Radar cross calibration investigation TAMU radar polarimeter calibration measurements

A short pulse, 20 MHz bandwidth, three frequency radar polarimeter system (RPS) operates at center frequencies of 10.003 GHz, 4.75 GHz, and 1.6 GHz and utilizes dual polarized transmit and receive antennas for each frequency. The basic lay-out of the RPS is different from other truck mounted systems in that it uses a pulse compression IF section common to all three RF heads. Separate transmit and receive antennas are used to improve the cross-polarization isolation at each particular frequency. The receive is a digitally controlled gain modulated subsystem and is interfaced directly with a microprocesser computer for control and data manipulation. Antenna focusing distance, focusing each antenna pair, rf head stability, and polarization characteristics of RPS antennas are discussed. Platform and data acquisition procedures are described

Discovery From Non-Parties (Third-Party Discovery) in International Arbitration

International arbitration rules and many arbitration laws usually provide procedures that permit tribunals to order parties to disclose documents and other materials to the other parties.1 More complex are the rules that determine opportunities to obtain discovery from persons that are not party to the arbitration (third-party discovery). This article will review third-party discovery under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the provisions of the US Code s.1782 that authorise US courts to act in aid of actions before foreign tribunals. Section 1782 has unique interest at this time because it figured prominently in the EU antitrust investigation of Intel that was initiated on request from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Early in that investigation, AMD filed a s.1782 request in the US District Court to obtain evidence from US sources for submission to the DG-Competition of the European Commission (EC). This request ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Intel Corp v Advanced Micro Devices Inc2 which appeared to significantly expand the scope of s.1782. Ironically, after AMD won on key legal issues in the Supreme Court, the District Court on remand exercised its discretion and denied the request for judicial assistance. This paper first describes the FAA non-party discovery rules and the split among the federal appellate courts concerning the authority of arbitrators to order prehearing discovery from non-parties. Next, it provides an analysis of the meaning of the terms “interested party” and “tribunal”—terms that were controversially interpreted by the Supreme Court in Intel and are essential to the application of s.1782. Finally, it discusses the “discretionary” factors used by the federal courts in deciding whether to grant a s.1782 request even when the statutory criteria are met. The opportunity to exercise this discretion seems to rebut the argument that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of s.1782 gives participants before foreign tribunals more discovery rights in the United States than are available to the parties in arbitrations covered by the FAA

Period Integrals of CY and General Type Complete Intersections

We develop a global Poincar\'e residue formula to study period integrals of families of complex manifolds. For any compact complex manifold $X$ equipped with a linear system $V^*$ of generically smooth CY hypersurfaces, the formula expresses period integrals in terms of a canonical global meromorphic top form on $X$. Two important ingredients of our construction are the notion of a CY principal bundle, and a classification of such rank one bundles. We also generalize our construction to CY and general type complete intersections. When $X$ is an algebraic manifold having a sufficiently large automorphism group $G$ and $V^*$ is a linear representation of $G$, we construct a holonomic D-module that governs the period integrals. The construction is based in part on the theory of tautological systems we have developed in the paper \cite{LSY1}, joint with R. Song. The approach allows us to explicitly describe a Picard-Fuchs type system for complete intersection varieties of general types, as well as CY, in any Fano variety, and in a homogeneous space in particular. In addition, the approach provides a new perspective of old examples such as CY complete intersections in a toric variety or partial flag variety.Comment: An erratum is included to correct Theorem 3.12 (Uniqueness of CY structure

Mini-review on substrate & inoculum loadings for anaerobic co-digestion of food waste

Increasing production of food waste can lead to major environmental pollution if it is disposed without proper control in many countries. Food waste can be regarded as a resource rather than unwanted discard due to its high potential for resource recovery. Anaerobic digestion of food waste has shown promising potential for food waste treatment and valorisation by producing biogas as a renewable energy and digestate as fertiliser. Food waste has high biogas potential due to the presence of highly labile organic matter but this can lead to process instability. The process instability is often linked to the imbalance of process intermediates that affects the microbial community. Common parameters that are crucial for ensuring optimal metabolic activity of anaerobes includes temperature, pH, carbon-nitrogen ratio, organic loading rate, retention time and nutrient concentration. Co-digestion of food waste with other feedstocks are increasingly being practiced for better nutrient balance and reducing chances for rapid acidfication. The optimum conditions for the process has been shown to vary following different microbial inoculants and loadings of the respective substrates. This study aims to review only the effect of substrate and inoculum used during the AD of food waste, including the type of co-digested substrate, the mixing ratio, the microbial inoculant used and the substrate to inoculum ratio

How does a cadaver model work for testing ultrasound diagnostic capability for rheumatic-like tendon damage?

To establish whether a cadaver model can serve as an effective surrogate for the detection of tendon damage characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In addition, we evaluated intraobserver and interobserver agreement in the grading of RA-like tendon tears shown by US, as well as the concordance between the US findings and the surgically induced lesions in the cadaver model. RA-like tendon damage was surgically induced in the tibialis anterior tendon (TAT) and tibialis posterior tendon (TPT) of ten ankle/foot fresh-frozen cadaveric specimens. Of the 20 tendons examined, six were randomly assigned a surgically induced partial tear; six a complete tear; and eight left undamaged. Three rheumatologists, experts in musculoskeletal US, assessed from 1 to 5 the quality of US imaging of the cadaveric models on a Likert scale. Tendons were then categorized as having either no damage, (0); partial tear, (1); or complete tear (2). All 20 tendons were blindly and independently evaluated twice, over two rounds, by each of the three observers. Overall, technical performance was satisfactory for all items in the two rounds (all values over 2.9 in a Likert scale 1-5). Intraobserver and interobserver agreement for US grading of tendon damage was good (mean κ values 0.62 and 0.71, respectively), with greater reliability found in the TAT than the TPT. Concordance between US findings and experimental tendon lesions was acceptable (70-100 %), again greater for the TAT than for the TPT. A cadaver model with surgically created tendon damage can be useful in evaluating US metric properties of RA tendon lesions

