Experimental determination of cosmic ray charged particle intensity profiles in the atmosphere

Absolute cosmic-ray free air ionization and charged particle fluxes and dose rates throughout the atmosphere were measured on a series of balloon flights that commenced in 1968. Argon-filled ionization chambers equipped with solid-state electrometers, with different gas pressures and steel wall thicknesses, and a pair of aluminum-wall Gm counters have provided the basic data. These data are supplemented by measurements with air-filled and tissue equivalent ionization chambers and a scintillation spectrometer. Laboratory experiments together with analyses of the theoretical aspects of the detector responses to cosmic radiation indicate that these profiles can be determined to an overall accuracy of + or - 5 percent

Phase II of the ASCE Benchmark Study on SHM

The task group on structural health monitoring of the Dynamic Committee of ASCE was formed in 1999 at the 12 th Engineering Mechanics Conference. The task group has designed a number of analytical studies on a benchmark structure and there are plans to follow these with an experimental program. The first phase of the analytical studies was completed in 2001. The second phase, initiated in the summer of 2001, was formulated in the light of the experience gained on phase I and focuses on increasing realism in the simulation of the discrepancies between the actual structure and the mathematical model used in the analysis. This paper describes the rational that lead the SHM task group to the definition of phase II and presents the details of the cases that are being considered

Infrared Emission from Clusters in the Starforming Disk of He2-10

We have made subarcsecond-resolution images of the central 10" of the Wolf-Rayet dwarf galaxy He 2-10 at 11.7 microns, using the Long Wavelength Spectrometer on the Keck Telescope. The spatial distribution of the infrared emission roughly agrees with that of the rising spectrum radio sources seen by Kobulnicky & Johnson (1999) and confirms that those sources are compact HII regions rather than SNR or other objects. The infrared sources are more extended than the subarcsecond rising spectrum radio sources, although the entire complex is still less than 5" in extent. On sizescales of 1" the infrared and radio emission are in excellent agreement, with each source requiring several hundred to a thousand O stars for excitation. The nebulae lie in a flattened disk-like distribution about 240 by 100 pc and provide all of the flux measured by IRAS for the entire galaxy in the 12 micron band; 30% of the total IRAS flux from the galaxy emanates from one 15-30 pc source. In this galaxy, intense star formation, probably triggered by an accretion event, is confined to a central disk which breaks up into distinct nebulae which presumably mark the sites of young super star clusters.Comment: Accepted for Publication in the Astronomical Journa

Coulomb Charging Effects for Finite Channel Number

We consider quantum fluctuations of the charge on a small metallic grain caused by virtual electron tunneling to a nearby electrode. The average electron number and the effective charging energy are determined by means of perturbation theory in the tunneling Hamiltonian. In particular we discuss the dependence of charging effects on the number N of tunneling channels. Earlier results for N>>1 are found to be approached rather rapidly with increasing N.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Prospective cognitions in anxiety and depression: Replication and methodological extension

The present study presents a replication and methodological extension of MacLeod, Tata, Kentish, and Jacobsen (1997) with a nonclinical sample, using future-directed imagery to assess prospective cognitions. Results showed that only anxiety (but not depression) was related to enhanced imagery for future negative events. Both anxiety and depression showed significant zero-order correlations with reduced imagery for future positive events. However, when the overlap between anxiety and depression was controlled for, only depression (but not anxiety) showed a unique association with reduced imagery for positive events. Implications of these findings for cognitive models of anxiety and depression are discussed

Application of A Distributed Nucleus Approximation In Grid Based Minimization of the Kohn-Sham Energy Functional

In the distributed nucleus approximation we represent the singular nucleus as smeared over a smallportion of a Cartesian grid. Delocalizing the nucleus allows us to solve the Poisson equation for theoverall electrostatic potential using a linear scaling multigrid algorithm.This work is done in the context of minimizing the Kohn-Sham energy functionaldirectly in real space with a multiscale approach. The efficacy of the approximation is illustrated bylocating the ground state density of simple one electron atoms and moleculesand more complicated multiorbital systems.Comment: Submitted to JCP (July 1, 1995 Issue), latex, 27pages, 2figure

Joint Emotion Analysis via Multi-task Gaussian Processes

We propose a model for jointly predicting multiple emotions in natural language sentences. Our model is based on a low-rank coregionalisation approach, which combines a vector-valued Gaussian Process with a rich parameterisation scheme. We show that our approach is able to learn correlations and anti-correlations between emotions on a news headlines dataset. The proposed model outperforms both singletask baselines and other multi-task approaches

The Financial Value of Postsecondary Education

Earning a postsecondary degree involves paying for tuition, fees, books, supplies, and living costs. While in school students forgo full-time job earnings; and, after earning a degree, they may pay interest on student loans for many years. This study examines 115 Wisconsin degree/school combinations to identify the value remaining after paying the costs of a postsecondary degree - the Education Value that is above and beyond what they would have earned with a high school diploma. We find the best combination delivers an additional $1,694,086 in value across a lifetime, and the least value-added bachelor’s degree combination still delivers$378,466. All combinations are investments in human capital that significantly outperform the long-term average of the U.S. stock market and may be the best investment many people ever make

Distributed-Pair Programming can work well and is not just Distributed Pair-Programming

Background: Distributed Pair Programming can be performed via screensharing or via a distributed IDE. The latter offers the freedom of concurrent editing (which may be helpful or damaging) and has even more awareness deficits than screen sharing. Objective: Characterize how competent distributed pair programmers may handle this additional freedom and these additional awareness deficits and characterize the impacts on the pair programming process. Method: A revelatory case study, based on direct observation of a single, highly competent distributed pair of industrial software developers during a 3-day collaboration. We use recordings of these sessions and conceptualize the phenomena seen. Results: 1. Skilled pairs may bridge the awareness deficits without visible obstruction of the overall process. 2. Skilled pairs may use the additional editing freedom in a useful limited fashion, resulting in potentially better fluency of the process than local pair programming. Conclusion: When applied skillfully in an appropriate context, distributed-pair programming can (not will!) work at least as well as local pair programming