Achieving stringent climate targets. An analysis of the role of transport and variable renewable energies using energy-economy-climate models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pietzcker, Robert Carl

2014-07-01

Anthropogenic climate change is threatening the welfare of mankind. Accordingly, policy makers have repeatedly stated the goal of slowing climate change and limiting the increase of global mean temperature to less than 2 C above pre-industrial times (the so-called ''two degree target''). Stabilizing the temperature requires drastic reductions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to nearly zero. As the global system of energy supply currently relies on fossil fuels, reducing GHG emissions can only be achieved through a full-scale transformation of the energy system. This thesis investigates the economic requirements and implications of different scenarios that achieve stringent climate mitigation targets. It starts with the analysis of characteristic decarbonization patterns and identifies two particularly relevant aspects of mitigation scenarios: deployment of variable renewable energies (VRE) and decarbonization of the transport sector. After investigating these fields in detail, we turned towards one of the most relevant questions for policy makers and analyzed the trade-off between the stringency of a climate target and its economic requirements and implications. All analyses are based on the improvement, application, comparison, and discussion of large-scale IAMs. The novel ''mitigation share'' metric allowed us to identify the relevance of specific technology groups for mitigation and to improve our understanding of the decarbonization patterns of different energy subsectors. It turned out that the power sector is decarbonized first and reaches lowest emissions, while the transport sector is slowest to decarbonize. For the power sector, non-biomass renewable energies contribute most to emission reductions, while the transport sector strongly relies on liquid fuels and therefore requires biomass in combination with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to reduce emissions. An in-depth investigation of the solar power

Electricity versus hydrogen for passenger cars under stringent climate change control

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rösler, H.; van der Zwaan, B.; Keppo, I.; Bruggink, J.

2014-01-01

In this article we analyze how passenger car transportation in Europe may change this century under permanent high oil prices and stringent climate control policy. We focus on electricity and hydrogen as principal candidate energy carriers, because these two options are increasingly believed to

Proceedings of the meeting for coordinating precision machining of optics research and requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Saito, T.T.

1975-12-01

The meeting for ''Coordinating Precision Machining of Optics Research and Requirements'' on September 18, 1975, was sponsored by the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, NM. These proceedings contain an introduction to the meeting including a brief description of the participants and the objectives. The developments and capabilities of Union Carbide Y-12 plant are described in detail. A short summary of the new Moore no. 5 machine at Bendix, Kansas City, Mo. is included as well as a description of using light scattering for roughness characterization at Rockwell International, Rocky Flats, Colorado. The executive summary of the meeting mentions some of the discussions that also followed. Important conclusions of the meeting were that a 5 y lead time is required to obtain a machine and acquire the necessary skills for precision machining, and that demands for diamond turning optics will be increasing

Precision Guidance with Impact Angle Requirements

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Ford, Jason

2001-01-01

This paper examines a weapon system precision guidance problem in which the objective is to guide a weapon onto a non-manoeuvring target so that a particular desired angle of impact is achieved using...

Precision manufacturing

CERN Document Server

Dornfeld, David

2008-01-01

Today there is a high demand for high-precision products. The manufacturing processes are now highly sophisticated and derive from a specialized genre called precision engineering. Precision Manufacturing provides an introduction to precision engineering and manufacturing with an emphasis on the design and performance of precision machines and machine tools, metrology, tooling elements, machine structures, sources of error, precision machining processes and precision process planning. As well as discussing the critical role precision machine design for manufacturing has had in technological developments over the last few hundred years. In addition, the influence of sustainable manufacturing requirements in precision processes is introduced. Drawing upon years of practical experience and using numerous examples and illustrative applications, David Dornfeld and Dae-Eun Lee cover precision manufacturing as it applies to: The importance of measurement and metrology in the context of Precision Manufacturing. Th...

Precision measurements in supersymmetry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Feng, Johnathan Lee [Stanford Univ., CA (United States)

1995-05-01

Supersymmetry is a promising framework in which to explore extensions of the standard model. If candidates for supersymmetric particles are found, precision measurements of their properties will then be of paramount importance. The prospects for such measurements and their implications are the subject of this thesis. If charginos are produced at the LEP II collider, they are likely to be one of the few available supersymmetric signals for many years. The author considers the possibility of determining fundamental supersymmetry parameters in such a scenario. The study is complicated by the dependence of observables on a large number of these parameters. He proposes a straightforward procedure for disentangling these dependences and demonstrate its effectiveness by presenting a number of case studies at representative points in parameter space. In addition to determining the properties of supersymmetric particles, precision measurements may also be used to establish that newly-discovered particles are, in fact, supersymmetric. Supersymmetry predicts quantitative relations among the couplings and masses of superparticles. The author discusses tests of such relations at a future e{sup +}e{sup {minus}} linear collider, using measurements that exploit the availability of polarizable beams. Stringent tests of supersymmetry from chargino production are demonstrated in two representative cases, and fermion and neutralino processes are also discussed.

Precision cosmology with time delay lenses: high resolution imaging requirements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meng, Xiao-Lei; Liao, Kai [Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, 19 Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing, 100875 (China); Treu, Tommaso; Agnello, Adriano [Department of Physics, University of California, Broida Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (United States); Auger, Matthew W. [Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA (United Kingdom); Marshall, Philip J., E-mail: xlmeng919@gmail.com, E-mail: tt@astro.ucla.edu, E-mail: aagnello@physics.ucsb.edu, E-mail: mauger@ast.cam.ac.uk, E-mail: liaokai@mail.bnu.edu.cn, E-mail: dr.phil.marshall@gmail.com [Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, 452 Lomita Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)

2015-09-01

Lens time delays are a powerful probe of cosmology, provided that the gravitational potential of the main deflector can be modeled with sufficient precision. Recent work has shown that this can be achieved by detailed modeling of the host galaxies of lensed quasars, which appear as ''Einstein Rings'' in high resolution images. The distortion of these arcs and counter-arcs, as measured over a large number of pixels, provides tight constraints on the difference between the gravitational potential between the quasar image positions, and thus on cosmology in combination with the measured time delay. We carry out a systematic exploration of the high resolution imaging required to exploit the thousands of lensed quasars that will be discovered by current and upcoming surveys with the next decade. Specifically, we simulate realistic lens systems as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and ground based adaptive optics images taken with Keck or the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). We compare the performance of these pointed observations with that of images taken by the Euclid (VIS), Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) surveys. We use as our metric the precision with which the slope γ' of the total mass density profile ρ{sub tot}∝ r{sup −γ'} for the main deflector can be measured. Ideally, we require that the statistical error on γ' be less than 0.02, such that it is subdominant to other sources of random and systematic uncertainties. We find that survey data will likely have sufficient depth and resolution to meet the target only for the brighter gravitational lens systems, comparable to those discovered by the SDSS survey. For fainter systems, that will be discovered by current and future surveys, targeted follow-up will be required. However, the exposure time required with upcoming facilitites such as JWST, the Keck Next Generation

Precision cosmology with time delay lenses: High resolution imaging requirements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meng, Xiao -Lei [Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing (China); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Treu, Tommaso [Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Agnello, Adriano [Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Auger, Matthew W. [Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge (United Kingdom); Liao, Kai [Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing (China); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Marshall, Philip J. [Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)

2015-09-28

Lens time delays are a powerful probe of cosmology, provided that the gravitational potential of the main deflector can be modeled with sufficient precision. Recent work has shown that this can be achieved by detailed modeling of the host galaxies of lensed quasars, which appear as ``Einstein Rings'' in high resolution images. The distortion of these arcs and counter-arcs, as measured over a large number of pixels, provides tight constraints on the difference between the gravitational potential between the quasar image positions, and thus on cosmology in combination with the measured time delay. We carry out a systematic exploration of the high resolution imaging required to exploit the thousands of lensed quasars that will be discovered by current and upcoming surveys with the next decade. Specifically, we simulate realistic lens systems as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and ground based adaptive optics images taken with Keck or the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). We compare the performance of these pointed observations with that of images taken by the Euclid (VIS), Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) surveys. We use as our metric the precision with which the slope γ' of the total mass density profile ρ_tot∝ r–γ' for the main deflector can be measured. Ideally, we require that the statistical error on γ' be less than 0.02, such that it is subdominant to other sources of random and systematic uncertainties. We find that survey data will likely have sufficient depth and resolution to meet the target only for the brighter gravitational lens systems, comparable to those discovered by the SDSS survey. For fainter systems, that will be discovered by current and future surveys, targeted follow-up will be required. Furthermore, the exposure time required with upcoming facilitites such as JWST, the Keck Next Generation Adaptive

High-Precision Measurements of the Bound Electron’s Magnetic Moment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sven Sturm

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Highly charged ions represent environments that allow to study precisely one or more bound electrons subjected to unsurpassed electromagnetic fields. Under such conditions, the magnetic moment (g-factor of a bound electron changes significantly, to a large extent due to contributions from quantum electrodynamics. We present three Penning-trap experiments, which allow to measure magnetic moments with ppb precision and better, serving as stringent tests of corresponding calculations, and also yielding access to fundamental quantities like the fine structure constant α and the atomic mass of the electron. Additionally, the bound electrons can be used as sensitive probes for properties of the ionic nuclei. We summarize the measurements performed so far, discuss their significance, and give a detailed account of the experimental setups, procedures and the foreseen measurements.

Atomic precision tests and light scalar couplings

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brax, Philippe [CEA, IPhT, CNRS, URA 2306, Gif-sur-Yvette (France). Inst. de Physique Theorique; Burrage, Clare [Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg (Germany); Geneve Univ. (Switzerland). Dept. de Physique Theorique

2010-10-15

We calculate the shift in the atomic energy levels induced by the presence of a scalar field which couples to matter and photons. We find that a combination of atomic measurements can be used to probe both these couplings independently. A new and stringent bound on the matter coupling springs from the precise measurement of the 1s to 2s energy level difference in the hydrogen atom, while the coupling to photons is essentially constrained by the Lamb shift. Combining these constraints with current particle physics bounds we find that the contribution of a scalar field to the recently claimed discrepancy in the proton radius measured using electronic and muonic atoms is negligible. (orig.)

Structural characterization of the stringent response related exopolyphosphatase/guanosine pentaphosphate phosphohydrolase protein family

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Ole; Laurberg, Martin; Liljas, Anders

2004-01-01

Exopolyphosphatase/guanosine pentaphosphate phosphohydrolase (PPX/GPPA) enzymes play central roles in the bacterial stringent response induced by starvation. The high-resolution crystal structure of the putative Aquifex aeolicus PPX/GPPA phosphatase from the actin-like ATPase domain superfamily has...

A passion for precision - from the ultrafast to the ultraslow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haensch, T.W.

2005-01-01

Full text: Femtosecond laser optical frequency comb synthesizers have become the established tool for measuring the frequency of light with extreme precision. By permitting phase-coherent comparisons of optical and microwave frequencies, they can serve as the clockwork for ultraprecise optical atomic clocks. Applications to laser spectroscopy of atomic hydrogen permit stringent tests of basic laws of quantum physics. Such experiments can yield accurate values of fundamental constants, and they may reveal slow changes of fundamental constants with the evolution of the universe. Laser frequency comb techniques can also control the light phase of femtosecond laser pulses, thus advancing the frontier of ultrafast science from the femtosecond to the attosecond regime. High harmonic generation with intense femtosecond pulses may extend frequency comb techniques to the extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray regime, conquering new territory for precision laser spectroscopy and fundamental measurements. (author)

Synthetic Peptides to Target Stringent Response-Controlled Virulence in a Pseudomonas aeruginosa Murine Cutaneous Infection Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Pletzer

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Microorganisms continuously monitor their surroundings and adaptively respond to environmental cues. One way to cope with various stress-related situations is through the activation of the stringent stress response pathway. In Pseudomonas aeruginosa this pathway is controlled and coordinated by the activity of the RelA and SpoT enzymes that metabolize the small nucleotide secondary messenger molecule (pppGpp. Intracellular ppGpp concentrations are crucial in mediating adaptive responses and virulence. Targeting this cellular stress response has recently been the focus of an alternative approach to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria. Here, we examined the role of the stringent response in the virulence of P. aeruginosa PAO1 and the Liverpool epidemic strain LESB58. A ΔrelA/ΔspoT double mutant showed decreased cytotoxicity toward human epithelial cells, exhibited reduced hemolytic activity, and caused down-regulation of the expression of the alkaline protease aprA gene in stringent response mutants grown on blood agar plates. Promoter fusions of relA or spoT to a bioluminescence reporter gene revealed that both genes were expressed during the formation of cutaneous abscesses in mice. Intriguingly, virulence was attenuated in vivo by the ΔrelA/ΔspoT double mutant, but not the relA mutant nor the ΔrelA/ΔspoT complemented with either gene. Treatment of a cutaneous P. aeruginosa PAO1 infection with anti-biofilm peptides increased animal welfare, decreased dermonecrotic lesion sizes, and reduced bacterial numbers recovered from abscesses, resembling the phenotype of the ΔrelA/ΔspoT infection. It was previously demonstrated by our lab that ppGpp could be targeted by synthetic peptides; here we demonstrated that spoT promoter activity was suppressed during cutaneous abscess formation by treatment with peptides DJK-5 and 1018, and that a peptide-treated relA complemented stringent response double mutant strain exhibited reduced peptide

Attaining the Photometric Precision Required by Future Dark Energy Projects

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Stubbs, Christopher [Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)

2013-01-21

This report outlines our progress towards achieving the high-precision astronomical measurements needed to derive improved constraints on the nature of the Dark Energy. Our approach to obtaining higher precision flux measurements has two basic components: 1) determination of the optical transmission of the atmosphere, and 2) mapping out the instrumental photon sensitivity function vs. wavelength, calibrated by referencing the measurements to the known sensitivity curve of a high precision silicon photodiode, and 3) using the self-consistency of the spectrum of stars to achieve precise color calibrations.

[Precision medicine : a required approach for the general internist].

Science.gov (United States)

Waeber, Gérard; Cornuz, Jacques; Gaspoz, Jean-Michel; Guessous, Idris; Mooser, Vincent; Perrier, Arnaud; Simonet, Martine Louis

2017-01-18

The general internist cannot be a passive bystander of the anticipated medical revolution induced by precision medicine. This latter aims to improve the predictive and/or clinical course of an individual by integrating all biological, genetic, environmental, phenotypic and psychosocial knowledge of a person. In this article, national and international initiatives in the field of precision medicine are discussed as well as the potential financial, ethical and limitations of personalized medicine. The question is not to know if precision medicine will be part of everyday life but rather to integrate early the general internist in multidisciplinary teams to ensure optimal information and shared-decision process with patients and individuals.

Whole-Genome Microarray and Gene Deletion Studies Reveal Regulation of the Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production Cycle by the Stringent Response in Ralstonia eutropha H16

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brigham, CJ; Speth, DR; Rha, C; Sinskey, AJ

2012-10-22

Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) production and mobilization in Ralstonia eutropha are well studied, but in only a few instances has PHB production been explored in relation to other cellular processes. We examined the global gene expression of wild-type R. eutropha throughout the PHB cycle: growth on fructose, PHB production using fructose following ammonium depletion, and PHB utilization in the absence of exogenous carbon after ammonium was resupplied. Our results confirm or lend support to previously reported results regarding the expression of PHB-related genes and enzymes. Additionally, genes for many different cellular processes, such as DNA replication, cell division, and translation, are selectively repressed during PHB production. In contrast, the expression levels of genes under the control of the alternative sigma factor sigma(54) increase sharply during PHB production and are repressed again during PHB utilization. Global gene regulation during PHB production is strongly reminiscent of the gene expression pattern observed during the stringent response in other species. Furthermore, a ppGpp synthase deletion mutant did not show an accumulation of PHB, and the chemical induction of the stringent response with DL-norvaline caused an increased accumulation of PHB in the presence of ammonium. These results indicate that the stringent response is required for PHB accumulation in R. eutropha, helping to elucidate a thus-far-unknown physiological basis for this process.

Ten Year Study of the Stringently Defined Otitis Prone Child in Rochester, NY

Science.gov (United States)

Pichichero, Michael E.

