The Part-Time-Society's Activity and Mobility Patterns

In his article 'What about People in Regional Science?' Hägerstrand (1970) identifies time and space constraints as dominating determinants of each individual's activity pattern. The paper at hand follows this idea, but considers the whole society's accumulated time budget instead. Based on a Socio-Economic Input-Output Table (SIOT) in time and monetary) units, activity patterns of three age groups (65 years) are analyzed in further detail. Since the applied concept allows for a simultaneous analysis of time use and time receipts, inter-generational linkages can be identified as well. Care activities, for example, often require time inputs from the middle age group (18-65 years). However, the beneficiaries belong in the majority to the young and the old age group. Obviously, the age groups' activity patterns come along with specific mobility needs. Therefore, the second aim of the study is to identify mobility patterns – at an aggregated level – as well. Finally, the paper gives a first insight into potential changes of activity patterns and mobility patterns in particular, that could be initiated by the realization of a part-time-society. The latter is characterized by a strong reduction of individual (paid) working time, flexible time schedules and a strengthening of social activities

Research on an expert system for database operation of simulation-emulation math models. Volume 1, Phase 1: Results

The results of the first phase of Research on an Expert System for Database Operation of Simulation/Emulation Math Models, is described. Techniques from artificial intelligence (AI) were to bear on task domains of interest to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. One such domain is simulation of spacecraft attitude control systems. Two related software systems were developed to and delivered to NASA. One was a generic simulation model for spacecraft attitude control, written in FORTRAN. The second was an expert system which understands the usage of a class of spacecraft attitude control simulation software and can assist the user in running the software. This NASA Expert Simulation System (NESS), written in LISP, contains general knowledge about digital simulation, specific knowledge about the simulation software, and self knowledge

Research on an expert system for database operation of simulation-emulation math models. Volume 2, Phase 1: Results

A reference manual is provided for NESS, a simulation expert system. This manual gives user information regarding starting and operating NASA expert simulation system (NESS). This expert system provides an intelligent interface to a generic simulation program for spacecraft attitude control problems. A menu of the functions the system can perform is provided. Control repeated returns to this menu after executing each user request

Mass modification of D-meson in hot hadronic matter

We evaluate the in-medium $D$ and $\bar D$-meson masses in hot hadronic matter induced by interactions with the light hadron sector described in a chiral SU(3) model. The effective Lagrangian approach is generalized to SU(4) to include charmed mesons. We find that the D-mass drops substantially at finite temperatures and densities, which open the channels of the decay of the charmonium states ($\Psi^\prime$, $\chi_c$, $J/\Psi$) to $D \bar D$ pairs in the thermal medium. The effects of vacuum polarisations from the baryon sector on the medium modification of the $D$-meson mass relative to those obtained in the mean field approximation are investigated. The results of the present work are compared to calculations based on the QCD sum-rule approach, the quark-meson coupling model, chiral perturbation theory, as well as to studies of quarkonium dissociation using heavy quark potential from lattice QCD.Comment: 18 pages including 7 figures, minor revision of the text, figure styles modified, to appear in Phys. Rev.

QCD Corrections to Production of Higgs Pseudoscalars

Models of electroweak symmetry breaking with more than a single doublet of Higgs scalars contain a neutral pseudoscalar boson. The production of such a pseudoscalar in hadron collisions proceeds primarily via gluon fusion through a top-quark loop (except for those models in which the pseudoscalar coupling to bottom quarks is strongly enhanced). We compute the QCD corrections to this process in the heavy-quark limit, using an effective Lagrangian derived from the axial anomaly.Comment: 9 pages, (BNL number added, 1 typo corrected, PHYZZX format, 4 figures not included, available on request), BNL-4906

