Identification of approaches for the control of health, environmental, and safety hazards associated with air bag use and disposal. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Identification of large space structures on orbit /

"FO4611-85-C-0092."

Identification of traffic management problems in work zones /

Mode of access: Internet.

Participatory approach for the identification of dairy industry needs in the design of research, development and extension actions: Australian and Brazilian case studies

In both Australia and Brazil there are rapid changes occurring in the macroenvironment of the dairy industry. These changes are sometimes not noticed in the microenvironment of the farm, due to the labour-intensive nature of family farms, and the traditionally weak links between production and marketing. Trends in the external environment need to be discussed in a cooperative framework, to plan integrated actions for the dairy community as a whole and to demand actions from research, development and extension (R, D & E). This paper reviews the evolution of R, D & E in terms of paradigms and approaches, the present strategies used to identify dairy industry needs in Australia and Brazil, and presents a participatory strategy to design R, D & E actions for both countries. The strategy incorporates an integration of the opinions of key industry actors ( defined as members of the dairy and associated communities), especially farm suppliers ( input market), farmers, R, D & E people, milk processors and credit providers. The strategy also uses case studies with farm stays, purposive sampling, snowball interviewing techniques, semi-structured interviews, content analysis, focus group meetings, and feedback analysis, to refine the priorities for R, D & E actions in the region.

Systematic identification of small molecule adjuvants

Introduction: Adjuvants potentiate immune responses, reducing the amount and dosing frequency of antigen required for inducing protective immunity. Adjuvants are of special importance when considering subunit, epitope-based or more unusual vaccine formulations lacking significant innate immunogenicity. While numerous adjuvants are known, only a few are licensed for human use; principally alum, and squalene-based oil-in-water adjuvants. Alum, the most commonly used, is suboptimal. There are many varieties of adjuvant: proteins, oligonucleotides, drug-like small molecules and liposome-based delivery systems with intrinsic adjuvant activity being perhaps the most prominent. Areas covered: This article focuses on small molecules acting as adjuvants, with the author reviewing their current status while highlighting their potential for systematic discovery and rational optimisation. Known small molecule adjuvants (SMAs) can be synthetically complex natural products, small oligonucleotides or drug-like synthetic molecules. The author provides examples of each class, discussing adjuvant mechanisms relevant to SMAs, and exploring the high-throughput discovery of SMAs. Expert opinion: SMAs, particularly synthetic drug-like adjuvants, are amenable to the plethora of drug-discovery techniques able to optimise the properties of biologically active small molecules. These range from laborious synthetic modifications to modern, rational, effort-efficient computational approaches, such as QSAR and structure-based drug design. In principal, any property or characteristic can thus be designed in or out of compounds, allowing us to tailor SMAs to specific biological functions, such as targeting specific cells or pathways, in turn affording the power to tailor SMAs to better address different diseases.

Automatic identification of best answers in online enquiry communities

Online communities are prime sources of information. The Web is rich with forums and Question Answering (Q&A) communities where people go to seek answers to all kinds of questions. Most systems employ manual answer-rating procedures to encourage people to provide quality answers and to help users locate the best answers in a given thread. However, in the datasets we collected from three online communities, we found that half their threads lacked best answer markings. This stresses the need for methods to assess the quality of available answers to: 1) provide automated ratings to fill in for, or support, manually assigned ones, and; 2) to assist users when browsing such answers by filtering in potential best answers. In this paper, we collected data from three online communities and converted it to RDF based on the SIOC ontology. We then explored an approach for predicting best answers using a combination of content, user, and thread features. We show how the influence of such features on predicting best answers differs across communities. Further we demonstrate how certain features unique to some of our community systems can boost predictability of best answers.

General Regression Neuro–Fuzzy Network for Identification of Nonstationary Plants

General Regression Neuro-Fuzzy Network, which combines the properties of conventional General Regression Neural Network and Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System is proposed in this work. This network relates to so-called “memory-based networks”, which is adjusted by one-pass learning algorithm.

The identification of early factors related to academic achievement among deaf students

The purpose of this research study was to examine specific factors believed to be related to academic achievement in deaf children. More specifically, this research sought to determine whether there was a significant difference in achievement between those students whose parents use oral communication only and those whose parents use some type of sign language. An additional purpose of this research was to determine if there was a significant difference in academic achievement with those deaf students who used amplification devices early in life. This study also sought to determine whether providing early intervention program which emphasizes and enables parents to develop a language rich environment had a significant impact on the academic achievement of deaf children and whether the age at which initial services are received influence deaf student's subsequent academic achievement. This study examined the relationship, if any, between intellectual ability and academic achievement among deaf children. Finally, this study sought to investigate the relationship between the degree of hearing loss and academic achievement. ^ Purposive sampling was used to select subjects for this study. All 228 eligible Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) students enrolled in a Broward County Public School were included in the original sample. Sixty-one students actually participated in this study. A correlational method of statistical analysis as well as a cross classification (crosstabs) was used to analyze the data. ^ The results show that academic achievement in the areas of reading and mathematics was significantly related to parental mode of communication and the mode of communication used in school. Academic achievement, in the area of reading, was also signficantly related to intellectual ability. The reading achievement was also found to be significantly related to degree of hearing loss. Written language was not significantly related to any factors investigated in this study. ^ Additional research should be conducted to further investigate the low academic achievement among deaf children. The diversity among signing systems at school and between home and school should also be analyzed. Finally, future studies should examine curriculum and instruction methods to increase the academic achievement of deaf children. ^

Validation of an Analytical Method for the Identification of SmartWater CSI Forensic Marking Technology

