Attached Algae as an Indicator of Water Quality: A Study of the Viability of Genomic Taxonomic Methods

This research involved evaluating algae as an indicator of water quality in New Hampshire\u27s rivers, with a focus on the Great Bay Estuary. The project had three main goals. First, determining whether or not algae would work as an indicator of water quality in the great bay ecosystem, an environment where tidal currents are strong and water composition is mixed. The second goal was to compare traditional microscopic methods of taxonomy with emerging genomic methods, increasing the economic viability of attached algae monitoring. The third project goal, still underway, is to evaluate massive amounts of genomic data from the Great Bay ecosystem to see if other organisms might serve as viable indicators of environmental conditions in the bay. Despite the smalla tiny data set, traditional microscopic analysis results suggest that attached algae may be a viable indicator of water quality in the Great Bay Estuary. Further research including a larger data set will be required to evaluate the viability of genomic methods to supplement microscopic analyses, however early results have encouraged us to continue pursuing this research and expand our study to a larger portion of New Hampshire. Early results using bacteria have also encouraged us to continue analysis of genomic data in pursuit of goal number three, to find additional indicators that may serve as useful in water quality monitoring programs in New Hampshire

Versatile Data Acquisition and Controls for Epics Using Vme-Based Fpgas

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have provided Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) with versatile VME-based data acquisition and control interfaces with minimal development times. FPGA designs have been used to interface to VME and provide control logic for numerous systems. The building blocks of these logic designs can be tailored to the individual needs of each system and provide system operators with read-backs and controls via a VME interface to an EPICS based computer. This versatility allows the system developer to choose components and define operating parameters and options that are not readily available commercially. Jefferson Lab has begun developing standard FPGA libraries that result in quick turn around times and inexpensive designs.Comment: 3 pages, ICALEPCS 2001, T. Allison and R. Foold, Jefferson La

An investigation into the behaviour of air rifle pellets in ballistic gel and their interaction with bone

Although air weapons are considerably lower in power than other firearms, there is increasing concern that serious injuries can result from their misuse. The present study was therefore carried out to improve understanding of the terminal ballistic behaviour of air rifle pellets. Pellets were fired into ballistic gel under a variety of conditions. The pellets penetrated further than anticipated from their low cross-sectional density, and Bloom number was not necessarily a good guide to gel behaviour. Pellet penetration into the gel decreased with increasing gel concentration, and appeared to be linear at higher concentrations. Pointed pellets penetrated up to 50% further than rounded pellets. Power and range affect penetration, but other factors are also important, and power alone is not a simple guide to potential penetration. Test firings were also carried out firing pellets into ballistic gel that contained sections of animal bone. Computed tomography (CT) and visual observation were employed to record the interactions. CT scanning showed potential as a tool for examining pellet damage. The bone appeared to be undamaged, but the pellets were severely deformed on impact. If the pellet strikes the bone at an angle, less energy is absorbed by the impact and the pellet fragments may ricochet and cause further damage in the gel. A tentative model is proposed for estimating the energy absorbed by the impact

How Courts Adjudicate Patent Definiteness and Disclosure

Section 112 of the Patent Act requires patentees to clearly explain what their invention is (a requirement known as claim definiteness), as well as how to make and use it (the disclosure requirements of enablement and written description). Many concerns about the modern patent system stem from these requirements. But despite the critical importance of § 112 to the functioning of the patent system, there is surprisingly little empirical data about how it has been applied in practice. To remedy the reliance on anecdotes, we have created a hand-coded dataset of 1144 reported court decisions from 1982 to 2012 in which U.S. district courts or the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rendered a decision on the enablement, written-description, or claim-definiteness requirements of § 112. We coded validity outcomes under these three doctrines on a novel five-level scale so as to capture significant subtlety in the strength of each decision, and we also classified patents by technology and industry categories. We also coded for a number of litigation characteristics that could arguably influence outcomes. Although one must be cautious about generalizing from reported decisions due to selection effects, our results show some statistically significant disparities in § 112 outcomes for different technologies and industries—although fewer than the conventional wisdom suggests, and not always in the direction that many have believed. Just as importantly, our analysis reveals significant relationships between other variables and § 112 litigation outcomes, including whether a district court or the Federal Circuit made the last decision in a case, whether a patent claim was drafted in means-plus-function format, and whether a case was decided before or after Markman v. Westview Instruments. Our results showing how § 112 has been applied in practice will be helpful in evaluating current proposals for reform, and our rich dataset will enable more systematic studies of these critical doctrines in the future

What do stroke survivors think about evidence based care they receive? Learning from insights at the periphery

