A digital optical torquemeter for high rotational speed applications

A digital optical torquemeter system designed for applications at high rotational speeds was fabricated and tested for zero stability at speeds up to 20,000 rpm. Data obtained in a spin rig and with simulated inputs demonstrate that the system is capable of measuring torque bar twist to within 0.03 degrees at speeds of 30,000 rpm. The optical system uses fiber optic bundles to transmit light to the torque bar and to silicon avalanche detectors. The system is microcomputer based and provides measurements of average torque and torque as a function of angular shaft position. The torquemeter requires no bearings or other contact between the rotating torque bar and the nonrotating optics, and tolerates movement of the torque bar as large as 1 mm relative to the optics

A Sensor Failure Simulator for Control System Reliability Studies

A real-time Sensor Failure Simulator (SFS) was designed and assembled for the Advanced Detection, Isolation, and Accommodation (ADIA) program. Various designs were considered. The design chosen features an IBM-PC/XT. The PC is used to drive analog circuitry for simulating sensor failures in real-time. A user defined scenario describes the failure simulation for each of the five incoming sensor signals. Capabilities exist for editing, saving, and retrieving the failure scenarios. The SFS has been tested closed-loop with the Controls Interface and Monitoring (CIM) unit, the ADIA control, and a real-time F100 hybrid simulation. From a productivity viewpoint, the menu driven user interface has proven to be efficient and easy to use. From a real-time viewpoint, the software controlling the simulation loop executes at greater than 100 cycles/sec

Decomposition of coarse woody debris in a long-term litter manipulation experiment: A focus on nutrient availability

The majority of above-ground carbon in tropical forests is stored in wood, which is returned to the atmosphere during decomposition of coarse woody debris. However, the factors controlling wood decomposition have not been experimentally manipulated over time scales comparable to the length of this process.We hypothesized that wood decomposition is limited by nutrient availability and tested this hypothesis in a long-term litter addition and removal experiment in a lowland tropical forest in Panama. Specifically, we quantified decomposition using a 15-year chronosequence of decaying boles, and measured respiration rates and nutrient limitation of wood decomposer communities.The long-term probability that a dead tree completely decomposed was decreased in plots where litter was removed, but did not differ between litter addition and control treatments. Similarly, respiration rates of wood decomposer communities were greater in control treatments relative to litter removal plots; litter addition treatments did not differ from either of the other treatments. Respiration rates increased in response to nutrient addition (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) in the litter removal and addition treatments, but not in the controls.Established decreases in concentrations of soil nutrients in litter removal plots and increased respiration rates in response to nutrient addition suggest that reduced rates of wood decomposition after litter removal were caused by decreased nutrient availability. The effects of litter manipulations differed directionally from a previous short-term decomposition study in the same plots, and reduced rates of bole decomposition in litter removal plots did not emerge until after more than 6 years of decomposition. These differences suggest that litter-mediated effects on nutrient dynamics have complex interactions with decomposition over time

Ontogenetic trait variation influences tree community assembly across environmental gradients

Intraspecific trait variation is hypothesized to influence the relative importance of community assembly mechanisms. However, few studies have explicitly considered how intraspecific trait variation among ontogenetic stages influences community assembly across environmental gradients. Because the relative importance of abiotic and biotic assembly mechanisms can differ among ontogenetic stages within and across environments, ontogenetic trait variation may have an important influence on patterns of functional diversity and inferred assembly mechanisms. We tested the hypothesis that variation in functional diversity across a topo-edaphic gradient differs among ontogenetic stages and that these patterns reflect a shift in the relative importance of different assembly mechanisms. In a temperate forest in the Missouri Ozarks, USA, we compared functional diversity of leaf size and specific leaf area (SLA) of 34 woody plant species at two ontogenetic stages (adults and saplings) to test predictions about how the relative importance of abiotic and biotic filtering changes among adult and sapling communities. Local communities of adults had lower mean SLA and lower functional dispersion of SLA than expected by chance, particularly at the resource-limited end of the topo-edaphic gradient, suggesting an important role for abiotic filtering among co-occurring adults. In contrast, local communities of saplings often had higher functional dispersion of leaf size and SLA than expected by chance regardless of their location along the topo-edaphic gradient, suggesting an important role for biotic filtering among co-occurring saplings. Moreover, the overall strength of trait-environment relationships varied between saplings and adults for both leaf traits, generally resulting in stronger environmental shifts in mean trait values and trait dispersion for adults relative to saplings. Our results illustrate how community assembly mechanisms may shift in their relative importance during ontogeny, leading to variable patterns of functional diversity across environmental gradients. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of integrating ontogeny, an important axis of intraspecific trait variability, into approaches that use plant functional traits to understand community assembly and species coexistence

