When politicians and the experts collide: Organization and the creation of information spheres

This paper explores collaborative information behavior in the context of highly politicized decision making. It draws upon a qualitative case study of project management of a contentious public sector infrastructure project. We noted the creation of spaces for the development and exchange of information by experts and conceptualize these as information spheres. We postulate that these were formed to bypass power-induced information behavior that excludes expert power, such as information avoidance. This approach contrasts with the expected project management and information norms, rules and behavior, however, provides a language that can be used to explain the phenomena of bounded information spaces which complement and may be used as a development of adjunct to small world's theory

Generational Differences in Faculty and Student Comfort With Technology Use.

BackgroundNavigating through online education courses continues to be a struggle for some nursing students. At the same time, integrating technology into online courses can be difficult for nursing faculty.PurposeThe purpose of this study was to assess faculty technology integration practices, student attitudes about technology use, and generational differences related to faculty and student technology use.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional survey design was used to obtain data for this study.ResultsIntegration of technology into online courses and student attitudes about technology use were not significantly different by generation. Faculty and students from the Baby Boomer and Generation X reported less comfort using technology and higher levels of anxiety using technology than did individuals from Generation Y.ConclusionSignificant generational variations were not noted in relation to technology integration into courses and overall student attitudes about technology in this study, but differences were noted in relation to comfort with use of technology and anxiety when using technology. Student learning outcomes and satisfaction with learning may be influenced by the student's comfort using technology and faculty's confidence in integrating and using technology to provide online instruction

Fast field-cycling magnetic resonance detection of intracellular ultra-small iron oxide particles in vitro: Proof-of-concept.

PurposeInflammation is central in disease pathophysiology and accurate methods for its detection and quantification are increasingly required to guide diagnosis and therapy. Here we explored the ability of Fast Field-Cycling Magnetic Resonance (FFC-MR) in quantifying the signal of ultra-small superparamagnetic iron oxide particles (USPIO) phagocytosed by J774 macrophage-like cells as a proof-of-principle.MethodsRelaxation rates were measured in suspensions of J774 macrophage-like cells loaded with USPIO (0-200 μg/ml Fe as ferumoxytol), using a 0.25 T FFC benchtop relaxometer and a human whole-body, in-house built 0.2 T FFC-MR prototype system with a custom test tube coil. Identical non-imaging, saturation recovery pulse sequence with 90° flip angle and 20 different evolution fields selected logarithmically between 80 μT and 0.2 T (3.4 kHz and 8.51 MHz proton Larmor frequency [PLF] respectively). Results were compared with imaging flow cytometry quantification of side scatter intensity and USPIO-occupied cell area. A reference colorimetric iron assay was used.ResultsThe T1 dispersion curves derived from FFC-MR were excellent in detecting USPIO at all concentrations examined (0-200 μg/ml Fe as ferumoxytol) vs. control cells, p ≤ 0.001. FFC-NMR was capable of reliably detecting cellular iron content as low as 1.12 ng/µg cell protein, validated using a colorimetric assay. FFC-MR was comparable to imaging flow cytometry quantification of side scatter intensity but superior to USPIO-occupied cell area, the latter being only sensitive at exposures ≥ 10 µg/ml USPIO.ConclusionsWe demonstrated for the first time that FFC-MR is capable of quantitative assessment of intra-cellular iron which will have important implications for the use of USPIO in a variety of biological applications, including the study of inflammation

Addressing fluorogenic real-time qPCR inhibition using the novel custom Excel file system 'FocusField2-6GallupqPCRSet-upTool-001' to attain consistently high fidelity qPCR reactions

The purpose of this manuscript is to discuss fluorogenic real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) inhibition and to introduce/define a novel Microsoft Excel-based file system which provides a way to detect and avoid inhibition, and enables investigators to consistently design dynamically-sound, truly LOG-linear qPCR reactions very quickly. The qPCR problems this invention solves are universal to all qPCR reactions, and it performs all necessary qPCR set-up calculations in about 52 seconds (using a pentium 4 processor) for up to seven qPCR targets and seventy-two samples at a time – calculations that commonly take capable investigators days to finish. We have named this custom Excel-based file system "FocusField2-6GallupqPCRSet-upTool-001" (FF2-6-001 qPCR set-up tool), and are in the process of transforming it into professional qPCR set-up software to be made available in 2007. The current prototype is already fully functional

Resolved Sideband Cooling of a Micromechanical Oscillator

Micro- and nanoscale opto-mechanical systems provide radiation pressure coupling of optical and mechanical degree of freedom and are actively pursued for their ability to explore quantum mechanical phenomena of macroscopic objects. Many of these investigations require preparation of the mechanical system in or close to its quantum ground state. Remarkable progress in ground state cooling has been achieved for trapped ions and atoms confined in optical lattices. Imperative to this progress has been the technique of resolved sideband cooling, which allows overcoming the inherent temperature limit of Doppler cooling and necessitates a harmonic trapping frequency which exceeds the atomic species' transition rate. The recent advent of cavity back-action cooling of mechanical oscillators by radiation pressure has followed a similar path with Doppler-type cooling being demonstrated, but lacking inherently the ability to attain ground state cooling as recently predicted. Here we demonstrate for the first time resolved sideband cooling of a mechanical oscillator. By pumping the first lower sideband of an optical microcavity, whose decay rate is more than twenty times smaller than the eigen-frequency of the associated mechanical oscillator, cooling rates above 1.5 MHz are attained. Direct spectroscopy of the motional sidebands reveals 40-fold suppression of motional increasing processes, which could enable reaching phonon occupancies well below unity (<0.03). Elemental demonstration of resolved sideband cooling as reported here should find widespread use in opto-mechanical cooling experiments. Apart from ground state cooling, this regime allows realization of motion measurement with an accuracy exceeding the standard quantum limit.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

VLT/FORS2 comparative transmission spectroscopy II: confirmation of a cloud-deck and Rayleigh scattering in WASP-31b, but no potassium?

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from OUP via the DOI in this record.We present transmission spectroscopy of the hot-Jupiter WASP-31b using FORS2 on the VLT during two primary transits. The observations cover a wavelength range of ≈400–840 nm. The light curves are corrupted by significant systematics, but these were to first order invariant with wavelength and could be removed using a commonmode correction derived from the white light curves. We reach a precision in the transit depth of ≈140 ppm in 15 nm bins, although the precision varies significantly over the wavelength range. Our FORS2 observations confirm the cloud-deck previously inferred using HST/STIS. We also re-analyse the HST/STIS data using a Gaussian process model, finding excellent agreement with earlier measurements. We reproduce the Rayleigh scattering signature at short wavelengths (. 5300 ˚A) and the cloud-deck at longer wavelengths. However, our FORS2 observations appear to rule out the large potassium feature previously detected using STIS, yet it is recovered from the HST/STIS data, although with reduced amplitude and significance (≈ 2.5σ). The discrepancy between our results and the earlier STIS detection of potassium (≈ 4.3σ) is either a result of telluric contamination of the ground-based observations, or an underestimate of the uncertainties for narrow-band features in HST/STIS when using linear basis models to account for the systematics. Our results further demonstrate the use of ground-based multi-object spectrographs for the study of exoplanet atmospheres, and highlight the need for caution in our interpretation of narrow-band features in low-resolution spectra of hot-Jupiters.This work is based on observations collected at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere under ESO programme 096.C-0765. N. P. G. gratefully acknowledges support from the Royal Society in the form of a University Research Fellowship. N. N, D. K. S, and T. M. E. acknowledge funding from the European Research Council under the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no. 336792. J. K. B. is supported by a Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellowship. P.A.W. acknowledges the support of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), under program ANR-12-BS05-0012 ‘Exo-Atmos’. We are grateful to the developers of the NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, iPython and Astropy packages, which were used extensively in this work (Jones et al. 01 ; Hunter 2007; P´erez & Granger 2007; Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013)

VLT/FORS2 comparative transmission spectroscopy II: Confirmation of a cloud deck and Rayleigh scattering in WASP-31b, but no potassium?