Permission to archive the publisher pdf of this article was granted by the publisher in February 2012Rationale and aim of study: While exploring the experience of stroke survivors of secondary stroke prevention as part of a wider patient and public involvement service initiative, study participants willingly shared insights on other aspects of care that mattered to them. This is important as little is known about patients’ preferences for care. Methods: Data was generated from focus groups and semi-structured interviews that were held with 38 stroke survivors or their proxy respondents as part of an action research study. A framework analysis was used to examine data. Results: Our findings largely support current knowledge about the benefits of receiving evidence based stroke care. Although patients broadly appreciated being on a specialist unit, unexpectedly and contrary to best practice some expressed the wish to be treated elsewhere as they found the experience of being on a stroke unit difficult. Other findings included the need for more local peer support and difficulties surrounding transfer from hospital to home. Resultant actions included awareness training for staff about sensitively managing people’s perceptions about being on the stroke unit; development of shared computer based (IT) resources, and the establishment of a volunteer peer support system. Conclusion: The evidence base for the benefits of stroke unit care is unequivocal; however this model of care presents challenges for some. Involving patients in service development can inform small but key changes in practice that can help address inherent tensions in delivering evidence based services that are sensitive to patient preference.This project was funded by a grant from the Peninsula Primary Care Research Networ

Design of a laminar-flow-control supercritical airfoil for a swept wing

An airfoil was analytically designed and analyzed for a combination of supercritical flow and laminar flow control (LFC) by boundary layer suction. A shockless inverse method was used to design an airfoil and an analysis method was used in lower surface redesign work. The laminar flow pressure distributions were computed without a boundary layer under the assumption that the laminar boundary layer would be kept thin by suction. Inviscid calculations showed that this 13.5 percent thick airfoil has shockless flows for conditions at and below the design normal Mach number of 0.73 and the design section lift coefficient of 0.60, and that the maximum local normal Mach number is 1.12 at the design point. The laminar boundary layer instabilities can be controlled with suction but the undercut leading edge of the airfoil provides a low velocity, constant pressure coefficients region which is conducive to laminar flow without suction. The airfoil was designed to be capable of lift recovery with no suction by the deflection of a small trailing edge flap

NATO: the view from the East

Relations between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and NATO have placed more emphasis on cooperation than confrontation since the Cold War, and Ukraine has begun to move towards membership. At the popular level, on the evidence of national surveys in 2004 and 2005, NATO continues to be perceived as a significant threat, but in Russia and Ukraine it comes behind the United States (in Belarus the numbers are similar). There are few socioeconomic predictors of support for NATO membership that are significant across all three countries, but there are wide differences by region, and by attitudinal variables such as support for a market economy and for EU membership. The relationship between popular attitudes and foreign policy is normally a distant one; but in Ukraine NATO membership will require public support in a referendum, and in all three cases public attitudes on foreign policy issues can influence foreign policy in other ways, including the composition of parliamentary committees. In newly independent states whose international allegiances are still evolving, the associations between public opinion and foreign and security policy may often be closer than in the established democracies

Ion-Neutral Collisions in the Interstellar Medium: Wave Damping and Elimination of Collisionless Processes

Most phases of the interstellar medium contain neutral atoms in addition to ions and electrons. This introduces differences in plasma physics processes in those media relative to the solar corona and the solar wind at a heliocentric distance of 1 astronomical unit. In this paper, we consider two well-diagnosed, partially-ionized interstellar plasmas. The first is the Diffuse Ionized Gas (DIG) which is probably the extensive phase in terms of volume. The second is the gas that makes up the Local Clouds of the Very Local Interstellar Medium (VLISM). Ion-neutral interactions seem to be important in both media. In the DIG, ion-neutral collisions are relatively rare, but sufficiently frequent to damp magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves (as well as propagating MHD eddies) within less than a parsec of the site of generation. This result raises interesting questions about the sources of turbulence in the DIG. In the case of the VLISM, the ion-neutral collision frequency is higher than that in the DIG, because the hydrogen is partially neutral rather than fully ionized. We present results showing that prominent features of coronal and solar wind turbulence seem to be absent in VLISM turbulence. For example, ion temperature does not depend on ion mass. This difference may be attributable to ion-neutral collisions, which distribute power from more effectively heated massive ions such as iron to other ion species and neutral atoms.Comment: Submitted to American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings for conference "Partially Ionized Plasmas Throughout the Cosmos", Dastgeer Shaikh, edito

Observational Tests of the Properties of Turbulence in the Very Local Interstellar Medium

The Very Local Interstellar Medium (VLISM) contains clouds which consist of partially-ionized plasma. These clouds can be effectively diagnosed via high resolution optical and ultraviolet spectroscopy of the absorption lines they form in the spectra of nearby stars. Among the information provided by these spectroscopic measurements are the root-mean-square velocity fluctuation due to turbulence in these clouds and the ion temperature, which may be partially determined by dissipation of turbulence. We consider whether this turbulence resembles the extensively studied and well-diagnosed turbulence in the solar wind and solar corona. Published observations are used to determine if the velocity fluctuations are primarily transverse to a large-scale magnetic field, whether the temperature perpendicular to the large scale field is larger than that parallel to the field, and whether ions with larger Larmor radii have higher temperatures than smaller gyroradius ions. Although a thorough investigation of the data is underway, a preliminary examination of the published data shows neither evidence for anisotropy of the velocity fluctuations or temperature, nor Larmor radius-dependent heating. These results indicate differences between solar wind and Local Cloud turbulence.Comment: Paper submitted to Nonlinear Processes in Geophysic