Mattia

2015-09-29

Numerous methods are available to profile several epigenetic marks, providing data with different genome coverage and resolution. Large epigenomic datasets are then generated, and often combined with other high-throughput data, including RNA-seq, ChIP-seq for transcription factors (TFs) binding and DNase-seq experiments. Despite the numerous computational tools covering specific steps in the analysis of large-scale epigenomics data, comprehensive software solutions for their integrative analysis are still missing. Multiple tools must be identified and combined to jointly analyze histone marks, TFs binding and other -omics data together with DNA methylation data, complicating the analysis of these data and their integration with publicly available datasets. To overcome the burden of integrating various data types with multiple tools, we developed two companion R/Bioconductor packages. The former, methylPipe, is tailored to the analysis of high- or low-resolution DNA methylomes in several species, accommodating (hydroxy-)methyl-cytosines in both CpG and non-CpG sequence context. The analysis of multiple whole-genome bisulfite sequencing experiments is supported, while maintaining the ability of integrating targeted genomic data. The latter, compEpiTools, seamlessly incorporates the results obtained with methylPipe and supports their integration with other epigenomics data. It provides a number of methods to score these data in regions of interest, leading to the identification of enhancers, lncRNAs, and RNAPII stalling/elongation dynamics. Moreover, it allows a fast and comprehensive annotation of the resulting genomic regions, and the association of the corresponding genes with non-redundant GeneOntology terms. Finally, the package includes a flexible method based on heatmaps for the integration of various data types, combining annotation tracks with continuous or categorical data tracks. methylPipe and compEpiTools provide a comprehensive Bioconductor-compliant solution for the integrative analysis of heterogeneous epigenomics data. These packages are instrumental in providing biologists with minimal R skills a complete toolkit facilitating the analysis of their own data, or in accelerating the analyses performed by more experienced bioinformaticians.

Procedure and information displays in advanced nuclear control rooms: experimental evaluation of an integrated design.

PubMed

Chen, Yue; Gao, Qin; Song, Fei; Li, Zhizhong; Wang, Yufan

2017-08-01

In the main control rooms of nuclear power plants, operators frequently have to switch between procedure displays and system information displays. In this study, we proposed an operation-unit-based integrated design, which combines the two displays to facilitate the synthesis of information. We grouped actions that complete a single goal into operation units and showed these operation units on the displays of system states. In addition, we used different levels of visual salience to highlight the current unit and provided a list of execution history records. A laboratory experiment, with 42 students performing a simulated procedure to deal with unexpected high pressuriser level, was conducted to compare this design against an action-based integrated design and the existing separated-displays design. The results indicate that our operation-unit-based integrated design yields the best performance in terms of time and completion rate and helped more participants to detect unexpected system failures. Practitioner Summary: In current nuclear control rooms, operators frequently have to switch between procedure and system information displays. We developed an integrated design that incorporates procedure information into system displays. A laboratory study showed that the proposed design significantly improved participants' performance and increased the probability of detecting unexpected system failures.

Concept of Operations for Integrating Commercial Supersonic Transport Aircraft into the National Airspace System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Underwood, Matthew C.

2017-01-01

Several businesses and government agencies, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are currently working on solving key technological barriers that must be overcome in order to realize the vision of low-boom supersonic flights conducted over land. However, once these challenges are met, the manner in which this class of aircraft is integrated in the National Airspace System may become a potential constraint due to the significant environmental, efficiency, and economic repercussions that their integration may cause. This document was developed to create a path for research and development that exposes the benefits and barriers of seamlessly integrating a class of CSTs into the NAS, while also serving as a Concept of Operations (ConOps) which posits a mid- to far-term solution (2025-2035) concept for best integrating CST into the NAS. Background research regarding historic supersonic operations in the National Airspace System, assumptions about design aspects and equipage of commercial supersonic transport (CST) aircraft, assumptions concerning the operational environment are described in this document. Results of a simulation experiment to investigate the interactions between CST aircraft and modern-day air traffic are disseminated and are used to generate scenarios for CST operations. Finally, technology needs to realize these operational scenarios are discussed.

Generating a focused view of disease ontology cancer terms for pan-cancer data integration and analysis

PubMed Central

Wu, Tsung-Jung; Schriml, Lynn M.; Chen, Qing-Rong; Colbert, Maureen; Crichton, Daniel J.; Finney, Richard; Hu, Ying; Kibbe, Warren A.; Kincaid, Heather; Meerzaman, Daoud; Mitraka, Elvira; Pan, Yang; Smith, Krista M.; Srivastava, Sudhir; Ward, Sari; Yan, Cheng; Mazumder, Raja

2015-01-01

Bio-ontologies provide terminologies for the scientific community to describe biomedical entities in a standardized manner. There are multiple initiatives that are developing biomedical terminologies for the purpose of providing better annotation, data integration and mining capabilities. Terminology resources devised for multiple purposes inherently diverge in content and structure. A major issue of biomedical data integration is the development of overlapping terms, ambiguous classifications and inconsistencies represented across databases and publications. The disease ontology (DO) was developed over the past decade to address data integration, standardization and annotation issues for human disease data. We have established a DO cancer project to be a focused view of cancer terms within the DO. The DO cancer project mapped 386 cancer terms from the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC), The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), International Cancer Genome Consortium, Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments, Integrative Oncogenomics and the Early Detection Research Network into a cohesive set of 187 DO terms represented by 63 top-level DO cancer terms. For example, the COSMIC term ‘kidney, NS, carcinoma, clear_cell_renal_cell_carcinoma’ and TCGA term ‘Kidney renal clear cell carcinoma’ were both grouped to the term ‘Disease Ontology Identification (DOID):4467 / renal clear cell carcinoma’ which was mapped to the TopNodes_DOcancerslim term ‘DOID:263 / kidney cancer’. Mapping of diverse cancer terms to DO and the use of top level terms (DO slims) will enable pan-cancer analysis across datasets generated from any of the cancer term sources where pan-cancer means including or relating to all or multiple types of cancer. The terms can be browsed from the DO web site (http://www.disease-ontology.org) and downloaded from the DO’s Apache Subversion or GitHub repositories. Database URL: http://www.disease-ontology.org PMID:25841438

A subtraction scheme for computing QCD jet cross sections at NNLO: integrating the subtraction terms I

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Somogyi, Gábor; Trócsányi, Zoltán

2008-08-01

In previous articles we outlined a subtraction scheme for regularizing doubly-real emission and real-virtual emission in next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) calculations of jet cross sections in electron-positron annihilation. In order to find the NNLO correction these subtraction terms have to be integrated over the factorized unresolved phase space and combined with the two-loop corrections. In this paper we perform the integration of all one-parton unresolved subtraction terms.

Integrated modeling of long-term vegetation and hydrologic dynamics in Rocky Mountain watersheds

Treesearch

Robert Steven Ahl

2007-01-01

Changes in forest structure resulting from natural disturbances, or managed treatments, can have negative and long lasting impacts on water resources. To facilitate integrated management of forest and water resources, a System for Long-Term Integrated Management Modeling (SLIMM) was developed. By combining two spatially explicit, continuous time models, vegetation...

The Swedish Research Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science - SITES

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lindroth, A.; Ahlström, M.; Augner, M.; Erefur, C.; Jansson, G.; Steen Jensen, E.; Klemedtsson, L.; Langenheder, S.; Rosqvist, G. N.; Viklund, J.

2017-12-01

The vision of SITES is to promote long-term field-based ecosystem research at a world class level by offering an infrastructure with excellent technical and scientific support and services attracting both national and international researchers. In addition, SITES will make data freely and easily available through an advanced data portal which will add value to the research. During the first funding period, three innovative joint integrating facilities were established through a researcher-driven procedure: SITES Water, SITES Spectral, and SITES AquaNet. These new facilities make it possible to study terrestrial and limnic ecosystem processes across a range of ecosystem types and climatic gradients, with common protocols and similar equipment. In addition, user-driven development at the nine individual stations has resulted in e.g. design of a long-term agricultural systems experiment, and installation of weather stations, flux systems, etc. at various stations. SITES, with its integrative approach and broad coverage of climate and ecosystem types across Sweden, constitutes an excellent platform for state-of-the-art research projects. SITES' support the development of: A better understanding of the way in which key ecosystems function and interact with each other at the landscape level and with the climate system in terms of mass and energy exchanges. A better understanding of the role of different organisms in controlling different processes and ultimately the functioning of ecosystems. New strategies for forest management to better meet the many and varied requirements from nature conservation, climate and wood, fibre, and energy supply points of view. Agricultural systems that better utilize resources and minimize adverse impacts on the environment. Collaboration with other similar infrastructures and networks is a high priority for SITES. This will enable us to make use of each others' experiences, harmonize metadata for easier exchange of data, and support each other to widen the user community.

Frequency-independent approach to calculate physical optics radiations with the quadratic concave phase variations

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

Wu, Yu Mao, E-mail: yumaowu@fudan.edu.cn; Teng, Si Jia, E-mail: sjteng12@fudan.edu.cn

In this work, we develop the numerical steepest descent path (NSDP) method to calculate the physical optics (PO) radiations with the quadratic concave phase variations. With the surface integral equation method, the physical optics (PO) scattered fields are formulated and further reduced to the surface integrals. The high frequency physical critical points contributions, including the stationary phase points, the boundary resonance points and the vertex points are comprehensively studied via the proposed NSDP method. The key contributions of this work are twofold. One is that together with the PO integrals taking the quadratic parabolic and hyperbolic phase terms, this workmore » makes the NSDP theory be complete for treating the PO integrals with quadratic phase variations. Another is that, in order to illustrate the transition effect of the high frequency physical critical points, in this work, we consider and further extend the NSDP method to calculate the PO integrals with the coalescence of the high frequency critical points. Numerical results for the highly oscillatory PO integral with the coalescence of the critical points are given to verify the efficiency of the proposed NSDP method. The NSDP method could achieve the frequency independent computational workload and error controllable accuracy in all the numerical experiments, especially for the case of the coalescence of the high frequency critical points.« less

Integrated planning and scheduling for Earth science data processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Boddy, Mark; White, Jim; Goldman, Robert; Short, Nick, Jr.

1995-01-01

Several current NASA programs such as the EOSDIS Core System (ECS) have data processing and data management requirements that call for an integrated planning and scheduling capability. In this paper, we describe the experience of applying advanced scheduling technology operationally, in terms of what was accomplished, lessons learned, and what remains to be done in order to achieve similar successes in ECS and other programs. We discuss the importance and benefits of advanced scheduling tools, and our progress toward realizing them, through examples and illustrations based on ECS requirements. The first part of the paper focuses on the Data Archive and Distribution (DADS) V0 Scheduler. We then discuss system integration issues ranging from communication with the scheduler to the monitoring of system events and re-scheduling in response to them. The challenge of adapting the scheduler to domain-specific features and scheduling policies is also considered. Extrapolation to the ECS domain raises issues of integrating scheduling with a product-generation planner (such as PlaSTiC), and implementing conditional planning in an operational system. We conclude by briefly noting ongoing technology development and deployment projects being undertaken by HTC and the ISTB.

Modelling gas dynamics in 1D ducts with abrupt area change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Menina, R.; Saurel, R.; Zereg, M.; Houas, L.

2011-09-01

Most gas dynamic computations in industrial ducts are done in one dimension with cross-section-averaged Euler equations. This poses a fundamental difficulty as soon as geometrical discontinuities are present. The momentum equation contains a non-conservative term involving a surface pressure integral, responsible for momentum loss. Definition of this integral is very difficult from a mathematical standpoint as the flow may contain other discontinuities (shocks, contact discontinuities). From a physical standpoint, geometrical discontinuities induce multidimensional vortices that modify the surface pressure integral. In the present paper, an improved 1D flow model is proposed. An extra energy (or entropy) equation is added to the Euler equations expressing the energy and turbulent pressure stored in the vortices generated by the abrupt area variation. The turbulent energy created by the flow-area change interaction is determined by a specific estimate of the surface pressure integral. Model's predictions are compared with 2D-averaged results from numerical solution of the Euler equations. Comparison with shock tube experiments is also presented. The new 1D-averaged model improves the conventional cross-section-averaged Euler equations and is able to reproduce the main flow features.

Determination of welding residual stresses by inverse approach with eigenstrain formulations of boundary integral equation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Hang; Wang, Ying; Qin, Qing-Hua

2011-04-01

Based on the concept of eigenstrain, a straightforward computational model of the inverse approach is proposed for determining the residual stress field induced by welding using the eigenstrain formulations of boundary integral equations. The eigenstrains are approximately expressed in terms of low-order polynomials in the local area around welded zones. The domain integrals with polynomial eigenstrains are transformed into the boundary integrals to preserve the favourable features of the boundary-only discretization in the process of numerical solutions. The sensitivity matrices in the inverse approach for evaluating the eigenstrain fields are constructed by either the measured deformations (displacements) on the boundary or the measured stresses in the domain after welding over a number of selected measuring points, or by both the measured information. It shows from the numerical examples that the results of residual stresses from deformation measurements are always better than those from stress measurements but they are sensitive to the noises from experiments. The results from stress measurements can be improved by introducing a few deformation measuring points while reducing the number of points for stress measuring to reduce the cost since the measurement of deformation is easier than that of stresses in practice.

