Technology transfer within the government

The report of a workshop panel concerned with technology transfer within the government is presented. The suggested subtopics for the panel were as follows: (1) transfer from non-NASA U.S. government technology developers to NASA space missions/programs; and (2) transfer from NASA to other U.S. government civil space mission programs. Two presentations were made to the panel: Roles/Value of Early Strategic Planning Within the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) to Facilitate Later Technology Transfer To and From Industry; and NOAA Satellite Programs and Technology Requirements. The panel discussion addresses the following major issues: DOD/NASA cooperation; alternative mechanisms for interagency communication and interactions; current technology transfer relationships among federal research agencies, and strategies for improving this transfer; technology transfer mechanisms appropriate to intragovernment transfer; the importance of industry as a technology transfer conduit; and measures of merit

Acoustic Breath Detection and Classification: Modeling Respiratory Events

A continuation of research into modeling airway events of patients undergoing sedation is described. Sounds recorded at the trachea were recorded and separated by means of a threshold algorithm. The threshold was determined by the expectation maximization algorithm on filtered data. A comparison between the respiratory rate of the threshold algorithm and that of the direct airflow measure is done. Classification of the audio airway events is discussed using both Neural Networks and Polynomial Classifiers. Future work will be discusse

Histogram Classification of Acoustic Breath Sounds

A novel approach to classifying sounds recorded at the trachea is introduced. The sounds in question are normal breath sounds and snore sounds. The sounds are classified by a the combination of a histogram classifier and a repeated pulse counting classifier. Individually the classifiers performed poorly, but when used together they performed quite well. This is an ongoing study into developing an acoustic respiratory monitor

Reducing Background Noise Through a Stethoscope Cup Using Adaptive Filters

An adaptive filtering algorithm was used to test the validity of adaptively filtering respiratory signals recorded at the trachea with an external reference microphone. Two different setups were tested. The first used a microphone in open air, the second used a microphone that was housed inside a second stethoscope cup. The primary microphone was affixed to a phantom material. External sounds and music were played via aloud speaker to record additive noise data from within the stethoscope cup. Data showed that adaptive filtration using a secondary stethoscope cup was the most effective method to remove ambient noises

SumLINK statistic for linkage analysis: application to the ICPCG pooled linkage resource

posterWe propose a novel, genome-wide, linkagebased statistic, "sumLINK," for identification of disease susceptibility loci. Our approach focuses primarily on "linked" pedigrees (those with pedigree-specific LOD ? 0.588; equivalent to unadjusted p ? 0.05) to identify regions of extreme consistency across powerful pedigrees. The sumLINK statistic is simply the sum of multipoint LOD scores for linked pedigrees at a given point in the genome. The genetic factors underlying many complex human traits are poorly understood. Linkage findings are often difficult to replicate, and localizing the genes responsible for linkage signals is challenging. We believe that focusing on individually powerful pedigrees may give the greatest opportunity to identify and localize true susceptibility loci and the underlying genes

Paper Session III-C - The Commercial Development of Space and the Federal Regulatory Process

The commercial development of space is an important new space frontier. Achieving a robust family of domestic space industries depends on many factors, but it has been said within both government and industry that governments role can be the enabling factor or the show-stopping obstacle. Federal policy has increasingly emphasized commercial development of space, and the role of government as a venture capitalist or provider of physical resources (such as launch ranges, the Shuttle, and test facilities) has been widely discussed. Less attention has been paid in recent years to the role of government as regulator of space-related industries. This role is critical because it will be the main type of government involvement in commercial space activities in a truly commercial environment of the future. This paper examines the potential effects on the commercial development of space of federal regulation of space-related industries. It offers the establishment of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (OCST) as a policy success, in that OCST serves as the one-stop-shopping point for commercial launch firms, and examines other areas for federal action to reduce regulatory barriers to industry growth. In particular, it will consider the obstacles to doing business with foreign entities, including limitations on technology transfer, multiple agency authority, and the effect of national foreign policy objectives on business opportunities

The Research on Public Participation in Local Legislation ——Take Xiamen as an Example

1997年，党的十五大提出依法治国、建设社会主义法治国家的基本方略；1999年，“依法治国”正式写入宪法，明确规定“中华人民共和国实行依法治国，建设社会主义法治国家”；2007年，党的十七大做出“全面落实依法治国基本方略，加快建设社会主义法治国家”的战略部署。民主是法治国家必备的政治基础，完善的民主是法治国家的重要标志，立法并不必然是符合所有人意志的决定，但却应该是所有人参与立法决策过程的结果。2007年9月到2009年6月，西北政法大学教授王周户就“公众参与”项目在陕西西安、宝鸡进行了问卷调查。982份调查问卷结果显示：绝大多数人(78%)认为公民应该参与人大立法和政府决策；77%的被调查者...In the year of 1997, the 15th CCP congress raised the basic strategy of manage the state according to the rule of law and develop socialism law-based government; In the year of 1999, “running the country according to law” was formally written into the constitution law, “The People’s Republic of China governs the country according to law and makes it socialist country ruled by law.” was clearly dec...学位：法律硕士院系专业：法学院法律系_法律硕士(JM)学号：X200812013

Increasing trust in new data sources: crowdsourcing image classification for ecology

Crowdsourcing methods facilitate the production of scientific information by non-experts. This form of citizen science (CS) is becoming a key source of complementary data in many fields to inform data-driven decisions and study challenging problems. However, concerns about the validity of these data often constrain their utility. In this paper, we focus on the use of citizen science data in addressing complex challenges in environmental conservation. We consider this issue from three perspectives. First, we present a literature scan of papers that have employed Bayesian models with citizen science in ecology. Second, we compare several popular majority vote algorithms and introduce a Bayesian item response model that estimates and accounts for participants' abilities after adjusting for the difficulty of the images they have classified. The model also enables participants to be clustered into groups based on ability. Third, we apply the model in a case study involving the classification of corals from underwater images from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. We show that the model achieved superior results in general and, for difficult tasks, a weighted consensus method that uses only groups of experts and experienced participants produced better performance measures. Moreover, we found that participants learn as they have more classification opportunities, which substantially increases their abilities over time. Overall, the paper demonstrates the feasibility of CS for answering complex and challenging ecological questions when these data are appropriately analysed. This serves as motivation for future work to increase the efficacy and trustworthiness of this emerging source of data.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figure