2,216 research outputs found
Bridal Gallery
The Bridal Gallery is in the business of pampering its clients with a full range of bridal products and services, from gowns to garters, shoes to jewels. Located in Huntsville, TX, this small business enjoys a well deserved reputation for offering high quality, competitively priced products. In addition, free one-on-one consultation services are provided to every client. One of the companyâs flyers indicates that the Bridal Gallery is âWhere expert advice saves you time and money.â Although the company is run by a very knowledgeable owner who is passionate about her business, the financial picture has been very mixed. The owner has not drawn a regular paycheck during the entire eight year history of the business, and the past year resulted in a record net loss. An expanded bridal product line plus diversifying into a prom dress line might generate additional revenue, but due to space constraints, a potentially cost prohibitive move into a larger building might be necessary.(Contact author for a copy of the complete report.)Small Business Mgmt
On the Unique Solution of Planet and Star Parameters from an Extrasolar Planet Transit Light Curve
There is a unique solution of the planet and star parameters from a planet
transit light curve with two or more transits if the planet has a circular
orbit and the light curve is observed in a band pass where limb darkening is
negligible. The existence of this unique solution is very useful for current
planet transit surveys for several reasons. First, there is an analytic
solution that allows a quick parameter estimate, in particular of Rp. Second,
the stellar density can be uniquely derived from the transit light curve alone.
The stellar density can be used to immediately rule out a giant star (and hence
a much larger than planetary companion) and can also be used to put an upper
limit on the stellar and planet radius even considering slightly evolved stars.
Third, the presence of an additional fully blended star that contaminates an
eclipsing system to mimic a planet transit can be largely ruled out from the
transit light curve given a spectral type for the central star. Fourth, the
period can be estimated from a single-transit light curve and a measured
spectral type. All of these applications can be used to select the best planet
transit candidates for mass determination by radial velocity follow-up. To use
these applications in practice, the photometric precision and time sampling of
the light curve must be high (better than 0.005 mag precision and 5 minute time
sampling).Comment: 26 pages incl. 11 figs, submitted to Ap
Supporting GUI exploration through USS tool
Advances in usability and design techniques (e.g. user-centered design) try to facilitate the use of interactive systems. However, users still have to adapt to interactive systems, i.e. they have to learn the steps required to accomplish a task either by trial and error or by obtaining help. While advanced users are usually able to adapt without much effort this is far from being the case with beginners. Some interactive systems offer different interaction styles in an attempt to meet the needs of all types of user but this is not the case with all interactive systems. In this sense, we present an approach to support the use of any interactive system making use of enriched models and picture-driven computing to achieve tasks automation. The USS tool (User Support System) is the basis to the adaptation of interactive systems accordingly to the users' needs. The approach provides the foundation for the addition of help (based on demonstration) to any graphical user interfaces (GUI) facilitating learning and use. The work is illustrated by a case study and completed with a preliminary user evaluation which provides insights about the validity of the approach.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Investigation of alpha-nuclear potential families from elastic scattering experiments
In this work we present the continuation of the reported analysis [1] of the experimentally measured angular distributions of the reaction Cd-106(alpha, alpha)Cd-106 at several different energies around the Coulomb barrier. The difficulties that arise in the study of Cd-106-alpha-nuclear potential and the so called Family Problem are addressed
On the Period Distribution of Close-In Extrasolar Giant Planets
Transit (TR) surveys for extrasolar planets have recently uncovered a
population of ``very hot Jupiters,'' planets with orbital periods of P< 3 d. At
first sight this may seem surprising, given that radial velocity (RV) surveys
have found a dearth of such planets, despite the fact that their sensitivity
increases with decreasing P. We examine the confrontation between RV and TR
survey results, paying particular attention to selection biases that favor
short-period planets in transit surveys. We demonstrate that, when such biases
and small-number statistics are properly taken into account, the period
distribution of planets found by RV and TR surveys are consistent at better
than the 1-sigma level. This consistency holds for a large range of reasonable
assumptions. In other words, there are not enough planets detected to robustly
conclude that the RV and TR short-period planet results are inconsistent.
