1,460 research outputs found
A new approach to equipment testing
Considerable controversy has arisen during the recent discussions over a new version of the RTCA DO160C/ED 14C Section 22 document at the European Committee for Aviation Electronics. Section 22 is concerned with lightning waveform tests to equipment. Investigations of some of these controversies with circuit analysis and measurements indicate the impedance characteristics required of the transient generators and the possibility of testing to a voltage limit even for current waveforms
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i-Tracker: For quantitative proteomics using iTRAQ (TM)
Background: iTRAQ(TM) technology for protein quantitation using mass spectrometry is a recent, powerful means of determining relative protein levels in up to four samples simultaneously. Although protein identification of samples generated using iTRAQ may be carried out using any current identification software, the quantitation calculations have been restricted to the ProQuant software supplied by Applied Biosciences. i- Tracker software has been developed to extract reporter ion peak ratios from non-centroided tandem MS peak lists in a format easily linked to the results of protein identification tools such as Mascot and Sequest. Such functionality is currently not provided by ProQuant, which is restricted to matching quantitative information to the peptide identifications from Applied Biosciences' Interrogator T software.|Results: i- Tracker is shown to generate results that are consistent with those produced by ProQuant, thus validating both systems.|Conclusion: i- Tracker allows quantitative information gained using the iTRAQ protocol to be linked with peptide identifications from popular tandem MS identification tools and hence is both a timely and useful tool for the proteomics community
Assumptions of the primordial spectrum and cosmological parameter estimation
The observables of the perturbed universe, CMB anisotropy and large
structures, depend on a set of cosmological parameters, as well as, the assumed
nature of primordial perturbations. In particular, the shape of the primordial
power spectrum (PPS) is, at best, a well motivated assumption. It is known that
the assumed functional form of the PPS in cosmological parameter estimation can
affect the best fit parameters and their relative confidence limits. In this
paper, we demonstrate that a specific assumed form actually drives the best fit
parameters into distinct basins of likelihood in the space of cosmological
parameters where the likelihood resists improvement via modifications to the
PPS. The regions where considerably better likelihoods are obtained allowing
free form PPS lie outside these basins. In the absence of a preferred model of
inflation, this raises a concern that current cosmological parameters estimates
are strongly prejudiced by the assumed form of PPS. Our results strongly
motivate approaches toward simultaneous estimation of the cosmological
parameters and the shape of the primordial spectrum from upcoming cosmological
data. It is equally important for theorists to keep an open mind towards early
universe scenarios that produce features in the PPS.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, discussions extended, main results unchanged,
matches published versio
The initial conditions of the universe: how much isocurvature is allowed?
We investigate the constraints imposed by the current data on correlated
mixtures of adiabatic and non-adiabatic primordial perturbations. We discover
subtle flat directions in parameter space that tolerate large (~60%)
contributions of non-adiabatic fluctuations. In particular, larger values of
the baryon density and a spectral tilt are allowed. The cancellations in the
degenerate directions are explored and the role of priors elucidated.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to PR
Constraints on isocurvature models from the WMAP first-year data
We investigate the constraints imposed by the first-year WMAP CMB data
extended to higher multipole by data from ACBAR, BOOMERANG, CBI and the VSA and
by the LSS data from the 2dF galaxy redshift survey on the possible amplitude
of primordial isocurvature modes. A flat universe with CDM and Lambda is
assumed, and the baryon, CDM (CI), and neutrino density (NID) and velocity
(NIV) isocurvature modes are considered. Constraints on the allowed
isocurvature contributions are established from the data for various
combinations of the adiabatic mode and one, two, and three isocurvature modes,
with intermode cross-correlations allowed. Since baryon and CDM isocurvature
are observationally virtually indistinguishable, these modes are not considered
separately. We find that when just a single isocurvature mode is added, the
present data allows an isocurvature fraction as large as 13+-6, 7+-4, and 13+-7
percent for adiabatic plus the CI, NID, and NIV modes, respectively. When two
isocurvature modes plus the adiabatic mode and cross-correlations are allowed,
these percentages rise to 47+-16, 34+-12, and 44+-12 for the combinations
CI+NID, CI+NIV, and NID+NIV, respectively. Finally, when all three isocurvature
modes and cross-correlations are allowed, the admissible isocurvature fraction
rises to 57+-9 per cent. The sensitivity of the results to the choice of prior
probability distribution is examined.Comment: 20 pages, 24 figures. Submitted to PR
Peaks in the cosmological density field: parameter constraints from 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey data
We use the number density of peaks in the smoothed cosmological density field
taken from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey to constrain parameters related to
the power spectrum of mass fluctuations, n (the spectral index), dn/d(lnk)
(rolling in the spectral index), and the neutrino mass, m_nu. In a companion
paper we use N-body simulations to study how the peak density responds to
changes in the power spectrum, the presence of redshift distortions and the
relationship between galaxies and dark matter halos. In the present paper we
make measurements of the peak density from 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey data, for
a range of smoothing filter scales from 4-33 h^-1 Mpc. We use these
measurements to constrain the cosmological parameters, finding n=1.36
(+0.75)(-0.64), m_nu < 1.76 eV, dn/d(lnk)=-0.012 (+0.192)(-0.208), at the 68 %
confidence level, where m_nu is the total mass of three massive neutrinos. At
95% confidence we find m_nu< 2.48 eV. These measurements represent an
alternative way to constrain cosmological parameters to the usual direct fits
to the galaxy power spectrum, and are expected to be relatively insensitive to
non-linear clustering evolution and galaxy biasing.Comment: Accepted for Publication in MNRAS on Sept 25, 2009. Abstract modified
to remove LaTex markup
Turbulence and turbulent mixing in natural fluids
Turbulence and turbulent mixing in natural fluids begins with big bang
turbulence powered by spinning combustible combinations of Planck particles and
Planck antiparticles. Particle prograde accretions on a spinning pair releases
42% of the particle rest mass energy to produce more fuel for turbulent
combustion. Negative viscous stresses and negative turbulence stresses work
against gravity, extracting mass-energy and space-time from the vacuum.
Turbulence mixes cooling temperatures until strong-force viscous stresses
freeze out turbulent mixing patterns as the first fossil turbulence. Cosmic
microwave background temperature anisotropies show big bang turbulence fossils
along with fossils of weak plasma turbulence triggered as plasma photon-viscous
forces permit gravitational fragmentation on supercluster to galaxy mass
scales. Turbulent morphologies and viscous-turbulent lengths appear as linear
gas-proto-galaxy-clusters in the Hubble ultra-deep-field at z~7. Proto-galaxies
fragment into Jeans-mass-clumps of primordial-gas-planets at decoupling: the
dark matter of galaxies. Shortly after the plasma to gas transition,
planet-mergers produce stars that explode on overfeeding to fertilize and
distribute the first life.Comment: 23 pages 12 figures, Turbulent Mixing and Beyond 2009 International
Center for Theoretical Physics conference, Trieste, Italy. Revision according
to Referee comments. Accepted for Physica Scripta Topical Issue to be
published in 201
Maximum likelihood, parametric component separation and CMB B-mode detection in suborbital experiments
We investigate the performance of the parametric Maximum Likelihood component
separation method in the context of the CMB B-mode signal detection and its
characterization by small-scale CMB suborbital experiments. We consider
high-resolution (FWHM=8') balloon-borne and ground-based observatories mapping
low dust-contrast sky areas of 400 and 1000 square degrees, in three frequency
channels, 150, 250, 410 GHz, and 90, 150, 220 GHz, with sensitivity of order 1
to 10 micro-K per beam-size pixel. These are chosen to be representative of
some of the proposed, next-generation, bolometric experiments. We study the
residual foreground contributions left in the recovered CMB maps in the pixel
and harmonic domain and discuss their impact on a determination of the
tensor-to-scalar ratio, r. In particular, we find that the residuals derived
from the simulated data of the considered balloon-borne observatories are
sufficiently low not to be relevant for the B-mode science. However, the
ground-based observatories are in need of some external information to permit
satisfactory cleaning. We find that if such information is indeed available in
the latter case, both the ground-based and balloon-borne experiments can detect
the values of r as low as ~0.04 at 95% confidence level. The contribution of
the foreground residuals to these limits is found to be then subdominant and
these are driven by the statistical uncertainty due to CMB, including E-to-B
leakage, and noise. We emphasize that reaching such levels will require a
sufficient control of the level of systematic effects present in the data.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, 6 table
Integrated care for childhood epilepsy: ongoing challenges and lessons for other long-term conditions
Epilepsy care has been identified as a major global issue – and there are many recognised concerns in the UK for children and young people with the condition. A proposed new model could help to increase multi-sector integration, facilitate better outcomes, and offer lessons for improving care of other long-term conditions
Impact of Systematics on SZ-Optical Scaling Relations
One of the central goals of multi-wavelength galaxy cluster cosmology is to
unite all cluster observables to form a consistent understanding of cluster
mass. Here, we study the impact of systematic effects from optical cluster
catalogs on stacked SZ signals. We show that the optically predicted
Y-decrement can vary by as much as 50% based on the current 2 sigma systematic
uncertainties in the observed mass-richness relationship. Mis-centering and
impurities will suppress the SZ signal compared to expectations for a clean and
perfectly centered optical sample, but to a lesser degree. We show that the
level of these variations and suppression is dependent on the amount of
systematics in the optical cluster catalogs. We also study X-ray
luminosity-dependent sub-sampling of the optical catalog and find that it
creates Malmquist bias increasing the observed Y-decrement of the stacked
signal. We show that the current Planck measurements of the Y-decrement around
SDSS optical clusters and their X-ray counterparts are consistent with
expectations after accounting for the 1 sigma optical systematic uncertainties
using the Johnston mass richness relation.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Revised to match version accepted in the
Astrophysical Journa
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