KLAIM: A Kernel Language for Agents Interaction and Mobility

We investigate the issue of designing a kernel programming language for mobile computing and describe KLAIM, a language that supports a programming paradigm where processes, like data, can be moved from one computing environment to another. The language consists of a core Linda with multiple tuple spaces and of a set of operators for building processes. KLAIM naturally supports programming with explicit localities. Localities are first-class data (they can be manipulated like any other data), but the language provides coordination mechanisms to control the interaction protocols among located processes. The formal operational semantics is useful for discussing the design of the language and provides guidelines for implementations. KLAIM is equipped with a type system that statically checks access rights violations of mobile agents. Types are used to describe the intentions (read, write, execute, etc.) of processes in relation to the various localities. The type system is used to determine the operations that processes want to perform at each locality, and to check whether they comply with the declared intentions and whether they have the necessary rights to perform the intended operations at the specific localities. Via a series of examples, we show that many mobile code programming paradigms can be naturally implemented in our kernel language. We also present a prototype implementaton of KLAIM in Java

Shared visiting in Equator city

In this paper we describe an infrastructure and prototype system for sharing of visiting experiences across multiple media. The prototype supports synchronous co-visiting by physical and digital visitors, with digital access via either the World Wide Web or 3-dimensional graphics

Exploiting replication in distributed systems

Techniques are examined for replicating data and execution in directly distributed systems: systems in which multiple processes interact directly with one another while continuously respecting constraints on their joint behavior. Directly distributed systems are often required to solve difficult problems, ranging from management of replicated data to dynamic reconfiguration in response to failures. It is shown that these problems reduce to more primitive, order-based consistency problems, which can be solved using primitives such as the reliable broadcast protocols. Moreover, given a system that implements reliable broadcast primitives, a flexible set of high-level tools can be provided for building a wide variety of directly distributed application programs

Roadmap of ultrafast x-ray atomic and molecular physics

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) and table-top sources of x-rays based upon high harmonic generation (HHG) have revolutionized the field of ultrafast x-ray atomic and molecular physics, largely due to an explosive growth in capabilities in the past decade. XFELs now provide unprecedented intensity (1020 W cm−2) of x-rays at wavelengths down to ~1 Ångstrom, and HHG provides unprecedented time resolution (~50 attoseconds) and a correspondingly large coherent bandwidth at longer wavelengths. For context, timescales can be referenced to the Bohr orbital period in hydrogen atom of 150 attoseconds and the hydrogen-molecule vibrational period of 8 femtoseconds; wavelength scales can be referenced to the chemically significant carbon K-edge at a photon energy of ~280 eV (44 Ångstroms) and the bond length in methane of ~1 Ångstrom. With these modern x-ray sources one now has the ability to focus on individual atoms, even when embedded in a complex molecule, and view electronic and nuclear motion on their intrinsic scales (attoseconds and Ångstroms). These sources have enabled coherent diffractive imaging, where one can image non-crystalline objects in three dimensions on ultrafast timescales, potentially with atomic resolution. The unprecedented intensity available with XFELs has opened new fields of multiphoton and nonlinear x-ray physics where behavior of matter under extreme conditions can be explored. The unprecedented time resolution and pulse synchronization provided by HHG sources has kindled fundamental investigations of time delays in photoionization, charge migration in molecules, and dynamics near conical intersections that are foundational to AMO physics and chemistry. This roadmap coincides with the year when three new XFEL facilities, operating at Ångstrom wavelengths, opened for users (European XFEL, Swiss-FEL and PAL-FEL in Korea) almost doubling the present worldwide number of XFELs, and documents the remarkable progress in HHG capabilities since its discovery roughly 30 years ago, showcasing experiments in AMO physics and other applications. Here we capture the perspectives of 17 leading groups and organize the contributions into four categories: ultrafast molecular dynamics, multidimensional x-ray spectroscopies; high-intensity x-ray phenomena; attosecond x-ray science

Assessing the Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS on Nigerian Households: A Propensity Score Matching Approach

We assess the impact of HIV/AIDS on individuals’ health care utilization and spending in the Oyo and Plateau states of Nigeria and income foregone from work time lost. Data was from a 2004 survey of nearly 1,500 households, including 482 individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Estimating the effect of HIV is complicated by the fact that our sample of HIV positive individuals is non-random; there are selection effects, both in acquiring HIV, and in being in our sample our HIV positive people, which was based on contacts through non-governmental organizations. To overcome this selection effect, we compare HIV positive people with a control group with similar observed characteristics, using propensity score matching. The matched control group has very different health and economic outcomes than a random sample of the population indicating that our HIV sample would not have had "average" outcomes even if they had not acquired HIV. HIV is associated with significantly increased morbidity, health care utilization, public health facility use, lost work time and increased time devoted to care-giving relative to outcomes in the control group. Direct health care costs and indirect income loss per HIV positive individual were 16,569 Naira, about 32% of annual income per capita in affected households. About 40% of these costs are income losses associated with sickness and care-giving. 15% of the cost of HIV is accounted for by public subsidies on health. The largest single economic cost, representing 45% of the total economic burden of HIV, are out of pocket expenses, mainly for health care.HIV, Nigeria, Economic Impacts, Households, Direct Costs, Propensity Score

ReSpecTX: Programming Interaction Made Easy

In this paper we present the ReSpecTX language, toolchain, and standard library as a first step of a path aimed at closing the gap between coordination languages \u2013 mostly a prerogative of the academic realm until now \u2013 and their industrial counterparts. Since the limited adoption of coordination languages within the industrial realm is also due to the lack of suitable toolchains and libraries of reusable mechanisms, ReSpecTX equips a core coordination language (ReSpecT) with tools and features commonly found in mainstream programming languages. In particular, ReSpecTX makes it possible to provide a reference library of reusable and composable interaction patterns

Nurses Alumni Association Bulletin, Fall 1996

1996-1997 Meeting Dates Calendar 1997 Annual Luncheon-Meeting Notice Inside Officers and Committee Chairs Bulletin Publication Committee 1996-1997 Meeting Dates Calendar The President\u27s Message Treasurer\u27s Report News About Our Graduates Letter To Jefferson Nurses Fiftieth Anniversary Resume\u27 of Minutes of Alumni Association Meetings Alumni Office News Nursing Up-Date 1995-1996 Scholarship Funds At Work Diploma School of Nursing Alumni Association-Mabel C. Prevost Scholarship Report 1995 Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation Operation Support Freedom - Humanitarian Aid to Kiev The Best Mousetrap - Computers In Nursing Christmas, As A Prisoner Of War Restroom Policy Happy Birthday Committee Reports Bulletin Development Relief Fund Satellite Scholarship Social Luncheon Photos In Memoriam, Names of Deceased Graduates Class News Membership Application Relief Fund Application To Order: A Chronological History and Alumni Directory From TJU Bookstore Scholarship Fund Applicatio Pins, Transcripts, Class Address List, Change of Address Forms Campus Ma

Geography and Racial Health Disparities

An extensive literature has documented racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health care and health outcomes. We argue that the influence of geography in medical practice needs to be taken seriously for both the statistical measurement of racial disparities, and in designing reforms to reduce disparities. Past research has called attention to disparities that occur within hospitals or provider groups; for example black patients who are treated differently from whites within a hospital. We focus on a different mechanism for disparities; African-Americans tend to live in areas or seek care in regions where quality levels for all patients, black and white, are lower. Thus ensuring equal access to health care at the local or hospital level may not by itself erase overall health care disparities. However, reducing geographic disparities in both the quality of care, and the quality of health care decisions by patients, could have a first-order impact on improving racial disparities in health care and health outcomes.