2,006 research outputs found
Results of the 1980 NASA/JPL balloon flight solar cell calibration program
Thirty-eight modules were carried to an altitude of about 36 kilometers. In addition to the cell calibration program, an experiment to evaluate the calibration error versus altitude was performed. The calibrated cells can be used as reference standards in simulator testing of cells and arrays
Results of the 1979 NASA/JPL balloon flight solar cell calibration program
Calibration of solar cells to be used as reference standards in simulator testing of cells and arrays was accomplished. Thirty-eight modules were carried to an altitude of about 36 kilometers during the solar cell calibration balloon flight
Results of the 1981 NASA/JPL balloon flight solar cell calibration program
The calibration of the direct conversion of solar energy through use of solar cells at high altitudes by balloon flight is reported. Twenty seven modules were carried to an altitude of 35.4 kilometers. Silicon cells are stable for long periods of time and can be used as standards. It is demonstrated that the cell mounting cavity may be either black or white with equal validity in setting solar simulators. The calibrated cells can be used as reference standards in simulator testing of cells and arrays
No evidence of a significant role for CTLA-4 in multiple sclerosis
Variation in the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) gene plays a significant role in determining susceptibility to autoimmune thyroid disease and type 1 diabetes. Its role in multiple sclerosis is more controversial. In order to explore this logical candidate more thoroughly, we genotyped 771 multiple sclerosis trio families from the United Kingdom for the 3? untranslated region variable number tandem repeat, the CT60 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and five haplotype-tagging SNPs. No individual marker or common haplotype showed evidence of association with disease. These data suggest that any effect of CTLA-4 on multiple sclerosis susceptibility is likely to be very small
Low-cost solar array project: Four absolute cavity radiometer (pyrheliometer) intercomparisons at New River, Arizona: Radiometer standards
Four detailed intercomparisons were made for a number of models of cavity-type self-calibrating radiometers (pyrheliometers). Each intercomparison consisted of simultaneous readings of pyrheliometers at 30-second intervals in runs of 10 minutes, with at least 15 runs per intercomparison. Twenty-seven instruments were in at least one intercomparison, and five were in all four. Summarized results and all raw data are provided from the intercomparisons
Comparison of Generic and Proprietary Sodium Stibogluconate for the Treatment of Visceral Leishmaniasis in Kenya.
OBJECTIVE: To compare the use of generic and proprietary sodium stibogluconate for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar). METHODS: A total of 102 patients with confirmed kala-azar were treated in a mission hospital in West Pokot region, Kenya, with sodium stibogluconate (20 mg/kg/day for 30 days)--either as Pentostam (PSM) or generic sodium stibogluconate (SSG); 51 patients were allocated alternately to each treatment group. FINDINGS: There were no significant differences in baseline demographic characteristics or disease severity, or in events during treatment. There were 3 deaths in the PSM group and 1 in the SSG group; 2 patients defaulted in each group. Only 1 out of 80 test-of-cure splenic aspirates was positive for Leishmania spp.; this patient was in the SSG group. Follow-up after > or = 6 months showed that 6 out of 58 patients had relapsed, 5 in the SSG group and 1 in the PSM group. No outcome variable was significantly different between the two groups. CONCLUSION: The availability of cheaper generic sodium stibogluconate, subject to rigid quality controls, now makes it possible for the health authorities in kala-azar endemic areas to provide treatment to many more patients in Africa
A Bayesian multivariate factor analysis model for evaluating an intervention by using observational time series data on multiple outcomes
A problem that is frequently encountered in many areas of scientific research is that of estimating the effect of a non-randomized binary intervention on an outcome of interest by using time series data on units that received the intervention (‘treated’) and units that did not (‘controls’). One popular estimation method in this setting is based on the factor analysis (FA) model. The FA model is fitted to the preintervention outcome data on treated units and all the outcome data on control units, and the counterfactual treatment-free post-intervention outcomes of the former are predicted from the fitted model. Intervention effects are estimated as the observed outcomes minus these predicted counterfactual outcomes. We propose a model that extends the FA model for estimating intervention effects by jointly modelling the multiple outcomes to exploit shared variability, and assuming an auto-regressive structure on factors to account for temporal correlations in the outcome. Using simulation studies, we show that the method proposed can improve the precision of the intervention effect estimates and achieve better control of the type I error rate (compared with the FA model), especially when either the number of preintervention measurements or the number of control units is small. We apply our method to estimate the effect of stricter alcohol licensing policies on alcohol-related harms
Atomtronics: ultracold atom analogs of electronic devices
Atomtronics focuses on atom analogs of electronic materials, devices and
circuits. A strongly interacting ultracold Bose gas in a lattice potential is
analogous to electrons in solid-state crystalline media. As a consequence of
the band structure, cold atoms in a lattice can exhibit insulator or conductor
properties. P-type and N-type material analogs can be created by introducing
impurity sites into the lattice. Current through an atomtronic wire is
generated by connecting the wire to an atomtronic battery which maintains the
two contacts at different chemical potentials. The design of an atomtronic
diode with a strongly asymmetric current-voltage curve exploits the existence
of superfluid and insulating regimes in the phase diagram. The atomtronic
analog of a bipolar junction transistor exhibits large negative gain. Our
results provide the building blocks for more advanced atomtronic devices and
circuits such as amplifiers, oscillators and fundamental logic gates
Order and nFl Behavior in UCu4Pd
We have studied the role of disorder in the non-Fermi liquid system UCu4Pd
using annealing as a control parameter. Measurement of the lattice parameter
indicates that this procedure increases the crystallographic order by
rearranging the Pd atoms from the 16e to the 4c sites. We find that the low
temperature properties depend strongly on annealing. Whereas the non-Fermi
liquid behavior in the specific heat can be observed over a larger temperature
range after annealing, the clear non-Fermi liquid behavior of the resistivity
of the unannealed sample below 10 K disappears. We come to the conclusion that
this argues against the Kondo disorder model as an explanation for the
non-Fermi liquid properties of both as-prepared and annealed UCu4Pd
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