785 research outputs found
Loss Compensation in Time-Dependent Elastic Metamaterials
Materials with properties that are modulated in time are known to display
wave phenomena showing energy increasing with time, with the rate mediated by
the modulation. Until now there has been no accounting for material
dissipation, which clearly counteracts energy growth. This paper provides an
exact expression for the amplitude of elastic or acoustic waves propagating in
lossy materials with properties that are periodically modulated in time. It is
found that these materials can support a special propagation regime in which
waves travel at constant amplitude, with temporal modulation compensating for
the normal energy dissipation. We derive a general condition under which
amplification due to time-dependent properties offsets the material
dissipation. This identity relates band-gap properties associated with the
temporal modulation and the average of the viscosity coefficient, thereby
providing a simple recipe for the design of loss-compensated mechanical
metamaterials
From the Ground Up: Restoring the Problem of Education
This paper will examine the impact of families and how they can restore the promise of education. At the local level, parents and concerned citizens should review the impact of their local school boards and how they can become involved to effect positive change. Education policies that promote school choice and educational flexibility should be promoted at the local, state, and federal levels. A comprehensive approach is needed to help ensure equality of opportunity for each child in America
Employing pre-stress to generate finite cloaks for antiplane elastic waves
It is shown that nonlinear elastic pre-stress of neo-Hookean hyperelastic
materials can be used as a mechanism to generate finite cloaks and thus render
objects near-invisible to incoming antiplane elastic waves. This approach
appears to negate the requirement for special cloaking metamaterials with
inhomogeneous and anisotropic material properties in this case. These
properties are induced naturally by virtue of the pre-stress. This appears to
provide a mechanism for broadband cloaking since dispersive effects due to
metamaterial microstructure will not arise.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
U.S. Coast Guard Boat Recovery Simulation at NASA Ames Vertical Motion Simulator
The Boat Recovery Simulation was a collaboration between the U.S. Coast Guard and NASA. The experiment was conducted at the NASA Ames Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS). The goals were to (1) design a VMS experiment that can accurately simulate the motion of high sea conditions and to (2) collect data for the U.S. Coast Guard on human performance related to small boat recovery operations. The experiment setup included a software operation model designed around empirical boat position data; a replica boat section manufactured to incorporate real-world task elements; and the means to collect objective and subjective data from human participants. The VMS provided a viable testbed to assess certified U.S. Coast Guard crewmembers task performance while in motion
Serum-Free Serial Culture of Adult Human Keratinocytes From Suction-Blister Roof Epidermis
Coating cell culture flasks with natural extracellular matrix (ECM) enhanced the culture of adult human keratinocytes from suction-blister roof epidermis in an environment without fetal calf serum (FCS), bovine pituitary extracts or cellular feeder layers. A higher incidence of cell attachment on natural ECM was observed than on collagen and human fibronectins(HFN)-coated plastic dishes, and natural ECM was necessary for growth and proliferation of attached cells under the culture conditions used. Cells in primary culture grew to confluency on natural ECM-coated surfaces within about 14 days, and subsequent serial passage could be made up to fourth passage in collagen- and HFN-coated plastic flasks. Cultured keratinocytes in this serum-free environment formed colonies of small cuboidal, healthy cells with little keratinization or stratification and demonstrated antigenic characteristics of human basal cells
MEF2C regulates outflow tract alignment and transcriptional control of Tdgf1
Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defects in
humans, and those that affect the proper alignment of the outflow
tracts and septation of the ventricles are a highly significant cause of
morbidity and mortality in infants. A late differentiating population of
cardiac progenitors, referred to as the anterior second heart field
(AHF), gives rise to the outflow tract and the majority of the right
ventricle and provides an embryological context for understanding
cardiac outflow tract alignment and membranous ventricular septal
defects. However, the transcriptional pathways controlling AHF
development and their roles in congenital heart defects remain
incompletely elucidated. Here, we inactivated the gene encoding the
transcription factor MEF2C in the AHF in mice. Loss of Mef2c function
in the AHF results in a spectrum of outflow tract alignment defects
ranging from overriding aorta to double-outlet right ventricle and
dextro-transposition of the great arteries. We identify Tdgf1, which
encodes a Nodal co-receptor (also known as Cripto), as a direct
transcriptional target of MEF2C in the outflow tract via an AHFrestricted
Tdgf1 enhancer. Importantly, both the MEF2C and TDGF1
genes are associated with congenital heart defects in humans. Thus,
these studies establish a direct transcriptional pathway between the
core cardiac transcription factor MEF2C and the human congenital
heart disease gene TDGF1. Moreover, we found a range of outflow
tract alignment defects resulting from a single genetic lesion,
supporting the idea that AHF-derived outflow tract alignment
defects may constitute an embryological spectrum rather than
distinct anomalies
Assimilation of Satellite Data in Regional Air Quality Models
In terms of important uncertainty in regional-scale air-pollution models, probably no other aspect ranks any higher than the current ability to specify clouds and soil moisture on the regional scale. Because clouds in models are highly parameterized, the ability of models to predict the correct spatial and radiative characteristics is highly suspect and subject to large error. The poor representation of cloud fields from point measurements at National Weather Services stations and the almost total absence of surface moisture availability observations has made assimilation of these variables difficult to impossible. Yet, the correct inclusion of clouds and surface moisture are of first-order importance in regional-scale photochemistry
Source amplitudes for active exterior cloaking
The active cloak comprises a discrete set of multipole sources that
destructively interfere with an incident time harmonic scalar wave to produce
zero total field over a finite spatial region. For a given number of sources
and their positions in two dimensions it is shown that the multipole amplitudes
can be expressed as infinite sums of the coefficients of the incident wave
decomposed into regular Bessel functions. The field generated by the active
sources vanishes in the infinite region exterior to a set of circles defined by
the relative positions of the sources. The results provide a direct solution to
the inverse problem of determining the source amplitudes. They also define a
broad class of non-radiating discrete sources.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figure
Estimating Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Ohio: A Bayesian Multilevel Poststratification Approach with Multiple Diagnostic Tests
Globally the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has infected more than 59 million people
and killed more than 1.39 million. Designing and monitoring interventions to
slow and stop the spread of the virus require knowledge of how many people have
been and are currently infected, where they live, and how they interact. The
first step is an accurate assessment of the population prevalence of past
infections. There are very few population-representative prevalence studies of
the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and only two American states -- Indiana and
Connecticut -- have reported probability-based sample surveys that characterize
state-wide prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. One of the difficulties is
the fact that the tests to detect and characterize SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus
antibodies are new, not well characterized, and generally function poorly.
During July, 2020, a survey representing all adults in the State of Ohio in the
United States collected biomarkers and information on protective behavior
related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Several features of the survey make it
difficult to estimate past prevalence: 1) a low response rate, 2) very low
number of positive cases, and 3) the fact that multiple, poor quality
serological tests were used to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. We describe a new
Bayesian approach for analyzing the biomarker data that simultaneously
addresses these challenges and characterizes the potential effect of selective
response. The model does not require survey sample weights, accounts for
multiple, imperfect antibody test results, and characterizes uncertainty
related to the sample survey and the multiple, imperfect, potentially
correlated tests
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