Fundamentals of Chalcopyrite Dissolution in Alkaline Glycine Solutions

The slow leach rate of copper from chalcopyrite in acid solutions has often been attributed to the formation of a poorly soluble “passive” layer on the surface. For this study, it has been shown that no such passive layer exists in alkaline glycine solutions. Surface analyses have shown these species exist, but are not passivating. The leach rate is instead determined by the electronic structure of chalcopyrite

Access to Capital: Milwaukee's Continuing Small Business Lending Gaps

This study provides a detailed review of small business lending in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and illustrates how this new data set can be utilized to assess small business lending in virtually any local market. Milwaukee is a fairly typical industrial community that has been hit hard by decades of disinvestment but which also has been the location of many successful community reinvestment initiatives in recent years (Squires and O'Connor 2001). Previous research found that among the nation's fifty largest metropolitan areas Milwaukee had the smallest share of small business loans going to low- and moderate-income areas (Norman 1998). Lending to small businesses, that is firms with assets below $1 million, was also found to be below nationwide levels. Small business lending has also been concentrated in white communities with black and Hispanic communities receiving relatively small shares of such loans and loan dollars. But lenders vary dramatically in Milwaukee in terms of the distribution of their small business loans by neighborhood income level (Squires and O'Connor 1999). This study examines changes in small business lending patterns in Milwaukee between 1996, when these data first became available, and 1999, the most recent data that are available

Sleep problems in childhood: a longitudinal study of developmental change and association with behavioral problems

Objective: The objective of the study was to examine specificity, order of appearance, and developmental changes in the relationships between sleep problems and behavioral problems in children. Method: Four hundred ninety children were selected from a large-scale longitudinal study of children growing up in adoptive and nonadoptive (biological) families in Colorado. Parental ratings of children’s sleep and behavioral problems on the Child Behavior Checklist were obtained from ages 4 to 15 years. Results: Sleep problems decreased from age 4 years to mid-adolescence, but there was modest stability of individual differences across this age range (r = 0.29). Regression analyses indicated that sleep problems at age 4 predicted behavioral/emotional problems in mid-adolescence after accounting for child sex, adoptive status, and stability of behavioral/ emotional problems. Finally, the correlation between sleep problems and depression/anxiety increased significantly during this age period from r = 0.39 at age 4 years to r = 0.52 at mid-adolescence. Conclusions: Early sleep problems may forecast behavioral/emotional problems, and there may be important developmental change in the overlap between sleep problems and behavioral/emotional problems

Views from the coalface: chemo-sensors, sensor networks and the semantic sensor web

Currently millions of sensors are being deployed in sensor networks across the world. These networks generate vast quantities of heterogeneous data across various levels of spatial and temporal granularity. Sensors range from single-point in situ sensors to remote satellite sensors which can cover the globe. The semantic sensor web in principle should allow for the unification of the web with the real-word. In this position paper, we discuss the major challenges to this unification from the perspective of sensor developers (especially chemo-sensors) and integrating sensors data in real-world deployments. These challenges include: (1) identifying the quality of the data; (2) heterogeneity of data sources and data transport methods; (3) integrating data streams from different sources and modalities (esp. contextual information), and (4) pushing intelligence to the sensor level

Technology use in everyday life: Implications for designing for older users

This study examines the experience and attitudes of older adults towards technology and how they compare with younger age groups. Two hundred and thirty seven participants completed an extensive questionnaire exploring their daily lifestyle, use of technology, attitudes towards technology, and perceived difficulty of household devices. The main findings from the study were; (1) there was a strong motivation to learn or to continue learning to use computers by the older group; (2) social connectedness influenced how the older group used or would like to use technology and also why some preferred not to use it; and finally (3) there was an age-related increase in perceived difficulty for many household devices, however some devices maintained intergenerational usability. These finding can be used to inform the design of future intergenerational household technologies

Engineering ambient visual sensors

Visual sensors are an indispensable prerequisite for those AmI environments that require a surveillance component. One practical issue concerns maximizing the operational longevity of such sensors as the operational lifetime of an AmI environment itself is dependent on that of its constituent components. In this paper, the intelligent agent paradigm is considered as a basis for managing a camera collective such that the conflicting demands of power usage optimization and system performance are reconciled

Notes on feelings

A set of fourteen three-note musical sequences was generated. These were presented to eleven musically experienced subjects. Similarity ratings among sequences and semantic differential ratings of emotional expressions interpreted from sequences were taken. Multidimensional scaling was used to partition subjects accordin9 to strategy. Six subjects showed similar strateqies, for which a common origin was postulated. Tentative conclusions were drawn about the relationships between particular musical sequence characteristics and specific emotional expressions

A sensing platform for physiological and contextual feedback to tennis athletes

In this paper we describe our work on creating a multi-modal sensing platform for providing feedback to tennis coaches and players. The platform includes a fixed installation around a tennis court consisting of a video camera network and a localisation system as well as wearable sensing technology deployed to individual athletes. We describe the various components of this platform and explain how we can capture synchronised multi-modal sensor data streams for games or training sessions. We then describe the content-based retrieval system we are building to facilitate the development of novel coaching tools. We provide some examples of the queries that the system can support, where these queries are chosen to be suitably expressive so as to reflect a coach's complex information needs regarding tennis-related performance factors

Additional collection devices used in conjunction with the SurePath Liquid-Based Pap Test broom device do not enhance diagnostic utility

BACKGROUND: We have previously shown that use of an EC brush device in combination with the Rovers Cervex-Brush (SurePath broom) offered no significant improvement in EC recovery. Here we determine if use of additional collection devices enhance the diagnostic utility of the SurePath Pap for gynecologic cytology. METHODS: After informed consent, 37 women ages 18–56 receiving their routine cervical examinations were randomized into four experimental groups. Each group was first sampled with the SurePath broom then immediately re-sampled with an additional collection device or devices. Group 1: Rover endocervix brush (n = 8). Group 2: Medscand CytoBrush Plus GT (n = 7). Group 3: Rover spatula + endocervix brush (n = 11). Group 4: Medscand spatula + CytoBrush Plus GT (n = 11). RESULTS: Examination of SurePath broom-collected cytology yielded the following abnormal diagnoses: atypia (n = 2), LSIL (n = 5) and HSIL (n = 3). Comparison of these diagnoses to those obtained from paired samples using the additional collection devices showed that use of a second and or third device yielded no additional abnormal diagnoses. Importantly, use of additional devices did not improve upon the abnormal cell recovery of the SurePath broom and in 4/10 cases under-predicted or did not detect the SurePath broom-collected lesion as confirmed by cervical biopsy. Finally, in 36/37 cases, the SurePath broom successfully recovered ECs. Use of additional devices, in Group 3, augmented EC recovery to 37/37. CONCLUSIONS: Use of additional collection devices in conjunction with the SurePath broom did not enhance diagnostic utility of the SurePath Pap. A potential but not significant improvement in EC recovery might be seen with the use of three devices

Review Of The Main Welfare Risks Related To Electrical Stunning Of Small Ruminants (Ovine And Caprine Species)

EFSA commissioned a comprehensive review of the welfare aspects of electrical stunning methods for small ruminants with an emphasize on low ampere stunning to establish the state of the art in the field and to assess whether scientific studies would address criteria outlined in an EFSA guidance on the assessment criteria for studies evaluating the effectiveness of stunning interventions regarding animal protection at the time of killing (EFSA Journal 2013;11(12):3486). The review was not formulated as a systematic review with a focused question instead the review followed the approach to assessing the literature described by the EFSA guidance. The key databases searched were: Science Citation Index (1900-2014), CAB Abstracts (1910-2014) and Medline (1990-2014). Key conferences proceedings and the bibliographies of review articles were manually searched. The search yielded 1599 records. 706 duplicate records were removed and 894 records assessed for relevance. Relevant studies reported electronic stunning of small ruminants and outcomes associated with onset and duration of unconsciousness. Eighteen papers reported electrical approaches to stunning in sheep. No goats were studied. None of the papers reported all of the parameters detailed in the EFSA guidance (EFSA, 2013) and a risk of bias assessment was not conducted. No studies reported the appearance of the electrodes. When the frequency (Hz) applied to the animal was reported, it was not specified whether this represented a minimum or maximum frequency. Only one study explicitly reported an effect size for amperes. The study suggested that the odds of a poor stun were higher for amperes of 0.6 (odds ratio (OD) of 6.27 with 95% confidence interval (CI) of 1.98-20.7) and 0.8 (OR of 24.4 with 95% CI of 6.98-85.2) when compared to a poor stun at 1.25 ampere