Archaeological Investigation of a Spring Lake Lot for Joe\u27s Crab Shack Parking

On August 19 and 25, 1997, the Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) of The University of Texas at San Antonio conducted an intensive survey for cultural resources at the proposed location of a parking lot for Joe\u27s Crab Shack Restaurants along Spring Lake, Hays County, Texas. The work was contracted by Southwest Texas State University (SWTSU) and conducted under Texas Antiquities Permit number 1877. Upon completion of the survey and subsurface testing, CAR determined that no cultural resources would be impacted by the planned parking lot construction. CAR therefore recommended that the project sponsor be allowed to proceed as planned with the proposed project and the Texas Historical Commission (THC) has concurred

Archaeological Investigations at Promontory Pointe at Stone Oak II, Bexar County, Texas

The Center for Archaeological Research of The University of Texas at San Antonio conducted a pedestrian survey and subsurface testing for cultural resources at the proposed Promontory Pointe at Stone Oak II planned unit development, in northern Bexar County. The project was conducted under contract with Great America Companies on October 23 and 25, 1996. Upon completion of the survey and 11 subsurface tests, CAR determined that a light scatter of chipped stone debris was present, but no cultural resources would be impacted along the easements planned for trenching for sewer pipe installation

The Design and Development of Interactive Multimedia Conference Proceedings

Many conferences are now providing electronic proceedings. Often, these proceedings are little more than electronic collections of documents put together in a standard software package, such as SuperBook or Acrobat. This means that few of these proceedings incorporate the full range of materials that a conference generates. Furthermore, because these general interfaces are not designed for conference proceedings, they do not provide all the features a conference warrants. The interactive multimedia proceedings for the DAGS\u2792 Institute on Parallel Computation used an interface designed specifically for presenting conference materials and provided both talks (audio, video, and slides) and papers (in hypertext form) along with an extensive set of features for navigating and using the proceedings. This interface provided the basis for further work on the design and creation of electronic proceedings. As we developed the electronic proceedings for DAGS\u2793 and DAGS\u2794 we surveyed users of the prior proceedings and reevaluated this interface. This evaluation suggested many alternatives and extensions to the interface and led us to redesign and reimplement the DAGS interactive proceedings interface. In this paper, we summarize the materials and features that comprise conference proceedings, describe and evaluate the DAGS\u2792 interface and detail the changes and decisions made in developing the new interface used for DAGS\u2793 and DAGS\u2794

The Roles of Video in the Design, Development, and Use of Interactive Electronic Conference Proceedings

In this paper, we discuss the design and development of a particular type of electronic publication that has gained recent popularity: electronic conference proceedings. We suggest that modern electronic proceedings should provide a high degree of interactivity. To support such interactivity, proceedings should include an extensive collection of features and diverse multimedia components. Features appropriate for electronic proceedings include annotation, presentation, and retrieval mechanisms. Conference papers and multimedia reproductions of conference presentations with features that allow readers to manipulate these reproductions particularly enhance the interactivity of electronic proceedings. Experience from interactive proceedings the authors have designed is also discussed. Special attention is given to the multiple roles video elements can and should play in interactive proceedings

Obtaining structured clinical data from unstructured data using natural language processing software

ABSTRACT Background Free text documents in healthcare settings contain a wealth of information not captured in electronic healthcare records (EHRs). Epilepsy clinic letters are an example of an unstructured data source containing a large amount of intricate disease information. Extracting meaningful and contextually correct clinical information from free text sources, to enhance EHRs, remains a significant challenge. SCANR (Swansea University Collaborative in the Analysis of NLP Research) was set up to use natural language processing (NLP) technology to extract structured data from unstructured sources. IBM Watson Content Analytics software (ICA) uses NLP technology. It enables users to define annotations based on dictionaries and language characteristics to create parsing rules that highlight relevant items. These include clinical details such as symptoms and diagnoses, medication and test results, as well as personal identifiers.   Approach To use ICA to build a pipeline to accurately extract detailed epilepsy information from clinic letters. Methods We used ICA to retrieve important epilepsy information from 41 pseudo-anonymized unstructured epilepsy clinic letters. The 41 letters consisted of 13 ‘new’ and 28 ‘follow-up’ letters (for 15 different patients) written by 12 different doctors in different styles. We designed dictionaries and annotators to enable ICA to extract epilepsy type (focal, generalized or unclassified), epilepsy cause, age of onset, investigation results (EEG, CT and MRI), medication, and clinic date. Epilepsy clinicians assessed the accuracy of the pipeline. Results The accuracy (sensitivity, specificity) of each concept was: epilepsy diagnosis 98% (97%, 100%), focal epilepsy 100%, generalized epilepsy 98% (93%, 100%), medication 95% (93%, 100%), age of onset 100% and clinic date 95% (95%, 100%). Precision and recall for each concept were respectively, 98% and 97% for epilepsy diagnosis, 100% each for focal epilepsy, 100% and 93% for generalized epilepsy, 100% each for age of onset, 100% and 93% for medication, 100% and 96% for EEG results, 100% and 83% for MRI scan results, and 100% and 95% for clinic date. Conclusions ICA is capable of extracting detailed, structured epilepsy information from unstructured clinic letters to a high degree of accuracy. This data can be used to populate relational databases and be linked to EHRs. Researchers can build in custom rules to identify concepts of interest from letters and produce structured information. We plan to extend our work to hundreds and then thousands of clinic letters, to provide phenotypically rich epilepsy data to link with other anonymised, routinely collected data

