URBANIZED SOCIETY NEEDS MET BY RURAL PEOPLE

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Elicitation and representation of expert knowledge for computer aided diagnosis in mammography

To study how professional radiologists describe, interpret and make decisions about micro-calcifications in mammograms. The purpose was to develop a model of the radiologists' decision making for use in CADMIUM II, a computerized aid for mammogram interpretation that combines symbolic reasoning with image processing

Interference Energy Spectrum of the Infinite Square Well

Certain superposition states of the 1-D infinite square well have transient zeros at locations other than the nodes of the eigenstates that comprise them. It is shown that if an infinite potential barrier is suddenly raised at some or all of these zeros, the well can be split into multiple adjacent infinite square wells without affecting the wavefunction. This effects a change of the energy eigenbasis of the state to a basis that does not commute with the original, and a subsequent measurement of the energy now reveals a completely different spectrum, which we call the {interference energy spectrum} of the state. This name is appropriate because the same splitting procedure applied at the stationary nodes of any eigenstate does not change the measurable energy of the state. Of particular interest, this procedure can result in measurable energies that are greater than the energy of the highest mode in the original superposition, raising questions about the conservation of energy akin to those that have been raised in the study of superoscillations. An analytic derivation is given for the interference spectrum of a given wavefunction $\Psi(x,t)$ with $N$ known zeros located at points $s_i = (x_i, t_i)$. Numerical simulations were used to verify that a barrier can be rapidly raised at a zero of the wavefunction without significantly affecting it. The interpretation of this result with respect to the conservation of energy and the energy-time uncertainty relation is discussed, and the idea of alternate energy eigenbases is fleshed out. The question of whether or not a preferred discrete energy spectrum is an inherent feature of a particle's quantum state is examined.Comment: 26 Pages, 5 Figure

Scalar, Vector and Tensor Harmonics on the Three-Sphere

Scalar, vector and tensor harmonics on the three-sphere were introduced originally to facilitate the study of various problems in gravitational physics. These harmonics are defined as eigenfunctions of the covariant Laplace operator which satisfy certain divergence and trace identities, and ortho-normality conditions. This paper provides a summary of these properties, along with a new notation that simplifies and clarifies some of the key expressions. Practical methods are described for accurately and efficiently computing these harmonics numerically, and test results are given that illustrate how well the analytical identities are satisfied by the harmonics computed numerically in this way.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, to appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio

Spending Millions to Save Billions: The Campaign of the Super Wealthy to Kill the Estate Tax

The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according this report by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of$71.6 billion.The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell's soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world's largest retailer.These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind -- the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability