The challenges of investigating derived psychoactive cannabis product brand quality: Using a popular brand as an example

With widely divergent state and federal regulations and a history of suspect brands and illicit markets, derived psychoactive cannabis products (DPCPs) face contested discourse as to their content, quality, and safety. We conducted exploratory research on public-health related factors related to brand quality including assessing potential counterfeit products, website and social media presence, third party laboratory testing, distribution practices, and consumer experiences on social media. Findings indicate the difficulty consumers face in finding information related to DPCP brands, and the questionable quality of popularly branded products. We recommend regulation and oversight to ensure product safety

Rover Low Gain Antenna Qualification for Deep Space Thermal Environments

A method to qualify the Rover Low Gain Antenna (RLGA) for use during the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission has been devised. The RLGA antenna must survive all ground operations, plus the nominal 670 Martian sol mission that includes the summer and winter seasons of the Mars thermal environment. This qualification effort was performed to verify that the RLGA design, its bonding, and packaging processes are adequate. The qualification test was designed to demonstrate a survival life of three times more than all expected ground testing, plus a nominal 670 Martian sol missions. Baseline RF tests and a visual inspection were performed on the RLGA hardware before the start of the qualification test. Functional intermittent RF tests were performed during thermal chamber breaks over the course of the complete qualification test. For the return loss measurements, the RLGA antenna was moved to a test area. A vector network analyzer was calibrated over the operational frequency range of the antenna. For the RLGA, a simple return loss measurement was performed. A total of 2,010 (3 670 or 3 times mission thermal cycles) thermal cycles was performed. Visual inspection of the RLGA hardware did not show any anomalies due to the thermal cycling. The return loss measurement results of the RLGA antenna after the PQV (Package Qualification and Verification) test did not show any anomalies. The antenna pattern data taken before and after the PQV test at the uplink and downlink frequencies were unchanged. Therefore, the developed design of RLGA is qualified for a long-duration MSL mission

Study of UV Degradation on Plastic (PET) Aerosols

The present study was aimed to explore the impact of UV radiation, from ‘real world’ environmental exposure, on the degradation of plastic PET aerosol containers. Additionally, the intent was to correlate the ‘real world’ environmental exposure to artificial sunlight, using a Xenon-Arc lamp, to develop a simulated test. The standardized methodology could then be used to evaluate the integrity of the plastic aerosol container and product, without the complexity of using ‘real world’ exposure. Through this study, a lab method was developed and validated that would simulate the effect of UV radiation using the Xenon-Arc. Moreover, a correlation was made for conditions inside the Xenon-Arc chamber that were conducive to testing a plastic pressurized container

Modeling of 110 GHz electron cyclotron wave propagation and absorption on DIII-D

In modeling electron cyclotron (EC) waves for heating (ECH) and current drive (ECCD) applications, the standard approach describes wave propagation using geometric optic ray tracing with cold plasma dispersion and wave absorption using a relativistic warm plasma expression. However, recent vertical O-mode transmission measurements on Tore Supra indicate that wave trajectories near the fundamental resonance frequency can significantly deviate from predictions of cold plasma analysis. The experimental results were attributed to warm plasma refraction effects caused by the anomalous dispersion associated with wave-particle resonance. Here, warm plasma refraction effects on wave propagation and absorption are examined in the context of a slab model in the parameter regime of interest to the upcoming 110 GHz electron cyclotron heating and current drive experiments on DIII-D

Applications of fast wave in spherical tokamaks

In spherical tokamaks (ST), the magnetic field strength varies over a wide range across the plasma, and at high betas it deviates significantly from the 1/R dependence of conventional tokamaks. This, together with the high density expected in ST, poses challenging problems for RF heating and current drive. In this paper, the authors investigate the various possible applications of fast waves (FW) in ST. The adjoint technique of calculating current drive is implemented in the raytracing code CURRAY. The applicability of high harmonic and subharmonic FW to steady state ST is considered. They find that high harmonic FW tends to be totally absorbed before reaching the core and may be considered a candidate for off axis current drive while the subharmonic FW tends to be absorbed mainly in the core region and may be considered for central current drive. A difficult problem is the maintenance of current at the startup stage. In the bootstrap ramp-up scenario, the current ramp-up is mainly provided by the bootstrap current. Under this condition, the role of rf becomes mainly the sustainment of plasma through electron heating. Using a slab full-wave code SEMAL, the authors find that the ion-ion-hybrid mode conversion scheme is a promising candidate. The effect of possible existence of edge Alfven resonance and high harmonic cyclotron resonance is investigated and regimes of minimization of edge heating identified

THE 110 GHz MICROWAVE HEATING SYSTEM ON THE DIII-D TOKAMAK

OAK-B135 Six 110 GHz gyrotrons in the 1 MW class are operational on DIII-D. Source power is > 4.0 MW for pulse lengths {le} 2.1 s and {approx} 2.8 MW for 5.0 s. The rf beams can be steered poloidally across the tokamak upper half plane at off-perpendicular injection angles in the toroidal direction up to {+-} 20{sup o}. measured transmission line loss is about -1 dB for the longest line, which is 92 m long with 11 miter bends. Coupling efficiency into the waveguide is {approx} 93% for the Gaussian rf beams. The transmission lines are evacuated and windowless except for the gyrotron output window and include flexible control of the elliptical polarization of the injected rf beam with remote controlled grooved mirrors in two of the miter bends on each line. The injected power can be modulated according to a predetermined program or controlled by the DIII-D plasma control system using real time feedback based on diagnostic signals obtained during the plasma pulse. Three gyrotrons have operated at 1.0 MW output power for 5.0 s. Peak central temperatures of the artificially grown diamond gyrotron output windows are < 180 C at equilibrium