An Analytical Study of the Effects of Age and Experience on Flight Safety

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are any significant decreases in the safety and effectiveness of pilots by age 60. The data for this study came from records of general aviation accidents (i.e., for private pilots, commercial pilots, and air transport pilots), and airline accidents (Part 121). These accident data were acquired from many specialized aviation data banks; these include: NTSB, AOPA, FAA, and the COMSIS Research Corporation. The data were organized into groups according to the ages of the pilots-in-command responsible for the accidents. Groupings progress in five-year increments starting at 20-24, and ending with 55-59. The data were analyzed in terms of both accidents per 1,000 pilots and accidents per 100,000 annual hours flown. The results indicate that age and experience both affect safety. The magnitude of these effects and their implications on flight safety are discussed

From toothpick legs to dropping vaginas: Gender and sexuality in Joan Rivers' stand-up comedy performance

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2011 Intellect.This article employs sociocultural analysis to examine Joan Rivers’ stand-up comedy performances in order to reveal how she successfully operates in a sphere of artistic expression that has been, and continues to be, male-dominated. The analysis uncovers how Rivers’ stand-up comedy performance involves a complex combination of elements and how it fuses features that are regarded as ‘traditionally masculine’, such as aggression, with features frequently used by other female stand-up comedians, such as self-deprecating comedy and confessional comedy. Furthermore, the analysis exposes the complex ways in which constructions of gender and sexuality are negotiated and re-negotiated in Rivers’ stand-up comedy performance, and illustrates how dominant ideological identity constructions can be simultaneously reinforced and subverted within the same comic moment

Mismatch Repair Genes Mlh1 and Mlh3 Modify CAG Instability in Huntington's Disease Mice: Genome-Wide and Candidate Approaches

The Huntington's disease gene (HTT) CAG repeat mutation undergoes somatic expansion that correlates with pathogenesis. Modifiers of somatic expansion may therefore provide routes for therapies targeting the underlying mutation, an approach that is likely applicable to other trinucleotide repeat diseases. Huntington's disease HdhQ111 mice exhibit higher levels of somatic HTT CAG expansion on a C57BL/6 genetic background (B6.HdhQ111) than on a 129 background (129.HdhQ111). Linkage mapping in (B6x129).HdhQ111 F2 intercross animals identified a single quantitative trait locus underlying the strain-specific difference in expansion in the striatum, implicating mismatch repair (MMR) gene Mlh1 as the most likely candidate modifier. Crossing B6.HdhQ111 mice onto an Mlh1 null background demonstrated that Mlh1 is essential for somatic CAG expansions and that it is an enhancer of nuclear huntingtin accumulation in striatal neurons. HdhQ111 somatic expansion was also abolished in mice deficient in the Mlh3 gene, implicating MutLγ (MLH1–MLH3) complex as a key driver of somatic expansion. Strikingly, Mlh1 and Mlh3 genes encoding MMR effector proteins were as critical to somatic expansion as Msh2 and Msh3 genes encoding DNA mismatch recognition complex MutSβ (MSH2–MSH3). The Mlh1 locus is highly polymorphic between B6 and 129 strains. While we were unable to detect any difference in base-base mismatch or short slipped-repeat repair activity between B6 and 129 MLH1 variants, repair efficiency was MLH1 dose-dependent. MLH1 mRNA and protein levels were significantly decreased in 129 mice compared to B6 mice, consistent with a dose-sensitive MLH1-dependent DNA repair mechanism underlying the somatic expansion difference between these strains. Together, these data identify Mlh1 and Mlh3 as novel critical genetic modifiers of HTT CAG instability, point to Mlh1 genetic variation as the likely source of the instability difference in B6 and 129 strains and suggest that MLH1 protein levels play an important role in driving of the efficiency of somatic expansions

Thermal responses of single zone offices on existing near-extreme summer weather data

There have been a number of attempts in the past to define “near extreme” weather for facilitating overheating analysis in free running buildings. The most recently efforts include CIBSE latest release of Design Summer Year (DSY) weather using multiple complete weather years and a newly proposed composite DSY. This research aims to assess how various single zone offices respond to these new definitions of near extreme weathers. Parametric studies were carried out on single zone offices through which four sampling sets of models were employed to examine the thermal responses of dry bulb temperature, global solar radiation & wind speed collectively. London weather data from 1976 to 1995 were used and the overheating assessments were made based on CIBSE Guide A & BS EN 15251. The research discovers that solar radiation and wind both influence the predicted indoor warmth with solar radiation has obvious stronger impacts than wind. No perfect correlation was found from observation and Spearman’s rank order analysis on the ranks between the weather warmth and the predicted indoor warmth. The ranks made using multiple weather parameters show better correlation than some of the dry bulb temperature only metrics. The research also discovers that the Test Reference Year weather behaves warmer than expected. It is also found that a single complete year can not represent the near-extreme consistently and there is no evidence a composite DSY is better statistically. These findings support the notion of using multiple complete warm weather years for overheating assessments

A decomposition algorithm for robust lot sizing problem with remanufacturing option

In this paper, we propose a decomposition procedure for constructing robust optimal production plans for reverse inventory systems. Our method is motivated by the need of overcoming the excessive computational time requirements, as well as the inaccuracies caused by imprecise representations of problem parameters. The method is based on a min-max formulation that avoids the excessive conservatism of the dualization technique employed by Wei et al. (2011). We perform a computational study using our decomposition framework on several classes of computer generated test instances and we report our experience. Bienstock and Özbay (2008) computed optimal base stock levels for the traditional lot sizing problem when the production cost is linear and we extend this work here by considering return inventories and setup costs for production. We use the approach of Bertsimas and Sim (2004) to model the uncertainties in the input

A Broad Phenotypic Screen Identifies Novel Phenotypes Driven by a Single Mutant Allele in Huntington’s Disease CAG Knock-In Mice

Huntington’s disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by the expansion of a CAG trinucleotide repeat in the HTT gene encoding huntingtin. The disease has an insidious course, typically progressing over 10-15 years until death. Currently there is no effective disease-modifying therapy. To better understand the HD pathogenic process we have developed genetic HTT CAG knock-in mouse models that accurately recapitulate the HD mutation in man. Here, we describe results of a broad, standardized phenotypic screen in 10-46 week old heterozygous HdhQ111 knock-in mice, probing a wide range of physiological systems. The results of this screen revealed a number of behavioral abnormalities in HdhQ111/+ mice that include hypoactivity, decreased anxiety, motor learning and coordination deficits, and impaired olfactory discrimination. The screen also provided evidence supporting subtle cardiovascular, lung, and plasma metabolite alterations. Importantly, our results reveal that a single mutant HTT allele in the mouse is sufficient to elicit multiple phenotypic abnormalities, consistent with a dominant disease process in patients. These data provide a starting point for further investigation of several organ systems in HD, for the dissection of underlying pathogenic mechanisms and for the identification of reliable phenotypic endpoints for therapeutic testing

Biochemical, Histopathological and Therapeutic Studies in Alloxan- and Streptozotocin-induced Diabetes Mellitus in Rabbits.

The present experimental study was designed to establish diabetes mellitus in New Zealand white rabbits using diabetogenic drugs so as to investigate/elucidate biochemical, histopathological and behavioural changes/complications. In one group of rabbits diabetes mellitus was induced by intraperitoneal administration of alloxan (@ 80 mg/kg b.w.) and the other group of rabbits was made diabetic using intravenous administration of streptozotocin (@ 65 mg/kg b.w.).Another group of rabbits was kept as control (normal healthy) which received normal saline. The establishment of diabetes mellitus in rabbits was confirmed by periodical elevated levels of fasting blood glucose, blood urea and serum creatinine. The subsequent effect of hyperglycemia on tissue morphology of diabetic rabbits was studied by processing of different organs viz., pancreas, kidneys, liver, lungs, heart, brain and gut of both diabetic and normal rabbits for histological/hiostopathological study using Haematoxylin and Eosin stain and modified Gomori’s staining technique.Digital copy of Thesis.University of Kashmir

A spectroscopic study of the structure of amorphous hydrogenated carbon

A range of amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) samples have been studied using inelastic neutron spectroscopy (INS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Using these complementary techniques, the bonding environments of both carbon and hydrogen can be probed in some detail, with the INS data providing not only qualitative but also quantitative information. By comparing the data from each of the samples we have been able to examine the effects of different deposition conditions, i.e. precursor gas, deposition energy and deposition method, on the atomic-scale structure of a-C:H

Diversity and Bioecological studies of butterflies of Kashmir Himalaya.

Butterflies are the most abundant group of insects on the earth which belong to the insect order Lepidoptera, under phylum Arthropoda and are recognizable among the general public, and science due to their beautiful colours, and graceful flight. The butterflies are found in every part of the world wherever the flowering plants are existing and even in very high-altitude, arctic, antarctic mountains, covered with perpetual snow and glaciers. Butterflies are one of the best studied groups, not only geographical subspecies, but even varieties, races, seasonal and sexual forms have been named and described from different regions of the world. The study area, Kashmir Valley, is of paramount importance, because of its central position in Asia, and also as a doorway in between Palaearctic and Oriental region in the Northern India. Kashmir Valley lies between 330.20/ and 430.54/ N Latitude and 730.55/ and 750.35/ E Longitude, covering an area of 15,948 Sq. Kms. Topographically, it is a deep elliptical bowl-shaped valley bounded by lofty mountains of the Pir Panjal Range in the south and south east and the Great Himalayan Range in the north and east, with 64% of the total area being mountainous. The valley is an asymmetrical fertile basin stretching from northeast to northwesterly direction. Its diagonal length (from southeast to northwest corner) is 187 Km, while the breadth varies considerably, being 115.6 Km along the latitude of Srinagar. The altitude of the floor of the valley at Srinagar is 1600m (above sea level). On the basis of temperature and precipitation, the Kashmir valley has four seasons as: (a) Winter Season (December to February); (b) Spring Season (March to May); (c) Summer Season (June to August) and (d) Autumn Season (September to November) in a year.Digital copy of ThesisUniversity of Kashmi

Swift trust and commitment: the missing links for humanitarian supply chain coordination?

Coordination among actors in a humanitarian relief supply chain decides whether a relief operation can be or successful or not. In humanitarian supply chains, due to the urgency and importance of the situation combined with scarce resources, actors have to coordinate and trust each other in order to achieve joint goals. This paper investigated empirically the role of swift trust as mediating variable for achieving supply chain coordination. Based on commitment-trust theory we explore enablers of swift-trust and how swift trust translates into coordination through commitment. Based on a path analytic model we test data from the National Disaster Management Authority of India. Our study is the first testing commitment-trust theory (CTT) in the humanitarian context, highlighting the importance of swift trust and commitment for much thought after coordination. Furthermore, the study shows that information sharing and behavioral uncertainty reduction act as enablers for swift trust. The study findings offer practical guidance and suggest that swift trust is a missing link for the success of humanitarian supply chains