Exploratory Analysis of the Umea Data at IIASA

The Demographic Data Base at Umea University, Sweden, has been in existence for over ten years now. A file dedicated to the study of individuals over time has recently been made available for research; a copy of this data is now at IIASA. The file consists of individual life event histories for women in seven different parishes in Sweden in the nineteenth century. Here, the author merely presents some very elementary analyses of the data concerning migration, and fertility, as a guide for future research. He also suggests that the data will be of considerable value in the study of heterogeneity in fecundability, a topic generating widespread publicity

Health Applications of Network Science and Computational Social Science

Social network analysis has proliferated rapidly across the social and behavioral sciences, with increasingly apparent implications for human health. Shifting our focus from individuals to the patterns of social ties that connect them has enriched our understanding of a great variety of health-related phenomena, including the spread of STDs on contact networks, the spread of health care practices on practitioners’ professional networks, the dynamics of patient transfers on networks of clinics, and the spread of health behaviors on adolescent friendship networks. The advent of computational social science has augmented such contributions by introducing scalable methods of automatically monitoring and rigorously modeling these phenomena. Sample applications include analysis of electronic health records and other time-stamped communication traces among health care practitioners; streams of behavioral and biometric data from wearable sensors, location-aware devices, or electronic calendars; automated analysis of text in documents using natural language processing; and mapping networks of scientific collaboration by citations and co-authorships in clinical research literatures. Whereas much work in computational social science has offered new ways of empirically monitoring health behavior and health care behavior, a further contribution has been to directly model these social processes using system dynamics, microsimulation, discrete event simulation, and agent-based models. These approaches allow for computational ‘virtual’ experiments that assist in predicting, interpreting, and evaluating outcomes from health interventions. This poster will highlight some of my recent and pending work in this broad domain, aiming to identify potential collaborators in UMCCTS for projects that involve social networks or computational social science

Self-Positioning Smart Buoys, The \u27Un-Buoy\u27 Solution: Logistic Considerations Using Autonomous Surface Craft Technology and Improved Communications Infrastructure

Moored buoys have long served national interests, but incur high development, construction, installation, and maintenance costs. Buoys which drift off-location can pose hazards to mariners, and in coastal waters may cause environmental damage. Moreover, retrieval, repair and replacement of drifting buoys may be delayed when data would be most useful. Such gaps in coastal buoy data can pose a threat to national security by reducing maritime domain awareness. The concept of self-positioning buoys has been advanced to reduce installation cost by eliminating mooring hardware. We here describe technology for operation of reduced cost self-positioning buoys which can be used in coastal or oceanic waters. The ASC SCOUT model is based on a self-propelled, GPS-positioned, autonomous surface craft that can be pre-programmed, autonomous, or directed in real time. Each vessel can communicate wirelessly with deployment vessels and other similar buoys directly or via satellite. Engineering options for short or longer term power requirements are considered, in addition to future options for improved energy delivery systems. Methods of reducing buoy drift and position-maintaining energy requirements for self-locating buoys are also discussed, based on the potential of incorporating traditional maritime solutions to these problems. We here include discussion of the advanced Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) communications draft protocol which offers improved wireless communication capabilities underwater, to adjacent vessels, and to satellites. DTN is particularly adapted for noisy or loss-prone environments, thus it improves reliability. In addition to existing buoy communication via commercial satellites, a growing network of small satellites known as PICOSATs can be readily adapted to provide low-cost communications nodes for buoys. Coordination with planned vessel Automated Identification Systems (AIS) and International Maritime Organization standards for buoy and vessel notificat- - ion systems are reviewed and the legal framework for deployment of autonomous surface vessels is considered

Dynamic Guarding of Marine Assets Through Cluster Control of Automated Surface Vessel Fleets

There is often a need to mark or patrol marine areas in order to prevent boat traffic from approaching critical regions, such as the location of a high-value vessel, a dive site, or a fragile marine ecosystem. In this paper, we describe the use of a fleet of robotic kayaks that provides such a function: the fleet circumnavigates the critical area until a threatening boat approaches, at which point the fleet establishes a barrier between the ship and the protected area. Coordinated formation control of the fleet is implemented through the use of the cluster-space control architecture, which is a full-order controller that treats the fleet as a virtual, articulating, kinematic mechanism. An application-specific layer interacts with the cluster-space controller in order for an operator to directly specify and monitor guarding-related parameters, such as the spacing between boats. This system has been experimentally verified in the field with a fleet of robotic kayaks. In this paper, we describe the control architecture used to establish the guarding behavior, review the design of the robotic kayaks, and present experimental data regarding the functionality and performance of the system.Fil: Mahacek, Paul. Santa Clara University; Estados UnidosFil: Kitts, Christopher A.. Santa Clara University; Estados UnidosFil: Mas, Ignacio Agustin. Santa Clara University; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Petition for a Writ of Certiorari. Dellinger v. Science Applications International Corp. (No. 11-598), 2011 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs LEXIS 2153

QUESTIONS PRESENTED (1) Does the anti-retaliation provision in section 15(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act apply to retaliation by an employer against a job applicant? (2) Is the private cause action provided by section 16(b) of the FLSA available to a job applicant who is retaliated against by an employer

