First Results From Sleuth: The Palomar Planet Finder

We discuss preliminary results from our first search campaign for transiting planets performed using Sleuth, an automated 10 cm telescope with a 6 degree square field of view. We monitored a field in Hercules for 40 clear nights between UT 2003 May 10 and July 01, and obtained an rms precision (per 15-min average) over the entire data set of better than 1% on the brightest 2026 stars, and better than 1.5% on the brightest 3865 stars. We identified no strong candidates in the Hercules field. We conducted a blind test of our ability to recover transiting systems by injecting signals into our data and measuring the recovery rate as a function of transit depth and orbital period. About 85% of transit signals with a depth of 0.02 mag were recovered. However, only 50% of transit signals with a depth of 0.01 mag were recovered. We expect that the number of stars for which we can search for transiting planets will increase substantially for our current field in Andromeda, due to the lower Galactic latitude of the field

Rates of Water Entry into the Subsoil of Several Soil Series in Nebraska

Rates of water entry were measured for 11 soil series representing many of the soils in parts of Nebraska where urban growth is most intensive. The wetting procedure in making the tests is critical and a 24 hour wetting time as usually recommended is not adequate for all soils if the percolation test is made during a dry season. Rates of water entry differed among soils even though a large amount of variation was evident within the same soil series. Statistical analysis showed a highly significant negative relationship between both clay content and bulk density and rates of water entry. No significant statistical relationship between sand content and rate of water entry in the soils was evident. A summary of the use of rate of water entry or percolation test data to plan the size of an absorbing field for a septic tank is presented

Rates of Water Entry into the Subsoil of Several Soil Series in Nebraska

Rates of water entry were measured for 11 soil series representing many of the soils in parts of Nebraska where urban growth is most intensive. The wetting procedure in making the tests is critical and a 24 hour wetting time as usually recommended is not adequate for all soils if the percolation test is made during a dry season. Rates of water entry differed among soils even though a large amount of variation was evident within the same soil series. Statistical analysis showed a highly significant negative relationship between both clay content and bulk density and rates of water entry. No significant statistical relationship between sand content and rate of water entry in the soils was evident. A summary of the use of rate of water entry or percolation test data to plan the size of an absorbing field for a septic tank is presented

Sherlock: An Automated Follow-Up Telescope for Wide-Field Transit Searches

The most significant challenge currently facing photometric surveys for transiting gas-giant planets is that of confusion with eclipsing binary systems that mimic the photometric signature. A simple way to reject most forms of these false positives is high-precision, rapid-cadence monitoring of the suspected transit at higher angular resolution and in several filters. We are currently building a system that will perform higher-angular-resolution, multi-color follow-up observations of candidate systems identified by Sleuth (our wide-field transit survey instrument at Palomar), and its two twin system instruments in Tenerife and northern Arizona.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in AIP Conf Proc: The Search for Other Worlds, eds. S. S. Holt & D. Demin

Liberia in 2011: Still Ploughing its own Democratic Furrow?

The momentous 2005 Liberian elections followed a devastating civil war. Remarkably, the winner of the presidential race was a woman, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and the second-placed was a footballer, George Weah. In addition, in stark contrast to many African elections in particular those in neighbouring Sierra Leone, voting patterns were fragmented: voters often chose President, Senators and Representatives from different parties or independents. Much can be explained by a remarkably level playing-field delivered by an interim coalition government providing no incumbent. In 2011, the Johnson-Sirleaf incumbency stood to significantly change the dynamics. This article seeks to discern whether Liberian elections maintain their unusual patterns, whether Liberia has joined the ranks of African patron-clientelist, dominant-party or two-party systems, in particular compared to that of Sierra Leone, or whether there are new twists in its democratic development.Full text of the article was made available on the 1st March 2015 at the end of the publisher's embargo

Adopting E-Business in Small and Medium Enterprise

Companies have grown sigificantly due to internet and electronic business (e-business). E- Business has become a part of everyday life for individuals and organizations. E-business systems used to be costly and only large organizations could afford to implement them. The recently developed information technologies including web-based applications have made e-business systems cost effective and easy to implement for medium and small enterprises (SMEs). For the purposes of this paper, a small business is defined to have fewer than 250 employees, and a medium size business is defined to have fewer than 500 employees

The impact of freeze-drying infant fecal samples on measures of their bacterial community profiles and milk-derived oligosaccharide content.

Infant fecal samples are commonly studied to investigate the impacts of breastfeeding on the development of the microbiota and subsequent health effects. Comparisons of infants living in different geographic regions and environmental contexts are needed to aid our understanding of evolutionarily-selected milk adaptations. However, the preservation of fecal samples from individuals in remote locales until they can be processed can be a challenge. Freeze-drying (lyophilization) offers a cost-effective way to preserve some biological samples for transport and analysis at a later date. Currently, it is unknown what, if any, biases are introduced into various analyses by the freeze-drying process. Here, we investigated how freeze-drying affected analysis of two relevant and intertwined aspects of infant fecal samples, marker gene amplicon sequencing of the bacterial community and the fecal oligosaccharide profile (undigested human milk oligosaccharides). No differences were discovered between the fecal oligosaccharide profiles of wet and freeze-dried samples. The marker gene sequencing data showed an increase in proportional representation of Bacteriodes and a decrease in detection of bifidobacteria and members of class Bacilli after freeze-drying. This sample treatment bias may possibly be related to the cell morphology of these different taxa (Gram status). However, these effects did not overwhelm the natural variation among individuals, as the community data still strongly grouped by subject and not by freeze-drying status. We also found that compensating for sample concentration during freeze-drying, while not necessary, was also not detrimental. Freeze-drying may therefore be an acceptable method of sample preservation and mass reduction for some studies of microbial ecology and milk glycan analysis

Clay In Loess And Clay Content Of Loessial Soils In Southeastern Nebraska

Clay content of Peorian loess and of control sections in soils formed from this loess was determined along transects perpendicular to loess sources in southeastern Nebraska. Maps showing geographic location of areas of equal clay content in the loess and in the control sec· tions were constructed to show relationships. In the parent loess, clay content and distance from source were significantly linear in relationship. In coarser·textured loess relatively near the source, clay content of control sections of soils formed in the loess were also linear. In loess more distant from the source, little relationship between clay content in control sections and distance of parent loess from source was evident. The overall relationship between clay content of control sections and distance was quadratic. Apparently in more clayey loess farther from the source, pedogenic factors other than parent-material clay content dominates the reasons why clay content in loessial soils differs. The maps are useful in development of soil surveys within the study area of southeastern Nebraska