2,938 research outputs found
Computer program conducts facilities utilization and occupancy survey
Computer program identifies the uses of all facilities and provides information on the net area in each room as well as the number and classification of people occupying them. The system also provides a means to indicate unsatisfactory work areas and may be able to be updated each month
Recommended from our members
ranacapa: An R package and Shiny web app to explore environmental DNA data with exploratory statistics and interactive visualizations.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is becoming a core tool in ecology and conservation biology, and is being used in a growing number of education, biodiversity monitoring, and public outreach programs in which professional research scientists engage community partners in primary research. Results from eDNA analyses can engage and educate natural resource managers, students, community scientists, and naturalists, but without significant training in bioinformatics, it can be difficult for this diverse audience to interact with eDNA results. Here we present the R package ranacapa, at the core of which is a Shiny web app that helps perform exploratory biodiversity analyses and visualizations of eDNA results. The app requires a taxonomy-by-sample matrix and a simple metadata file with descriptive information about each sample. The app enables users to explore the data with interactive figures and presents results from simple community ecology analyses. We demonstrate the value of ranacapa to two groups of community partners engaging with eDNA metabarcoding results
Combinatorial Games with a Pass: A dynamical systems approach
By treating combinatorial games as dynamical systems, we are able to address
a longstanding open question in combinatorial game theory, namely, how the
introduction of a "pass" move into a game affects its behavior. We consider two
well known combinatorial games, 3-pile Nim and 3-row Chomp. In the case of Nim,
we observe that the introduction of the pass dramatically alters the game's
underlying structure, rendering it considerably more complex, while for Chomp,
the pass move is found to have relatively minimal impact. We show how these
results can be understood by recasting these games as dynamical systems
describable by dynamical recursion relations. From these recursion relations we
are able to identify underlying structural connections between these "games
with passes" and a recently introduced class of "generic (perturbed) games."
This connection, together with a (non-rigorous) numerical stability analysis,
allows one to understand and predict the effect of a pass on a game.Comment: 39 pages, 13 figures, published versio
Interfacing GHz-bandwidth heralded single photons with a room-temperature Raman quantum memory
Photonics is a promising platform for quantum technologies. However, photon
sources and two-photon gates currently only operate probabilistically.
Large-scale photonic processing will therefore be impossible without a
multiplexing strategy to actively select successful events. High
time-bandwidth-product quantum memories - devices that store and retrieve
single photons on-demand - provide an efficient remedy via active
synchronisation. Here we interface a GHz-bandwidth heralded single-photon
source and a room-temperature Raman memory with a time-bandwidth product
exceeding 1000. We store heralded single photons and observe a clear influence
of the input photon statistics on the retrieved light, which agrees with our
theoretical model. The preservation of the stored field's statistics is limited
by four-wave-mixing noise, which we identify as the key remaining challenge in
the development of practical memories for scalable photonic information
processing
Universal Behaviour of the Superfluid Fraction and Tc of He-3 in 99.5% Open Aerogel
We have investigated the superfluid transition of He-3 in a 99.5% porosity
silica aerogel. This very dilute sample shows behaviour intermediary between
bulk He-3 and He-3 confined to the denser aerogels previously studied. We
present data on both the superfluid transition temperature and the superfluid
density and compare our results with previous measurements. Finally, we show
that the suppression of the superfluid transition temperature and suppression
of the superfluid density of He-3 in aerogel follow a universal relation for a
range of aerogel samples.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures; 1 new figure, minor change
Spin susceptibility of the superfluid He-B in aerogel
The temperature dependence of paramagnetic susceptibility of the superfluid
^{3}He-B in aerogel is found. Calculations have been performed for an arbitrary
phase shift of s-wave scattering in the framework of BCS weak coupling theory
and the simplest model of aerogel as an aggregate of homogeneously distributed
ordinary impurities. Both limiting cases of the Born and unitary scattering can
be easily obtained from the general result. The existence of gapless
superfluidity starting at the critical impurity concentration depending on the
