1,818 research outputs found
Measured and Calculated Neutron Spectra and Dose Equivalent Rates at High Altitudes; Relevance to SST Operations and Space Research
Results of the NASA Langley-New York University high-altitude radiation study are presented. Measurements of the absorbed dose rate and of secondary fast neutrons (1 to 10 MeV energy) during the years 1965 to 1971 are used to determine the maximum radiation exposure from galactic and solar cosmic rays of supersonic transport (SST) and subsonic jet occupants. The maximum dose equivalent rates that the SST crews might receive turn out to be 13 to 20 percent of the maximum permissible dose rate (MPD) for radiation workers (5 rem/yr). The exposure of passengers encountering an intense giant-energy solar particle event could exceed the MPD for the general population (0.5 rem/yr), but would be within these permissible limits if in such rare cases the transport descends to subsonic altitude; it is in general less than 12 percent of the MPD. By Monte Carlo calculations of the transport and buildup of nucleons in air for incident proton energies E of 0.02 to 10 GeV, the measured neutron spectra were extrapolated to lower and higher energies and for galactic cosmic rays were found to continue with a relatively high intensity to energies greater than 400 MeV, in a wide altitude range. This condition, together with the measured intensity profiles of fast neutrons, revealed that the biologically important fast and energetic neutrons penetrate deep into the atmosphere and contribute approximately 50 percent of the dose equivalant rates at SST and present subsonic jet altitudes
Atmospheric neutrons
Contributions to fast neutron measurements in the atmosphere are outlined. The results of a calculation to determine the production, distribution and final disappearance of atmospheric neutrons over the entire spectrum are presented. An attempt is made to answer questions that relate to processes such as neutron escape from the atmosphere and C-14 production. In addition, since variations of secondary neutrons can be related to variations in the primary radiation, comment on the modulation of both radiation components is made
R-Modes in Superfluid Neutron Stars
The analogs of r-modes in superfluid neutron stars are studied here. These
modes, which are governed primarily by the Coriolis force, are identical to
their ordinary-fluid counterparts at the lowest order in the small
angular-velocity expansion used here. The equations that determine the next
order terms are derived and solved numerically for fairly realistic superfluid
neutron-star models. The damping of these modes by superfluid ``mutual
friction'' (which vanishes at the lowest order in this expansion) is found to
have a characteristic time-scale of about 10^4 s for the m=2 r-mode in a
``typical'' superfluid neutron-star model. This time-scale is far too long to
allow mutual friction to suppress the recently discovered gravitational
radiation driven instability in the r-modes. However, the strength of the
mutual friction damping depends very sensitively on the details of the
neutron-star core superfluid. A small fraction of the presently acceptable
range of superfluid models have characteristic mutual friction damping times
that are short enough (i.e. shorter than about 5 s) to suppress the
gravitational radiation driven instability completely.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Improving LIGO calibration accuracy by tracking and compensating for slow temporal variations
Calibration of the second-generation LIGO interferometric gravitational-wave
detectors employs a method that uses injected periodic modulations to track and
compensate for slow temporal variations in the differential length response of
the instruments. These detectors utilize feedback control loops to maintain
resonance conditions by suppressing differential arm length variations. We
describe how the sensing and actuation functions of these servo loops are
parameterized and how the slow variations in these parameters are quantified
using the injected modulations. We report the results of applying this method
to the LIGO detectors and show that it significantly reduces systematic errors
in their calibrated outputs.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures. This is an author-created, un-copyedited version
of an article published in Classical and Quantum Gravity. IOP Publishing Ltd
is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the
manuscript or any version derived from i
A gene-model-free method for linkage analysis of a disease-related-trait based on analysis of proband/sibling pairs
In this paper we investigate the power of finding linkage to a disease locus through analysis of the disease-related traits. We propose two family-based gene-model-free linkage statistics. Both involve considering the distribution of the number of alleles identical by descent with the proband and comparing siblings with the disease-related trait to those without the disease-related-trait. The objective is to find linkages to disease-related traits that are pleiotropic for both the disease and the disease-related-traits. The power of these statistics is investigated for Kofendrerd Personality Disorder-related traits a (Joining/founding cults) and trait b (Fear/discomfort with strangers) of the simulated data. The answers were known prior to the execution of the reported analyses. We find that both tests have very high power when applied to the samples created by combining the data of the three cities for which we have nuclear family data
Relativistic Stellar Pulsations With Near-Zone Boundary Conditions
A new method is presented here for evaluating approximately the pulsation
modes of relativistic stellar models. This approximation relies on the fact
that gravitational radiation influences these modes only on timescales that are
much longer than the basic hydrodynamic timescale of the system. This makes it
