Web Single Sign-On Authentication using SAML

Companies have increasingly turned to application service providers (ASPs) or Software as a Service (SaaS) vendors to offer specialized web-based services that will cut costs and provide specific and focused applications to users. The complexity of designing, installing, configuring, deploying, and supporting the system with internal resources can be eliminated with this type of methodology, providing great benefit to organizations. However, these models can present an authentication problem for corporations with a large number of external service providers. This paper describes the implementation of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and its capabilities to provide secure single sign-on (SSO) solutions for externally hosted applications

Experiential education: Understanding the impact of remotely operated vehicles on at-risk student learning

How do educators engage students in the curriculum? State and Common Core Standards determine what to teach; how those standards are taught varies. This research examined a group of at-risk elementary and secondary students using underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) as part of an experiential education program in a rural Michigan school district. With a foundation of grounded theory, qualitative methods are used in this case study of the experience of at-risk learners whose mission is to solve a problem. In particular, the story evolves from nine emergent themes identified in the experiences of students and adults: attendance, communication, confidence, engagement, fun, problem-solving, responsibility, teamwork, and time. Common across the nine themes is the conclusion that student motivation strongly impacts learning that is perceived to be hands-on and relevant

Not Our Fight Alone: An Analysis of the US Strategy Combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

The recent policies of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, combined with the collapse of the Syrian state in 2011, created conditions that led to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or “ISIS.” As of November 2014, ISIS controls large areas of western and northern Iraq and northern and eastern Syria, an area roughly the size of Belgium. The rise of ISIS in the past three years has caught the attention of every major nation, especially the United States, and world leaders are justified in fearing a strong ISIS in the Middle East. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the US strategy in combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The effectiveness of the United States strategy is closely linked with numerous factors, including the history of sectarian violence in Iraq. These factors will be explored throughout the paper. This analysis sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of the US strategy and provides various ways the US can further its goals in the region

Counties without Borders? Religious Politics, Kinship Networks and the Formation of Catholic Communities

This article examines the formation of Catholic communities and the roles played by religious politics and kinship networks within that process. It contributes to historiographical debates about early modern English Catholics' self-identification in religio-political terms, suggesting that intra-Catholic feuds were not the sole preserve of the Catholic missionary clergy. It uses the Petre family, barons of Writtle in Essex, as a case study by which to argue that these seemingly inward-looking debates were actually about how the community understood itself in relation to the state and, as such, were fundamental in the process of English Catholic community construction

Property—A Warranty of Habitability is Implied by Operation of Law into Leases of Urban Dwelling Units

Javins v. First Nat\u27l Realty Corp., 428 F.2d 1071 (D.C. Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 39 U.S.L.W. 3227 (U.S. Nov. 24, 1970)

A State Supreme Court in Transition

This article presents a statistical snapshot of voting patterns within the Washington Supreme Court at the turn of the century and then explores how the changing makeup of the court may affect substantive areas of the law. The Washington Supreme Court is in a state of transition; following the November 2000 elections, only Justice Smith has served more than ten years on the high court. Four of the nine justices are serving their first terms. By looking at the opinions and voting records of both the remaining and departing members of the court, we can make some generalizations about the disposition of individual justices and even blocs of justices. Analysis of the same data in a particular area of law may also enable one to predict about future developments as well. The Article begins with a brief discussion on its methodology. Part III of the Article presents the statistics themselves with a brief commentary. Part IV provides an analysis of the court, focusing on voting patterns and particular types of issues that might be affected by a changing court. This is done by examining seven criminal law cases from the court during the term studied and one case from the succeeding court

False discovery rate regression: an application to neural synchrony detection in primary visual cortex

Many approaches for multiple testing begin with the assumption that all tests in a given study should be combined into a global false-discovery-rate analysis. But this may be inappropriate for many of today's large-scale screening problems, where auxiliary information about each test is often available, and where a combined analysis can lead to poorly calibrated error rates within different subsets of the experiment. To address this issue, we introduce an approach called false-discovery-rate regression that directly uses this auxiliary information to inform the outcome of each test. The method can be motivated by a two-groups model in which covariates are allowed to influence the local false discovery rate, or equivalently, the posterior probability that a given observation is a signal. This poses many subtle issues at the interface between inference and computation, and we investigate several variations of the overall approach. Simulation evidence suggests that: (1) when covariate effects are present, FDR regression improves power for a fixed false-discovery rate; and (2) when covariate effects are absent, the method is robust, in the sense that it does not lead to inflated error rates. We apply the method to neural recordings from primary visual cortex. The goal is to detect pairs of neurons that exhibit fine-time-scale interactions, in the sense that they fire together more often than expected due to chance. Our method detects roughly 50% more synchronous pairs versus a standard FDR-controlling analysis. The companion R package FDRreg implements all methods described in the paper

ESTIMATING PRICE VARIABILITY IN AGRICULTURE: IMPLICATIONS FOR DECISION MAKERS

Using a stochastic version of the POLYSYS modeling framework, an examination of projected variability in agricultural prices, supply, demand, stocks, and incomes is conducted for corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton during the 1998-2006 period. Increased planting flexibility introduced in the 1996 farm bill results in projections of significantly higher planted acreage variability compared to recent historical levels. Variability of ending stocks and stock-to-use ratios is projected to be higher for corn and soybeans and lower for wheat and cotton compared to the 1986-96 period. Significantly higher variability is projected for corn prices, with wheat and soybean prices also being more variable. No significant change in cotton price variability is projected.POLYSYS model, Price variability, Stochastic simulation, Crop Production/Industries,

Extracting Dynamic Information from EXAFS: Simultaneous Analysis of Multiple Temperature-Dependent Data

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73509/1/S0909049598004336.pd

LWR core thermal-hydraulic analysis : assessment and comparison of the range of applicability of the codes COBRA IIIC/MIT and COBRA IV-I

Based on the M.S. thesis of the first author in the M.I.T. Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, 1978.This report summarizes the result of studies concerning the range of applicability of two subchannel codes for a variety of thermal-hydraulic analyses. The subchannel codes used include COBRA IIIC/MIT and the newly developed code, COBRA IV-I which is considered the benchmark code for the purpose of this report. Hence, through the comparisons of the two codes, the applicability of COBRA IIIC/MIT is assessed with respect to COBRA IV-I. A variety of LWR thermal-hydraulic analyses are examined. Results of both codes for steady-state and transient analyses are compared. The types of analysis include BWR bundle-wide analysis, a simulated rod ejection and loss of flow transients for a PWR. The system parameters were changed drastically to reach extreme coolant conditions, thereby establishing upper limits. In addition to these cases, both codes are compared to experimental data including measured coolant exit temperatures in a core, interbundle mixing for inlet flow upset cases and two-subchannel flow blockage measurements. The comparisons showed that, overall, COBRA IIIC/MIT predicts most thermal-hydraulic parameters quite satisfactorily. However, the clad temperature predictions differ from those calculated by COBRA IV-I and appear to be in error. These incorrect predictions are caused by the discontinuity in the heat transfer coefficient at the start of boiling. Hence, if the heat transfer package is corrected, then COBRA IIIC/MIT should be just as applicable as the implicit option of COBRA IV-I.Final report for research project sponsored by Long Island Lighting Company and others under the MIT Energy Laboratory Electric Utility Program