Clearing the Air on Radon Testing: The Duty of Real Estate Brokers to Protect Prospective Homebuyers

This Note recommends that the federal government create legislation that will impose a duty on real estate brokers to test homes for radon and to disclose the results to prospective purchasers. Based on a common law negligence theory, such a duty would become part of the current obligation of a real estate broker: (1) to conduct a reasonably diligent and competent search of property for sale; and (2) to disclose to prospective homebuyers all material defects affecting the value or desirability of the home. In his investigation, the broker must use the expertise and knowledge that derive from his training and experience as a professional. Initially, the Note addresses the dilemma of the homebuyer who discovers radon only after occupying the home and who has no formally defined cause of action based on common law precedent or statute. Part II traces the development of a real estate broker\u27s liability in negligence to the recently imposed duty to discover and disclose latent defects. Part III analyzes the duty to discover and disclose latent defects with respect to radon and concludes that real estate brokers should have an affirmative duty to test for radon and to disclose the results to prospective purchasers. Finally, part IV recommends legislation to protect the unwary homebuyer who otherwise would take possession of the home and suffer potential economic loss and exposure to a carcinogenic substance

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Lidar for Wind and Optical Turbulence Profiling

A field campaign for the comparison investigation of systems to measure wind and optical turbulence profiles was conducted in northern Germany. The experimental effort was to compare the performance of the LIDAR, SODAR-RASS and ultrasonic anemometers for the measurement of the above mentioned atmospheric parameters. Soreq's LIDAR is a fiber laser based system demonstrator for the vertical profiling of the wind and turbulence, based on the correlation of aerosol density variations. It provides measurements up to 350m with 20m resolution

Adaptive camouflage of moving targets

Targets that are well camouflaged under static conditions are often easily detected as soon as they start moving. We investigated and evaluated ways to design camouflage that dynamically adapts to the background and conceals the target while taking the variation in potential viewing directions into account. In a human observer experiment recorded imagery was used to simulate moving (either walking or running) and static soldiers, equipped with different types of camouflage patterns and viewed from different directions. Participants were instructed to search for the soldier and to make a speeded response as soon as they detected the soldier. Mean target detection rate was compared between soldiers in standard (Netherlands) Woodland uniform, in static camouflage (adapted to the local background) and in dynamically adapting camouflage. We investigated the effects of background type and variability on detection performance by varying the soldiers' environment (like bushland and urban). In general, performance was worse for dynamic soldiers compared to static soldiers, confirming the notion that motion breaks camouflage. Furthermore, camouflage performance of the static adaptive camouflage condition was generally much better than for the standard Woodland camouflage. Also, camouflage performance was found to depend on the background. Interestingly, our dynamic camouflage design was outperformed by a method which simply displays the 'exact' background on the camouflage suit, since it is better capable of taking the variability in viewing directions into account. By combining new adaptive camouflage technologies with dynamic adaptive camouflage designs such as the one presented here, it may become possible to prevent detection of moving targets in the (near) future

Adaptive camouflage of moving targets

Targets that are well camouflaged under static conditions are often easily detected as soon as they start moving. We investigated and evaluated ways to design camouflage that dynamically adapts to the background and conceals the target while taking the variation in potential viewing directions into account. In a human observer experiment recorded imagery was used to simulate moving (either walking or running) and static soldiers, equipped with different types of camouflage patterns and viewed from different directions. Participants were instructed to search for the soldier and to make a speeded response as soon as they detected the soldier. Mean target detection rate was compared between soldiers in standard (Netherlands) Woodland uniform, in static camouflage (adapted to the local background) and in dynamically adapting camouflage. We investigated the effects of background type and variability on detection performance by varying the soldiers' environment (like bushland and urban). In general, performance was worse for dynamic soldiers compared to static soldiers, confirming the notion that motion breaks camouflage. Furthermore, camouflage performance of the static adaptive camouflage condition was generally much better than for the standard Woodland camouflage. Also, camouflage performance was found to depend on the background. Interestingly, our dynamic camouflage design was outperformed by a method which simply displays the 'exact' background on the camouflage suit, since it is better capable of taking the variability in viewing directions into account. By combining new adaptive camouflage technologies with dynamic adaptive camouflage designs such as the one presented here, it may become possible to prevent detection of moving targets in the (near) future

Informationsintegrierte Sensor/Aktorsysteme fuer fluidische Antriebe (INSAFA). Teilprojekt: Automatische Konfiguration und Fehlerdiagnose von hydraulischen Antrieben Abschlussbericht

Hydraulic drives are complex devices with highly interacting components that are taylored to specific customers' needs. Existing systems for configuration or fault diagnosis of such devices work well for the one device they have been taylored for, but cannot be easily applied to another device. In this regard, the development of systems for automated configuration and support for diagnosis system design is an interesting goal. At the University of Paderborn, prototypes have been developed, that demonstrate the technical and economical feasibility of a far going automation both in configuration and the generation of diagnosis systems of hydraulic drives. (orig.)Hydraulische Antriebe sind komplexe Geraete mit stark wechselwirkenden Komponenten, die in zunehmendem Masse in Einzelfertigung nach individuellen Kundenwuenschen gefertigt werden. Dies gilt auch fuer die Erstellung von Systemen zur Fehlerdiagnose solcher Anlagen. Fast immer handelt es sich dabei um massgeschneiderte Diagnosesysteme, die zwar gut sind im Auffinden von Fehlern der einen Anlage, fuer die sie konzipiert worden sind, aber sehr schlecht auf eine andere Anlage uebertragbar sind. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die Entwicklung von Systemen zur automatischen Konfiguration und zur Unterstuetzung der Diagnosesystemherstellung ein interessantes Ziel. Es wurden Prototypen entwickelt, mit denen die technische und wirtschaftliche Durchfuehrbarkeit einer weitgehenden Automatisierung bei der Konfiguration und der Generierung von Diagnosesystemen fuer hydraulische Antriebe demonstriert werden kann. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F00B879 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

The relation between visual search and visual conspicuity for moving targets

In order to assess camouflage and the role of movement under widely ranging (lighting, weather, background) conditions simulation techniques are highly useful. However, sufficient level of fidelity of the simulated scenes is required to draw conclusions. Here, live recordings were obtained of moving soldiers and simulations of similar scenes were created. To assess the fidelity of the simulation a search experiment was carried out in which performance of recorded and simulated scenes was compared. Several movies of bushland environments were shown (recorded as well as simulated scenes) and participants were instructed to find the moving target as rapidly as possible within a time limit. In another experiment, visual conspicuity of the targets was measured. For static targets it is well known that the conspicuity (i.e., the maximum distance to detect a target in visual periphery) is a valid measure for camouflage efficiency as it predicts visual search performance. In the present study, we investigate whether conspicuity also predicts search performance for moving targets. In the conspicuity task, participants saw a short (560 ms) part of the movies used for the search experiments. This movie was presented in a loop such that the target moved forward, backward, forward, etcetera. Conspicuity was determined as follows: a participant starts by fixating a location in the scene far away from the target so that he/she is not able to detect it. Next, the participant fixates progressively closer to the target location until the target can just be detected in peripheral vision; at this point the distance to the target is recorded. As with static stimuli, we show that visual conspicuity predicts search performance. This suggests that conspicuity may be used as a means to establish whether simulated scenes show sufficiently fidelity to be used for camouflage assessment (and the effect of motion)