682 research outputs found
Photonic crystal resonator integrated in a microfluidic system
We report on a novel optofluidic system consisting of a silica-based 1D
photonic crystal, integrated planar waveguides and electrically insulated
fluidic channels. An array of pillars in a microfluidic channel designed for
electrochromatography is used as a resonator for on-column label-free
refractive index detection. The resonator was fabricated in a silicon
oxynitride platform, to support electroosmotic flow, and operated at 1.55
microns. Different aqueous solutions of ethanol with refractive indices ranging
from n = 1.3330 to 1.3616 were pumped into the column/resonator and the
transmission spectra were recorded. Linear shifts of the resonant wavelengths
yielded a maximum sensitivity of 480 nm/RIU and a minimum difference of 0.007
RIU was measured
Cosmology, Oscillating Physics and Oscilllating Biology
According to recent reports there is an excess correlation and an apparent
regularity in the galaxy one-dimensional polar distribution with a
characteristic scale of 128 Mpc. This aparent spatial periodicity can
be naturally explained by a time oscillation of the gravitational constant .
On the other hand, periodic growth features of bivalve and coral fossiles
appear to show a periodic component in the time dependence of the number of
days per year. In this letter we show that a time oscillating gravitational
constant with similar period and amplitude can explain such a feature.Comment: 9 pages. latex using revtex. This revised version is supposed to be
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Analysis of scanner data for crop inventories
There are no author-identified significant results in this report
Content and Quality of Motor Initiatives in the Support of People With Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities
Motor activation is rarely integrated into the support of people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD), which might be the result of the limited evidence‐based knowledge in this field. Practitioners have recently been developing several motor initiatives for people with PIMD, but it remains unclear about what core elements the motor initiatives actually consist of and to what level of quality it is implemented in practice. This study aims to offer an overview and analysis of the content and quality of motor initiatives actually in use for people with PIMD. Motor initiatives were explored by asking practitioners to complete an online inventory form. Documents, expert knowledge, and observations were used to collect data about the characteristics of the motor initiatives. The quality of the motor initiatives which met our eligibility criteria, was analyzed on the basis of the level of evidence for their effectiveness. The inventory yielded 118 motor initiatives of which 17 met the eligibility criteria. We identified four motor initiatives reflecting an approach to motorically activate people with PIMD within various activities, three including power‐assisted exercises, three with aquatic exercises, two frameworks which integrated motor activities into their daily programs, two methods which included small‐scale activities, two rhythmic movement therapies, and one program including gross motor activities. We found limited indications for descriptive evidence from 17 initiatives, limited or no indications for theoretical evidence from 12 and five initiatives respectively, and none of the initiatives provided a causal level of evidence for effectiveness. A wide variety of motor initiatives is used in current practice to activate persons with PIMD, although their effectiveness is actually unproven. Science and practice should cooperate to develop an evidence‐based understanding to ensure more evidence‐based support for the motor activation of people with PIMD in the future
Detection of Phase Jumps of Free Core Nutation of the Earth and their Concurrence with Geomagnetic Jerks
We detected phase jumps of the Free Core Nutation (FCN) of the Earth directly
from the analysis of the Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) observation
of the Earth rotation for the period 1984-2003 by applying the Weighted Wavelet
Z-Transform (WWZ) method and the Short-time Periodogram with the Gabor function
(SPG) method. During the period, the FCN had two significant phase jumps in
1992 and 1998. These epochs coincide with the reported occurrence of
geomagnetic jerks.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
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Ice-sheet configuration in the CMIP5/PMIP3 Last Glacial Maximum experiments
We describe the creation of a data set describing
changes related to the presence of ice sheets, including
ice-sheet extent and height, ice-shelf extent, and the distribution
and elevation of ice-free land at the Last Glacial Maximum
(LGM), which were used in LGM experiments conducted
as part of the fifth phase of the Coupled Modelling
Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and the third phase of the
Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP3).
The CMIP5/PMIP3 data sets were created from reconstructions
made by three different groups, which were all obtained
using a model-inversion approach but differ in the assumptions
used in the modelling and in the type of data used as
constraints. The ice-sheet extent in the Northern Hemisphere
(NH) does not vary substantially between the three individual
data sources. The difference in the topography of the NH
ice sheets is also moderate, and smaller than the differences
between these reconstructions (and the resultant composite
reconstruction) and ice-sheet reconstructions used in previous
generations of PMIP. Only two of the individual reconstructions
provide information for Antarctica. The discrepancy
between these two reconstructions is larger than the difference for the NH ice sheets, although still less than the difference
between the composite reconstruction and previous
PMIP ice-sheet reconstructions. Although largely confined
to the ice-covered regions, differences between the climate
response to the individual LGM reconstructions extend over
the North Atlantic Ocean and Northern Hemisphere continents,
partly through atmospheric stationary waves. Differences
between the climate response to the CMIP5/PMIP3
composite and any individual ice-sheet reconstruction are
smaller than those between the CMIP5/PMIP3 composite
and the ice sheet used in the last phase of PMIP (PMIP2)
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