395 research outputs found
NuSTAR Tests of Sterile-Neutrino Dark Matter: New Galactic Bulge Observations and Combined Impact
We analyze two dedicated NuSTAR observations with exposure ks
located from the Galactic plane, one above and the other
below, to search for x-ray lines from the radiative decay of sterile-neutrino
dark matter. These fields were chosen to minimize astrophysical x-ray
backgrounds while remaining near the densest region of the dark matter halo. We
find no evidence of anomalous x-ray lines in the energy range 5--20 keV,
corresponding to sterile neutrino masses 10--40 keV. Interpreted in the context
of sterile neutrinos produced via neutrino mixing, these observations provide
the leading constraints in the mass range 10--12 keV, improving upon previous
constraints in this range by a factor . We also compare our results to
Monte Carlo simulations, showing that the fluctuations in our derived limit are
not dominated by systematic effects. An updated model of the instrumental
background, which is currently under development, will improve NuSTAR's
sensitivity to anomalous x-ray lines, particularly for energies 3--5 keV.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures. Text updated to match published version in PRD.
Conclusions unchange
Contrastive Learning for Self-Supervised Pre-Training of Point Cloud Segmentation Networks With Image Data
Reducing the quantity of annotations required for supervised training is
vital when labels are scarce and costly. This reduction is particularly
important for semantic segmentation tasks involving 3D datasets, which are
often significantly smaller and more challenging to annotate than their
image-based counterparts. Self-supervised pre-training on unlabelled data is
one way to reduce the amount of manual annotations needed. Previous work has
focused on pre-training with point clouds exclusively. While useful, this
approach often requires two or more registered views. In the present work, we
combine image and point cloud modalities by first learning self-supervised
image features and then using these features to train a 3D model. By
incorporating image data, which is often included in many 3D datasets, our
pre-training method only requires a single scan of a scene and can be applied
to cases where localization information is unavailable. We demonstrate that our
pre-training approach, despite using single scans, achieves comparable
performance to other multi-scan, point cloud-only methods.Comment: In Proceedings of the Conference on Robots and Vision (CRV'23),
Montreal, Canada, Jun. 6-8, 2023. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap
with arXiv:2211.1180
A wireless, passive sensor for quantifying packaged food quality
This paper describes the fabrication of a wireless, passive sensor based on aninductive-capacitive resonant circuit, and its application for in situ monitoring of thequality of dry, packaged food such as cereals, and fried and baked snacks. The sensor ismade of a planar inductor and capacitor printed on a paper substrate. To monitor foodquality, the sensor is embedded inside the food package by adhering it to the package’sinner wall; its response is remotely detected through a coil connected to a sensor reader. Asfood quality degrades due to increasing humidity inside the package, the paper substrateabsorbs water vapor, changing the capacitor’s capacitance and the sensor’s resonantfrequency. Therefore, the taste quality of the packaged food can be indirectly determined bymeasuring the change in the sensor’s resonant frequency. The novelty of this sensortechnology is its wireless and passive nature, which allows in situ determination of foodquality. In addition, the simple fabrication process and inexpensive sensor material ensure alow sensor cost, thus making this technology economically viable
Cost-effectiveness analysis of HPV extended versus partial genotyping for cervical cancer screening in Singapore
Human papillomavirus (HPV) partial genotyping (PGT) identifies HPV16 and HPV18 individually, alongside 12 other high-risk HPV genotypes (hrHPV) collectively. HPV extended genotyping (XGT) identifies four additional hrHPV individually (HPV31, 45, 51, and 52), and reports the remaining eight in three groups (HPV33|58; 56|59|66; 35|39|68). Quality-adjusted life years (QALY), health care resource use, and costs of XGT were compared to PGT for cervical cancer screening in Singapore using DICE simulation. Women with one of the three hrHPV identified by XGT (HPV35|39|68; 56|59|66; 51), and atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) on cytology, are recalled for a repeat screening in one year, instead of undergoing an immediate colposcopy with PGT. At the repeat screening, the colposcopy is performed only for persistent same-genotype infections in XGT, while with PGT, all the women with persistent HPV have a colposcopy. Screening 500,122 women, aged 30–69, with XGT, provided an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) versus PGT of SGD 16,370/QALY, with 7130 (19.4%) fewer colposcopies, 6027 (7.0%) fewer cytology tests, 9787 (1.6%) fewer clinic consultations, yet 2446 (0.5%) more HPV tests. The XGT ICER remains well below SGD 100,000 in sensitivity analyses, (-SGD 17,736/QALY to SGD 50,474/QALY). XGT is cost-effective compared to PGT, utilizes fewer resources, and provides a risk-based approach as the primary cervical cancer screening method
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