Does stress remove the HDAC brakes for the formation and persistence of long-term memory?

PubMed

White, André O; Wood, Marcelo A

2014-07-01

It has been known for numerous decades that gene expression is required for long-lasting forms of memory. In the past decade, the study of epigenetic mechanisms in memory processes has revealed yet another layer of complexity in the regulation of gene expression. Epigenetic mechanisms do not only provide complexity in the protein regulatory complexes that control coordinate transcription for specific cell function, but the epigenome encodes critical information that integrates experience and cellular history for specific cell functions as well. Thus, epigenetic mechanisms provide a unique mechanism of gene expression regulation for memory processes. This may be why critical negative regulators of gene expression, such as histone deacetylases (HDACs), have powerful effects on the formation and persistence of memory. For example, HDAC inhibition has been shown to transform a subthreshold learning event into robust long-term memory and also generate a form of long-term memory that persists beyond the point at which normal long-term memory fails. A key question that is explored in this review, from a learning and memory perspective, is whether stress-dependent signaling drives the formation and persistence of long-term memory via HDAC-dependent mechanisms. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Does stress remove the HDAC brakes for the formation and persistence of long-term memory?

PubMed Central

White, André O.; Wood, Marcelo A.

2013-01-01

It has been known for numerous decades that gene expression is required for long-lasting forms of memory. In the past decade, the study of epigenetic mechanisms in memory processes has revealed yet another layer of complexity in the regulation of gene expression. Epigenetic mechanisms do not only provide complexity in the protein regulatory complexes that control coordinate transcription for specific cell function, but the epigenome encodes critical information that integrates experience and cellular history for specific cell functions as well. Thus, epigenetic mechanisms provide a unique mechanism of gene expression regulation for memory processes. This may be why critical negative regulators of gene expression, such as histone deacetylases (HDACs), have powerful effects on the formation and persistence of memory. For example, HDAC inhibition has been shown to transform a subthreshold learning event into robust long-term memory and also generate a form of long-term memory that persists beyond the point at which normal long-term memory fails. A key question that is explored in this review, from a learning and memory perspective, is whether stress-dependent signaling drives the formation and persistence of long-term memory via HDAC-dependent mechanisms. PMID:24149059

Nitrogen dynamics in organic and conventional cotton production systems in India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duboc, O.; Adamtey, N.; Forster, D.; Cadisch, G.

2012-04-01

Ongoing population growth still represents a challenge to agricultural production (food, fiber and fuel material supply). In spite of the undeniable achievements reached with the "green revolution" technologies, there is a growing awareness among scientists and policy makers that diverse and integrated approaches which are both productive and sustainable are now necessary to meet the agricultural challenges. Integrated and organic agriculture are such alternatives which need to be better investigated and implemented. While long-term experiments in temperate regions have assessed the effect of organic agriculture on different crops and soil quality, there is currently a lack of reliable data from tropical regions, such as findings arising from long-term systems comparison trials. This has necessitated a long-term system comparison trials in Kenya, Bolivia and India by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and its partners (icipe, BioRe, Ecotop and Institute of Ecology) (www.systems-comparison.fibl.org). In India the project is based in Madhya Pradesh, in which organic and conventional production systems are being compared in a 2-yr crop rotation - cotton (yr 1) and soybean-wheat (yr 2). The field trial is planned for a time span of 10-20 years, in order to investigate long-term effects of those production systems on yields, soil characteristics, or economic return. A PhD study is incorporated into this project to investigate the effect of the production systems on soil characteristics. The main focus will be on nitrogen cycling under the different production systems. Particular attention will be given to nitrogen use efficiencies and the synchrony of nitrogen availability (e.g. nitrogen mineralization with the polyethylene bag technique, monitoring of soil mineral N) with plant nitrogen uptake, for which allometric equations will be calibrated in order to circumvent destructive sampling on the plots of the long-term experiment. Nitrogen losses - leaching and gaseous emissions - will also be investigated with methods such as buried ion exchange resin cores and gas sampling in the field. Furthermore, the project will test management solutions to improve nitrogen use efficiencies in both, organic and conventional systems, such as the introduction of leguminous intercrops in cotton, which is the main cash crop in the system and which also has the highest requirements for fertilization. This poster thus mainly discusses methodic issues relating to the planned study.

The Hebb repetition effect in simple and complex memory span.

PubMed

Oberauer, Klaus; Jones, Timothy; Lewandowsky, Stephan

2015-08-01

The Hebb repetition effect refers to the finding that immediate serial recall is improved over trials for memory lists that are surreptitiously repeated across trials, relative to new lists. We show in four experiments that the Hebb repetition effect is also observed with a complex-span task, in which encoding or retrieval of list items alternates with an unrelated processing task. The interruption of encoding or retrieval by the processing task did not reduce the size of the Hebb effect, demonstrating that incidental long-term learning forms integrated representations of lists, excluding the interleaved processing events. Contrary to the assumption that complex-span performance relies more on long-term memory than standard immediate serial recall (simple span), the Hebb effect was not larger in complex-span than in simple-span performance. The Hebb effect in complex span was also not modulated by the opportunity for refreshing list items, questioning a role of refreshing for the acquisition of the long-term memory representations underlying the effect.

Urbanization accelerates long-term salinization and alkalinization of fresh water

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaushal, S.; Duan, S.; Doody, T.; Haq, S.; Smith, R. M.; Newcomer Johnson, T. A.; Delaney Newcomb, K.; Gorman, J. K.; Bowman, N.; Mayer, P. M.; Wood, K. L.; Belt, K.; Stack, W.

2017-12-01

Human dominated land-use increases transport a major ions in streams due to anthropogenic salts and accelerated weathering. We show long-term trends in calcium, magnesium, sodium, alkalinity, and hardness over 50 years in the Baltimore metropolitan region and elsewhere. We also examine how major ion concentrations have increased significantly with impervious surface cover in watersheds across land use. Base cations show strong relationships with acid anions, which illustrates the coupling of major biogeochemical cycles in urban watersheds over time. Longitudinal patterns in major ions can also show increasing trends from headwaters to coastal waters, which suggests coupled biogeochemical cycles over space. We present new results from manipulative experiments and long-term monitoring across different urban regions regarding patterns and processes of salinization and alkalinization. Overall, our work demonstrates that urbanization dramatically increases major ions, ionic strength, and pH over decades from headwaters to coastal waters, which impacts the integrity of aquatic life, infrastructure, drinking water, and coastal ocean alkalinization.

Semantic congruency but not temporal synchrony enhances long-term memory performance for audio-visual scenes.

PubMed

Meyerhoff, Hauke S; Huff, Markus

2016-04-01

Human long-term memory for visual objects and scenes is tremendous. Here, we test how auditory information contributes to long-term memory performance for realistic scenes. In a total of six experiments, we manipulated the presentation modality (auditory, visual, audio-visual) as well as semantic congruency and temporal synchrony between auditory and visual information of brief filmic clips. Our results show that audio-visual clips generally elicit more accurate memory performance than unimodal clips. This advantage even increases with congruent visual and auditory information. However, violations of audio-visual synchrony hardly have any influence on memory performance. Memory performance remained intact even with a sequential presentation of auditory and visual information, but finally declined when the matching tracks of one scene were presented separately with intervening tracks during learning. With respect to memory performance, our results therefore show that audio-visual integration is sensitive to semantic congruency but remarkably robust against asymmetries between different modalities.

Dreaming the other's past: why remembering may still be relevant to psychoanalytic therapy, at least in some traditions.

PubMed

Habermas, Tilmann

2014-10-01

Against the background of a reconstruction of the reasons for the vanishing role of remembering in the history of psychoanalysis, Botella's (2014, Int J Psychoanal, 95) arguments regarding the therapeutic significance of reconstruction and remembering and of the therapist's role are discussed. The difference between intellectual reconstruction and actual emotional remembering are underlined, the term regredience is compared to competing concepts such as equally suspended attention, countertransference and reverie. It is argued that to conceptualize the use of countertransferential associations for reconstructing past traumatic events is difficult with a monadic conception of the unconscious and problematic both in terms of truth claims and in terms of achieving a shared creative atmosphere in which therapist and patient participate alike. It is concluded that historical truth may be important for traumatic experiences, and that biographical reconstruction and change in the subjective life story help to make sense of neurotic patterns and integrate diachronic identity. Copyright © 2014 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Effects of delays on 6-year-old children’s self-generation and retention of knowledge through integration

PubMed Central

Varga, Nicole L.; Bauer, Patricia J.

2013-01-01

The present research was an investigation of the effect of delay on self-generation and retention of knowledge derived through integration by 6-year-old children. Children were presented with novel facts from passages read aloud to them (stem facts) and tested for self-generation of new knowledge through integration of the facts. In Experiment 1, children integrated the stem facts at Session 1 and retained the self-generated memory traces over 1 week. In Experiment 2, 1-week delays were imposed either between the to-be-integrated facts (between-stem delay) or after the stem facts but before the test (before-test delay). Integration performance was diminished in both conditions. Moreover, memory for individual stem facts was lower in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1, suggesting that self-generation through integration promoted memory for explicitly taught information. The results indicate the importance of tests for promoting self-generation through integration as well as for retaining newly self-generated and explicitly taught information. PMID:23563162

Labor market integration, immigration experience, and psychological distress in a multi-ethnic sample of immigrants residing in Portugal.

PubMed

Teixeira, Ana F; Dias, Sónia F

2018-01-01

This study aims at examining how factors relating to immigrants' experience in the host country affect psychological distress (PD). Specifically, we analyzed the association among socio-economic status (SES), integration in the labor market, specific immigration experience characteristics, and PD in a multi-ethnic sample of immigrant individuals residing in Lisbon, Portugal. Using a sample (n = 1375) consisting of all main immigrant groups residing in Portugal's metropolitan area of Lisbon, we estimated multivariable linear regression models of PD regressed on selected sets of socio-economic independent variables. A psychological distress scale was constructed based on five items (feeling physically tired, feeling psychologically tired, feeling happy, feeling full of energy, and feeling lonely). Variables associated with a decrease in PD are being a male (demographic), being satisfied with their income level (SES), living with the core family and having higher number of children (social isolation), planning to remain for longer periods of time in Portugal (migration project), and whether respondents considered themselves to be in good health condition (subjective health status). Study variables negatively associated with immigrants' PD were job insecurity (labor market), and the perception that health professionals were not willing to understand immigrants during a clinical interaction. The study findings emphasized the importance of labor market integration and access to good quality jobs for immigrants' psychological well-being, as well as the existence of family ties in the host country, intention to reside long term in the host country, and high subjective (physical) health. Our research suggests the need to foster cross-national studies of immigrant populations in order to understand the social mechanisms that transverse all migrant groups and contribute to lower psychological well-being.

The Impact of an Authentic, Simulated Learning Activity on Student Preparedness for Work-Integrated Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nicola-Richmond, Kelli; Richards, Kieva; Britt, Kellie

2016-01-01

Student preparation for work-integrated learning using simulated learning experiences is an under researched field in occupational therapy. In 2013 the Deakin University occupational therapy degree introduced a simulated learning experience for students aimed at preparing them for work-integrated learning experiences. The session gave students an…

Comparing the effects of positive and negative feedback in information-integration category learning.

PubMed

Freedberg, Michael; Glass, Brian; Filoteo, J Vincent; Hazeltine, Eliot; Maddox, W Todd

2017-01-01

Categorical learning is dependent on feedback. Here, we compare how positive and negative feedback affect information-integration (II) category learning. Ashby and O'Brien (2007) demonstrated that both positive and negative feedback are required to solve II category problems when feedback was not guaranteed on each trial, and reported no differences between positive-only and negative-only feedback in terms of their effectiveness. We followed up on these findings and conducted 3 experiments in which participants completed 2,400 II categorization trials across three days under 1 of 3 conditions: positive feedback only (PFB), negative feedback only (NFB), or both types of feedback (CP; control partial). An adaptive algorithm controlled the amount of feedback given to each group so that feedback was nearly equated. Using different feedback control procedures, Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that participants in the NFB and CP group were able to engage II learning strategies, whereas the PFB group was not. Additionally, the NFB group was able to achieve significantly higher accuracy than the PFB group by Day 3. Experiment 3 revealed that these differences remained even when we equated the information received on feedback trials. Thus, negative feedback appears significantly more effective for learning II category structures. This suggests that the human implicit learning system may be capable of learning in the absence of positive feedback.

