Development of user guidelines for ECAS display design, volume 1

Experiment computer application software (ECAS) display design and command usage guidelines were developed, which if followed by spacelab experiments, would standardize methods and techniques for data presentation and commanding via ECAS. These guidelines would provide some commonality among experiments which would enhance crew training and flight operations. The guidelines are applicable to all onboard experiment displays, whether allocated by ECAS or a dedicated experiment processor. A brief description of the spacelab data display system characteristics and of the services provided by the experiment computer operating system is included. Guidelines concerning data presentation and layout of alphanumeric and graphic information are presented along with guidelines concerning keyboard commanding and command feedback

Earth orbital teleoperator systems evaluation

The mechanical extension of the human operator to remote and specialized environments poses a series of complex operational questions. A technical and scientific team was organized to investigate these questions through conducting specific laboratory and analytical studies. The intent of the studies was to determine the human operator requirements for remotely manned systems and to determine the particular effects that various system parameters have on human operator performance. In so doing, certain design criteria based on empirically derived data concerning the ultimate control system, the human operator, were added to the Teleoperator Development Program

Histological Assessment Of The Lobster (Homarus Americanus) In The 100 Lobsters Project

The emergence of epizootic shell disease in the American lobster (Homarus americanus) has been devastating to the industry in the coastal waters of southern New England. A comprehensive assessment of the disease syndrome, known as the 100 Lobsters Project, was initiated to examine health and physiological parameters among laboratories involved in the research on lobster shell disease. A histological study of the 100 lobsters was undertaken as part of that assessment. Tissues from 90 lobsters from Rhode Island and 19 lobsters from Maine were examined as a general health assessment of the 100 lobsters. Approximately half the lobsters from Rhode Island were selected because they had frank epizootic shell disease, whereas none of the lobsters from Maine exhibited the syndrome. In addition to epizootic shell disease, the histological findings revealed 3 other idiopathic syndromes-necrotizing hepatopancreatitis, idiopathic blindness, and nonspecific granulomas-in higher prevalences in lobsters from Rhode Island compared with those from Maine. Necrotizing hepatopancreatitis, a newly described disease syndrome in lobsters, was observed in 15% of the lobsters from Rhode Island. Idiopathic blindness was present in 54% of the lobsters from Rhode Island, and 16% of the animals from Maine. This is the first report of the syndrome in lobsters from Maine. None of the idiopathic syndromes was associated with epizootic shell disease. The detection of multiple disease syndromes such as epizootic shell disease, necrotizing hepatopancreatitis, and idiopathic blindness may be indicative of exposure to environmental stressors in Narragansett Bay, RI

Who provides inconsistent reports of their health status? The importance of age, cognitive ability and socioeconomic status

Self-assessed health (SAH) measures are widely used in models of health and health inequalities. Such models assume that SAH is a reliable measure of health status. We utilise a unique feature of a national longitudinal survey to examine the consistency of responses to a standard SAH question that is asked twice to the same individual in close temporal proximity in up to three waves (2001, 2009, and 2013). In particular, we analyse whether the consistency of responses varies with personal characteristics. The main analysis sample includes 18,834 individual-year observations. We find that 57% of respondents provide inconsistent reports at least once. Characteristics that are associated with significantly higher inconsistencies are age, education, cognitive ability, and time between responses. The results suggest that there are systematic differences in the ability of individuals' to self-evaluate and summarise their own health. Consequently, failure to account for such error may lead to large estimation biases in models of health outcomes, particularly with respect to the relationship between education, cognitive ability, and health

Constraining FeLoBAL outflows from absorption line variability

FeLoBALs are a rare class of quasar outflows with low-ionization broad absorption lines (BALs), large column densities, and potentially large kinetic energies that might be important for `feedback' to galaxy evolution. In order to probe the physical properties of these outflows, we conducted a multiple-epoch, absorption line variability study of 12 FeLoBAL quasars spanning a redshift range between 0.7 and 1.9 over rest frame time-scales of approximately 10 d to 7.6 yr. We detect absorption line variability with greater than 8 sigma confidence in 3 out of the 12 sources in our sample over time-scales of 0.6 to 7.6 yr. Variable wavelength intervals are associated with ground and excited state Fe II multiplets, the Mg II 2796, 2803 doublet, Mg I 2852, and excited state Ni II multiplets. The observed variability along with evidence of saturation in the absorption lines favors transverse motions of gas across the line of sight (LOS) as the preferred scenario, and allows us to constrain the outflow distance from the supermassive black hole (SMBH) to be less than 69, 7, and 60 pc for our three variable sources. In combination with other studies, these results suggest that the outflowing gas in FeLoBAL quasars resides on a range of scales and includes matter within tens of parsecs of the central source.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 2 supplementary figures (attached at the end of the manuscript), accepted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Physics-Informed Machine Learning of Dynamical Systems for Efficient Bayesian Inference

Although the no-u-turn sampler (NUTS) is a widely adopted method for performing Bayesian inference, it requires numerous posterior gradients which can be expensive to compute in practice. Recently, there has been a significant interest in physics-based machine learning of dynamical (or Hamiltonian) systems and Hamiltonian neural networks (HNNs) is a noteworthy architecture. But these types of architectures have not been applied to solve Bayesian inference problems efficiently. We propose the use of HNNs for performing Bayesian inference efficiently without requiring numerous posterior gradients. We introduce latent variable outputs to HNNs (L-HNNs) for improved expressivity and reduced integration errors. We integrate L-HNNs in NUTS and further propose an online error monitoring scheme to prevent sampling degeneracy in regions where L-HNNs may have little training data. We demonstrate L-HNNs in NUTS with online error monitoring considering several complex high-dimensional posterior densities and compare its performance to NUTS