SmartWater is a chemical taggant used as a crime deterrent. The chemical taggant is a colorless liquid that fluoresces yellow under ultra-violet (UV) light and contains distinctive, identifiable and traceable elemental composition. For instance, upon a break and entry scenario, the burglar is sprayed with a solution that has an elemental signature custom-made to a specific location. The residues of this taggant persist on skin and other objects and can be easily recovered for further analysis. The product has been effectively used in Europe as a crime deterrent and has been recently introduced in South Florida. In 2014, Fourt Lauderdale Police Department reported the use of SmartWater products with a reduction in burglaries of 14% [1]. The International Forensic Research Institute (IFRI) at FIU validated the scientific foundation of the methods of recovery and analysis of these chemical tagging systems using LA-ICP-MS. Analytical figures of merit of the method such as precision, accuracy, limits of detection, linearity and selectivity are reported in this study. Moreover, blind samples were analyzed by LA-ICP-MS to compare the chemical signatures to the company’s database and evaluate error rates and the accuracy of the method. This study demonstrated that LA-ICP-MS could be used to effectively detect these traceable taggants to assist law enforcement agencies in the United States with cases involving transfer of these forensic coding systems.

The SCUBA HAlf degree extragalactic survey - III. Identification of radio and mid-infrared counterparts to submillimetre galaxies

Determining an accurate position for a submillimetre (submm) galaxy (SMG) is the crucial step that enables us to move from the basic properties of an SMG sample - source counts and 2D clustering - to an assessment of their detailed, multiwavelength properties, their contribution to the history of cosmic star formation and their links with present-day galaxy populations. In this paper, we identify robust radio and/or infrared (IR) counterparts, and hence accurate positions, for over two-thirds of the SCUBA HAlf-Degree Extragalactic Survey (SHADES) Source Catalogue, presenting optical, 24-μm and radio images of each SMG. Observed trends in identification rate have given no strong rationale for pruning the sample. Uncertainties in submm position are found to be consistent with theoretical expectations, with no evidence for significant additional sources of error. Employing the submm/radio redshift indicator, via a parametrization appropriate for radio-identified SMGs with spectroscopic redshifts, yields a median redshift of 2.8 for the radio-identified subset of SHADES, somewhat higher than the median spectroscopic redshift. We present a diagnostic colour-colour plot, exploiting Spitzer photometry, in which we identify regions commensurate with SMGs at very high redshift. Finally, we find that significantly more SMGs have multiple robust counterparts than would be expected by chance, indicative of physical associations. These multiple systems are most common amongst the brightest SMGs and are typically separated by 2-6 arcsec, similar to 15-20/sin i kpc at z~ 2, consistent with early bursts seen in merger simulations.

Identification of 1-methyloctyl butanoate as the major sex pheromone component from females of the saddle gall midge, Haplodiplosis marginata (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae)

The saddle gall midge, Haplodiplosis marginata (von Roser) (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), has undergone a resurgence recently as a pest of cereals in Belgium and other European countries. An effective monitoring tool of saddle gall midge flights is needed to understand the enigmatic population dynamics of this pest, and to design an integrated management strategy. Therefore, volatile compounds emitted by females (alkan-2-ols and alk-2-yl butanoates) were identified, and the chirality of the emitted esters was determined to be the R absolute configuration. In field-trapping experiments, racemic non-2-yl butanoate attracted substantial numbers of H.marginata males. Thus, this compound will be useful in baited traps for monitoring seasonal flight patterns, and improving integrated management of the saddle gall midge in agricultural systems.

Automatic identification of whole-part relations in Portuguese

Dissertação de Mestrado, Ciências da Linguagem, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Algarve, 2014

Production Diseases in European Organic Dairy Farms – Current Status and Identification of Drivers for Improvement by Means of a Systemic Approach

The aims of this thesis were to determine the animal health status in organic dairy farms in Europe and to identify drivers for improving the current situation by means of a systemic approach. Prevalences of production diseases were determined in 192 herds in Germany, France, Spain, and Sweden (Paper I), and stakeholder consultations were performed to investigate potential drivers to improve animal health on the sector level (ibid.). Interactions between farm variables were assessed through impact analysis and evaluated to identify general system behaviour and classify components according to their outgoing and incoming impacts (Paper II-III). The mean values and variances of prevalences indicate that the common rules of organic dairy farming in Europe do not result in consistently low levels of production diseases. Stakeholders deemed it necessary to improve the current status and were generally in favour of establishing thresholds for the prevalence of production diseases in organic dairy herds as well as taking actions to improve farms below that threshold. In order to close the gap between the organic principle of health and the organic farming practice, there is the need to formulate a common objective of good animal health and to install instruments to ensure and prove that the aim is followed by all dairy farmers in Europe who sell their products under the organic label. Regular monitoring and evaluation of herd health performance based on reference values are considered preconditions for identifying farms not reaching the target and thus in need of improvement. Graph-based impact analysis was shown to be a suitable method for modeling and evaluating the manifold interactions between farm factors and for identifying the most influential components on the farm level taking into account direct and indirect impacts as well as impact strengths. Variables likely to affect the system as a whole, and the prevalence of production diseases in particular, varied largely between farms despite some general tendencies. This finding reflects the diversity of farm systems and underlines the importance of applying systemic approaches in health management. Reducing the complexity of farm systems and indicating farm-specific drivers, i.e. areas in a farm, where changes will have a large impact, the presented approach has the potential to complement and enrich current advisory practice and to support farmers’ decision-making in terms of animal health.

Identification of novel molecular determinants of tissue mineralization in fish

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências Biomédicas, Departamento de Ciências Biomédicas e Medicina, Universidade do Algarve, 2015