1,597 research outputs found
Soil surface albedo and multispectral reflectance of short-wave radiation as a function of degree of soil slaking.
The feasibility of mapping the degree of soil slaking using remote sensing on the basis of reflected solar radiation was investigated in the laboratory. Relationships between soil surface reflection and wavelength of light were plotted for a range of soil moisture contents and degrees of soil slaking. Reflection tended to increase with decreasing moisture content. Slaking had little effect on reflection at high moisture contents, but slightly increased reflection at low moisture contents. The detection of slaking by spectral analysis is not recommended, while albedo measurements may be successful under dry conditions. (Abstract retrieved from CAB Abstracts by CABI’s permission
Cross docking for libraries with a depot
Library organizations in the Netherlands show an increasing interest to employ depots for low-cost storage and demand fulfillment of item requests. Typically, all libraries in an organization have a shared catalog, and, on local unavailability, requests can be shipped from elsewhere in the organization. The depot can be used to consolidate shipment requests by making tours along all libraries, delivering requested items, but also picking up items that have to be stored at the depot, or that have to be shipped from one library to another. Cross docking and delayed shipments are two preferred methods for fulfilling requests that cannot be directly met using on-hand stock at the depot. In this paper, we compare these two methods from an inventory control perspective. We model the library system as a Markov Decision process. For one- and two-location systems, we derive analytical results for the average-cost optimal policy, showing that the decision to store items from the location at the depot satisfies a threshold structure depending on the number of rented items. For larger instances, an effective heuristic is proposed exploiting this threshold structure. In numerical experiments, important managerial insights are obtained by comparing cross docking and delayed shipments in different situations. Cross docking is shown to add most value in systems with low total stock, however, delayed shipments may achieve similar costs as cross docking when stock is high or when tours frequently visit all locations. Furthermore, effective decisions can be based on simple model formulations with memoryless rental time distributions
All the world's a screen.
Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon developed and presented this collaborative new artwork entitled 'All the World's a Screen', a live interactive telecommunications performance, to link public audiences in Manchester and Barcelona. On the evening of Saturday 28th May 2011 participants at MadLab in Manchester's Northern Quarter and Hangar Artist Studios in Poblenou, Barcelona were joined together on screen for the first time to create their very own interactive generative cinema experience, complete with sets, costumes and props. Employing the scenography techniques of Alfred Hitchcock the artists created a miniature film set in which the remote audiences acted and directed their own movie, transporting participants into animated environments and sets where they created unique personalised narratives
Electromagnetic vertex function of the pion at T > 0
The matrix element of the electromagnetic current between pion states is
calculated in quenched lattice QCD at a temperature of . The
nonperturbatively improved Sheikholeslami-Wohlert action is used together with
the corresponding improved vector current. The electromagnetic
vertex function is extracted for pion masses down to and
momentum transfers .Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure
Dynamic shipments of inventories in shared warehouse and transportation networks
In shared warehouse and transportation networks, dynamic shipments of inventories are carried out based on up-to-date inventory information. This paper studies the effect of network structures on optimal decision-making. We propose a discrete time modeling framework with stochastic demand, capturing a wide variety of network structures. Using Markov decision processes, we obtain optimal order and dynamic shipment decisions for small networks. We compare optimal solutions of different four-node network structures. Results indicate product characteristics significantly influence the effectiveness of network structures. Surprisingly, two-echelon networks are occasionally costlier than any other network. Moreover, dynamic shipments yield considerable gains over static shipments
Clinical problems with the performance of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in The Netherlands
BACKGROUND AND METHODS: The characteristics and frequency of clinical
problems with the performance of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide
are uncertain. We analyzed data from two studies of euthanasia and
physician-assisted suicide in The Netherlands (one conducted in 1990 and
1991 and the other in 1995 and 1996), with a total of 649 cases. We
categorized clinical problems as technical problems, such as difficulty
inserting an intravenous line; complications, such as myoclonus or
vomiting; or problems with completion, such as a longer-than-expected
interval between the administration of medications and death. RESULTS: In
114 cases, the physician's intention was to provide assistance with
suicide, and in 535, the intention was to perform euthanasia. Problems of
any type were more frequent in cases of assisted suicide than in cases of
euthanasia. Complications occurred in 7 percent of cases of assisted
suicide, and problems with completion (a longer-than-expected time to
death, failure to induce coma, or induction of coma followed by awakening
of the patient) occurred in 16 percent of the cases; complications and
problems with completion occurred in 3 percent and 6 percent of cases of
euthanasia, respectively. The physician decided to administer a letha
Physician reports of terminal sedation without hydration or nutrition for patients nearing death in the Netherlands
BACKGROUND: Terminal sedation in patients nearing death is an important
issue related to end-of-life care. OBJECTIVE: To describe the practice of
terminal sedation in the Netherlands. DESIGN: Face-to-face interviews.
