491 research outputs found
Alternative Sources of Large Seasonal Ground-water Supplies in the Headwaters of the Susquehanna River Basin, New York
The northern divide of the Susquehanna River basin crosses 29 broad valleys that contain thick glacial deposits but are drained only by small headwater streams. Much groundwater could be withdrawn from sand and gravel deposits in these valleys with little immediate effect on streamflow. A digital model of the headwater reach of one typical valley suggests that pumping 10.8 million gal/day for 2 months every summer would lower the water table as much as 33 ft, cause the upper 1,900 ft of the stream draining the valley to go dry, and reduce streamflow downvalley by 1.2 million gal/day by the time pumping ceased. Saturated thickness of surficial sand and gravel exceeds 40 ft in about half the headwater valley reaches; the valley floor areas range from 0.2 to 9 sq mi. Seepage losses from small streams that carry runoff from adjacent till-covered uplands are a major source of recharge to aquifers in these valleys under natural conditions and would increase if the water table were lowered by seasonal withdrawals. Some aquifers beneath extensive clay layers in these and other valleys of the Susquehanna River basin may be partially independent of streams but not easily evaluated. (USGS
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Phase II Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Orexin Receptor Antagonist Filorexant (MK-6096) in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder.
BackgroundWe evaluated the orexin receptor antagonist filorexant (MK-6096) for treatment augmentation in patients with major depressive disorder.MethodsWe conducted a 6-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, Phase II, proof-of-concept study. Patients with major depressive disorder (partial responders to ongoing antidepressant therapy) were randomized 1:1 to once-daily oral filorexant 10 mg or matching placebo.ResultsDue to enrollment challenges, the study was terminated early, resulting in insufficient statistical power to detect a prespecified treatment difference; of 326 patients planned, 129 (40%) were randomized and 128 took treatment. There was no statistically significant difference in the primary endpoint of change from baseline to week 6 in Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale total score; the estimated treatment difference for filorexant-placebo was -0.7 (with negative values favoring filorexant) (P=.679). The most common adverse events were somnolence and suicidal ideation.ConclusionsThe interpretation of the results is limited by the enrollment, which was less than originally planned, but the available data do not suggest efficacy of orexin receptor antagonism with filorexant for the treatment of depression. (Clinical Trial Registry: clinicaltrials.gov: NCT01554176)
A step-by-step construction site photography procedure to enhance the efficiency of as-built data visualization: a case study
Theory of laser ion acceleration from a foil target of nanometers
A theory for laser ion acceleration is presented to evaluate the maximum ion
energy in the interaction of ultrahigh contrast (UHC) intense laser with a
nanometer-scale foil. In this regime the energy of ions may be directly related
to the laser intensity and subsequent electron dynamics. This leads to a simple
analytical expression for the ion energy gain under the laser irradiation of
thin targets. Significantly, higher energies for thin targets than for thicker
targets are predicted. Theory is concretized to the details of recent
experiments which may find its way to compare with these results.Comment: 22 pages 7 figures. will be submitted to NJ
Zettawatt-Exawatt Lasers and Their Applications in Ultrastrong-Field Physics: High Energy Front
Since its birth, the laser has been extraordinarily effective in the study
and applications of laser-matter interaction at the atomic and molecular level
and in the nonlinear optics of the bound electron. In its early life, the laser
was associated with the physics of electron volts and of the chemical bond.
Over the past fifteen years, however, we have seen a surge in our ability to
produce high intensities, five to six orders of magnitude higher than was
possible before. At these intensities, particles, electrons and protons,
acquire kinetic energy in the mega-electron-volt range through interaction with
intense laser fields. This opens a new age for the laser, the age of nonlinear
relativistic optics coupling even with nuclear physics. We suggest a path to
reach an extremely high-intensity level W/cm in the coming
decade, much beyond the current and near future intensity regime W/cm, taking advantage of the megajoule laser facilities. Such a laser at
extreme high intensity could accelerate particles to frontiers of high energy,
tera-electron-volt and peta-electron-volt, and would become a tool of
fundamental physics encompassing particle physics, gravitational physics,
nonlinear field theory, ultrahigh-pressure physics, astrophysics, and
cosmology. We focus our attention on high-energy applications in particular and
the possibility of merged reinforcement of high-energy physics and ultraintense
laser.Comment: 25 pages. 1 figur
Preserving the impossible: conservation of soft-sediment hominin footprint sites and strategies for three-dimensional digital data capture.
