Vaccinating Vulnerable Populations

Influenza vaccination rates for all minority groups in Minnesota are lower than rates for Caucasians of all age groups. Since 2006, a collaborative partnership called Minnesota Immunization Networking Initiative (MINI) has provided free influenza vaccinations in convenient and trusted community settings throughout the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota in an attempt to address this health disparity. The literature highlights a number of barriers that negatively influence individuals\u27 choices regarding acceptance of influenza vaccination but also highlights motivators, facilitators and processes that positively impact these decisions. Thirteen focus group interviews were conducted with individuals from the Ethiopian, Latino, Native American and Somali communities in 2013 to understand reasons for their continued lack of participation at MINI clinics. Utilizing themes identified from these focus groups, MINI partners and community site contacts proposed to co-cre ate aculturally sensitive and language appropriate educational and communication toolkit to improve knowledge about influenza and influenza vaccination. The ultimate goal is to influence individuals\u27 decisions to obtain annual influenza vaccinations as a means of maintaining health and wellness. If successful, this collaborative educational approach would improve influenza vaccination rates and reduce or eliminate this health disparity in some of the state\u27s most vulnerable populations

Improving wear performance of wind turbine gearboxes using ionic liquids as additives of lubricants

Wind resources are a proven source of clean, affordable and sustainable energy. Wind energy does not produce harmful pollution gases such carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, or other gases that have contributed to global warming. The wind energy industry has seen rapid growth within the last decade; however the cost of maintaining the turbines is a major drawback. Wind turbine gearboxes present one of the more challenging current practical tribological problems. Contact failures in gear and bearing components have been the source of costly repairs and downtime of the turbine’s drivetrain and actuator. A potential solution to reduce contact failures in wind turbines and increase their lifespan, is the use of ionic liquids (IL) as lubricant or additives of lubricants. ILs have the ability to form stable ordered layers on the contact area between the materials, reducing friction and wear. In this work, the wear behavior of trihexyltetradecylphosphonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) amide used as additive in two oils is studied and compared to commercially available, fully formulated lubricant. Lubricated disks of steel AISI 52100 mated with AISI 440C stainless steel balls are studied using a ballon- flat reciprocating configuration under variable conditions of normal applied load and sliding frequency. The use of the IL as additive in a base oil reduce wear, particularly under the lowest frequency studied.The authors acknowledge financial support from New York State Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I 2013)-Increasing the Reliability and Efficiency of Wind Turbines by Reducing Gearbox Friction and Wear

Optical extinction due to intrinsic structural variations of photonic crystals

Unavoidable variations in size and position of the building blocks of photonic crystals cause light scattering and extinction of coherent beams. We present a new model for both 2 and 3-dimensional photonic crystals that relates the extinction length to the magnitude of the variations. The predicted lengths agree well with our new experiments on high-quality opals and inverse opals, and with literature data analyzed by us. As a result, control over photons is limited to distances up to 50 lattice parameters ($\sim 15 \mu$m) in state-of-the-art structures, thereby impeding large-scale applications such as integrated circuits. Conversely, scattering in photonic crystals may lead to novel physics such as Anderson localization and non-classical diffusion.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Changes include: added Lagendijk as author; simplified and generalized the tex

Animal waste management

"71/1M""Livestock producers have asked for guidelines on animal waste management that will be feasible and enduring. The Missouri Water Pollution Board has been aware of the need for improvements in methods of handling waste from confined feeding operations and for guidelines for producers. Chapter 204 of Missouri Statutes, as amended, gives the Water Pollution Board the responsibility and authority to correct and/or prevent "pollution" of "waters of the state." These terms are defined in the law and discussed briefly in the first section. With these facts in mind, staff engineers of the Water Pollution Board held a series of meetings with staff members of the Extension Division and Department of Agricultural Engineering of the University of Missouri-Columbia to develop guidelines for disposing of waste from confinement feeding operations. This report is a result of their combined efforts. Others assisting with various phases of development of these guidelines included: School of Engineering, University of Missouri-Columbia; State Department of Health, and the Soil Conservation Service. Research data and experience in handling livestock wastes have been used to develop the guidelines for planning, design, construction, and management of alternative systems of livestock waste management. The information and design guidelines herein are intended primarily for the use of personnel in agencies concerned with animal waste management problems." --PrefaceMissouri Water Pollution Board and Extension Division, University of Missouri - Columbia

Measurement of the Positive Muon Lifetime and Determination of the Fermi Constant to Part-per-Million Precision

We report a measurement of the positive muon lifetime to a precision of 1.0 parts per million (ppm); it is the most precise particle lifetime ever measured. The experiment used a time-structured, low-energy muon beam and a segmented plastic scintillator array to record more than 2 x 10^{12} decays. Two different stopping target configurations were employed in independent data-taking periods. The combined results give tau_{mu^+}(MuLan) = 2196980.3(2.2) ps, more than 15 times as precise as any previous experiment. The muon lifetime gives the most precise value for the Fermi constant: G_F(MuLan) = 1.1663788 (7) x 10^-5 GeV^-2 (0.6 ppm). It is also used to extract the mu^-p singlet capture rate, which determines the proton's weak induced pseudoscalar coupling g_P.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Final Task Report on NRF Measurements of Photon Scattering Resonances in Plutonium at the High Voltage Research Laboratory of MIT

Conclusions of this report are that there are 13 new transitions associated with NRF states in {sup 239}Pu that have been discovered. These resonances are between 2- and 2.5-MeV relative to the ground state in {sup 239}Pu. The strengths of most these resonances are between 15 and 20 eV b. This approximately is the strength required for using the transmission detection method for NRF [Pruet et al J. Appl. Phys. 99 12310 (2006)] for six-sigma alarm confidence levels. Future measurements on {sup 239}Pu at higher photon energies are necessary to probe for NRF strengths at higher energies. Such resonances may be more advantageous to the NRF technique with FINDER if they are stronger or if the mean free path of these energetic photons is longer