Aperture synthesis for microwave radiometers in space

A technique is described for obtaining passive microwave measurements from space with high spatial resolution for remote sensing applications. The technique involves measuring the product of the signal from pairs of antennas at many different antenna spacings, thereby mapping the correlation function of antenna voltage. The intensity of radiation at the source can be obtained from the Fourier transform of this correlation function. Theory is presented to show how the technique can be applied to large extended sources such as the Earth when observed from space. Details are presented for a system with uniformly spaced measurements

As-built design specifications of the LANDSAT Imagery Verification and Extraction System (LIVES). Volume 1: Test and appendices

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Narrative support for young game designers’ writing

Creating narrative-based computer games is a complex and challenging task. Narrative Threads is a suite of software tools designed to aid young people (aged 11-15) in creating their own narrative-based games as a writing development activity. A participatory design process highlighted the areas where additional support was required, and informed the iterative design of Narrative Threads. The tools are implemented as a plugin to a commercial game creation toolset, and constitute character and object design tools, a branching narrative diagramming tool and an augmented story map view. In this paper, we provide an overview of the design of the tools and describe an evaluation carried out with 14 children over a four-day workshop. The study examined tool usage patterns, and compared games created with Narrative Threads to those created using the standard toolset. The results suggest a number of ways in which dynamic external representations of story elements can support writing activities in narrative-based game creation. Young designers using Narrative Threads wrote more character dialogue, made stronger links between the conversations they wrote and wider game events, and designed more complex characters, compared to those using the standard toolset. In addition to showing how Narrative Threads can support young games designers, the results have broader implications for anyone looking to support storytelling and writing through game creation activities and tools

Playing the odds in clinical decision making: lessons from berry aneurysms undetected by magnetic resonance angiography

No description supplie

Reconnaissance Study of Pleistocene Lake and Fluvial Deposits In and Near Ancestral Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming

Seven sequences of Pleistocene strata, five of them predominantly lacustrine, are described from outcrops north of Yellowstone Lake. These are (1) Turbid Lake sequence, 30–50 feet of white pumiceous claystone and tuff with carbonaceous partings and a distinctive compositional pattern of excesses and deficiencies of many elements; (2) Yellowstone Falls sequence, 75 feet or more of varved white claystone and tuff containing pollen and diatoms, overlain by gray conglomerate and sandstone; (3) Hayden Valley sequence, 200 feet or more of gray and white silt and claystone containing sparse diatoms; (4) Alum Creek sequence, 30 feet or more of bedded sand and gravel with lesser amounts of clay; (5) Mudkettle sequence, 150 feet or more of light gray to white, soft clay and claystone with lesser amounts of sandstone and conglomerate, moderately lithified in part, and containing some pollen and diatoms; (6) Astringent Creek Sand (newly named), a gray, commonly unlithified sand as much as 300 feet thick and containing abundant volcanic debris; and (7) Pelican Valley sequence, 120 feet or more of light gray to white, soft clay, silt, sand, and some pumice pebble conglomerate and shard beds; finer grained beds contain diatoms, pollen, and carbonaceous debris that has a radiocarbon date of 7,550 ±350 years. Other localized deposits with radiocarbon dates and abundant diatoms consist of white carbonaceous tuffaceous clay and sand with an age of 9,440±300 years, in Gibbon Canyon, and a gray and white carbonaceous clay, silt, and sand with an age of 3,750+300 years at Bannock Ford in Yellowstone Canyon. Slight arching of the Upper Basin Member of the Plateau Rhyolite caused the Yellowstone River to develop an antecedent course across it. Uplift of the Pelican Valley area during the last 7,500 years averaged about one foot in 50 years

Reconnaissance Study of Pleistocene Lake and Fluvial Deposits In and Near Ancestral Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming

Seven sequences of Pleistocene strata, five of them predominantly lacustrine, are described from outcrops north of Yellowstone Lake. These are (1) Turbid Lake sequence, 30–50 feet of white pumiceous claystone and tuff with carbonaceous partings and a distinctive compositional pattern of excesses and deficiencies of many elements; (2) Yellowstone Falls sequence, 75 feet or more of varved white claystone and tuff containing pollen and diatoms, overlain by gray conglomerate and sandstone; (3) Hayden Valley sequence, 200 feet or more of gray and white silt and claystone containing sparse diatoms; (4) Alum Creek sequence, 30 feet or more of bedded sand and gravel with lesser amounts of clay; (5) Mudkettle sequence, 150 feet or more of light gray to white, soft clay and claystone with lesser amounts of sandstone and conglomerate, moderately lithified in part, and containing some pollen and diatoms; (6) Astringent Creek Sand (newly named), a gray, commonly unlithified sand as much as 300 feet thick and containing abundant volcanic debris; and (7) Pelican Valley sequence, 120 feet or more of light gray to white, soft clay, silt, sand, and some pumice pebble conglomerate and shard beds; finer grained beds contain diatoms, pollen, and carbonaceous debris that has a radiocarbon date of 7,550 ±350 years. Other localized deposits with radiocarbon dates and abundant diatoms consist of white carbonaceous tuffaceous clay and sand with an age of 9,440±300 years, in Gibbon Canyon, and a gray and white carbonaceous clay, silt, and sand with an age of 3,750+300 years at Bannock Ford in Yellowstone Canyon. Slight arching of the Upper Basin Member of the Plateau Rhyolite caused the Yellowstone River to develop an antecedent course across it. Uplift of the Pelican Valley area during the last 7,500 years averaged about one foot in 50 years

