30,395 research outputs found
Attached Algae as an Indicator of Water Quality: A Study of the Viability of Genomic Taxonomic Methods
This research involved evaluating algae as an indicator of water quality in New Hampshire\u27s rivers, with a focus on the Great Bay Estuary. The project had three main goals. First, determining whether or not algae would work as an indicator of water quality in the great bay ecosystem, an environment where tidal currents are strong and water composition is mixed. The second goal was to compare traditional microscopic methods of taxonomy with emerging genomic methods, increasing the economic viability of attached algae monitoring. The third project goal, still underway, is to evaluate massive amounts of genomic data from the Great Bay ecosystem to see if other organisms might serve as viable indicators of environmental conditions in the bay. Despite the smalla tiny data set, traditional microscopic analysis results suggest that attached algae may be a viable indicator of water quality in the Great Bay Estuary. Further research including a larger data set will be required to evaluate the viability of genomic methods to supplement microscopic analyses, however early results have encouraged us to continue pursuing this research and expand our study to a larger portion of New Hampshire. Early results using bacteria have also encouraged us to continue analysis of genomic data in pursuit of goal number three, to find additional indicators that may serve as useful in water quality monitoring programs in New Hampshire
Versatile Data Acquisition and Controls for Epics Using Vme-Based Fpgas
Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have provided Thomas Jefferson
National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) with versatile VME-based data
acquisition and control interfaces with minimal development times. FPGA designs
have been used to interface to VME and provide control logic for numerous
systems. The building blocks of these logic designs can be tailored to the
individual needs of each system and provide system operators with read-backs
and controls via a VME interface to an EPICS based computer. This versatility
allows the system developer to choose components and define operating
parameters and options that are not readily available commercially. Jefferson
Lab has begun developing standard FPGA libraries that result in quick turn
around times and inexpensive designs.Comment: 3 pages, ICALEPCS 2001, T. Allison and R. Foold, Jefferson La
An investigation into the behaviour of air rifle pellets in ballistic gel and their interaction with bone
Although air weapons are considerably lower in power than other firearms, there is increasing concern that serious injuries can result from their misuse. The present study was therefore carried out to improve understanding of the terminal ballistic behaviour of air rifle pellets. Pellets were fired into ballistic gel under a variety of conditions. The pellets penetrated further than anticipated from their low cross-sectional density, and Bloom number was not necessarily a good guide to gel behaviour. Pellet penetration into the gel decreased with increasing gel concentration, and appeared to be linear at higher concentrations. Pointed pellets penetrated up to 50% further than rounded pellets. Power and range affect penetration, but other factors are also important, and power alone is not a simple guide to potential penetration. Test firings were also carried out firing pellets into ballistic gel that contained sections of animal bone. Computed tomography (CT) and visual observation were employed to record the interactions. CT scanning showed potential as a tool for examining pellet damage. The bone appeared to be undamaged, but the pellets were severely deformed on impact. If the pellet strikes the bone at an angle, less energy is absorbed by the impact and the pellet fragments may ricochet and cause further damage in the gel. A tentative model is proposed for estimating the energy absorbed by the impact
How Courts Adjudicate Patent Definiteness and Disclosure
Section 112 of the Patent Act requires patentees to clearly explain what their invention is (a requirement known as claim definiteness), as well as how to make and use it (the disclosure requirements of enablement and written description). Many concerns about the modern patent system stem from these requirements. But despite the critical importance of § 112 to the functioning of the patent system, there is surprisingly little empirical data about how it has been applied in practice. To remedy the reliance on anecdotes, we have created a hand-coded dataset of 1144 reported court decisions from 1982 to 2012 in which U.S. district courts or the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rendered a decision on the enablement, written-description, or claim-definiteness requirements of § 112. We coded validity outcomes under these three doctrines on a novel five-level scale so as to capture significant subtlety in the strength of each decision, and we also classified patents by technology and industry categories. We also coded for a number of litigation characteristics that could arguably influence outcomes. Although one must be cautious about generalizing from reported decisions due to selection effects, our results show some statistically significant disparities in § 112 outcomes for different technologies and industries—although fewer than the conventional wisdom suggests, and not always in the direction that many have believed. Just as importantly, our analysis reveals significant relationships between other variables and § 112 litigation outcomes, including whether a district court or the Federal Circuit made the last decision in a case, whether a patent claim was drafted in means-plus-function format, and whether a case was decided before or after Markman v. Westview Instruments. Our results showing how § 112 has been applied in practice will be helpful in evaluating current proposals for reform, and our rich dataset will enable more systematic studies of these critical doctrines in the future
