Communication Roles, Perceived Effectiveness, and Satisfaction in an Environmental Management Program

Earlier research has shown a relationship between various forms of structural centrality and perceived leadership and role satisfaction in small experimental groups. The limited amount of research on this topic in naturally occurring social networks has yielded results that often conflict with one another. Different results have generally been attributed to possible differences in task environments. This paper examines the relationship between two types of structural centrality and perceived influence, role satisfaction, and perceived effectiveness in an environmental resource management program. Findings in this paper suggest that the observed differences in relationships between the network and other variables is partly a function of global network properties (e.g., marginality of subgroups) and related task environments. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

New applications of atomic physics to the study of nuclear properties

The hyperfine interaction couples the atomic electrons and the nucleus, and because of this interaction, there is a fundamental link between the fields of atomic physics and nuclear physics. Of course, information flows in both directions through this link. This paper reviews in broad terms the previous applications of atomic physics methods to the study of nuclear properties and fundamental interactions, and then focuses on the possible applications of atom trapping methods to nuclear physics problems.Supported in part by the National Science Foundation.     

Radiative characteristics of pulsed power driven Z-pinch aluminumplasmas

In this paper, we study the dynamics of a massive aluminum Z-pinch plasma load and evaluate its performance as a soft X-ray radiator. A radiation hydrodynamic model self-consistently driven by a circuit describes the dynamics. Comparisons are made for the K- and L-shell soft X-ray emission as a function of the ionization dynamic model. The ionization dynamic models are represented by: 1) a time-dependent nonequilibrium (NEQ) model, 2) a collisional radiative equilibrium (CRE) model, and 3) a local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) model. For all three scenarios the radiation is treated 1) in the free streaming optically thin approximation where the plasma is treated as a volume emitter and 2) in the optically thick regime where the opacity for the lines and continuum is self-consistently calculated online and the radiation is transported through the plasma. Each simulation is carried out independently to determine the sensitivity of the implosion dynamics to the ionization and radiation model, i.e., how the ionization dynamic model affects the radiative yield and emission spectra. Results are presented for the L- and K-shell radiation yields and emission spectra as a function of photon energy from 10 eV to 10 keV. Also, departure coefficients from LTE are presented for selected levels and ionization stages     

Varieties whose countable embeddability skeletons are semilattices

Translated fromAlgebra i Logika, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 288–307, May–June, 1993.     

Enumeration of Full Graphs: Onset of the Asymptotic Region

A full graph on n vertices, as defined by Fulkerson, is a representation of the intersection and containment relations among a system of n sets. It has an undirected edge between vertices representing intersecting sets and a directed edge from a to b if the corresponding set A contains B;. Kleitman, Lasaga, and Cowen gave a unified argument to show that asymptotically, almost all full graphs can be obtained by taking an arbitrary undirected graph on the n vertices, distinguishing a clique in this graph, which need not be maximal, and then adding directed edges going out from each vertex in the clique to all vertices to which there is not already an existing undirected edge. Call graphs of this type members of the dominant class. This article obtains the first upper and lower bounds on how large n has to be, so that the asymptotic behavior is indeed observed. It is shown that when n > 170, the dominant class predominates, while when n < 17, the full graphs in the dominant class compose less than half of the total number of realizable full graphs on n vertices.     

Sample-path optimization of convex stochastic performance functions

In this paper we propose a method for optimizing convex performance functions in stochastic systems. These functions can include expected performance in static systems and steady-state performance in discrete-event dynamic systems; they may be nonsmooth. The method is closely related to retrospective simulation optimization; it appears to overcome some limitations of stochastic approximation, which is often applied to such problems. We explain the method and give computational results for two classes of problems: tandem production lines with up to 50 machines, and stochastic PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) problems with up to 70 nodes and 110 arcs. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation under grant number CCR-9109345, by the Air Force Systems Command, USAF, under grant numbers F49620-93-1-0068 and F49620-95-1-0222, by the U.S. Army Research Office under grant number DAAL03-92-G-0408, and by the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command under contract number DASG60-91-C-0144. The U.S. Government has certain rights in this material, and is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. Sponsored by a Wisconsin/Hilldale Research Award, by the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense Command under contract number DASG60-91-C-0144, and the Air Force Systems Command, USAF, under grant number F49620-93-1-0068. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation under grant number DDM-9201813.     

Propagation of electromagnetic waves in the earth-ionosphere waveguide with a gradual periodic inhomogeneity of the ionospheric upper-boundary impedance

We study the influence of a gradually inhomogeneous periodic disturbance of the upper-wall impedance of a plane Earth-Ionosphere waveguide on the radiation of a vertical electric dipole immersed in the waveguide channel. We consider the case where the disturbance amplitude is commensurable with the undisturbed value of the impedance. An expression is obtained for the Hertz potential when the source and the observation point are located at the lower wall of the waveguide. Radiophysical Research Institute, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 374–383, March, 1998.