2016-01-01

This review summarizes a prospective, longitudinal 10-year study in Rochester NY with virtually every clinically diagnosed acute otitis media (AOM) confirmed by bacterial culture of middle ear fluid. Children experiencing 3 episodes within 6 months or 4 episodes in 12 months were considered stringently-defined otitis prone (sOP). We found stringent diagnosis compared with clinical diagnosis reduced the frequency of children meeting the OP definition from 27% to 6% resulting in 14.8% and 2.4% receiving tympanostomy tubes, respectively. Significantly more often RSV infection led to AOM in sOP than non-otitis prone (NOP) children that correlated with diminished total RSV-specific serum IgG. sOP children produced low levels of antibody to Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae candidate vaccine protein antigens and to routine pediatric vaccines. sOP children generated significantly fewer memory B cells, functional and memory T cells to otopathogens following NP colonization and AOM than NOP children and they had defects in antigen presenting cells. PMID:27273691

Stringent homology-based prediction of H. sapiens-M. tuberculosis H37Rv protein-protein interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Hufeng; Gao, Shangzhi; Nguyen, Nam Ninh; Fan, Mengyuan; Jin, Jingjing; Liu, Bing; Zhao, Liang; Xiong, Geng; Tan, Min; Li, Shijun; Wong, Limsoon

2014-04-08

H. sapiens-M. tuberculosis H37Rv protein-protein interaction (PPI) data are essential for understanding the infection mechanism of the formidable pathogen M. tuberculosis H37Rv. Computational prediction is an important strategy to fill the gap in experimental H. sapiens-M. tuberculosis H37Rv PPI data. Homology-based prediction is frequently used in predicting both intra-species and inter-species PPIs. However, some limitations are not properly resolved in several published works that predict eukaryote-prokaryote inter-species PPIs using intra-species template PPIs. We develop a stringent homology-based prediction approach by taking into account (i) differences between eukaryotic and prokaryotic proteins and (ii) differences between inter-species and intra-species PPI interfaces. We compare our stringent homology-based approach to a conventional homology-based approach for predicting host-pathogen PPIs, based on cellular compartment distribution analysis, disease gene list enrichment analysis, pathway enrichment analysis and functional category enrichment analysis. These analyses support the validity of our prediction result, and clearly show that our approach has better performance in predicting H. sapiens-M. tuberculosis H37Rv PPIs. Using our stringent homology-based approach, we have predicted a set of highly plausible H. sapiens-M. tuberculosis H37Rv PPIs which might be useful for many of related studies. Based on our analysis of the H. sapiens-M. tuberculosis H37Rv PPI network predicted by our stringent homology-based approach, we have discovered several interesting properties which are reported here for the first time. We find that both host proteins and pathogen proteins involved in the host-pathogen PPIs tend to be hubs in their own intra-species PPI network. Also, both host and pathogen proteins involved in host-pathogen PPIs tend to have longer primary sequence, tend to have more domains, tend to be more hydrophilic, etc. And the protein domains from both

Dual Regulation of Bacillus subtilis kinB Gene Encoding a Sporulation Trigger by SinR through Transcription Repression and Positive Stringent Transcription Control.

Science.gov (United States)

Fujita, Yasutaro; Ogura, Mitsuo; Nii, Satomi; Hirooka, Kazutake

2017-01-01

It is known that transcription of kinB encoding a trigger for Bacillus subtilis sporulation is under repression by SinR, a master repressor of biofilm formation, and under positive stringent transcription control depending on the adenine species at the transcription initiation nucleotide (nt). Deletion and base substitution analyses of the kinB promoter (P kinB ) region using lacZ fusions indicated that either a 5-nt deletion (Δ5, nt -61/-57, +1 is the transcription initiation nt) or the substitution of G at nt -45 with A (G-45A) relieved kinB repression. Thus, we found a pair of SinR-binding consensus sequences (GTTCTYT; Y is T or C) in an inverted orientation (SinR-1) between nt -57/-42, which is most likely a SinR-binding site for kinB repression. This relief from SinR repression likely requires SinI, an antagonist of SinR. Surprisingly, we found that SinR is essential for positive stringent transcription control of P kinB . Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) analysis indicated that SinR bound not only to SinR-1 but also to SinR-2 (nt -29/-8) consisting of another pair of SinR consensus sequences in a tandem repeat arrangement; the two sequences partially overlap the '-35' and '-10' regions of P kinB . Introduction of base substitutions (T-27C C-26T) in the upstream consensus sequence of SinR-2 affected positive stringent transcription control of P kinB , suggesting that SinR binding to SinR-2 likely causes this positive control. EMSA also implied that RNA polymerase and SinR are possibly bound together to SinR-2 to form a transcription initiation complex for kinB transcription. Thus, it was suggested in this work that derepression of kinB from SinR repression by SinI induced by Spo0A∼P and occurrence of SinR-dependent positive stringent transcription control of kinB might induce effective sporulation cooperatively, implying an intimate interplay by stringent response, sporulation, and biofilm formation.

The Stringent Response Induced by Phosphate Limitation Promotes Purine Salvage in Agrobacterium fabrum.

Science.gov (United States)

Sivapragasam, Smitha; Deochand, Dinesh K; Meariman, Jacob K; Grove, Anne

2017-10-31

Agrobacterium fabrum induces tumor growth in susceptible plant species. The upregulation of virulence genes that occurs when the bacterium senses plant-derived compounds is enhanced by acidic pH and limiting inorganic phosphate. Nutrient starvation may also trigger the stringent response, and purine salvage is among the pathways expected to be favored under such conditions. We show here that phosphate limitation induces the stringent response, as evidenced by production of (p)ppGpp, and that the xdhCSML operon encoding the purine salvage enzyme xanthine dehydrogenase is upregulated ∼15-fold. The xdhCSML operon is under control of the TetR family transcription factor XdhR; direct binding of ppGpp to XdhR attenuates DNA binding, and the enhanced xdhCSML expression correlates with increased cellular levels of (p)ppGpp. Xanthine dehydrogenase may also divert purines away from salvage pathways to form urate, the ligand for the transcription factor PecS, which in the plant pathogen Dickeya dadantii is a key regulator of virulence gene expression. However, urate levels remain low under conditions that produce increased levels of xdhCSML expression, and neither acidic pH nor limiting phosphate results in induction of genes under control of PecS. Instead, expression of such genes is induced only by externally supplemented urate. Taken together, our data indicate that purine salvage is favored during the stringent response induced by phosphate starvation, suggesting that control of this pathway may constitute a novel approach to modulating virulence. Because bacterial purine catabolism appears to be unaffected, as evidenced by the absence of urate accumulation, we further propose that the PecS regulon is induced by only host-derived urate.

Stringent or nonstringent complete remission and prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Øvlisen, Andreas K; Oest, Anders; Bendtsen, Mette D

2018-01-01

Stringent complete remission (sCR) of acute myeloid leukemia is defined as normal hematopoiesis after therapy. Less sCR, including non-sCR, was introduced as insufficient blood platelet, neutrophil, or erythrocyte recovery. These latter characteristics were defined retrospectively as postremission...... transfusion dependency and were suggested to be of prognostic value. In the present report, we evaluated the prognostic impact of achieving sCR and non-sCR in the Danish National Acute Leukaemia Registry, including 769 patients registered with classical CR (ie,

Plasma-equivalent glucose at the point-of-care: evaluation of Roche Accu-Chek Inform and Abbott Precision PCx glucose meters.

Science.gov (United States)

Ghys, Timothy; Goedhuys, Wim; Spincemaille, Katrien; Gorus, Frans; Gerlo, Erik

2007-01-01

Glucose testing at the bedside has become an integral part of the management strategy in diabetes and of the careful maintenance of normoglycemia in all patients in intensive care units. We evaluated two point-of-care glucometers for the determination of plasma-equivalent blood glucose. The Precision PCx and the Accu-Chek Inform glucometers were evaluated. Imprecision and bias relative to the Vitros 950 system were determined using protocols of the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). The effects of low, normal, and high hematocrit levels were investigated. Interference by maltose was also studied. Within-run precision for both instruments ranged from 2-5%. Total imprecision was less than 5% except for the Accu-Chek Inform at the low level (2.9 mmol/L). Both instruments correlated well with the comparison instrument and showed excellent recovery and linearity. Both systems reported at least 95% of their values within zone A of the Clarke Error Grid, and both fulfilled the CLSI quality criteria. The more stringent goals of the American Diabetes Association, however, were not reached. Both systems showed negative bias at high hematocrit levels. Maltose interfered with the glucose measurements on the Accu-Chek Inform but not on the Precision PCx. Both systems showed satisfactory imprecision and were reliable in reporting plasma-equivalent glucose concentrations. The most stringent performance goals were however not met.

Investigation of CMOS pixel sensor with 0.18 μm CMOS technology for high-precision tracking detector

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, L.; Wang, M.; Fu, M.; Zhang, Y.; Yan, W.

2017-01-01

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) proposed by the Chinese high energy physics community is aiming to measure Higgs particles and their interactions precisely. The tracking detector including Silicon Inner Tracker (SIT) and Forward Tracking Disks (FTD) has driven stringent requirements on sensor technologies in term of spatial resolution, power consumption and readout speed. CMOS Pixel Sensor (CPS) is a promising candidate to approach these requirements. This paper presents the preliminary studies on the sensor optimization for tracking detector to achieve high collection efficiency while keeping necessary spatial resolution. Detailed studies have been performed on the charge collection using a 0.18 μm CMOS image sensor process. This process allows high resistivity epitaxial layer, leading to a significant improvement on the charge collection and therefore improving the radiation tolerance. Together with the simulation results, the first exploratory prototype has bee designed and fabricated. The prototype includes 9 different pixel arrays, which vary in terms of pixel pitch, diode size and geometry. The total area of the prototype amounts to 2 × 7.88 mm 2 .

A precision cranial immobilization system for conformal stereotactic fractionated radiation therapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rosenthal, Stanley J.; Gall, Kenneth P.; Jackson, Matthew; Thornton, Allan F.

1995-01-01

Purpose: Conformal radiotherapy has been shown to benefit from precision alignment of patient target to therapy beam (1, 6, 13). This work describes an optimized immobilization system for the fractionated treatment of intracranial targets. A study of patient motion demonstrates the high degree of immobilization which is available. Methods and Materials: A system using dental fixation and a thermoplastic mask that relocates on a rigid frame is described. The design permits scanning studies using computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MR), conventional photon radiotherapy, and high precision stereotactic proton radiotherapy to be performed with minimal repositioning variation. Studies of both intratreatment motion and daily setup reliability are performed on patients under treatment for paranasal sinus carcinoma. Multiple radiographs taken during single treatments provide the basis for a three-dimensional (3D) motion analysis. Additionally, studies of orthogonal radiographs used to setup for proton treatments and verification port films from photon treatments are used to establish day to day patient position variation in routine use. Results: Net 3D patient motion during any treatment is measured to be 0.9 ± 0.4 mm [mean ± standard deviation (SD)] and rotation about any body axis is 0.14 ± 0.67 degrees (mean ± SD). Day-to-day setup accuracy to laser marks is limited to 2.3 mm (mean) systematic error and 1.6 mm (mean) random error. Conclusion: We conclude that the most stringent immobilization requirements of 3D conformal radiotherapy adjacent to critical normal structures can be met with a high precision system such as the one described here. Without the use of pretreatment verification, additional developments in machine and couch design are needed to assure that patient repositioning accuracy is comparable to the best level of patient immobility achievable

Photon flux determination for a precision measurement of the neutral pion lifetime

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Teymurazyan, Aram [Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (United States)

2008-01-01

The Jefferson Lab Hall B PrimEx Collaboration is using tagged photons to perform a 1.4% level measurement of the absolute cross section for the photo-production of neutral pions in the Coulomb field of a nucleus as a test of Chiral Perturbation Theory. Such a high precision pushes the limits of the photon tagging technique in regards to the determination of the absolute photon flux. A multifaceted approach to this problem has included measuring the absolute tagging ratios with a Total Absorption Counter (TAC) as well as relative tagging ratios with a Pair Spectrometer (PS), and determining the rate of the tagging counters using multi-hit TDC's and a clock trigger. This enables the determination of the absolute tagged photon flux for the PrimEx experiment with uncertainty of ~ 1.0%, which is unprecedented. In view of the stringent constraints on the required precision of the photon flux for this experiment, periodicmeasurements of the pair production cross section were performed throughout the run. In these measurements, both the photon energy and flux were determined by the Jefferson Lab Hall B tagger, and the electron-positron pairs were swept by a magnetic field and detected in the new 1728 channel hybrid calorimeter (HyCal). The pair production crosssection was extracted with an uncertainty of ~ 2%, producing an agreement with theoretical calculations at the level of ~ 2%. This measurement provided a unique opportunity to verify the photon flux determination procedure for the PrimEx experiment.

Precision Lunar Laser Ranging For Lunar and Gravitational Science

Science.gov (United States)

Merkowitz, S. M.; Arnold, D.; Dabney, P. W.; Livas, J. C.; McGarry, J. F.; Neumann, G. A.; Zagwodzki, T. W.

2008-01-01

Laser ranging to retroreflector arrays placed on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts and the Soviet Lunar missions over the past 39 years have dramatically increased our understanding of gravitational physics along with Earth and Moon geophysics, geodesy, and dynamics. Significant advances in these areas will require placing modern retroreflectors and/or active laser ranging systems at new locations on the lunar surface. Ranging to new locations will enable better measurements of the lunar librations, aiding in our understanding of the interior structure of the moon. More precise range measurements will allow us to study effects that are too small to be observed by the current capabilities as well as enabling more stringent tests of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Setting up retroreflectors was a key part of the Apollo missions so it is natural to ask if future lunar missions should include them as well. The Apollo retroreflectors are still being used today, and nearly 40 years of ranging data has been invaluable for scientific as well as other studies such as orbital dynamics. However, the available retroreflectors all lie within 26 degrees latitude of the equator, and the most useful ones within 24 degrees longitude of the sub-earth meridian. This clustering weakens their geometrical strength.

Vibration isolation and dual-stage actuation pointing system for space precision payloads

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Yongfang; Huang, Hai

2018-02-01

Pointing and stability requirements for future space missions are becoming more and more stringent. This work follows the pointing control method which consists of a traditional spacecraft attitude control system and a payload active pointing loop, further proposing a vibration isolation and dual-stage actuation pointing system for space precision payloads based on a soft Stewart platform. Central to the concept is using the dual-stage actuator instead of the traditional voice coil motor single-stage actuator to improve the payload active pointing capability. Based on a specified payload, the corresponding platform was designed to be installed between the spacecraft bus and the payload. The performance of the proposed system is demonstrated by preliminary closed-loop control investigations in simulations. With the ordinary spacecraft bus, the line-of-sight pointing accuracy can be controlled to below a few milliarcseconds in tip and tilt. Meanwhile, utilizing the voice coil motor with the softening spring in parallel, which is a portion of the dual-stage actuator, the system effectively achieves low-frequency motion transmission and high-frequency vibration isolation along the other four degree-of-freedom directions.

High-Precision Dispensing of Nanoliter Biofluids on Glass Pedestal Arrays for Ultrasensitive Biomolecule Detection.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Xiaoxiao; Liu, Yang; Xu, QianFeng; Zhu, Jing; Poget, Sébastien F; Lyons, Alan M

2016-05-04

Precise dispensing of nanoliter droplets is necessary for the development of sensitive and accurate assays, especially when the availability of the source solution is limited. Conventional approaches are limited by imprecise positioning, large shear forces, surface tension effects, and high costs. To address the need for precise and economical dispensing of nanoliter volumes, we developed a new approach where the dispensed volume is dependent on the size and shape of defined surface features, thus freeing the dispensing process from pumps and fine-gauge needles requiring accurate positioning. The surface we fabricated, called a nanoliter droplet virtual well microplate (nVWP), achieves high-precision dispensing (better than ±0.5 nL or ±1.6% at 32 nL) of 20-40 nL droplets using a small source drop (3-10 μL) on isolated hydrophilic glass pedestals (500 μm on a side) bonded to arrays of polydimethylsiloxane conical posts. The sharp 90° edge of the glass pedestal pins the solid-liquid-vapor triple contact line (TCL), averting the wetting of the glass sidewalls while the fluid is prevented from receding from the edge. This edge creates a sufficiently large energy barrier such that microliter water droplets can be poised on the glass pedestals, exhibiting contact angles greater >150°. This approach relieves the stringent mechanical alignment tolerances required for conventional dispensing techniques, shifting the control of dispensed volume to the area circumscribed by the glass edge. The effects of glass surface chemistry and dispense velocity on droplet volume were studied using optical microscopy and high-speed video. Functionalization of the glass pedestal surface enabled the selective adsorption of specific peptides and proteins from synthetic and natural biomolecule mixtures, such as venom. We further demonstrate how the nVWP dispensing platform can be used for a variety of assays, including sensitive detection of proteins and peptides by fluorescence

Precision of jaw-closing movements for different jaw gaps.

Science.gov (United States)

Hellmann, Daniel; Becker, Georg; Giannakopoulos, Nikolaos N; Eberhard, Lydia; Fingerhut, Christopher; Rammelsberg, Peter; Schindler, Hans J

2014-02-01

Jaw-closing movements are basic components of physiological motor actions precisely achieving intercuspation without significant interference. The main purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that, despite an imperfect intercuspal position, the precision of jaw-closing movements fluctuates within the range of physiological closing movements indispensable for meeting intercuspation without significant interference. For 35 healthy subjects, condylar and incisal point positions for fast and slow jaw-closing, interrupted at different jaw gaps by the use of frontal occlusal plateaus, were compared with uninterrupted physiological jaw closing, with identical jaw gaps, using a telemetric system for measuring jaw position. Examiner-guided centric relation served as a clinically relevant reference position. For jaw gaps ≤4 mm, no significant horizontal or vertical displacement differences were observed for the incisal or condylar points among physiological, fast, and slow jaw-closing. However, the jaw positions under these three closing conditions differed significantly from guided centric relation for nearly all experimental jaw gaps. The findings provide evidence of stringent neuromuscular control of jaw-closing movements in the vicinity of intercuspation. These results might be of clinical relevance to occlusal intervention with different objectives. © 2013 Eur J Oral Sci.

Increasing average period lengths by switching of robust chaos maps in finite precision

Science.gov (United States)

Nagaraj, N.; Shastry, M. C.; Vaidya, P. G.

2008-12-01

Grebogi, Ott and Yorke (Phys. Rev. A 38, 1988) have investigated the effect of finite precision on average period length of chaotic maps. They showed that the average length of periodic orbits (T) of a dynamical system scales as a function of computer precision (ɛ) and the correlation dimension (d) of the chaotic attractor: T ˜ɛ-d/2. In this work, we are concerned with increasing the average period length which is desirable for chaotic cryptography applications. Our experiments reveal that random and chaotic switching of deterministic chaotic dynamical systems yield higher average length of periodic orbits as compared to simple sequential switching or absence of switching. To illustrate the application of switching, a novel generalization of the Logistic map that exhibits Robust Chaos (absence of attracting periodic orbits) is first introduced. We then propose a pseudo-random number generator based on chaotic switching between Robust Chaos maps which is found to successfully pass stringent statistical tests of randomness.

Light pionic atoms perspectives for precision experiments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gotta, D.

2005-01-01

During the last decades high-precision spectroscopy of exotic-atom x-rays profited in particular in the case of pions from the increasing number of stopped particles provided by the cyclotron trap at the accelerator facility of the Paul-Scherrer-Institut (PSI) together with modern detector concepts like charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and crystal spectrometers. Presently, priority is given to the study of the strong-interaction effects in the most elementary system - pionic hydrogen. However, the systems with two or more nucleons are as fundamental for the development of a theoretical description of hadronic matter. Furthermore, the de-excitation of exotic atoms involves a variety of atomic processes, which become accessible in detail due to the high resolution achievable with crystal spectrometers, e. g., parallel transitions, line splittings, broadenings and intensity distributions. In addition, first successful attempts for a microscopic description of the atomic cascade are available now, which should be subject to stringent tests both for atoms and molecules. (author)

[Precision and personalized medicine].

Science.gov (United States)

Sipka, Sándor

2016-10-01

The author describes the concept of "personalized medicine" and the newly introduced "precision medicine". "Precision medicine" applies the terms of "phenotype", "endotype" and "biomarker" in order to characterize more precisely the various diseases. Using "biomarkers" the homogeneous type of a disease (a "phenotype") can be divided into subgroups called "endotypes" requiring different forms of treatment and financing. The good results of "precision medicine" have become especially apparent in relation with allergic and autoimmune diseases. The application of this new way of thinking is going to be necessary in Hungary, too, in the near future for participants, controllers and financing boards of healthcare. Orv. Hetil., 2016, 157(44), 1739-1741.

Precision Branching Ratio Measurement for the Superallowed β+ Emitter Ga62 and Isospin-Symmetry-Breaking Corrections in A≥62 Nuclei

Science.gov (United States)

Hyland, B.; Svensson, C. E.; Ball, G. C.; Leslie, J. R.; Achtzehn, T.; Albers, D.; Andreoiu, C.; Bricault, P.; Churchman, R.; Cross, D.; Dombsky, M.; Finlay, P.; Garrett, P. E.; Geppert, C.; Grinyer, G. F.; Hackman, G.; Hanemaayer, V.; Lassen, J.; Lavoie, J. P.; Melconian, D.; Morton, A. C.; Pearson, C. J.; Pearson, M. R.; Phillips, A. A.; Schumaker, M. A.; Smith, M. B.; Towner, I. S.; Valiente-Dobón, J. J.; Wendt, K.; Zganjar, E. F.

2006-09-01

A high-precision branching ratio measurement for the superallowed β+ decay of Ga62 was performed at the Isotope Separator and Accelerator radioactive ion beam facility. Nineteen γ rays emitted following β+ decay of Ga62 were identified, establishing the dominant superallowed branching ratio to be (99.861±0.011)%. Combined with recent half-life and Q-value measurements, this branching ratio yields a superallowed ft value of 3075.6±1.4s for Ga62 decay. These results demonstrate the feasibility of high-precision superallowed branching ratio measurements in the A≥62 mass region and provide the first stringent tests of the large isospin-symmetry-breaking effects predicted for these decays.

Laser precision microfabrication

CERN Document Server

Sugioka, Koji; Pique, Alberto

2010-01-01

Miniaturization and high precision are rapidly becoming a requirement for many industrial processes and products. As a result, there is greater interest in the use of laser microfabrication technology to achieve these goals. This book composed of 16 chapters covers all the topics of laser precision processing from fundamental aspects to industrial applications to both inorganic and biological materials. It reviews the sate of the art of research and technological development in the area of laser processing.

A Precise Measurement of the W Boson Mass with CDF

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2012-01-01

The W boson mass measurement probes quantum corrections to the W propagator, such as those arising from supersymmetric particles or Higgs bosons. The new measurement from CDF is more precise than the previous world average, providing a stringent constraint on the mass of the Higgs boson in the context of the Standard Model. I describe this measurement, performed with 2.2/fb of data using 1.1 million candidates in the electron and muon decay channels, with three kinematic fits in each channel. The measurement uses in-situ calibrations from cosmic rays, J/psi and Upsilon data, and W- and Z-boson decays, with multiple cross-checks including independent determinations of the Z boson mass in both channels. The W-boson mass is measured to be 80387 +- 19 MeV/c^2.

Precision requirements for single-layer feed-forward neural networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Annema, Anne J.; Hoen, K.; Hoen, Klaas; Wallinga, Hans

1994-01-01

This paper presents a mathematical analysis of the effect of limited precision analog hardware for weight adaptation to be used in on-chip learning feedforward neural networks. Easy-to-read equations and simple worst-case estimations for the maximum tolerable imprecision are presented. As an

Precision Comparison of $\\bar{p}$ and $ p $ Masses in a Penning Trap

CERN Multimedia

2002-01-01

PS196 : Precision Comparison of $\\bar{p}$ and p Masses in a Penning Trap For the first time, antiprotons with energies 10$^{10}$ times lower than those in LEAR can be stored and studied over long times in a small apparatus. The first measurement at this new, low energy frontier is a 1000-fold improvement in the measured antiproton mass. The mass dependent cyclotron frequencies, first for antiprotons then for protons orbiting in the same magnetic field, are compared to establish that the antiproton and proton masses are the same to at least 4~parts in 10$^8$. This is the most stringent test of whether a baryon system is invariant under CPT transformations. A special trap geometry and a superconducting solenoid which cancels fluctuations in the magnetic field in the accelerator hall were crucial to this greatly improved measurement. The current objective is to improve the precision by one or two orders of magnitude. Antiprotons from LEAR at 5.9~MeV, slow below 3~keV via collisions in a thin metal window, and ar...

Augmenting the Genetic Toolbox for Sulfolobus islandicus with a Stringent Positive Selectable Marker for Agmatine Prototrophy

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Tara E.; Krause, David J.

2013-01-01

Sulfolobus species have become the model organisms for studying the unique biology of the crenarchaeal division of the archaeal domain. In particular, Sulfolobus islandicus provides a powerful opportunity to explore natural variation via experimental functional genomics. To support these efforts, we further expanded genetic tools for S. islandicus by developing a stringent positive selection for agmatine prototrophs in strains in which the argD gene, encoding arginine decarboxylase, has been deleted. Strains with deletions in argD were shown to be auxotrophic for agmatine even in nutrient-rich medium, but growth could be restored by either supplementation of exogenous agmatine or reintroduction of a functional copy of the argD gene from S. solfataricus P2 into the ΔargD host. Using this stringent selection, a robust targeted gene knockout system was established via an improved next generation of the MID (marker insertion and unmarked target gene deletion) method. Application of this novel system was validated by targeted knockout of the upsEF genes involved in UV-inducible cell aggregation formation. PMID:23835176

Hippocampal function is not required for the precision of remote place memory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kitamura Takashi

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background During permanent memory formation, recall of acquired place memories initially depends on the hippocampus and eventually become hippocampus-independent with time. It has been suggested that the quality of original place memories also transforms from a precise form to a less precise form with similar time course. The question arises of whether the quality of original place memories is determined by brain regions on which the memory depends. Results To directly test this idea, we introduced a new procedure: a non-associative place recognition memory test in mice. Combined with genetic and pharmacological approaches, our analyses revealed that place memory is precisely maintained for 28 days, although the recall of place memory shifts from hippocampus-dependent to hippocampus-independent with time. Moreover, the inactivation of the hippocampal function does not inhibit the precision of remote place memory. Conclusion These results indicate that the quality of place memories is not determined by brain regions on which the memory depends.

Air Quality and Health Benefits of China's Recent Stringent Environmental Policy

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Y.; Xue, T.; Zhang, Q.; Geng, G.; He, K.

2016-12-01

Aggressive emission control measures were taken by China's central and local governments after the promulgation of the "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" in 2013. We evaluated the air quality and health benefits of this ever most stringent air pollution control policy during 2013-2015 by utilizing a two-stage data fusion model and newly-developed cause-specific integrated exposure-response functions (IER) developed for the Global Burden of Disease (GBD). The two-stage data fusion model predicts spatiotemporal continuous PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 µm) concentrations by integrating satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements, PM2.5 concentrations from measurement and air quality model, and other ancillary information. During the years of analysis, PM2.5 concentration dropped significantly on national average and over heavily polluted regions as identified by Mann-Kendall analysis. The national PM2.5-attributable mortality decreased by 72.8 (95% CI: 59.4, 85.2) thousand (6%) from 1.23 (95% CI: 1.06, 1.39) million in 2013 to 1.15 (95% CI: 0.98, 1.31) million in 2015 due to considerable reduction (i.e. 18%) of population-weighted PM2.5 from 61.4 to 50.5 µg/m3. Meteorological variations between 2013 and 2015 were estimated to raise the PM2.5 levels by 0.24 µg/m3 and national mortality by 2.1 (95% CI: 1.6, 2.6) thousand through sensitivity tests, which implies the dominant role of anthropogenic impacts on PM2.5 abatement and attributable mortality reduction. Our study affirms the effectiveness of China's recent air quality policy, however, due to the possible supralinear shape of C-R functions, health benefits induced by air quality improvement in these years are limited. We therefore appeal for continuous implementation of current policies and further stringent measures from both air quality improvement and public health protection perspectives.

GABA-Mediated Presynaptic Inhibition Is Required for Precision of Long-Term Memory

Science.gov (United States)

Cullen, Patrick K.; Dulka, Brooke N.; Ortiz, Samantha; Riccio, David C.; Jasnow, Aaron M.

2014-01-01

Though much attention has been given to the neural structures that underlie the long-term consolidation of contextual memories, little is known about the mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of memory precision. Here, we demonstrate a rapid time-dependent decline in memory precision in GABA [subscript B(1a)] receptor knockout mice. First, we…

Recent trends in precision measurements of atomic and nuclear properties with lasers and ion traps

Science.gov (United States)

Block, Michael

2017-11-01

The X. international workshop on "Application of Lasers and Storage Devices in Atomic Nuclei Research" took place in Poznan in May 2016. It addressed the latest experimental and theoretical achievements in laser and ion trap-based investigations of radionuclides, highly charged ions and antiprotons. The precise determination of atomic and nuclear properties provides a stringent benchmark for theoretical models and eventually leads to a better understanding of the underlying fundamental interactions and symmetries. This article addresses some general trends in this field and highlights select recent achievements presented at the workshop. Many of these are covered in more detail within the individual contributions to this special issue of Hyperfine Interactions.

Recent trends in precision measurements of atomic and nuclear properties with lasers and ion traps

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Block, Michael, E-mail: m.block@gsi.de [GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH (Germany)

2017-11-15

The X. international workshop on “Application of Lasers and Storage Devices in Atomic Nuclei Research” took place in Poznan in May 2016. It addressed the latest experimental and theoretical achievements in laser and ion trap-based investigations of radionuclides, highly charged ions and antiprotons. The precise determination of atomic and nuclear properties provides a stringent benchmark for theoretical models and eventually leads to a better understanding of the underlying fundamental interactions and symmetries. This article addresses some general trends in this field and highlights select recent achievements presented at the workshop. Many of these are covered in more detail within the individual contributions to this special issue of Hyperfine Interactions.

Test of feasibility of a novel high precision test of time reversal invariance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Samuel, Deepak

2007-01-01

The first results of a feasibility test of a novel high precision test of time reversal invariance are reported. The Time Reversal Invariance test at COSY (TRIC) was planned to measure the time reversal violating observable A y,xz with an accuracy of 10 -6 in proton-deuteron (p-d) scattering. A novel technique for measuring total cross sections is introduced and the achievable precision of this measuring technique is tested. The correlation coefficient A y,y in p-d scattering fakes a time-reversal violating effect. This work reports the feasibility test of the novel method in the measurement of A y,y in p-p scattering. The first step in the experimental design was the development of a hard real-time data acquisition system. To meet stringent latency requirements, the capabilities of Windows XP had to be augmented with a real-time subsystem. The remote control feature of the data acquisition enables users to operate it from any place via an internet connection. The data acquisition proved its reliability in several beam times without any failures. The analysis of the data showed the presence of 1/f noise which substantially limits the quality of our measurements. The origin of 1/f noise was traced and found to be the Barkhausen noise from the ferrite core of the beam current transformer (BCT). A global weighted fitting technique based on a modified Wiener-Khinchin method was developed and used to suppress the influence of 1/f noise, which increased the error bar of the results by a factor 3. This is the only deviation from our expectations. The results are presented and discussed. (orig.)

Test of feasibility of a novel high precision test of time reversal invariance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Samuel, Deepak

2007-07-01

The first results of a feasibility test of a novel high precision test of time reversal invariance are reported. The Time Reversal Invariance test at COSY (TRIC) was planned to measure the time reversal violating observable A{sub y,xz} with an accuracy of 10{sup -6} in proton-deuteron (p-d) scattering. A novel technique for measuring total cross sections is introduced and the achievable precision of this measuring technique is tested. The correlation coefficient A{sub y,y} in p-d scattering fakes a time-reversal violating effect. This work reports the feasibility test of the novel method in the measurement of A{sub y,y} in p-p scattering. The first step in the experimental design was the development of a hard real-time data acquisition system. To meet stringent latency requirements, the capabilities of Windows XP had to be augmented with a real-time subsystem. The remote control feature of the data acquisition enables users to operate it from any place via an internet connection. The data acquisition proved its reliability in several beam times without any failures. The analysis of the data showed the presence of 1/f noise which substantially limits the quality of our measurements. The origin of 1/f noise was traced and found to be the Barkhausen noise from the ferrite core of the beam current transformer (BCT). A global weighted fitting technique based on a modified Wiener-Khinchin method was developed and used to suppress the influence of 1/f noise, which increased the error bar of the results by a factor 3. This is the only deviation from our expectations. The results are presented and discussed. (orig.)

