Development of an inexpensive test system and evaluation of the test procedures for conducting vibration tests on antivibration gloves per Iso Standard 10819

An inexpensive test system was developed for conducting vibration tests on vibration attenuating gloves using ISO Standard 10819: Mechanical Vibration and Shock--Hand-Arm Vibration--Method for the Measurement and Evaluation of the Vibration Transmissibility of Gloves at the Palm of the Hand. A small electromechanical shaker initially incapable of handling a 42-58 N static push applied to its handle during glove testing was modified using a simple air bladder so it could handle the required forces. Test procedures were developed to obtain the proper input acceleration levels delivered to the shaker\u27s handle without using a feedback network. Using these procedures, a cross section of gloves designed to reduce hand-transmitted vibrations were tested according to ISO Standard 10819. Each of these gloves used one of the following materials to reduce vibrations: Gelfom, Viscolas, Akton, Sorbothane, or an air bladder. Of all the gloves tested, the only ones that met the antivibration criteria of ISO Standard 10819 used air bladder technology. Based upon the test procedures developed in this project and the results obtained, appropriate recommendations were made regarding proposed changes to the test procedures and evaluation guidelines specified in ISO Standard 10819

Designing and implementing effective venous thromboembolism prevention protocols: lessons from collaborative efforts

Hospital acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major source of morbidity and mortality, yet proven prevention measures are often underutilized. The lack of a validated VTE risk assessment model, difficulty integrating VTE risk assessment and prevention protocols into the routine process of care, and the lack of standardized metrics for VTE prophylaxis have all been barriers. Recently, a VTE risk assessment/prevention protocol has been validated, leading to portable strategies achieving breakthrough levels of adequate prophylaxis in a variety of inpatient settings. VTE prevention protocol design and implementation strategies have been collected in implementation guides available from the Society of Hospital Medicine and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. These guides were the centerpieces of national collaborative efforts to improve VTE involving over 150 medical centers, honing the approach to accelerate improvement described in this article. Embedding a VTE prevention protocol into admission, transfer, and perioperative order sets is a key strategy. A VTE prevention protocol is defined as a VTE risk assessment with no more than three levels of risk, tightly linked to recommended prophylaxis for each level. A balance between the need to provide protocol guidance and the need for efficiency and ease-of-use by the clinician must be maintained. The power of this protocol driven approach is bolstered by a quality improvement framework, multidisciplinary teams, ongoing monitoring of the process, and real time identification and mitigation of non-adherents via a technique that measures progress and prompts concurrent intervention, an approach we call “measure-vention.

Retirement Security in a DC World: Using Behavioral Finance to Bridge the Expertise Gap

This chapter evaluates models of participant choice in retirement plans, in the context of advisory services offered by their employers. We find that small barriers to accessing online advisory services seem to have significant impact on the likelihood of their use. We also find that by reducing the number of choices offered to participants from five to two greatly changes behavior. Depending on the decision, curtailing the number of choices changed participant investment choices by 40 to 100 percent

this land is our land: The past and future of conservation funding in Wisconsin

From the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior to the banks of the Mississippi River, Wisconsin has a wealth of natural resources and a population who prizes them. From hunting and fishing to camping, hiking, and bicycling, Wisconsinites pursue outdoor pastimes at higher than average rates. The state's natural resources are also key to its economy, drawing in visitors and tourism dollars and fueling the forest products and waterborne shipping industries.Yet the state's heritage also faces challenges, from climate change to urbanization, development, invasive species, overcrowding in some parks, and changing patterns in outdoor recreation itself. Historically, the state has responded to threats like these with innovative conservation programs championed by prominent figures such as Aldo Leopold, Gaylord Nelson, and Warren Knowles.In light of these challenges, this report explores new options for funding conservation. The study reviews Wisconsin's natural assets and rich history of outdoor pursuits, the state's current conservation financing mechanisms, and approaches used in other states. Though the revenue streams funding environmental regulation lie largely outside the scope of this report, our findings do have a limited bearing on environmental quality as well

Default Patterning Produces Pan-cortical Glutamatergic and CGE/LGE-like GABAergic Neurons from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Default differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells has been promoted as a model of cortical development. In this study, a developmental transcriptome analysis of default-differentiated hPSNs revealed a gene expression program resembling in vivo CGE/LGE subpallial domains and GABAergic signaling. A combination of bioinformatic, functional, and immunocytochemical analysis further revealed that hPSNs consist of both cortical glutamatergic and CGE-like GABAergic neurons. This study provides a comprehensive characterization of the heterogeneous group of neurons produced by default differentiation and insight into future directed differentiation strategies

