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Articles 1 - 17 of 17

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Applications Of Underground Structures For The Protection Of Critical Infrastructure, George H. Baker, Richard G. Little, Don A. Linger Nov 2002

Applications Of Underground Structures For The Protection Of Critical Infrastructure, George H. Baker, Richard G. Little, Don A. Linger

George H Baker

The U.S. President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP), convened in the wake of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, concluded that the nation’s physical security and economic security depend on our critical energy, communications, and computer infrastructures. While a primary motivating event for the establishment of the commission was the catastrophic physical attack of the Murrah Building, it is ironic that the commission focused its attention primarily on cyber threats. Their rationale was that cyber vulnerabilities posed a new, unaddressed challenge to infrastructure security. This approach was further questioned by the events of September 11, …


Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (Scada) Systems, George H. Baker, Allan Berg Nov 2002

Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (Scada) Systems, George H. Baker, Allan Berg

George H Baker

Our critical national infrastructure systems have become almost universally dependent upon computer-based control systems technically referred to as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. SCADA systems evolved from the telemetry and event-alarm systems developed in the early days of utilities. With the widespread use of SCADA systems, computers have become the "basis element" for much of our critical infrastructure. Thus, the disruption of controlling computer terminals and networks due to natural disasters, electric power failure, accidents or malicious activity can have catastrophic consequences.


Statistical Properties Of Composite Distortions In Hfc Systems And Their Effects On Digital Channels, Ron D. Katznelson May 2002

Statistical Properties Of Composite Distortions In Hfc Systems And Their Effects On Digital Channels, Ron D. Katznelson

Ron D. Katznelson

The statistical properties of Composite Triple Beat (CTB) and Composite Second Order (CSO) distortion terms associated with the analog channels carried on Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) are presented. Both simulation and measurement results show that such distortion components falling on individual channels have amplitude Probability Density Function that is nearly Rayleigh distributed (having a Standard Deviation of 5.7 dB). It is shown that both CTB and CSO components have peak envelope power fluctuations that exceed their average (measured) power levels by more than 15 dB. The temporal statistical properties of these distortion components demonstrate peak envelope power fluctuations with characteristic …


Impervious Surfaces And Water Quality: A Review Of Current Literature And Its Implications For Watershed Planning, Elizabeth Brabec May 2002

Impervious Surfaces And Water Quality: A Review Of Current Literature And Its Implications For Watershed Planning, Elizabeth Brabec

Elizabeth Brabec

Impervious surfaces have for many years been recognized as an indicator of the intensity of the urban environment and, with the advent of urban sprawl, they have become a key issue in habitat health. Although a considerable amount of research has been done to define impervious thresholds for water quality degradation, there are a number of flaws in the assumptions and methodologies used. Given refinement of the methodology, accurate and usable parameters for preventative watershed planning can be developed, which include impervious surface thresholds and a balance between pervious and impervious surfaces within a watershed.


Mysql & Php For Data Librarians Workshop, Christopher Hoebeke, Patrick Yott Feb 2002

Mysql & Php For Data Librarians Workshop, Christopher Hoebeke, Patrick Yott

Christopher H Hoebeke

No abstract provided.


Agricultural Land Fragmentation: The Spatial Effects Of Three Land Protection Strategies In The Eastern United States, Elizabeth Brabec, Chip Smith Feb 2002

Agricultural Land Fragmentation: The Spatial Effects Of Three Land Protection Strategies In The Eastern United States, Elizabeth Brabec, Chip Smith

Elizabeth Brabec

Fragmentation of agricultural land by urban sprawl affects both the agricultural production capacity of the land and its rural scenic quality. In order to assess the resulting fragmentation of the three most common types of agricultural land conservation tools in the United States, this study analyzes the spatial form of three land protection strategies: a purchase of development rights (PDR) program, a clustering program and a transfer of development rights program. By assessing a series of measures of success such as total acreage protected, size of parcels, contiguity and farming status, the study compares the effectiveness of programs that have …


Can Law And Economics Be Both Practical And Principled?, David A. Hoffman, Michael P. O'Shea Feb 2002

Can Law And Economics Be Both Practical And Principled?, David A. Hoffman, Michael P. O'Shea

David A Hoffman

This article describes important recent developments in normative law and economics, and the difficulties they create for the project of efficiency-based legal reform. After long proceeding without a well articulated moral justification for using economic decision procedures to choose legal rules, scholars have lately begun to devote serious attention to developing a philosophically attractive definition of well-being. At the same time, the empirical side of law and economics is also being enriched with an improved understanding of the complexities of individuals' decision-making behavior. That is where the problems begin. Scholars may have better, more plausible conceptions of well-being in hand, …


Unemployment Scarring In High Unemployment Regions, Claudio Lupi, Patrizia Ordine Jan 2002

Unemployment Scarring In High Unemployment Regions, Claudio Lupi, Patrizia Ordine

Claudio Lupi

This paper investigates the effect of individual unemployment experiences on re-employment wages. The empirical analysis is carried out on a panel of Italian individuals. The main result is that while in the northern regions the effect is similar to the one estimated for the UK, in the southern area of the country the impact is not significant. We link this result to the particular socio-economic environment in which the unemployment spells are experienced. We argue that this might be due to the fact that in a high unemployment environment individual unemployment experiences are perceived as "normal" and do not necessarily …


Rockets And Feathers Revisited: An International Comparison On European Gasoline Markets, Marzio Galeotti, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera Jan 2002

Rockets And Feathers Revisited: An International Comparison On European Gasoline Markets, Marzio Galeotti, Alessandro Lanza, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