Induction of a stringent metabolic response in intracellular stages of Leishmania mexicana leads to increased dependence on mitochondrial metabolism.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eleanor C Saunders

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Leishmania parasites alternate between extracellular promastigote stages in the insect vector and an obligate intracellular amastigote stage that proliferates within the phagolysosomal compartment of macrophages in the mammalian host. Most enzymes involved in Leishmania central carbon metabolism are constitutively expressed and stage-specific changes in energy metabolism remain poorly defined. Using (13C-stable isotope resolved metabolomics and (2H2O labelling, we show that amastigote differentiation is associated with reduction in growth rate and induction of a distinct stringent metabolic state. This state is characterized by a global decrease in the uptake and utilization of glucose and amino acids, a reduced secretion of organic acids and increased fatty acid β-oxidation. Isotopomer analysis showed that catabolism of hexose and fatty acids provide C4 dicarboxylic acids (succinate/malate and acetyl-CoA for the synthesis of glutamate via a compartmentalized mitochondrial tricarboxylic acid (TCA cycle. In vitro cultivated and intracellular amastigotes are acutely sensitive to inhibitors of mitochondrial aconitase and glutamine synthetase, indicating that these anabolic pathways are essential for intracellular growth and virulence. Lesion-derived amastigotes exhibit a similar metabolism to in vitro differentiated amastigotes, indicating that this stringent response is coupled to differentiation signals rather than exogenous nutrient levels. Induction of a stringent metabolic response may facilitate amastigote survival in a nutrient-poor intracellular niche and underlie the increased dependence of this stage on hexose and mitochondrial metabolism.

The economic case for precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Gavan, Sean P; Thompson, Alexander J; Payne, Katherine

2018-01-01

Introduction : The advancement of precision medicine into routine clinical practice has been highlighted as an agenda for national and international health care policy. A principle barrier to this advancement is in meeting requirements of the payer or reimbursement agency for health care. This special report aims to explain the economic case for precision medicine, by accounting for the explicit objectives defined by decision-makers responsible for the allocation of limited health care resources. Areas covered : The framework of cost-effectiveness analysis, a method of economic evaluation, is used to describe how precision medicine can, in theory, exploit identifiable patient-level heterogeneity to improve population health outcomes and the relative cost-effectiveness of health care. Four case studies are used to illustrate potential challenges when demonstrating the economic case for a precision medicine in practice. Expert commentary : The economic case for a precision medicine should be considered at an early stage during its research and development phase. Clinical and economic evidence can be generated iteratively and should be in alignment with the objectives and requirements of decision-makers. Programmes of further research, to demonstrate the economic case of a precision medicine, can be prioritized by the extent that they reduce the uncertainty expressed by decision-makers.

Precision electron polarimetry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chudakov, E.

2013-01-01

A new generation of precise Parity-Violating experiments will require a sub-percent accuracy of electron beam polarimetry. Compton polarimetry can provide such accuracy at high energies, but at a few hundred MeV the small analyzing power limits the sensitivity. Mo/ller polarimetry provides a high analyzing power independent on the beam energy, but is limited by the properties of the polarized targets commonly used. Options for precision polarimetry at 300 MeV will be discussed, in particular a proposal to use ultra-cold atomic hydrogen traps to provide a 100%-polarized electron target for Mo/ller polarimetry

Developing ISM Dust Grain Models with Precision Elemental Abundances from IXO

Science.gov (United States)

Valencic, L. A.; Smith, R. K.; Juet, A.

2009-01-01

The exact nature of interstellar dust grains in the Galaxy remains mysterious, despite their ubiquity. Many viable models exist, based on available IR-UV data and assumed elemental abundances. However, the abundances, which are perhaps the most stringent constraint, are not well known: modelers must use proxies in the absence of direct measurements for the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM). Recent revisions of these proxy values have only added to confusion over which is the best representative for the diffuse ISM, and highlighted the need for direct, high signal-to-noise measurements from the ISM itself. The International X-ray Observatory's superior facilities will enable high-precision elemental abundance measurements. We ill show how these results will measure both the overall ISM abundances and challenge dust models, allowing us to construct a more realistic picture of the ISM.

Fluxgate magnetometry for precise mapping of the Earth's field

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Primdahl, Fritz; Merayo, José M.G.; Brauer, Peter

2007-01-01

The requirements for precise global mapping of the Earth's vector magnetic field from a high inclination LEO satellite needs a stable and precise vector magnetometer. Equally important are the measurement of the stellar attitude of the vector sensor and establishment of the calibration by onboard...... comparison to an absolute scalar magnetometer. In addition, the position in orbit and the precise timing relative to the UTC is needed. Finally, the end-to-end system precision also depends on a known and controlled local satellite magnetic field.......The requirements for precise global mapping of the Earth's vector magnetic field from a high inclination LEO satellite needs a stable and precise vector magnetometer. Equally important are the measurement of the stellar attitude of the vector sensor and establishment of the calibration by onboard...

Automatic titrator for high precision plutonium assay

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jackson, D.D.; Hollen, R.M.

1986-01-01

Highly precise assay of plutonium metal is required for accountability measurements. We have developed an automatic titrator for this determination which eliminates analyst bias and requires much less analyst time. The analyst is only required to enter sample data and start the titration. The automated instrument titrates the sample, locates the end point, and outputs the results as a paper tape printout. Precision of the titration is less than 0.03% relative standard deviation for a single determination at the 250-mg plutonium level. The titration time is less than 5 min

Real-Time Control System for Improved Precision and Throughput in an Ultrafast Carbon Fiber Placement Robot Using a SoC FPGA Extended Processing Platform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gilberto Ochoa-Ruiz

2017-01-01

Full Text Available We present an architecture for accelerating the processing and execution of control commands in an ultrafast fiber placement robot. The system consists of a robotic arm designed by Coriolis Composites whose purpose is to move along a surface, on which composite fibers are deposed, via an independently controlled head. In first system implementation, the control commands were sent via Profibus by a PLC, limiting the reaction time and thus the precision of the fiber placement and the maximum throughput. Therefore, a custom real-time solution was imperative in order to ameliorate the performance and to meet the stringent requirements of the target industry (avionics, aeronautical systems. The solution presented in this paper is based on the use of a SoC FPGA processing platform running a real-time operating system (FreeRTOS, which has enabled an improved comamnd retrieval mechanism. The system’s placement precision was improved by a factor of 20 (from 1 mm to 0.05 mm, while the maximum achievable throughput was 1 m/s, compared to the average 30 cm/s provided by the original solution, enabling fabricating more complex and larger pieces in a significant fraction of the time.

Molecular Pathology: A Requirement for Precision Medicine in Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Dietel, Manfred

2016-01-01

The increasing importance of targeting drugs and check-point inhibitors in the treatment of several tumor entities (breast, colon, lung, malignant melanoma, lymphoma, etc.) and the necessity of a companion diagnostic (HER2, (pan)RAS, EGFR, ALK, BRAF, ROS1, MET, PD-L1, etc.) is leading to new challenges for surgical pathology. Since almost all the biomarkers to be specifically detected are tissue based, a precise and reliable diagnostic is absolutely crucial. To meet this challenge surgical pathology has adapted a number of molecular methods (semi-quantitative immunohistochemistry, fluorescence in situ hybridization, PCR and its multiple variants, (pyro/Sanger) sequencing, next generation sequencing (amplicon, whole exome, whole genome), DNA arrays, methylation analyses, etc.) to be applicable for formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue. Reading a patient's tissue as 'deeply' as possible and obtaining information on the morphological, genetic, proteomic and epigenetic background are the tasks of pathologists and molecular biologists and provide the clinicians with information relevant for precision medicine. Intensified cooperation between clinicians and pathologists will provide the basis of improved clinical drug selection and guide development of new cancer gene therapies and molecularly targeted drugs by research units and the pharmaceutical industry. © 2016 S. Karger GmbH, Freiburg.

Atomic Layer Etching : What can we learn from Atomic Layer Deposition?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Faraz, T.; Roozeboom, F.; Knoops, H.C.M.; Kessels, W.M.M.

2015-01-01

Current trends in semiconductor device manufacturing impose extremely stringent requirements on nanoscale processing techniques, both in terms of accurately controlling material properties and in terms of precisely controlling nanometer dimensions. To take nanostructuring by dry etching to the next

Atomic layer etching : what can we learn from atomic layer deposition?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Faraz, T.; Roozeboom, F.; Knoops, H.C.M.; Kessels, W.M.M.

2015-01-01

Current trends in semiconductor device manufacturing impose extremely stringent requirements on nanoscale processing techniques, both in terms of accurately controlling material properties and in terms of precisely controlling nanometer dimensions. To take nanostructuring by dry etching to the next

High-Precision Computation and Mathematical Physics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bailey, David H.; Borwein, Jonathan M.

2008-01-01

At the present time, IEEE 64-bit floating-point arithmetic is sufficiently accurate for most scientific applications. However, for a rapidly growing body of important scientific computing applications, a higher level of numeric precision is required. Such calculations are facilitated by high-precision software packages that include high-level language translation modules to minimize the conversion effort. This paper presents a survey of recent applications of these techniques and provides some analysis of their numerical requirements. These applications include supernova simulations, climate modeling, planetary orbit calculations, Coulomb n-body atomic systems, scattering amplitudes of quarks, gluons and bosons, nonlinear oscillator theory, Ising theory, quantum field theory and experimental mathematics. We conclude that high-precision arithmetic facilities are now an indispensable component of a modern large-scale scientific computing environment.

Precision digital control systems

Science.gov (United States)

Vyskub, V. G.; Rozov, B. S.; Savelev, V. I.

This book is concerned with the characteristics of digital control systems of great accuracy. A classification of such systems is considered along with aspects of stabilization, programmable control applications, digital tracking systems and servomechanisms, and precision systems for the control of a scanning laser beam. Other topics explored are related to systems of proportional control, linear devices and methods for increasing precision, approaches for further decreasing the response time in the case of high-speed operation, possibilities for the implementation of a logical control law, and methods for the study of precision digital control systems. A description is presented of precision automatic control systems which make use of electronic computers, taking into account the existing possibilities for an employment of computers in automatic control systems, approaches and studies required for including a computer in such control systems, and an analysis of the structure of automatic control systems with computers. Attention is also given to functional blocks in the considered systems.

Precision Medicine and Men's Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Mata, Douglas A; Katchi, Farhan M; Ramasamy, Ranjith

2017-07-01

Precision medicine can greatly benefit men's health by helping to prevent, diagnose, and treat prostate cancer, benign prostatic hyperplasia, infertility, hypogonadism, and erectile dysfunction. For example, precision medicine can facilitate the selection of men at high risk for prostate cancer for targeted prostate-specific antigen screening and chemoprevention administration, as well as assist in identifying men who are resistant to medical therapy for prostatic hyperplasia, who may instead require surgery. Precision medicine-trained clinicians can also let couples know whether their specific cause of infertility should be bypassed by sperm extraction and in vitro fertilization to prevent abnormalities in their offspring. Though precision medicine's role in the management of hypogonadism has yet to be defined, it could be used to identify biomarkers associated with individual patients' responses to treatment so that appropriate therapy can be prescribed. Last, precision medicine can improve erectile dysfunction treatment by identifying genetic polymorphisms that regulate response to medical therapies and by aiding in the selection of patients for further cardiovascular disease screening.

Perspectives of precision agriculture in a broader policy context

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lind, Kim Martin Hjorth; Pedersen, Søren Marcus

2017-01-01

that in a precise and targeted approach reduce resource use and increase yield. Furthermore, the growing demand for higher value food products in terms of health and quality require traceability and information about production processes and resource use, which also correspond with the possibilities offered...... by precision agriculture technology. The general movement towards higher integration in food supply chains is a natural extension of the requirements for traceability and product information, which are integral parts of precision agriculture.......Agriculture is faced with contrasting requirements from the broader society. On the one hand, agriculture needs to expand production to be able to feed a growing global population. Furthermore, the developing bio-economy requires agriculture to produce for a range of non-food objectives such as bio...

Waste management from reprocessing: a stringent regulatory requirements for high quality conditioned residues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bordier, J. C.; Greneche, D.; Devezeaux, J. G.; Dalcorso, J.

2000-01-01

Nuclear waste production and management in France is governed by safety requirements imposed to all operators. French nuclear safety relies on two basic principles: · Responsibility of the nuclear operator, which expands to waste generated, · Safety basic objectives issued by national Safety Authority. For a long time the regulatory framework for waste production and management has been satisfactorily applied and has benefited to each actor of the process. LLW/MLW and HLW nuclear waste are currently conditioned in safe matrices or packages either likely to be disposed in surface repositories or designed with the intention to be disposed underground according to their radioactive content. France is looking into the case of VLLW and has already carried out a design for future disposal, the design being in the pipe. Other types of waste (i. e. radium bearing waste, graphite, and tritium content waste) are also considered in the whole framework of French waste management. (author)

Precision Measurement of the Electron's Electric Dipole Moment Using Trapped Molecular Ions

Science.gov (United States)

Cairncross, William B.; Gresh, Daniel N.; Grau, Matt; Cossel, Kevin C.; Roussy, Tanya S.; Ni, Yiqi; Zhou, Yan; Ye, Jun; Cornell, Eric A.

2017-10-01

We describe the first precision measurement of the electron's electric dipole moment (de) using trapped molecular ions, demonstrating the application of spin interrogation times over 700 ms to achieve high sensitivity and stringent rejection of systematic errors. Through electron spin resonance spectroscopy on 180Hf 19F+ in its metastable 3Δ1 electronic state, we obtain de=(0.9 ±7. 7stat±1. 7syst)×10-29 e cm , resulting in an upper bound of |de|<1.3 ×10-28 e cm (90% confidence). Our result provides independent confirmation of the current upper bound of |de|<9.4 ×10-29 e cm [J. Baron et al., New J. Phys. 19, 073029 (2017), 10.1088/1367-2630/aa708e], and offers the potential to improve on this limit in the near future.

Bit-Grooming: Shave Your Bits with Razor-sharp Precision

Science.gov (United States)

Zender, C. S.; Silver, J.

2017-12-01

Lossless compression can reduce climate data storage by 30-40%. Further reduction requires lossy compression that also reduces precision. Fortunately, geoscientific models and measurements generate false precision (scientifically meaningless data bits) that can be eliminated without sacrificing scientifically meaningful data. We introduce Bit Grooming, a lossy compression algorithm that removes the bloat due to false-precision, those bits and bytes beyond the meaningful precision of the data.Bit Grooming is statistically unbiased, applies to all floating point numbers, and is easy to use. Bit-Grooming reduces geoscience data storage requirements by 40-80%. We compared Bit Grooming to competitors Linear Packing, Layer Packing, and GRIB2/JPEG2000. The other compression methods have the edge in terms of compression, but Bit Grooming is the most accurate and certainly the most usable and portable.Bit Grooming provides flexible and well-balanced solutions to the trade-offs among compression, accuracy, and usability required by lossy compression. Geoscientists could reduce their long term storage costs, and show leadership in the elimination of false precision, by adopting Bit Grooming.

Thorium spectrophotometric analysis with high precision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Palmieri, H.E.L.

1983-06-01

An accurate and precise determination of thorium is proposed. Precision of about 0,1% is required for the determination of macroquantities of thorium processed. After an extensive literature search concerning this subject, spectrophotometric titration has been chosen, using disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA) solution and alizarin S as indicator. In order to obtain such a precision, an amount of 0,025 M EDTA solution precisely measured has been added and the titration was completed with less than 5 ml of 0,0025 M EDTA solution. It is usual to locate the end-point graphically, by plotting added titrant versus absorbance. The non-linear minimum square fit, using the Fletcher e Powell's minimization process and a computer program. (author)

Advanced bioanalytics for precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Roda, Aldo; Michelini, Elisa; Caliceti, Cristiana; Guardigli, Massimo; Mirasoli, Mara; Simoni, Patrizia

2018-01-01

Precision medicine is a new paradigm that combines diagnostic, imaging, and analytical tools to produce accurate diagnoses and therapeutic interventions tailored to the individual patient. This approach stands in contrast to the traditional "one size fits all" concept, according to which researchers develop disease treatments and preventions for an "average" patient without considering individual differences. The "one size fits all" concept has led to many ineffective or inappropriate treatments, especially for pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Now, precision medicine is receiving massive funding in many countries, thanks to its social and economic potential in terms of improved disease prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. Bioanalytical chemistry is critical to precision medicine. This is because identifying an appropriate tailored therapy requires researchers to collect and analyze information on each patient's specific molecular biomarkers (e.g., proteins, nucleic acids, and metabolites). In other words, precision diagnostics is not possible without precise bioanalytical chemistry. This Trend article highlights some of the most recent advances, including massive analysis of multilayer omics, and new imaging technique applications suitable for implementing precision medicine. Graphical abstract Precision medicine combines bioanalytical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, and imaging tools for performing accurate diagnoses and selecting optimal therapies for each patient.

Product Surfaces in Precision Engineering, Micorengineering and Nanotechnology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

De Chiffre, Leonardo; Kunzmann, H.; Peggs, G. N.

