An overview of the NREL/SNL flexible turbine characterization project

There has been a desire to increase the generating capacity of the latest generation of wind turbine designs. In order to achieve these larger capacities, the dimensions of the turbine rotors are also increasing significantly. These larger structures are often much more flexible than their smaller predecessors. This higher degree of structural flexibility has placed increased demands on available analytical models to accurately predict the dynamic response to turbulence excitation, In this paper we present an overview and our progress to date of a joint effort of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Sandia National Laboratory (SNL). In this paper we present an overview and status of an ongoing program to characterize and analytically model the dynamics associated with the operation of one of the most flexible turbine designs currently available, the Cannon Wind Eagle 300 (CWE-300). The effort includes extensive measurements involving a detailed inventory of the turbine's physical properties, establishing the turbine component and fill-system vibrational modes, and documenting the dynamic deformations of the rotor system and support tower while in operation

Suicide Prevention for Older Adults in Residential Communities: Implications for Policy and Practice

Examining an often under-appreciated area, Carol Podgorski and colleagues discuss the suicide risk and opportunities for suicide prevention in seniors' residential communities

Skeleton of an unusual cat-sized marsupial relative (Metatheria: Marsupialiformes) from the middle Eocene (Lutetian: 44-43 million years ago) of Turkey

We describe a near-complete, three-dimensionally preserved skeleton of a metatherian (relative of modern marsupials) from the middle Eocene (Lutetian: 44–43 million years ago) Lülük member of the Uzunçarşıdere Formation, central Turkey. With an estimated body mass of 3–4 kg, about the size of a domestic cat (Felis catus) or spotted quoll (Dasyurus maculatus), it is an order of magnitude larger than the largest fossil metatherians previously known from the Cenozoic of the northern hemisphere. This new taxon is characterised by large, broad third premolars that probably represent adaptations for hard object feeding (durophagy), and its craniodental morphology suggests the capacity to generate high bite forces. Qualitative and quantitative functional analyses of its postcranial skeleton indicate that it was probably scansorial and relatively agile, perhaps broadly similar in locomotor mode to the spotted quoll, but with a greater capacity for climbing and grasping. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of a total evidence dataset comprising 259 morphological characters and 9kb of DNA sequence data from five nuclear protein-coding genes, using both undated and “tip-and-node dating” approaches, place the new taxon outside the marsupial crown-clade, but within the clade Marsupialiformes. It demonstrates that at least one metatherian lineage evolved to occupy the small-medium, meso- or hypo-carnivore niche in the northern hemisphere during the early Cenozoic, at a time when there were numerous eutherians (placentals and their fossil relatives) filling similar niches. However, the known mammal fauna from Uzunçarşıdere Formation appears highly endemic, and geological evidence suggests that this region of Turkey was an island for at least part of the early Cenozoic, and so the new taxon may have evolved in isolation from potential eutherian competitors. Nevertheless, the new taxon reveals previously unsuspected ecomorphological disparity among northern hemisphere metatherians during the first half of the Cenozoic

Automated telephone communication systems for preventive healthcare and management of long-term conditions