A measurement of CMB cluster lensing with SPT and DES year 1 data

Clusters of galaxies gravitationally lens the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, resulting in a distinct imprint in the CMB on arcminute scales. Measurement of this effect offers a promising way to constrain the masses of galaxy clusters, particularly those at high redshift. We use CMB maps from the South Pole Telescope Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) survey to measure the CMB lensing signal around galaxy clusters identified in optical imaging from first year observations of the Dark Energy Survey. The cluster catalogue used in this analysis contains 3697 members with mean redshift of z = 0.45. We detect lensing of the CMB by the galaxy clusters at 8.1σ significance. Using the measured lensing signal, we constrain the amplitude of the relation between cluster mass and optical richness to roughly 17 percent precision, finding good agreement with recent constraints obtained with galaxy lensing. The error budget is dominated by statistical noise but includes significant contributions from systematic biases due to the thermal SZ effect and cluster miscentring

Cost effectiveness of school-located influenza vaccination programs for elementary and secondary school children.

BackgroundStudies have noted variations in the cost-effectiveness of school-located influenza vaccination (SLIV), but little is known about how SLIV's cost-effectiveness may vary by targeted age group (e.g., elementary or secondary school students), or vaccine consent process (paper-based or web-based). Further, SLIV's cost-effectiveness may be impacted by its spillover effect on practice-based vaccination; prior studies have not addressed this issue.MethodsWe performed a cost-effectiveness analysis on two SLIV programs in upstate New York in 2015-2016: (a) elementary school SLIV using a stepped wedge design with schools as clusters (24 suburban and 18 urban schools) and (b) secondary school SLIV using a cluster randomized trial (16 suburban and 4 urban schools). The cost-per-additionally-vaccinated child (i.e., incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER)) was estimated by dividing the incremental SLIV intervention cost by the incremental effectiveness (i.e., the additional number of vaccinated students in intervention schools compared to control schools). We performed deterministic analyses, one-way sensitivity analyses, and probabilistic analyses.ResultsThe overall effectiveness measure (proportion of children vaccinated) was 5.7 and 5.5 percentage points higher, respectively, in intervention elementary (52.8%) and secondary schools (48.2%) than grade-matched control schools. SLIV programs vaccinated a small proportion of children in intervention elementary (5.2%) and secondary schools (2.5%). In elementary and secondary schools, the ICER excluding vaccine purchase was $85.71 and$86.51 per-additionally-vaccinated-child, respectively. When additionally accounting for observed spillover impact on practice-based vaccination, the ICER decreased to $80.53 in elementary schools -- decreasing substantially in secondary schools. (to$53.40). These estimates were higher than the published practice-based vaccination cost (median = $25.50, mean =$45.48). Also, these estimates were higher than our 2009-2011 urban SLIV program mean costs ($65) due to additional costs for use of a new web-based consent system ($12.97 per-additionally-vaccinated-child) and higher project coordination costs in 2015-2016. One-way sensitivity analyses showed that ICER estimates were most sensitive to the SLIV effectiveness.ConclusionsSLIV raises vaccination rates and may increase practice-based vaccination in primary care practices. While these SLIV programs are effective, to be as cost-effective as practice-based vaccination our SLIV programs would need to vaccinate more students and/or lower the costs for consent systems and project coordination.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT02227186 (August 25, 2014), updated NCT03137667 (May 2, 2017)

The structure of the COPI coat determined within the cell

COPI-coated vesicles mediate trafficking within the Golgi apparatus and from the Golgi to the endoplasmic reticulum. The structures of membrane protein coats, including COPI, have been extensively studied with in vitro reconstitution systems using purified components. Previously we have determined a complete structural model of the in vitro reconstituted COPI coat (Dodonova et al., 2017). Here, we applied cryo-focused ion beam milling, cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram averaging to determine the native structure of the COPI coat within vitrified Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells. The native algal structure resembles the in vitro mammalian structure, but additionally reveals cargo bound beneath β’–COP. We find that all coat components disassemble simultaneously and relatively rapidly after budding. Structural analysis in situ, maintaining Golgi topology, shows that vesicles change their size, membrane thickness, and cargo content as they progress from cis to trans, but the structure of the coat machinery remains constant