WEBSLIDE: A "Virtual" Slide Projector Based on World Wide Web.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barra, Maria; Ferrandino, Salvatore; Scarano, Vittorio

1999-01-01

Presents the key design concepts of a software project whose objective is to provide a simple, cheap, and efficient solution for showing slides during lessons in computer labs. Contains 26 references. (DDR)

[Realization of design regarding experimental research in the clinical real-world research].

PubMed

He, Q; Shi, J P

2018-04-10

Real world study (RWS), a further verification and supplement for explanatory randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention measures in real clinical environment, has increasingly become the focus in the field of research on medical and health care services. However, some people mistakenly equate real world study with observational research, and argue that intervention and randomization cannot be carried out in real world study. In fact, both observational and experimental design are the basic designs in real world study, while the latter usually refers to pragmatic randomized controlled trial and registry-based randomized controlled trial. Other nonrandomized controlled and adaptive designs can also be adopted in the RWS.

Revising shortwave and longwave radiation archives in view of possible revisions of the WSG and WISG reference scales: methods and implications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nyeki, Stephan; Wacker, Stefan; Gröbner, Julian; Finsterle, Wolfgang; Wild, Martin

2017-08-01

A large number of radiometers are traceable to the World Standard Group (WSG) for shortwave radiation and the interim World Infrared Standard Group (WISG) for longwave radiation, hosted by the Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos/World Radiation Centre (PMOD/WRC, Davos, Switzerland). The WSG and WISG have recently been found to over- and underestimate radiation values, respectively (Fehlmann et al., 2012; Gröbner et al., 2014), although research is still ongoing. In view of a possible revision of the reference scales of both standard groups, this study discusses the methods involved and the implications on existing archives of radiation time series, such as the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN). Based on PMOD/WRC calibration archives and BSRN data archives, the downward longwave radiation (DLR) time series over the 2006-2015 period were analysed at four stations (polar and mid-latitude locations). DLR was found to increase by up to 3.5 and 5.4 W m-2 for all-sky and clear-sky conditions, respectively, after applying a WISG reference scale correction and a minor correction for the dependence of pyrgeometer sensitivity on atmospheric integrated water vapour content. Similar increases in DLR may be expected at other BSRN stations. Based on our analysis, a number of recommendations are made for future studies.

Growth References of Preschool Children Based on the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study and Compared to World Health Organization Growth Standards.

PubMed

Li, Yi-Fan; Lin, Shio-Jean; Lin, Kuan-Chia; Chiang, Tung-Liang

2016-02-01

To develop new growth references for height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) for children aged 0-5 years in the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study (TBCS) and to compare these references with both 1997 Taiwan references and World Health Organization (WHO) standards. Data were obtained from the TBCS of a nationally representative sample of 24,200 children. A total of 18,466 children completed the baseline survey at 6 months of age and three follow-up surveys at 18 months, 3 years, and 5.5 years of age. The modified LMS method was used to construct percentile curves by sex, including length/height for age, weight for age, and BMI for age. TBCS children of both sexes were shorter and lighter at birth compared with 1997 Taiwan references and WHO standards. The growth patterns of TBCS children were close to those of the 1997 Taiwan references after 6 months of age. Compared with WHO standards, however, TBCS children were heavier after 6 months of age. This study has developed TBCS references to monitor the growth of children in Taiwan, whose weight growth patterns differed from those "prescribed" by WHO standards. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Education and Social Innovation: The Youth Uncensored Project--A Case Study of Youth Participatory Research and Cultural Democracy in Action

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conrad, Diane H.

2015-01-01

This article discusses social innovation in education informed by arts-based and Indigenous ways of knowing. I use the term Indigenous to refer to First Peoples' and their wisdom traditions from places around the world and the term Aboriginal to refer to the diverse First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples of Canada. The article looks at the…

Sensitivity tests to define the source apportionment performance criteria in the DeltaSA tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pernigotti, Denise; Belis, Claudio A.

2017-04-01

Identification and quantification of the contribution of emission sources to a given area is a key task for the design of abatement strategies. Moreover, European member states are obliged to report this kind of information for zones where the pollution levels exceed the limit values. At present, little is known about the performance and uncertainty of the variety of methodologies used for source apportionment and the comparability between the results of studies using different approaches. The source apportionment Delta (SA Delta) is a tool developed by the EC-JRC to support the particulate matter source apportionment modellers in the identification of sources (for factor analysis studies) and/or in the measure of their performance. The source identification is performed by the tool measuring the proximity of any user chemical profile to preloaded repository data (SPECIATE and SPECIEUROPE). The model performances criteria are based on standard statistical indexes calculated by comparing participants' source contribute estimates and their time series with preloaded references data. Those preloaded data refer to previous European SA intercomparison exercises: the first with real world data (22 participants), the second with synthetic data (25 participants) and the last with real world data which was also extended to Chemical Transport Models (38 receptor models and 4 CTMs). The references used for the model performances are 'true' (predefined by JRC) for the synthetic while they are calculated as ensemble average of the participants' results in real world intercomparisons. The candidates used for each source ensemble reference calculation were selected among participants results based on a number of consistency checks plus the similarity between their chemical profiles to the repository measured data. The estimation of the ensemble reference uncertainty is crucial in order to evaluate the users' performances against it. For this reason a sensitivity analysis on different methods to estimate the ensemble references' uncertainties was performed re-analyzing the synthetic intercomparison dataset, the only one where 'true' reference and ensemble reference contributions were both present. The Delta SA is now available on-line and will be presented, with a critical discussion of the sensitivity analysis on the ensemble reference uncertainty. In particular the grade of among participants mutual agreement on the presence of a certain source should be taken into account. Moreover also the importance of the synthetic intercomparisons in order to catch receptor models common biases will be stressed.

Design Heuristics for Authentic Simulation-Based Learning Games

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ney, Muriel; Gonçalves, Celso; Balacheff, Nicolas

2014-01-01

Simulation games are games for learning based on a reference in the real world. We propose a model for authenticity in this context as a result of a compromise among learning, playing and realism. In the health game used to apply this model, students interact with characters in the game through phone messages, mail messages, SMS and video.…

Sensitivity and uncertainty of input sensor accuracy for grass-based reference evapotranspiration

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Quantification of evapotranspiration (ET) in agricultural environments is becoming of increasing importance throughout the world, thus understanding input variability of relevant sensors is of paramount importance as well. The Colorado Agricultural and Meteorological Network (CoAgMet) and the Florid...

Microcomputer-controlled world time display for public area viewing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yep, S.; Rashidian, M.

1982-05-01

The design, development, and implementation of a microcomputer-controlled world clock is discussed. The system, designated international Time Display System (ITDS), integrates a Geochron Calendar Map and a microcomputer-based digital display to automatically compensate for daylight savings time, leap year, and time zone differences. An in-depth technical description of the design and development of the electronic hardware, firmware, and software systems is provided. Reference material on the time zones, fabrication techniques, and electronic subsystems are also provided.

Designing Online Learning. Knowledge Series: A Topical, Start-Up Guide to Distance Education Practice and Delivery.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mishra, Sanjaya

The term "online learning" refers to an Internet- or intranet-based teaching and learning system designed for World Wide Web-based delivery without face-to-face contact between teacher and learner. The Internet is the backbone of online learning. The following media are available to designers of online courses: text; graphics and images;…

Fixism and conservation science.

PubMed

Robert, Alexandre; Fontaine, Colin; Veron, Simon; Monnet, Anne-Christine; Legrand, Marine; Clavel, Joanne; Chantepie, Stéphane; Couvet, Denis; Ducarme, Frédéric; Fontaine, Benoît; Jiguet, Frédéric; le Viol, Isabelle; Rolland, Jonathan; Sarrazin, François; Teplitsky, Céline; Mouchet, Maud

2017-08-01

The field of biodiversity conservation has recently been criticized as relying on a fixist view of the living world in which existing species constitute at the same time targets of conservation efforts and static states of reference, which is in apparent disagreement with evolutionary dynamics. We reviewed the prominent role of species as conservation units and the common benchmark approach to conservation that aims to use past biodiversity as a reference to conserve current biodiversity. We found that the species approach is justified by the discrepancy between the time scales of macroevolution and human influence and that biodiversity benchmarks are based on reference processes rather than fixed reference states. Overall, we argue that the ethical and theoretical frameworks underlying conservation research are based on macroevolutionary processes, such as extinction dynamics. Current species, phylogenetic, community, and functional conservation approaches constitute short-term responses to short-term human effects on these reference processes, and these approaches are consistent with evolutionary principles. © 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.

Thermal Noise Limit in Frequency Stabilization of Lasers with Rigid Cavities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Numata, Kenji; Kemery, Amy; Camp, Jordan

2005-01-01

We evaluated thermal noise (Brownian motion) in a rigid reference cavity Used for frequency stabilization of lasers, based on the mechanical loss of cavity materials and the numerical analysis of the mirror-spacer mechanics with the direct application of the fluctuation dissipation theorem. This noise sets a fundamental limit for the frequency stability achieved with a rigid frequency-reference cavity of order 1 Hz/rtHz at 10mHz at room temperature. This level coincides with the world-highest level stabilization results.

Improvements in Undergraduate Science Education Using Web-Based Instructional Modules: The Natural Science Pages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carpi, Anthony

2001-01-01

Explains the advantages of using the World Wide Web as an educational tool and describes the Natural Science Pages project which is a teaching module involving Internet access and Web use and aiming to improve student achievement. (Contains 13 references.) (YDS)

Rabies vaccine standards: comparison of the 5th and 6th WHO international reference standards to the USDA veterinary reference standard.

PubMed

Hermann, J; Fry, A; Reising, M; Patterson, P; Siev, D; Gatewood, D

2012-11-06

Ensuring rabies vaccines are potent and effective is paramount in preventing transmission of this deadly disease and safeguarding public health. Efficacy of human and veterinary vaccines is ensured by evaluating relative potency estimates of the vaccine compared to a rabies reference standard using the National Institutes of Health (NIH) test. Reference vaccines are based on the International Standard for Rabies Vaccine provided by the World Health Organization (WHO). A comparison study was conducted to determine the relative potency of the 5th WHO, 6th WHO, and United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) 08-14 reference standards using the NIH test. Results from the study demonstrate that the 6th WHO reference standard is approximately twice as potent as the 5th WHO reference when reconstituted to contain 1 IU per ml. Based on these results, the Center for Veterinary Biologics (CVB) doubled the reconstitution volume of USDA veterinary reference 08-14 from 13 ml to 26 ml, for an initial use dilution of 0.7 IU per ml for use by veterinary biologics manufacturers in the NIH test. This study emphasizes the importance of reference standard calibration for use in the National Institutes of Health test. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

How (and why) the visual control of action differs from visual perception

PubMed Central

Goodale, Melvyn A.

2014-01-01

Vision not only provides us with detailed knowledge of the world beyond our bodies, but it also guides our actions with respect to objects and events in that world. The computations required for vision-for-perception are quite different from those required for vision-for-action. The former uses relational metrics and scene-based frames of reference while the latter uses absolute metrics and effector-based frames of reference. These competing demands on vision have shaped the organization of the visual pathways in the primate brain, particularly within the visual areas of the cerebral cortex. The ventral ‘perceptual’ stream, projecting from early visual areas to inferior temporal cortex, helps to construct the rich and detailed visual representations of the world that allow us to identify objects and events, attach meaning and significance to them and establish their causal relations. By contrast, the dorsal ‘action’ stream, projecting from early visual areas to the posterior parietal cortex, plays a critical role in the real-time control of action, transforming information about the location and disposition of goal objects into the coordinate frames of the effectors being used to perform the action. The idea of two visual systems in a single brain might seem initially counterintuitive. Our visual experience of the world is so compelling that it is hard to believe that some other quite independent visual signal—one that we are unaware of—is guiding our movements. But evidence from a broad range of studies from neuropsychology to neuroimaging has shown that the visual signals that give us our experience of objects and events in the world are not the same ones that control our actions. PMID:24789899

Experience-Based Probabilities Modulate Expectations in a Gender-Coded Artificial Language

PubMed Central

Öttl, Anton; Behne, Dawn M.

2016-01-01

The current study combines artificial language learning with visual world eyetracking to investigate acquisition of representations associating spoken words and visual referents using morphologically complex pseudowords. Pseudowords were constructed to consistently encode referential gender by means of suffixation for a set of imaginary figures that could be either male or female. During training, the frequency of exposure to pseudowords and their imaginary figure referents were manipulated such that a given word and its referent would be more likely to occur in either the masculine form or the feminine form, or both forms would be equally likely. Results show that these experience-based probabilities affect the formation of new representations to the extent that participants were faster at recognizing a referent whose gender was consistent with the induced expectation than a referent whose gender was inconsistent with this expectation. Disambiguating gender information available from the suffix did not mask the induced expectations. Eyetracking data provide additional evidence that such expectations surface during online lexical processing. Taken together, these findings indicate that experience-based information is accessible during the earliest stages of processing, and are consistent with the view that language comprehension depends on the activation of perceptual memory traces. PMID:27602009

Representing the Quantum Object Through Fiction in Teaching. The Ontological Contribution of Gamow's Narrative as Part of an Introduction to Quantum Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Héraud, Jean-Loup; Lautesse, Philippe; Ferlin, Fabrice; Chabot, Hugues

2017-05-01

Our work extends a previous study of epistemological presuppositions in teaching quantum physics in upper scientific secondary school in France. Here, the problematic reference of quantum theory's concepts is treated at the ontological level (the counterintuitive nature of quantum objects). We consider the approach of using narratives describing possible alternative worlds to address the issue. These possible worlds are based on the counterfactual logic developed in the work of D. Lewis. We will show that the narratives written by G. Gamow describe such possible worlds. Some parts of these narratives are found in textbooks in France. These worlds are governed by laws similar to but importantly different from those in our real world. They allow us to materialize properties inaccessible to everyday experience. In this sense, these fiction stories make ontological propositions concerning the nature and structure of the fundamental elements of our physical universe.

World Economic Plants: a standard reference, 2nd ed

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

This publication provides essential reference data for over 12,000 vascular plants of commercial importance from all parts of the world. It presents up-to-date scientific names for these economically important plants arranged alphabetically. The botanic and economic coverage encompasses plants or ...

A new resource for developing and strengthening large-scale community health worker programs.

PubMed

Perry, Henry; Crigler, Lauren; Lewin, Simon; Glenton, Claire; LeBan, Karen; Hodgins, Steve

2017-01-12

Large-scale community health worker programs are now growing in importance around the world in response to the resurgence of interest and growing evidence of the importance of community-based primary health care for improving the health of populations in resource-constrained, high-mortality settings. These programs, because of their scale and operational challenges, merit special consideration by the global health community, national policy-makers, and program implementers. A new online resource is now available to assist in that effort: Developing and Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs at Scale: A Reference Guide and Case Studies for Program Managers and Policymakers ( http://www.mchip.net/CHWReferenceGuide ). This CHW Reference Guide is the product of 27 different collaborators who, collectively, have a formidable breadth and depth of experience and knowledge about CHW programming around the world. It provides a thoughtful discussion about the many operational issues that large-scale CHW programs need to address as they undergo the process of development, expansion or strengthening. Detailed case studies of 12 national CHW programs are included in the Appendix-the most current and complete cases studies as a group that are currently available. Future articles in this journal will highlight many of the themes in the CHW Reference Guide and provide an update of recent advances and experiences. These articles will serve, we hope, to (1) increase awareness about the CHW Reference Guide and its usefulness and (2) connect a broader audience to the critical importance of strengthening large-scale CHW programs for the health benefits that they can bring to underserved populations around the world.

[What else is Evidence-based Medicine?].

PubMed

Hauswaldt, Johannes

2010-01-01

The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence. Strange enough, scientific discussion focuses on external evidence from systematic research, but neglects its counterpart, i.e., individual clinical expertise. Apart from a lack of appropriate intellectual tools for approaching the latter, this might be due to the mutual concealment of thought and action, of sensor and motor activity (Viktor von Weizsaecker's principle of the revolving door). Behind this, and incommensurably different from each other, lie the world of physics and the world of biology with an ego animal, that is, the dilemma of the self-conscious subject in a world of objects. When practicing medicine, this dilemma of self-reference is being resolved but only through a holistic approach combining rational and external evidence with biographical, spiritual, emotional and pre-rational elements represented in the physician's individual clinical expertise. Copyright © 2010. Published by Elsevier GmbH.

Optical atomic phase reference and timing.

PubMed

Hollberg, L; Cornell, E H; Abdelrahmann, A

2017-08-06

Atomic clocks based on laser-cooled atoms have made tremendous advances in both accuracy and stability. However, advanced clocks have not found their way into widespread use because there has been little need for such high performance in real-world/commercial applications. The drive in the commercial world favours smaller, lower-power, more robust compact atomic clocks that function well in real-world non-laboratory environments. Although the high-performance atomic frequency references are useful to test Einstein's special relativity more precisely, there are not compelling scientific arguments to expect a breakdown in special relativity. On the other hand, the dynamics of gravity, evidenced by the recent spectacular results in experimental detection of gravity waves by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, shows dramatically that there is new physics to be seen and understood in space-time science. Those systems require strain measurements at less than or equal to 10 -20 As we discuss here, cold atom optical frequency references are still many orders of magnitude away from the frequency stability that should be achievable with narrow-linewidth quantum transitions and large numbers of very cold atoms, and they may be able to achieve levels of phase stability, Δ Φ / Φ total  ≤ 10 -20 , that could make an important impact in gravity wave science.This article is part of the themed issue 'Quantum technology for the 21st century'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Early Nineteenth Century Christian Libertarian Newspapers: Rise and Decline of the Boston Recorder, 1816-1849.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olasky, Marvin N.

Recent history textbooks have conspicuously removed references to religion and religious publications, providing a distorted view of American and world history. One such neglected publication, the Boston "Recorder," was founded by Nathaniel Willis in 1816. A Christian newspaper, it was based on three principles: (1) to show theological…

Corporate Versus Academic Perceptions of the Need for Language Fluency.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vande Berg, Camille Kennedy

1997-01-01

Discusses the academic emphasis on students acquiring fluency in a second language to foster their advancement in the business world of international commerce. Notes that human resource experts in U.S.-based international corporations often give a low priority to linguistic fluency and emphasize the need for cultural expertise. (Seven references)…

World data centre for microorganisms: an information infrastructure to explore and utilize preserved microbial strains worldwide

PubMed Central

Wu, Linhuan; Sun, Qinglan; Desmeth, Philippe; Sugawara, Hideaki; Xu, Zhenghong; McCluskey, Kevin; Smith, David; Alexander, Vasilenko; Lima, Nelson; Ohkuma, Moriya; Robert, Vincent; Zhou, Yuguang; Li, Jianhui; Fan, Guomei; Ingsriswang, Supawadee; Ozerskaya, Svetlana; Ma, Juncai

2017-01-01

The World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM) was established 50 years ago as the data center of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC)—Microbial Resource Center (MIRCEN). WDCM aims to provide integrated information services using big data technology for microbial resource centers and microbiologists all over the world. Here, we provide an overview of WDCM including all of its integrated services. Culture Collections Information Worldwide (CCINFO) provides metadata information on 708 culture collections from 72 countries and regions. Global Catalogue of Microorganism (GCM) gathers strain catalogue information and provides a data retrieval, analysis, and visualization system of microbial resources. Currently, GCM includes >368 000 strains from 103 culture collections in 43 countries and regions. Analyzer of Bioresource Citation (ABC) is a data mining tool extracting strain related publications, patents, nucleotide sequences and genome information from public data sources to form a knowledge base. Reference Strain Catalogue (RSC) maintains a database of strains listed in International Standards Organization (ISO) and other international or regional standards. RSC allocates a unique identifier to strains recommended for use in diagnosis and quality control, and hence serves as a valuable cross-platform reference. WDCM provides free access to all these services at www.wdcm.org. PMID:28053166

Testing of the World Health Organization-recommended formulations for surgical hand preparation and proposals for increased efficacy.

PubMed

Suchomel, M; Kundi, M; Allegranzi, B; Pittet, D; Rotter, M L

2011-10-01

The 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines on hand hygiene in health care recommend alcohol-based hand rubs for both hygienic and pre-surgical hand treatment. Two formulations based on ethanol 80% v/v and 2-propanol 75% v/v are proposed for local preparation in healthcare settings where commercial products are not available or too expensive. Both formulations and our suggested modifications (using mass rather than volume percent concentrations) were evaluated for their conformity with the efficacy requirements of the forthcoming amendment of the European Norm (EN) 12791, i.e. non-inferiority of a product when compared with a reference procedure (1-propanol 60% v/v for 3 min) immediately and 3 h after antisepsis. In this study, the WHO-recommended formulations were tested for 3 min and 5 min. Neither formulation met the efficacy requirements of EN 12791 with 3 min application. Increasing the respective concentrations to 80 w/w (85% v/v) and 75 w/w (80% v/v), together with a prolonged application of 5 min, rendered the immediate effect of both formulations non-inferior to the reference antisepsis procedure. This was not the case with the 3h effect, which remained significantly inferior to the reference. Although the original formulations do not meet the efficacy requirements of EN 12791, the clinical significance of this finding deserves further clinical trials. To comply with the requirement of EN 12791, an amendment to the formulations is possible by increasing the alcohol concentrations through changing volume into mass percent and prolonging the duration of application from 3 min to 5 min. Copyright © 2011 World Health Organization. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of the Healthcare Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Nuclear reference materials to meet the changing needs of the global nuclear community

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

Martin, H.R.; Gradle, C.G.; Narayanan, U.I.

New Brunswick Laboratory (NBL) serves as the U.S. Government`s certifying authority for nuclear reference materials and measurement calibration standards. In this role, NBL provides nuclear reference materials certified for chemical and/or isotopic compositions traceable to a nationally accepted, internationally compatible reference base. Emphasis is now changing as to the types of traceable nuclear reference materials needed as operations change within the Department of Energy complex and at nuclear facilities around the world. New challenges include: environmental and waste minimization issues, facilities and materials transitioning from processing to storage modes with corresponding changes in the types of measurements being performed, emphasismore » on requirements for characterization of waste materials, and difficulties in transporting nuclear materials and international factors, including IAEA influences. During these changing times, it is critical that traceable reference materials be provided for calibration or validation of the performance of measurement systems. This paper will describe actions taken and planned to meet the changing reference material needs of the global nuclear community.« less

A method for using real world data in breast cancer modeling.

PubMed

Pobiruchin, Monika; Bochum, Sylvia; Martens, Uwe M; Kieser, Meinhard; Schramm, Wendelin

2016-04-01

Today, hospitals and other health care-related institutions are accumulating a growing bulk of real world clinical data. Such data offer new possibilities for the generation of disease models for the health economic evaluation. In this article, we propose a new approach to leverage cancer registry data for the development of Markov models. Records of breast cancer patients from a clinical cancer registry were used to construct a real world data driven disease model. We describe a model generation process which maps database structures to disease state definitions based on medical expert knowledge. Software was programmed in Java to automatically derive a model structure and transition probabilities. We illustrate our method with the reconstruction of a published breast cancer reference model derived primarily from clinical study data. In doing so, we exported longitudinal patient data from a clinical cancer registry covering eight years. The patient cohort (n=892) comprised HER2-positive and HER2-negative women treated with or without Trastuzumab. The models generated with this method for the respective patient cohorts were comparable to the reference model in their structure and treatment effects. However, our computed disease models reflect a more detailed picture of the transition probabilities, especially for disease free survival and recurrence. Our work presents an approach to extract Markov models semi-automatically using real world data from a clinical cancer registry. Health care decision makers may benefit from more realistic disease models to improve health care-related planning and actions based on their own data. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rapid urbanisation in the third world, with special reference to Tropical Africa: social impact and perspectives.

PubMed

Ankerl, G

1983-01-01

A review of current urbanization trends around the world is presented, with particular reference to the situation in Tropical Africa. Topics considered include overurbanization, development, and migration. The elements of both short- and long-term policies concerning urbanization are outlined.

Documented historical landslide dams from around the world

USGS Publications Warehouse

Costa, John E.; Schuster, Robert L.

1991-01-01

This data compilation consists of dBase IV1 data files of the location, date, triggering mechanism, kind, size, failure time and mechanism, breach dimensions, subsequent controls, materials, and references for 463 historical landslide dams and associated natural reservoirs that have been recorded throughout the World. The data base presented in this report is a compilation of information on the characteristics of 463 landslide dams from around the World. It forms a basis on which to assess potential threats from existing landslide dams, or newly-formed landslide dams. The data base includes only landslide dams that have formed in historical times - that is, those formed during times when humans were able to record their occurrence, and the information transferred through various means of written and/or oral documentation. There have been far more prehistoric landslide dams about which relatively little is known. None of these is included in this data base. The focus on historical landslide dams allows insights into this natural process that will aid in understanding their role as a significant geologic process in recent Earth history.

[Application and case analysis on the problem-based teaching of Jingluo Shuxue Xue (Science of Meridian and Acupoint) in reference to the team oriented learning method].

PubMed

Ma, Ruijie; Lin, Xianming

2015-12-01

The problem based teaching (PBT) has been the main approach to the training in the universities o the world. Combined with the team oriented learning method, PBT will become the method available to the education in medical universities. In the paper, based on the common questions in teaching Jingluo Shuxue Xue (Science of Meridian and Acupoint), the concepts and characters of PBT and the team oriented learning method were analyzed. The implementation steps of PBT were set up in reference to the team oriented learning method. By quoting the original text in Beiji Qianjin Yaofang (Essential recipes for emergent use worth a thousand gold), the case analysis on "the thirteen devil points" was established with PBT.

CaseWorld™: Interactive, media rich, multidisciplinary case based learning.

PubMed

Gillham, David; Tucker, Katie; Parker, Steve; Wright, Victoria; Kargillis, Christina

2015-11-01

Nurse educators are challenged to keep up with highly specialised clinical practice, emerging research evidence, regulation requirements and rapidly changing information technology while teaching very large numbers of diverse students in a resource constrained environment. This complex setting provides the context for the CaseWorld project, which aims to simulate those aspects of clinical practice that can be represented by e-learning. This paper describes the development, implementation and evaluation of CaseWorld, a simulated learning environment that supports case based learning. CaseWorld provides nursing students with the opportunity to view unfolding authentic cases presented in a rich multimedia context. The first round of comprehensive summative evaluation of CaseWorld is discussed in the context of earlier formative evaluation, reference group input and strategies for integration of CaseWorld with subject content. This discussion highlights the unique approach taken in this project that involved simultaneous prototype development and large scale implementation, thereby necessitating strong emphasis on staff development, uptake and engagement. The lessons learned provide an interesting basis for further discussion of broad content sharing across disciplines and universities, and the contribution that local innovations can make to global education advancement. Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Major World Ecosystem Complexes Ranked by Carbon in Live Vegetation: A Database (NDP-017) (2001 version of original 1985 data)

DOE Data Explorer

Olsen, Jerry S. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Watts, Julia A. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Allison, Linda J. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

2001-01-01

In 1980, this data base and the corresponding map were completed after more than 20 years of field investigations, consultations, and analyses of published literature. They characterize the use and vegetative cover of the Earth's land surface with a 0.5° × 0.5° grid. This world-ecosystem-complex data set and the accompanying map provide a current reference base for interpreting the role of vegetation in the global cycling of CO2 and other gases and a basis for improved estimates of vegetation and soil carbon, of natural exchanges of CO2, and of net historic shifts of carbon between the biosphere and the atmosphere.

Historical review of quartz crystal growth

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iwasaki, Fumiko; Iwasaki, Hideo

2002-04-01

The history of quartz crystal growth is reviewed from the origin to the industrialization. The developing process of growth techniques is divided into the following three stages: (1) The fundamental work based on the mineralogical genetic view point, which was performed in Italy during the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries. (2) The works to attempt the industrial application made in Germany and in England during World War II. (3) The industrialization of quartz growth after World War II. These were initiated in England, in USA and independently in Russia. The highest mass production process was developed in Japan. The historical flow is traced by the interview of several persons based on the original references.

Field Identification of Andic Soil Properties for Soils of North-central Idaho

Treesearch

Brian Gardner

2007-01-01

Currently, laboratory measurements are definitive for identifying andic soil properties in both the USDA Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff 1999) and the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (FAO/ISRIC/ISSS 1998). Andic soil properties, as described in Soil Taxonomy, result mainly from the presence of significant amounts of allophone, imogolite, ferrihydrite or...

I Raise My Voice: Promoting Self-Authoring through a Curriculum-Based Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gabay, Lea

2017-01-01

Learners of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) bring an array of backgrounds, identities, and experiences to the classroom. Through exposure to other views, learners can reflect on their own place in their world and engage in "self-authoring"--a term coined by Hernandez-Zamora (2010) that refers to critical-thinking skills…

Teaching Data Analysis with Interactive Visual Narratives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saundage, Dilal; Cybulski, Jacob L.; Keller, Susan; Dharmasena, Lasitha

2016-01-01

Data analysis is a major part of business analytics (BA), which refers to the skills, methods, and technologies that enable managers to make swift, quality decisions based on large amounts of data. BA has become a major component of Information Systems (IS) courses all over the world. The challenge for IS educators is to teach data analysis--the…

The Impact of a Semiotic Analysis Theory-Based Writing Activity on Students' Writing Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sarar Kuzu, Tulay

2016-01-01

Problem Statement: In entering the world intellectually and affectively equipped, humans develop in a systemic way that encompasses both thought and art education and in which written, oral, and visual texts are important tools. In particular, visual literacy, which refers to the interpretation of elements other than written text, including…

Examining the cognitive costs of counterfactual language comprehension: Evidence from ERPs.

PubMed

Ferguson, Heather J; Cane, James E

2015-10-05

Recent empirical research suggests that understanding a counterfactual event (e.g. 'If Josie had revised, she would have passed her exams') activates mental representations of both the factual and counterfactual versions of events. However, it remains unclear when readers switch between these models during comprehension, and whether representing multiple 'worlds' is cognitively effortful. This paper reports two ERP studies where participants read contexts that set up a factual or counterfactual scenario, followed by a second sentence describing a consequence of this event. Critically, this sentence included a noun that was either consistent or inconsistent with the preceding context, and either included a modal verb to indicate reference to the counterfactual-world or not (thus referring to the factual-world). Experiment 2 used adapted versions of the materials used in Experiment 1 to examine the degree to which representing multiple versions of a counterfactual situation makes heavy demands on cognitive resources by measuring individuals' working memory capacity. Results showed that when reference to the counterfactual-world was maintained by the ongoing discourse, readers correctly interpreted events according to the counterfactual-world (i.e. showed larger N400 for inconsistent than consistent words). In contrast, when cues referred back to the factual-world, readers showed no difference between consistent and inconsistent critical words, suggesting that they simultaneously compared information against both possible worlds. These results support previous dual-representation accounts for counterfactuals, and provide new evidence that linguistic cues can guide the reader in selecting which world model to evaluate incoming information against. Crucially, we reveal evidence that maintaining and updating a hypothetical model over time relies upon the availability of cognitive resources. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Calibration procedure of Hukseflux SR25 to Establish the Diffuse Reference for the Outdoor Broadband Radiometer Calibration

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

Reda, Ibrahim M.; Andreas, Afshin M.

2017-08-01

Accurate pyranometer calibrations, traceable to internationally recognized standards, are critical for solar irradiance measurements. One calibration method is the component summation method, where the pyranometers are calibrated outdoors under clear sky conditions, and the reference global solar irradiance is calculated as the sum of two reference components, the diffuse horizontal and subtended beam solar irradiances. The beam component is measured with pyrheliometers traceable to the World Radiometric Reference, while there is no internationally recognized reference for the diffuse component. In the absence of such a reference, we present a method to consistently calibrate pyranometers for measuring the diffuse component. Themore » method is based on using a modified shade/unshade method and a pyranometer with less than 0.5 W/m2 thermal offset. The calibration result shows that the responsivity of Hukseflux SR25 pyranometer equals 10.98 uV/(W/m2) with +/-0.86 percent uncertainty.« less

Infants transfer nonobvious properties from pictures to real-world objects.

PubMed

Keates, Jeany; Graham, Susan A; Ganea, Patricia A

2014-09-01

The current research examined infants' ability to generalize information about the nonobvious properties of objects depicted in picture books to their real-world referents. Infants aged 13, 15, and 18 months (N=135) were shown a series of pictures depicting an adult acting on a novel object to elicit a nonobvious property of that object. Infants were subsequently tested on their extension of the nonobvious property to the real-world object depicted in the book and their generalization of this property to a different color exemplar of the depicted object. Results indicated that, regardless of age, infants expected the real-world objects to have the nonobvious property, as indicated by their attempts to elicit this property with these objects. These findings indicate that early in their second year of life, infants are beginning to make inductive inferences about nonobvious object properties based on information provided in pictures. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Thermal Noise Limit in Frequency Stabilization of Lasers with Rigid Cavities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Numata, Kenji; Kemery, Amy; Camp, Jordan

2004-01-01

We evaluated thermal noise (Brownian motion) in a rigid reference cavity used for frequency stabilization of lasers, based on the mechanical loss of cavity materials and the numerical analysis of the mirror-spacer mechanics with t.he direct application of the fluctuation dissipation theorem. This noise sets a fundamental limit for the frequency stability achieved with a rigid frequency- reference cavity of order 1 Hz/square root Hz(0.01 Hz/square root Hz) at 10 mHz (100 Hz) at room temperature. This level coincides with the world-highest level stabilization results.

First significant image improvement from a sodium-layer laser guide star adaptive optics system at Lick Observatory

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

Olivier, S.S.; Max, C.E.; Friedman, H.W.

1997-07-14

Atmospheric turbulence severely limits the resolution of ground-based telescopes. Adaptive optics can correct for the aberrations caused by the atmosphere, but requires a bright wavefront reference source in close angular proximity to the object being imaged. Since natural reference stars of the necessary brightness are relatively rare, methods of generating artificial reference beacons have been under active investigation for more than a decade. In this paper, we report the first significant image improvement achieved using a sodium-layer laser guide star as a wavefront reference for a high- order adaptive optics system. An artificial beacon was created by resonant scattering frommore » atomic sodium in the mesosphere, at an altitude of 95 km. Using this laser guide star, an adaptive optics system on the 3 m Shane Telescope at Lick Observatory produced a factor of 2.4 increase in peak intensity and a factor of 2 decrease in full width at half maximum of a stellar image, compared with image motion compensation alone. The Strehl ratio when using the laser guide star as the reference was 65% of that obtained with a natural guide star, and the image full widths at half maximum were identical, 0.3 arc sec, using either the laser or the natural guide star. This sodium-layer laser guide star technique holds great promise for the world`s largest telescopes. 24 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab.« less

LANDSAT-4 World Reference System (WRS) users guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1982-01-01

A functional description of the new LANDSAT-4 World Reference System (WRS) with an overview of the main orbital parameters and instrument coverages is presented to provide the data user with the primary information required to understand LANDSAT-4 orbital characteristics, to effectively use the WRS indexing scheme, and to request specific geographic coverage on the desired observation dates.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Pyrheliometer Comparisons: 24 September - 5 October 2012 (NPC-2012)

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

Stoffel, T.; Reda, I.

2013-05-01

The NREL Pyrheliometer Comparisons for 2012 (NPC-2012) were held at the Solar Radiation Research Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, from September 24 through October 5 for the purpose of transferring the World Radiometric Reference (WRR) to participating instrument. Twenty scientists and engineers operated 32 absolute cavity radiometers and 18 conventional thermopile-based pyrheliometers to simultaneously measure clear-sky direct normal irradiance during the comparisons. The transfer standard group of reference radiometers for NPC-2012 consisted of four NREL radiometers with direct traceability to the WRR, having participated in the Eleventh International Pyrheliometer Comparisons (IPC-XI) hosted by the World Radiation Center in the fall ofmore » 2010. As the result of NPC-2012, each participating absolute cavity radiometer was assigned a new WRR transfer factor, computed as the reference irradiance computed by the transfer standard group divided by the observed irradiance from the participating radiometer. The performance of the transfer standard group during NPC-2012 was consistent with previous comparisons, including IPC-XI. The measurement performance of the transfer standard group allowed the transfer of the WRR to each participating radiometer with an estimated uncertainty of +/- 0.33% with respect to the International System of Units.« less

Preliminary assessment of several parameters to measure and compare usefulness of the CEOS reference pseudo-invariant calibration sites

USGS Publications Warehouse

Chander, Gyanesh; Angal, Amit; Xiong, Xiaoxiong; Helder, Dennis L.; Mishra, Nischal; Choi, Taeyoung; Wu, Aisheng

2010-01-01

Test sites are central to any future quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) strategy. The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Working Group for Calibration and Validation (WGCV) Infrared Visible Optical Sensors (IVOS) worked with collaborators around the world to establish a core set of CEOS-endorsed, globally distributed, reference standard test sites (both instrumented and pseudo-invariant) for the post-launch calibration of space-based optical imaging sensors. The pseudo-invariant calibration sites (PICS) have high reflectance and are usually made up of sand dunes with low aerosol loading and practically no vegetation. The goal of this paper is to provide preliminary assessment of "several parameters" than can be used on an operational basis to compare and measure usefulness of reference sites all over the world. The data from Landsat 7 (L7) Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Hyperion sensors over the CEOS PICS were used to perform a preliminary assessment of several parameters, such as usable area, data availability, top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance, at-sensor brightness temperature, spatial uniformity, temporal stability, spectral stability, and typical spectrum observed over the sites.

Evaluation of automated global mapping of Reference Soil Groups of WRB2015

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mantel, Stephan; Caspari, Thomas; Kempen, Bas; Schad, Peter; Eberhardt, Einar; Ruiperez Gonzalez, Maria

2017-04-01

SoilGrids is an automated system that provides global predictions for standard numeric soil properties at seven standard depths down to 200 cm, currently at spatial resolutions of 1km and 250m. In addition, the system provides predictions of depth to bedrock and distribution of soil classes based on WRB and USDA Soil Taxonomy (ST). In SoilGrids250m(1), soil classes (WRB, version 2006) consist of the RSG and the first prefix qualifier, whereas in SoilGrids1km(2), the soil class was assessed at RSG level. Automated mapping of World Reference Base (WRB) Reference Soil Groups (RSGs) at a global level has great advantages. Maps can be updated in a short time span with relatively little effort when new data become available. To translate soil names of older versions of FAO/WRB and national classification systems of the source data into names according to WRB 2006, correlation tables are used in SoilGrids. Soil properties and classes are predicted independently from each other. This means that the combinations of soil properties for the same cells or soil property-soil class combinations do not necessarily yield logical combinations when the map layers are studied jointly. The model prediction procedure is robust and probably has a low source of error in the prediction of RSGs. It seems that the quality of the original soil classification in the data and the use of correlation tables are the largest sources of error in mapping the RSG distribution patterns. Predicted patterns of dominant RSGs were evaluated in selected areas and sources of error were identified. Suggestions are made for improvement of WRB2015 RSG distribution predictions in SoilGrids. Keywords: Automated global mapping; World Reference Base for Soil Resources; Data evaluation; Data quality assurance References 1 Hengl T, de Jesus JM, Heuvelink GBM, Ruiperez Gonzalez M, Kilibarda M, et al. (2016) SoilGrids250m: global gridded soil information based on Machine Learning. Earth System Science Data (ESSD), in review. 2 Hengl T, de Jesus JM, MacMillan RA, Batjes NH, Heuvelink GBM, et al. (2014) SoilGrids1km — Global Soil Information Based on Automated Mapping. PLoS ONE 9(8): e105992. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105992

Spatial cognition and navigation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Aretz, Anthony J.

1989-01-01

An experiment that provides data for the development of a cognitive model of pilot flight navigation is described. The experiment characterizes navigational awareness as the mental alignment of two frames of reference: (1) the ego centered reference frame that is established by the forward view out of the cockpit and (2) the world centered reference frame that is established by the aircraft's location on a map. The data support a model involving at least two components: (1) the perceptual encoding of the navigational landmarks and (2) the mental rotation of the map's world reference frame into alignment with the ego centered reference frame. The quantitative relationships of these two factors are provided as possible inputs for a computational model of spatial cognition during flight navigation.

Narratives of the Invisible: Autobiography, Kinship, and Alterity in Native Amazonia.

PubMed

Grotti, Vanessa Elisa; Brightman, Marc

2016-03-01

Shamanic knowledge is based on an ambiguous commensality with invisible others. As a result, shamans oscillate constantly between spheres of intimacy, both visible and invisible. A place of power and transformation, the spirit world is rarely described by native interlocutors in an objective, detached way; rather, they depict it in terms of events and experiences. Instead of examining the formal qualities of accounts of the spirit world through analyses of ritual performance and shamanic quests, we focus on life histories as autobiographical accounts in order to explore what they reveal about the relationship between personal history (and indigenous historicity) and the spirit world. We introduce the term 'double reflexivity' to refer to processes by which narratives about the self are produced through relationships with alterity.

Narratives of the Invisible: Autobiography, Kinship, and Alterity in Native Amazonia

PubMed Central

Grotti, Vanessa Elisa; Brightman, Marc

2016-01-01

Shamanic knowledge is based on an ambiguous commensality with invisible others. As a result, shamans oscillate constantly between spheres of intimacy, both visible and invisible. A place of power and transformation, the spirit world is rarely described by native interlocutors in an objective, detached way; rather, they depict it in terms of events and experiences. Instead of examining the formal qualities of accounts of the spirit world through analyses of ritual performance and shamanic quests, we focus on life histories as autobiographical accounts in order to explore what they reveal about the relationship between personal history (and indigenous historicity) and the spirit world. We introduce the term ‘double reflexivity’ to refer to processes by which narratives about the self are produced through relationships with alterity. PMID:28035170

A Criterion-Referenced Viewpoint on Standards/Cutscores in Language Testing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davidson, Fred; Lynch, Brian K.

"Standard" is distinguished from "criterion" as it is used in criterion-referenced testing. The former is argued to refer to the real-world cutpoint at which a decision is made based on a test's result (e.g., exemption from a special training program). The latter is a skill or set of skills to which a test is referenced.…

The Great Lake Erie: A Reference Text for Educators and Communicators.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fortner, Rosanne W., Ed.; Mayer, Victor J., Ed.

This volume of 16 chapters by 15 contributing authors was conceived as a means of drawing together a body of basic information about the Great Lakes that is up to date, based on sound research, and interpreted by experts in the scientific, historical, environmental and political value of the Great Lakes to North America and the world. Chapters…

Ofrendas/BorderCrossings: A Studio-Based Model for Cross Cultural Traveling.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Congdon, Kristin G.

While creating an art form which is foreign to an artist's cultural expression may seem like taking a risk in today's world, it may provide a way to successfully negotiate a fulfilling living and working space on this diverse planet. Movement into a foreign space, often referred to as a border crossing, can be understood as a central meeting…

Sense of Control Depends on Fluency of Action Selection, Not Motor Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chambon, Valerian; Haggard, Patrick

2012-01-01

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of controlling one's own actions, and, through these actions, events in the outside world. Sense of agency is widely held to involve a retrospective inference based on matching actual effects of an action with its expected effects. We hypothesise a second, prospective aspect of sense of agency, reflecting the…

A signal processing based analysis and prediction of seizure onset in patients with epilepsy

PubMed Central

Namazi, Hamidreza; Kulish, Vladimir V.

2016-01-01

One of the main areas of behavioural neuroscience is forecasting the human behaviour. Epilepsy is a central nervous system disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain becomes disrupted, causing seizures or periods of unusual behaviour, sensations and sometimes loss of consciousness. An estimated 5% of the world population has epileptic seizure but there is not any method to cure it. More than 30% of people with epilepsy cannot control seizure. Epileptic seizure prediction, refers to forecasting the occurrence of epileptic seizures, is one of the most important but challenging problems in biomedical sciences, across the world. In this research we propose a new methodology which is based on studying the EEG signals using two measures, the Hurst exponent and fractal dimension. In order to validate the proposed method, it is applied to epileptic EEG signals of patients by computing the Hurst exponent and fractal dimension, and then the results are validated versus the reference data. The results of these analyses show that we are able to forecast the onset of a seizure on average of 25.76 seconds before the time of occurrence. PMID:26586477

Nuclear reference materials to meet the changing needs of the global nuclear community

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

Martin, H.R.; Gradle, C.G.; Narayanan, U.I.

New Brunswick Laboratory (NBL) serves as the US Government`s Certifying Authority for nuclear reference materials and measurement calibration standards. In this role, NBL provides nuclear reference materials certified for chemical and/or isotopic compositions traceable to a nationally accepted, internationally compatible reference base. Emphasis is now changing as to the types of traceable nuclear reference materials needed as operations change within the Department of Energy (DOE) complex and at nuclear facilities around the world. Environmental and waste minimization issues, facilities and materials transitioning from processing to storage modes with corresponding changes in the types of measurements being performed, emphasis on requirementsmore » for characterization of waste materials, difficulties in transporting nuclear materials, and International factors, including International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection of excess US nuclear materials, are all contributing influences. During these changing times, ft is critical that traceable reference materials be provided for calibration or validation of the performance of measurement systems. This paper will describe actions taken and planned to meet the changing reference material needs of the global nuclear community.« less

78 FR 9397 - International Drug Scheduling; Convention on Psychotropic Substances; World Health Organization...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-02-08

...] International Drug Scheduling; Convention on Psychotropic Substances; World Health Organization Scheduling... written comments and to request an informal public meeting concerning recommendations by the World Health... Director-General of the World Health Organization ``With reference to article 2 of the Convention on...

Perceptions of a Changing World Induce Hope and Promote Peace in Intractable Conflicts

PubMed Central

Cohen-Chen, Smadar; Crisp, Richard J.; Halperin, Eran

2015-01-01

The importance of hope in promoting conciliatory attitudes has been asserted in the field of conflict resolution. However, little is known about conditions inducing hope, especially in intractable conflicts, where reference to the outgroup may backfire. In the current research, five studies yielded convergent support for the hypothesis that hope for peace stems from a general perception of the world as changing. In Study 1, coders observed associations between belief in a changing world, hope regarding peace, and support for concessions. Study 2 revealed the hypothesized relations using self-reported measures. Studies 3 and 4 established causality by instilling a perception of the world as changing (vs. unchanging) using narrative and drawing manipulations. Study 5 compared the changing world message with a control condition during conflict escalation. Across studies, although the specific context was not referred to, the belief in a changing world increased support for concessions through hope for peace. PMID:25713171

World Population: Facts in Focus. World Population Data Sheet Workbook. Population Learning Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crews, Kimberly A.

This workbook teaches population analysis using world population statistics. To complete the four student activity sheets, the students refer to the included "1988 World Population Data Sheet" which lists nations' statistical data that includes population totals, projected population, birth and death rates, fertility levels, and the…

A Change of Course: The Importance to DoD of International Standards for Electronic Commerce

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-01-01

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is committed to using electronic commerce in the future with the over 300,000 vendors interested in doing...business with DoD. Electronic commerce will move DoD from a paper-based world to one based on electronic transactions enabled by the exchange of formatted...electronic messages referred to as electronic data interchange (EDI). With electronic commerce , DoD plans to reduce costs, increase effectiveness, and

Head circumference growth reference charts of children younger than 7 years in Chinese rural areas.

PubMed

Xie, Shengnan; Shi, Junxin; Wang, Jianmin; Li, Neng; Yang, Senbei; Zhang, Jing

2014-12-01

The head circumference growth reference charts for children in China are presently based on urban children. However, the references may not apply to rural children because of the differences between urban and rural areas, such as economy, culture, and dietary habits. Our objective was to provide a reliable continuous set of head circumference growth reference charts for male and female children less than 7 years of age in Chinese rural areas. Children in our study were identified by multistage stratified cluster sampling from rural areas of 10 provinces in China. Questionnaire survey and anthropometric measurements were conducted in data collection. Head circumference was measured with a nonelastic tape on a line passing over the glabella and posterior occipital protrusion in children. We compared the fiftieth percentile of our cross-sectional data with the data of Chinese cities, World Health Organization, and the United States. A total of 95,904 children (48,722 boys and 47,182 girls) were included in the study. We present age- and sex-appropriate head circumference growth charts younger than 7 years for Chinese rural areas. The head circumference percentiles of the children in rural China are much smaller than the children in Chinese urban areas, World Health Organization, and the US percentiles after 2 years old. Head circumference percentiles can be applied in growth monitoring, but current head circumference growth references promulgated in urban China may not be suitable for rural areas in China. Providing head circumference growth reference charts for rural Chinese children who are younger than 7 years old is very important. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Activities Using The State of the World Atlas, 7th Edition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hegelbach, Peter; Haakenson, Dean; Starbird, Caroline

2004-01-01

This book is designed to accompany The State of the World Atlas, 7th Edition. The State of the World Atlas and this workbook provide a frame of reference for the changing pattern of world events. Students will become familiar with different statistical representations of the world, from birth rates to HIV/AIDS infections rates; from world…

A moving observer in a three-dimensional world

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

For many tasks such as retrieving a previously viewed object, an observer must form a representation of the world at one location and use it at another. A world-based three-dimensional reconstruction of the scene built up from visual information would fulfil this requirement, something computer vision now achieves with great speed and accuracy. However, I argue that it is neither easy nor necessary for the brain to do this. I discuss biologically plausible alternatives, including the possibility of avoiding three-dimensional coordinate frames such as ego-centric and world-based representations. For example, the distance, slant and local shape of surfaces dictate the propensity of visual features to move in the image with respect to one another as the observer's perspective changes (through movement or binocular viewing). Such propensities can be stored without the need for three-dimensional reference frames. The problem of representing a stable scene in the face of continual head and eye movements is an appropriate starting place for understanding the goal of three-dimensional vision, more so, I argue, than the case of a static binocular observer. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Vision in our three-dimensional world’. PMID:27269608

Block Adjustment and Image Matching of WORLDVIEW-3 Stereo Pairs and Accuracy Evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zuo, C.; Xiao, X.; Hou, Q.; Li, B.

2018-05-01

WorldView-3, as a high-resolution commercial earth observation satellite, which is launched by Digital Global, provides panchromatic imagery of 0.31 m resolution. The positioning accuracy is less than 3.5 meter CE90 without ground control, which can use for large scale topographic mapping. This paper presented the block adjustment for WorldView-3 based on RPC model and achieved the accuracy of 1 : 2000 scale topographic mapping with few control points. On the base of stereo orientation result, this paper applied two kinds of image matching algorithm for DSM extraction: LQM and SGM. Finally, this paper compared the accuracy of the point cloud generated by the two image matching methods with the reference data which was acquired by an airborne laser scanner. The results showed that the RPC adjustment model of WorldView-3 image with small number of GCPs could satisfy the requirement of Chinese Surveying and Mapping regulations for 1 : 2000 scale topographic maps. And the point cloud result obtained through WorldView-3 stereo image matching had higher elevation accuracy, the RMS error of elevation for bare ground area is 0.45 m, while for buildings the accuracy can almost reach 1 meter.

Mapping trees outside forests using high-resolution aerial imagery: a comparison of pixel- and object based classification approaches

Treesearch

Dacia M. Meneguzzo; Greg C. Liknes; Mark D. Nelson

2013-01-01

Discrete trees and small groups of trees in nonforest settings are considered an essential resource around the world and are collectively referred to as trees outside forests (ToF). ToF provide important functions across the landscape, such as protecting soil and water resources, providing wildlife habitat, and improving farmstead energy efficiency and aesthetics....

Factors that Can Enhance and Limit Resilience for Children of War

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McAdam-Crisp, Jacqueline L.

2006-01-01

This article builds on the author's research in East and Central Africa, specifically Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia. It examines minority world resilience theory and explores its application in the majority world, for children in need of protection (CINP). The term "minority world" refers to those in the developed world where the minority…

Integrative structural annotation of de novo RNA-Seq provides an accurate reference gene set of the enormous genome of the onion (Allium cepa L.)

PubMed Central

Kim, Seungill; Kim, Myung-Shin; Kim, Yong-Min; Yeom, Seon-In; Cheong, Kyeongchae; Kim, Ki-Tae; Jeon, Jongbum; Kim, Sunggil; Kim, Do-Sun; Sohn, Seong-Han; Lee, Yong-Hwan; Choi, Doil

2015-01-01

The onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of the most widely cultivated and consumed vegetable crops in the world. Although a considerable amount of onion transcriptome data has been deposited into public databases, the sequences of the protein-coding genes are not accurate enough to be used, owing to non-coding sequences intermixed with the coding sequences. We generated a high-quality, annotated onion transcriptome from de novo sequence assembly and intensive structural annotation using the integrated structural gene annotation pipeline (ISGAP), which identified 54,165 protein-coding genes among 165,179 assembled transcripts totalling 203.0 Mb by eliminating the intron sequences. ISGAP performed reliable annotation, recognizing accurate gene structures based on reference proteins, and ab initio gene models of the assembled transcripts. Integrative functional annotation and gene-based SNP analysis revealed a whole biological repertoire of genes and transcriptomic variation in the onion. The method developed in this study provides a powerful tool for the construction of reference gene sets for organisms based solely on de novo transcriptome data. Furthermore, the reference genes and their variation described here for the onion represent essential tools for molecular breeding and gene cloning in Allium spp. PMID:25362073

Teachers and Teaching in the Developing World. Reference Books in International Education, Volume 8. Garland Reference Library of Social Science, Volume 617.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rust, Val D., Ed.; Dalin, Per, Ed.

