Fixed-range optimum trajectories for short-haul aircraft

An algorithm, based on the energy-state method, is derived for calculating optimum trajectories with a range constraint. The basis of the algorithm is the assumption that optimum trajectories consist of, at most, three segments: an increasing energy segment (climb); a constant energy segment (cruise); and a decreasing energy segment (descent). This assumption allows energy to be used as the independent variable in the increasing and decreasing energy segments, thereby eliminating the integration of a separate adjoint differential equation and simplifying the calculus of variations problem to one requiring only pointwise extremization of algebraic functions. The algorithm is used to compute minimum fuel, minimum time, and minimum direct-operating-cost trajectories, with range as a parameter, for an in-service CTOL aircraft and for an advanced STOL aircraft. For the CTOL aircraft and the minimum-fuel performance function, the optimum controls, consisting of air-speed and engine power setting, are continuous functions of the energy in both climb and descent as well as near the maximum or cruise energy. This is also true for the STOL aircraft except in the descent where at one energy level a nearly constant energy dive segment occurs, yielding a discontinuity in the airspeed at that energy. The reason for this segment appears to be the relatively high fuel flow at idle power of the engines used by this STOL aircraft. Use of a simplified trajectory which eliminates the dive increases the fuel consumption of the total descent trajectory by about 10 percent and the time to fly the descent by about 19 percent compared to the optimum

Challenges and implications of routine depression screening for depression in chronic disease and multimorbidity: a cross sectional study

<b>Background</b> Depression screening in chronic disease is advocated but its impact on routine practice is uncertain. We examine the effects of a programme of incentivised depression screening in chronic disease within a UK primary care setting.<p></p> <b>Methods and Findings</b> Cross sectional analysis of anonymised, routinely collected data (for 2008-9) from family practices in Scotland serving a population of circa 1.8 million. Patients registered in primary care with at least one of three chronic diseases, coronary heart disease, diabetes and stroke, underwent incentivised depression screening using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Score (HADS). <p></p> 125143 patients were identified with at least one chronic disease. 10670 (8.5%) were under treatment for depression and exempt from screening. Of the remaining, HADS were recorded for 35537 (31.1%) patients. 7080 (19.9% of screened) had raised HADS (≥8); the majority had indications of mild depression with a HADS between 8 and 10. Over 6 months, 572 (8%) of those with a raised HADS (≥8) were initiated on antidepressants, while 696 (2.4%) patients with a normal HADS (<8) were also initiated on antidepressants (relative risk of antidepressant initiation with raised HADS 3.3 (CI 2.97-3.67), p value <0.0001). Of those with multimorbidity who were screened, 24.3% had a raised HADS (≥8). A raised HADS was more likely in females, socioeconomically deprived, multimorbid or younger (18-44) individuals. Females and 45-64 years old were more likely to receive antidepressants.<p></p> <b>Limitations</b> – retrospective study of routinely collected data.<p></p> <b>Conclusions </b> Despite incentivisation, only minority of patients underwent depression screening, suggesting that systematic depression screening in chronic disease can be difficult to achieve in routine practice. Targeting those at greatest risk such as the multimorbid or using simpler screening methods may be more effective. Raised HADS was associated with a higher number of new antidepressant prescriptions which has significant resource implications. The clinical benefits of such screening remain uncertain and merit investigation

The MPCP Longitudinal Educational Growth Study Third Year Report

This is the third-year report in a five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). The MPCP, which began in 1990, provides government-funded vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools in the City of Milwaukee. The maximum voucher amount in 2008-09 was $6,607, and approximately 20,000 children used a voucher to attend either secular or religious private schools. The MPCP is the oldest and largest urban school voucher program in the United States. This evaluation was authorized by Wisconsin Act 125 enacted in 2005

Interference in the shared-Stroop task:a comparison of self- and other-monitoring

Co-actors represent and integrate each other's actions, even when they need not monitor one another. However, monitoring is important for successful interactions, particularly those involving language, and monitoring others' utterances probably relies on similar mechanisms as monitoring one's own. We investigated the effect of monitoring on the integration of self- and other-generated utterances in the shared-Stroop task. In a solo version of the Stroop task (with a single participant responding to all stimuli; Experiment 1), participants named the ink colour of mismatching colour words (incongruent stimuli) more slowly than matching colour words (congruent). In the shared-Stroop task, one participant named the ink colour of words in one colour (e.g. red), while ignoring stimuli in the other colour (e.g. green); the other participant either named the other ink colour or did not respond. Crucially, participants either provided feedback about the correctness of their partner's response (Experiment 3) or did not (Experiment 2). Interference was greater when both participants responded than when they did not, but only when their partners provided feedback. We argue that feedback increased interference because monitoring one's partner enhanced representations of the partner's target utterance, which in turn interfered with self-monitoring of the participant's own utterance

Discovery of Four High Proper Motion L Dwarfs, Including a 10 pc L Dwarf at the L/T Transition

