The Great Space Weather Event during February 1872 Recorded in East Asia

The study of historical great geomagnetic storms is crucial for assessing the possible risks to the technological infrastructure of a modern society, caused by extreme space-weather events. The normal benchmark has been the great geomagnetic storm of September 1859, the so-called "Carrington Event". However, there are numerous records of another great geomagnetic storm in February 1872. This storm, about 12 years after the Carrington Event, resulted in comparable magnetic disturbances and auroral displays over large areas of the Earth. We have revisited this great geomagnetic storm in terms of the auroral and sunspot records in the historical documents from East Asia. In particular, we have surveyed the auroral records from East Asia and estimated the equatorward boundary of the auroral oval to be near 24.3 deg invariant latitude (ILAT), on the basis that the aurora was seen near the zenith at Shanghai (20 deg magnetic latitude, MLAT). These results confirm that this geomagnetic storm of February 1872 was as extreme as the Carrington Event, at least in terms of the equatorward motion of the auroral oval. Indeed, our results support the interpretation of the simultaneous auroral observations made at Bombay (10 deg MLAT). The East Asian auroral records have indicated extreme brightness, suggesting unusual precipitation of high-intensity, low-energy electrons during this geomagnetic storm. We have compared the duration of the East Asian auroral displays with magnetic observations in Bombay and found that the auroral displays occurred in the initial phase, main phase, and early recovery phase of the magnetic storm.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal on 31 May 201

Perry Center Supplemental Heating

Students will design a supplemental heat system to help increase the temperature of the fluid in the Geothermal heat system.  Currently the Geothermal system does not provide adequate heating for Perry Center during the winter.  A heat exchanger has been proposed by the Physical Plant to remedy the problem

Deriving Equations from Sensor Data Using Dimensional Function Synthesis

We present a new method for deriving functions that model the relationship between multiple signals in a physical system. The method, which we call dimensional function synthesis, applies to data streams where the dimensions of the signals (e.g., length, mass, etc.) are known. The method comprises two phases: a compile-time synthesis phase and a subsequent calibration using sensor data. We implement dimensional function synthesis and use the implementation to demonstrate efficiently summarizing multi-modal sensor data for two physical systems using 90 laboratory experiments and 10,000 synthetic idealized measurements. The results show that our technique can generate models in less than 300\,ms on average across all the physical systems we evaluated. This is a marked improvement when compared to an average of 16 seconds for training neural networks of comparable accuracy on the same computing platform. When calibrated with sensor data, our models outperform traditional regression and neural network models in inference accuracy in all the cases we evaluated. In addition, our models perform better in training latency (over 1096x improvement) and required arithmetic operations in inference (over 34x improvement). These significant gains are largely the result of exploiting information on the physics of signals that has hitherto been ignored

All Payer Hospital Regulations

Introduction: An all-payer system is a price setting system where rates of payment for healthcare services have not been negotiated between a hospital or health system or a payer but instead by a third party organization, such as Maryland’s Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC), who sets most hospital rates that all payers agree to honor. All payer hospitals focus is on legislative principles in an effort to control costs. Methods: The methodology for this study was a literature review compiled with overview of All-payer hospital systems and its utilization in a hospital setting. All articles prior to 2000 were eliminated from the search. Twenty-eight references were examined and concluded to have mitigated the inclusion parameters along with benefits and disadvantages of the system. Results: Since 1976 Maryland has successfully kept hospital costs under control using an all-payer system. Additionally, improvements in length of stay and other health measures have improved. While an all payer system works for Maryland that has a large population in urban areas, other states may not see an improvement if they are larger or more rural. Even with lower controlled rates, Maryland still ranks less favorably in per capita health spending and regional variations than other states. Discussion/Conclusion: The majority of states are not utilizing the benefits of all payer systems. Implementation can improve healthcare in the US by impeding escalating costs, distinguishing fair payment systems, and increasing the access to care. This research study did not extensively compare other nations all payer systems to Maryland or how it could be implemented in the US. The all payer system has practical implications in the US healthcare system. If programs to cut spending are implemented too quickly, national healthcare could be compromised

