HAWC High Energy Upgrade with a Sparse Array

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory has been fully operational since March 2015. To improve its sensitivity at the highest energies, it is being upgraded with an additional sparse array called outrigger array. We will discuss in this contribution, the different outrigger array components, and the simulation results to optimize it.Comment: Proceeding paper of a contribution at the RICAP16 6th Roma International Conference on Astroparticle Physics in Rome, Ital

HAWC Upgrade for Multi-TeV {\gamma}-ray Detection

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) high-energy {\gamma}-ray observatory was completed in march 2015 in central Mexico. The detector, consisting of 300 water tanks, is currently being upgraded to improve its performance at Multi-TeV energies, with a sparse array of small water Cherenkov tanks. It will extend the instrumental area by a factor of 4, and enhance the sensitivity at the highest energies. In this contribution, the current status of the observatory is presented, as well as the coming upgrade. The electronics and the readout system for the new sparse array of small water tanks are also desrcibed, and results from simulations performed to optimize the performance of the array are discussed.Comment: Proceeding paper of a contribution at the 6th International Symposium on High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy (Gamma2016) in Heidelberg, German

Reconstruction and Analysis of Highest Energy γ-Rays and its Application to Pulsar Wind Nebulae

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) γ-ray observatory detects cosmic- and γ-rays in the TeV energy range. HAWC was recently upgraded with a sparse detector array (the outrigger array), which increases the instrumented area by a factor of 4-5 and will improve the sensitivity at energies greater than 10 TeV. This thesis consists of a number of contributions towards the improvement of the performance of HAWC at the highest energies and the study of a prominent high energy source, 2HWC J2019+367. To decide on components of the outrigger array, simulation input is provided. A new Monte Carlo template-based reconstruction method for air shower arrays is developed. It reconstructs the core location and energy of γ-ray showers. The goodness of fit of the method is utilised to separate the cosmic- and γ-ray showers. This method significantly improves the HAWC shower reconstruction and combines the reconstruction of HAWC and the outrigger array. In-depth spectral and morphological studies of 2HWC J2019+367 are performed. 2HWC J2019+367 shows a hint of energy-dependent morphology. A new HAWC source is discovered in the vicinity associated with VER J2016+371. The preferred direction of the X-ray and TeV emission indicates their association, and their combined spectral modelling show that 2HWC J2019+367 is likely to be the TeV pulsar wind nebula of PSR J2021+3651

The Coevolution of Technology Firms and Founders

Prior research cannot explain the surprising fact that some technology firms attain spectacular growth with seemingly inexperienced founders at the helm. Informed by a cognitivist perspective, prior research in entrepreneurship explores founders\u27 epistemology, such as knowledge and skills, and investigates their interaction with firms to explain their influence on firm growth. This framing misses the reciprocal influence between firm growth and founder development. In contrast, informed by a sociocultural perspective, my research investigates the founder’s ontology and the mutual constitution of the founder and the firm. My research draws on practice theory and uses habitus as a sensitizing concept. I build a theory that explains how the dispositional toolkit of a founder evolves with, and contributes to, firm growth. Based on three in-depth case studies of technology companies, I show how technology firms and their founders coevolved. These firms influenced the development of their founders when they used founders as resources in different aspects of business and placed them in changing relationships with others. In turn, tech founders influenced the growth trajectory of their firms when they performed day-to-day practices of business. My grounded theory suggests that founders and firms coevolve in a mutually constitutive relationship. Firm growth changes the conditions under which business practices occur. The founder develops by becoming the resource the changing contexts demand. Furthermore, a growing firm deposits new dispositions in the founder. In practice, situational cues activate a specific disposition, regulating how the founder improvises. The founder’s improvisation in turn influences firm growth. My study advances entrepreneurship research, accounting for structural influences as well as human agency, thus contributing to a previously missing understanding of the coevolution of founders and firms. My study also contributes to practice by producing insights into founder development and firm growth that are relevant for entrepreneurs, board members, and educators

Small business owners’ external information-seeking behaviors: The role of perceived uncertainty and organizational identity complexity

This study examines how small business owners’ perceived uncertainty about their environment interacts with the complexity of their organization’s identity to explain their information seeking from external sources.  We hypothesize that perceived uncertainty is positively related to external information seeking, and, organizational complexity, in the form of different organizational identities, complicates this relationship and reduces the information seeking in certain conditions while increases in others. The results extend evidence to prior established relationships between perceived uncertainty and information seeking and also suggest that organizational complexity plays an equally important role as a critical moderator. Additionally, we propose a different classification scheme for the external sources and use this to test our hypotheses

Modified SPLICE and its Extension to Non-Stereo Data for Noise Robust Speech Recognition

In this paper, a modification to the training process of the popular SPLICE algorithm has been proposed for noise robust speech recognition. The modification is based on feature correlations, and enables this stereo-based algorithm to improve the performance in all noise conditions, especially in unseen cases. Further, the modified framework is extended to work for non-stereo datasets where clean and noisy training utterances, but not stereo counterparts, are required. Finally, an MLLR-based computationally efficient run-time noise adaptation method in SPLICE framework has been proposed. The modified SPLICE shows 8.6% absolute improvement over SPLICE in Test C of Aurora-2 database, and 2.93% overall. Non-stereo method shows 10.37% and 6.93% absolute improvements over Aurora-2 and Aurora-4 baseline models respectively. Run-time adaptation shows 9.89% absolute improvement in modified framework as compared to SPLICE for Test C, and 4.96% overall w.r.t. standard MLLR adaptation on HMMs.Comment: Submitted to Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding (ASRU) 2013 Worksho

EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT RETAIL PACKAGING MATERIALS ON THE SHELFLIFE OF DEHUSKED FOXTAIL MILLET

Millets are in the family of cereals grown globally with differential importance across continents and within regions of the world. Cereals are staple foods for a large proportion of the world population. The present investigation was carried out to find out the effect of different retail packaging material on the shelf-life of dehusked foxtail millet. The foxtail millet was procured at local Raichur market. Physical properties of dehusked foxtail millet viz., Particle density, Bulk density, Angle of repose, Coefficient of internal friction, Coefficient of external friction, Length, Breadth, Thickness, size and Spherecity were found to be 1.34 g/cc , 0.87 g/cc, 27.26°, 0.34, 0.27, 2.02 mm, 1.28 mm, 1.12 mm, 1.43 mm and 70.78 % respectively. Biochemical properties of dehusked foxtail millet viz., fat, fibre, carbohydrate, ash, protein, moisture content were determined initially to be 5.68 %, 4.76 %, 64.77 %, 1.64 %, 13.80 % and 9.35 %, respectively and there was no insect infestation before storing the commodity. Three types of packaging materials were used for retail packaging (1 kg) namely polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terapthalate (PET). The dehusked foxtail millet packed in different packaging material was kept for storage studies for 6 months. Quality analysis and insect infestation were checked regularly at the interval of 1 month. Finally it was concluded that for retail packaging PET was found to be best, based on its improved quality parameters and minimized insect infestation and also to prevent the damages due to insects and nutrient losses