725 research outputs found

    A preliminary study of the relationship between complexity, motivation, and design quality.

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    This collection of work comprises a preliminary study of the relationships between product complexity, design motivation, and design quality. Complexity, as it relates to the design process, is largely undefined and there exists no generally accepted method of measurement. This study applies an independent data set to a complexity measurement technique and develops complexity measurements at the pre and post design stages. Pre design is considered when design ideas are in formation and customer needs are being addressed. Post design is considered when a functional prototype is realized, manufacturing and assembly processes have been considered, and the product design is considered finalized. Developing complexity measurements for both stages of design are critical to realizing lean design development. Additionally, this study investigates the effects of personal motivation on design quality outcomes. Taking from the field of sociology, a survey tool is utilized to gauge an individuals’ motivation toward design as a serious leisure activity. Serious leisure is considered an activity in which participants glean an internal reward, pleasure, or satisfaction from participation. Utilizing a proposed design quality survey, this study determines quality metrics based on customer needs, manufacturability, serviceability, and product fit and finish, and considers quality to be the ultimate measure of a design. The intersection of complexity, personal motivation, and design quality is of particular interest in this study, as it may provide insight into engineering team dynamics as it relates to design outcomes

    The James Webb Space Telescope Mission: Optical Telescope Element Design, Development, and Performance

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    The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared space telescope that has recently started its science program which will enable breakthroughs in astrophysics and planetary science. Notably, JWST will provide the very first observations of the earliest luminous objects in the Universe and start a new era of exoplanet atmospheric characterization. This transformative science is enabled by a 6.6 m telescope that is passively cooled with a 5-layer sunshield. The primary mirror is comprised of 18 controllable, low areal density hexagonal segments, that were aligned and phased relative to each other in orbit using innovative image-based wavefront sensing and control algorithms. This revolutionary telescope took more than two decades to develop with a widely distributed team across engineering disciplines. We present an overview of the telescope requirements, architecture, development, superb on-orbit performance, and lessons learned. JWST successfully demonstrates a segmented aperture space telescope and establishes a path to building even larger space telescopes.Comment: accepted by PASP for JWST Overview Special Issue; 34 pages, 25 figure

    Association studies of up to 1.2 million individuals yield new insights into the genetic etiology of tobacco and alcohol use

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    Tobacco and alcohol use are leading causes of mortality that influence risk for many complex diseases and disorders 1 . They are heritable 2,3 and etiologically related 4,5 behaviors that have been resistant to gene discovery efforts 6–11 . In sample sizes up to 1.2 million individuals, we discovered 566 genetic variants in 406 loci associated with multiple stages of tobacco use (initiation, cessation, and heaviness) as well as alcohol use, with 150 loci evidencing pleiotropic association. Smoking phenotypes were positively genetically correlated with many health conditions, whereas alcohol use was negatively correlated with these conditions, such that increased genetic risk for alcohol use is associated with lower disease risk. We report evidence for the involvement of many systems in tobacco and alcohol use, including genes involved in nicotinic, dopaminergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission. The results provide a solid starting point to evaluate the effects of these loci in model organisms and more precise substance use measures

    The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

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    Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least 4m4m. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the 6.5m6.5m James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

    Les droits disciplinaires des fonctions publiques : « unification », « harmonisation » ou « distanciation ». A propos de la loi du 26 avril 2016 relative à la déontologie et aux droits et obligations des fonctionnaires

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    The production of tt‟ , W+bb‟ and W+cc‟ is studied in the forward region of proton–proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.98±0.02 fb−1 . The W bosons are reconstructed in the decays W→ℓΜ , where ℓ denotes muon or electron, while the b and c quarks are reconstructed as jets. All measured cross-sections are in agreement with next-to-leading-order Standard Model predictions.The production of tt‟t\overline{t}, W+bb‟W+b\overline{b} and W+cc‟W+c\overline{c} is studied in the forward region of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.98 ±\pm 0.02 \mbox{fb}^{-1}. The WW bosons are reconstructed in the decays W→ℓΜW\rightarrow\ell\nu, where ℓ\ell denotes muon or electron, while the bb and cc quarks are reconstructed as jets. All measured cross-sections are in agreement with next-to-leading-order Standard Model predictions

    Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million individuals

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    We conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment (EA) in a sample of ~3 million individuals and identify 3,952 approximately uncorrelated genome-wide-significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A genome-wide polygenic predictor, or polygenic index (PGI), explains 12-16% of EA variance and contributes to risk prediction for ten diseases. Direct effects (i.e., controlling for parental PGIs) explain roughly half the PGI's magnitude of association with EA and other phenotypes. The correlation between mate-pair PGIs is far too large to be consistent with phenotypic assortment alone, implying additional assortment on PGI-associated factors. In an additional GWAS of dominance deviations from the additive model, we identify no genome-wide-significant SNPs, and a separate X-chromosome additive GWAS identifies 57

    Observation of D⁰ Meson Decays to Πâșπ⁻ΌâșΌ⁻ and KâșK⁻ΌâșΌ⁻ Final States

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    The first observation of the D⁰→πâșπ⁻ΌâșΌ⁻ and D⁰→KâșK⁻ΌâșΌ⁻ decays is reported using a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by LHCb at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, and corresponding to 2  fb⁻Âč of integrated luminosity. The corresponding branching fractions are measured using as normalization the decay D⁰→K⁻πâș[ÎŒâșΌ⁻][subscript ρ⁰/ω], where the two muons are consistent with coming from the decay of a ρ⁰ or ω meson. The results are B(D⁰→πâșπ⁻ΌâșΌ⁻)=(9.64±0.48±0.51±0.97)×10⁻⁷ and B(D⁰→KâșK⁻ΌâșΌ⁻)=(1.54±0.27±0.09±0.16)×10⁻⁷, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and due to the limited knowledge of the normalization branching fraction. The dependence of the branching fraction on the dimuon mass is also investigated

    Search for the lepton flavour violating decay tau(-) -> mu(-)mu(+)mu(-)

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    A search for the lepton flavour violating decay τ−→Ό−Ό+Ό−\tau^-\rightarrow\mu^-\mu^+\mu^- is performed with the LHCb experiment. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1^{−1} of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and 2.0 fb−1^{−1} at 8 TeV. No evidence is found for a signal, and a limit is set at 90% confidence level on the branching fraction, B(τ−→Ό−Ό+Ό−)<4.6×10−8\mathcal{B}(\tau^-\rightarrow\mu^-\mu^+\mu^-)<4.6\times10^{−8}.A search for the lepton flavour violating decay τ−^{−} → Ό−^{−} ÎŒ+^{+} Ό−^{−} is performed with the LHCb experiment. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1^{−1} of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and 2.0 fb−1^{−1} at 8 TeV. No evidence is found for a signal, and a limit is set at 90% confidence level on the branching fraction, B(τ−→Ό−Ό+Ό−)<4.6×10−8 \mathrm{\mathcal{B}}\left({\tau}^{-}\to {\mu}^{-}{\mu}^{+}{\mu}^{-}\right)<4.6\times {10}^{-8} .A search for the lepton flavour violating decay τ−→Ό−Ό+Ό−\tau^-\to \mu^-\mu^+\mu^- is performed with the LHCb experiment. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−11.0\mathrm{\,fb}^{-1} of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV7\mathrm{\,Te\kern -0.1em V} and 2.0 fb−12.0\mathrm{\,fb}^{-1} at 8 TeV8\mathrm{\,Te\kern -0.1em V}. No evidence is found for a signal, and a limit is set at 90%90\% confidence level on the branching fraction, B(τ−→Ό−Ό+Ό−)<4.6×10−8\mathcal{B}(\tau^-\to \mu^-\mu^+\mu^-) < 4.6 \times 10^{-8}

    Search for CP violation using T-odd correlations in D-0 -&gt; K+K-pi(+)pi(-) decays

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    A search for CPCP violation using TT-odd correlations is performed using the four-body D0→K+K−π+π−D^0 \to K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^- decay, selected from semileptonic BB decays. The data sample corresponds to integrated luminosities of 1.0 fb−11.0\,\text{fb}^{-1} and 2.0 fb−12.0\,\text{fb}^{-1} recorded at the centre-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV, respectively. The CPCP-violating asymmetry aCPT-odda_{CP}^{T\text{-odd}} is measured to be (0.18±0.29(stat)±0.04(syst))%(0.18\pm 0.29\text{(stat)}\pm 0.04\text{(syst)})\%. Searches for CPCP violation in different regions of phase space of the four-body decay, and as a function of the D0D^0 decay time, are also presented. No significant deviation from the CPCP conservation hypothesis is found

    Measurement of the (eta c)(1S) production cross-section in proton-proton collisions via the decay (eta c)(1S) -&gt; p(p)over-bar

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