Real-Time Data Processing in the Muon System of the D0 Detector

This paper presents a real-time application of the 16-bit fixed point Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), in the Muon System of the D0 detector located at the Fermilab Tevatron, presently the world's highest-energy hadron collider. As part of the Upgrade for a run beginning in the year 2000, the system is required to process data at an input event rate of 10 KHz without incurring significant deadtime in readout. The ADSP21csp01 processor has high I/O bandwidth, single cycle instruction execution and fast task switching support to provide efficient multisignal processing. The processor's internal memory consists of 4K words of Program Memory and 4K words of Data Memory. In addition there is an external memory of 32K words for general event buffering and 16K words of Dual Port Memory for input data queuing. This DSP fulfills the requirement of the Muon subdetector systems for data readout. All error handling, buffering, formatting and transferring of the data to the various trigger levels of the data acquisition system is done in software. The algorithms developed for the system complete these tasks in about 20 microseconds per event.Comment: 4 pages, Presented and published at the 11th IEEE NPSS Real Time Conference, held at Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, from June 14-18, 199

Is Big Data for everyone? The challenges of Big Data adoption in SMEs

The aim of this paper is to present an investigative study on the concept of Big Data and its challenges towards implementation in manufacturing SMEs. Big Data aims to facilitate the collaborative approach in SMEs through the creation of real time data visualization to address key challenges to many of the market variations for every sector SMEs. Although, earlier research studies have highlighted the importance of Big Data from technological perspectives, this study focuses towards SMEs due to its feasibility and flexibility within the market space. This research aims to investigate the use of case study approach for the re-use, adoption and understanding of strategic future direction from the findings. The findings and early analysis from this paper could be referred by researchers when addressing the use of big data analytics within manufacturing SMEs. Finally, the paper provides a key strategic point towards the exploration of Big Data within SMEs

Transverse Demagnetization Dynamics of a Unitary Fermi Gas

Understanding the quantum dynamics of strongly interacting fermions is a problem relevant to diverse forms of matter, including high-temperature superconductors, neutron stars, and quark-gluon plasma. An appealing benchmark is offered by cold atomic gases in the unitary limit of strong interactions. Here we study the dynamics of a transversely magnetized unitary Fermi gas in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. We observe the demagnetization of the gas, caused by diffusive spin transport. At low temperatures, the diffusion constant saturates to the conjectured quantum-mechanical lower bound $\simeq \hbar/m$, where $m$ is the particle mass. The development of pair correlations, indicating the transformation of the initially non-interacting gas towards a unitary spin mixture, is observed by measuring Tan's contact parameter.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Accepted versio

Landowners\u27 Knowledge, Attitudes, and Aspirations Towards Woody Biomass Markets in North Carolina

Non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners are often not included in discussions of emerging woody biomass markets for energy, yet they will likely be principal suppliers of the resource. Surveys administered to 475 forest landowners before and after an Extension Forestry education program in 10 counties across North Carolina indicated that landowners have low knowledge levels of woody biomass. However, as a result of participating in the training, landowners increased knowledge, had more positive attitudes, and developed aspirations to harvest woody biomass on their land. Extension professionals can use our training model to develop similar woody biomass educational programs

Liquid Crystal-Solid Interface Structure at the Antiferroelectric-Ferroelectric Phase Transition

Total Internal Reflection (TIR) is used to probe the molecular organization at the surface of a tilted chiral smectic liquid crystal at temperatures in the vicinity of the bulk antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase transition. Data are interpreted using an exact analytical solution of a real model for ferroelectric order at the surface. In the mixture T3, ferroelectric surface order is expelled with the bulk ferroelectric-antiferroelectric transition. The conditions for ferroelectric order at the surface of an antiferroelectric bulk are presented

Observation of the Leggett-Rice effect in a unitary Fermi gas

We observe that the diffusive spin current in a strongly interacting degenerate Fermi gas of $^{40}$K precesses about the local magnetization. As predicted by Leggett and Rice, precession is observed both in the Ramsey phase of a spin-echo sequence, and in the nonlinearity of the magnetization decay. At unitarity, we measure a Leggett-Rice parameter $\gamma = 1.08(9)$ and a bare transverse spin diffusivity $D_0^\perp = 2.3(4)\,\hbar/m$ for a normal-state gas initialized with full polarization and at one fifth of the Fermi temperature, where $m$ is the atomic mass. One might expect $\gamma = 0$ at unitarity, where two-body scattering is purely dissipative. We observe $\gamma \rightarrow 0$ as temperature is increased towards the Fermi temperature, consistent with calculations that show the degenerate Fermi sea restores a non-zero $\gamma$. Tuning the scattering length $a$, we find that a sign change in $\gamma$ occurs in the range $0 < (k_F a)^{-1} \lesssim 1.3$, where $k_F$ is the Fermi momentum. We discuss how $\gamma$ reveals the effective interaction strength of the gas, such that the sign change in $\gamma$ indicates a switching of branch, between a repulsive and an attractive Fermi gas.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures; Changed to the more conventional kF=(3 pi^2 n)^1/3, instead of the polarized definition we used in v

Toward the Adoption of New Farming Systems among Farmers: A Case study of Short Rotation Woody Crops in North Carolina

This study explores the human dimensions of the broad-based adoption of Short Rotation Woody Crops (SRWCs) among farmers in North Carolina. We used an actor diagramming and tracing approach to explore factors influencing farmers’ adoption of SRWCs. Results suggest four factors strongly influence the adoption process: 1) market availability, 2) education awareness, 3) funding, and 4) social networking. Based on these results, we recommend that Extension professionals use the following education modules to prompt the adoption of SRWCs practices and potentially adopt other new farming practices: 1) ecological sustainability, 2) financial considerations, 3) harvesting, and 4) community building

Riskometer—Voting with Your Feet

As Extension professionals, we are faced with the need to educate youth and adults about risk and to assess their preference for risk; however, many find the concepts difficult to illustrate. This article lays out a simple technique that can be used to illustrate how personal attitudes toward risk change with changes in situations. Youth and adults who participate in the exercise will have a better understanding of risk and their attitudes about risk, which will lead them to make personal choices that are right for them