2005-01-01

This paper is and excerpt from a recently published CIRP Key-Note paper on surfaces in Precision Engineering, Micorengineering and Nanotechnology [1]. It is focussed on the relevance of surface metrology at the micrometric and nanometric length scales. The applied measurement technologies...... are strongly dependent from the functional requirements on those surfaces. Examples of surfaces obtained with precision engineering, microengineering and nanotechnology are mentioned, encompassing surfaces in computers, MEMS, biomedical systems, ligth and X-ray optics, as well as in chemical systems. Surface...... in surface metrology at micro and nanoscale are strongly required for future progress of Precision Engineering, Microengineering, and Nanotechnology; and their fundamental importance can not be overestimated....

Development and Preliminary Testing of a High Precision Long Stroke Slit Change Mechanism for the SPICE Instrument

Science.gov (United States)

Paciotti, Gabriel; Humphries, Martin; Rottmeier, Fabrice; Blecha, Luc

2014-01-01

In the frame of ESA's Solar Orbiter scientific mission, Almatech has been selected to design, develop and test the Slit Change Mechanism of the SPICE (SPectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment) instrument. In order to guaranty optical cleanliness level while fulfilling stringent positioning accuracies and repeatability requirements for slit positioning in the optical path of the instrument, a linear guiding system based on a double flexible blade arrangement has been selected. The four different slits to be used for the SPICE instrument resulted in a total stroke of 16.5 mm in this linear slit changer arrangement. The combination of long stroke and high precision positioning requirements has been identified as the main design challenge to be validated through breadboard models testing. This paper presents the development of SPICE's Slit Change Mechanism (SCM) and the two-step validation tests successfully performed on breadboard models of its flexible blade support system. The validation test results have demonstrated the full adequacy of the flexible blade guiding system implemented in SPICE's Slit Change Mechanism in a stand-alone configuration. Further breadboard test results, studying the influence of the compliant connection to the SCM linear actuator on an enhanced flexible guiding system design have shown significant enhancements in the positioning accuracy and repeatability of the selected flexible guiding system. Preliminary evaluation of the linear actuator design, including a detailed tolerance analyses, has shown the suitability of this satellite roller screw based mechanism for the actuation of the tested flexible guiding system and compliant connection. The presented development and preliminary testing of the high-precision long-stroke Slit Change Mechanism for the SPICE Instrument are considered fully successful such that future tests considering the full Slit Change Mechanism can be performed, with the gained confidence, directly on a

AN ANALYSIS OF THE MANUFACTURING POSSIBILITY OF SPECIAL ANKLE FOOT ORTHOSIS COMPONENTS BY OMPARISON BETWEEN THE REQUIRED PRECISION AND THE VAILABLE PRECISION ON A VERTICAL MACHINING CENTER PROGRAMED WITH TOPSOLID

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandru STANIMIR

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Validation of different solutions adopted to achieve new ankle foot orthosis involves among others their prototyping. In these paper we developed a representative part for two axis machining that requires the use of the main features of TopSolid Cad and Cam modules, and that assumes the use of the main manufacturing processes that usually may be met on a vertical machining center. Also, in order to determine the dimensional and geometrical deviations of the part this was done on the YMC 1050 machining center. After comparing the measured deviations with the requirements of various components of orthesis, we concluded that the available precision meets the requirements and that the machining center with TopSolid software that we have will enable us to realize special ankle foot orthosis of quality, for experimental research .

Influence of temperature and hydroxide concentration on the settling time of hydroxy-catalysis bonds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reid, S.; Cagnoli, G.; Elliffe, E.; Faller, J.; Hough, J.; Martin, I.; Rowan, S.

2007-01-01

Many applications using bonded optical components have stringent requirements on the strength, rigidity, stability and alignment of the bonds. Hydroxy-catalysis bonding fulfills these requirements. Here we investigate methods by which the bonding time may be extended to better aid the precise prealignment of optical components through controlling the temperature and concentration of the bonding solution

Mixed-Precision Spectral Deferred Correction: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Grout, Ray W. S.

2015-09-02

Convergence of spectral deferred correction (SDC), where low-order time integration methods are used to construct higher-order methods through iterative refinement, can be accelerated in terms of computational effort by using mixed-precision methods. Using ideas from multi-level SDC (in turn based on FAS multigrid ideas), some of the SDC correction sweeps can use function values computed in reduced precision without adversely impacting the accuracy of the final solution. This is particularly beneficial for the performance of combustion solvers such as S3D [6] which require double precision accuracy but are performance limited by the cost of data motion.

Sensing Characteristics of A Precision Aligner Using Moire Gratings for Precision Alignment System

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

ZHOU Lizhong; Hideo Furuhashi; Yoshiyuki Uchida

2001-01-01

Sensing characteristics of a precision aligner using moire gratings for precision alignment sysem has been investigated. A differential moire alignment system and a modified alignment system were used. The influence of the setting accuracy of the gap length and inclination of gratings on the alignment accuracy has been studied experimentally and theoretically. Setting accuracy of the gap length less than 2.5μm is required in modified moire alignment. There is no influence of the gap length on the alignment accuracy in the differential alignment system. The inclination affects alignment accuracies in both differential and modified moire alignment systems.

Stringent limits on the ionized mass loss from A and F dwarfs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brown, A.; Veale, A.; Judge, P.; Bookbinder, J.A.; Hubeny, I.

1990-01-01

Following the suggestion of Willson et al. (1987) that A- and F-type main-sequence stars might undergo significant mass loss due to pulsationally driven winds, upper limits to the ionized mass loss from A and F dwarfs have been obtained using VLA observations. These stringent upper limits show that the level of ionized mass loss would have at most only a small effect on stellar evolution. Radiative-equilibrium atmospheric and wind models for early A dwarfs indicate that it is highly likely that a wind flowing from such stars would be significantly ionized. In addition, late A and early F dwarfs exhibit chromospheric emission indicative of significant nonradiative heating. The present mass-loss limits are thus representative of the total mass-loss rates for these stars. It is concluded that A and F dwarfs are not losing sufficient mass to cause A dwarfs to evolve into G dwarfs. 24 refs

Highly precise and developmentally programmed genome assembly in Paramecium requires ligase IV-dependent end joining.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aurélie Kapusta

2011-04-01

Full Text Available During the sexual cycle of the ciliate Paramecium, assembly of the somatic genome includes the precise excision of tens of thousands of short, non-coding germline sequences (Internal Eliminated Sequences or IESs, each one flanked by two TA dinucleotides. It has been reported previously that these genome rearrangements are initiated by the introduction of developmentally programmed DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs, which depend on the domesticated transposase PiggyMac. These DSBs all exhibit a characteristic geometry, with 4-base 5' overhangs centered on the conserved TA, and may readily align and undergo ligation with minimal processing. However, the molecular steps and actors involved in the final and precise assembly of somatic genes have remained unknown. We demonstrate here that Ligase IV and Xrcc4p, core components of the non-homologous end-joining pathway (NHEJ, are required both for the repair of IES excision sites and for the circularization of excised IESs. The transcription of LIG4 and XRCC4 is induced early during the sexual cycle and a Lig4p-GFP fusion protein accumulates in the developing somatic nucleus by the time IES excision takes place. RNAi-mediated silencing of either gene results in the persistence of free broken DNA ends, apparently protected against extensive resection. At the nucleotide level, controlled removal of the 5'-terminal nucleotide occurs normally in LIG4-silenced cells, while nucleotide addition to the 3' ends of the breaks is blocked, together with the final joining step, indicative of a coupling between NHEJ polymerase and ligase activities. Taken together, our data indicate that IES excision is a "cut-and-close" mechanism, which involves the introduction of initiating double-strand cleavages at both ends of each IES, followed by DSB repair via highly precise end joining. This work broadens our current view on how the cellular NHEJ pathway has cooperated with domesticated transposases for the emergence of new

Highly precise and developmentally programmed genome assembly in Paramecium requires ligase IV-dependent end joining.

Science.gov (United States)

Kapusta, Aurélie; Matsuda, Atsushi; Marmignon, Antoine; Ku, Michael; Silve, Aude; Meyer, Eric; Forney, James D; Malinsky, Sophie; Bétermier, Mireille

2011-04-01

During the sexual cycle of the ciliate Paramecium, assembly of the somatic genome includes the precise excision of tens of thousands of short, non-coding germline sequences (Internal Eliminated Sequences or IESs), each one flanked by two TA dinucleotides. It has been reported previously that these genome rearrangements are initiated by the introduction of developmentally programmed DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), which depend on the domesticated transposase PiggyMac. These DSBs all exhibit a characteristic geometry, with 4-base 5' overhangs centered on the conserved TA, and may readily align and undergo ligation with minimal processing. However, the molecular steps and actors involved in the final and precise assembly of somatic genes have remained unknown. We demonstrate here that Ligase IV and Xrcc4p, core components of the non-homologous end-joining pathway (NHEJ), are required both for the repair of IES excision sites and for the circularization of excised IESs. The transcription of LIG4 and XRCC4 is induced early during the sexual cycle and a Lig4p-GFP fusion protein accumulates in the developing somatic nucleus by the time IES excision takes place. RNAi-mediated silencing of either gene results in the persistence of free broken DNA ends, apparently protected against extensive resection. At the nucleotide level, controlled removal of the 5'-terminal nucleotide occurs normally in LIG4-silenced cells, while nucleotide addition to the 3' ends of the breaks is blocked, together with the final joining step, indicative of a coupling between NHEJ polymerase and ligase activities. Taken together, our data indicate that IES excision is a "cut-and-close" mechanism, which involves the introduction of initiating double-strand cleavages at both ends of each IES, followed by DSB repair via highly precise end joining. This work broadens our current view on how the cellular NHEJ pathway has cooperated with domesticated transposases for the emergence of new mechanisms

The effect of joystick handle size and gain at two levels of required precision on performance and physical load on crane operators

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huysmans, M.A.; Looze, M.P. de; Hoozemans, M.J.M.; Beek, A.J. van der; Dieën, J.H. van

2006-01-01

The study was designed to determine the effect of joystick handle size and (display-control) gain at two levels of required task precision on performance and physical load on crane operators. Eight experienced crane operators performed a simulated crane operation task on a computer by use of a

Optimization to improve precision in neutron activation analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yustina Tri Handayani

2010-01-01

The level of precision or accuracy required in analysis should be satisfied the general requirements and customer needs. In presenting the results of the analysis, the level of precision is expressed as uncertainty. Requirement general is Horwitz prediction. Factors affecting the uncertainty in the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) include the mass of sample, mass standards, concentration in standard, count of sample, count of standard and counting geometry. Therefore, to achieve the expected level of precision, these parameters need to be optimized. A standard concentration of similar materials is applied as a basis of calculation. In the calculation NIST SRM 2704 is applied for sediment samples. Mass of sample, irradiation time and cooling time can be modified to obtain the expected uncertainty. The prediction results show the level of precision for Al, V, Mg, Mn, K, Na, As, Cr, Co, Fe, and Zn eligible the Horwitz. The predictive the count and standard deviation for Mg-27 and Zn-65 were higher than the actual value occurred due to overlapping of Mg-27 and Mn-54 peaks and Zn-65 and Fe-59 peaks. Precision level of Ca is greater than the Horwitz, since the value of microscopic cross section, the probability of radiation emission of Ca-49 and gamma spectrometer efficiency at 3084 keV is relatively small. Increased precision can only be done by extending the counting time and multiply the number of samples, because of the fixed value. The prediction results are in accordance with experimental results. (author)

The Challenges of Precision Medicine in COPD.

Science.gov (United States)

Cazzola, Mario; Calzetta, Luigino; Rogliani, Paola; Matera, Maria Gabriella

2017-08-01

Pheno-/endotyping chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is really important because it provides patients with precise and personalized medicine. The central concept of precision medicine is to take individual variability into account when making management decisions. Precision medicine should ensure that patients get the right treatment at the right dose at the right time, with minimum harmful consequences and maximum efficacy. Ideally, we should search for genetic and molecular biomarker-based profiles. Given the clinical complexity of COPD, it seems likely that a panel of several biomarkers will be required to characterize pathogenetic factors and their course over time. The need for biomarkers to guide the clinical care of individuals with COPD and to enhance the possibilities of success in drug development is clear and urgent, but biomarker development is tremendously challenging and expensive, and translation of research efforts to date has been largely ineffective. Furthermore, the development of personalized treatments will require a much more detailed understanding of the clinical and biological heterogeneity of COPD. Therefore, we are still far from being able to apply precision medicine in COPD and the treatable traits and FEV 1 -free approaches are attempts to precision medicine in COPD that must be considered still quite unsophisticated.

[Optimal intravascular brachytherapy: safety and radiation protection, reliability and precision guaranteed by guidelines, recommendations and regulatory requirements].

Science.gov (United States)

Quast, Ulrich; Kaulich, Theodor W; Lorenz, Joachim

2002-02-01

The success of intravascular brachytherapy relies entirely on the interdisciplinary approach. Interventional cardiologists, radiation oncologists and medical physicists must form a team from day 1. All members of the team need special knowledge and regular training in the field of vascular radiation therapy. Optimization of intravascular brachytherapy requires the use of standardized methods of dose specification, recording and reporting. This also implies using standardized methods of source calibration in terms of absorbed dose to water and having methods for simple internal control of the dosimetric quantities of new or replaced sources. Guidance is offered by international recommendations (AAPM TG 60, DGMP Report 16, NCS and EVA GEC-ESTRO). LEGAL REQUIREMENTS FOR RADIATION PROTECTION--WHAT'S NEW?: In Europe, new legal requirements on radiation protection issues have to be fulfilled. For Germany, the revised "Strahlenschutzverordnung" has been released recently. Nearly all organizational and medical processes are affected. For intravascular brachytherapy, several changes of requirements have to be considered. However, to follow these requirements does not cause serious problems. DGMP REPORT 16: GUIDELINES FOR MEDICAL PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF INTRAVASCULAR BRACHYTHERAPY: Evaluation of clinical results by comparison of intravascular brachytherapy treatment parameters is possible only if the prescribed dose and the applied dose distribution are reported clearly, completely and uniformly. The DGMP guidelines thus recommend to prescribe the dose to water at the system related reference point PRef at 2 mm radial distance for intracoronary application (and at 5 mm for peripheral vessels). The mean dose at 1 mm tissue depth (respectively at 2 mm) should be reported in addition. To safely define the planning target volume from the injured length, safety margins of at least 5 mm (10 mm) have to be taken into account on both ends. Safety margins have also to be considered for

Computer-determined assay time based on preset precision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Foster, L.A.; Hagan, R.; Martin, E.R.; Wachter, J.R.; Bonner, C.A.; Malcom, J.E.

1994-01-01

Most current assay systems for special nuclear materials (SNM) operate on the principle of a fixed assay time which provides acceptable measurement precision without sacrificing the required throughput of the instrument. Waste items to be assayed for SNM content can contain a wide range of nuclear material. Counting all items for the same preset assay time results in a wide range of measurement precision and wastes time at the upper end of the calibration range. A short time sample taken at the beginning of the assay could optimize the analysis time on the basis of the required measurement precision. To illustrate the technique of automatically determining the assay time, measurements were made with a segmented gamma scanner at the Plutonium Facility of Los Alamos National Laboratory with the assay time for each segment determined by counting statistics in that segment. Segments with very little SNM were quickly determined to be below the lower limit of the measurement range and the measurement was stopped. Segments with significant SNM were optimally assays to the preset precision. With this method the total assay time for each item is determined by the desired preset precision. This report describes the precision-based algorithm and presents the results of measurements made to test its validity

Precise fabrication of X-band accelerating structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Higo, T.; Sakai, H.; Higashi, Y.; Koike, S.; Takatomi, T.

1994-01-01

An accelerating structure with a/λ=0.16 is being fabricated to study a precise fabrication method. A frequency control of each cell better than 10 -4 level is required to realize a detuned structure. The present machining level is nearly 1 MHz/11.4 GHz in relative frequency error, which just satisfies the above requirement. To keep this machining precision, the diffusion bonding technique is found preferable to join the cells. Various diffusion conditions were tried. The frequency change can be less than 1 MHz/11.4 GHz and it can be controlled well better than that. (author)

Estimating maneuvers for precise relative orbit determination using GPS

Science.gov (United States)

Allende-Alba, Gerardo; Montenbruck, Oliver; Ardaens, Jean-Sébastien; Wermuth, Martin; Hugentobler, Urs

2017-01-01

Precise relative orbit determination is an essential element for the generation of science products from distributed instrumentation of formation flying satellites in low Earth orbit. According to the mission profile, the required formation is typically maintained and/or controlled by executing maneuvers. In order to generate consistent and precise orbit products, a strategy for maneuver handling is mandatory in order to avoid discontinuities or precision degradation before, after and during maneuver execution. Precise orbit determination offers the possibility of maneuver estimation in an adjustment of single-satellite trajectories using GPS measurements. However, a consistent formulation of a precise relative orbit determination scheme requires the implementation of a maneuver estimation strategy which can be used, in addition, to improve the precision of maneuver estimates by drawing upon the use of differential GPS measurements. The present study introduces a method for precise relative orbit determination based on a reduced-dynamic batch processing of differential GPS pseudorange and carrier phase measurements, which includes maneuver estimation as part of the relative orbit adjustment. The proposed method has been validated using flight data from space missions with different rates of maneuvering activity, including the GRACE, TanDEM-X and PRISMA missions. The results show the feasibility of obtaining precise relative orbits without degradation in the vicinity of maneuvers as well as improved maneuver estimates that can be used for better maneuver planning in flight dynamics operations.

