In the past, diierent authors developed distinct approaches to the problem of transitive orientation. This also resulted in diierent ideas and diierent theorems which seem unrelated. In this paper we show the connections between these theories and present a new algorithm to recognize a comparability graph. A comparability graph is an undirected graph G = (V; E), jV j = n, jEj = m, in which ever...

To the Editor: Since 2003, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 has shaken the world. In 10 countries, 258 confirmed cases in humans and 154 deaths have been reported (1). The number of countries with confirmed HPAI in poultry and wild birds jumps to 54 (2). Almost all persons infected with H5N1 have had close contact with sick or dead poultry by having butchered them, plucked them, or...

Image binarization is a diicult task for documents with text over textured or shaded backgrounds, poor contrast, and/or considerable noise. Current optical character recognition (OCR) and document analysis technology do not handle such documents well. We have developed a simple yet eeective algorithm for document image clean-up and binarization. The algorithm consists of two basic steps. In the...

This study established an immunoaffinity column for selective extraction of aflatoxins in agri-products. Specifically, the immunoaffinity column was developed by covalently coupling monoclonal antibody 1C11 against aflatoxins to amino-silica gel microparticles and then packing these into a cartridge. The extraction conditions were thoroughly optimized in terms of loading, washing and eluting so...

This report describes a modification of a procedure developed by others for crosslinking IgG to protein A which itself is covalently linked to a gel support. Earlier immunoaffinity columns were described as having large antigen-binding capacities and stability under a variety of elution conditions. The present data show that columns constructed with earlier techniques were only partially stable...

Catastrophic oil spills [1], such as the recent Deepwater BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico [2], have demonstrated the importance of developing responsive and effective oil spill response planning strategies for the oil industry and the government. Although a few models have been developed for oil-spill response planning, response operations and the oil weathering process are usually considere...

This work was funded by the Hydrogen Program Office of the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG01-99EE35099 and represents the second task of three to be completed under this contract. The first task presented a broad overview of the costs for creating infrastructures to supply direct hydrogen, methanol, and gasoline to support fuel cell vehicles (FCV’s). A conclusion of the report r...

We developed a new semi-analytical source zone depletion model (SZDM) for multicomponent light nonaqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) and incorporated this into an existing screening model for estimating cleanup times for chemical spills from railroad tank cars that previously considered only single-component LNAPLs. Results from the SZDM compare favorably to those from a three-dimensional numerical...

In the event of a wide area release and contamination of a biological agent in an outdoor environment and to building exteriors, decontamination is likely to consume the Nation's remediation capacity, requiring years to cleanup, and leading to incalculable economic losses. This is in part due to scant body of efficacy data on surface areas larger than those studied in a typical laboratory (5×10...