Background Automated telephone communication systems (ATCS) can deliver voice messages and collect health-related information from patients using either their telephone’s touch-tone keypad or voice recognition software. ATCS can supplement or replace telephone contact between health professionals and patients. There are four different types of ATCS: unidirectional (one-way, non-interactive voice communication), interactive voice response (IVR) systems, ATCS with additional functions such as access to an expert to request advice (ATCS Plus) and multimodal ATCS, where the calls are delivered as part of a multicomponent intervention. Objectives To assess the effects of ATCS for preventing disease and managing long-term conditions on behavioural change, clinical, process, cognitive, patient-centred and adverse outcomes. Search methods We searched 10 electronic databases (the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials; MEDLINE; Embase; PsycINFO; CINAHL; Global Health; WHOLIS; LILACS; Web of Science; and ASSIA); three grey literature sources (Dissertation Abstracts, Index to Theses, Australasian Digital Theses); and two trial registries (www.controlled-trials.com; www.clinicaltrials.gov) for papers published between 1980 and June 2015. Selection criteria Randomised, cluster- and quasi-randomised trials, interrupted time series and controlled before-and-after studies comparing ATCS interventions, with any control or another ATCS type were eligible for inclusion. Studies in all settings, for all consumers/carers, in any preventive healthcare or long term condition management role were eligible. Data collection and analysis We used standard Cochrane methods to select and extract data and to appraise eligible studies. Main results We included 132 trials (N = 4,669,689). Studies spanned across several clinical areas, assessing many comparisons based on evaluation of different ATCS types and variable comparison groups. Forty-one studies evaluated ATCS for delivering preventive healthcare, 84 for managing long-term conditions, and seven studies for appointment reminders. We downgraded our certainty in the evidence primarily because of the risk of bias for many outcomes. We judged the risk of bias arising from allocation processes to be low for just over half the studies and unclear for the remainder. We considered most studies to be at unclear risk of performance or detection bias due to blinding, while only 16% of studies were at low risk. We generally judged the risk of bias due to missing data and selective outcome reporting to be unclear. For preventive healthcare, ATCS (ATCS Plus, IVR, unidirectional) probably increase immunisation uptake in children (risk ratio (RR) 1.25, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.18 to 1.32; 5 studies, N = 10,454; moderate certainty) and to a lesser extent in adolescents (RR 1.06, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.11; 2 studies, N = 5725; moderate certainty). The effects of ATCS in adults are unclear (RR 2.18, 95% CI 0.53 to 9.02; 2 studies, N = 1743; very low certainty). For screening, multimodal ATCS increase uptake of screening for breast cancer (RR 2.17, 95% CI 1.55 to 3.04; 2 studies, N = 462; high certainty) and colorectal cancer (CRC) (RR 2.19, 95% CI 1.88 to 2.55; 3 studies, N = 1013; high certainty) versus usual care. It may also increase osteoporosis screening. ATCS Plus interventions probably slightly increase cervical cancer screening (moderate certainty), but effects on osteoporosis screening are uncertain. IVR systems probably increase CRC screening at 6 months (RR 1.36, 95% CI 1.25 to 1.48; 2 studies, N = 16,915; moderate certainty) but not at 9 to 12 months, with probably little or no effect of IVR (RR 1.05, 95% CI 0.99, 1.11; 2 studies, 2599 participants; moderate certainty) or unidirectional ATCS on breast cancer screening. Appointment reminders delivered through IVR or unidirectional ATCS may improve attendance rates compared with no calls (low certainty). For long-term management, medication or laboratory test adherence provided the most general evidence across conditions (25 studies, data not combined). Multimodal ATCS versus usual care showed conflicting effects (positive and uncertain) on medication adherence. ATCS Plus probably slightly (versus control; moderate certainty) or probably (versus usual care; moderate certainty) improves medication adherence but may have little effect on adherence to tests (versus control). IVR probably slightly improves medication adherence versus control (moderate certainty). Compared with usual care, IVR probably improves test adherence and slightly increases medication adherence up to six months but has little or no effect at longer time points (moderate certainty). Unidirectional ATCS, compared with control, may have little effect or slightly improve medication adherence (low certainty). The evidence suggested little or no consistent effect of any ATCS type on clinical outcomes (blood pressure control, blood lipids, asthma control, therapeutic coverage) related to adherence, but only a small number of studies contributed clinical outcome data. The above results focus on areas with the most general findings across conditions. In condition-specific areas, the effects of ATCS varied, including by the type of ATCS intervention in use. Multimodal ATCS probably decrease both cancer pain and chronic pain as well as depression (moderate certainty), but other ATCS types were less effective. Depending on the type of intervention, ATCS may have small effects on outcomes for physical activity, weight management, alcohol consumption, and diabetes mellitus. ATCS have little or no effect on outcomes related to heart failure, hypertension, mental health or smoking cessation, and there is insufficient evidence to determine their effects for preventing alcohol/ substance misuse or managing illicit drug addiction, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, HIV/AIDS, hypercholesterolaemia, obstructive sleep apnoea, spinal cord dysfunction or psychological stress in carers. Only four trials (3%) reported adverse events, and it was unclear whether these were related to the intervention

