Developing Team Cohesion: A Quasi-field Experiment

Within military organizations, research findings have lent support to the positive influence cohesion has on group performance in combat and non-combat areas, Beyond performance, research findings show that cohesion influences the job satisfaction, and health of military members, particularly under highly stressful conditions, such as those encountered in combat or extended deployments. The purpose of this research effort is to further analyze the strategies that should be used to develop cohesiveness among Air Force members. This was done by testing the extent to which cohesion changed when familiarization and challenging situations were coupled in a technical training course geared towards junior military officers. The findings suggest that over short periods of stressful activity, with a familiarized group, cohesion as a whole increases at an accelerated rate. Furthermore, an individual\u27s pre-conceived bias towards group formation does not have much of an impact on the development of cohesion within the group

Techno-economic WEC system optimisation – Methodology applied to Wavebob system definition

The overall system optimisation of wave energy converters remains a challenging task. Firstly, this is associated with the large number of system parameters and their related constraints, secondly, the complexity of numerical system representations capturing overall system behaviour and, thirdly, the uncertainties in the prediction and formulation of appropriate overall economic system performance objectives. The parameterisation and the modelling challenges require a staged approach for an overall system optimisation. This ranges from simplified system representations exposed to variations within a large parameter space to more sophisticated system models subject to evaluation for a reduced and focused parameter zone. The description of the system dynamics, operation and performance needs to capture the key characteristics of the WEC concept functionality, the technical implementation and the economic application from the beginning and throughout the optimisation and development process. The paper describes the problems that are associated with the widely employed sequential development of wave energy converter (WEC) systems from concept through technology to economic application and presents the methodology applied to the overall techno-economic system optimisation and development process of Wavebob WECs

Techno-economic WEC system optimisation – Methodology applied to Wavebob system definition

The overall system optimisation of wave energy converters remains a challenging task. Firstly, this is associated with the large number of system parameters and their related constraints, secondly, the complexity of numerical system representations capturing overall system behaviour and, thirdly, the uncertainties in the prediction and formulation of appropriate overall economic system performance objectives. The parameterisation and the modelling challenges require a staged approach for an overall system optimisation. This ranges from simplified system representations exposed to variations within a large parameter space to more sophisticated system models subject to evaluation for a reduced and focused parameter zone. The description of the system dynamics, operation and performance needs to capture the key characteristics of the WEC concept functionality, the technical implementation and the economic application from the beginning and throughout the optimisation and development process. The paper describes the problems that are associated with the widely employed sequential development of wave energy converter (WEC) systems from concept through technology to economic application and presents the methodology applied to the overall techno-economic system optimisation and development process of Wavebob WECs

Recent Decisions

Comments on recent decisions by Frank P. Maggio, Paul Driscoll, Richard H. Puckett, John F. Costello, Harold E. McKee, and Edmund John Adams

The TREC2001 video track: information retrieval on digital video information

The development of techniques to support content-based access to archives of digital video information has recently started to receive much attention from the research community. During 2001, the annual TREC activity, which has been benchmarking the performance of information retrieval techniques on a range of media for 10 years, included a ”track“ or activity which allowed investigation into approaches to support searching through a video library. This paper is not intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the different approaches taken by the TREC2001 video track participants but instead we give an overview of the TREC video search task and a thumbnail sketch of the approaches taken by different groups. The reason for writing this paper is to highlight the message from the TREC video track that there are now a variety of approaches available for searching and browsing through digital video archives, that these approaches do work, are scalable to larger archives and can yield useful retrieval performance for users. This has important implications in making digital libraries of video information attainable

Association of CD4 Cell Depletion and Elevated Blood and Seminal Plasma Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) RNA Concentrations with Genital Ulcer Disease in HIV-1-Infected Men in Malawi

CD4 cell counts and blood plasma and seminal plasma human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) concentrations were compared in HIV-1 RNA-seropositive men with urethritis and with or without genital ulcer disease (GUD). GUD was associated with lower CD4 cell counts (median, 258 vs. 348/μL) and increased blood plasma HIV-1 RNA (median, 240 × 103 vs. 79.4 × 103 copies/ mL). Men with nongonococcal urethritis and GUD shed significantly greater quantities of HIV-1 in semen (median, 195 × 103 vs. 4.0 × 103 copies/mL) than men with nongonococcal urethritis without GUD. These levels decreased ∽4-fold following antibiotic therapy. The results indicate an association between GUD and increased blood HIV-1 RNA levels. Increased HIV-1 in semen was demonstrated in some men with GUD; such an increase could lead to increased transmission, thus complicating interpretation of the role of the genital ulcer itself in the infectiousness of HIV. Reasons for increased HIV RNA in semen in men with GUD remain to be determine

Preliminary acoustic and oceanographic observations from the ASIAEX 2001 South China Sea Experiment

The Asian Seas International Experiment (ASIAEX) was a very successful scientific collaboration between the United States of America (USA), the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan (ROC), the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, Russia, and Singapore. Preliminary field experiments associated with ASIAEX began in spring of 2000. The main experiments were performed in April-August, 2001. The scientific plan called for two major acoustics experiments, the first a bottom interaction experiment in the East China Sea (ECS) and the second a volume interaction experiment in the South China Sea (SCS). In addition to the acoustics efforts, there were also extremely strong physical oceanography and geology and geophysics components to the experiments. This report will concentrate on describing the moored component of the South China Sea portion of ASIAEX 2001 performed from the Taiwan Fisheries research vessel FR1 (Fisheries Researcher 1). Information on the environmental moorings deployed from the Taiwanese oceanographic research vessel OR1 (Oceanographic Researcher 1) will also be listed here for completeness, so that the reader can pursue later analyses of the data. This report does not pursue any data analyses per se.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research under Grant Numbers N00014-01-1-0772, N00014-98-1-0413 and N00014-00-1-0206

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 32, No. 3

• A Comparative Study of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Forebay Barns • The South Moravian Choral Group\u27s 1982 United States Tour • Pennsylvania German Brauche to Charm and Hebrew Berakhah Benediction : A New Etymology • Jacob Schnee: Preacher, Publisher, Printer and Utopian Community Pioneer • A Tour of America\u27s Most Successful Utopia: Harmonie, Pennsylvania 1803-1815 • Among the Pennsylvania Dutchhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1099/thumbnail.jp

Reconstituted B cell receptor signaling reveals carbohydrate-dependent mode of activation

Activation of immune cells (but not B cells) with lectins is widely known. We used the structurally defined interaction between influenza hemagglutinin (HA) and its cell surface receptor sialic acid (SA) to identify a B cell receptor (BCR) activation modality that proceeded through non-cognate interactions with antigen. Using a new approach to reconstitute antigen-receptor interactions in a human reporter B cell line, we found that sequence-defined BCRs from the human germline repertoire could be triggered by both complementarity to influenza HA and a separate mode of signaling that relied on multivalent ligation of BCR sialyl-oligosaccharide. The latter suggested a new mechanism for priming naïve B cell responses and manifested as the induction of SA-dependent pan-activation by peripheral blood B cells. BCR crosslinking in the absence of complementarity is a superantigen effect induced by some microbial products to subvert production of antigen-specific immune responses. B cell superantigen activity through affinity for BCR carbohydrate is discussed