Large sample standard errors of kappa and weighted kappa.

2 statistics, kappa and weighted kappa, are available for measuring agreement between 2 raters on a nominal scale. Formulas for the standard errors of these 2 statistics are in error in the direction of overestimation, so that their use results in conservative significance tests and confidence intervals. Valid formulas for the approximate large-sample variances are given, and their calculation is illustrated using a numerical example. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of immobilization restraint on Syrian golden hamsters

A 2 x 2 x 4 factorial design was used to study variation of protein and fat contents in beef broths as affected by cut type (flank, shank), salt treatments (addition of salt to the medium, no salt), and initial temperatures of simmering (25, 70, 75, and 100 degrees C). Flank portions yielded slightly more protein (0.29 g/100 mL) and had three-fold less fat (0.39 g/mL) than those of shank (0.25 and 1.12 g/mL, respectively) (P < 0.05). No linear relationship of temperature and amount of extractable components was observed, but it was clear that the greatest protein extraction was accomplished when meat was immersed in cooking water at boiling point (P < 0.05). In general, salting of water reduced fat content of beef broths. However, a significant Salting x Cut type interaction showed this effect was only present in shanks (P < 0.05). Conversely, the reducing effect (P < 0.05) of salting on amount of protein extracted from flank was not observed in shanks. Based on these data, we conclude that larger amounts of protein and less fat could be transferred from meat pieces to the medium by immersing beef in salted water at the boiling point.     

Neural network-based dynamic channel assignment for cellular mobilecommunication systems

Conventional dynamic channel assignment schemes are both time-consuming and algorithmically complex. An alternative approach, based on cascaded multilayered feedforward neural networks, is proposed and examined on two cellular systems with different configurations. Simulation results showed that the blocking performance of our multistage neural network approach can match that of an example conventional scheme with less complexity and higher computational efficiency. The example scheme considered here is the ordered channel search, which can achieve a reasonably high spectral efficiency as compared to that of an ideal dynamic channel allocation algorithm. We conclude that our neural network approach is well-suited to the dynamic channel allocation problem of future cellular or microcellular systems with decentralized control     

A note on the pseudoconservation laws for cyclic service systemswith limited service disciplines

A cyclic service system with the limited service discipline, where up to a fixed number k of messages can be served at each visit to each queueing station is presented. This limit may be utilized in exhaustive or gated mode. A pseudoconservation law is derived for the exhaustive form of limited service, and a derivation is provided for the gated form of limited service