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.

A peer to peer (P2P) architecture for dynamic workflow management

Abstract: This paper presents the architecture of a novel Peer to Peer (P2P) workflow management system. The proposed P2P architecture is based on concepts such as a Web Workflow Peers Directory (WWPD) and Web Workflow Peer (WWP). The WWPD is an active directory system that maintains a list of all peers (WWPs) that are available to participate in Web workflow processes. Similar to P2P systems such as Napster and Gnutella, it allows peers to register with the system and offer their services and resources to other peers over the Internet. Furthermore, the architecture supports a novel notification mechanism to facilitate distributed workflow administration and management. Employing P2P principles can potentially simplify the workflow process and provide a more open, scalable process model that is shared by all workflow participants. This would enable for example a WWP to connect directly to another without going through an intermediary, currently represented by the workflow process management server. P2P workflow becomes more efficient as the number of peers performing the same role increases. Available peers can be discovered dynamically from the WWPD. The few currently existing P2P based workflow systems fail to utilise state of the art Web technologies such as Web Services. In contrast, using the approach described here it is possible to expose interoperable workflow processes over the Internet as services. A medical consultation case study is used to demonstrate the proposed system.

Micronutrients: highlights and research challenges from the 1994-5 National Diet and Nutrition Survey of people aged 65 years and over.

Abstract: The aims of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey series are summarized, and the new National Diet and Nutrition Survey of people aged 65 years and over is explored, with particular emphasis on micronutrient intakes and status indices. Mean nutrient intakes were generally satisfactory for most micronutrients, but intakes of vitamin D, Mg, K and Cu were low. Intakes of vitamin D were far below the reference nutrient intake for people aged 65 years and over, and there was also biochemical evidence of vitamin D deficiency, for 8% of free-living and 37% of institution participants, attributed partly to limited exposure to sunlight. A substantial proportion of people living in institutions had inadequate biochemical status indices, notably for vitamin C, Fe and folate. Relationships between intake and status were close for vitamins. Mineral intakes did not correlate well with currently used status indices. Some intakes and indices, especially those of vitamin C, carotenoids, Na and K, were strongly correlated with socio-economic status and with north-south gradients in Britain. Future research challenges should address the functional and health significance of low intakes and sub-optimal biochemical indices for certain micronutrients, especially for people living in institutions; the shortcomings of mineral status indices especially as indicators of mineral intake; the social and geographical inequalities of micronutrient intakes and status, and why micronutrient status deteriorates with increasing age. The answers to these questions will help to define the characteristics of nutritional risk for older people in Britain, and to clarify future needs for education and intervention.

The Multiplication of Influenza Viruses in the Fertile Egg. A Report to the Medical Research Council.

Abstract: Hoyle & Fairbrother (1937) showed that tissues infected with influenza virus contained two distinct particles, the infective virus elementary body, and a smaller particle, the soluble antigen, which could be demonstrated by complement-fixation tests.

An investigation into stochastic claims reserving models and the chain-ladder technique

Abstract: This paper considers a range of stochastic models which give the same reserve estimates as the chain-ladder technique. The relationship between the models described by Renshaw and Verrall (Renshaw, A.E., Verrall, R.J., 1998. British Actuarial Journal 4, 903–923) and Mack (Mack, T., 1993. ASTIN Bulletin 23, 213–225) is explored in more detail than previously. Several new models are suggested and some new ways to allow for negative incremental claims for the chain-ladder technique and other claims reserving methods are put forward.