Evaluation of the Beacon Community Centers Middle School Initiative: Report on the First Year

Evaluates the first year of an initiative to provide structured after-school and summer programs for fifth- through eighth-graders. Examines the centers' adaptation to the new focus, enrollment and participation levels, and implementation of core goals

Shrinking binary and planetary orbits by Kozai cycles with tidal friction

At least two arguments suggest that the orbits of a large fraction of binary stars and extrasolar planets shrank by 1-2 orders of magnitude after formation: (i) the physical radius of a star shrinks by a large factor from birth to the main sequence, yet many main-sequence stars have companions orbiting only a few stellar radii away, and (ii) in current theories of planet formation, the region within ~0.1 AU of a protostar is too hot and rarefied for a Jupiter-mass planet to form, yet many "hot Jupiters" are observed at such distances. We investigate orbital shrinkage by the combined effects of secular perturbations from a distant companion star (Kozai oscillations) and tidal friction. We integrate the relevant equations of motion to predict the distribution of orbital elements produced by this process. Binary stars with orbital periods of 0.1 to 10 days, with a median of ~2 d, are produced from binaries with much longer periods (10 d to 10^5 d), consistent with observations indicating that most or all short-period binaries have distant companions (tertiaries). We also make two new testable predictions: (1) For periods between 3 and 10 d, the distribution of the mutual inclination between the inner binary and the tertiary orbit should peak strongly near 40 deg and 140 deg. (2) Extrasolar planets whose host stars have a distant binary companion may also undergo this process, in which case the orbit of the resulting hot Jupiter will typically be misaligned with the equator of its host star.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; 18 pages, 10 figure

Numerical Prediction and Wind Tunnel Experiment for a Pitching Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle

The low-speed flowfield for a generic unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) is investigated both experimentally and numerically. A wind tunnel experiment was conducted with the Boeing 1301 UCAV at a variety of angles of attack up to 70 degrees, both statically and with various frequencies of pitch oscillation (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 Hz). In addition, pitching was performed about three longitudinal locations on the configuration (the nose, 35% MAC, and the tail). Solutions to the unsteady, laminar, compressible Navier–Stokes equations were obtained on an unstructured mesh to match results from the static and dynamic experiments. The computational results are compared with experimental results for both static and pitching cases. Details about the flowfield, including vortex formation and interaction, are shown and discussed, including the non-linear aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle

False discovery rate smoothing

We present false discovery rate smoothing, an empirical-Bayes method for exploiting spatial structure in large multiple-testing problems. FDR smoothing automatically finds spatially localized regions of significant test statistics. It then relaxes the threshold of statistical significance within these regions, and tightens it elsewhere, in a manner that controls the overall false-discovery rate at a given level. This results in increased power and cleaner spatial separation of signals from noise. The approach requires solving a non-standard high-dimensional optimization problem, for which an efficient augmented-Lagrangian algorithm is presented. In simulation studies, FDR smoothing exhibits state-of-the-art performance at modest computational cost. In particular, it is shown to be far more robust than existing methods for spatially dependent multiple testing. We also apply the method to a data set from an fMRI experiment on spatial working memory, where it detects patterns that are much more biologically plausible than those detected by standard FDR-controlling methods. All code for FDR smoothing is publicly available in Python and R.Comment: Added misspecification analysis, added pathological scenario discussions, additional comparisons, new graph fused lasso algorith

Buildout density projections for the West Corvallis Growth Management Project

Benton County, Oregon has been experiencing relatively high growth and development during the last five years. This new growth has put a strain on urban and rural development in the county. To cope with this growth, comprehensive plans, zoning, and many other planning issues must be assessed and revised according to the needs of the community. In 1992, the West Corvallis Growth Management Project was established and intended to be the focus of new urban development in the county. The incorporation of a planning tool, such as buildout density projections, will permit better land use decisions to be made in the West Corvallis Project area. The buildout density projections demonstrate how low, medium, or high growth and development could affect the project area according to its current infrastructure limitations. As a planning tool, density projection information will be important information for determining how to re-delimit the zoning districts in the project area

The Large Area Radio Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Survey (LARGESS): survey design, data catalogue and GAMA/WiggleZ spectroscopy

© 2016 The Authors. We present the Large Area Radio Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Survey (LARGESS), a spectroscopic catalogue of radio sources designed to include the full range of radio AGN populations out to redshift z ~ 0.8. The catalogue covers ~800 deg 2 of sky, and provides optical identifications for 19 179 radio sources from the 1.4 GHz Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) survey down to an optical magnitude limit of i mod < 20.5 in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) images. Both galaxies and point-like objects are included, and no colour cuts are applied. In collaboration with the WiggleZ and Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) spectroscopic survey teams, we have obtained new spectra for over 5000 objects in the LARGESS sample. Combining these new spectra with data from earlier surveys provides spectroscopic data for 12 329 radio sources in the survey area, of which 10 856 have reliable redshifts. 85 per cent of the LARGESS spectroscopic sample are radio AGN (median redshift z = 0.44), and 15 per cent are nearby star-forming galaxies (median z = 0.08). Low-excitation radio galaxies (LERGs) comprise the majority (83 per cent) of LARGESS radio AGN at z < 0.8, with 12 per cent being high-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs) and 5 per cent radioloud QSOs. Unlike the more homogeneous LERG and QSO sub-populations, HERGs are a heterogeneous class of objects with relatively blue optical colours and a wide dispersion in mid-infrared colours. This is consistent with a picture in which most HERGs are hosted by galaxies with recent or ongoing star formation as well as a classical accretion disc

Leg weld fatigue cracks in anhydrous ammonia nurse tanks

In an accident in southwest Iowa, USA in 2012, an anhydrous ammonia nurse tank vented its entire cargo of 5500 L (1500 gallons) of liquid ammonia to the atmosphere. Follow-up study of the failed tank revealed a through-crack along a weld used to connect the tank to its running gear. Side-angle ultrasound examinations were performed on 532 used anhydrous ammonia nurse tanks to measure the locations, sizes, and orientations of flaw indications. The tanks examined had manufacture dates ranging from 1952 to 2011. A total of 83 indications were found in or near the leg welds of 50 of these 532 tanks. Several factors suggest that these indications are fatigue cracks, not the stress corrosion cracks more commonly detected in nurse tanks. These findings suggest that roughly 9% of the 200,000 nurse tanks in the U.S. nurse tank fleet may contain leg-weld fatigue cracks. Nurse tanks are the only large, pressurized packages for hazardous cargo that do not contain manways; thus, their interior walls cannot be inspected for flaws with magnetic particle or fluorescent dye penetrant methods. Since the tank interior is inaccessible, side-angle ultrasound is the only detection method capable of detecting cracks in nurse tanks initiating at both interior and exterior tank surfaces. For this reason, the authors recommend that side-angle ultrasound be considered for use in periodic nurse tank inspections