Laser measuring system for wire-wrapped frame assemblies

The laser measuring system is designed to automatically measure and record the distances between small diameter wires on a wire wrapped grid frame assembly to an accuracy of 0.00635 mm (0.00025 in.). The system utilizes a helium-neon gas laser beam as the measuring instrument with a remote interferometer and retroreflector, a light source and photodetector to detect the wire positions, in conjunction with recording, display and printout units. The laser measuring system is utilized to perform precise automatic measurements for wire application machines or as an automatic feedback device for positioning wires and/or to adjust them for out of tolerance conditions

A Serious Ethnological Exhibition : The Indian Congress of the Trans-Mississippi & International Exposition of 1898

“It will be either a colossal success or a colossal failure, and time alone can decide which.” This was the prediction of Edward Rosewater, editor and publisher of the Omaha Daily Bee, regarding his city’s Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, held from June to November 1898. The few historians who have studied the event agree that the exposition was a huge commercial success. The fair drew over 2.7 million visitors to a remote and economically depressed city during wartime, and those who purchased stock in the exposition corporation gained over a ninety percent return on their investment.[2] The exposition also gained national attention as host to a victorious President William McKinley just weeks after the American military defeated the Spanish in the “splendid little war.” The exposition’s greatest triumph, however, was the popularity of its leading exhibit, the Indian Congress. Conceived by Rosewater himself, the Indian Congress was intended to provide fairgoers an opportunity to observe thousands of Native Americans from across the continent engaged in all of the manners of their traditional culture. Because many believed that Indian culture would soon become extinct through government efforts to assimilate Native Americans into white society, the exhibit was widely promoted as the “last chance” to see a “dying race.” It was designed with the help of James Mooney, a prominent expert from the Bureau of American Ethnology, and was the first exhibit of its kind ever to be funded by the federal government. In addition, the exhibit received the endorsement of leading proponents of Indian schools, since they believed the Indian Congress would demonstrate to the public the importance of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American society. Unfortunately for Rosewater and Mooney, circumstances beyond their control resulted in the exhibit being radically different from what they had intended. Due to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898, congressional approval of the allocation for the Indian Congress was held up, and the proposed funding was drastically reduced from an anticipated $100,000 to just$40,000.[1] The final approval for the provision did not come until a month after the exposition had already begun. Worse, the final version of the bill which passed Congress specified that it was not the Bureau of American Ethnology which would control the planned exhibit, but rather the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Indian Affairs Commissioner, William A. Jones, was not committed to the original design of the Indian Congress, and his selection to oversee the project, Captain William A. Mercer, chose to employ the hundreds of Native Americans in attendance in regularly-scheduled sham battles. The Indian Congress continued to be promoted as a “serious ethnological exhibit,” but had been corrupted into a profit-driven Wild West show. To those who had endorsed the original design of the project, the result was a debacle. But to the public, the exhibit became the most memorable and entertaining spectacle of the exposition. The popular success of the Indian exhibit at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition ultimately led to the addition of similar “Indian Congresses” featuring sham battles at future expositions. Ethnologists would attempt to compete with their own exhibits, but they would struggle to attract public interest

An updated meta-analysis approach for genetic linkage

We present a meta-analysis procedure for genome-wide linkage studies (MAGS). The MAGS procedure combines genome-wide linkage results across studies with possibly distinct marker maps. We applied the MAGS procedure to the simulated data from the Genetic Analysis Workshop 14 in order to investigate power to detect linkage to disease genes and power to detect linkage to disease modifier genes while controlling for type I error. We analyzed all 100 replicates of the four simulated studies for chromosomes 1 (disease gene), 2 (modifier gene), 3 (disease gene), 4 (no disease gene), 5 (disease gene), and 10 (modifier gene) with knowledge of the simulated disease gene locations. We found that the procedure correctly identified the disease loci on chromosomes 1, 3, and 5 and did not erroneously identify a linkage signal on chromosome 4. The MAGS procedure provided little to no evidence of linkage to the disease modifier genes on chromosomes 2 and 10

Disease activity and biologic use in patients with psoriatic arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.

To compare disease burden and biologic use among psoriatic arthritis (PsA) or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients recruited to the Corrona registry. Retrospective study of patients with PsA or RA enrolled in Corrona between January 2002 and March 2013 and grouped in 2-year intervals. Clinical outcomes and biologic use were assessed. Biologic use increased over time in both cohorts, with 62 and 52% of patients with PsA and RA, respectively, receiving biologics by 2012-2013. However, 25 and 35% of patients with PsA and RA, respectively, continued to experience moderate/high disease activity. Overall, the progressive increase in biologic use accompanied progressive decreases in Clinical Disease Activity Index (from 14.2 to 10.4 for RA, and 12.4 to 8.1 for PsA) and mean Health Assessment Questionnaire score (from 0.36 to 0.34, and 0.3 to 0.24). Mean patient pain, the proportion of patients reporting morning stiffness, and the mean duration of morning stiffness remained similar for both cohorts. PsA and RA treated in the rheumatology setting had a comparable impact on patient quality of life and functional ability. Disease burden improved with increased biologic utilization in both groups; however, moderate/severe disease remains in a significant proportion of PsA and RA patients