City-specific vehicle emission control strategies to achieve stringent emission reduction targets in China's Yangtze River Delta region.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Shaojun; Wu, Ye; Zhao, Bin; Wu, Xiaomeng; Shu, Jiawei; Hao, Jiming

2017-01-01

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is one of the most prosperous and densely populated regions in China and is facing tremendous pressure to mitigate vehicle emissions and improve air quality. Our assessment has revealed that mitigating vehicle emissions of NOx would be more difficult than reducing the emissions of other major vehicular pollutants (e.g., CO, HC and PM 2.5 ) in the YRD region. Even in Shanghai, where the emission control implemented are more stringent than in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, we observed little to no reduction in NOx emissions from 2000 to 2010. Emission-reduction targets for HC, NOx and PM 2.5 are determined using a response surface modeling tool for better air quality. We design city-specific emission control strategies for three vehicle-populated cities in the YRD region: Shanghai and Nanjing and Wuxi in Jiangsu. Our results indicate that even if stringent emission control consisting of the Euro 6/VI standards, the limitation of vehicle population and usage, and the scrappage of older vehicles is applied, Nanjing and Wuxi will not be able to meet the NOx emissions target by 2020. Therefore, additional control measures are proposed for Nanjing and Wuxi to further mitigate NOx emissions from heavy-duty diesel vehicles. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Precision gimballed mirror control in remote sensing LIDAR for environmental monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Ravindra; Mudgil, Ashwani; Prakash, Chandra; Pal, Suranjan

2006-12-01

Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) Systems are advantageously used to detect and measure very small concentrations of trace gases in the atmosphere. There is a requirement to interrogate and search for the presence of one or more of toxic agents out of a large number (about 20 or so) of possible agents at distances up to several kilometers with the help of a ground-based multi-wavelength DIAL system employing pulsed, tunable laser sources in the wavelength bands of 2-5 micron and 9.2-10.8 micron. The Laser beams from the two sources are directed in the atmosphere with a predefined divergence to scan the atmosphere. Two methodologies can be implemented to provide the beam steering, one is to mount the entire telescope of transmitting and receiving channel on to a motorized gimbal platform and second is to keep the optical telescope stationary and use a slewing mirror to steer the beam in required direction. The first scheme is named as mass control and second scheme is called mirror control. Both the schemes have relative advantages and disadvantages and in the present DIAL application second scheme is being adopted. The present opto-mechanical configuration of DIAL system employs a 700 x 500 mm 2 (Elliptical) steering mirror for transmitting the collimated beams in a required direction and receiving the reflected beam as well. In the receiving channel a Telescope is used which collects the return beam and focuses the same on to a detector. The slewing mirror is housed in a gimbal mount having a sufficient FOR (Field of Regard) in Azimuth and elevation plane. The paper describes the modeling and simulation of Opto-mechanical and servo-mechanical subsystems of precision gimbaled mirror and also discusses the issues related to design of control system. The requirement specifications in regard to field of regard, slew rates 5°/s, scanning rates 1°/s are to be met with stringent beam pointing and scanning accuracies. The design of this system is categorized as

Precise tests of low energy QCD from K{sub e4} decay properties

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Batley, J.R.; Kalmus, G.; Munday, D.J.; Wotton, S.A. [University of Cambridge, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge (United Kingdom); Lazzeroni, C.; Slater, M.W. [University of Cambridge, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge (United Kingdom); University of Birmingham, Birmingham (United Kingdom); Arcidiacono, R.; Clemencic, M. [CERN, Geneve 23 (Switzerland); Dipartimento di Fisica Sperimentale dell' Universita e Sezione dell' INFN di Torino, Torino (Italy); Bocquet, G.; Ceccucci, A.; Falaleev, V.; Fidecaro, M.; Gatignon, L.; Gonidec, A.; Kubischta, W.; Maier, A.; Peters, A. [CERN, Geneve 23 (Switzerland); Cabibbo, N. [CERN, Geneve 23 (Switzerland); Universita di Roma ' La Sapienza' e Sezzione dell' INFN di Roma, Roma (Italy); Cundy, D. [CERN, Geneve 23 (Switzerland); Istituto di Cosmogeofisica del CNR di Torino, Torino (Italy); Norton, A.; Fiorini, M. [CERN, Geneve 23 (Switzerland); Dipartimento di Fisica dell' Universita e Sezione dell' INFN di Ferrara, Ferrara (Italy); Patel, M. [CERN, Geneve 23 (Switzerland); Imperial College, Department of Physics, London (United Kingdom); Balev, S.; Hristov, P. [CERN, Geneve 23 (Switzerland); Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); Frabetti, P.L.; Kekelidze, V.; Madigozhin, D.; Molokanova, N.; Polenkevich, I.; Potrebenikov, Yu.; Zinchenko, A. [Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); Goudzovski, E. [Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); University of Birmingham, Birmingham (United Kingdom); Kozhuharov, V.; Litov, L. [Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); Univ. of Sofia ' St. Kl. Ohridski' , Faculty of Physics, Sofia (Bulgaria); Marinova, E. [Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); Sezione dell' INFN di Perugia, Perugia (Italy); Stoynev, S. [Joint Inst. for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); Northwestern Univ., Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Evanston, IL (United States)] (and others)

2010-12-15

We report results from the analysis of the K{sup {+-}}{yields}{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}e{sup {+-}}{nu} (K{sub e4}) decay by the NA48/2 collaboration at the CERN SPS, based on the total statistics of 1.13 million decays collected in 2003-2004. The hadronic form factors in the S- and P-wave and their variation with energy are obtained. The phase difference between the S- and P-wave states of the {pi}{pi} system is accurately measured and allows a precise determination of a{sub 0}{sup 0} and a{sub 0}{sup 2}, the I=0 and I=2 S-wave {pi}{pi} scattering lengths: a{sub 0}{sup 0}=0.2220 {+-}0.0128 {sub stat}{+-}0.0050{sub syst}{+-}0.0037{sub th}, a{sub 0}{sup 2}=-0.0432{+-}0.0086{sub stat}{+-}0.0034{sub syst}{+-}0.0028{sub th}. Combination of this result with the other NA48/2 measurement obtained in the study of K{sup {+-}}{yields}{pi}{sup 0}{pi}{sup 0}{pi}{sup {+-}} decays brings an improved determination of a{sub 0}{sup 0} and the first precise experimental measurement of a{sub 0}{sup 2}, providing a stringent test of Chiral Perturbation Theory predictions and lattice QCD calculations. Using constraints based on analyticity and chiral symmetry, even more precise values are obtained: a{sub 0}{sup 0}=0.2196{+-}0.0028{sub stat}{+-}0.0020{sub syst} and a{sub 0}{sup 2}=-0.0444{+-}0.0007{sub stat}{+-}0.0005{sub syst}{+-}0.0008{sub ChPT}. (orig.)

High precision spectrophotometric analysis of thorium

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Palmieri, H.E.L.

1984-01-01

An accurate and precise determination of thorium is proposed. Precision of about 0,1% is required for the determination of macroquantities of thorium when processed. After an extensive literature search concerning this subject, spectrophotometric titration has been chosen, using dissodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA) solution and alizarin-S as indicator. In order to obtain such a precision, an amount of 0,025 M EDTA solution precisely measured has been added and the titration was completed with less than 5 ml of 0,0025 M EDTA solution. It is usual to locate the end-point graphically, by plotting added titrant versus absorbance. The non-linear minimum square fit, using the Fletcher e Powell's minimization process and a computer programme. Besides the equivalence point, other parameters of titration were determined: the indicator concentration, the absorbance of the metal-indicator complex, and the stability constants of the metal-indicator and the metal-EDTA complexes. (Author) [pt

Universal precision sine bar attachment

Science.gov (United States)

Mann, Franklin D. (Inventor)

1989-01-01

This invention relates to an attachment for a sine bar which can be used to perform measurements during lathe operations or other types of machining operations. The attachment can be used for setting precision angles on vises, dividing heads, rotary tables and angle plates. It can also be used in the inspection of machined parts, when close tolerances are required, and in the layout of precision hardware. The novelty of the invention is believed to reside in a specific versatile sine bar attachment for measuring a variety of angles on a number of different types of equipment.

High-Precision Computation: Mathematical Physics and Dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bailey, D.H.; Barrio, R.; Borwein, J.M.

2010-01-01

At the present time, IEEE 64-bit oating-point arithmetic is suficiently accurate for most scientic applications. However, for a rapidly growing body of important scientic computing applications, a higher level of numeric precision is required. Such calculations are facilitated by high-precision software packages that include high-level language translation modules to minimize the conversion e ort. This pa- per presents a survey of recent applications of these techniques and provides someanalysis of their numerical requirements. These applications include supernova simulations, climate modeling, planetary orbit calculations, Coulomb n-body atomic systems, studies of the one structure constant, scattering amplitudes of quarks, glu- ons and bosons, nonlinear oscillator theory, experimental mathematics, evaluation of orthogonal polynomials, numerical integration of ODEs, computation of periodic orbits, studies of the splitting of separatrices, detection of strange nonchaotic at- tractors, Ising theory, quantum held theory, and discrete dynamical systems. We conclude that high-precision arithmetic facilities are now an indispensable compo- nent of a modern large-scale scientic computing environment.

High-Precision Computation: Mathematical Physics and Dynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bailey, D. H.; Barrio, R.; Borwein, J. M.

2010-04-01

At the present time, IEEE 64-bit oating-point arithmetic is suficiently accurate for most scientic applications. However, for a rapidly growing body of important scientic computing applications, a higher level of numeric precision is required. Such calculations are facilitated by high-precision software packages that include high-level language translation modules to minimize the conversion e ort. This pa- per presents a survey of recent applications of these techniques and provides someanalysis of their numerical requirements. These applications include supernova simulations, climate modeling, planetary orbit calculations, Coulomb n-body atomic systems, studies of the one structure constant, scattering amplitudes of quarks, glu- ons and bosons, nonlinear oscillator theory, experimental mathematics, evaluation of orthogonal polynomials, numerical integration of ODEs, computation of periodic orbits, studies of the splitting of separatrices, detection of strange nonchaotic at- tractors, Ising theory, quantum held theory, and discrete dynamical systems. We conclude that high-precision arithmetic facilities are now an indispensable compo- nent of a modern large-scale scientic computing environment.

High precision efficiency calibration of a HPGe detector

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nica, N.; Hardy, J.C.; Iacob, V.E.; Helmer, R.G.

2003-01-01

Many experiments involving measurements of γ rays require a very precise efficiency calibration. Since γ-ray detection and identification also requires good energy resolution, the most commonly used detectors are of the coaxial HPGe type. We have calibrated our 70% HPGe to ∼ 0.2% precision, motivated by the measurement of precise branching ratios (BR) in superallowed 0 + → 0 + β decays. These BRs are essential ingredients in extracting ft-values needed to test the Standard Model via the unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, a test that it currently fails by more than two standard deviations. To achieve the required high precision in our efficiency calibration, we measured 17 radioactive sources at a source-detector distance of 15 cm. Some of these were commercial 'standard' sources but we achieved the highest relative precision with 'home-made' sources selected because they have simple decay schemes with negligible side feeding, thus providing exactly matched γ-ray intensities. These latter sources were produced by us at Texas A and M by n-activation or by nuclear reactions. Another critical source among the 17 was a 60 Co source produced by Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig, Germany: its absolute activity was quoted to better than 0.06%. We used it to establish our absolute efficiency, while all the other sources were used to determine relative efficiencies, extending our calibration over a large energy range (40-3500 keV). Efficiencies were also determined with Monte Carlo calculations performed with the CYLTRAN code. The physical parameters of the Ge crystal were independently determined and only two (unmeasurable) dead-layers were adjusted, within physically reasonable limits, to achieve precise absolute agreement with our measured efficiencies. The combination of measured efficiencies at more than 60 individual energies and Monte Carlo calculations to interpolate between them allows us to quote the efficiency of our

Real-time multi-GNSS single-frequency precise point positioning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Bakker, P.F.; Tiberius, C.C.J.M.

2017-01-01

Precise Point Positioning (PPP) is a popular Global Positioning System (GPS) processing strategy, thanks to its high precision without requiring additional GPS infrastructure. Single-Frequency PPP (SF-PPP) takes this one step further by no longer relying on expensive dual-frequency GPS receivers,

[Precision nutrition in the era of precision medicine].

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, P Z; Wang, H

2016-12-06

Precision medicine has been increasingly incorporated into clinical practice and is enabling a new era for disease prevention and treatment. As an important constituent of precision medicine, precision nutrition has also been drawing more attention during physical examinations. The main aim of precision nutrition is to provide safe and efficient intervention methods for disease treatment and management, through fully considering the genetics, lifestyle (dietary, exercise and lifestyle choices), metabolic status, gut microbiota and physiological status (nutrient level and disease status) of individuals. Three major components should be considered in precision nutrition, including individual criteria for sufficient nutritional status, biomarker monitoring or techniques for nutrient detection and the applicable therapeutic or intervention methods. It was suggested that, in clinical practice, many inherited and chronic metabolic diseases might be prevented or managed through precision nutritional intervention. For generally healthy populations, because lifestyles, dietary factors, genetic factors and environmental exposures vary among individuals, precision nutrition is warranted to improve their physical activity and reduce disease risks. In summary, research and practice is leading toward precision nutrition becoming an integral constituent of clinical nutrition and disease prevention in the era of precision medicine.

The forthcoming era of precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Gamulin, Stjepan

2016-11-01

The aim of this essay is to present the definition and principles of personalized or precision medicine, the perspective and barriers to its development and clinical application. The implementation of precision medicine in health care requires the coordinated efforts of all health care stakeholders (the biomedical community, government, regulatory bodies, patients' groups). Particularly, translational research with the integration of genomic and comprehensive data from all levels of the organism ("big data"), development of bioinformatics platforms enabling network analysis of disease etiopathogenesis, development of a legislative framework for handling personal data, and new paradigms of medical education are necessary for successful application of the concept of precision medicine in health care. In the present and future era of precision medicine, the collaboration of all participants in health care is necessary for its realization, resulting in improvement of diagnosis, prevention and therapy, based on a holistic, individually tailored approach. Copyright © 2016 by Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The forthcoming era of precision medicine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stjepan Gamulin

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract. The aim of this essay is to present the definition and principles of personalized or precision medicine, the perspective and barriers to its development and clinical application. The implementation of precision medicine in health care requires the coordinated efforts of all health care stakeholders (the biomedical community, government, regulatory bodies, patients’ groups. Particularly, translational research with the integration of genomic and comprehensive data from all levels of the organism (“big data”, development of bioinformatics platforms enabling network analysis of disease etiopathogenesis, development of a legislative framework for handling personal data, and new paradigms of medical education are necessary for successful application of the concept of precision medicine in health care. Conclusion. In the present and future era of precision medicine, the collaboration of all participants in health care is necessary for its realization, resulting in improvement of diagnosis, prevention and therapy, based on a holistic, individually tailored approach.

