Mobile Opera Backdrop

Opera San Luis Obispo requires an acoustically projecting stage backdrop for their future plan of deploying a mobile opera house. The custom stage backdrop must be low-cost, easy to assemble and must project the performance sound to outdoor audiences. Other design requirements include being transportable in a step van, the ability to be assembled quickly by a crew of two, resistance to various outdoor conditions, the ability to mount accessories from the walls, and should meet a budget of $5,000. With the scope of the project understood, the three-quarter project is outlined. During the first quarter, the main deliverables included the scope of work and the preliminary design review. During the design process, a variety of brainstorming sessions were held to develop ideas, while decision matrices yielded the superior full design concept. Based on the ideation activities and evaluations performed, the design will be a collapsible aluminum frame that uses ball-bungees to attach to a grommeted polyester coated vinyl tarps. In preparation for the Preliminary Design Review, analysis of all major components of the design was performed in order to propose a final design with all materials, dimensions, and manufacturing processes identified. Inquiries were made to several manufacturing companies and cost estimates were obtained for the custom manufactured pipes, endplates, connectors, and vinyl tarps required. Parts were then ordered to commence the manufacture phase and testing of components. Manufacturing and testing began, taking advantage of the facilities and equipment available on-campus to cut the pipes to size, drill holes, and water-jet cut the endplates. Throughout the manufacturing process, components and subassemblies were tested to validate the design and mitigate possible safety concerns. Adjustments from these sessions were made to refine the final design and assembly procedure. With the refinements finalized, the final design was presented on June 1, 2018 at the Cal Poly’s Spring 2018 Senior Project Expo

Recognizing Suicide Lethality Factors: Who is Competent?

Not all of those likely to counsel potential suicide victims are equally qualified to do so. How do the competency levels of various professional groups rate

An SU(2)-symmetric Semidefinite Programming Hierarchy for Quantum Max Cut

Understanding and approximating extremal energy states of local Hamiltonians is a central problem in quantum physics and complexity theory. Recent work has focused on developing approximation algorithms for local Hamiltonians, and in particular the ``Quantum Max Cut'' (QMax-Cut) problem, which is closely related to the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model. In this work, we introduce a family of semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations based on the Navascues-Pironio-Acin (NPA) hierarchy which is tailored for QMaxCut by taking into account its SU(2) symmetry. We show that the hierarchy converges to the optimal QMaxCut value at a finite level, which is based on a new characterization of the algebra of SWAP operators. We give several analytic proofs and computational results showing exactness/inexactness of our hierarchy at the lowest level on several important families of graphs. We also discuss relationships between SDP approaches for QMaxCut and frustration-freeness in condensed matter physics and numerically demonstrate that the SDP-solvability practically becomes an efficiently-computable generalization of frustration-freeness. Furthermore, by numerical demonstration we show the potential of SDP algorithms to perform as an approximate method to compute physical quantities and capture physical features of some Heisenberg-type statistical mechanics models even away from the frustration-free regions

The Effectiveness of Coenzyme Q1 and Q10 in Mitigating Myocardial Reperfusion/Ischemia (MI/R) Injury