This book is an outgrowth of an international seminar held in Bali, Indonesia in 1986 entitled "Improving the Quality of Teaching in the Developing World: Alternative Models." The book contains essays written by 20 authors and coauthors from 12 different countries and is divided into five sections, plus a preface. The focus of section 1,…

A Comparative Study of Standardized Infinity Reference and Average Reference for EEG of Three Typical Brain States

PubMed Central

Zheng, Gaoxing; Qi, Xiaoying; Li, Yuzhu; Zhang, Wei; Yu, Yuguo

2018-01-01

The choice of different reference electrodes plays an important role in deciphering the functional meaning of electroencephalography (EEG) signals. In recent years, the infinity zero reference using the reference electrode standard technique (REST) has been increasingly applied, while the average reference (AR) was generally advocated as the best available reference option in previous classical EEG studies. Here, we designed EEG experiments and performed a direct comparison between the influences of REST and AR on EEG-revealed brain activity features for three typical brain behavior states (eyes-closed, eyes-open and music-listening). The analysis results revealed the following observations: (1) there is no significant difference in the alpha-wave-blocking effect during the eyes-open state compared with the eyes-closed state for both REST and AR references; (2) there was clear frontal EEG asymmetry during the resting state, and the degree of lateralization under REST was higher than that under AR; (3) the global brain functional connectivity density (FCD) and local FCD have higher values for REST than for AR under different behavior states; and (4) the value of the small-world network characteristic in the eyes-closed state is significantly (in full, alpha, beta and gamma frequency bands) higher than that in the eyes-open state, and the small-world effect under the REST reference is higher than that under AR. In addition, the music-listening state has a higher small-world network effect than the eyes-closed state. The above results suggest that typical EEG features might be more clearly presented by applying the REST reference than by applying AR when using a 64-channel recording. PMID:29593490

Perceptions of a changing world induce hope and promote peace in intractable conflicts.

PubMed

Cohen-Chen, Smadar; Crisp, Richard J; Halperin, Eran

2015-04-01

The importance of hope in promoting conciliatory attitudes has been asserted in the field of conflict resolution. However, little is known about conditions inducing hope, especially in intractable conflicts, where reference to the outgroup may backfire. In the current research, five studies yielded convergent support for the hypothesis that hope for peace stems from a general perception of the world as changing. In Study 1, coders observed associations between belief in a changing world, hope regarding peace, and support for concessions. Study 2 revealed the hypothesized relations using self-reported measures. Studies 3 and 4 established causality by instilling a perception of the world as changing (vs. unchanging) using narrative and drawing manipulations. Study 5 compared the changing world message with a control condition during conflict escalation. Across studies, although the specific context was not referred to, the belief in a changing world increased support for concessions through hope for peace. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

The Future of Comparative and International Education in a Globalised World

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilson, David N.

2003-03-01

This article examines the history and future prospects of comparative and international education with particular reference to the impact of globalisation and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). Connections and interactions between comparative educationists and the technologies of printing and electronic communications are examined in a historical context. The global nature of communications in comparative and international education is demonstrated both spatially and historically, using information from all regions of the world. The changing nature of technologies is noted to have broadened the audience for comparative insights. The development of textbooks, journals, conferences, international agencies, the Internet, web-based communications, and professional comparative education societies is related to the themes of communications and globalisation.

The evolutionary emergence of what we call "emotions".

PubMed

Frijda, Nico H

2016-01-01

The term "emotion" is not precise. It refers to an assemblage of processes that contribute to how we relate to the social and physical world. We need to understand the functional bases of such processes, and one such basis is action readiness. Action readiness is the preparation for movement or action. Preparation for movement occurs in all animals. In more recently evolved species, such as birds and mammals, preparation for directed action is found as well. Action readiness is the basis for the states we now call emotions, but its importance goes far beyond emotions: action readiness is an elementary aspect of the way autonomous living beings regulate their interactions with the world.

Te Ao Kori as Expressive Movement in Aotearoa New Zealand Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE): A Narrative Account

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Legge, Maureen

2011-01-01

A unique aspect of Aotearoa/New Zealand physical education is the inclusion of Maori culture in the form of te ao kori. Te ao kori translates to mean the world of movement and is represented by the interpretation of indigenous movement, games and pastimes. Participation in te ao kori means the sports-based normative frame of reference for physical…

A computational model for reference-frame synthesis with applications to motion perception.

PubMed

Clarke, Aaron M; Öğmen, Haluk; Herzog, Michael H

2016-09-01

As discovered by the Gestaltists, in particular by Duncker, we often perceive motion to be within a non-retinotopic reference frame. For example, the motion of a reflector on a bicycle appears to be circular, whereas, it traces out a cycloidal path with respect to external world coordinates. The reflector motion appears to be circular because the human brain subtracts the horizontal motion of the bicycle from the reflector motion. The bicycle serves as a reference frame for the reflector motion. Here, we present a general mathematical framework, based on vector fields, to explain non-retinotopic motion processing. Using four types of non-retinotopic motion paradigms, we show how the theory works in detail. For example, we show how non-retinotopic motion in the Ternus-Pikler display can be computed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Orbital motions of astronomical bodies and their centre of mass from different reference frames: a conceptual step between the geocentric and heliocentric models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guerra, André G. C.; Simeão Carvalho, Paulo

2016-09-01

The motion of astronomical bodies and the centre of mass of the system is not always well perceived by students. One of the struggles is the conceptual change of reference frame, which is the same that held back the acceptance of the Heliocentric model over the Geocentric one. To address the question, the notion of centre of mass, motion equations (and their numerical solution for a system of multiple bodies), and change of frame of reference is introduced. The discussion is done based on conceptual and real world examples, using the solar system. Consequently, through the use of simple ‘do it yourself’ methods and basic equations, students can debate complex motions, and have a wider and potentially effective understanding of physics.

Early years of Radio Astronomy in the U.S.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burke, B. F.

Radio Astronomy in the U.S. went through two distinct phases, the pioneering phase before the Second World War, when Karl Jansky and Grote Reber were the only two radio astronomers in the world, and the post-WWII era, when the subject blossomed throughout the world, especially in England and Australia, while U.S. radio astronomy languished at a relatively low level, until its resurgence a decade later. Here in Budapest we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of Jansky's discovery, and I shall start with a review of his work, and the subsequent work of Grote Reber, who died, regrettably, in December 2002. Two historical references will be cited frequently: Serendipitous Discoveries in Radio Astronomy (Kellermann & Sheets, eds. 1983, referred to as Paper 1) and the two historical collections edited by W.T. Sullivan, Classics in Radio Astronomy (1982, referred to as Paper 2) and The Early Years of Radio Astronomy (1984, Paper 3).

The Feasibility of Utilizing Wind Energy in Commercial Buildings With Special Reference to the Kingdom of Bahrain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abdulrahim Saeed, Saeed

2017-11-01

This article shall investigate the feasibility of utilizing wind energy for commercial buildings with special reference to the Kingdom of Bahrain. Bahrain World Trade Center which was built in 2008, is located in the city of Manama. The fifty-story complex contains identical twin towers that rise over 240 meters in height. The towers are connected by three bridges which hold three turbines each 29 meters long. The three turbines were originally design to provide electric energy required for lighting. The Bahrain World Trade Center was selected as a case study to investigate the feasibility of utilizing wind energy technologies in skyscrapers with special reference to the Kingdom of Bahrain. It is hoped that the findings and conclusion of the study shall be of some value for future utilization of wind energy in the GCC countries and the world at large.

On Observing World English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Urdang, Lawrence

1990-01-01

Reviews the current state of World English. Subjects addressed include standard accents and dialects, prejudicial attitudes toward nonstandard "local" usages, the use of English as the language of diplomacy, American influences on the language, and the fracturing of English in non-English-speaking countries around the world. (17 references) (JL)

World Class Schools: An Evolving Concept.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jenkins, John M., Ed.; And Others

The concept of "world class," often used in reference to education, lacks a precise, universal definition. This book presents case studies of exemplary schools. The foreword by Fenwick W. English presents a developmental concept of world-class education, in which fair and comparable standards, with sufficient room for sociocultural…

Light-weight reference-based compression of FASTQ data.

PubMed

Zhang, Yongpeng; Li, Linsen; Yang, Yanli; Yang, Xiao; He, Shan; Zhu, Zexuan

2015-06-09

The exponential growth of next generation sequencing (NGS) data has posed big challenges to data storage, management and archive. Data compression is one of the effective solutions, where reference-based compression strategies can typically achieve superior compression ratios compared to the ones not relying on any reference. This paper presents a lossless light-weight reference-based compression algorithm namely LW-FQZip to compress FASTQ data. The three components of any given input, i.e., metadata, short reads and quality score strings, are first parsed into three data streams in which the redundancy information are identified and eliminated independently. Particularly, well-designed incremental and run-length-limited encoding schemes are utilized to compress the metadata and quality score streams, respectively. To handle the short reads, LW-FQZip uses a novel light-weight mapping model to fast map them against external reference sequence(s) and produce concise alignment results for storage. The three processed data streams are then packed together with some general purpose compression algorithms like LZMA. LW-FQZip was evaluated on eight real-world NGS data sets and achieved compression ratios in the range of 0.111-0.201. This is comparable or superior to other state-of-the-art lossless NGS data compression algorithms. LW-FQZip is a program that enables efficient lossless FASTQ data compression. It contributes to the state of art applications for NGS data storage and transmission. LW-FQZip is freely available online at: http://csse.szu.edu.cn/staff/zhuzx/LWFQZip.

Articular scaling and body mass estimation in platyrrhines and catarrhines: Modern variation and application to fossil anthropoids.

PubMed

Perry, Jonathan M G; Cooke, Siobhán B; Runestad Connour, Jacqueline A; Burgess, M Loring; Ruff, Christopher B

2018-02-01

Body mass is an important component of any paleobiological reconstruction. Reliable skeletal dimensions for making estimates are desirable but extant primate reference samples with known body masses are rare. We estimated body mass in a sample of extinct platyrrhines and Fayum anthropoids based on four measurements of the articular surfaces of the humerus and femur. Estimates were based on a large extant reference sample of wild-collected individuals with associated body masses, including previously published and new data from extant platyrrhines, cercopithecoids, and hominoids. In general, scaling of joint dimensions is positively allometric relative to expectations of geometric isometry, but negatively allometric relative to expectations of maintaining equivalent joint surface areas. Body mass prediction equations based on articular breadths are reasonably precise, with %SEEs of 17-25%. The breadth of the distal femoral articulation yields the most reliable estimates of body mass because it scales similarly in all major anthropoid taxa. Other joints scale differently in different taxa; therefore, locomotor style and phylogenetic affinity must be considered when calculating body mass estimates from the proximal femur, proximal humerus, and distal humerus. The body mass prediction equations were applied to 36 Old World and New World fossil anthropoid specimens representing 11 taxa, plus two Haitian specimens of uncertain taxonomic affinity. Among the extinct platyrrhines studied, only Cebupithecia is similar to large, extant platyrrhines in having large humeral (especially distal) joints. Our body mass estimates differ from each other and from published estimates based on teeth in ways that reflect known differences in relative sizes of the joints and teeth. We prefer body mass estimators that are biomechanically linked to weight-bearing, and especially those that are relatively insensitive to differences in locomotor style and phylogenetic history. Whenever possible, extant reference samples should be chosen to match target fossils in joint proportionality. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neal Lane: Science in a Flat World

ScienceCinema

Lane, Neal

2017-12-22

Lane discusses the changes that have taken place in the world since World War II that have made it "flatter," referring to Thomas L. Friedman's book, The World is Flat. Friedman's main premise is that inexpensive telecommunications is bringing about unhampered international competition, the demise of economic stability, and a trend toward outsourcing services, such as computer programming, engineering and science research.

Directional statistics-based reflectance model for isotropic bidirectional reflectance distribution functions.

PubMed

Nishino, Ko; Lombardi, Stephen

2011-01-01

We introduce a novel parametric bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model that can accurately encode a wide variety of real-world isotropic BRDFs with a small number of parameters. The key observation we make is that a BRDF may be viewed as a statistical distribution on a unit hemisphere. We derive a novel directional statistics distribution, which we refer to as the hemispherical exponential power distribution, and model real-world isotropic BRDFs as mixtures of it. We derive a canonical probabilistic method for estimating the parameters, including the number of components, of this novel directional statistics BRDF model. We show that the model captures the full spectrum of real-world isotropic BRDFs with high accuracy, but a small footprint. We also demonstrate the advantages of the novel BRDF model by showing its use for reflection component separation and for exploring the space of isotropic BRDFs.

Land management in the Anthropocene: Is history still relevant?

USGS Publications Warehouse

Safford, Hugh D.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Hayward, Gregory D.; Wiens, John A.; Regan, Claudia M.

2008-01-01

Ecological restoration, conservation, and land management are often based on comparisons with reference sites or time periods, which are assumed to represent “natural” or “properly functioning” conditions. Such reference conditions can provide a vision of the conservation or management goal and a means to measure progress toward that vision. Although historical ecology has been used successfully to guide resource management in many parts of the world, the continuing relevance of history is now being questioned. Some scientists doubt that lessons from the past can inform management in what may be a dramatically different future, given profound climate change, accelerated land use, and an onslaught of plant and animal invasions.

Sperm count. Do we need a new reference value?

PubMed

Cardona Maya, Walter

2010-03-01

To evaluate the sperm count in fertile men, general population, and infertile men in different regions of the world. Sperm counts were recorded according to their fertility status, proven fertility, men recruited from an andrology/infertility clinic, or healthy men. The average of sperm count in the different studies is lower in infertile men that in fertile men (p>0.001) and in the general population (p>0.001). Based on this analysis the normal sperm count is about 65 million per mL. Using these reference value, only the 25% of the studies in infertile men are above this value, and the 75% studies with fertile men (>65 x 106 sperm/mL).

A new governance space for health

PubMed Central

Kickbusch, Ilona; Szabo, Martina Marianna Cassar

2014-01-01

Global health refers to ‘those health issues which transcend national boundaries and governments and call for actions on the global forces and global flows that determine the health of people’. (Kickbusch 2006) Governance in this trans-national and cross-cutting arena can be analyzed along three political spaces: global health governance, global governance for health, and governance for global health. It is argued that the management of the interface between these three political spaces of governance in the global public health domain is becoming increasingly important in order to move the global health agenda forward. Global health governance refers mainly to those institutions and processes of governance which are related to an explicit health mandate, such as the World Health Organization; global governance for health refers mainly to those institutions and processes of global governance which have a direct and indirect health impact, such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization or the Human Rights Council; governance for global health refers to the institutions and mechanisms established at the national and regional level to contribute to global health governance and/or to governance for global health – such as national global health strategies or regional strategies for global health. It can also refer to club strategies, such as agreements by a group of countries such as the BRICS. In all three political spaces, the involvement of a multitude of state and non-state actors has become the norm – that is why issues of legitimacy, accountability and transparency have moved to the fore. The transnational nature of global health will require the engagement of all actors to produce global public goods for health (GPGH) and to ensure a rules-based and reliably financed global public health domain. PMID:24560259

A new governance space for health.

PubMed

Kickbusch, Ilona; Szabo, Martina Marianna Cassar

2014-01-01

Global health refers to 'those health issues which transcend national boundaries and governments and call for actions on the global forces and global flows that determine the health of people'. (Kickbusch 2006) Governance in this trans-national and cross-cutting arena can be analyzed along three political spaces: global health governance, global governance for health, and governance for global health. It is argued that the management of the interface between these three political spaces of governance in the global public health domain is becoming increasingly important in order to move the global health agenda forward. Global health governance refers mainly to those institutions and processes of governance which are related to an explicit health mandate, such as the World Health Organization; global governance for health refers mainly to those institutions and processes of global governance which have a direct and indirect health impact, such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization or the Human Rights Council; governance for global health refers to the institutions and mechanisms established at the national and regional level to contribute to global health governance and/or to governance for global health--such as national global health strategies or regional strategies for global health. It can also refer to club strategies, such as agreements by a group of countries such as the BRICS. In all three political spaces, the involvement of a multitude of state and non-state actors has become the norm--that is why issues of legitimacy, accountability and transparency have moved to the fore. The transnational nature of global health will require the engagement of all actors to produce global public goods for health (GPGH) and to ensure a rules-based and reliably financed global public health domain.

Human flesh search: a supplemental review.

PubMed

Chao, Chian-Hsueng; Tao, Yu-Hui

2012-07-01

Human flesh search (HFS), a phenomenon that has recently emerged over the Internet, represents the interaction between the virtual and real worlds. The term "HFS" is equivalent to "cyber manhunt" in the West, although there were more large-scale HFS events reported in the East recently. While the majority of academic articles on HFS have focused on the Chinese context, the phenomenon has also been reported in many countries and involves diverse issues such as the controversy between privacy violation and public opinion. Based on 16 HFS references, a review paper by Chen and Sharma summarizes core issues on growth, incidents, distinctive attributes, key benefits and drawbacks, findings, and research gaps and opportunities. Echoing their call for a global HFS context, the current article provides a Taiwanese HFS context based on 32 reported incidents in Taiwan. To conduct an incremental HFS review, this study expands the reference base to 33 carefully selected academic articles from China and Taiwan. The review findings range from 6 derived HFS perspectives supplementing each article, 12 frequently mentioned HFS concepts, and 4 additional research directions. The resulting comprehensive knowledge of HFS, along with that contributed by Chen and Sharma, can be considered a useful reference framework for future HFS studies and policy making.

A chemical status predictor. A methodology based on World-Wide sediment samples.

PubMed

Gredilla, A; Fdez-Ortiz de Vallejuelo, S; de Diego, A; Arana, G; Stoichev, T; Amigo, J M; Wasserman, J C; Botello, A V; Sarkar, S K; Schäfer, J; Moreno, C; Guardia, M de la; Madariaga, J M

2015-09-15

As a consequence of the limited resources of underdeveloped countries and the limited interest of the developed ones, the assessment of the chemical quality of entire water bodies around the world is a utopia in the near future. The methodology described here may serve as a first approach for the fast identification of water bodies that do not meet the good chemical status demanded by the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). It also allows estimating the natural background (or reference values of concentration) of the areas under study using a simple criterion. The starting point is the calculation the World-Wide Natural Background Levels (WWNBLs) and World-Wide Threshold Values (WWTVs), two indexes that depend on the concentration of seven elements present in sediments. These elements, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn, have been selected taking into account the recommendations of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) and USEPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency), that describe them as elements of concern with respect to environmental toxicity. The methodology has been exemplified in a case study that includes 134 sediment samples collected in 11 transitional water bodies from 7 different countries and 4 different continents. Six of the water bodies considered met the good chemical status demanded by the WFD. The rest of them exceeded the reference WWTVs, at least for one of the elements. The estuaries of the Nerbioi-Ibaizabal (Basque Country) and Cavado (Portugal), the sea inlet of Río San Pedro (Spain), the Sepetiba Bay (Brazil) and the Yucateco lagoon (Mexico) belong to that group. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Visual guidance of mobile platforms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blissett, Rodney J.

1993-12-01

Two systems are described and results presented demonstrating aspects of real-time visual guidance of autonomous mobile platforms. The first approach incorporates prior knowledge in the form of rigid geometrical models linking visual references within the environment. The second approach is based on a continuous synthesis of information extracted from image tokens to generate a coarse-grained world model, from which potential obstacles are inferred. The use of these techniques in workplace applications is discussed.

Integrative structural annotation of de novo RNA-Seq provides an accurate reference gene set of the enormous genome of the onion (Allium cepa L.).

PubMed

Kim, Seungill; Kim, Myung-Shin; Kim, Yong-Min; Yeom, Seon-In; Cheong, Kyeongchae; Kim, Ki-Tae; Jeon, Jongbum; Kim, Sunggil; Kim, Do-Sun; Sohn, Seong-Han; Lee, Yong-Hwan; Choi, Doil

2015-02-01

The onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of the most widely cultivated and consumed vegetable crops in the world. Although a considerable amount of onion transcriptome data has been deposited into public databases, the sequences of the protein-coding genes are not accurate enough to be used, owing to non-coding sequences intermixed with the coding sequences. We generated a high-quality, annotated onion transcriptome from de novo sequence assembly and intensive structural annotation using the integrated structural gene annotation pipeline (ISGAP), which identified 54,165 protein-coding genes among 165,179 assembled transcripts totalling 203.0 Mb by eliminating the intron sequences. ISGAP performed reliable annotation, recognizing accurate gene structures based on reference proteins, and ab initio gene models of the assembled transcripts. Integrative functional annotation and gene-based SNP analysis revealed a whole biological repertoire of genes and transcriptomic variation in the onion. The method developed in this study provides a powerful tool for the construction of reference gene sets for organisms based solely on de novo transcriptome data. Furthermore, the reference genes and their variation described here for the onion represent essential tools for molecular breeding and gene cloning in Allium spp. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Kazusa DNA Research Institute.

Why the Greenwich Meridian Moved

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-08-01

that are related to the geocentric reference frame introduced by the Bureau International de l’Heure (BIH) in 1984. This BIHTerrestrial System provided...the basis for orientation of subsequent geocentric reference frames, including all realizations of theWorld Geodetic Sys- tem 1984 and the...astronomical time. The coordinates of satellite-navigation receivers are provided in reference frames that are related to the geocentric reference

The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies for the High-Tech Reference Desk.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDermott, Irene E.; Quint, Barbara, Ed.

This guide discusses the use of the World Wide Web for library reference service. Part 1, "Ready Reference on the Web: Resources for Patrons," contains chapters on searching and meta-searching the Internet, using the Web to find people, news on the Internet, quality reference resources on the Web, Internet sites for kids, free full-text…

Systematic review to support the development of nutrient reference intake values: challenges and solutions

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Workshops sponsored by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that incorporating systematic reviews into the process of updating nutrient reference values would enhance the transparency of the process. The IOM issues the Dietary Reference Intake values (DR...

EIA model documentation: World oil refining logistics demand model,``WORLD`` reference manual. Version 1.1

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

Not Available

1994-04-11

This manual is intended primarily for use as a reference by analysts applying the WORLD model to regional studies. It also provides overview information on WORLD features of potential interest to managers and analysts. Broadly, the manual covers WORLD model features in progressively increasing detail. Section 2 provides an overview of the WORLD model, how it has evolved, what its design goals are, what it produces, and where it can be taken with further enhancements. Section 3 reviews model management covering data sources, managing over-optimization, calibration and seasonality, check-points for case construction and common errors. Section 4 describes in detailmore » the WORLD system, including: data and program systems in overview; details of mainframe and PC program control and files;model generation, size management, debugging and error analysis; use with different optimizers; and reporting and results analysis. Section 5 provides a detailed description of every WORLD model data table, covering model controls, case and technology data. Section 6 goes into the details of WORLD matrix structure. It provides an overview, describes how regional definitions are controlled and defines the naming conventions for-all model rows, columns, right-hand sides, and bounds. It also includes a discussion of the formulation of product blending and specifications in WORLD. Several Appendices supplement the main sections.« less

Education and Environmentalism: Ecological World Views and Environmentally Responsible Behaviour.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blaikie, Norman

1993-01-01

Examined a subsample of students from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to determine the extent to which an Ecological World View (EWV) has been adapted, an EWV related to environmental behavior, and the role education plays in the type of EWV adapted. Includes the Ecological World View Scale. (Contains 21 references.) (MDH)

A Semiotic Analysis of Icons on the World Wide Web.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ma, Yan

The World Wide Web allows users to interact with a graphic interface to search information in a hypermedia and multimedia environment. Graphics serve as reference points on the World Wide Web for searching and retrieving information. This study analyzed the culturally constructed syntax patterns, or codes, embedded in the icons of library…

Globalised Education: The International Baccalaureate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anttila-Muilu, Sirpa

2004-01-01

When the author started as a geography teacher in an International Baccalaureate School (IB world school) 10 years ago she noticed more than a few analogies with the so-called "McWorld"--a term invented by Ritzer (1993, 1998) to refer to the global invasion of McDonald's Restaurants--and the IB world. More recently, geographers and…

Fight against malnutrition (FAM): Selected results of 2006-2012 nutrition day survey in Poland.

PubMed

Ostrowska, Joanna; Jeznach-Steinhagen, Anna

Prevalence of malnutrition among hospitalized patients is a common issue increasing the morbidity and mortality rate. In response to the aforementioned problem the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) stated an action plan to fight malnutrition and created in 2004 the global health project named NutritionDay (nD) - a single-day, population based, standardized, multinational cross-sectional audit which is performed worldwide in hospitals and nursing homes. To present selected NutritionDay (nD) results from Poland describing the nutritional situation of hospitalized patients in 2006 - 2012 compared to other countries participating in nD study. Data were collected in nD study through voluntary participation all over the world during seven years - from 2006 to 2012. Data collection was performed on ward level by staff members and patients using standardized questionnaires. The data were analyzed by the Vienna coordinating centre using the Structured Query Language ("my SQL") - an open source relational database management system as well as the Statistical Analysis System version 9.2 (SAS). In Poland 2,830 patients were included in the study during a 7-year survey, while 5,597 units recruited 103,920 patients in the world (nD reference). About 45% of the patients had a weight loss within the last 3 months prior to admission (same for nD references); 58.34% reported a decrease in eating during last week (54.85% in case of nD references). Food intake at nD illustrated that 60.55% of the patients ate half to nothing of the served meal (58.37% in the case of nD references). For both Poland and other countries participated in audit at the time of detection of malnutrition on the half of hospital wards wasn't reported any action aimed at combating this phenomenon. Malnutrition of hospitalized patients in Poland was found comparable to the rest of the world. These results reflects the fact that malnutrition is a common issue among hospitalized patients all over the world and it would be recommended to continue the action plan to fight against malnutrition commenced by the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) on international and national level. malnutrition, disease-related malnutrition, fight against malnutrition.

Vehicle Dynamics Monitoring and Tracking System (VDMTS): Monitoring Mission Impacts in Support of Installation Land Management

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-06-01

transfer This report will be made accessible through the World Wide Web (WWW) at URLs: http://www.cecer.army.mil http://libweb.erdc.usace.army.mil...conditions (e.g., wetter or dryer conditions). Using the same live event tracking data, predictions can be made for vegetation loss in wet soils, even...WWW World Wide Web ERDC/CERL TR-12-11 107 References Ahlvin, R. B., and P. W. Haley. 1992. NATO reference mobility model edition II, NRMM II

RF-Based Location Using Interpolation Functions to Reduce Fingerprint Mapping

PubMed Central

Ezpeleta, Santiago; Claver, José M.; Pérez-Solano, Juan J.; Martí, José V.

2015-01-01

Indoor RF-based localization using fingerprint mapping requires an initial training step, which represents a time consuming process. This location methodology needs a database conformed with RSSI (Radio Signal Strength Indicator) measures from the communication transceivers taken at specific locations within the localization area. But, the real world localization environment is dynamic and it is necessary to rebuild the fingerprint database when some environmental changes are made. This paper explores the use of different interpolation functions to complete the fingerprint mapping needed to achieve the sought accuracy, thereby reducing the effort in the training step. Also, different distributions of test maps and reference points have been evaluated, showing the validity of this proposal and necessary trade-offs. Results reported show that the same or similar localization accuracy can be achieved even when only 50% of the initial fingerprint reference points are taken. PMID:26516862

The metaphysics of D-CTCs: On the underlying assumptions of Deutsch's quantum solution to the paradoxes of time travel

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dunlap, Lucas

2016-11-01

I argue that Deutsch's model for the behavior of systems traveling around closed timelike curves (CTCs) relies implicitly on a substantive metaphysical assumption. Deutsch is employing a version of quantum theory with a significantly supplemented ontology of parallel existent worlds, which differ in kind from the many worlds of the Everett interpretation. Standard Everett does not support the existence of multiple identical copies of the world, which the D-CTC model requires. This has been obscured because he often refers to the branching structure of Everett as a "multiverse", and describes quantum interference by reference to parallel interacting definite worlds. But he admits that this is only an approximation to Everett. The D-CTC model, however, relies crucially on the existence of a multiverse of parallel interacting worlds. Since his model is supplemented by structures that go significantly beyond quantum theory, and play an ineliminable role in its predictions and explanations, it does not represent a quantum solution to the paradoxes of time travel.

A comparison of three infant skinfold reference standards: Tanner-Whitehouse, Cambridge Infant Growth Study, and WHO Child Growth Standards.

PubMed

Miller, Elizabeth M

2015-10-01

As researchers increasingly focus on early infancy as a critical period of development, there is a greater need for methodological tools that can address all aspects of infant growth. Infant skinfold measures, in particular, are measurements in need of reliable reference standards that encompass all ages of infants and provide an accurate assessment of the relative fatness of a population. This report evaluates three published reference standards for infant skinfold measurements: Tanner-Whitehouse, Cambridge Infant Growth Study, and the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards. To assess these standards, triceps skinfolds from a population of rural Kenyan infants (n = 250) and triceps skinfolds and subscapular skinfolds from infants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2002 (NHANES; n = 1197) were calculated as z-scores from the lambda-mu-sigma curves provided by each reference population. The Tanner-Whitehouse standards represented both the Kenyan and US populations as lean, while the Cambridge standards represented both populations as overfat. The distribution of z-scores based on the WHO standards fell in the middle, but excluded infants from both populations who were below the age of 3 months. Based on these results, the WHO reference standard is the best skinfold reference standard for infants over the age of 3 months. For populations with infants of all ages, the Tanner-Whitehouse standards are recommended, despite representing both study populations as underfat. Ideally, the WHO will extend their reference standard to include infants between the ages of 0 and 3 months. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The first dentists sent to the Western Front during the First World War.

PubMed

Gray, F S S

2017-06-09

At the outbreak of the First World War there was insufficient dental provision for serving military personnel. No army dental specialists were available overseas when the troops joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). However, the pain of toothache together with the ensuing limited mastication was debilitating and demoralising for the British soldiers. The result was that men were being withdrawn from the front for treatment at base hospitals. This was limited to extractions by medical officers, which frequently incurred unnecessary loss of dentition when restorative work would have been preferable. Other consequences of dental neglect were indigestion and malnutrition. Additionally, the painful condition of acute necrotising ulcerative gingivitis, then commonly referred to as 'trench mouth', was prevalent.

Evaluating the Small-World-Ness of a Sampled Network: Functional Connectivity of Entorhinal-Hippocampal Circuitry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

She, Qi; Chen, Guanrong; Chan, Rosa H. M.

2016-02-01

The amount of publicly accessible experimental data has gradually increased in recent years, which makes it possible to reconsider many longstanding questions in neuroscience. In this paper, an efficient framework is presented for reconstructing functional connectivity using experimental spike-train data. A modified generalized linear model (GLM) with L1-norm penalty was used to investigate 10 datasets. These datasets contain spike-train data collected from the entorhinal-hippocampal region in the brains of rats performing different tasks. The analysis shows that entorhinal-hippocampal network of well-trained rats demonstrated significant small-world features. It is found that the connectivity structure generated by distance-dependent models is responsible for the observed small-world features of the reconstructed networks. The models are utilized to simulate a subset of units recorded from a large biological neural network using multiple electrodes. Two metrics for quantifying the small-world-ness both suggest that the reconstructed network from the sampled nodes estimates a more prominent small-world-ness feature than that of the original unknown network when the number of recorded neurons is small. Finally, this study shows that it is feasible to adjust the estimated small-world-ness results based on the number of neurons recorded to provide a more accurate reference of the network property.

Body mass index and childhood obesity classification systems: A comparison of the French, International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) and World Health Organization (WHO) references.

PubMed

Kêkê, L M; Samouda, H; Jacobs, J; di Pompeo, C; Lemdani, M; Hubert, H; Zitouni, D; Guinhouya, B C

2015-06-01

This study aims to compare three body mass index (BMI)-based classification systems of childhood obesity: the French, the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) references. The study involved 1382 schoolchildren, recruited from the Lille Academic District in France in May 2009 aged 8.4±1.7 years (4.0-12.0 years). Their mean height and body mass were 131.5±10.9cm and 30.7±9.2kg, respectively, resulting in a BMI of 17.4±3.2kg/m(2). The weight status was defined according to the three systems considered in this study. The agreement between these references was tested using the Cohen's kappa coefficient. The prevalence of overweight was higher with the WHO references (20.0%) in comparison with the French references (13.8%; P<0.0001) and the IOTF (16.2%; P≤0.01). A similar result was found with obesity (WHO: 11.6% vs. IOTF: 6.7%; or French references: 6.7%; P<0.0001). Agreement between the three references ranged from "moderate" to "perfect" (0.43≤κ≤1.00; P<0.0001). Kappa coefficients were higher when the three references were used to classify children as obese (0.63≤κ≤1.00; P<0.0001) as compared to classification in the overweight (obesity excluded) category (0.43≤κ≤0.94; P<0.0001). When sex and age categories (4-6 years vs. 7-12 years) were considered to define the overweight status, the lowest kappa coefficient was found between the French and WHO references in boys aged 7-12 years (κ=0.28; P<0.0001), and the highest one in girls aged 7-12 years between the French references and IOTF (κ=0.97; P<0.0001). As for obesity, agreement between the three references ranged from 0.60 to 1.00 (P<0.0001), with the lowest values obtained in the comparison of the WHO references against French references or IOTF among boys aged 7-12 years (κ=0.60; P<0.0001). Overall, the WHO references yield an overestimation in overweight and/or obesity within this sample of schoolchildren as compared to the French references and the IOTF. The magnitude of agreement coefficients between the three references depends on of both sex and age categories. The French references seem to be in rather close agreement with the IOTF in defining overweight, especially in 7-12-year-old children. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

The positive side of a negative reference: the delay between linguistic processing and common ground

PubMed Central

Noveck, Ira; Rivera, Natalia; Jaume-Guazzini, Francisco

2017-01-01

Interlocutors converge on names to refer to entities. For example, a speaker might refer to a novel looking object as the jellyfish and, once identified, the listener will too. The hypothesized mechanism behind such referential precedents is a subject of debate. The common ground view claims that listeners register the object as well as the identity of the speaker who coined the label. The linguistic view claims that, once established, precedents are treated by listeners like any other linguistic unit, i.e. without needing to keep track of the speaker. To test predictions from each account, we used visual-world eyetracking, which allows observations in real time, during a standard referential communication task. Participants had to select objects based on instructions from two speakers. In the critical condition, listeners sought an object with a negative reference such as not the jellyfish. We aimed to determine the extent to which listeners rely on the linguistic input, common ground or both. We found that initial interpretations were based on linguistic processing only and that common ground considerations do emerge but only after 1000 ms. Our findings support the idea that—at least temporally—linguistic processing can be isolated from common ground. PMID:28386440

Tree crown mapping in managed woodlands (parklands) of semi-arid West Africa using WorldView-2 imagery and geographic object based image analysis.

PubMed

Karlson, Martin; Reese, Heather; Ostwald, Madelene

2014-11-28

Detailed information on tree cover structure is critical for research and monitoring programs targeting African woodlands, including agroforestry parklands. High spatial resolution satellite imagery represents a potentially effective alternative to field-based surveys, but requires the development of accurate methods to automate information extraction. This study presents a method for tree crown mapping based on Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) that use spectral and geometric information to detect and delineate individual tree crowns and crown clusters. The method was implemented on a WorldView-2 image acquired over the parklands of Saponé, Burkina Faso, and rigorously evaluated against field reference data. The overall detection rate was 85.4% for individual tree crowns and crown clusters, with lower accuracies in areas with high tree density and dense understory vegetation. The overall delineation error (expressed as the difference between area of delineated object and crown area measured in the field) was 45.6% for individual tree crowns and 61.5% for crown clusters. Delineation accuracies were higher for medium (35-100 m(2)) and large (≥100 m(2)) trees compared to small (<35 m(2)) trees. The results indicate potential of GEOBIA and WorldView-2 imagery for tree crown mapping in parkland landscapes and similar woodland areas.

Tree Crown Mapping in Managed Woodlands (Parklands) of Semi-Arid West Africa Using WorldView-2 Imagery and Geographic Object Based Image Analysis

PubMed Central

Karlson, Martin; Reese, Heather; Ostwald, Madelene

2014-01-01

Detailed information on tree cover structure is critical for research and monitoring programs targeting African woodlands, including agroforestry parklands. High spatial resolution satellite imagery represents a potentially effective alternative to field-based surveys, but requires the development of accurate methods to automate information extraction. This study presents a method for tree crown mapping based on Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) that use spectral and geometric information to detect and delineate individual tree crowns and crown clusters. The method was implemented on a WorldView-2 image acquired over the parklands of Saponé, Burkina Faso, and rigorously evaluated against field reference data. The overall detection rate was 85.4% for individual tree crowns and crown clusters, with lower accuracies in areas with high tree density and dense understory vegetation. The overall delineation error (expressed as the difference between area of delineated object and crown area measured in the field) was 45.6% for individual tree crowns and 61.5% for crown clusters. Delineation accuracies were higher for medium (35–100 m2) and large (≥100 m2) trees compared to small (<35 m2) trees. The results indicate potential of GEOBIA and WorldView-2 imagery for tree crown mapping in parkland landscapes and similar woodland areas. PMID:25460815

Russian History; A Guide to Reference Sources.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGill Univ., Montreal (Quebec). McLennan Library.

This guide identifies reference sources for the study of Russian and Soviet history available in the McGill University (Montreal) McLennan Library. Russian, English, French, and German language works covering Russian history from its origins to World War II are included. The guide is arranged in two parts: general reference sources and…

The Reference Process and the Philosophy of Karl Popper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neill, S. D.

1985-01-01

Two aspects of Karl Popper's philosophy are applied to reference process: process is viewed as series of problem-solving situations amenable to analysis using Popper's problem-solving schema. Reference interview is analyzed in context of Popper's postulate that books contain autonomous world of ideas existing apart from mind of knower. (30…

Future Game Developers within a Virtual World: Learner Archetypes and Team Leader Attributes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Franetovic, Marija

2016-01-01

This case study research sought to understand a subset of the next generation in reference to virtual world learning within a game development course. The students completed an ill-structured team project which was facilitated using authentic learning strategies within a virtual world over a period of seven weeks. Research findings emerged from…

Alien Life Imagined

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brake, Mark

2012-11-01

1. Kosmos: aliens in ancient Greece; 2. The world turned upside down: Copernicanism and the voyages of discovery; 3. In Newton's train: pluralism and the system of the world; 4. Extraterrestrials in the early machine age; 5. After Darwin: the war of the worlds; 6. Einstein's sky: life in the new universe; 7. Ever since SETI: astrobiology in the space age; References; Index.

Legitimacy and Reason: A Primer for Reduction of Tension between the Western and Arab-Islamic Worlds

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-06-01

epistemology , which will begin to indirectly justify the current applicability of Hobbes’ and Locke’s theories based on common logic and reason. This is...Hobbes’ and Locke’s theories . Additionally, references to current literary works and statements made by various key players on both sides of the...the context for formulation and testing of the logical political theories presented in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan and John Locke’s Second Treatise

Varieties of Universalism: Post-1990s Developments in the Initial School-Based Model of VET in Finland and Sweden and Implications for Transitions to the World of Work and Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Virolainen, M.; Persson Thunqvist, D.

2017-01-01

The Nordic countries are often referred to as a group even though their education systems and training models are very different. The aim of this study is to advance understanding of those differences and compare the developments and organisation of initial vocational education and training (IVET) in Finland and Sweden since the 1990s as examples…

Migrating Department of Defense (DoD) Web Service Based Applications to Mobile Computing Platforms

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-03-01

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Geolocation API to identify the device’s location and then center the map on the device. Finally, we modify the entry...THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK xii List of Acronyms and Abbreviations API Application Programming Interface CSS Cascading Style Sheets CLIMO...Java API for XML Web Services Reference Implementation JS JavaScript JSNI JavaScript Native Interface METOC Meteorological and Oceanographic MAA Mobile

Land Management in the Anthropocene: Is History Still Relevant?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Safford, Hugh D.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Hayward, Gregory D.; Wiens, John A.; Regan, Claudia M.

2008-09-01

Incorporating Historical Ecology and Climate Change Into Land Management; Lansdowne, Virginia, 22-25 April 2008; Ecological restoration, conservation, and land management are often based on comparisons with reference sites or time periods, which are assumed to represent ``natural'' or ``properly functioning'' conditions. Such reference conditions can provide a vision of the conservation or management goal and a means to measure progress toward that vision. Although historical ecology has been used successfully to guide resource management in many parts of the world, the continuing relevance of history is now being questioned. Some scientists doubt that lessons from the past can inform management in what may be a dramatically different future, given profound climate change, accelerated land use, and an onslaught of plant and animal invasions.

Integrated driver modelling considering state transition feature for individual adaptation of driver assistance systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raksincharoensak, Pongsathorn; Khaisongkram, Wathanyoo; Nagai, Masao; Shimosaka, Masamichi; Mori, Taketoshi; Sato, Tomomasa

2010-12-01

This paper describes the modelling of naturalistic driving behaviour in real-world traffic scenarios, based on driving data collected via an experimental automobile equipped with a continuous sensing drive recorder. This paper focuses on the longitudinal driving situations which are classified into five categories - car following, braking, free following, decelerating and stopping - and are referred to as driving states. Here, the model is assumed to be represented by a state flow diagram. Statistical machine learning of driver-vehicle-environment system model based on driving database is conducted by a discriminative modelling approach called boosting sequential labelling method.

Effectiveness of structured, hospital-based, nurse-led atrial fibrillation clinics: a comparison between a real-world population and a clinical trial population.

PubMed

Qvist, Ina; Hendriks, Jeroen M L; Møller, Dorthe S; Albertsen, Andi E; Mogensen, Helle M; Oddershede, Gitte D; Odgaard, Annette; Mortensen, Leif Spange; Johnsen, Søren Paaske; Frost, Lars

2016-01-01

A previous randomised trial showed that structured, nurse-led atrial fibrillation (AF) care is superior to conventional AF care, although further research is needed to determine the outcomes of such care in a real-world setting. We compared the outcomes of patients in real-world, nurse-led, structured hospital AF clinics with the outcomes of a randomised trial of the efficacy of a nurse-led AF clinic, with respect to a composite outcome of cardiovascular-related hospitalisation and death. All patients were referred to the AF nurse specialist by cardiologists. The AF nurse specialist provided patient education, risk-factor control and stimulated empowerment and compliance. During follow-up, treatment was adjusted according to clinical guidelines. Patient education was repeated, and compliance with medical treatment was controlled. The study size was powered as a non-inferiority study. Outcome measures were adjudicated by the same principles in both cohorts. A total of 596 patients from the real world and 356 patients from a clinical trial were included in this study. No significant difference between groups with respect to age, type of AF or CHA2DS2VASc score was found. The composite primary end point occurred with an incidence rate of 8.0 (95% CI 6.1 to 10.4) per 100 person-years in the real-world population and 8.3 (95% CI 6.3 to 10.9) per 100 person-years in the clinical trial, with a crude HR of 0.83 (95% CI 0.56 to 1.23). Structured, nurse-led, hospital-based AF care appears to be effective, and patient outcomes in an actual, hospital-based, structured AF care are as least as good as those in trial settings.

JPRS Report, Soviet Union, World Economy & International Relations, No. 3, March 1988.

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-06-14

JPRS-UWE-89-008 14 JUNE 1989 JPRS Report— Soviet Union WORLD ECONOMY & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS No 3, March 1988 MBTltlBOTION STATEMENT A...SERVICE SPRINGFIELD, VA. 22161 \\*2 Soviet Union WORLD ECONOMY & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS No 3, March 1988 JPRS-UWE-89-008 CONTENTS 14 JUNE 1989...Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Refer to the table of contents for a listing of any articles

Using different growth references to measure thinness and overweight among Swedish primary school children showed considerable variations.

PubMed

Nilsen, Bente B; Yngve, Agneta; Sjöberg, Agneta; Moraeus, Lotta; Lissner, Lauren; Werner, Bo

2016-10-01

The study compared how four different growth references determined the prevalence of thinness and overweight, based on height and weight measurements from a nationally representative sample of Swedish children from seven to nine years of age. The height and weight measurements of 4518 Swedish schoolchildren aged seven to nine years were carried out in 2008 using a standardised protocol. The prevalence of different degrees of thinness and overweight was calculated using international growth references from the World Health Organization, the International Obesity Task Force and two Swedish growth references from Werner and Karlberg. Depending on which growth reference we used, the prevalence of different degrees of thinness varied from 7.5% to 16.9% for the boys and 6.9% to 13.7% for the girls, while the prevalence of overweight, including obesity and severe obesity, varied from 16.5% to 25.7% for the boys and 18.2 to 25.2% for the girls. There were also significant gender differences depending on the growth reference we used. Using four different growth references, two international and two Swedish, produced wide variations in the prevalence of thinness and overweight, together with significant gender differences. In the absence of a global definition, we need both national and international growth references. ©2016 Foundation Acta Paediatrica. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

MODEL-BASED HYDROACOUSTIC BLOCKAGE ASSESSMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXPLOSIVE SOURCE DATABASE

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

Matzel, E; Ramirez, A; Harben, P

2005-07-11

We are continuing the development of the Hydroacoustic Blockage Assessment Tool (HABAT) which is designed for use by analysts to predict which hydroacoustic monitoring stations can be used in discrimination analysis for any particular event. The research involves two approaches (1) model-based assessment of blockage, and (2) ground-truth data-based assessment of blockage. The tool presents the analyst with a map of the world, and plots raypath blockages from stations to sources. The analyst inputs source locations and blockage criteria, and the tool returns a list of blockage status from all source locations to all hydroacoustic stations. We are currently usingmore » the tool in an assessment of blockage criteria for simple direct-path arrivals. Hydroacoustic data, predominantly from earthquake sources, are read in and assessed for blockage at all available stations. Several measures are taken. First, can the event be observed at a station above background noise? Second, can we establish backazimuth from the station to the source. Third, how large is the decibel drop at one station relative to other stations. These observational results are then compared with model estimates to identify the best set of blockage criteria and used to create a set of blockage maps for each station. The model-based estimates are currently limited by the coarse bathymetry of existing databases and by the limitations inherent in the raytrace method. In collaboration with BBN Inc., the Hydroacoustic Coverage Assessment Model (HydroCAM) that generates the blockage files that serve as input to HABAT, is being extended to include high-resolution bathymetry databases in key areas that increase model-based blockage assessment reliability. An important aspect of this capability is to eventually include reflected T-phases where they reliably occur and to identify the associated reflectors. To assess how well any given hydroacoustic discriminant works in separating earthquake and in-water explosion populations it is necessary to have both a database of reference earthquake events and of reference in-water explosive events. Although reference earthquake events are readily available, explosive reference events are not. Consequently, building an in-water explosion reference database requires the compilation of events from many sources spanning a long period of time. We have developed a database of small implosive and explosive reference events from the 2003 Indian Ocean Cruise data. These events were recorded at some or all of the IMS Indian Ocean hydroacoustic stations: Diego Garcia, Cape Leeuwin, and Crozet Island. We have also reviewed many historical large in-water explosions and identified five that have adequate source information and can be positively associated to the hydrophone recordings. The five events are: Cannekin, Longshot, CHASE-3, CHASE-5, and IITRI-1. Of these, the first two are nuclear tests on land but near water. The latter three are in-water conventional explosive events with yields from ten to hundreds of tons TNT equivalent. The objective of this research is to enhance discrimination capabilities for events located in the world's oceans. Two research and development efforts are needed to achieve this: (1) improvement in discrimination algorithms and their joint statistical application to events, and (2) development of an automated and accurate blockage prediction capability that will identify all stations and phases (direct and reflected) from a given event that will have adequate signal to be used in a discrimination analysis. The strategy for improving blockage prediction in the world's oceans is to improve model-based prediction of blockage and to develop a ground-truth database of reference events to assess blockage. Currently, research is focused on the development of a blockage assessment software tool. The tool is envisioned to develop into a sophisticated and unifying package that optimally and automatically assesses both model and data based blockage predictions in all ocean basins, for all NDC stations, and accounting for reflected phases (Pulli et al., 2000). Currently, we have focused our efforts on the Diego Garcia, Cape Leeuwin and Crozet Island hydroacoustic stations in the Indian Ocean.« less

Analytical Chemistry: A Literary Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lucy, Charles A.

2000-04-01

The benefits of incorporating real-world examples of chemistry into lectures and lessons is reflected by the recent inclusion of the Teaching with Problems and Case Studies column in this Journal. However, these examples lie outside the experience of many students, and so much of the impact of "real-world" examples is lost. This paper provides an anthology of references to analytical chemistry techniques from history, popular fiction, and film. Such references are amusing to both instructor and student. Further, the fictional descriptions can serve as a focal point for discussions of a technique's true capabilities and limitations.

Archetypes, Causal Description and Creativity in Natural World

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chiatti, Leonardo

The idea, formulated for the first time by Pauli, of a "creativity" of natural processes on a quantum scale is briefly investigated, with particular reference to the phenomena, common throughout the biological world, involved in the amplification of microscopic "creative" events at oscopic level. The involvement of non-locality is also discussed with reference to the synordering of events, a concept introduced for the first time by Bohm. Some convergences are proposed between the metamorphic process envisaged by Bohm and that envisaged by Goethe, and some possible applications concerning known biological phenomena are briefly discussed.

Embedded Data Representations.

PubMed

Willett, Wesley; Jansen, Yvonne; Dragicevic, Pierre

2017-01-01

We introduce embedded data representations, the use of visual and physical representations of data that are deeply integrated with the physical spaces, objects, and entities to which the data refers. Technologies like lightweight wireless displays, mixed reality hardware, and autonomous vehicles are making it increasingly easier to display data in-context. While researchers and artists have already begun to create embedded data representations, the benefits, trade-offs, and even the language necessary to describe and compare these approaches remain unexplored. In this paper, we formalize the notion of physical data referents - the real-world entities and spaces to which data corresponds - and examine the relationship between referents and the visual and physical representations of their data. We differentiate situated representations, which display data in proximity to data referents, and embedded representations, which display data so that it spatially coincides with data referents. Drawing on examples from visualization, ubiquitous computing, and art, we explore the role of spatial indirection, scale, and interaction for embedded representations. We also examine the tradeoffs between non-situated, situated, and embedded data displays, including both visualizations and physicalizations. Based on our observations, we identify a variety of design challenges for embedded data representation, and suggest opportunities for future research and applications.

Introduction to the World Wide Web and Mosaic

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Youngblood, Jim

1994-01-01

This tutorial provides an introduction to some of the terminology related to the use of the World Wide Web and Mosaic. It is assumed that the user has some prior computer experience. References are included to other sources of additional information.

Evidence-Based Occupational Hearing Screening I: Modeling the Effects of Real-World Noise Environments on the Likelihood of Effective Speech Communication.

PubMed

Soli, Sigfrid D; Giguère, Christian; Laroche, Chantal; Vaillancourt, Véronique; Dreschler, Wouter A; Rhebergen, Koenraad S; Harkins, Kevin; Ruckstuhl, Mark; Ramulu, Pradeep; Meyers, Lawrence S

The objectives of this study were to (1) identify essential hearing-critical job tasks for public safety and law enforcement personnel; (2) determine the locations and real-world noise environments where these tasks are performed; (3) characterize each noise environment in terms of its impact on the likelihood of effective speech communication, considering the effects of different levels of vocal effort, communication distances, and repetition; and (4) use this characterization to define an objective normative reference for evaluating the ability of individuals to perform essential hearing-critical job tasks in noisy real-world environments. Data from five occupational hearing studies performed over a 17-year period for various public safety agencies were analyzed. In each study, job task analyses by job content experts identified essential hearing-critical tasks and the real-world noise environments where these tasks are performed. These environments were visited, and calibrated recordings of each noise environment were made. The extended speech intelligibility index (ESII) was calculated for each 4-sec interval in each recording. These data, together with the estimated ESII value required for effective speech communication by individuals with normal hearing, allowed the likelihood of effective speech communication in each noise environment for different levels of vocal effort and communication distances to be determined. These likelihoods provide an objective norm-referenced and standardized means of characterizing the predicted impact of real-world noise on the ability to perform essential hearing-critical tasks. A total of 16 noise environments for law enforcement personnel and eight noise environments for corrections personnel were analyzed. Effective speech communication was essential to hearing-critical tasks performed in these environments. Average noise levels, ranged from approximately 70 to 87 dBA in law enforcement environments and 64 to 80 dBA in corrections environments. The likelihood of effective speech communication at communication distances of 0.5 and 1 m was often less than 0.50 for normal vocal effort. Likelihood values often increased to 0.80 or more when raised or loud vocal effort was used. Effective speech communication at and beyond 5 m was often unlikely, regardless of vocal effort. ESII modeling of nonstationary real-world noise environments may prove an objective means of characterizing their impact on the likelihood of effective speech communication. The normative reference provided by these measures predicts the extent to which hearing impairments that increase the ESII value required for effective speech communication also decrease the likelihood of effective speech communication. These predictions may provide an objective evidence-based link between the essential hearing-critical job task requirements of public safety and law enforcement personnel and ESII-based hearing assessment of individuals who seek to perform these jobs.

The importance of group-wise registration in tract based spatial statistics study of neurodegeneration: a simulation study in Alzheimer's disease.

PubMed

Keihaninejad, Shiva; Ryan, Natalie S; Malone, Ian B; Modat, Marc; Cash, David; Ridgway, Gerard R; Zhang, Hui; Fox, Nick C; Ourselin, Sebastien

2012-01-01

Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) is a popular method for the analysis of diffusion tensor imaging data. TBSS focuses on differences in white matter voxels with high fractional anisotropy (FA), representing the major fibre tracts, through registering all subjects to a common reference and the creation of a FA skeleton. This work considers the effect of choice of reference in the TBSS pipeline, which can be a standard template, an individual subject from the study, a study-specific template or a group-wise average. While TBSS attempts to overcome registration error by searching the neighbourhood perpendicular to the FA skeleton for the voxel with maximum FA, this projection step may not compensate for large registration errors that might occur in the presence of pathology such as atrophy in neurodegenerative diseases. This makes registration performance and choice of reference an important issue. Substantial work in the field of computational anatomy has shown the use of group-wise averages to reduce biases while avoiding the arbitrary selection of a single individual. Here, we demonstrate the impact of the choice of reference on: (a) specificity (b) sensitivity in a simulation study and (c) a real-world comparison of Alzheimer's disease patients to controls. In (a) and (b), simulated deformations and decreases in FA were applied to control subjects to simulate changes of shape and WM integrity similar to what would be seen in AD patients, in order to provide a "ground truth" for evaluating the various methods of TBSS reference. Using a group-wise average atlas as the reference outperformed other references in the TBSS pipeline in all evaluations.

The Importance of Group-Wise Registration in Tract Based Spatial Statistics Study of Neurodegeneration: A Simulation Study in Alzheimer's Disease

PubMed Central

Keihaninejad, Shiva; Ryan, Natalie S.; Malone, Ian B.; Modat, Marc; Cash, David; Ridgway, Gerard R.; Zhang, Hui; Fox, Nick C.; Ourselin, Sebastien

2012-01-01

Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) is a popular method for the analysis of diffusion tensor imaging data. TBSS focuses on differences in white matter voxels with high fractional anisotropy (FA), representing the major fibre tracts, through registering all subjects to a common reference and the creation of a FA skeleton. This work considers the effect of choice of reference in the TBSS pipeline, which can be a standard template, an individual subject from the study, a study-specific template or a group-wise average. While TBSS attempts to overcome registration error by searching the neighbourhood perpendicular to the FA skeleton for the voxel with maximum FA, this projection step may not compensate for large registration errors that might occur in the presence of pathology such as atrophy in neurodegenerative diseases. This makes registration performance and choice of reference an important issue. Substantial work in the field of computational anatomy has shown the use of group-wise averages to reduce biases while avoiding the arbitrary selection of a single individual. Here, we demonstrate the impact of the choice of reference on: (a) specificity (b) sensitivity in a simulation study and (c) a real-world comparison of Alzheimer's disease patients to controls. In (a) and (b), simulated deformations and decreases in FA were applied to control subjects to simulate changes of shape and WM integrity similar to what would be seen in AD patients, in order to provide a “ground truth” for evaluating the various methods of TBSS reference. Using a group-wise average atlas as the reference outperformed other references in the TBSS pipeline in all evaluations. PMID:23139736

[Correlation of size and age in Colombian indigenous children based on WHO and NCHS references].

PubMed

Benjumea-Rincón, María V; Parra-Sánchez, José H; Ocampo-Téllez, Paul R

2016-08-01

Objective To evaluate the correlation of size, according to age, of the anthropometric growth references of Colombian indigenous children studied in Encuesta Nacional de la Situación Nutricional de Colombia 2010 -ENSIN 2010 (National Survey of Nutrition in Colombia - 2010). Method A secondary analysis of 2598 data of indigenous Colombian children under five years of age, evaluated by ENSIN in 2010, was performed. The considered variables were size according to age, gender, height, place of residence, department and socioeconomic position. The classification of the deficit in size, based on the references of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), was made by using the Z <-2 score and the Anthro software. The Kappa coefficient was estimated to assess the correlation between anthropometric categories and was classified taking into account the proposal of Altman DG. Results One in four children had a deficit in size in the light of both anthropometric references. The prevalence of the deficit was higher when using the WHO standard, increased with age and was higher in children who resided in low altitude (m). The correlation between the two references was good (kappa ≥0,688, p=0,000) for children of both genders and all ages; the exception corresponded to children of age two, since it was moderate (kappa=0,601, p=0,000). The greatest disagreement in the classification was observed in the category "tall". Conclusion According to the statistical correlation found between the two anthropometric references (WHO vs. NCHS), any reference could be used for assessment of size according to for age.

Educational use of World Wide Web pages on CD-ROM.

PubMed

Engel, Thomas P; Smith, Michael

2002-01-01

The World Wide Web is increasingly important for medical education. Internet served pages may also be used on a local hard disk or CD-ROM without a network or server. This allows authors to reuse existing content and provide access to users without a network connection. CD-ROM offers several advantages over network delivery of Web pages for several applications. However, creating Web pages for CD-ROM requires careful planning. Issues include file names, relative links, directory names, default pages, server created content, image maps, other file types and embedded programming. With care, it is possible to create server based pages that can be copied directly to CD-ROM. In addition, Web pages on CD-ROM may reference Internet served pages to provide the best features of both methods.

Analysis of the variation of the 0°C isothermal altitude during rainfall events

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeimetz, Fränz; Garcìa, Javier; Schaefli, Bettina; Schleiss, Anton J.

2016-04-01

In numerous countries of the world (USA, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland,…), the dam safety verifications for extreme floods are realized by referring to the so called Probable Maximum Flood (PMF). According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), this PMF is determined based on the PMP (Probable Maximum Precipitation). The PMF estimation is performed with a hydrological simulation model by routing the PMP. The PMP-PMF simulation is normally event based; therefore, if no further information is known, the simulation needs assumptions concerning the initial soil conditions such as saturation or snow cover. In addition, temperature series are also of interest for the PMP-PMF simulations. Temperature values can not only be deduced from temperature measurement but also using the temperature gradient method, the 0°C isothermal altitude can lead to temperature estimations on the ground. For practitioners, the usage of the isothermal altitude for referring to temperature is convenient and simpler because one value can give information over a large region under the assumption of a certain temperature gradient. The analysis of the evolution of the 0°C isothermal altitude during rainfall events is aimed here and based on meteorological soundings from the two sounding stations Payerne (CH) and Milan (I). Furthermore, hourly rainfall and temperature data are available from 110 pluviometers spread over the Swiss territory. The analysis of the evolution of the 0°C isothermal altitude is undertaken for different precipitation durations based on the meteorological measurements mentioned above. The results show that on average, the isothermal altitude tends to decrease during the rainfall events and that a correlation between the duration of the altitude loss and the duration of the rainfall exists. A significant difference in altitude loss is appearing when the soundings from Payerne and Milan are compared.

Comets in UV

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shustov, B.; Sachkov, M.; Gómez de Castro, A. I.; Vallejo, J. C.; Kanev, E.; Dorofeeva, V.

2018-04-01

Comets are important "eyewitnesses" of Solar System formation and evolution. Important tests to determine the chemical composition and to study the physical processes in cometary nuclei and coma need data in the UV range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Comprehensive and complete studies require additional ground-based observations and in situ experiments. We briefly review observations of comets in the ultraviolet (UV) and discuss the prospects of UV observations of comets and exocomets with space-borne instruments. A special reference is made to the World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) project.

A Preliminary Statistical Investigation into the Impace of an N-Gram Analysis Approach Based on World Syntactic Categories Toward Text Author Classification

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-06-01

of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources...words: N-gram, Shakespeare , Middleton, Wardigo, Funeral Elegy, Author Classification Introduction Literary experts refer to the style of the ...signed W. S. at the time of the investigation; the jury was still out as to the identity of its author. It has been noted as of late

Corps Level Operational Art in Vietnam: A Study of II Field Force Commanders during Major Named Operations

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-05-23

South Vietnam and the bombing campaign falling short of its desired effects, options generated by the administration’s Whiz Kids or civilian...The Washington Post, 7 July 2009, http://articles.washingtonpost.com (accessed 5 October 2012), The term Whiz Kid refers to young 6...the U.S. Department of Defense by implementing a statistics based management approach. Whiz kid originated from a group or former World War II U.S. Air

Catholic doctrine and nuclear dogmatics

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

Paradise, S.I.

The bishops' pastoral letter challenging US nuclear strategy is based on the moral doctrine of a just war and post-World War II anti-Communist developments within the church. They advocate non-violence and active pursuit of peace, but retain the just war theory. They interpret nuclear deterrence as morally flawed and a driving force in the arms race, but they offer a moral loophole by advocating only bilateral and verifiable disarmament. The controversy centers on how quickly Christians are obligated to act. 9 references. (DCK)

Evidence-based guidelines on the referral of visually impaired persons to low vision services.

PubMed

De Boer, M R; Langelaan, M; Jansonius, N M; Van Rens, G H M B

2005-01-01

One to two percent of the population in the Western world is visually impaired or blind. For most of these people there is no curative therapy. Therefore, the Dutch Ophthalmic Society has taken the initiative to develop an evidence-based guideline for the referral of visually impaired persons to low vision services. A systematic literature search was performed in the Embase (1991-2001) and Medline (1966-2003) databases. Literature was searched for definitions of visual impairment, for physician-patient communication, and for outcome of interventions for visually impaired persons. Results of the articles that were selected were summarized and rated according to the level of evidence. Other considerations such as the current organization of rehabilitation for visually impaired persons in the Netherlands were also taken into account. The World Health Organization criteria were slightly adapted in order to include all people who experience problems with reading and other daily life activities due to visual impairment. A large number of recommendations were devised. Among these is that the complete diagnosis should be communicated to the patient and that a second appointment should be offered in which the diagnosis and potential treatment options are discussed again. Another recommendation is that in general visually impaired adults eligible for referral should be referred for the provision of low vision aids and that patients with complex problems or extensive rehabilitative demand should be referred to a rehabilitation center. This article presents a summary of the first European evidence-based guideline for the referral of visually impaired persons.

The principle of relativity, superluminality and EPR experiments. "Riserratevi sotto coverta ..."

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cocciaro, B.

2015-07-01

The principle of relativity claims the invariance of the results for experiments carried out in inertial reference frames if the system under examination is not in interaction with the outside world. In this paper it is analysed a model suggested by J. S. Bell, and later developed by P. H. Eberhard, D. Bohm and B. Hiley on the basis of which the EPR correlations would be due to superluminal exchanges between the various parts of the entangled system under examination. In the model the existence of a privileged reference frame (PF) for the propagation of superluminal signals is hypothesized so that these superluminal signals may not give rise to causal paradoxes. According to this model, in an EPR experiment, the entangled system interacts with the outer world since the result of the experiment depends on an entity (the reference frame PF) that is not prepared by the experimenter. The existence of this privileged reference frame makes the model non invariant for Lorentz transformations. In this paper, in opposition to what claimed by the authors mentioned above, the perfect compatibility of the model with the theory of relativity is strongly maintained since, as already said, the principle of relativity does not require that the results of experiments carried out on systems interacting with the outside world should be invariant.

Identification and comprehensive evaluation of reference genes for RT-qPCR analysis of host gene-expression in Brassica juncea-aphid interaction using microarray data.

PubMed

Ram, Chet; Koramutla, Murali Krishna; Bhattacharya, Ramcharan

2017-07-01

Brassica juncea is a chief oil yielding crop in many parts of the world including India. With advancement of molecular techniques, RT-qPCR based study of gene-expression has become an integral part of experimentations in crop breeding. In RT-qPCR, use of appropriate reference gene(s) is pivotal. The virtue of the reference genes, being constant in expression throughout the experimental treatments, needs to be validated case by case. Appropriate reference gene(s) for normalization of gene-expression data in B. juncea during the biotic stress of aphid infestation is not known. In the present investigation, 11 reference genes identified from microarray database of Arabidopsis-aphid interaction at a cut off FDR ≤0.1, along with two known reference genes of B. juncea, were analyzed for their expression stability upon aphid infestation. These included 6 frequently used and 5 newly identified reference genes. Ranking orders of the reference genes in terms of expression stability were calculated using advanced statistical approaches such as geNorm, NormFinder, delta Ct and BestKeeper. The analysis suggested CAC, TUA and DUF179 as the most suitable reference genes. Further, normalization of the gene-expression data of STP4 and PR1 by the most and the least stable reference gene, respectively has demonstrated importance and applicability of the recommended reference genes in aphid infested samples of B. juncea. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Visual-conformal display format for helicopter guidance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Doehler, H.-U.; Schmerwitz, Sven; Lueken, Thomas

2014-06-01

Helicopter guidance in situations where natural vision is reduced is still a challenging task. Beside new available sensors, which are able to "see" through darkness, fog and dust, display technology remains one of the key issues of pilot assistance systems. As long as we have pilots within aircraft cockpits, we have to keep them informed about the outside situation. "Situational awareness" of humans is mainly powered by their visual channel. Therefore, display systems which are able to cross-fade seamless from natural vision to artificial computer vision and vice versa, are of greatest interest within this context. Helmet-mounted displays (HMD) have this property when they apply a head-tracker for measuring the pilot's head orientation relative to the aircraft reference frame. Together with the aircraft's position and orientation relative to the world's reference frame, the on-board graphics computer can generate images which are perfectly aligned with the outside world. We call image elements which match the outside world, "visual-conformal". Published display formats for helicopter guidance in degraded visual environment apply mostly 2D-symbologies which stay far behind from what is possible. We propose a perspective 3D-symbology for a head-tracked HMD which shows as much as possible visual-conformal elements. We implemented and tested our proposal within our fixed based cockpit simulator as well as in our flying helicopter simulator (FHS). Recently conducted simulation trials with experienced helicopter pilots give some first evaluation results of our proposal.

Traceable calibration of photovoltaic reference cells using natural sunlight

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Müllejans, H.; Zaaiman, W.; Pavanello, D.; Dunlop, E. D.

2018-02-01

At the European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) photovoltaic (PV) reference cells are calibrated traceably to SI units via the World Radiometric Reference (WRR) using natural sunlight. The Direct Sunlight Method (DSM) is described in detail and the latest measurement results and an updated uncertainty budget are reported. These PV reference cells then provide a practical means for measuring the irradiance of natural or simulated sunlight during the calibration of other PV devices.

The Real World and Virtual Worlds.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glaser, Stan

1997-01-01

Discusses some of the limitations of virtual reality (VR) with reference to socio-technical systems, i.e., the interaction of people with technology. Points to a significant opportunity for VR technology to be used in strategic partnership marketing and supply chain management. (Author/LRW)

Reference Collections and Standards.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winkel, Lois

1999-01-01

Reviews six reference materials for young people: "The New York Public Library Kid's Guide to Research"; "National Audubon Society First Field Guide. Mammals"; "Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary"; "Encarta Africana"; "World Fact Book, 1998"; and "Factastic Book of 1001 Lists". Includes ordering information.(AEF)

Interlaboratory Reproducibility of Droplet Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction Using a New DNA Reference Material Format.

PubMed

Pinheiro, Leonardo B; O'Brien, Helen; Druce, Julian; Do, Hongdo; Kay, Pippa; Daniels, Marissa; You, Jingjing; Burke, Daniel; Griffiths, Kate; Emslie, Kerry R

2017-11-07

Use of droplet digital PCR technology (ddPCR) is expanding rapidly in the diversity of applications and number of users around the world. Access to relatively simple and affordable commercial ddPCR technology has attracted wide interest in use of this technology as a molecular diagnostic tool. For ddPCR to effectively transition to a molecular diagnostic setting requires processes for method validation and verification and demonstration of reproducible instrument performance. In this study, we describe the development and characterization of a DNA reference material (NMI NA008 High GC reference material) comprising a challenging methylated GC-rich DNA template under a novel 96-well microplate format. A scalable process using high precision acoustic dispensing technology was validated to produce the DNA reference material with a certified reference value expressed in amount of DNA molecules per well. An interlaboratory study, conducted using blinded NA008 High GC reference material to assess reproducibility among seven independent laboratories demonstrated less than 4.5% reproducibility relative standard deviation. With the exclusion of one laboratory, laboratories had appropriate technical competency, fully functional instrumentation, and suitable reagents to perform accurate ddPCR based DNA quantification measurements at the time of the study. The study results confirmed that NA008 High GC reference material is fit for the purpose of being used for quality control of ddPCR systems, consumables, instrumentation, and workflow.

Generalizability of clinical trials of advanced melanoma in the real-world, population-based setting.

PubMed

Sam, Davis; Gresham, Gillian; Abdel-Rahman, Omar; Cheung, Winson Y

2018-06-18

Results from novel therapeutics trials are not always generalizable to real-world patients. We aimed to determine the pattern in which trial findings are applied in a population-based setting of melanoma patients and consequent treatment outcomes. Patients with unresectable disease during 2011-2014 and referred to cancer centers in a large Canadian province were retrospectively reviewed. Based on eligibility criteria as described in registration trials of vemurafenib (Vem) and ipilimumab (Ipi), we classified patients into trial-eligible and ineligible and those treated and untreated with these agents. We identified 290 patients with known BRAF status for the Vem analysis and 212 patients previously treated with first-line agents for the Ipi analysis. For the Vem cohort, a total of 49 patients were considered trial-eligible, of whom 36 (73%) received treatment. For the Ipi cohort, there were 119 trial-eligible cases of whom 43 (36%) received therapy. Factors other than eligibility criteria most frequently associated with non-treatment in these cohorts included concerns regarding treatment harm and patient preferences. In multivariable analysis, overall survival was improved in Vem cohort patients considered trial-eligible and treated compared to those who were ineligible. Within the Ipi cohort, survival was improved in trial-eligible patients regardless of whether they received Ipi compared to ineligible patients. Real-world uptake of new melanoma treatments was suboptimal, and non-use in trial-eligible patients was frequent. Future clinical trials that are more pragmatically designed to include participants who better reflect the real-world population may facilitate increased uptake of novel therapeutics into routine clinical practice.

Blood Program in World War II. Medical Department, United States Army

DTIC Science & Technology

1964-01-01

Branch Lieutenant Colonel JEROME RUDBERG, MSC, USA, Chief, Information Activities Branch RODERICK M. ENGERT, Chief, General Reference and Research... Activities of Medical Consultants Vol. II. Infectious Diseases Preventive Medicine in World War II: Vol. II. Environmental Hygiene Vol. III. Personal...Other Than Malaria Vr VIII Surgery in World War II: Activities of Surgical Consultants, vol. I Activities of Surgical Consultants, vol. II General

Virtual Worlds as a Context Suited for Information Systems Education: Discussion of Pedagogical Experience and Curriculum Design with Reference to Second Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dreher, Carl; Reiners, Torsten; Dreher, Naomi; Dreher, Heinz

2009-01-01

The context of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is changing dramatically. Today, Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and MySpace are used ubiquitously in the general population, and Virtual Worlds are becoming increasingly popular in business, for example via simulations in Second Life. However the capacity of Virtual Worlds is…

An African Perspective on Peace Education: Ubuntu Lessons in Reconciliation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murithi, Tim

2009-05-01

This essay examines the value of educating for peace. It does this through a consideration of the African cultural world-view known as ubuntu, which highlights the essential unity of humanity and emphasises the importance of constantly referring to the principles of empathy, sharing and cooperation in efforts to resolve our common problems. The essay is not based on field research, but rather on a discussion of the issues pertaining to ubuntu and peace education. The discussion focuses on how Desmond Tutu utilised the principles of ubuntu during his leadership of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It also outlines the five stages of the peacemaking process found among ubuntu societies: acknowledging guilt; showing remorse and repenting; asking for and giving forgiveness; and paying compensation or reparations as a prelude to reconciliation. Potential lessons for educating for peace and reconciliation are highlighted based on the premise that the ubuntu approach to human relationship-building can offer an example to the world.

A fractal growth model: Exploring the connection pattern of hubs in complex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Dongyan; Wang, Xingyuan; Huang, Penghe

2017-04-01

Fractal is ubiquitous in many real-world networks. Previous researches showed that the strong disassortativity between the hub-nodes on all length scales was the key principle that gave rise to the fractal architecture of networks. Although fractal property emerged in some models, there were few researches about the fractal growth model and quantitative analyses about the strength of the disassortativity for fractal model. In this paper, we proposed a novel inverse renormalization method, named Box-based Preferential Attachment (BPA), to build the fractal growth models in which the Preferential Attachment was performed at box level. The proposed models provided a new framework that demonstrated small-world-fractal transition. Also, we firstly demonstrated the statistical characteristic of connection patterns of the hubs in fractal networks. The experimental results showed that, given proper growing scale and added edges, the proposed models could clearly show pure small-world or pure fractal or both of them. It also showed that the hub connection ratio showed normal distribution in many real-world networks. At last, the comparisons of connection pattern between the proposed models and the biological and technical networks were performed. The results gave useful reference for exploring the growth principle and for modeling the connection patterns for real-world networks.

What Talking about Them Reveals about Us: The Organization of Person Reference in Conversations about Family Photographs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mates, Andrea Wong

2009-01-01

Talking with friend about personal photographs is a recognizable as an activity in which people participate in the modern world. This dissertation presents three studies examining the locally initial person reference formulations used to refer to people in the photographs in such an activity. The first study shows how the speakers narrating the…

Historical Semantic Chaining and Efficient Communication: The Case of Container Names

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Yang; Regier, Terry; Malt, Barbara C.

2016-01-01

Semantic categories in the world's languages often reflect a historical process of "chaining": A name for one referent is extended to a conceptually related referent, and from there on to other referents, producing a chain of exemplars that all bear the same name. The beginning and end points of such a chain might in principle be rather…

World Reference Center for Arboviruses and Retroviruses

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-05-01

Reference Center for Arboviruses and Retroviruses identified viruses from Thailand, Nepal, Egypt, Colombia, and Panama. Cache Valley virus from a recruit...ARBOVIRUSES . . 13 A. Study of viruses from Thailand and Nepal . . . . 13 B. Isolation of Sicilian sandfly fever virus from Egyptian phlebotomines...dengue viruses ..... . 30 VII. LOW PASSAGE VIRUS COLLECTION .... ............. 32 VIII. ARBOVIRUS BULLETIN BOARD, REFERENCE, AND DATA ACCESS . 32 IX

A European Humus Forms Reference Base

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zanella, A.; Englisch, M.; Ponge, J.-F.; Jabiol, B.; Sartori, G.; Gardi, C.

2012-04-01

From 2003 on, a panel of experts in humus and humus dynamics (Humus group) has been working about a standardisation and improvement of existing national humus classifications. Some important goals have been reached, in order to share data and experiences: a) definition of specific terms; b) description of 15 types of diagnostic horizons; c) of 10 basic humus forms references; d) subdivision of each main reference in 2-4 sub-unities; e) elaboration of a general European Humus Form Reference Base (http://hal-agroparistech.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/56/17/95/PDF/Humus_Forms_ERB_31_01_2011.pdf); f) publication of the scientific significance of this base of classification as an article [A European morpho-functional classification of humus forms. Geoderma, 164 (3-4), 138-145]. The classification will be updated every 2 years and presently the Humus group is assessing biological (general: soil, vegetation, biome; specific: fungi, bacteria, pedofauna), physical (air temperature, rainfall) and chemical (pH, mineral elements, organic matter, quality and quantity of humic components…) factors which characterize basic humus forms and their varieties. The content of the new version of the classification is planned to be more "practical", like an ecological manual which lists associated humus forms and environmental data in the aim to contribute to a more precise environmental diagnosis of every analysed terrestrial and semiterrestrial European ecosystem. The Humus group is also involved in an endeavour to include humus forms in the World Reference Base for Soils (WRB-FAO) according to nomenclatural principles erected for soil profiles. Thirty basic references have been defined, complemented by a set of qualifiers (prefixes and suffixes), allowing to classify European humus forms and probably a large majority of humus forms known worldwide. The principles of the classification, the diagnostic horizons and humus forms main references are presented at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union with the aim to stimulate members' curiosity. Interested people are invited to test the classification system in various field areas and to collaborate with the Humus group. Critical observations and field data/impressions are welcome as every other suggestions which can help in elaborating the 2013 version of the European humus forms classification.

Land management in the Anthropocene: is history still relevant?: Incorporating historical ecology and climate change into land management; Lansdowne, Virginia, 22–25 April 2008

USGS Publications Warehouse

Safford, Hugh D.; Betancourt, Julio L.; Hayward, Gregory D.; Wiens, John A.; Regan, Claudia M.

2008-01-01

Ecological restoration, conservation, and land management are often based on comparisons with reference sites or time periods, which are assumed to represent “natural” or “properly functioning” conditions. Such reference conditions can provide a vision of the conservation or management goal and a means to measure progress toward that vision. Although historical ecology has been used successfully to guide resource management in many parts of the world, the continuing relevance of history is now being questioned. Some scientists doubt that lessons from the past can inform management in what may be a dramatically different future, given profound climate change, accelerated land use, and an onslaught of plant and animal invasions.

Serials Acquisition Problems in Developing Countries: The Zambian Experience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lungu, Charles B. M.

1985-01-01

Analysis of serial acquisition problems in developing nations cites specific references from University of Zambia Library. Discussion covers underdeveloped economic circumstances of Third World nations, overdependence on serials of foreign origin, geographical locations of Third World countries, ill-defined acquisition policies, staffing for…

Annual energy outlook 1998 : with projections to 2020

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1997-12-01

The analysis in AEO98 focuses primarily on a reference case and four other cases that assume higher and lower economic growth and higher and lower world oil prices than in the reference case. Forecast tables for these cases are provided in Appendixes...

Habitat and environment of islands: primary and supplemental island sets

USGS Publications Warehouse

Matalas, Nicholas C.; Grossling, Bernardo F.

2002-01-01

The original intent of the study was to develop a first-order synopsis of island hydrology with an integrated geologic basis on a global scale. As the study progressed, the aim was broadened to provide a framework for subsequent assessments on large regional or global scales of island resources and impacts on those resources that are derived from global changes. Fundamental to the study was the development of a comprehensive framework?a wide range of parameters that describe a set of 'saltwater' islands sufficiently large to Characterize the spatial distribution of the world?s islands; Account for all major archipelagos; Account for almost all oceanically isolated islands, and Account collectively for a very large proportion of the total area of the world?s islands whereby additional islands would only marginally contribute to the representativeness and accountability of the island set. The comprehensive framework, which is referred to as the ?Primary Island Set,? is built on 122 parameters that describe 1,000 islands. To complement the investigations based on the Primary Island Set, two supplemental island sets, Set A?Other Islands (not in the Primary Island Set) and Set B?Lagoonal Atolls, are included in the study. The Primary Island Set, together with the Supplemental Island Sets A and B, provides a framework that can be used in various scientific disciplines for their island-based studies on broad regional or global scales. The study uses an informal, coherent, geophysical organization of the islands that belong to the three island sets. The organization is in the form of a global island chain, which is a particular sequential ordering of the islands referred to as the 'Alisida.' The Alisida was developed through a trial-and-error procedure by seeking to strike a balance between 'minimizing the length of the global chain' and 'maximizing the chain?s geophysical coherence.' The fact that an objective function cannot be minimized and maximized simultaneously indicates that the Alisida is not unique. Global island chains other than the Alisida may better serve disciplines other than those of hydrology and geology.

The openEHR Java reference implementation project.

PubMed

Chen, Rong; Klein, Gunnar

2007-01-01

The openEHR foundation has developed an innovative design for interoperable and future-proof Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems based on a dual model approach with a stable reference information model complemented by archetypes for specific clinical purposes.A team from Sweden has implemented all the stable specifications in the Java programming language and donated the source code to the openEHR foundation. It was adopted as the openEHR Java Reference Implementation in March 2005 and released under open source licenses. This encourages early EHR implementation projects around the world and a number of groups have already started to use this code. The early Java implementation experience has also led to the publication of the openEHR Java Implementation Technology Specification. A number of design changes to the specifications and important minor corrections have been directly initiated by the implementation project over the last two years. The Java Implementation has been important for the validation and improvement of the openEHR design specifications and provides building blocks for future EHR systems.

Point cloud registration from local feature correspondences-Evaluation on challenging datasets.

PubMed

Petricek, Tomas; Svoboda, Tomas

2017-01-01

Registration of laser scans, or point clouds in general, is a crucial step of localization and mapping with mobile robots or in object modeling pipelines. A coarse alignment of the point clouds is generally needed before applying local methods such as the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm. We propose a feature-based approach to point cloud registration and evaluate the proposed method and its individual components on challenging real-world datasets. For a moderate overlap between the laser scans, the method provides a superior registration accuracy compared to state-of-the-art methods including Generalized ICP, 3D Normal-Distribution Transform, Fast Point-Feature Histograms, and 4-Points Congruent Sets. Compared to the surface normals, the points as the underlying features yield higher performance in both keypoint detection and establishing local reference frames. Moreover, sign disambiguation of the basis vectors proves to be an important aspect in creating repeatable local reference frames. A novel method for sign disambiguation is proposed which yields highly repeatable reference frames.

Large perceptual distortions of locomotor action space occur in ground-based coordinates: Angular expansion and the large-scale horizontal-vertical illusion.

PubMed

Klein, Brennan J; Li, Zhi; Durgin, Frank H

2016-04-01

What is the natural reference frame for seeing large-scale spatial scenes in locomotor action space? Prior studies indicate an asymmetric angular expansion in perceived direction in large-scale environments: Angular elevation relative to the horizon is perceptually exaggerated by a factor of 1.5, whereas azimuthal direction is exaggerated by a factor of about 1.25. Here participants made angular and spatial judgments when upright or on their sides to dissociate egocentric from allocentric reference frames. In Experiment 1, it was found that body orientation did not affect the magnitude of the up-down exaggeration of direction, suggesting that the relevant orientation reference frame for this directional bias is allocentric rather than egocentric. In Experiment 2, the comparison of large-scale horizontal and vertical extents was somewhat affected by viewer orientation, but only to the extent necessitated by the classic (5%) horizontal-vertical illusion (HVI) that is known to be retinotopic. Large-scale vertical extents continued to appear much larger than horizontal ground extents when observers lay sideways. When the visual world was reoriented in Experiment 3, the bias remained tied to the ground-based allocentric reference frame. The allocentric HVI is quantitatively consistent with differential angular exaggerations previously measured for elevation and azimuth in locomotor space. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Large perceptual distortions of locomotor action space occur in ground-based coordinates: Angular expansion and the large-scale horizontal-vertical illusion

PubMed Central

Klein, Brennan J.; Li, Zhi; Durgin, Frank H.

2015-01-01

What is the natural reference frame for seeing large-scale spatial scenes in locomotor action space? Prior studies indicate an asymmetric angular expansion in perceived direction in large-scale environments: Angular elevation relative to the horizon is perceptually exaggerated by a factor of 1.5, whereas azimuthal direction is exaggerated by a factor of about 1.25. Here participants made angular and spatial judgments when upright or on their sides in order to dissociate egocentric from allocentric reference frames. In Experiment 1 it was found that body orientation did not affect the magnitude of the up-down exaggeration of direction, suggesting that the relevant orientation reference frame for this directional bias is allocentric rather than egocentric. In Experiment 2, the comparison of large-scale horizontal and vertical extents was somewhat affected by viewer orientation, but only to the extent necessitated by the classic (5%) horizontal-vertical illusion (HVI) that is known to be retinotopic. Large-scale vertical extents continued to appear much larger than horizontal ground extents when observers lay sideways. When the visual world was reoriented in Experiment 3, the bias remained tied to the ground-based allocentric reference frame. The allocentric HVI is quantitatively consistent with differential angular exaggerations previously measured for elevation and azimuth in locomotor space. PMID:26594884

Validating agent based models through virtual worlds.

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

Lakkaraju, Kiran; Whetzel, Jonathan H.; Lee, Jina

As the US continues its vigilance against distributed, embedded threats, understanding the political and social structure of these groups becomes paramount for predicting and dis- rupting their attacks. Agent-based models (ABMs) serve as a powerful tool to study these groups. While the popularity of social network tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) has provided extensive communication data, there is a lack of ne-grained behavioral data with which to inform and validate existing ABMs. Virtual worlds, in particular massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), where large numbers of people interact within a complex environ- ment for long periods of time provide an alternative sourcemore » of data. These environments provide a rich social environment where players engage in a variety of activities observed between real-world groups: collaborating and/or competing with other groups, conducting battles for scarce resources, and trading in a market economy. Strategies employed by player groups surprisingly re ect those seen in present-day con icts, where players use diplomacy or espionage as their means for accomplishing their goals. In this project, we propose to address the need for ne-grained behavioral data by acquiring and analyzing game data a commercial MMOG, referred to within this report as Game X. The goals of this research were: (1) devising toolsets for analyzing virtual world data to better inform the rules that govern a social ABM and (2) exploring how virtual worlds could serve as a source of data to validate ABMs established for analogous real-world phenomena. During this research, we studied certain patterns of group behavior to compliment social modeling e orts where a signi cant lack of detailed examples of observed phenomena exists. This report outlines our work examining group behaviors that underly what we have termed the Expression-To-Action (E2A) problem: determining the changes in social contact that lead individuals/groups to engage in a particular behavior. Results from our work indicate that virtual worlds have the potential for serving as a proxy in allocating and populating behaviors that would be used within further agent-based modeling studies.« less

Comprehensive Essays for World History Finals.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feldman, Martha J.

1997-01-01

Describes a novel approach to comprehensive questions in world history examinations. Recommends using current events as illustrative reference points for complex subjects such as nationalism, liberalism, and international trade. Students receive information packets on the events for several weeks and must relate the subjects to these events. (MJP)

38 CFR 10.27 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... used herein refers to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, as amended; the word Veteran refers to... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Definitions. 10.27 Section 10.27 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ADJUSTED COMPENSATION...

38 CFR 10.27 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... used herein refers to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, as amended; the word Veteran refers to... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 1 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Definitions. 10.27 Section 10.27 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ADJUSTED COMPENSATION...

38 CFR 10.27 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... used herein refers to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, as amended; the word Veteran refers to... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 1 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Definitions. 10.27 Section 10.27 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ADJUSTED COMPENSATION...

38 CFR 10.27 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... used herein refers to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, as amended; the word Veteran refers to... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 1 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Definitions. 10.27 Section 10.27 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ADJUSTED COMPENSATION...

38 CFR 10.27 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... used herein refers to the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, as amended; the word Veteran refers to... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 1 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Definitions. 10.27 Section 10.27 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ADJUSTED COMPENSATION...

A Methodology for Assessing and Ranking Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies Using a System Performance Index

DTIC Science & Technology

2002-07-29

suggestions, and guidance concerning the technology assessment process. References 1. Using ACEIT for Total Ownership Cost Modeling and Analysis...2001 World Population Data Sheet, Population Reference Bureau, Washington, DC List of Acronyms ACEIT – Automated Cost Estimating Integrated

Surgery in World War II. Orthopedic Surgery in the Zone of Interior

DTIC Science & Technology

1970-01-01

General Reference and Research Branch ROSE C. ENGELMAN, Ph. D., Chief, Historians Branch GERALDINE B. SITES, Chief, Information Activities Branch Major...SERIES Internal Medicine in World War II: Vol. I. Activities of Medical Consultants Vol. II. Infectious Diseases Vol. III. Infectious Diseases and General...Arthropodborne Diseases Other Than Malaria Vol. IX. Special Fields Surgery in World War II: Activities of Surgical Consultants, vol. I Activities of Surgical

Virtual Reference Canada (VRC): A Canadian Service in a Multicultural Environment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gaudet, Franceen; Savard, Nicolas

Virtual Reference Canada (VRC) is a digital reference service using World Wide Web technology. It was initiated by the National Library of Canada (NLC) in spring 2001 and went into test mode at the start of 2002. It draws on the contribution of a wide range of Canadian libraries and allied institutions. The development of VRC owes a great deal to…

Researchers of Color, Fame, and Impact.

PubMed

Zárate, Michael A; Hall, Gordon Nagayama; Plaut, Victoria C

2017-11-01

Fame and eminence, as traditionally measured, limit the definition of impact to the publication world. We add two types of impact to the traditional measures of fame and eminence. Many of the traditional measures of fame or eminence are based on social-network connections, whereby individuals appoint other people to positions of eminence. Editorial boards are one specific example. Eminence is also limited to number of publications, for example, with little regard for the impact of those publications at the societal level. In addition to the dominant measures of eminence, societal impact broadens the definition of impact to reflect real-world changes. Two examples include mentoring, which is rarely mentioned as a criterion for eminence, and policy value, such as when research influences important public policy. These additions are discussed in reference to the general underrepresentation of researchers of color in academia.

The extant World War 1 dysentery bacillus NCTC1: a genomic analysis.

PubMed

Baker, Kate S; Mather, Alison E; McGregor, Hannah; Coupland, Paul; Langridge, Gemma C; Day, Martin; Deheer-Graham, Ana; Parkhill, Julian; Russell, Julie E; Thomson, Nicholas R

2014-11-08

Shigellosis (previously bacillary dysentery) was the primary diarrhoeal disease of World War 1, but outbreaks still occur in military operations, and shigellosis causes hundreds of thousands of deaths per year in developing nations. We aimed to generate a high-quality reference genome of the historical Shigella flexneri isolate NCTC1 and to examine the isolate for resistance to antimicrobials. In this genomic analysis, we sequenced the oldest extant Shigella flexneri serotype 2a isolate using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology. Isolated from a soldier with dysentery from the British forces fighting on the Western Front in World War 1, this bacterium, NCTC1, was the first isolate accessioned into the National Collection of Type Cultures. We created a reference sequence for NCTC1, investigated the isolate for antimicrobial resistance, and undertook comparative genetics with S flexneri reference strains isolated during the 100 years since World War 1. We discovered that NCTC1 belonged to a 2a lineage of S flexneri, with which it shares common characteristics and a large core genome. NCTC1 was resistant to penicillin and erythromycin, and contained a complement of chromosomal antimicrobial resistance genes similar to that of more recent isolates. Genomic islands gained in the S flexneri 2a lineage over time were predominately associated with additional antimicrobial resistances, virulence, and serotype conversion. This S flexneri 2a lineage is a well adapted pathogen that has continued to respond to selective pressures. We have created a valuable historical benchmark for shigellae in the form of a high-quality reference sequence for a publicly available isolate. The Wellcome Trust. Copyright © 2014 Baker et al. Open Access article distributed under the terms of CC BY. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A global multicenter study on reference values: 1. Assessment of methods for derivation and comparison of reference intervals.

PubMed

Ichihara, Kiyoshi; Ozarda, Yesim; Barth, Julian H; Klee, George; Qiu, Ling; Erasmus, Rajiv; Borai, Anwar; Evgina, Svetlana; Ashavaid, Tester; Khan, Dilshad; Schreier, Laura; Rolle, Reynan; Shimizu, Yoshihisa; Kimura, Shogo; Kawano, Reo; Armbruster, David; Mori, Kazuo; Yadav, Binod K

2017-04-01

The IFCC Committee on Reference Intervals and Decision Limits coordinated a global multicenter study on reference values (RVs) to explore rational and harmonizable procedures for derivation of reference intervals (RIs) and investigate the feasibility of sharing RIs through evaluation of sources of variation of RVs on a global scale. For the common protocol, rather lenient criteria for reference individuals were adopted to facilitate harmonized recruitment with planned use of the latent abnormal values exclusion (LAVE) method. As of July 2015, 12 countries had completed their study with total recruitment of 13,386 healthy adults. 25 analytes were measured chemically and 25 immunologically. A serum panel with assigned values was measured by all laboratories. RIs were derived by parametric and nonparametric methods. The effect of LAVE methods is prominent in analytes which reflect nutritional status, inflammation and muscular exertion, indicating that inappropriate results are frequent in any country. The validity of the parametric method was confirmed by the presence of analyte-specific distribution patterns and successful Gaussian transformation using the modified Box-Cox formula in all countries. After successful alignment of RVs based on the panel test results, nearly half the analytes showed variable degrees of between-country differences. This finding, however, requires confirmation after adjusting for BMI and other sources of variation. The results are reported in the second part of this paper. The collaborative study enabled us to evaluate rational methods for deriving RIs and comparing the RVs based on real-world datasets obtained in a harmonized manner. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Genocide in World History Textbooks.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fleming, Dan

1987-01-01

Analyzes the treatment of genocide in secondary world history textbooks. Acknowledges that textbook space is limited, but argues that all should contain some reference to the subject. Concludes that the Armenian genocide, as well as the genocidal acts of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung should be presented in all survey texts. (GEA)

The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Banks, James A., Ed.

2010-01-01

This volume is the first authoritative reference work to provide a truly comprehensive international description and analysis of multicultural education around the world. It is organized around "key concepts" and uses "case studies" from various nations in different parts of the world to exemplify and illustrate the concepts. Case studies are from…

Technology and Culture in Modern Russia

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-12-01

the altered spelling of Estonia: “eSStonia” makes a reference to the Nazi Waffen SS units of World War II, effectively accusing Estonia of fascism...Russian-speaking population on their territory. Any discussion of honoring the Latvian Legion, a World War II Nazi Waffen SS unit in which tens of

High-School Chemistry Teaching through Environmentally Oriented Curricula

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mandler, Daphna; Mamlok-Naaman, Rachel; Blonder, Ron; Yayon, Malka; Hofstein, Avi

2012-01-01

Discussions held in the chemical education community have generated a variety of reports and recommendations for reforming the chemistry curriculum. The recommendations refer to teaching chemistry in the context of real-world issues. This has been suggested as a way to enhance students' motivation. It is suggested that real-world problems…

Building a Collaborative Online Literary Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Essid, Joe; Wilde, Fran

2011-01-01

Effective virtual simulations can embed participants in imaginary worlds. Researchers working in virtual worlds and gaming often refer to "immersion," a state in which a participant or player loses track of time and becomes one with the simulation. Immersive settings have been shown to deepen learning. Ken Hudson's work with students…

More than Just Test Scores

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levin, Henry M.

2012-01-01

Around the world we hear considerable talk about creating world-class schools. Usually the term refers to schools whose students get very high scores on the international comparisons of student achievement such as PISA or TIMSS. The practice of restricting the meaning of exemplary schools to the narrow criterion of achievement scores is usually…

Optimism and Well-Being

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reivich, Karen

2010-01-01

Dictionary definitions of optimism encompass two related concepts. The first of these is a hopeful disposition or a conviction that good will ultimately prevail. The second, broader conception of optimism refers to the belief, or the inclination to believe, that the world is the best of all possible worlds. In psychological research, optimism has…

[Comparison between references of the overweight and obesity prevalence, through the Body Mass Index, in Argentinean children].

PubMed

Padula, Gisel; Salceda, Susana A

2008-12-01

The evaluation of child nutritional status is highly dependent on the growth charts used. The aim of this study was to compare different references assessing overweight and obesity in children population, through the Body Mass Index. A total of 737 healthy children born at term, aged 2-5 years, were included (cross-sectional study). The participation was voluntary and consent. Body Mass Index (kg/m2) was estimated. The measurements techniques were based on national guidelines. We compared three references: (1) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (> Pc85: overweight; > Pc95: obesity; (2) International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) (sex-age-specific body mass index cut-offs); (3) World Health Organization (WHO) (+2 standard deviation: overweight; +3: obesity). The Epi Info 6.0 software was used to the statistical evaluation (chi2, p < or = .05%). The prevalence of overweight was 1.1 and 2.33 times higher in CDC application respect to the IOTF and the WHO references respectively. The prevalence of overweight was 2.1 times higher in IOTF application respect to the WHO references (p = .00001). The prevalence of obesity was 5.4 and 23.9 times higher in CDC application respect to the IOTF and the WHO references respectively. The prevalence of obesity was 4.4 times higher in IOTF application respect to the WHO references (p = .0000001). The prevalence of overweight and obesity, calculated through the BMI, differs substantially according to the reference and cut-off points used. In the absence of even a single criterion, each of the references should be used with care.

Best Reference 2006

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coutts, Brian E.; LaGuardia, Cheryl

2007-01-01

Reading reference sources, whether on paper or on the screen, often leads to enlightened thinking, especially for library patrons. In an earlier age, enlightened monarchs surrounded themselves with leading intellectuals and patronized the arts. Today, people have the advantage of the world's collected wisdom at their fingertips in the form of…

A Small Library in Family Planning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., New York, NY.

This annotated listing of books is intended as a reference for anyone seeking an authoritative introduction to population and family planning information, as a world, family, or individual concern. For each entry, the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is provided if available. The number preceding each reference represents the…

The Internet Public Library: An Intellectual History.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Janes, Joseph

1998-01-01

Describes the ideas, decisions, and discussions behind the Internet Public Library (IPL), their impact, and implementation on the World Wide Web. The focus is on the work of the following development groups: technology; reference; online reference help; online collections; youth; services to librarians; education and outreach; and public…

Rapid prototyping, astronaut training, and experiment control and supervision: distributed virtual worlds for COLUMBUS, the European Space Laboratory module

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freund, Eckhard; Rossmann, Juergen

2002-02-01

In 2004, the European COLUMBUS Module is to be attached to the International Space Station. On the way to the successful planning, deployment and operation of the module, computer generated and animated models are being used to optimize performance. Under contract of the German Space Agency DLR, it has become IRF's task to provide a Projective Virtual Reality System to provide a virtual world built after the planned layout of the COLUMBUS module let astronauts and experimentators practice operational procedures and the handling of experiments. The key features of the system currently being realized comprise the possibility for distributed multi-user access to the virtual lab and the visualization of real-world experiment data. Through the capabilities to share the virtual world, cooperative operations can be practiced easily, but also trainers and trainees can work together more effectively sharing the virtual environment. The capability to visualize real-world data will be used to introduce measured data of experiments into the virtual world online in order to realistically interact with the science-reference model hardware: The user's actions in the virtual world are translated into corresponding changes of the inputs of the science reference model hardware; the measured data is than in turn fed back into the virtual world. During the operation of COLUMBUS, the capabilities for distributed access and the capabilities to visualize measured data through the use of metaphors and augmentations of the virtual world may be used to provide virtual access to the COLUMBUS module, e.g. via Internet. Currently, finishing touches are being put to the system. In November 2001 the virtual world shall be operational, so that besides the design and the key ideas, first experimental results can be presented.

BusyBee Web: metagenomic data analysis by bootstrapped supervised binning and annotation

PubMed Central

Kiefer, Christina; Fehlmann, Tobias; Backes, Christina

2017-01-01

Abstract Metagenomics-based studies of mixed microbial communities are impacting biotechnology, life sciences and medicine. Computational binning of metagenomic data is a powerful approach for the culture-independent recovery of population-resolved genomic sequences, i.e. from individual or closely related, constituent microorganisms. Existing binning solutions often require a priori characterized reference genomes and/or dedicated compute resources. Extending currently available reference-independent binning tools, we developed the BusyBee Web server for the automated deconvolution of metagenomic data into population-level genomic bins using assembled contigs (Illumina) or long reads (Pacific Biosciences, Oxford Nanopore Technologies). A reversible compression step as well as bootstrapped supervised binning enable quick turnaround times. The binning results are represented in interactive 2D scatterplots. Moreover, bin quality estimates, taxonomic annotations and annotations of antibiotic resistance genes are computed and visualized. Ground truth-based benchmarks of BusyBee Web demonstrate comparably high performance to state-of-the-art binning solutions for assembled contigs and markedly improved performance for long reads (median F1 scores: 70.02–95.21%). Furthermore, the applicability to real-world metagenomic datasets is shown. In conclusion, our reference-independent approach automatically bins assembled contigs or long reads, exhibits high sensitivity and precision, enables intuitive inspection of the results, and only requires FASTA-formatted input. The web-based application is freely accessible at: https://ccb-microbe.cs.uni-saarland.de/busybee. PMID:28472498

U.S. Navy Marine Climatic Atlas of the World. Volume IX. World-Wide Means and Standard Deviations

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-10-01

TITLE (..d SobtII,) S. TYPE OF REPORT & PERIOD COVERED U. S. Navy Marine Climatic Atlas of the World Volume IX World-wide Means and Standard Reference...Ives the best estimate of the population standard deviations. The means, , are com~nuted from: EX IIN I 90 80 70 60" 50’ 40, 30 20 10 0 1070 T- VErr ...or 10%, whichever is greater Since the mean ice limit approximates the minus two de l temperature isopleth, this analyzed lower limit was Wave Heights

Surmounting the Cartesian Cut Through Philosophy, Physics, Logic, Cybernetics, and Geometry: Self-reference, Torsion, the Klein Bottle, the Time Operator, Multivalued Logics and Quantum Mechanics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rapoport, Diego L.

2011-01-01

In this transdisciplinary article which stems from philosophical considerations (that depart from phenomenology—after Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and Rosen—and Hegelian dialectics), we develop a conception based on topological (the Moebius surface and the Klein bottle) and geometrical considerations (based on torsion and non-orientability of manifolds), and multivalued logics which we develop into a unified world conception that surmounts the Cartesian cut and Aristotelian logic. The role of torsion appears in a self-referential construction of space and time, which will be further related to the commutator of the True and False operators of matrix logic, still with a quantum superposed state related to a Moebius surface, and as the physical field at the basis of Spencer-Brown's primitive distinction in the protologic of the calculus of distinction. In this setting, paradox, self-reference, depth, time and space, higher-order non-dual logic, perception, spin and a time operator, the Klein bottle, hypernumbers due to Musès which include non-trivial square roots of ±1 and in particular non-trivial nilpotents, quantum field operators, the transformation of cognition to spin for two-state quantum systems, are found to be keenly interwoven in a world conception compatible with the philosophical approach taken for basis of this article. The Klein bottle is found not only to be the topological in-formation for self-reference and paradox whose logical counterpart in the calculus of indications are the paradoxical imaginary time waves, but also a classical-quantum transformer (Hadamard's gate in quantum computation) which is indispensable to be able to obtain a complete multivalued logical system, and still to generate the matrix extension of classical connective Boolean logic. We further find that the multivalued logic that stems from considering the paradoxical equation in the calculus of distinctions, and in particular, the imaginary solutions to this equation, generates the matrix logic which supersedes the classical logic of connectives and which has for particular subtheories fuzzy and quantum logics. Thus, from a primitive distinction in the vacuum plane and the axioms of the calculus of distinction, we can derive by incorporating paradox, the world conception succinctly described above.

Is Real-World Evidence Used in P&T Monographs and Therapeutic Class Reviews?

PubMed

Hurwitz, Jason T; Brown, Mary; Graff, Jennifer S; Peters, Loretta; Malone, Daniel C

2017-06-01

Payers are faced with making coverage and reimbursement decisions based on the best available evidence. Often these decisions apply to patient populations, provider networks, and care settings not typically studied in clinical trials. Treatment effectiveness evidence is increasingly available from electronic health records, registries, and administrative claims. However, little is known about when and what types of real-world evidence (RWE) studies inform pharmacy and therapeutic (P&T) committee decisions. To evaluate evidence sources cited in P&T committee monographs and therapeutic class reviews and assess the design features and quality of cited RWE studies. A convenience sample of representatives from pharmacy benefit management, health system, and health plan organizations provided recent P&T monographs and therapeutic class reviews (or references from such documents). Two investigators examined and grouped references into major categories (published studies, unpublished studies, and other/unknown) and multiple subcategories (e.g., product label, clinical trials, RWE, systematic reviews). Cited comparative RWE was reviewed to assess design features (e.g., population, data source, comparators) and quality using the Good ReseArch for Comparative Effectiveness (GRACE) Checklist. Investigators evaluated 565 references cited in 27 monographs/therapeutic class reviews from 6 managed care organizations. Therapeutic class reviews mostly cited published clinical trials (35.3%, 155/439), while single-product monographs relied most on manufacturer-supplied information (42.1%, 53/126). Published RWE comprised 4.8% (21/439) of therapeutic class review references, and none (0/126) of the monograph references. Of the 21 RWE studies, 12 were comparative and assessed patient care settings and outcomes typically not included in clinical trials (community ambulatory settings [10], long-term safety [8]). RWE studies most frequently were based on registry data (6), conducted in the United States (6), and funded by the pharmaceutical industry (5). GRACE Checklist ratings suggested the data and methods of these comparative RWE studies were of high quality. RWE was infrequently cited in P&T materials, even among therapeutic class reviews where RWE is more readily available. Although few P&T materials cited RWE, the comparative RWE studies were generally high quality. More research is needed to understand when and what types of real-world studies can more routinely inform coverage and reimbursement decisions. This project was funded by the National Pharmaceutical Council. Hurwitz, Brown, Peters, and Malone have nothing to disclose. Graff is employed by the National Pharmaceutical Council Part of this study was presented as a poster presentation at the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy 2016 Annual Meeting; April 19-22, 2016; San Francisco, CA. Study concept and design were primarily contributed by Malone and Graff, along with Hurwitz and Brown. All authors participated in data collection, and data interpretation was performed by Malone, Hurwitz, and Graff, with assistance from Brown and Peters. The manuscript was written primarily by Hurwitz and Malone, along with Graff, Brown, and Peters, and revised by Malone, Brown, Peters, Hurwitz, and Graff.

The ARTEMIS European driving cycles for measuring car pollutant emissions.

PubMed

André, Michel

2004-12-01

In the past 10 years, various work has been undertaken to collect data on the actual driving of European cars and to derive representative real-world driving cycles. A compilation and synthesis of this work is provided in this paper. In the frame of the European research project: ARTEMIS, this work has been considered to derive a set of reference driving cycles. The main objectives were as follows: to derive a common set of reference real-world driving cycles to be used in the frame of the ARTEMIS project but also in the frame of on-going national campaigns of pollutant emission measurements, to ensure the compatibility and integration of all the resulting emission data in the European systems of emission inventory; to ensure and validate the representativity of the database and driving cycles by comparing and taking into account all the available data regarding driving conditions; to include in three real-world driving cycles (urban, rural road and motorway) the diversity of the observed driving conditions, within sub-cycles allowing a disaggregation of the emissions according to more specific driving conditions (congested and free-flow urban). Such driving cycles present a real advantage as they are derived from a large database, using a methodology that was widely discussed and approved. In the main, these ARTEMIS driving cycles were designed using the available data, and the method of analysis was based to some extent on previous work. Specific steps were implemented. The study includes characterisation of driving conditions and vehicle uses. Starting conditions and gearbox use are also taken into account.

Scientific Responses to Pseudoscience Related to Astronomy. An Annotated Bibliography.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fraknoi, Andrew

1990-01-01

Provided is a list of 92 references. Categories include general references, debunking astrology, identifying U.F.O.s, ancient astronauts, Velikovsky and worlds in collision, lunacy and the moon, Sirius B and the Dogon tribe, the face and pyramids on mars, the Tunguska Event, and the Bermuda Triangle. (CW)

Human Rights: The Essential Reference.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Devine, Carol; Hansen, Carol Rae; Wilde, Ralph; Bronkhorst, Daan; Moritz, Frederic A.; Rolle, Baptiste; Sherman, Rebecca; Southard, Jo Lynn; Wilkinson, Robert; Poole, Hilary, Ed.

This reference work documents the history of human rights theory, explains each article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, explores the contemporary human rights movement, and examines the major human rights issues facing the world today. This book is the first to combine historical and contemporary perspectives on these critical…

A Reference Genome for US Rice

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The development of reference genomes for rice has served as means for understanding the allelic diversity and genetic structure of a cereal grain that feeds half of the world. It has long been understood that Oryza sativa diverged into two major sub-populations Indica and Japonica, over 400 K years ...

World Reference Center for Arboviruses.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-03-01

revised the taxonomy of Bunyaviridae, Orbivirus, Rhabdoviridae , Arenaviridae, and Togaviridae. Outbreaks were diagnosed such as Rift Valley fever in...Flavivirus), Rhabdoviridae , Reoviridae (genus Orbivirus), and Bunyaviridae (genera Bunyavirus, Nairovirus, Phlebovirus, and Uukuvirus). Reference sera and...family Rhabdoviridae was done by complement fixation, immunofluorescence, and plaque reduction neutralization involving 51 viruses. A similar revision

An Evaluation Instrument for Internet Web Sites.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Livengood, Stephanie Plank

This paper describes the creation of a comprehensive evaluation tool for reference librarians in adult service divisions to use in selecting World Wide Web sites as reference sources. Traditional evaluation criteria, endorsed and applied by librarians over the years, are not sufficient for the evaluation of today's hypermedia web site environment.…

Limited Aspects of Reality: Frames of Reference in Language Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fulcher, Glenn; Svalberg, Agneta

2013-01-01

Language testers operate within two frames of reference: norm-referenced (NRT) and criterion-referenced testing (CRT). The former underpins the world of large-scale standardized testing that prioritizes variability and comparison. The latter supports substantive score meaning in formative and domain specific assessment. Some claim that the…

Listen to the Natives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prensky, Marc

2006-01-01

"Digital natives" refer to today's students because they are native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet. Those who were not born into the digital world are referred to as digital immigrants. Educators, considered digital immigrants, have slid into the 21st century--and into the digital…

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

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Safford, Barbara Ripp

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

[Internet presence in surgical departments in Germany. II. Legal bases of medical Internet presence].

PubMed

Schenk, C; Nimmerfroh, O; Mugomba, G; Dabidian, R; Glaser, F

2001-09-01

In recent years, the Internet has generally been growing throughout the world, and physicians have taken to the Web as well. Besides its use for medical data research, physicians and hospitals are increasingly discovering the Internet as a vehicle for the presentation of their scope of practice. In this regard, the legal frameworks in Germany are strictly regulated. This article presents current legal standards and consequences to be faced when the law on prohibited advertising is broken. Included are references to specific laws concerning Internet pages.

Adaptive-randomised self-calibration of electro-mechanical shutters for space imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Cecco, Mariolino; Debei, Stefano; Zaccariotto, Mirco; Pertile, Marco

2006-11-01

This work describes the self-calibration of a high-precision open-loop mechanism. The self-calibration method is applied to a mechanical shutter for space applications, which was launched onboard the ESA-ROSETTA mission (launch: 2 March 2004). It is based on an adaptive 'model reference' and a 'randomised' search method which may be generalised to applications in which high performance and functionality are strongly interconnected. The method makes use of an adaptive 'model-reference' control approach [K.J. Astrom, B. Wittenmark, On self-tuning regulators Automatica 9 (1973) 185-199 [16]; K.J. Astrom, Theory and application of adaptive control, in: Proceedings of the Eighth IFAC World Conference, Kyoto, Japan, 1981 [17]; D.E. Seborg, S.L. Shah, T.F. Edgar, Adaptive control strategies for process control, AIChE Journal 6(32) (1986) 881-895 [18

Overview of Building Information Modelling (BIM) adoption factors for construction organisations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mohammad, W. N. S. Wan; Abdullah, M. R.; Ismail, S.; Takim, R.

2018-04-01

Improvement and innovation in building visualization, project coordination and communication are the major benefits generated by Building Information Modelling (BIM) for construction organisations. Thus, as many firms across the world would adopt BIM, however they do not know the clear direction in which path they are moving as there is no specific reference available for them to refer to. Hence, the paper seeks to identify the factors of BIM adoption from previous research. The methodology used in this paper is based on literature review from various sources such as conference articles and journals. Then, the findings were analysed using content analysis. The findings show that there are 24 factors found from literature that influence the adoption of BIM and four (4) factors such as vendor, organisational vision, knowledge, and implementation plan are among the least factors mentioned by previous researchers.

Orientation and metacognition in virtual space.

PubMed

Tenbrink, Thora; Salwiczek, Lucie H

2016-05-01

Cognitive scientists increasingly use virtual reality scenarios to address spatial perception, orientation, and navigation. If based on desktops rather than mobile immersive environments, this involves a discrepancy between the physically experienced static position and the visually perceived dynamic scene, leading to cognitive challenges that users of virtual worlds may or may not be aware of. The frequently reported loss of orientation and worse performance in point-to-origin tasks relate to the difficulty of establishing a consistent reference system on an allocentric or egocentric basis. We address the verbalizability of spatial concepts relevant in this regard, along with the conscious strategies reported by participants. Behavioral and verbal data were collected using a perceptually sparse virtual tunnel scenario that has frequently been used to differentiate between humans' preferred reference systems. Surprisingly, the linguistic data we collected relate to reference system verbalizations known from the earlier literature only to a limited extent, but instead reveal complex cognitive mechanisms and strategies. Orientation in desktop virtual reality appears to pose considerable challenges, which participants react to by conceptualizing the task in individual ways that do not systematically relate to the generic concepts of egocentric and allocentric reference frames. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Designing image segmentation studies: Statistical power, sample size and reference standard quality.

PubMed

Gibson, Eli; Hu, Yipeng; Huisman, Henkjan J; Barratt, Dean C

2017-12-01

Segmentation algorithms are typically evaluated by comparison to an accepted reference standard. The cost of generating accurate reference standards for medical image segmentation can be substantial. Since the study cost and the likelihood of detecting a clinically meaningful difference in accuracy both depend on the size and on the quality of the study reference standard, balancing these trade-offs supports the efficient use of research resources. In this work, we derive a statistical power calculation that enables researchers to estimate the appropriate sample size to detect clinically meaningful differences in segmentation accuracy (i.e. the proportion of voxels matching the reference standard) between two algorithms. Furthermore, we derive a formula to relate reference standard errors to their effect on the sample sizes of studies using lower-quality (but potentially more affordable and practically available) reference standards. The accuracy of the derived sample size formula was estimated through Monte Carlo simulation, demonstrating, with 95% confidence, a predicted statistical power within 4% of simulated values across a range of model parameters. This corresponds to sample size errors of less than 4 subjects and errors in the detectable accuracy difference less than 0.6%. The applicability of the formula to real-world data was assessed using bootstrap resampling simulations for pairs of algorithms from the PROMISE12 prostate MR segmentation challenge data set. The model predicted the simulated power for the majority of algorithm pairs within 4% for simulated experiments using a high-quality reference standard and within 6% for simulated experiments using a low-quality reference standard. A case study, also based on the PROMISE12 data, illustrates using the formulae to evaluate whether to use a lower-quality reference standard in a prostate segmentation study. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Buildup of spatial information over time and across eye-movements.

PubMed

Zimmermann, Eckart; Morrone, M Concetta; Burr, David C

2014-12-15

To interact rapidly and effectively with our environment, our brain needs access to a neural representation of the spatial layout of the external world. However, the construction of such a map poses major challenges, as the images on our retinae depend on where the eyes are looking, and shift each time we move our eyes, head and body to explore the world. Research from many laboratories including our own suggests that the visual system does compute spatial maps that are anchored to real-world coordinates. However, the construction of these maps takes time (up to 500ms) and also attentional resources. We discuss research investigating how retinotopic reference frames are transformed into spatiotopic reference-frames, and how this transformation takes time to complete. These results have implications for theories about visual space coordinates and particularly for the current debate about the existence of spatiotopic representations. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Geomorphology and the World Wide Web

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shroder, John F.; Bishop, Michael P.; Olsenholler, Jeffrey; Craiger, J. Philip

2002-10-01

The Internet and the World Wide Web have brought many dimensions of new technology to education and research in geomorphology. As with other disciplines on the Web, Web-based geomorphology has become an eclectic mix of whatever material an individual deems worthy of presentation, and in many cases is without quality control. Nevertheless, new electronic media can facilitate education and research in geomorphology. For example, virtual field trips can be developed and accessed to reinforce concepts in class. Techniques for evaluating Internet references helps students to write traditional term papers, but professional presentations can also involve student papers that are published on the Web. Faculty can also address plagiarism issues by using search engines. Because of the lack of peer review of much of the content on the Web, care must be exercised in using it for reference searches. Today, however, refereed journals are going online and can be accessed through subscription or payment per article viewed. Library reference desks regularly use the Web for searches of refereed articles. Research on the Web ranges from communication between investigators, data acquisition, scientific visualization, or comprehensive searches of refereed sources, to interactive analyses of remote data sets. The Nanga Parbat and the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) Projects are two examples of geomorphologic research that are achieving full potential through use of the Web. Teaching and research in geomorphology are undergoing a beneficial, but sometimes problematic, transition with the new technology. The learning curve is steep for some users but the view from the top is bright. Geomorphology can only prosper from the benefits offered by computer technologies.

Dental education in a flat world: advocating for increased global collaboration and standardization.

PubMed

Donaldson, Martin E; Gadbury-Amyot, Cynthia C; Khajotia, Sharukh S; Nattestad, Anders; Norton, Neil S; Zubiaurre, Laureen A; Turner, Sharon P

2008-04-01

Globalization is a broad term referring to the increasing connectivity, integration, and interdependence of economies, societies, technologies, cultures, and political and ecological spheres across the world. This position paper was developed by a working group of the 2007 American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Leadership Institute. The authors explore the effect that globalization has had on dentistry and dental education to date and hypothesize what dental education could look like in the years ahead. While the paper is written from a North American perspective, some of the authors bring international expertise and experience to the topic of global dental education in a flat world. Specific issues and barriers addressed in this position paper include variations in accreditation and licensure requirements in dental education throughout the world; the historical development of dental education models (odontology and stomatology) and the need for congruency of these models in the global environment; the competency-based model of education and its relevance to development and implementation of global dental competencies; and the slow adoption of technological advances in dental education for promoting collaborations and encouraging resource sharing among countries. These challenges are discussed as they affect the implementation of a standardized global dental education that can lead to improved access to oral health care services and better oral and overall health for the citizens of the world.

Where Does Language Come from? The Role of Reflexive Enculturation in Language Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Talbot J.

2010-01-01

How does the developing child bridge the ontological gap from the empirical, measurable world of behavioral patterns, anatomical structures, and neurological processes to the world of the linguistic phenomena referred to by the expressions of commonsense metalinguistic discourse: words, meanings, names, truth, languages, understanding, and so on?…

Social Partners and Vocational Education in the Netherlands.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Dijk, Cor; And Others

This document on the links between the world of work and the world of vocational training in the Netherlands includes 5 chapters, a list of abbreviations, and a 42-item reference list. Chapter 1 introduces the report. Chapter 2 outlines the Dutch system of industrial relations and presents the concept of "neocorporatism." Chapter 3…

Exoskeletons: Generating Content for Popular Music in 2016

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayward, Casey Ann

2016-01-01

People all over the world are engaging with popular music, particularly through social media platforms, where views are often in the billions and climbing. Sacks (2007), a world-renowned neurologist, coined the term "earworms" to refer to songs that play repetitively in one's head for no apparent reason, sometimes for days, even years,…

Beyond the Green Revolution: New Approaches for Third World Agriculture. Worldwatch Paper 73.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolf, Edward C.

After 20 years, the "green revolution" is generally referred to as a milestone in the international agricultural movement. The introduction of new varieties of wheat and rice, along with fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanized farm equipment has produced a dramatic increase in world food production. This paper assesses the successes of…

The Pedagogy of Fear and Guilt: How Textbooks Treat the World Economy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newitt, Jane

1984-01-01

The central finding of a review of 63 high school history, geography, civics, and economics textbooks is that the textbooks are not accurately describing the world economy. For example, few of the texts refer to economic gains being made by many countries or mention the existence of middle income countries. (RM)

Francophonie: An Alternative Education for Globalisation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gavari Starkie, Elisa

2011-01-01

This article analyses the Francophonie strategy to foster diversity of cultures and multilingualism in a globalised world. The first part of the article provides the analyses of the historic role of the French cultural and educational model in the diplomatic relations. Then the article refers to the context of the Second World War and the American…

Behavior Modification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boardman, Randolph M.

2010-01-01

In a perfect world, students would never talk back to school staff and never argue or fight with each other. They would complete all their assigned tasks, and disciplinary actions never would be needed. Unfortunately, people don't live in a perfect world. Student behavior is a daily concern. Teachers continue to refer students to the office as a…

International Organisations and the Evaluation of Education Systems: A Critical Comparative Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neves, Claudia

2008-01-01

This article seeks to develop research involving a macro-level critical comparative analysis of reference documents produced by international organisations (UNDP, OECD, UNESCO, the World Bank and the European Union) which guide world education policy decisions. The primary objective was to consider the key guidelines currently defined for…

"Competing Conceptions of Globalization" Revisited: Relocating the Tension between World-Systems Analysis and Globalization Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clayton, Thomas

2004-01-01

In recent years, many scholars have become fascinated by a contemporary, multidimensional process that has come to be known as "globalization." Globalization originally described economic developments at the world level. More specifically, scholars invoked the concept in reference to the process of global economic integration and the seemingly…

Achieving Recognition as a World Class Airport through Education and Training. Sorenson Best Paper Award Recipient.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Quilty, Stephen M.

2003-01-01

The International Civil Aviation Organization has standards for airport certification that require education and training of personnel. The American Association of Airport Executives offers accreditation and certification in airport operations and safety that can meet the needs of world-class airports. (Contains 18 references.) (SK)

Population Change, Resources, and the Environment. Population Trends and Public Policy No. 4.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobsen, Judith, Ed.

Intended for policymakers, this document focuses on environmental factors limiting the expansion of the world's food supply, the dilemma of fostering third world economic development, and prospects for energy development. The first of five parts gives an overview of a 1983 Population Reference Bureau conference which focused on current thinking…

Results of Second Outdoor Comparison Between Absolute Cavity Pyrgeometer (ACP) and Infrared Integrating Sphere (IRIS) Radiometer at PMOD (Presentation)

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

Reda, I.; Grobner, J.; Wacker, S.

The Absolute Cavity Pyrgeometer (ACP) and InfraRed Integrating Sphere radiometer (IRIS) are developed to establish a world reference for calibrating pyrgeometers with traceability to SI units. The two radiometers are un-windowed with negligible spectral dependence, and traceable to SI units through the temperature scale (ITS-90). The second outdoor comparison between the two designs was held from September 30 to October 11, 2013 at the Physikalisch-Metorologisches Observatorium Davos (PMOD). The difference between the irradiance measured by ACP and that of the IRIS was within 1 W/m2 (3 IRISs: PMOD + Australia + Germany). From the first and second comparisons, a differencemore » of 4-6 W/m2 was observed between the irradiance measured by ACP&IRIS and that of the interim World Infrared Standard Group (WISG). This presentation includes results from the first and second comparison in an effort to establish the world reference for pyrgeometer calibrations, a key deliverable for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the DOE-ASR.« less

Object-oriented feature extraction approach for mapping supraglacial debris in Schirmacher Oasis using very high-resolution satellite data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jawak, Shridhar D.; Jadhav, Ajay; Luis, Alvarinho J.

2016-05-01

Supraglacial debris was mapped in the Schirmacher Oasis, east Antarctica, by using WorldView-2 (WV-2) high resolution optical remote sensing data consisting of 8-band calibrated Gram Schmidt (GS)-sharpened and atmospherically corrected WV-2 imagery. This study is a preliminary attempt to develop an object-oriented rule set to extract supraglacial debris for Antarctic region using 8-spectral band imagery. Supraglacial debris was manually digitized from the satellite imagery to generate the ground reference data. Several trials were performed using few existing traditional pixel-based classification techniques and color-texture based object-oriented classification methods to extract supraglacial debris over a small domain of the study area. Multi-level segmentation and attributes such as scale, shape, size, compactness along with spectral information from the data were used for developing the rule set. The quantitative analysis of error was carried out against the manually digitized reference data to test the practicability of our approach over the traditional pixel-based methods. Our results indicate that OBIA-based approach (overall accuracy: 93%) for extracting supraglacial debris performed better than all the traditional pixel-based methods (overall accuracy: 80-85%). The present attempt provides a comprehensive improved method for semiautomatic feature extraction in supraglacial environment and a new direction in the cryospheric research.

A JAVA-based multimedia tool for clinical practice guidelines.

PubMed

Maojo, V; Herrero, C; Valenzuela, F; Crespo, J; Lazaro, P; Pazos, A

1997-01-01

We have developed a specific language for the representation of Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) and Windows C++ and platform independent JAVA applications for multimedia presentation and edition of electronically stored CPGs. This approach facilitates translation of guidelines and protocols from paper to computer-based flowchart representations. Users can navigate through the algorithm with a friendly user interface and access related multimedia information within the context of each clinical problem. CPGs can be stored in a computer server and distributed over the World Wide Web, facilitating dissemination, local adaptation, and use as a reference element in medical care. We have chosen the Agency for Health Care and Policy Research's heart failure guideline to demonstrate the capabilities of our tool.

A new world natural vegetation map for global change studies.

PubMed

Lapola, David M; Oyama, Marcos D; Nobre, Carlos A; Sampaio, Gilvan

2008-06-01

We developed a new world natural vegetation map at 1 degree horizontal resolution for use in global climate models. We used the Dorman and Sellers vegetation classification with inclusion of a new biome: tropical seasonal forest, which refers to both deciduous and semi-deciduous tropical forests. SSiB biogeophysical parameters values for this new biome type are presented. Under this new vegetation classification we obtained a consensus map between two global natural vegetation maps widely used in climate studies. We found that these two maps assign different biomes in ca. 1/3 of the continental grid points. To obtain a new global natural vegetation map, non-consensus areas were filled according to regional consensus based on more than 100 regional maps available on the internet. To minimize the risk of using poor quality information, the regional maps were obtained from reliable internet sources, and the filling procedure was based on the consensus among several regional maps obtained from independent sources. The new map was designed to reproduce accurately both the large-scale distribution of the main vegetation types (as it builds on two reliable global natural vegetation maps) and the regional details (as it is based on the consensus of regional maps).

Children's Picture Interpretation: Appearance or Intention?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armitage, Emma; Allen, Melissa L.

2015-01-01

Pictures are defined by their creator's intentions and resemblance to their real world referents. Here we examine whether young children follow a realist route (e.g., focusing on how closely pictures resemble their referents) or intentional route (e.g., focusing on what a picture is intended to represent by its artist) when identifying a picture's…

Reference in Action: Links between Pointing and Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooperrider, Kensy Andrew

2011-01-01

When referring to things in the world, speakers produce utterances that are composites of speech and action. Pointing gestures are a pervasive part of such composite utterances, but many questions remain about exactly how pointing is integrated with speech. In this dissertation I present three strands of research that investigate relations of…

To Live on Earth. Man and His Environment in Perspective.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brubaker, Sterling

In this text, written for the general reader rather than for the specialist, the accelerating use of man's environment is considered from agricultural, economic, demographic, and land and other resource use, with principal reference to the United States situation, but with reference to the world scale when appropriate. Environmental threats are…

APEX (Air Pollution Exercise) Volume 20: Reference Materials.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC. Office of Manpower Development.

The Reference Materials Manual is part of a set of 21 manuals (AA 001 009-001 029) used in APEX (Air Pollution Exercise), a computerized college and professional level "real world" game simulation of a community with urban and rural problems, industrial activities, and air pollution difficulties. For the purposes of the gaming exercise, APEX…

[Medycyna Pracy: the scopus-based analysis of citations].

PubMed

Przyłuska, Jolanta

2006-01-01

Medycyna Pracy, a Polish bimonthly published since 1950, forms a long-standing documentation of studies carried out in the area of workers' health protection. The journal is primarily addressed to occupational health physicians and work hygiene specialists in Poland. It is indexed by numerous foreign information services (e.g., MEDLINE, EMBASE, BIOSIS PREVIEWS, BIOLOGICAL ABSTRACTS, SCOPUS) and thus promotes Polish research in occupational medicine throughout the world. The quantitative analysis for the years 1996-2005, grounded on the SCOPUS database, presents an average number of citations concerning a given volume, frequency of citations, articles most frequently cited, and countries, in which articles published in Medycyna Pracy have been referred to. A growing number of citations observed in the recent years signify the importance of issues investigated and discussed in the journal as well as its role in the world-wide circulation of scientific information.

[Designs and thoughts of real world integrated data warehouse from HIS on re-evaluation of post-maketing traditional Chinese medicine].

PubMed

Zhuang, Yan; Xie, Bangtie; Weng, Shengxin; Xie, Yanming

2011-10-01

To discuss the feasibility and necessity of using HIS data integration to build large data warehouse system which is extensively used on re-evaluation of post-marketing traditional Chinese medicine, and to provide the thought and method of the overall design for it. With domestic and overseas' analysis and comparison on clinical experiments' design based on real world using electronic information system, and with characteristics of HIS in China, a general framework was designed and discussed which refers to design thought, design characteristics, existing problems and solutions and so on. A design scheme of HIS data warehouse on re-evaluation of post-marketing traditional Chinese medicine was presented. The design scheme was proved to be high coherence and low coupling, safe, Universal, efficient and easy to maintain, which can effectively solve the problems many hospitals have faced during the process of HIS data integration.

Book Review: Book review

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Christina Yan

2017-02-01

The world class Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits associated with the Sudbury Igneous Complex (SIC) are quite unique on earth in the sense that the energy source and origin were triggered by a large meteorite impact event. The ore deposits in the SIC make up one of the largest Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposit camps in the world and have now been mined for over 100 years. This is the first complete reference book that focuses entirely on the SIC and covers the fields of economic geology, petrology, geochemistry and geophysics. The purpose of this book is to explore the linkage between sulfide and silicate magmas generated by the 1.85 Ga Sudbury impact event and to unite an understanding of the process of crustal melt sheet evolution with the formation of the magmatic sulfide mineralization. The author, Peter Lightfoot, has been based in Sudbury for 25 years. As a top scientist on magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits and a Chief Geologist with the Brownfield Exploration group at Vale Base Metals, Peter has been positioned to develop and assemble the ideas presented in this book, which are perfectly balanced between industry and academia.

Third World experiences in health planning.

PubMed

Molina-Guzman, G

1979-01-01

In response to an invitation by the American Public Health Association, the author discusses his experiences in health work with particular reference to the Third World. These cover a period of four decades of activities in many countries, the discussion being primarily directed toward the North American audience attending the panel organized by the International Health Committee at the 104th Annual Meeting of the Association in Miami Beach in October 1976. First the paper deals with the legacy of broad social teaching resulting from the years of international collaboration from the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt to that of Richard Nixon. Public health problems, whether new or old, are essentially social in character and can only be solved in terms of social policy. Attention is directed to the current mistake of placing the emphasis on individual behavior, divorced from its social base, in the work of health professionals servings in Third World countries. The weakness of national average values and the consequent need of measuring the differentials between social groups and classes are widely illustrated. Finally, positive and negative lessons learned by experimenting with health technology consistent with the expected development of countries are examined as a basis for a genuinely emancipatory approach to the health problems in the Third World.

Sentinel monitoring of general community health during the 1998 World Football Cup.

PubMed

Hanslik, T; Espinoza, P; Boelle, P Y; Cantin-Bertaux, D; Gallichon, B; Quendez, S; Aïm, J L; Retel, O; Ballereau, M; Gorodetzky, N; Flahault, A

2001-04-01

Present knowledge of the consequences of mass gatherings for the health of the community is scant. Our objective was to determine the impact of the 1998 World Football Cup on general community health. We set up an electronic sentinel disease surveillance, before, during and after the World Football Cup tournament held in France from June 10 to July 12, 1998. Medical activity, and the daily number of cases of communicable, environmental, and societal diseases relating to mass gatherings were surveyed. The incidence of the pathologies surveyed in real time during and after the World Cup versus the pre-Cup reference period was the main outcome measure. Five sentinel networks participated, comprising 553 general practitioners, 60 hospital adult emergency departments, 19 private emergency community services, 4 community health centres, and the medical centre of the Paris airports. Throughout the 66-day study period, physicians reported 558,829 medical encounters via 21,532 connections to the computer. Compared to the reference period, the level of medical activity reflected by the pathological items surveyed remained stable during the study period. The 1998 World Football Cup had no epidemiological impact on general community health, as observed by sentinel networks located downstream of the specific health services provided by the French authorities to ensure high standards of safety.

The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model

PubMed Central

de Haan, Sanneke; Rietveld, Erik; Stokhof, Martin; Denys, Damiaan

2013-01-01

People suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) do things they do not want to do, and/or they think things they do not want to think. In about 10% of OCD patients, none of the available treatment options is effective. A small group of these patients is currently being treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS). DBS involves the implantation of electrodes in the brain. These electrodes give a continuous electrical pulse to the brain area in which they are implanted. It turns out that patients may experience profound changes as a result of DBS treatment. It is not just the symptoms that change; patients rather seem to experience a different way of being in the world. These global effects are insufficiently captured by traditional psychiatric scales, which mainly consist of behavioral measures of the severity of the symptoms. In this article we aim to capture the changes in the patients' phenomenology and make sense of the broad range of changes they report. For that we introduce an enactive, affordance-based model that fleshes out the dynamic interactions between person and world in four aspects. The first aspect is the patients' experience of the world. We propose to specify the patients' world in terms of a field of affordances, with the three dimensions of broadness of scope (“width” of the field), temporal horizon (“depth”), and relevance of the perceived affordances (“height”). The second aspect is the person-side of the interaction, that is, the patients' self-experience, notably their moods and feelings. Thirdly, we point to the different characteristics of the way in which patients relate to the world. And lastly, the existential stance refers to the stance that patients take toward the changes they experience: the second-order evaluative relation to their interactions and themselves. With our model we intend to specify the notion of being in the world in order to do justice to the phenomenological effects of DBS treatment. PMID:24133438

Performance Evaluation of UPQC under Nonlinear Unbalanced Load Conditions Using Synchronous Reference Frame Based Control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kota, Venkata Reddy; Vinnakoti, Sudheer

2017-12-01

Today, maintaining Power Quality (PQ) is very important in the growing competent world. With new equipments and devices, new challenges are also being put before power system operators. Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) is proposed to mitigate many power quality problems and to improve the performance of the power system. In this paper, an UPQC with Fuzzy Logic controller for capacitor voltage balancing is proposed in Synchronous Reference Frame (SRF) based control with Modified Phased Locked Loop (MPLL). The proposed controller with SRF-MPLL based control is tested under non-linear and unbalanced load conditions. The system is developed in Matlab/Simulink and its performance is analyzed under various conditions like non-linear, unbalanced load and polluted supply voltage including voltage sag/swells. Active and reactive power flow in the system, power factor and %THD of voltages and currents before and after compensation are also analyzed in this work. Results prove the applicability of the proposed scheme for power quality improvement. It is observed that the fuzzy controller gives better performance than PI controller with faster capacitor voltage balancing and also improves the dynamic performance of the system.

The OIE World Animal Health Information System: the role of OIE Reference Laboratories and Collaborating Centres in disease reporting.

PubMed

Ben Jebara, K

2010-12-01

One of the main objectives of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) is to ensure transparency in and knowledge of the world animal health situation. To achieve this objective, the OIE relies on its network of Member Countries, which is complemented by the activities of 221 Reference Laboratories (RLs) and Collaborating Centres. The RL mandate states that, in the case of positive results for diseases notifiable to the OIE, the laboratory should inform the OIE Delegate of the Member Country from which the samples originated and send a copy of the information to OIE Headquarters. However, since 2006 the OIE has received a lower than expected number of notifications from RLs, which implies eitherthat the majority of samples are sent to national laboratories or that some RLs are not fully complying with their mandate. The OIE sent a questionnaire to RLs in preparation for the Second Global Conference of OIE Reference Laboratories and Collaborating Centres (Paris, France, 21-23 June 2010). Two main factors emerged: the need for RLs to clarify their role and responsibilities in disease reporting and the need for an awareness campaign to sensitise national Veterinary Services to the importance of conducting more surveillance (and consequently of submitting samples to RLs) for all OIE-listed diseases. Reference laboratories indicated two main reasons for not sharing more data on positive samples with the OIE: i) a perceived contradiction between their mandate as OIE RLs and the standards of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) dealing with confidentiality; and ii) certain Member Countries or stakeholders asking RLs not to share positive results with the OIE, for political or economic reasons. The OIE has put forward proposals to help RLs resolve these problems in future. The use of ISO standards must be clarified and there must be improved communication between the OIE and its RLs. A lack of transparency about a significant disease event can jeopardise the biosecurity of several countries, an entire region or even the whole world. The reference status of a non-transparent RL could be questioned.

The Intensities and High Sensitivity of a Gifted Creative Genius: Sylvia Ashton-Warner

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Sonia

2014-01-01

This article explores the inner world of Sylvia Ashton-Warner, a gifted woman whose writing and teaching pedagogy earned her national and international acclaim. However, the acknowledged genius of her work is not explored herein. Rather, the inner world of a creatively gifted adult is examined, with particular reference to Dabrowski's…

Making Choices in the Virtual World: The New Model at United Technologies Information Network.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gulliford, Bradley

1998-01-01

Describes changes in services of the United Technologies Corporation Information Network from a traditional library system to a virtual system of World Wide Web sites, a document-delivery unit, telephone and e-mail reference, and desktop technical support to provide remote access. Staff time, security, and licensing issues are addressed.…

Promoting Teaching Excellence of Universities in Taiwan: Policy Analysis with a Special Reference to Educational Equality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Cheng-Cheng; Huang, Yueh-Chun

2012-01-01

As some comparative educators predict, educational policies will move toward similar paths when globalization becomes more powerful. The global higher education expansion in the past decades is one example. The quest of establishing world class universities in the world is another case. The Taiwan government experiences challenges from expansion…

Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the "Big Five" South African Research Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boshoff, N.

2009-01-01

This article critically examines the methodology of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by generating raw scores for the "big five" South African research universities (Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Kwazulu-Natal, Pretoria and the Witwatersrand, henceforth referred to as SU, UCT, UKZN, UP and WITS) using the ARWU…

Examining the Audio Images of War: Lyrical Perspectives of America's Major Military Crusades, 1914-1991.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper, B. Lee

1992-01-01

Explores the differing lyrical perceptions of war and military activity depicted in popular songs during World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War. The role of music in reinforcing patriotism is discussed, as well as the antiwar sentiment of the Vietnam era. (31 references) (LRW)

Modern Dilemmas - Science (World History Series).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, MD.

The publication, referred to as a unit on "Modern Dilemmas," was completed in 1969 and is part of a Modern World History pilot project integrating areas of art, literature, philosophy, and science into the social studies curriculum. The unit seeks to explore all of the facets of science as part of man's search for meaning, but because of time…

Harnessing health information in the Third World.

PubMed

Coghlan, S E; Khan, M S

1993-01-01

The provision of technical information on health in developing countries is discussed, with particular reference to the Diarrhoeal Diseases Information Services Centre in Bangladesh. Progress towards meeting the pressing needs of the Third World in this field can undoubtedly be made by increasing the use of micrographic, computer and videodisc technologies and by reorganizing and promoting the facilities on offer.

Educating the Female Citizen in a Post-war World: Competing Ideologies for American Women, 1945-1965.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eisenmann, Linda

2002-01-01

In post-World War II United States, women were caught between competing patriotic, economic, cultural, and psychological ideologies dictating their behavior. Differences between these expectations and challenges to behavioral norms provoked tensions in women's education that lasted until the women's movement of the 1960s. (Contains 25 references.)…

SOF in Unlit Spaces: Understanding the World’s Dark Spots in the Context of SOF Operational Planning

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-05-23

incident in 1993. Moreover, entering 52 Bowden, Mark, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for The World’s Greatest Outlaw , New York: Atlantic Monthly Press...D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2013. Bowden, Mark. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for The World’s Greatest Outlaw . New York: Atlantic Monthly Press...CARL), this monograph would seriously lack abundant documentation. His meticulous hunt for sources fed the bulk of this monograph’s references. I

Characterizing a Full Spectrum of Physico-Chemical Properties of Ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg1 to Be Proposed as Standard Reference Materials

PubMed Central

Kim, Il-Woung; Hong, Hee-Do; Choi, Sang Yoon; Hwang, Da-Hye; Her, Youl; Kim, Si-Kwan

2011-01-01

Good manufacturing practice (GMP)-based quality control is an integral component of the common technical document, a formal documentation process for applying a marketing authorization holder to those countries where ginseng is classified as a medicine. In addition, authentication of the physico-chemical properties of ginsenoside reference materials, and qualitative and quantitative batch analytical data based on validated analytical procedures are prerequisites for certifying GMP. Therefore, the aim of this study was to propose an authentication process for isolated ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg1 as reference materials (RM) and for these compounds to be designated as RMs for ginseng preparations throughout the world. Ginsenoside Rb1 and Rg1 were isolated by Diaion HP-20 adsorption chromatography, silica gel flash chromatography, recrystallization, and preparative HPLC. HPLC fractions corresponding to those two ginsenosides were recrystallized in appropriate solvents for the analysis of physico-chemical properties. Documentation of the isolated ginsenosides was made according to the method proposed by Gaedcke and Steinhoff. The ginsenosides were subjected to analyses of their general characteristics, identification, purity, content quantitation, and mass balance tests. The isolated ginsenosides were proven to be a single compound when analyzed by three different HPLC systems. Also, the water content was found to be 0.940% for Rb1 and 0.485% for Rg1, meaning that the net mass balance for ginsenoside Rb1 and Rg1 were 99.060% and 99.515%, respectively. From these results, we could assess and propose a full spectrum of physicochemical properties for the ginsenosides Rb1 and Rg1 as standard reference materials for GMP-based quality control. PMID:23717096

Active sensing without efference copy: referent control of perception

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Although action and perception are different behaviors, they are likely to be interrelated, as implied by the notions of perception-action coupling and active sensing. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the nervous system directly preprograms motor commands required for actions and uses a copy of them called efference copy (EC) to also influence our senses. This review offers a critical analysis of the EC concept by identifying its limitations. An alternative to the EC concept is based on the experimentally confirmed notion that sensory signals from receptors are perceived relative to referent signals specified by the brain. These referents also underlie the control of motor actions by predetermining where, in the spatial domain, muscles can work without preprogramming how they should work in terms of motor commands or EC. This approach helps solve several problems of action and explain several sensory experiences, including position sense and the sense that the world remains stationary despite changes in its retinal image during eye or body motion (visual space constancy). The phantom limb phenomenon and other kinesthetic illusions are also explained within this framework. PMID:27306668

Data reduction and tying in regional gravity surveys—results from a new gravity base station network and the Bouguer gravity anomaly map for northeastern Mexico

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hurtado-Cardador, Manuel; Urrutia-Fucugauchi, Jaime

2006-12-01

Since 1947 Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has conducted oil exploration projects using potential field methods. Geophysical exploration companies under contracts with Pemex carried out gravity anomaly surveys that were referred to different floating data. Each survey comprises observations of gravity stations along highways, roads and trails at intervals of about 500 m. At present, 265 separate gravimeter surveys that cover 60% of the Mexican territory (mainly in the oil producing regions of Mexico) are available. This gravity database represents the largest, highest spatial resolution information, and consequently has been used in the geophysical data compilations for the Mexico and North America gravity anomaly maps. Regional integration of gravimeter surveys generates gradients and spurious anomalies in the Bouguer anomaly maps at the boundaries of the connected surveys due to the different gravity base stations utilized. The main objective of this study is to refer all gravimeter surveys from Pemex to a single new first-order gravity base station network, in order to eliminate problems of gradients and spurious anomalies. A second objective is to establish a network of permanent gravity base stations (BGP), referred to a single base from the World Gravity System. Four regional loops of BGP covering eight States of Mexico were established to support the tie of local gravity base stations from each of the gravimeter surveys located in the vicinity of these loops. The third objective is to add the gravity constants, measured and calculated, for each of the 265 gravimeter surveys to their corresponding files in the Pemex and Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo database. The gravity base used as the common datum is the station SILAG 9135-49 (Latin American System of Gravity) located in the National Observatory of Tacubaya in Mexico City. We present the results of the installation of a new gravity base network in northeastern Mexico, reference of the 43 gravimeter surveys to the new network, the regional compilation of Bouguer gravity data and a new updated Bouguer gravity anomaly map for northeastern Mexico.

Combining Relevance Vector Machines and exponential regression for bearing residual life estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Di Maio, Francesco; Tsui, Kwok Leung; Zio, Enrico

2012-08-01

In this paper we present a new procedure for estimating the bearing Residual Useful Life (RUL) by combining data-driven and model-based techniques. Respectively, we resort to (i) Relevance Vector Machines (RVMs) for selecting a low number of significant basis functions, called Relevant Vectors (RVs), and (ii) exponential regression to compute and continuously update residual life estimations. The combination of these techniques is developed with reference to partially degraded thrust ball bearings and tested on real world vibration-based degradation data. On the case study considered, the proposed procedure outperforms other model-based methods, with the added value of an adequate representation of the uncertainty associated to the estimates of the quantification of the credibility of the results by the Prognostic Horizon (PH) metric.

Polymer Energy Rechargeable System (PERS) Development Program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baldwin, Richard S.; Manzo, Michelle A.; Dalton, Penni J.; Marsh, Richard A.; Surampudi, Rao

2001-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have recently established a collaborative effort to support the development of polymer-based, lithium-based cell chemistries and battery technologies to address the next generation of aerospace applications and mission needs. The overall objective of this development program, which is referred to as PERS, Polymer Energy Rechargeable System, is to establish a world-class technology capability and U.S. leadership in polymer-based battery technology for aerospace applications. Programmatically, the PERS initiative will exploit both interagency collaborations to address common technology and engineering issues and the active participation of academia and private industry. The initial program phases will focus on R&D activities to address the critical technical issues and challenges at the cell level.

A case for multi-model and multi-approach based event attribution: The 2015 European drought

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hauser, Mathias; Gudmundsson, Lukas; Orth, René; Jézéquel, Aglaé; Haustein, Karsten; Seneviratne, Sonia Isabelle

2017-04-01

Science on the role of anthropogenic influence on extreme weather events such as heat waves or droughts has evolved rapidly over the past years. The approach of "event attribution" compares the occurrence probability of an event in the present, factual world with the probability of the same event in a hypothetical, counterfactual world without human-induced climate change. Every such analysis necessarily faces multiple methodological choices including, but not limited to: the event definition, climate model configuration, and the design of the counterfactual world. Here, we explore the role of such choices for an attribution analysis of the 2015 European summer drought (Hauser et al., in preparation). While some GCMs suggest that anthropogenic forcing made the 2015 drought more likely, others suggest no impact, or even a decrease in the event probability. These results additionally differ for single GCMs, depending on the reference used for the counterfactual world. Observational results do not suggest a historical tendency towards more drying, but the record may be too short to provide robust assessments because of the large interannual variability of drought occurrence. These results highlight the need for a multi-model and multi-approach framework in event attribution research. This is especially important for events with low signal to noise ratio and high model dependency such as regional droughts. Hauser, M., L. Gudmundsson, R. Orth, A. Jézéquel, K. Haustein, S.I. Seneviratne, in preparation. A case for multi-model and multi-approach based event attribution: The 2015 European drought.

Pitfalls associated with the therapeutic reference pricing practice of asthma medication

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Therapeutic reference pricing (TRP) based on the WHO daily defined dose (DDD) is a method frequently employed for the cost-containment of pharmaceuticals. Our objective was to compare average drug use in the real world with DDD and to evaluate whether TRP based on DDD could result in cost savings on maintenance medication and the total direct health expenditures for asthma patients treated with Symbicort Turbuhaler (SYT) and Seretide Diskus (SED) in Hungary. Methods Real-world data were derived from the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund database. Average doses and costs were compared between the high-dose and medium-dose SYT and SED groups. Multiple linear regressions were employed to adjust the data for differences in the gender and age distribution of patients. Results 27,779 patients with asthma were included in the analysis. Average drug use was lower than DDD in all groups, 1.38-1.95 inhalations in both SED groups, 1.28-1.97 and 1.74-2.49 inhalations in the medium and high-dose SYT groups, respectively. Although the cost of SED based on the DDD would be much lower than the cost of SYT in the medium-dose groups, no difference was found in the actual cost of the maintenance therapy. No significant differences were found between the groups in terms of total medical costs. Conclusions Cost-containment initiatives by payers may influence clinical decisions. TRP for inhalation asthma drugs raises special concern, because of differences in the therapeutic profile of pharmaceuticals and the lack of proven financial benefits after exclusion of the effect of generic price erosion. Our findings indicate that the presented TRP approach of asthma medications based on the daily therapeutic costs according to the WHO DDD does not result in reduced public healthcare spending in Hungary. Further analysis is required to show whether TRP generates additional expenditures by inducing switching costs and reducing patient compliance. Potential confounding factors may limit the generalisability of our conclusions. PMID:22818402

Pitfalls associated with the therapeutic reference pricing practice of asthma medication.

PubMed

Kalo, Zoltan; Abonyi-Toth, Zsolt; Bartfai, Zoltan; Voko, Zoltan

2012-07-20

Therapeutic reference pricing (TRP) based on the WHO daily defined dose (DDD) is a method frequently employed for the cost-containment of pharmaceuticals. Our objective was to compare average drug use in the real world with DDD and to evaluate whether TRP based on DDD could result in cost savings on maintenance medication and the total direct health expenditures for asthma patients treated with Symbicort Turbuhaler (SYT) and Seretide Diskus (SED) in Hungary. Real-world data were derived from the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund database. Average doses and costs were compared between the high-dose and medium-dose SYT and SED groups. Multiple linear regressions were employed to adjust the data for differences in the gender and age distribution of patients. 27,779 patients with asthma were included in the analysis. Average drug use was lower than DDD in all groups, 1.38-1.95 inhalations in both SED groups, 1.28-1.97 and 1.74-2.49 inhalations in the medium and high-dose SYT groups, respectively. Although the cost of SED based on the DDD would be much lower than the cost of SYT in the medium-dose groups, no difference was found in the actual cost of the maintenance therapy. No significant differences were found between the groups in terms of total medical costs. Cost-containment initiatives by payers may influence clinical decisions. TRP for inhalation asthma drugs raises special concern, because of differences in the therapeutic profile of pharmaceuticals and the lack of proven financial benefits after exclusion of the effect of generic price erosion. Our findings indicate that the presented TRP approach of asthma medications based on the daily therapeutic costs according to the WHO DDD does not result in reduced public healthcare spending in Hungary. Further analysis is required to show whether TRP generates additional expenditures by inducing switching costs and reducing patient compliance. Potential confounding factors may limit the generalisability of our conclusions.

High Energy Boundary Conditions for a Cartesian Mesh Euler Solver

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pandya, Shishir; Murman, Scott; Aftosmis, Michael

2003-01-01

Inlets and exhaust nozzles are common place in the world of flight. Yet, many aerodynamic simulation packages do not provide a method of modelling such high energy boundaries in the flow field. For the purposes of aerodynamic simulation, inlets and exhausts are often fared over and it is assumed that the flow differences resulting from this assumption are minimal. While this is an adequate assumption for the prediction of lift, the lack of a plume behind the aircraft creates an evacuated base region thus effecting both drag and pitching moment values. In addition, the flow in the base region is often mis-predicted resulting in incorrect base drag. In order to accurately predict these quantities, a method for specifying inlet and exhaust conditions needs to be available in aerodynamic simulation packages. A method for a first approximation of a plume without accounting for chemical reactions is added to the Cartesian mesh based aerodynamic simulation package CART3D. The method consists of 3 steps. In the first step, a components approach where each triangle is assigned a component number is used. Here, a method for marking the inlet or exhaust plane triangles as separate components is discussed. In step two, the flow solver is modified to accept a reference state for the components marked inlet or exhaust. In the third step, the flow solver uses these separated components and the reference state to compute the correct flow condition at that triangle. The present method is implemented in the CART3D package which consists of a set of tools for generating a Cartesian volume mesh from a set of component triangulations. The Euler equations are solved on the resulting unstructured Cartesian mesh. The present methods is implemented in this package and its usefulness is demonstrated with two validation cases. A generic missile body is also presented to show the usefulness of the method on a real world geometry.

Image Reference Database in Teleradiology: Migrating to WWW

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pasqui, Valdo

The paper presents a multimedia Image Reference Data Base (IRDB) used in Teleradiology. The application was developed at the University of Florence in the framework of the European Community TELEMED Project. TELEMED overall goals and IRDB requirements are outlined and the resulting architecture is described. IRDB is a multisite database containing radiological images, selected because their scientific interest, and their related information. The architecture consists of a set of IRDB Installations which are accessed from Viewing Stations (VS) located at different medical sites. The interaction between VS and IRDB Installations follows the client-server paradigm and uses an OSI level-7 protocol, named Telemed Communication Language. After reviewing Florence prototype implementation and experimentation, IRDB migration to World Wide Web (WWW) is discussed. A possible scenery to implement IRDB on the basis of WWW model is depicted in order to exploit WWW servers and browsers capabilities. Finally, the advantages of this conversion are outlined.

Enhancement of cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma with a coherence-resonance effect through annealed randomness at a cooperator-defector boundary; comparison of two variant models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanimoto, Jun

2016-11-01

Inspired by the commonly observed real-world fact that people tend to behave in a somewhat random manner after facing interim equilibrium to break a stalemate situation whilst seeking a higher output, we established two models of the spatial prisoner's dilemma. One presumes that an agent commits action errors, while the other assumes that an agent refers to a payoff matrix with an added random noise instead of an original payoff matrix. A numerical simulation revealed that mechanisms based on the annealing of randomness due to either the action error or the payoff noise could significantly enhance the cooperation fraction. In this study, we explain the detailed enhancement mechanism behind the two models by referring to the concepts that we previously presented with respect to evolutionary dynamic processes under the names of enduring and expanding periods.

Frames of reference in spatial language acquisition.

PubMed

Shusterman, Anna; Li, Peggy

2016-08-01

Languages differ in how they encode spatial frames of reference. It is unknown how children acquire the particular frame-of-reference terms in their language (e.g., left/right, north/south). The present paper uses a word-learning paradigm to investigate 4-year-old English-speaking children's acquisition of such terms. In Part I, with five experiments, we contrasted children's acquisition of novel word pairs meaning left-right and north-south to examine their initial hypotheses and the relative ease of learning the meanings of these terms. Children interpreted ambiguous spatial terms as having environment-based meanings akin to north and south, and they readily learned and generalized north-south meanings. These studies provide the first direct evidence that children invoke geocentric representations in spatial language acquisition. However, the studies leave unanswered how children ultimately acquire "left" and "right." In Part II, with three more experiments, we investigated why children struggle to master body-based frame-of-reference words. Children successfully learned "left" and "right" when the novel words were systematically introduced on their own bodies and extended these words to novel (intrinsic and relative) uses; however, they had difficulty learning to talk about the left and right sides of a doll. This difficulty was paralleled in identifying the left and right sides of the doll in a non-linguistic memory task. In contrast, children had no difficulties learning to label the front and back sides of a doll. These studies begin to paint a detailed account of the acquisition of spatial terms in English, and provide insights into the origins of diverse spatial reference frames in the world's languages. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Selection and validation of reference genes for qRT-PCR analysis during biological invasions: The thermal adaptability of Bemisia tabaci MED.

PubMed

Dai, Tian-Mei; Lü, Zhi-Chuang; Liu, Wan-Xue; Wan, Fang-Hao

2017-01-01

The Bemisia tabaci Mediterranean (MED) cryptic species has been rapidly invading to most parts of the world owing to its strong ecological adaptability, which is considered as a model insect for stress tolerance studies under rapidly changing environments. Selection of a suitable reference gene for quantitative stress-responsive gene expression analysis based on qRT-PCR is critical for elaborating the molecular mechanisms of thermotolerance. To obtain accurate and reliable normalization data in MED, eight candidate reference genes (β-act, GAPDH, β-tub, EF1-α, GST, 18S, RPL13A and α-tub) were examined under various thermal stresses for varied time periods by using geNorm, NormFinder and BestKeeper algorithms, respectively. Our results revealed that β-tub and EF1-α were the best reference genes across all sample sets. On the other hand, 18S and GADPH showed the least stability for all the samples studied. β-act was proved to be highly stable only in case of short-term thermal stresses. To our knowledge this was the first comprehensive report on validation of reference genes under varying temperature stresses in MED. The study could expedite particular discovery of thermotolerance genes in MED. Further, the present results can form the basis of further research on suitable reference genes in this invasive insect and will facilitate transcript profiling in other invasive insects.

Fracture risk among older men: osteopenia and osteoporosis defined using cut-points derived from female versus male reference data.

PubMed

Pasco, J A; Lane, S E; Brennan, S L; Timney, E N; Bucki-Smith, G; Dobbins, A G; Nicholson, G C; Kotowicz, M A

2014-03-01

We explored the effect of using male and female reference data in a male sample to categorise areal bone mineral density (BMD). Using male reference data, a large proportion of fractures arose from osteopenia, whereas using female reference data shifted the fracture burden into normal BMD. The purpose of this study was to describe fracture risk associated with osteopenia and osteoporosis in older men, defined by areal BMD and using cut-points derived from male and female reference data. As part of the Geelong Osteoporosis Study, we followed 619 men aged 60-93 years after BMD assessments (performed 2001-2006) until 2010, fracture, death or emigration. Post-baseline fractures were radiologically confirmed, and proportions of fractures in each BMD category were age-standardised to national profiles. Based on World Health Organization criteria, and using male reference data, 207 men had normal BMD at the femoral neck, 357 were osteopenic and 55 were osteoporotic. Using female reference data, corresponding numbers were 361, 227 and 31. During the study, 130 men died, 15 emigrated and 63 sustained at least one fracture. Using male reference data, most (86.5 %) of the fractures occurred in men without osteoporosis on BMD criteria (18.4 % normal BMD, 68.1 % osteopenia). The pattern differed when female reference data were used; while most fractures arose from men without osteoporosis (88.2 %), the burden shifted from those with osteopenia (34.8 %) to those with normal BMD (53.4 %). Decreasing BMD categories defined increasing risk of fracture. Although men with osteoporotic BMD were at greatest risk, they made a relatively small contribution to the total burden of fractures. Using male reference data, two-thirds of the fractures arose from men with osteopenia. However, using female reference data, approximately half of the fractures arose from those with normal BMD. Using female reference data to define osteoporosis in men does not appear to be the optimal approach.