We present transmission spectroscopy of the hot-Jupiter WASP-31b using the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) on the Very Large Telescope during two primary transits. The observations cover a wavelength range of ≈400–840 nm. The light curves are corrupted by significant systematics, but these were to first-order invariant with wavelength and could be removed using a common-mode correction derived from the white light curves. We reach a precision in the transit depth of ≈140 ppm in 15 nm bins, although the precision varies significantly over the wavelength range. Our FORS2 observations confirm the cloud deck previously inferred using Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). We also re-analyse the HST/STIS data using a Gaussian process model, finding excellent agreement with earlier measurements. We reproduce the Rayleigh scattering signature at short wavelengths (5300 Å) and the cloud deck at longer wavelengths. However, our FORS2 observations appear to rule out the large potassium feature previously detected using STIS, yet it is recovered from the HST/STIS data, although with reduced amplitude and significance (≈2.5σ ). The discrepancy between our results and the earlier STIS detection of potassium (≈4.3σ ) is either a result of telluric contamination of the ground-based observations, or an underestimate of the uncertainties for narrow-band features in HST/STIS when using linear basis models to account for the systematics. Our results further demonstrate the use of ground-based multi-object spectrographs for the study of exoplanet atmospheres, and highlight the need for caution in our interpretation of narrow-band features in low-resolution spectra of hot Jupiters

The Complete transmission spectrum of WASP-39b with a precise water constraint

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from American Astronomical Society via the DOI in this record.WASP-39b is a hot Saturn-mass exoplanet with a predicted clear atmosphere based on observations in the optical and infrared. Here we complete the transmission spectrum of the atmosphere with observations in the near-infrared (NIR) over three water absorption features with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) G102 (0.8-1.1 microns) and G141 (1.1-1.7 microns) spectroscopic grisms. We measure the predicted high amplitude H2O feature centered at 1.4 microns, and the smaller amplitude features at 0.95 and 1.2 microns, with a maximum water absorption amplitude of 2.4 planetary scale heights. We incorporate these new NIR measurements into previously published observational measurements to complete the transmission spectrum from 0.3-5 microns. From these observed water features, combined with features in the optical and IR, we retrieve a well constrained temperature Teq = 1030(+30,-20) K, and atmospheric metallicity 151 (+48,-46)x solar which is relatively high with respect to the currently established mass-metallicity trends. This new measurement in the Saturn-mass range hints at further diversity in the planet formation process relative to our solar system giants.This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope that were obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. These observations are associated with programs GO-14169 (PI. HR Wakeford) and GO-14260 (PI. D Deming). D.K.S., H.R.W., T.E., B.D., and N.N., acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 336792. J.G. acknowledges support from Leverhulme Trust. A.L.C. acknowledges support from the STFC. H.R.W. also acknowledges support from the Giacconi Fellowship at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc

Ground-Based Transmission Spectroscopy with FORS2: A featureless optical transmission spectrum and detection of H2O for the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-103b

We report ground-based transmission spectroscopy of the highly irradiated and ultra-short period hot-Jupiter WASP-103b covering the wavelength range ≈ 400 – 600 nm using the FORS2 instrument on the Very Large Telescope. The light curves show significant time-correlated noise which is mainly invariant in wavelength and which we model using a Gaussian process. The precision of our transmission spectrum is improved by applying a common-mode correction derived from the white light curve, reaching typical uncertainties in transit depth of ≈ 2 × 10−4 in wavelength bins of 15 nm. After correction for flux contamination from a blended companion star, our observations reveal a featureless spectrum across the full range of the FORS2 observations and we are unable to confirm the Na absorption previously inferred using Gemini/GMOS or the strong Rayleigh scattering observed using broad-band light curves. We performed a Bayesian atmospheric retrieval on the full optical-infrared transmission spectrum using the additional data from Gemini/GMOS, HST/WFC3 and Spitzer observations and recover evidence for H2O absorption at the 4.0 σ level. However, our observations are not able to completely rule out the presence of Na, which is found at 2.0 σ in our retrievals. This may in part be explained by patchy/inhomogeneous clouds or hazes damping any absorption features in our FORS2 spectrum, but an inherently small scale height also makes this feature challenging to probe from the ground. Our results nonetheless demonstrate the continuing potential of ground-based observations for investigating exoplanet atmospheres and emphasise the need for the application of consistent and robust statistical techniques to low-resolution spectra in the presence of instrumental systematics