Specific and Individuated Death Reflection Fosters Identity Integration

PubMed Central

Cozzolino, Philip J.; Sedikides, Constantine

2016-01-01

Identity integration is the process wherein a person assimilates multiple or conflicting identities (e.g., beliefs, values, needs) into a coherent, unified self-concept. Three experiments examined whether contemplating mortality in a specific and individuated manner (i.e., via the death reflection manipulation) facilitated outcomes indicative of identity integration. Participants in the death reflection condition (vs. control conditions) considered positive and negative life experiences as equally important in shaping their current identity (Experiment 1), regarded self-serving values and other-serving values as equally important life principles (Experiment 2), and were equally motivated to pursue growth-oriented and security-oriented needs (Experiment 3). Death reflection motivates individuals to integrate conflicting aspects of their identity into a coherent self-concept. Given that identity integration is associated with higher well-being, the findings have implications for understanding the psychological benefits of existential contemplation. PMID:27152863

Weighted integration of short-term memory and sensory signals in the oculomotor system.

PubMed

Deravet, Nicolas; Blohm, Gunnar; de Xivry, Jean-Jacques Orban; Lefèvre, Philippe

2018-05-01

Oculomotor behaviors integrate sensory and prior information to overcome sensory-motor delays and noise. After much debate about this process, reliability-based integration has recently been proposed and several models of smooth pursuit now include recurrent Bayesian integration or Kalman filtering. However, there is a lack of behavioral evidence in humans supporting these theoretical predictions. Here, we independently manipulated the reliability of visual and prior information in a smooth pursuit task. Our results show that both smooth pursuit eye velocity and catch-up saccade amplitude were modulated by visual and prior information reliability. We interpret these findings as the continuous reliability-based integration of a short-term memory of target motion with visual information, which support modeling work. Furthermore, we suggest that saccadic and pursuit systems share this short-term memory. We propose that this short-term memory of target motion is quickly built and continuously updated, and constitutes a general building block present in all sensorimotor systems.

A non-planar two-loop three-point function beyond multiple polylogarithms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

von Manteuffel, Andreas; Tancredi, Lorenzo

2017-06-01

We consider the analytic calculation of a two-loop non-planar three-point function which contributes to the two-loop amplitudes for t\\overline{t} production and γγ production in gluon fusion through a massive top-quark loop. All subtopology integrals can be written in terms of multiple polylogarithms over an irrational alphabet and we employ a new method for the integration of the differential equations which does not rely on the rationalization of the latter. The top topology integrals, instead, in spite of the absence of a massive three-particle cut, cannot be evaluated in terms of multiple polylogarithms and require the introduction of integrals over complete elliptic integrals and polylogarithms. We provide one-fold integral representations for the solutions and continue them analytically to all relevant regions of the phase space in terms of real functions, extracting all imaginary parts explicitly. The numerical evaluation of our expressions becomes straightforward in this way.

OBSIP: An Evolving Facility for the Future of Geoscience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evers, B.; Aderhold, K.

2015-12-01

The Ocean Bottom Seismograph Instrument Pool "OBSIP" is a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored instrument facility that provides ocean bottom seismometers and technical support for research in the areas of marine geology, seismology, and geodynamics. OBSIP provides both short period instruments (for active source seismic refraction studies) and long period instruments (for long term passive experiments). OBSIP is comprised of three Institutional Instrument Contributors each of whom contribute instruments and technical support to the pool and an OBSIP Management Office. In 2015, OBSIP will provide instruments for six experiments and support nine research cruises recovering and/or deploying instruments. This includes the final recoveries for the Cascadia Initiative experiment and the Eastern North American Margin experiment, both multi-year community seismic experiments integrating large onshore and offshore deployments of instruments from multiple IICs. OBSIp supported additional experiments in New Zealand and Malawi, Africa. An active source experiment to image the magma plumbing of Santorini employs OBSIP's entire short period sensor pool. OBSIP is also incorporating new technical developments in the OBSIP fleet including long duration OBS technology, new shielding designs, and sensor upgrades. OBSIP continues to enable innovation in experiment design, instrument capabilities, and data return/QAQC tracking and adapts to the needs of a rapidly increasing and diversifying pool of users.

Successes of a new NSF Research Experience for Teachers (RET): Water-Energy Education for the Next Generation (WE2NG) Empowers K-12 Educators to Train Our Future Scientists to Solve Critical STEM Issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blaine, A. C.; Martin, A. C.; Hogue, T. S.

2016-12-01

Colorado School of Mines (CSM) recently kicked-off a three year K-12 teacher training program with an inaugural six-week summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET). The WE2NG, or Water-Energy Education for the Next Generation program, hosted nine Colorado public school teachers, giving them content and tools to enhance curricula and STEM topics in the classroom. WE2NG is an NSF (National Science Foundation) RET program that seeks to advance public knowledge and dialogue on the water-energy nexus through integration of teachers, and ultimately their students, by infusing standards-based, active-learning lessons with cutting-edge research in the water-energy nexus. The teachers' experience begins with a six week summer program at CSM that consists of different activities collectively integrated to give participants a holistic understanding of STEM research from inception to actualization. Three days a week, the participants focus on integration into a mentor faculty's research projects concerning water and/or energy. During the other two days, participants benefit from research presentations and lab tours from participating faculty, technical workshops on interdisciplinary topics, interaction with industry via field trips and speakers, and professional collaborative STEM curriculum development training. However, the teachers' experience does not end with the summer program; WE2NG also establishes long-term collaborative relationships with the summer participants by providing classroom support throughout the academic year. Graduate and undergraduate students from CSM Centers on campus are paired with the teachers to provide significant, sustained support and act as liaisons throughout the academic year. This presentation will highlight successes and lessons learned during the first year of the program, including a summary of how collaboration between K-12 teachers, Mines faculty and industry leaders can radically impact STEM education in Colorado.

[Sex and gender: Two different scientific domains to be clarified].

PubMed

Fernández, Juan

2010-05-01

Nowadays, the word sex and its related terms (sexual differences, sexual roles and stereotypes), so common not long ago, seems to have been replaced by gender and its related terms (gender differences, gender roles and stereotypes). We can sometimes find both sex and gender sharing the same space in scientific articles, although referring to different domains. In this paper, I try to explain the need for a model that can integrate both of these complex domains of sex and gender, leading to two independent, although complementary, disciplines: Sexology and Genderology. In both cases, I start from a functional standpoint, which will give meaning to both disciplines' specificities, as it is meant to link contributions from different fields of knowledge. This approach can have consequences for research, education, the experience of women, men, and ambiguous individuals, and therapy.

Planning for Space Station Freedom laboratory payload integration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Willenberg, Harvey J.; Torre, Larry P.

1989-01-01

Space Station Freedom is being developed to support extensive missions involving microgravity research and applications. Requirements for on-orbit payload integration and the simultaneous payload integration of multiple mission increments will provide the stimulus to develop new streamlined integration procedures in order to take advantage of the increased capabilities offered by Freedom. The United States Laboratory and its user accommodations are described. The process of integrating users' experiments and equipment into the United States Laboratory and the Pressurized Logistics Modules is described. This process includes the strategic and tactical phases of Space Station utilization planning. The support that the Work Package 01 Utilization office will provide to the users and hardware developers, in the form of Experiment Integration Engineers, early accommodation assessments, and physical integration of experiment equipment, is described. Plans for integrated payload analytical integration are also described.

Physiological system integrations with emphasis on the respiratory-cardiovascular system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gallagher, R. R.

1975-01-01

The integration of two types of physiological system simulations is presented. The long term model is a circulatory system model which simulates long term blood flow variations and compartmental fluid shifts. The short term models simulate transient phenomena of the respiratory, thermoregulatory, and pulsatile cardiovascular systems as they respond to stimuli such as LBNP, exercise, and environmental gaseous variations. An overview of the interfacing approach is described. Descriptions of the variable interface for long term to short term and between the three short term models are given.

A Device for Long-Term Perfusion, Imaging, and Electrical Interfacing of Brain Tissue In vitro

PubMed Central

Killian, Nathaniel J.; Vernekar, Varadraj N.; Potter, Steve M.; Vukasinovic, Jelena

2016-01-01

Distributed microelectrode array (MEA) recordings from consistent, viable, ≥500 μm thick tissue preparations over time periods from days to weeks may aid in studying a wide range of problems in neurobiology that require in vivo-like organotypic morphology. Existing tools for electrically interfacing with organotypic slices do not address necrosis that inevitably occurs within thick slices with limited diffusion of nutrients and gas, and limited removal of waste. We developed an integrated device that enables long-term maintenance of thick, functionally active, brain tissue models using interstitial perfusion and distributed recordings from thick sections of explanted tissue on a perforated multi-electrode array. This novel device allows for automated culturing, in situ imaging, and extracellular multi-electrode interfacing with brain slices, 3-D cell cultures, and potentially other tissue culture models. The device is economical, easy to assemble, and integrable with standard electrophysiology tools. We found that convective perfusion through the culture thickness provided a functional benefit to the preparations as firing rates were generally higher in perfused cultures compared to their respective unperfused controls. This work is a step toward the development of integrated tools for days-long experiments with more consistent, healthier, thicker, and functionally more active tissue cultures with built-in distributed electrophysiological recording and stimulation functionality. The results may be useful for the study of normal processes, pathological conditions, and drug screening strategies currently hindered by the limitations of acute (a few hours long) brain slice preparations. PMID:27065793

Effect of a Complementary/Integrative Medicine Treatment Program on Taxane-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy: A Brief Report.

PubMed

Ben-Arye, Eran; River, Yaron; Keshet, Yael; Lavie, Ofer; Israeli, Pesi; Samuels, Noah

2018-06-01

Peripheral neuropathy is a common complication of cancer treatment impairing quality of life and function. This study explored the impact of a complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) program on taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy (TIPN). Taxane-treated female patients with breast and gynecological cancer reporting TIPN-related symptoms were referred to an integrative physician, followed by patient-tailored CIM treatments (acupuncture with/without other modalities). Assessment of study outcomes at 6 to 12 weeks was conducted using the Measure Yourself Concerns and Wellbeing, which documented free-text narratives about patients' experience during the CIM treatment process. Content was analyzed using ATLAS.Ti software. Of the 125 patients treated with taxanes, 69 had been referred for CIM treatment of TIPN-associated symptoms. Multidisciplinary narrative analysis identified 2 groups of CIM-treated patients: those with an apparently moderate improvement in symptoms (n = 35) and those with either only an apparent mild or no improvement at all. For 10 patients, assessment of their response to treatment was unclear. The 2 identified groups had similar demographic, cancer-related, and quality of life-related parameters at baseline. Content analysis of patients with an apparent moderate improvement suggested a short-term (24-48 hours) effect with acupuncture treatment, either alone or combined with manual, mind-body, and anthroposophic music therapies. Symptoms showing improvement included paresthesia and numbness. Acupuncture and other CIM therapies may result in a short-term and transitory reduction in TIPN-related symptoms.

Efficacy of integrating information literacy education into a women's health course on information literacy for RN-BSN students.

PubMed

Ku, Ya-Lie; Sheu, Sheila; Kuo, Shih-Ming

2007-03-01

Information literacy, essential to evidences-based nursing, can promote nurses' capability for life-long learning. Nursing education should strive to employ information literacy education in nursing curricula to improve information literacy abilities among nursing students. This study explored the effectiveness of information literacy education by comparing information literacy skills among a group of RN-BSN (Registered Nurse to Bachelors of Science in Nursing) students who received information literacy education with a group that did not. This quasi-experimental study was conducted during a women's health issues course taught between March and June 2004. Content was presented to the 32 RN-BSN students enrolled in this course, which also taught skills on searching and screening, integrating, analyzing, applying, and presenting information. At the beginning and end of the program, 75 RN-BSN student self-evaluated on a 10 point Likert scale their attained skills in searching and screening, integrating, analyzing, applying, and presenting information. Results identified no significant differences between the experimental (n = 32) and control groups (n = 43) in terms of age, marital status, job title, work unit, years of work experience, and information literacy skills as measured at the beginning of the semester. At the end of the semester during which content was taught, the information literacy of the experimental group in all categories, with the exception of information presentation, was significantly improved as compared to that of the control group. Results were especially significant in terms of integrating, analyzing, and applying skill categories. It is hoped that in the future nursing students will apply enhanced information literacy to address and resolve patients' health problems in clinical settings.

Long-term integrated telerehabilitation of COPD Patients: a multicentre randomised controlled trial (iTrain).

