Shaping Metrics for HEI Cultural Engagement - Knowledge Transfer

An application was submitted to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for support for a project that would identify and define activities deemed relevant to Knowledge Transfer (KT) - Cultural Engagement (CE), and propose appropriate means to evaluate them. It was acknowledged from the outset that efforts at agreeing “metrics” for the impact of such activities had been attempted before, albeit with limited success. (One such notable example has been lately provided by the Higher Education and Business Community Interaction Survey (HEBCIS) which has collected some data on social, community, and cultural engagement for some years; however, the robustness and consistency of the data for these purposes have often been questioned.

An Imaging Infrared (IIR) seeker using a microprogrammed processor

A recently developed Imaging Infrared Seeker uses a microprogrammed processor to perform gimbal servo control and system interface while performing the seeker functions of automatic target detection, acquisition, and tracking. The automatic detection mode requires up to 80% of the available capability of a high performance microprogrammed processor. Although system complexity was increased significantly, this approach can be cost effective when the basic computation capacity is already available

Shaping Metrics for HEI Cultural Engagement - Knowledge Transfer

An application was submitted to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for support for a project that would identify and define activities deemed relevant to Knowledge Transfer (KT) - Cultural Engagement (CE), and propose appropriate means to evaluate them. It was acknowledged from the outset that efforts at agreeing “metrics” for the impact of such activities had been attempted before, albeit with limited success. (One such notable example has been lately provided by the Higher Education and Business Community Interaction Survey (HEBCIS) which has collected some data on social, community, and cultural engagement for some years; however, the robustness and consistency of the data for these purposes have often been questioned.

Modelling financial markets by the multiplicative sequence of trades

We introduce the stochastic multiplicative point process modelling trading activity of financial markets. Such a model system exhibits power-law spectral density S(f) ~ 1/f**beta, scaled as power of frequency for various values of beta between 0.5 and 2. Furthermore, we analyze the relation between the power-law autocorrelations and the origin of the power-law probability distribution of the trading activity. The model reproduces the spectral properties of trading activity and explains the mechanism of power-law distribution in real markets.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Consumer-oriented Drug Information Service Needs Assessment

Federal legislation that has been introduced to amend the Social Security Act in order to provide for coverage of cognitive pharmacist services under the Medicare program in medically underserved communities. In the rural state of Arkansas this legislation would be well-received because a large portion of the state meets the criteria of a health professional shortage area. Considering the growing interest of using telecommunications as an alternative means of delivering healthcare services to medically underserved rural areas, a pharmacist-staffed consumer-oriented drug information service was explored. Over a 5-day period, 473 face-to-face consumer surveys were conducted in pharmacy and non-pharmacy settings in an urban cluster population center that serves the surrounding rural area. The survey was designed to determine whether or not consumers had a perceived need for a drug information service that was independent from and supplemental to services provided by their pharmacist. Results reveal that 71% of participants surveyed did not perceive a need for medication information that was supplemental to that provided by their pharmacist. When queried regarding the likelihood of using a drug information service if one was available their response was neutral, and they became less likely if a fee was associated with the service. While the results are not conclusive and cannot be generalized as to whether a consumer-oriented drug information service would contribute to improving patient care, the survey suggests that this telepharmacy service is not perceived as being needed by the public

SN 1997bs in M66: Another Extragalactic Eta Carinae Analog?

We report on SN 1997bs in NGC 3627 (M66), the first supernova discovered by the Lick Observatory Supernova Search using the 0.75-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT). Based on its early-time optical spectrum, SN 1997bs was classified as Type IIn. However, from the BVRI light curves obtained by KAIT early in the supernova's evolution, and F555W and F814W light curves obtained from Hubble Space Telescope archival WFPC2 images at late times, we question the identification of SN 1997bs as a bona fide supernova. We believe that it is more likely a super-outburst of a very massive luminous blue variable star, analogous to Eta Carinae, and similar to SN 1961V in NGC 1058 (Filippenko et al. 1995 [AJ, 110, 2261]) and SN 1954J (``Variable 12'') in NGC 2403 (Humphreys & Davidson 1994 [PASP, 106, 1025]). The progenitor may have survived the outburst, since the SN is seen in early 1998 at m_F555W=23.4, about 0.5 mag fainter than the progenitor identified by Van Dyk et al. (1999, [AJ, 118, 2331]) in a pre-discovery image. Based on analysis of its environment in the Hubble Space Telescope images, the progenitor was not in an H II region or association of massive stars. The recent discovery of additional objects with properties similar to those of SN 1997bs suggests that the heterogeneous class of Type IIn supernovae consists in part of ``impostors.''Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, to appear in the PASP (2000 Dec issue

