Analysis

MANY predicted that the three presidential debates and the vice presidential debate would be stifled by the rules negotiated by representatives for each side. Everything from the size of the podiums, camera positions, size of tables and chairs, time constraints for answers and rebuttals, and the exact division between domestic and foreign policy issues was designed to control the environment and prevent the unexpected from happening. From the first minutes of the first debate in Miami, something unexpected did happen: Real issues were being discussed for the first time in weeks and the American public, apparently starved for substance, ate it up. Ratings were higher than expected for all four debates and citizens were passionately talking about them.

An analysis of the Maryland equine population survey is under way and results should be available in the fall, according to Malcolm Commer, livestock economist for the Maryland Institute Agriculture and Natural Resources and associate coordinator of the Agricultural Marketing Center for the University of Maryland.More than 16,000 questionnaires were sent out in November to horse-oriented groups, tack shops, horse magazines, 4-H groups, pony clubs, veterinarians and feed stores.The survey contained 20 questions in two formats -- one for individual horse owners and one for people who run stables or facilities that are open to the public.

You've sweated blood on a 45-minute presentation for your division general manager. I'd wager he responds in one of two ways:Scenario No. 1: "That's a really interesting analysis. The marketing research folks, especially Sally Another-Analysis, could give you a hand in fleshing it out. Oh, yeah, the cost thing just seems too low to me. Marty Nitpick, in finance, is a genius with stuff like that. I'll tell him to expect your call."Why don't you schedule an hour on my calendar, for another look, in a couple weeks.

WASHINGTON - An analysis of suspected radioactive substances seized in Afghanistan has found nothing to prove that Osama bin Laden reached his decade-long goal of acquiring nuclear materials for a bomb, administration officials say. The analysis of suspicious canisters, computer disks and documents conducted by the government suggests, in fact, that bin Laden and al-Qaida were duped by black-market weapons swindlers selling crude containers hand-painted with...

I approach "Baltimore and Beyond: A Special Report" -- published in this newspaper May 5 -- with mixed feelings. Syndicated columnist Neal Peirce and his co-author Curtis W. Johnson, head of the Minneapolis-based Citizens League, admit deliberately writing a "prickly or rawly prescriptive" summation of their impressions of the region and its needs, and its prescriptions certainly are "prickly."For such a report, this feels, to me, unfinished. Rather than the comparative, fact-choked reportage and analysis that has made Mr. Peirce's commentaries a gospel in state and local governments across North America, "Baltimore and Beyond" reads more like a collection of first impressions.

The FBI is no longer analyzing gunshot residue in its investigations, a blow to once highly regarded evidence used to suggest that a suspected criminal had fired a weapon. Lawyers, scientists and law enforcement officials across the country said they were astonished by the decision and said it could mean the end of using such evidence. It also could become a weapon for defense attorneys in pending cases and in efforts to overturn convictions. "If the premier forensic science organization in the world isn't using gunshot residue, that certainly raises some questions about it," said Timothy S. Brooke of the American Society for Testing and Materials, which sets the policies used by many police crime labs, including Baltimore's.

No amount of effort could have saved the damaged space shuttle Columbia from breaking up as it re-entered the atmosphere, according to an internal NASA report that will be presented to the board investigating the accident. According to the new analysis, the best option for returning the shuttle safely would have been to throw every nonessential object overboard, reducing the craft's weight by more than 15 tons. The effort would have required two or more spacewalks by the seven astronauts to unload the science experiments, the SpaceHab research module, equipment, water and more.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. - Veteran Boeing engineers say their company falsely led NASA to conclude that the space shuttle Columbia was safe to land because top managers assigned the task of assessing damage to employees who had never done that type of analysis for NASA. "I think they wanted to paint a rosy picture, and they did," said a thermal systems engineer who did this kind of analysis for 10 years in California before Boeing shifted the work to its Houston offices last year. Interviews with engineers at the Boeing plant here bolster outside experts' claims that the company grossly erred in its evaluation of wounds the shuttle might have suffered when debris slammed into its left wing during liftoff.

Long touted as an international model, the Maryland Shock Trauma Center has received low scores in an independent analysis that compared its survival rates with those of about 70 trauma centers across the United States.Two spokesmen for Shock Trauma yesterday defended its reputation, saying the study used flawed methods that failed to account for the relatively severe injuries of patients treated there."It's not apples to apples and oranges to oranges," said Dr. David Gens, a Shock Trauma surgeon who runs the center's internal data bank.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris issued a memo to officers yesterday reminding them to take copies of drug analysis reports to court, a week after prosecutors complained that hundreds of cases have been dropped, dismissed or postponed because they never received test results. "We want them to come to court prepared," said Kristen Mahoney, who oversees grants and government relations for the Police Department. Police officials also said they are addressing another dispute that flared between prosecutors and police in recent weeks: officers failing to appear in court.