School Finance and Reform in Delaware: A Summary

Delaware, although a small state with less than 20 school districts, is no different from other states in the dynamics and complexities of the political structure that has the most profound impact on educational policies in general and on public school finance in particular

Segmentation d'images par maximisation de l'entropie à deux dimensions basée sur le recuit microcanonique

Dans cet article, nous présentons une nouvelle méthode de segmentation d'images par analyse d'histogramme et seuillage par maximisation de l'entropie à deux dimensions. Pour remédier au défaut des algorithmes classiques, qui peuvent s'arrêter au premier maximum d'entropie rencontré, nous mettons en œuvre une métaheuristique robuste et facile à programmer, basée sur le recuit microcanonique. Dans l'espace exploré, la recherche des seuils de segmentation optimums s'effectue par paliers d'énergie décroissante en gravitant autour des meilleures solutions candidates. Les temps de convergence s'en trouvent améliorés et la reproductibilité des résultats est mieux garantie. L'algorithme est testé sur des images microscopiques biomédicales. Les résultats obtenus sont comparés à ceux de la méthode de Canny

The channel capacity of the ribosome

Translation is one of the most fundamental processes in the biological cell. Because of the central role that translation plays across all domains of life, the enzyme that carries out this process, the ribosome, is required to process information with high accuracy. This accuracy often approaches values near unity experimentally. In this paper, we model the ribosome as an information channel and demonstrate mathematically that this biological machine has information-processing capabilities that have not been recognized previously. In particular, we calculate bounds on the ribosome's theoretical Shannon capacity and numerically approximate this capacity. Finally, by incorporating estimates on the ribosome's operation time, we show that the ribosome operates at speeds safely below its capacity, allowing the ribosome to process information with an arbitrary degree of error. Our results show that the ribosome achieves a high accuracy in line with purely information-theoretic means.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Smart Operations of Air-Conditioning and Lighting Systems in a Government Buildings for Peak Power Reduction

This paper presents the achievements of implementing smart operations strategies for air-conditioning (A/C) and lighting systems in Justice Palace Complex (JPC), Kuwait during the summer 2007. The peak load of this building was 3700 kW. The achievements are summarized as direct savings between 13:00 and 22:00 h by closing supply and return air fans of 52 air-handling units with a connected load 400 kW, and an additional saving of 550 kW during the same period by optimizing the cooling production and distribution. Also an all time saving of 22 kW by de-lamping, and additional saving of 27 kW through TDC of lighting were achieved. In conclusion project achieved an overall reduction in power demand of around 20% between 13:00 to 17:00 h and reduction ranging from 7% to 15% between 17:00 to 20:00 h

Experimental evidence that shear bands in metallic glasses nucleate like cracks

Highly time-resolved mechanical measurements, modeling, and simulations show that large shear bands in bulk metallic glasses nucleate in a manner similar to cracks. When small slips reach a nucleation size, the dynamics changes and the shear band rapidly grows to span the entire sample. Smaller nucleation sizes imply lower ductility. Ductility can be increased by increasing the nucleation size relative to the maximum (“cutoff”) shear band size at the upper edge of the power law scaling range of their size distribution. This can be achieved in three ways: (1) by increasing the nucleation size beyond this cutoff size of the shear bands, (2) by keeping all shear bands smaller than the nucleation size, or (3) by choosing a sample size smaller than the nucleation size. The discussed methods can also be used to rapidly order metallic glasses according to ductility

Peak Power Reduction Strategies for the Lighting Systems in Government Buildings

Lighting systems are the second major contributor to the peak power demand and energy consumption in buildings after A/C systems. They account for nearly 20% of the peak power demand and 15% of the annual energy consumption. Thus energy efficient lighting systems and their smart operation can be very effective in reducing the national peak power and energy consumption, particularly for a country like Kuwait where power demand grew from 6750 MW in 2001 to 9075 MW in 2007 (MEW, 2002- 2008). This paper presents an approach developed to reduce the peak power demand in the lighting. The approach included optimum use of daylight, time of day control and delamping. The implementation of this approach for eight government buildings with occupancy of between 7:30 and 2:30 and peak power demand of 29.3 MW achieved a reduction of 2 MW in the peak power demand (around 7%). More importantly this 7% in peak load reduction and 10,628 MWh reduction in the annual energy consumption was achieved without any added cost. Also, the paper includes recommendations for retrofitting cost effective energy efficient lighting systems and implementation of more effective control

Between international donors and local faith communities: Intermediaries in humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon

This paper explores the crucial part that faith‐based organisations (FBOs) play in acting as intermediaries between international donors and local faith communities (LFCs) implementing humanitarian relief projects for Syrian refugees. Humanitarian responses to the mounting Syrian refugee crisis have coincided with greater collaboration between international donors and LFCs. This cooperation often is facilitated by a complex web of non‐state intermediaries at the international, national, and local level. This study probes the breadth of roles of these intermediaries, drawing on primary data from case studies of two Christian intermediaries supporting Christian LFCs as they deliver aid primarily to Muslim Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The results of the study are connected to the wider literature on LFCs in humanitarian response, revealing how intermediaries address issues of accountability, capacity‐building, impartiality, neutrality, and professionalism. The paper concludes by offering suggestions for further research on intermediaries as key actors in the localisation of humanitarian assistance