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Fifty-eight meat and poultry plants in Virginia were assessed during spring and summer of 2000. These assessments were all conducted in the presence of state inspection and were designed to be non-regulatory. The audit team included N.G. Marriott, M.A. Tolbert and B.P. Quinn. The audits consisted of a tour of the facility and a review of SSOPs and all HACCP related documentation. To assist in these audits, a HACCP check sheet was developed and utilized to indicate suggestions or deficiencies. Most of the plants had an understanding of how to implement HACCP properly. The majority of the suggestions that were noted were not so much about the HACCP concept, but more with regards to the legality of a HACCP document. The most noted deficiency was improper cross-outs. If there is a correction, one line should be drawn through the error and then must be initialed. With respect to the HACCP plan, most deficiencies were related to the hazards and the critical control points. During these audits, two microbial determination methods (Standard Plate Count and Bioluminescence) were used to evaluate processing equipment. Typically, three pieces of equipment were tested at each plant. When the data were collected, the two microbial determination methods were correlated. The "corr" function in SAS resulted in a correlation coefficient of .4478, which is low and indicates a poor correlation. A pass/fail method similar to one done by Illsley et. al. resulted in a 48.9% agreement between the methods in this research. / Master of Science

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International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / XML is a simple and powerful way to handle on data transfers between organizations, applications and/or computer systems. Currently, there is a significant effort within NASA to transition to XML vocabularies as the means of exchanging electronic data. XML can provide a useful way to transfer telemetry attributes data between customers and systems. The current standard for airborne telemetry data description is the Telemetry Attributes Transfer Standard (TMATS). TMATS is a well-defined, structured specification that will map into XML extremely well. This makes XML an excellent choice to supplement TMATS for the interchange of telemetry attribute information. The Western Aeronautical Test Range (WATR) at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) is defining an XML Schema that will be used in support of the WATR Integrated Next Generation System (WINGS). This paper describes this work in progress.

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This Thesis proposes three main objectives: (i) to provide the concept of a new generalized non-standard synthesis model that would provide the framework for incorporating other non-standard synthesis approaches; (ii) to explore dynamic sound modeling through the application of new non-standard synthesis techniques and procedures; and (iii) to experiment with dynamic sound synthesis for the creation of novel sound objects. In order to achieve these objectives, this Thesis introduces a new paradigm for non-standard synthesis that is based in the algorithmic assemblage of minute wave segments to form sound waveforms. This paradigm is called Extended Waveform Segment Synthesis (EWSS) and incorporates a hierarchy of algorithmic models for the generation of microsound structures. The concepts of EWSS are illustrated with the development and presentation of a novel non-standard synthesis system, the Dynamic Waveform Segment Synthesis (DWSS). DWSS features and combines a variety of algorithmic models for direct synthesis generation: list generation and permutation, tendency masks, trigonometric functions, stochastic functions, chaotic functions and grammars. The core mechanism of DWSS is based in an extended application of Cellular Automata. The potential of the synthetic capabilities of DWSS is explored in a series of Case Studies where a number of sound object were generated revealing (i) the capabilities of the system to generate sound morphologies belonging to other non-standard synthesis approaches and, (ii) the capabilities of the system of generating novel sound objects with dynamic morphologies. The introduction of EWSS and DWSS is preceded by an extensive and critical overview on the concepts of microsound synthesis, algorithmic composition, the two cultures of computer music, the heretical approach in composition, non- standard synthesis and sonic emergence along with the thorough examination of algorithmic models and their application in sound synthesis and electroacoustic composition. This Thesis also proposes (i) a new definition for “algorithmic composition”, (ii) the term “totalistic algorithmic composition”, and (iii) four discrete aspects of non-standard synthesis.

