The Texas Economy: The Prospects for Natural Gas Substitution

The Texas Economy: The Prospects for Natural Gas SubstitutionBureau of Business Researc

Investigation of Sox9 Ablation on Neural Stem Cell Behaviour after Spinal Cord Injury

After spinal cord injury neural stem cells are activated to proliferate and differentiate primarily into astrocytes, but are unable to replace lost neurons or aid in neurological recovery. Recent research shows that the transcription factor Sox9 promotes gliogenesis while inhibiting neurogenesis, and that Sox9 ablation causes improved recovery after spinal cord injury. The purpose of this study was to determine how Sox9 ablation alters neural stem cell behaviour after spinal cord injury and whether it leads to neurological improvements. We used BrdU and YFP to label and track neural stem cells and a neural stem cell-specific Sox9 knockout mouse model to isolate their role in improving recovery. We found that although Sox9 ablation reduced neural stem cell proliferation and gliogenesis while increasing neurogenesis, the effects were too small to have a significant impact on neurological recovery. Thus, additional factors must be altered in addition to Sox9 ablation for significant results

Providing decision support for the condition-based maintenance of circuit breakers through data mining of trip coil current signatures

The focus of this paper centers on the condition assessment of 11kV-33kV distribution circuit breakers from the analysis of their trip coil current signatures captured using an innovative condition monitoring technology developed by others. Using available expert knowledge in conjunction with a structured process of data mining, thresholds associated with features representing each stage of a circuit breaker's operation may be defined and used to characterize varying states of circuit breaker condition. Knowledge and understanding of satisfactory and unsatisfactory breaker condition can be gained and made explicit from the analysis of captured trip signature data and subsequently used to form the basis of condition assessment and diagnostic rules implemented in a decision support system, used to inform condition-based decisions affecting circuit breaker maintenance. This paper proposes a data mining method for the analysis of condition monitoring data, and demonstrates this method in its discovery of useful knowledge from trip coil data captured from a population of SP Power System's in-service circuit breakers. This knowledge then forms the basis of a decision support system for the condition assessment of these circuit breakers during routine trip testing

Optimal Charging Strategy for EVs with Batteries at Different States of Health

The electric vehicle (EV) is targeted as an efficient method of decreasing CO2 emission and reducing dependence on fossil fuel. Compared with filling up the internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, the EV power charging time is usually long. However,to the best of our knowledge, the current charging strategy does not consider the battery state of health (SOH). It is noted that a high charging current rate may damage the battery life. Motivated by this, an optimal charging strategy is proposed in the present paper, providing several optimal charging options taking into account the EV battery health, trying to prevent ‘abused battery utilization’ happening

An analysis of the relationship between the local wealth and distribution of State support for the support districts ...

The findings of the study lead to several conclusions related to the system of public school finance in Oklahoma, 1977-78. They were as follows: (1) The Oklahoma system of public school finance did not provide for as much equalization as was possible. (2) The State finance system did not facilitate full and equal educational opportunities for each child in Oklahoma. (3) The State did not assume its responsibility for equalizing the disparities in local fiscal capacity. (4) The sum effect of State appropriated revenues reduced the potential of State appropriation to provide for equality of funding.There were 16 hypotheses statements tested in this study. Product-moment correlation was used to test Hypotheses 1 through 10. Of these hypotheses statements, only those which provided negative correlation coefficients, significant at the .05 level were accepted. The correlation coefficients for the accepted hypotheses statements were subjected to Fisher's z transformation to determine if significant differences could be observed in the calculated correlation coefficients.This study was designed to determine the effect legislative appropriation had on equity of financing public schools of Oklahoma during the 1977-78 school year. The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between the per capita valuation and the amount of State support received by local districts in 1977-78. A secondary purpose of the study was to identify the methods of State support possessing the greatest potential to provide equity of funding in the Oklahoma Public School Finance System. Two populations were utilized and analyzed separately in the study. The 623 Oklahoma school districts were classified in 1977-78 as Independent and Dependent. These populations included 457 Independent and 166 Dependent school districts