39,893 research outputs found
Wide-range dynamic pressure sensor
Transducer measures pressure by sensing the damping of a vibrating diaphragm immersed in the atmosphere to be measured. Improved sensor can be included in rugged, lightweight package for use aboard aircraft, meteorological vehicles, and space probes
Civil RICO: A Call for a Uniform Statute of Limitations
RICO is a statute, originally developed to thwart organized crime. When read broadly, the statute, however, has been applied to non-organized crime activities. Thus, courts have now started applying four substantive requirements for use of the RICO statute: (1) requiring that the plaintiff must allege that the defendant has connection to organized crime, (2) limiting standing to a particular type of injury, (3) requiring the plaintiff to allege an enterprise distinct from the pattern of racketeering or from the defendant, and (4) permitting only civil RICO claims in instances where the defendant has been previously convicted of the predicate acts alleged in the civil complaint. Along with these requirements, a second area of confusion, which has arisen from the federal RICO statute is the lack of an express statute of limitations. This Note argues that instead of using the method of applying the statute of limitations for an analogous cause of action (the Supreme Court\u27s general method when no express statute of limitations is offered), Congress should step in and create an express statute of limitations for the civil RICO statute. Utilizing the general Supreme Court method for determining the statute of limitations is against the purpose and history of the civil RICO statute. In light of the potential unfairness with the current limitations scheme and the federal nature of the RICO statute, it makes sense for Congress to enact an express limitations scheme, creating predictability in RICO cases
Tackling the PANā09 External Plagiarism Detection Corpus with a Desktop Plaigiarism Detector
Ferret is a fast and eļ¬ective tool for detecting similarities in a group of ļ¬les. Applying it to the PANā09 corpus required modiļ¬cations to meet the requirements of the competition, mainly to deal with the very large number of ļ¬les, the large size of some of them, and to automate some of the decisions that would normally be made by a human operator. Ferret was able to detect numerous ļ¬les in the development corpus that contain substantial similarities not marked as plagiarism, but it also identiļ¬ed quite a lot of pairs where random similarities masked actual plagiarism. An improved metric is therefore indicated if the āplagiarisedā or ānot plagiarisedā decision is to be automated
Towards a geographical information system for European economic community regional data
The study proposes the development of a geographical information system for European Economic Community (EEC) regional data. The features of geographical information systems and some related issues are discussed. An outline is given of likely user requirements and attempts by various European organisations to make provision for these. The practical work involves the application of three selected data analysis, manipulation and mapping packages, and operating system facilities to tasks which users of the data might wish to undertake. For this purpose, EEC "Level II" region boundaries were digitised, and selected socio-economic attributes for 1977 organised in disc files. Ten choropleth maps of the Level II regions (eight original variabels and two composite variables) are displayed. Although there is a lack of certain, more specialised features in the software system used, it is considered that there exists the imprtant basic requirements of data analysis, manipulation and mapping in package form, upon which to build the proposed geographical information system
Whys and hows of in-house writing
The combining of requisite technical knowledge with requisite writing ability is addressed. Considerations in the development of in-house writing courses, in-plant training, are presented and evaluated. Specific problems in past methodology are also detailed. It is suggested that teachers of technical writing should be technical people themselves, preferably with working experience in industry or business; the training provided should be user-oriented, not theory oriented
Inferring the Rate-Length Law of Protein Folding
We investigate the rate-length scaling law of protein folding, a key
undetermined scaling law in the analytical theory of protein folding. We
demonstrate that chain length is a dominant factor determining folding times,
and that the unambiguous determination of the way chain length corre- lates
with folding times could provide key mechanistic insight into the folding
process. Four specific proposed laws (power law, exponential, and two stretched
exponentials) are tested against one an- other, and it is found that the power
law best explains the data. At the same time, the fit power law results in
rates that are very fast, nearly unreasonably so in a biological context. We
show that any of the proposed forms are viable, conclude that more data is
necessary to unequivocally infer the rate-length law, and that such data could
be obtained through a small number of protein folding experiments on large
protein domains
Open educational resources and widening participation in higher education: innovations and lessons from open universities
This paper, which references a European Lifelong Learning project under the Erasmus Virtual Campus programme, briefly reviews the role of open educational resources, open and distance learning and widening participation within European higher education. It also examines and analyses policies and practices from various European open universities, practices undertaken to widen the audience for higher education knowledge, increase engagement with higher education materials and improve participation in formal access higher education courses and programmes. It presents a framework for understanding the role of open educational resources and open and distance learning in widening participation based on their availability, accessibility, and acceptability. The paper concludes that open educational resources are beginning to influence educational opportunities in Europe, but that new policies and practices are required at all levels in the higher education system to address issues of openness and open educational resources in higher education study and the role that they can play in increasing and widening engagement and participation. There needs to be better collaboration between the various stakeholders if OER are not to be seen as a way of simply widening the audience for higher education knowledge rather than widening participation in formal studies
Cognitive appraisal of dissertation stress among undergraduate students
The present study examined changes in primary and secondary appraisal, and coping strategies utilized in the final weeks leading to dissertation submission. Sixty volunteer Sports Studies dissertation students (male: n = 29; female: n = 31) completed an adapted Cognitive Appraisal of Health Scale (CAHS: Kessler, 1998), and Brief COPE (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989) on 4 occasions over the 6 weeks before dissertation submission. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance indicated a significant main effect for gender, with no main effect for changes over time and no significant interaction effect. Results demonstrated that males perceived the dissertation to be significantly more threatening and iess challenging than females. With regard to coping, males used more active coping, positive reframing, planning, and acceptance of the stressor, with lower scores for self-blame, venting of emotions, and behavioral disengagement. The results suggest that, for this student population, the dissertation did not become increasingly stressful in the period before submission. Clear relationships were also evidenced between primary appraisal, secondary appraisal, and coping. Future research should seek to identify factors that moderate the influence of situational stressors on coping responses among undergraduate students
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