1,785 research outputs found
Multilayer infrared beamsplitter film system
Multilayer infrared beamsplitter film system on a potassium bromide crystal substrate is operational over a wavelength range of 2.5 to 25 microns with nearly equal broadband reflectance and transmittance. It is useful in optical coating, vacuum deposition, radiometry, interferometry, and spectrometry
High efficiency optical beamsplitter designed for operation in the infrared region
Beamsplitter system uses potassium bromide as substrate for operating in the spectral region between 5 and 30 microns and calcium fluoride for narrowband applications. It uses a 13-layer film which yields nearly equal broadband infrared reflectance and transmittance
Culturally Competent Healthcare Services: Overcoming Language Barriers in Utica, New York
This purpose of this research project is to investigate culturally competent healthcare practices in regards to language barriers faced by immigrants and physicians in Utica, New York using concepts and models employed within cultural ethnography and medical sociology. Striving for culturally competent healthcare includes overcoming language differences to help establish a patient/physician relationship. The biopsychosocial model of medical sociology stresses the importance of establishing effective communication for a better patient/physician relationship within the patient–centered approach to medical care. Utica, New York has a growing population of immigrants from numerous countries, most of whom speak no or very little English. The biopsychosocial model recognizes that a patient must be addressed as a whole person and that effective communication needs to be established, including overcoming any language barriers. This research identifies the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Healthcare (CLAS) and analyzes the extent to which the area’s healthcare groups have adopted those standards. The research employs open-ended survey/interview questions to gain insight on the concerns that the area physicians, immigrants and interpreters have with the adopted culturally competent healthcare practices, especially those related to the patient/physician relationship of non-English speaking patients. This project is designed to identify common areas of concerns in culturally competent healthcare practices and to help area physicians, healthcare administrators and the larger community understand the problems Utica New York faces to prevent any possible breakdowns in culturally competent healthcare in the near future
Polarimetric variations of binary stars. II. Numerical simulations for circular and eccentric binaries in Mie scattering envelopes
We present numerical simulations of the periodic polarimetric variations
produced by a binary star placed at the center of an empty spherical cavity
inside a circumbinary ellipsoidal and optically thin envelope made of dust
grains. Mie single-scattering is considered along with pre- and post-scattering
extinction factors which produce a time-varying optical depth and affect the
morphology of the periodic variations. We are interested in the effects that
various parameters will have on the average polarization, the amplitude of the
polarimetric variations, and the morphology of the variability. We show that
the absolute amplitudes of the variations are smaller for Mie scattering than
for Thomson scattering. Among the four grain types that we have studied, the
highest polarizations are produced by grains with sizes in the range 0.1-0.2
micron. In general, the variations are seen twice per orbit. In some cases,
because spherical dust grains have an asymmetric scattering function, the
polarimetric curves produced also show variations seen once per orbit.
Circumstellar disks produce polarimetric variations of greater amplitude than
circumbinary envelopes.
Another goal of these simulations is to see if the 1978 BME (Brown, McLean, &
Emslie, ApJ, 68, 415) formalism, which uses a Fourier analysis of the
polarimetric variations to find the orbital inclination for Thomson-scattering
envelopes, can still be used for Mie scattering. We find that this is the case,
if the amplitude of the variations is sufficient and the true inclinations is
i_true > 45 deg. For eccentric orbits, the first-order coefficients of the
Fourier fit, instead of second-order ones, can be used to find almost all
inclinations.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Astronomical Journa
Fronts and interfaces in bistable extended mappings
We study the interfaces' time evolution in one-dimensional bistable extended
dynamical systems with discrete time. The dynamics is governed by the
competition between a local piece-wise affine bistable mapping and any
couplings given by the convolution with a function of bounded variation. We
prove the existence of travelling wave interfaces, namely fronts, and the
uniqueness of the corresponding selected velocity and shape. This selected
velocity is shown to be the propagating velocity for any interface, to depend
continuously on the couplings and to increase with the symmetry parameter of
the local nonlinearity. We apply the results to several examples including
discrete and continuous couplings, and the planar fronts' dynamics in
multi-dimensional Coupled Map Lattices. We eventually emphasize on the
extension to other kinds of fronts and to a more general class of bistable
extended mappings for which the couplings are allowed to be nonlinear and the
local map to be smooth.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Nonlinearit
Polarimetric variations of binary stars. III Periodic polarimetric variations of the Herbig Ae/Be star MWC 1080
We present polarimetric observations of a massive pre-main sequence
short-period binary star of the Herbig Ae/Be type, MWC 1080. The mean
polarization at 7660 A is 1.60% at 81.6 deg, or 0.6% at 139 deg if an estimate
of the interstellar polarization is subtracted. The intrinsic polarization
points to an asymmetric geometry of the circumstellar or circumbinary
environment while the 139 deg intrinsic position angle traces the axis of
symmetry of the system and is perpendicular to the position angle of the
outflow cavity. The polarization and its position angle are clearly variable,
at all wavelengths, and on time scales of hours, days, months, and years.