PubMed

Zanaboni, Paolo; Dinesen, Birthe; Hjalmarsen, Audhild; Hoaas, Hanne; Holland, Anne E; Oliveira, Cristino Carneiro; Wootton, Richard

2016-08-22

Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is an effective intervention for the management of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, available resources are often limited, and many patients bear with poor availability of programmes. Sustaining PR benefits and regular exercise over the long term is difficult without any exercise maintenance strategy. In contrast to traditional centre-based PR programmes, telerehabilitation may promote more effective integration of exercise routines into daily life over the longer term and broaden its applicability and availability. A few studies showed promising results for telerehabilitation, but mostly with short-term interventions. The aim of this study is to compare long-term telerehabilitation with unsupervised exercise training at home and with standard care. An international multicentre randomised controlled trial conducted across sites in three countries will recruit 120 patients with COPD. Participants will be randomly assigned to telerehabilitation, treadmill and control, and followed up for 2 years. The telerehabilitation intervention consists of individualised exercise training at home on a treadmill, telemonitoring by a physiotherapist via videoconferencing using a tablet computer, and self-management via a customised website. Patients in the treadmill arm are provided with a treadmill only to perform unsupervised exercise training at home. Patients in the control arm are offered standard care. The primary outcome is the combined number of hospitalisations and emergency department presentations. Secondary outcomes include changes in health status, quality of life, anxiety and depression, self-efficacy, subjective impression of change, physical performance, level of physical activity, and personal experiences in telerehabilitation. This trial will provide evidence on whether long-term telerehabilitation represents a cost-effective strategy for the follow-up of patients with COPD. The delivery of telerehabilitation services will also broaden the availability of PR and maintenance strategies, especially to those living in remote areas and with no access to centre-based exercise programmes. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02258646 .

Survey of critical failure events in on-chip interconnect by fault tree analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yokogawa, Shinji; Kunii, Kyousuke

2018-07-01

In this paper, a framework based on reliability physics is proposed for adopting fault tree analysis (FTA) to the on-chip interconnect system of a semiconductor. By integrating expert knowledge and experience regarding the possibilities of failure on basic events, critical issues of on-chip interconnect reliability will be evaluated by FTA. In particular, FTA is used to identify the minimal cut sets with high risk priority. Critical events affecting the on-chip interconnect reliability are identified and discussed from the viewpoint of long-term reliability assessment. The moisture impact is evaluated as an external event.

Turbulent transport measurements with a laser Doppler velocimeter

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Edwards, R. V.; Angus, J. C.; Dunning, J. W., Jr.

1972-01-01

The power spectrum of phototube current from a laser Doppler velocimeter operating in the heterodyne mode has been computed. The spectrum is obtained in terms of the space time correlation function of the fluid. The spectral width and shape predicted by the theory are in agreement with experiment. For normal operating parameters the time average spectrum contains information only for times shorter than the Lagrangian integral time scale of the turbulence. To examine the long time behavior, one must use either extremely small scattering angles, much longer wavelength radiation or a different mode of signal analysis, e.g., FM detection.

Note: Design and implementation of a home-built imaging system with low jitter for cold atom experiments

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

Hachtel, A. J.; Gillette, M. C.; Clements, E. R.

A novel home-built system for imaging cold atom samples is presented using a readily available astronomy camera which has the requisite sensitivity but no timing-control. We integrate the camera with LabVIEW achieving fast, low-jitter imaging with a convenient user-defined interface. We show that our system takes precisely timed millisecond exposures and offers significant improvements in terms of system jitter and readout time over previously reported home-built systems. Our system rivals current commercial “black box” systems in performance and user-friendliness.

Stretching single atom contacts at multiple subatomic step-length.

PubMed

Wei, Yi-Min; Liang, Jing-Hong; Chen, Zhao-Bin; Zhou, Xiao-Shun; Mao, Bing-Wei; Oviedo, Oscar A; Leiva, Ezequiel P M

2013-08-14

This work describes jump-to-contact STM-break junction experiments leading to novel statistical distribution of last-step length associated with conductance of a single atom contact. Last-step length histograms are observed with up to five for Fe and three for Cu peaks at integral multiples close to 0.075 nm, a subatomic distance. A model is proposed in terms of gliding from a fcc hollow-site to a hcp hollow-site of adjacent atomic planes at 1/3 regular layer spacing along with tip stretching to account for the multiple subatomic step-length behavior.

Emil Fischer and the "art of chemical experimentation".

PubMed

Jackson, Catherine M

2017-03-01

What did nineteenth-century chemists know? This essay uses Emil Fischer's classic study of the sugars in 1880s and 90s Germany to argue that chemists' knowledge was not primarily vested in the theories of valence, structure, and stereochemistry that have been the subject of so much historical and philosophical analysis of chemistry in this period. Nor can chemistry be reduced to a merely manipulative exercise requiring little or no intellectual input. Examining what chemists themselves termed the "art of chemical experimentation" reveals chemical practice as inseparable from its cognitive component, and it explains how chemists integrated theory with experiment through reason.

Characterisation of Vanilla—A novel active pixel sensor for radiation detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blue, A.; Bates, R.; Laing, A.; Maneuski, D.; O'Shea, V.; Clark, A.; Prydderch, M.; Turchetta, R.; Arvanitis, C.; Bohndiek, S.

2007-10-01

Novel features of a new monolithic active pixel sensor, Vanilla, with 520×520 pixels ( 25 μm square) has been characterised for the first time. Optimisation of the sensor operation was made through variation of frame rates, integration times and on-chip biases and voltages. Features such as flushed reset operation, ROI capturing and readout modes have been fully tested. Stability measurements were performed to test its suitablility for long-term applications. These results suggest the Vanilla sensor—along with bio-medical and space applications—is suitable for use in particle physics experiments.

Science and Human Behavior, dualism, and conceptual modification.

PubMed Central

Zuriff, G E

2003-01-01

Skinner's Science and Human Behavior is in part an attempt to solve psychology's problem with mind-body dualism by revising our everyday mentalistic conceptual scheme. In the case of descriptive mentalism (the use of mentalistic terms to describe behavior), Skinner offers behavioral "translations." In contrast, Skinner rejects explanatory mentalism (the use of mental concepts to explain behavior) and suggests how to replace it with a behaviorist explanatory framework. For experiential mentalism, Skinner presents a theory of verbal behavior that integrates the use of mentalistic language in first-person reports of phenomenal experience into a scientific framework. PMID:14964715

Science and Human Behavior, dualism, and conceptual modification.

PubMed

Zuriff, G E

2003-11-01

Skinner's Science and Human Behavior is in part an attempt to solve psychology's problem with mind-body dualism by revising our everyday mentalistic conceptual scheme. In the case of descriptive mentalism (the use of mentalistic terms to describe behavior), Skinner offers behavioral "translations." In contrast, Skinner rejects explanatory mentalism (the use of mental concepts to explain behavior) and suggests how to replace it with a behaviorist explanatory framework. For experiential mentalism, Skinner presents a theory of verbal behavior that integrates the use of mentalistic language in first-person reports of phenomenal experience into a scientific framework.

The Integration of Study and Work-Integrated Learning Experience through the Sequential, Embedded Completion of Tertiary Qualifications

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whannell, Patricia; Humphries, Judy; Whannell, Robert; Usher, Kim

2015-01-01

A number of different models have been developed to integrate both Vocational Education and Training (VET) and university study with a view to producing work-ready graduates. This paper describes one joint initiative which allows students to integrate their theoretical study and work-integrated learning (WIL) experience by supporting a sequential,…

Motivation and career outcomes of a precollege life science experience for underrepresented minorities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ortega, Robbie Ray

Minorities continue to be underrepresented in professional science careers. In order to make Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers more accessible for underrepresented minorities, informal science programs must be utilized to assist in developing interest in STEM for minority youth. In addition to developing interest in science, informal programs must help develop interpersonal skills and leadership skills of youth, which allow youth to develop discrete social behaviors while creating positive and supportive communities thus making science more practical in their lives. This study was based on the premise that introducing underrepresented youth to the agricultural and life sciences through an integrated precollege experience of leadership development with university faculty, scientist, and staff would help increase youths' interest in science, while also increasing their interest to pursue a STEM-related career. Utilizing a precollege life science experience for underrepresented minorities, known as the Ag Discovery Camp, 33 middle school aged youth were brought to the Purdue University campus to participate in an experience that integrated a leadership development program with an informal science education program in the context of agriculture. The week-long program introduced youth to fields of agriculture in engineering, plant sciences, food sciences, and entomology. The purpose of the study was to describe short-term and intermediate student outcomes in regards to participants' interests in career activities, science self-efficacy, and career intentions. Youth were not interested in agricultural activities immediately following the precollege experience. However, one year after the precollege experience, youth expressed they were more aware of agriculture and would consider agricultural careers if their first career choice did not work out for them. Results also showed that the youth who participated in the precollege experience were self-efficacious to learn science, and they were self-efficacious to learn science one year after the precollege experience. Youth reported they did not develop interpersonal and leadership skills during the precollege experience, yet they said the interpersonal and leadership skills were useful throughout the following year after the precollege experience. Participants were interested in science careers, and their career plans did not change after the precollege experience.

Aromatic hydrocarbons in a controlled ecological life support system during a 4-person-180-day integrated experiment.

PubMed

Dai, Kun; Yu, Qingni; Zhang, Zhou; Wang, Yuan; Wang, Xinming

2018-01-01

Indoor air quality is vital to the health and comfort of people who live inside a controlled ecological life support system (CELSS) built for long-term space explorations. Here we measured aromatic hydrocarbons to assess their sources and health risks during a 4-person-180-day integrated experiment inside a CELSS with four cabins for growing crops, vegetables and fruits and other two cabins for working, accommodations and resources management. During the experiment, the average concentrations of benzene, ethylbenzene, m,p-xylenes and o-xylene were found to decrease exponentially from 7.91±3.72, 37.2±35.2, 100.8±111.7 and 46.8±44.1μg/m 3 to 0.39±0.34, 1.4±0.5, 2.8±0.7 and 2.1±0.9μg/m 3 , with half-lives of 25.3, 44.8, 44.7 and 69.3days, respectively. Toluene to benzene ratios indicated emission from construction materials or furniture to be a dominant source for toluene, and concentrations of toluene fluctuated during the experiment largely due to the changing sorption by growing plants. The cancer and no-cancer risks based on exposure pattern of the crews were insignificant in the end of the experiment. This study also suggested that using low-emitting materials/furniture, growing plants and purifying air actively would all help to lower hazardous air pollutants inside CELSS. Broadly, the results would benefit not only the development of safe and comfort life support systems for space exploration but also the understanding of interactions between human and the total environment in closed systems. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Heuristics for the Hodgkin-Huxley system.

PubMed

Hoppensteadt, Frank

2013-09-01

Hodgkin and Huxley (HH) discovered that voltages control ionic currents in nerve membranes. This led them to describe electrical activity in a neuronal membrane patch in terms of an electronic circuit whose characteristics were determined using empirical data. Due to the complexity of this model, a variety of heuristics, including relaxation oscillator circuits and integrate-and-fire models, have been used to investigate activity in neurons, and these simpler models have been successful in suggesting experiments and explaining observations. Connections between most of the simpler models had not been made clear until recently. Shown here are connections between these heuristics and the full HH model. In particular, we study a new model (Type III circuit): It includes the van der Pol-based models; it can be approximated by a simple integrate-and-fire model; and it creates voltages and currents that correspond, respectively, to the h and V components of the HH system. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gender Regimes in Ontario Nursing Homes: Organization, Daily Work, and Bodies.

PubMed

Storm, Palle; Braedley, Susan; Chivers, Sally

2017-06-01

Today more men work in the long-term care sector, but men are still in the minority. Little is known about men's experiences in care work, and the dilemmas and opportunities they face because of their gender. This article focuses on men care workers' integration into the organization and flow of nursing home work as perceived by these workers and staff members. Using a rapid ethnography method in two Ontario nursing homes, we found work organization affected interpretations of gender and race, and that workers' scope for discretion affected the integration and acceptance of men as care workers. In a nursing home with a rigid work organization and little worker discretion, women workers perceived men workers as a problem, whereas at a nursing home with a more flexible work organization that stressed relational care, both women and men workers perceived men workers as a resource in the organization.

Distributed wireless sensing for methane leak detection technology

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

Klein, Levente; van Kesse, Theodor

Large scale environmental monitoring requires dynamic optimization of data transmission, power management, and distribution of the computational load. In this work, we demonstrate the use of a wireless sensor network for detection of chemical leaks on gas oil well pads. The sensor network consist of chemi-resistive and wind sensors and aggregates all the data and transmits it to the cloud for further analytics processing. The sensor network data is integrated with an inversion model to identify leak location and quantify leak rates. We characterize the sensitivity and accuracy of such system under multiple well controlled methane release experiments. It ismore » demonstrated that even 1 hour measurement with 10 sensors localizes leaks within 1 m and determines leak rate with an accuracy of 40%. This integrated sensing and analytics solution is currently refined to be a robust system for long term remote monitoring of methane leaks, generation of alarms, and tracking regulatory compliance.« less

Distributed wireless sensing for fugitive methane leak detection

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

Klein, Levente J.; van Kessel, Theodore; Nair, Dhruv

Large scale environmental monitoring requires dynamic optimization of data transmission, power management, and distribution of the computational load. In this work, we demonstrate the use of a wireless sensor network for detection of chemical leaks on gas oil well pads. The sensor network consist of chemi-resistive and wind sensors and aggregates all the data and transmits it to the cloud for further analytics processing. The sensor network data is integrated with an inversion model to identify leak location and quantify leak rates. We characterize the sensitivity and accuracy of such system under multiple well controlled methane release experiments. It ismore » demonstrated that even 1 hour measurement with 10 sensors localizes leaks within 1 m and determines leak rate with an accuracy of 40%. This integrated sensing and analytics solution is currently refined to be a robust system for long term remote monitoring of methane leaks, generation of alarms, and tracking regulatory compliance.« less

Community stakeholder responses to advocacy advertising

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

Miller, B.; Sinclair, J.

