1,114 research outputs found
A historical study of the San Francisco Council of Churches senior citizens project
The purpose of this study is to give a historical account of the San Francisco Council of Churches Senior Citizen Projects. Also, the following will be discussed: Why is research being conducted in the areas of senior citizens? What are the problems of the senior citizen? What is this Agency doing for the senior citizens in San Francisco
Finding strong lenses in CFHTLS using convolutional neural networks
We train and apply convolutional neural networks, a machine learning
technique developed to learn from and classify image data, to
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) imaging for the
identification of potential strong lensing systems. An ensemble of four
convolutional neural networks was trained on images of simulated galaxy-galaxy
lenses. The training sets consisted of a total of 62,406 simulated lenses and
64,673 non-lens negative examples generated with two different methodologies.
The networks were able to learn the features of simulated lenses with accuracy
of up to 99.8% and a purity and completeness of 94-100% on a test set of 2000
simulations. An ensemble of trained networks was applied to all of the 171
square degrees of the CFHTLS wide field image data, identifying 18,861
candidates including 63 known and 139 other potential lens candidates. A second
search of 1.4 million early type galaxies selected from the survey catalog as
potential deflectors, identified 2,465 candidates including 117 previously
known lens candidates, 29 confirmed lenses/high-quality lens candidates, 266
novel probable or potential lenses and 2097 candidates we classify as false
positives. For the catalog-based search we estimate a completeness of 21-28%
with respect to detectable lenses and a purity of 15%, with a false-positive
rate of 1 in 671 images tested. We predict a human astronomer reviewing
candidates produced by the system would identify ~20 probable lenses and 100
possible lenses per hour in a sample selected by the robot. Convolutional
neural networks are therefore a promising tool for use in the search for lenses
in current and forthcoming surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey and the Large
Synoptic Survey Telescope.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by MNRA
Heat transfer coefficient saturation in superconducting Nb tunnel junctions contacted to a NbTiN circuit and an Au energy relaxation layer
In this paper we present the experimental realization of a Nb tunnel junction
connected to a high-gap superconducting NbTiN embedding circuit. We investigate
relaxation of nonequilibrium quasiparticles in a small volume Au layer between
the Nb tunnel junction and the NbTiN circuit. We find a saturation in the
effective heat-transfer coefficient consistent with a simple theoretical model.
This saturation is determined by the thickness of the Au layer. Our findings
are important for the design of the ideal Au energy relaxation layer for
practical SIS heterodyne mixers and we suggest two geometries, one, using a
circular Au layer and, two, using a half-circular Au layer. Our work is
concluded with an outlook of our future experiments.Comment: Applied Superconductivity Conference 201
A 490 GHz planar circuit balanced Nb-AlO-Nb quasiparticle mixer for radio astronomy: Application to quantitative local oscillator noise determination
This article presents a heterodyne experiment which uses a 380-520 GHz planar
circuit balanced Nb--Nb
superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) quasiparticle mixer with 4-8 GHz
instantaneous intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth to quantitatively determine
local oscillator (LO) noise. A balanced mixer is a unique tool to separate
noise at the mixer's LO port from other noise sources. This is not possible in
single-ended mixers. The antisymmetric IV characteristic of a SIS mixer further
helps to simplify the measurements. The double-sideband receiver sensitivity of
the balanced mixer is 2-4 times the quantum noise limit over the
measured frequencies with a maximum LO noise rejection of 15 dB. This work
presents independent measurements with three different LO sources that produce
the reference frequency but also an amount of near-carrier noise power which is
quantified in the experiment as a function of the LO and IF frequency in terms
of an equivalent noise temperature . In a second experiment we use only
one of two SIS mixers of the balanced mixer chip, in order to verify the
influence of near-carrier LO noise power on a single-ended heterodyne mixer
measurement. We find an IF frequency dependence of near-carrier LO noise power.
The frequency-resolved IF noise temperature slope is flat or slightly negative
for the single-ended mixer. This is in contrast to the IF slope of the balanced
mixer itself which is positive due to the expected IF roll-off of the mixer.
