Plant canopy shape and the influences on UV exposures to the canopy

The solar spectra at selected sites over hemispherical, conical and pinnacle plant canopy models has been evaluated with a dosimetric technique. The irradiance at the sites varies by up to a factor of 0.31 compared to the irradiance on a horizontal plane. The biologically effective (UVBE) exposures evaluated with the dosimetric technique at sites over the plant canopy are up to 19% of that on a horizontal plane. Compared to a spectroradiometer, the technique provides a more practicable method of measuring the UVBE exposures at multiple sites over a plant canopy. Usage of a dosimeter at one site to provide the exposures at that site for different sun angles introduces an error of more than 50%. Knowledge of the spectra allowed the UV and UVBE exposures to be calculated at each site along with the exposures to the entire canopies. These were dependent on the sun angle and the canopy shape. For plant damage, the UVBE was a maximum of about 1.4 mJ cm-2/min. Compared to the hemispherical canopy, the UVBE exposure for generalised plant damage was 45% less for the pinnacle canopy and 23% less for the conical canopy. The canopy exposures could not be determined from measurements of the ambient exposure

PGS: a tool for association study of high-dimensional microRNA expression data with repeated measures

Motivation: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short single-stranded non-coding molecules that usually function as negative regulators to silence or suppress gene expression. Due to interested in the dynamic nature of the miRNA and reduced microarray and sequencing costs, a growing number of researchers are now measuring high-dimensional miRNAs expression data using repeated or multiple measures in which each individual has more than one sample collected and measured over time. However, the commonly used site-by-site multiple testing may impair the value of repeated or multiple measures data by ignoring the inherent dependent structure, which lead to problems including underpowered results after multiple comparison correction using false discovery rate (FDR) estimation and less biologically meaningful results. Hence, new methods are needed to tackle these issues. Results: We propose a penalized regression model incorporating grid search method (PGS), for analyzing association study of high-dimensional microRNA expression data with repeated measures. The development of this analytical framework was motivated by a real-world miRNA dataset. Comparisons between PGS and the site-by-site testing revealed that PGS provided smaller phenotype prediction errors and higher enrichment of phenotype-related biological pathways than the site-by-site testing. Simulation study showed that PGS provided more accurate estimates and higher sensitivity than site-by-site testing with comparable specificities. Availability: R source code for PGS algorithm, implementation example, and simulation study are available for download at https://github.com/feizhe/PGS

The Boot Lake MF imaging radar

The Middle-Atmosphere Imaging Radar is located at the Boot Lake field site, 10 miles east of Brighton, Colorado. It operates at 2.66 MHz with a 50-kW peak pulse power in 30 microsecond pulses. Ten independent coaxial-collinear antennas are used; five are parallel and run east-west, the other five are parallel and run north-south. Each antenna consists of eight half-wave dipoles. All ten antennas or a crossed pair may be used for transmission; all ten are sampled by pairs in rapid sequence for reception. The system is now operating on a campaign basis as a Fourier interferometer by measuring the complex voltages on the ten antennas and Fourier transforming them independently. Multiple scatterers within a single range gate, now sorted by velocity, can be located individually by their phase angles. The transmitted signal cycles through four modes (N-S linear, right-hand circular, E-W linear, and left-hand circular)

Prophylactic antibiotic regimens in tumour surgery (PARITY): a pilot multicentre randomised controlled trial.

ObjectiveClinical studies of patients with bone sarcomas have been challenged by insufficient numbers at individual centres to draw valid conclusions. Our objective was to assess the feasibility of conducting a definitive multi-centre randomised controlled trial (RCT) to determine whether a five-day regimen of post-operative antibiotics, in comparison to a 24-hour regimen, decreases surgical site infections in patients undergoing endoprosthetic reconstruction for lower extremity primary bone tumours.MethodsWe performed a pilot international multi-centre RCT. We used central randomisation to conceal treatment allocation and sham antibiotics to blind participants, surgeons, and data collectors. We determined feasibility by measuring patient enrolment, completeness of follow-up, and protocol deviations for the antibiotic regimens.ResultsWe screened 96 patients and enrolled 60 participants (44 men and 16 women) across 21 sites from four countries over 24 months (mean 2.13 participants per site per year, standard deviation 2.14). One participant was lost to follow-up and one withdrew consent. Complete data were obtained for 98% of eligible patients at two weeks, 83% at six months, and 73% at one year (the remainder with partial data or pending queries). In total, 18 participants missed at least one dose of antibiotics or placebo post-operatively, but 93% of all post-operative doses were administered per protocol.ConclusionsIt is feasible to conduct a definitive multi-centre RCT of post-operative antibiotic regimens in patients with bone sarcomas, but further expansion of our collaborative network will be critical. We have demonstrated an ability to coordinate in multiple countries, enrol participants, maintain protocol adherence, and minimise losses to follow-up. Cite this article: Bone Joint Res;4:154-162

Measuring Emotional Intelligence

The original UNH webpage about emotional intelligence was among the first online and publicly available sources of responsible information about emotional intelligence. Here, in revised form, is a central document regarding topics about emotional intelligence and focused in particular on the issues surrounding the measurement of emotional intelligence. The following document represents a reconstruction and update of the earlier UNH Emotional Intelligence site and information that was available on it. The reconstruction includes all the major essays and e-mail exchanges with colleagues about the theory that were relevant to emotional intelligence. As we transferred the material to the present website, it was lightly edited. The edits were limited to: Ensure all links were properly updated or proplerly referenced in APA style Correct typographical and orthographical mistakes in the earlier texts. Replace tables that had been formatted originally in HTML with formatting in MS Word (from which PDFs were made). During those edits, some tables were clarified or, if overly long, shortened to focus on what was important. For example, the tables reflecting types of data in the Measuring Emotional Intelligence section were updated and, in some instances, revised into bulleted lists; also, the table that included examples of hypothetical individuals who were low in personal intelligence was shortened to include fewer examples. The multiple individual posts on the original website were combined into the PDFs below. The first-level headings in the documents generally correspond to the names of the individual pages on the original website, with small exceptions

What is Emotional Intelligence?