Focus group research was used to examine how community stakeholders, a group with local industry experience, responded to coal industry advocacy messages. The stakeholders expressed beliefs about both the advertiser and the coal industry, and while their knowledge led to critical consideration of the industry campaign, they also expressed a desire to identify with positive messages about their community. Applying a postpositivist research perspective, a new model is introduced to integrate these beliefs in terms of advertiser trust and industry accountability under the existing theoretical framework of persuasion knowledge. Agent and topic knowledge are combined in this model based onmore » responses to the industry advocacy campaign. In doing so, this study integrates a priori theory within a new context, extending the current theoretical framework to include an understanding of how community stakeholders - a common target for marketplace advocacy - interpret industry messages.« less

Practice locations of longitudinal integrated clerkship graduates: a matched-cohort study.

PubMed

Myhre, Douglas L; Bajaj, Sameer; Woloschuk, Wayne

2016-01-01

Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) have been introduced as an innovative model to impart medical education. In Canada, most LIC experiences are situated in rural communities. Studies have reported equivalence in graduates from rural LICs and traditional rotation-based clerkships (RBCs) in their performance in residency, as well as in national medical licensure examinations. We sought to determine the impact of rural LICs in terms of practice location of graduates. A matched cohort was developed on the basis of student background and sex to compare practice location of rural LIC and RBC graduates. We used the χ(2) test to assess the association between type of clerkship stream and practice location. We found an association between participation in a rural LIC and rural practice location. Rural LIC programs play an important role in introducing students to rural medicine and may be an effective tool in responding to the shortage of rural practitioners.

Distributed wireless sensing for fugitive methane leak detection

DOE PAGES

Klein, Levente J.; van Kessel, Theodore; Nair, Dhruv; ...

2017-12-11

Large scale environmental monitoring requires dynamic optimization of data transmission, power management, and distribution of the computational load. In this work, we demonstrate the use of a wireless sensor network for detection of chemical leaks on gas oil well pads. The sensor network consist of chemi-resistive and wind sensors and aggregates all the data and transmits it to the cloud for further analytics processing. The sensor network data is integrated with an inversion model to identify leak location and quantify leak rates. We characterize the sensitivity and accuracy of such system under multiple well controlled methane release experiments. It ismore » demonstrated that even 1 hour measurement with 10 sensors localizes leaks within 1 m and determines leak rate with an accuracy of 40%. This integrated sensing and analytics solution is currently refined to be a robust system for long term remote monitoring of methane leaks, generation of alarms, and tracking regulatory compliance.« less

Astronomy: social background of students of the integrated high school

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Voelzke, M. R.; Barbosa, J. I. L.

2017-07-01

Astronomy-related contents exist in almost all levels of basic education in Brazil and are also frequently disseminated through mass media. Thus, students form their own explanations about the phenomena studied by this science. Therefore, this work has the objective of identifying the possible social background of the Integrated High School students on the term Astronomy. It is a research of a basic nature, descriptive, and for that reason a quali-quantitative approach was adopted; the procedures to obtain the data were effected in the form of a survey. The results show that the tested students have a social background about the object Astronomy, which is on the one hand fortified by elements they have made or which is part of the experience lived by the respondents within the formal space of education, and on the other hand based on elements possibly disseminated through the mass media.

Plan of research for integrated soil moisture studies. Recommendations of the Soil Moisture Working Group

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1980-01-01

Soil moisture information is a potentially powerful tool for applications in agriculture, water resources, and climate. At present, it is difficult for users of this information to clearly define their needs in terms of accuracy, resolution and frequency because of the current sparsity of data. A plan is described for defining and conducting an integrated and coordinated research effort to develop and refine remote sensing techniques which will determine spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture and to utilize soil moisture information in support of agricultural, water resources, and climate applications. The soil moisture requirements of these three different application areas were reviewed in relation to each other so that one plan covering the three areas could be formulated. Four subgroups were established to write and compile the plan, namely models, ground-based studies, aircraft experiments, and spacecraft missions.

The risk concept and its application in natural hazard risk management in Switzerland

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bründl, M.; Romang, H. E.; Bischof, N.; Rheinberger, C. M.

2009-05-01

Over the last ten years, a risk-based approach to manage natural hazards - termed the risk concept - has been introduced to the management of natural hazards in Switzerland. Large natural hazard events, new political initiatives and limited financial resources have led to the development and introduction of new planning instruments and software tools that should support natural hazard engineers and planners to effectively and efficiently deal with natural hazards. Our experience with these new instruments suggests an improved integration of the risk concept into the community of natural hazard engineers and planners. Important factors for the acceptance of these new instruments are the integration of end-users during the development process, the knowledge exchange between science, developers and end-users as well as training and education courses for users. Further improvements require the maintenance of this knowledge exchange and a mindful adaptation of the instruments to case-specific circumstances.

OECD 2-D Core Concrete Interaction (CCI) tests : CCI-2 test plan, Rev. 0 January 31, 2004.

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

Farmer, M. T.; Kilsdonk, D. J.; Lomperski, S.

The Melt Attack and Coolability Experiments (MACE) program addressed the issue of the ability of water to cool and thermally stabilize a molten core-concrete interaction when the reactants are flooded from above. These tests provided data regarding the nature of corium interactions with concrete, the heat transfer rates from the melt to the overlying water pool, and the role of noncondensable gases in the mixing processes that contribute to melt quenching. As a follow-on program to MACE, The Melt Coolability and Concrete Interaction Experiments (MCCI) project is conducting reactor material experiments and associated analysis to achieve the following objectives: (1)more » resolve the ex-vessel debris coolability issue through a program that focuses on providing both confirmatory evidence and test data for the coolability mechanisms identified in MACE integral effects tests, and (2) address remaining uncertainties related to long-term two-dimensional molten core-concrete interactions under both wet and dry cavity conditions. Achievement of these two program objectives will demonstrate the efficacy of severe accident management guidelines for existing plants, and provide the technical basis for better containment designs for future plants. In terms of satisfying these objectives, the Management Board (MB) approved the conduct of two long-term 2-D Core-Concrete Interaction (CCI) experiments designed to provide information in several areas, including: (i) lateral vs. axial power split during dry core-concrete interaction, (ii) integral debris coolability data following late phase flooding, and (iii) data regarding the nature and extent of the cooling transient following breach of the crust formed at the melt-water interface. The first of these two tests, CCI-1, was conducted on December 19, 2003. This test investigated the interaction of a fully oxidized 400 kg PWR core melt, initially containing 8 wt % calcined siliceous concrete, with a specially designed two-dimensional siliceous concrete test section with an initial cross-sectional area of 50 cm x 50 cm. The second of these two planned tests, CCI-2, will be conducted with a nearly identical test facility and experiment boundary conditions, but with a Limestone/Common Sand (LCS) concrete test section to investigate the effect of concrete type on the two-dimensional core-concrete interaction and debris cooling behavior. The objective of this report is to provide the overall test plan for CCI-2 to enable pretest calculations to be carried out. The report begins by providing a summary description of the CCI-2 test apparatus, followed by a description of the planned test operating procedure. Overall specifications for CCI-2 are provided in Table 1-1.« less

SIPCAn (Separation, Isolation, Purification, Characterization, and Analysis): A One-Term, Integrated Project for the Undergraduate Organic Laboratory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dintzner, Matthew R.; Kinzie, Charles R.; Pulkrabek, Kimberly A.; Arena, Anthony F.

2011-01-01

SIPCAn, an acronym for separation, isolation, purification, characterization, and analysis, is presented as a one-term, integrated project for the first-term undergraduate organic laboratory course. Students are assigned two mixtures of unknown organic compounds--a mixture of two liquid compounds and a mixture of two solid compounds--at the…

Shared or Integrated: Which Type of Integration is More Effective Improves Students’ Creativity?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mariyam, M.; Kaniawati, I.; Sriyati, S.

2017-09-01

Integrated science learning has various types of integration. This study aims to apply shared and integrated type of integration with project based learning (PjBL) model to improve students’ creativity on waste recycling theme. The research method used is a quasi experiment with the matching-only pre test-post test design. The samples of this study are 108 students consisting of 36 students (experiment class 1st), 35 students (experiment class 2nd) and 37 students (control class 3rd) at one of Junior High School in Tanggamus, Lampung. The results show that there is difference of creativity improvement in the class applied by PjBL model with shared type of integration, integrated type of integration and without any integration in waste recycling theme. Class applied by PjBL model with shared type of integration has the higher creativity improvement than the PjBL model with integrated type of integration and without any integration. Integrated science learning using shared type only combines 2 lessons, hence an intact concept is resulted. So, PjBL model with shared type of integration more effective improves students’ creativity than integrated type.

Cellular Decision Making by Non-Integrative Processing of TLR Inputs.

PubMed

Kellogg, Ryan A; Tian, Chengzhe; Etzrodt, Martin; Tay, Savaş

2017-04-04

Cells receive a multitude of signals from the environment, but how they process simultaneous signaling inputs is not well understood. Response to infection, for example, involves parallel activation of multiple Toll-like receptors (TLRs) that converge on the nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) pathway. Although we increasingly understand inflammatory responses for isolated signals, it is not clear how cells process multiple signals that co-occur in physiological settings. We therefore examined a bacterial infection scenario involving co-stimulation of TLR4 and TLR2. Independent stimulation of these receptors induced distinct NF-κB dynamic profiles, although surprisingly, under co-stimulation, single cells continued to show ligand-specific dynamic responses characteristic of TLR2 or TLR4 signaling rather than a mixed response, comprising a cellular decision that we term "non-integrative" processing. Iterating modeling and microfluidic experiments revealed that non-integrative processing occurred through interaction of switch-like NF-κB activation, receptor-specific processing timescales, cell-to-cell variability, and TLR cross-tolerance mediated by multilayer negative feedback. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Scheduling Independent Partitions in Integrated Modular Avionics Systems

PubMed Central

Du, Chenglie; Han, Pengcheng

2016-01-01

Recently the integrated modular avionics (IMA) architecture has been widely adopted by the avionics industry due to its strong partition mechanism. Although the IMA architecture can achieve effective cost reduction and reliability enhancement in the development of avionics systems, it results in a complex allocation and scheduling problem. All partitions in an IMA system should be integrated together according to a proper schedule such that their deadlines will be met even under the worst case situations. In order to help provide a proper scheduling table for all partitions in IMA systems, we study the schedulability of independent partitions on a multiprocessor platform in this paper. We firstly present an exact formulation to calculate the maximum scaling factor and determine whether all partitions are schedulable on a limited number of processors. Then with a Game Theory analogy, we design an approximation algorithm to solve the scheduling problem of partitions, by allowing each partition to optimize its own schedule according to the allocations of the others. Finally, simulation experiments are conducted to show the efficiency and reliability of the approach proposed in terms of time consumption and acceptance ratio. PMID:27942013

Integrating Bioregenerative Foods into the Exploration Spaceflight Food System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Douglas, Grace L.

2017-01-01

Food, the nutrition it provides, and the eating experiences surrounding it, are central to performance, health, and psychosocial wellbeing on long duration spaceflight missions. Exploration missions will require a spaceflight food system that is safe, nutritious, and acceptable for up to five years, possibly without cold storage. Many of the processed and packaged spaceflight foods currently used on the International Space Station will not retain acceptable quality or required levels of key nutrients under these conditions. The addition of bioregenerative produce to exploration missions may become an important countermeasure to the nutritional gaps and a resource to support psychosocial health. Bioregenerative produce will be central to establishment of Earth-independence as exploration extends deeper into space. However, bioregenerative foods introduce food safety and scarcity risks that must be eliminated prior to crew reliance on these systems. The pathway to Earth independence will require small-scale integration and validation prior to large scale bioregenerative dependence. Near term exploration missions offer the opportunity to establish small scale supplemental salad crop and fruit systems and validate infrastructure reliability, nutritional potential, and the psychosocial benefits necessary to promote further bioregenerative integration.

Gas Path On-line Fault Diagnostics Using a Nonlinear Integrated Model for Gas Turbine Engines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Feng; Huang, Jin-quan; Ji, Chun-sheng; Zhang, Dong-dong; Jiao, Hua-bin

2014-08-01

Gas turbine engine gas path fault diagnosis is closely related technology that assists operators in managing the engine units. However, the performance gradual degradation is inevitable due to the usage, and it result in the model mismatch and then misdiagnosis by the popular model-based approach. In this paper, an on-line integrated architecture based on nonlinear model is developed for gas turbine engine anomaly detection and fault diagnosis over the course of the engine's life. These two engine models have different performance parameter update rate. One is the nonlinear real-time adaptive performance model with the spherical square-root unscented Kalman filter (SSR-UKF) producing performance estimates, and the other is a nonlinear baseline model for the measurement estimates. The fault detection and diagnosis logic is designed to discriminate sensor fault and component fault. This integration architecture is not only aware of long-term engine health degradation but also effective to detect gas path performance anomaly shifts while the engine continues to degrade. Compared to the existing architecture, the proposed approach has its benefit investigated in the experiment and analysis.

