Plasma Electron Beam Welder for Space Vehicles Final Report

Feasibility of developing plasma electron beam welding system for earth orbiting vehicl

Using Implicit Instructional Cues to Influence False Memory Induction

Previous research has shown that explicit cues specific to the encoding process (endogenous) or characteristic of the stimuli themselves (exogenous) can be used to direct a reader’s attentional resources towards either relational or item-specific information. By directing attention to relational information (and therefore away from item-specific information) the rate of false memory induction can be increased. The purpose of the current study was to investigate if a similar effect would be found by manipulating implicitly endogenous cues. An instructional manipulation was used to influence the perceptual action participants performed on word stimuli during the encoding of DRM list words. Results demonstrated that the instructional conditions that encouraged faster processing also led to an increased rate of false memory induction for semantically related words, supporting the hypothesis that attention was directed towards relational information. This finding supports the impoverished relational processing account of false memory induction. This supports the idea that implicitly endogenous cues, exogenous cues (like font) or explicitly endogenous cues (like training) can direct attentional resources during encoding

Historic Huntington Businesses: The Birth of Huntington, W.Va. 1871-1900

In the post-Civil War period of 1871 to 1900 the newly formed city of Huntington boomed in population and industry. Both immigrants and migrants alike flocked to the growing city which offered not only a fresh start and job opportunities but also educational opportunities such as the local Marshall College. This city’s strategic placement was ideal in that not only was it the halfway point between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, but it was also connected to the rest of the country by the growing railroad and the great Ohio River. These factors allowed for businesses of every want and need to develop, from cigar stores to undertakers, from livery stables to confectionaries, from used piano and organ stores to liquor stores. This e-book exhibit by Marshall University’s Special Collections Department highlights 150 of these early businesses

Contrasting trends of mass and optical properties of aerosols over the Northern Hemisphere from 1992 to 2011

Atmospheric aerosols affect both human health and climate. PMX is the mass concentration of aerosol particles that have aerodynamic diameters less than X μm, PM<sub>10</sub> was initially selected to measure the environmental impact of aerosols. Recently, it was realized that fine particles are more hazardous than larger ones and should be measured. Consequently, observational data for PM<sub>2.5</sub> have been obtained but only for a much shorter period than that of PM<sub>10</sub>. Optical extinction of aerosols, the inverse of meteorological visibility, is sensitive to particles less than 1.0 μm. These fine particles only account for a small part of total mass of aerosols although they are very efficient in light extinction. Comparisons are made between PM<sub>10</sub> and PM<sub>2.5</sub> over the period when the latter is available and with visibility data for a longer period. PM<sub>10</sub> has decreased by 44% in Europe from 1992 to 2009, 33% in the US from 1993 to 2010, 10% in Canada from 1994 to 2009, and 26% in China from 2000 to 2011. However, in contrast, aerosol optical extinction has increased 7% in the US, 10% in Canada, and 18% in China during the above study periods. The reduction of optical extinction over Europe of 5% is also much less than the 44% reduction in PM<sub>10</sub>. Over its short period of record PM<sub>2.5</sub> decreased less than PM<sub>10</sub>. Hence, PM<sub>10</sub> is neither a good measure of changes in smaller particles nor of their long-term trends, a result that has important implications for both climate impact and human health effects. The increased fraction of anthropogenic aerosol emission, such as from vehicle exhaust, to total atmospheric aerosols partly explains this contrasting trend of optical and mass properties of aerosols

X-ray observations of highly obscured τ_(9.7 μm) > 1 sources: an efficient method for selecting Compton-thick AGN?

Observations with the IRS spectrograph onboard Spitzer have found many sources with very deep Si features at 9.7 μm, that have optical depths of τ > 1. Since it is believed that a few of these systems in the local Universe are associated with Compton-thick active galactic nuclei (hereafter AGN), we set out to investigate whether the presence of a strong Si absorption feature is a good indicator of a heavily obscured AGN. We compile X-ray spectroscopic observations available in the literature on the optically-thick (τ_(9.7 μm) > 1) sources from the 12 μm IRAS Seyfert sample. We find that the majority of the high-τ optically confirmed Seyferts (six out of nine) in the 12 μm sample are probably Compton-thick. Thus, we provide direct evidence of a connection between mid-IR optically-thick galaxies and Compton-thick AGN, with the success rate being close to 70% in the local Universe. This is at least comparable to, if not better than, other rates obtained with photometric information in the mid to far-IR, or even mid-IR to X-rays. However, this technique cannot provide complete Compton-thick AGN samples, i.e., there are many Compton-thick AGN that do not display significant Si absorption, with the most notable example being NGC1068. After assessing the validity of the high 9.7 μm optical-depth technique in the local Universe, we attempt to construct a sample of candidate Compton-thick AGN at higher redshifts. We compile a sample of seven high-τ Spitzer sources in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) and five in the Spitzer First-Look Survey. All these have been selected to have no PAH features (EW_(6.2 μm) 10^(42) erg s^(−1)) of the detected GOODS sources corroborates that these are AGN. For FLS, ancillary optical spectroscopy reveals hidden nuclei in two more sources. SED fitting can support the presence of an AGN in the vast majority of sources. Owing to the limited photon statistics, we cannot derive useful constraints from X-ray spectroscopy on whether these sources are Compton-thick. However, the low L_(X)/L_(6 μm) luminosity ratios, suggest that at least four out of the six detected sources in GOODS may be associated with Compton-thick AGN