A zeta function approach to the relation between the numbers of symmetry planes and axes of a polytope

A derivation of the Ces\`aro-Fedorov relation from the Selberg trace formula on an orbifolded 2-sphere is elaborated and extended to higher dimensions using the known heat-kernel coefficients for manifolds with piecewise-linear boundaries. Several results are obtained that relate the coefficients, $b_i$, in the Shephard-Todd polynomial to the geometry of the fundamental domain. For the 3-sphere we show that $b_4$ is given by the ratio of the volume of the fundamental tetrahedron to its Schl\"afli reciprocal.Comment: Plain TeX, 26 pages (eqn. (86) corrected

Multiplicative point process as a model of trading activity

Signals consisting of a sequence of pulses show that inherent origin of the 1/f noise is a Brownian fluctuation of the average interevent time between subsequent pulses of the pulse sequence. In this paper we generalize the model of interevent time to reproduce a variety of self-affine time series exhibiting power spectral density S(f) scaling as a power of the frequency f. Furthermore, we analyze the relation between the power-law correlations and the origin of the power-law probability distribution of the signal intensity. We introduce a stochastic multiplicative model for the time intervals between point events and analyze the statistical properties of the signal analytically and numerically. Such model system exhibits power-law spectral density S(f)~1/f**beta for various values of beta, including beta=1/2, 1 and 3/2. Explicit expressions for the power spectra in the low frequency limit and for the distribution density of the interevent time are obtained. The counting statistics of the events is analyzed analytically and numerically, as well. The specific interest of our analysis is related with the financial markets, where long-range correlations of price fluctuations largely depend on the number of transactions. We analyze the spectral density and counting statistics of the number of transactions. The model reproduces spectral properties of the real markets and explains the mechanism of power-law distribution of trading activity. The study provides evidence that the statistical properties of the financial markets are enclosed in the statistics of the time interval between trades. A multiplicative point process serves as a consistent model generating this statistics.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Insomnia symptom prevalence in England: a comparison of cross-sectional self-reported data and primary care records in the UK Biobank

Objectives: We aimed to use a large dataset to compare self-reported and primary care measures of insomnia symptom prevalence in England and establish whether they identify participants with similar characteristics. // Design: Cross-sectional study with linked electronic health records (EHRs). // Setting: Primary care in England. // Participants: 163 748 UK Biobank participants in England (aged 38–71 at baseline) with linked primary care EHRs. // Outcome measures: We compared the percentage of those self-reporting ‘usually’ having insomnia symptoms at UK Biobank baseline assessment (2006–2010) to those with a Read code for insomnia symptoms in their primary care records prior to baseline. We stratified prevalence in both groups by sociodemographic, lifestyle, sleep and health characteristics. // Results: We found that 29% of the sample self-reported having insomnia symptoms, while only 6% had a Read code for insomnia symptoms in their primary care records. Only 10% of self-reported cases had an insomnia symptom Read code, while 49% of primary care cases self-reported having insomnia symptoms. In both primary care and self-reported data, prevalence of insomnia symptom cases was highest in females, older participants and those with the lowest household incomes. However, while snorers and risk takers were more likely to be a primary care case, they were less likely to self-report insomnia symptoms than non-snorers and non-risk takers. // Conclusions: Only a small proportion of individuals experiencing insomnia symptoms have an insomnia symptom Read code in their primary care record. However, primary care data do provide a clinically meaningful measure of insomnia prevalence. In addition, the sociodemographic characteristics of people attending primary care with insomnia were consistent with those with self-reported insomnia, thus primary care records are a valuable data source for studying risk factors for insomnia. Further studies should replicate our findings in other populations and examine ways to increase discussions about sleep health in primary care