Optical design and analysis program

Computer program provides efficient handling of optical analysis equations and is sufficiently general in approach to accept wide variety of systems. Diagnostic messages are generated to aid user in pinpointing any inconsistencies in system definition

The prevalence of cocaine-associated chest pain in a London hospital

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of cocaine misuse in patients presenting to an Accident and Emergency department with chest pain. 4 of 12 FAEM abstracts www.emjonline.co

Learning medical alarms whilst performing other tasks.

Two studies are reported which first observe, and then attempt to replicate, the cognitive demands of intensive care unit (ICU) activity whilst concurrently learning audible alarms. The first study, an observational study in an ICU ward, showed that the alarms are very frequent and co-occur with some activities more than others. The three most frequently observed activities observed in the ICU were drugs (calculation, preparation and administration), patient observation and talking. The cognitive demands of these activities were simulated in a second, laboratory-based experiment in which alarms were learned. The results showed that performance in the alarm task generally improved as participants were exposed to more repetitions of those alarms, but that performance decrements were observed in the secondary tasks, particularly when there were two or three of them. Some confusions between the alarms persisted to the end of the study despite prolonged exposure to the alarms, confusions which were likely caused by both acoustic and verbal labelling similarities. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: The cognitive demands of working in an ICU were observed and simulated whilst alarms were learned. Alarms should generally avoid sharing similar rhythmic (and other) characteristics. The simulation task described here could be used for testing alarm learning without requiring a clinical environment

Catchment-scale vulnerability assessment of groundwater pollution from diffuse sources using the DRASTIC method : a case study

The catchment-scale groundwater vulnerability assessment that delineates zones representing different levels of groundwater susceptibility to contaminants from diffuse agricultural sources has become an important element in groundwater pollution prevention for the implementation of the EUWater Framework Directive (WFD). This paper evaluates the DRASTIC method using an ArcGIS platform for assessing groundwater vulnerability in the Upper Bann catchment, Northern Ireland. Groundwater vulnerability maps of both general pollutants and pesticides in the study area were generated by using data on the factors depth to water, net recharge, aquifer media, soil media, topography, impact of vadose zone, and hydraulic conductivity, as defined in DRASTIC. The mountain areas in the study area have “high” (in 4.5% of the study area) or “moderate” (in 25.5%) vulnerability for general pollutants due to high rainfall, net recharge and soil permeability. However, by considering the diffuse agricultural sources, the mountain areas are actually at low groundwater pollution risk. The results of overlaying the maps of land use and the groundwater vulnerability are closer to the reality. This study shows that the DRASTIC method is helpful for guiding the prevention practices of groundwater pollution at the catchment scale in the UK

Factual Causation: The Missing Link in Hydraulic Fracture—Groundwater Contamination Litigation

A speech-based material that early can assess a child's hearing is needed to provide an indication of a hearing impaired child's language development. Being able to identify and discriminate between different sounds is a requirement for interpreting speech. Hearing assessments that examine speech perception can therefore, unlike, for example, pure tone audiometry, examine a hearing impaired child's perceptual language skills and provide a basis for intervention. The purpose of this work is to evaluate a new auditory material on 3-year-old children. The auditory material is based on the Ling-6-sounds and the main question was which of the sounds in the test were adequate for test of discrimination. Furthermore, it was investigated how the test works with children aged 3:0–3:11 years and how age and gender affect the result. Twenty-four children aged 3:0–3:11 years were tested using a computer based test. The goal  for the child was to discriminate between pairs of sounds and react to an odd pair. Several instruction techniques were tested by two different test administrators. The results of the tests indicated that equal pairs of sounds (/do/-/do/, /s/-/s/) gave more correct responses. The test section where only two different pairs were used generated more adequate responses than the test section with six different pairs. Differences in age influenced the outcome more than sex and different instructions. There is also a need for improved instructions and sounds. Generally, children became more involved in the test when given instructions that were short and direct

Blue Balloons and White Fog

My paintings begin with an examination of photography’s authority; practically the ubiquitous family snapshot’s power over memory and the development of our constructed identity. The amateur photographer’s desire for a pleasantly scripted narrative can easily misrepresent the reality of a moment. Because of this, I see family photo albums as mythological artifacts: they arise out of reality but are incapable of fully reproducing it. By using my own family photographs as reference material I embrace this mythology, indulging myself in a fantasy of place, history and narrative. This interest in the mythology of my past is contradicted by my own fear of fetishized nostalgia and a desire to derail the narrative of my family snapshots. My own attraction and disenchantment with narrative is combined into a compromising gesture that intertwines abstraction and representation and tangles the relationship each painting has to time: speaking of the past, present and future simultaneously

The Relationship between performance in near match-to-sample tasks and fluid intelligence.

Match-to-sample is a timed task in which a subject is presented with a visual stimulus (the probe) and must select a match to that stimulus (the target) from among an array of distractors. These tasks are frequently employed as tests of basic cognitive abilities and demonstrate consistent correlations with measures of intelligence. In the current study, a match-to-sample task was modified to produce near-match conditions (trials for which no exact match existed). Two factors were manipulated: type of discrepancy between the target and probe (additive or subtractive) and degree of discrepancy between target and probe (1 element or 2 elements). It was hypothesized that introducing near-match conditions would change the processing demands of the task, resulting in increased correlations between decision time and fluid intelligence. Degree and type of discrepancy affected decision times: participants required more time for 2 element discrepancies and additive type discrepancies. Contrary to expectations, increased decision time on a task did not correspond to higher correlations with fluid intelligence. For type, correlations were larger when participants needed to mentally subtract elements from the target in order to make it match the probe (mean radditive=.399; mean rsubtractive=.451). For degree, correlations were larger for trials where the probe and target differed by one element (mean r=.470) than for trials where the probe and target differed by two elements (mean r=.380). These results seem to indicate that the relationship between the complexity of a task and general intelligence is not as straightforward as has been commonly believed

Equity in Accessibility, a Case Study of City of Sacramento

This paper is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial analysis of the transportation accessibility and equity in Sacramento, California. A literature review examines discriminatory regulatory policies in the 1900s that wrote racial segregation into law. The effects of these policies have lasting effects on spatial dispersal of people and create barriers to accessibility and therefore result in inequitable transportation systems. The accessibility and equity analysis in Sacramento explores demographic data, job concentration and available modes of transportation, and commuter data. The results of the analysis suggest that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to measuring accessibility and equity. The analysis from Sacramento reveals that car sharing programs would increase accessibility, especially for historically disadvantaged communities due to the substantially high travel speeds of private vehicles compared to conventional transit systems. However, long-term solutions would include the following: Fundamentally altering the intensity of land use and realigning activities along corridors that transit serves well. Expanding affordable housing opportunities for POCs and low-income household in the highly accessible areas of the City