We discover four high proper motion L dwarfs by comparing the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). WISE J140533.32+835030.5 is an L dwarf at the L/T transition with a proper motion of 0.85+/-0.02" yr^-1, previously overlooked due to its proximity to a bright star (V=12 mag). From optical spectroscopy we find a spectral type of L8, and from moderate-resolution J band spectroscopy we find a near-infrared spectral type of L9. We find WISE J140533.32+835030.5 to have a distance of 9.7+/-1.7 pc, bringing the number of L dwarfs at the L/T transition within 10 pc from six to seven. WISE J040137.21+284951.7, WISE J040418.01+412735.6, and WISE J062442.37+662625.6 are all early L dwarfs within 25 pc, and were classified using optical and low-resolution near-infrared spectra. WISE J040418.01+412735.6 is an L2 pec (red) dwarf, a member of the class of unusually red L dwarfs. We use follow-up optical and low-resolution near-infrared spectroscopy to classify a previously discovered (Castro & Gizis 2012) fifth object WISEP J060738.65+242953.4 as an (L8 Opt/L9 NIR), confirming it as an L dwarf at the L/T transition within 10 pc. WISEP J060738.65+242953.4 shows tentative CH_4 in the H band, possibly the result of unresolved binarity with an early T dwarf, a scenario not supported by binary spectral template fitting. If WISEP J060738.65+242953.4 is a single object, it represents the earliest onset of CH_4 in the H band of an L/T transition dwarf in the SpeX Library. As very late L dwarfs within 10 pc, WISE J140533.32+835030.5 and WISEP J060738.65+242953.4 will play a vital role in resolving outstanding issues at the L/T transition.Comment: 45 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Biological Records Centre Annual Report 2005-2006

The period covered by this report is the first year of a new six-year partnership between CEH and JNCC. For this period, there is increased emphasis on targeted survey, on analysis and interpretation and on communications and outreach. These activities were always part of BRC’s work, but they have been given greater prominence as a result of rapid developments in information technology. Data are increasingly reaching BRC in electronic form, so that the effort of data entry and collation is reduced. The data, collected by many volunteers and then collated and analysed at BRC, document the changing status and distribution of plants and animals in Britain. Distribution maps are published in atlases and are available via the internet through the NBN Gateway. The effects of change or loss of habitats, the influence of climate change and the consequences of changing water quality are all examples of the environmental factors that affect our biodiversity and which BRC aims to document and understand. The results are vital for developing environmental policies, to support conservation, and for fundamental ecological research. BRC is funded jointly by JNCC and NERC through a partnership based on a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). The partnership started in 1973 when the Nature Conservancy was divided to form the successor bodies Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) and Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE). NCC was in turn divided further to form JNCC and three Country Agencies, while ITE was merged with other NERC units to form CEH. Through all these changes, the partnership has been maintained. A six-year memorandum of agreement ended on 31 January 2005 (Hill et al. 2005). The present report covers the first full year, 2005-6, of the new agreement for 2005-2010. Rapid progress in information technology continues to be highly beneficial for BRC, whose data are increasingly used by the UK country conservation agencies, environmental consultants, NGOs, research workers, policy makers and volunteers. It is gratifying to know that, through our ability to display data on the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Gateway, some of our data suppliers now have immediate access to their own data in a convenient form. The year 2005-6 has been one of steady progress, with new datasets added to BRC, substantial additions to existing data, and improved communication with the NBN Gateway. The most high profile activity of the year has been the Harlequin Ladybird Survey, which has enabled us to observe the early stages of colonization by a mobile insect in greater detail than has been possible in any previous case

Large-scale and significant expression from pseudogenes in Sodalis glossinidius – a facultative bacterial endosymbiont

The majority of bacterial genomes have high coding efficiencies, but there are some genomes of intracellular bacteria that have low gene density. The genome of the endosymbiont Sodalis glossinidius contains almost 50 % pseudogenes containing mutations that putatively silence them at the genomic level. We have applied multiple ‘omic’ strategies, combining Illumina and Pacific Biosciences Single-Molecule Real-Time DNA sequencing and annotation, stranded RNA sequencing and proteome analysis to better understand the transcriptional and translational landscape of Sodalis pseudogenes, and potential mechanisms for their control. Between 53 and 74 % of the Sodalis transcriptome remains active in cell-free culture. The mean sense transcription from coding domain sequences (CDSs) is four times greater than that from pseudogenes. Comparative genomic analysis of six Illumina-sequenced Sodalis isolates from different host Glossina species shows pseudogenes make up ~40 % of the 2729 genes in the core genome, suggesting that they are stable and/or that Sodalis is a recent introduction across the genus Glossina as a facultative symbiont. These data shed further light on the importance of transcriptional and translational control in deciphering host–microbe interactions. The combination of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics gives a multidimensional perspective for studying prokaryotic genomes with a view to elucidating evolutionary adaptation to novel environmental niches

HST/NICMOS Observations of Massive Stellar Clusters Near the Galactic Center

We report Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Near-infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS) observations of the Arches and Quintuplet clusters, two extraordinary young clusters near the Galactic Center. For the first time, we have identified main sequence stars in the Galactic Center with initial masses well below 10 Msun. We present the first determination of the initial mass function (IMF) for any population in the Galactic Center, finding an IMF slope which is significantly more positive (Gamma approx -0.65) than the average for young clusters elsewhere in the Galaxy (Gamma approx -1.4). The apparent turnoffs in the color-magnitude diagrams suggest cluster ages which are consistent with the ages implied by the mixture of spectral types in the clusters; we find tau(age) approx 2+/-1 Myr for the Arches cluster, and tau(age) approx 4+/-1 Myr for the Quintuplet. We estimate total cluster masses by adding the masses of observed stars down to the 50% completeness limit, and then extrapolating down to a lower mass cutoff of 1 Msun. Using this method, we find > 10^4 Msun for the total mass of the Arches cluster. Such a determination for the Quintuplet cluster is complicated by the double-valued mass-magnitude relationship for clusters with ages > 3 Myr. We find a lower limit of 6300 Msun for the total cluster mass, and suggest a best estimate of twice this value which accounts for the outlying members of the cluster. Both clusters have masses which place them as the two most massive clusters in the Galaxy.Comment: accepted by ApJ higher resolution versions of figures 1 and 2 can be found at: ftp://quintup.astro.ucla.edu/nicmos1