On the detection of relativistic magnetic monopoles by deep underwater and underice neutrino telescopes

I present here some reflections and very speculative remarks on the detection of relativistic magnetic monopoles by currently operating deep underwater/ice neutrino telescopes.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 5th International Workshop RICH200

The use of satellites in non-goestationary orbits for unloading geostationary communication satellite traffic peaks. Volume 2: Technical report

The part of the geostationary (GEO) orbital arc used for United States domestic fixed, communications service is rapidly becoming filled with satellites. One of the factors currently limiting its utilization is that communications satellites must be designed to have sufficient capacity to handle peak traffic leads, and thus are under utilized most of the time. A solution is to use satellites in suitable non-geostationary orbits to unload the traffic peaks. Three different designs for a non-geostationary orbit communications satellite system are presented for the 1995 time frame. The economic performance is analyzed and compared with geostationary satellites for two classes of service, trunking and customer premise service. The result is that the larger payload of the non-geostationary satellite offsets the burdens of increased complexity and worse radiation environment to give improved economic performance. Depending on ground terminal configuration, the improved economic performance of the space segment may be offset by increased ground terminal expenses

Comparative Effectiveness of Step-up Therapies in Children with Asthma Prescribed Inhaled Corticosteroids : A Historical Cohort Study

This work was supported by the Respiratory Effectiveness Group. Acknowledgments We thank the Respiratory Effectiveness Group for funding this work, Annie Burden for assistance with statistics, and Simon Van Rysewyk and Lisa Law for assistance with medical writing.Peer reviewedPostprin

Binary indices at various densities

Binary similarity indices are numerical analysis methods used to compare data involving two binary vectors (lists). The scope of this project involved comparing 54 binary similarity indices methods in relationship to binary vector density using the R programming language. Matrices were created of various vector data. The matrices were then scrambled to represent random data. Finally, the data was analyzed and plotted. Vector density variation can result in large differences - in both rate of change relative to density and magnitude. Awareness of these differences is important when selecting an analysis method and understanding the effects of changing vector density on analysis of results

Well-being among Older Adults in Mississippi: Exploring Differences between Metropolitan, Micropolitan, and Noncore Rural Settings

It is a common belief that older adults in rural areas have high subjective well-being, despite often experiencing greater poverty and having access to fewer resources than older adults who live in urban areas, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the “rural-urban paradox.” However, research does not consistently find high well-being in rural areas, which might be due to research not distinguishing between very rural and semi-rural (or small town) settings. This study compares the subjective well-being of older adults in micropolitan and noncore counties with the well-being of older adults in metropolitan areas in Mississippi (n = 659). Preliminary results indicate metropolitan respondents reporting higher subjective well-being than both micropolitan and noncore respondents. However, after accounting for key covariates, micropolitan residents were found to have significantly lower levels of subjective well- being compared to metropolitan residents. Overall, our study suggests that micropolitan settings may be less conducive to healthy, successful aging when compared to metropolitan settings

Hospitality Spaces, Hospitable Moments: Consumer Encounters and Affective Experiences in Commercial Settings

This paper examines the production of hospitable experiences within consumer encounters in commercial hospitality spaces. It considers the different dimensions or forms of hospitality and distinguishes between the offer of food, drink, shelter and entertainment within commercial transactions, the offer of hospitality as a means of achieving social or political goals, and meta-hospitality – temporary states of being that are different from the rational manifestations of hospitality. It is argued that meta-hospitality is tied to communitesque moments – short-lived emotional bonds that may be built or experienced through hospitality transactions. A case study is used to identify three factors that shape the development of communitesque experiences – the ecology in which it occurs, the participants' roles and their capabilities

Indicators of Supportive Service Need Among Older Adults in Mississippi

Providing quality services is one of the challenges associated with the continued increase in the nation’s older adult population. Effective use of needs assessment data can be useful in assessing service need. This study measures the level of perceived need for supportive services among older adults in Mississippi. Using statewide needs assessment data, this study applies the Behavioral Model to measure the perceived need for supportive services among survey participants aged 60 and older (N = 838). Results indicate that age, race, physical health, and subjective well-being were consistent predictors of perceived need for supportive services. Results suggest the importance of understanding the factors associated with the perceived need for supportive services to more effectively plan service delivery

Attitude Determination from Single-Antenna Carrier-Phase Measurements

A model of carrier phase measurement (as carried out by a satellite navigation receiver) is formulated based on electromagnetic theory. The model shows that the phase of the open-circuit voltage induced in the receiver antenna with respect to a local oscillator (in the receiver) depends on the relative orientation of the receiving and transmitting antennas. The model shows that using a {\it single} receiving antenna, and making carrier phase measurements to seven satellites, the 3-axis attitude of a user platform (in addition to its position and time) can be computed relative to an initial point. This measurement model can also be used to create high-fidelity satellite signal simulators that take into account the effect of platform rotation as well as translation.Comment: 12 pages, and one figure. Published in J. Appl. Phys. vol. 91, No. 7, April 1, 200

A fast recursive coordinate bisection tree for neighbour search and gravity

We introduce our new binary tree code for neighbour search and gravitational force calculations in an N-particle system. The tree is built in a "top-down" fashion by "recursive coordinate bisection" where on each tree level we split the longest side of a cell through its centre of mass. This procedure continues until the average number of particles in the lowest tree level has dropped below a prescribed value. To calculate the forces on the particles in each lowest-level cell we split the gravitational interaction into a near- and a far-field. Since our main intended applications are SPH simulations, we calculate the near-field by a direct, kernel-smoothed summation, while the far field is evaluated via a Cartesian Taylor expansion up to quadrupole order. Instead of applying the far-field approach for each particle separately, we use another Taylor expansion around the centre of mass of each lowest-level cell to determine the forces at the particle positions. Due to this "cell-cell interaction" the code performance is close to O(N) where N is the number of used particles. We describe in detail various technicalities that ensure a low memory footprint and an efficient cache use. In a set of benchmark tests we scrutinize our new tree and compare it to the "Press tree" that we have previously made ample use of. At a slightly higher force accuracy than the Press tree, our tree turns out to be substantially faster and increasingly more so for larger particle numbers. For four million particles our tree build is faster by a factor of 25 and the time for neighbour search and gravity is reduced by more than a factor of 6. In single processor tests with up to 10^8 particles we confirm experimentally that the scaling behaviour is close to O(N). The current Fortran 90 code version is OpenMP-parallel and scales excellently with the processor number (=24) of our test machine.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRAS on July 28, 201