Industrial hygiene surveys and epidemiologic studies of auto mechanics have shown that these workers are not at an increased risk of asbestos-related disease; however, concerns continue to be raised regarding asbestos exposure from asbestos-containing brakes. Handling new asbestos-containing brake components has recently been suggested as a potential source of asbestos exposure. A simulation st...

This paper presents the substitution boxes (s-boxes) found in many block ciphers, and more specifically in DES-like encryption systems. It begins with a brief history of the Data Encryption Standard (DES) and the first public question on the chosen s-boxes. An outline of the DES algorithm is presented, along with a more detailed look of the cipher function that uses the s-boxes. The major m tho...

Although several states have implemented programs providing boxes for infant sleep, safe sleep experts express concern regarding the paucity of safety and efficacy research on boxes. The purpose of this study was to assess pregnant women's perceptions regarding use of baby sleep boxes. A convenience sample was recruited from a community prenatal education program. Twenty-eight women were admini...

The Bernoulli sieve is a version of the classical balls-in-boxes occupancy scheme, in which random frequencies of infinitely many boxes are produced by a multiplicative random walk, also known as the residual allocation model or stick-breaking. We give an overview of the limit theorems concerning the number of boxes occupied by some balls out of the first n balls thrown, and present some new re...

We apply results derived in other contexts for the spectrum of the Laplace operator in curved geometries to the study of an ideal polymer chain confined to a spherical annulus in arbitrary space dimension D and conclude that the free energy compared to its value for an uncurved box of the same thickness and volume, is lower when D < 3, stays the same when D = 3, and is higher when D > 3. Thus c...

The term “Black Box” often refers to a device whose functionality we understand, but whose inner workings we don’t, or choose to ignore. This term appears a lot in a large variety of contexts within theoretical computer science, and happens to be extremely convenient to capture computations with restricted knowledge about or access to certain information. In its most basic form, a black box (al...

Given a finite family F of axis-parallel boxes in R such that F contains no k + 1 pairwise disjoint boxes, and such that for each two intersecting boxes in F a corner of one box is contained in the other box, we prove that F can be pierced by at most ck log log(k) points, where c is a constant depending only on d. We further show that in some special cases the upper bound on the number of pierc...

This paper provides an overview of the survey-based literature on industrial Research and Development (R&D) laboratories, beginning with the work of Edwin Mansfield. Topics covered include R&D projects, new products, and new processes; the appropriability of intellectual property; the limits of the firm in R&D; and spillovers of knowledge from other firms and universities into the laboratories....

Although not original, the story makes an interesting introduction to the topic: Boeing’s prototype B-17 bomber stalled and crashed in 1935 on its first f light because the elevator control was left locked.1,2 The combination of the loss of life and the potential loss to the firm of the US government procurement demanded an innovative approach – and thus the checklist was born. The B-17 program...

In the paper we consider intensional aspects of the notion of data. We advocate an idea that traditional set-theoretic platform should be enhanced with new data structures having explicit intensional component. Among such data we distinguish the notions of preset and nominat. Intuitively, presets may be considered as collections of “black boxes”, nominats may be considered as collections of “gr...