Identification of an Abelson murine leukemia virus-encoded protein present in transformed fibroblast and lymphoid cells

Extracts from lymphoid and fibroblast cell lines transformed by Abelson murine leukemia virus (A-MuLV) contain a protein of molecular weight 120,000 (P120). Immunoprecipitation with specific sera shows that P120 contains regions homologous to the 5'-terminal segment of the MULV gag gene complex--p15, p12, and at least part of p30--but lacks detectable determinants of p10, reverse transcriptase, and the envelope glycoprotein. P120 is phosphorylated and has an intracellular half-life of 3--6 hr. In vitro translation of virion RNA from A-MuLV, with Moloney MuLV as helper, yields a product of molecular weight 120,000 with serological reactivity similar to that of the cellular P120. Translation of the RNA from the helper gave no P120. P120 is expressed in all lymphoid and fibroblastic cell lines we have tested that were transformed by A-MuLV but is not detectable in a lymphoid line in which the A-MuLV genome was established by infection but was not responsible for the transformation. Expression of P120 is selectively retained in clones of A-MuLV-transformed lymphocytes that convert to a nonproducer state after loss of expression of helper MuLV intracellular precursors. These results suggest that the P120 product of the A-MuLV genome may be responsible for maintenance of the transformed phenotype of lymphoid and fibroblast cells transformed by the virus

Integrated chemo- and biostratigraphic calibration of early animal evolution: Neoproterozoic-early Cambrian of southwest Mongolia

Five overlapping sections from the thick Neoproterozoic to early Cambrian sediments of western Mongolia were analysed to yield a remarkable carbon-isotope, strontium-isotope and small shellyfossil (SSF) record. Chemostratigraphy suggests that barren limestones of sequences 3 and 4, which lie above the two Maikhan Uul diamictites, are post-Sturtian but pre-Varangerian in age. Limestones and dolomites of sequence 5, with Boxonia grumulosa, have geochemical signatures consistent with a post-Varangerian (Ediacarian) age. A major negative δ13C anomaly (feature ‘W') in sequence 6 lies a shortdistance above an Anabarites trisulcatus Zone SSF asemblage with hexactinellid sponges, of probable late Ediacarian age. Anomaly ‘W' provides an anchor point for cross-correlation charts of carbon isotopes and small shelly fossils. Trace fossil assemblages with a distinctly Cambrian character first appear in sequence 8(Purella Zone), at the level of carbon isotopic feature ‘B', provisionally correlated with the upper part of cycle Z in Siberia. A paradox is found from sequence 10 to 12 in Mongolia: Tommotian-type SSFs continue to appear, accompanied by Nemakit-Daldynian/Tommotian-type 87Sr/86Sr ratios but by increasingly heavyδ13C values that cannot be matched in the Tommotian of eastern Siberia. The steady rate of generic diversification in Mongolia also contrasts markedly with the Tommotian ‘diversity explosion' in eastern Siberia, which occurs just above a major karstic emergence surface. One explanation is that sequences 10 to 12 in Mongolia preserve a pre-Tommotian portion of the fossil record that was missing or removed in easternSiberia. The Mongolian sections certainly deserve an important place in tracing the true course and timing of the ‘Cambrian radiation

Parabolic diamond scanning probes for single spin magnetic field imaging

Enhancing the measurement signal from solid state quantum sensors such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is an important problem for sensing and imaging of condensed matter systems. Here we engineer diamond scanning probes with a truncated parabolic profile that optimizes the photonic signal from single embedded NV centers, forming a high-sensitivity probe for nanoscale magnetic field imaging. We develop a scalable fabrication procedure based on dry etching with a flowable oxide mask to reliably produce a controlled tip curvature. The resulting parabolic tip shape yields a median saturation count rate of 2.1 $\pm$ 0.2 MHz, the highest reported for single NVs in scanning probes to date. Furthermore, the structures operate across the full NV photoluminescence spectrum, emitting into a numerical aperture of 0.46 and the end-facet of the truncated tip, located near the focus of the parabola, allows for small NV-sample spacings and nanoscale imaging. We demonstrate the excellent properties of these diamond scanning probes by imaging ferromagnetic stripes with a spatial resolution better than 50 nm. Our results mark a 5-fold improvement in measurement signal over the state-of-the art in scanning-probe based NV sensors.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Simulations of Ductile Fracture in an Idealized Ship Grounding Scenario Using Phenomenological Damage and Cohesive Zone Models

Two complementary simulation methodologies for ductile fracture in large sheet metal components are presented and evaluated in this paper. The first approach is based on the phenomenological dilatational plasticity-damage model developed by Woelke and Abboud [68], which accounts for pressure-dependent volumetric damage growth through a scalar damage variable. The damage function represents phenomenologically micromechanical changes the material undergoes during the process of necking. Secondly, the cohesive zone model with an opening mode traction-separation law is employed to simulate the same ductile fracture problems accounting for significant variation of the multiaxial stress state along the crack path. Both methods are examined as to their capabilities to reproduce and predict the outcome of large scale experimental fracture tests of welded and unwelded ductile plates subjected to large-scale penetration, simulating an idealized ship grounding (Alsos and Amdahl, [1, 2]). The results of the current study indicate that, with appropriate calibration, both approaches can be successfully employed to simulate ductile fracture in structural components under multiaxial stress. The advantages and shortcomings of each approach is discussed from the point of view of post-test numerical investigation as well as its predictive capabilities as an engineering tool.Engineering and Applied Science