2,460 research outputs found
Standard spacecraft economic analysis. Volume 1: Executive summary
A study of the comparative program costs associated with use of various standardized spacecraft for Air Force space test program missions to be flown on the space shuttle during the 1980-1990 time period is reviewed. The first phase of the study considered a variety of procurement mixes composed of existing or programmed NASA standard spacecraft designs and a Air Force standard spacecraft design. The results were briefed to a joint NASA/Air Force audience on July 11, 1976. The second phase considered additional procurement options using an upgraded version of an existing NASA design. The results of both phases are summarized
Standard spacecraft economic analysis. Volume 2: Findings and conclusions
The comparative program costs associated with use of various standardized spacecraft for Air Force space test program missions to be flown on the space shuttle were studied in two phases. In the first phase, a variety of procurement mixes composed of existing or programmed NASA standard spacecraft designs and an Air Force standard spacecraft design were considered. The second phase dealt with additional procurement options using an upgraded version of an existing NASA design. The results of both phases are discussed
Protocol for a longitudinal qualitative interview study: maintaining psychological well-being in advanced cancer - what can we learn from patients' and carers' own coping strategies?
IntroductionPeople with advanced cancer and their carers experience stress and uncertainty which affects the quality of life and physical and mental health. This study aims to understand how patients and carers recover or maintain psychological well-being by exploring the strategies employed to self-manage stress and uncertainty.Methods and analysisA longitudinal qualitative interview approach with 30 patients with advanced cancer and 30 associated family or informal carers allows the exploration of contexts, mechanisms and outcomes at an individual level. Two interviews, 4–12?weeks apart, will not only enable the exploration of individuals’ evolving coping strategies in response to changing contexts but also how patients’ and carers’ strategies inter-relate. Patient and Carer focus groups will then consider how the findings may be used in developing an intervention. Recruiting through two major tertiary cancer centres in the North West and using deliberately broad and inclusive criteria will enable the sample to capture demographic and experiential breadth.Ethics and disseminationThe research team will draw on their considerable experience to ensure that the study is sensitive to a patient and carer group, which may be considered vulnerable but still values being able to contribute its views. Public and patient involvement (PPI) is integral to the design and is evidenced by: a research advisory group incorporating patient and carers, prestudy consultations with the PPI group at one of the study sites and a user as the named applicant. The study team will use multiple methods to disseminate the findings to clinical, policy and academic audiences. A key element will be engaging health professionals in patient and carer ideas for promoting self-management of psychological well-being. The study has ethical approval from the North West Research Ethics Committee and the appropriate NHS governance clearance.RegistrationNational Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Studies Portfolio, UK Clinical Research Network (UKCRN) Study number 11725
SUMSS: A Wide-Field Radio Imaging Survey of the Southern Sky. I. Science goals, survey design and instrumentation
The Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope, operating at 843 MHz with a 5
square degree field of view, is carrying out a radio imaging survey of the sky
south of declination -30 deg. This survey (the Sydney University Molonglo Sky
Survey, or SUMSS) produces images with a resolution of 43" x 43" cosec(Dec.)
and an rms noise level of about 1 mJy/beam. SUMSS is therefore similar in
sensitivity and resolution to the northern NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS; Condon et
al. 1998). The survey is progressing at a rate of about 1000 square degrees per
year, yielding individual and statistical data for many thousands of weak radio
sources. This paper describes the main characteristics of the survey, and
presents sample images from the first year of observation.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures (figures 2, 8, 10 in jpg format); AJ, in pres
On the corrections of ERA-40 surface flux products consistent with the Mediterranean heat and water budgets and the connection between basin surface total heat flux and NAO
This is a study of heat fluxes and heat budget of the Mediterranean Sea using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) 45 year reanalysis data set ERA-40. The simple use of the ERA-40 surface flux components fails to close the budget and, in particular, the shortwave radiation flux is found to be underestimated with respect to observed data by about 10%. The heat flux terms are recomputed and corrected in order to close the heat and freshwater budgets of the Mediterranean basin over the period 1958 to 2001, thus producing a corrected ERA-40 surface flux data set. Various satellite and in situ observational data are used to construct spatially varying corrections to the ERA-40 products needed to compute the air-sea fluxes. The corrected interannual and climatological net surface heat and freshwater fluxes are and , respectively, which are regarded as satisfactorily closing the Mediterranean heat and water budgets. It is also argued that there is an important contribution from large heat losses associated with a few severe winters over the Mediterranean Sea. This is shown to be related to wind regime anomalies, which strongly affect the latent heat of evaporation that is the main responsible for the interannual modulation of the total heat flux. Furthermore, the surface total heat flux anomaly time series is compared with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index, and the result is a positive correlation with ocean warming for positive NAO index and cooling associated to negative index periods
Black-holes, topological strings and large N phase transitions
The counting of microstates of BPS black-holes on local Calabi-Yau of the
form is explored
by computing the partition function of q-deformed Yang-Mills theory on .
We obtain, at finite , the instanton expansion of the gauge theory. It can
be written exactly as the partition function for U(N) Chern-Simons gauge theory
on a Lens space, summed over all non-trivial vacua, plus a tower of
non-perturbative instanton contributions. In the large limit we find a
peculiar phase structure in the model. At weak string coupling the theory
reduces to the trivial sector and the topological string partition function on
the resolved conifold is reproduced in this regime. At a certain critical
point, instantons are enhanced and the theory undergoes a phase transition into
a strong coupling regime. The transition from the strong coupling phase to the
weak coupling phase is of third order.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures; Invited talk given at QG05, Cala Gonone (Italy),
September 200
Lessons from Oz: Design Guidelines for Automotive Conversational User Interfaces
This paper draws from literature and our experience of conducting
Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) studies using natural language, conversational user
interfaces (CUIs) in the automotive domain. These studies have revealed
positive effects of using in-vehicle CUIs on issues such as: cognitive
demand/workload, passive task-related fatigue, trust, acceptance and
environment engagement. A nascent set of human-centred design guidelines that
have emerged is presented. These are based on the analysis of users' behaviour
and the positive benefits observed, and aim to make interactions with an
in-vehicle agent interlocutor safe, effective, engaging and enjoyable, while
confirming with users' expectations. The guidelines can be used to inform the
design of future in-vehicle CUIs or applied experimentally using WoZ
methodology, and will be evaluated and refined in ongoing work.Comment: Accepted to the 11th International ACM Conference on Automotive User
Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI '19
Constriction size distributions of granular filters: a numerical study
The retention capability of granular filters is controlled by the narrow constrictions connecting the voids within the filter. The theoretical justification for empirical filter rules used in practice includes consideration of an idealised soil fabric in which constrictions form between co-planar combinations of spherical filter particles. This idealised fabric has not been confirmed by experimental or numerical observations of real constrictions. This paper reports the results of direct, particle-scale measurement of the constriction size distribution (CSD) within virtual samples of granular filters created using the discrete-element method (DEM). A previously proposed analytical method that predicts the full CSD using inscribed circles to estimate constriction sizes is found to poorly predict the CSD for widely graded filters due to an over-idealisation of the soil fabric. The DEM data generated are used to explore quantitatively the influence of the coefficient of uniformity, particle size distribution and relative density of the filter on the CSD. For a given relative density CSDs form a narrow band of similarly shaped curves when normalised by characteristic filter diameters. This lends support to the practical use of characteristic diameters to assess filter retention capability
Intrapancreatic delivery of human umbilical cord blood aldehyde dehydrogenase-producing cells promotes islet regeneration
Aims/hypothesis We sought to investigate the stimulation of islet regeneration by transplanted human umbilical cord blood (UCB) cells purified according to high aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity (ALDHhi), a conserved characteristic of multiple progenitor lineages. We hypothesised that direct intrapancreatic (iPan) delivery of ALDHhi progenitors would augment islet regeneration via timely and localised exposure to islet-regenerative stimuli. Methods Cells were purified from UCB based on flow cytometry for low ALDH activity (ALDHlo) vs ALDHhi. UCB ALDHlo or ALDHhi cells were compared for surface marker expression, as well as haematopoietic, endothelial and multipotent stromal progenitor content in vitro. UCB ALDHlo or ALDHhi cells were i.v. or iPan injected into streptozotocin-treated non-obese diabetic/severe combined immune-deficient mice temporally monitored for blood glucose, serum insulin and glucose tolerance. Human cell recruitment and survival in the pancreas, insulin content, islet-associated cell proliferation and islet vascularisation were documented in situ. Results UCB-derived ALDHhi cells were highly enriched for haematopoietic and endothelial progenitor frequency, and showed increased expression of progenitor and myeloid cell surface markers. Although i.v. transplantation of ALDHhi cells demonstrated low pancreas engraftment and only transient blood glucose lowering capacity, iPan injected ALDHhi cells reversed established hyperglycaemia, increased serum insulin and improved the response to a glucose challenge. iPan injected ALDHhi cells surrounded damaged islets at early time points and increased islet-associated cell proliferation, resulting in the recovery of beta cell mass. Conclusions/interpretation iPan delivery of UCB ALDHhi cells potentiated islet-associated cell proliferation, insulin production and islet revascularisation, resulting in the recovery of host islet function. Elucidation of the progenitor-specific pathways stimulated during islet regeneration may provide new approaches to promote islet expansion during diabetes. © Springer-Verlag 2012
The Molonglo Galactic Plane Survey: I. Overview and Images
The first epoch Molonglo Galactic Plane Survey (MGPS1) is a radio continuum
survey made using the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) at 843
MHz with a resolution of 43" X 43" cosec |delta|. The region surveyed is 245
deg < l < 355 deg, |b| < 1.5 deg. The thirteen 9 deg X 3 deg mosaic images
presented here are the superposition of over 450 complete synthesis
observations, each taking 12 h and covering 70' X 70' cosec |delta|. The
root-mean-square sensitivity over much of the mosaiced survey is 1-2 mJy/beam
(1 sigma), and the positional accuracy is approximately 1" X 1" cosec |delta|
for sources brighter than 20 mJy. The dynamic range is no better than 250:1,
and this also constrains the sensitivity in some parts of the images. The
survey area of 330 sq deg contains well over 12,000 unresolved or barely
resolved objects, almost all of which are extra-galactic sources lying in the
Zone of Avoidance. In addition a significant fraction of this area is covered
by extended, diffuse emission associated with thermal complexes, discrete H II
regions, supernova remnants, and other structures in the Galactic interstellar
medium.Comment: Paper with 3 figures and 1 table + Table 2 + 7 jpg grayscales for Fig
4. Astrophysical Journal Supplement (in press) see also
http://www.astrop.physics.usyd.edu.au/MGP
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