Mitochondria may be a principle source of oxidative stress causing MI/R injury. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is essential for electron transport in normal mitochondria, has antioxidant properties but its bioavailability is likely reduced due to oxidative stress during MI/R. Coenzyme Q1 (CoQ1) is a derivative of CoQ10, but is a more potent antioxidant than CoQ10 due to a shorter isoprene chain. We hypothesize that CoQ1 will exhibit better cardioprotective effects during MI/R. CoQ1 (MW=250 g/mol; 20 μM, n=5) and CoQ10 (MW=863 g/mol; 20 μM, n=5) were given at reperfusion in isolated rat hearts subjected to I (30 min)/R (45 min). We found that MI/R hearts (n=7) and MI/R+DMSO hearts (n=4) (0.2% DMSO was used to solubilize CoQ1 and CoQ10) exhibited significantly compromised cardiac contractile/diastolic pressures and coronary flow during reperfusion compared to those of sham hearts (n=5). By contrast, the final left ventricular developed pressure was significantly improved by CoQ1 treatment (56.0±5.3 mmHg), but not CoQ10 treatment (38.4±8.6 mmHg), when compared to that in MI/R hearts (33.6±6.2 mmHg) and MI/R+DMSO hearts (36.4±9.7 mmHg) (p\u3c0.05). Similarly, the final peak of the firstderivative of left ventricular pressure was significantly higher in CoQ1 treatment (1294.2±104.6mmHg/s), but not CoQ10 treatment (770.6±120.1 mmHg/s), when compared to that in MI/R hearts (700.6±134.7 mmHg/s) and MI/R+DMSO hearts (and 741.5±168.6 mmHg/s) (p\u3c0.05). CoQ1 and CoQ10 treated hearts showed no improvement on diastolic pressure and coronary flow compared to the controls. Moreover, infarct size was reduced by CoQ1 treatment (25±3%) and CoQ10 treatment (29±4%) compared to that in untreated MI/R (44±6%) and MI/R+DMSO (35±3%). In summary, our preliminary results indicate that CoQ1 was more effective than CoQ10 in restoring post-reperfused cardiac contractile function, but not infarct size during MI/R

Unlocking the genetic diversity and population structure of the newly introduced two-row spring European HerItage Barley collecTion (ExHIBiT)

In the last century, breeding programs have traditionally favoured yield-related traits, grown under high-input conditions, resulting in a loss of genetic diversity and an increased susceptibility to stresses in crops. Thus, exploiting understudied genetic resources, that potentially harbour tolerance genes, is vital for sustainable agriculture. Northern European barley germplasm has been relatively understudied despite its key role within the malting industry. The European Heritage Barley collection (ExHIBiT) was assembled to explore the genetic diversity in European barley focusing on Northern European accessions and further address environmental pressures. ExHIBiT consists of 363 spring-barley accessions, focusing on two-row type. The collection consists of landraces (~14%), old cultivars (~18%), elite cultivars (~67%) and accessions with unknown breeding history (~1%), with 70% of the collection from Northern Europe. The population structure of the ExHIBiT collection was subdivided into three main clusters primarily based on the accession's year of release using 26,585 informative SNPs based on 50k iSelect single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array data. Power analysis established a representative core collection of 230 genotypically and phenotypically diverse accessions. The effectiveness of this core collection for conducting statistical and association analysis was explored by undertaking genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using 24,876 SNPs for nine phenotypic traits, four of which were associated with SNPs. Genomic regions overlapping with previously characterised flowering genes (HvZTLb) were identified, demonstrating the utility of the ExHIBiT core collection for locating genetic regions that determine important traits. Overall, the ExHIBiT core collection represents the high level of untapped diversity within Northern European barley, providing a powerful resource for researchers and breeders to address future climate scenarios.</p

Management of secondary risk factors in patients with intermittent claudication

Objectives: the first line management of patients with intermittent claudication is "best medical therapy'' i.e., smoking cessation, exercise, antiplatelet therapy and risk factors modification. The aim of this study was to assess the current management of risk factors in primary care and to compare General Practitioner (GP) attitudes and actual management. Design and Methods: postal questionnaire of all 336 GPs in the referral area (Grampian, Scotland). Questionnaire and measurement of serum cholesterol, blood glucose and HbA1c of new clinic patients (n 104) with claudication referred by general practitioners. Results: a 73% GP response rate was obtained. Ninety-five percent of GPs would treat risk factors. The vast majority would prescribe aspirin, yet 28% of patients were on no anti-platelet therapy. Eighty-nine percent of GPs would advise an increase in exercise but only 14% of patients recalled being told to do so. One in seven of the GPs would not check serum cholesterol, 18% considered cholesterol lowering therapy to be primary prevention and 41% would only treat levels above 5.5 mmol/l. Eighty-five percent of patients were on a statin or had a cholesterol above 5 mmol/L. Seventy-seven percent of GPs would check glucose levels, and 14% of patients were found to be previously undiagnosed diabetics. Conclusions: risk factors in claudicants are suboptimally managed. Urgent guidelines for the specific management of claudicants by general practitioners, as well as strategies to ensure their implementation, are required.peer-reviewe

