Optical Resonators in Current and Future Experiments of the ALPS Collaboration

The ALPS collaboration runs a "light shining through a wall" (LSW) experiment to search for weakly interacting sub-eV particles (WISPs). Its sensitivity is significantly enhanced by the incorporation of a large-scale production resonator and a small-scale high-power resonant second harmonic generator. Here we report on important experimental details and limitations of these resonators and derive recommendations for further experiments. A very promising improvement for a future ALPS experiment is the incorporation of an additional large-scale regeneration resonator. We present a rough sketch of how to combine a regeneration resonator with a single-photon counter (SPC) as detector for regenerated photons.Comment: 7 pages; Proceedings paper of the Axions 2010 workshop, Gainesville, FL, US

Multispectral and geomorphic studies of processed Voyager 2 images of Europa

High resolution images of Europa taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft were used to study a portion of Europa's dark lineations and the major white line feature Agenor Linea. Initial image processing of images 1195J2-001 (violet filter), 1198J2-001 (blue filter), 1201J2-001 (orange filter), and 1204J2-001 (ultraviolet filter) was performed at the U.S.G.S. Branch of Astrogeology in Flagstaff, Arizona. Processing was completed through the stages of image registration and color ratio image construction. Pixel printouts were used in a new technique of linear feature profiling to compensate for image misregistration through the mapping of features on the printouts. In all, 193 dark lineation segments were mapped and profiled. The more accurate multispectral data derived by this method was plotted using a new application of the ternary diagram, with orange, blue, and violet relative spectral reflectances serving as end members. Statistical techniques were then applied to the ternary diagram plots. The image products generated at LPI were used mainly to cross-check and verify the results of the ternary diagram analysis

Using data from connected thermostats to track large power outages in the United States

The detection of power outages is an essential activity for electric utilities. A large, national dataset of Internet-connected thermostats was used to explore and illustrate the ability of Internet-connected devices to geospatially track outages caused by hurricanes and other major weather events. The method was applied to nine major outage events, including hurricanes and windstorms. In one event, Hurricane Irma, a network of about 1000 thermostats provided quantitatively similar results to detailed utility data with respect to the number of homes without power and identification of the most severely affected regions. The method generated regionally uniform outage data that would give emergency authorities additional visibility into the scope and magnitude of outages. The network of thermostat-sensors also made it possible to calculate a higher resolution version of outage duration (or SAIDI) at a level of customer-level visibility that was not previously available

Biodiversity performance of organic farms in Austria - results from eight years of biodiversity assessment

Assessing the biodiversity performance of agricultural farms has gained importance in recent years since conserving and promoting biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions in cultural landscapes is a key aspect in making agriculture more sustainable – a demand expressed in science, politics and society. This contribution presents results from eight years of biodiversity assessments on organic farms in Austria applying a method developed at FiBL that estimates the biodiversity potential of agricultural farms (Schader et al. 2014)

Techniques, based on extremal subspaces, for improved reconstruction of signals from samples

Extremal subspaces techniques for reconstruction of signal from sample