‘Even when you are afraid, you stay’: Provision of maternity care during the Ebola virus epidemic: A qualitative study

Objective: to explore nurse-midwives understanding of their role in and ability to continue to provide routine and emergency maternity services during the time of the Ebola virus disease epidemic in Sierra Leone. Design: a hermenuetic phenomenological approach was used to discover the lived experiences of nursemidwives through 66 face to face interviews. Following verbatim transcription, an iterative approach to data analysis was adopted using framework analysis to discover the essence of the lived experience. Setting: health facilities designated to provide maternity care across all 14 districts of Sierra Leone. Participants: nurses, midwives, medical staff and managers providing maternal and newborn care during the Ebola epidemic in facilities designated to provide basic or emergency obstetric care. Findings: the healthcare system in Sierra Leone was ill prepared to cope with the epidemic. Fear of Ebola and mistrust kept women from accessing care at a health facility. Healthcare providers continued to provide maternity care because of professional duty, responsibility to the community and religious beliefs. Key conclusions: nurse-midwives faced increased risks of catching Ebola compared to other health workers but continued to provide essential maternity care. Implications for practice: future preparedness plans must take into account the impact that epidemics have on the ability of the health system to continue to provide vital routine and emergency maternal and newborn health care. Healthcare providers need to have a stronger voice in health system rebuilding and planning and management to ensure that health service can continue to provide vital maternal and newborn care during epidemic

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Moss, Maths, Music

Sleeve notes for the album 'White On White' - a musical response to the life and work of Marlow Moss - by Primitive World, aka Sam Willis - plus consultation on track titles. LP cover design by Alessio Natalizia. Label: Ecstatic. Boomkat Cat No: ELP033-CO

Deriving Equations from Sensor Data Using Dimensional Function Synthesis

We present a new method for deriving functions that model the relationship between multiple signals in a physical system. The method, which we call dimensional function synthesis, applies to data streams where the dimensions of the signals are known. The method comprises two phases: a compile-time synthesis phase and a subsequent calibration using sensor data. We implement dimensional function synthesis and use the implementation to demonstrate efficiently summarizing multi-modal sensor data for two physical systems using 90 laboratory experiments and 10 000 synthetic idealized measurements. We evaluate the performance of the compile-time phase of dimensional function synthesis as well as the calibration phase overhead, inference latency, and accuracy of the models our method generates. The results show that our technique can generate models in less than 300 ms on average across all the physical systems we evaluated. When calibrated with sensor data, our models outperform traditional regression and neural network models in inference accuracy in all the cases we evaluated. In addition, our models perform better in training latency (over 8660× improvement) and required arithmetic operations in inference (over 34× improvement). These significant gains are largely the result of exploiting information on the physics of signals that has hitherto been ignored.This research is supported by an Alan Turing Institute award TU/B/000096 under EPSRC grant EP/N510129/1, by Royal Society grant RG170136, and by EPSRC grants EP/P001246/1 and EP/R022534/1

Obstacles to use of patient expertise to improve care: a co-produced longitudinal study of the experiences of young people with sickle cell disease in non-specialist hospital settings

Involving young people in their own healthcare is a global priority, yet we know little about how this might work in practice. In this paper, co-produced between academic researchers and people with lived experiences of sickle cell and its treatment, we examine how young people with sickle cell disease attempt to use their expertise in their own condition during emergency hospital admissions and through encounters with healthcare workers who are not sickle cell specialists. Our qualitative longitudinal research in England examined young people’s experiences of hospital encounters via repeat and one-off interviews. We show that young people’s expertise is sometimes undermined, including not being taken seriously when they report pain. They face barriers to care in non-specialist wards, particularly when they are alone with nobody to advocate for them. Although healthcare services use rhetoric that encourages young people to take control of their health and act as patient experts, in practice young people’s expertise is routinely ignored. To improve health service quality, and meet the needs of young people, young people’s own expertise must be better supported in routine interactions with healthcare providers