Efficacy of laser preionization with a semiconductor source and propene addition

It is established that propene is an effective additive instabilising uv preionised CO2 TEA laser discharges: its effect being particularly pronounced with semiconductor-edge preionised lasers where the preionisation levels are shown to be low

Beyond TRIPS: Why the WTO's Doha Round is Unhealthy

OA Monitor ExerciseOA Monitor ExerciseOA Monitor ExerciseThe current round of World Trade Organization (wto) negotiations—the Doha Round—has significant implications for global health which have received insufficient attention from the global health community. All too often the health implications of global trade agreements are examined only after their conclusion, and are concerned only with intellectual property rights. This paper seeks to move beyond this narrow focus and elucidate the wider health implications of the Doha Round. It explores the negative effect of the Round on state capacity to provide and regulate health services in low-income countries, and the impact it will have on livelihoods among the poor and their ability to access health services. Overall the paper makes the case for greater engagement from the health community with the wto and the Doha Round negotiations beyond the customary focus on intellectual property rights

Studies of X-ray clusters of galaxies/intergalactic plasmas

Intergalactic plasmas were investigated from both an observational and theoretical point of view. A multiobject spectrometer, the MX spectrograph was used to obtain detailed dynamical information on clusters of galaxies; this information was then compared with X ray emission from hot gas in these clusters. Several spectra of galaxies are presented, and data reduction of the spectra was discussed. The existence of quasar winds in Seyfert galaxies and the interaction between such a wind and the interstellar medium also were considered

Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys

Valid predictions for the direction of nonresponse bias were obtained from subjective estimates and extrapolations in an analysis of mail survey data from published studies. For estimates of the magnitude of bias, the use of extrapolations led to substantial improvements over a strategy of not using extrapolations

Planet formation around stars of various masses: Hot super-Earths

We consider trends resulting from two formation mechanisms for short-period super-Earths: planet-planet scattering and migration. We model scenarios where these planets originate near the snow line in ``cold finger'' circumstellar disks. Low-mass planet-planet scattering excites planets to low periastron orbits only for lower mass stars. With long circularisation times, these planets reside on long-period eccentric orbits. Closer formation regions mean planets that reach short-period orbits by migration are most common around low-mass stars. Above ~1 Solar mass, planets massive enough to migrate to close-in orbits before the gas disk dissipates are above the critical mass for gas giant formation. Thus, there is an upper stellar mass limit for short-period super-Earths that form by migration. If disk masses are distributed as a power law, planet frequency increases with metallicity because most disks have low masses. For disk masses distributed around a relatively high mass, planet frequency decreases with increasing metallicity. As icy planets migrate, they shepherd interior objects toward the star, which grow to ~1 Earth mass. In contrast to icy migrators, surviving shepherded planets are rocky. Upon reaching short-period orbits, planets are subject to evaporation processes. The closest planets may be reduced to rocky or icy cores. Low-mass stars have lower EUV luminosities, so the level of evaporation decreases with decreasing stellar mass.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. 13 pages of emulateap

Statistical scene generation for polarimetric imaging systems

Little publicly available data exists for polarimetric measurements. When designing task specific polarimetric systems, the statistical properties of the task specific data becomes important. Until better polarimetric datasets are available to deduce statistics from, the statistics must be simulated to test instrument performance. Most imaged scenes have been shown to follow a power law power spectral density distribution, for both natural and city scenes. Furthermore, imaged data appears to follow a power law power spectral distribution temporally. We are interested in generating image sets which change over time, and at the same time are correlated between different components (spectral or polarimetric). In this brief communication, we present a framework and provide code to generate such data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 3 matlab function

Production of mullite fibers

Disclosed here is a process for making mullite fibers wherein a hydrolizable silicon compound and an aluminum compound in the form of a difunctional aluminum chelate are hydrolized to form sols using water and an alcohol with a catalytic amount of hydrochloric acid. The sols are mixed in a molar ratio of aluminum to silicon of 3 to 1 and, under polycondensation conditions, a fibrous gel is formed. From this gel the mullite fibers can be produced

Electrostatic charging artefacts in Lorentz electron tomography of MFM tip stray fields

Using the technique of differential phase contrast (DPC) Lorentz electron microscopy, the magnetic stray field distribution from magnetic force microscopy (MFM) tips can be calculated in a plane in front of the tip using tomographic reconstruction techniques. Electrostatic charging of the tip during DPC imaging can significantly distort these field reconstructions. Using a simple point charge model, this paper illustrates the effect of electrostatic charging of the sample on the accuracy of tomographic field reconstructions. A procedure for separating electrostatic and magnetic effects is described, and is demonstrated using experimental tomographic data obtained from a modified MFM tip