Knowledge of asthma guidelines:results of a UK General Practice Airways Group (GPIAG) web-based 'Test your Knowledge' quiz

A web-based questionnaire, comprising 11 multiple choice questions, tested the knowledge of visitors to the General Practice Airways Group (GPIAG) online summary of the British Asthma guideline. On average, the 413 respondents answered less than half the questions correctly. GP scores were significantly lower than practice nurses. Improving clinicians' knowledge of asthma is a prerequisite for improving management

Community Economic Development curriculum for public high schools and charter schools

As stated in the thesis project, "Educational reform is taking place across this country from Kindergarten through twelfth grade. An individual's approach to curriculum development reflects that person's view of the world, including what a person perceives as reality, the values and beliefs he or she deems important and the amount of knowledge one possesses. What is curriculum? A curriculum can be defined as a plan for action or a written document that includes strategies for achieving desired goals or ends. Curriculum development can, however be defined broadly as dealing with the experiences of the learner. Community Economic Development is a field of study that has not really been introduced on the High School level. There are several curriculums that deal with the social environment, community development, environmental study and urban planning. My research did not find a specific curriculum that focuses on Community Economic Development (CED). Some of the curriculums mentioned had some elements of CED, however I found no specific curriculum that address the field of CED. Some of the models however can be useful and can be enhanced to make the learning experience of students in the urban and rural schools better and more effective. There are several schools throughout this country that focus on learning in and outside the classroom, hands on, interactive learning that have the students learning from their social environment. Oral History projects, Environmental, and Architectural Studies by student's are all concepts and approaches that incorporate classroom learning with learning from the environment as a tool for interactive and service learning. Community Based Organization's (CBO's) and community groups are forming their own schools with various curriculums that focus on the community development and the social environment. Charter schools and New Vision schools are being created all across the country with varying degrees of curriculums, teaching tools and methods.With some of the initial research regarding this issue, I saw a unique opportunity to develop a project that would benefit schools looking for a new curriculum that incorporates some unique concepts. Critical thinking skills, hands on projects, and service learning to develop students skills are some of the methods that can provide a meaningful learning experience for students and utilize the abilities and talents they possess. Benjamin Banneker Academy for Community Development, a New Vision school located in Brooklyn, New York, was an excellent opportunity for my project which is to develop an High School curriculum in the field of Community Economic Development (CED). The school did not have a curriculum that focused on Community Economic Development (CED) and created a unique opportunity for the school, the local CDC and myself to develop a school curriculum and internship program, which the students could learn, about this particular subject area." (Library-derived description)Small, K. L. (1999). Community Economic Development curriculum for public high schools and charter schools. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen

Detecting periodicity in experimental data using linear modeling techniques

Fourier spectral estimates and, to a lesser extent, the autocorrelation function are the primary tools to detect periodicities in experimental data in the physical and biological sciences. We propose a new method which is more reliable than traditional techniques, and is able to make clear identification of periodic behavior when traditional techniques do not. This technique is based on an information theoretic reduction of linear (autoregressive) models so that only the essential features of an autoregressive model are retained. These models we call reduced autoregressive models (RARM). The essential features of reduced autoregressive models include any periodicity present in the data. We provide theoretical and numerical evidence from both experimental and artificial data, to demonstrate that this technique will reliably detect periodicities if and only if they are present in the data. There are strong information theoretic arguments to support the statement that RARM detects periodicities if they are present. Surrogate data techniques are used to ensure the converse. Furthermore, our calculations demonstrate that RARM is more robust, more accurate, and more sensitive, than traditional spectral techniques.Comment: 10 pages (revtex) and 6 figures. To appear in Phys Rev E. Modified styl

GEMPAK: An arbitrary aircraft geometry generator

A computer program, GEMPAK, has been developed to aid in the generation of detailed configuration geometry. The program was written to allow the user as much flexibility as possible in his choices of configurations and the detail of description desired and at the same time keep input requirements and program turnaround and cost to a minimum. The program consists of routines that generate fuselage and planar-surface (winglike) geometry and a routine that will determine the true intersection of all components with the fuselage. This paper describes the methods by which the various geometries are generated and provides input description with sample input and output. Also included are descriptions of the primary program variables and functions performed by the various routines. The FORTRAN program GEMPAK has been used extensively in conjunction with interfaces to several aerodynamic and plotting computer programs and has proven to be an effective aid in the preliminary design phase of aircraft configurations

Orbiter/launch system

The system includes reusable turbojet propelled booster vehicles releasably connected to a reusable rocket powered orbit vehicle. The coupled orbiter-booster combination takes off horizontally and ascends to staging altitude and speed under booster power with both orbiter and booster wings providing lift. After staging, the booster vehicles fly back to Earth for horizontal landing and the orbiter vehicle continues ascending to orbit

Ocean feature models ? their use and effectiveness in ocean acoustic forecasting

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to test the effectiveness of feature models in ocean acoustic forecasting. Feature models are simple mathematical representations of the horizontal and vertical structures of ocean features (such as fronts and eddies), and have been used primarily for assimilating new observations into forecasts and for compressing data. In this paper we describe the results of experiments in which the models have been tested in acoustic terms in eddy and frontal environments in the Iceland Faeroes region. Propagation-loss values were obtained with a 2D parabolic-equation (PE) model, for the observed fields, and compared to PE results from the corresponding feature models and horizontally uniform (range-independent) fields. The feature models were found to represent the smoothed observed propagation-loss field to within an rms error of 5 dB for the eddy and 7 dB for the front, compared to 10?15-dB rms errors obtained with the range-independent field. Some of the errors in the feature-model propagation loss were found to be due to high-amplitude 'oceanographic noise' in the field. The main conclusion is that the feature models represent the main acoustic properties of the ocean but do not show the significant effects of small-scale internal waves and fine-structure. It is recommended that feature models be used in conjunction with stochastic models of the internal waves, to represent the complete environmental variability

Common adversaries form alliances: modelling complex networks via anti-transitivity

Anti-transitivity captures the notion that enemies of enemies are friends, and arises naturally in the study of adversaries in social networks and in the study of conflicting nation states or organizations. We present a simplified, evolutionary model for anti-transitivity influencing link formation in complex networks, and analyze the model's network dynamics. The Iterated Local Anti-Transitivity (or ILAT) model creates anti-clone nodes in each time-step, and joins anti-clones to the parent node's non-neighbor set. The graphs generated by ILAT exhibit familiar properties of complex networks such as densification, short distances (bounded by absolute constants), and bad spectral expansion. We determine the cop and domination number for graphs generated by ILAT, and finish with an analysis of their clustering coefficients. We interpret these results within the context of real-world complex networks and present open problems