ATGC transcriptomics: a web-based application to integrate, explore and analyze de novo transcriptomic data.

PubMed

Gonzalez, Sergio; Clavijo, Bernardo; Rivarola, Máximo; Moreno, Patricio; Fernandez, Paula; Dopazo, Joaquín; Paniego, Norma

2017-02-22

In the last years, applications based on massively parallelized RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) have become valuable approaches for studying non-model species, e.g., without a fully sequenced genome. RNA-seq is a useful tool for detecting novel transcripts and genetic variations and for evaluating differential gene expression by digital measurements. The large and complex datasets resulting from functional genomic experiments represent a challenge in data processing, management, and analysis. This problem is especially significant for small research groups working with non-model species. We developed a web-based application, called ATGC transcriptomics, with a flexible and adaptable interface that allows users to work with new generation sequencing (NGS) transcriptomic analysis results using an ontology-driven database. This new application simplifies data exploration, visualization, and integration for a better comprehension of the results. ATGC transcriptomics provides access to non-expert computer users and small research groups to a scalable storage option and simple data integration, including database administration and management. The software is freely available under the terms of GNU public license at http://atgcinta.sourceforge.net .

An ethics curriculum for short-term global health trainees.

PubMed

DeCamp, Matthew; Rodriguez, Joce; Hecht, Shelby; Barry, Michele; Sugarman, Jeremy

2013-02-14

Interest in short-term global health training and service programs continues to grow, yet they can be associated with a variety of ethical issues for which trainees or others with limited global health experience may not be prepared to address. Therefore, there is a clear need for educational interventions concerning these ethical issues. We developed and evaluated an introductory curriculum, "Ethical Challenges in Short-term Global Health Training." The curriculum was developed through solicitation of actual ethical issues experienced by trainees and program leaders; content drafting; and external content review. It was then evaluated from November 1, 2011, through July 1, 2012, by analyzing web usage data and by conducting user surveys. The survey included basic demographic data; prior experience in global health and global health ethics; and assessment of cases within the curriculum. The ten case curriculum is freely available at http://ethicsandglobalhealth.org. An average of 238 unique visitors accessed the site each month (standard deviation, 19). Of users who had been abroad before for global health training or service, only 31% reported prior ethics training related to short-term work. Most users (62%) reported accessing the site via personal referral or their training program; however, a significant number (28%) reported finding the site via web search, and 8% discovered it via web links. Users represented different fields: medicine (46%), public health (15%), and nursing (11%) were most common. All cases in the curriculum were evaluated favorably. The curriculum is meeting a critical need for an introduction to the ethical issues in short-term global health training. Future work will integrate this curriculum within more comprehensive curricula for global health and evaluate specific knowledge and behavioral effects, including at training sites abroad.

An ethics curriculum for short-term global health trainees

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Interest in short-term global health training and service programs continues to grow, yet they can be associated with a variety of ethical issues for which trainees or others with limited global health experience may not be prepared to address. Therefore, there is a clear need for educational interventions concerning these ethical issues. Methods We developed and evaluated an introductory curriculum, “Ethical Challenges in Short-term Global Health Training.” The curriculum was developed through solicitation of actual ethical issues experienced by trainees and program leaders; content drafting; and external content review. It was then evaluated from November 1, 2011, through July 1, 2012, by analyzing web usage data and by conducting user surveys. The survey included basic demographic data; prior experience in global health and global health ethics; and assessment of cases within the curriculum. Results The ten case curriculum is freely available at http://ethicsandglobalhealth.org. An average of 238 unique visitors accessed the site each month (standard deviation, 19). Of users who had been abroad before for global health training or service, only 31% reported prior ethics training related to short-term work. Most users (62%) reported accessing the site via personal referral or their training program; however, a significant number (28%) reported finding the site via web search, and 8% discovered it via web links. Users represented different fields: medicine (46%), public health (15%), and nursing (11%) were most common. All cases in the curriculum were evaluated favorably. Conclusions The curriculum is meeting a critical need for an introduction to the ethical issues in short-term global health training. Future work will integrate this curriculum within more comprehensive curricula for global health and evaluate specific knowledge and behavioral effects, including at training sites abroad. PMID:23410089

Integration and Evaluation of Substance Abuse Research Education Training (SARET) into a Master of Social Work program.

PubMed

Tuchman, Ellen; Hanley, Kathleen; Naegle, Madeline; More, Frederick; Bereket, Sewit; Gourevitch, Marc N

2017-01-01

The Substance Abuse Research and Education Training (SARET) program is funded by the National Institutes of Drug Abuse in 2006 as a novel approach to spark interest in substance abuse research among medical, dental, nursing, and social work graduate students through a Web-based curriculum and research mentorships. This report presents the initial integration of the intervention in a Master of Social Work (MSW) program, the components of the program, and the mixed-methods evaluation of its effect on students' attitudes towards substance abuse research and treatment. SARET comprises 2 main components: stipend-supported research mentorships and a Web-based module series, consisting of 6 interactive, multimedia modules addressing core SA research topics, delivered via course curricula and in the research mentorships. An initial evaluation was designed to assess SARET's acceptability and short-term impact on participants' interest in SA research. The components of this Web-based curriculum evaluation include focus group feedback on the relevance of the modules to SW students, number of courses into which the modules were integrated with number of module completions, changes in interest in SA research associated with module completion. The full series of Web-based modules has been integrated across several courses in the social work curriculum, and social work students have become integral participants in the summer mentored research experience. One hundred eighteen students completed at least 1 module and 42 students completed all 6 modules. Neurobiology, Screening, and Epidemiology were the most widely viewed modules. Students reported positive impact on their vision of SA-related clinical care, more positive attitudes about conducting research, and in some cases, change in career. The SARET program's modules and summer mentored research increased clinical and research interest related to SUDs, as well as interprofessional attitudes among social work students. Participants have shown some early research success. Longer-term follow-up will enable us to continue to assess the effectiveness of the program.

The Archive Solution for Distributed Workflow Management Agents of the CMS Experiment at LHC

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

Kuznetsov, Valentin; Fischer, Nils Leif; Guo, Yuyi

The CMS experiment at the CERN LHC developed the Workflow Management Archive system to persistently store unstructured framework job report documents produced by distributed workflow management agents. In this paper we present its architecture, implementation, deployment, and integration with the CMS and CERN computing infrastructures, such as central HDFS and Hadoop Spark cluster. The system leverages modern technologies such as a document oriented database and the Hadoop eco-system to provide the necessary flexibility to reliably process, store, and aggregatemore » $$\\mathcal{O}$$(1M) documents on a daily basis. We describe the data transformation, the short and long term storage layers, the query language, along with the aggregation pipeline developed to visualize various performance metrics to assist CMS data operators in assessing the performance of the CMS computing system.« less

The Archive Solution for Distributed Workflow Management Agents of the CMS Experiment at LHC

DOE PAGES

Kuznetsov, Valentin; Fischer, Nils Leif; Guo, Yuyi

2018-03-19

The CMS experiment at the CERN LHC developed the Workflow Management Archive system to persistently store unstructured framework job report documents produced by distributed workflow management agents. In this paper we present its architecture, implementation, deployment, and integration with the CMS and CERN computing infrastructures, such as central HDFS and Hadoop Spark cluster. The system leverages modern technologies such as a document oriented database and the Hadoop eco-system to provide the necessary flexibility to reliably process, store, and aggregatemore » $$\\mathcal{O}$$(1M) documents on a daily basis. We describe the data transformation, the short and long term storage layers, the query language, along with the aggregation pipeline developed to visualize various performance metrics to assist CMS data operators in assessing the performance of the CMS computing system.« less

Arm injury produces long-term behavioral and neural hypersensitivity in octopus.

PubMed

Alupay, Jean S; Hadjisolomou, Stavros P; Crook, Robyn J

2014-01-13

Cephalopod molluscs are the most neurally and behaviorally complex invertebrates, with brains rivaling those of some vertebrates in size and complexity. This has fostered the opinion that cephalopods, particularly octopuses, may experience vertebrate-like pain when injured. However, it is not known whether octopuses possess nociceptors or if their somatic sensory neurons exhibit sensitization after injury. Here we show that the octopus Abdopus aculeatus expresses nocifensive behaviors including arm autotomy, and displays marked neural hyperexcitability both in injured and uninjured arms for at least 24h after injury. These findings do not demonstrate that octopuses experience pain-like states; instead they add to the minimal existing literature on how cephalopods receive, process, and integrate noxious sensory information, potentially informing and refining regulations governing use of cephalopods in scientific research. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Thermodynamics of quantum information scrambling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Campisi, Michele; Goold, John

2017-06-01

Scrambling of quantum information can conveniently be quantified by so-called out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs), i.e., correlators of the type <[Wτ,V ] †[Wτ,V ] > , whose measurements present a formidable experimental challenge. Here we report on a method for the measurement of OTOCs based on the so-called two-point measurement scheme developed in the field of nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics. The scheme is of broader applicability than methods employed in current experiments and provides a clear-cut interpretation of quantum information scrambling in terms of nonequilibrium fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities, such as work and heat. Furthermore, we provide a numerical example on a spin chain which highlights the utility of our thermodynamic approach when understanding the differences between integrable and ergodic behaviors. We also discuss how the method can be used to extend the reach of current experiments.

Integrated segmentation and recognition of connected Ottoman script

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yalniz, Ismet Zeki; Altingovde, Ismail Sengor; Güdükbay, Uğur; Ulusoy, Özgür

2009-11-01

We propose a novel context-sensitive segmentation and recognition method for connected letters in Ottoman script. This method first extracts a set of segments from a connected script and determines the candidate letters to which extracted segments are most similar. Next, a function is defined for scoring each different syntactically correct sequence of these candidate letters. To find the candidate letter sequence that maximizes the score function, a directed acyclic graph is constructed. The letters are finally recognized by computing the longest path in this graph. Experiments using a collection of printed Ottoman documents reveal that the proposed method provides >90% precision and recall figures in terms of character recognition. In a further set of experiments, we also demonstrate that the framework can be used as a building block for an information retrieval system for digital Ottoman archives.

NASA Virtual Glovebox: An Immersive Virtual Desktop Environment for Training Astronauts in Life Science Experiments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Twombly, I. Alexander; Smith, Jeffrey; Bruyns, Cynthia; Montgomery, Kevin; Boyle, Richard

2003-01-01

The International Space Station will soon provide an unparalleled research facility for studying the near- and longer-term effects of microgravity on living systems. Using the Space Station Glovebox Facility - a compact, fully contained reach-in environment - astronauts will conduct technically challenging life sciences experiments. Virtual environment technologies are being developed at NASA Ames Research Center to help realize the scientific potential of this unique resource by facilitating the experimental hardware and protocol designs and by assisting the astronauts in training. The Virtual GloveboX (VGX) integrates high-fidelity graphics, force-feedback devices and real- time computer simulation engines to achieve an immersive training environment. Here, we describe the prototype VGX system, the distributed processing architecture used in the simulation environment, and modifications to the visualization pipeline required to accommodate the display configuration.

Computer simulations of space-borne meteorological systems on the CYBER 205

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Halem, M.

1984-01-01

Because of the extreme expense involved in developing and flight testing meteorological instruments, an extensive series of numerical modeling experiments to simulate the performance of meteorological observing systems were performed on CYBER 205. The studies compare the relative importance of different global measurements of individual and composite systems of the meteorological variables needed to determine the state of the atmosphere. The assessments are made in terms of the systems ability to improve 12 hour global forecasts. Each experiment involves the daily assimilation of simulated data that is obtained from a data set called nature. This data is obtained from two sources: first, a long two-month general circulation integration with the GLAS 4th Order Forecast Model and second, global analysis prepared by the National Meteorological Center, NOAA, from the current observing systems twice daily.

The key to unlocking the virtual body: virtual reality in the treatment of obesity and eating disorders.

PubMed

Riva, Giuseppe

2011-03-01

Obesity and eating disorders are usually considered unrelated problems with different causes. However, various studies identify unhealthful weight-control behaviors (fasting, vomiting, or laxative abuse), induced by a negative experience of the body, as the common antecedents of both obesity and eating disorders. But how might negative body image--common to most adolescents, not only to medical patients--be behind the development of obesity and eating disorders? In this paper, I review the "allocentric lock theory" of negative body image as the possible antecedent of both obesity and eating disorders. Evidence from psychology and neuroscience indicates that our bodily experience involves the integration of different sensory inputs within two different reference frames: egocentric (first-person experience) and allocentric (third-person experience). Even though functional relations between these two frames are usually limited, they influence each other during the interaction between long- and short-term memory processes in spatial cognition. If this process is impaired either through exogenous (e.g., stress) or endogenous causes, the egocentric sensory inputs are unable to update the contents of the stored allocentric representation of the body. In other words, these patients are locked in an allocentric (observer view) negative image of their body, which their sensory inputs are no longer able to update even after a demanding diet and a significant weight loss. This article discusses the possible role of virtual reality in addressing this problem within an integrated treatment approach based on the allocentric lock theory. © 2011 Diabetes Technology Society.

