Intensity Projection Research Articles

Simulating Point Processes by Intensity Projection

Point processes with stochastic intensities are ubiquitous in many application areas, including finance, insurance, reliability and queuing. They can be simulated from standard Poisson arrivals by time-scaling with the cumulative intensity, whose path is typically generated with a discretization method. However, discretization introduces bias into the simulation results. This paper proposes a method for the exact simulation of point processes with stochastic intensities. The method leads to unbiased estimators. It is illustrated for a point process whose intensity follows an affine jump-diffusion process.

Bridgeworks on the East London railway line extension, UK

The East London railway line extension is one of the most intensive railway reconstruction projects undertaken in the UK. An existing operational railway with Victorian infrastructure has been taken out of service so that it can be extended and upgraded to provide a high-quality metro-style passenger service across London. The project encompasses integrating modern bridges into Victorian railway infrastructure, building new bridges and viaducts in the centre of London and minimising disruption while putting new bridges across the mainlines into two of London's railway termini. The paper describes the bridge structures and how they are being built. Two particular design issues with regard to the maintenance of railway bridges are highlighted.

Involving medical students in research

Involving medical students in research

Combining empirical evidence and experiential knowledge using consenesus methods to develop statewide clinical practice guidelines: The intensive care collaborative project

Combining empirical evidence and experiential knowledge using consenesus methods to develop statewide clinical practice guidelines: The intensive care collaborative project

Assessing Perceived Student Leadership Skill Development in an Academic Leadership Development Program

This research evaluated learning outcomes of a leadership development program at a large, southern land grant institution. The program is an interdisciplinary, semester-long class where experience and theory are juxtaposed to offer leadership training and development. Through an intensive research project, the program exposes students to four practical skills and four adaptive skills related to leadership development. The research outcomes of this study found that students did perceive to have gained the intended leadership skills as related to the four practical and four adaptive skills set forth by the program curriculum. As leadership programs continue to grow, these programs must be assessed and evaluated to continue to garner merit within the academic community.

CEO Ownership and Discretionary Investments

Abstract: This study investigates empirically the relationship between CEO ownership and discretionary investments such as R&D and capital expenditures. We assert that the under‐investment problem is high for R&D‐intensive projects, while the over‐investment problem is high for capital expenditures because of differences in risk between the two types of investments. Building on the linkages between investments and investment‐related agency problems, we hypothesize that the relationship between CEO ownership and investments depends on whether increasing ownership mitigates or exacerbates the under‐ or over‐investment problem. We find a non‐linear association between CEO stock ownership and R&D investments; R&D investments increase and then decline across increasing levels of ownership. Further, we find that R&D investments and CEO stock options are positively associated at high levels of option holdings. In contrast, capital expenditures do not vary with CEO ownership (stock or options). Finally, consistent with our underlying assumption, we find that the influence of R&D investments on future firm risk is significantly larger than that of capital expenditures. Our findings indicate that managerial risk aversion affects discretionary investments.

Visual effects in Sweden

The digital visual effects community in Sweden is small, having been driven mainly by its clients and their interests within advertising and the "commercial film" sector, which generally dictates shorter, intensive projects that must be cost effective. One big reason why the VFX industry has remained rather exclusive is because special effects have not been fully embraced as a part of Swedish film production culture. Traditionally, the focus has been rich in real life drama, playing off of socially realistic situations that would typically not have a need for special effects as extensive as in international success stories such as "Snakes on a Plane".

Recent Developments in Welfare to Work in Hong Kong

Summary The Asian financial crisis (1997) has created a social care crisis resulting in rising unemployment, poverty, income inequalities and homelessness. Although faced with dwindling public finances, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government had been compelled to tackle these problems. However, it has been attracted to the neo-liberal recipe: changing the subvention system to a block grant, curbing social spending, and tightening eligibility for social assistance. Notably, the introduction of the Intensive Employment Assistance Projects (IEAPs), which are the first welfare to work programs in East Asia, has become a major policy tool. This paper reports on a study of the impact of the projects, one of the key pillars for welfare to work programs. The IEAPs were found to have brought about positive changes in welfare clients' motivation to work and sense of self-reliance. Social workers from both traditional and progressive NGOs have etched, in various ways, their place in the welfare...

A novel machine vision application for analysis and visualization of confocal microscopic images

In this paper, a novel machine vision application is presented for analyzing and visualizing confocal microscopy images of biological preparations. The proposed system is divided into three subsystems: a 3D curved surface extraction subsystem that generates 3D surfaces passing through selected key points in confocal image stacks; a 2D image projection subsystem that produces a flattened projection of the extracted curved surface; and an image mosaic subsystem that concatenates a series of image projections to form a view of an entire biological preparation. A combination of cubic interpolation and boundary matching is employed to reconstruct the 3D curved surface that passes through selected key points. The projection process integrates data fidelity and local smoothness constraints, producing a color or intensity projection along the desired 3D surface. Registration is achieved by aligning and minimizing the sum of the squared distances (SSD) between the intensities of the corresponding pixels. Two biological applications of the proposed system are reported to illustrate how the vision system could aid in biological research.

Disclosing the diagnosis of dementia: the performance of Flemish general practitioners

This issue of whether or not, how and when patients should be told of the diagnosis of dementia remains a matter for discussion. Recent data confirm that the patient is told of the diagnosis in only 40 to 55% of cases. We therefore studied the performance of Flemish general practitioners (GPs) in this area. A postal questionnaire, based on that prepared by Johnson et al., was sent to a random sample of 1000 Flemish GPs, out of a total of 7000. A total of 647 answers were returned, of which 521 were eligible for analysis (response rate 60%). Thirty-six percent of these 521 GPs always or usually disclose the diagnosis, while 37% provide information about the prognosis. Most doctors (75%) see benefits in disclosure, particularly as regards planning care, providing treatment and encouraging a good doctor-patient relationship. Only 61% of respondents present an appropriate differential diagnosis. The results obtained from the Flemish GPs are similar to those of other known studies. A detailed analysis of the reasons for and the benefits of disclosing the diagnosis reveal a less reluctant attitude than could be inferred from the rough data. GPs pay a great deal of attention to the patient's feelings, experiences and ability to cope and to the proper timing of their information. However, intensive educational projects have to be set up in order to stimulate a more etiologically-oriented diagnosis and to improve the quality of the process of disclosing the diagnosis of dementia.

Relationships and Juvenile Offenders: The Effects of Intensive Aftercare Supervision

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of participation in the Intensive Aftercare Demonstration Project on relationships between youth and their service providers. Successful intensive case supervision often assumes that providers develop positive relationships with their clients. The study employed an experimental research design in which participating youth were randomly assigned to treatment (received intensive aftercare services) or control conditions during the assessment phase of their commitment. A total of 97 youth participating in the pilot study completed survey questionnaires, at up to four separate phases, to assess change over time. Two survey instruments were used to measure youth perceptions of relationships with service providers as well as case manager perceptions of youth strengths. The findings suggest that participation in the experimental group was strongly associated with youth's perceiving positive relationships with their client managers.

OFFLOADING NORNE OIL (WAXY OIL) FROM STORAGE TANKS ON THE NOFO OIL SPILL RESPONSE VESSELS

ABSTRACT The oil from the Norne field at the Norwegian continental shelf presented new challenges to the Norwegian oil spill contingency. Because of its high wax content and high pour point, under some conditions the oil could not be collected with the weir skimmers that traditionally are used in Norwegian offshore oil spill contingency. An intensive development project was carried out through which new recovery concepts were developed for the collection of this oil. Having found a satisfying solution to the oil recovery problem, there were concerns with the ability to offload Nome oil from the storage tanks on the Norsk Oljevernforening For Operatorselskap (NOFO) oil spill response vessels. Det Norske Vertias (DNV) was contracted to assess the offloading capability of four of the vessels in the NOFO pool. Because of the oil's unique properties, it was not trusted that standard methodology for calculating pressure drop in pipes and fittings would provide satisfying accuracy for this oil. Therefore, a pumpability test was conducted on a full-scale copy (somewhat simplified) of one of the offloading systems, in which pressure drops and pumping rates were measured using 30 m3 of emulsified Nome oil. Based on the test findings, a modified method for estimating pressure drop in pipes pumping the Nome oil was established, taking into account the highly non-Newtonian behavior of the oil. The new method was later applied to estimate Nome offloading capacity from a number of tanks on four NOFO vessels. This paper describes the work conducted and the methodology that was established for estimating offloading capability. As an example, the results obtained applying the method to one of the oil spill response vessels are outlined.

Tomographic image quality from E-field and intensity projections

Tomography is an established imaging method used to reconstruct images from projection data. The projections can consist of E-field data (for example, synthetic aperture radar data) or intensity data (e.g., X-ray data). For short pulse length coherent laser radars, however, the projection data is available in either form. In this paper, the signal to noise ratios (SNRs) in the reconstructed images for each type of data are presented and analyzed to determine which type of data produces the best image quality. It is shown that the SNR at any point in the image domain is limited above by one when using E-field data, but can be as high as the square root of the number of projections when intensity projections are used. These theoretical results are illustrated using computer-simulated data.