Nuclear Disks of Gas and Dust in Early Type Galaxies and the Hunt for Massive Black Holes: Hubble Space Telescope Observations of NGC 6251

We discuss Hubble Space Telescope optical images and spectra of NGC 6251, a giant E2 galaxy and powerful radio source at a distance of 106 Mpc (for H_0 = 70 km/s/Mpc). The galaxy is known to host a very well defined dust disk (O'Neil et al. 1994); the exceptional resolution of our V and I images allows a detailed study of the disk structure. Furthermore, narrow band images centered on the Halpha+[NII] emission lines, reveal the presence of ionized gas in the inner 0.3 arcsec of the disk. We used the HST/Faint Object Spectrograph with the 0.09 arcsec aperture to study the velocity structure of the disk. Dynamical models were constructed for two extreme (in terms of central concentration) analytical representations of the stellar surface brightness profile, from which the mass density and corresponding rotational velocity are derived assuming a constant mass-to-light ratio (M/L)_V ~ 8.5 M_solar/L_solar. For both representations of the stellar component, the models show that the gas is in Keplerian motion around a central mass ~ 4 - 8 X 10^8 solar masses, and that the contribution of radial flows to the velocity field is negligible.Comment: 45 pages, submitted to Ap

A cosmic ray cocoon along the X-ray jet of M87?

Relativistic jets propagating through an ambient medium must produce some observational effects along their side boundaries because of interactions across the large velocity gradient. One possible effect of such an interaction would be a sheared magnetic field structure at the jet boundaries, leading to a characteristic radio polarization pattern. As proposed by Ostrowski, another effect can come from the generation of a high energy cosmic ray component at the boundary, producing dynamic effects on the medium surrounding the jet and forming a cocoon dominated by cosmic rays with a decreased thermal gas emissivity. We selected this process for our first attempt to look for the effects of this type of interaction. We analyzed the Chandra X-ray data for the radio galaxy M87 in order to verify if the expected regions of diminished emissivity may be present near the spectacular X-ray jet in this source. The detailed analysis of the data, merged from 42 separate observations, shows signatures of lower emissivity surrounding the jet. In particular we detect an intensity dip along the part of the jet, which would be approximately 150 pc x 2 kpc in size, if situated along the jet which is inclined toward us. Due to a highly non-uniform X-ray background in the central region we are not able to claim the discovery of a cosmic ray cocoon around the M87 jet: we only have demonstrated that the data show morphological structures which could be accounted for if a cosmic ray cocoon exists.Comment: 8 pages, 8 pictures accepted for publication in MNRA

Indicators of ocean health and human health: developing a research and monitoring framework

This is the final version of the article. Available from NIEHS via the DOI in this record.We need to critically assess the present quality of the marine ecosystem, especially the connection between ecosystem change and threats to human health. In this article we review the current state of indicators to link changes in marine organisms with eventual effects to human health, identify research opportunities in the use of indicators of ocean and human health, and discuss how to establish collaborations between national and international governmental and private sector groups. We present a synthesis of the present state of understanding of the connection between ocean health and human health, a discussion of areas where resources are required, and a discussion of critical research needs and a template for future work in this field. To understand fully the interactions between ocean health and human health, programs should be organized around a "models-based" approach focusing on critical themes and attributes of marine environmental and public health risks. Given the extent and complex nature of ocean and human health issues, a program networking across geographic and disciplinary boundaries is essential. The overall goal of this approach would be the early detection of potential marine-based contaminants, the protection of marine ecosystems, the prevention of associated human illness, and by implication, the development of products to enhance human well-being. The tight connection between research and monitoring is essential to develop such an indicator-based effort.This work was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO), and the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, Inc. (contribution 1615)

Models for Access to Maternal Smoking cessation Support (MAMSS): a study protocol of a quasi-experiment to increase the engagement of pregnant women who smoke in NHS Stop Smoking Services

Background: Maternal smoking is a key cause of poor outcomes for mothers, babies and children and Wales has higher rates of smoking in pregnancy than any other UK country. Despite various improvements within the NHS Stop Smoking Service to strengthen the intervention for pregnant women, referrals and successful quit attempts for this group have continued to remain extremely low. A key element of UK national guidance for smoking cessation during pregnancy is to provide a flexible and tailored service to help increase levels of engagement. This study aims to test the effectiveness of three different models of service delivery to address the gap in the evidence base about how to deliver a flexible, tailored smoking cessation service to pregnant women. Methods: This study will adopt a quasi-experimental design over a 12 month period. The setting is four of Wales’ seven Health Boards using an integrated approach between maternity services, local public health teams and the NHS Stop Smoking Service. Core recommendations from UK public health guidance are being implemented across intervention and usual care sites. Stop smoking support for pregnant women in intervention sites is being delivered more flexibly than in usual care sites. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches will be adopted to capture important contextual information and consider multiple perspectives. A health economic analysis will be undertaken using a cost-consequences analysis approach. The primary outcome measure is engagement with stop smoking services (defined as having at least one face-to-face therapeutic contact with a clinician). Discussion: Supporting pregnant women to stop smoking is a challenging area of public health. The proposed study will address several areas where there are key evidence gaps relating to smoking cessation interventions for pregnant women. Specifically, how best to encourage pregnant women to attend a specialist stop smoking support service, how to deliver the service and who should provide it