Heat transfer device

An improved heat transfer device particularly suited for use as an evaporator plate in a diffusion cloud chamber. The device is characterized by a pair of mutually spaced heat transfer plates, each being of a planar configuration, having a pair of opposed surfaces defining therebetween a heat pipe chamber. Within the heat pipe chamber, in contiguous relation with the pair of opposed surfaces, there is disposed a pair of heat pipe wicks supported in a mutually spaced relationship by a foraminous spacer of a planar configuration. A wick including a foraminous layer is contiguously related to the external surfaces of the heat transfer plates for uniformly wetting these surfaces

William H. Kruskal and the Development of Coordinate-Free Methods

Discussion of ``The William Kruskal Legacy: 1919--2005'' by Stephen E. Fienberg, Stephen M. Stigler and Judith M. Tanur [arXiv:0710.5063]Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000367 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The Phoretic Motion Experiment (PME) definition phase

The aerosol generator and the charge flow devices (CFD) chamber which were designed for zero-gravity operation was analyzed. Characteristics of the CFD chamber and aerosol generator which would be useful for cloud physics experimentation in a one-g as well as a zero-g environment are documented. The Collision type of aerosol generator is addressed. Relationships among the various input and output parameters are derived and subsequently used to determine the requirements on the controls of the input parameters to assure a given error budget of an output parameter. The CFD chamber operation in a zero-g environment is assessed utilizing a computer simulation program. Low nuclei critical supersaturation and high experiment accuracies are emphasized which lead to droplet growth times extending into hundreds of seconds. The analysis was extended to assess the performance constraints of the CFD chamber in a one-g environment operating in the horizontal mode

Spurious Eccentricities of Distorted Binary Components

I discuss the effect of physical distortion on the velocities of close binary components and how we may use the resulting distortion of velocity curves to constrain some properties of binary systems, such as inclination and mass ratio. Precise new velocities for 5 Cet convincingly detect these distortions with their theoretically predicted phase dependence. We can even use such distortions of velocity curves to test Lucy's theory of convective gravity darkening. The observed distortions for TT Hya and 5 Cet require the contact components of those systems to be gravity darkened, probably somewhat more than predicted by Lucy's theory but clearly not as much as expected for a radiative star. These results imply there is no credible evidence for eccentric orbits in binaries with contact components. I also present some speculative analyses of the observed properties of a binary encased in a non-rotating common envelope, if such an object could actually exist, and discuss how the limb darkening of some recently calculated model atmospheres for giant stars may bias my resuts for velocity-curve distortions, as well as other results from a wide range of analyses of binary stars.Comment: 14 pp, 2 tables, 12 fig; under review by Ap

Zero-gravity cloud physics laboratory: Experiment program definition and preliminary laboratory concept studies

The experiment program definition and preliminary laboratory concept studies on the zero G cloud physics laboratory are reported. This program involves the definition and development of an atmospheric cloud physics laboratory and the selection and delineations of a set of candidate experiments that must utilize the unique environment of zero gravity or near zero gravity

Chlamydia diagnosis rate in England in 2012: an ecological study of local authorities

Objectives Local authorities (LAs) in England commission chlamydia screening as part of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme. It is recommended that LAs achieve a chlamydia diagnosis rate of ≥2300 cases per 100 000 population aged 15–24. We describe national patterns in attainment of the chlamydia diagnosis rate recommendation and possible implications of using it to measure LA-level performance. Methods We used publicly available data sets from England (2012) to explore the association between LAs attaining the recommended chlamydia diagnosis rate and population size, socioeconomic deprivation, test setting and sex. Results We used data from 1 197 121 recorded chlamydia tests in females and 564 117 in males. The chlamydia diagnosis rate recommendation was achieved by 22% (72/324) of LAs overall (43% female population; 8% male population). LAs in the highest deprivation quintile were more likely to reach the recommendation than those in the least-deprived quintile for both sexes (women: unadjusted prevalence ratio (UPR) 7.43, 95% CI 3.65 to 15.11; men: UPR 7.00, 95% CI 1.66 to 29.58). The proportion of tests performed in genitourinary medicine clinics was negatively associated with attainment of the recommended diagnosis rate (UPR 0.95, 0.93 to 0.97). Conclusions Chlamydia diagnosis rate recommendations that reflect local area deprivation (as a proxy for disease burden) may be more appropriate than a single national target if the aim is to reduce health inequalities nationally. We suggest LAs monitor their chlamydia diagnosis rate, test coverage and test positivity across a range of measures (including setting and sex) and pre/post changes to commissioned services. Critical evaluation of performance against the recommendation should be reflected in local commissioning decisions

Evaluation of Formal posterior distributions via Markov chain arguments

We consider evaluation of proper posterior distributions obtained from improper prior distributions. Our context is estimating a bounded function $\phi$ of a parameter when the loss is quadratic. If the posterior mean of $\phi$ is admissible for all bounded $\phi$, the posterior is strongly admissible. We give sufficient conditions for strong admissibility. These conditions involve the recurrence of a Markov chain associated with the estimation problem. We develop general sufficient conditions for recurrence of general state space Markov chains that are also of independent interest. Our main example concerns the $p$-dimensional multivariate normal distribution with mean vector $\theta$ when the prior distribution has the form $g(\|\theta\|^2) d\theta$ on the parameter space $\mathbb{R}^p$. Conditions on $g$ for strong admissibility of the posterior are provided.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOS542 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

A comparison of the fluency of oral, written and multiple-choice recall after silent reading of five grade levels

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit