NASA Quiet Clean General Aviation Turbofan (QCGAT) program status

The suitability of large engine technology to reduce noise, emissions, and fuel consumption of small turbine engines and develop new technology where required is determined. The design, fabrication, assembly, test, and delivery of the experimental engines to NASA are discussed

Insect (Arthropoda: Insecta) Composition in the Diet of Ornate Box Turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata) in Two Western Illinois Sand Prairies, with a New State Record for Cyclocephala (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

A study of fecal samples collected over a two-year period from juvenile ornate box turtles (Terrapene ornata ornata Agassiz) revealed diets consisting of six orders of insects representing 19 families. Turtles were reared in captivity from eggs harvested from local, wild populations, and released at two remnant prairies. Identifiable insect fragments were found in 94% of samples in 2013 (n=33) and 96% in 2014 (n=25). Frequency of occurrence of insects in turtle feces is similar to results reported in previous studies of midwestern Terrapene species. A comparison of insect composition presented no significant difference between release sites. There is no significant difference in consumed insect species between turtles released into or outside of a fenced enclosure at the same site. Specimens of Cyclocephala longula LeConte collected during this study represent a new state record for Illinois

Hydrogen Adsorption on the β N-Covered W(100) Surface: An Infrared Study of the W–HStretch

The adsorption of hydrogen on the c(2×2) β-N-covered W(100) surface has been studied with infrared and thermal-desorption spectroscopies. A new dipole-active vibrational absorption due to chemisorbed hydrogen has been discovered. Its center frequency (1738 cm-1 for minimal H2 adsorption), isotopic dependence (1252 cm-1 for D2 adsorption and the existence of both lines for HD adsorption), absorption strength versus β-N coverage, and effective dynamic charge e*/ε∞≥0.12e lead to the assignment of the W-H stretch associated with a top-bonded H species. The vibration has been studied in detail on the highly ordered surface characterized by a β-N coverage of 0.5 monolayer: In the zero-coverage limit vibrational decay due to electron-hole pair excitations may provide the dominant contribution to the full width at half maximum of 12 cm-1. Away from this limit inhomogeneous broadening, caused by coadsorption of molecular and other atomic species, appears to increasingly contribute to the width, which attains a maximum of 35 cm-1 at saturation. Isotopic dilution and H-coverage experiments reveal a dynamical shift of +14 cm-1 in going from the isolated adatom to full layer limit which is explained by a combination of direct dipole-dipole and indirect electron-mediated interactions. With increasing coverage two chemical shifts have also been discerned: a positive one (+21 cm-1) attributed to electron-density competition among the adsorbed atomic species and a negative one (-17 cm-1) due to molecular-species coadsorption. Low-temperature annealing produces an increase in barrier height to parallel motion from the on-top site, apparently caused by the filling of more tightly bound sites near the remaining on-top H. The concurrent constancy of the W-H vibrational frequency indicates that the potential well perpendicular to the surface is not drastically altered by this rearrangement of adatoms

Notes on Snail Feeding Behavior of Anaxjunius (Drury): (Odonata)

A naiad of Anax junius (Drury), in final instar, preyed upon 47 mature snails, Helisoma trivolvis (Say), during a period of 63 clays. The feeding behavior has potential significance: (1) with respect to biological control of trematode vectoring gastropods; (2) as a mechanism for vectoring trematodes between snails and birds; and (3) in interpreting structural adaptations and perception in immature oclonates

Evaluation of an on-site sewage disposal system at the Lake of the Ozarks

An aeration device - conventional soil disposal field system was monitored for one year in the Lake of the Ozarks area to assess its treatment efficiency and effect on the water quality of the immediate area. The aeration unit consistently produced a well oxidized effluent (soluble COD=44 mg/L; N03-N=22 mg/L; P04=6. 3 mg /L; SS=l 4 mg /L). Soi1-water samples taken from the tile line and 2 and 5 m down slope indicate that considerable denitrification was occurring but may be decreasing. Little coliform movement was detected. The practice of excavating tile lines into the bedrock was discouraged due to a lack of treatment occurring.Project # G-1235-06 Agreement # 14-08-0001-G-1235-0