SETTING: The Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS: Nationwide stratified sample of
482 physicians; 410 responded and 211 of these reported characteristics of
their most recent terminal sedation case. MEASUREMENTS: Physician reports
of frequency of terminal sedation (defined as the administration of drugs
to keep the patient in deep sedation or coma until death, without giving
artificial nutrition or hydration), characteristics of the decision-making
process, drugs used, the estimated life-shortening effect, and frequency
of euthanasia discussions. RESULTS: Of respondents, 52% (95% CI, 48% to
57%) had ever used terminal sedation. Of the 211 most recent cases,
physicians used terminal sedation to alleviate severe pain in 51% of
patients (CI, 44% to 58%), agitation in 38% (CI, 32% to 45%), and dyspnea
in 38% (CI, 32% to 45%). Physicians reported discussing with patients th
Physician-assisted death in psychiatric practice in the Netherlands
BACKGROUND: In 1994 the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that in exceptional
instances, physician-assisted suicide might be justifiable for patients
with unbearable mental suffering but no physical illness. We studied
physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in psychiatric practice in the
Netherlands. METHODS: In 1996, we sent questionnaires to 673 Dutch
psychiatrists - about half of all such specialists in the country - and
received 552 responses from the 667 who met the study criteria (response
rate, 83 percent). We estimated the annual frequencies of requests for
physician-assisted suicide by psychiatrists and actual instances of
assistance. RESULTS: Of the respondents, 205 (37 percent) had at least
once received an explicit, persistent request for physician-assisted
suicide and 12 had complied. We estimate there are 320 requests a year i
Polarized fluorescence depletion reports orientation distribution and rotational dynamics of muscle cross-bridges
The method of polarized fluorescence depletion (PFD) has been applied to enhance the resolution of orientational distributions and dynamics obtained from fluorescence polarization (FP) experiments on ordered systems, particularly in muscle fibers. Previous FP data from single fluorescent probes were limited to the 2nd- and 4th-rank order parameters, and , of the probe angular distribution (ß) relative to the fiber axis and , a coefficient describing the extent of rapid probe motions. We applied intense 12-µs polarized photoselection pulses to transiently populate the triplet state of rhodamine probes and measured the polarization of the ground-state depletion using a weak interrogation beam. PFD provides dynamic information describing the extent of motions on the time scale between the fluorescence lifetime (e.g., 4 ns) and the duration of the photoselection pulse and it potentially supplies information about the probe angular distribution corresponding to order parameters above rank 4. Gizzard myosin regulatory light chain (RLC) was labeled with the 6-isomer of iodoacetamidotetramethylrhodamine and exchanged into rabbit psoas muscle fibers. In active contraction, dynamic motions of the RLC on the PFD time scale were intermediate between those observed in relaxation and rigor. The results indicate that previously observed disorder of the light chain region in contraction can be ascribed principally to dynamic motions on the microsecond time scale
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