The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment

The Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment is designed to study the disappearance of antineutrinos from the Daya Bay nuclear power plant in China. The goal of this experiment is to measure the remaining unknown neutrino mixing parameter theta13 with high precision: sin^2(2Θ_(13))<0.01. The experiment is presently under construction and it is anticipated that data acquisition will begin in 2011

Using the Annotated Bibliography as a Resource for Indicative Summarization

We report on a language resource consisting of 2000 annotated bibliography entries, which is being analyzed as part of our research on indicative document summarization. We show how annotated bibliographies cover certain aspects of summarization that have not been well-covered by other summary corpora, and motivate why they constitute an important form to study for information retrieval. We detail our methodology for collecting the corpus, and overview our document feature markup that we introduced to facilitate summary analysis. We present the characteristics of the corpus, methods of collection, and show its use in finding the distribution of types of information included in indicative summaries and their relative ordering within the summaries.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Whose Line Is It Anyway? Probable Cause and Historical Cell Site Data

This Note argues that the “specific and articulable facts” standard does not accord with the intent of the drafters of the Fourth Amendment to protect individuals’ reasonable expectation of privacy. Although allowing the government access to historical cell site data to use as evidence in a criminal proceeding aids law enforcement, legislators must recognize the risks that flow from allowing the government to retrieve cell phone location information without probable cause. At least one study suggests that the public is losing confidence in their ability to control personal information, ultimately creating public discomfort with and suspicion of government surveillance. If Congress declines to amend the statute, the idea of a “big brother” government watching its people may disturb the sensibilities of the public. In 2012, cell phone providers responded to over 1.1 million federal, state, and local law enforcement requests for cell phone records, with the public largely remaining unaware of the volume of these requests. Part I presents the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence regarding this issue, while Part II highlights the analytical problems the circuit courts have faced in attempting to reconcile Supreme Court decisions in order to decide historical cell site data cases. Finally, Part III presents potential resolutions of the proper standard for historical cell site data retrieval and urges Congress to reexamine the SCA’s “specific and articulable facts” standard to better comport with society’s privacy expectations

Whose Line Is It Anyway? Probable Cause and Historical Cell Site Data

This Note argues that the “specific and articulable facts” standard does not accord with the intent of the drafters of the Fourth Amendment to protect individuals’ reasonable expectation of privacy. Although allowing the government access to historical cell site data to use as evidence in a criminal proceeding aids law enforcement, legislators must recognize the risks that flow from allowing the government to retrieve cell phone location information without probable cause. At least one study suggests that the public is losing confidence in their ability to control personal information, ultimately creating public discomfort with and suspicion of government surveillance. If Congress declines to amend the statute, the idea of a “big brother” government watching its people may disturb the sensibilities of the public. In 2012, cell phone providers responded to over 1.1 million federal, state, and local law enforcement requests for cell phone records, with the public largely remaining unaware of the volume of these requests. Part I presents the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence regarding this issue, while Part II highlights the analytical problems the circuit courts have faced in attempting to reconcile Supreme Court decisions in order to decide historical cell site data cases. Finally, Part III presents potential resolutions of the proper standard for historical cell site data retrieval and urges Congress to reexamine the SCA’s “specific and articulable facts” standard to better comport with society’s privacy expectations

Resources for Evaluation of Summarization Techniques

We report on two corpora to be used in the evaluation of component systems for the tasks of (1) linear segmentation of text and (2) summary-directed sentence extraction. We present characteristics of the corpora, methods used in the collection of user judgments, and an overview of the application of the corpora to evaluating the component system. Finally, we discuss the problems and issues with construction of the test set which apply broadly to the construction of evaluation resources for language technologies.Comment: LaTeX source, 5 pages, US Letter, uses lrec98.st

Measuring Neutrino Oscillations with Nuclear Reactors

Since the first direct observations of antineutrino events by Reines and Cowan in the 1950's [1], nuclear reactors have been an important tool in the study of neutrino properties. More recently, the study of neutrino oscillations has been a very active area of research. The pioneering observation of oscillations by the KamLAND experiment has provided crucial information on the neutrino mixing matrix. New experiments to study the remaining unknown mixing angle are currently under development. These recent studies and potential future developments will be discussed

Investigation of imaging and flight guidance concepts for rotorcraft zero visibility approach and landing

A simulation experiment to explore the use of an augmented pictorial display to approach and land a helicopter in zero visibility conditions was conducted in a fixed base simulator. A literature search was also conducted to determine related work. A display was developed and pilot in-the-loop evaluations were conducted. The pictorial display was a simulated, high resolution radar image, augmented with various parameters to improve distance and motion cues. Approaches and landings were accomplished, but with higher workloads and less accuracy than necessary for a practical system. Recommendations are provided for display improvements and a follow on simulation study in a moving based simulator

Meeting the needs of critical care patients after discharge home: a qualitative exploratory study of patient perspectives

Objectives To describe former critical care patients’ perspectives on the support needed to optimise recovery. Background With improved survival rates in critical care, increasing focus is being placed on survivorship and how best to support patients return to former activity. Little is known about what support patients themselves view as important, and this has implications for efficacy and acceptability of services provided. Study design A qualitative exploratory study of the experiences of support received by critical care survivors. Research Methodology Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twelve critical care survivors, recruited from a charity and a patient and public involvement group. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis to describe patterns in the participants’ experiences. Findings Four themes of support were described as: effective management of transfer anxiety; tailored information provision; timely access to services and a supportive social network. Conclusion Survivors of critical care should be equipped with information about their critical care stay, ongoing health issues and recovery; and provided with holistic care at home. Critical care follow-up was an effective way of meeting many of these needs, but needs to be flexible to be useful to attendees. Peer support groups (face-to-face and online) provided information, reassurance, a social network and an avenue for those who had longer-lasting problems than current services provide for. Relevance to Clinical Practice Whilst there are commonalities in the problems faced by critical care survivors, recovery is highly individualised, and current support services do not have sufficient flexibility to cater for this. This study shows that many survivors experience aftereffects of critical care that outlast the support they are given. These longer-term survivors are often excluded from research studies because of fears of recall bias, resulting in poor understanding of their experiences