value of the scattering phase has been demonstrated. While larger than in the
bulk liquid the calculated susceptibility of the B-phase in aerogel proves to
be conspicuously smaller than that determined experimentally in the high
pressure region.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, REVTe
Rotational Grazing Demonstration with Beef Cattle on Conservation Reserve Land in Adams County, Iowa, USA
The United States Dept. of Agriculture\u27s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a voluntary program available to agricultural producers who will enroll erosive, marginally productive cropland for a 10 to 15 year period. In return, participants are provided annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to establish and maintain long- term, resource-conserving vegetative cover to improve the quality of water, control soil erosion, and enhance wildlife habitat. Since the inception of the CRP, policymakers, conservationists, farmers, and rural residents have been concerned about the likely fate of program land after the contracts expire. Most of the existing research, whether it relies on farm surveys or computer models, suggests that a significant proportion, perhaps more than 50 percent, will move back into row-crop production. Many rural residents in areas in which the CRP has significantly affected agricultural production would prefer to see the land returned to some form of agricultural activity, competitive with intensive row-crop production but with management and technologies that lead to acceptable environmental consequences
On the supranational spell of PISA in policy
BACKGROUND: PISA results appear to have a large impact upon government policy. The phenomenon is growing, with more countries taking part in PISA testing and politicians pointing to PISA results as reasons for their reforms.
PURPOSE: The aims of this research were to depict the policy reactions to PISA across a number of jurisdictions, to see whether they exhibited similar patterns and whether the same reforms were evident.
SOURCES OF EVIDENCE: We investigated policy and media reactions to the 2009 and 2012 PISA results in six cases: Canada, China (Shanghai), England, France, Norway and Switzerland. Cases were selected to contrast high-performing jurisdictions (Canada, China) with average performers (England, France, Norway and Switzerland). Countries that had already been well reported on in the literature were excluded (Finland, Germany).
DESIGN AND METHODS: Policy documents, media reports and academic articles in English, French, Mandarin and Norwegian relating to each of the cases were critically evaluated.
RESULTS: A policy reaction of ‘scandalisation’ was evident in four of the six cases; a technique used to motivate change. Five of the six cases showed ‘standards-based reforms’ and two had reforms in line with the ‘ideal-governance’ model. However, these are categorisations: the actual reforms had significant differences across countries. There are chronological problems with the notion that PISA results were causal with regard to policy in some instances. Countries with similar PISA results responded with different policies, reflecting their differing cultural and historical education system trajectories.
CONCLUSIONS: The connection between PISA results and policy is not always obvious. The supranational spell of PISA in policy is in the way that PISA results are used as a magic wand in political rhetoric, as though they conjure particular policy choices. This serves as a distraction from the ideological basis for reforms. The same PISA results could motivate a range of different policy solutions
zfishbook: connecting you to a world of zebrafish revertible mutants
zfishbook is an internet-based openly accessible database of revertible protein trap gene-breaking transposon (GBT) insertional mutants in the zebrafish, Danio rerio. In these lines, a monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) is encoded by an artificial 3′ exon, resulting in a translational fusion to endogenous loci. The natural transparency of the zebrafish embryo and larvae greatly facilitates the expression annotation of tagged loci using new capillary-based SCORE imaging methods. Molecular annotation of each line is facilitated by cloning methods such as 5′-Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends (RACE) and inverse polymerase chain reaction (PCR). zfishbook (http://zfishbook.org) represents a central hub for molecular, expression and mutational information about GBT lines from the International Zebrafish Protein Trap Consortium (IZPTC) that includes researchers from around the globe. zfishbook is open to community-wide contributions including expression and functional annotation. zfishbook also represents a central location for information on how to obtain these lines from diverse members of the IZPTC and integration within other zebrafish community databases including Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN), Ensembl and National Center for Biotechnology Information
- …