Steam generator hand hole shielding.

Seabrook Station is an 1198 MWE Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) that began commercial operation in 1990. Expensive and dose intensive Steam Generator Replacement Projects among PWR operators have led to an increase in steam generator preventative maintenance. Most of this preventative maintenance is performed through access ports in the shell of the steam generator just above the tube sheet known as secondary side hand holes. Secondary side work activities performed through the hand holes are typically performed without the shielding benefit of water in the secondary side of the steam generator. An increase in cleaning and inspection work scope has led to an increase in dose attributed to steam generator secondary side maintenance. This increased work scope and the station goal of maintaining personnel radiation dose ALARA led to the development of the shielding concept described in this article. This shield design saved an estimated 2.5 person-rem (25 person-Smv) the first time it was deployed and is expected to save an additional 50 person-rem (500 person-mSv) over the remaining life of the plant.

Interactive television for an urban adult mental health service: the Guy's Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit Telepsychiatry Project.

We carried out a feasibility study of an interactive television (IATV) system to enhance the provision of psychiatric intensive care services to a remote adult acute psychiatric ward in the same National Health Service mental health trust. The system used videoconferencing equipment connected by ISDN at 128 kbit/s. The system was used for patient referral, assessment and monitoring by staff at the remote site 8 km away.

COLLAGE “the Corporation of London Library & Art Gallery Electronic”

The Corporation of London (the local authority for the City) recently launched COLLAGE, a powerful custom-designed visual information system, whose aim is to transform public accessibility to the extensive visual collections held in its libraries and galleries. Over a period of eighteen months a dedicated team of staff photographed, digitised and indexed over 30,000 works of art as the result of an intensive data imaging project. So far the works are drawn from the Guildhall Library and Guildhall Art Gallery - collections particularly renowned for their strength in material relating to London, which is now widely and easily accessible on dedicated workstations in the City, as well as via the Internet.

Planning With A Difference: A Reflection On Planning And Decision Making With Indigenous People In Broome, Western Australia

This paper stems from an intensive community action project undertaken in July 1995 by the authors with colleagues from the Department of Planning, Policy and Landscape (now Landscape, Environment and Planning), RMIT University, and an alliance of Aboriginal groups in the Shire of Broome, in northern Western Australia. This work focused on developing processes for inclusion of Aboriginal peoples' viewpoints in planning and decision making by the Broome Shire Council. This Broome project led the authors to consider a range of theoretical perspectives regarding communication and democracy originally presented in a paper given at the ACSP/AESOP conference in Toronto, Canada in July 1996.

MANAGING INTERNAL CONSISTENCY IN TECHNOLOGY INTENSIVE DESIGN PROJECTS

In this paper, we develop a framework to analyze and compare the way in which two technology intensive design projects internally coordinate to maintain the internal consistency of their product. We compare the projects to one another and to the technology management literature. Design projects begin with conceptual notions of a customer need and develop products or functioning systems to meet those needs. Distributed knowledge and resources must be combined. The division of labor and coordination of the actors to ensure that the product development remains internally consistent is critical. How this process is managed affects productivity, quality, and development time.

Tracing the Mandibular Head Motion from a Cine Radiogram by Using Subtraction Based on Least Intensity Projection

Tracing the Mandibular Head Motion from a Cine Radiogram by Using Subtraction Based on Least Intensity Projection

INTENSIVE PROBATION WITH YOUNG ADULT OFFENDERS

This paper describes briefly the results of an evaluation of one intensive supervision project in the north of England which was targeted at 'high tariff' young offenders. It discusses the diversion effect of the project and offers some assessment of the changes introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 1991 on this particular sentencing option. The main body of the paper reports the findings of a follow-up reconviction study of those young offenders who attended the Edge during its first 12 months of operation and compares their recorded reoffending with two samples from this age group who received custodial sentences for broadly similar offences. Finally, the possible implications of this study for the continued utility of intensive probation schemes is discussed in the wider contexts of penal policy and social justice. (Abstract Adapted from Source: British Journal of Criminology, 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Oxford University Press) England Foreign Countries Adult Crime Adult Offender Diversion Program Offender Recidivism Program Effectiveness Intensive Supervision Criminal Justice System Justice System Intervention Justice System Effects Justice System Program Young Adult 06-05