The Future of Charge Card Networks

The general-purpose charge card is now ubiquitous and largely taken for granted. Annual charge card volume exceeds $5 trillion worldwide. Within the United States, nearly one billion cards are in use (about eight per household), and more than two billion worldwide. But charge cards, or more specifically, the cooperative networks that serve the largest card systems, Visa and MasterCard, are under legal attack through multiple lawsuits and under regulatory challenge in other countries. We trace in this essay multiple possible future 'scenarios'. This focus on possible futures distinguishes our work from many earlier studies of this subject.

Gas chromatograph injection system

An injection system for a gas chromatograph is described which uses a small injector chamber (available in various configurations). The sample is placed in the chamber while the chamber is not under pressure and is not heated, and there is no chance of leakage caused by either pressure or heat. It is injected into the apparatus by changing the position of a valve and heating the chamber, and is volatilized and swept by a carrier gas into the analysis apparatus

High-performance thermionic converter Quarterly progress report, 13 Aug. - 13 Nov. 1965

Fabrication and testing of cesium loaded thermionic converter test vehicl

Permutation sampling in Path Integral Monte Carlo

A simple algorithm is described to sample permutations of identical particles in Path Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations of continuum many-body systems. The sampling strategy illustrated here is fairly general, and can be easily incorporated in any PIMC implementation based on the staging algorithm. Although it is similar in spirit to an existing prescription, it differs from it in some key aspects. It allows one to sample permutations efficiently, even if long paths (e.g., hundreds, or thousands of slices) are needed. We illustrate its effectiveness by presenting results of a PIMC calculation of thermodynamic properties of superfluid Helium-four, in which a very simple approximation for the high-temperature density matrix was utilized

Marginalization and the Occasional Teacher Workforce in Ontario: The Case of Internationally Educated Teachers (IETs)

This article considers the marginalization of internationally educated teachers (IETs) as occasional teachers. In particular, it explores the experiences of three IETs as they try to gain access to full-time teacher employment within the Ontario, English-speaking public school system. Data used in this article was generated from a qualitative study of occasional teachers who worked in the Ontario English-speaking public school system. Findings indicated that these teachers engaged in considerable amounts of unpaid work, participated in a great deal of informal and formal learning, and accepted all and any occasional work available – all practices associated with the cycle of marginalization

Torts - Governmental Tort Immunity - Legal Process - Role of Courts in Modifying the Law

The Supreme Court of Nebraska has assumed an active role in eliminating governmental tort immunity by holding that municipal corporations are not immune from tort liability arising out of the operation of motor vehicles, where the prior immunity had not been fixed by specific legislation. Brown v. City of Omaha, 183 Neb. 430, 160 N.W.2d 805 (1968)

Climate modification and climate change debates amongst Soviet physical geographers, 1940s-1960s

This review provides an insight into some of the main themes characterizing the work of Soviet physical geographers concerning climate during the decade following the Second World War. Post-1945, pressure was placed upon geography via the state and the Academy of Sciences to ensure that its activities were of practical use to the development of the socialist economy and this was particularly evident in the case of work related to climate and climate modification. The review is divided into four main sections. First, it provides an understanding of the range of work carried out by physical geographers with respect to climate and related phenomena in the late 1940s and 1950s. Second, it focuses on the work of geographers and climatologists in relation to the heat and water balance at the earth's surface, which attracted considerable attention within geographical circles as well as more broadly within Soviet science during the 1950s. Third, it reflects upon the way in which Soviet geography utilized its understanding of climate systems in order to participate in national schemes concerned with the modification of the climate and the transformation of nature. Finally, the review highlights the maturing of climate modification debates among geographers and cognate scientists during the late 1950s and early 1960s with the emergence of competing discussions over the potential for human activity to result in both positive and negative consequences for the global climate system

Performance of Cpred/Cobs concentration ratios as a metric reflecting adherence to antidepressant drug therapy

Background: Nonadherence is very common among subjects undergoing pharmacotherapy for schizophrenia and depression. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of the ratio of the nonlinear mixed effects pharmacokinetic model predicted concentration to observed drug concentration (ratio of population predicted to observed concentration (Cpred/Cobs) and ratio of individual predicted to observed concentration (Cipred/Cobs) as a measure of erratic drug exposure, driven primarily by variable execution of the dosage regimen and unknown true dosage history. Methods: Modeling and simulation approaches in conjunction with dosage history information from the Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS, provided by the "Depression: The search for treatment relevant phenotypes" study), was applied to evaluate the consistency of exposure via simulation studies with scenarios representing a long half-life drug (escitalopram). Adherence rates were calculated based on the percentage of the prescribed doses actually taken correctly during the treatment window of interest. The association between Cpred/Cobs, Cipred/Cobs ratio, and adherence rate was evaluated under various assumptions of known dosing history. Results: Simulations for those scenarios representing a known dosing history were generated from historical MEMS data. Simulations of a long half-life drug exhibited a trend for overprediction of concentrations in patients with a low percentage of doses taken and underprediction of concentrations in patients taking more than their prescribed number of doses. Overall, the ratios did not predict adherence well, except when the true adherence rates were extremely high (greater than 100% of prescribed doses) or extremely low (complete nonadherence). In general, the Cipred/Cobs ratio was a better predictor of adherence rate than the Cpred/Cobs ratio. Correct predictions of extreme (high, low) 7-day adherence rates using Cipred/Cobs were 73.8% and 64.0%. Conclusion: This simulation study demonstrated the limitations of the Cpred/obs and Cipred/obs ratios as metrics for actual dosage intake history, and identified that use of MEMS dosing history monitoring combined with sparse pharmacokinetic sampling is a more reliable approach. © 2011 Feng et al