Management gaps analysis: a case study of groundwater resource management in New Zealand

The primary objective of this project is to identify gaps, whether real or perceived, that hinder effective groundwater management in New Zealand. These gaps show as gaps in information, gaps in implementation, gaps in technological and management tools, and gaps in understanding of fundamental processes. The secondary objective is to propose a management strategy to close the identified gaps. Several methods are used to meet these objectives: surveys distributed to selected staff in each regional council; the review of various written reports; the analysis of land-use databases; and private consultation within each regional council. Results show that groundwater management in New Zealand is generally reactionary with the main gaps being in strategic planning and national guidelines. Most gaps appear to be predominantly information and implementation issues. In some cases there are gaps in the understanding of fundamental processes within an aquifer system, including the long-term effects of land-use on groundwater quality. An adaptive management approach is suggested as a means of closing these gaps.     

Biofeedback improves functional outcome after sphincteroplasty

Pax genes are expressed in specific patterns in the nervous system during development and in the adult. Recent findings suggest a link between the expression of Pax-2 and axonal guidance. Mice with a targeted deletion of Pax-2 are an excellent tool for studying axonal pathfinding at the molecular level, especially with respect to the optic chiasm. The date reviewed here suggest that Pax-2 regulates the expression of surface molecules involved in contact attraction and that the mutual regulation of the expression of Pax-2 and the Sonic hedgehog gene is of importance in the formation of the chiasm region.     

Towards an optimum language data model

Maximizing the satisfaction of a value in an engineering design is usually limited by tradeoffs in which other values become unacceptably sacrificed. In a few cases, however, the maximization is limited by a boundary between what is mathematically possible and what is not. Round wheels, vertical pillars, and binary memory elements are examples of optimum engineering structures which result from such mathematical limits. It is proposed that optimum characteristics of a language data model result similarly by minimizing the variety of primitive data objects, the complexity of those objects, and the number of objects needed to represent data states. Reducing these measures is needed to combine both rich data structure and powerful operations in one language. The minimizations lead to a narrow range of designs for language semantics in which the potential advantages of specialization is small compared with the advantages of commonality. Universal language for support of technical literacy appears to be an appropriate scope of generality in language design.     

Breaking Bad in Cyberspace: Understanding why and how Black Hat Hackers Manage their Nerves to Commit their Virtual Crimes

Information Systems Frontiers - What is happening in hacker’s minds when they are committing criminal activities? How black hat hackers manage nerves, which is about managing fear and...     

Formal analysis of a space-craft controller using SPIN

The paper documents an application of the finite state model checker SPIN to formally analyze a multithreaded plan execution module. The plan execution module is one component of NASA's New Millennium Remote Agent, an artificial intelligence-based spacecraft control system architecture which launched in October of 1998 as part of the DEEP SPACE 1 mission. The bottom layer of the plan execution module architecture is a domain specific language, named ESL (Executive Support Language), implemented as an extension to multithreaded COMMON LISP. ESL supports the construction of reactive control mechanisms for autonomous robots and spacecraft. For the case study, we translated the ESL services for managing interacting parallel goal-and-event driven processes into the PROMELA input language of SPIN. A total of five previously undiscovered concurrency errors were identified within the implementation of ESL. According to the Remote Agent programming team, the effort has had a major impact, locating errors that would not have been located otherwise and, in one case, identifying a major design flaw. In fact, in a different part of the system, a concurrency bug identical to one discovered by this study escaped testing and caused a deadlock during an in-flight experiment, 96 million kilometers from Earth. The work additionally motivated the introduction of procedural abstraction in terms of inline procedures into SPIN     

Cryogenic micro-calorimeters for low energy beta spectroscopy

We are using calorimeters with completely encapsulated sources to study low energy beta spectra. Our devices work as true calorimeters in the sense that they totally absorb and sum all the various quanta released in a decay into a single temperature pulse with amplitude proportional to the total energy deposited. We use a neutron transmutation doped (NTD) germanium thermistor as the temperature sensor and superconducting NbTi leads, which form a weak thermal link to the cold stage (80 mK). We have been using superconducting tin as our absorber material, and we discuss various techniques for source and absorber preparation. Annealing the absorber leads to shorter pulses with larger amplitude, and significantly improves detector performance. The production of a device to study the beta decay of¹⁰⁷Pd presented special difficulties due to the low specific activity of this isotope (halflife 6.5×10⁶ y), and the low enrichment (15%) that was available. This meant it was necessary to incorporate a large amount of palladium into our tin absorber. We found we could avoid a corresponding increase in heat capacity by forming a superconducting PdSn alloy.     

Quantitative proton MRS assessment of citrate heterogeneity in normal prostate

Water-suppressed proton spectra of the two major anatomical regions of the normal prostate were acquired with a commercial phased-array multicoil. The spectra demonstrated excellent signal-to-noise ratio and spectral resolution allowing identification of peaks from choline, creatine, and amino acids, as well as a major peak from citrate. Quantification of the citrate peak using tissue water as an internal concentration reference revealed a marked variability among different volunteers. In each case, citrate was consistently twofold to threefold greater in the peripheral zone than in the central gland. The results demonstrate heterogeneity of citrate within the prostate and suggest significant differences in the cytology and hormonal control of citrate synthesis among individuals.