County road administration : A guide for county court judges

"Governmental Affairs Program, Department of Political Science, College of Administration and Public Affairs and the University Extension Division Cooperating""8/81/600

Missouri County Sales Tax Act : its impact on nonmetropolitan counties

In 1979, Missouri property taxpayers paid a total of $1.15 billion in property taxes to local governments. Legislation passed in the 1979 General Assembly may provide a means of substituting sales tax revenues for a portion of the property tax burden. This guide outlines the County Sales Tax Act and provides a means for evaluating the impact of this act on county residents and property taxes.Reviewed October 1993

Parish plans as a source of evidence of Aboriginal land use in the Mallee back country

The nature of Aboriginal people's use, indeed occupation, of the Victorian Mallee 'back country' warrants detailed investigation. Probably arising out of the paucity of observations of Aboriginal people on the land before it was pastorally occupied, an historical analysis from the 1870s suggesting Aboriginal people were not occupiers but mere 'seasonal visitors' to the 'back country' was unquestionably accepted for the next century. Growing understanding of the fundamentally sophisticated ways in which Aboriginal people managed their land has led to some recent historical works with a revised understanding of land use in the 'back country', but there is no agreement to move away from the orthodox historical paradigm. Parish plans from the Mallee, part of PROV's 'Parish and township plans' collection, were investigated to determine whether they contain evidence of former Aboriginal land use that could inform this question. It was found that these plans can potentially reveal the presence of pre-colonial Aboriginal water management, pathways, quarries, land management, cemeteries and placenames. Thus, parish plans were shown to be a potentially valuable resource that might have the capacity to support a reinvestigation of Aboriginal land use in the 'back country'. Approaches for a more detailed investigation of the value of these plans are suggested

Addressing the impact of fracture during indentation of molecular crystals

There are inherent challenges in mechanical testing of anisotropic molecular crystals, one of which being their propensity for brittle fracture, which can limit the usage conditions of the material as well as the range of conditions in which mechanical testing results are valid. Molecular crystals, which contain the families of many energetic materials and pharmaceutical materials (in addition to ice), are commonly considered to be both compliant and brittle, and in most common forms the materials are used as small crystalline powders suspended in binders rather than in pure polycrystalline aggregates. Indentation testing on molecular crystals has previously been shown to be able to quantify modulus, hardness, and yield points in materials ranging from sucrose [1] to energetics and pharmaceuticals [2], [3]. To quantify the fracture response in materials that cannot be subjected to traditional toughness tests due to limited particle size and morphology, a technique is used in which nanoindentation tests are performed on a material with probes of varying acuity, and analysis of the unloading portion of the resulting load-depth curve indicates presence or lack thereof of radial cracking [4]. This technique has been used to define a radial cracking threshold for the secondary explosives HMX (cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine) and PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) of 4 mN as well as a cracking threshold beginning at 100 mN for the pharmaceutical idoxuridine. The low indentation fracture toughness in the explosives may be the reason for difficulty that has been seen previously in accurately obtaining mechanical property measurements over a wide range of depths in these materials. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Multicenter, randomized study to optimize bowel for colon capsule endoscopy

AIM To assess the cleansing efficacy and safety of a new Colon capsule endoscopy (CCE) bowel preparation regimen. METHODS This was a multicenter, prospective, randomized, controlled study comparing two CCE regimens. Subjects were asymptomatic and average risk for colorectal cancer. The second generation CCE system (PillCam® COLON 2; Medtronic, Yoqneam, Israel) was utilized. Preparation regimens differed in the 1st and 2nd boosts with the Study regimen using oral sulfate solution (89 mL) with diatrizoate meglumine and diatrizoate sodium solution (“diatrizoate solution”) (boost 1 = 60 mL, boost 2 = 30 mL) and the Control regimen oral sulfate solution (89 mL) alone. The primary outcome was overall and segmental colon cleansing. Secondary outcomes included safety, polyp detection, colonic transit, CCE completion and capsule excretion = 12 h. RESULTS Both regimens had similar cleansing efficacy for the whole colon (Adequate: Study = 75.9%, Control = 77.3%; P = 0.88) and individual segments. In the Study group, CCE completion was superior (Study = 90.9%, Control = 76.9%; P = 0.048) and colonic transit was more often \u3c 40 min (Study = 21.8%, Control = 4%; P = 0.0073). More Study regimen subjects experienced adverse events (Study = 19.4%, Control = 3.4%; P = 0.0061), and this difference did not appear related to diatrizoate solution. Adverse events were primarily gastrointestinal in nature and no serious adverse events related either to the bowel preparation regimen or the capsule were observed. There was a trend toward higher polyp detection with the Study regimen, but this did not achieve statistical significance for any size category. Mean transit time through the entire gastrointestinal tract, from ingestion to excretion, was shorter with the Study regimen while mean colonic transit times were similar for both study groups. CONCLUSION A CCE bowel preparation regimen using oral sulfate solution and diatrizoate solution as a boost agent is effective, safe, and achieved superior CCE completion. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved

Development of an Inexpensive, Haptic Graphical Display Device

A finger-worn haptic device capable of rendering 2-D graphics through vibrotactile feedback is presented. The device development is presented from its initial stages of being a stylus design using a photo-interrupter optical sensor and pager-motor actuator to a small case worn on the finger using a RGB color sensor and a piezoelectric actuator. Testing of the latest prototype design shows that it has a spatial sensitivity (\u3c2mm) comparable to natural touch (~1mm) and can be used to output a variety of vibrotactile textures. The design can be expanded for a multiple finger, independent device, while remaining affordable (\u3c$100) and highly portable (\u3c500g)

Development of a Multiple Contact Haptic Display with Texture-Enhanced Graphics

This dissertation presents work towards the development of a multiple finger, worn, dynamic display device, which utilizes a method of texture encoded information to haptically render graphical images for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. The device interacts directly with the computer screen, using the colors and patterns displayed by the image as a means to encode complex patterns of vibrotactile output, generating the texture feedback to render the image. In turn, the texture feedback was methodically designed to enable parallel processing of certain coarse information, speeding up the exploration of the diagram and improving user performance. The design choices were validated when individuals who are blind or visually impaired, using the multi-fingered display system, performed three-times better using textured image representations versus outline representations. Furthermore, in an open-ended object identification task, the display device saw on average two-times better performance accuracy than that previously observed for raised-line diagrams, the current standard for tactile diagrams