Assessing uncertainty in the American Indian Trust Fund

Fiscal year-end balances of the Individual Indian Money System (a part of the Indian Trust) were constructed from data related to money collected in the system and disbursed by the system from 1887 to 2007. The data set of fiscal year accounting information had a high proportion of missing values, and much of the available data did not satisfy basic accounting relationships. Instead of just calculating a single estimate and arguing to the Court that the assumptions needed for the computation were reasonable, a distribution of calculated balances was developed using multiple imputation and time series models. These provided information to assess the uncertainty of the estimate due to missing and questionable data.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS274 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Demographics and transport choices of new households on Melbourne’s urban fringe

The growth areas on Melbourne‘s urban fringe are expected to accommodate almost half of the city‘s 600,000 new households over the next 20 years. The growth areas often appear in the literature on transport disadvantage as areas of mortgage stress and social disadvantage, where high levels of car use and ownership are ―forced‖ by long distances and poor access to public transport.This paper finds that residents of the new housing estates in Melbourne‘s growth areas do not fit this description. Households on residential estates in four urban-fringe local government areas are profiled using data from the real-estate company Oliver Hume, and their characteristics compared to growth-area households overall. The paper then examines the car ownership and journey to work of households on these new estates, and asks whether proximity to public transport is a factor in their choice of location

The Mx/G/1 queue with queue length dependent service times

We deal with the MX/G/1 queue where service times depend on the queue length at the service initiation. By using Markov renewal theory, we derive the queue length distribution at departure epochs. We also obtain the transient queue length distribution at time t and its limiting distribution and the virtual waiting time distribution. The numerical results for transient mean queue length and queue length distributions are given.Bong Dae Choi, Yeong Cheol Kim, Yang Woo Shin, and Charles E. M. Pearc

A Systems Architecture and Advanced Sensors Application for Real-time Aircraft Structural Health Monitoring

Aircraft are being pushed beyond their original service life, increasing the potential for structural failures. A catastrophic in flight failure of an F-15 bulkhead and severe cracking in the C-130 Wing rainbow fitting are two recent examples that have caused major problems for the Air Force. Previous Aircraft Structural Health Monitoring Systems research primarily explored using a system during the ground maintenance phase. This research will explore a Real-Time Aircraft Structural Health Monitoring System (RTASHMS) that includes a ground phase as well as an in-flight phase. The RTASHMS will continuously analyze structural hot spots, detect critical structural damage or cracks and will alert pilots and maintainers of potential trouble before a catastrophic structural failure. Current sensor technology has limited the construction and use of a reliable aircraft structural health monitoring system. This research will compare the capabilities of current sensor technology with the capabilities of a new cutting edge sensor. The new sensor shows promise in advancing a reliable RTASHMS from theory to reality. This technology was validated in Aluminum Dog Bone specimens and Composite Lap Joint with nano-adhesives

Optic neuritis - more than a loss of vision

Optic neuritis (ON) is the presence of an acute inflammation of the optic nerve that results in painful loss of vision. It is the most commonly encountered optic neuropathy in general practice, and is often associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). Studies show that in about 15–20% of MS cases, ON was the presenting symptom and more than half of people with MS experience at least one episode of ON during their disease. The risk of developing MS can be stratified by appropriate imaging investigations at the diagnosis of ON. Therefore, early recognition is important to ensure timely referral, investigation and treatment; prompt treatment can hasten visual recovery

Self-similar Properties of Decelerating Turbulent Jets

The flow in a decelerating turbulent round jet is investigated using direct numerical simulation. The simulations are initialised with a flow field from a statistically-stationary turbulent jet. Upon stopping the inflow, a deceleration wave passes through the jet, behind which the velocity field evolves towards a new statistically-unsteady self-similar state. Assumption of unsteady self-similar behaviour leads to analytical relations concern-ing the evolution of the centreline mean axial velocity and the shapes of the radial profiles of the velocity statistics. Consistency between these predictions and the simulation data supports the use of the assumption of self-similarity. The mean radial velocity is predicted to reverse in direction near to the jet centreline as the deceleration wave passes, contributing to an approximately three-fold increase in the normalised mass entrainment rate. The shape of the mean axial velocity profile undergoes a relatively small change across the deceleration transient, and this observation provides direct evidence in support of previous models that have assumed that the mean axial velocity profile, and in some cases also the jet spreading angle, remain approximately constant within unsteady jets.<br/

Lymphangiography to treat postoperative lymphatic leakage: a technical review.

In addition to imaging the lymphatics and detecting various types of lymphatic leakage, lymphangiography is a therapeutic option for patients with chylothorax, chylous ascites, and lymphatic fistula. Percutaneous thoracic duct embolization, transabdominal catheterization of the cisterna chyli or thoracic duct, and subsequent embolization of the thoracic duct is an alternative to surgical ligation of the thoracic duct. In this pictorial review, we present the detailed technique, clinical applications, and complications of lymphangiography and thoracic duct embolization

What is the value of built heritage? Assessing spillover effects of conserving historic sites in Singapore

10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104393Land Use Policy9110439

Suppression of Density Fluctuations in a Quantum Degenerate Fermi Gas

We study density profiles of an ideal Fermi gas and observe Pauli suppression of density fluctuations (atom shot noise) for cold clouds deep in the quantum degenerate regime. Strong suppression is observed for probe volumes containing more than 10,000 atoms. Measuring the level of suppression provides sensitive thermometry at low temperatures. After this method of sensitive noise measurements has been validated with an ideal Fermi gas, it can now be applied to characterize phase transitions in strongly correlated many-body systems.Comment: minor edit: fixed technical problem with arxiv's processing of .eps figur