possible to impose the boundary conditions on the gravitational potentials at
the surface of the star rather than in the asymptotic wave zone of the
gravitational field. This approximation is tested here by predicting the
frequencies of the outgoing non-radial hydrodynamic modes of non-rotating
stars. The real parts of the frequencies are determined with an accuracy that
is better than our knowledge of the exact frequencies (about 0.01%) except in
the most relativistic models where it decreases to about 0.1%. The imaginary
parts of the frequencies are determined with an accuracy of approximately M/R,
where M is the mass and R is the radius of the star in question.Comment: 10 pages (REVTeX 3.1), 5 figs., 1 table, fixed minor typos, published
in Phys. Rev. D 56, 2118 (1997
Incorporation of genetic model parameters for cost-effective designs of genetic association studies using DNA pooling
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies of association methods using DNA pooling of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have focused primarily on the effects of "machine-error", number of replicates, and the size of the pool. We use the non-centrality parameter (NCP) for the analysis of variance test to compute the approximate power for genetic association tests with DNA pooling data on cases and controls. We incorporate genetic model parameters into the computation of the NCP. Parameters involved in the power calculation are disease allele frequency, frequency of the marker SNP allele in coupling with the disease locus, disease prevalence, genotype relative risk, sample size, genetic model, number of pools, number of replicates of each pool, and the proportion of variance of the pooled frequency estimate due to machine variability. We compute power for different settings of number of replicates and total number of genotypings when the genetic model parameters are fixed. Several significance levels are considered, including stringent significance levels (due to the increasing popularity of 100 K and 500 K SNP "chip" data). We use a factorial design with two to four settings of each parameter and multiple regression analysis to assess which parameters most significantly affect power.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The power can increase substantially as the genotyping number increases. For a fixed number of genotypings, the power is a function of the number of replicates of each pool such that there is a setting with maximum power. The four most significant parameters affecting power for association are: (1) genotype relative risk, (2) genetic model, (3) sample size, and (4) the interaction term between disease and SNP marker allele probabilities.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>For a fixed number of genotypings, there is an optimal number of replicates of each pool that increases as the number of genotypings increases. Power is not substantially reduced when the number of replicates is close to but not equal to the optimal setting.</p
Edoxaban: an update on the new oral direct factor Xa inhibitor.
Edoxaban is a once-daily oral anticoagulant that rapidly and selectively inhibits factor Xa in a concentration-dependent manner. This review describes the extensive clinical development program of edoxaban, including phase III studies in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) and symptomatic venous thromboembolism (VTE). The ENGAGE AF-TIMI 48 study (NÂ =Â 21,105; mean CHADS2 score 2.8) compared edoxaban 60Â mg once daily (high-dose regimen) and edoxaban 30Â mg once daily (low-dose regimen) with dose-adjusted warfarin [international normalized ratio (INR) 2.0-3.0] and found that both regimens were non-inferior to warfarin in the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with NVAF. Both edoxaban regimens also provided significant reductions in the risk of hemorrhagic stroke, cardiovascular mortality, major bleeding and intracranial bleeding. The Hokusai-VTE study (NÂ =Â 8,292) in patients with symptomatic VTE had a flexible treatment duration of 3-12Â months and found that following initial heparin, edoxaban 60Â mg once daily was non-inferior to dose-adjusted warfarin (INR 2.0-3.0) for the prevention of recurrent VTE, and also had a significantly lower risk of bleeding events. Both studies randomized patients at moderate-to-high risk of thromboembolic events and were further designed to simulate routine clinical practice as much as possible, with edoxaban dose reduction (halving dose) at randomisation or during the study if required, a frequently monitored and well-controlled warfarin group, a well-monitored transition period at study end and a flexible treatment duration in Hokusai-VTE. Given the phase III results obtained, once-daily edoxaban may soon be a key addition to the range of antithrombotic treatment options
Second-order rotational effects on the r-modes of neutron stars
Techniques are developed here for evaluating the r-modes of rotating neutron
stars through second order in the angular velocity of the star. Second-order
corrections to the frequencies and eigenfunctions for these modes are evaluated
for neutron star models. The second-order eigenfunctions for these modes are
determined here by solving an unusual inhomogeneous hyperbolic boundary-value
problem. The numerical techniques developed to solve this unusual problem are
somewhat non-standard and may well be of interest beyond the particular
application here. The bulk-viscosity coupling to the r-modes, which appears
first at second order, is evaluated. The bulk-viscosity timescales are found
here to be longer than previous estimates for normal neutron stars, but shorter
than previous estimates for strange stars. These new timescales do not
substantially affect the current picture of the gravitational radiation driven
instability of the r-modes either for neutron stars or for strange stars.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, revte
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