'Appreciating' Drainage Assets in New Zealand Cities: Rain Garden Treatment and Hydraulic Performance

Despite recognising rain gardens as a best management practice (BMP) to mitigate urban stormwater runoff, there is a dearth of knowledge about their treatment and infiltration performance. It is believed that organic substrates may enhance some contaminant removal but hinder hydraulic throughput although data showing this is sparse. In order to evaluate the influence of substrate composition on bioinfiltrative system effectiveness, mesocosm-scale (180 L, 0.17 m2) laboratory rain gardens were established. Saturated (constant head) hydraulic conductivity was determined before and after the experimental treatment tests that employed stormwater collected from a neighbouring catchment to investigate contaminant removal efficiencies. The principal contaminant (Zn, Cu, Pb and nutrients) removal efficiencies were investigated for three substrates comprising various proportions of organic topsoil. All total metal concentrations in the effluent were <50% of influent concentrations, with the exception of copper in the topsoil-only system that had negligible reduction due to a high dissolved fraction. The system comprising topsoil only had the lowest saturated hydraulic conductivity of 162 mm/hr and demonstrated the poorest metal (Cu, Zn) removal efficiencies. Interestingly, the system with a combination of sand and topsoil demonstrated most promising metal removal of Cu (53%), Zn (81.2%) and Pb (89.1%) with adequate hydraulic performance (296 mm/hr) required for a stormwater infiltrative system. Overall, metal removal was greater at an effluent pH of 7.38 compared to the 6.24 pH provided in the raw stormwater. Some pH buffering was provided by the calcareous sand in two of the systems, whereas the topsoil-only system lacked such buffering potential to facilitate adequate metal removal. These data highlight the influence of organic topsoil on pH that clearly governs metal speciation and hence removal efficacy in bioinfiltrative systems. Nitrate was net exported from all the systems, especially topsoil contrary to what is believed to be easily removed

Leptonic contribution to the bulk viscosity of nuclear matter

For beta-equilibrated nuclear matter we estimate the contribution to the bulk viscosity from purely leptonic processes, namely the conversion of electrons to and from muons. For oscillation frequencies in the kiloHertz range, we find that this process provides the dominant contribution to the bulk viscosity when the temperature is well below the critical temperature for superconductivity or superfluidity of the nuclear matter.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, new appendix and general clarifications in response to referee comment

Spatial Structure of Ion Beams in an Expanding Plasma

We report spatially resolved perpendicular and parallel, to the magnetic field, ion velocity distribution function (IVDF) measurements in an expanding argon helicon plasma. The parallel IVDFs, obtained through laser induced fluorescence (LIF), show an ion beam with v ≈ 8000 m/s flowing downstream and confined to the center of the discharge. The ion beam is measurable for tens of centimeters along the expansion axis before the LIF signal fades, likely a result of metastable quenching of the beam ions. The parallel ion beam velocity slows in agreement with expectations for the measured parallel electric field. The perpendicular IVDFs show an ion population with a radially outward flow that increases with distance from the plasma axis. Structures aligned to the expanding magnetic field appear in the DC electric field, the electron temperature, and the plasma density in the plasma plume. These measurements demonstrate that at least two-dimensional and perhaps fully three-dimensional models are needed to accurately describe the spontaneous acceleration of ion beams in expanding plasmas

Offline to Online Conversion

We consider the problem of converting offline estimators into an online predictor or estimator with small extra regret. Formally this is the problem of merging a collection of probability measures over strings of length 1,2,3,... into a single probability measure over infinite sequences. We describe various approaches and their pros and cons on various examples. As a side-result we give an elementary non-heuristic purely combinatoric derivation of Turing's famous estimator. Our main technical contribution is to determine the computational complexity of online estimators with good guarantees in general.Comment: 20 LaTeX page