Velocity–Space Drag and Diffusion in a Model, Two-Dimensional Plasma

The quasilinear fluctuation integral is calculated for a two-dimensional, unmagnetized plasma ~composed of charged rods!, and is expressed in terms of Fokker–Planck coefficients. It is found that in two dimensions, the enhanced fluctuations generated by fast electrons lead to anomalously large transport coefficients. In particular, the effect of a small population of fast electrons is only weakly dependent on their density. In three dimensions, the effect of fast electrons is masked by the dominant approximation, but higher-order terms describe processes similar to those in two dimensions, and these terms can become significant for weakly stable plasmas. The differences between two and three dimensions arise from the fact that both emission and damping of plasma waves are retained to lowest order in two dimensions, while the three-dimensional dominant approximation effectively includes only wave emission by test particles. An understanding of the differences between two and three dimensions is crucial to the interpretation of two-dimensional particle simulations

Analysis of the Patient Information Quality and Readability on Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) on the Internet

Objective. Patients are increasingly using the Internet to inform themselves of health-related topics and procedures, including EGD. We analyzed the quality of information and readability of websites after a search on 3 different search engines. Methods. We used an assessment tool for website quality analysis that we developed in addition to using validated instruments for website quality, Global Quality Score (GQS) and Health on Net (HON) certification. The readability was assessed using Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease (FRE) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade level (FKG). 30 results of each search terms ‘EGD’ and ‘Upper Endoscopy’ from Google and 15 each from Bing and Yahoo were analyzed. A total of 45 websites were included from 100 URLs after removing duplicates, video links, and journal articles. Results. Only 3 websites were found to have good quality and comprehensive and authentic information. These websites were https://www.healthline.com, https://www.uptodate.com, and https://www.emedicine.medscape.com. There were additional 13 sites with moderate quality of information. The mean Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease (FRE) score was 46.92 (range 81.6-6.5). The mean Flesch-Kincaid Grade level (FKG) was 11th grade, with a range of 6th grade to 12th grade and above making them difficult to read. Conclusions. Our study shows that there are quite a few websites with moderate quality content. We recommend 3 comprehensive and authentic websites out of 45 URLs analyzed for information on Internet for EGD. In addition, the readability of the websites was consistently at a higher level than recommended by AMA at 11th grade level. In addition, we identified 3 websites with moderate quality content written at 8th grade and below readability level. We feel that gastroenterologists can help their patients better understand this procedure by directing them to these comprehensive websites

Interaction objects in the MADE multimedia environment

In order to support flexible interaction in interactive multimedia systems, we have defined general interaction objects that allow dynamic and transparent coupling of user interaction to media objects and other types of objects. The interaction objects are programmable in that they may use scripting languages for defining their behavior. This mechanism can be used to glue existing application capabilities together to form new end-user functionality

PREMO : an emerging standard for multimedia presentation

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC24 are developing a standard for the presentation of multimedia objects, called PREMO (Presentation Environments for Multimedia Objects). PREMO is aimed at application developers who want to include multimedia effects into the applications, but do not want to restrict themselves to model of multimedia documents, which is prevalent in multimedia applications today. This report gives an overview of the current status of PREMO

Ionization of Infalling Gas

H-alpha emission from neutral halo clouds probes the radiation and hydrodynamic conditions in the halo. Armed with such measurements, we can explore how radiation escapes from the Galactic plane and how infalling gas can survive a trip through the halo. The Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (WHAM) is one of the most sensitive instruments for detecting and mapping optical emission from the ISM. Here, we present recent results exploring the ionization of two infallling high-velocity complexes. First, we report on our progress mapping H-alpha emission covering the full extent of Complex A. Intensities are faint (<100 mR; EM <0.2 pc cm^-6 but correlate on the sky and in velocity with 21-cm emission. Second, we explore the ionized component of some Anti-Center Complex clouds studied by Peek et al. (2007) that show dynamic shaping from interaction with the Galactic halo.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; to appear in proceedings of "The Role of Disk-Halo Interaction in Galaxy Evolution: Outflow vs Infall?" held in Espinho, Portugal during 2008 Augus