Investigating the temporal dynamics of inter-organizational exchange: patient transfers among Italian hospitals

Previous research on interaction behavior among organizations (resource exchange, collaboration, communication) has typically aggregated records of those behaviors over time to constitute a ‘network’ of organizational relationships. We instead directly study structural-temporal patterns in organizational exchange, focusing on the dynamics of reciprocation. Applying this lens to a community of Italian hospitals during the period 2003-2007, we observe two mechanisms of interorganizational reciprocation: organizational embedding and resource dependence. We flesh out these two mechanisms by showing how they operate in distinct time frames: Dependence operates on contemporaneous exchange structures, whereas embedding develops through longer-term historical patterns. We also show how these processes operate differently in competitive and noncompetitive contexts, operationalized in terms of market differentiation and geographic space. In noncompetitive contexts, we observe both logics of reciprocation, dependence in the short term and embedding over the long term, developing into patterns of generalized exchange in this population. In competitive contexts, we observe neither form of reciprocation and instead observe the microfoundations of status hierarchies in exchange

Elucidation of the Complete \u3ci\u3eAzorhizobium\u3c/i\u3e Nicotinate Catabolism Pathway

A complete pathway for Azorhizobium caulinodans nicotinate catabolism has been determined from mutant phenotype analyses, isolation of metabolic intermediates, and structural studies. Nicotinate serves as a respiratory electron donor to O2 via a membrane-bound hydroxylase and a specific c-type cytochrome oxidase. The resulting oxidized product, 6-hydroxynicotinate, is next reduced to 1,4,5,6-tetrahydro-6-oxonicotinate. Hydrolytic ring breakage follows, with release of pyridine N as ammonium. Decarboxylation then releases the nicotinate C-7 carboxyl group as CO2, and the remaining C skeleton is then oxidized to yield glutarate. Transthioesterification with succinyl coenzyme A (succinyl-CoA) yields glutaryl-CoA, which is then oxidatively decarboxylated to yield crotonyl-CoA. As with general acyl β oxidation, L-β-hydroxybutyryl-CoA, acetoacetyl-CoA, and finally two molecules of acetyl-CoA are produced. In sum, nicotinate is catabolized to yield two CO2 molecules, two acetyl-CoA molecules, and ammonium. Nicotinate catabolism stimulates Azorhizobium N2 fixation rates in culture. Nicotinate catabolism mutants still able to liberate pyridine N as ammonium retain this capability, whereas mutants so blocked do not. From, mutant analyses and additional physiological tests, N2 fixation stimulation is indirect. In N-limited culture, nicotinate catabolism augments anabolic N pools and, as a consequence, yields N2-fixing cells with higher dinitrogenase content

Regulatory Responsibility in the Atomic Energy Program ( A Symposium)

The regulatory actions taken by federal, state and local governments will exert a great impact on the present and future development of the civilian atomic energy program. All are aware of the tremendous potential that atomic energy holds for mankind. All are equally aware, on the negative side, of the potential radiation hazards associated with the use of radiation and radioactive materials. These hazards must be controlled so that the full realization of atomic energy benefits may be enjoyed

Diversity of Microorganisms Isolated from Amber

Claims that organisms can be cultured from amber, if substantiated, would be significant contributions to our understanding of the evolution, tenacity, and potential spread of life. Three reports on the isolation of organisms from amber have been published. Cano and Borucki recently reported the isolation of Bacillus sphaericus and Lambert et al. have described a new species designated Staphylococcus succinus from 25–40 million year old Dominican amber. These characterized organisms were phylogenetically distant from extant relatives and the Staphylococcus sp. sufficiently far removed from other extant staphylococci to be considered a new species. Here we report the culture of bacteria from Dominican and previously untested 120 million year old Israeli (Lebanese lode) amber. Twenty-seven isolates from the amber matrix have been characterized by fatty-acid profiles (FAME) and/or 16S rRNA sequencing. We also performed a terminal restriction fragment pattern (TRF) analysis of the original amber before prolonged culture by consensus primer amplification of the 16S rRNA followed by restriction enzyme digestion of the amplicons. Sample TRFs were consistent with a sparse bacterial assemblage and included at least five of the isolated organisms. Finally, we microscopically mapped the internal topography of an amber slice

Random walks on the Apollonian network with a single trap

Explicit determination of the mean first-passage time (MFPT) for trapping problem on complex media is a theoretical challenge. In this paper, we study random walks on the Apollonian network with a trap fixed at a given hub node (i.e. node with the highest degree), which are simultaneously scale-free and small-world. We obtain the precise analytic expression for the MFPT that is confirmed by direct numerical calculations. In the large system size limit, the MFPT approximately grows as a power-law function of the number of nodes, with the exponent much less than 1, which is significantly different from the scaling for some regular networks or fractals, such as regular lattices, Sierpinski fractals, T-graph, and complete graphs. The Apollonian network is the most efficient configuration for transport by diffusion among all previously studied structure.Comment: Definitive version accepted for publication in EPL (Europhysics Letters