Lunar laser ranging data identification and management

Activity under the subject grant during the first half of fiscal year 1979 at the University of Texas at Austin is reported. Raw lunar laser ranging data submitted by McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis, Texas and by the Australian Division of National Mapping at Orroral Valley, Australia were processed. This processing includes the filtering of signal events from noise photons, normal point formation, data archive management, and data distribution. System-wide program maintenance and up-grade carried out wherever and whenever necessary. Lunar laser ranging data is being transmitted from Austin to Paris for the extraction of earth rotation information during the EROLD campaign

Hadamard Source Encoding Techniques Applied to Apollo Telemetry Links: An Evaluation

The effort described in this paper is an investigation of the possible improvement in performance of the Apollo Unified S-Band Telemetry links due to the use of the Hadamard transform as a means of source encoding. Both rapidly and slowly varying telemetry signals were considered and three sizes of the Hadamard matrix were used. Results indicate that as much as 3-db improvement in system performance may be obtained in systems operating at a 2% RMS error level

Real Rigidities and the Non-Neutrality of Money

Rigidities in real prices are not sufficient to create rigidities in nominal prices and real effects of nominal shocks. And, by themselves, small frictions in nominal adjustment, such as costs of changing prices, create only small non-neutralities. But this paper shows that substantial nominal rigidity can arise from a combination of real rigidities and small nominal frictions. The paper shows the connection between real and nominal rigidity given the presence of nominal frictions both in general and for several specific sources of real rigidity: costs of adjusting real prices, asymmetric demand arising from imperfect information, and efficiency wages.

Psychiatric morbidity among rural and slum female population: A comparative study

Background: Psychiatric disorders are more prevalent among women than men worldwide. The lifetime risk of depres­sion and dysthymia are twice as common in women as men. Rural women usually undergoes more stressful situations and also scores more on stress scale than that of urban and slum population. Objectives: The research objectives of this study are: 1) To find out the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among the study population. 2) To compare the disorders among the rural and slum female population. 3) To find out the influence of existing socio-demographic factors on psychiatric disorders. Method: This is a community-based study, which is also cross sectional and descriptive in nature. The sample for the main study constituted 366 randomly selected respondents. A two-staged screening procedure was carried in the study. First, the total population was studied by screening test-Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ) to divide the sample into 'screen positive' and 'screen negative' subjects. In the second stage, full assessment of a mixture of all 'screen positive' and 25% 'screen negative' was carried out by structured clinical interview for diagnosis (SCID-NP). Later SCID filled by the respondents was assessed by consultant psychiatrists by using DSMIV in order to put exact clinical diagnosis. Stress was scored according to Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale (PSLE). The total duration of the study was from July 2010 to June 2011. Results: Higher prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was found among rural sample (22.8%) than slum (10.90%) population. Regarding pattern of psychiatric disorders among rural sample (22.8%) than slum (10.9%) population.See the PDF for the rest of the abstract

Antimicrobial resistance of Shigella spp. isolated from diarrheal patients in Zahedan

One of the great challenges in the treatment of infectious diseases is the resistance of pathogenic bacteria against antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance to Shigella is broadly observed in different parts of the world. The object of this study was to determine Shigella antibiotic resistance pattern against the antibiotics such as ampicillin, amoxicillin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, chloramphenicol, nalidixic acid, ciprofloxacin and ceftriaxone. In this cross-sectional study, a total of 147 Shigella strains were collected from the diarrheic patients referring to different medical centers of Zahedan. Specific antisera were used for serotyping of isolated Shigella and their antibiotic resistance patterns were determined by standard Kirby-Bauer method. Of the 147 studied Shigella strains, 102 (69.3) belonged to S. flexneri, 32 (21.7) to S. dysenteriae, 11 (7.4) to S. boydii, and 2 (1.36) to S. sonnei species. The isolated strains showed resistance to ampicillin (99.3), trimethoprimsulfamethoxazole (52) and nalidixic acid (1.3), but there was no resistance against ciprofloxacin and ceftriaxone. According to the findings, it is suggested that antibiotics should not be used without laboratory testing (antibiogram). © 2008 Tehran University of Medical Sciences