Environmental protection requirements for scout/shuttle auxiliary stages

The requirements for enabling the Scout upper stages to endure the expected temperature, mechanical shock, acoustical and mechanical vibration environments during a specified shuttle mission were determined. The study consisted of: determining a shuttle mission trajectory for a 545 kilogram (1200 pound) Scout payload; compilation of shuttle environmental conditions; determining of Scout upper stages environments in shuttle missions; compilation of Scout upper stages environmental qualification criteria and comparison to shuttle mission expected environments; and recommendations for enabling Scout upper stages to endure the exptected shuttle mission environments

DNA and pacific commensal models : applications, construction, limitations, and future prospects

Components of the Pacific transported landscape have been used as proxies to trace the prehistoric movement of humans across the Pacific for almost two decades. Analyses of archaeological remains and DNA sequences of plants, animals, and microorganisms moved by or with humans have contributed to understanding prehistoric migration, trade, exchange, and sometimes revealed the geographic origins of particular plants and animals. This paper presents the basic elements of a DNA-based commensal model and discusses the phylogenetic and population genetic approaches these models employ. A clear delineation of the underlying assumptions of these models and the background information required to construct them have yet to appear in the literature. This not only provides a framework with which to construct a commensal model but also highlights gaps in current knowledge. The ways in which commensal models have enriched archaeological reconstructions will be highlighted, as will their current limitations. With these limitations in mind, options will be outlined for augmenting commensal models through the application of established techniques and new technologies in order to provide the best tools for reconstructing ancient human mobility and behavior in the Pacific and beyond

Collision strengths for nebular [O III] optical and infrared lines

We present electron collision strengths and their thermally averaged values for the nebular forbidden lines of the astronomically abundant doubly ionized oxygen ion, O2+, in an intermediate coupling scheme using the Breit–Pauli relativistic terms as implemented in an R-matrix atomic scattering code. We use several atomic targets for the R-matrix scattering calculations including one with 72 atomic terms. We also compare with new results obtained using the intermediate coupling frame transformation method. We find spectroscopically significant differences against a recent Breit–Pauli calculation for the excitation of the [O iii] λ4363 transition but confirm the results of earlier calculations

How explicit are the barriers to failure in safety arguments?

Safety cases embody arguments that demonstrate how safety properties of a system are upheld. Such cases implicitly document the barriers that must exist between hazards and vulnerable components of a system. For safety certification, it is the analysis of these barriers that provide confidence in the safety of the system. The explicit representation of hazard barriers can provide additional insight for the design and evaluation of system safety. They can be identified in a hazard analysis to allow analysts to reflect on particular design choices. Barrier existence in a live system can be mapped to abstract barrier representations to provide both verification of barrier existence and a basis for quantitative measures between the predicted barrier behaviour and performance of the actual barrier. This paper explores the first stage of this process, the binding between explicit mitigation arguments in hazard analysis and the barrier concept. Examples from the domains of computer-assisted detection in mammography and free route airspace feasibility are examined and the implications for system certification are considered

Atomic data for the astrophysics : Fe XII soft X-ray lines.

We present new large-scale R-matrix (up to n = 4) and distorted-wave (DW, up to n = 6) scattering calculations for electron collisional excitation of Fe xii. The first aim is to provide accurate atomic data for the soft X-rays, where strong decays from the n = 4 levels are present. As found in previous work on Fe x, resonances attached to n = 4 levels increase the cross-sections for excitations from the ground state to some n = 4 levels, when compared to DW calculations. Cascading from higher levels is also important. We provide a number of models and line intensities, and list a number of strong unidentified lines. The second aim is to assess the effects of the large R-matrix calculation on the n = 3 transitions. Compared to our previous (n = 3) R-matrix calculation, we find overall excellent agreement to within a few percent, however a few key density diagnostic EUV intensities differ by about 60% at coronal densities. The new atomic data result in lower electron densities, resolving previous discrepancies with solar observations

