254 research outputs found
Marine geology of Casco Bay and its margin
Guidebook for field trips in southwestern Maine: New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference, 78th annual meeting, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine, October 17, 18, and 19, 1986: Trip B-
Perceived barriers and facilitators to participating in the North Carolina Healthy Food Small Retailer Program: a mixed-methods examination considering investment effectiveness
Objective: The North Carolina Legislature appropriated funds in 2016-2019 for the Healthy Food Small Retailer Program (HFSRP), providing small retailers located in food deserts with equipment to stock nutrient-dense foods and beverages. The study aimed to: (1) examine factors facilitating and constraining implementation of, and participation in, the HFSRP from the perspective of storeowners and (2) measure and evaluate the impact and effectiveness of investment in the HFSRP. Design: The current analysis uses both qualitative and quantitative assessments of storeowner perceptions and store outcomes, as well as two innovative measures of policy investment effectiveness. Qualitative semi-structured interviews and descriptive quantitative approaches, including monthly financial reports and activity forms, and end-of-programme evaluations were collected from participating HFSRP storeowners. Setting: Eight corner stores in North Carolina that participated in the two cohorts (2016-2018; 2017-2019) of the HFSRP. Participants: Owners of corner stores participating in the HFSRP. Results: All storeowners reported that the HFSRP benefitted their stores. In addition, the HFSRP had a positive impact on sales across each category of healthy food products. Storeowners reported that benefits would be enhanced with adjustments to programme administration and support. Specific suggestions included additional information regarding which healthy foods and beverages to stock; inventory management; handling of perishable produce; product display; modified reporting requirements and a more efficient process of delivering and maintaining equipment. Conclusions: All storeowners reported several benefits of the HFSRP and would recommend that other storeowners participate. The barriers and challenges they reported inform potential approaches to ensuring success and sustainability of the HFSRP and similar initiatives underway in other jurisdictions
A shooting algorithm for problems with singular arcs
In this article we propose a shooting algorithm for a class of optimal
control problems for which all control variables appear linearly. The shooting
system has, in the general case, more equations than unknowns and the
Gauss-Newton method is used to compute a zero of the shooting function. This
shooting algorithm is locally quadratically convergent if the derivative of the
shooting function is one-to-one at the solution. The main result of this paper
is to show that the latter holds whenever a sufficient condition for weak
optimality is satisfied. We note that this condition is very close to a second
order necessary condition. For the case when the shooting system can be reduced
to one having the same number of unknowns and equations (square system) we
prove that the mentioned sufficient condition guarantees the stability of the
optimal solution under small perturbations and the invertibility of the
Jacobian matrix of the shooting function associated to the perturbed problem.
We present numerical tests that validate our method.Comment: No. RR-7763 (2011); Journal of Optimization, Theory and Applications,
published as 'Online first', January 201
Observation of exclusive DVCS in polarized electron beam asymmetry measurements
We report the first results of the beam spin asymmetry measured in the
reaction e + p -> e + p + gamma at a beam energy of 4.25 GeV. A large asymmetry
with a sin(phi) modulation is observed, as predicted for the interference term
of Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering and the Bethe-Heitler process. The
amplitude of this modulation is alpha = 0.202 +/- 0.028. In leading-order and
leading-twist pQCD, the alpha is directly proportional to the imaginary part of
the DVCS amplitude.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
An examination of intentions of recommending fitness centers by user members
The goal of this study was to examine what experiences members have with fitness centers that influence
their intentions for recommendation. After item generation and content validity, as well as a pilot test, a survey was
conducted among members of five different clubs (n=1750). The questionnaire included measures of service quality
attributes, accessibility, well-being in life, well-being in a club, and intentions to recommend a fitness center. Results
using a structural equation model provide evidence that only service quality attributes and well-being in a club have
positive effect on intentions of users to recommend it. Well-being in life has a negative effect on the intentions for recommendation,
while accessibility shows no predictive effect. These findings suggest implications for the management
of a club, such as the need to create a pleasant environment and to provide a personalized service directed towards the
members’ goals in order to improve well-being in a club and contribute to increase the intentions to recommend the
fitness centers to others.O objetivo
deste estudo foi examinar como as experiências de usuários de centros de atividade fÃsica interferem nas intenções em
recomendar serviços. Depois de gerar itens e validar o conteúdo, aplicou-se um pré-teste, o questionário final foi aplicado
a sócios de cinco clubes de fitness (n=1.750). O questionário incluiu atributos da qualidade do serviço, acessibilidade,
bem-estar na vida, bem-estar no clube e intenção de recomendar. O modelo de equações estruturais mostrou que apenas
os atributos da qualidade do serviço e bem-estar no clube têm um efeito positivo sobre as intenções de recomendar.
O bem-estar na vida tem um efeito negativo sobre as intenções para recomendar, enquanto que a acessibilidade não
mostra nenhum efeito preditivo. Estas conclusões sugerem a necessidade de criar um ambiente agradável nos clubes e
de oferecer um serviço personalizado para os objetivos dos sócios, a fim de melhorar o bem-estar no clube e contribuir
para a intenção de recomendar o ginásio.
Palavras-chave: intenção de recomendar, atributos da qualSin financiación0.191 SJR (2014) Q3, posición 172/231 Health (social science), 1027/1811 Medicine (miscellaneous); Q4, 112/128 Sports scienceUE
The PHENIX Experiment at RHIC
The physics emphases of the PHENIX collaboration and the design and current
status of the PHENIX detector are discussed. The plan of the collaboration for
making the most effective use of the available luminosity in the first years of
RHIC operation is also presented.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Further details of the PHENIX physics program
available at http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/phenix
An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics
For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types
A Coin Vibrational Motor Swimming at Low Reynolds Number
Low-cost coin vibrational motors, used in haptic feedback, exhibit rotational internal motion inside a rigid case. Because the motor case motion exhibits rotational symmetry, when placed into a fluid such as glycerin, the motor does not swim even though its oscillatory motions induce steady streaming in the fluid. However, a piece of rubber foam stuck to the curved case and giving the motor neutral buoyancy also breaks the rotational symmetry allowing it to swim. We measured a 1 cm diameter coin vibrational motor swimming in glycerin at a speed of a body length in 3 seconds or at 3 mm/s. The swim speed puts the vibrational motor in a low Reynolds number regime similar to bacterial motility, but because of the oscillations of the motor it is not analogous to biological organisms. Rather the swimming vibrational motor may inspire small inexpensive robotic swimmers that are robust as they contain no external moving parts. A time dependent Stokes equation planar sheet model suggests that the swim speed depends on a steady streaming velocity V stream ~ Re 1/2s U 0 where U 0 is the velocity of surface oscillations, and streaming Reynolds number Re s = U 20/(ων) for motor angular frequency ω and fluid kinematic viscosity ν
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