The landscape of precision cancer medicine clinical trials in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Roper, Nitin; Stensland, Kristian D; Hendricks, Ryan; Galsky, Matthew D

2015-05-01

Advances in tumor biology and multiplex genomic analysis have ushered in the era of precision cancer medicine. Little is currently known, however, about the landscape of prospective "precision cancer medicine" clinical trials in the U.S. We identified all adult interventional cancer trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov between September 2005 and May 2013. Trials were classified as "precision cancer medicine" if a genomic alteration in a predefined set of 88 genes was required for enrollment. Baseline characteristics were ascertained for each trial. Of the initial 18,797 trials identified, 9094 (48%) were eligible for inclusion: 684 (8%) were classified as precision cancer medicine trials and 8410 (92%) were non-precision cancer medicine trials. Compared with non-precision cancer medicine trials, precision cancer medicine trials were significantly more likely to be phase II [RR 1.19 (1.10-1.29), pPrecision medicine trials required 38 unique genomic alterations for enrollment. The proportion of precision cancer medicine trials compared to the total number of trials increased from 3% in 2006 to 16% in 2013. The proportion of adult cancer clinical trials in the U.S. requiring a genomic alteration for enrollment has increased substantially over the past several years. However, such trials still represent a small minority of studies performed within the cancer clinical trials enterprise and include a small subset of putatively "actionable" alterations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

High Precision Current Control for the LHC Main Power Converters

CERN Document Server

Thiesen, H; Hudson, G; King, Q; Montabonnet, V; Nisbet, D; Page, S

2010-01-01

Since restarting at the end of 2009, the LHC has reached a new energy record in March 2010 with the two 3.5 TeV beams. To achieve the performance required for the good functioning of the accelerator, the currents in the main circuits (Main Bends and Main Quadrupoles) must be controlled with a higher precision than ever previously requested for a particle accelerator at CERN: a few parts per million (ppm) of nominal current. This paper describes the different challenges that were overcome to achieve the required precision for the current control of the main circuits. Precision tests performed during the hardware commissioning of the LHC illustrate this paper.

Precision medicine at the crossroads.

Science.gov (United States)

Olson, Maynard V

2017-10-11

There are bioethical, institutional, economic, legal, and cultural obstacles to creating the robust-precompetitive-data resource that will be required to advance the vision of "precision medicine," the ability to use molecular data to target therapies to patients for whom they offer the most benefit at the least risk. Creation of such an "information commons" was the central recommendation of the 2011 report Toward Precision Medicine issued by a committee of the National Research Council of the USA (Committee on a Framework for Development of a New Taxonomy of Disease; National Research Council. Toward precision medicine: building a knowledge network for biomedical research and a new taxonomy of disease. 2011). In this commentary, I review the rationale for creating an information commons and the obstacles to doing so; then, I endorse a path forward based on the dynamic consent of research subjects interacting with researchers through trusted mediators. I assert that the advantages of the proposed system overwhelm alternative ways of handling data on the phenotypes, genotypes, and environmental exposures of individual humans; hence, I argue that its creation should be the central policy objective of early efforts to make precision medicine a reality.

[Precision Nursing: Individual-Based Knowledge Translation].

Science.gov (United States)

Chiang, Li-Chi; Yeh, Mei-Ling; Su, Sui-Lung

2016-12-01

U.S. President Obama announced a new era of precision medicine in the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI). This initiative aims to accelerate the progress of personalized medicine in light of individual requirements for prevention and treatment in order to improve the state of individual and public health. The recent and dramatic development of large-scale biologic databases (such as the human genome sequence), powerful methods for characterizing patients (such as genomics, microbiome, diverse biomarkers, and even pharmacogenomics), and computational tools for analyzing big data are maximizing the potential benefits of precision medicine. Nursing science should follow and keep pace with this trend in order to develop empirical knowledge and expertise in the area of personalized nursing care. Nursing scientists must encourage, examine, and put into practice innovative research on precision nursing in order to provide evidence-based guidance to clinical practice. The applications in personalized precision nursing care include: explanations of personalized information such as the results of genetic testing; patient advocacy and support; anticipation of results and treatment; ongoing chronic monitoring; and support for shared decision-making throughout the disease trajectory. Further, attention must focus on the family and the ethical implications of taking a personalized approach to care. Nurses will need to embrace the paradigm shift to precision nursing and work collaboratively across disciplines to provide the optimal personalized care to patients. If realized, the full potential of precision nursing will provide the best chance for good health for all.

Precision in harsh environments

OpenAIRE

French, P.; Krijnen, G.; Roozeboom, F.

2016-01-01

Microsystems are increasingly being applied in harsh and/or inaccessible environments, but many markets expect the same level of functionality for long periods of time. Harsh environments cover areas that can be subjected to high temperature, (bio)-chemical and mechanical disturbances, electromagnetic noise, radiation, or high vacuum. In the field of actuators, the devices must maintain stringent accuracy specifications for displacement, force, and response times, among others. These new requ...

precision deburring using NC and robot equipment. Final report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gillespie, L.K.

1980-05-01

Deburring precision miniature components is often time consuming and inconsistent. Although robots are available for deburring parts, they are not precise enough for precision miniature parts. Numerical control (NC) machining can provide edge break consistencies to meet requirements such as 76.2-..mu..m maximum edge break (chamfer). Although NC machining has a number of technical limitations which prohibits its use on many geometries, it can be an effective approach to features that are particularly difficult to deburr.

Ribosome•RelA structures reveal the mechanism of stringent response activation

Science.gov (United States)

Loveland, Anna B; Bah, Eugene; Madireddy, Rohini; Zhang, Ying; Brilot, Axel F; Grigorieff, Nikolaus; Korostelev, Andrei A

2016-01-01

Stringent response is a conserved bacterial stress response underlying virulence and antibiotic resistance. RelA/SpoT-homolog proteins synthesize transcriptional modulators (p)ppGpp, allowing bacteria to adapt to stress. RelA is activated during amino-acid starvation, when cognate deacyl-tRNA binds to the ribosomal A (aminoacyl-tRNA) site. We report four cryo-EM structures of E. coli RelA bound to the 70S ribosome, in the absence and presence of deacyl-tRNA accommodating in the 30S A site. The boomerang-shaped RelA with a wingspan of more than 100 Å wraps around the A/R (30S A-site/RelA-bound) tRNA. The CCA end of the A/R tRNA pins the central TGS domain against the 30S subunit, presenting the (p)ppGpp-synthetase domain near the 30S spur. The ribosome and A/R tRNA are captured in three conformations, revealing hitherto elusive states of tRNA engagement with the ribosomal decoding center. Decoding-center rearrangements are coupled with the step-wise 30S-subunit 'closure', providing insights into the dynamics of high-fidelity tRNA decoding. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17029.001 PMID:27434674

Fiber Scrambling for High Precision Spectrographs

Science.gov (United States)

Kaplan, Zachary; Spronck, J. F. P.; Fischer, D.

2011-05-01

The detection of Earth-like exoplanets with the radial velocity method requires extreme Doppler precision and long-term stability in order to measure tiny reflex velocities in the host star. Recent planet searches have led to the detection of so called "super-Earths” (up to a few Earth masses) that induce radial velocity changes of about 1 m/s. However, the detection of true Earth analogs requires a precision of 10 cm/s. One of the largest factors limiting Doppler precision is variation in the Point Spread Function (PSF) from observation to observation due to changes in the illumination of the slit and spectrograph optics. Thus, this stability has become a focus of current instrumentation work. Fiber optics have been used since the 1980's to couple telescopes to high-precision spectrographs, initially for simpler mechanical design and control. However, fiber optics are also naturally efficient scramblers. Scrambling refers to a fiber's ability to produce an output beam independent of input. Our research is focused on characterizing the scrambling properties of several types of fibers, including circular, square and octagonal fibers. By measuring the intensity distribution after the fiber as a function of input beam position, we can simulate guiding errors that occur at an observatory. Through this, we can determine which fibers produce the most uniform outputs for the severest guiding errors, improving the PSF and allowing sub-m/s precision. However, extensive testing of fibers of supposedly identical core diameter, length and shape from the same manufacturer has revealed the "personality” of individual fibers. Personality describes differing intensity patterns for supposedly duplicate fibers illuminated identically. Here, we present our results on scrambling characterization as a function of fiber type, while studying individual fiber personality.

Precision medicine needs pioneering clinical bioinformaticians.

Science.gov (United States)

Gómez-López, Gonzalo; Dopazo, Joaquín; Cigudosa, Juan C; Valencia, Alfonso; Al-Shahrour, Fátima

2017-10-25

Success in precision medicine depends on accessing high-quality genetic and molecular data from large, well-annotated patient cohorts that couple biological samples to comprehensive clinical data, which in conjunction can lead to effective therapies. From such a scenario emerges the need for a new professional profile, an expert bioinformatician with training in clinical areas who can make sense of multi-omics data to improve therapeutic interventions in patients, and the design of optimized basket trials. In this review, we first describe the main policies and international initiatives that focus on precision medicine. Secondly, we review the currently ongoing clinical trials in precision medicine, introducing the concept of 'precision bioinformatics', and we describe current pioneering bioinformatics efforts aimed at implementing tools and computational infrastructures for precision medicine in health institutions around the world. Thirdly, we discuss the challenges related to the clinical training of bioinformaticians, and the urgent need for computational specialists capable of assimilating medical terminologies and protocols to address real clinical questions. We also propose some skills required to carry out common tasks in clinical bioinformatics and some tips for emergent groups. Finally, we explore the future perspectives and the challenges faced by precision medicine bioinformatics. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Department of Defense Precise Time and Time Interval program improvement plan

Science.gov (United States)

Bowser, J. R.

1981-01-01

The United States Naval Observatory is responsible for ensuring uniformity in precise time and time interval operations including measurements, the establishment of overall DOD requirements for time and time interval, and the accomplishment of objectives requiring precise time and time interval with minimum cost. An overview of the objectives, the approach to the problem, the schedule, and a status report, including significant findings relative to organizational relationships, current directives, principal PTTI users, and future requirements as currently identified by the users are presented.

Precision and accuracy in radiotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brenner, J.D.

1989-01-01

The required precision due to random errors in the delivery of fractionated dose regime is considered. It is argued that suggestions that 1-3% precision is needed may be unnecessarily conservative. It is further suggested that random and systematic errors should not be combined with equal weight to yield an overall target uncertainty in dose delivery, systematic errors being of greater significance. The authors conclude that imprecise dose delivery and inaccurate dose delivery affect patient-cure results differently. Whereas, for example, a 10% inaccuracy in dose delivery would be quite catastrophic in the case considered here, a corresponding imprecision would have a much smaller effect on overall success rates. (author). 14 refs.; 2 figs

DTU-ESA millimeter-wave validation standard antenna – requirements and design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pivnenko, Sergey; Kim, Oleksiy S.; Breinbjerg, Olav

2014-01-01

from a validation campaign is achieved when a dedicated Validation Standard (VAST) antenna specifically designed for this purpose is available. The driving requirements to VAST antennas are their mechanical stability with respect to any orientation of the antenna in the gravity field and thermal...... are briefly reviewed and the baseline design is described. The emphasis is given to definition of the requirements for the mechanical and thermal stability of the antenna, which satisfy the stringent stability requirement for the mm-VAST electrical characteristics....

Precision wildlife medicine: applications of the human-centred precision medicine revolution to species conservation.

Science.gov (United States)

Whilde, Jenny; Martindale, Mark Q; Duffy, David J

2017-05-01

The current species extinction crisis is being exacerbated by an increased rate of emergence of epizootic disease. Human-induced factors including habitat degradation, loss of biodiversity and wildlife population reductions resulting in reduced genetic variation are accelerating disease emergence. Novel, efficient and effective approaches are required to combat these epizootic events. Here, we present the case for the application of human precision medicine approaches to wildlife medicine in order to enhance species conservation efforts. We consider how the precision medicine revolution, coupled with the advances made in genomics, may provide a powerful and feasible approach to identifying and treating wildlife diseases in a targeted, effective and streamlined manner. A number of case studies of threatened species are presented which demonstrate the applicability of precision medicine to wildlife conservation, including sea turtles, amphibians and Tasmanian devils. These examples show how species conservation could be improved by using precision medicine techniques to determine novel treatments and management strategies for the specific medical conditions hampering efforts to restore population levels. Additionally, a precision medicine approach to wildlife health has in turn the potential to provide deeper insights into human health and the possibility of stemming and alleviating the impacts of zoonotic diseases. The integration of the currently emerging Precision Medicine Initiative with the concepts of EcoHealth (aiming for sustainable health of people, animals and ecosystems through transdisciplinary action research) and One Health (recognizing the intimate connection of humans, animal and ecosystem health and addressing a wide range of risks at the animal-human-ecosystem interface through a coordinated, collaborative, interdisciplinary approach) has great potential to deliver a deeper and broader interdisciplinary-based understanding of both wildlife and human

Latency in Visionic Systems: Test Methods and Requirements

Science.gov (United States)

Bailey, Randall E.; Arthur, J. J., III; Williams, Steven P.; Kramer, Lynda J.

2005-01-01

A visionics device creates a pictorial representation of the external scene for the pilot. The ultimate objective of these systems may be to electronically generate a form of Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) to eliminate weather or time-of-day as an operational constraint and provide enhancement over actual visual conditions where eye-limiting resolution may be a limiting factor. Empirical evidence has shown that the total system delays or latencies including the imaging sensors and display systems, can critically degrade their utility, usability, and acceptability. Definitions and measurement techniques are offered herein as common test and evaluation methods for latency testing in visionics device applications. Based upon available data, very different latency requirements are indicated based upon the piloting task, the role in which the visionics device is used in this task, and the characteristics of the visionics cockpit display device including its resolution, field-of-regard, and field-of-view. The least stringent latency requirements will involve Head-Up Display (HUD) applications, where the visionics imagery provides situational information as a supplement to symbology guidance and command information. Conversely, the visionics system latency requirement for a large field-of-view Head-Worn Display application, providing a Virtual-VMC capability from which the pilot will derive visual guidance, will be the most stringent, having a value as low as 20 msec.

Light higgsinos at the ILC. Precision measurements and detector requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sert, Hale

2016-01-01

This thesis is based on a study of Natural Supersymmetry (SUSY) scenarios at the International Linear Collider (ILC). These scenarios are motivated by naturalness, which requires the mu parameter to be at the electroweak scale. The considered Natural SUSY scenario contains three light higgsino-like charginos and neutralinos, χ 1 ± , χ 1 0 and χ 2 0 with a mass splitting of a few GeV or even sub-GeV, while all other supersymmetric particles are heavy in the multi-TeV scale. Due to the small mass difference of a few GeV, the final state consists of a large missing energy and a few very soft visible particles. Therefore, the analysis of such scenarios is extremely challenging for the LHC as well as the ILC. In order to investigate the feasibility of observing light higgsinos at the ILC, an analysis has been performed using both fast detector simulation and full detector simulation for International Large Detector (ILD). The fast simulation results have indicated that the key observables of the higgsinos can be reconstructed with an uncertainty of a few percent. It has been shown that the results enable determining the lower limits and allowed regions for the mass parameters of the bino M 1 and the wino M 2 , as well as determining the higgsino mass parameter μ to the accuracy of a few percent. The full simulation analysis has provided information about detector requirements, such as the identification of low momentum electrons and muons. The electron identification can be studied by using the ionisation energy loss of the particles per length, dE/dx, which can be obtained from the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) of ILD. The identification of low momentum muons has been studied in the context of the thesis by using the calorimeter cluster shape differences between muons and pions. As a result, a method has been developed for particles with momentum lower than 2 GeV, and its impact on the higgsino analysis has been investigated. It has been found that assuming the

Insulated hsp70B' promoter: stringent heat-inducible activity in replication-deficient, but not replication-competent adenoviruses.

Science.gov (United States)

Rohmer, Stanimira; Mainka, Astrid; Knippertz, Ilka; Hesse, Andrea; Nettelbeck, Dirk M

2008-04-01

Key to the realization of gene therapy is the development of efficient and targeted gene transfer vectors. Therapeutic gene transfer by replication-deficient or more recently by conditionally replication-competent/oncolytic adenoviruses has shown much promise. For specific applications, however, it will be advantageous to provide vectors that allow for external control of gene expression. The efficient cellular heat shock system in combination with available technology for focused and controlled hyperthermia suggests heat-regulated transcription control as a promising tool for this purpose. We investigated the feasibility of a short fragment of the human hsp70B' promoter, with and without upstream insulator elements, for the regulation of transgene expression by replication-deficient or oncolytic adenoviruses. Two novel adenoviral vectors with an insulated hsp70B' promoter were developed and showed stringent heat-inducible gene expression with induction ratios up to 8000-fold. In contrast, regulation of gene expression from the hsp70B' promoter without insulation was suboptimal. In replication-competent/oncolytic adenoviruses regulation of the hsp70B' promoter was lost specifically during late replication in permissive cells and could not be restored by the insulators. We developed novel adenovirus gene transfer vectors that feature improved and stringent regulation of transgene expression from the hsp70B' promoter using promoter insulation. These vectors have potential for gene therapy applications that benefit from external modulation of therapeutic gene expression or for combination therapy with hyperthermia. Furthermore, our study reveals that vector replication can deregulate inserted cellular promoters, an observation which is of relevance for the development of replication-competent/oncolytic gene transfer vectors. (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Precision studies of Drell-Yan transverse momentum distributions and the polarisation angular coefficients in Z-boson decays with the ATLAS detector

CERN Document Server

AUTHOR|(INSPIRE)INSPIRE-00367680; The ATLAS collaboration

2016-01-01

The ATLAS collaboration has performed precision measurements sensitive to the transverse mo- mentum of the Z/γ∗ bosons, both directly through the transverse momentum of the dilepton pair and through the angular decorrelation as measured in the φ∗ observable. These measurements are sensitive to soft resummation effects and hard jet emissions for small and large momentum transfers, respectively, probing QCD in a unique way. The studies carried out with 20.3 fb−1 of data at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV probe a wide dilepton invariant mass region from 12 GeV to 150 GeV, both integrated and differential in the dilepton rapidity. The measurements are compared to a variety of resummation calculations and parton shower Monte Carlos at up to NNLO+NNLL as well as fixed order predictions at NNLO QCD including NLO electroweak corrections. The precision measurement of angular distributions of the Drell-Yan lepton pairs around the Z-boson mass peak provide a stringent test of the underlying QCD dynamic of the Z...

