GSearcher: Agile Attribute Querying for Biological Networks

Summary: GSearcher provides a highly interactive user experience in navigating attribute data associated with large and complex biological networks. The user may either perform a quick search using keywords, phrases or regular expressions, or build a complex query with a group of filters for efficient and flexible exploration of large datasets

Minicomputer Capabilities Related to Meteorological Aspects of Emergency Response

The purpose of this report is to provide the NRC staff involved in reviewing licensee emergency response plans with background information on the capabilities of minicomputer systems that are related to the collection and dissemination of meteorological infonmation. The treatment of meteorological information by organizations with existing emergency response capabilities is described, and the capabilities, reliability and availability of minicomputers and minicomputer systems are discussed

Ultimate Heat Sink Thermal Performance and Water Utilization: Measurements on Cooling and Spray Ponds

A data acquisition research program, entitled "Ultimate Heat Sink Performance Field Experiments," has been brought to completion. The primary objective is to obtain the requisite data to characterize thermal performance and water utilization for cooling ponds and spray ponds at elevated temperature. Such data are useful for modeling purposes, but the work reported here does not contain modeling efforts within its scope. The water bodies which have been studied are indicative of nuclear reactor ultimate heat sinks, components of emergency core cooling systems. The data reflect thermal performance and water utilization for meteorological and solar influences which are representative of worst-case combinations of conditions. Constructed water retention ponds, provided with absolute seals against seepage, have been chosen as facilities for the measurement programs; the first pond was located at Raft River, Idaho, and the second at East Mesa, California. The data illustrate and describe, for both cooling ponds and spray ponds, thermal performance and water utilization as the ponds cool from an initially elevated temperature. To obtain the initial elevated temperature, it has been convenient to conduct the measurements at geothermal sites having large supplies and delivery rates of hot geothermal fluid. The data are described and discussed in the text, and presented in the form of data volumes as appendices

US NRC emergency response dose assessment model

A new IBM PC-based dose assessment model has been written to replace the IRDAM model for use during response to emergencies. It is fast, very simple to use, and easy to modify, with separate modules of the source term, atmospheric transport, and dose models. The source term can be estimated based on isotopic ratios or on recently developed procedures that depend only on gross plant conditions. The atmospheric transport and dose models have been adapted from MESORAD. The transport model is a combination of a Lagrangian puff and Gaussian plume dispersion models. Doses are computed for whole body, lung, and thyroid for each grid location. 8 refs

Radiological Assessment System for Consequence Analysis (RASCAL) Version 3.0

The Radiological Assessment System for Consequence AnaLysis, Version 3.0 (RASCAL 3.0) is the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission�s (NRC) main computational tool for use during radiological emergencies. RASCAL estimates doses from radiological accidents for comparison with Protective Action Guides and acute health effects thresholds. It includes six computational tools: ST-Dose, FM-Dose, Decay, BackCalc, UF6Plume, and MetProc. ST-Dose computes time-dependent nuclide release rates, atmospheric transport, radiological decay, and doses. FM-Dose computes doses from environmental concentrations of nuclides. Decay computes radiological decay and daughter in-growth. BackCalc estimates a distribution of possible release rates from field measurements. UF6Plume computes uranium exposures and HF concentrations from a UF6 release. MetProc prepares meteorological data for use by ST-Dose and UF6Plume

Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision

We present an experimental test of a shirking model where monitoring intensity is endogenous and effort a continuous variable. Wage level, monitoring intensity and consequently the desired enforceable effort level are jointly determined by the maximization problem of the firm. As a result, monitoring and pay should be complements. In our experiment, between and within treatment variation is qualitatively in line with the normative predictions of the model under standard assumptions. Yet, we also find evidence for reciprocal behavior. Our data analysis shows, however, that it does not pay for the employer to solely rely on the reciprocity of employees