Radiative recombination data for modeling dynamic finite-density plasmas

We have calculated partial final-state resolved radiative recombination (RR) rate coefficients from the initial ground and metastable levels of all elements up to and including Zn, plus Kr, Mo, and Xe, for all isoelectronic sequences up to Na-like forming Mg-like. The data are archived according to the Atomic Data and Analysis Structure (ADAS) data class adf48, which spans a temperature range of z2(101-107) K, where z is the initial ion charge. Fits to total rate coefficients have been determined, for both the ground and metastable levels, and those for the ground are presented here. Comparison is made both with previous RR rate coefficients and with (background) R-matrix photoionization cross sections. This RR database complements a dielectronic recombination (DR) database already produced, and both are being used to produce updated ionization balances for both (electron) collisionally ionized and photoionized plasmas

Helium line emissivities in the Solar Corona

We present new collisional-radiative models (CRMs) for helium in the quiescent solar corona and predict the emissivities of the He and He+ lines to be observed by DKIST, Solar Orbiter, and Proba-3. We discuss in detail the rates we selected for these models, highlighting several shortcomings we have found in previous work. As no previous complete and self-consistent coronal CRM for helium existed, we have benchmarked our largest model at a density of 106 cm-3 and temperature of 20,000 K against recent CRMs developed for photoionized nebulae. We then present results for the outer solar corona, using new dielectronic recombination rates we have calculated, which increase the abundance of neutral helium by about a factor of 2. We also find that all optical triplet He i lines, and in particular the well-known He i 10830 and 5876 Å lines, are strongly affected by both photoexcitation and photoionization from the disk radiation and that extensive CRMs are required to obtain correct estimates. Close to the Sun, at an electron density of 108 cm-3 and temperature of 1 MK, we predict the emissivity of He i 10830 Å to be comparable to that of the strong Fe xiii coronal line at 10798 Å. However, we expect the He i emissivity to sharply fall in the outer corona, with respect to Fe xiii. We confirm that the He+ Lyα at 304 Å is also significantly affected by photoexcitation and is expected to be detectable as a strong coronal line up to several solar radii

Pressure dependence of the oxygen isotope effect in YBa2_2Cu4_4O8_8

We have carried out measurements of the pressure dependence to 1.2 GPa of the oxygen isotope effect on $T_c$ in the high-$T_c$ superconductor YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ using a clamp cell in a SQUID magnetometer. This compound lies close to, but just above, the 1/8$^{th}$ doping point where in La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ marked anomalies in isotope effects occur. Both isotopes show the same very large pressure dependence of $T_c$ with the result that the isotope exponent remains low ($\sim$0.08) but increases slightly with increasing pressure. This is discussed in terms of stripe suppression, a competing pseudogap and the effect of superconducting fluctuations.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

A Bayesian method for evaluating and discovering disease loci associations

Background: A genome-wide association study (GWAS) typically involves examining representative SNPs in individuals from some population. A GWAS data set can concern a million SNPs and may soon concern billions. Researchers investigate the association of each SNP individually with a disease, and it is becoming increasingly commonplace to also analyze multi-SNP associations. Techniques for handling so many hypotheses include the Bonferroni correction and recently developed Bayesian methods. These methods can encounter problems. Most importantly, they are not applicable to a complex multi-locus hypothesis which has several competing hypotheses rather than only a null hypothesis. A method that computes the posterior probability of complex hypotheses is a pressing need. Methodology/Findings: We introduce the Bayesian network posterior probability (BNPP) method which addresses the difficulties. The method represents the relationship between a disease and SNPs using a directed acyclic graph (DAG) model, and computes the likelihood of such models using a Bayesian network scoring criterion. The posterior probability of a hypothesis is computed based on the likelihoods of all competing hypotheses. The BNPP can not only be used to evaluate a hypothesis that has previously been discovered or suspected, but also to discover new disease loci associations. The results of experiments using simulated and real data sets are presented. Our results concerning simulated data sets indicate that the BNPP exhibits both better evaluation and discovery performance than does a p-value based method. For the real data sets, previous findings in the literature are confirmed and additional findings are found. Conclusions/Significance: We conclude that the BNPP resolves a pressing problem by providing a way to compute the posterior probability of complex multi-locus hypotheses. A researcher can use the BNPP to determine the expected utility of investigating a hypothesis further. Furthermore, we conclude that the BNPP is a promising method for discovering disease loci associations. © 2011 Jiang et al