A comprehensive evaluation of rhythm monitoring strategies for the detection of atrial fibrillation recurrence: insights from 647 continuously monitored patients and implications for monitoring after therapeutic interventions

No description supplie

Acoustic breathers in two-dimensional lattices

The existence of breathers (time-periodic and spatially localized lattice vibrations) is well established for i) systems without acoustic phonon branches and ii) systems with acoustic phonons, but also with additional symmetries preventing the occurence of strains (dc terms) in the breather solution. The case of coexistence of strains and acoustic phonon branches is solved (for simple models) only for one-dimensional lattices. We calculate breather solutions for a two-dimensional lattice with one acoustic phonon branch. We start from the easy-to-handle case of a system with homogeneous (anharmonic) interaction potentials. We then easily continue the zero-strain breather solution into the model sector with additional quadratic and cubic potential terms with the help of a generalized Newton method. The lattice size is $70\times 70$. The breather continues to exist, but is dressed with a strain field. In contrast to the ac breather components, which decay exponentially in space, the strain field (which has dipole symmetry) should decay like $1/r^a, a=2$. On our rather small lattice we find an exponent $a\approx 1.85$

Haplotype frequency estimation error analysis in the presence of missing genotype data

BACKGROUND: Increasingly researchers are turning to the use of haplotype analysis as a tool in population studies, the investigation of linkage disequilibrium, and candidate gene analysis. When the phase of the data is unknown, computational methods, in particular those employing the Expectation-Maximisation (EM) algorithm, are frequently used for estimating the phase and frequency of the underlying haplotypes. These methods have proved very successful, predicting the phase-known frequencies from data for which the phase is unknown with a high degree of accuracy. Recently there has been much speculation as to the effect of unknown, or missing allelic data – a common phenomenon even with modern automated DNA analysis techniques – on the performance of EM-based methods. To this end an EM-based program, modified to accommodate missing data, has been developed, incorporating non-parametric bootstrapping for the calculation of accurate confidence intervals. RESULTS: Here we present the results of the analyses of various data sets in which randomly selected known alleles have been relabelled as missing. Remarkably, we find that the absence of up to 30% of the data in both biallelic and multiallelic data sets with moderate to strong levels of linkage disequilibrium can be tolerated. Additionally, the frequencies of haplotypes which predominate in the complete data analysis remain essentially the same after the addition of the random noise caused by missing data. CONCLUSIONS: These findings have important implications for the area of data gathering. It may be concluded that small levels of drop out in the data do not affect the overall accuracy of haplotype analysis perceptibly, and that, given recent findings on the effect of inaccurate data, ambiguous data points are best treated as unknown

The Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect: simulation and observation

The Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect (SZ effect) is a complete probe of ionized baryons, the majority of which are likely hiding in the intergalactic medium. We ran a $512^3$ $\Lambda$CDM simulation using a moving mesh hydro code to compute the statistics of the thermal and kinetic SZ effect such as the power spectra and measures of non-Gaussianity. The thermal SZ power spectrum has a very broad peak at multipole $l\sim 2000-10^4$ with temperature fluctuations $\Delta T \sim 15\mu$K. The power spectrum is consistent with available observations and suggests a high $\sigma_8\simeq 1.0$ and a possible role of non-gravitational heating. The non-Gaussianity is significant and increases the cosmic variance of the power spectrum by a factor of $\sim 5$ for $l<6000$. We explore optimal driftscan survey strategies for the AMIBA CMB interferometer and their dependence on cosmology. For SZ power spectrum estimation, we find that the optimal sky coverage for a 1000 hours of integration time is several hundred square degrees. One achieves an accuracy better than 40% in the SZ measurement of power spectrum and an accuracy better than 20% in the cross correlation with Sloan galaxies for $2000<l<5000$. For cluster searches, the optimal scan rate is around 280 hours per square degree with a cluster detection rate 1 every 7 hours, allowing for a false positive rate of 20% and better than 30% accuracy in the cluster SZ distribution function measurement.Comment: 34 pages, 20 figures. Submitted to ApJ. Simulation maps have been replaced by high resolution images. For higher resolution color images, please download from http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~zhangpj/research/SZ/ We corrected a bug in our analysis. the SZ power spectrum decreases 50% and y parameter decrease 25