The Lasting Impacts of an Oceanographic Teacher Research Experiences in a Land-locked Classroom (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manning, C.; Pockalny, R. A.; D'Hondt, S. L.

2009-12-01

Authentic science research opportunities for classroom teachers, like the NSF-funded ARMADA Project, improves teacher motivation, enables rigor and relevance in the classroom, and provides mentoring to new teachers. This project also facilitates communication between scientists, educators, and the public by connecting scientists to a broader audience through the teacher. In January and February 2009, we participated in a six-week cruise aboard the R/V Knorr studying the oceanographic controls and distribution of subseafloor microbial life in the equatorial Pacific. The international team of scientists employed geophysics, geochemistry, microbiology, and geology to characterize microbial activity. The integrated techniques demonstrate how modern science is not separated by discipline, but relies on the strengths of many to understand the complexities of the natural world. This experience has affected dramatic change in teaching about natural resources, plate tectonics, and climate in Honors Earth Science and ecology, sustainability, and global change in AP Environmental Science. Integrating many different approaches to studying natural phenomenon creates a more challenging and interesting learning environment that both students and parents respect, making them less likely to question more rigorous assignments. The ARMADA Project encourages teachers to journal daily about their experiences, which resulted in real-time web-log of cruise activities that documented how teachers, scientists and crew work together to achieve scientific goals. Finally, the authentic research experience demonstrates that when teachers and scientists work together to communicate research goals and results, both communities benefit, mutual respect is enhanced, and potential long-term collaborations are fostered.

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomena: an introductory phenomenological analysis.

PubMed

Brown, S R

2000-12-01

The issue of meaningful yet unexpressed background-to language and to our experiences of the body-is one whose exploration is still in its infancy. There are various aspects of "invisible," implicit, or background experiences which have been investigated from the viewpoints of phenomenology, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. I will argue that James's concept of the phenomenon of fringes, as explicated by Gurwitsch, provides a structural framework from which to investigate and better understand ideas and concepts that are indeterminate, particularly those experienced in the sense of being sought-after. Johnson's conception of the image-schematic gestalt (ISG) provides an approach to bridging the descriptive gap between phenomenology and cognitive psychology. Starting from an analysis of the fringes, I will turn to a consideration of the tip-of-tongue (TOT) state, as a kind of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) state, from a variety of approaches, focusing mainly on cognitive psychology and phenomenology. I will then integrate a phenomenological analysis of these experiences, from the James/Gurwitsch structural viewpoint, with a cognitive/phenomenological analysis in terms of ISGs, and further integrate that with a cognitive/functional analysis of the relation between consciousness and retrieval, employing Anderson et al's theory of inhibitory mechanisms in cognition. This synthesis of these viewpoints will be employed to explore the thesis that the TOT state and similar experiences may relate to the gestalt nature of schemas, and that figure/ground and other contrast-enhancing structures may be both explanatory and descriptive characterizations of the field of consciousness. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Transcendental experiences during meditation practice.

PubMed

Travis, Frederick

2014-01-01

This article explores transcendental experiences during meditation practice and the integration of transcendental experiences and the unfolding of higher states of consciousness with waking, dreaming, and sleeping. The subject/object relationship during transcendental experiences is characterized by the absence of time, space, and body sense--the framework that gives meaning to waking experiences. Physiologically, transcendental experiences during Transcendental Meditation practice are marked by slow inhalation, along with autonomic orientation at the onset of breath changes and heightened α1 (8-10 Hz) frontal coherence. The integration of transcendental experiences with waking, dreaming, and sleeping is also marked by distinct subjective and objective markers. This integrated state, called Cosmic Consciousness in the Vedic tradition, is subjectively marked by inner self-awareness coexisting with waking, sleeping, and dreaming. Physiologically, Cosmic Consciousness is marked by the coexistence of α1 electroencephalography (EEG) with delta EEG during deep sleep, and higher brain integration, greater emotional stability, and decreased anxiety during challenging tasks. Transcendental experiences may be the engine that fosters higher human development. © 2013 New York Academy of Sciences.

Comparison of simulator fidelity model predictions with in-simulator evaluation data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Parrish, R. V.; Mckissick, B. T.; Ashworth, B. R.

1983-01-01

A full factorial in simulator experiment of a single axis, multiloop, compensatory pitch tracking task is described. The experiment was conducted to provide data to validate extensions to an analytic, closed loop model of a real time digital simulation facility. The results of the experiment encompassing various simulation fidelity factors, such as visual delay, digital integration algorithms, computer iteration rates, control loading bandwidths and proprioceptive cues, and g-seat kinesthetic cues, are compared with predictions obtained from the analytic model incorporating an optimal control model of the human pilot. The in-simulator results demonstrate more sensitivity to the g-seat and to the control loader conditions than were predicted by the model. However, the model predictions are generally upheld, although the predicted magnitudes of the states and of the error terms are sometimes off considerably. Of particular concern is the large sensitivity difference for one control loader condition, as well as the model/in-simulator mismatch in the magnitude of the plant states when the other states match.

The CMS High Level Trigger System: Experience and Future Development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bauer, G.; Behrens, U.; Bowen, M.; Branson, J.; Bukowiec, S.; Cittolin, S.; Coarasa, J. A.; Deldicque, C.; Dobson, M.; Dupont, A.; Erhan, S.; Flossdorf, A.; Gigi, D.; Glege, F.; Gomez-Reino, R.; Hartl, C.; Hegeman, J.; Holzner, A.; Hwong, Y. L.; Masetti, L.; Meijers, F.; Meschi, E.; Mommsen, R. K.; O'Dell, V.; Orsini, L.; Paus, C.; Petrucci, A.; Pieri, M.; Polese, G.; Racz, A.; Raginel, O.; Sakulin, H.; Sani, M.; Schwick, C.; Shpakov, D.; Simon, S.; Spataru, A. C.; Sumorok, K.

2012-12-01

The CMS experiment at the LHC features a two-level trigger system. Events accepted by the first level trigger, at a maximum rate of 100 kHz, are read out by the Data Acquisition system (DAQ), and subsequently assembled in memory in a farm of computers running a software high-level trigger (HLT), which selects interesting events for offline storage and analysis at a rate of order few hundred Hz. The HLT algorithms consist of sequences of offline-style reconstruction and filtering modules, executed on a farm of 0(10000) CPU cores built from commodity hardware. Experience from the operation of the HLT system in the collider run 2010/2011 is reported. The current architecture of the CMS HLT, its integration with the CMS reconstruction framework and the CMS DAQ, are discussed in the light of future development. The possible short- and medium-term evolution of the HLT software infrastructure to support extensions of the HLT computing power, and to address remaining performance and maintenance issues, are discussed.

Being Subject to Restrictions, Limitations and Disciplining: A Thematic Analysis of Individuals' Experiences in Psychiatric Intensive Care.

PubMed

Salzmann-Erikson, Martin; Söderqvist, Cecilia

2017-07-01

The aim of this study was to describe individuals' experiences of being hospitalized in psychiatric intensive care units (PICUs). Four participants who had previously been admitted in a PICU were interviewed using open-ended questions. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Analysis resulted in a synthesis of the various ways patients experienced limitations: (1) Descriptions of Being Limited in the Environment, (2) Descriptions of being Limited in Interactions with Staff, (3) Descriptions of Being Limited in terms of Access to Information, and (4) Descriptions of Having Limited Freedom and Autonomy. Hospitalization is experienced as a life-changing event that shows a kaleidoscopic view of limitation. We stress that the conceptualization of limitation must be considered due to its historical origins, sociopolitical aspirations, and philosophy of care. Thus, nurse practitioners and nursing leaders are advised to put the patient's experience at the center of care, and to involve and integrate patients throughout the recovery process.

Acculturation and emotion among Asian Americans.

PubMed

Liem, R; Lim, B A; Liem, J H

2000-02-01

This study examined the emotion experience of Asian Americans in relation to respondents' orientation to acculturation: Assimilation, Integration, Separation, or Marginalization (J. W. Berry, 1980). Ego- versus other-focused emotion experiences (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991) and attention and valence, 2 stages in P. C. Ellsworth's (1994) model of emotion appraisal, were used to investigate the relation between acculturation and affect. Asian Americans most and least assimilated to the dominant Anglo American culture were expected to exhibit emotion responses correspondingly similar to and different from those of Anglo Americans. Those with a bi-cultural or integrationist trajectory should occupy a middle ground in terms of emotional experience. Compared with the appraisal process, ego- versus other-focused emotions, mediated in part by one's self-construal (e.g., independent or interdependent), were more strongly associated with acculturation orientation in the expected directions. The implications of recognizing the influence of acculturation on the emotional meaning of life encounters of newcomers are discussed in light of community psychology and clinical practice.

Elliptic polylogarithms and iterated integrals on elliptic curves. II. An application to the sunrise integral

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Broedel, Johannes; Duhr, Claude; Dulat, Falko; Tancredi, Lorenzo

2018-06-01

We introduce a class of iterated integrals that generalize multiple polylogarithms to elliptic curves. These elliptic multiple polylogarithms are closely related to similar functions defined in pure mathematics and string theory. We then focus on the equal-mass and non-equal-mass sunrise integrals, and we develop a formalism that enables us to compute these Feynman integrals in terms of our iterated integrals on elliptic curves. The key idea is to use integration-by-parts identities to identify a set of integral kernels, whose precise form is determined by the branch points of the integral in question. These kernels allow us to express all iterated integrals on an elliptic curve in terms of them. The flexibility of our approach leads us to expect that it will be applicable to a large variety of integrals in high-energy physics.

The effect of human image in B2C website design: an eye-tracking study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Qiuzhen; Yang, Yi; Wang, Qi; Ma, Qingguo

2014-09-01

On B2C shopping websites, effective visual designs can bring about consumers' positive emotional experience. From this perspective, this article developed a research model to explore the impact of human image as a visual element on consumers' online shopping emotions and subsequent attitudes towards websites. This study conducted an eye-tracking experiment to collect both eye movement data and questionnaire data to test the research model. Questionnaire data analysis showed that product pictures combined with human image induced positive emotions among participants, thus promoting their attitudes towards online shopping websites. Specifically, product pictures with human image first produced higher levels of image appeal and perceived social presence, thus stimulating higher levels of enjoyment and subsequent positive attitudes towards the websites. Moreover, a moderating effect of product type was demonstrated on the relationship between the presence of human image and the level of image appeal. Specifically, human image significantly increased the level of image appeal when integrated in entertainment product pictures while this relationship was not significant in terms of utilitarian products. Eye-tracking data analysis further supported these results and provided plausible explanations. The presence of human image significantly increased the pupil size of participants regardless of product types. For entertainment products, participants paid more attention to product pictures integrated with human image whereas for utilitarian products more attention was paid to functional information of products than to product pictures no matter whether or not integrated with human image.

Hydrothermal carbonization of food waste for nutrient recovery and reuse.

PubMed

Idowu, Ifeolu; Li, Liang; Flora, Joseph R V; Pellechia, Perry J; Darko, Samuel A; Ro, Kyoung S; Berge, Nicole D

2017-11-01

Food waste represents a rather large and currently underutilized source of potentially available and reusable nutrients. Laboratory-scale experiments evaluating the hydrothermal carbonization of food wastes collected from restaurants were conducted to understand how changes in feedstock composition and carbonization process conditions influence primary and secondary nutrient fate. Results from this work indicate that at all evaluated reaction times and temperatures, the majority of nitrogen, calcium, and magnesium remain integrated within the solid-phase, while the majority of potassium and sodium reside in the liquid-phase. The fate of phosphorus is dependent on reaction times and temperatures, with solid-phase integration increasing with higher reaction temperature and longer time. A series of leaching experiments to determine potential solid-phase nutrient availability were also conducted and indicate that, at least in the short term, nitrogen release from the solids is small, while almost all of the phosphorus present in the solids produced from carbonizing at 225 and 250°C is released. At a reaction temperature of 275°C, smaller fractions of the solid-phase total phosphorus are released as reaction times increase, likely due to increased solids incorporation. Using these data, it is estimated that up to 0.96% and 2.30% of nitrogen and phosphorus-based fertilizers, respectively, in the US can be replaced by the nutrients integrated within hydrochar and liquid-phases generated from the carbonization of currently landfilled food wastes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Students' integration of multiple representations in a titration experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kunze, Nicole M.

