Should Cities Invest in Sheltering‐in‐Place Measures Against Chlorine Truck Attacks by Terrorists?

After an intentional release of chlorine in an office district, public responses such as sheltering‐in‐place could save many lives if rapid enough. However, previous work does not estimate how fast and effective such responses would be for several possible investments in attack detection, public alert, and building ventilation, nor whether such measures would be cost effective. We estimate public response times with investment options in place, and resulting changes in fatalities as well as system costs, including false alarm costs, and cost effectiveness in terms of cost per net death avoided. The measures do have life‐saving potential, especially if all response times are at or near the lower limits of the ranges assumed in this article. However, due to uncertainties, it is not clear that responses would be rapid enough to save many people. In some cases total fatalities would increase, since sheltering after chlorine vapor has already entered buildings can increase occupants’ chlorine exposure. None of the options considered have median cost per statistical life saved meeting a cost‐effectiveness threshold of $6.5 million across all of the chlorine exposure dose‐response and ingress‐delay models considered here, even if there were one attack per year in the area covered by the system. Given these and other issues discussed in this article, at this point investments to improve sheltering‐in‐place capability appear not to be robust strategies for reducing fatalities from chlorine attack in an office district.     

《全唐文》初唐诏敕编年考辨

《全唐文》是研究唐代文学、文化的重要文献,但由于其编纂乃杂出众人之手,并且历经了漫长的辗转传抄过程,因而其收录的唐代诏敕文本存在很多的讹误,尤其是文本没有系年或系年错误.本文所举的编年考辨之例,包括对无系年的初唐诏敕文的订时,以及对有系年但年号、年份、月份存在争议的初唐诏敕文的考辨.     

Whole in Body,Mind & Spirit: Wholistic Health and the Limits of Medicine

Abstract

Use of the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI), a new instrument for assessing the presence of chemical dependency, was tested on a college population. In tests with 376 subjects, the SASSI showed significant promise in discriminating between nonabusers, moderate abusers, and severe abusers. Further, results of the SASSI obvious attributes scale were correlated in the expected directions with indicators of level of chemical use. The particular need for an alcohol and drug abuse assessment instrument that is relatively impervious to social desirability effects is discussed in light of the history of assessment problems in this area.     

Tight Performance Bounds of CP-Scheduling on Out-Trees

The worst-case behavior of the critical path (CP) algorithm for multiprocessor scheduling with an out-tree task dependency structure is studied. The out-tree is not known in advance and the tasks are released on-line over time (each task is released at the completion time of its direct predecessor task in the out-tree). For each task, the processing time and the remainder (the length of the longest chain of the future tasks headed by this task) become known at its release time. The tight worst-case ratio and absolute error are derived for this strongly clairvoyant on-line model. For out-trees with a specific simple structure, essentially better worst-case ratio and absolute error are derived. Our bounds are given in terms of t _max, the length of the longest chain in the out-tree, and it is shown that the worst-case ratio asymptotically approaches 2 for large t _max when the number of processors , where is an integer close to . A non-clairvoyant on-line version (without knowledge of task processing time and remainder at the release time of the task) is also considered and is shown that the worst-case behavior of width-first search is better or the same as that of the depth-first search.     

A PTAS for Semiconductor Burn-in Scheduling

In this paper a polynomial time approximation scheme, PTAS for short, is presented for the problem of scheduling jobs in a batch processing system. Each job has a pre-defined release date, which indicates when the job is available, and a pre-defined burn-in time, which is the least time needed for processing the job. At one time, at most B jobs can be processed together, where B is a pre-given number. No preemption is permitted.Research supported in part by an RGC CERG grant [CityU 1081/02E] and a grant from CityU [7001347].Supported by the fund from NSFC under grant numbers 10271065 and 60373025.     

An ALARA Approach to the Radiological Control of Foodstuffs Following an Accidental Release

This article presents a methodology based on two complementary approaches, thus allowing a selection of maximal concentration in foodstuffs for determining appropriate countermeasures. The first approach is based on a minimal and maximal per capita intervention level and takes into account the annual intake of each product. The second one is based on a cost-benefit analysis, comparing the advantages of a countermeasure concerning those products presenting a contamination higher than a given maximal concentration (in terms of reduction of cost of the detriment associated with the risk), with its drawbacks (in terms of cost of the products) in order to select the "ALARA" maximal concentration. This second approach is used as a complement to the first one. The results obtained through these two approaches are given for four products (milk, meat, fresh vegetables, and corn) and two nuclides (Cs-137 and I-131). These are presented for various scenarios: one or various products contaminated by one or various radionuclides. It is concluded that these two approaches are complementary, the first one being related to individual risk and the second to collective risk. Therefore, these approaches are both of interest in the context of the elaboration of modalities for the radiological control of foodstuffs following an accidental release and both methods may be useful for determining appropriate countermeasures.     

动态质押中的权利冲突及解决

动态质押的客体和交付符合物权法的强制要求,较普通动产质押并无不同,应从特定性和交付层面分析质权是否成立。尽管动态质押是担保物权,但质权对出质人的保护侧重于变价后阶段,而非变价前阶段。由于不可分的特性,加之对质押物的抽象约定,动态质押也会产生事后担保过度问题,导致质权人的合法担保权利和债务人的正常经营权利发生冲突。通过简单和补充的合同解释可以解决这一权利冲突,核心是基于交易习惯肯定债务人的法定交还请求权。实质结果是正常的经营权利优先于超额的担保权利,在此过程中质权人不存在损失,债务人因此不需要支付补偿,最终解决了权利冲突。动态质押能够在既有规范体系下得到解释,以实践交易模式为对象的规定会产生限缩金融创新空间的后果,民法典物权编并无必要对动态质押进行明文化规定。     

Parameter Uncertainty and Variability In Evaluative Fate and Exposure Models

The human toxicity potential, a weighting scheme used to evaluate toxic emissions for life cycle assessment and toxics release inventories, is based on potential dose calculations and toxicity factors. This paper evaluates the variance in potential dose calculations that can be attributed to the uncertainty in chemical-specific input parameters as well as the variability in exposure factors and landscape parameters. A knowledge of the uncertainty allows us to assess the robustness of a decision based on the toxicity potential; a knowledge of the sources of uncertainty allows us to focus our resources if we want to reduce the uncertainty. The potential dose of 236 chemicals was assessed. The chemicals were grouped by dominant exposure route, and a Monte Carlo analysis was conducted for one representative chemical in each group. The variance is typically one to two orders of magnitude. For comparison, the point estimates in potential dose for 236 chemicals span ten orders of magnitude. Most of the variance in the potential dose is due to chemical-specific input parameters, especially half-lives, although exposure factors such as fish intake and the source of drinking water can be important for chemicals whose dominant exposure is through indirect routes. Landscape characteristics are generally of minor importance.     

硅酸盐菌剂的解钾作用及田间施用效果研究

通过田间试验及摇瓶实验研究了硅酸盐菌剂的解钾作用以及对作物的增高增产效应。结果表明:田间试验中,硅酸盐菌剂使大豆产量比对照增产16.85%。在摇瓶培养条件下,硅酸盐细菌能通过破坏钾长石的晶格结构,使矿物中的钾释放出来,其含量比对照增加23%左右。     

受淹土壤中磷的释放研究

采用实验室模拟的方法研究了三峡库区受淹土壤的磷释放特征 ,结果表明 :随着浸泡时间增长 ,磷释放总量增加 ;在高水土比、高温、浸泡水呈微酸或微碱条件下有利于受淹土壤磷的释放