A study of the very high order natural user language (with AI capabilities) for the NASA space station common module

The requirements are identified for a very high order natural language to be used by crew members on board the Space Station. The hardware facilities, databases, realtime processes, and software support are discussed. The operations and capabilities that will be required in both normal (routine) and abnormal (nonroutine) situations are evaluated. A structure and syntax for an interface (front-end) language to satisfy the above requirements are recommended

Damping of bulk excitations over an elongated BEC - the role of radial modes

We report the measurement of Beliaev damping of bulk excitations in cigar shaped Bose Einstein condensates of atomic vapor. By using post selection, excitation line shapes of the total population are compared with those of the undamped excitations. We find that the damping depends on the initial excitation energy of the decaying quasi particle, as well as on the excitation momentum. We model the condensate as an infinite cylinder and calculate the damping rates of the different radial modes. The derived damping rates are in good agreement with the experimentally measured ones. The damping rates strongly depend on the destructive interference between pathways for damping, due to the quantum many-body nature of both excitation and damping products.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Hybrid Superconductor-Quantum Point Contact Devices using InSb Nanowires

Proposals for studying topological superconductivity and Majorana bound states in nanowires proximity coupled to superconductors require that transport in the nanowire is ballistic. Previous work on hybrid nanowire-superconductor systems has shown evidence for Majorana bound states, but these experiments were also marked by disorder, which disrupts ballistic transport. In this letter, we demonstrate ballistic transport in InSb nanowires interfaced directly with superconducting Al by observing quantized conductance at zero-magnetic field. Additionally, we demonstrate that the nanowire is proximity coupled to the superconducting contacts by observing Andreev reflection. These results are important steps for robustly establishing topological superconductivity in InSb nanowires

The multifinality of vulnerability indicators in lone-actor terrorism

To move beyond current aggregate and static conclusions regarding radicalisation and subsequent terrorist behaviour, empirical research should look to criminological models which are influenced by the life-course perspective. Current UK government policy designed to prevent radicalisation and terrorist engagement look to outputs from criminological perspectives to inform policy and practice. However, the guidance suffers from a lack of specificity as to the major concept of ‘vulnerability to radicalisation’, and what this incorporates. This investigation uses sequential analyses to add to our understanding of ‘vulnerability’ in the specific context of lone-actor terrorism. The statistical method bridges the gap between qualitative and quantitative approaches and provides a series of empirical outputs which visualise typical lone-actor terrorist trajectories through the discrete stages of radicalisation, attack planning and attack commission

Updating and organizing our knowledge of risk and protective factors for lone-actor terrorism

This chapter updates builds upon previous descriptive analyses of loneactor terrorists, their behaviours, ideological backgrounds and degrees of 'loneness'. It offers greater conceptual clarity, updated data and a more expansive set of variables from previous analyses. Individual vulnerability indicators examined here include potential indicators of cognitive susceptibility to moral change, and self-selection and social selection into radicalizing settings, notably membership of a social network containing one or more radicalized individual. We also examine exposure settings, attack-preparation behaviours and explore sub-set analyses of the data. The analyses informed by a Risk Analysis Framework which offers a multilevel, integrated meta-model of these events and allows for the synthesis of disparate findings. The analyses provide key insights into the behaviour of lone-actors, which could inform intelligence gathering and investigative practice, as such analyses already do in other crime prevention domains

Comparison of Postoperative Fever and Effectiveness of Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL) Versus Retrograde Intrarenal Surgery (RIRS) for the Treatment of Renal Stones

The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness and the relative risk of postoperative fever between percutaneous nephrolithotomy and retrograde intrarenal surgery for the treatment of renal stones. At the Cannizzaro Hospital in Catania, a total 168 patients with one or more renal stones underwent one of more interventions, resulting in 177 independent records; 62 records related to PCNL treatment and 115 records involved RIRS treatment. To assess the relationship between patient and stone characteristics on the one hand and stone-free rate and the incidence rate of postoperative fever on the other, a generalized additive logistic models was used. We found that stone burden, defined in terms of stone diameter, the number of stones and stone density, is a significant predictor for the success of the intervention. Furthermore, PCNL treatment was significantly less successful for stone in the middle calyx, whereas RIRS obtained significantly lower success rate for stone in the lower calyx that had a sharp infundibular angle. Importantly, for renal stones with a diameter up to 2 cm, RIRS has a very similar success rate compared to PCNL. Stones with a diameter larger than 2 cm are best treated by PCNL. Across the two treatments, older patients and men have lower incidence rate of postoperative fevers. The fact that RIRS has much lower postoperative fever rates for male and younger patients compared to PCNL, means that RIRS could be the treatment of choice for small and midsized stones for such patients

Bose-Fermi mixtures in 1D optical superlattices

The zero temperature phase diagram of binary boson-fermion mixtures in two-colour superlattices is investigated. The eigenvalue problem associated with the Bose-Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian is solved using an exact numerical diagonalization technique, supplemented by an adaptive basis truncation scheme. The physically motivated basis truncation allows to access larger systems in a fully controlled and very flexible framework. Several experimentally relevant observables, such as the matter-wave interference pattern and the condensatefraction, are investigated in order to explore the rich phase diagram. At symmetric half filling a phase similar to the Mott-insulating phase in a commensurate purely bosonic system is identified and an analogy to recent experiments is pointed out. Furthermore a phase of complete localization of the bosonic species generated by the repulsive boson-fermion interaction is identified. These localized condensates are of a different nature than the genuine Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure