Multi-Relationship Evaluation Design (MRED): An Interactive Test Plan Designer for Advanced and Emerging Technologies

Ground-breaking technologies are developed for use across a broad range of domains such as manufacturing, military, homeland security and automotive industries. These advanced technologies often include intelligent systems or robotic elements. Evaluations are a critical step in the development of these advanced systems. Evaluation events inform the technology developers of specific needs for enhancement, capture end-user feedback, and verify the extent of the technology's functions. Test exercises are an opportunity to showcase the technology's current abilities and limitations and provide data for future test efforts. The objective of this research is to develop the Multi-Relationship Evaluation Design (MRED) methodology, an interactive test plan blueprint generator. MRED collects multiple inputs, processes them interactively with a test designer and outputs evaluation blueprints, specifying key test-plan characteristics. Drawing from the Systems Engineering Paradigm, MRED models a process that had not been modeled before. The MRED model is consistent with the experience of evaluation designers. This method also captures and handles stakeholder preferences so that they can be accommodated in a meaningful way. The result is the MRED methodology that combines practical evaluation design experience with mathematical methods proven in the literature

PROFESSIONS AND BUSINESSES Athlete Agents: Expand Protection for Student Athletes from Athlete Agents

The Act changes the definition of the term athlete to protect student athletes while still enrolled in college even if they have completed their eligibility in a particular sport

PROFESSIONS AND BUSINESSES Athlete Agents: Expand Protection for Student Athletes from Athlete Agents

The Act changes the definition of the term athlete to protect student athletes while still enrolled in college even if they have completed their eligibility in a particular sport

A stable range description of the space of link maps

We study the space of link maps, which are smooth maps from the disjoint union of manifolds P and Q to a manifold N such that the images of P and Q are disjoint. We give a range of dimensions, interpreted as the connectivity of a certain map, in which the cobordism class of the "linking manifold" is enough to distinguish the homotopy class of one link map from another.Comment: 10 page

Effects of Temperature, Water Hardness, and Recirculation on Copper Corrosion

In previous work, the effects of water quality have been shown to influence the formation of scale from copper corrosion. A general understanding of the effects of water quality on copper corrosion have been difficult to obtain because of complex interactions of water quality variables on copper corrosion in different water supply systems. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of temperature and water hardness on copper corrosion occurring in a household water supply system. The effects of recirculation were also studied in concurrence with the above water quality parameters. Electrochemical corrosion testing and corrosion by -product release testing were used to determine the effects of temperature, water hardness, and recirculation on corrosion rates and copper corrosion by -product release. The results of this testing revealed that increasing temperature dramatically reduced copper corrosion by -product release. Temperature was shown to effect the solubility of the corrosion by -product released into solution. Water hardness had little or no effect on copper corrosion by -product release. The effects of recirculation used in this experimentation were found to be in direct relationship to the effects of temperature on corrosion by -product release

Expression of the CD6 T lymphocyte differentiation antigen in normal human brain

Antigens shared by the immune and central nervous systems (CNS) have been described repeatedly. The present study reports the expression of the CD6 lymphocyte differentiation antigen in normal human brain evidenced by immunohistochemistry and Northern blot analysis. A panel of various anti-CD6 monoclonal antibodies (mabs) tested on serial cryostat sections identified CD6-positive cells randomly scattered in parenchyma of all examined brain areas. Northern blot analysis with a highly sensitive cRNA probe revealed a 3.1 kb CD6-specific mRNA in various brain regions, especially in basalganglia and cortex cerebellum. Staining with mabs raised against different hematopoietic cell types, as well as hybridization with probes specific for the ß- and y-T cell receptor (TCR) chains support the notion that CD6 is expressed by original brain cells. The nature of the CD6-positive cell type and possible functions of shared antigens in immune and nervous systems are discusse

Maximal information component analysis: a novel non-linear network analysis method.

BackgroundNetwork construction and analysis algorithms provide scientists with the ability to sift through high-throughput biological outputs, such as transcription microarrays, for small groups of genes (modules) that are relevant for further research. Most of these algorithms ignore the important role of non-linear interactions in the data, and the ability for genes to operate in multiple functional groups at once, despite clear evidence for both of these phenomena in observed biological systems.ResultsWe have created a novel co-expression network analysis algorithm that incorporates both of these principles by combining the information-theoretic association measure of the maximal information coefficient (MIC) with an Interaction Component Model. We evaluate the performance of this approach on two datasets collected from a large panel of mice, one from macrophages and the other from liver by comparing the two measures based on a measure of module entropy, Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment, and scale-free topology (SFT) fit. Our algorithm outperforms a widely used co-expression analysis method, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), in the macrophage data, while returning comparable results in the liver dataset when using these criteria. We demonstrate that the macrophage data has more non-linear interactions than the liver dataset, which may explain the increased performance of our method, termed Maximal Information Component Analysis (MICA) in that case.ConclusionsIn making our network algorithm more accurately reflect known biological principles, we are able to generate modules with improved relevance, particularly in networks with confounding factors such as gene by environment interactions

Effects of even-aged timber harvest on herbaceous vegetation richness in southern Missouri forests

Abstract only availableFor centuries American forests have been exploited for timber and other commodities, often with unforeseen long-term detrimental effects. As areas are cleared, the natural diversity of the forest is altered. Development of ecologically sustainable management practices is essential. Initiated in 1989, the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP) is a landscape experiment designed to examine forest management impacts on multiple ecosystem attributes for large sites. In the summer of 2008, we investigated the impacts of previous clearcuts on the species richness of herbaceous and woody plants in the southeast Missouri Ozarks, within the MOFEP study sites. We determined species richness within 1-m2 representative plots randomly chosen throughout each of three even-aged management sites and one no harvest control site. We hope to better understand the effects of clearcutting on forest herbaceous plant diversity by comparing the species richness on harvested sites with that on no-harvest sites.Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Projec