Antenna induced range smearing in MST radars

There is considerable interest in developing stratosphere troposphere (ST) and mesosphere stratosphere troposphere (MST) radars for higher resolution to study small-scale turbulent structures and waves. At present most ST and MST radars have resolutions of 150 meters or larger, and are not able to distinguish the thin (40 - 100 m) turbulent layers that are known to occur in the troposphere and stratosphere, and possibly in the mesosphere. However the antenna beam width and sidelobe level become important considerations for radars with superior height resolution. The objective of this paper is to point out that for radars with range resolutions of about 150 meters or less, there may be significant range smearing of the signals from mesospheric altitudes due to the finite beam width of the radar antenna. At both stratospheric and mesospheric heights the antenna sidelobe level for lear equally spaced phased arrays may also produce range aliased signals. To illustrate this effect the range smearing functions for two vertically directed antennas have been calculated, (1) an array of 32 coaxial-collinear strings each with 48 elements that simulates the vertical beam of the Poker Flat, Glaska, MST radar; and (2) a similar, but smaller, array of 16 coaxial-collinear strings each with 24 elements

How to Collect your Water Sample and Interpret the Results for the Poultry Analytical Package

Rapidly growing birds may consume up to twice as much water as feed (Scantling and Watkins 2013), which means a plentiful supply of clean water is crucial for poultry health and productivity. To determine the quality of your poultry’s water resources, periodic sampling and analysis is needed. Analyzing water supplies can also be a crucial tool in identifying existing or potential challenges. The Arkansas Water Resources Center (AWRC) in cooperation with the UA Cooperative Extension Service offers several analytical packages to assess the quality of your water resources. This document is intended to provide guidance to poultry producers on collecting water samples for analysis and understanding the “Poultry Water Report Form” provided by the AWRC’s Water Quality Laboratory (Lab). The information contained within this fact sheet should be used as general guidance, and the reader is encouraged to seek advice from Extension specialists regarding the interpretation of individual reports and water testing results that may be of concern

Analysis of rolling group therapy data using conditionally autoregressive priors

Group therapy is a central treatment modality for behavioral health disorders such as alcohol and other drug use (AOD) and depression. Group therapy is often delivered under a rolling (or open) admissions policy, where new clients are continuously enrolled into a group as space permits. Rolling admissions policies result in a complex correlation structure among client outcomes. Despite the ubiquity of rolling admissions in practice, little guidance on the analysis of such data is available. We discuss the limitations of previously proposed approaches in the context of a study that delivered group cognitive behavioral therapy for depression to clients in residential substance abuse treatment. We improve upon previous rolling group analytic approaches by fully modeling the interrelatedness of client depressive symptom scores using a hierarchical Bayesian model that assumes a conditionally autoregressive prior for session-level random effects. We demonstrate improved performance using our method for estimating the variance of model parameters and the enhanced ability to learn about the complex correlation structure among participants in rolling therapy groups. Our approach broadly applies to any group therapy setting where groups have changing client composition. It will lead to more efficient analyses of client-level data and improve the group therapy research community's ability to understand how the dynamics of rolling groups lead to client outcomes.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS434 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Automated Retrieval of Non-Engineering Domain Solutions to Engineering Problems

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityBiological inspiration for engineering design has occurred through a variety of techniques such as creation and use of databases, keyword searches of biological information in natural-language format, prior knowledge of biology, and chance observations of nature. This research focuses on utilizing the reconciled Functional Basis function and flow terms to identify suitable biological inspiration for function based design. The organized search provides two levels of results: (1) associated with verb function only and (2) narrowed results associated with verb-noun (function-flow). A set of heuristics has been complied to promote efficient searching using this technique. An example for creating smart flooring is also presented and discussed.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Compan

Efficient Bayesian inference for natural time series using ARFIMA processes

Many geophysical quantities, such as atmospheric temperature, water levels in rivers, and wind speeds, have shown evidence of long memory (LM). LM implies that these quantities experience non-trivial temporal memory, which potentially not only enhances their predictability, but also hampers the detection of externally forced trends. Thus, it is important to reliably identify whether or not a system exhibits LM. In this paper we present a modern and systematic approach to the inference of LM. We use the flexible autoregressive fractional integrated moving average (ARFIMA) model, which is widely used in time series analysis, and of increasing interest in climate science. Unlike most previous work on the inference of LM, which is frequentist in nature, we provide a systematic treatment of Bayesian inference. In particular, we provide a new approximate likelihood for efficient parameter inference, and show how nuisance parameters (e.g., short-memory effects) can be integrated over in order to focus on long-memory parameters and hypothesis testing more directly. We illustrate our new methodology on the Nile water level data and the central England temperature (CET) time series, with favorable comparison to the standard estimators. For CET we also extend our method to seasonal long memory