Dartmouth lyrics,: by Richard Hovey, edited by Edwin Osgood Grover.

xiv, 94 p ; 20 cm.Electronic text and image data. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan, Digital Library Initiatives, 1996. Includes both TIFF files and keyword searchable text. [Making of America] This volume is made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Clearing and staining skeletons of small vertebrates,

Mode of access: Internet

The Semantics of "Spirituality" and Related Self-identifications: A Comparative Study in Germany and the USA

Keller B, Klein C, Swhajor A, Silver CF, Hood RW, Streib H. The Semantics of "Spirituality" and Related Self-identifications: A Comparative Study in Germany and the USA. Archive for the Psychology of Religion. 2013;35(1):71-100.Culturally different connotations of basic concepts challenge the comparative study of religion. Do persons in Germany or in the United States refer to the same concepts, when talking about “spirituality” and “religion”? Does it make a difference how they identify themselves? The Bielefeld-Chattanooga Cross-cultural Study on “Spirituality” includes a semantic differential approach for the comparison of self-identified “neither religious nor spiritual”, “religious”, and “spiritual” persons regarding semantic attributes attached to “religion” and “spirituality” in each research context. Results show: “Spirituality” is used as a broader concept than “religion”. Regarding “religion,” semantics attributed by self-identified religious persons differ significantly from those of the spiritual persons. The spiritual and the religious group agree on semantics attributed to “spirituality”, but differ from the “neither-nor” group. Qualifications of differences and agreements become visible from the comparison between the United States and Germany. It is argued for the semantically sensitive study of culturally situated “spiritualities”. keywords: semantic differential, semantics, religiosity, religion, spirituality, cross-cultural

The Analysis of Directional Time Series: Applications to Wind Speed and Direction, ser. Lecture Notes in Statistics

Abstract The proper functioning of many of our social, financial, and political structures nowadays relies on the correct identification of people. Reliable and unique identification of people is a difficult problem; people typically use identification cards, usernames, or passwords to prove their identities, however passwords can be forgotten, and identification cards can be lost or stolen. Biometric methods, which identify people based on physical or behavioural characteristics, are of interest because people cannot forget or lose their physical characteristics in the way that they can lose passwords or identity cards. Biometric systems have been developed based on fingerprints, facial features, voice, hand geometry, handwriting, the retina, and the one presented in this work, the iris. Iris is difficult issue because of pre-processing and segmentation phases. In other word, preparing the iris in a rectangular image format is a complicated issue. This work concentrates on segmentation issue. A good segmentation reflects on perfect recognition with minimum number of features. With only three features, 100% recognition can be achieved. A comparative study between different methodologies is introduced. This study shows the efficiency of the proposed model. Keywords- ABSTRACT The task of planning patrol routes for crime prevention is an important challenge. This work concentrates on the context of routes for police patrols on a road network; the presented methods are applicable to many other environments that call for the selection of surveillance and situation response routes to maximize the profit. In other words, planning patrol routes to maximize coverage of important locations (hot spots) at minimum cost (length of patrol route) subject to some constraints. We model a road network using an edge-weighted graph in which edges represent streets, vertices represent intersections, and weights represent importance of the corresponding streets. In addition to the importance of streets (edge weights), important routes are affected by the topology of the road network. This paper is considered the integrated optimization of strategic patrol routing problems while designing an efficient operating plan for the police troopers. Its formulation is a methodological contribution to the current literature. In this work, a new methodology is introduced for energy saving control problem in police patrols networks. The objective function is minimizing the variance of the power vector for the topology troopers, this means that distributing the power of the police patrols and maintaining the crime prevention with minimum effort. Inputs are given as a set of nodes in a plane, end-to-end traffic demands and delay bounds between hot spot pairs, the problem is to find an optimized routing that can meet the requirements and the variance of the power vector for the nodes is minimized. The problem is formulated as an Integer Linear Programming problem. An optimal algorithm has been proposed to solve the problem. The proposed model can be adopted for different topology with different emergency request demands