REENGINEERING DONE RIGHT Intermediate Solutions That Are Cost-Effective

Effective systems development techniques attract a lot of attention, but little has been done to effectively address systems maintenance. This article describes an effective, proven approach to resurrecting existing systems and Increasing their useful life, using a system that employs both software tools and a rigorous methodology.     

Performance analysis of a class of transient detection algorithms-aunified framework

The detection of short-duration nonstationary signals, which are commonly referred to as transients, is often performed in the time-frequency-transform domain. An analytical framework within which the performance of different detectors based on linear transforms can be easily compared, for different classes of signals, is developed. A given class of transients is modeled as a signal existing in a linear subspace, plus a mismatch signal. Closed-form expressions are derived for the best and the worst detection performance for all possible transients in a given class. Using this framework, the performance of detectors based on the Gabor transform and on the short-time Fourier transform is evaluated and compared     

Oversampled Gabor representation for transient signals

Considers the Gabor representation that uses a one-sided exponential window for detection and analysis of transient signals. Earlier results on the critically sampled case are extended to the more practically useful oversampled case. For oversampling by an integer factor, the authors derive an explicit analytical expression for the dual window (dual frame) function required for computing the Gabor representation. Based on this expression they develop an efficient procedure for computing the Gabor coefficients. Finally, they demonstrate the performance of the method by numerical examples     

Asymptotic performance analysis of ESPRIT, higher order ESPRIT, andvirtual ESPRIT algorithms

In this paper, we present an asymptotic performance analysis of three subspace-based methods for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation-the ESPRIT algorithm using second order statistics, the higher order ESPRIT algorithm using fourth-order cumulants, and the virtual ESPRIT (VESPA) algorithm using fourth-order cumulants. We examine the least-squares version of these algorithms, derive the expressions for the asymptotic variance of the estimated DOAs, and use specific examples to compare the relative performance of the algorithms. Finally, we present Monte Carlo simulations to validate the theoretical analysis     

Psychosocial factors among members of religious and secular kibbutzim

Mortality in 11 secular kibbutzim between 1970 and 1985 was nearly twice that of 11 matched religious kibbutzim. A cross-sectional study was undertaken in 1991 in 10 of these settlements, 5 religious and 5 secular, to determine whether differences in risk factors could explain the unequal survival. These comprised physical, physiologic and biochemical measurements, health-relevant behaviors and psychosocial variables. This report addresses the psychosocial aspect of the study, which included assessment of sense of coherence, hostility, satisfaction with self, work-related stress, social supports and social contacts using self-administered questionnaires. The response rate among the sample of men and women, aged 35-64 years, was 76% (437 respondents, 208 men and 229 women). Analysis of variance and logistic regression (the latter comparing the upper or lower fourths of the distribution vs. the rest) were used. Religious kibbutz members reported a higher sense of coherence (odds ratio = 1.58, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.46) and a lower level of hostility (odds ratio = 0.49, 95% CI 0.33 to 0.75) than their secular counterparts. Findings for satisfaction with self and work-related stress were inconsistent; there were significant interactions between religious affiliation, sex and age. Younger women reported less satisfaction with self and higher work-related stress than the other age-sex groups in both types of kibbutz. There was no difference in social support or frequency of social contact between religious and secular kibbutzim. Voluntary work was more frequent among the religious kibbutzim. The findings are consistent with an interpretation that Jewish religious observance may enhance the formation of certain protective personality characteristics. Membership in a cohesive religious kibbutz community may increase host resistance to stressors and thereby promote overall well-being and a positive health status. This could reflect an interplay of individual and collective attributes of religion.     

Performance of direction-finding systems with sensor gain and phase uncertainties

In this paper we study the performance of direction-finding systems which attempt to estimate unknown array parameters (such as sensor gains and phases) in addition to the estimation of the directions of arrival (DOA), as a way of performing array self-calibration. We develop compact closed form expressions for the Cramér-Rao bound associated with the joint estimation of DOAs, gains, phases, and the signal covariance matrix. By evaluating the Cramér-Rao bound for selected cases we gain some insight into the performance of direction-finding systems in the presence of gain and phase uncertainties.This work was supported by the Army Research Office under Contract No. DAAL03-89-C-0007, sponsored by U.S. Army Communications Electronics Command, Center for Signals Warfare.     

Estimation of frequency in the presence of nonrandom interference

This paper develops a method of error analysis for Fourier transform-based sinusoidal frequency estimation in the presence of nonrandom interferences. A general error formula is derived and then specialized to the cases of additive and multiplicative interferences. Approximate error formulas are derived for the case of additive polynomial-phase interference. Finally, an application to error analysis in estimating the parameters of multiple polynomial-phase signals is discussed in detail     

On the role of waveform diversity in MIMO radar

MIMO radar employs multiple antennas to simultaneously transmit diverse waveforms, as well as multiple antennas to receive the radar returns. This paper studies the role of waveform diversity in MIMO radar as separate and distinct from the role of the multiple transmit antennas. This is done by comparing a MIMO radar system to a scanning phased array radar which uses the same transmit and receive arrays but only a single waveform. The performance characteristics of the two systems, in terms of the ambiguity function and the spatial response, are compared for single pulse operation as well as multi-pulse operation with coherent integration. Both element-space and beam-space systems are considered.     

3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors increase fibrinolytic activity in rat aortic endothelial cells. Role of geranylgeranylation and Rho proteins

Lipid and lipoprotein disorders are frequently detected in insulin dependent diabetics, which predisposes the high cardiovascular risk present in these patients. Studies performed with insulin dependent children showed early changes in lipid metabolism, usually correlated and aggravated by poor glycemic control. However, there are abnormalities present even in diabetic children with good glycemic control. The usual measures used to improve diabetic control are not sufficient to correct all the lipid disorders in Diabetes Mellitus. Hyperglycemia is the major factor, inducing metabolic lipid changes by increasing hepatic synthesis of triglycerides and promoting lipoprotein and apolipoprotein glycosylation and oxidation. Other changes, associated with the decrease of lipoprotein lipase activity are directly related to insulin deficiency. The lipid profile in children with poor diabetic control is similar to that already described for adult patients. The main abnormalities found are: increased levels of triglycerides, VLDL-Tg, LDL-Tg, VLDL-Cholesterol, Apo B and Apo CIII, with decreased values of HDL-Cholesterol and Apo AI. As there is a strong correlation between control and the degree of lipid changes, even with normal levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, measurements of Apo AI, Apo B100 and Apo CIII seem to be good and reliable indicators of glycemic control in diabetic children, and a factor with high predictive value for the evaluation of cardiovascular risk in adult patients.