This paper re-examines the issue of asymmetries in the transmission of shocks to crude oil prices onto the retail price of gasoline. Relative to the previous literature, the distinguishing features of the present paper are: i) use of updated and comparable data to carry out an international comparison of gasoline markets; ii) two-stage modeling of the transmission of oil price shocks to gasoline prices (first refinery stage and second distribution stage), in order to assess possible asymmetries at either one or both stages; iii) use of asymmetric error correction models to distinguish between asymmetries that arise from short-run deviations in …


Characterization Of Different Reactive Lysines In Bovine Heart Mitochondrial Porin. Al Jamal Ja, Philadelphia University Jan 2002

Characterization Of Different Reactive Lysines In Bovine Heart Mitochondrial Porin. Al Jamal Ja, Philadelphia University

Philadelphia University, Jordan

No abstract provided.


Meridian Hill Park: The Making Of An American Neoclassical Landscape, Elizabeth Brabec Jan 2002

Meridian Hill Park: The Making Of An American Neoclassical Landscape, Elizabeth Brabec

Elizabeth Brabec

The neoclassical design was the dominant design movement in landscape architecture at the turn of the last century, dictating the form and design of public parks for most of the first half of the twentieth century. Meridian Hill Park, located just north of the White ouse in Washington, DC, is considered the most ambitious neoclassical park ever conceived in the United States. The paper provides an overview of the design development of the park, illustrating how classical design precedents were used to create a contemporary neo-classical park.


Synchronization Of The Human Cortical Working Memory Network, Sharlene Newman, Marcel Just, Patricia Carpenter Dec 2001

Synchronization Of The Human Cortical Working Memory Network, Sharlene Newman, Marcel Just, Patricia Carpenter

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.


Detecting Mitochondrial Permeability Transition By Confocal Imaging Of Intact Cells Pinocytically Loaded With Calcein, Rachel Jones, Alison Smail, Mark Wilson Dec 2001

Detecting Mitochondrial Permeability Transition By Confocal Imaging Of Intact Cells Pinocytically Loaded With Calcein, Rachel Jones, Alison Smail, Mark Wilson

Mark R Wilson

When studied in vitro, mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) is associated with an increase in mitochondrial permeability to solutes up to 1500 Da in mass and a loss of electrical potential difference across the inner mitochondrial membrane (delta psi mit). The MPT has been implicated as being important in cellular calcium homeostasis, autophagy and cell death via necrosis and apoptosis. Thus, it is important to develop a valid technique for accurate measurement of this phenomenon in intact cells. We developed a procedure for the detection of MPT in intact cells that avoids disadvantages associated with earlier approaches. In this new technique, …


Optimal Policies For Investment With Time-Varying Return Distributions, Douglas Steigerwald, Doncho Donchev, Svetlozar Rachev Dec 2001

Optimal Policies For Investment With Time-Varying Return Distributions, Douglas Steigerwald, Doncho Donchev, Svetlozar Rachev

Douglas G. Steigerwald

We develop a model in which investors must learn the distribution of asset returns over time. The process of learning is made more difficult by the fact that the distributions are not constant through time. We consider risk-neutral investors who have quadratic utility and are selecting between two risky assets. We determine the time at which it is optimal to update the distribution estimate and, hence, alter portfolio weights. Our results deliver an optimal policy for asset allocation, that is, the sequence of time intervals at which it is optimal to switch between assets, based on stochastic optimal control theory. …


Evidence That Clusterin Has Discrete Chaperone And Ligand Binding Sites, Johnathon Lakins, Stephen Poon, Simon Easterbrook-Smith, John Carver, Martin Tenniswood, Mark Wilson Dec 2001

Evidence That Clusterin Has Discrete Chaperone And Ligand Binding Sites, Johnathon Lakins, Stephen Poon, Simon Easterbrook-Smith, John Carver, Martin Tenniswood, Mark Wilson

Mark R Wilson

Clusterin is the first identified extracellular mammalian chaperone and binds to a wide variety of partly unfolded, stressed proteins. Clusterin also binds to many different unstressed ligands including the cell surface receptor low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein-2 (LRP-2). It is unknown whether clusterin binds to all of these many ligands via one or more binding sites. Furthermore, the region(s) of clusterin involved in these many binding interactions remain to be identified. As part of an investigation of these issues, we expressed recombinant human clusterin in the yeast Pichia pastoris. The resultant protein had variable proteolytic truncations of the C-terminal region …


An Fmri Study Of Bilingual Sentence Comprehension And Workload, Mihoko Hasegawa, Patricia A. Carpenter, Marcel Adam Just Dec 2001

An Fmri Study Of Bilingual Sentence Comprehension And Workload, Mihoko Hasegawa, Patricia A. Carpenter, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.


Forecasting Volatility In European Stock Markets With Non-Linear Garch Models, Giancarlo Forte, Matteo Manera Dec 2001

Forecasting Volatility In European Stock Markets With Non-Linear Garch Models, Giancarlo Forte, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

This paper investigates the forecasting performance of three popular variants of the nonlinear GARCH models, namely VS-GARCH, GJR-GARCH and Q-GARCH, with the symmetric GARCH(1,1) model as a benchmark. The application involves ten European stock price indexes. Forecasts produced by each non-linear GARCH model and each index are evaluated using a common set of classical criteria, as well as forecast combination techniques with constant and non-constant weights. With respect to the standard GARCH specification, the non-linear models generally lead to better forecasts in terms of both smaller forecast errors and lower biases. In-sample forecast combination regressions are better than those from …