A multi-data source surveillance system to detect a bioterrorism attack during the G8 summit in Scotland

In 18 weeks, Health Protection Scotland (HPS) deployed a syndromic surveillance system to early-detect natural or intentional disease outbreaks during the G8 Summit 2005 at Gleneagles, Scotland. The system integrated clinical and non-clinical datasets. Clinical datasets included Accident and Emergency (A and E) syndromes, and General Practice (GPs) codes grouped into syndromes. Non-clinical data included telephone calls to a nurse helpline, laboratory test orders, and hotel staff absenteeism. A cumulative sum-based detection algorithm and a log-linear regression model identified signals in the data. The system had a fax-based track for real-time identification of unusual presentations. Ninety-five signals were triggered by the detection algorithms and four forms were faxed to HPS. Thirteen signals were investigated. The system successfully complemented a traditional surveillance system in identifying a small cluster of gastroenteritis among the police force and triggered interventions to prevent further cases

Crystallization of calcite from amorphous calcium carbonate: earthworms show the way

No abstract available

APPLICABILITY OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE APPROACHES TO NON- CONTACT ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT INJURY STUDIES

Numerous problems in biomechanics can be tackled using optimization methods. The primary objective of this paper is to explore the applicability and illustrate the importance of two major optimization approaches, namely, operation research (OR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to studies in non-contact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury biomechanics. This paper focuses on the applicability of the two approaches to bring attention to the enabling capabilities that can be offered to address challenges faced in non-contact ACL injury studies. The differences and similarities, as well as, advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches are discussed. Some of the key techniques covered in the two different approaches are highlighted. As well, the area in which there is a common ground for both approaches is outlined. It was determined for a small search space and highly tailored problems, classical exhaustive OR methods usually suffice; however, for large search spaces an AI technique must be employed. Thus, an AI technique is better suited to tackle the challenges faced in non-contact ACL injury studies especially given the multifaceted nature of such problems

Anisotropy beta functions

The flow of couplings under anisotropic scaling of momenta is computed in $\phi^3$ theory in 6 dimensions. It is shown that the coupling decreases as momenta of two of the particles become large, keeping the third momentum fixed, but at a slower rate than the decrease of the coupling if all three momenta become large simultaneously. This effect serves as a simple test of effective theories of high energy scattering, since such theories should reproduce these deviations from the usual logarithmic scale dependence.Comment: uuencoded ps file, 6 page

Evidence for extended IR emission in NGC2798 and NGC6240

Extended emission at 10 and 20 microns can be used to distinguish starbursts from monsters as the underlying energy source driving the luminous infrared emission in the central regions of galaxies. The spatial extent of the mid infrared emission in the interacting galaxy NCG 2798 and the merger NGC 6240 were investigated. The 10 and 20 micron profiles of the IR source in NGC 2798 are significantly wider than beam profiles measured on a standard star, supporting a starburst interpretation of its IR luminosity. For NGC 6240 there is marginal evidence for an extended 10 micron source, suggesting that a significant fraction of its IR luminosity could be produced by a burst of star formation

On The Power of Tree Projections: Structural Tractability of Enumerating CSP Solutions

The problem of deciding whether CSP instances admit solutions has been deeply studied in the literature, and several structural tractability results have been derived so far. However, constraint satisfaction comes in practice as a computation problem where the focus is either on finding one solution, or on enumerating all solutions, possibly projected to some given set of output variables. The paper investigates the structural tractability of the problem of enumerating (possibly projected) solutions, where tractability means here computable with polynomial delay (WPD), since in general exponentially many solutions may be computed. A general framework based on the notion of tree projection of hypergraphs is considered, which generalizes all known decomposition methods. Tractability results have been obtained both for classes of structures where output variables are part of their specification, and for classes of structures where computability WPD must be ensured for any possible set of output variables. These results are shown to be tight, by exhibiting dichotomies for classes of structures having bounded arity and where the tree decomposition method is considered

The 1981 NASA ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program, volume 1

A review of NASA research programs related to developing and improving space flight technology is presented. Technical report topics summarized include: space flight feeding; aerospace medicine; reusable spacecraft; satellite soil, vegetation, and climate studies; microwave landing systems; anthropometric studies; satellite antennas; and space shuttle fuel cells