Measured and predicted shock shapes for AFE configuration at Mach 6 in air and in CF4

Shock shapes and stand-off distances were obtained for the Aeroassist Flight Experiment configuration from Mach 6 tests in air and in CF4. Results were plotted for an angle-of attack range from -10 to 10 degrees and comparisons were made at selected angles with inviscid-flow predictions. Tests were performed in the Langley Research Center (LaRC) 20 inch Mach 6 Tunnel (air) at unit free-stream Reynolds numbers (N sub Re, infinity) of 2 million/ft and 0.6 million/ft and in the LaRC Hypersonic CF4 Tunnel at N sub Re, infinity = 0.5 million/ft and 0.3 million/ft. Within the range of these tests, N sub Re, infinity did not affect the shock shape or stand off distance, and the predictions were in good agreement with the measurements. The shock stand-off distance in CF4 was approximately half of that in air. This effect resulted from the differences in density ratio across the normal shock, which was approximately 12 in CF4 and 5 in air. In both test gases, the shock lay progressively closer to the body as angle of attack decreased

Estimating the Impact of California Tribal Gaming on Demand for Casino Gaming in Nevada

Since 1990, the California tribal casino industry has grown from a very small and insignificant industry to one with annual gross gaming revenues of about $7.5 billion per annum by 2009. Over this same period, Nevada\u27s gaming revenues grew from approximately$5.0 billion in 1990 to $10.4 billion in 2009, having declined from a peak of$12.8 billion in 2007. Much of the recent decline in Nevada and especially Las Vegas can be attributed to the severity of the economic recession of 2007-2009. However, the major Northern Nevada destination resorts of Reno and South Lake Tahoe had experienced substantial slowdowns or contraction of their gaming industries since the advent of California tribal gaming in the early 1990s, as measured in a number of ways, including number of gaming devices, employment, and gross gaming revenues adjusted for inflation. Las Vegas, on the other hand, had experienced substantial real growth over this same period, until the Great Recession of 2007-2009, at which point it experienced a dramatic reversal of fortune. This analysis estimates demand relationships for gaming activity in the major tourism markets in Northern and Southern Nevada, by specifying a number of variables that relate to the demand for gambling in these markets as well as noting monthly seasonal shifts. It also examines the competitive links between the expansion of California tribal gaming and the Nevada casino industry\u27s economic performance. Regression analysis is utilized to establish the relationship between the growth and expansion of tribal casinos in California and the expansion or contraction of gaming in Nevada\u27s major regions of Reno, Lake Tahoe, and the Las Vegas Strip

The Impact of variable data print on usability in design

In a world where people see, process and remember information differently, the question arises: Is technology being used in a manner that acknowledges and addresses user differences to the fullest extent? Currently, new print technologies like Variable Data Printing (VDP) are only being used to create customized direct mailing pieces and personalized products for the purpose of marketing, sales and promotion. However, VDP introduces the ability to change data and design elements in printed documents on an individual basis, making it possible to address differences in visual and cognitive abilities, language and culture, and situational considerations. Applying this concept of customization to educational or informational documents would allow a small amount of input from a user to influence unique output (different sequences or layouts, typographic decisions and appropriate content choices) that are more relevant, usable and engaging. While using VDP as a means to explore and achieve this customization, the focus of this thesis study is not the technology, but the development of a graphic design strategy that also accommodates this customization goal to make information more accessible and usable on an individual basis

The Role of Transition Plans for High School Students with Disabilities

The purpose of this paper is to analyze a cross section of literature on postsecondary transition plans for students with disabilities and use the data to identify implications for building level administrators. The Summary and Critical Analyses section of this paper consists of a combination of six research and best practices articles on postsecondary transition planning for students with disabilities

Control of stochastic and induced switching in biophysical networks

Noise caused by fluctuations at the molecular level is a fundamental part of intracellular processes. While the response of biological systems to noise has been studied extensively, there has been limited understanding of how to exploit it to induce a desired cell state. Here we present a scalable, quantitative method based on the Freidlin-Wentzell action to predict and control noise-induced switching between different states in genetic networks that, conveniently, can also control transitions between stable states in the absence of noise. We apply this methodology to models of cell differentiation and show how predicted manipulations of tunable factors can induce lineage changes, and further utilize it to identify new candidate strategies for cancer therapy in a cell death pathway model. This framework offers a systems approach to identifying the key factors for rationally manipulating biophysical dynamics, and should also find use in controlling other classes of noisy complex networks.Comment: A ready-to-use code package implementing the method described here is available from the authors upon reques

Keypoint Transfer for Fast Whole-Body Segmentation

We introduce an approach for image segmentation based on sparse correspondences between keypoints in testing and training images. Keypoints represent automatically identified distinctive image locations, where each keypoint correspondence suggests a transformation between images. We use these correspondences to transfer label maps of entire organs from the training images to the test image. The keypoint transfer algorithm includes three steps: (i) keypoint matching, (ii) voting-based keypoint labeling, and (iii) keypoint-based probabilistic transfer of organ segmentations. We report segmentation results for abdominal organs in whole-body CT and MRI, as well as in contrast-enhanced CT and MRI. Our method offers a speed-up of about three orders of magnitude in comparison to common multi-atlas segmentation, while achieving an accuracy that compares favorably. Moreover, keypoint transfer does not require the registration to an atlas or a training phase. Finally, the method allows for the segmentation of scans with highly variable field-of-view.Comment: Accepted for publication at IEEE Transactions on Medical Imagin