Characteristics of enzymatic induction provoked by chlordane

The effects of various stresses, such as restraint and lowering or raising of environmental temperature, in mice pretreated with chlordane were investigated. (Chlordane is an inhibitor of protein synthesis.) It was found that restraint or exposure to a cold environment for three hours mobilized the chlordane stored in the adipose tissue of mice

CONDOR: A Hybrid IDS to Offer Improved Intrusion Detection

Intrusion Detection Systems are an accepted and very useful option to monitor, and detect malicious activities. However, Intrusion Detection Systems have inherent limitations which lead to false positives and false negatives; we propose that combining signature and anomaly based IDSs should be examined. This paper contrasts signature and anomaly-based IDSs, and critiques some proposals about hybrid IDSs with signature and heuristic capabilities, before considering some of their contributions in order to include them as main features of a new hybrid IDS named CONDOR (COmbined Network intrusion Detection ORientate), which is designed to offer superior pattern analysis and anomaly detection by reducing false positive rates and administrator intervention

United Kingdom Regulation of Transnational Corporate Concentration

This article begins by describing the United Kingdom\u27s policy toward outward and inward direct investment and then sets out the essentials of the competition laws that are among the major, nondiscriminatory regulatory mechanisms that affect corporate behavior and planning. The article also analyzes the development of competition policy as a microeconomic instrument along with its application to monopoly, oligopoly, and cartels involving transnational corporations. Competition policy, except for cartels, is shown to be relatively benign toward mergers until recently, and with respect to monopoly and oligopoly has sought remedies in regulation of prices and behavior rather than through structural change. Recent proposals, including a new Competition Act, are described. The analysis will show that although transnational corporations have been prominent in competition policy enforcement, substantial detriments arising from their transnational nature have not yet been identified, despite the presence of adverse effects on the public interest. Traditional fears associated with foreign investment in the United Kingdom do not, therefore, seem to be justified, insofar as the abuse of market power is concerned. In practice, the United Kingdom has relied principally on an effective tax system and competitive markets to ensure an equitable distribution of the gains from foreign direct investment, and there has been relatively little interference with inward flows of capital

Quantifying uncertainty in pest risk maps and assessments : adopting a risk-averse decision maker’s perspective

Pest risk maps are important decision support tools when devising strategies to minimize introductions of invasive organisms and mitigate their impacts. When possible management responses to an invader include costly or socially sensitive activities, decision-makers tend to follow a more certain (i.e., risk-averse) course of action. We presented a new mapping technique that assesses pest invasion risk from the perspective of a risk-averse decision maker. We demonstrated the method by evaluating the likelihood that an invasive forest pest will be transported to one of the U.S. states or Canadian provinces in infested firewood by visitors to U.S. federal campgrounds. We tested the impact of the risk aversion assumption using distributions of plausible pest arrival scenarios generated with a geographically explicit model developed from data documenting camper travel across the study area. Next, we prioritized regions of high and low pest arrival risk via application of two stochastic ordering techniques that employed, respectively, first- and second-degree stochastic dominance rules, the latter of which incorporated the notion of risk aversion. We then identified regions in the study area where the pest risk value changed considerably after incorporating risk aversion. While both methods identified similar areas of highest and lowest risk, they differed in how they demarcated moderate-risk areas. In general, the second-order stochastic dominance method assigned lower risk rankings to moderate-risk areas. Overall, this new method offers a better strategy to deal with the uncertainty typically associated with risk assessments and provides a tractable way to incorporate decisionmaking preferences into final risk estimates, and thus helps to better align these estimates with particular decision-making scenarios about a pest organism of concern. Incorporation of risk aversion also helps prioritize the set of locations to target for inspections and outreach activities, which can be costly. Our results are especially important and useful given the huge number of camping trips that occur each year in the United States and Canada

Quantifying uncertainty in pest risk maps and assessments : adopting a risk-averse decision maker’s perspective

Pest risk maps are important decision support tools when devising strategies to minimize introductions of invasive organisms and mitigate their impacts. When possible management responses to an invader include costly or socially sensitive activities, decision-makers tend to follow a more certain (i.e., risk-averse) course of action. We presented a new mapping technique that assesses pest invasion risk from the perspective of a risk-averse decision maker. We demonstrated the method by evaluating the likelihood that an invasive forest pest will be transported to one of the U.S. states or Canadian provinces in infested firewood by visitors to U.S. federal campgrounds. We tested the impact of the risk aversion assumption using distributions of plausible pest arrival scenarios generated with a geographically explicit model developed from data documenting camper travel across the study area. Next, we prioritized regions of high and low pest arrival risk via application of two stochastic ordering techniques that employed, respectively, first- and second-degree stochastic dominance rules, the latter of which incorporated the notion of risk aversion. We then identified regions in the study area where the pest risk value changed considerably after incorporating risk aversion. While both methods identified similar areas of highest and lowest risk, they differed in how they demarcated moderate-risk areas. In general, the second-order stochastic dominance method assigned lower risk rankings to moderate-risk areas. Overall, this new method offers a better strategy to deal with the uncertainty typically associated with risk assessments and provides a tractable way to incorporate decisionmaking preferences into final risk estimates, and thus helps to better align these estimates with particular decision-making scenarios about a pest organism of concern. Incorporation of risk aversion also helps prioritize the set of locations to target for inspections and outreach activities, which can be costly. Our results are especially important and useful given the huge number of camping trips that occur each year in the United States and Canada

Effects of damage models in probabilistic assessment of structures: An illustrative example

Deterioration modelling of structures has gained significant importance in recent times in relation with structural health monitoring, rehabilitation, maintenance and decision making process. The behaviour of any deteriorating structure (or a network of structures) is extremely important while considering failure as defined from the viewpoint of both the owner/manager and the engineer. Since there are epistemic and aleatory uncertainties associated with any such process, the ideas of failure and the damage model require a probabilistic treatment. The time dependence of damage propagation very often depends on the climate conditions. On the other hand, the definition of failure by the owner and by the engineer may have different focus. These uncertainties and conflicts directly affect the assessment, optimal assessment time, repair and maintenance strategies, associated cost and the final decision regarding a structure at any given point or period of time. The paper discusses how the choice of a deterioration model (even non-functional) of a structure can affect the decision making options regarding a structure based on a probabilistic material and structure independent general framework through a simple and illustrative example. A wooden beam damaged by the growth of fungus is considered to be the benchmark problem in this regard. The damage is modelled to be comprised of two stages – the initiation and the propagation period. A Monte Carlo simulation investigates the effects of environmental parameters, active regions in time, conflicts of owner’s and engineer’s criteria and the critical location in a structure in terms of possible destructive or non destructive instrumentation

Reliability based assessment of structures in marine environment

The Atlantic Zone in Europe, like any coastal region, has many harbours, communication infrastructures and tourist buildings. These infrastructural elements are necessary for the economic life and sustainability of the region. The managers/owners of such structures in the region are therefore confronted with questions concerning the damage, maintenance, rehabilitation and the extent to which this maintenance or rehabilitation should be carried out. Since there are many parameters affecting the damage of a structure, it is of prime importance to know which of those parameters are guiding and what their relative importance are. Also, the effects of various critical limit states, possible conflicts between the engineer’s and the owners criteria of failure and the mutual interrelationships among possible health assessment, monitoring techniques and repair options need to be assimilated within a single probabilistic framework accounting for the various epistemic and aleatory uncertainties accompanied with such decision making process. A central factor in this decision making process is the choice of damage model of a material and its evolution in time. In this paper, a general probabilistic format is proposed for structural assessment and maintenance. A questionnaire based survey has been carried out to procure information compatible with the proposed framework with special emphasis on damage of materials in the marine environment. Parameter importance based studies on steel and concrete have been subsequently performed in order to illustrate the impacts of the interrelationships of some critical components in the proposed framework. The study provides the owners/managers with a method of establishing a choice protocol for receiver operating characteristics (ROC) of non-destructive assessment techniques of structures based on its specific needs. This methodology, in association with reliable information regarding the choice of rehabilitation of a structure at an optimised cost can be helpful for any kind of decision making process in relation to a structure