A complete understanding of a chemical concept is dependent upon a student's ability to understand the microscopic or particulate nature of the phenomenon and integrate the microscopic, symbolic, and macroscopic representations of the phenomenon. Acid-base chemistry is a general chemistry topic requiring students to understand the topics of chemical reactions, solutions, and equilibrium presented earlier in the course. In this study, twenty-five student volunteers from a second semester general chemistry course completed two interviews. The first interview was completed prior to any classroom instruction on acids and bases. The second interview took place after classroom instruction, a prelab activity consisting of a titration calculation worksheet, a titration computer simulation, or a microscopic level animation of a titration, and two microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) titration experiments. During the interviews, participants were asked to define and describe acid-base concepts and in the second interview they also drew the microscopic representations of four stages in an acid-base titration. An analysis of the data showed that participants had integrated the three representations of an acid-base titration to varying degrees. While some participants showed complete understanding of acids, bases, titrations, and solution chemistry, other participants showed several alternative conceptions concerning strong acid and base dissociation, the formation of titration products, and the dissociation of soluble salts. Before instruction, participants' definitions of acid, base, and pH were brief and consisted of descriptive terms. After instruction, the definitions were more scientific and reflected the definitions presented during classroom instruction.

From integrated observation of pre-earthquake signals towards physical-based forecasting: A prospective test experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ouzounov, D.; Pulinets, S. A.; Tramutoli, V.; Lee, L.; Liu, J. G.; Hattori, K.; Kafatos, M.

2013-12-01

We are conducting an integrated study involving multi-parameter observations over different seismo- tectonics regions in our investigation of phenomena preceding major earthquakes. Our approach is based on a systematic analysis of several selected parameters namely: gas discharge; thermal infrared radiation; ionospheric electron concentration; and atmospheric temperature and humidity, which we suppose are associated with earthquake preparation phase. We intended to test in prospective mode the set of geophysical measurements for different regions of active earthquakes and volcanoes. In 2012-13 we established a collaborative framework with the leading projects PRE-EARTHQUAKE (EU) and iSTEP3 (Taiwan) for coordinate measurements and prospective validation over seven test regions: Southern California (USA), Eastern Honshu (Japan), Italy, Turkey, Greece, Taiwan (ROC), Kamchatka and Sakhalin (Russia). The current experiment provided a 'stress test' opportunity to validate the physical based approach in teal -time over regions of high seismicity. Our initial results are: (1) Prospective tests have shown the presence in real time of anomalies in the atmosphere before most of the significant (M>5.5) earthquakes in all regions; (2) False positive rate alarm is different for each region and varying between 50% (Italy, Kamchatka and California) to 25% (Taiwan and Japan) with a significant reduction of false positives when at least two parameters are contemporary used; (3) One of most complex problem, which is still open, was the systematic collection and real-time integration of pre-earthquake observations. Our findings suggest that the physical based short-term forecast is feasible and more tests are needed. We discus the physical concept we used, the future integration of data observations and related developments.

Medium term hurricane catastrophe models: a validation experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bonazzi, Alessandro; Turner, Jessica; Dobbin, Alison; Wilson, Paul; Mitas, Christos; Bellone, Enrica

2013-04-01

Climate variability is a major source of uncertainty for the insurance industry underwriting hurricane risk. Catastrophe models provide their users with a stochastic set of events that expands the scope of the historical catalogue by including synthetic events that are likely to happen in a defined time-frame. The use of these catastrophe models is widespread in the insurance industry but it is only in recent years that climate variability has been explicitly accounted for. In the insurance parlance "medium term catastrophe model" refers to products that provide an adjusted view of risk that is meant to represent hurricane activity on a 1 to 5 year horizon, as opposed to long term models that integrate across the climate variability of the longest available time series of observations. In this presentation we discuss how a simple reinsurance program can be used to assess the value of medium term catastrophe models. We elaborate on similar concepts as discussed in "Potential Economic Value of Seasonal Hurricane Forecasts" by Emanuel et al. (2012, WCAS) and provide an example based on 24 years of historical data of the Chicago Mercantile Hurricane Index (CHI), an insured loss proxy. Profit and loss volatility of a hypothetical primary insurer are used to score medium term models versus their long term counterpart. Results show that medium term catastrophe models could help a hypothetical primary insurer to improve their financial resiliency to varying climate conditions.

A semantic proteomics dashboard (SemPoD) for data management in translational research.

PubMed

Jayapandian, Catherine P; Zhao, Meng; Ewing, Rob M; Zhang, Guo-Qiang; Sahoo, Satya S

2012-01-01

One of the primary challenges in translational research data management is breaking down the barriers between the multiple data silos and the integration of 'omics data with clinical information to complete the cycle from the bench to the bedside. The role of contextual metadata, also called provenance information, is a key factor ineffective data integration, reproducibility of results, correct attribution of original source, and answering research queries involving "What", "Where", "When", "Which", "Who", "How", and "Why" (also known as the W7 model). But, at present there is limited or no effective approach to managing and leveraging provenance information for integrating data across studies or projects. Hence, there is an urgent need for a paradigm shift in creating a "provenance-aware" informatics platform to address this challenge. We introduce an ontology-driven, intuitive Semantic Proteomics Dashboard (SemPoD) that uses provenance together with domain information (semantic provenance) to enable researchers to query, compare, and correlate different types of data across multiple projects, and allow integration with legacy data to support their ongoing research. The SemPoD platform, currently in use at the Case Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics (CPB), consists of three components: (a) Ontology-driven Visual Query Composer, (b) Result Explorer, and (c) Query Manager. Currently, SemPoD allows provenance-aware querying of 1153 mass-spectrometry experiments from 20 different projects. SemPod uses the systems molecular biology provenance ontology (SysPro) to support a dynamic query composition interface, which automatically updates the components of the query interface based on previous user selections and efficiently prunes the result set usinga "smart filtering" approach. The SysPro ontology re-uses terms from the PROV-ontology (PROV-O) being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) provenance working group, the minimum information required for reporting a molecular interaction experiment (MIMIx), and the minimum information about a proteomics experiment (MIAPE) guidelines. The SemPoD was evaluated both in terms of user feedback and as scalability of the system. SemPoD is an intuitive and powerful provenance ontology-driven data access and query platform that uses the MIAPE and MIMIx metadata guideline to create an integrated view over large-scale systems molecular biology datasets. SemPoD leverages the SysPro ontology to create an intuitive dashboard for biologists to compose queries, explore the results, and use a query manager for storing queries for later use. SemPoD can be deployed over many existing database applications storing 'omics data, including, as illustrated here, the LabKey data-management system. The initial user feedback evaluating the usability and functionality of SemPoD has been very positive and it is being considered for wider deployment beyond the proteomics domain, and in other 'omics' centers.

An ultra-stable iodine-based frequency reference for space applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schuldt, Thilo; Braxmaier, Claus; Doeringshoff, Klaus; Keetman, Anja; Reggentin, Matthias; Kovalchuk, Evgeny; Peters, Achim

2012-07-01

Future space missions require for ultra-stable optical frequency references. Examples are the gravitational wave detector LISA/eLISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), the SpaceTime Asymmetry Research (STAR) program, the aperture-synthesis telescope Darwin and the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) follow on mission exploring Earth's gravity. As high long-term frequency stability is required, lasers stabilized to atomic or molecular transitions are preferred, also offering an absolute frequency reference. Frequency stabilities in the 10 ^{-15} domains at longer integration times (up to several hours) are demonstrated in laboratory experiments using setups based on Doppler-free spectroscopy. Such setups with a frequency stability comparable to the hydrogen maser in the microwave domain, have the potential to be developed space compatible on a relatively short time scale. Here, we present the development of ultra-stable optical frequency references based on modulation-transfer spectroscopy of molecular iodine. Noise levels of 2\\cdot10 ^{-14} at an integration time of 1 s and below 3\\cdot10 ^{-15} at integration times between 100 s and 1000 s are demonstrated with a laboratory setup using an 80 cm long iodine cell in single-pass configuration in combination with a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser and standard optical components and optomechanic mounts. The frequency stability at longer integration times is (amongst other things) limited by the dimensional stability of the optical setup, i.e. by th pointing stability of the two counter-propagating beams overlapped in the iodine cell. With the goal of a future space compatible setup, a compact frequency standard on EBB (elegant breadboard) level was realized. The spectroscopy unit utilizes a baseplate made of Clearceram-HS, a glass ceramics with an ultra-low coefficient of thermal expansion of 2\\cdot10 ^{-8} K ^{-1}. The optical components are joint to the baseplate using adhesive bonding technology, which was developed in a cooperation of HTWG Konstanz and Astrium Friedrichshafen. This setup ensures a higher long-term frequency stability due to enhanced pointing stability. Also, it takes into account space mission related criteria such as compactness, robustness, MAIVT and environmental influences (shock, vibration and thermal tests). The assembly-integration technology was already successfully environmentally tested and demonstrated in a previous setup of a compact fiber-coupled heterodyne interferometer, which serves as a demonstrator for the optical readout of the LISA gravitational reference sensor. We present first measurements of the EBB setup and a first design of an iodine frequency standard on engineering model (EM) level. The EM-setup is based on the EBB experience, but features smaller dimensions by using a multipass iodine cell and less optical components. Financial support by the German Space Agency DLR with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) under grant number 50 QT 1102 is highly appreciated.

Integrated Care in Prostate Cancer (ICARE-P): Nonrandomized Controlled Feasibility Study of Online Holistic Needs Assessment, Linking the Patient and the Health Care Team

PubMed Central

Dale, Jeremy; Roscoe, Julia; Hamborg, Thomas; Ahmedzai, Sam H; Arvanitis, Theodoros N; Badger, Douglas; James, Nicholas; Mendelsohn, Richard; Khan, Omar; Parashar, Deepak; Patel, Prashant

2017-01-01

Background The potential of technology to aid integration of care delivery systems is being explored in a range of contexts across a variety of conditions in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in UK men. With a 10-year survival rate of 84%, there is a need to explore innovative methods of care that are integrated between primary health care providers and specialist teams in order to address long-term consequences of the disease and its treatment as well as to provide continued monitoring for recurrence. Objective Our aim was to test the feasibility of a randomized controlled trial to compare a model of prostate cancer continuing and follow-up care integration, underpinned by digital technology, with usual care in terms of clinical and cost-effectiveness, patient-reported outcomes, and experience. Methods A first phase of the study has included development of an online adaptive prostate specific Holistic Needs Assessment system (HNA), training for primary care-based nurses, training of an IT peer supporter, and interviews with health care professionals and men with prostate cancer to explore views of their care, experience of technology, and views of the proposed intervention. In Phase 2, men in the intervention arm will complete the HNA at home to help identify and articulate concerns and share them with their health care professionals, in both primary and specialist care. Participants in the control arm will receive usual care. Outcomes including quality of life and well-being, prostate-specific concerns, and patient enablement will be measured 3 times over a 9-month period. Results Findings from phase 1 indicated strong support for the intervention among men, including those who had had little experience of digital technology. Men expressed a range of views on ways that the online system might be used within a clinical pathway. Health care professionals gave valuable feedback on how the output of the assessment might be presented to encourage engagement and uptake by clinical teams. Recruitment to the second phase of the study, the feasibility trial, commenced March 2017. Conclusions To our knowledge, this study is the first in the United Kingdom to trial an online holistic needs assessment for men with prostate cancer, with data shared between patients and primary and secondary care providers. This study addresses recommendations in recent policy documents promoting the importance of data sharing and enhanced communication between care providers as a basis for care integration. We anticipate that this model of care will ultimately provide important benefits for both patients and the National Health Service. Trial Registration International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN): 31380482; http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN31380482 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6s8I42u5N) PMID:28754653

Computational Design and Discovery of Ni-Based Alloys and Coatings: Thermodynamic Approaches Validated by Experiments

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

Liu, Zi-Kui; Gleeson, Brian; Shang, Shunli

This project developed computational tools that can complement and support experimental efforts in order to enable discovery and more efficient development of Ni-base structural materials and coatings. The project goal was reached through an integrated computation-predictive and experimental-validation approach, including first-principles calculations, thermodynamic CALPHAD (CALculation of PHAse Diagram), and experimental investigations on compositions relevant to Ni-base superalloys and coatings in terms of oxide layer growth and microstructure stabilities. The developed description included composition ranges typical for coating alloys and, hence, allow for prediction of thermodynamic properties for these material systems. The calculation of phase compositions, phase fraction, and phase stabilities,more » which are directly related to properties such as ductility and strength, was a valuable contribution, along with the collection of computational tools that are required to meet the increasing demands for strong, ductile and environmentally-protective coatings. Specifically, a suitable thermodynamic description for the Ni-Al-Cr-Co-Si-Hf-Y system was developed for bulk alloy and coating compositions. Experiments were performed to validate and refine the thermodynamics from the CALPHAD modeling approach. Additionally, alloys produced using predictions from the current computational models were studied in terms of their oxidation performance. Finally, results obtained from experiments aided in the development of a thermodynamic modeling automation tool called ESPEI/pycalphad - for more rapid discovery and development of new materials.« less