Accurate fundamental parameters of eclipsing binary stars

The study of detached eclipsing binaries is one of the most powerful ways to investigate the properties of individual stars and stellar systems. We present preliminary masses, radii and effective temperatures for the eclipsing binary WW Aurigae, which is composed of two metallic-lined A-type stars. We also reanalyse the data on HD 23642, an A-type eclipsing binary member of the Pleiades open cluster with a metallic-lined component, and determine its distance to be 139 +/- 4 pc. This is in agreement with the traditional Pleiades distance, but in disagreement with distance to the Pleiades, and to HD 23642 itself, derived from Hipparcos trigonometrical parallaxes.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, Poster presented at IAU Symposium 224 "The A Star Puzzle", 7-13 July 2004, Poprad, Slovaki

Variation in prey delivered to common Black-Hawk (Buteogallus anthracinus) nests in Arizona drainage basins

Understanding how raptor diets vary across local and regional scales can be important when human actions have the potential to alter prey abundances. We combined data on prey delivered to 16 Common Black-Hawk (Buteogallus anthracinus) nests in three tributaries of the Verde River, Arizona, in 2008 and 2009 with similar data reported previously (1994) for three other Arizona drainage basins to better understand variation in diet composition within and across drainage basins. Within the three drainage basins studied in 2008 and 2009, nests clustered into two groups: those along Fossil Creek, where fish and amphibians were common, and those in Wet Beaver and Oak Creek drainage basins, where reptiles and nonnative crayfish were more abundant. When data from all six drainage basins were combined, drainage basins again clustered into two groups, with prey deliveries in one cluster dominated by fish and amphibians and in the other cluster by reptiles. These results confirm the opportunistic nature of prey use by Common Black-Hawks and highlight the variation in diet that can occur both within and among drainage basins. Management targeting the eradication of nonnative crayfish or the reintroduction of native amphibians and fish could alter prey availability for this raptor species

Persistence of low disease activity after tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) discontinuation in patients with psoriatic arthritis.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the duration of clinical benefit among patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) discontinuing tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) therapy while in low disease activity (LDA), and to identify patient characteristics associated with prolonged clinical benefit. METHODS: We performed an observational cohort study assessing patients with PsA from the Consortium of Rheumatology Researchers of North America (CORRONA) registry who had discontinued TNFi after achieving LDA, defined as clinical disease activity index (CDAI) score ≤10 and physician\u27s global assessment (PGA) of skin psoriasis ≤20/100. Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the duration of clinical benefit. RESULTS: Of the 5945 patients with PsA in CORRONA, 302 patients had discontinued TNFi (n=325) while in LDA and had follow-up data available. At time of discontinuation, mean PsA duration was 9.8 years, mean CDAI was 3.9, and mean duration of TNFi use was 1.5 years; 52.6% of patients had discontinued their first TNFi. Median time to loss of benefit was 29.2 months. 179 (55.1%) patients had persistent benefit at their previous clinic visit. An increased risk of losing clinical benefit was seen among patients with higher disease activity at discontinuation (CDAI≥3.2 vs CONCLUSIONS: Patients with PsA who achieve LDA may maintain clinical benefit after discontinuation of TNFi therapy

Solutions for 10,000 Eclipsing Binaries in the Bulge Fields of OGLE II Using DEBiL

We have developed a fully-automated pipeline for systematically identifying and analyzing eclipsing binaries within large datasets of light curves. The pipeline is made up of multiple tiers which subject the light curves to increasing levels of scrutiny. After each tier, light curves that did not conform to a given criteria were filtered out of the pipeline, reducing the load on the following, more computationally intensive tiers. As a central component of the pipeline, we created the fully automated Detached Eclipsing Binary Light curve fitter (DEBiL), which rapidly fits large numbers of light curves to a simple model. Using the results of DEBiL, light curves of interest can be flagged for follow-up analysis. As a test case, we analyzed the 218699 light curves within the bulge fields of the OGLE II survey and produced 10862 model fits. We point out a small number of extreme examples as well as unexpected structure found in several of the population distributions. We expect this approach to become increasingly important as light curve datasets continue growing in both size and number.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 36 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables. See http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~jdevor/DEBiL.html for high-resolution figures and further informatio

MECI: A Method for Eclipsing Component Identification

We describe an automated method for assigning the most probable physical parameters to the components of an eclipsing binary, using only its photometric light curve and combined colors. With traditional methods, one attempts to optimize a multi-parameter model over many iterations, so as to minimize the chi-squared value. We suggest an alternative method, where one selects pairs of coeval stars from a set of theoretical stellar models, and compares their simulated light curves and combined colors with the observations. This approach greatly reduces the parameter space over which one needs to search, and allows one to estimate the components' masses, radii and absolute magnitudes, without spectroscopic data. We have implemented this method in an automated program using published theoretical isochrones and limb-darkening coefficients. Since it is easy to automate, this method lends itself to systematic analyses of datasets consisting of photometric time series of large numbers of stars, such as those produced by OGLE, MACHO, TrES, HAT, and many others surveys.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap