603 research outputs found
Decision Support Systems for Research and Management in Advanced Life Support
Decision support systems have been implemented in many applications including strategic planning for battlefield scenarios, corporate decision making for business planning, production planning and control systems, and recommendation generators like those on Amazon.com(Registered TradeMark). Such tools are reviewed for developing a similar tool for NASA's ALS Program. DSS are considered concurrently with the development of the OPIS system, a database designed for chronicling of research and development in ALS. By utilizing the OPIS database, it is anticipated that decision support can be provided to increase the quality of decisions by ALS managers and researchers
The asymmetric profile of the H76 alpha line emission from MWC349
MWC349 is an emission-line star found by Merrill, Humason and Burwell (1932). Braes, Habing and Schoenmaker (1972) discovered that it is a strong radio source. The radio emission originates in a massive ionized wind that is expanding with a velocity of about 50 km s(-1). Its continuum spectrum fits well a nu(0.6) power law from the cm wavelengths to the far-IR. Radio recombination line emission from the envelope of MWC349 was first detected by Altenhoff, Strittmatter and Wendker (1981). We have obtained good signal-to-noise ratio, Very Large Array observations of the H76 alpha radio recombination line from the ionized wind of MWC349. Our data reveal that the profile is markedly asymmetric, with a steep rise on the blue side. This asymmetry could be due to non-LTE effects in the formation and transfer of the line or to intrinsic asymmetries in the envelope. Our analysis suggests that most probably the peculiar profile is caused by a non-LTE enhancement of the line emission from the side of the envelope nearer to the observer. This asymmetry has the opposite sense than that observed in optical and IR recombination lines, where a different effect (absorption of the stellar continuum by the gas in the wind between the star and the observer) is known to be dominant, leading to the classic P Cygni profile. We propose that the profiles of the radio recombination lines from ionized stellar winds will have this characteristic shape, while optical and IR recombination lines are characterized by P Cygni-like profiles. Unfortunately, at present the detection of radio recombination lines from ionized stellar winds is only feasible for MWC349 and a few other objects
Gamma Ray Burst Neutrinos Probing Quantum Gravity
Very high energy, short wavelength, neutrinos may interact with the
space-time foam predicted by theories of quantum gravity. They would propagate
like light through a crystal lattice and be delayed, with the delay depending
on the energy. This will appear to the observer as a violation of Lorenz
invariance. Back of the envelope calculations imply that observations of
neutrinos produced by gamma ray bursts may reach Planck-scale sensitivity. We
revisit the problem considering two essential complications: the imprecise
timing of the neutrinos associated with their poorly understood production
mechanism in the source and the indirect nature of their energy measurement
made by high energy neutrino telescopes.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure
Effect of In Ovo Exposure to PCBs and Hg on Clapper Rail Bone Mineral Chemistry from a Contaminated Salt Marsh in Coastal Georgia
The effect of Hg and PCBs (Aroclor 1268) on bone characteristics was investigated in a population of Clapper Rails (Rallus longirostris) inhabiting contaminated and unimpacted estuarine marsh systems in coastal Georgia. Exposure to contaminants did not affect the length or weight of leg bones, but it significantly altered the chemical composition of the bone. Specifically, bone in the contaminated site had a higher Ca to P, and lower carbonate and acid phosphate content. These characteristics are typical of more mature bone mineral and indicate that toxicants have accelerated bone maturation. FTIR spectroscopy data revealed a dose dependent change in the crystallinity of bone mineral, and the relative proportion of specific PO4 groups in different molecular environments in the bone, with toxicants loads. These changes are most probably related to a hormonal alteration of the rate of bone remodelation induced by exposure to toxicant loads
Mutual Information Scoring: Increasing Interpretability in Categorical Clustering Tasks with Applications to Child Welfare Data
Youth in the American foster care system are significantly more likely than
their peers to face a number of negative life outcomes, from homelessness to
incarceration. Administrative data on these youth have the potential to provide
insights that can help identify ways to improve their path towards a better
life. However, such data also suffer from a variety of biases, from missing
data to reflections of systemic inequality. The present work proposes a novel,
prescriptive approach to using these data to provide insights about both data
biases and the systems and youth they track. Specifically, we develop a novel
categorical clustering and cluster summarization methodology that allows us to
gain insights into subtle biases in existing data on foster youth, and to
provide insight into where further (often qualitative) research is needed to
identify potential ways of assisting youth
Phase diagram and magnetic properties of LaCaMnO compound for
In this article a detailed study of LaCaMnO () phase diagram using powder x-ray diffraction and magnetization
measurements is presented. Unfortunately, in the related literature no properly
characterized samples have been used, with consequence the smearing of the real
physics in this complicated system. As the present results reveal, there are
two families of samples. The first family concerns samples prepared in
atmosphere ( Atm) which are all ferromagnetic with Curie
temperature rising with . The second family concerns samples, where a post
annealing in nearly zero oxygen partial pressure is applied. These samples show
a canted antiferromagnetic structure for below , while
for an unconventional ferromagnetic insulated phase is
present below . The most important difference between nonstoichiometric
and stoichiometric samples concerning the magnetic behavior, is the anisotropy