The original UNH webpage about emotional intelligence was among the first online and publicly available sources of responsible information about emotional intelligence. Here, in revised form, is an introduction to the theory of emotional intelligence with additional commentary on its measurement. The following document represents a reconstruction and update of the earlier UNH Emotional Intelligence site and information that was available on it. The reconstruction includes all the major essays and e-mail exchanges with colleagues about the theory that were relevant to emotional intelligence. As we transferred the material to the present website, it was lightly edited. The edits were limited to: Ensure all links were properly updated or proplerly referenced in APA style Correct typographical and orthographical mistakes in the earlier texts. Replace tables that had been formatted originally in HTML with formatting in MS Word (from which PDFs were made). During those edits, some tables were clarified or, if overly long, shortened to focus on what was important. For example, the tables reflecting types of data in the Measuring Emotional Intelligence section were updated and, in some instances, revised into bulleted lists; also, the table that included examples of hypothetical individuals who were low in personal intelligence was shortened to include fewer examples. The multiple individual posts on the original website were combined into the PDFs below. The first-level headings in the documents generally correspond to the names of the individual pages on the original website, with small exceptions

Integrating E-Commerce and Data Mining: Architecture and Challenges

We show that the e-commerce domain can provide all the right ingredients for successful data mining and claim that it is a killer domain for data mining. We describe an integrated architecture, based on our expe-rience at Blue Martini Software, for supporting this integration. The architecture can dramatically reduce the pre-processing, cleaning, and data understanding effort often documented to take 80% of the time in knowledge discovery projects. We emphasize the need for data collection at the application server layer (not the web server) in order to support logging of data and metadata that is essential to the discovery process. We describe the data transformation bridges required from the transaction processing systems and customer event streams (e.g., clickstreams) to the data warehouse. We detail the mining workbench, which needs to provide multiple views of the data through reporting, data mining algorithms, visualization, and OLAP. We con-clude with a set of challenges.Comment: KDD workshop: WebKDD 200

Preliminary soilwater conductivity analysis to date clandestine burials of homicide victims

This study reports on a new geoscientific method to estimate the post-burial interval (PBI) and potential post-mortem interval (PMI) date of homicide victims in clandestine graves by measuring decomposition fluid conductivities. Establishing PBI/PMI dates may be critical for forensic investigators to establish time-lines to link or indeed rule out suspects to a crime. Regular in situ soilwater analysis from a simulated clandestine grave (which contained a domestic buried pig carcass) in a semi-rural environment had significantly elevated conductivity measurements when compared to background values. A temporal rapid increase of the conductivity of burial fluids was observed until one-year post-burial, after this values slowly increased until two years (end of the current study period). Conversion of x-axis from post-burial days to 'accumulated degree days' (ADDs) corrected for both local temperature variations and associated depth of burial and resulted in an improved fit for multiple linear regression analyses. ADD correction also allowed comparison with a previous conductivity grave study on a different site with a different soil type and environment; this showed comparable results with a similar trend observed. A separate simulated discovered burial had a conductivity estimated PBI date that showed 12% error from its actual burial date. Research is also applicable in examining illegal animal burials; time of burial and waste deposition. Further research is required to extend the monitoring period, to use human cadavers and to repeat this with other soil types and depositional environments

Measuring material wastage on construction sites: a case study of local authority highway projects

The construction industry in the UK is vast. It is one of the largest sectors of the economy with an output of over £100 billion, representing approximately 8% of the country’s GDP. The enormous amount of resources the industry consumes and produces coupled with the large number of construction companies in the market place has resulted in a growing awareness of the environmental impact of the construction industry. Construction produces more than 100 million tonnes of waste a year, representing more than 50% of the total waste production of the country. Of this waste, more than 60 million tonnes goes straight to landfill, three times more than all the domestic waste produced by the UK’s twenty one million homes. Increasing pressure on landfill sites coupled with the growing awareness of the environmental impact of the industry has made the minimisation of construction waste absolutely essential. The research project outlined in this paper attempts to measure material wastage occurring on selected Local Authority highway construction sites. To achieve this, a review will be undertaken to determine the main areas of interest in sustainable construction, construction waste production, and waste minimisation. Primary data will be collected in the form of measurements taken of theoretical and actual quantities of construction materials used during the course of selected highway projects. The results will be used to compare actual on-site material quantities against theoretical material quantities. The difference in these quantities will then be calculated, giving the amount of wastage occurring on site. The findings from this paper are drawn from both the secondary and the primary data analysis and statistical testing. The research concludes by suggesting a waste minimisation strategy for use on highway construction sites to try and reduce, re-use, and recycle the amount of construction waste local authority highway projects generate