Child and Infant Mortality; Risk Factors Related to SUID in Marion County

poster abstractBetween 2003- 2012, Indiana had 434 child deaths, including 53 Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) cases. Marion County has a high rate of SUID at 14%. The purpose of our research is to identify the risk factors for suffocation and to determine if SUID can be better prevented. In a pilot exploratory study, we analyzed five de-identified Marion County SUID cases to identify the asphyxia variables. The Fetal Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) cases allowed for thematic analysis. We used a meta-aggregation program NOTARI (Narrative, opinion, text assessment, and review instrument) to focus on categorical variables. Results identified asphyxia variables such as swaddling, blanket suffocation, wedging, parents bedding, soft bedding with pillows. Common maternal variables were obesity, hypertension, and STDs. Infant variables included breathing problems and cardio-respiratory pathologies. We found four cases with documented safe sleep education. The education that parents receive on safe sleep is not a guarantee that they will practice safe sleep with their infants. The education might not be effective enough to help them comprehend its importance; therefore nurses and other healthcare professionals need to consider changing the way they educate and advocate for parents. We suggest the introduction of more primary educational programs that will help the community understand safe sleep and SUID. This intervention would help decrease the incidence of sudden unexpected infant death

Quantum Interference of Coulomb Interaction and Disorder: Phase Shift of Friedel Oscillations and an Instability of the Fermi Sea

We investigate the influence of interference between Coulomb interaction and impurity scattering on the static electronic response $\chi (0,q)$ in disordered metals to leading order in the effective Coulomb interaction. When the transport relaxation time $\tau _{tr}$ is much shorter than the quasiparticle life time, we find a \mbox{sgn}(2p_F-q)/\sqrt{|2p_F-q|} divergence of the polarization function at the Fermi surface ($q=2p_F$). It causes a phase shift of the Friedel oscillations as well as an enhancement of their amplitude. Our results are consistent with experiments and may be relevant for understanding the stability of the amorphous state of certain alloys against crystallization.Comment: 11 pages, 4 PostScript figures appended as a self-extracting tar archive; includes output instruction

Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 Antibodies: High Prevalence in Monogamous Women in Costa Rica

We studied the prevalence of antibody to Herpes simplex virus types I and 2 (HSV-I and HSV-2) in 766 randomly selected Costa Rican women 25-59 years of age in a national household survey in 1984-1985. Overall, 97.1% were seropositive for HSV-l and 39.4% for HSV -2. Only 1.1% of HSV -2 seropositive women gave a history of symptomatic genital herpes. HSV-2 virus antibody increased with age and with the number of lifetime sexual partners. HSV -2 seroprevalence among women who reported only 1 lifetime sexual partner was almost twice as high as the prevalence among women who denied sexual experience (30.5% vs. 17.7%) and reached 79.2% among women with \u3c 4 partners. HSV-2 seroprevalence was lower among women whose partners used condoms: 28.9% for those who had used condoms for at least 2 years vs. 44.3% for those who never used condoms

Ethical issues in the use of in-depth interviews: literature review and discussion

This paper reports a literature review on the topic of ethical issues in in-depth interviews. The review returned three types of article: general discussion, issues in particular studies, and studies of interview-based research ethics. Whilst many of the issues discussed in these articles are generic to research ethics, such as confidentiality, they often had particular manifestations in this type of research. For example, privacy was a significant problem as interviews sometimes probe unexpected areas. For similar reasons, it is difficult to give full information of the nature of a particular interview at the outset, hence informed consent is problematic. Where a pair is interviewed (such as carer and cared-for) there are major difficulties in maintaining confidentiality and protecting privacy. The potential for interviews to harm participants emotionally is noted in some papers, although this is often set against potential therapeutic benefit. As well as these generic issues, there are some ethical issues fairly specific to in-depth interviews. The problem of dual role is noted in many papers. It can take many forms: an interviewer might be nurse and researcher, scientist and counsellor, or reporter and evangelist. There are other specific issues such as taking sides in an interview, and protecting vulnerable groups. Little specific study of the ethics of in-depth interviews has taken place. However, that which has shows some important findings. For example, one study shows participants are not averse to discussing painful issues provided they feel the study is worthwhile. Some papers make recommendations for researchers. One such is that they should consider using a model of continuous (or process) consent rather than viewing consent as occurring once, at signature, prior to the interview. However, there is a need for further study of this area, both philosophical and empirical

Flood-risk mapping: contributions towards an enhanced assessment of extreme events and associated risks

Currently, a shift from classical flood protection as engineering task towards integrated flood risk management concepts can be observed. In this context, a more consequent consideration of extreme events which exceed the design event of flood protection structures and failure scenarios such as dike breaches have to be investigated. Therefore, this study aims to enhance existing methods for hazard and risk assessment for extreme events and is divided into three parts. In the first part, a regionalization approach for flood peak discharges was further developed and substantiated, especially regarding recurrence intervals of 200 to 10 000 years and a large number of small ungauged catchments. Model comparisons show that more confidence in such flood estimates for ungauged areas and very long recurrence intervals may be given as implied by statistical analysis alone. The hydraulic simulation in the second part is oriented towards hazard mapping and risk analyses covering the whole spectrum of relevant flood events. As the hydrodynamic simulation is directly coupled with a GIS, the results can be easily processed as local inundation depths for spatial risk analyses. For this, a new GIS-based software tool was developed, being presented in the third part, which enables estimations of the direct flood damage to single buildings or areas based on different established stage-damage functions. Furthermore, a new multifactorial approach for damage estimation is presented, aiming at the improvement of damage estimation on local scale by considering factors like building quality, contamination and precautionary measures. The methods and results from this study form the base for comprehensive risk analyses and flood management strategies