Human footprints provide some of the most publically emotive and tangible evidence of our ancestors. To the scientific community they provide evidence of stature, presence, behaviour and in the case of early hominins potential evidence with respect to the evolution of gait. While rare in the geological record the number of footprint sites has increased in recent years along with the analytical tools available for their study. Many of these sites are at risk from rapid erosion, including the Ileret footprints in northern Kenya which are second only in age to those at Laetoli (Tanzania). Unlithified, soft-sediment footprint sites such these pose a significant geoconservation challenge. In the first part of this paper conservation and preservation options are explored leading to the conclusion that to 'record and digitally rescue' provides the only viable approach. Key to such strategies is the increasing availability of three-dimensional data capture either via optical laser scanning and/or digital photogrammetry. Within the discipline there is a developing schism between those that favour one approach over the other and a requirement from geoconservationists and the scientific community for some form of objective appraisal of these alternatives is necessary. Consequently in the second part of this paper we evaluate these alternative approaches and the role they can play in a 'record and digitally rescue' conservation strategy. Using modern footprint data, digital models created via optical laser scanning are compared to those generated by state-of-the-art photogrammetry. Both methods give comparable although subtly different results. This data is evaluated alongside a review of field deployment issues to provide guidance to the community with respect to the factors which need to be considered in digital conservation of human/hominin footprints
Visual change detection on tunnel linings
We describe an automated system for detecting, localising, clustering and ranking visual changes on tunnel surfaces. The system is designed to provide assistance to expert human inspectors carrying out structural health monitoring and maintenance on ageing tunnel networks. A three-dimensional tunnel surface model is first recovered from a set of reference images using Structure from Motion techniques. New images are localised accurately within the model and changes are detected versus the reference images and model geometry. We formulate the problem of detecting changes probabilistically and evaluate the use of different feature maps and a novel geometric prior to achieve invariance to noise and nuisance sources such as parallax and lighting changes. A clustering and ranking method is proposed which efficiently presents detected changes and further improves the inspection efficiency. System performance is assessed on a real data set collected using a low-cost prototype capture device and labelled with ground truth. Results demonstrate that our system is a step towards higher frequency visual inspection at a reduced cost.The authors gratefully acknowledge the support by Toshiba Research Europe.This is the accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00138-014-0648-8
Autocalibration with the Minimum Number of Cameras with Known Pixel Shape
In 3D reconstruction, the recovery of the calibration parameters of the
cameras is paramount since it provides metric information about the observed
scene, e.g., measures of angles and ratios of distances. Autocalibration
enables the estimation of the camera parameters without using a calibration
device, but by enforcing simple constraints on the camera parameters. In the
absence of information about the internal camera parameters such as the focal
length and the principal point, the knowledge of the camera pixel shape is
usually the only available constraint. Given a projective reconstruction of a
rigid scene, we address the problem of the autocalibration of a minimal set of
cameras with known pixel shape and otherwise arbitrarily varying intrinsic and
extrinsic parameters. We propose an algorithm that only requires 5 cameras (the
theoretical minimum), thus halving the number of cameras required by previous
algorithms based on the same constraint. To this purpose, we introduce as our
basic geometric tool the six-line conic variety (SLCV), consisting in the set
of planes intersecting six given lines of 3D space in points of a conic. We
show that the set of solutions of the Euclidean upgrading problem for three
cameras with known pixel shape can be parameterized in a computationally
efficient way. This parameterization is then used to solve autocalibration from
five or more cameras, reducing the three-dimensional search space to a
two-dimensional one. We provide experiments with real images showing the good
performance of the technique.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, 7 tables, J. Math. Imaging Vi
The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR: A Search for Neutrinoless Double-beta Decay of Germanium-76
The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would determine whether the
neutrino is a Majorana particle and provide information on the absolute scale
of neutrino mass. The MAJORANA Collaboration is constructing the DEMONSTRATOR,
an array of germanium detectors, to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay
of 76-Ge. The DEMONSTRATOR will contain 40 kg of germanium; up to 30 kg will be
enriched to 86% in 76-Ge. The DEMONSTRATOR will be deployed deep underground in
an ultra-low-background shielded environment. Operation of the DEMONSTRATOR
aims to determine whether a future tonne-scale germanium experiment can achieve
a background goal of one count per tonne-year in a 4-keV region of interest
around the 76-Ge neutrinoless double-beta decay Q-value of 2039 keV.Comment: Submitted to AIP Conference Proceedings, 19th Particles & Nuclei
International Conference (PANIC 2011), Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA, USA, July 24-29, 2011; 3 pages, 1 figur
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