Risk factors for delay in symptomatic presentation: a survey of cancer patients

Background: Delay in symptomatic presentation leading to advanced stage at diagnosis may contribute to poor cancer survival. To inform public health approaches to promoting early symptomatic presentation, we aimed to identify risk factors for delay in presentation across several cancers. Methods: We surveyed 2371 patients with 15 cancers about nature and duration of symptoms using a postal questionnaire. We calculated relative risks for delay in presentation (time from symptom onset to first presentation >3 months) by cancer, symptoms leading to diagnosis and reasons for putting off going to the doctor, controlling for age, sex and deprivation group. Results: Among 1999 cancer patients reporting symptoms, 21% delayed presentation for >3 months. Delay was associated with greater socioeconomic deprivation but not age or sex. Patients with prostate (44%) and rectal cancer (37%) were most likely to delay and patients with breast cancer least likely to delay (8%). Urinary difficulties, change of bowel habit, systemic symptoms (fatigue, weight loss and loss of appetite) and skin symptoms were all common and associated with delay. Overall, patients with bleeding symptoms were no more likely to delay presentation than patients who did not have bleeding symptoms. However, within the group of patients with bleeding symptoms, there were significant differences in risk of delay by source of bleeding: 35% of patients with rectal bleeding delayed presentation, but only 9% of patients with urinary bleeding. A lump was a common symptom but not associated with delay in presentation. Twenty-eight percent had not recognised their symptoms as serious and this was associated with a doubling in risk of delay. Embarrassment, worry about what the doctor might find, being too busy to go to the doctor and worry about wasting the doctor’s time were also strong risk factors for delay, but were much less commonly reported (<6%). Interpretation: Approaches to promote early presentation should aim to increase awareness of the significance of cancer symptoms and should be designed to work for people of the lowest socioeconomic status. In particular, awareness that rectal bleeding is a possible symptom of cancer should be raised

Reform of Unemployment Compensation in Germany : A Nonparametric Bounds Analysis Using Register Data

Economic theory suggests that an extension of the maximum length of entitlement for unemployment benefits increases the duration of unemployment. Empirical results for the reform of the unemployment compensation system in Germany during the 1980s are less clear. The analysis in this paper is motivated by the controversial empirical findings and by recent developments in econometrics for partial identification. We use extensive administrative data with the drawback that registered unemployment is not directly observed. For this reason we bound the reform effect on unemployment duration over different definitions of unemployment. By exploiting the richness of the data we use a nonparametric approach without imposing critical parametric model assumptions. We identify a systematic increase in unemployment duration in response to the reform in samples that amount to less than 15% of the unemployment spells for the treatment group

HST/ACS observations of shell galaxies: inner shells, shell colours and dust

AIM:Learn more about the origin of shells and dust in early type galaxies. METHOD: V-I colours of shells and underlying galaxies are derived, using HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) data. A galaxy model is made locally in wedges and subtracted to determine shell profiles and colours. We applied Voronoi binning to our data to get smoothed colour maps of the galaxies. Comparison with N-body simulations from the literature gives more insight to the origin of the shell features. Shell positions and dust characteristics are inferred from model galaxy subtracted images. RESULT: The ACS images reveal shells well within the effective radius in some galaxies (at 1.7 kpc in the case of NGC 5982). In some cases, strong nuclear dust patches prevent detection of inner shells. Most shells have colours which are similar to the underlying galaxy. Some inner shells are redder than the galaxy. All six shell galaxies show out of dynamical equilibrium dust features, like lanes or patches, in their central regions. Our detection rate for dust in the shell ellipticals is greater than that found from HST archive data for a sample of normal early-type galaxies, at the 95% confidence level. CONCLUSIONS: The merger model describes better the shell distributions and morphologies than the interaction model. Red shell colours are most likely due to the presence of dust and/or older stellar populations. The high prevalence and out of dynamical equilibrium morphologies of the central dust features point towards external influences being responsible for visible dust features in early type shell galaxies. Inner shells are able to manifest themselves in relatively old shell systems.Comment: accepted by A&A; 36 Figures, 25 pages. A version with full resolution Figures can be found here: http://www.astro.rug.nl/~sikkema/shells.p

Increasing Dominance - the Role of Advertising, Pricing and Product Design

Despite the empirical relevance of advertising strategies in concentrated markets, the economics literature is largely silent on the effect of persuasive advertising strategies on pricing, market structure and increasing (or decreasing) dominance. In a simple model of persuasive advertising and pricing with differentiated goods, we analyze the interdependencies between ex-ante asymmetries in consumer appeal, advertising and prices. Products with larger initial appeal to consumers will be advertised more heavily but priced at a higher level - that is, advertising and price discounts are strategic substitutes for products with asymmetric initial appeal. We find that the escalating effect of advertising dominates the moderating effect of pricing so that post-competition market shares are more asymmetric than pre-competition differences in consumer appeal. We further find that collusive advertising (but competitive pricing) generates the same market outcomes, and that network effects lead to even more extreme market outcomes, both directly and via the effect on advertising