Assuming a logarithmic distribution of periods, we find that the relative
frequency of very hot Jupiters (VHJ: P=1-3 d) to hot Jupiters (HJ: P=3-9 d) is
10-20%. Given an absolute frequency of HJ of ~1%, this implies that
approximately one star in ~500-1000 has a VHJ. We also note that VHJ and HJ
appear to be distinct in terms of their upper mass limit. We discuss the
implications of our results for planetary migration theories, as well as
present and future TR and RV surveys.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. Minor changes. Accepted to ApJ, to
appear in the April 20, 2005 issue (v623
Effect of Low Dose Gamma Irradiation on Tristimulus Color and Carotenoid Stability of Seedless Kishu Mandarins (Citrus \u3cem\u3ekinokuni mukakukishu\u3c/em\u3e) During Postharvest Storage
The following research seeks to identify the most appropriate irradiation dose at which carotenoids can be preserved in Kishu mandarins. Irradiation serves as a potential quarantine treatment for imported commodities into the U.S. California grown mandarins kinokuni mukakukishu were treated using gamma irradiation at 0, 150 Gy, 400 Gy and 1000 Gy. The carotenoids in mandarin were evaluated for 3 test days following irradiation: after two days, after 3 weeks at 6 °C and after 3 week storage at 6 °C plus 1 extra week at 20 °C. These storage conditions simulate the sea shipment conditions of imported mandarins from China to U.S. Samples were subject to extraction, separation and saponification in order to obtain a pure carotenoid solution. Carotenoid identification was done based on order of elution, UV-VIS spectral data and retention times through HPLC-DAD analysis. The major carotenoids found were ÎČ-cryptoxanthin and ÎČ-carotene. The results show that the major carotenoids were sensitive to all irradiation doses immediately upon treatment, however exposure to room temperature for a week increased their concentrations. Irradiation caused a decrease in color a* and b* values only in the third week of storage. There did not appear to be a clear correlation between changes in carotenoid content and color values
Parental influences on adolescent physical activity: a longitudinal study
BACKGROUND: Physical inactivity is increasing among adolescents in the U.S., especially among girls. Despite growing evidence that parents are an important influence on adolescent health, few longitudinal studies have explored the causal relationship between parental influence and physical activity. This study examines how the relationships between parental influences and adolescent physical activity differ by gender and tests whether these relationships are mediated by adolescents' self-esteem and depression. METHODS: Data are from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The sample includes 13,246 youth, grades 7 to 12, interviewed in 1995 and again 1 year later. Logit models were used to evaluate parental influences on achieving five or more bouts of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week [MVPA] and whether the relationship between parental influence and MVPA was mediated by adolescents' level of self-esteem and depression. RESULTS: Family cohesion, parent-child communication and parental engagement positively predicted MVPA for both genders one year later (odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for females, 1.09 [1.05â1.12], 1.13 [1.07â1.19], 1.25 [1.17â1.33] and males, 1.08 [1.04â1.11], 1.14 [1.07â1.23], 1.23 [1.14â1.33], respectively); however, parental monitoring did not (odds ratio and confidence intervals for females and males, 1.02 [.97â1.07]). For both females and males, self-esteem mediated the relationship between parental influence and physical activity. Depressive symptoms were only a mediator among males. Females reported higher levels of parent-child communication and lower family cohesion compared with males. There were no gender differences in levels of parental monitoring and engagement. Females had significantly lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depressive symptoms than males. CONCLUSION: Strategies to promote physical activity among adolescents should focus on increasing levels of family cohesion, parental engagement, parent-child communication and adolescent self-esteem
Parameter estimation and model selection for stochastic differential equations for biological growth
In this paper, we consider stochastic versions of three classical growth
models given by ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Indeed we use
stochastic versions of Von Bertalanffy, Gompertz, and Logistic differential
equations as models. We assume that each stochastic differential equation (SDE)
has some crucial parameters in the drift to be estimated and we use the Maximum
Likelihood Estimator (MLE) to estimate them. For estimating the diffusion
parameter, we use the MLE for two cases and the quadratic variation of the data
for one of the SDEs. We apply the Akaike information criterion (AIC) to choose
the best model for the simulated data. We consider that the AIC is a function
of the drift parameter. We present a simulation study to validate our selection
method.
The proposed methodology could be applied to datasets with continuous and
discrete observations, but also with highly sparse data. Indeed, we can use
this method even in the extreme case where we have observed only one point for
each path, under the condition that we observed a sufficient number of
trajectories. For the last two cases, the data can be viewed as incomplete
observations of a model with a tractable likelihood function; then, we propose
a version of the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate these
parameters. This type of datasets typically appears in fishery, for instance
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