Optimal scheduling of reliability development activities

Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management is a collection of papers presented at the PSAM 7 - ESREL '04 Conference in June 2004. The joint Conference provided a forum for the presentation of the latest developments in methodology and application of probabilistic and reliability methods in various industries. Innovations in methodology as well as practical applications in the areas of probabilistic safety assessment and of reliability analysis are presented in this six volume set. The aim of these applications is the optimisation of technological systems and processes from the perspective of a risk-informed safety management while also taking economic and environmental aspects into account. The joint Conference in particular achieved an enhanced communication, the sharing of experience and integration of approaches not only among the various industries but also on a truly global basis by bringing together leading experts from all over the world. Over the last four decades, contemporary researchers have continuously been working to provide modern societies with a systematic, self-consistent and coherent framework for making decisions on at least one class of risks, those stemming from modern technological applications. Most of the effort has been spent in developing methods and techniques for assessing the dependability of technological systems, and assessing or estimating the levels of safety and associated risks. A wide spectrum of engineering, natural and economic sciences has been involved in this assessment effort. The developments have moved beyond research endeavours, they have been applied and utilised in real socio-technical environments and have become established - while modern technology continues to present new challenges and to raise new questions. Consequently, Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management covers both well-established practices and open issues in the fields addressed by the Conference, identifying areas where maturity has been reached and those where more development is needed. The papers reflect a wide variety of disciplines, such as principles and theory of reliability and risk analysis, systems modelling and simulation, consequence assessment, human and organisational factors, structural reliability methods, software reliability and safety, insights and lessons from risk studies and management/decision making. A diverse range of application areas are represented including aviation and space, chemical processing, civil engineering, energy, environment, information technology, legal, manufacturing, health care, defence, transportation and waste management

The relationship between dental status, food selection, nutrient intake, nutritional status, and body mass index in older people

This paper reviewed the findings from a national survey in Great Britain which assessed whether dental status affected older people's food selection, nutrient intake, and nutritional status. The survey analyzed national random samples of free-living and institution subjects for dental examination, interview, and four-day food diary as well as blood and urine tests In the free-living sample, intakes of non-starch polysaccharides, protein, calcium, non-heme iron, niacin, and vitamin C were significantly lower in edentulous as compared to dentate subjects. People with 21 or more teeth consumed more of most nutrients, particularly non-starch polysaccharides. This relationship in intake was not apparent in the hematological analysis. Plasma ascorbate and retinol were the only analytes significantly associated with dental status. Having 21 or more teeth increased the likelihood of having an acceptable body mass index (BMI). Thus, maintaining a natural and functional dentition defined as having more than twenty teeth into old age plays an important role in having a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables, a satisfactory nutritional status, and an acceptable BMI

Washington Justice Court System—Constitutionality of the Fee System of Compensating Justices of the Peace

In the case of In re Borchert the Washington Supreme Court decided that a person tried before an unsalaried justice of the peace on a criminal charge was not deprived of due process of law because the justice was compensated on a fee basis

A simple dead-reckoning navigational system

Simple navigation system is designed for vehicles operating in remote locations where it is not feasible to transport extensive equipment. System consists of four main components: directional gyrocompass to establish inertial direction; odometer to measure distance; signal processor to combine measured distance and direction; and sun compass to determine initial direction

Absolute frequency measurements of the D2D_2 line and fine-structure interval in 39^{39}K

We report a value for the $D_2$-line frequency of $^{39}$K with 0.25 ppb uncertainty. The frequency is measured using an evacuated ring-cavity resonator whose length is calibrated against a reference laser. The $D_2$ line presents a problem in identifying the line center because the closely-spaced energy levels of the excited state are not resolved. We use computer modelling of the measured spectrum to extract the line center and obtain a value of 391 015 578.040(75) MHz. In conjunction with our previous measurement of the $D_1$ line, we determine the fine-structure interval in the $4P$ state to be 1 729 997.132(90) MHz. The results represent significant improvement over previous values.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Decoherence at zero temperature

Most discussions of decoherence in the literature consider the high-temperature regime but it is also known that, in the presence of dissipation, decoherence can occur even at zero temperature. Whereas most previous investigations all assumed initial decoupling of the quantum system and bath, we consider that the system and environment are entangled at all times. Here, we discuss decoherence for a free particle in an initial Schr\"{o}dinger cat state. Memory effects are incorporated by use of the single relaxation time model (since the oft-used Ohmic model does not give physically correct results)

Demand stochastics, supply adaptation, and the distribution of film earnings.

A market is analysed in which demand is a stochastic process and supply is contingent on the expected level of demand -a model that provides a realistic depiction of the motion picture market where consumer demand is a process of discovery and information sharing, and the supply of theatre screens expands through contingent contracts to accommodate demand. This model predicts that motion picture earnings will deviate from a power law and instead be distributed according to an exponential of a power law due to finite-size effects in demand. Empirical analysis on a large sample of motion pictures finds significant deviation from the power law distribution and a remarkably good fit for the stretched exponential distribution