Motivation: The IASB and the UK ASB have adopted different financial reporting rules for different classes of company. The IASB have IFRS and IFRS for SMEs. In the UK, currently companies follow IFRS (for public companies), UK GAAP (for medium-sized companies) or FRSSE (for small companies). Furthermore, some companies are exempt from audit. It is difficult to evaluate the efficacy of this approach to regulation since the ASB (and IASB) do not specify what consequences should follow. Do they expect public companies have higher accounting quality than medium and small companies? Or do they expect accounting quality to be the same across different groups of companies? Objective: The main objective of this study is to examine accounting quality in order to inform the future policy and discussion about the differential reporting framework. We examine the effects of accounting standards across public, medium and small companies. However, companies also face reporting discipline from market forces, and consequently we also examine the impact of debt-holders on reporting quality across and within medium and small companies. Methodology: We measure accounting quality from different aspects. For the assessment of differential accounting standards, we use: the level of accruals (ratio of cash flows to earnings), earnings smoothing, and target beating. For the assessment of any debt-holders effect, we use aspects that are suited to their needs, namely: earnings conservatism, and earnings persistence. Main Findings: Under the discipline of accounting standards, we find that the financial reporting behaviour of medium sized entities is significantly different from public and small companies. This suggests that accounting standards do not equalise accounting quality. The impacts of debt-holders on accounting quality are generally weak within medium and small companies. This implies that accounting standards are the main discipline for financial reporting for medium and small companies, which is consistent with the suggestions of Ball and Shivakumar (2005). However, we raise a few issues concerning the interpretation of the accounting quality measurements (earnings conservatism and earnings persistence) and provide theoretical and empirical support for the discussion. Recommendations: We suggest the accounting regulations for private companies may need to be further strengthened, especially for medium-sized companies.

Holders of rights sue ISPs for copyright and trademark infringement: specifically, for contributory liability through the ISP’s knowledge of user infringement. Knowledge about user infringement has been prevalently recognised as a crucial element of ISPs’ secondary liability, but the approaches concerning the knowledge standard are different in US copyright case law (traditional tort), the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the US Lanham Act, US trademark case law, and the EU Electronic Commerce Directive. Their differences have posed questions on the efficacy of the current knowledge standards and case law interpretations to omit legal ambiguities and offer appropriate guidance for tackling issues. This research presents that the US knowledge standards and the ECD knowledge standard apply broad knowledge standards to evaluate ISPs’ knowledge but they differ in terms of their elements and conditions for permitting ISPs and copyright holders to co-exist and combat copyright infringement. US copyright case law, the InWood knowledge standard, and the EU knowledge standard are deficient in terms of offering a suitable notice and take-down regime to reduce the duties of ISPs and to tackle the high risk of an ISP being held liable without knowledge. This is in contrast to the DMCA, which is free from such legal concerns because of its specified notice and take-down regime. Consequently, to fulfil the aims of this research, the following recommendations are made: the US copyright knowledge standard should preserve the broad knowledge standard of the DMCA, subject to implementing a compulsory notice and take-down regime, establishing a special body regarding the notification in section 512, and designing technical criteria for the ‘red flag’ test. In addition, it is recommended that the Lanham Act codify the InWood knowledge standard and the DMCA’s notice and take-down procedures. Besides, it is recommended that the ECD establish a notice and take-down regime similar to that applied by the US DMCA (subject to the above amendments).

This thesis describes a search for the rare radiative decay of a B meson to two photons. where the charged congugate mode is implied throughout. These decays are highly suppressed in the Standard Model where the branching fraction is expected to be of order 10^-8. In some new physics scenarios this could be enhanced by up to an order of magnitude to 10^-7. Therefore an observation of a significant signal above the Standard Model prediction could be a sign of new physics. The search for this rare decay was performed using the data collected with the BaBar detector at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory PEP-II storage ring operating at the Upsilon(4S) resonance. The analysis uses a dataset with an integrated luminosity of 425.7 fb-1 corresponding to 467 million BB pairs. A signal yield of 21.3 +12.8 -11.8 events with a significance of 1.88 sigma was measured using an unbinned extended maximum likelihood fit. An upper limit on the branching fraction is set at the 90% confidence level of less than 3.2 times 10^-7. This is about two times more stringent than the best upper limit of less than 6.2 times 10^-7 published by the Belle collaboration. / text

The paper explores two possible solutions for integrating a thesaurus and a classification scheme, specifically UDC, in order to develop a common platform for subject information retrieval through both systems. The author reports and compares experiences from two Hungarian projects aimed at creating a complex system for combining UDC and thesauri under a homogeneous theoretical framework: MÁTrIkSz (Hungarian Comprehensive Information Retrieval Language Dictionary) and the project of thesaurus construction and implementation in the Hungarian National Library (Széchényi). The role of UDC in these two projects is analyzed with respect to the features supported, classification-based retrieval functionalities, and the perceived advantages in subject access and knowledge organization. The author explains the methodology of her research based on an examination of structured and well-documented examples and literature research into the theory of UDC and its use. The paper underlines the importance of cognition as the basis for concept-building and points out some possibilities and expedients for the integration of thesauri and the UDC.