Waste Glass Melter Process Monitoring with Millimeter Waves

Millimeter-wave technologies can provide novel and reliable on-line monitoring capability for many important parameters inside nuclear waste glass melters including temperature, emissivity, density, and viscosity. The physical and analytical basis for millimeter-wave monitoring of molten glass is presented here along with initial experimental results. Tests were carried out at a frequency of 137 GHz (2.19 mm) with ceramic waveguides at temperatures up to 1500 C. The ability to resolve emissivity and temperature was demonstrated. Cold cap temperature profile measurements have been obtained in a pilot scale melter using a rotating waveguide. Also, the capability to monitor viscosity over a range of 20 to 2000 Poise was shown for a Hanford waste glass

Anomalous Spreading of Power-Law Quantum Wave Packets

We introduce power-law tail quantum wave packets. We show that they can be seen as eigenfunctions of a Hamiltonian with a physical potential. We prove that the free evolution of these packets presents an asymptotic decay of the maximum of the wave packets which is anomalous for an interval of the characterizing power-law exponent. We also prove that the number of finite moments of the wave packets is a conserved quantity during the evolution of the wave packet in the free space.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Analysis of bolted flanged panel joint for GRP sectional tanks

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Ergot resistance in sorghum in relation to flowering, inoculation technique and disease development

Ergot is an important disease of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) in parts of Africa and Asia. Studies were conducted to determine the relationship between flowering biology and ergot infection, and to develop an artificial field-screening technique to identify ergot resistance in sorghum. Spikelets resisted infection after anthesis, but each day's delay in anthesis after inoculation supported 8-3% more ergot. The screening technique consisted of three components: trimming of panicles to remove pollinated spikelets before inoculation, a single inoculation of trimmed panicles, and panicle bagging for 7-10 days. Inoculated panicles were evaluated by a qualitative visual rating method (on a 1-5 scale) and a quantitative spikelet counting method. Selected accessions from the world collection of sorghum germplasm were screened at Karama Research Station, Rwanda, for two seasons and 12 ergot-resistant lines were identified. These were also resistant at ICRISAT Centre, India

HIV Testing of At Risk Patients in a Large Integrated Health Care System

OBJECTIVE: Early identification of HIV infection is critical for patients to receive life-prolonging treatment and risk-reduction counseling. Understanding HIV screening practices and barriers to HIV testing is an important prelude to designing successful HIV screening programs. Our objective was to evaluate current practice patterns for identification of HIV. METHODS: We used a retrospective cohort analysis of 13,991 at-risk patients seen at 4 large Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health-care systems. We also reviewed 1,100 medical records of tested patients. We assessed HIV testing rates among at-risk patients, the rationale for HIV testing, and predictors of HIV testing and of HIV infection. RESULTS: Of the 13,991 patients at risk for HIV, only 36% had been HIV-tested. The prevalence of HIV ranged from 1% to 20% among tested patients at the 4 sites. Approximately 90% of patients who were tested had a documented reason for testing. CONCLUSION: One-half to two-thirds of patients at risk for HIV had not been tested within our selected VA sites. Among tested patients, the rationale for HIV testing was well documented. Further testing of at-risk patients could clearly benefit patients who have unidentified HIV infection by providing earlier access to life-prolonging therapy

Hypothermia for encephalopathy in low-income and middle-income countries: feasibility of whole-body cooling using a low-cost servo-controlled device

Although therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is the standard of care for hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy in high-income countries, the safety and efficacy of this therapy in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) is unknown. We aimed to describe the feasibility of TH using a low-cost servo-controlled cooling device and the short-term outcomes of the cooled babies in LMIC. Design: We recruited babies with moderate or severe hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (aged <6 hours) admitted to public sector tertiary neonatal units in India over a 28-month period. We administered whole-body cooling (set core temperature 33.5°C) using a servo-controlled device for 72 hours, followed by passive rewarming. We collected the data on short-term neonatal outcomes prior to hospital discharge. Results: Eighty-two babies were included-61 (74%) had moderate and 21 (26%) had severe encephalopathy. Mean (SD) hypothermia cooling induction time was 1.7 hour (1.5) and the effective cooling time 95% (0.08). The mean (SD) hypothermia induction time was 1.7 hour (1.5 hour), core temperature during cooling was 33.4°C (0.2), rewarming rate was 0.34°C (0.16°C) per hour and the effective cooling time was 95% (8%). Twenty-five (51%) babies had gastric bleeds, 6 (12%) had pulmonary bleeds and 21 (27%) had meconium on delivery. Fifteen (18%) babies died before discharge from hospital. Heart rate more than 120 bpm during cooling (P=0.01) and gastric bleeds (P<0.001) were associated with neonatal mortality. Conclusions: The low-cost servo-controlled cooling device maintained the core temperature well within the target range. Adequately powered clinical trials are required to establish the safety and efficacy of TH in LMICs. Clinical trial registration number: NCT01760629