Design and development of a self-healing fuse

Mercury-filled self-healing fuses for protecting solid state circuits from faults - design and developmen

Portable Perimetry Using Eye-Tracking on a Tablet Computer—A Feasibility Assessment

Purpose: Visual field (VF) examination by standard automated perimetry (SAP) is an important method of clinical assessment. However, the complexity of the test, and its use of bulky, expensive equipment makes it impractical for case-finding. We propose and evaluate a new approach to paracentral VF assessment that combines an inexpensive eye-tracker with a portable tablet computer (“Eyecatcher”). Methods: Twenty-four eyes from 12 glaucoma patients, and 12 eyes from six age-similar controls were examined. Participants were tested monocularly (once per eye), with both the novel Eyecatcher test and traditional SAP (HFA SITA standard 24-2). For Eyecatcher, the participant's task was to simply to look at a sequence of fixed-luminance dots, presented relative to the current point of fixation. Start and end fixations were used to determine locations where stimuli were seen/unseen, and to build a continuous map of sensitivity loss across a VF of approximately 20°. Results: Eyecatcher was able to clearly separate patients from controls, and the results were consistent with those from traditional SAP. In particular, mean Eyecatcher scores were strongly correlated with mean deviation scores (r2 = 0.64, P < 0.001), and there was good concordance between corresponding VF locations (∼84%). Participants reported that Eyecatcher was more enjoyable, easier to perform, and less tiring than SAP (all P < 0.001). Conclusions: Portable perimetry using an inexpensive eye-tracker and a tablet computer is feasible, although possible means of improvement are suggested. Translational Relevance: Such a test could have significant utility as a case finding device

Self-healing fuse

Fast-acting current limiting device provides current overload protection for vulnerable circuit elements and then re-establishes conduction path within milliseconds. Fuse can also perform as fast-acting switch to clear transient circuit overloads. Fuse takes advantage of large increase in electrical resistivity that occurs when liquid metal vaporizes

Prospects for Extrasolar "Earths" in Habitable Zones

We have shown that Earth-mass planets could survive in variously restricted regions of the habitable zones (HZs) of most of a sample of nine of the 102 main-sequence exoplanetary systems confirmed by 19 November 2003. In a preliminary extrapolation of our results to the other systems, we estimate that roughly a half of these systems could have had an Earth-mass planet confined to the HZ for at least the most recent 1000 Ma. The HZ migrates outwards during the main-sequence lifetime, and so this proportion varies with stellar age. About two thirds of the systems could have such a planet confined to the HZ for at least 1000 Ma at sometime during the main-sequence lifetime. Clearly, these systems should be high on the target list for exploration for terrestrial planets. We have reached this conclusion by launching putative Earth-mass planets in various orbits and following their fate with mixed-variable symplectic and hybrid integrators. Whether the Earth-mass planets could form in the HZs of the exoplanetary systems is an urgent question that needs further study.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Study of Beam Diagnostics with Trapped Modes in Third Harmonic Superconducting Cavities at FLASH

Off-axis beams passing through an accelerating cavity excite dipole modes among other higher order modes (HOMs). These modes have linear dependence on the transverse beam offset from the cavity axis. Therefore they can be used to monitor the beam position within the cavity. The fifth dipole passband of the third harmonic superconducting cavities at FLASH has modes trapped within each cavity and do not propagate through the adjacent beam pipes, while most other cavity modes do. This could enable the beam position measurement in individual cavities. This paper investigates the possibility to use the fifth dipole band for beam alignment in the third harmonic cavity module. Simulations and measurements both with and without beam-excitations are presented. Various analysis methods are used and compared. A good correlation of HOM signals to the beam position is observed.Comment: 2nd International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC '11), San Sebastian, Spain, Sep 4-9, 201

Finite size scaling of the correlation length above the upper critical dimension

We show numerically that correlation length at the critical point in the five-dimensional Ising model varies with system size L as L^{5/4}, rather than proportional to L as in standard finite size scaling (FSS) theory. Our results confirm a hypothesis that FSS expressions in dimension d greater than the upper critical dimension of 4 should have L replaced by L^{d/4} for cubic samples with periodic boundary conditions. We also investigate numerically the logarithmic corrections to FSS in d = 4.Comment: 5 pages, 6 postscript figure

Bayesian optimization using sequential Monte Carlo

We consider the problem of optimizing a real-valued continuous function $f$ using a Bayesian approach, where the evaluations of $f$ are chosen sequentially by combining prior information about $f$, which is described by a random process model, and past evaluation results. The main difficulty with this approach is to be able to compute the posterior distributions of quantities of interest which are used to choose evaluation points. In this article, we decide to use a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) approach

Self-healing fuse development

The mercury-filled self-healing fuses developed for this program afford very good protection from circuit faults with rapid reclosure. Fuse performance and design parameters have been characterized. Life tests indicate a capability of 500 fuse operations. Fuse ratings are 150 v at 5, 15, 25 and 50 circuit A. A series of sample fuses using alumina and beryllia insulation have been furnished to NASA for circuit evaluation