Superboom Caustic Analysis and Measurement Program (SCAMP) Final Report

The objectives of the Superboom Caustic Analysis and Measurement (SCAMP) Program were to develop and validate, via flight-test measurements, analytical models for sonic boom signatures in and around focal zones as they are expected to occur during commercial aircraft transition from subsonic to supersonic flight, and to apply these models to focus boom prediction of low-boom aircraft designs. The SCAMP program has successfully investigated sonic boom focusing both analytically and experimentally, while gathering a comprehensive empirical flight test and acoustic dataset, and developing a suite of focused sonic boom prediction tools. An experimental flight and acoustic measurement test was designed during the initial year of the SCAMP program, with execution of the SCAMP flight test occurring in May 2011. The current SCAMP team, led by Wyle, includes partners from the Boeing Company, Pennsylvania State University, Gulfstream Aerospace, Eagle Aeronautics, and Central Washington University. Numerous collaborators have also participated by supporting the experiment with human and equipment resources at their own expense. The experiment involved precision flight of a McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-18B executing different maneuvers that created focused sonic booms. The maneuvers were designed to center on the flight regime expected for commercial supersonic aircraft transonic transition, and also span a range of caustic curvatures in order to provide a variety of conditions for code validations. The SCAMP experiment was designed to capture concurrent F-18B on-board flight instrumentation data, high-fidelity ground-based and airborne acoustic data, and surface and upper air meteorological data. Close coordination with NASA Dryden resulted in the development of new experimental instrumentation and techniques to facilitate the SCAMP flight-test execution, including the development of an F-18B Mach rate cockpit display, TG-14 powered glider in-flight sonic boom measurement instrumentation and "Where's the Focus?" (WTF) software for near-real time way-point computation accounting for local atmospherics. In May 2011, 13 F-18B flights were conducted during 5 flying days over a 2 week period. A densely populated 10,000 ft-long ground acoustic array with 125-ft microphone spacing was designed to capture pre-, focus, and post-focus regions. The ground-based acoustic array was placed in a nominally east-west orientation in the remote Cuddeback lakebed region, north of Edwards AFB. This area was carefully selected to avoid placing focused booms on populated areas or solar power facilities. For the SCAMP measurement campaign, approvals were obtained to temporarily extend the Black Mountain supersonic corridor northward by three miles. The SCAMP flight tests successfully captured 70 boom events, with 61 focus passes, and 9 calibration passes. Seventeen of the focus passes and three of the calibration passes were laterally offset; with the others being centerline flights. Airborne incoming sonic boom wave measurements were measured by the TG-14 for 10 of the F-18B flight passes including one maximum focus signature, several N-u combinations, several overlapped N-u signatures, and several evanescent waves. During the 27-month program, the SCAMP team developed a suite of integrated computer codes with sonic boom focusing predictive capabilities: PCBoom, Lossy Nonlinear Tricomi Equation Method (LNTE) and the Nonlinear Progressive wave Equation (NPE) method. PCBoom propagates the rays through the atmosphere and, in addition to legacy focus signature prediction based on the Gill-Seebass method, provides input source characteristics and propagation parameters to LNTE and NPE. LNTE, a Tricomi solver that incorporates atmospheric losses, computes the focus signature at the focus, and computes the focus signature in the vicinity of the focal zone, including the evanescent and post-focus zones. LNTE signature auralization from low-boom vehicle designs has been demonstrated in the NASA Langley Interior Effects Room (IER). The NPE has also been validated for use in prediction of focused ground boom signatures in sonic boom focal zones. The NPE formulation has the capability to incorporate atmospheric turbulence in the predictions. This has been applied to sonic boom propagation in the past. Prediction of turbulence effects on focal zone signatures was not, however, explored during the SCAMP program