On Unbounded Composition Operators in L2L^2-Spaces

Fundamental properties of unbounded composition operators in $L^2$-spaces are studied. Characterizations of normal and quasinormal composition operators are provided. Formally normal composition operators are shown to be normal. Composition operators generating Stieltjes moment sequences are completely characterized. The unbounded counterparts of the celebrated Lambert's characterizations of subnormality of bounded composition operators are shown to be false. Various illustrative examples are supplied

Reliability testing of tendon disease using two different scanning methods in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Objective. To assess the intra- and interobserver reliability of musculoskeletal ultrasonography (US) in detecting inflammatory and destructive tendon abnormalities in patients with RA using two different scanning methods.Methods. Thirteen observers examined nine patients with RA and one healthy individual in two rounds independently and blindly of each other. Each round consisted of two consecutive examinations, an anatomy-based examination and a free examination according to personal preferences. The following tendons were evaluated: wrist extensor compartments 2, 4 and 6, finger flexor tendons 3 and 4 at MCP level, tibialis posterior tendon and both peronei tendons. Overall, positive and negative agreements and \u3ba-values for greyscale (GS) tenosynovitis, peritendinous power Doppler (PPD) signal, intratendinous power Doppler (IPD) signal and GS tendon damage were calculated.Results. Intraobserver \u3ba-value ranges were 0.53-0.55 (P < 0.0005) for GS tenosynovitis, 0.61-0.64 (P < 0.0005) for PPD signal, 0.65-0.66 (P < 0.0005) for IPD signal and 0.44-0.53 (P < 0.0005) for GS tendon damage. For interobserver reliability, substantial overall agreement ranged from 80 to 89% for GS tenosynovitis, 97 to 100% for PPD signal, 97 to 100% for IPD signal and 97 to 100% for GS tendon damage. Results were independent of scanning technique.Conclusion. Intraobserver reliability for tenosynovitis and tendon damage varied from moderate for GS to good for PD. Overall interobserver reliability for tenosynovitis and tendon damage was excellent both for GS and PD. This qualitative scoring system may serve as the first step to a semi-quantitative score for tendon pathology. \ua9 The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved

Reliability testing of tendon disease using two different scanning methods in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Objective. To assess the intra- and interobserver reliability of musculoskeletal ultrasonography (US) in detecting inflammatory and destructive tendon abnormalities in patients with RA using two different scanning methods.Methods. Thirteen observers examined nine patients with RA and one healthy individual in two rounds independently and blindly of each other. Each round consisted of two consecutive examinations, an anatomy-based examination and a free examination according to personal preferences. The following tendons were evaluated: wrist extensor compartments 2, 4 and 6, finger flexor tendons 3 and 4 at MCP level, tibialis posterior tendon and both peronei tendons. Overall, positive and negative agreements and κ-values for greyscale (GS) tenosynovitis, peritendinous power Doppler (PPD) signal, intratendinous power Doppler (IPD) signal and GS tendon damage were calculated.Results. Intraobserver κ-value ranges were 0.53-0.55 (P < 0.0005) for GS tenosynovitis, 0.61-0.64 (P < 0.0005) for PPD signal, 0.65-0.66 (P < 0.0005) for IPD signal and 0.44-0.53 (P < 0.0005) for GS tendon damage. For interobserver reliability, substantial overall agreement ranged from 80 to 89% for GS tenosynovitis, 97 to 100% for PPD signal, 97 to 100% for IPD signal and 97 to 100% for GS tendon damage. Results were independent of scanning technique.Conclusion. Intraobserver reliability for tenosynovitis and tendon damage varied from moderate for GS to good for PD. Overall interobserver reliability for tenosynovitis and tendon damage was excellent both for GS and PD. This qualitative scoring system may serve as the first step to a semi-quantitative score for tendon pathology. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved

A genome-wide association study for diabetic nephropathy genes in African Americans

A genome-wide association study was performed using the Affymetrix 6.0 chip to identify genes associated with diabetic nephropathy in African Americans. Association analysis was performed adjusting for admixture in 965 type 2 diabetic African American patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and in 1029 African Americans without type 2 diabetes or kidney disease as controls. The top 724 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with evidence of association to diabetic nephropathy were then genotyped in a replication sample of an additional 709 type 2 diabetes-ESRD patients and 690 controls. SNPs with evidence of association in both the original and replication studies were tested in additional African American cohorts consisting of 1246 patients with type 2 diabetes without kidney disease and 1216 with non-diabetic ESRD to differentiate candidate loci for type 2 diabetes-ESRD, type 2 diabetes, and/or all-cause ESRD. Twenty-five SNPs were significantly associated with type 2 diabetes-ESRD in the genome-wide association and initial replication. Although genome-wide significance with type 2 diabetes was not found for any of these 25 SNPs, several genes, including RPS12, LIMK2, and SFI1 are strong candidates for diabetic nephropathy. A combined analysis of all 2890 patients with ESRD showed significant association SNPs in LIMK2 and SFI1 suggesting that they also contribute to all-cause ESRD. Thus, our results suggest that multiple loci underlie susceptibility to kidney disease in African Americans with type 2 diabetes and some may also contribute to all-cause ESRD