Detecting gravitational waves from test-mass bodies orbiting a Kerr black hole with P-approximant templates

In this study we apply post-Newtonian (T-approximants) and resummed post-Newtonian (P-approximants) to the case of a test-particle in equatorial orbit around a Kerr black hole. We compare the two approximants by measuring their effectualness (i.e. larger overlaps with the exact signal), and faithfulness (i.e. smaller biases while measuring the parameters of the signal) with the exact (numerical) waveforms. We find that in the case of prograde orbits, T-approximant templates obtain an effectualness of ~0.99 for spins q < 0.75. For 0.75 < q < 0.95, the effectualness drops to about 0.82. The P-approximants achieve effectualness of > 0.99 for all spins up to q = 0.95. The bias in the estimation of parameters is much lower in the case of P-approximants than T-approximants. We find that P-approximants are both effectual and faithful and should be more effective than T-approximants as a detection template family when q > 0. For q < 0 both T- and P-approximants perform equally well so that either of them could be used as a detection template family. However, for parameter estimation, the P-approximant templates still outperforms the T-approximants.Comment: 11 Pages - 9 figures. Accepted for publication. Proceedings of GWDAW 9. Special edition of Classical and Quantum Gravit

Structure and distribution of the slope fish community in the vicinity of the sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Archipelago

Demersal fish community structure, distribution and trophic relationships on the slope (depth range 200–1500 m) of the sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands and surrounding sea rises were investigated during a pilot survey conducted in April 2001 onboard fishing vessel MV Iris. A total of 56 fish taxa were collected during the survey, of which 44 were identified to the species level, seven to the genus level and five to the family level. Among the identified taxa, 36 constituted new records for the area investigated. Total catch per unit effort (cpue) during the survey ranged from 1•1 to 241•2 individuals h 1. Both average fish diversity and total cpue positively correlated with trawling depth. Overall, mean sampling depth and near-bottom temperature explained 56% of total fish cpue. Hierarchal cluster analysis identified three distinct fish assemblages with pronounced dominant species. Major shifts in fish community composition occurred at 500–600 m and 800–900 m depth strata and could probably be a result of physical and biological vertical zonation. Analysis of the diet of selected fish species showed that they were generalist feeders, consuming predominantly pelagic, including epipelagic, meso- and benthopelagic, prey. Diets of six species and nitrogen stable isotope signatures of 22 species revealed that with a few exceptions most fishes occupied the fourth trophic level and were tertiary consumers. Wide variability in carbon isotopic signatures is discussed with respect to alternative, e.g. possible importance of high Antarctic and chemoautotrophic v. photoautotrophic sub-Antarctic primary production, organic matter sources at the base of deep-sea food webs

Telangiectasia macularis eruptiva perstans: More Than Skin Deep

Systemic mastocytosis is a rare disease involving the infiltration and accumulation of active mast cells within any organ system. By far, the most common organ affected is the skin. Cutaneous manifestations of mastocytosis, including Urticaria Pigmentosa (UP), cutaneous mastocytoma or telangiectasia macularis eruptive perstans (TMEP), may indicate a more serious and potentially life-threatening underlying disease. The presence of either UP or TMEP in a patient with anaphylactic symptoms should suggest the likelihood of systemic mastocytosis, with the caveat that systemic complications are more likely to occur in patients with UP. TMEP can usually be identified by the typical morphology, but a skin biopsy is confirmative. In patients with elevated tryptase levels or those with frequent systemic manifestations, a bone marrow biopsy is essential in order to demonstrate mast cell infiltration. Further genetic testing for mutations of c-kit gene or the FIP1L1 gene may help with disease classification and/or therapeutic approaches. Rarely, TMEP has been described with malignancy, radiation therapy, and myeloproliferative disorders. A few familial cases have also been described. In this review, we discuss the clinical features, diagnosis and management of patients with TMEP. We also discuss the possible molecular pathogenesis and the role of genetics in disease classification and treatment

Foliage Plants for Removing Indoor Air Pollutants from Energy-efficient Homes

No abstract availabl