Information access breakdowns

Information access breakdowns occur when pertinent information has been stored but it either cannot be accessed for technical reasons or for some reason cannot be found in a meaningful or expedient manner for a particular application. Technical reasons can include legacy databases that are not connected with current systems, incompatibility issues between systems, problems of localized access (information can only be accessed within a site, a group or domain area, or even a personal computer), and authentication (people do not have the required authority to access information they need or cannot remember usernames and passwords). 

Often overlooked but of no less importance, information access breakdowns often occur even when there is no underlying technical reason. Common causes are that it is not clear what system should be used to find a particular piece of information or that its absence on one system incorrectly implies that it is not available elsewhere. Even if a scientist knows which system to use to look for a piece of information, if the interface is not contextualized for her particular domain or project the information may be missed because it is presented in a fashion that is not familiar to the user. A problem that is harder to correct occurs when a person requires a piece of information but is unsure whether that information even exists at all. 

Space does not permit a long discussion of the well-established technique, but one interesting experiment illustrates the wealth of information accessible. Figure 7,35 shows the determination of the carbon content of a black-filled SBR. The first ramp to 650°C in flowing nitrogen decomposes the polymer, and the breakdown pattern could be studied if desired. The purge is change to... 

In order for cryoenzymology experiments to provide mechanistically significant information, it is important that the reaction at low temperature be analogous to that under normal conditions, that is, aqueous solution and ambient temperature. One definitive way to demonstrate this is to take the kinetic data for a particular intermediate at subzero temperatures and to calculate the expected rates of formation and breakdown under normal conditions. If these rates are accessible to measurement (e.g., by stopped-flow techniques) then comparison can be made between the low-temperature and high-temperature data. 

The methods most widely in use now for understanding and monitoring chemical processes that affect our environment and the atmosphere are those of TDLAS, and remote absorption/Raman spectroscopy based on lidar (absoiption-Hdar/ Raman-lidar). Application examples of these two techniques are outlined in Sections 28.1—28.3 and Sections 28.4-28.6 respectively. The chapter will conclude with the description of some less-developed techniques, which, however, provide information not easily obtained, or not accessible at all. All of them are based on ionization in one form or other, and include laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDl) and aerosol TOFMS (ATOFMS). Examples of these are provided in Section 28.7. 

We will make reports for our internal use that include age and gender breakdowns for specific drug prescriptions, but will not include other identifying information in the reports and will delete them after five years. For example, our research department might access customer data to produce reports of particular drug use by various demographic groups. 

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