in the exchange interactions, in the stoichiometric samples putting forward the
idea that a new orbital ordered phase is responsible for the ferromagnetic
insulating regime in the LaCaMnO compound
Prioritising prevention strategies for patients in antiretroviral treatment programmes in resource-limited settings
Expanded access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) offers opportunities to strengthen HIV prevention in resource-limited settings. We invited 27 ART programmes from urban settings in Africa, Asia and South America to participate in a survey, with the aim to examine what preventive services had been integrated in ART programmes. Twenty-two programmes participated; eight (36%) from South Africa, two from Brazil, two from Zambia and one each from Argentina, India, Thailand, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Morocco, Uganda and Zimbabwe and one occupational programme of a brewery company included five countries (Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi). Twenty-one sites (96%) provided health education and social support, and 18 (82%) provided HIV testing and counselling. All sites encouraged disclosure of HIV infection to spouses and partners, but only 11 (50%) had a protocol for partner notification. Twenty-one sites (96%) supplied male condoms, seven (32%) female condoms and 20 (91%) provided prophylactic ART for the prevention of mother-to child transmission. Seven sites (33%) regularly screened for sexually transmitted infections (STI). Twelve sites (55%) were involved in activities aimed at women or adolescents, and 10 sites (46%) in activities aimed at serodiscordant couples. Stigma and discrimination, gender roles and funding constraints were perceived as the main obstacles to effective prevention in ART programmes. We conclude that preventive services in ART programmes in lower income countries focus on health education and the provision of social support and male condoms. Strategies that might be equally or more important in this setting, including partner notification, prompt diagnosis and treatment of STI and reduction of stigma in the community, have not been implemented widely
The Casimir energy of skyrmions in the 2+1-dimensional O(3)-model
One-loop quantum corrections to the classical vortices in 2+1 dimensional
O(3)-models are evaluated. Skyrme and Zeeman potential terms are used to
stabilize the size of topological solitons. Contributions from zero modes,
bound-states and scattering phase-shifts are calculated for vortices with
winding index n=1 and n=2. For both cases the S-matrix shows a pronounced
series of resonances for magnon-vortex scattering in analogy to the
well-established baryon resonances in hadron physics, while vortices with n>2
are already classically unstable against decay. The quantum corrections
destabilize the classically bound n=2 configuration. Approximate independence
of the results with respect to changes in the renormalization scale is
demonstrated.Comment: 24 pages LaTeX, 14 figure
Timing Analysis with INTEGRAL: Comparing Different Reconstruction Algorithms
INTEGRAL is one of the few instruments capable of detecting X-rays above 20keV. It is therefore in principle well suited for studying X-ray variability in this regime. Because INTEGRAL uses coded mask instruments for imaging, the reconstruction of light curves of X-ray sources is highly non-trivial. We present results from the comparison of two commonly employed algorithms, which primarily measure flux from mask deconvolution (ii-lc-extract) and from calculating the pixel illuminated fraction (ii-light). Both methods agree well for timescales above about 10 s, the highest time resolution for which image reconstruction is possible. For higher time resolution, ii-light produces meaningful results, although the overall variance of the lightcurves is not preserved
An Attempt to Observe Debris from the Breakup of a Titan 3C-4 Transtage
In February 2007 dedicated observations were made of the orbital space predicted to contain debris from the breakup of the Titan 3C-4 transtage back on February 21, 1992. These observations were carried out on the Michigan Orbital DEbris Survey Telescope (MODEST) in Chile with its 1.3deg field of view. The search region or orbital space (inclination and right ascension of the ascending node (RAAN) was predicted using NASA#s LEGEND (LEO-to-GEO Environment Debris) code to generate a Titan debris cloud. Breakup fragments are created based on the NASA Standard Breakup Model (including fragment size, area-to-mass (A/M), and delta-V distributions). Once fragments are created, they are propagated forward in time with a subroutine GEOPROP. Perturbations included in GEOPROP are those due to solar/lunar gravity, radiation pressure, and major geopotential terms. Barker, et. al, (AMOS Conference Proceedings, 2006, pp. 596-604) used similar LEGEND predictions to correlate survey observations made by MODEST (February 2002) and found several possible night-to-night correlations in the limited survey dataset. One conc lusion of the survey search was to dedicate a MODEST run to observing a GEO region predicted to contain debris fragments and actual Titan debris objects (SSN 25000, 25001 and 30000). Such a dedicated run was undertaken with MODEST between February 17 and 23, 2007 (UT dates). MODEST#s limiting magnitude of 18.0 (S\N approx.10) corresponds to a size of 22cm assuming a diffuse Lambertian albedo of 0.2. However, based on observed break-up data, we expect most debris fragments to be smaller than 22cm which implies a need to increase the effective sensitivity of MODEST for smaller objects. MODEST#s limiting size can be lowered by increasing the exposure time (20 instead of 5 seconds) and applying special image processing. The special processing combines individual CCD images to detect faint objects that are invisible on a single CCD image. Sub-images are cropped from six consecutive CCD images with pixel shifts between images being consistent with the predicted movement of a Titan object. A median image of all the sub-images is then created leaving only those objects with the proper Titan motion. Limiting the median image in this manner brings the needed computer time to process all images taken on one night down to about 50 hours of CPU time
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