Hospital preparedness in advance of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

PubMed

Shoaf, Kimberley; Osorio de Castro, Claudia G S; Miranda, Elaine Silva

2014-08-01

Regardless of the capacity of the health care system of the host nation, mass gatherings require special planning and preparedness efforts within the health system. Brazil will host the 2014 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. This paper represents the first results from Project "Prepara Brasil," which is investigating the preparedness of the health sector and pharmaceutical services for these events. Hypothesis/Problem This study was designed to identify the efforts engaged in to prepare the health sector in Brazil for the FIFA World Cup 2014 event, as well as the 2016 Summer Olympics. Key informant interviews were conducted with representatives of both the municipality and hospital sectors in each of the 12 host cities where matches will be played. A semi-structured key informant interview guide was developed, with sections for each type of participant. One of each municipality's reference hospitals was identified and seven additional general hospitals were randomly selected from all of the inpatient facilities in each municipality. The interviewers were instructed to contact a reference hospital, and two of the other hospitals, in the jurisdiction for participation in the study. Questions were asked about plans for mass-gathering events, the interaction between hospitals and government officials in preparation for the World Cup, and their perceptions of their surge capacity to meet the potential demands generated by the presence of the World Cup events in their municipalities. In all, 11 representatives of the sampled reference hospitals, and 24 representatives of other general private and public hospitals in the municipalities, were interviewed. Most of the hospitals had some interaction with government officials in preparation for the World Cup 2014. Approximately one-third (34%) received training activities from the government. Fifty-four percent (54%) of hospitals had no specific plans for communicating with the government or other agencies during the World Cup. Approximately half (51%) had plans for surge capacity during the event, but only 27% had any surge capacity for isolation of potentially infectious patients. Overall, although there has been mention of a great deal of planning on the part of the government officials for the World Cup 2014, hospital surge to meet the potential increase in demand still falls short.

Regional reference variation provides ecologically meaningful protection criteria for northern world heritage site.

PubMed

Bowman, Michelle; Spencer, Paula; Dubé, Monique; West, David

2010-01-01

Unprecedented rates of resource development and climate change at northern latitudes coupled with a lack of baseline information limits our ability to set ecologically meaningful criteria needed to protect these inherently sensitive ecosystems. We surveyed water and sediment chemistry, community composition of benthic algae and invertebrates and fish, and condition of a sentinel fish species, slimy sculpin (Cottus cognatus), in 2 rivers adjacent to metal mines and in 20 reference rivers in the headwaters of a World Heritage Site, the South Nahanni River Basin, NWT, Canada. The normal range (i.e., mean ± 2 standard deviations) of biological conditions in regional reference sites (grouped by community type) were used to set ecologically meaningful effect sizes. These effect sizes were used in noncentral hypotheses tests to assess the ecological condition of potentially impaired sites. Significant impairments at sites influenced by current and historical mining activity were indicative of mild enrichment (e.g., increased benthic abundance and sculpin condition) and bioaccumulation of metals (e.g., increased concentrations of Cu and Fe in muscle tissue of sculpin). Comparisons between our regional reference study and a concurrent upstream–downstream study showed that the sensitivity of biological endpoints was typically related to the impairment criteria used and not to the type of study design. Concentrations of metals such as Al, Cu, and Fe in river water at reference sites were above federal and regional guidelines, suggesting that these guidelines are not appropriate for the metal-rich headwaters of the South Nahanni River. The ephemerellid mayflies Drunella spinifera and Ephemerella maculata were present in 4 of our study sites; their occurrence had not previously been documented in the Yukon or Northwest Territories. Our results confirmed that the lack of baseline information on the physiochemical and biological composition of northern rivers is hampering our ability to evaluate changes in these understudied ecosystems. However, the use of noncentral hypotheses tests based on empirically derived effect sizes enabled us to develop ecologically meaningful protection criteria, maintain statistical rigor, and provide probabilities of impairment that can be used directly in risk assessment.

Putting lexical constraints in context into the visual-world paradigm.

PubMed

Novick, Jared M; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L; Trueswell, John C

2008-06-01

Prior eye-tracking studies of spoken sentence comprehension have found that the presence of two potential referents, e.g., two frogs, can guide listeners toward a Modifier interpretation of Put the frog on the napkin... despite strong lexical biases associated with Put that support a Goal interpretation of the temporary ambiguity (Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M. & Sedivy, J. C. (1995). Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension. Science, 268, 1632-1634; Trueswell, J. C., Sekerina, I., Hill, N. M. & Logrip, M. L. (1999). The kindergarten-path effect: Studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition, 73, 89-134). This pattern is not expected under constraint-based parsing theories: cue conflict between the lexical evidence (which supports the Goal analysis) and the visuo-contextual evidence (which supports the Modifier analysis) should result in uncertainty about the intended analysis and partial consideration of the Goal analysis. We reexamined these put studies (Experiment 1) by introducing a response time-constraint and a spatial contrast between competing referents (a frog on a napkin vs. a frog in a bowl). If listeners immediately interpret on the... as the start of a restrictive modifier, then their eye movements should rapidly converge on the intended referent (the frog on something). However, listeners showed this pattern only when the phrase was unambiguously a Modifier (Put the frog that's on the...). Syntactically ambiguous trials resulted in transient consideration of the Competitor animal (the frog in something). A reading study was also run on the same individuals (Experiment 2) and performance was compared between the two experiments. Those individuals who relied heavily on lexical biases to resolve a complement ambiguity in reading (The man heard/realized the story had been...) showed increased sensitivity to both lexical and contextual constraints in the put-task; i.e., increased consideration of the Goal analysis in 1-Referent Scenes, but also adeptness at using spatial constraints of prepositions (in vs. on) to restrict referential alternatives in 2-Referent Scenes. These findings cross-validate visual world and reading methods and support multiple-constraint theories of sentence processing in which individuals differ in their sensitivity to lexical contingencies.

A wide angle low coherence interferometry based eye length optometer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meadway, Alexander; Siegwart, John; Wildsoet, Christine; Norton, Thomas; Zhang, Yuhua

2015-03-01

Interest in eye growth regulation has burgeoned with the rise in myopia prevalence world-wide. Eye length and eye shape are fundamental metrics for related research, but current in vivo measurement techniques are generally limited to the optical axis of the eye. We describe a high resolution, time domain low coherence interferometry based optometer for measuring the eye length of small animals over a wide field of view. The system is based upon a Michelson interferometer using a superluminescent diode as a source, including a sample arm and a reference arm. The sample arm is split into two paths by a polarisation beam splitter; one focuses the light on the cornea and the other focuses the light on the retina. This method has a high efficiency of detection for reflections from both surfaces. The reference arm contains a custom high speed linear motor with 25 mm stroke and equipped with a precision displacement encoder. Light reflected from the cornea and the retina is combined with the reference beam to generate low coherence interferograms. Two galvo scanners are employed to steer the light to different angles so that the eye length over a field of view of 20° × 20° can be measured. The system has an axial resolution of 6.8 μm (in air) and the motor provides accurate movement, allowing for precise and repeatable measurement of coherence peak positions. Example scans from a tree shrew are presented.

Motor memory is encoded as a gain-field combination of intrinsic and extrinsic action representations.

PubMed

Brayanov, Jordan B; Press, Daniel Z; Smith, Maurice A

2012-10-24

Actions can be planned in either an intrinsic (body-based) reference frame or an extrinsic (world-based) frame, and understanding how the internal representations associated with these frames contribute to the learning of motor actions is a key issue in motor control. We studied the internal representation of this learning in human subjects by analyzing generalization patterns across an array of different movement directions and workspaces after training a visuomotor rotation in a single movement direction in one workspace. This provided a dense sampling of the generalization function across intrinsic and extrinsic reference frames, which allowed us to dissociate intrinsic and extrinsic representations and determine the manner in which they contributed to the motor memory for a trained action. A first experiment showed that the generalization pattern reflected a memory that was intermediate between intrinsic and extrinsic representations. A second experiment showed that this intermediate representation could not arise from separate intrinsic and extrinsic learning. Instead, we find that the representation of learning is based on a gain-field combination of local representations in intrinsic and extrinsic coordinates. This gain-field representation generalizes between actions by effectively computing similarity based on the (Mahalanobis) distance across intrinsic and extrinsic coordinates and is in line with neural recordings showing mixed intrinsic-extrinsic representations in motor and parietal cortices.

Scale free effects in world currency exchange network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Górski, A. Z.; Drożdż, S.; Kwapień, J.

2008-11-01

A large collection of daily time series for 60 world currencies' exchange rates is considered. The correlation matrices are calculated and the corresponding Minimal Spanning Tree (MST) graphs are constructed for each of those currencies used as reference for the remaining ones. It is shown that multiplicity of the MST graphs' nodes to a good approximation develops a power like, scale free distribution with the scaling exponent similar as for several other complex systems studied so far. Furthermore, quantitative arguments in favor of the hierarchical organization of the world currency exchange network are provided by relating the structure of the above MST graphs and their scaling exponents to those that are derived from an exactly solvable hierarchical network model. A special status of the USD during the period considered can be attributed to some departures of the MST features, when this currency (or some other tied to it) is used as reference, from characteristics typical to such a hierarchical clustering of nodes towards those that correspond to the random graphs. Even though in general the basic structure of the MST is robust with respect to changing the reference currency some trace of a systematic transition from somewhat dispersed - like the USD case - towards more compact MST topology can be observed when correlations increase.

Authentication of true cinnamon (Cinnamon verum) utilising direct analysis in real time (DART)-QWToF-MS

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The use of cinnamon as a spice and 'avouring agent is widespread throughout the world. Many different species of plants are commonly referred to as ‘cinnamon’. ‘True cinnamon’ refers to the dried inner bark of Cinnamomum verum J. S. Presl (syn. C zeylanicum) (Lauraceae). Other ‘cinnamon’ species, C....

Googling "Deaf": Deafness in the World's English-Language Press

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Power, Des

2007-01-01

An Internet search tool, Google Alert, was used to survey the global English-language press July-December 2005 for references to deaf people. The survey found that such references focus on people who are deaf rather than the disability itself, thus demonstrating how well deaf people fit into the mainstream. Derogatory terminology such as "deaf and…

Mobile Technologies and Roving Reference

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Penner, Katherine

2011-01-01

As 21st century librarians, we have made apt adjustments for reaching out into the digital world, but we need to consider the students who still use library services within our walls. We can use available handheld, mobile technologies to help patrons too shy to approach the desk and free library staff to bring reference service directly to patrons.

Word Meanings Evolve to Selectively Preserve Distinctions on Salient Dimensions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silvey, Catriona; Kirby, Simon; Smith, Kenny

2015-01-01

Words refer to objects in the world, but this correspondence is not one-to-one: Each word has a range of referents that share features on some dimensions but differ on others. This property of language is called underspecification. Parts of the lexicon have characteristic patterns of underspecification; for example, artifact nouns tend to specify…

Syntax "and" Semantics: A Teaching Model.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolfe, Frank

In translating perception into written language, a child must learn an encoding process which is a continuation of the process of improving sensing of the world around him or her. To verbalize an object (a perception) we use frames which name a referent, locate the referent in space and time, identify its appearance and behavior, and define terms…

Frequently Asked Questions: An Effective Way to Store and Retrieve Reference Information?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stalker, John C.; Murfin, Marjorie E.

1996-01-01

Describes a computerized program presently being developed on the World Wide Web, which is designed to locate and store reference information through the use of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). Reports a preliminary investigation of the adequacy of FAQs to cover a sample of questions on American government, politics, elections and law. (AEF)

75 FR 73128 - Certain Printing and Imaging Devices and Components Thereof; Notice of Commission Determination...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-11-29

...'' include any line extending parallel to the central axis of the roller? Or, does this refer to the central... ``a longitudinal direction'' can include any line extending parallel to the central axis of the roller...) The finding that the Taylor reference (``A Telerobot on the World Wide Web'') (RX-281) does not...

APEX (Air Pollution Exercise) Volume 21: Legal References: Air Pollution Control Regulations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC. Office of Manpower Development.

The Legal References: Air Pollution Control Regulations Manual is the last in a set of 21 manuals (AA 001 009-001 029) used in APEX (Air Pollution Exercise), a computerized college and professional level "real world" game simulation of a community with urban and rural problems, industrial activities, and air pollution difficulties. The manual…

Myths, Misconceptions, and Misunderstandings: A Different Spin on Coriolis--Applying Frame of Reference

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DiSpezio, Michael A.

2011-01-01

This article addresses misconceptions surrounding the Coriolis force and describes how it should be presented as a function within inertial and noninertial frames of reference. Not only does this demonstrate the nature of science as it strives to best interpret the natural world (and presents alternative explanations), but it offers a rich…

The Learning Outcomes of Mentoring Library Science Students in Virtual World Reference: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Purpur, Geraldine; Morris, Jon Levi

2015-01-01

This article reports on the cognitive and affective development of students being mentored in virtual reference interview skills by professional librarians. The authors present a case study which examines the impact on student learning resulting from librarian mentor participation and collaboration with students on a course assignment. This study…

Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella) Modulate Their Use of an Uncertainty Response Depending on Risk

PubMed Central

Beran, Michael J.; Perdue, Bonnie M.; Church, Barbara A.; Smith, J. David

2015-01-01

Metacognition refers to thinking about thinking, and there has been a great deal of interest in how this ability manifests across primates. Based on much of the work to date, a tentative division has been drawn with New World monkeys on one side and Old World monkeys and apes on the other. Specifically, Old World monkeys, apes and humans often show patterns reflecting metacognition, but New World monkeys typically fail to do so, or show less convincing behavioral patterns. However, recent data suggests that this difference may relate to other aspects of some experimental tasks. For example, one possibility is that risk tolerance affects how capuchin monkeys, a New World primate species, tend to perform. Specifically, it has recently been argued that on tasks in which there are two or three options, the ‘risk’ of guessing is tolerable for capuchins since there is a high probability of being correct even if they ‘know they do not know’ or feel something akin to uncertainty. The current study investigated this possibility by manipulating the degree of risk (2-choices versus 6-choices) and found that capuchin monkeys used the uncertainty response more on 6-choice trials than on 2-choice trials. We also found that rate of reward does not appear to underlie these patterns of performance, and propose that the degree of risk is modulating the use of the uncertainty response in capuchin monkeys. Thus, the apparent differences between New and Old world monkeys in metacognition may reflect differences in risk tolerance rather than access to metacognitive states. PMID:26551351

Atmospheric circulation patterns and phenological anomalies of grapevine in Italy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cola, Gabriele; Alilla, Roberta; Dal Monte, Giovanni; Epifani, Chiara; Mariani, Luigi; Parisi, Simone Gabriele

2014-05-01

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is a fundamental crop for Italian agriculture as testified by the first place of Italy in the world producers ranking. This justify the importance of quantitative analyses referred to this crucial crop and aimed to quantify meteorological resources and limitations to development and production. Phenological rhythms of grapevine are strongly affected by surface fields of air temperature which in their turn are affected by synoptic circulation. This evidence highlights the importance of an approach based on dynamic climatology in order to detect and explain phenological anomalies that can have relevant effects on quantity and quality of grapevine production. In this context, this research is aimed to study the existing relation among the 850 hPa circulation patterns over the Euro-Mediterranean area from NOAA Ncep dataset and grapevine phenological fields for Italy over the period 2006-2013, highlighting the main phenological anomalies and analyzing synoptic determinants. This work is based on phenological fields with a standard pixel of 2 km routinely produced from 2006 by the Iphen project (Italian Phenological network) on the base of phenological observations spatialized by means of a specific algorithm based on cumulated thermal resources expressed as Normal Heat Hours (NHH). Anomalies have been evaluated with reference to phenological normal fields defined for the Italian area on the base of phenological observations and Iphen model. Results show that relevant phenological anomalies observed over the reference period are primarily associated with long lasting blocking systems driving cold air masses (Arctic or Polar-Continental) or hot ones (Sub-Tropical) towards the Italian area. Specific cases are presented for some years like 2007 and 2011.

Recurrent Languaging Activities in World of Warcraft: Skilled Linguistic Action Meets the Common European Framework of Reference

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newgarden, Kristi; Zheng, Dongping

2016-01-01

In this study of affordances for second language (L2) learning in World of Warcraft (WoW) group play, we compared three gameplay episodes spanning a semester-long course. Applying multimodal analysis framed by ecological, dialogical and distributed (EDD) views (Zheng and Newgarden, forthcoming), we explored four English as a second language…

Textbooks in the Third World: Policy, Content, and Context. Garland Reference Library of Social Science, Volume 450.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Altbach, Philip G.; Kelly, Gail P.

This volume of essays focuses on textbooks in developing nations of the world. Issues of concern are textbook supply in the schools, national policies and their relation to textbook supply and content, the role of national and international agencies in textbook publication and control, and the influence of textbooks on classroom practice. The…

On Belief State Representation and Its Application in Planning with Incomplete Information, Nondeterministic Actions, and Sensing Actions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

To, Son Thanh

2012-01-01

"Belief state" refers to the set of possible world states satisfying the agent's (usually imperfect) knowledge. The use of belief state allows the agent to reason about the world with incomplete information, by considering each possible state in the belief state individually, in the same way as if it had perfect knowledge. However, the…

Unpacking Frames of Reference to Inform the Design of Virtual World Learning in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wimpenny, Katherine; Savin-Baden, Maggi; Mawer, Matt; Steils, Nicole; Tombs, Gemma

2012-01-01

In the changing context of globalised higher education, a series of pedagogical shifts have occurred, and with them, a number of interactive learning approaches have emerged. This article reports on findings taken from a large-scale study that explored the socio-political impact of virtual world learning on higher education in the UK, specifically…

Political Partisanship, Bureaucratic Pragmatism and Acadian Nationalism: New Brunswick, Canada's 1920 History Textbook Controversy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Helyar, Frances

2014-01-01

During a time of post-war sensitivity to Canadian nationalism and patriotism, public feeling was aroused in 1920 New Brunswick regarding a world history textbook with a new chapter about the First World War. The American author made no reference to Canada's war efforts. The subsequent public discussion focused on issues of patriotism, citizenship,…

An Analysis of Implementation Issues for the Searchable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) in Navy Education and Training

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-09-01

content objects to be used and reused within civilian and military education and training Learning Management Systems (LMS) across the World Wide Web...to be used and reused within civilian and military education and training Learning Management Systems (LMS) across the World Wide Web. vi...1998, SUBJECT: ENHANCING LEARNING AND EDUCATION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Together, Slowly but Surely: The Role of Social Interaction and Feedback on the Build-Up of Benefit in Collective Decision-Making

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bahrami, Bahador; Olsen, Karsten; Bang, Dan; Roepstorff, Andreas; Rees, Geraint; Frith, Chris

2012-01-01

That objective reference is necessary for formation of reliable beliefs about the external world is almost axiomatic. However, Condorcet (1785) suggested that purely subjective information--if shared and combined via social interaction--is enough for accurate understanding of the external world. We asked if social interaction and objective…

Eddy-resolving 1/10° model of the World Ocean

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibrayev, R. A.; Khabeev, R. N.; Ushakov, K. V.

2012-02-01

The first results on simulating the intra-annual variability of the World Ocean circulation by use of the eddy-resolving model are considered. For this purpose, a model of the World Ocean with a 1/10° horizontal resolution and 49 vertical levels was developed (a 1/10 × 1/10 × 49 model of the World Ocean). This model is based on the traditional system of three-dimensional equations of the large-scale dynamics of the ocean and boundary conditions with an explicit allowance for water fluxes on the free surface of the ocean. The equations are written in the tripolar coordinate system. The numerical method is based on the separation of the barotropic and baroclinic components of the solution. Discretization in time is implemented using explicit schemes allowing effective parallelization for a large number of processors. The model uses the sub-models of the boundary layer of the atmosphere and the submodel of sea-ice thermodynamics. The model of the World Ocean was developed at the Institute of Numerical Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INM RAS) and the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanogy (IO RAS). The formulation of the problem of simulating the intra-annual variability of thermohydrodynamic processes of the World Ocean and the parameterizations that were used are considered. In the numerical experiment, the temporal evolution of the atmospheric effect is determined by the normal annual cycle according to the conditions of the international Coordinated Ocean-Ice Reference Experiment (CORE-I). The calculation was carried out on a multiprocessor computer with distributed memory; 1601 computational cores were used. The presented analysis demonstrates that the obtained results are quite satisfactory when compared to the results that were obtained by other eddy-resolving models of the global ocean. The analysis of the model solution is, to a larger extent, of a descriptive character. A detailed analysis of the results is to be presented in following works. This experiment is a significant first step in developing the eddy-resolving model of the World Ocean.

Prevalence of overweight and obesity among children aged 2-5 years in Bahrain: a comparison between two reference standards.

PubMed

Al-Raees, Ghada Y; Al-Amer, Maryam A; Musaiger, Abdulrahman O; D'Souza, Reshma

2009-01-01

A cross-sectional study was carried out on Bahraini preschoolers aged 2-5 years (354 males and 344 females) to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity using the World Health Organization and the International Obesity Task Force cut-off values. Weight and height were recorded and body mass index (BMI) was calculated to determine the proportion of overweight and obesity. Using the World Health Organization percentile cut-off values, overweight (12.3%) and obesity (8.4%) was higher in females between 2 and <4 years of age whereas, the proportion of both overweight (8.4%) and obesity (7.2%) were higher in males between 4 and <6 years of age. Relative to the International Obesity Task Force indicators, the World Health Organization cut-off values produced nearly a 2-fold increase in both overweight and obesity at most ages. It is therefore important to ensure that the same cut-off reference values are used to define overweight and obesity particularly in preschoolers. Shifting to the new World Health Organization child growth standards may have important implications for child health programmes.

Measurement accuracy of weighing and tipping-bucket rainfall intensity gauges under dynamic laboratory testing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Colli, M.; Lanza, L. G.; La Barbera, P.; Chan, P. W.

2014-07-01

The contribution of any single uncertainty factor in the resulting performance of infield rain gauge measurements still has to be comprehensively assessed due to the high number of real world error sources involved, such as the intrinsic variability of rainfall intensity (RI), wind effects, wetting losses, the ambient temperature, etc. In recent years the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) addressed these issues by fostering dedicated investigations, which revealed further difficulties in assessing the actual reference rainfall intensity in the field. This work reports on an extensive assessment of the OTT Pluvio2 weighing gauge accuracy when measuring rainfall intensity under laboratory dynamic conditions (time varying reference flow rates). The results obtained from the weighing rain gauge (WG) were also compared with a MTX tipping-bucket rain gauge (TBR) under the same test conditions. Tests were carried out by simulating various artificial precipitation events, with unsteady rainfall intensity, using a suitable dynamic rainfall generator. Real world rainfall data measured by an Ogawa catching-type drop counter at a field test site located within the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) were used as a reference for the artificial rain generation system. Results demonstrate that the differences observed between the laboratory and field performance of catching-type gauges are only partially attributable to the weather and operational conditions in the field. The dynamics of real world precipitation events is responsible for a large part of the measurement errors, which can be accurately assessed in the laboratory under controlled environmental conditions. This allows for new testing methodologies and the development of instruments with enhanced performance in the field.

[Bioethics and the French speaking world: an answer to globalization].

PubMed

Byk, Christian

2009-01-01

Are we able, today, to take a step closer to bringing together the French speaking world and bioethics by realizing that their association could provide a profound view of the current evolution of our world characterized by what is referred to as globalization? Could we be even more ambitious and register the specificity of the rapport between the French speaking world and bioethics confronted with this global phenomenon of deconstruction/reconstruction of the planetary order by setting as its path a dynamic balance, which is an integral part of the use of the French language and cultural diversity, a central point in a truly pluridisciplinary and pluralist bioethics?

A comparison of the National Center for Health Statistics and new World Health Organization growth references for school-age children and adolescents with the use of data from 11 low-income countries.

PubMed

Rousham, Emily K; Roschnik, Natalie; Baylon, Melba Andrea B; Bobrow, Emily A; Burkhanova, Mavzuna; Campion, M Gerda; Adle-Chua, Teresita; Degefie, Tedbabe; Hilari, Caroline; Kalengamaliro, Humphreys; Kassa, Tamiru; Maiga, Fadima; Mahumane, Bonifacio J; Mukaka, Mary; Ouattara, Fatimata; Parawan, Amado R; Sacko, Moussa; Patterson, David W; Sobgo, Gaston; Khandaker, Ikhtiar Uddin; Hall, Andrew

2011-08-01

In 2007 new World Health Organization (WHO) growth references for children aged 5-19 y were introduced to replace the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) references. This study aimed to compare the prevalence of stunting, wasting, and thinness estimated by the NCHS and WHO growth references. NCHS and WHO height-for-age z scores were calculated with the use of cross-sectional data from 20,605 schoolchildren aged 5-17 y in 11 low-income countries. The differences in the percentage of stunted children were estimated for each year of age and sex. The z scores of body mass index-for-age and weight-for-height were calculated with the use of the WHO and NCHS references, respectively, to compare differences in the prevalence of thinness and wasting. No systematic differences in mean z scores of height-for-age were observed between the WHO and NCHS growth references. However, z scores of height-for-age varied by sex and age, particularly during early adolescence. In children for whom weight-for-height could be calculated, the estimated prevalence of thinness (WHO reference) was consistently higher than the prevalence of wasting (NCHS reference) by as much as 9% in girls and 18% in boys. In undernourished populations, the application of the WHO (2007) references may result in differences in the prevalence of stunting for each sex compared with results shown when the NCHS references are used as well as a higher estimated prevalence of thinness than of wasting. An awareness of these differences is important for comparative studies or the evaluation of programs. For school-age children and adolescents across all ranges of anthropometric status, the same growth references should be applied when such studies are undertaken.

Communication between scientists and civil authorities, and the links with Knowledge and Responsibility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Papale, Paolo

2017-04-01

The issue of communicating volcanic hazard evaluations to civil authorities is becoming increasingly relevant, as the world itself is evolving towards more complex relationships in the process of understanding, anticipating, and reacting to natural disasters. Although different cultures and societies may largely differ in their perception of the roles of scientists, there is an increasing need for an international reference, or shared best practice, for communications by scientists to the society. I review the current methods adopted for volcanic hazard communications worldwide, and analyse them in terms of their informative contents, that I refer to as Knowledge, and the implicit Responsibility they involve. In general, volcano scientists' communications do not allow to discriminate between observations and inferences, providing messages that can be misleading; furthermore, the level of responsibility implicit in those communications appears unjustified given the scientific and technical competence of volcanologists. Discrete alert level systems, such as colour codes, bring about much of that criticism: they can be useful as a quick and synthetic means of communication when they refer to pure observations, but dramatically miss to communicate the large uncertainties which dominate scientists' forecasts, over which most alert levels are based; de facto giving to scientists, when they change level, the role of decision makers. I conclude that different means of communication should be established, fully accounting for the uncertain nature of volcanic hazard evaluations; and that decisions on current alert levels, especially when they significantly impact people and infrastructures, should be made by politicians, after they are fully and correctly informed by a variety of experts far exceeding just volcano scientists. One immediate consequence is that preparedness implies the set up of much more complex systems with respect to those put in place at most potentially dangerous volcanoes in the world.

The green entrepreneur: Business opportunities that can save the Earth make you money

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

Berle, G.

1993-01-01

The Green Entrepreneur looks at business opportunities for the many small operators working their way through the landslide. Gustav Berle's book is an alarming cornucopia of good ideas, helpful references, and summaries of today's preoccupying business concerns to reduce waste, save materials, and conserve energy. This quick-read is also interspersed with a lower-octane blend of popularist solutions to such global problems as world hunger, world peace, and the world's needs for resource reallocation. The ideas spread throughout this text may trigger some start-up thoughts, and the many helpful references may assist those eager to learn how to use the backhoemore » and pick axe. Unfortunately, the small players are probably a small part of the needed answer. The momentous claim of the book - the need to combine environmentally sound concepts with sharp business plans and competent management' - isn't bad nor negligent advice for the giants, either, that still roam the globe.« less

Adjective semantics, world knowledge and visual context: comprehension of size terms by 2- to 7-year-old Dutch-speaking children.

PubMed

Tribushinina, Elena

2013-06-01

The interpretation of size terms involves constructing contextually-relevant reference points by combining visual cues with knowledge of typical object sizes. This study aims to establish at what age children learn to integrate these two sources of information in the interpretation process and tests comprehension of the Dutch adjectives groot 'big' and klein 'small' by 2- to 7-year-old children. The results demonstrate that there is a gradual increase in the ability to inhibit visual cues and to use world knowledge for interpreting size terms. 2- and 3-year-old children only used the extremes of the perceptual range as reference points. From age four onwards children, like adults, used a cut-off point in the mid-zone of a series. From age five on, children were able to integrate world knowledge and perceptual context. Although 7-year-olds could make subtle distinctions between sizes of various object classes, their performance on incongruent items was not yet adult-like.

Is the 2000 CDC growth reference appropriate for developing countries?

PubMed

Roberfroid, Dominique; Lerude, Marie-Paule; Pérez-Cueto, Armando; Kolsteren, Patrick

2006-04-01

In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) produced a revised growth reference. This has already been used in different settings outside the USA. Using data obtained during a nutritional survey in Madagascar, we compare results produced by using both the 2000 CDC and the 1978 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)/World Health Organization (WHO) growth references. We show that changing the reference has an important impact on nutritional diagnosis. In particular, the prevalence of wasting is greatly increased. This could generate substantial operational and clinical difficulties. We recommend continued use of the 1978 NCHS/WHO reference until release of the new WHO multi-country growth charts.

Issues and strategies in the DNA identification of World Trade Center victims.

PubMed

Brenner, C H; Weir, B S

2003-05-01

Identification of the nearly 3000 victims of the World Trade Center attack, represented by about 15,000 body parts, rests heavily on DNA. Reference DNA profiles are often from relatives rather than from the deceased themselves. With so large a set of victims, coincidental similarities between non-relatives abound. Therefore considerable care is necessary to succeed in correlating references with correct victims while avoiding spurious assignments. Typically multiple relatives are necessary to establish the identity of a victim. We describe a 3-stage paradigm--collapse, screen, test--to organize the work of sorting out the identities. Inter alia we present a simple and general formula for the likelihood ratio governing practically any potential relationship between two DNA profiles.

Fetal QRS detection and heart rate estimation: a wavelet-based approach.

PubMed

Almeida, Rute; Gonçalves, Hernâni; Bernardes, João; Rocha, Ana Paula

2014-08-01

Fetal heart rate monitoring is used for pregnancy surveillance in obstetric units all over the world but in spite of recent advances in analysis methods, there are still inherent technical limitations that bound its contribution to the improvement of perinatal indicators. In this work, a previously published wavelet transform based QRS detector, validated over standard electrocardiogram (ECG) databases, is adapted to fetal QRS detection over abdominal fetal ECG. Maternal ECG waves were first located using the original detector and afterwards a version with parameters adapted for fetal physiology was applied to detect fetal QRS, excluding signal singularities associated with maternal heartbeats. Single lead (SL) based marks were combined in a single annotator with post processing rules (SLR) from which fetal RR and fetal heart rate (FHR) measures can be computed. Data from PhysioNet with reference fetal QRS locations was considered for validation, with SLR outperforming SL including ICA based detections. The error in estimated FHR using SLR was lower than 20 bpm for more than 80% of the processed files. The median error in 1 min based FHR estimation was 0.13 bpm, with a correlation between reference and estimated FHR of 0.48, which increased to 0.73 when considering only records for which estimated FHR > 110 bpm. This allows us to conclude that the proposed methodology is able to provide a clinically useful estimation of the FHR.

Evaluation of a fungal collection as certified reference material producer and as a biological resource center.

PubMed

Forti, Tatiana; Souto, Aline da S S; do Nascimento, Carlos Roberto S; Nishikawa, Marilia M; Hubner, Marise T W; Sabagh, Fernanda P; Temporal, Rosane Maria; Rodrigues, Janaína M; da Silva, Manuela

2016-01-01

Considering the absence of standards for culture collections and more specifically for biological resource centers in the world, in addition to the absence of certified biological material in Brazil, this study aimed to evaluate a Fungal Collection from Fiocruz, as a producer of certified reference material and as Biological Resource Center (BRC). For this evaluation, a checklist based on the requirements of ABNT ISO GUIA34:2012 correlated with the ABNT NBR ISO/IEC17025:2005, was designed and applied. Complementing the implementation of the checklist, an internal audit was performed. An evaluation of this Collection as a BRC was also conducted following the requirements of the NIT-DICLA-061, the Brazilian internal standard from Inmetro, based on ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 17025:2005, ABNT ISO GUIA 34:2012 and OECD Best Practice Guidelines for BRCs. This was the first time that the NIT DICLA-061 was applied in a culture collection during an internal audit. The assessments enabled the proposal for the adequacy of this Collection to assure the implementation of the management system for their future accreditation by Inmetro as a certified reference material producer as well as its future accreditation as a Biological Resource Center according to the NIT-DICLA-061. Copyright © 2016 Sociedade Brasileira de Microbiologia. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

Defining Family Health Needs, Standards of Care and Priorities with Particular Reference to Family Planning. Occasional Essay Number 4.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sai, Fred T.

This essay discusses family health needs in the developing world, their priorities, and the standards of health required, with particular reference to family planning. The author takes into account medical, social, and economic factors that influence those concerns. Some of the material presented in this essay first appeared in other international…

Evaluation of Commercially Available Anti–Dengue Virus Immunoglobulin M Tests

PubMed Central

Hunsperger, Elizabeth A.; Yoksan, Sutee; Buchy, Philippe; Nguyen, Vinh Chau; Sekaran, Shamala D.; Enria, Delia A.; Pelegrino, Jose L.; Vázquez, Susana; Artsob, Harvey; Drebot, Michael; Gubler, Duane J.; Halstead, Scott B.; Guzmán, María G.; Margolis, Harold S.; Nathanson, Carl-Michael; Lic, Nidia R. Rizzo; Bessoff, Kovi E.; Kliks, Srisakul

2009-01-01

Anti–dengue virus immunoglobulin M kits were evaluated. Test sensitivities were 21%–99% and specificities were 77%–98% compared with reference ELISAs. False-positive results were found for patients with malaria or past dengue infections. Three ELISAs showing strong agreement with reference ELISAs will be included in the World Health Organization Bulk Procurement Scheme. PMID:19239758

Research into Practice: Visualising the Molecular World for a Deep Understanding of Chemistry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tasker, Roy

2014-01-01

Why is chemistry so difficult? A seminal paper by Johnstone (1982) offered an explanation for why science in general, and chemistry in particular, is so difficult to learn. He proposed that an expert in chemistry thinks at three levels; the macro (referred to as the observational level in this article), the sub-micro (referred to as the molecular…

Six-Month-Olds Comprehend Words that Refer to Parts of the Body

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tincoff, Ruth; Jusczyk, Peter W.

2012-01-01

Comprehending spoken words requires a lexicon of sound patterns and knowledge of their referents in the world. Tincoff and Jusczyk (1999) demonstrated that 6-month-olds link the sound patterns "Mommy" and "Daddy" to video images of their parents, but not to other adults. This finding suggests that comprehension emerges at this young age and might…

Some practical approaches to a course on paraconsistent logic for engineers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lambert-Torres, Germano; de Moraes, Carlos Henrique Valerio; Coutinho, Maurilio Pereira; Martins, Helga Gonzaga; Borges da Silva, Luiz Eduardo

2017-11-01

This paper describes a non-classical logic course primarily indicated for graduate students in electrical engineering and energy engineering. The content of this course is based on the vision that it is not enough for a student to indefinitely accumulate knowledge; it is necessary to explore all the occasions to update, deepen, and enrich that knowledge, adapting it to a complex world. Therefore, this course is not tied to theoretical formalities and tries at each moment to provide a practical view of the non-classical logic. In the real world, the inconsistencies are important and cannot be ignored because contradictory information brings relevant facts, sometimes modifying the entire result of the analysis. As consequence, the non-classical logics, such as annotated paraconsistent logic - APL, are efficiently framed in the approach of complex situations of the real world. In APL, the concepts of unknown, partial, ambiguous, and inconsistent knowledge are referred not to trivialise any system in analysis. This course presents theoretical and applicable aspects of APL, which are successfully used in decision-making structures. The course is divided into modules: Basic, 2vAPL, 3vAPL, 4vAPL, and Final Project.

See-through 3D technology for augmented reality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Byoungho; Lee, Seungjae; Li, Gang; Jang, Changwon; Hong, Jong-Young

2017-06-01

Augmented reality is recently attracting a lot of attention as one of the most spotlighted next-generation technologies. In order to get toward realization of ideal augmented reality, we need to integrate 3D virtual information into real world. This integration should not be noticed by users blurring the boundary between the virtual and real worlds. Thus, ultimate device for augmented reality can reconstruct and superimpose 3D virtual information on the real world so that they are not distinguishable, which is referred to as see-through 3D technology. Here, we introduce our previous researches to combine see-through displays and 3D technologies using emerging optical combiners: holographic optical elements and index matched optical elements. Holographic optical elements are volume gratings that have angular and wavelength selectivity. Index matched optical elements are partially reflective elements using a compensation element for index matching. Using these optical combiners, we could implement see-through 3D displays based on typical methodologies including integral imaging, digital holographic displays, multi-layer displays, and retinal projection. Some of these methods are expected to be optimized and customized for head-mounted or wearable displays. We conclude with demonstration and analysis of fundamental researches for head-mounted see-through 3D displays.

Cost-effectiveness thresholds: methods for setting and examples from around the world.

PubMed

Santos, André Soares; Guerra-Junior, Augusto Afonso; Godman, Brian; Morton, Alec; Ruas, Cristina Mariano

2018-06-01

Cost-effectiveness thresholds (CETs) are used to judge if an intervention represents sufficient value for money to merit adoption in healthcare systems. The study was motivated by the Brazilian context of HTA, where meetings are being conducted to decide on the definition of a threshold. Areas covered: An electronic search was conducted on Medline (via PubMed), Lilacs (via BVS) and ScienceDirect followed by a complementary search of references of included studies, Google Scholar and conference abstracts. Cost-effectiveness thresholds are usually calculated through three different approaches: the willingness-to-pay, representative of welfare economics; the precedent method, based on the value of an already funded technology; and the opportunity cost method, which links the threshold to the volume of health displaced. An explicit threshold has never been formally adopted in most places. Some countries have defined thresholds, with some flexibility to consider other factors. An implicit threshold could be determined by research of funded cases. Expert commentary: CETs have had an important role as a 'bridging concept' between the world of academic research and the 'real world' of healthcare prioritization. The definition of a cost-effectiveness threshold is paramount for the construction of a transparent and efficient Health Technology Assessment system.

Implication of World Health Organization growth standards on estimation of malnutrition in young Chinese children: Two examples from rural western China and the Tibet region.

PubMed

Dang, Shaonong; Yan, Hong; Wang, Duolao

2014-12-01

The aim of this study was to determine how malnutrition rates change in young Chinese children when 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) growth standards are used instead of 1978 WHO/National Center for Health Statistics reference. Cross-sectional survey data were used from rural western China and the Tibet region. The heights and weights of children of <36 months of age were measured. The nutritional status of the children was assessed by two references. Using 2006 reference instead of 1978 reference, the prevalence of stunting increased significantly (17.9% vs. 12.3% in rural western China and 37.5% vs. 28.1% in rural Tibet). The prevalence of underweight was lower in rural western China (7.7% vs. 11.7%) than rural Tibet (13.1% vs. 15.3%). For all ages, the prevalence of stunting increased and the greatest relative increase appeared in the first six months (102.9% in rural western China vs. 134.9% in rural Tibet). With respect to underweight, the relative increase occurred only during the first six months (314.3% in rural western China vs. 48.1% in rural Tibet); however, the reduction was observed in other age groups. For young Chinese Han and Tibetan children, the difference in estimation of malnutrition between two references differed in magnitude. The scale of change in the prevalence rates of stunting and underweight is much greater when 2006 reference was introduced. © The Author(s) 2013.

Inspiration Today: Music, Astronomy, and Popular Culture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fraknoi, A.

2016-01-01

We explore a variety of examples of music inspired by serious astronomy (as opposed to simply an astronomical title or quick allusion to spooning in June to the light of the Moon). The examples are drawn from my recently published catalog of 133 such pieces, including both classical and popular genres of music. We discuss operas based on the life and work of astronomers, six songs based on a reasonable understanding of the properties of black holes, constellation pieces written by composers from around the world who are or were active amateur astronomers, the song that compares walking on the Moon to being in love, the little-known rock song that became a reference in the Astrophysical Journal, pieces that base the patterns of the music on the rhythms of astronomical phenomena, and a number of others.

Intellectual property rights and patents in perspective of Ayurveda

PubMed Central

Chaudhary, Anand; Singh, Neetu

2012-01-01

Ayurveda is getting its due recognition as a rationale system of medicine worldwide despite the fact that medical and scientific fraternity of the globe has very strong opposite opinion regarding safety and efficacy of Ayurvedic medicines. Meanwhile, provisions of Intellectual Property Rights under World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Patents have attracted many individuals and organizations to explore possibilities of commercial benefits with Ayurvedic traditional knowledge. Although rules are not favoring to grant a patent on prior published knowledge, biopiracy managed grant of Patent on knowledge of Ayurvedic medicinal plants which has been successfully checked with references of data base of Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). Current provisions of the Patent law of India are obstructive in nature for getting patent on Ayurvedic medicines. If we have to invite researchers from basic science to ensure quality, safety and efficacy of Ayurvedic medicines, there is an urgent need to amend laws of patent with pragmatic promotional policies. This will encourage more patents on numerous pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmaceutical products based on Ayurveda. As every action of today's world is based on economic criteria so why stakeholders of Ayurveda should be deprived of it. New inventions would drive acceptance of Ayurveda as a global system of medicine. PMID:23049179

Bildung und bildungstheoretische Ueberlegungen zur Grundung der Republik (Education and the Republic--Educational Theorists Reflections on the Foundation of the Republic).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hellekamps, Stephanie

1996-01-01

Draws on Wilhelm von Humboldt's typology of the active human being to debate the questions whether and how individuals can produce their social and political world. Discusses, with reference to Marie Condorcet and Immanuel Kant, procedures of the public that are necessary prerequisites for actions aimed at forming the world. (DSK)

Students' Perceptions of the Effectiveness of the World Wide Web as a Research and Teaching Tool in Science Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ng, Wan; Gunstone, Richard

2002-01-01

Investigates the use of the World Wide Web (WWW) as a research and teaching tool in promoting self-directed learning groups of 15-year-old students. Discusses the perceptions of students of the effectiveness of the WWW in assisting them with the construction of knowledge on photosynthesis and respiration. (Contains 33 references.) (Author/YDS)

The new policy of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and its Reference Centres for the Animal Production and Health Division.

PubMed

Lubroth, J

2007-01-01

The article explains the current procedures to be followed for institutes that are, were or would like to become Reference Centres for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Within the realm of animal health many of the Reference Laboratories and Reference Centres of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are the same as those of the Animal and Health Division of FAO, particularly for diseases that are transboundary in nature, but they also address other aspects concerning health, production, standard setting, agriculture, conservation, water, and biotechnology.

The Antikythera mechanism and the mechanical universe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Edmunds, M. G.

2014-10-01

How did our view of the Universe develop? By the mid-eighteenth century, a world view had developed of a system constrained by physical laws. These laws, if not entirely understood, showed regularity and could be handled mathematically to provide both explanation and prediction of celestial phenomena. Most of us have at least some hazy idea of the fundamental shift that came through the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. The idea of a 'Mechanical Universe' running rather like a clock tends to be associated with these sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pioneers. It remains a useful - and perhaps comforting - analogy. Yet, recent investigations based around the Antikythera Mechanism, an artefact from ancient Greece, reinforce a view that the 'Mechanical' conception has been around for a much longer time - indeed certainly as far back as the third century BC. The extent of mechanical design expertise existing around 100 BC as witnessed by the Antikythera Mechanism comes as a great surprise to most people. It is certainly a very ingenious device, often referred to as 'The World's First Computer' although it is really a sophisticated mechanical astronomical calculator with its functions pre-determined rather than programmable. In this review, the structure and functions of the Antikythera Mechanism are described. The astronomy, cosmology and technology inherent in the machine fit surprisingly well into the context of its contemporary Classical world. A strong claim will be made for the influence of such mechanisms on the development of astronomical and philosophical views, based on literary reference. There is evidence that the technology persisted until its spectacular and rather sudden re-appearance in Western Europe around 1300 AD. From then on it is not hard to chart a path through the astronomical clocks of the sixteenth century to Kepler's aim (expressed in a 1605 letter) to 'show that the heavenly machine is not a kind of divine, live being, but a kind of clockwork …', and on to the widespread development of popular visualisation of the heliocentric Solar System in the orreries of the eighteenth century.

Infliximab Biosimilar (CT-P13; Infliximab-dyyb): A Review in Autoimmune Inflammatory Diseases.

PubMed

Blair, Hannah A; Deeks, Emma D

2016-10-01

Infliximab biosimilar (CT-P13/infliximab-dyyb; Remsima ® , Inflectra ® ) is approved in several countries for use in all indications for which reference infliximab (Remicade ® ) is approved, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis. Clinical data contributing to the EU approval of infliximab biosimilar were obtained from two pivotal double-blind clinical trials in patients with AS (PLANETAS) or RA (PLANETRA). Infliximab biosimilar demonstrated equivalence to reference infliximab in terms of its pharmacokinetic profile in patients with AS, patients with RA, and in healthy volunteers, and in terms of its efficacy in patients with RA. Clinical response rates in patients with RA or AS were maintained over the longer term (up to 102 weeks). In addition, the efficacy of infliximab biosimilar in patients with RA or Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis [i.e. inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)] has been demonstrated in the real-world setting. Infliximab biosimilar was generally well tolerated, with a tolerability profile similar to that of reference infliximab. Switching from reference infliximab to infliximab biosimilar had no detrimental effect on efficacy, safety, or immunogenicity compared with continuous infliximab biosimilar therapy, according to the extensions of PLANETAS and PLANETRA, and real-world data in IBD. Current evidence therefore suggests that infliximab biosimilar is a useful alternative to reference infliximab in patients with autoimmune inflammatory diseases.

Ipsilateral wrist-ankle movements in the sagittal plane encoded in extrinsic reference frame.

PubMed

Muraoka, Tetsuro; Ishida, Yuki; Obu, Takashi; Crawshaw, Larry; Kanosue, Kazuyuki

2013-04-01

When performing oscillatory movements of two joints in the sagittal plane, there is a directional constraint for performing such movements. Previous studies could not distinguish whether the directional constraint reflected movement direction encoded in the extrinsic (outside the body) reference frame or in the intrinsic (the participants' torso/head) reference frame since participants performed coordinated movements in a sitting position where the torso/head was stationary relative to the external world. In order to discern the reference frame in the present study, participants performed paced oscillatory movements of the ipsilateral wrist and ankle in the sagittal plane in a standing position so that the torso/head moved relative to the external world. The coordinated movements were performed in one of two modes of coordination, moving the hand upward concomitant with either ankle plantarflexion or ankle dorsiflexion. The same directional mode relative to extrinsic space was more stable and accurate as compared with the opposite directional mode. When forearm position was changed from the pronated position to the supinated position, similar results were obtained, indicating that the results were independent of a particular coupling of muscles. These findings suggest that the directional constraint on ipsilateral joints movements in the sagittal plane reflects movement direction encoded in the extrinsic reference frame. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and the Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.

Explicit area-based accuracy assessment for mangrove tree crown delineation using Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kamal, Muhammad; Johansen, Kasper

2017-10-01

Effective mangrove management requires spatially explicit information of mangrove tree crown map as a basis for ecosystem diversity study and health assessment. Accuracy assessment is an integral part of any mapping activities to measure the effectiveness of the classification approach. In geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) the assessment of the geometric accuracy (shape, symmetry and location) of the created image objects from image segmentation is required. In this study we used an explicit area-based accuracy assessment to measure the degree of similarity between the results of the classification and reference data from different aspects, including overall quality (OQ), user's accuracy (UA), producer's accuracy (PA) and overall accuracy (OA). We developed a rule set to delineate the mangrove tree crown using WorldView-2 pan-sharpened image. The reference map was obtained by visual delineation of the mangrove tree crowns boundaries form a very high-spatial resolution aerial photograph (7.5cm pixel size). Ten random points with a 10 m radius circular buffer were created to calculate the area-based accuracy assessment. The resulting circular polygons were used to clip both the classified image objects and reference map for area comparisons. In this case, the area-based accuracy assessment resulted 64% and 68% for the OQ and OA, respectively. The overall quality of the calculation results shows the class-related area accuracy; which is the area of correctly classified as tree crowns was 64% out of the total area of tree crowns. On the other hand, the overall accuracy of 68% was calculated as the percentage of all correctly classified classes (tree crowns and canopy gaps) in comparison to the total class area (an entire image). Overall, the area-based accuracy assessment was simple to implement and easy to interpret. It also shows explicitly the omission and commission error variations of object boundary delineation with colour coded polygons.

Low-birthweight rates higher among Bangladeshi neonates measured during active birth surveillance compared to national survey data.

PubMed

Klemm, Rolf D W; Merrill, Rebecca D; Wu, Lee; Shamim, Abu Ahmed; Ali, Hasmot; Labrique, Alain; Christian, Parul; West, Keith P

2015-10-01

Birth size is an important gauge of fetal and neonatal health. Birth size measurements were collected within 72 h of life for 16 290 live born, singleton infants in rural Bangladesh from 2004 to 2007. Gestational age was calculated based on the date of last menstrual period. Newborns were classified as small-for-gestational age (SGA) based on a birthweight below the 10th percentile for gestational age, using three sets of US reference data. Birth size distributions were explored based on raw values as well as after z-score standardisation in reference to World Health Organization (WHO) 2006 growth standards. Mean (SD) birthweight (g), length (cm) and head circumference (cm) measurements, completed within [median (25th, 75th percentile)] 15 (8, 23) h of life, were 2433 (425), 46.4 (2.4) and 32.4 (1.6), respectively. Twenty-two per cent were born preterm. Over one-half (55.3%) of infants were born low birthweight; 46.6%, 37.0% and 33.6% had a weight, length and head circumference below -2 z-scores of the WHO growth standard at birth; and 70.9%, 72.2% and 59.8% were SGA for weight based on Alexander et al., Oken et al. and Olsen et al. references, respectively. Infants in this typical rural Bangladesh setting were commonly born small, reflecting a high burden of fetal growth restriction and preterm birth. Our findings, produced by active birth surveillance, suggest that low birthweight is far more common than suggested by cross-sectional survey estimates. Interventions that improve fetal growth during pregnancy may have the largest impact on reducing SGA rates. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Reliable reference genes for normalization of gene expression data in tea plants (Camellia sinensis) exposed to metal stresses.

PubMed

Wang, Ming-Le; Li, Qing-Hui; Xin, Hua-Hong; Chen, Xuan; Zhu, Xu-Jun; Li, Xing-Hui

2017-01-01

Tea plants [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] are an important leaf-type crop that are widely used for the production of non-alcoholic beverages in the world. Exposure to excessive amounts of heavy metals adversely affects the quality and yield of tea leaves. To analyze the molecular responses of tea plants to heavy metals, a reliable quantification of gene expression is important and of major importance herein is the normalization of the measured expression levels for the target genes. Ideally, stably expressed reference genes should be evaluated in all experimental systems. In this study, 12 candidate reference genes (i.e., 18S rRNA, Actin, CYP, EF-1α, eIF-4α, GAPDH, MON1, PP2AA3, TBP, TIP41, TUA, and UBC) were cloned from tea plants, and the stability of their expression was examined systematically in 60 samples exposed to diverse heavy metals (i.e., manganese, aluminum, copper, iron, and zinc). Three Excel-based algorithms (geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper) were used to evaluate the expression stability of these genes. PP2AA3 and 18S rRNA were the most stably expressed genes, even though their expression profiles exhibited some variability. Moreover, commonly used reference genes (i.e., GAPDH and TBP) were the least appropriate reference genes for most samples. To further validate the suitability of the analyzed reference genes, the expression level of a phytochelatin synthase gene (i.e., CsPCS1) was determined using the putative reference genes for data normalizations. Our results may be beneficial for future studies involving the quantification of relative gene expression levels in tea plants.

Reliable reference genes for normalization of gene expression data in tea plants (Camellia sinensis) exposed to metal stresses

PubMed Central

Wang, Ming-Le; Li, Qing-Hui; Xin, Hua-Hong; Chen, Xuan; Zhu, Xu-Jun

2017-01-01

Tea plants [Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] are an important leaf-type crop that are widely used for the production of non-alcoholic beverages in the world. Exposure to excessive amounts of heavy metals adversely affects the quality and yield of tea leaves. To analyze the molecular responses of tea plants to heavy metals, a reliable quantification of gene expression is important and of major importance herein is the normalization of the measured expression levels for the target genes. Ideally, stably expressed reference genes should be evaluated in all experimental systems. In this study, 12 candidate reference genes (i.e., 18S rRNA, Actin, CYP, EF-1α, eIF-4α, GAPDH, MON1, PP2AA3, TBP, TIP41, TUA, and UBC) were cloned from tea plants, and the stability of their expression was examined systematically in 60 samples exposed to diverse heavy metals (i.e., manganese, aluminum, copper, iron, and zinc). Three Excel-based algorithms (geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper) were used to evaluate the expression stability of these genes. PP2AA3 and 18S rRNA were the most stably expressed genes, even though their expression profiles exhibited some variability. Moreover, commonly used reference genes (i.e., GAPDH and TBP) were the least appropriate reference genes for most samples. To further validate the suitability of the analyzed reference genes, the expression level of a phytochelatin synthase gene (i.e., CsPCS1) was determined using the putative reference genes for data normalizations. Our results may be beneficial for future studies involving the quantification of relative gene expression levels in tea plants. PMID:28453515

Response of a multi-stressed Mediterranean river to future climate and socio-economic scenarios.

PubMed

Stefanidis, Konstantinos; Panagopoulos, Yiannis; Mimikou, Maria

2018-06-15

Streams and rivers are among the most threatened ecosystems in Europe due to the combined effects of multiple pressures related to anthropogenic activities. Particularly in the Mediterranean region, changes in hydromorphology along with increased nutrient loadings are known to affect the ecological functions and ecosystem services of streams and rivers with the anticipated climate change being likely to further impair their functionality and structure. In this study, we investigated the combined effects of agricultural driven stressors on the ecology and delivered services of the Pinios river basin in Greece under three future world scenarios developed within the EU funded MARS project. Scenarios are based on combinations of Representative Concentration Pathways and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and refer to early century (2030) and mid-century (2060) representing future climate worlds with particular socioeconomic characteristics. To assess the responses of ecological and ecosystem service indicators to the scenarios we first simulated hydrology and water quality in Pinios with a process-based model. Simulated abiotic stressor parameters (predictors) were linked to two biotic indicators, the macroinvertebrate indicators ASPT and EPT, with empirical modelling based on boosted regression trees and general linear models. Our results showed that the techno world scenario driven by fast economic growth and intensive exploitation of energy resources had the largest impact on both the abiotic status (nutrient loads and concentrations in water) and the biotic indicators. In contrast, the predicted changes under the other two future worlds, consensus and fragmented, were more diverse and were mostly dictated by the projected climate. This work showed that the future scenarios, especially the mid-century ones, had significant impact on both abiotic status and biotic responses underpinning the need for implementing catchment management practices able to mitigate the ecological threat on waters in the long-term. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

AED INFORMATION SERVICE. SERIES C: BIBLIOGRAPHIES. SECTION 02: RADIATION EFFECTS ON FOOD (INCL. RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION)

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

Lueck, H. comp.

Eleven hundred and fifty-eight references are presented to the world literature on radiation effects on food. References to related biological and chemical studies and studies on radiation dosimetry are included. Emphasis is placed on radiation processing of foods and food products to increase storage life and the effects of fallout fission products on radioactivity in food chains. (C.H.)

Using Analogy to Improve Abstract Conditional Reasoning in Adolescents: Not as Easy as It Looks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Markovits, Henry; Doyon, Celine

2011-01-01

Abstract reasoning refers to the ability to reason logically with premises that do not allow reference to knowledge about the real world. This form of reasoning is complex and difficult, and at the same time, it is critical for understanding science and mathematics. Two studies examined the use of analogy as a method to bridge reasoning with…

A bibliography of the theory and application of the phase-lock principle

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lindsey, W. C.; Tausworthe, R. C.

1973-01-01

A literature search was conducted in an effort to collect and compile as many references on the phase-locked loop as possible. Although not all inclusive, a comprehensive listing of approximately 800 references covering the past two decades of work reported throughout the world are presented. The compilation is given in two parts: first by categories, and then alphabetically by authors.

Filling reference gaps via assembling DNA barcodes using high-throughput sequencing—moving toward barcoding the world

PubMed Central

Zhou, Chengran

2017-01-01

Abstract Over the past decade, biodiversity researchers have dedicated tremendous efforts to constructing DNA reference barcodes for rapid species registration and identification. Although analytical cost for standard DNA barcoding has been significantly reduced since early 2000, further dramatic reduction in barcoding costs is unlikely because Sanger sequencing is approaching its limits in throughput and chemistry cost. Constraints in barcoding cost not only led to unbalanced barcoding efforts around the globe, but also prevented high-throughput sequencing (HTS)–based taxonomic identification from applying binomial species names, which provide crucial linkages to biological knowledge. We developed an Illumina-based pipeline, HIFI-Barcode, to produce full-length Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) barcodes from pooled polymerase chain reaction amplicons generated by individual specimens. The new pipeline generated accurate barcode sequences that were comparable to Sanger standards, even for different haplotypes of the same species that were only a few nucleotides different from each other. Additionally, the new pipeline was much more sensitive in recovering amplicons at low quantity. The HIFI-Barcode pipeline successfully recovered barcodes from more than 78% of the polymerase chain reactions that didn’t show clear bands on the electrophoresis gel. Moreover, sequencing results based on the single molecular sequencing platform Pacbio confirmed the accuracy of the HIFI-Barcode results. Altogether, the new pipeline can provide an improved solution to produce full-length reference barcodes at about one-tenth of the current cost, enabling construction of comprehensive barcode libraries for local fauna, leading to a feasible direction for DNA barcoding global biomes. PMID:29077841

Filling reference gaps via assembling DNA barcodes using high-throughput sequencing-moving toward barcoding the world.

PubMed

Liu, Shanlin; Yang, Chentao; Zhou, Chengran; Zhou, Xin

2017-12-01

Over the past decade, biodiversity researchers have dedicated tremendous efforts to constructing DNA reference barcodes for rapid species registration and identification. Although analytical cost for standard DNA barcoding has been significantly reduced since early 2000, further dramatic reduction in barcoding costs is unlikely because Sanger sequencing is approaching its limits in throughput and chemistry cost. Constraints in barcoding cost not only led to unbalanced barcoding efforts around the globe, but also prevented high-throughput sequencing (HTS)-based taxonomic identification from applying binomial species names, which provide crucial linkages to biological knowledge. We developed an Illumina-based pipeline, HIFI-Barcode, to produce full-length Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) barcodes from pooled polymerase chain reaction amplicons generated by individual specimens. The new pipeline generated accurate barcode sequences that were comparable to Sanger standards, even for different haplotypes of the same species that were only a few nucleotides different from each other. Additionally, the new pipeline was much more sensitive in recovering amplicons at low quantity. The HIFI-Barcode pipeline successfully recovered barcodes from more than 78% of the polymerase chain reactions that didn't show clear bands on the electrophoresis gel. Moreover, sequencing results based on the single molecular sequencing platform Pacbio confirmed the accuracy of the HIFI-Barcode results. Altogether, the new pipeline can provide an improved solution to produce full-length reference barcodes at about one-tenth of the current cost, enabling construction of comprehensive barcode libraries for local fauna, leading to a feasible direction for DNA barcoding global biomes. © The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Political economy of oil

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

Banks, F.E.

1980-01-01

A nontechnical discussion of the political economy of the world oil market is intended to inform the beginning student as well as serve as a reference book. Beginning with definitions and an explanation of units, the text covers the world economy, oil supply, oil prices, oil consumption and non-oil energy materials supplies, oil companies, macroeconomics, and the market in an effort to relate both macro- and microeconomic phenomena. Professor Banks feels that population is the most crucial factor in economics today, followed by nonfuel minerals and energy; the technical problems pertaining to energy, however, can be managed if the firstmore » two are faced and dealt with. He thinks the outlook is good for replacing oil with other energy sources. 143 references, 23 figures, 26 tables. (DKC)« less

Quantum Foundations of Quantum Information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Griffiths, Robert

2009-03-01

The main foundational issue for quantum information is: What is quantum information about? What does it refer to? Classical information typically refers to physical properties, and since classical is a subset of quantum information (assuming the world is quantum mechanical), quantum information should--and, it will be argued, does--refer to quantum physical properties represented by projectors on appropriate subspaces of a quantum Hilbert space. All sorts of microscopic and macroscopic properties, not just measurement outcomes, can be represented in this way, and are thus a proper subject of quantum information. The Stern-Gerlach experiment illustrates this. When properties are compatible, which is to say their projectors commute, Shannon's classical information theory based on statistical correlations extends without difficulty or change to the quantum case. When projectors do not commute, giving rise to characteristic quantum effects, a foundation for the subject can still be constructed by replacing the ``measurement and wave-function collapse'' found in textbooks--an efficient calculational tool, but one giving rise to numerous conceptual difficulties--with a fully consistent and paradox free stochastic formulation of standard quantum mechanics. This formulation is particularly helpful in that it contains no nonlocal superluminal influences; the reason the latter carry no information is that they do not exist.

Mechanical explanation of nature and its limits in Kant's Critique of judgment.

PubMed

Breitenbach, Angela

2006-12-01

In this paper I discuss two questions. What does Kant understand by mechanical explanation in the Critique of judgment? And why does he think that mechanical explanation is the only type of the explanation of nature available to us? According to the interpretation proposed, mechanical explanations in the Critique of judgment refer to a particular species of empirical causal laws. Mechanical laws aim to explain nature by reference to the causal interaction between the forces of the parts of matter and the way in which they form into complex material wholes. Just like any other empirical causal law, however, mechanical laws can never be known with full certainty. The conception according to which we can explain all of nature by means of mechanical laws, it turns out, is based on what Kant calls 'regulative' or 'reflective' considerations about nature. Nothing in Kant's Critique of judgment suggests that these considerations can ever be justified by reference to how the natural world really is. I suggest that what, upon first consideration, appears to be a thoroughly mechanistic conception of nature in Kant is much more limited than one might have expected.

CHERNOLITTM. Chernobyl Bibliographic Search System

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

Caff, F., Jr.; Kennedy, R.A.; Mahaffey, J.A.

1992-03-02

The Chernobyl Bibliographic Search System (Chernolit TM) provides bibliographic data in a usable format for research studies relating to the Chernobyl nuclear accident that occurred in the former Ukrainian Republic of the USSR in 1986. Chernolit TM is a portable and easy to use product. The bibliographic data is provided under the control of a graphical user interface so that the user may quickly and easily retrieve pertinent information from the large database. The user may search the database for occurrences of words, names, or phrases; view bibliographic references on screen; and obtain reports of selected references. Reports may bemore » viewed on the screen, printed, or accumulated in a folder that is written to a disk file when the user exits the software. Chernolit TM provides a cost-effective alternative to multiple, independent literature searches. Forty-five hundred references concerning the accident, including abstracts, are distributed with Chernolit TM. The data contained in the database were obtained from electronic literature searches and from requested donations from individuals and organizations. These literature searches interrogated the Energy Science and Technology database (formerly DOE ENERGY) of the DIALOG Information Retrieval Service. Energy Science and Technology, provided by the U.S. DOE, Washington, D.C., is a multi-disciplinary database containing references to the world`s scientific and technical literature on energy. All unclassified information processed at the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) of the U.S. DOE is included in the database. In addition, information on many documents has been manually added to Chernolit TM. Most of this information was obtained in response to requests for data sent to people and/or organizations throughout the world.« less

Chernobyl Bibliographic Search System

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

Carr, Jr, F.; Kennedy, R. A.; Mahaffey, J. A.

1992-05-11

The Chernobyl Bibliographic Search System (Chernolit TM) provides bibliographic data in a usable format for research studies relating to the Chernobyl nuclear accident that occurred in the former Ukrainian Republic of the USSR in 1986. Chernolit TM is a portable and easy to use product. The bibliographic data is provided under the control of a graphical user interface so that the user may quickly and easily retrieve pertinent information from the large database. The user may search the database for occurrences of words, names, or phrases; view bibliographic references on screen; and obtain reports of selected references. Reports may bemore » viewed on the screen, printed, or accumulated in a folder that is written to a disk file when the user exits the software. Chernolit TM provides a cost-effective alternative to multiple, independent literature searches. Forty-five hundred references concerning the accident, including abstracts, are distributed with Chernolit TM. The data contained in the database were obtained from electronic literature searches and from requested donations from individuals and organizations. These literature searches interrogated the Energy Science and Technology database (formerly DOE ENERGY) of the DIALOG Information Retrieval Service. Energy Science and Technology, provided by the U.S. DOE, Washington, D.C., is a multi-disciplinary database containing references to the world''s scientific and technical literature on energy. All unclassified information processed at the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) of the U.S. DOE is included in the database. In addition, information on many documents has been manually added to Chernolit TM. Most of this information was obtained in response to requests for data sent to people and/or organizations throughout the world.« less

Actors' Interpretations and Organisational Change Processes: The Case of the University of Ghana's Strategic Vision of Becoming a "World Class University"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Intsiful, Emmanuel; Maassen, Peter

2017-01-01

Despite its seemingly subjective and ambiguous nature, the notion of a World Class University (WCU) appears both established and widely discussed in higher education discourses over the last decade. At the same time, some scholars have argued that the notion does not fit or refer to universities in Africa. In the year 2010, the University of Ghana…

The Representation of Europe in Maps with Reference to Catling's Theory of Children's Worlds: Issues for Geographical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Halocha, John

2011-01-01

This paper discusses some of the complex issues involved in how Europe is represented in a range of map formats. The reader is encouraged to consider these issues by accessing recommended websites in order to analyse how Europe is represented through their published contents. Simon Catling's theoretical work on children's worlds is then used to…

How government can support protection of “dark skies” as a public policy: the experience of Chile

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodriguez, Gabriel

2015-08-01

For more than fifty years Chile has been the host of world-leading optical and radio astronomical observatories because of the exceptional atmospheric conditions and the existence of isolated areas in the northern desert regions. As of today, Chile, through agreements with foreign governments and international research institutions around the world concentrates almost 30% of the total radio and optical observation capabilities of the planet, scattered in different sites. With the new projects already planned or in construction, the country will be the host of almost 70% of the total world-wide observational facilities by 2021-2022Since the beginning of the astronomical research activities in Chile, the government has played an increasing role in attracting and facilitating the installation of these projects. The presentation shows how the relationship between the government and international consortia has evolved with special reference to designing policies to protect “dark skies” and to manage the relationship between the observations sites, the local productive activities to be developed in the same areas, mainly mining and energy, and the relationship with local communities and aboriginal populations and traditions. Special reference will be made to recent initiatives connected with World Heritage program of UNESCO, new laws and regulations and public awareness and education.

World currency exchange rate cross-correlations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Droå¼dż, S.; Górski, A. Z.; Kwapień, J.

2007-08-01

World currency network constitutes one of the most complex structures that is associated with the contemporary civilization. On a way towards quantifying its characteristics we study the cross correlations in changes of the daily foreign exchange rates within the basket of 60 currencies in the period December 1998 May 2005. Such a dynamics turns out to predominantly involve one outstanding eigenvalue of the correlation matrix. The magnitude of this eigenvalue depends however crucially on which currency is used as a base currency for the remaining ones. Most prominent it looks from the perspective of a peripheral currency. This largest eigenvalue is seen to systematically decrease and thus the structure of correlations becomes more heterogeneous, when more significant currencies are used as reference. An extreme case in this later respect is the USD in the period considered. Besides providing further insight into subtle nature of complexity, these observations point to a formal procedure that in general can be used for practical purposes of measuring the relative currencies significance on various time horizons.

Time and Time Again; Determination of longitude at sea in the 17th Century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Grijs, Richard

2017-11-01

Determination of one's longitude at sea has perplexed sailors for many centuries. The significant uptake of world trade in the 17th and 18th Centuries rendered the increasingly urgent need to solve the 'longitude problem', an issue of strategic national importance. Historical accounts of these efforts often focus almost exclusively on John Harrison's role in 18th-Century Britain. This book starts instead from Galileo Galilei's late-16th-Century development of an accurate pendulum clock, which was first achieved in practice in the mid-17th-Century by Christiaan Huygens in the Dutch Republic. It is primarily based on collections of letters that have not been combined into a single volume before. Extensive introductory chapters on the history of map making, the establishment of the world's reference meridian at Greenwich Observatory, and the rise of the scientific enterprise provide the appropriate context for non-expert readers to fully engage with the book's main subject matter.

Motor Memory Is Encoded as a Gain-Field Combination of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Action Representations

PubMed Central

Brayanov, Jordan B.; Press, Daniel Z.; Smith, Maurice A.

2013-01-01

Actions can be planned in either an intrinsic (body-based) reference frame or an extrinsic (world-based) frame, and understanding how the internal representations associated with these frames contribute to the learning of motor actions is a key issue in motor control. We studied the internal representation of this learning in human subjects by analyzing generalization patterns across an array of different movement directions and workspaces after training a visuomotor rotation in a single movement direction in one workspace. This provided a dense sampling of the generalization function across intrinsic and extrinsic reference frames, which allowed us to dissociate intrinsic and extrinsic representations and determine the manner in which they contributed to the motor memory for a trained action. A first experiment showed that the generalization pattern reflected a memory that was intermediate between intrinsic and extrinsic representations. A second experiment showed that this intermediate representation could not arise from separate intrinsic and extrinsic learning. Instead, we find that the representation of learning is based on a gain-field combination of local representations in intrinsic and extrinsic coordinates. This gain-field representation generalizes between actions by effectively computing similarity based on the (Mahalanobis) distance across intrinsic and extrinsic coordinates and is in line with neural recordings showing mixed intrinsic-extrinsic representations in motor and parietal cortices. PMID:23100418

Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov (1810-1881): A pioneering Russian surgeon and medical scientist.

PubMed

Hendriks, Inge F; Bovill, James G; van Luijt, Peter A; Hogendoorn, Pancras Cw

2018-02-01

Nikolay Pirogov qualified as a physician from Moscow University in 1828 and then studied surgery and anatomy at University of Dorpat. He developed new surgical techniques, including the eponymous osteoplastic foot amputation. His application of scientifically based techniques extended surgery from a craft to a science. During the Crimean War he initiated the deployment of women as nurses and used triage for dealing with mass casualties. His textbook on field surgery became the standard reference on the subject and his principles remained virtually unchanged until the Second World War. Pirogov died on 5 December 1881 at his estate in Vishnya.

Strategic dependence and oil in Mexican-American relations

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

Saxe-Fernandez, J.

1979-11-01

The concept of strategic dependence is proposed as vital for analysis, description, and a partial explanation of Mexican-American relations between the years 1979 and 2000. The main thesis is that we are not facing an energy crisis, but rather a crisis of the entire post-war order, based on the dynamics of what contemporary social science has called monopoly capitalism. Thus, within this crisis, the obvious dependence of the United States in relation to raw materials, and specifically Third World oil, serves as a catalytic agent in the restructuring of the global economic and diplo-military alliance system. 49 references, 4 figures,more » 2 tables.« less

The relationship between healthcare services and the political economy with reference to the Jamaican experience.

PubMed

Maharaj, S R

2010-12-01

The availability of and equitable access to, health services have challenged healthcare providers with a greater degree of urgency since the end of World War II. Prior to that time, concepts such as equity and social justice were just that, concepts but no real attempts were ever made to operationalize them. Goods and services were still produced and distributed based on market forces, that is, one's ability and willingness to pay for something. Health in that context was a service, some say a commodity, to be bought and sold, hence its availability was not necessarily commensurate with its accessibility.

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) project accelerator systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holmes, Jeffrey A.; Alonso, Jose R.

1999-06-01

The SNS will be the world's leading accelerator-based neutron-scattering research facility when it begins operation in 2005. By delivering 1-MW of beam power to a heavy-metal target in short (<1 μs) bursts of 1-GeV protons, the SNS will provide intense neutron beams with flux levels at least a factor of five over present spallation sources. A multi-laboratory (LBNL, LANL, BNL, ANL and ORNL) collaboration, led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has developed a reference design that addresses the challenging technology issues associated with this project. This paper discusses the requirements, issues, and constraints that led to the present design choices.

The Effects of Climate Change on Cardiac Health.

PubMed

De Blois, Jonathan; Kjellstrom, Tord; Agewall, Stefan; Ezekowitz, Justin A; Armstrong, Paul W; Atar, Dan

2015-01-01

The earth's climate is changing and increasing ambient heat levels are emerging in large areas of the world. An important cause of this change is the anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases. Climate changes have a variety of negative effects on health, including cardiac health. People with pre-existing medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease (including heart failure), people carrying out physically demanding work and the elderly are particularly vulnerable. This review evaluates the evidence base for the cardiac health consequences of climate conditions, with particular reference to increasing heat exposure, and it also explores the potential further implications. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Educational technology: a facilitating instrument for the elderly care.

PubMed

Cardoso, Rachel da Silva Serejo; Sá, Selma Petra Chaves; Domingos, Ana Maria; Sabóia, Vera Maria; Maia, Tauan Nunes; Padilha, Joviria Marcia Ferreira de Oliveira; Nogueira, Glycia de Almeida

2018-01-01

To develop educational technology with caregivers of older people based on the needs, difficulties and concerns related to the elderly care expressed by the caregivers themselves. Research of qualitative nature, with participant observation, based on concepts used by Paulo Freire. Data collection and analysis used the "World Cafe" methodology and the thematic content analysis, respectively. The needs of these caregivers refer to their training and information on aging. The difficulties highlighted are deterrents to quality assistance to older adults, such as: insufficient resources, environmental factor and relationship with the family. The interests are evident in relation to the care and to its more subjective relationship. Final considerations: Educational technologies, printed matter and media, developed along with the caregivers, contribute to orientation and information of caregiver, population and professionals as facilitating instruments, regarding elderly care.

SEM (Symmetry Equivalent Molecules): a web-based GUI to generate and visualize the macromolecules

PubMed Central

Hussain, A. S. Z.; Kumar, Ch. Kiran; Rajesh, C. K.; Sheik, S. S.; Sekar, K.

2003-01-01

SEM, Symmetry Equivalent Molecules, is a web-based graphical user interface to generate and visualize the symmetry equivalent molecules (proteins and nucleic acids). In addition, the program allows the users to save the three-dimensional atomic coordinates of the symmetry equivalent molecules in the local machine. The widely recognized graphics program RasMol has been deployed to visualize the reference (input atomic coordinates) and the symmetry equivalent molecules. This program is written using CGI/Perl scripts and has been interfaced with all the three-dimensional structures (solved using X-ray crystallography) available in the Protein Data Bank. The program, SEM, can be accessed over the World Wide Web interface at http://dicsoft2.physics.iisc.ernet.in/sem/ or http://144.16.71.11/sem/. PMID:12824326

Neoliberalism revised? A critical account of World Bank conceptions of good governance and market friendly intervention.

PubMed

Kiely, R

1998-01-01

This article examines recent World Bank reports on the role of the state in the development process, with particular reference to the rise of the East Asian newly industrializing countries and the crisis of "governance" in sub-Saharan Africa. The concepts of market friendly intervention and good governance are critically discussed, and are found to be inadequate as explanations for East Asian "success" and African "failure." The author presents an alternative explanation for the rise of the newly industrializing countries, which draws out some of the implications for the developing world.

NREL Pyrheliometer Comparisons: September 25-October 6, 2017 (NPC-2017)

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

Reda, Ibrahim M.; Dooraghi, Michael R.; Andreas, Afshin M.

Accurate measurements of direct normal (beam) solar irradiance from pyrheliometers are important for developing and deploying solar energy conversion systems, improving our understanding of the Earth's energy budget for climate change studies, and for other science and technology applications involving solar flux. Providing these measurements places many demands on the quality system used by the operator of commercially available radiometers. Maintaining accurate radiometer calibrations that are traceable to an international standard is the first step in producing research-quality solar irradiance measurements. In 1977, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established the World Radiometric Reference (WRR) as the international standard for themore » measurement of direct normal solar irradiance (Frohlich 1991). The WRR is an internationally recognized, detector-based measurement standard determined by the collective performance of six electrically self-calibrated absolute cavity radiometers comprising the World Standard Group (WSG). Various countries, including the United States, have contributed these specialized radiometers to the Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos - World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC) to establish the WSG. As with all measurement systems, Absolute Cavity Radiometers (ASR) are subject to performance changes over time. Therefore, every five years the PMOD/WRC in Davos, Switzerland, hosts an International Pyrheliometer Comparison (IPC) for transferring the WRR to participating radiometers. NREL has represented the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in each IPC since 1980. As a result, NREL has developed and maintained a select group of absolute cavity radiometers with direct calibration traceability to the WRR, and uses these reference instruments to calibrate pyrheliometers and pyranometers using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 17025 accredited Broadband Outdoor Radiometer Calibration (BORCAL) process (Reda et al. 2008). National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) pyrheliometer comparisons (NPCs) are held annually at the Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL) in Golden, Colorado. Open to all ACR owners and operators, each NPC provides an opportunity to determine the unique WRR transfer factor (WRR-TF) for each participating pyrheliometer. By adjusting all subsequent pyrheliometer measurements by the appropriate WRR-TF, the solar irradiance data are traceable to the WRR.« less

An ambiguity of information content and error in an ill-posed satellite inversion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koner, Prabhat

According to Rodgers (2000, stochastic approach), the averaging kernel (AK) is the representational matrix to understand the information content in a scholastic inversion. On the other hand, in deterministic approach this is referred to as model resolution matrix (MRM, Menke 1989). The analysis of AK/MRM can only give some understanding of how much regularization is imposed on the inverse problem. The trace of the AK/MRM matrix, which is the so-called degree of freedom from signal (DFS; stochastic) or degree of freedom in retrieval (DFR; deterministic). There are no physical/mathematical explanations in the literature: why the trace of the matrix is a valid form to calculate this quantity? We will present an ambiguity between information and error using a real life problem of SST retrieval from GOES13. The stochastic information content calculation is based on the linear assumption. The validity of such mathematics in satellite inversion will be questioned because it is based on the nonlinear radiative transfer and ill-conditioned inverse problems. References: Menke, W., 1989: Geophysical data analysis: discrete inverse theory. San Diego academic press. Rodgers, C.D., 2000: Inverse methods for atmospheric soundings: theory and practice. Singapore :World Scientific.

Genetic Characterization of Turkish Snake Melon (Cucumis melo L. subsp. melo flexuosus Group) Accessions Revealed by SSR Markers.

PubMed

Solmaz, Ilknur; Kacar, Yildiz Aka; Simsek, Ozhan; Sari, Nebahat

2016-08-01

Snake melon is an important cucurbit crop especially in the Southeastern and the Mediterranean region of Turkey. It is consumed as fresh or pickled. The production is mainly done with the local landraces in the country. Turkey is one of the secondary diversification centers of melon and possesses valuable genetic resources which have different morphological characteristics in case of snake melon. Genetic diversity of snake melon genotypes collected from different regions of Turkey and reference genotypes obtained from World Melon Gene Bank in Avignon-France was examined using 13 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 69 alleles were detected, with an average of 5.31 alleles per locus. The polymorphism information content of SSR markers ranged from 0.19 to 0.57 (average 0.38). Based on cluster analysis, two major groups were defined. The first major group included only one accession (61), while the rest of all accessions grouped in the second major group and separated into different sub-clusters. Based on SSR markers, cluster analysis indicated that considerably high genetic variability exists among the examined accessions; however, Turkish snake melon accessions were grouped together with the reference snake melon accessions.

Lunar power system summary of studies for the lunar enterprise task force NASA-office of exploration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Criswell, David R.

1989-01-01

The capacity of global power systems must be increased by a factor of ten to provide the predicted power needs of electric power by the year 2050. The Lunar Power System (LPS) would collect solar energy at power bases located on opposing limbs of the moon as seen from Earth. LPS can provide dependable, economic, renewable, and environmentally benign solar energy to Earth. A preliminary engineering and cash flow model of the LPS was developed. Results are shown for a system scaled to a peak capacity of 355 GWe on Earth and to provide 13,600 GWe-Yrs of energy over a 70 year life cycle of construction and full operation. The growth in capacity of the reference system from start of installation on the moon in 2005 to completion of its nominal life cycle in the year 2070 is shown. World needs for power could be accommodated by expansion in capacity of the reference LPS beyond 344 GWe. This would be done by steadily incorporating newer technology during full operation and by establishing additional bases. The results presented encourage consideration of a faster paced program than is assumed herein.

Strategies for Agriculture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crosson, Pierre R.; Rosenberg, Norman J.

1989-01-01

Discusses the change of agricultural methods with human population growth. Describes the trends of world food production, changes in farmland, use of fertilizer, and 13 agricultural research institutions. Lists 5 references for further reading. (YP)

US and the World Education Act

THOMAS, 111th Congress

Rep. Sanchez, Loretta [D-CA-47

2009-07-28

House - 10/22/2009 Referred to the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. (All Actions) Tracker: This bill has the status IntroducedHere are the steps for Status of Legislation:

Mashup Scheme Design of Map Tiles Using Lightweight Open Source Webgis Platform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, T.; Fan, J.; He, H.; Qin, L.; Li, G.

2018-04-01

To address the difficulty involved when using existing commercial Geographic Information System platforms to integrate multi-source image data fusion, this research proposes the loading of multi-source local tile data based on CesiumJS and examines the tile data organization mechanisms and spatial reference differences of the CesiumJS platform, as well as various tile data sources, such as Google maps, Map World, and Bing maps. Two types of tile data loading schemes have been designed for the mashup of tiles, the single data source loading scheme and the multi-data source loading scheme. The multi-sources of digital map tiles used in this paper cover two different but mainstream spatial references, the WGS84 coordinate system and the Web Mercator coordinate system. According to the experimental results, the single data source loading scheme and the multi-data source loading scheme with the same spatial coordinate system showed favorable visualization effects; however, the multi-data source loading scheme was prone to lead to tile image deformation when loading multi-source tile data with different spatial references. The resulting method provides a low cost and highly flexible solution for small and medium-scale GIS programs and has a certain potential for practical application values. The problem of deformation during the transition of different spatial references is an important topic for further research.

Acquisition Risks in a World of Joint Capabilities: Evaluating Complex Configurations

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-07-06

embeddedness” refers to the quality and depth of a single dyadic tie. “Structural embeddedness” refers to the extent to which a node’s alters are...the entire network. Studies of the influence of dyadic ties on performance have mixed and contradictory findings. For example, Perry-Smith and...observed network (x) (Snijders et al, 2006). ERGMs are capable of incorporating three dependency structures. Dyadic dependence captures the presence

Guide to Reference Sources on Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and Russia and East Europe: Selected and Annotated.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy, James R., Jr.; And Others

This selected annotated bibliography of reference sources is designed to help college students prepare for the future by identifying critical sources on the societies and cultures of most of the world's people who have long been neglected in higher education. Encyclopedias, handbooks, and yearbooks are listed first under each area. Next are the…

Philosophy and Sociology of Science Evolution and History

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosen, Joe

The following sections are included: * Concrete Versus Abstract Theoretical Models * Introduction: concrete and abstract in kepler's contribution * Einstein's theory of gravitation and mach's principle * Unitary symmetry and the structure of hadrons * Conclusion * Dedication * Symmetry, Entropy and Complexity * Introduction * Symmetry Implies Abstraction and Loss of Information * Broken Symmetries - Imposed or Spontaneous * Symmetry, Order and Information * References * Cosmological Surrealism: More Than "Eternal Reality" Is Needed * Pythagoreanism in atomic, nuclear and particle physics * Introduction: Pythagoreanism as part of the Greek scientific world view — and the three questions I will tackle * Point 1: the impact of Gersonides and Crescas, two scientific anti-Aristotelian rebels * Point 2: Kepler's spheres to Bohr's orbits — Pythagoreanisms at last! * Point 3: Aristotle to Maupertuis, Emmy Noether, Schwinger * References * Paradigm Completion For Generalized Evolutionary Theory With Application To Epistemology * Evolution Fully Generalized * Entropy: Gravity as Model * Evolution and Entropy: Measures of Complexity * Extinctions and a Balanced Evolutionary Paradigm * The Evolution of Human Society - the Age of Information as example * High-Energy Physics and the World Wide Web * Twentieth Century Epistemology has Strong (de facto) Evolutionary Elements * The discoveries towards the beginning of the XXth Century * Summary and Conclusions * References * Evolutionary Epistemology and Invalidation * Introduction * Extinctions and A New Evolutionary Paradigm * Evolutionary Epistemology - Active Mutations * Evolutionary Epistemology: Invalidation as An Extinction * References

Tackling the Pharmaceutical Frontier: Regulation of Cannabinoid-Based Medicines in Postwar Japan.

PubMed

Miyaji, Tempei; Nagasawa, Michiyuki; Yamaguchi, Takuhiro; Tsutani, Kiichiro

2016-01-01

Background: The valley of death, which refers to the gap due to the lack of support for the translation of basic research to related clinical studies, exists in the field of translational cannabinoid research in Japan owing to regulations. Article 4 of the Cannabis Control Act (CCA) of 1948 prohibits the use of Cannabis -based medicines. Objectives: This study aimed to explore the history of the establishment of regulations on the medical use of Cannabis -based medicines and discuss the current status of cannabinoid research and its regulation in Japan. Methods: We conducted a literature review of nationally archived official documents from the end of World War II in 1945 to 1948, which is the year the CCA was established. The documents were examined, specifically focusing on the sequence of events. Results: We found three memoranda related to the establishment of the CCA. The establishment of law on controlling narcotics was instructed by the general headquarters (GHQ)/Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) during the period of occupation after World War II. However, the Japanese Government decided to regulate Cannabis separately from other narcotics. Item (ii) of article 4 in the CCA, which prohibits medical application of Cannabis , was included to protect farmers growing Cannabis for the hemp content. Conclusion: Current Japanese regulations prohibiting clinical research in phytocannabinoids were instituted during the postwar era of World War II. Scientific discoveries have advanced cannabinoid research and have led positive reforms of the regulation of Cannabis in other countries. Therefore, there is ample motivation and opportunity for Japanese stakeholders to revise article 4 of the CCA for the benefit of patients.

Geometric Accuracy Analysis of Worlddem in Relation to AW3D30, Srtm and Aster GDEM2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bayburt, S.; Kurtak, A. B.; Büyüksalih, G.; Jacobsen, K.

2017-05-01

In a project area close to Istanbul the quality of WorldDEM, AW3D30, SRTM DSM and ASTER GDEM2 have been analyzed in relation to a reference aerial LiDAR DEM and to each other. The random and the systematic height errors have been separated. The absolute offset for all height models in X, Y and Z is within the expectation. The shifts have been respected in advance for a satisfying estimation of the random error component. All height models are influenced by some tilts, different in size. In addition systematic deformations can be seen not influencing the standard deviation too much. The delivery of WorldDEM includes information about the height error map which is based on the interferometric phase errors, and the number and location of coverage's from different orbits. A dependency of the height accuracy from the height error map information and the number of coverage's can be seen, but it is smaller as expected. WorldDEM is more accurate as the other investigated height models and with 10 m point spacing it includes more morphologic details, visible at contour lines. The morphologic details are close to the details based on the LiDAR digital surface model (DSM). As usual a dependency of the accuracy from the terrain slope can be seen. In forest areas the canopy definition of InSAR X- and C-band height models as well as for the height models based on optical satellite images is not the same as the height definition by LiDAR. In addition the interferometric phase uncertainty over forest areas is larger. Both effects lead to lower height accuracy in forest areas, also visible in the height error map.

VIEWCACHE: An incremental pointer-based access method for autonomous interoperable databases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roussopoulos, N.; Sellis, Timos

1993-01-01

One of the biggest problems facing NASA today is to provide scientists efficient access to a large number of distributed databases. Our pointer-based incremental data base access method, VIEWCACHE, provides such an interface for accessing distributed datasets and directories. VIEWCACHE allows database browsing and search performing inter-database cross-referencing with no actual data movement between database sites. This organization and processing is especially suitable for managing Astrophysics databases which are physically distributed all over the world. Once the search is complete, the set of collected pointers pointing to the desired data are cached. VIEWCACHE includes spatial access methods for accessing image datasets, which provide much easier query formulation by referring directly to the image and very efficient search for objects contained within a two-dimensional window. We will develop and optimize a VIEWCACHE External Gateway Access to database management systems to facilitate database search.

Interface of Augmented Reality Game Using Face Tracking and Its Application to Advertising

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Young Jae; Lee, Yong Jae

This paper proposes the face interface method which can be used in recognizing gamer's movements in the real world for application in the cyber space so that we could make three-dimensional space recognition motion-based game. The proposed algorithm is the new face recognition technology which incorporates the strengths of two existing algorithms, CBCH and CAMSHIFT and its validity has been proved through a series of experiments. Moreover, for the purpose of the interdisciplinary studies, concepts of advertising have been introduced into the three-dimensional motion-based game to look into the possible new beneficiary models for the game industry. This kind of attempt may be significant in that it tried to see if the advertising brand when placed in the game could play the role of the game item or quest. The proposed method can provide the basic references for developing motion-based game development.

Refining the ideas of "ethnic" skin.

PubMed

Torres, Vicente; Herane, Maria Isabel; Costa, Adilson; Martin, Jaime Piquero; Troielli, Patricia

2017-01-01

Skin disease occur worldwide, affecting people of all nationalities and all skin types. These diseases may have a genetic component and may manifest differently in specific population groups; however, there has been little study on this aspect. If population-based differences exist, it is reasonable to assume that understanding these differences may optimize treatment. While there is a relative paucity of information about similarities and differences in skin diseases around the world, the knowledge-base is expanding. One challenge in understanding population-based variations is posed by terminology used in the literature: including ethnic skin, Hispanic skin, Asian skin, and skin of color. As will be discussed in this article, we recommend that the first three descriptors are no longer used in dermatology because they refer to nonspecific groups of people. In contrast, "skin of color" may be used - perhaps with further refinements in the future - as a term that relates to skin biology and provides relevant information to dermatologists.

Short-term memory affects color perception in context.

PubMed

Olkkonen, Maria; Allred, Sarah R

2014-01-01

Color-based object selection - for instance, looking for ripe tomatoes in the market - places demands on both perceptual and memory processes: it is necessary to form a stable perceptual estimate of surface color from a variable visual signal, as well as to retain multiple perceptual estimates in memory while comparing objects. Nevertheless, perceptual and memory processes in the color domain are generally studied in separate research programs with the assumption that they are independent. Here, we demonstrate a strong failure of independence between color perception and memory: the effect of context on color appearance is substantially weakened by a short retention interval between a reference and test stimulus. This somewhat counterintuitive result is consistent with Bayesian estimation: as the precision of the representation of the reference surface and its context decays in memory, prior information gains more weight, causing the retained percepts to be drawn toward prior information about surface and context color. This interaction implies that to fully understand information processing in real-world color tasks, perception and memory need to be considered jointly.

[Cases of menstrual toxic shock syndrome in the Czech Republic in 1997-2011].

PubMed

Petrás, P; Machová, I; Rysková, L; Prásil, P

2011-11-01

To determine toxigenicity and other basic characteristics of 47 strains of Staphylococcus aureus referred to the National Reference Laboratory for Staphylococci (NRL) as suspected causative agents of menstrual toxic shock syndrome (MTSS). S. aureus strains were collected from 11 administrative regions of the Czech Republic in 1997-2011. The diagnosis was based on phenotypic (reverse latex agglutination test) and genotypic (polymerase chain reaction) methods. Forty-four S. aureus strains were producers of toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1), either alone or in combination with staphylococcal enterotoxin. Three strains only produced enterotoxin (B, C, and H). MTSS is a serious multisystem disease. In this study, MTSS often had a severe course requiring intensive care. All MTSS patients used vaginal tampons that had been identified in the literature as a risk factor for MTSS. The case of MTSS in a 36-year-old woman caused by an enterotoxin H positive strain of S. aureus is probably the first to be reported in the world.

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment for Iraq

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

Onur, Tuna; Gok, Rengin; Abdulnaby, Wathiq

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessments (PSHA) form the basis for most contemporary seismic provisions in building codes around the world. The current building code of Iraq was published in 1997. An update to this edition is in the process of being released. However, there are no national PSHA studies in Iraq for the new building code to refer to for seismic loading in terms of spectral accelerations. As an interim solution, the new draft building code was considering to refer to PSHA results produced in the late 1990s as part of the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program (GSHAP; Giardini et al.,more » 1999). However these results are: a) more than 15 years outdated, b) PGA-based only, necessitating rough conversion factors to calculate spectral accelerations at 0.3s and 1.0s for seismic design, and c) at a probability level of 10% chance of exceedance in 50 years, not the 2% that the building code requires. Hence there is a pressing need for a new, updated PSHA for Iraq.« less

Western Energy Corridor -- Energy Resource Report

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

Leslie Roberts; Michael Hagood

2011-06-01

The world is facing significant growth in energy demand over the next several decades. Strategic in meeting this demand are the world-class energy resources concentrated along the Rocky Mountains and northern plains in Canada and the U.S., informally referred to as the Western Energy Corridor (WEC). The fossil energy resources in this region are rivaled only in a very few places in the world, and the proven uranium reserves are among the world's largest. Also concentrated in this region are renewable resources contributing to wind power, hydro power, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and solar energy. Substantial existing and planned energy infrastructure,more » including refineries, pipelines, electrical transmission lines, and rail lines provide access to these resources.« less

Genotoxicity surveillance programme in workers dismantling World War I chemical ammunition.

PubMed

Mateuca, R A; Carton, C; Roelants, M; Roesems, S; Lison, D; Kirsch-Volders, M

2010-06-01

To evaluate the effectiveness of personal protective measures in a dismantling plant for chemical weapons from World War I of the Belgian Defence. Seventeen NIOSH level B-equipped plant workers exposed to arsenic trichloride (AsCl(3)) in combination with phosgene or hydrogen cyanide (HCN) were compared to 24 NIOSH level C-protected field workers occasionally exposed to genotoxic chemicals (including AsCl(3)-phosgene/HCN) when collecting chemical ammunition, and 19 matched referents. Chromosomal aberrations (CA), micronuclei (MNCB and MNMC), sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) and high frequency cells (HFC) were analysed in peripheral blood lymphocytes. Urinary arsenic levels and genetic polymorphisms in major DNA repair enzymes (hOGG1(326), XRCC1(399), XRCC3(241)) were also assessed. SCE and HFC levels were significantly higher in plant-exposed versus referent subjects, but MNCB and MNMC were not different. MNCB, SCE and HFC levels were significantly higher and MNMC levels significantly lower in field-exposed workers versus referents. AsCl(3) exposure was not correlated with genotoxicity biomarkers. Protective measures for plant-exposed workers appear adequate, but protection for field-exposed individuals could be improved.

Development and review of Euro 5 passenger car emission factors based on experimental results over various driving cycles.

PubMed

Fontaras, Georgios; Franco, Vicente; Dilara, Panagiota; Martini, Giorgio; Manfredi, Urbano

2014-01-15

The emissions of CO2 and regulated pollutants (NOx, HC, CO, PM) of thirteen Euro 5 compliant passenger cars (seven gasoline, six Diesel) were measured on a chassis dynamometer. The vehicles were driven repeatedly over the European type-approval driving cycle (NEDC) and the more dynamic WMTC and CADC driving cycles. Distance-specific emission factors were derived for each pollutant and sub-cycle, and these were subsequently compared to the corresponding emission factors provided by the reference European models used for vehicle emission inventory compilation (COPERT and HBEFA) and put in context with the applicable European emission limits. The measured emissions stayed below the legal emission limits when the type-approval cycle (NEDC) was used. Over the more dynamic cycles (considered more representative of real-world driving) the emissions were consistently higher but in most cases remained below the type-approval limit. The high NOx emissions of Diesel vehicles under real-world driving conditions remain the main cause for environmental concern regarding the emission profile of Euro 5 passenger cars. Measured emissions of NOx exceeded the type-approval limits (up to 5 times in extreme cases) and presented significantly increased average values (0.35 g/km for urban driving and 0.56 g/km for motorway driving). The comparison with the reference models showed good correlation in all cases, a positive finding considering the importance of these tools in emission monitoring and policy-making processes. © 2013. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act

THOMAS, 113th Congress

Rep. Bordallo, Madeleine Z. [D-GU-At Large

2013-01-03

House - 01/31/2013 Referred to the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs. (All Actions) Tracker: This bill has the status IntroducedHere are the steps for Status of Legislation:

Children and Development in the 1990s: A UNICEF Sourcebook on the Occasion of the World Summit for Children (New York, New York, September 20-30, 1990).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

United Nations Children's Fund, New York, NY.

This eight-part sourcebook provides background information, data, and references relating to child welfare issues throughout the world. The book is organized around a set of goals for children in the 1990s. An introductory section provides an overview of these goals and strategies for achieving them, and discusses infant and child mortality,…

Themes on circulation in the third world.

PubMed

Chapman, M; Prothero, R M

1983-01-01

"This article focuses upon circulation, or reciprocal flows of people, with specific reference to Third World societies." Aspects considered include attempts to standardize terminology and to formulate typologies of population movement; the development of explanatory models of circulation and modernization, social networks, family welfare, and capitalism; and "the transfer of methods and concepts to societies and populations different from those from which they initially evolved and in which they were first tested." excerpt

Recent developments in the field of environmental reference materials at the JRC Ispra.

PubMed

Muntau, H

2001-06-01

The production of reference materials for environmental analysis started in the Joint Research Centre at Ispra/Italy in 1972 with the objective of later certification by the BCR, but for obvious budget reasons only a fraction of the total production achieved at Ispra ever reached certification level, although all materials were produced according to the severe quality requirements requested for certified reference materials. Therefore, the materials not destinated to certification are in growing demand as inter-laboratory test materials and as laboratory reference materials, for internal quality control, e.g., by control charts. The history of reference material production within the Joint Research Centre is briefly reviewed and the latest additions described. New developments such as micro-scale reference materials intended for analytical methods requiring sample intakes at milligram or sub-milligram level and therefor not finding supply on the reference material market, and "wet" environmental reference materials, which meet more precisely the "real-world" environmental analysis conditions, are presented and the state-of-the-art discussed.

Influenza and the work of the World Health Organization.

PubMed

Kitler, M E; Gavinio, P; Lavanchy, D

2002-05-15

Before World War I, influenza was not considered a particularly serious problem. The great pandemic of 1918-1919 changed all that, and the possibility that such a catastrophe could occur again has conditioned all subsequent developments. In epidemiological terms, the hallmark of an influenza is the excess mortality that it causes combined with an enormous burden of ill-health that saps the energy of individuals, families and communities throughout the whole world. In order to engage in influenza prevention and control, the global influenza surveillance network was set up by World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948 as a worldwide alert system for the identification of new influenza viruses, gathering information from 110 participating laboratories in 82 countries and four WHO Collaborating Centers for Influenza reference and research: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta (USA), National Institute for Medical Research, London (UK), WHO Collaborating Centre for Influenza Reference and Research, Melbourne (Australia) and the National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Tokyo (Japan). This network helps WHO to monitor influenza activity all over the world and provides the organization with the viral isolates and information it requires to decide which new virus strains will be used to produce influenza vaccines during the following season. Each year, information about the isolates over the previous 12 months is analyzed and used to determine the composition of the influenza vaccine to be administered during the coming influenza season both for the northern and southern hemisphere. If necessary, the recommendations for the southern hemisphere differ from the ones formulated for the northern hemisphere vaccine. The information supplied by this network enables the organization to regularly update its World Wide Web (WWW) site (FluNet), which reports on the situation of diseases. This network will also enable the WHO to detect a new influenza pandemic as early as possible.

HubbleSite - Out of the ordinary...out of this world.

Science.gov Websites

Toggle navigation Home News Images Videos Blogs Explore Discoveries Astronomy Technology Education ! Email list: Inbox Astronomy Servicing Missions Reference Desk eBooks WebbTelescope Amazing Space

Bradford's Law and the Literature of Agriculture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawani, S. M.

1973-01-01

This paper presents analyses of separate data on the literature of tropical and subtropical agriculture, and the world literature of agricultural economics and rural socilogy, in relation to Bradford's law. (8 references) (Author/SJ)

40 CFR 600.011-93 - Reference materials.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... Natural Gas By Gas Chromatography, IBR approved for §§ 600.113-93, 600.113-08. (c) SAE Material. The... obtained from Society of Automotive Engineers World Headquarters, 400 Commonwealth Dr., Warrendale, PA...

DNA Identification of Skeletal Remains from World War II Mass Graves Uncovered in Slovenia

PubMed Central

Marjanović, Damir; Durmić-Pašić, Adaleta; Bakal, Narcisa; Haverić, Sanin; Kalamujić, Belma; Kovačević, Lejla; Ramić, Jasmin; Pojskić, Naris; Škaro, Vedrana; Projić, Petar; Bajrović, Kasim; Hadžiselimović, Rifat; Drobnič, Katja; Huffine, Ed; Davoren, Jon; Primorac, Dragan

2007-01-01

Aim To present the joint effort of three institutions in the identification of human remains from the World War II found in two mass graves in the area of Škofja Loka, Slovenia. Methods The remains of 27 individuals were found in two small and closely located mass graves. The DNA was isolated from bone and teeth samples using either standard phenol/chloroform alcohol extraction or optimized Qiagen DNA extraction procedure. Some recovered samples required the employment of additional DNA purification methods, such as N-buthanol treatment. QuantifilerTM Human DNA Quantification Kit was used for DNA quantification. PowerPlex 16 kit was used to simultaneously amplify 15 short tandem repeat (STR) loci. Matching probabilities were estimated using the DNA View program. Results Out of all processed samples, 15 remains were fully profiled at all 15 STR loci. The other 12 profiles were partial. The least successful profile included 13 loci. Also, 69 referent samples (buccal swabs) from potential living relatives were collected and profiled. Comparison of victims' profile against referent samples database resulted in 4 strong matches. In addition, 5 other profiles were matched to certain referent samples with lower probability. Conclusion Our results show that more than 6 decades after the end of the World War II, DNA analysis may significantly contribute to the identification of the remains from that period. Additional analysis of Y-STRs and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) markers will be performed in the second phase of the identification project. PMID:17696306

Prevalence of short stature in Saudi children and adolescents

PubMed Central

El Mouzan, Mohammad I.; Al Herbish, Abdullah S.; Al Salloum, Abdullah A.; Foster, Peter J.; Al Omer, Ahmad A.; Qurachi, Mansour M.

2011-01-01

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Data on stature in Saudi children and adolescents are limited. The objective of this report was to establish the national prevalence of short stature in Saudi children and adolescents. DESIGN AND SETTING: Community-based, cross-sectional study conducted over 2 years (2004, 2005) PATIENTS AND METHODS: The national data set of the Saudi reference was used to calculate the stature for age for children and adolescents 5 to 18 years of age. Using the 2007 World Health Organization (WHO) reference, the prevalence of moderate and severe short stature was defined as the proportion of children whose standard deviation score for stature for age was less than -2 and -3, respectively. In addition, the 2000 Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the older 1978 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)/WHO references were used for comparison. RESULTS: Using the 2007 WHO reference, sample size in the Saudi reference was 19 372 healthy children and adolescents 5 to 17 years of age, with 50.8% being boys. The overall prevalence of moderate and severe short stature in boys was 11.3% and 1.8%, respectively; and in girls, 10.5% and 1.2%, respectively. The prevalence of moderate short stature was 12.1%, 11% and 11.3% in boys and 10.9%, 11.3% and 10.5% in girls when the 1978 WHO, the 2000 CDC and the 2007 WHO references were used, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The national prevalence of short stature in Saudi children and adolescents is intermediate compared with the international level. Improvement in the socioeconomic and health status of children and adolescents should lead to a reduction in the prevalence of short stature. PMID:21911988

Reference Ranges for Head Circumference in Ethiopian Children 0-2 Years of Age.

