Census Cities Project and Atlas of Urban and Regional Change

The Census Cities Project has several related purposes: (1) to assess the role of remote sensors on high altitude platforms for the comparative study of urban areas; (2) to detect changes in selected U.S. urban areas between the 1970 census and the time of launching of an earth-orbiting sensor platform prior to the next census; (3) to test the utility of the satellite sensor platform to monitor urban change (When the 1970 census returns become available for small areas, they will serve as a control for sensor image interpretation.); (4) to design an information system for incorporating graphic sensor data with census-type data gathered by traditional techniques; (5) to identify and design user-oriented end-products or information services; and (6) to plan an effective organizational capability to provide such services on a continuing basis

Census cities experiment in urban change detection

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

An Architectural Approach to Ensuring Consistency in Hierarchical Execution

Hierarchical task decomposition is a method used in many agent systems to organize agent knowledge. This work shows how the combination of a hierarchy and persistent assertions of knowledge can lead to difficulty in maintaining logical consistency in asserted knowledge. We explore the problematic consequences of persistent assumptions in the reasoning process and introduce novel potential solutions. Having implemented one of the possible solutions, Dynamic Hierarchical Justification, its effectiveness is demonstrated with an empirical analysis

Census Cities experiment in urban change detection

The author has identified the following significant results. Mapping of 1970 and 1972 land use from high-flight photography has been completed for all test sites: San Francisco, Washington, Phoenix, Tucson, Boston, New Haven, Cedar Rapids, and Pontiac. Area analysis of 1970 and 1972 land use has been completed for each of the mandatory urban areas. All 44 sections of the 1970 land use maps of the San Francisco test site have been officially released through USGS Open File at 1:62,500. Five thousand copies of the Washington one-sheet color 1970 land use map, census tract map, and point line identification map are being printed by USGS Publication Division. ERTS-1 imagery for each of the eight test sites is being received and analyzed. Color infrared photo enlargements at 1:100,000 of ERTS-1 MSS images of Phoenix taken on October 16, 1972 and May 2, 1973 are being analyzed to determine to what level land use and land use changes can be identified and to what extent the ERTS-1 imagery can be used in updating the 1970 aircraft photo-derived land use data base. Work is proceeding on the analysis of ERTS-1 imagery by computer manipulation of ERTS-1 MSS data in digital format. ERTS-1 CCT maps at 1:24,000 are being analyzed for two dates over Washington and Phoenix. Anniversary tape sets have been received at Purdue LARS for some additional urban test sites

"Public Employment and Women: The Impact of Argentina’s Jefes Program on Female Heads of Poor Households"

In 2002, Argentina implemented a large-scale public employment program to deal with the latest economic crisis and the ensuing massive unemployment and poverty. The program, known as Plan Jefes, offered part-time work for unemployed heads of households, and yet more than 70 percent of the people who turned up for work were women. The present paper evaluates the operation of this program, its macroeconomic effects, and its impact on program participants. We report findings from our 2005 meetings with policymakers and visits to different project sites. We find that Jefes addresses many important community problems, is well received by participants, and serves the needs of women particularly well. Some of the benefits women report are working in mother-friendly jobs, getting needed training and education, helping the community, and finding dignity and empowerment through work.

Space Generic Open Avionics Architecture (SGOAA) reference model technical guide

This report presents a full description of the Space Generic Open Avionics Architecture (SGOAA). The SGOAA consists of a generic system architecture for the entities in spacecraft avionics, a generic processing architecture, and a six class model of interfaces in a hardware/software system. The purpose of the SGOAA is to provide an umbrella set of requirements for applying the generic architecture interface model to the design of specific avionics hardware/software systems. The SGOAA defines a generic set of system interface points to facilitate identification of critical interfaces and establishes the requirements for applying appropriate low level detailed implementation standards to those interface points. The generic core avionics system and processing architecture models provided herein are robustly tailorable to specific system applications and provide a platform upon which the interface model is to be applied

A systematic experimental investigation of significant parameters affecting model tire hydroplaning

The results of a comprehensive parametric study of model and small pneumatic tires operating on a wet surface are presented. Hydroplaning inception (spin down) and rolling restoration (spin up) are discussed. Conclusions indicate that hydroplaning inception occurs at a speed significantly higher than the rolling restoration speed. Hydroplaning speed increases considerably with tread depth, surface roughness and tire inflation pressure of footprint pressure, and only moderately with increased load. Water film thickness affects spin down speed only slightly. Spin down speed varies inversely as approximately the one-sixth power of film thickness. Empirical equations relating tire inflation pressure, normal load, tire diameter and water film thickness have been generated for various tire tread and surface configurations

Urban and regional land use analysis: CARETS and Census Cities experiment package

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Urban and regional land use analysis: CARETS and Census Cities experiment package

The author has identified the following significant results. A number of likely applications and follow-on analyses are suggested by the census cities evaluation of ERTS-1 and Skylab data. Some of these applications are: (1) estimate water use requirements; (2) define urban expansion; (3) document the pattern of residential development and assess quality of residential environment: (4) project future population densities, and estimate changes in population distribution between censuses; (5) assess environmental impact resulting from gradual as well as catastrophic changes

Estimating Effects and Making Predictions from Genome-Wide Marker Data

In genome-wide association studies (GWAS), hundreds of thousands of genetic markers (SNPs) are tested for association with a trait or phenotype. Reported effects tend to be larger in magnitude than the true effects of these markers, the so-called ``winner's curse.'' We argue that the classical definition of unbiasedness is not useful in this context and propose to use a different definition of unbiasedness that is a property of the estimator we advocate. We suggest an integrated approach to the estimation of the SNP effects and to the prediction of trait values, treating SNP effects as random instead of fixed effects. Statistical methods traditionally used in the prediction of trait values in the genetics of livestock, which predates the availability of SNP data, can be applied to analysis of GWAS, giving better estimates of the SNP effects and predictions of phenotypic and genetic values in individuals.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS306 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org