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What do stroke survivors think about evidence based care they receive? Learning from insights at the periphery
Permission to archive the publisher pdf of this article was granted by the publisher in February 2012Rationale and aim of study: While exploring the experience of stroke survivors of secondary stroke prevention as part of a wider patient and public involvement service initiative, study participants willingly shared insights on other aspects of care that mattered to them. This is important as little is known about patients’ preferences for care. Methods: Data was generated from focus groups and semi-structured interviews that were held with 38 stroke survivors or their proxy respondents as part of an action research study. A framework analysis was used to examine data. Results: Our findings largely support current knowledge about the benefits of receiving evidence based stroke care. Although patients broadly appreciated being on a specialist unit, unexpectedly and contrary to best practice some expressed the wish to be treated elsewhere as they found the experience of being on a stroke unit difficult. Other findings included the need for more local peer support and difficulties surrounding transfer from hospital to home. Resultant actions included awareness training for staff about sensitively managing people’s perceptions about being on the stroke unit; development of shared computer based (IT) resources, and the establishment of a volunteer peer support system. Conclusion: The evidence base for the benefits of stroke unit care is unequivocal; however this model of care presents challenges for some. Involving patients in service development can inform small but key changes in practice that can help address inherent tensions in delivering evidence based services that are sensitive to patient preference.This project was funded by a grant from the Peninsula Primary Care Research Networ
Design of a laminar-flow-control supercritical airfoil for a swept wing
An airfoil was analytically designed and analyzed for a combination of supercritical flow and laminar flow control (LFC) by boundary layer suction. A shockless inverse method was used to design an airfoil and an analysis method was used in lower surface redesign work. The laminar flow pressure distributions were computed without a boundary layer under the assumption that the laminar boundary layer would be kept thin by suction. Inviscid calculations showed that this 13.5 percent thick airfoil has shockless flows for conditions at and below the design normal Mach number of 0.73 and the design section lift coefficient of 0.60, and that the maximum local normal Mach number is 1.12 at the design point. The laminar boundary layer instabilities can be controlled with suction but the undercut leading edge of the airfoil provides a low velocity, constant pressure coefficients region which is conducive to laminar flow without suction. The airfoil was designed to be capable of lift recovery with no suction by the deflection of a small trailing edge flap
NATO: the view from the East
Relations between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and NATO have placed more emphasis on cooperation than confrontation since the Cold War, and Ukraine has begun to move towards membership. At the popular level, on the evidence of national surveys in 2004 and 2005, NATO continues to be perceived as a significant threat, but in Russia and
Ukraine it comes behind the United States (in Belarus the numbers are similar). There are few socioeconomic predictors of support for NATO membership that are significant across all three countries, but there are wide differences by region, and by attitudinal variables
such as support for a market economy and for EU membership. The relationship between popular attitudes and foreign policy is normally a distant one; but in Ukraine NATO
membership will require public support in a referendum, and in all three cases public attitudes on foreign policy issues can influence foreign policy in other ways, including the composition of parliamentary committees. In newly independent states whose international allegiances are still evolving, the associations between public opinion and foreign and security policy may often be closer than in the established democracies
Ion-Neutral Collisions in the Interstellar Medium: Wave Damping and Elimination of Collisionless Processes
Most phases of the interstellar medium contain neutral atoms in addition to
ions and electrons. This introduces differences in plasma physics processes in
those media relative to the solar corona and the solar wind at a heliocentric
distance of 1 astronomical unit. In this paper, we consider two well-diagnosed,
partially-ionized interstellar plasmas. The first is the Diffuse Ionized Gas
(DIG) which is probably the extensive phase in terms of volume. The second is
the gas that makes up the Local Clouds of the Very Local Interstellar Medium
(VLISM). Ion-neutral interactions seem to be important in both media. In the
DIG, ion-neutral collisions are relatively rare, but sufficiently frequent to
damp magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves (as well as propagating MHD eddies) within
less than a parsec of the site of generation. This result raises interesting
questions about the sources of turbulence in the DIG. In the case of the VLISM,
the ion-neutral collision frequency is higher than that in the DIG, because the
hydrogen is partially neutral rather than fully ionized. We present results
showing that prominent features of coronal and solar wind turbulence seem to be
absent in VLISM turbulence. For example, ion temperature does not depend on ion
mass. This difference may be attributable to ion-neutral collisions, which
distribute power from more effectively heated massive ions such as iron to
other ion species and neutral atoms.Comment: Submitted to American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings for
conference "Partially Ionized Plasmas Throughout the Cosmos", Dastgeer
Shaikh, edito
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