This indicates a higher noise level closer to the LO's carrier frequency. Our
findings imply that near-carrier LO noise has the largest impact on the
sensitivity of a receiver system which uses mixers with a low IF band, for
example superconducting hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, see manuscript for complete abstrac
The complex relationship between pediatric cardiac surgical case volumes and mortality rates in a national clinical database
ObjectiveWe sought to determine the association between pediatric cardiac surgical volume and mortality using sophisticated case-mix adjustment and a national clinical database.MethodsPatients 18 years of age or less who had a cardiac operation between 2002 and 2006 were identified in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Congenital Heart Surgery Database (32,413 patients from 48 programs). Programs were grouped by yearly pediatric cardiac surgical volume (small, <150; medium, 150–249; large, 250–349; and very large, ≥350 cases per year). Logistic regression was used to adjust mortality rates for volume, surgical case mix (Aristotle Basic Complexity and Risk Adjustment for Congenital Heart Surgery, Version 1 categories), patient risk factors, and year of operation.ResultsWith adjustment for patient-level risk factors and surgical case mix, there was an inverse relationship between overall surgical volume as a continuous variable and mortality (P = .002). When the data were displayed graphically, there appeared to be an inflection point between 200 and 300 cases per year. When volume was analyzed as a categorical variable, the relationship was most apparent for difficult operations (Aristotle technical difficulty component score, >3.0), for which mortality decreased from 14.8% (60/406) at small programs to 8.4% (157/1858) at very large programs (P = .02). The same was true for the subgroup of patients who underwent Norwood procedures (36.5% [23/63] vs 16.9% [81/479], P < .0001). After risk adjustment, all groups performed similarly for low-difficulty operations. Conversely, for difficult procedures, small programs performed significantly worse. For Norwood procedures, very large programs outperformed all other groups.ConclusionThere was an inverse association between pediatric cardiac surgical volume and mortality that became increasingly important as case complexity increased. Although volume was not associated with mortality for low-complexity cases, lower-volume programs underperformed larger programs as case complexity increased
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Genome-wide profiling of human cap-independent translation-enhancing elements.
We report an in vitro selection strategy to identify RNA sequences that mediate cap-independent initiation of translation. This method entails mRNA display of trillions of genomic fragments, selection for initiation of translation and high-throughput deep sequencing. We identified >12,000 translation-enhancing elements (TEEs) in the human genome, generated a high-resolution map of human TEE-bearing regions (TBRs), and validated the function of a subset of sequences in vitro and in cultured cells
Constraining the geometry of the reflection nebula NGC 2023 with [O I]: Emission & Absorption
We have mapped the NGC 2023 reflection nebula in the 63 and 145 micron
transitions of [O I] and the 158 micron [C II] spectral lines using the
heterodyne receiver upGREAT on SOFIA. The observations were used to identify
the diffuse and dense components of the PDR traced by the [C II] and [O I]
emission, respectively. The velocity-resolved observations reveal the presence
of a significant column of low-excitation atomic oxygen, seen in absorption in
the [O I] 63 micron spectra, amounting to about 20-60% of the oxygen column
seen in emission in the [O I] 145 micron spectra. Some self-absorption is also
seen in [C II], but for the most part it is hardly noticeable. The [C II] and
[O I] 63 micron spectra show strong red- and blue-shifted wings due to photo
evaporation flows especially in the southeastern and southern part of the
reflection nebula, where comparison with the mid- and high-J CO emission
indicates that the C+ region is expanding into a dense molecular cloud. Using a
two-slab toy model the large-scale self-absorption seen in [O I] 63 micron is
readily explained as originating in foreground low-excitation gas associated
with the source. Similar columns have also been observed recently in other
Galactic photon-dominated-regions (PDRs). These results have two implications:
for the velocity-unresolved extra-galactic observations this could impact the
use of [O I] 63 micron as a tracer of massive star formation and secondly the
widespread self-absorption in [O I] 63 micron leads to underestimate of the
column density of atomic oxygen derived from this tracer and necessitates the
use of alternative indirect methods.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
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