Northampton Community College

About: Northampton Community College is a education organization based out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3410 authors who have published 4582 publications receiving 130398 citations. The organization is also known as: Northampton County Area Community College.

Ocular aberrations with ray tracing and Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensors: Does polarization play a role?

Abstract: Ocular aberrations were measured in 71 eyes by using two reflectometric aberrometers, employing laser ray tracing (LRT) (60 eyes) and a Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor (S-H) (11 eyes). In both techniques a point source is imaged on the retina (through different pupil positions in the LRT or a single position in the S-H). The aberrations are estimated by measuring the deviations of the retinal spot from the reference as the pupil is sampled (in LRT) or the deviations of a wave front as it emerges from the eye by means of a lenslet array (in the S-H). In this paper we studied the effect of different polarization configurations in the aberration measurements, including linearly polarized light and circularly polarized light in the illuminating channel and sampling light in the crossed or parallel orientations. In addition, completely depolarized light in the imaging channel was obtained from retinal lipofuscin autofluorescence. The intensity distribution of the retinal spots as a function of entry (for LRT) or exit pupil (for S-H) depends on the polarization configuration. These intensity patterns show bright corners and a dark area at the pupil center for crossed polarization, an approximately Gaussian distribution for parallel polarization and a homogeneous distribution for the autofluorescence case. However, the measured aberrations are independent of the polarization states. These results indicate that the differences in retardation across the pupil imposed by corneal birefringence do not produce significant phase delays compared with those produced by aberrations, at least within the accuracy of these techniques. In addition, differences in the recorded aerial images due to changes in polarization do not affect the aberration measurements in these reflectometric aberrometers.

Sustainable waste management in the food and drink industry

Abstract: In moving towards sustainable wastes management, the UK Government has adopted a wastes hierarchy. This hierarchy sets out clearly the priorities for sustainable resource use and wastes management: it ought to be the guiding principle of private and public policy, with the emphasis placed strongly on reducing the amount of raw material used. The House of Commons Environment, Transport & Regional Affairs Committee has noted a pressing need to promote wastes minimisation within industrial and commercial sectors and has recommended the introduction of penalties and incentives to encourage industrial wastes minimisation. Despite this, in the food and retailing sector only around 25 per cent of companies were found to operate wastes minimisation programmes. This paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of wastes minimisation, in both financial and environmental terms, for the food and drink sector. Large multiprocess food and drink companies have found they can make annual savings of greater than one per cent of turnover by implementing wastes minimisation strategies.

Towards security monitoring patterns

Abstract: Runtime monitoring is performed during system execution to detect whether the system's behaviour deviates from that described by requirements. To support this activity we have developed a monitoring framework that expresses the requirements to be monitored in event calculus - a formal temporal first order language. Following an investigation of how this framework could be used to monitor security requirements, in this paper we propose patterns for expressing three basic types of such requirements, namely confidentiality, integrity and availability. These patterns aim to ease the task of specifying confidentiality, integrity and availability requirements in monitorable forms by non-expert users. The paper illustrates the use of these patterns using examples of an industrial case study.

Does trauma risk management reduce psychological distress in deployed troops

Abstract: Background Military personnel exposed to potentially traumatic events whilst deployed on operational duties may develop psychological problems. The Royal Marines have made extensive use of Trauma Risk Management (TRiM), a peer-support system that operates through practitioners embedded within operational units. TRiM aims to promote recognition of psychological illness and to facilitate social support. Aims To evaluate the effects of TRiM in two units at different stages of implementation. Methods Royal Marines and Army personnel were surveyed prior to, during and upon return from an operational deployment to Afghanistan. Participants completed measures of general mental health (GHQ12) and traumatic stress [PCL(C)]. Results We received responses from 180 pre-deployment, 105 during deployment and 137 post-deployment. Personnel within units with experience of TRiM reported lower levels of psychological distress than personnel in the unit who were using TRiM for the first time. Both groups reported higher psychological distress scores before and during deployment, compared with post-deployment. However, we found personnel who reported having more access to social support during deployment reported less psychological distress. Conclusions The use of TRiM may assist in increasing the psychological resilience of military personnel through the facilitation of social support; this may have particular utility during operational deployments.