Behavioral Model of High Performance Camera for NIF Optics Inspection

The purpose of this project was to develop software that will model the behavior of the high performance Spectral Instruments 1000 series Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera located in the Final Optics Damage Inspection (FODI) system on the National Ignition Facility. NIF's target chamber will be mounted with 48 Final Optics Assemblies (FOAs) to convert the laser light from infrared to ultraviolet and focus it precisely on the target. Following a NIF shot, the optical components of each FOA must be carefully inspected for damage by the FODI to ensure proper laser performance during subsequent experiments. Rapid image capture and complex image processing (to locate damage sites) will reduce shot turnaround time; thus increasing the total number of experiments NIF can conduct during its 30 year lifetime. Development of these rapid processes necessitates extensive offline software automation -- especially after the device has been deployed in the facility. Without access to the unique real device or an exact behavioral model, offline software testing is difficult. Furthermore, a software-based behavioral model allows for many instances to be running concurrently; this allows multiple developers to test their software at the same time. Thus it is beneficial to construct separate software that will exactly mimic the behavior and response of the real SI-1000 camera

The Promethean: Fall 2012

Fall 2012 edition of The Promethean. Contents: From the Director 2 Honors Study Abroad 4 Tips for Writing Your Senior Thesis 6 Collected Poetry 8 Freshman Experience Articles 9 Remembering Alex Kogut 10https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/promethean/1007/thumbnail.jp

Pathwise Sensitivity Analysis in Transient Regimes

The instantaneous relative entropy (IRE) and the corresponding instanta- neous Fisher information matrix (IFIM) for transient stochastic processes are pre- sented in this paper. These novel tools for sensitivity analysis of stochastic models serve as an extension of the well known relative entropy rate (RER) and the corre- sponding Fisher information matrix (FIM) that apply to stationary processes. Three cases are studied here, discrete-time Markov chains, continuous-time Markov chains and stochastic differential equations. A biological reaction network is presented as a demonstration numerical example

Mutations In Sry And Wt1 Genes Required For Gonadal Development Are Not Responsible For Xy Partial Gonadal Dysgenesis.

The WT1 transcription factor regulates SRY expression during the initial steps of the sex determination process in humans, activating a gene cascade leading to testis differentiation. In addition to causing Wilms' tumor, mutations in WT1 are often responsible for urogenital defects in men, while SRY mutations are mainly related to 46,XY pure gonadal dysgenesis. In order to evaluate their role in abnormal testicular organogenesis, we screened for SRY and WT1 gene mutations in 10 children with XY partial gonadal dysgenesis, 2 of whom with a history of Wilms' tumor. The open reading frame and 360 bp of the 5' flanking sequence of the SRY gene, and the ten exons and intron boundaries of the WT1 gene were amplified by PCR of genomic DNA. Single-strand conformation polymorphism was initially used for WT1 mutation screening. Since shifts in fragment migration were only observed for intron/exon 4, the ten WT1 exons from all patients were sequenced manually. No mutations were detected in the SRY 5' untranslated region or within SRY open-reading frame sequences. WT1 sequencing revealed one missense mutation (D396N) in the ninth exon of a patient who also had Wilms' tumor. In addition, two silent point mutations were found in the first exon including one described here for the first time. Some non-coding sequence variations were detected, representing one new (IVS4+85A>G) and two already described (-7ATG T>G, IVS9-49 T>C) single nucleotide polymorphisms. Therefore, mutations in two major genes required for gonadal development, SRY and WT1, are not responsible for XY partial gonadal dysgenesis.3817-2

The Quark-Hadron Phase Transition, QCD Lattice Calculations and Inhomogeneous Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis

We review recent lattice QCD results for the surface tension at the finite temperature quark-hadron phase transition and discuss their implications on the possible scale of inhomogeneities. In the quenched approximation the average distance between nucleating centers is smaller than the diffusion length of a protron, so that inhomogeneities are washed out by the time nucleosynthesis sets in. Consequently the baryon density fluctuations formed by a QCD phase transition in the early universe cannot significantly affect standard big-bang nucleosynthesis calculations and certainly cannot allow baryons to close the universe. At present lattice results are inconclusive when dynamical fermions are included.Comment: 8 pages, LaTe

Integrated operations of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) optical pulse generation development system

We describe the Optical Pulse Generation (OPG) testbed, which is the integration of the MOR and Preamplifier Development Laboratories. We use this OPG testbed to develop and demonstrate the overall capabilites of the NIF laser system front end. We will present the measured energy and power output, temporal and spatial pulse shaping capability, FM bandwidth and dispersion for beam smoothing, and measurements of the pulse-to-pulse power variation of the OPG system and compare these results with the required system performance specifications. We will discuss the models that are used to predict the system performance and how the OPG output requirements flowdown to the subordinate subsystems within the OPG system

Metastable lifetimes in a kinetic Ising model: Dependence on field and system size

The lifetimes of metastable states in kinetic Ising ferromagnets are studied by droplet theory and Monte Carlo simulation, in order to determine their dependences on applied field and system size. For a wide range of fields, the dominant field dependence is universal for local dynamics and has the form of an exponential in the inverse field, modified by universal and nonuniversal power-law prefactors. Quantitative droplet-theory predictions are numerically verified, and small deviations are shown to depend nonuniversally on the details of the dynamics. We identify four distinct field intervals in which the field dependence and statistical properties of the lifetimes are different. The field marking the crossover between the weak-field regime, in which the decay is dominated by a single droplet, and the intermediate-field regime, in which it is dominated by a finite droplet density, vanishes logarithmically with system size. As a consequence the slow decay characteristic of the former regime may be observable in systems that are macroscopic as far as their equilibrium properties are concerned.Comment: 18 pages single spaced. RevTex Version 3. FSU-SCRI-94-1