Production and Spectroscopy of Heavy Hadrons at the LHC

Measurements of heavy flavor production and decay have featured prominently in the early results from the four large LHC experiments: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb. These results provide tests of QCD models in a new energy region and point the way toward future measurements of CP violation and searches for new physics. An overview of open heavy flavor studies is presented here, focusing on how the new measurements extend our knowledge of this area of physics. Heavy quarkonia states at the LHC are summarized in other proceedings of this conference. I also discuss briefly how heavy flavor measurements are likely to evolve as LHC luminosities increase.Comment: proceedings for the XIV International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy (Hadron 2011), 13 pages, 9 figure

Strain sensor for high temperatures Patent

Water cooled gage for strain measurements in high temperature environment

The Third Person of the Trinity: How the Holy Spirit Facilitates Man\u27s Walk with God

Much of the modern church knows the Father and the Son very well as part of its common worship, practice, and conversation. However, the Holy Spirit is given little more than recognition in many circles. He is referenced, talked about, and mentioned in songs and sermons, but there is often a resistance to letting Him lead the believer and the church. It is vital that the church opens its eyes to the indwelling, personal, and powerful Spirit which the Lord has sent to them. Through a study of the role of the Holy Spirit within the Scriptures, as well as a substantial consideration of the views of the Early Church Fathers, this paper seeks to kindle a renewed appreciation for, and a reliance upon the third person of the Trinity. The overarching theme revealed through this research is the marvelous reality that the God of the universe resides within the believer. The final section delves into this reality in search of the process that results in learning to truly walk with the Holy Spirit

DSN Ground Communications Facility

A functional description of the Ground Communications Facility (GCF) and its relationships with other elements of the Deep Space Network and the NASA Communications Network is presented together with development objectives and goals and comments on implementation activities in support of flight projects. The voice, teletype, high speed data, wideband data, monitor and control, data records, network log processor, and network communications equipment subsystems are individually examined

The multiplicity of massive stars

Binaries are excellent astrophysical laboratories that provide us with direct measurements of fundamental stellar parameters. Compared to single isolated star, multiplicity induces new processes, offering the opportunity to confront our understanding of a broad range of physics under the extreme conditions found in, and close to, astrophysical objects. In this contribution, we will discuss the parameter space occupied by massive binaries, and the observational means to investigate it. We will review the multiplicity fraction of OB stars within each regime, and in different astrophysical environments. In particular we will compare the O star spectroscopic binary fraction in nearby open clusters and we will show that the current data are adequately described by an homogeneous fraction of f~0.44. We will also summarize our current understanding of the observed parameter distributions of O+OB spectroscopic binaries. We will show that the period distribution is overabundant in short period binaries and that it can be described by a bi-modal Oepik law with a break point around P~10d. The distribution of the mass-ratios shows no indication for a twin population of equal mass binaries and seems rather uniform in the range 0.2< q=M_2/M_1<1.0.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, IAU272: Active OB stars: structure, evolution, mass los

Adaptive high-order finite element solution of transient elastohydrodynamic lubrication problems

This article presents a new numerical method to solve transient line contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) problems. A high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method is used for the spatial discretization, and the standard Crank-Nicolson method is employed to approximate the time derivative. An h-adaptivity method is used for grid adaptation with the time-stepping, and the penalty method is employed to handle the cavitation condition. The roughness model employed here is a simple indentation, which is located on the upper surface. Numerical results are presented comparing the DG method to standard finite difference (FD) techniques. It is shown that micro-EHL features are captured with far fewer degrees of freedom than when using low-order FD methods

Mercury in Florida Bay fish: spatial distribution of elevated concentrations and possible linkages to Everglades restoration

Health advisories are now posted in northern Florida Bay, adjacent to the Everglades, warning of high mercury concentrations in some species of gamefish. Highest concentrations of mercury in both forage fish and gamefish have been measured in the northeastern corner of Florida Bay, adjacent to the dominant freshwater inflows from the Everglades. Thirty percent of spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus Cuvier, 1830) analyzed exceeded Florida’s no consumption level of 1.5 μg g−1 mercury in this area. We hypothesized that freshwater draining the Everglades served as the major source of methylmercury entering the food web supporting gamefish. A lack of correlation between mercury concentrations and salinity did not support this hypothesis, although enhanced bioavailability of methylmercury is possible as freshwater is diluted with estuarine water. Stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur were measured in fish to elucidate the shared pathways of methylmercury and nutrient elements through the food web. These data support a benthic source of both methylmercury and nutrient elements to gamefish within the eastern bay, as opposed to a dominant watershed source. Ecological characteristics of the eastern bay, including active redox cycling in near-surface sediments without excessive sulfide production are hypothesized to promote methylmercury formation and bioaccumulation in the benthos. Methylmercury may then accumulate in gamefish through a food web supported by benthic microalgae, detritus, pink shrimp (Farfantepenaeus duorarum Burkenroad, 1939), and other epibenthic feeders. Uncertainty remains as to the relative importance of watershed imports of methylmercury from the Everglades and in situ production in the bay, an uncertainty that needs resolution if the effects of Everglades restoration on mercury levels in fish are to be modeled and managed

Collective Efficacy and Firearms Violence in Anchorage, Alaska: Preliminary Findings

Paper also presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Western Society of Criminology, Scottsdale, Arizona.This paper seeks to advance the discussion of the utility of collective efficacy, as captured by Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls, in understanding community levels of crime by exploring the relation between community structure, collective efficacy, and in this case firearms violence, in Anchorage, Alaska. The specific aims of this paper are to report the results of a test of the collective efficacy thesis, modeled loosely after the test presented in the 1997 Science paper by Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls, as an explanation of neighborhood rates of firearms violence in Anchorage.Measures Replication and Data / Collective Efficacy and Violence in Anchorage / Discussion and Conclusions / References / Table

In-flight friction and wear mechanism

A unique mechanism developed for conducting friction and wear experiments in orbit is described. The device is capable of testing twelve material samples simultaneously. Parameters considered critical include: power, weight, volume, mounting, cleanliness, and thermal designs. The device performed flawlessly in orbit over an eighteen month period and demonstrated the usefulness of this design for future unmanned spacecraft or shuttle applications