Data Assimilation Enhancements to Air Force Weathers Land Information System

The United States Air Force (USAF) has a proud and storied tradition of enabling significant advancements in the area of characterizing and modeling land state information. 557th Weather Wing (557 WW; DoDs Executive Agent for Land Information) provides routine geospatial intelligence information to warfighters, planners, and decision makers at all echelons and services of the U.S. military, government and intelligence community. 557 WW and its predecessors have been home to the DoDs only operational regional and global land data analysis systems since January 1958. As a trusted partner since 2005, Air Force Weather (AFW) has relied on the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA/GSFC to lead the interagency scientific collaboration known as the Land Information System (LIS). LIS is an advanced software framework for high performance land surface modeling and data assimilation of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) information

Feedback models for gambling control: the use and efficacy of online responsible gambling tools

Social responsibility in gambling has become a major issue for the gaming industry. This has been coupled with the rise of behavioural tracking technologies that allow companies to track every behavioural decision and action made by gamblers on online gambling sites, slot machines, and/or any type of gambling that utilizes player cards. This chapter has a number of distinct but related aims including: (a) a brief overview of behavioral tracking technologies accompanied by a critique of both advantages and disadvantages of such technologies for both the gaming industry and researchers; and (b) results from a series of studies completed using behavioral tracking data to evaluate the efficacy of online responsible gambling tools (particularly in relation to data concerning the use of social responsibility tools such as limit setting, pop-up messaging, and personalized feedback to gamblers)

Edge Enhancement and Edge-Enhanced Correlation with Photorefractive Polymers

We demonstrate a simple all-optical realization of programmable edge enhancement and edge-enhanced correlation using novel photorefractive polymers. We show that the higher non-Bragg order in a two-beam coupling scheme contains the edge enhancement of the object when placed in the path of one of the incident beams. Also, this arrangement provides a scheme for writing joint transform correlation dynamic holograms, which can be read by a third beam. The correlation is edge enhanced, and the correlation peak increases with the applied bias voltage. Numerical results without and with beam fanning are presented. Theoretical predictions are reconciled with experimental results

Effectiveness of Ultraviolet Disinfection in Reducing Hospital-Acquired Clostridium difficile and Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus on a Bone Marrow Transplant Unit

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of ultraviolet (UV) environmental disinfection system on rates of hospital-acquired vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) and Clostridium difficile. DESIGN: Using active surveillance and an interrupted time-series design, hospital-acquired acquisition of VRE and C. difficile on a bone marrow transplant (BMT) unit were examined before and after implementation of terminal disinfection with UV on all rooms regardless of isolation status of patients. The main outcomes were hospital-based acquisition measured through (1) active surveillance: admission, weekly, and discharge screening for VRE and toxigenic C. difficile (TCD) and (2) clinical surveillance: incidence of VRE and CDI on the unit. SETTING: Bone marrow transplant unit at a tertiary-care cancer center.ParticipantsStem cell transplant (SCT) recipients.InterventionTerminal disinfection of all rooms with UV regardless of isolation status of patients. RESULTS: During the 20-month study period, 579 patients had 704 admissions to the BMT unit, and 2,160 surveillance tests were performed. No change in level or trend in the incidence of VRE (trend incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.96; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.81-1.14; level IRR, 1.34; 95% CI, 0.37-1.18) or C. difficile (trend IRR, 1.08; 95% CI, 0.89-1.31; level IRR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.13-2.11) was observed after the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Utilization of UV disinfection to supplement routine terminal cleaning of rooms was not effective in reducing hospital-acquired VRE and C. difficile among SCT recipients