PubMed

Amare, Ephrem Bililigne; Idsøe, Mari; Wiksnes, Miriam; Moss, Thomas; Roelants, Mathieu; Shimelis, Damte; Júlíusson, Pétur B; Kiserud, Torvid; Wester, Knut

2015-12-01

Head circumference (HC) charts are important for early detection of hydrocephalus during childhood. In low-income countries where population-based HC charts are rarely available, hydrocephalus occurs more commonly than in developed countries, and is usually not diagnosed early enough to prevent severe brain damage. This applies to Ethiopia as well. The World Health Organization (WHO) has provided standard HC charts advocated for global use, but recent studies cast doubts whether these charts are equally applicable in various populations. The aim of the study was therefore to establish reference ranges for early childhood HC in Ethiopia. In this prospective, observational cross-sectional study, measurements of HC were collected from healthy children of different ethnicities between birth and 24 months, in health centers situated in 5 Ethiopian cities. Reference ranges for HC were estimated using the LMS method and compared with those recommended by WHO. A total of 4019 children were included. Overall, 6.7% of boys and 7.1% of girls were above the +2 standard deviation (SD) of the WHO reference ranges, whereas the corresponding figures below -2 SD were 2.8% and 2.1%. Similarly, the +2 SD lines of the Ethiopian reference curves were considerably higher than those of the WHO growth standards, whereas the median and -2 SD lines were more comparable. Ethiopian HC reference ranges for children from birth to 24 months of age were found to differ significantly from those established by WHO and should correspondingly be considered as the first choice for screening for hydrocephalus in that population. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Getting the Picture: Iconicity Does Not Affect Representation-Referent Confusion

PubMed Central

Wimmer, Marina C.; Robinson, Elizabeth J.; Koenig, Laura; Corder, Emma

2014-01-01

Three experiments examined 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 428) understanding of the relationship between pictorial iconicity (photograph, colored drawing, schematic drawing) and the real world referent. Experiments 1 and 2 explored pictorial iconicity in picture-referent confusion after the picture-object relationship has been established. Pictorial iconicity had no effect on referential confusion when the referent changed after the picture had been taken/drawn (Experiment 1) and when the referent and the picture were different from the outset (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 investigated whether children are sensitive to iconicity to begin with. Children deemed photographs from a choice of varying iconicity representations as best representations for object reference. Together, findings suggest that iconicity plays a role in establishing a picture-object relation per se but is irrelevant once children have accepted that a picture represents an object. The latter finding may reflect domain general representational abilities. PMID:25247708

Philosophical Concepts in Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cushing, James T.

1998-01-01

Preface; Part I. The Scientific Enterprise: 1. Ways of knowing; 2. Aristotle and Francis Bacon; 3. Science and metaphysics; Part II. Ancient and Modern Models of the Universe: 4. Observational astronomy and the Ptolemaic model; 5. The Copernican model and Kepler's laws; 6. Galileo on motion; Part III. The Newtonian Universe: 7. Newton's Principia; 8. Newton's law of universal gravitation; 9. Some old questions revisited; Part IV. A Perspective: 10. Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess; 11. An overarching Newtonian framework; 12. A view of the world based on science: determinism; Part V. Mechanical Versus Electrodynamical World Views: 13. Models of the aether; 14. Maxwell's theory; 15. The Kaufmann experiments; Part VI. The Theory of Relativity: 16. The background to and essentials of special relativity; 17. Further logical consequences of Einstein's postulates; 18. General relativity and the expanding universe; Part VII. The Quantum World and the Completeness of Quantum Mechanics: 19. The road to quantum mechanics; 20. 'Copenhage' quantum mechanics; 21. Is quantum mechanics complete?; Part VIII. Some Philosophical Lessons from Quantum Mechanics: 22. The EPR paper and Bell's theorem; 23. An alternative version of quantum mechanics; 24. An essential role for historical contingency?; Part IX. A Retrospective: 25. The goals of science and the status of its knowledge; Notes; General references; Bibliography; Author index; Subject index.

The Linear Quadratic Gaussian Multistage Game with Nonclassical Information Pattern Using a Direct Solution Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clemens, Joshua William

Game theory has application across multiple fields, spanning from economic strategy to optimal control of an aircraft and missile on an intercept trajectory. The idea of game theory is fascinating in that we can actually mathematically model real-world scenarios and determine optimal decision making. It may not always be easy to mathematically model certain real-world scenarios, nonetheless, game theory gives us an appreciation for the complexity involved in decision making. This complexity is especially apparent when the players involved have access to different information upon which to base their decision making (a nonclassical information pattern). Here we will focus on the class of adversarial two-player games (sometimes referred to as pursuit-evasion games) with nonclassical information pattern. We present a two-sided (simultaneous) optimization solution method for the two-player linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) multistage game. This direct solution method allows for further interpretation of each player's decision making (strategy) as compared to previously used formal solution methods. In addition to the optimal control strategies, we present a saddle point proof and we derive an expression for the optimal performance index value. We provide some numerical results in order to further interpret the optimal control strategies and to highlight real-world application of this game-theoretic optimal solution.

Effect of short-term exposure to stereoscopic three-dimensional flight displays on real-world depth perception

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Busquets, Anthony M.; Parrish, Russell V.; Williams, Steven P.

1991-01-01

High-fidelity color pictorial displays that incorporate depth cues in the display elements are currently available. Depth cuing applied to advanced head-down flight display concepts potentially enhances the pilot's situational awareness and improves task performance. Depth cues provided by stereopsis exhibit constraints that must be fully understood so depth cuing enhancements can be adequately realized and exploited. A fundamental issue (the goal of this investigation) is whether the use of head-down stereoscopic displays in flight applications degrade the real-world depth perception of pilots using such displays. Stereoacuity tests are used in this study as the measure of interest. Eight pilots flew repeated simulated landing approaches using both nonstereo and stereo 3-D head-down pathway-in-the-sky displays. At this decision height of each approach (where the pilot changes to an out-the-window view to obtain real-world visual references) the pilots changed to a stereoacuity test that used real objects. Statistical analysis of stereoacuity measures (data for a control condition of no exposure to any electronic flight display compared with data for changes from nonstereo and from stereo displays) reveals no significant differences for any of the conditions. Therefore, changing from short-term exposure to a head-down stereo display has no more effect on real-world relative depth perception than does changing from a nonstereo display. However, depth perception effects based on sized and distance judgements and on long-term exposure remain issues to be investigated.

An Exploratory Investigation of the Impact of National Culture on Motivation and Learning Styles of B-School Students from India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gopalan, Suresh; Cherikh, Moula; Khojasteh, Mak

2011-01-01

India has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Business magazines and newspapers routinely refer to India as an emerging global powerhouse along with Brazil, China, and Russia (commonly referred to as the BRIC economies). The Indian GDP has experienced a real growth of 8.9 percent from 2003-2007 and is projected to grow by…

Three Decades of Peace Education around the World: An Anthology. Garland Reference Library of Social Science, Volume 600. Reference Books in International Education, Volume 24.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burns, Robin J., Ed.; Aspeslagh, Robert, Ed.

The Peace Education Commission (PEC) of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) has been the forum for peace educators to come together, to exchange and to share ideas, materials and experiences over three decades. This book draws from key papers from different areas and times of peace education work to show the richness of ideas and…

World Trade Organization activity for health services.

PubMed

Gros, Clémence

2012-01-01

Since the establishment of a multilateral trading system and the increasing mobility of professionals and consumers of health services, it seems strongly necessary that the World Trade Organization (WTO) undertakes negotiations within the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and that WTO's members attempt to reach commitments for health-related trade in services. How important is the GATS for health policy and how does the GATS refer to health services? What are the current negotiations and member's commitments?

Superpower Crises in a Less Confrontational World: Results of an Experimental Simulation

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-04-01

interteam communications via RAND’s electronic mail system for gaming purposes. 2 The "pilot runs" were designated Games Three and Four, and are referred... game , the impact of a changing real-world international context-a more benign image of the adversary and a less competitive superpower relationship...information overload they faced. Several believed that these problems were game artifacts (which they attributed to our use of the electronic mail system

Prevalence, pattern and risk factors for undernutrition in early infancy using the WHO Multicentre Growth Reference: a community-based study.

PubMed

Olusanya, Bolajoko O; Wirz, Sheila L; Renner, James K

2010-11-01

This cross-sectional study set out to determine the prevalence, pattern and risk factors for undernutrition during early infancy in a setting with substantial non-hospital births against the backdrop of limited evidence on nutritional status in the first three months of life based on an exclusively breast-fed reference population. Undernutrition based on z-scores below -2 for weight-for-age, height/length-for-age and body-mass-index-for-age among infants (0-3 months) attending clinics for routine Bacille de Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunisation in Lagos, Nigeria from July 2005 to March 2008 was determined using current World Health Organisation's Multicentre Growth Reference (WHO-MGR). Maternal and infant factors associated with undernutrition were explored with multivariable logistic regression analyses. Of the 5888 full-term infants enrolled 51% were born outside hospital and 99.4% were exclusively breast-fed. 811 (13.8%) were underweight (weight-for-age), 1802 (30.8%) were stunted (height/length-for-age) and 579 (10.0%) were wasted (body-mass-index-for-age). Altogether, 3635 (61.6%) infants were not undernourished while 192 (3.3%) were undernourished by all three nutritional measures. Intrauterine growth restriction was a significant contributor to undernutrition. Maternal age, multiple pregnancies and gender were associated with all nutritional indices. Additionally, maternal education, ownership/type of residence, parity, antenatal care, place of delivery and hyperbilirubinaemia were predictive of underweight, stunting and wasting. We conclude that undernutrition is prevalent in the first three months of life in this population and can be detected early at routine immunisation clinics shortly after birth. Maternal/perinatal history offers valuable predictors in resource-poor communities where the majority of births occur outside hospital. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

World War II War Crimes Accountability Act of 2009

THOMAS, 111th Congress

Rep. Israel, Steve [D-NY-2

2009-03-11

House - 04/27/2009 Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. (All Actions) Tracker: This bill has the status IntroducedHere are the steps for Status of Legislation:

An Innovative Approach To Teaching High School Students about Indoor Air Quality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neumann, Catherine M.; Bloomfield, Molly M.; Harding, Anna K.; Sherburne, Holly

1999-01-01

Describes an innovative approach used to help high school students develop critical thinking and real-world problem-solving skills while learning about indoor air quality. (Contains 13 references.) (Author/WRM)

The World Electric.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiggins, Richard W.

1995-01-01

Examines types of publications available on the Internet, including informal publications, newspapers and magazines, self-published "'zines," electronic journals, preprint archives, and commercial references. Discusses related issues including navigation, commercialization, offline printing, and establishing a presence on the Internet…

Data availability and data archeology from the former Soviet Union

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sychev, Yuri; Mikhailov, Nickolai N.

1992-01-01

Acquisition of data on the ocean is believed to start in 1872, when the Royal Navy ship 'Challenger' performed oceanographic stations in its round-world voyage (1872-1876). The first oceanographic studies of the World Ocean refer to the 80s second half of the 19th century. During its round-world expedition 'Vityaz' (1886-1889) headed by S.O. Markov, performed hydrological measurements in the Baltic Sea, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. According to information available the regular expedition observations (prototype of future complex international program on the ocean research) started in the second half of 80s last century under the auspice of Kiev commission for exploration of German Seas. Systematic hydrological observations were organized by Hydrographic Department of Russia in 1876-1879 according to the program similar to the Kiev one and observations were regularly made by ships of custom service over the Russian area of the Baltic Sea. The increasing demands in oceanographic data contributed to considerable progress in exploration of the World Ocean during current century whole tendency to increase and become more significant has been observed for the last 30-40 years. Most probably various expeditions which were carried out during International Geophysical Year in different regions of the World Ocean are to be reference point in performing intensive oceanographic observations of Marine environment. In the former USSR oceanographic observations are made by research and hydrographic vessels, commercial and fishery ships as well as oil production platforms, coastal hydrometeorological station and other observing platforms. Oceanographic observations data, available from main sources of information on the ocean-research vessels, are also considered in the report.

New frontiers for intelligent content-based retrieval

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benitez, Ana B.; Smith, John R.

2001-01-01

In this paper, we examine emerging frontiers in the evolution of content-based retrieval systems that rely on an intelligent infrastructure. Here, we refer to intelligence as the capabilities of the systems to build and maintain situational or world models, utilize dynamic knowledge representation, exploit context, and leverage advanced reasoning and learning capabilities. We argue that these elements are essential to producing effective systems for retrieving audio-visual content at semantic levels matching those of human perception and cognition. In this paper, we review relevant research on the understanding of human intelligence and construction of intelligent system in the fields of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, semiotics, and computer vision. We also discus how some of the principal ideas form these fields lead to new opportunities and capabilities for content-based retrieval systems. Finally, we describe some of our efforts in these directions. In particular, we present MediaNet, a multimedia knowledge presentation framework, and some MPEG-7 description tools that facilitate and enable intelligent content-based retrieval.

New frontiers for intelligent content-based retrieval

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benitez, Ana B.; Smith, John R.

2000-12-01

In this paper, we examine emerging frontiers in the evolution of content-based retrieval systems that rely on an intelligent infrastructure. Here, we refer to intelligence as the capabilities of the systems to build and maintain situational or world models, utilize dynamic knowledge representation, exploit context, and leverage advanced reasoning and learning capabilities. We argue that these elements are essential to producing effective systems for retrieving audio-visual content at semantic levels matching those of human perception and cognition. In this paper, we review relevant research on the understanding of human intelligence and construction of intelligent system in the fields of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, semiotics, and computer vision. We also discus how some of the principal ideas form these fields lead to new opportunities and capabilities for content-based retrieval systems. Finally, we describe some of our efforts in these directions. In particular, we present MediaNet, a multimedia knowledge presentation framework, and some MPEG-7 description tools that facilitate and enable intelligent content-based retrieval.

The Emergence of the Worldship (I): The Shift from Planet-Based to Space-Based Civilisation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ashworth, S.

Design concepts for passenger-carrying interstellar vehicles may be organised according to speed of travel and payload mass. The most likely design solutions fall on a scale which ranges from the high speed, low mass rapid transport at one end to the low speed, high mass multi-generation worldship at the other. The medium speed, medium mass cruiser is defined as an intermediate case. Using an energy-based analysis, it is shown that the rapid transport is a less plausible case. The more credible options for human interstellar flight are the multi-generation cruiser and worldship, in either case requiring the construction of an artificial mobile world-like environment for the sustainable support of a town- to city-sized community of travellers. This could be made possible by a shift in the dominant mode of human civilisation from planetary to space-based life. The long-term consequences for interstellar colonisation are illustrated with reference to the percolation theory presented by Geoffrey Landis.

The Big Sky Model: A Regional Collaboration for Participatory Research on Environmental Health in the Rural West

PubMed Central

Ward, Tony J.; Vanek, Diana; Marra, Nancy; Holian, Andrij; Adams, Earle; Jones, David; Knuth, Randy

2010-01-01

The case for inquiry-based, hands-on, meaningful science education continues to gain credence as an effective and appropriate pedagogical approach (Karukstis 2005; NSF 2000). An innovative community-based framework for science learning, hereinafter referred to as the Big Sky Model, successfully addresses these educational aims, guiding high school and tribal college students from rural areas of Montana and Idaho in their understanding of chemical, physical, and environmental health concepts. Students participate in classroom lessons and continue with systematic inquiry through actual field research to investigate a pressing, real-world issue: understanding the complex links between poor air quality and respiratory health outcomes. This article provides background information, outlines the procedure for implementing the model, and discusses its effectiveness as demonstrated through various evaluation tools. PMID:20428505

The Electron Microscopy Outreach Program: A Web-based resource for research and education.

PubMed

Sosinsky, G E; Baker, T S; Hand, G; Ellisman, M H

1999-01-01

We have developed a centralized World Wide Web (WWW)-based environment that serves as a resource of software tools and expertise for biological electron microscopy. A major focus is molecular electron microscopy, but the site also includes information and links on structural biology at all levels of resolution. This site serves to help integrate or link structural biology techniques in accordance with user needs. The WWW site, called the Electron Microscopy (EM) Outreach Program (URL: http://emoutreach.sdsc.edu), provides scientists with computational and educational tools for their research and edification. In particular, we have set up a centralized resource containing course notes, references, and links to image analysis and three-dimensional reconstruction software for investigators wanting to learn about EM techniques either within or outside of their fields of expertise. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

Taxation of foreign oil and gas income: a primer

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

Lashbrooke, E.C. Jr.

1983-06-01

The United States, just like many other countries of the world, uses the source of income, residence, citizenship, or a combination thereof as its bases of taxation. This makes double taxation, the result of a home and host countries both taxing the same income, an obstacle in the way of international investment and technology. Allowing a tax credit for certain taxes paid to foreign sovereigns is the American approach to help alleviate the double taxation problem. Special effort is taken to define foreign oil and gas extraction income (FOGEI) and foreign oil-related income (FORI) as they pertain to taxation. Severalmore » examples illustrate the latest means for calculating FOGEI and FORI taxable income based on the 1982 and 1983 limitations and provisions which were set forth in the Internal Revenue Code. 175 references.« less

A 'German world' shared among doctors: a history of the relationship between Japanese and German psychiatry before World War II.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Akira

2013-06-01

This article deals with the critical history of German and Japanese psychiatrists who dreamed of a 'German world' that would cross borders. It analyses their discourse, not only by looking at their biographical backgrounds, but also by examining them in a wider context linked to German academic predominance and cultural propaganda before World War II. By focusing on Wilhelm Stieda, Wilhelm Weygandt and Kure Shuzo, the article shows that the positive evaluation of Japanese psychiatry by the two Germans encouraged Kure, who was eager to modernize the treatment of and institutions for the mentally ill in Japan. Their statements on Japanese psychiatry reflect their ideological and historical framework, with reference to national/ethnic identity, academic position, and the relationship between Germany and Japan.

NASREN: Standard reference model for telerobot control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Albus, J. S.; Lumia, R.; Mccain, H.

1987-01-01

A hierarchical architecture is described which supports space station telerobots in a variety of modes. The system is divided into three hierarchies: task decomposition, world model, and sensory processing. Goals at each level of the task dedomposition heirarchy are divided both spatially and temporally into simpler commands for the next lower level. This decomposition is repreated until, at the lowest level, the drive signals to the robot actuators are generated. To accomplish its goals, task decomposition modules must often use information stored it the world model. The purpose of the sensory system is to update the world model as rapidly as possible to keep the model in registration with the physical world. The architecture of the entire control system hierarch is described and how it can be applied to space telerobot applications.

Smilax (Smilacaceae) from the Miocene of western Eurasia with Caribbean biogeographic affinities.

PubMed

Denk, Thomas; Velitzelos, Dimitrios; Güner, H Tuncay; Ferrufino-Acosta, Lilian

2015-03-01

• Recent molecular studies provide a phylogenetic framework and some dated nodes for the monocot genus Smilax. The Caribbean Havanensis group of Smilax is part of a well-supported "New World clade" with a few disjunct taxa in the Old World. Although the fossil record of the genus is rich, it has been difficult to assign fossil taxa to extant groups based on their preserved morphological characters.• Leaf fossils from Europe and Asia Minor were studied comparatively and put into a phylogenetic and biogeographic context using a molecular phylogeny of the genus.• Fossils from the early Miocene of Anatolia represent a new species of Smilax with systematic affinities with the Havanensis group. The leaf type encountered in the fossil species is exclusively found in species of the Havanensis group among all modern Smilax. Scattered fossils of this type from the Miocene of Greece and Austria, previously referred to Quercus (Fagaceae), Ilex (Aquifoliaceae), and Mahonia (Berberidaceae) also belong to the new species.• The new Smilax provides first fossil evidence of the Havanensis group and proves that this group had a western Eurasian distribution during the Miocene. The age of the fossils is in good agreement with the (molecular-based) purported split between the Havanensis and Hispida groups within Smilax. The Miocene Smilax provides evidence that all four subclades within the "New World clade" had a disjunct intercontinental distribution during parts of the Neogene involving trans-Atlantic crossings (via floating islands or the North Atlantic land bridge) and the Beringia land bridge. © 2015 Botanical Society of America, Inc.

Proposals for Paraphilic Disorders in the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Eleventh Revision (ICD-11).

PubMed

Krueger, Richard B; Reed, Geoffrey M; First, Michael B; Marais, Adele; Kismodi, Eszter; Briken, Peer

2017-07-01

The World Health Organization is currently developing the 11th revision of the International Classifications of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11), with approval of the ICD-11 by the World Health Assembly anticipated in 2018. The Working Group on the Classification of Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health (WGSDSH) was created and charged with reviewing and making recommendations for categories related to sexuality that are contained in the chapter of Mental and Behavioural Disorders in ICD-10 (World Health Organization 1992a). Among these categories was the ICD-10 grouping F65, Disorders of sexual preference, which describes conditions now widely referred to as Paraphilic Disorders. This article reviews the evidence base, rationale, and recommendations for the proposed revisions in this area for ICD-11 and compares them with DSM-5. The WGSDSH recommended that the grouping, Disorders of sexual preference, be renamed to Paraphilic Disorders and be limited to disorders that involve sexual arousal patterns that focus on non-consenting others or are associated with substantial distress or direct risk of injury or death. Consistent with this framework, the WGSDSH also recommended that the ICD-10 categories of Fetishism, Fetishistic Transvestism, and Sadomasochism be removed from the classification and new categories of Coercive Sexual Sadism Disorder, Frotteuristic Disorder, Other Paraphilic Disorder Involving Non-Consenting Individuals, and Other Paraphilic Disorder Involving Solitary Behaviour or Consenting Individuals be added. The WGSDSH's proposals for Paraphilic Disorders in ICD-11 are based on the WHO's role as a global public health agency and the ICD's function as a public health reporting tool.

On the possible effect of round-the-world surface seismic waves in the dynamics of repeated shocks after strong earthquakes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zotov, O. D.; Zavyalov, A. D.; Guglielmi, A. V.; Lavrov, I. P.

2018-01-01

Based on the observation data for hundreds of the main shocks and thousands of aftershocks, the existence of effect of round-the-world surface seismic waves is demonstrated (let us conditionally refer to them as a round-the-world seismic echo) and the manifestations of this effect in the dynamics of the repeated shocks of strong earthquakes are analyzed. At the same time, we by no means believe this effect has been fully proven. We only present a version of our own understanding of the physical causes of the observed phenomenon and analyze the regularities in its manifestation. The effect is that the surface waves excited in the Earth by the main shock make a full revolution around the Earth and excite a strong aftershock in the epicentral zone of the main shock. In our opinion, the physical nature of this phenomenon consists in the fact that the superposition leads to a concentration of wave energy when the convergent surface waves reach the epicentral zone (cumulative effect). The effect of the first seismic echo is most manifest. Thus, the present work supports our hypothesis of the activation of rock failure under the cumulative impact of an round-the-world seismic echo on the source area which is releasing ("cooling") after the main shock. The spatial regularities in the manifestations of this effect are established, and the independence of the probability of its occurrence on the main shock magnitude is revealed. The effect of a round-the-world seismic echo can be used to improve the reliability of the forecasts of strong aftershocks in determining the scenario for the seismic process developing in the epicentral zone of a strong earthquake that has taken place.

New insights into action-perception coupling.

PubMed

Feldman, Anatol G

2009-03-01

According to a view that has dominated the field for over a century, the brain programs muscle commands and uses a copy of these commands [efference copy (EC)] to adjust not only resulting motor action but also ongoing perception. This view was helpful in formulating several classical problems of action and perception: (1) the posture-movement problem of how movements away from a stable posture can be made without evoking resistance of posture-stabilizing mechanisms resulting from intrinsic muscle and reflex properties; (2) the problem of kinesthesia or why our sense of limb position is good despite ambiguous positional information delivered by proprioceptive and cutaneous signals; (3) the problem of visual space constancy or why the world is perceived as stable while its retinal image shifts following changes in gaze. On closer inspection, the EC theory actually does not solve these problems in a physiologically feasible way. Here solutions to these problems are proposed based on the advanced formulation of the equilibrium-point hypothesis that suggests that action and perception are accomplished in a common spatial frame of reference selected by the brain from a set of available frames. Experimental data suggest that the brain is also able to translate or/and rotate the selected frame of reference by modifying its major attributes-the origin, metrics and orientation-and thus substantially influence action and perception. Because of this ability, such frames are called physical to distinguish them from symbolic or mathematical frames that are used to describe system behavior without influencing this behavior. Experimental data also imply that once a frame of reference is chosen, its attributes are modified in a feedforward way, thus enabling the brain to act in an anticipatory and predictive manner. This approach is extended to sense of effort, kinesthetic illusions, phantom limb and phantom body phenomena. It also addresses the question of why retinal images of objects are sensed as objects located in the external, physical world, rather than in internal representations of the brain.

Assessment of Multiresolution Segmentation for Extracting Greenhouses from WORLDVIEW-2 Imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aguilar, M. A.; Aguilar, F. J.; García Lorca, A.; Guirado, E.; Betlej, M.; Cichon, P.; Nemmaoui, A.; Vallario, A.; Parente, C.

2016-06-01

The latest breed of very high resolution (VHR) commercial satellites opens new possibilities for cartographic and remote sensing applications. In this way, object based image analysis (OBIA) approach has been proved as the best option when working with VHR satellite imagery. OBIA considers spectral, geometric, textural and topological attributes associated with meaningful image objects. Thus, the first step of OBIA, referred to as segmentation, is to delineate objects of interest. Determination of an optimal segmentation is crucial for a good performance of the second stage in OBIA, the classification process. The main goal of this work is to assess the multiresolution segmentation algorithm provided by eCognition software for delineating greenhouses from WorldView- 2 multispectral orthoimages. Specifically, the focus is on finding the optimal parameters of the multiresolution segmentation approach (i.e., Scale, Shape and Compactness) for plastic greenhouses. The optimum Scale parameter estimation was based on the idea of local variance of object heterogeneity within a scene (ESP2 tool). Moreover, different segmentation results were attained by using different combinations of Shape and Compactness values. Assessment of segmentation quality based on the discrepancy between reference polygons and corresponding image segments was carried out to identify the optimal setting of multiresolution segmentation parameters. Three discrepancy indices were used: Potential Segmentation Error (PSE), Number-of-Segments Ratio (NSR) and Euclidean Distance 2 (ED2).

Evaluation of Thyroid Hormone Levels and Urinary Iodine Concentrations in Koreans Based on the Data from Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey VI (2013 to 2015).

PubMed

Chung, Jae Hoon

2018-06-01

No nationwide data have been published about thyroid hormone levels and urinary iodine concentrations (UICs) in Korea. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Korean Thyroid Association established a project to evaluate the nationwide thyroid hormone profile and UICs in healthy Koreans as part of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) VI (2013 to 2015), a nationwide, cross-sectional survey of the Korean population that enrolled 7,061 individuals who were weighted to represent the entire Korean population. Based on the KNHANES VI, the geometric mean value of serum thyroid stimulating hormone was 2.16 mIU/L, and its reference interval was 0.59 to 7.03 mIU/L. The mean value of serum free thyroxine was 1.25 ng/dL, and its reference interval was 0.92 to 1.60 ng/dL. The median UIC in the Korean population was reported to be 294 μg/L, corresponding to 'above requirements' iodine intake according to the World Health Organization recommendations. A U-shaped relationship of UIC with age was found. The prevalence of overt hyperthyroidism and overt hypothyroidism in the Korean population based on the KNHANES VI was 0.54% and 0.73%, respectively. Copyright © 2018 Korean Endocrine Society.

Image distortion analysis using polynomial series expansion.

PubMed

Baggenstoss, Paul M

2004-11-01

In this paper, we derive a technique for analysis of local distortions which affect data in real-world applications. In the paper, we focus on image data, specifically handwritten characters. Given a reference image and a distorted copy of it, the method is able to efficiently determine the rotations, translations, scaling, and any other distortions that have been applied. Because the method is robust, it is also able to estimate distortions for two unrelated images, thus determining the distortions that would be required to cause the two images to resemble each other. The approach is based on a polynomial series expansion using matrix powers of linear transformation matrices. The technique has applications in pattern recognition in the presence of distortions.

Referential understanding of videos in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), and children (Homo sapiens).

PubMed

Poss, Sarah R; Rochat, Philippe

2003-12-01

Performance on identical search tasks based on cues directly perceived or indirectly perceived through video were compared among a group of 4 adult chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), a group of 2 adult orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), and a group of 36 children (between 2 and 3 years of age). Children comprehended directly perceived cues but had difficulty with video cues. In contrast, chimpanzees and 1 orangutan were successful in using video to guide their search for a hidden object. Two follow-up studies with 3-year-old children demonstrated the importance of more distinct perceptual and verbal cues in aiding children's understanding of video as referring to real-world events.

Bioindication of atmospheric trace metals--with special references to megacities.

PubMed

Markert, Bernd; Wuenschmann, Simone; Fraenzle, Stefan; Graciana Figueiredo, Ana Maria; Ribeiro, Andreza P; Wang, Meie

2011-01-01

After considering the particular problems of atmospheric pollution in megacities, i.e. agglomerations larger than 5 mio. inhabitants, with urbanization of World's population going on steadily, possibilities of active biomonitoring by means of green plants are discussed. Based on specific definitions of active and passive bioindication the chances of monitoring heavy metals in Sao Paulo megacity were demonstrated (first results published before). This is to show that there is need for increased use of bioindication to tackle the particular problems of megacities concerning environmental "health", the data to be processed according to the Multi-Markered-Bioindication-Concept (MMBC). Comparison to other work shows this approach to be reasonable. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[Anti-doping control and public health: limits to the exposure of human health to risk in the name of sporting glory].

PubMed

Aith, Fernando Mussa Abujamra

2013-10-01

Given the current regulatory environment surrounding doping in the world, and in view of the recurring scandals linking leading athletes in a variety of sports with doping, this paper aims to provide some thoughts on the relationship between doping and public health, taking as base reference the risks doping poses to health and considering the regulatory options that have been adopted by the international community and the sports federations to control and supervise this unsporting and risky practice. The text seeks to reflect on the necessary balance between sport and health, as well as on the role of the state in preserving this balance.

Concepts of mental deficiency among the Tamang of Nepal.

PubMed

Peters, L G

1980-01-01

The Tamang of the Kathmandu Valley have an agrarian society with little demand for literacy and schooling, yet they recognize and label mental retardation. The criteria for labeling are based partially upon insufficiency of intelligence and behavioral adaptation but primarily upon speech incompetence. There is stigma attached to the label, and it has a limiting effect upon social status and role. While the Western conception of mental deficiency is not primarily contingent upon verbal ability, speech function is a consideration in the evaluation of intelligence, as is the case in other parts of the world. In fact, verbal skill is one useful referent for future cross-cultural research on mental deficiency.

Fuel Cycle Analysis Framework Base Cases for the IAEA/INPRO GAINS Collaborative Project

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

Brent Dixon

Thirteen countries participated in the Collaborative Project GAINS “Global Architecture of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems Based on Thermal and Fast Reactors Including a Closed Fuel Cycle”, which was the primary activity within the IAEA/INPRO Program Area B: “Global Vision on Sustainable Nuclear Energy” for the last three years. The overall objective of GAINS was to develop a standard framework for assessing future nuclear energy systems taking into account sustainable development, and to validate results through sample analyses. This paper details the eight scenarios that constitute the GAINS framework base cases for analysis of the transition to future innovative nuclear energymore » systems. The framework base cases provide a reference for users of the framework to start from in developing and assessing their own alternate systems. Each base case is described along with performance results against the GAINS sustainability evaluation metrics. The eight cases include four using a moderate growth projection and four using a high growth projection for global nuclear electricity generation through 2100. The cases are divided into two sets, addressing homogeneous and heterogeneous scenarios developed by GAINS to model global fuel cycle strategies. The heterogeneous world scenario considers three separate nuclear groups based on their fuel cycle strategies, with non-synergistic and synergistic cases. The framework base case analyses results show the impact of these different fuel cycle strategies while providing references for future users of the GAINS framework. A large number of scenario alterations are possible and can be used to assess different strategies, different technologies, and different assumptions about possible futures of nuclear power. Results can be compared to the framework base cases to assess where these alternate cases perform differently versus the sustainability indicators.« less

Olson's Major World Ecosystem Complexes Ranked by Carbon in Live Vegetation: An Updated Database Using the GLC2000 Land Cover Product (NDP-017b, a 2006 update of the original 1985 and 2001 data file))

DOE Data Explorer

Gibbs, Holly K. [Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

2006-01-01

In the 1980s, Olson et al. developed a data base and corresponding map following more than 20 years of field investigations, consultations, and analyses of published literature. The original data characterize the use and vegetative cover of the Earth's land surface with a 0.5° by 0.5° grid. The purpose of these world-ecosystem-complex data and the accompanying map were to provide a current reference base for interpreting the role of vegetation in the global cycling of CO2 and other gases and a basis for improved estimates of vegetation and soil carbon, of natural exchanges of CO2, and of net historic shifts of carbon between the biosphere and the atmosphere. These data were widely used and cited in carbon cycle research. This updated database extends the methodology of Olson et al. to more contemporary land cover conditions of the Global Land Cover Database (GLC2000). The GLC2000 data were developed using remotely sensed imagery acquired in 2000. The updated data are presented in a GIS format and include estimates of mean and maximum carbon density values.

Smallpox still haunts scientists: results of a questionnaire-based inquiry on the views of health care and life science experts and students on preserving the remaining variola virus stocks.

PubMed

Srinivasan, Thangavelu; Dedeepiya, Vidyasagar Devaprasad; John, Sudhakar; Senthilkumar, Rajappa; Reena, Helen C; Rajendran, Paramasivam; Balamurugan, Madasamy; Kurosawa, Gene; Iwasaki, Masaru; Preethy, Senthilkumar; Abraham, Samuel J K

2013-01-01

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared eradication of the dreadful disease "smallpox" in 1980. Though the disease has died down, the causative virus "variola" has not, as it has been well preserved in two high security laboratories-one in USA and another in Russia. The debate on whether the remaining stocks of the smallpox virus should be destroyed or not is ongoing, and the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2011 has decided to postpone the review on this debate to the 67th WHA in 2014. A short questionnaire-based inquiry was organized during a one-day stem cell meeting to explore the views of various health care and life science specialists especially students on this aspect. Among the 200 participants of the meeting, only 66 had answered the questionnaire. 60.6% of participants who responded to the questionnaire were for preserving the virus for future reference, while 36.4% of the participants were for destroying the virus considering the magnitude with which it killed millions. However, 3% of the respondents were not able to decide on any verdict. Therefore, this inquiry expresses the view that "what we cannot create, we do not have the right to destroy."

Genome-wide screening for highly discriminative SNPs for personal identification and their assessment in world populations.

PubMed

Li, Liming; Wang, Yi; Yang, Shuping; Xia, Mingying; Yang, Yajun; Wang, Jiucun; Lu, Daru; Pan, Xingwei; Ma, Teng; Jiang, Pei; Yu, Ge; Zhao, Ziqin; Ping, Yuan; Zhou, Huaigu; Zhao, Xueying; Sun, Hui; Liu, Bing; Jia, Dongtao; Li, Chengtao; Hu, Rile; Lu, Hongzhou; Liu, Xiaoyang; Chen, Wenqing; Mi, Qin; Xue, Fuzhong; Su, Yongdong; Jin, Li; Li, Shilin

2017-05-01

The applications of DNA profiling aim to identify perpetrators, missing family members and disaster victims in forensic investigations. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based forensic applications are emerging rapidly with a potential to replace short tandem repeats (STRs) based panels which are now being used widely, and there is a need for a well-designed SNP panel to meet such challenge for this transition. Here we present a panel of 175 SNP markers (referred to as Fudan ID Panel or FID), selected from ∼3.6 million SNPs, for the application of personal identification. We optimized and validated FID panel using 729 Chinese individuals using a next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. We showed that the SNPs in the panel possess very high heterozygosity as well as low within- and among-continent differentiations, enabling FID panel exhibit discrimination power in both regional and worldwide populations, with the average match probabilities ranging from 4.77×10 -71 to 1.06×10 -64 across 54 world populations. With the advent of biomedical research, the SNPs connecting physical anthropological, physiological, behavioral and phenotypic traits will be eventually added to the forensic panels that will revolutionize criminal investigation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mining Context-Aware Association Rules Using Grammar-Based Genetic Programming.

PubMed

Luna, Jose Maria; Pechenizkiy, Mykola; Del Jesus, Maria Jose; Ventura, Sebastian

2017-09-25

Real-world data usually comprise features whose interpretation depends on some contextual information. Such contextual-sensitive features and patterns are of high interest to be discovered and analyzed in order to obtain the right meaning. This paper formulates the problem of mining context-aware association rules, which refers to the search for associations between itemsets such that the strength of their implication depends on a contextual feature. For the discovery of this type of associations, a model that restricts the search space and includes syntax constraints by means of a grammar-based genetic programming methodology is proposed. Grammars can be considered as a useful way of introducing subjective knowledge to the pattern mining process as they are highly related to the background knowledge of the user. The performance and usefulness of the proposed approach is examined by considering synthetically generated datasets. A posteriori analysis on different domains is also carried out to demonstrate the utility of this kind of associations. For example, in educational domains, it is essential to identify and understand contextual and context-sensitive factors that affect overall and individual student behavior and performance. The results of the experiments suggest that the approach is feasible and it automatically identifies interesting context-aware associations from real-world datasets.

Standardized protocols for quality control of MRM-based plasma proteomic workflows.

PubMed

Percy, Andrew J; Chambers, Andrew G; Smith, Derek S; Borchers, Christoph H

2013-01-04

Mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics is rapidly emerging as a viable technology for the identification and quantitation of biological samples, such as human plasma--the most complex yet commonly employed biofluid in clinical analyses. The transition from a qualitative to quantitative science is required if proteomics is going to successfully make the transition to a clinically useful technique. MS, however, has been criticized for a lack of reproducibility and interlaboratory transferability. Currently, the MS and plasma proteomics communities lack standardized protocols and reagents to ensure that high-quality quantitative data can be accurately and precisely reproduced by laboratories across the world using different MS technologies. Toward addressing this issue, we have developed standard protocols for multiple reaction monitoring (MRM)-based assays with customized isotopically labeled internal standards for quality control of the sample preparation workflow and the MS platform in quantitative plasma proteomic analyses. The development of reference standards and their application to a single MS platform is discussed herein, along with the results from intralaboratory tests. The tests highlighted the importance of the reference standards in assessing the efficiency and reproducibility of the entire bottom-up proteomic workflow and revealed errors related to the sample preparation and performance quality and deficits of the MS and LC systems. Such evaluations are necessary if MRM-based quantitative plasma proteomics is to be used in verifying and validating putative disease biomarkers across different research laboratories and eventually in clinical laboratories.

Examination of the semi-automatic calculation technique of vegetation cover rate by digital camera images.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takemine, S.; Rikimaru, A.; Takahashi, K.

The rice is one of the staple foods in the world High quality rice production requires periodically collecting rice growth data to control the growth of rice The height of plant the number of stem the color of leaf is well known parameters to indicate rice growth Rice growth diagnosis method based on these parameters is used operationally in Japan although collecting these parameters by field survey needs a lot of labor and time Recently a laborsaving method for rice growth diagnosis is proposed which is based on vegetation cover rate of rice Vegetation cover rate of rice is calculated based on discriminating rice plant areas in a digital camera image which is photographed in nadir direction Discrimination of rice plant areas in the image was done by the automatic binarization processing However in the case of vegetation cover rate calculation method depending on the automatic binarization process there is a possibility to decrease vegetation cover rate against growth of rice In this paper a calculation method of vegetation cover rate was proposed which based on the automatic binarization process and referred to the growth hysteresis information For several images obtained by field survey during rice growing season vegetation cover rate was calculated by the conventional automatic binarization processing and the proposed method respectively And vegetation cover rate of both methods was compared with reference value obtained by visual interpretation As a result of comparison the accuracy of discriminating rice plant areas was increased by the proposed

Nato-Pco Database

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wtv Gmbh

This new CD-ROM is a reference database. It covers almost twenty years of non-military scientific/technical meetings and publications sponsored by the NATO Science Committee. It contains full references (with keywords and/or abstracts) to more than 30,000 contributions from scientists all over the world and is published in more than 1,000 volumes. With the easy-to-follow menu options of the retrieval software, access to the data is simple and fast. Updates are planned on a yearly basis.

Comparative Genomics of Ricketttsia prowazekii Madrid E and Breinl Strains

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-01-01

natural exposure to antibiotic -resistant strains and the use of laboratory-manipulated strains as bio- logical warfare agents (28). The World Health...tussis, in the Cag system in Helicobacter pylori, and in the icm/dot system in Legionella pneumophila (reference 12 and references therein). However, the...transfer by the virulence system of Legionella pneumophila. Science 279:873– 876. 45. Waghela, S. D., F. R. Rurangirwa, S. M. Mahan, C. E. Yunker, T. B

Jules Verne Voyager, Jr: An Interactive Map Tool for Teaching Plate Tectonics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamburger, M. W.; Meertens, C. M.

2010-12-01

We present an interactive, web-based map utility that can make new geological and geophysical results accessible to a large number and variety of users. The tool provides a user-friendly interface that allows users to access a variety of maps, satellite images, and geophysical data at a range of spatial scales. The map tool, dubbed 'Jules Verne Voyager, Jr.', allows users to interactively create maps of a variety of study areas around the world. The utility was developed in collaboration with the UNAVCO Consortium for study of global-scale tectonic processes. Users can choose from a variety of base maps (including "Face of the Earth" and "Earth at Night" satellite imagery mosaics, global topography, geoid, sea-floor age, strain rate and seismic hazard maps, and others), add a number of geographic and geophysical overlays (coastlines, political boundaries, rivers and lakes, earthquake and volcano locations, stress axes, etc.), and then superimpose both observed and model velocity vectors representing a compilation of 2933 GPS geodetic measurements from around the world. A remarkable characteristic of the geodetic compilation is that users can select from some 21 plates' frames of reference, allowing a visual representation of both 'absolute' plate motion (in a no-net rotation reference frame) and relative motion along all of the world's plate boundaries. The tool allows users to zoom among at least three map scales. The map tool can be viewed at http://jules.unavco.org/VoyagerJr/Earth. A more detailed version of the map utility, developed in conjunction with the EarthScope initiative, focuses on North America geodynamics, and provides more detailed geophysical and geographic information for the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The ‘EarthScope Voyager’ can be accessed at http://jules.unavco.org/VoyagerJr/EarthScope. Because the system uses pre-constructed gif images and overlays, the system can rapidly create and display maps to a large number of users simultaneously and does not require any special software installation on users' systems. In addition, a javascript-based educational interface, dubbed "Exploring our Dynamic Planet", incorporates the map tool, explanatory material, background scientific material, and curricular activities that encourage users to explore Earth processes using the Jules Verne Voyager, Jr. tool. Exploring our Dynamic Planet can be viewed at http://www.dpc.ucar.edu/VoyagerJr/. Because of its flexibility, the map utilities can be used for hands-on exercises exploring plate interaction in a range of academic settings, from high school science classes to entry-level undergraduate to graduate-level tectonics courses.

Brazil: Rondonia

Atmospheric Science Data Center

2016-12-30

... Places where clouds or other factors precluded an aerosol retrieval are shown in dark grey.   The main measurement site for the ... within World Reference System-2 path 231.   Further information about the CLAIRE campaign, and the Large-scale-Biosphere-Atmosphere ...

Deepening perspective: A new look at the old world. [satellites and the earth sciences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1980-01-01

The development space satellites is examined with particular reference to their contributions to scientific research. The accomplishments in the fields of geodesy and the magnetosphere are reviewed in some detail.

Paratyphoid Infections

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The numerous motile members of the bacterial genus Salmonella are collectively referred to as paratyphoid (PT) salmonellae. Found throughout the world, these organisms infect a wide variety of hosts (including invertebrate and vertebrate wildlife, domestic animals, and humans) to yield either asympt...

Supporting the goals and ideals of World Malaria Day.

THOMAS, 113th Congress

Rep. Crenshaw, Ander [R-FL-4

2014-05-06

House - 06/10/2014 Referred to the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. (All Actions) Tracker: This bill has the status IntroducedHere are the steps for Status of Legislation:

Natural Disasters and Man-Made Catastrophes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lonergan, David

2011-01-01

This article categorizes and discusses the kinds of cataclysmic events that threaten the human race and the natural world. A useful set of definitions is provided, and an annotated bibliography of a representative assortment of reference books and monographs.

Occupational Cancer

MedlinePlus

... Agents Regulation and Policy Surveillance References Around the world, 12.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year, and the number is expected to increase due to the growth and aging of the population, as well as reductions in childhood mortality and ...

COLLABORATIVE GUIDE: A REEF MANAGER'S GUIDE TO ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Innovative strategies to conserve the world's coral reefs are included in a new guide released today by NOAA, and the Australian Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, with author contributions from a variety of international partners from government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions. Referred to as A Reef Manager's Guide to Coral Bleaching, the guide will provide coral reef managers with the latest scientific information on the causes of coral bleaching and new management strategies for responding to this significant threat to coral reef ecosystems. Innovative strategies to conserve the world's coral reefs are included in a new guide released today by NOAA, and the Australian Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, with author contributions from a variety of international partners from government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions. Dr. Jordan West, of the National Center for Environmental Assessment, was a major contributor to the guide. Referred to as

A World Wide Web (WWW) server database engine for an organelle database, MitoDat.

PubMed

Lemkin, P F; Chipperfield, M; Merril, C; Zullo, S

1996-03-01

We describe a simple database search engine "dbEngine" which may be used to quickly create a searchable database on a World Wide Web (WWW) server. Data may be prepared from spreadsheet programs (such as Excel, etc.) or from tables exported from relationship database systems. This Common Gateway Interface (CGI-BIN) program is used with a WWW server such as available commercially, or from National Center for Supercomputer Algorithms (NCSA) or CERN. Its capabilities include: (i) searching records by combinations of terms connected with ANDs or ORs; (ii) returning search results as hypertext links to other WWW database servers; (iii) mapping lists of literature reference identifiers to the full references; (iv) creating bidirectional hypertext links between pictures and the database. DbEngine has been used to support the MitoDat database (Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance associated with the Mitochondrion) on the WWW.

Gap Analysis for Chinese Drug Control Institutes to Achieve the Standards of World Health Organization Medicine Prequalification.

PubMed

Mao, Xin; Yang, Yue

2017-02-01

The study aims to explore the challenges and the gaps faced by Chinese Drug Control Institutes in achieving the standards of World Health Organization (WHO) Medicine Prequalification. The study was undertaken with 6 Provincial Drug Control Institutes in China from November 2012 to November 2013. The study assessed key elements required to comply with WHO Good Practices for Pharmaceutical Quality Control Laboratories (GPPQCL). For GPPQCL, the study found gaps in quality management system, control of documentation, data-processing equipment, premises and equipment, contracts, reagents (water), reference substances and reference materials, calibration, verification of performance and qualification of equipment, instruments and other devices, analytical worksheet, evaluation of test results, personnel, and validation of analytical procedures. The study indicates that gaps are attributed to differences between the standards of Chinese Accreditation Standards and WHO-GPPQCL. Copyright © 2017 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The visible ground surface as a reference frame for scaling binocular depth of a target in midair

PubMed Central

WU, JUN; ZHOU, LIU; SHI, PAN; HE, ZIJIANG J; OOI, TENG LENG

2014-01-01

The natural ground surface carries texture information that extends continuously from one’s feet to the horizon, providing a rich depth resource for accurately locating an object resting on it. Here, we showed that the ground surface’s role as a reference frame also aids in locating a target suspended in midair based on relative binocular disparity. Using real world setup in our experiments, we first found that a suspended target is more accurately localized when the ground surface is visible and the observer views the scene binocularly. In addition, the increased accuracy occurs only when the scene is viewed for 5 sec rather than 0.15 sec, suggesting that the binocular depth process takes time. Second, we found that manipulation of the configurations of the texture-gradient and/or linear-perspective cues on the visible ground surface affects the perceived distance of the suspended target in midair. Third, we found that a suspended target is more accurately localized against a ground texture surface than a ceiling texture surface. This suggests that our visual system usesthe ground surface as the preferred reference frame to scale the distance of a suspended target according to its relative binocular disparity. PMID:25384237

Conventional vs Biomimetic Approaches to the Exploration of Mars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ellery, A.

It is not usual to refer to convention in planetary exploration missions by virtue of the innovation required for such projects. The term conventional refers to the methodologies, tools and approaches typically adopted in engineering that are applied to such missions. Presented is a "conventional" Mars rover mission in which the author was involved - ExoMars - into which is interspersed references to examples where biomimetic approaches may yield superior capabilities. Biomimetics is a relatively recently active area of research which seeks to examine how biological systems solve the problem of survival in the natural environment. Biological organisms are autonomous entities that must survive in a hostile world adapting both adaptivity and robustness. It is not then surprising that biomimetics is particularly useful when applied to robotic elements of a Mars exploration mission. I present a number of areas in which biomimetics may yield new solutions to the problem of Mars exploration - optic flow navigation, potential field navigation, genetically-evolved neuro-controllers, legged locomotion, electric motors implementing muscular behaviour, and a biomimetic drill based on the wood wasp ovipositor. Each of these techniques offers an alternative approach to conventional ones. However, the perceptive hurdles are likely to dwarf the technical hurdles in implementing many of these methods in the near future.

Googling endometriosis: a systematic review of information available on the Internet.

PubMed

Hirsch, Martin; Aggarwal, Shivani; Barker, Claire; Davis, Colin J; Duffy, James M N

2017-05-01

The demand for health information online is increasing rapidly without clear governance. We aim to evaluate the credibility, quality, readability, and accuracy of online patient information concerning endometriosis. We searched 5 popular Internet search engines: aol.com, ask.com, bing.com, google.com, and yahoo.com. We developed a search strategy in consultation with patients with endometriosis, to identify relevant World Wide Web pages. Pages containing information related to endometriosis for women with endometriosis or the public were eligible. Two independent authors screened the search results. World Wide Web pages were evaluated using validated instruments across 3 of the 4 following domains: (1) credibility (White Paper instrument; range 0-10); (2) quality (DISCERN instrument; range 0-85); and (3) readability (Flesch-Kincaid instrument; range 0-100); and (4) accuracy (assessed by a prioritized criteria developed in consultation with health care professionals, researchers, and women with endometriosis based on the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology guidelines [range 0-30]). We summarized these data in diagrams, tables, and narratively. We identified 750 World Wide Web pages, of which 54 were included. Over a third of Web pages did not attribute authorship and almost half the included pages did not report the sources of information or academic references. No World Wide Web page provided information assessed as being written in plain English. A minority of web pages were assessed as high quality. A single World Wide Web page provided accurate information: evidentlycochrane.net. Available information was, in general, skewed toward the diagnosis of endometriosis. There were 16 credible World Wide Web pages, however the content limitations were infrequently discussed. No World Wide Web page scored highly across all 4 domains. In the unlikely event that a World Wide Web page reports high-quality, accurate, and credible health information it is typically challenging for a lay audience to comprehend. Health care professionals, and the wider community, should inform women with endometriosis of the risk of outdated, inaccurate, or even dangerous information online. The implementation of an information standard will incentivize providers of online information to establish and adhere to codes of conduct. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evidence for Model-based Computations in the Human Amygdala during Pavlovian Conditioning

PubMed Central

Prévost, Charlotte; McNamee, Daniel; Jessup, Ryan K.; Bossaerts, Peter; O'Doherty, John P.

2013-01-01

Contemporary computational accounts of instrumental conditioning have emphasized a role for a model-based system in which values are computed with reference to a rich model of the structure of the world, and a model-free system in which values are updated without encoding such structure. Much less studied is the possibility of a similar distinction operating at the level of Pavlovian conditioning. In the present study, we scanned human participants while they participated in a Pavlovian conditioning task with a simple structure while measuring activity in the human amygdala using a high-resolution fMRI protocol. After fitting a model-based algorithm and a variety of model-free algorithms to the fMRI data, we found evidence for the superiority of a model-based algorithm in accounting for activity in the amygdala compared to the model-free counterparts. These findings support an important role for model-based algorithms in describing the processes underpinning Pavlovian conditioning, as well as providing evidence of a role for the human amygdala in model-based inference. PMID:23436990

The PBS in a globalised world: free trade and reference pricing.

PubMed

Searles, Andrew

2009-05-01

In January 2005 Australia implemented the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). The agreement had placed domestic health policy and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) in particular, on the trade negotiating table. At the time Australians were told the PBS would not be undermined, but why was it included in a trade agreement? This article argues that recent reforms to the PBS partially delivered on an issue that the US has compelled its trade negotiators to ensure since 2002: the elimination of reference pricing. In Australia, reference pricing, as used by the PBS, had been credited with obtaining money when buying new medicines.

World Map Showing Surface and Subsurface Distribution, and Lithologic Character of Middle and Late Neoproterozoic Rocks

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stewart, John H.

2007-01-01

INTRODUCTION The map was prepared to outline the basic information on where Neoproterozoic rocks are present in the World, and of the lithologic character of these rocks. The information provides a better understanding of major Neoproterozoic tectonic subdivisions useful in paleogeographic and plate tectonic reconstructions. The time frame of the map is within the middle and late Neoproterozoic from approximately 870 to 540 Ma and is after widespread Mesoproterozoic Grenville-age collisional events that are considered to have formed the hypothetical supercontinent of Rodinia. Much of the time represented by the map is interpreted to be during the fragmentation of Rodinia. The recognition of Neoproterozoic rocks is commonly difficult because of limited isotopic or paloeontological dating. Thus, some rocks shown on the map could be older or younger than the age indicated. However, at the scale of the map the the problem may be minor. Enough information seems to be available to indicate the general age of the rocks. Many of the successions contain diamictite deposits considered to be glaciogenic and dated as middle or late Neoproterozoic. These deposits thus show a rough correlation of middle and late Neoproterozoic rocks of the world. The map is a Richardson map projection, except for Antarctica which is a polar projection. The map was prepared from about 650 references, shown in the text linked below under 'Sources of Information', used to outline distribution patterns, determine rock types, and provide information on the regional and local geologic framework of the rocks. The focus of the references is on the geologic information needed to prepare the map. Other information, such as plate tectonic reconstructions or paleomagnetic studies is generally not included. The 'Sources of Information' lists references alphabetically for each of 14 regions. In brackets is a code for each area. These codes provide help in locating the specific regions in the references.

A library of georeferenced photos from the field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, Xiangming; Dorovskoy, Pavel; Biradar, Chandrashekhar; Bridge, Eli

2011-12-01

A picture is worth a thousand of words, and every day hundreds of scientists, students, and environmentally aware citizens are taking field photos to document their observations of rocks, glaciers, soils, forests, wetlands, croplands, rangelands, livestock, and birds and mammals, as well as important events such as droughts, floods, wildfires, insect emergences, and infectious disease outbreaks. Where are those field photos stored? Can they be shared in a timely fashion to support education, research, and the leisure activities of citizens across the world? What are the financial and intellectual costs if those field photos are lost or not shared? Recently, researchers at the University of Oklahoma developed and released the Global Geo-Referenced Field Photo Library (hereinafter referred to as the Field Photo Library; http://www.eomf.ou.edu/photos/), a Web-based data portal designed for researchers and educators who wish to archive and share field photos from across the world, each tagged with exact positioning data (Figure 1). The data portal has a simple user interface that allows people to upload, query, and download georeferenced field photos in the library.

Effects of short read quality and quantity on a de novo vertebrate transcriptome assembly.

PubMed

Garcia, T I; Shen, Y; Catchen, J; Amores, A; Schartl, M; Postlethwait, J; Walter, R B

2012-01-01

For many researchers, next generation sequencing data holds the key to answering a category of questions previously unassailable. One of the important and challenging steps in achieving these goals is accurately assembling the massive quantity of short sequencing reads into full nucleic acid sequences. For research groups working with non-model or wild systems, short read assembly can pose a significant challenge due to the lack of pre-existing EST or genome reference libraries. While many publications describe the overall process of sequencing and assembly, few address the topic of how many and what types of reads are best for assembly. The goal of this project was use real world data to explore the effects of read quantity and short read quality scores on the resulting de novo assemblies. Using several samples of short reads of various sizes and qualities we produced many assemblies in an automated manner. We observe how the properties of read length, read quality, and read quantity affect the resulting assemblies and provide some general recommendations based on our real-world data set. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A WWW-based information system on resistance of bacteria to antibiotics.

PubMed

Schindler, J; Schindler, Z; Schindler, J

1998-01-01

The information system on resistance of bacteria to antibiotics (WARN--World Antibiotic Resistance Network) is implemented as a WWW server at Charles University in Prague (http:/(/)www.warn.cas.cz). Its main goal is to give information about problems of antibiotic resistance of bacteria and to process data on isolated strains. The WARN web-site contains six main topics. Four of them form the core of the system: Topics of Interest bring information on selected timely topics in antibiotic resistance--pneumococci, staphylococci, beta-lactamases, glycopeptide--and aminoglycoside resistance. Global Monitor brings references and reports on resistance in the world as well as recommended method of surveillance. The topic Data contains raw data on strains in particular countries and hospitals. Data can be viewed in their original form as a list of records (strains) or processed to provide statistics about the resistance rates in the selected country or hospital respectively. The topic Search allows one to search for one or several terms in the whole document. Counts of accessed pages show, that there is a standing demand for information about the serious problems of antibiotic therapy of infectious diseases.

ePCR: an R-package for survival and time-to-event prediction in advanced prostate cancer, applied to real-world patient cohorts.

PubMed

Laajala, Teemu D; Murtojärvi, Mika; Virkki, Arho; Aittokallio, Tero

2018-06-15

Prognostic models are widely used in clinical decision-making, such as risk stratification and tailoring treatment strategies, with the aim to improve patient outcomes while reducing overall healthcare costs. While prognostic models have been adopted into clinical use, benchmarking their performance has been difficult due to lack of open clinical datasets. The recent DREAM 9.5 Prostate Cancer Challenge carried out an extensive benchmarking of prognostic models for metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC), based on multiple cohorts of open clinical trial data. We make available an open-source implementation of the top-performing model, ePCR, along with an extended toolbox for its further re-use and development, and demonstrate how to best apply the implemented model to real-world data cohorts of advanced prostate cancer patients. The open-source R-package ePCR and its reference documentation are available at the Central R Archive Network (CRAN): https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ePCR. R-vignette provides step-by-step examples for the ePCR usage. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Common sense and nuclear peace

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

Zacharias, J.R.; Gordon, M.; Davis, S.R.

The authors note that arms control, arms limitation, and arms reduction, though moving in the right direction, are not sufficient. Possible escalation of a small-scale war between nuclear superpowers or of an accident into a major conflagration is our greatest worry, they think, even though there is no justification for ever resorting to nuclear weaponry. We must find new ways to prevent and resolve conflict among nations other than military solutions. Further, the stakes are too high to leave the settling of international disputes in the hands of the world's military establishments, or even its anti-military establishments. To reduce andmore » then eliminate the risk of nuclear war will require a profound change in attitude, both here and in the Soviet Union. The authors feel we must both learn to bargain and barter about the things that really matter. We must realize that we cannot compete on both economic and military trufs simultaneously, because they require different attitudes and policies. Good treaties based on commonality of interest make good neighbors, and can lead to a less-belligerent world. 17 references.« less

Designing Production Based Learning as a Basic Strategy for Creating Income Generating Units at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suryadi, D.; Supriatna, N.

2018-02-01

The establishment of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (later to be referred as UPI) Statute as a State-Owned State University (PTN-BH) has implications for UPI requirements. One of them is the need for UPI to generate an Income Generating Unit (IGU) of at least IDR 100 Billion (one hundred billion rupiah). This requirement is considered difficult since UPI is one of the universities whose focus is on the world of education and not the business and industry. Surely this becomes the thinking of the entire academic community to make a breakthrough by optimizing their potential. This study aims to find the pattern of learning practice that produces economic value products as one indicator of IGU value achievement as an effort to support UPI as PTN-BH. Learning strategy is done by designing and implementing the production base learning (PBL) approach as the basis strategy for the development of production units capable of becoming IGU in UPI. The research method used refers to research and development methods with adjustments taking into account the effectiveness in validating and conducting field model trials. The result of this research is the basic design of PBL model as the development strategy of production unit in the achievement of IGU UPI PTN-BH.

Rapid corn and soybean mapping in US Corn Belt and neighboring areas

PubMed Central

Zhong, Liheng; Yu, Le; Li, Xuecao; Hu, Lina; Gong, Peng

2016-01-01

The goal of this study was to promptly map the extent of corn and soybeans early in the growing season. A classification experiment was conducted for the US Corn Belt and neighboring states, which is the most important production area of corn and soybeans in the world. To improve the timeliness of the classification algorithm, training was completely based on reference data and images from other years, circumventing the need to finish reference data collection in the current season. To account for interannual variability in crop development in the cross-year classification scenario, several innovative strategies were used. A random forest classifier was used in all tests, and MODIS surface reflectance products from the years 2008–2014 were used for training and cross-year validation. It is concluded that the fuzzy classification approach is necessary to achieve satisfactory results with R-squared ~0.9 (compared with the USDA Cropland Data Layer). The year of training data is an important factor, and it is recommended to select a year with similar crop phenology as the mapping year. With this phenology-based and cross-year-training method, in 2015 we mapped the cropping proportion of corn and soybeans around mid-August, when the two crops just reached peak growth. PMID:27811989

Inclusive health.

PubMed

Maclachlan, Malcolm; Khasnabis, Chapal; Mannan, Hasheem

2012-01-01

We propose the concept of Inclusive Health to encapsulate the Health for All ethos; to build on the rights-based approach to health; to promote the idea of inclusion as a verb, where a more proactive approach to addressing distinctive and different barriers to inclusion is needed; and to recognise that new initiatives in human resources for health can offer exciting and innovative ways of healthcare delivery. While Inclusive Education has become a widely recognised and accepted concept, Health for All is still contested, and new thinking is required to develop its agenda in line with contemporary developments. Inclusive Health refers both to who gets health care and to who provides it; and its ethos resonates strongly with Jefferson's assertion that 'there is nothing more unequal, than the equal treatment of unequal people'. We situate the timeliness of the Inclusive Health concept with reference to recent developments in the recognition of the rights of people with disability, in the new guidelines for community-based rehabilitation and in the World Report on Disability. These developments offer a more inclusive approach to health and, more broadly, its inter-connected aspects of wellbeing. A concept which more proactively integrates United Nations conventions that recognise the importance of difference - disability, ethnicity, gender, children - could be of benefit for global healthcare policy and practice. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

All-automatic swimmer tracking system based on an optimized scaled composite JTC technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benarab, D.; Napoléon, T.; Alfalou, A.; Verney, A.; Hellard, P.

2016-04-01

In this paper, an all-automatic optimized JTC based swimmer tracking system is proposed and evaluated on real video database outcome from national and international swimming competitions (French National Championship, Limoges 2015, FINA World Championships, Barcelona 2013 and Kazan 2015). First, we proposed to calibrate the swimming pool using the DLT algorithm (Direct Linear Transformation). DLT calculates the homography matrix given a sufficient set of correspondence points between pixels and metric coordinates: i.e. DLT takes into account the dimensions of the swimming pool and the type of the swim. Once the swimming pool is calibrated, we extract the lane. Then we apply a motion detection approach to detect globally the swimmer in this lane. Next, we apply our optimized Scaled Composite JTC which consists of creating an adapted input plane that contains the predicted region and the head reference image. This latter is generated using a composite filter of fin images chosen from the database. The dimension of this reference will be scaled according to the ratio between the head's dimension and the width of the swimming lane. Finally, applying the proposed approach improves the performances of our previous tracking method by adding a detection module in order to achieve an all-automatic swimmer tracking system.

Rapid corn and soybean mapping in US Corn Belt and neighboring areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhong, Liheng; Yu, Le; Li, Xuecao; Hu, Lina; Gong, Peng

2016-11-01

The goal of this study was to promptly map the extent of corn and soybeans early in the growing season. A classification experiment was conducted for the US Corn Belt and neighboring states, which is the most important production area of corn and soybeans in the world. To improve the timeliness of the classification algorithm, training was completely based on reference data and images from other years, circumventing the need to finish reference data collection in the current season. To account for interannual variability in crop development in the cross-year classification scenario, several innovative strategies were used. A random forest classifier was used in all tests, and MODIS surface reflectance products from the years 2008-2014 were used for training and cross-year validation. It is concluded that the fuzzy classification approach is necessary to achieve satisfactory results with R-squared ~0.9 (compared with the USDA Cropland Data Layer). The year of training data is an important factor, and it is recommended to select a year with similar crop phenology as the mapping year. With this phenology-based and cross-year-training method, in 2015 we mapped the cropping proportion of corn and soybeans around mid-August, when the two crops just reached peak growth.

42 CFR 7.6 - Exemptions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL PROVISIONS DISTRIBUTION OF REFERENCE..., governmental institutions (e.g., State hospitals and universities), the World Health Organization, and ministries of health of foreign governments may be exempted from paying user charges, when using biological...

Popular Encyclopedias as a Source of Information about Copyright: A Critical Comparison.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Jerome K.

1983-01-01

Rating of five multi-volume encyclopedias ("Collier's Encyclopedia,""Encyclopedia Americana,""Encyclopedia Britannica (EB3),""World Book Encyclopedia,""Academic American Encyclopedia") used 20 evaluation criteria to determine usefulness in answering reference questions concerning copyright. Results…

Virtual Reality: An Overview.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Franchi, Jorge

1994-01-01

Highlights of this overview of virtual reality include optics; interface devices; virtual worlds; potential applications, including medicine and archaeology; problems, including costs; current research and development; future possibilities; and a listing of vendors and suppliers of virtual reality products. (Contains 11 references.) (LRW)

Communicating with the Net Generation

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-03-11

rich , digitally constructed communication and information world.2 Although this generation is often referred to as Generation Y or Millennial...Generations at Work, Millenials at Work, http://www.generationsatwork. com /articles_millennials_at_work.php (accessed November 21, 2010). 31 Thomas

World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2012

THOMAS, 112th Congress

Rep. Johnson, Bill [R-OH-6

2011-06-01

Senate - 01/26/2012 Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. (All Actions) Tracker: This bill has the status Passed HouseHere are the steps for Status of Legislation:

32 CFR 21.330 - How are the DoDGARs published and maintained?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

..., and sections, to parallel the CFR publication. Cross references within the DoD document are stated as... document on the World Wide Web at http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives. (c) A standing working group...

32 CFR 21.330 - How are the DoDGARs published and maintained?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

..., and sections, to parallel the CFR publication. Cross references within the DoD document are stated as... document on the World Wide Web at http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives. (c) A standing working group...

32 CFR 21.330 - How are the DoDGARs published and maintained?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

..., and sections, to parallel the CFR publication. Cross references within the DoD document are stated as... document on the World Wide Web at http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives. (c) A standing working group...

Regulatory challenges to global harmonization and expanded access to concentrates: how will regulators balance the increasing cost of new safety requirements with the desire to increase the availability of affordable product?

PubMed

Farrugia, A

2004-10-01

The provision of concentrates of the deficient coagulation factors is an essential component of the provision of comprehensive haemophilia care. Their safety, quality and efficacy need to be assured independently of the measures dictated by the market and the individual manufacturers. Over the past 20 years, this assurance has become the role of regulatory authorities, which in the developed world have generated a framework that assesses haemophilia products as medicines in the highest category of risk relative to other therapeutic agents. Systems of official regulation mandating standards and other measures are now coupled with voluntary standards adopted by industry bodies as additional features of a comprehensive nexus of arrangements contributing to product quality and risk minimization. Currently, the regulation of products for haemophilia in less developed economies relies on reference to decisions in the first-world authorities. This may not always result in optimal outcomes as most of the haemophilia care in the developing world is through local plasma and cryoprecipitate, which are not subject to the oversight of mainstream regulators. Furthermore, the emergence of companies based outside the developed world and seeking to supply the emerging economies of the developing world with haemophilia concentrates has necessitated new strategies for regulation that are independent of the established frameworks. Overall, the principles used by mainstream agencies may be applied in all environments seeking to assure the quality of haemophilia care. Applied properly, they can contribute to maintaining the delivery of a form of therapy that is nowadays amongst the safest in therapeutic practice. A rigid interpretation can seriously impede access to treatment, and therefore the development of independent expertise and appropriate strategies in assuring product safety and quality in the developing world is essential if patient safety and access to products can be assured.

NASA Planetary Visualization Tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogan, P.; Kim, R.

2004-12-01

NASA World Wind allows one to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging the combination of high resolution LandSat imagery and SRTM elevation data to experience Earth in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there. NASA World Wind combines LandSat 7 imagery with Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) elevation data, for a dramatic view of the Earth at eye level. Users can literally fly across the world's terrain from any location in any direction. Particular focus was put into the ease of usability so people of all ages can enjoy World Wind. All one needs to control World Wind is a two button mouse. Additional guides and features can be accessed though a simplified menu. Navigation is automated with single clicks of a mouse as well as the ability to type in any location and automatically zoom to it. NASA World Wind was designed to run on recent PC hardware with the same technology used by today's 3D video games. NASA World Wind delivers the NASA Blue Marble, spectacular true-color imagery of the entire Earth at 1-kilometer-per-pixel. Using NASA World Wind, you can continue to zoom past Blue Marble resolution to seamlessly experience the extremely detailed mosaic of LandSat 7 data at an impressive 15-meters-per-pixel resolution. NASA World Wind also delivers other color bands such as the infrared spectrum. The NASA Scientific Visualization Studio at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has produced a set of visually intense animations that demonstrate a variety of subjects such as hurricane dynamics and seasonal changes across the globe. NASA World Wind takes these animations and plays them directly on the world. The NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) produces a set of time relevant planetary imagery that's updated every day. MODIS catalogs fires, floods, dust, smoke, storms and volcanic activity. NASA World Wind produces an easily customized view of this information and marks them directly on the globe. When one of these color coded markers are clicked, it downloads the full image and displays it in the full context of its location on Earth. MODIS images are publication quality material at resolutions up to 250-meters-per-pixel. NASA World Wind provides a full catalog of countries, capitals, counties, cities, towns, and even historical references. The names appear dynamically, increasing in number as the user zooms in. World Wind is capable of browsing through and displaying GLOBE data based on any date one wishes planetary data for. That means one can download today's (or any previous day's) temperature across the world, or rainfall, barometric pressure, cloud cover, or even the GLOBE students' global distribution of collected data. This program is free and available for further development via the NASA Open Source Agreement guidelines.

Quality of drug information on the World Wide Web and strategies to improve pages with poor information quality. An intervention study on pages about sildenafil.

PubMed

Martin-Facklam, Meret; Kostrzewa, Michael; Martin, Peter; Haefeli, Walter E

2004-01-01

The generally poor quality of health information on the world wide web (WWW) has caused preventable adverse outcomes. Quality management of information on the internet is therefore critical given its widespread use. In order to develop strategies for the safe use of drugs, we scored general and content quality of pages about sildenafil and performed an intervention to improve their quality. The internet was searched with Yahoo and AltaVista for pages about sildenafil and 303 pages were included. For assessment of content quality a score based on accuracy and completeness of essential drug information was assigned. For assessment of general quality, four criteria were evaluated and their association with high content quality was determined by multivariate logistic regression analysis. The pages were randomly allocated to either control or intervention group. Evaluation took place before, as well as 7 and 22 weeks after an intervention which consisted of two letters with individualized feedback information on the respective page which were sent electronically to the address mentioned on the page. Providing references to scientific publications or prescribing information was significantly associated with high content quality (odds ratio: 8.2, 95% CI 3.2, 20.5). The intervention had no influence on general or content quality. To prevent adverse outcomes caused by misinformation on the WWW individualized feedback to the address mentioned on the page was ineffective. It is currently probably the most straight-forward approach to inform lay persons about indicators of high information quality, i.e. the provision of references.

Understanding Immersivity: Image Generation and Transformation Processes in 3D Immersive Environments

PubMed Central

Kozhevnikov, Maria; Dhond, Rupali P.

2012-01-01

Most research on three-dimensional (3D) visual-spatial processing has been conducted using traditional non-immersive 2D displays. Here we investigated how individuals generate and transform mental images within 3D immersive (3DI) virtual environments, in which the viewers perceive themselves as being surrounded by a 3D world. In Experiment 1, we compared participants’ performance on the Shepard and Metzler (1971) mental rotation (MR) task across the following three types of visual presentation environments; traditional 2D non-immersive (2DNI), 3D non-immersive (3DNI – anaglyphic glasses), and 3DI (head mounted display with position and head orientation tracking). In Experiment 2, we examined how the use of different backgrounds affected MR processes within the 3DI environment. In Experiment 3, we compared electroencephalogram data recorded while participants were mentally rotating visual-spatial images presented in 3DI vs. 2DNI environments. Overall, the findings of the three experiments suggest that visual-spatial processing is different in immersive and non-immersive environments, and that immersive environments may require different image encoding and transformation strategies than the two other non-immersive environments. Specifically, in a non-immersive environment, participants may utilize a scene-based frame of reference and allocentric encoding whereas immersive environments may encourage the use of a viewer-centered frame of reference and egocentric encoding. These findings also suggest that MR performed in laboratory conditions using a traditional 2D computer screen may not reflect spatial processing as it would occur in the real world. PMID:22908003

A systematic review of religious beliefs about major end-of-life issues in the five major world religions.

PubMed

Chakraborty, Rajshekhar; El-Jawahri, Areej R; Litzow, Mark R; Syrjala, Karen L; Parnes, Aric D; Hashmi, Shahrukh K

2017-10-01

The objective of this study was to examine the religious/spiritual beliefs of followers of the five major world religions about frequently encountered medical situations at the end of life (EoL). This was a systematic review of observational studies on the religious aspects of commonly encountered EoL situations. The databases used for retrieving studies were: Ovid MEDLINE In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, Ovid PsycINFO, Ovid Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Ovid Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Scopus. Observational studies, including surveys from healthcare providers or the general population, and case studies were included for review. Articles written from a purely theoretical or philosophical perspective were excluded. Our search strategy generated 968 references, 40 of which were included for review, while 5 studies were added from reference lists. Whenever possible, we organized the results into five categories that would be clinically meaningful for palliative care practices at the EoL: advanced directives, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, physical requirements (artificial nutrition, hydration, and pain management), autopsy practices, and other EoL religious considerations. A wide degree of heterogeneity was observed within religions, depending on the country of origin, level of education, and degree of intrinsic religiosity. Our review describes the religious practices pertaining to major EoL issues and explains the variations in EoL decision making by clinicians and patients based on their religious teachings and beliefs. Prospective studies with validated tools for religiosity should be performed in the future to assess the impact of religion on EoL care.

Description and classification of nonallophanic Andosols in south Ecuadorian alpine grasslands (páramo)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buytaert, Wouter; Deckers, Jozef; Wyseure, Guido

2006-02-01

The páramo is a neotropical alpine ecosystem that covers more than 75,000 km 2 of the northern Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru. It provides important environmental services: more than 10 million people in the Andean highlands benefit from the water supply and regulation function, which is attributed to the volcanic soils that underlie the ecosystem. The soils are also major carbon sinks of global significance. Severe land use changes and soil degradation threaten both the hydrology and carbon sink function. Nevertheless, soil genesis and properties in the páramo is rather poorly understood, nor are their ecological functions well documented. The impact of the geomorphology of the páramo on soil genesis was studied in the rio Paute basin, south Ecuador. Two toposequences were described and analysed. In each toposequence, four pedons were selected representing summit, backslope, undrained plain situation, and valley bottom positions in the landscape. The soils are classified as Hydric Andosols in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources and Epiaquands or Hydrudands in Soil Taxonomy. They are very acidic and have a high organic matter content, high P deficiency, and Al toxicity. Their water content ranges from 2.64 g g - 1 at saturation, down to 1.24 g g - 1 at wilting point, resulting in a large water storage capacity. Two major soil forming processes are identified: (1) volcanic ash deposition and (2) accumulation of organic carbon. Volcanic ash deposits may vary in depth as a result of regional geomorphological factors such as parent material, orientation, slope, and altitude. Organic carbon accumulation is an interaction of both waterlogging, which depends on the position in the landscape, and the formation of organometallic complexes with Al and Fe released during volcanic ash breakdown. Despite the high variability in parent material and topography, the soil is characterised by a notable homogeneity in physico-chemical properties. Statistical analysis reveals that only topographic location has a slight but significant influence on soil pH as well as the organic matter content, saturated conductivity and water retention at high pressure. Finally, the exceptional properties of these soils provide useful insights to improve classification of the Andosols reference group of the FAO World reference Base for Soil Resources.

Soils Diversity in the Southwest of Iberian Peninsula

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramírez, Beatriz; Fernández-Pozo, Luis; Cabezas, José; Alexandre Castanho, Rui; Loures, Luís

2017-04-01

Back in 1960 the Seventh International Congress of Soil Science has proposed to develop a World Soil Mapping at a scale of 1: 1000000, with a purpose of getting a systematic inventory of soils, and also to allow a transfer of experiences between different countries and institutions. The mapping process has been coordinated by the European Soil Bureau (ESBN) and the European Commission, along with the participation of the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), based on the classification proposed by the "World Reference Base for Soil Resource" (WRB, FAO, 1998). Throughout this mapping and helped by the European Soil Database (v2.0), a mapping of soils and their diversity, in the area under analysis on the present paper - EUROACE (Alentejo-Centro-Extremadura) in the Southwest of Iberian Peninsula - has been developed and assessed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and algorithms of diversity. The obtained results have shown that in this particularly territory it is possible to identify 12 Reference Soil Groups (RSG) at first level, and 26 at second level, predominating Regosols and Dystrict Regosols respectively, whereas in the Mediterranean Region (Biogeographical Regions of Europe, BGRE) are 22 and 71 correspondingly with predominant for Cambisols and Calcaric Cambisols. By the analysis and assessment of soil diversity, the Shannon Index (H') is lower in EUROACE (1,67 vs 2,42 and 2,52 vs 3,35 to first and second levels); the evenness (E) shows a more equal distribution in RSG at first level in the Mediterranean Region (0,70 vs 0,67) and lower at the second level (0,67 vs 0,77 in EUROACE). These results will enable the development of a more complete pedodiversity inventory in several other regions, and also as tools to the study of soil susceptibility which will allow not only to protect a very important part of European natural heritage, but also to take specific measures to increase a better land use and management, which leads to sustainability.

The worldwide collapse caldera database (CCDB): A tool for studying and understanding caldera processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Geyer, Adelina; Marti, Joan

2015-04-01

Collapse calderas are one of the most important volcanic structures not only because of their hazard implications, but also because of their high geothermal energy potential and their association with mineral deposits of economic interest. In 2008 we presented a new general worldwide Collapse Caldera DataBase (CCDB), in order to provide a useful and accessible tool for studying and understanding caldera collapse processes. The principal aim of the CCDB is to update the current field based knowledge on calderas, merging together the existing databases and complementing them with new examples found in the bibliography, and leaving it open for the incorporation of new data from future studies. Currently, the database includes over 450 documented calderas around the world, trying to be representative enough to promote further studies and analyses. We have performed a comprehensive compilation of published field studies of collapse calderas including more than 500 references, and their information has been summarized in a database linked to a Geographical Information System (GIS) application. Thus, it is possible to visualize the selected calderas on a world map and to filter them according to different features recorded in the database (e.g. age, structure). The information recorded in the CCDB can be grouped in seven main information classes: caldera features, properties of the caldera-forming deposits, magmatic system, geodynamic setting, pre-caldera volcanism,caldera-forming eruption sequence and post-caldera activity. Additionally, we have added two extra classes. The first records the references consulted for each caldera. The second allows users to introduce comments on the caldera sample such as possible controversies concerning the caldera origin. During the last seven years, the database has been available on-line at http://www.gvb-csic.es/CCDB.htm previous registration. This year, the CCDB webpage will be updated and improved so the database content can be queried on-line. This research was partially funded by the research fellowship RYC-2012-11024.

Nonvolatile, semivolatile, or volatile: redefining volatile for volatile organic compounds.

PubMed

Võ, Uyên-Uyén T; Morris, Michael P

2014-06-01

Although widely used in air quality regulatory frameworks, the term "volatile organic compound" (VOC) is poorly defined. Numerous standardized tests are currently used in regulations to determine VOC content (and thus volatility), but in many cases the tests do not agree with each other, nor do they always accurately represent actual evaporation rates under ambient conditions. The parameters (time, temperature, reference material, column polarity, etc.) used in the definitions and the associated test methods were created without a significant evaluation of volatilization characteristics in real world settings. Not only do these differences lead to varying VOC content results, but occasionally they conflict with one another. An ambient evaporation study of selected compounds and a few formulated products was conducted and the results were compared to several current VOC test methodologies: SCAQMD Method 313 (M313), ASTM Standard Test Method E 1868-10 (E1868), and US. EPA Reference Method 24 (M24). The ambient evaporation study showed a definite distinction between nonvolatile, semivolatile, and volatile compounds. Some low vapor pressure (LVP) solvents, currently considered exempt as VOCs by some methods, volatilize at ambient conditions nearly as rapidly as the traditional high-volatility solvents they are meant to replace. Conversely, bio-based and heavy hydrocarbons did not readily volatilize, though they often are calculated as VOCs in some traditional test methods. The study suggests that regulatory standards should be reevaluated to more accurately reflect real-world emission from the use of VOC containing products. The definition of VOC in current test methods may lead to regulations that exclude otherwise viable alternatives or allow substitutions of chemicals that may limit the environmental benefits sought in the regulation. A study was conducted to examine volatility of several compounds and a few formulated products under several current VOC test methodologies and ambient evaporation. This paper provides ample evidence to warrant a reevaluation of regulatory standards and provides a framework for progressive developments based on reasonable and scientifically justifiable definitions of VOCs.

A guide to experimental particle physics literature, 1991-1996

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

Ezhela, V.V.; Filimonov, B.B.; Lugovsky, S.B.

1996-10-01

We present an indexed guide to experimental particle physics literature for the years 1991 - 1996. Approximately 4200 papers are indexed by (1) Beam/Target/Momentum (2) Reaction/Momentum/Data-Descriptor (including the final state) (3) Particle/Decay (4) Accelerator/Experiment/Detector. All indices are cross-referenced to the paper`s title and references in the ID/Reference/Title index. The information presented in this guide is also publicly available on a regularly-updated DATAGUIDE database from the World Wide Web.

A Component-Based Vocabulary-Extensible Sign Language Gesture Recognition Framework.

PubMed

Wei, Shengjing; Chen, Xiang; Yang, Xidong; Cao, Shuai; Zhang, Xu

2016-04-19

Sign language recognition (SLR) can provide a helpful tool for the communication between the deaf and the external world. This paper proposed a component-based vocabulary extensible SLR framework using data from surface electromyographic (sEMG) sensors, accelerometers (ACC), and gyroscopes (GYRO). In this framework, a sign word was considered to be a combination of five common sign components, including hand shape, axis, orientation, rotation, and trajectory, and sign classification was implemented based on the recognition of five components. Especially, the proposed SLR framework consisted of two major parts. The first part was to obtain the component-based form of sign gestures and establish the code table of target sign gesture set using data from a reference subject. In the second part, which was designed for new users, component classifiers were trained using a training set suggested by the reference subject and the classification of unknown gestures was performed with a code matching method. Five subjects participated in this study and recognition experiments under different size of training sets were implemented on a target gesture set consisting of 110 frequently-used Chinese Sign Language (CSL) sign words. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed framework can realize large-scale gesture set recognition with a small-scale training set. With the smallest training sets (containing about one-third gestures of the target gesture set) suggested by two reference subjects, (82.6 ± 13.2)% and (79.7 ± 13.4)% average recognition accuracy were obtained for 110 words respectively, and the average recognition accuracy climbed up to (88 ± 13.7)% and (86.3 ± 13.7)% when the training set included 50~60 gestures (about half of the target gesture set). The proposed framework can significantly reduce the user's training burden in large-scale gesture recognition, which will facilitate the implementation of a practical SLR system.

Using a Topological Model in Psychology: Developing Sense and Choice Categories.

PubMed

Mammen, Jens

2016-06-01

A duality of sense categories and choice categories is introduced to map two distinct but co-operating ways in which we as humans are relating actively to the world. We are sensing similarities and differences in our world of objects and persons, but we are also as bodies moving around in this world encountering, selecting, and attaching to objects beyond our sensory interactions and in this way also relating to the individual objects' history. This duality is necessary if we shall understand man as relating to the historical depth of our natural and cultural world, and to understand our cognitions and affections. Our personal affections and attachments, as well as our shared cultural values are centered around objects and persons chosen as reference points and landmarks in our lives, uniting and separating, not to be understood only in terms of sensory selections. The ambition is to bridge the gap between psychology as part of Naturwissenschaft and of Geisteswissenschaft, and at the same time establish a common frame for understanding cognition and affection, and our practical and cultural life (Mammen and Mironenko 2015). The duality of sense and choice categories can be described formally using concepts from modern mathematics, primarily topology, surmounting the reductions rooted in the mechanistic concepts from Renaissance science and mathematics. The formal description is based on 11 short and simple axioms held in ordinary language and visualized with instructive figures. The axioms are bridging psychology and mathematics and not only enriching psychology but also opening for a new interpretation of parts of the foundation of mathematics and logic.

[Problem-based learning, description of a pedagogical method leading to evidence-based medicine].

PubMed

Chalon, P; Delvenne, C; Pasleau, F

2000-04-01

Problem-Based Learning is an educational method which uses health care scenarios to provide a context for learning and to elaborate knowledge through discussion. Additional expectations are to stimulate critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and to develop clinical reasoning taking into account the patient's psychosocial environment and preferences, the economic requirements as well as the best evidence from biomedical research. Appearing at the end of the 60's, it has been adopted by 10% of medical schools world-wide. PBL follows the same rules as Evidence-Based Medicine but is student-centered and provides the information-seeking skills necessary for self-directed life long learning. In this short article, we review the theoretical basis and process of PBL, emphasizing the teacher-student relationship and discussing the suggested advantages and disadvantages of this curriculum. Students in PBL programs make greater use of self-selected references and online searching. From this point of view, PBL strengthens the role of health libraries in medical education, and prepares the future physician for Evidence-Based Medicine.

Frontal and oblique crash tests of HIII 6-year-old child ATD using real-world, observed child passenger postures.

PubMed

Bohman, Katarina; Arbogast, Kristy B; Loeb, Helen; Charlton, Judith L; Koppel, Sjaan; Cross, Suzanne L

2018-02-28

The aim of this study was to evaluate the consequences of frontal and oblique crashes when positioning a Hybrid III (HIII) 6-year-old child anthropometric test device (ATD) using observed child passenger postures from a naturalistic driving study (NDS). Five positions for booster-seated children aged 4-7 years were selected, including one reference position according to the FMVSS 213 ATD seating protocol and 4 based on real-world observed child passenger postures from an NDS including 2 user positions with forward tilting torso and 2 that combined both forward and lateral inboard tilting of the torso. Seventeen sled tests were conducted in a mid-sized vehicle body at 64 km/h (European New Car Assessment Programme [Euro NCAP] Offset Deformable Barrier [ODB] pulse), in full frontal and oblique (15°) crash directions. The rear-seated HIII 6-year-old child ATD was restrained on a high-back booster seat. In 10 tests, the booster seat was also attached with a top tether. In the oblique tests, the ATD was positioned on the far side. Three camera views and ATD responses (head, neck, and chest) were analyzed. The shoulder belt slipped off the shoulder in all ATD positions in the oblique test configuration. In full frontal tests, the shoulder belt stayed on the shoulder in 3 out of 9 tests. Head acceleration and neck tension were decreased in the forward leaning positions; however, the total head excursion increased up to 210 mm compared to te reference position, due to belt slip-off and initial forward leaning position. These results suggest that real-world child passenger postures may contribute to shoulder belt slip-off and increased head excursion, thus increasing the risk of head injury. Restraint system development needs to include a wider range of sitting postures that children may choose, in addition to the specified postures of ATDs in seating test protocols, to ensure robust performance across diverse use cases. In addition, these tests revealed that the child ATD is limited in its ability to mimic real-world child passenger postures. There is a need to develop child human body models that may offer greater flexibility for these types of crash evaluations.

Analysis of semen parameters in male referrals: impact of reference limits, stratification by fertility categories, predictors of change, and comparison of normal semen parameters in subfertile couples.

PubMed

Baker, Karen; Li, Jianbo; Sabanegh, Edmund

2015-01-01

To [1] determine the impact of semen reference limits on referrals for male fertility evaluations, [2] analyze the stratification of subjects based on published "normal" thresholds, [3] analyze the odds of changing fertility categories during serial tests and thereby the potential impact of inherent variability of semen parameters on referrals, and [4] determine variable(s) predictive of change. Retrospective chart review. Academic referral center for male fertility. New encounters in a male fertility clinic over a 5-year period that straddles the publication of World Health Organization (WHO) 2010 reference values. None. Demographic and clinical variables, semen values, and fertility categories as follows: BE (below WHO 2010 criteria), BTWN (above WHO 2010 but below WHO 1999 criteria), and N (above WHO 1999 criteria). A total of 82.3% of initial semen tests were categorized as BE, and the predominance of this category was unchanged by publication of the WHO 2010 criteria. Men with initial semen analysis categorized as BTWN or N represented 16.2% and 1.5% of the referral population, respectively. Subjects initially categorized as BTWN were more likely to change fertility categories, and overwhelmingly this migration was downward. Analysis of normal individual semen parameters revealed statistically worse mean concentration and motility when at least one other parameter fell below the WHO 2010 criteria. Men with semen results above reference criteria are underrepresented, indicating that reference limits influence referral patterns for male fertility evaluations. Normal mean concentration and motility were lower in men with at least one other individual semen parameter below the 2010 criteria, suggesting global dysfunction in spermatogenesis. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Reference Values for Weight, Height, Head Circumference, and Body Mass Index in Turkish Children.

PubMed

Neyzi, Olcay; Bundak, Rüveyde; Gökçay, Gülbin; Günöz, Hülya; Furman, Andrzej; Darendeliler, Feyza; Baş, Firdevs

2015-12-01

This study aimed to integrate the existing updated reference standards for the growth of Turkish infants and children and to compare these values with World Health Organization (WHO) reference data, data from some European countries, and also with previous local data. Weight, height, and head circumference measurements were obtained on 2,391 boys and 2,102 girls who were regular attenders of a well child clinic and on 1,100 boys and 1,020 girls attending schools in relatively well-off districts in İstanbul. Mean number of measurements per child was 8.2±3.6 in the age group 0-5 years and 5.5±3.3 in the age group 6-18 years. All children were from well-to-do families and all were healthy. All measurements with the exception of measurements at birth, which were based on reported values, were done by trained personnel. The LMS method was used in the analyses and in the construction of the percentile charts. There is an increase in weight for age and body mass index values for age starting in prepubertal ages, indicating an increasing trend for obesity. Compared to WHO reference data, weight and height values in Turkish children were slightly higher in infants and in children younger than 5 years, while they showed similarity to those reported for children from Norway and Belgium. Head circumference values, which were slightly higher than the WHO references in the first 5 years, were comparable to the data on Belgian and Norwegian children in the first 9 years of life. At older ages, Turkish children showed higher values for head circumference. The relatively larger head circumference values were interpreted to reflect a genetic characteristic.

The World Hypotheses: Implications for Intercultural Communication Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ting-Toomey, Stella

The "sense making" process structures humans' categorization, perceptual, and expressive processes. These "sense making" references are ultimately derived from four distinct "root metaphors": mechanism or mechanistic thinking (machine), formism or formistic thinking (similarity), organicism or organistic thinking (organic process), and…

Studying Sensory Perception.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ackerly, Spafford C.

2001-01-01

Explains the vestibular organ's role in balancing the body and stabilizing the visual world using the example of a hunter. Describes the relationship between sensory perception and learning. Recommends using optical illusions to illustrate the distinctions between external realities and internal perceptions. (Contains 13 references.) (YDS)

Solar Eclipse

Atmospheric Science Data Center

2013-04-19

... June 10, 2002 the Moon obscured the central portion of the solar disk in a phenomenon known as an annular solar eclipse. Partial phases of ... to obscure about 75 percent of the solar disk. The two scenes are geolocated to adjacent paths within World Reference System-2. ...

A Sabbatical Journey into the Microbial World.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lundgren, Linda

1991-01-01

Presents research results on photosynthetic, carbon monoxide utilizing bacteria. Discusses applications of the research and offers three sets of experimental procedures and data that students analyze to determine which bacterium from a soil sample uses carbon monoxide fastest. (Contains 21 references.) (MDH)

VIEWCACHE: An incremental pointer-based access method for autonomous interoperable databases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roussopoulos, N.; Sellis, Timos

1992-01-01

One of biggest problems facing NASA today is to provide scientists efficient access to a large number of distributed databases. Our pointer-based incremental database access method, VIEWCACHE, provides such an interface for accessing distributed data sets and directories. VIEWCACHE allows database browsing and search performing inter-database cross-referencing with no actual data movement between database sites. This organization and processing is especially suitable for managing Astrophysics databases which are physically distributed all over the world. Once the search is complete, the set of collected pointers pointing to the desired data are cached. VIEWCACHE includes spatial access methods for accessing image data sets, which provide much easier query formulation by referring directly to the image and very efficient search for objects contained within a two-dimensional window. We will develop and optimize a VIEWCACHE External Gateway Access to database management systems to facilitate distributed database search.

Occupational Health in Eastern Europe

PubMed Central

Malan, R. M.

1963-01-01

Progress may be fostered as much by spreading information as by research. The aim of this review is to add to the existing knowledge of the pattern of occupational health services in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. The work consists of two main parts. Part I is based on official information issued by government departments or typewritten reports prepared by government officials, and relates mostly to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and to Czechoslovakia. Part II is largely based on direct observation, discussion, and comparison of the occupational health services in Czechoslovakia, of which I have more extensive knowledge than of the other countries of Eastern Europe. This part embodies a number of conclusions and is followed by a list of bibliographical references. Throughout the review I have endeavoured to show how problems which exist all over the world are dealt with in Eastern Europe. PMID:13932439

Managing a big ground-based astronomy project: the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sanders, Gary H.

2008-07-01

TMT is a big science project and its scale is greater than previous ground-based optical/infrared telescope projects. This paper will describe the ideal "linear" project and how the TMT project departs from that ideal. The paper will describe the needed adaptations to successfully manage real world complexities. The progression from science requirements to a reference design, the development of a product-oriented Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and an organization that parallels the WBS, the implementation of system engineering, requirements definition and the progression through Conceptual Design to Preliminary Design will be summarized. The development of a detailed cost estimate structured by the WBS, and the methodology of risk analysis to estimate contingency fund requirements will be summarized. Designing the project schedule defines the construction plan and, together with the cost model, provides the basis for executing the project guided by an earned value performance measurement system.

Electrochemical biosensors for Salmonella: State of the art and challenges in food safety assessment.

PubMed

Silva, Nádia F D; Magalhães, Júlia M C S; Freire, Cristina; Delerue-Matos, Cristina

2018-01-15

According to the recent statistics, Salmonella is still an important public health issue in the whole world. Legislated reference methods, based on counting plate methods, are sensitive enough but are inadequate as an effective emergency response tool, and are far from a rapid device, simple to use out of lab. An overview of the commercially available rapid methods for Salmonella detection is provided along with a critical discussion of their limitations, benefits and potential use in a real context. The distinguished potentialities of electrochemical biosensors for the development of rapid devices are highlighted. The state-of-art and the newest technologic approaches in electrochemical biosensors for Salmonella detection are presented and a critical analysis of the literature is made in an attempt to identify the current challenges towards a complete solution for Salmonella detection in microbial food control based on electrochemical biosensors. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Some characteristics of supernetworks based on unified hybrid network theory framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Qiang; Fang, Jin-Qing; Li, Yong

Comparing with single complex networks, supernetworks are more close to the real world in some ways, and have become the newest research hot spot in the network science recently. Some progresses have been made in the research of supernetworks, but the theoretical research method and complex network characteristics of supernetwork models are still needed to further explore. In this paper, we propose three kinds of supernetwork models with three layers based on the unified hybrid network theory framework (UHNTF), and introduce preferential and random linking, respectively, between the upper and lower layers. Then we compared the topological characteristics of the single networks with the supernetwork models. In order to analyze the influence of the interlayer edges on network characteristics, the cross-degree is defined as a new important parameter. Then some interesting new phenomena are found, the results imply this supernetwork model has reference value and application potential.

The use of animals in agriculture and science: historical context, international considerations and future direction.

PubMed

Bayvel, A C D

2005-08-01

As the final contribution to this important World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) publication, this paper provides some relevant background and contextual information and identifies a number of strategically significant international activities that will influence the future direction of animal welfare internationally. The assumption of an animal welfare leadership role by the OIE, with the full support of its 167 Member Countries, is an international development of major strategic significance. As an inter-governmental organisation, the OIE is committed to a science-based approach to the development of animal welfare guidelines and standards and to working closely with all stakeholders. This paper covers the use of animals in both agriculture and science, reflecting the OIE's dual remit for both animal health and animal welfare and the importance of animal-based research and testing to the OIE's animal health and reference laboratory roles.

Short-Term Memory Affects Color Perception in Context

PubMed Central

Olkkonen, Maria; Allred, Sarah R.

2014-01-01

Color-based object selection — for instance, looking for ripe tomatoes in the market — places demands on both perceptual and memory processes: it is necessary to form a stable perceptual estimate of surface color from a variable visual signal, as well as to retain multiple perceptual estimates in memory while comparing objects. Nevertheless, perceptual and memory processes in the color domain are generally studied in separate research programs with the assumption that they are independent. Here, we demonstrate a strong failure of independence between color perception and memory: the effect of context on color appearance is substantially weakened by a short retention interval between a reference and test stimulus. This somewhat counterintuitive result is consistent with Bayesian estimation: as the precision of the representation of the reference surface and its context decays in memory, prior information gains more weight, causing the retained percepts to be drawn toward prior information about surface and context color. This interaction implies that to fully understand information processing in real-world color tasks, perception and memory need to be considered jointly. PMID:24475131

A national reference for inactivated polio vaccine derived from Sabin strains in Japan.

PubMed

Shirato, Haruko; Someya, Yuichi; Ochiai, Masaki; Horiuchi, Yoshinobu; Takahashi, Motohide; Takeda, Naokazu; Wakabayashi, Kengo; Ouchi, Yasumitsu; Ota, Yoshihiro; Tano, Yoshio; Abe, Shinobu; Yamazaki, Shudo; Wakita, Takaji

2014-09-08

As one aspect of its campaign to eradicate poliomyelitis, the World Health Organization (WHO) has encouraged development of the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) derived from the Sabin strains (sIPV) as an option for an affordable polio vaccine, especially in low-income countries. The Japan Poliomyelitis Research Institute (JPRI) inactivated three serotypes of the Sabin strains and made sIPV preparations, including serotypes 1, 2 and 3 D-antigens in the ratio of 3:100:100. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan, assessed the immunogenic stability of these sIPV preparations in a rat potency test, according to an evaluation method recommended by the WHO. The immunogenicity of the three serotypes was maintained for at least 4 years when properly stored under -70°C. Based on these data, the sIPV preparations made by JPRI have been approved as national reference vaccines by the Japanese national control authority and used for the quality control of the tetracomponent sIPV-containing diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis combination vaccines that were licensed for a routine polio immunization in Japan. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

Simkin, T.; Tilling, R.I.; Taggart, J.N.

The Earth's physiographic features overlain by its volcanoes, earthquake epicenters, and the movement of its major tectonic plates are shown in this map. This computer-generated map of the world provides a base that shows the topography of the land surface and the sea floor; the additions of color and shaded relief help to distinguish significant features. From the Volcano Reference file of the Smithsonian Institution, nearly 1,450 volcanoes active during the past 10,000 yr are plotted on the map in four categories. From the files of the National Earthquake Information Center (US Geological Survey), epicenters selected from 1,300 large eventsmore » (magnitude {>=} 7.0) from 1987 onward and from 140,000 instrumentally recorded earthquakes (magnitude {>=} 4.0) from 1960 to the present are plotted on this map according to two magnitude categories and two depth categories. This special map is intended as a teaching aid for classroom use and as a general reference for research. It is designed to show prominent global features when viewed from a distance; more detailed features are visible on closer inspection.« less

A Combined Eulerian-Lagrangian Data Representation for Large-Scale Applications.

PubMed

Sauer, Franz; Xie, Jinrong; Ma, Kwan-Liu

2017-10-01

The Eulerian and Lagrangian reference frames each provide a unique perspective when studying and visualizing results from scientific systems. As a result, many large-scale simulations produce data in both formats, and analysis tasks that simultaneously utilize information from both representations are becoming increasingly popular. However, due to their fundamentally different nature, drawing correlations between these data formats is a computationally difficult task, especially in a large-scale setting. In this work, we present a new data representation which combines both reference frames into a joint Eulerian-Lagrangian format. By reorganizing Lagrangian information according to the Eulerian simulation grid into a "unit cell" based approach, we can provide an efficient out-of-core means of sampling, querying, and operating with both representations simultaneously. We also extend this design to generate multi-resolution subsets of the full data to suit the viewer's needs and provide a fast flow-aware trajectory construction scheme. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method using three large-scale real world scientific datasets and provide insight into the types of performance gains that can be achieved.

Evaluation of potential risks from ash disposal site leachate

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

Mills, W.B.; Loh, J.Y.; Bate, M.C.

1999-04-01

A risk-based approach is used to evaluate potential human health risks associated with a discharge from an ash disposal site into a small stream. The RIVRISK model was used to estimate downstream concentrations and corresponding risks. The modeling and risk analyses focus on boron, the constituent of greatest potential concern to public health at the site investigated, in Riddle Run, Pennsylvania. Prior to performing the risk assessment, the model is validated by comparing observed and predicted results. The comparison is good and an uncertainty analysis is provided to explain the comparison. The hazard quotient (HQ) for boron is predicted tomore » be greater than 1 at presently regulated compliance points over a range of flow rates. The reference dose (RfD) currently recommended by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) was used for the analyses. However, the toxicity of boron as expressed by the RfD is now under review by both the U.S. EPA and the World Health Organization. Alternative reference doses being examined would produce predicted boron hazard quotients of less than 1 at nearly all flow conditions.« less

The moon as a radiometric reference source for on-orbit sensor stability calibration

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stone, T.C.

2009-01-01

The wealth of data generated by the world's Earth-observing satellites, now spanning decades, allows the construction of long-term climate records. A key consideration for detecting climate trends is precise quantification of temporal changes in sensor calibration on-orbit. For radiometer instruments in the solar reflectance wavelength range (near-UV to shortwave-IR), the Moon can be viewed as a solar diffuser with exceptional stability properties. A model for the lunar spectral irradiance that predicts the geometric variations in the Moon's brightness with ???1% precision has been developed at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, AZ. Lunar model results corresponding to a series of Moon observations taken by an instrument can be used to stabilize sensor calibration with sub-percent per year precision, as demonstrated by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS). The inherent stability of the Moon and the operational model to utilize the lunar irradiance quantity provide the Moon as a reference source for monitoring radiometric calibration in orbit. This represents an important capability for detecting terrestrial climate change from space-based radiometric measurements.

From Intensity Profile to Surface Normal: Photometric Stereo for Unknown Light Sources and Isotropic Reflectances.

PubMed

Lu, Feng; Matsushita, Yasuyuki; Sato, Imari; Okabe, Takahiro; Sato, Yoichi

2015-10-01

We propose an uncalibrated photometric stereo method that works with general and unknown isotropic reflectances. Our method uses a pixel intensity profile, which is a sequence of radiance intensities recorded at a pixel under unknown varying directional illumination. We show that for general isotropic materials and uniformly distributed light directions, the geodesic distance between intensity profiles is linearly related to the angular difference of their corresponding surface normals, and that the intensity distribution of the intensity profile reveals reflectance properties. Based on these observations, we develop two methods for surface normal estimation; one for a general setting that uses only the recorded intensity profiles, the other for the case where a BRDF database is available while the exact BRDF of the target scene is still unknown. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations are conducted using both synthetic and real-world scenes, which show the state-of-the-art accuracy of smaller than 10 degree without using reference data and 5 degree with reference data for all 100 materials in MERL database.

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

Sepanski, R.J.; Boden, T.A.; Daniels, R.C.

This document presents land-based monthly surface air temperature anomalies (departures from a 1951--1970 reference period mean) on a 5{degree} latitude by 10{degree} longitude global grid. Monthly surface air temperature anomalies (departures from a 1957--1975 reference period mean) for the Antarctic (grid points from 65{degree}S to 85{degree}S) are presented in a similar way as a separate data set. The data were derived primarily from the World Weather Records and the archives of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office. This long-term record of temperature anomalies may be used in studies addressing possible greenhouse-gas-induced climate changes. To date, the data have been employed inmore » generating regional, hemispheric, and global time series for determining whether recent (i.e., post-1900) warming trends have taken place. This document also presents the monthly mean temperature records for the individual stations that were used to generate the set of gridded anomalies. The periods of record vary by station. Northern Hemisphere station data have been corrected for inhomogeneities, while Southern Hemisphere data are presented in uncorrected form. 14 refs., 11 figs., 10 tabs.« less

GetReal in mathematical modelling: a review of studies predicting drug effectiveness in the real world.

PubMed

Panayidou, Klea; Gsteiger, Sandro; Egger, Matthias; Kilcher, Gablu; Carreras, Máximo; Efthimiou, Orestis; Debray, Thomas P A; Trelle, Sven; Hummel, Noemi

2016-09-01

The performance of a drug in a clinical trial setting often does not reflect its effect in daily clinical practice. In this third of three reviews, we examine the applications that have been used in the literature to predict real-world effectiveness from randomized controlled trial efficacy data. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE from inception to March 2014, the Cochrane Methodology Register, and websites of key journals and organisations and reference lists. We extracted data on the type of model and predictions, data sources, validation and sensitivity analyses, disease area and software. We identified 12 articles in which four approaches were used: multi-state models, discrete event simulation models, physiology-based models and survival and generalized linear models. Studies predicted outcomes over longer time periods in different patient populations, including patients with lower levels of adherence or persistence to treatment or examined doses not tested in trials. Eight studies included individual patient data. Seven examined cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and three neurological conditions. Most studies included sensitivity analyses, but external validation was performed in only three studies. We conclude that mathematical modelling to predict real-world effectiveness of drug interventions is not widely used at present and not well validated. © 2016 The Authors Research Synthesis Methods Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. © 2016 The Authors Research Synthesis Methods Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.