Expert system verification and validation study. ES V/V guidelines/workshop conference summary

The intent of the workshop was to start moving research on the verification and validation (V&V) of knowledge based systems (KBSs) in the direction of providing tangible 'products' that a KBS developer could use. In the near term research will focus on identifying the kinds of experiences encountered during KBS development of 'real' KBSs. These will be stored in a repository and will serve as the foundation for the rest of the activities described here. One specific approach to be pursued is 'benchmarking'. With this approach, a KBS developer can use either 'canned' KBSs with seeded errors or existing KBSs with known errors to evaluate a given tool's ability to satisfactorily identify errors

Securing ourselves from ourselves? The paradox of “entanglement” in the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene presents new challenges to the natural and social sciences by claiming that humanity is “entangled” with a myriad of scales, spaces, being(s), and temporalities. Yet, how does this entanglement alter our understanding of security? This article argues that the Anthropocene threatens not our physical security, but our ontological security: our deep and normalized conceptions of humanity and what it means to be a human “self” in a stable and continuous world. By replacing the foundation of ontological security in modernity – the uncertainty of death – with a new uncertainty of anthropos, the result is an existential discontinuity emanating from our own human selves. The Anthropocene thus manifests the need to secure humanity from humanity, or the paradox of securing oneself from oneself. Recent turns to the concept of “quantum entanglement” attempt to resolve this paradox by re-instilling a certain and secure “entangled” human self within an otherwise uncertain and insecure Anthropocene epoch. The article concludes that this move actually illustrates humanity’s separation, or dis-entanglement, from nature. Ethical and moral responsibilities to mediate and safeguard life and the planet derive not from (quantum) science nor from entanglement, but from a social world within which humans possess the agency to mediate and judge how to act through such concepts

Fabrication of photovoltaic laser energy converterby MBE

A laser-energy converter, fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), was developed. This converter is a stack of vertical p-n junctions connected in series by low-resistivity, lattice matched CoSi2 layers to achieve a high conversion efficiency. Special high-temperature electron-beam (e-beam) sources were developed especially for the MBE growth of the junctions and CoSi2 layers. Making use of the small (greater than 1.2 percent) lattice mismatch between CoSi2 and Si layers, high-quality and pinhole-free epilayers were achieved, providing a capability of fabricating all the junctions and connecting layers as a single growth process with one pumpdown. Well-defined multiple p-n junctions connected by CoSi2 layers were accomplished by employing a low growth temperature (greater than 700 C) and a low growth rate (less than 0.5 microns/hour). Producing negligible interdiffusion, the low growth temperature and rate also produced negligible pinholes in the CoSi2 layers. For the first time, a stack of three p-n junctions connected by two 10(exp -5) Ohm-cm CoSi2 layers was achieved, meeting the high conversion efficiency requirement. This process can now be optimized for high growth rate to form a practical converter with 10 p-n junctions in the stack

Inverting the Angular Correlation Function

The two point angular correlation function is an excellent measure of structure in the universe. To extract from it the three dimensional power spectrum, one must invert Limber's Equation. Here we perform this inversion using a Bayesian prior constraining the smoothness of the power spectrum. Among other virtues, this technique allows for the possibility that the estimates of the angular correlation function are correlated from bin to bin. The output of this technique are estimators for the binned power spectrum and a full covariance matrix. Angular correlations mix small and large scales but after the inversion, small scale data can be trivially eliminated, thereby allowing for realistic constraints on theories of large scale structure. We analyze the APM catalogue as an example, comparing our results with previous results. As a byproduct of these tests, we find -- in rough agreement with previous work -- that APM places stringent constraints on Cold Dark Matter inspired models, with the shape parameter constrained to be $0.25\pm 0.04$ (using data with wavenumber $k \le 0.1 h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$). This range of allowed values use the full power spectrum covariance matrix, but assumes negligible covariance in the off-diagonal angular correlation error matrix, which is estimated with a large angular resolution of 0.5degrees (in the range 0.5 and 20 degrees).Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, replace to match accepted version, MNRAS in pres

Investigations on Insecticide Resistance in Tobacco Budworm, Heliothis Virescens (F.), and Boll Weevil, Anthonomus Grandis Grandis Boheman, in the Mid-South.

Topical bioassays were conducted in 1991 to develop dose-mortality lines for the LSU laboratory reference colony (LSU-LAB) and field-collected colonies of tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (F.), from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Field-collected colonies exhibited resistance to cypermethrin (1-41x), profenofos and sulprofos (1-8x), methomyl (2-6x) and no resistance to endosulfan compared to the LSU-LAB colony. Diagnostic dose bioassays were developed to facilitate rapid testing of field-collected colonies for resistance to insecticides. These diagnostic dose bioassays were conducted in 1992 and 1993 on the LSU-LAB colony, a North Carolina laboratory reference colony and field-collected colonies from Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Significant (P $\le$ 0.01) levels of resistance to cypermethrin, endosulfan, profenofos, methomyl and thiodicarb were exhibited by all field-collected colonies (except one colony to thiodicarb) compared to the two reference colonies. Piperonyl butoxide (PBO) synergist bioassays resulted in significant (P $\le$ 0.05) increases in mortality for ten of twenty colonies compared to cypermethrin alone, two of fourteen colonies compared to profenofos alone, three of eleven colonies compared to methomyl alone and two of seven colonies compared to thiodicarb alone. Field test data with cypermethrin and PBO combinations indicated significant (P $\le$ 0.05) reductions in bollworm (Helicoverpa zea (Boddie)) /tobacco budworm damage and numbers of live larvae were achieved with cypermethrin (0.09 kg (ai/ha)) + PBO (1.12 kg (ai/ha)) compared to cypermethrin (0.09 kg (ai/ha)) alone. Topical bioassays were conducted with the R. T. Gast Insect Rearing laboratory colony (GAST-LAB) and twenty-three field collections of boll weevils, Anthonomus grandis grandis Boheman, from eleven parishes in Louisiana. The order of toxicity of the insecticides tested against the GAST-LAB colony from most to least toxic was cyfluthrin $\u3e$ zeta-cypermethrin $\u3e$ fipronil (($\pm$)-5-amino-1(2,$6$ -dichloro-$\alpha,\alpha,\alpha$-trifluoro-p-tolyl)-$4$ -tri-fluoromethylsulfinylpyrazole-3-carbonitrile) $\u3e$ deltamethrin $\u3e$ azinphosmethyl $$ oxamyl $\u3e$ endosulfan $\u3e$ malathion. There was no conclusive evidence of resistance to any of the eleven insecticides bioassayed against field-collected boll weevils, although LD\sb{50}s for cypermethrin were highly variable. The LD\sb{50} values for AC 303,630, deltamethrin, endosulfan, fipronil, oxamyl and zeta-cypermethrin serve as baseline data

Is This What We Came To Florida For? : Florida Women and the Fight Against Air Pollution in the 1960s

Environmentalism sometimes has been characterized, and criticized, as primarily a men’s movement. Most of the early conservationists were indeed men preoccupied with outdoor recreation and wilderness experiences.2 Yet beginning in the late nineteenth century, women throughout the United States took a leading role in what would become by 1970 one of the most important branches of the environmental movement— the fight against air pollution. Although women reformers were never the only group combating air pollution, they frequently were among the most numerous and radical of such early environmental activists