Stochastic variability is accompanied by periodic variations caused by the
orbital motion of the stars in their dusty environment. These periodic
polarimetric variations are the first phased-locked ones detected for a
pre-main sequence binary. The variations are not simply double-periodic (seen
twice per orbit) but include single-periodic (seen once per orbit) and
higher-order variations. The presence of single-periodic variations could be
due to non equal mass stars, the presence of dust grains, an asymmetric
configuration of the circumstellar or circumbinary material, or the
eccentricity of the orbit. MWC 1080 is an eclipsing binary with primary and
secondary eclipses occurring at phases 0.0 and 0.55. The signatures of the
eclipses are seen in the polarimetric observations.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, to be published in the Astronomical Journa
Curation of Frozen Samples
NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the Astromaterials Curator are charged by NPD 7100.10D with the curation of all of NASA s extraterrestrial samples, including those from future missions. This responsibility includes the development of new sample handling and preparation techniques; therefore, the Astromaterials Curator must begin developing procedures to preserve, prepare and ship samples at sub-freezing temperatures in order to enable future sample return missions. Such missions might include the return of future frozen samples from permanently-shadowed lunar craters, the nuclei of comets, the surface of Mars, etc. We are demonstrating the ability to curate samples under cold conditions by designing, installing and testing a cold curation glovebox. This glovebox will allow us to store, document, manipulate and subdivide frozen samples while quantifying and minimizing contamination throughout the curation process
Neural NILM: Deep Neural Networks Applied to Energy Disaggregation
Energy disaggregation estimates appliance-by-appliance electricity
consumption from a single meter that measures the whole home's electricity
demand. Recently, deep neural networks have driven remarkable improvements in
classification performance in neighbouring machine learning fields such as
image classification and automatic speech recognition. In this paper, we adapt
three deep neural network architectures to energy disaggregation: 1) a form of
recurrent neural network called `long short-term memory' (LSTM); 2) denoising
autoencoders; and 3) a network which regresses the start time, end time and
average power demand of each appliance activation. We use seven metrics to test
the performance of these algorithms on real aggregate power data from five
appliances. Tests are performed against a house not seen during training and
against houses seen during training. We find that all three neural nets achieve
better F1 scores (averaged over all five appliances) than either combinatorial
optimisation or factorial hidden Markov models and that our neural net
algorithms generalise well to an unseen house.Comment: To appear in ACM BuildSys'15, November 4--5, 2015, Seou
Fermentation study for the production of hepatitis B virus pre-S2 antigen by the methylotrophic yeast Hansenula polymorpha.
Various physico-chemical parameters have been studied in order to improve the production of hepatitis B virus pre-S2 antigen (middle surface antigen) by the methylotrophic yeast Hansenula polymorpha. Antigen production was done in two steps: first, production of cells on glycerol (Phase 1), followed by induction of antigen expression with methanol (Phase 2). Dense cultures of H. polymorpha, equivalent to 35-40 g/l (dry weight), were readily obtained in small fermenters using minimal medium containing glycerol as carbon source. Antigen expression in this minimal medium, after induction with methanol, was however, low and never exceeded 1.6 mg/l of culture. Antigen production was greatly enhanced by adding complex organic nitrogen sources along with methanol at induction time; yeast extract was the best of all the sources tested. In shake flasks, antigen production was proportional to yeast extract concentration up to 7% (w/v) yeast extract, it became clear the the nutritional conditions for good antigen expression were different from those for good biomass production. The effects of yeast extract were reproduced in small fermenters: antigen levels reached 8-9 mg/l in medium containing 6% (w/v) yeast extract during induction with methanol. The mechanisms of yeast extract's effects are still unknown but are probably nutritional. The recombinant H. polymorpha strain produced both periplasmic and intracellular antigen. The periplasmic antigen was shown to be present as 20-22-nm particles and was therefore immunogenic. Immunoblotting indicated that part of the pre-S2 antigen was present as a 24-kDa degradation product. These studies have led to a 140-fold increase in volumetric productivity of antigen and to a 4.6-fold increase in specific production
- …