SPS technical issues

The technical issues which would either seriously impact or potentially negate the integrity of a solar power satellite program are enumerated. Issues are identified not only relating to the question of engineering feasibility, but also to the equally important areas of environmental and social acceptability and, especially, economic viability. Specific information required for resolution of the issues was developed and a planned overall approach for resolution was identified. Results of these analyses show that 60% of the technical issues can be resolved with analysis only; 10% require only ground testing for resolution; and the remaining 30% require space experiments or demonstrations for resolution. The results also show that 85% resolution of the issues may be accomplished prior to development of a protoype

A Bayesian look at diagnostics in the univariate linear model

This paper develops diagnostics for data thought to be generated in accordance with the general univariate linear model. A first set of diagnostics is developed by considering posterior probabilities of models that dictate which of k observations form a sample of n observations (k < n/2) are spuriously generated, giving rise to the possible outlyingness of the k observations considered. This in turn gives rise to diagnostics to help assess (estimate) the value of k. A second set of diagnostics is found by using the Kullback-Leibler symmetric divergence, which is found to generate measures of outlyingness and influence. Both sets of diagnostics are compared and related to each other and to other diagnostic statistics suggested in the literature. An example to illustrate to the use of these diagnostic procedures is included

A Worker Dialogue: Improving Health Safety and Security at DOE

During the summer of 2010, the Department of Energy Office of Health, Safety and Security (HSS) partnered with the National Academy of Public Administration to host an online dialogue to solicit ideas from front line union workers at DOE sites on how to improve worker safety across the DOE complex. Based on the results of the Dialogue, an expert Panel of the National Academy identified several themes that emerged from workers' suggestions and offered recommendations for HSS in following up on the issues raised as well as continuing to build its capacity for employee engagement.Key FindingsBased specifically on the Dialogue results, the Panel recommended HSS further investigate several issues and claims discussed by workers as well as assess the current state of reporting processes in DOE to determine if changes are necessary. In addition, the Dialogue revealed many knowledge gaps among workers regarding the substance of worker health and safety regulations in DOE, which should prompt HSS to consider expanding efforts to educate workers about these regulations.The Panel also issued several recommendations for HSS to build its capacity to engage union workers. These recommendations included considering alternate channels of reaching front-line workers and continuing engagement with workers by articulating and undertaking concrete next steps with the input received

Comparing probabilistic methods for outlier detection

This paper compares the use of two posterior probability methods to deal with outliers in linear models. We show that putting together diagnostics that come from the mean-shift and variance-shift models yields a procedure that seems to be more effective than the use of probabilities computed from the posterior distributions of actual realized residuals. The relation of the suggested procedure to the use of a certain predictive distribution for diagnostics is derived

A Cut Principle for Information Flow

We view a distributed system as a graph of active locations with unidirectional channels between them, through which they pass messages. In this context, the graph structure of a system constrains the propagation of information through it. Suppose a set of channels is a cut set between an information source and a potential sink. We prove that, if there is no disclosure from the source to the cut set, then there can be no disclosure to the sink. We introduce a new formalization of partial disclosure, called *blur operators*, and show that the same cut property is preserved for disclosure to within a blur operator. This cut-blur property also implies a compositional principle, which ensures limited disclosure for a class of systems that differ only beyond the cut.Comment: 31 page

A Bayesian look at diagnostics in the univariate linear model.

This paper develops diagnostics for data thought to be generated in accordance with the general univariate linear model. A first set of diagnostics is developed by considering posterior probabilities of models that dictate which of k observations form a sample of n observations (kspurious and outlying observations; posteriors of models; leverage; Kullback-Leibler measures; outlying and influential observations;

Comparing probabilistic methods for outlier detection.

This paper compares the use of two posterior probability methods to deal with outliers in linear models. We show that putting together diagnostics that come from the mean-shift and variance-shift models yields a procedure that seems to be more effective than the use of probabilities computed from the posterior distributions of actual realized residuals. The relation of the suggested procedure to the use of a certain predictive distribution for diagnostics is derived.Diagnostic; Posterior and Predictive distributions; Leverage; Linear models;