Development of user guidelines for ECAS display design, volume 1

Experiment computer application software (ECAS) display design and command usage guidelines were developed, which if followed by spacelab experiments, would standardize methods and techniques for data presentation and commanding via ECAS. These guidelines would provide some commonality among experiments which would enhance crew training and flight operations. The guidelines are applicable to all onboard experiment displays, whether allocated by ECAS or a dedicated experiment processor. A brief description of the spacelab data display system characteristics and of the services provided by the experiment computer operating system is included. Guidelines concerning data presentation and layout of alphanumeric and graphic information are presented along with guidelines concerning keyboard commanding and command feedback

ECAS A-B-C:alternate forms of the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen

BACKGROUND: The Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen (ECAS) is a short assessment by which neuropsychological symptoms can be detected and quantified in people with ALS. To avoid potential practice effects with repeated administration, here we present alternative versions of the ECAS suitable for measuring change over time.  OBJECTIVE: To develop two alternate versions of the ECAS: ECAS-B and ECAS-C.  METHOD: One hundred and forty-nine healthy adult participants were recruited. Thirty participants completed a pilot study in developing the alternate versions. Two groups of 40 participants were administered the ECAS-B or ECAS-C and compared to published data of the original ECAS (ECAS-A) to determine equivalence. An additional 39 participants were administered the ECAS consecutively, either repeating the original version (ECAS-A-A-A) serially or the different versions (ECAS-A-B-C) to determine potential practice effects. Recordings of assessments were scored by a second researcher to determine inter-rater reliability.  RESULTS: No significant differences were found between versions (A, B, C) of the composite performance measures of ALS Specific, ALS Non-Specific, and ECAS Total scores. Repeated serial administration of ECAS-A (A-A-A) produced some practice effects for composite scores, whereas no such effects were found when alternate versions were administered serially (A-B-C). Exceptionally high intra-class correlations were found for all three versions of the ECAS suggesting a high degree of rater agreement.  CONCLUSION: The newly developed alternate forms of the ECAS are both highly equitable to the original ECAS-A and enable avoidance of practice effects, thus supporting their use in measuring cognition and behaviour over time

Final Report: Conference in Paris on 29 June 2012 - How to Communicate About the European Citizens' Initiative?

The 29 June 2012 conference, entitled "How to communicate about the European Citizens' Initiative?" falls within the ambit of a project launched by our partner ECAS (European Citizen Action Service). Since 2010, Toute l'Europe has gone into partnership with ECAS, in order to contribute to the creation of the European Civil Society House which aims to make available to European citizens, both physically and virtually, an assistance platform for the following tools:The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI);The European Parliament's system of petitions;The referral of cases to the European Ombudsman;The complaint procedure before the European Commission; andAccess to the documentary resources of the European institutions

Exporting Destruction: Export Credits, Illegal Logging and Deforestation

Analyzes case studies of the role of export credit agencies, which make government-subsidized loans to companies doing business in countries considered investment risks, in supporting illegal logging, corruption, and deforestation. Lists policy options

Being an Early-Career CMS Academic in the Context of Insecurity and ‘Excellence’: The Dialectics of Resistance and Compliance

Drawing on a dialectical approach to resistance, we conceptualise the latter as a multifaceted, pervasive and contradictory phenomenon. This enables us to examine the predicament in which early-career Critical Management Studies academics find themselves in the current times of academic insecurity and ‘excellence’, as gleaned through this group’s understandings of themselves as resisters and participants in the complex and contradictory forces constituting their field. We draw on 24 semi-structured interviews to map our participants’ accounts of themselves as resisters in terms of different approaches to tensions and contradictions between, on the one hand, the interviewees’ Critical Management Studies alignment and, on the other, the ethos of business school neoliberalism. Emerging from this analysis are three contingent and interlinked narratives of resistance and identity – diplomatic, combative and idealistic – each of which encapsulates a particular mode (negotiation, struggle, and laying one’s own path) of engaging with the relationship between Critical Management Studies and the business school ethos. The three narratives show how early-career Critical Management Studies academics not only use existing tensions, contradictions, overlaps and alliances between these positions to resist and comply with selected forces within each, but also contribute to the (re-)making of such overlaps, alliances, tensions and contradictions. Through this reworking of what it means to be both Critical Management Studies scholars and business school academics, we argue, early-career Critical Management Studies academics can be seen as active resisters and re-constituters of their complex field

Modification of the ECAS reference steam power generating plant to comply with the EPA 1979 new source performance standards

Detailed capital cost estimates for the ECAS and modified reference plants in mid-1978 dollars for both 250 and 175 F (394 and 353 K) stack gas reheat temperatures based on the cost estimates developed for the ECAS study are presented. The scope of the work included technical assessment of sulfur dioxide scrubber system design, on site calcination versus purchased lime, reheat of stack gas, effect of sulfur dioxide scrubber on particulate emission, and control of nitrogen oxides

The Changing Landscape of Export Credit Agencies in the Context of the Global Financial Crisis

Explores the increase since 2008 in official ECAs' guarantees for financing trade and investment, regional cooperation, ties with multilateral development banks, and public-private partnerships. Calls for monitoring of transparency and accountability

Identification of cellular automata based on incomplete observations with bounded time gaps

In this paper, the problem of identifying the cellular automata (CAs) is considered. We frame and solve this problem in the context of incomplete observations, i.e., prerecorded, incomplete configurations of the system at certain, and unknown time stamps. We consider 1-D, deterministic, two-state CAs only. An identification method based on a genetic algorithm with individuals of variable length is proposed. The experimental results show that the proposed method is highly effective. In addition, connections between the dynamical properties of CAs (Lyapunov exponents and behavioral classes) and the performance of the identification algorithm are established and analyzed