Mitigating the Effect of Free-Riders in BitTorrent using Trusted Agents

Even though Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems present a cost-effective and scalable solution to content distribution, most entertainment, media and software, content providers continue to rely on expensive, centralized solutions such as Content Delivery Networks. One of the main reasons is that the current P2P systems cannot guarantee reasonable performance as they depend on the willingness of users to contribute bandwidth. Moreover, even systems like BitTorrent, which employ a tit-for-tat protocol to encourage fair bandwidth exchange between users, are prone to free-riding (i.e. peers that do not upload). Our experiments on PlanetLab extend previous research (e.g. LargeViewExploit, BitTyrant) demonstrating that such selfish behavior can seriously degrade the performance of regular users in many more scenarios beyond simple free-riding: we observed an overhead of up to 430% for 80% of free-riding identities easily generated by a small set of selfish users. To mitigate the effects of selfish users, we propose a new P2P architecture that classifies peers with the help of a small number of {\em trusted nodes} that we call Trusted Auditors (TAs). TAs participate in P2P download like regular clients and detect free-riding identities by observing their neighbors' behavior. Using TAs, we can separate compliant users into a separate service pool resulting in better performance. Furthermore, we show that TAs are more effective ensuring the performance of the system than a mere increase in bandwidth capacity: for 80\% of free-riding identities a single-TA system has a 6\% download time overhead while without the TA and three times the bandwidth capacity we measure a 100\% overhead

Surreal Worlds : Sculptural Forms and the Architecture of the Unconscious

This written thesis supports the creative thesis entitled Surreal Worlds: Sculptural Forms and the Architecture of the Unconscious. This thesis is an exploration of the role of the found object in my creative process as a starting point dictated by the unconscious desires and experiential reality that define who I am and how I perceive the world. Using the found objects I have surrounded myself with as both starting points and units within actual pieces, I intend to create sculptural forms that illuminate the complex structures and topography of my mental landscape.  M.F.A

Aequitas: A Trusted P2P System for Paid Content Delivery

P2P file-sharing has been recognized as a powerful and efficient distribution model due to its ability to leverage users' upload bandwidth. However, companies that sell digital content on-line are hesitant to rely on P2P models for paid content distribution due to the free file-sharing inherent in P2P models. In this paper we present Aequitas, a P2P system in which users share paid content anonymously via a layer of intermediate nodes. We argue that with the extra anonymity in Aequitas, vendors could leverage P2P bandwidth while effectively maintaining the same level of trust towards their customers as in traditional models of paid content distribution. As a result, a content provider could reduce its infrastructure costs and subsequently lower the costs for the end-users. The intermediate nodes are incentivized to contribute their bandwidth via electronic micropayments. We also introduce techniques that prevent the intermediate nodes from learning the content of the files they help transmit. In this paper we present the design of our system, an analysis of its properties and an implementation and experimental evaluation. We quantify the value of the intermediate nodes, both in terms of efficiency and their effect on anonoymity. We argue in support of the economic and technological merits of the system

A Case for P2P Delivery of Paid Content

P2P file sharing provides a powerful content distribution model by leveraging users' computing and bandwidth resources. However, companies have been reluctant to rely on P2P systems for paid content distribution due to their inability to limit the exploitation of these systems for free file sharing. We present TP2, a system that combines the more cost-effective and scalable distribution capabilities of P2P systems with a level of trust and control over content distribution similar to direct download content delivery networks. TP2 uses two key mechanisms that can be layered on top of existing P2P systems. First, it provides strong authentication to prevent free file sharing in the system. Second, it introduces a new notion of trusted auditors to detect and limit malicious attempts to gain information about participants in the system to facilitate additional out-of-band free file sharing. We analyze TP2 by modeling it as a novel game between malicious users who try to form free file sharing clusters and trusted auditors who curb the growth of such clusters. Our analysis shows that a small fraction of trusted auditors is sufficient to protect the P2P system against unauthorized file sharing. Using a simple economic model, we further show that TP2 provides a more cost-effective content distribution solution, resulting in higher profits for a content provider even in the presence of a large percentage of malicious users. Finally, we implemented TP2 on top of BitTorrent and use PlanetLab to show that our system can provide trusted P2P file sharing with negligible performance overhead

Can P2P Replace Direct Download for Content Distribution

While peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing is a powerful and cost-effective content distribution model, most paid-for digital-content providers (CPs) rely on direct download to deliver their content. CPs such as Apple iTunes that command a large base of paying users are hesitant to use a P2P model that could easily degrade their user base into yet another free file-sharing community. We present TP2, a system that makes P2P file sharing a viable delivery mechanism for paid digital content by providing the same security properties as the currently used direct-download model.} introduces the novel notion of trusted auditors (TAs) -- P2P peers that are controlled by the system operator. TAs monitor the behavior of other peers and help detect and prevent formation of illegal file-sharing clusters among the CP's user base. TAs both complement and exploit the strong authentication and authorization mechanisms that are used in TP2 to control access to content. It is important to note that TP2 does not attempt to solve the out-of-band file-sharing or DRM problems, which also exist in the direct-download systems currently in use. We analyze TP2 by modeling it as a novel game between misbehaving users who try to form unauthorized file-sharing clusters and TAs who curb the growth of such clusters. Our analysis shows that a small fraction of TAs is sufficient to protect the P2P system against unauthorized file sharing. In a system with as many as 60\% of misbehaving users, even a small fraction of TAs can detect 99\% of unauthorized cluster formation. We developed a simple economic model to show that even with such a large fraction of malicious nodes, TP2 can improve CP's profits (which could translate to user savings) by 62 to 122\%, even while assuming conservative estimates of content and bandwidth costs. We implemented TP2 as a layer on top of BitTorrent and demonstrated experimentally using PlanetLab that our system provides trusted P2P file sharing with negligible performance overhead