Precision studies of Drell-Yan transverse momentum distributions and the polarisation angular coefficients in Z boson decays with the ATLAS detector

CERN Document Server

Ezhilov, Aleksei; The ATLAS collaboration

2016-01-01

The ATLAS collaboration has performed precision measurements sensitive to the transverse momentum of the Z/gamma* bosons, both directly through the transverse momentum of the di-lepton pair and through the angular decorrelation as measured in the phi* observable. These measurements are sensitive to soft resummation effects and hard jet emissions for small and large momentum transfers, respectively, probing QCD in a unique way. The studies carried out with 20.3 /fb of data at a center-of-mass energy of 8TeV probe a wide di-lepton invariant mass region from 12 GeV to 150 GeV, both integrated and differential in the di-lepton rapidity. The measurements are compared to a variety of resummation calculations and parton shower Monte Carlos at up to NNLO+NNLL as well as fixed order predictions at NNLO QCD including NLO electroweak corrections. The precision measurement of angular distributions of the Drell-Yan lepton pairs around the Z-boson mass peak provide a stringent test of the underlying QCD dynamic of the Z-bo...

Does dishonesty really invite third-party punishment? Results of a more stringent test.

Science.gov (United States)

Konishi, Naoki; Ohtsubo, Yohsuke

2015-05-01

Many experiments have demonstrated that people are willing to incur cost to punish norm violators even when they are not directly harmed by the violation. Such altruistic third-party punishment is often considered an evolutionary underpinning of large-scale human cooperation. However, some scholars argue that previously demonstrated altruistic third-party punishment against fairness-norm violations may be an experimental artefact. For example, envy-driven retaliatory behaviour (i.e. spite) towards better-off unfair game players may be misidentified as altruistic punishment. Indeed, a recent experiment demonstrated that participants ceased to inflict third-party punishment against an unfair player once a series of key methodological problems were systematically controlled for. Noticing that a previous finding regarding apparently altruistic third-party punishment against honesty-norm violations may have been subject to methodological issues, we used a different and what we consider to be a more sound design to evaluate these findings. Third-party punishment against dishonest players withstood this more stringent test. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Experimental study of precisely selected evaporation chains in the decay of excited 25Mg

Science.gov (United States)

Camaiani, A.; Casini, G.; Morelli, L.; Barlini, S.; Piantelli, S.; Baiocco, G.; Bini, M.; Bruno, M.; Buccola, A.; Cinausero, M.; Cicerchia, M.; D'Agostino, M.; Degelier, M.; Fabris, D.; Frosin, C.; Gramegna, F.; Gulminelli, F.; Mantovani, G.; Marchi, T.; Olmi, A.; Ottanelli, P.; Pasquali, G.; Pastore, G.; Valdré, S.; Verde, G.

2018-04-01

The reaction 12C+13C at 95 MeV bombarding energy is studied using the Garfield + Ring Counter apparatus located at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro. In this paper we want to investigate the de-excitation of 25Mg aiming both at a new stringent test of the statistical description of nuclear decay and a direct comparison with the decay of the system 24Mg formed through 12C+12C reactions previously studied. Thanks to the large acceptance of the detector and to its good fragment identification capabilities, we could apply stringent selections on fusion-evaporation events, requiring their completeness in charge. The main decay features of the evaporation residues and of the emitted light particles are overall well described by a pure statistical model; however, as for the case of the previously studied 24Mg, we observed some deviations in the branching ratios, in particular for those chains involving only the evaporation of α particles. From this point of view the behavior of the 24Mg and 25Mg decay cases appear to be rather similar. An attempt to obtain a full mass balance even without neutron detection is also discussed.

Precise Truss Assembly Using Commodity Parts and Low Precision Welding

Science.gov (United States)

Komendera, Erik; Reishus, Dustin; Dorsey, John T.; Doggett, W. R.; Correll, Nikolaus

2014-01-01

Hardware and software design and system integration for an intelligent precision jigging robot (IPJR), which allows high precision assembly using commodity parts and low-precision bonding, is described. Preliminary 2D experiments that are motivated by the problem of assembling space telescope optical benches and very large manipulators on orbit using inexpensive, stock hardware and low-precision welding are also described. An IPJR is a robot that acts as the precise "jigging", holding parts of a local structure assembly site in place, while an external low precision assembly agent cuts and welds members. The prototype presented in this paper allows an assembly agent (for this prototype, a human using only low precision tools), to assemble a 2D truss made of wooden dowels to a precision on the order of millimeters over a span on the order of meters. The analysis of the assembly error and the results of building a square structure and a ring structure are discussed. Options for future work, to extend the IPJR paradigm to building in 3D structures at micron precision are also summarized.

Modeling and Positioning of a PZT Precision Drive System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Che Liu

2017-11-01

Full Text Available The fact that piezoelectric ceramic transducer (PZT precision drive systems in 3D printing are faced with nonlinear problems with respect to positioning, such as hysteresis and creep, has had an extremely negative impact on the precision of laser focusing systems. To eliminate the impact of PZT nonlinearity during precision drive movement, mathematical modeling and theoretical analyses of each module comprising the system were carried out in this study, a micro-displacement measurement circuit based on Position Sensitive Detector (PSD is constructed, followed by the establishment of system closed-loop control and creep control models. An XL-80 laser interferometer (Renishaw, Wotton-under-Edge, UK was used to measure the performance of the precision drive system, showing that system modeling and control algorithms were correct, with the requirements for precision positioning of the drive system satisfied.

Application of precise training to surgical endoscopic nurses training

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhao Feng

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Minimally invasive surgery is an inevitable trend of the development of surgery, the scope of endoscopy surgery application has been covering the whole departments of surgery, which also put forward higher requirements on the nursing coordination during surgery, training high-quality endoscopy nurses is a focus of the researchers. In the paper, the precise training mode was applied to the professional training process of endoscopy nurses, the systematic training of endoscopy nurse was conducted from the following three aspects, including the precision of teaching, the precision of operative cooperation, and the precision of assessment, which had gained good effects. The research indicated that the precise training mode can contribute to upgrading various capacities of endoscopy nurses in the operating room, and improving the teaching quality and effect of specialized training, suggesting a good application effect.

Modeling and Positioning of a PZT Precision Drive System.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Che; Guo, Yanling

2017-11-08

The fact that piezoelectric ceramic transducer (PZT) precision drive systems in 3D printing are faced with nonlinear problems with respect to positioning, such as hysteresis and creep, has had an extremely negative impact on the precision of laser focusing systems. To eliminate the impact of PZT nonlinearity during precision drive movement, mathematical modeling and theoretical analyses of each module comprising the system were carried out in this study, a micro-displacement measurement circuit based on Position Sensitive Detector (PSD) is constructed, followed by the establishment of system closed-loop control and creep control models. An XL-80 laser interferometer (Renishaw, Wotton-under-Edge, UK) was used to measure the performance of the precision drive system, showing that system modeling and control algorithms were correct, with the requirements for precision positioning of the drive system satisfied.

Precision determination of the top-quark mass

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moch, Sven-Olaf

2014-08-01

Precision determinations of the top-quark mass require theory predictions with a well-defined mass parameter in a given renormalization scheme. The top-quark's running mass in the MS scheme can be extracted with good precision from the total cross section at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. The Monte Carlo top-quark mass parameter measured from comparison to events with top-quark decay products is not identical with the pole mass. Its translation to the pole mass scheme introduces an additional uncertainty of the order of 1 GeV.

Precision about the automatic emotional brain.

Science.gov (United States)

Vuilleumier, Patrik

2015-01-01

The question of automaticity in emotion processing has been debated under different perspectives in recent years. Satisfying answers to this issue will require a better definition of automaticity in terms of relevant behavioral phenomena, ecological conditions of occurrence, and a more precise mechanistic account of the underlying neural circuits.

Adjustable broaching tool for tolerance compensation in precision manufacturing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Emil Krabbe; Eriksen, Rasmus Solmer; Paldan, Nikolas Aulin

2015-01-01

Current manufacturing of precision tools for machining typically requires processes such as grinding, EDM or laser processing in order to comply with high requirements on tolerances. However even tools manufactured by these processes come short, when a new batch of workpieces are supplied...

Epidemiology in wonderland: Big Data and precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Saracci, Rodolfo

2018-03-01

Big Data and precision medicine, two major contemporary challenges for epidemiology, are critically examined from two different angles. In Part 1 Big Data collected for research purposes (Big research Data) and Big Data used for research although collected for other primary purposes (Big secondary Data) are discussed in the light of the fundamental common requirement of data validity, prevailing over "bigness". Precision medicine is treated developing the key point that high relative risks are as a rule required to make a variable or combination of variables suitable for prediction of disease occurrence, outcome or response to treatment; the commercial proliferation of allegedly predictive tests of unknown or poor validity is commented. Part 2 proposes a "wise epidemiology" approach to: (a) choosing in a context imprinted by Big Data and precision medicine-epidemiological research projects actually relevant to population health, (b) training epidemiologists, (c) investigating the impact on clinical practices and doctor-patient relation of the influx of Big Data and computerized medicine and (d) clarifying whether today "health" may be redefined-as some maintain in purely technological terms.

Cyclotrons as Drivers for Precision Neutrino Measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alonso, J.; Barletta, W. A.; Winslow, L. A.; Shaevitz, M. H.; Spitz, J.; Conrad, J. M.; Toups, M.; Adelmann, A.

2014-01-01

As we enter the age of precision measurement in neutrino physics, improved flux sources are required. These must have a well defined flavor content with energies in ranges where backgrounds are low and cross-section knowledge is high. Very few sources of neutrinos can meet these requirements. However, pion/muon and isotope decay-at-rest sources qualify. The ideal drivers for decay-at-rest sources are cyclotron accelerators, which are compact and relatively inexpensive. This paper describes a scheme to produce decay-at-rest sources driven by such cyclotrons, developed within the DAEδALUS program. Examples of the value of the high precision beams for pursuing Beyond Standard Model interactions are reviewed. New results on a combined DAEδALUS—Hyper-K search for CP violation that achieve errors on the mixing matrix parameter of 4° to 12° are presented

Defining precision: The precision medicine initiative trials NCI-MPACT and NCI-MATCH.

Science.gov (United States)

Coyne, Geraldine O'Sullivan; Takebe, Naoko; Chen, Alice P

"Precision" trials, using rationally incorporated biomarker targets and molecularly selective anticancer agents, have become of great interest to both patients and their physicians. In the endeavor to test the cornerstone premise of precision oncotherapy, that is, determining if modulating a specific molecular aberration in a patient's tumor with a correspondingly specific therapeutic agent improves clinical outcomes, the design of clinical trials with embedded genomic characterization platforms which guide therapy are an increasing challenge. The National Cancer Institute Precision Medicine Initiative is an unprecedented large interdisciplinary collaborative effort to conceptualize and test the feasibility of trials incorporating sequencing platforms and large-scale bioinformatics processing that are not currently uniformly available to patients. National Cancer Institute-Molecular Profiling-based Assignment of Cancer Therapy and National Cancer Institute-Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice are 2 genomic to phenotypic trials under this National Cancer Institute initiative, where treatment is selected according to predetermined genetic alterations detected using next-generation sequencing technology across a broad range of tumor types. In this article, we discuss the objectives and trial designs that have enabled the public-private partnerships required to complete the scale of both trials, as well as interim trial updates and strategic considerations that have driven data analysis and targeted therapy assignment, with the intent of elucidating further the benefits of this treatment approach for patients. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Precision Oncology: Between Vaguely Right and Precisely Wrong.

Science.gov (United States)

Brock, Amy; Huang, Sui

2017-12-01

Precision Oncology seeks to identify and target the mutation that drives a tumor. Despite its straightforward rationale, concerns about its effectiveness are mounting. What is the biological explanation for the "imprecision?" First, Precision Oncology relies on indiscriminate sequencing of genomes in biopsies that barely represent the heterogeneous mix of tumor cells. Second, findings that defy the orthodoxy of oncogenic "driver mutations" are now accumulating: the ubiquitous presence of oncogenic mutations in silent premalignancies or the dynamic switching without mutations between various cell phenotypes that promote progression. Most troublesome is the observation that cancer cells that survive treatment still will have suffered cytotoxic stress and thereby enter a stem cell-like state, the seeds for recurrence. The benefit of "precision targeting" of mutations is inherently limited by this counterproductive effect. These findings confirm that there is no precise linear causal relationship between tumor genotype and phenotype, a reminder of logician Carveth Read's caution that being vaguely right may be preferable to being precisely wrong. An open-minded embrace of the latest inconvenient findings indicating nongenetic and "imprecise" phenotype dynamics of tumors as summarized in this review will be paramount if Precision Oncology is ultimately to lead to clinical benefits. Cancer Res; 77(23); 6473-9. ©2017 AACR . ©2017 American Association for Cancer Research.

High precision 3D coordinates location technology for pellet

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fan Yong; Zhang Jiacheng; Zhou Jingbin; Tang Jun; Xiao Decheng; Wang Chuanke; Dong Jianjun

2010-01-01

In inertial confinement fusion (ICF) system, manual way has been used to collimate the pellet traditionally, which is time-consuming and low-level automated. A new method based on Binocular Vision is proposed, which can place the prospecting apparatus on the public diagnosis platform to reach relevant engineering target and uses the high precision two dimension calibration board. Iterative method is adopted to satisfy 0.1 pixel for corner extraction precision. Furthermore, SVD decomposition is used to remove the singularity corners and advanced Zhang's calibration method is applied to promote camera calibration precision. Experiments indicate that the RMS of three dimension coordinate measurement precision is 25 μm, and the max system RMS of distance measurement is better than 100 μm, satisfying the system index requirement. (authors)

Search for supersymmetry in {tau} final states at ATLAS and constraints on new physics using electroweak precision data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kennedy, Doerthe

2012-08-15

In this thesis, various models beyond the Standard Model (SM) offering different solutions to some of the shortcomings of the SM are studied: Supersymmetry, the two Higgs doublet model, and models with warped extra dimensions. A search for events with large missing transverse momentum, jets, and at least two {tau} leptons using 2 fb{sup -1} of proton-proton collision data recorded at {radical}(s)=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is performed. No excess above the SM background expectation is observed and a 95% CL upper limit on the visible cross section for new phenomena is set. A 95% CL lower limit of 32 TeV is set on the Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking scale {Lambda} independent of the ratio of tan{beta}. These limits provide the most stringent tests to date in a large part of the considered parameter space. By using the results of the oblique vacuum polarization parameters from a fit to the electroweak precision data indirect constraints on model parameters are set. While in the two Higgs doublet model as well as in models with warped extra dimensions a heavy Higgs boson is compatible with the electroweak precision data, models with warped extra dimensions featuring custodial symmetry cannot accommodate a heavy Higgs.

Search for supersymmetry in τ final states at ATLAS and constraints on new physics using electroweak precision data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kennedy, Doerthe

2012-08-01

In this thesis, various models beyond the Standard Model (SM) offering different solutions to some of the shortcomings of the SM are studied: Supersymmetry, the two Higgs doublet model, and models with warped extra dimensions. A search for events with large missing transverse momentum, jets, and at least two τ leptons using 2 fb -1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at √(s)=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is performed. No excess above the SM background expectation is observed and a 95% CL upper limit on the visible cross section for new phenomena is set. A 95% CL lower limit of 32 TeV is set on the Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking scale Λ independent of the ratio of tanβ. These limits provide the most stringent tests to date in a large part of the considered parameter space. By using the results of the oblique vacuum polarization parameters from a fit to the electroweak precision data indirect constraints on model parameters are set. While in the two Higgs doublet model as well as in models with warped extra dimensions a heavy Higgs boson is compatible with the electroweak precision data, models with warped extra dimensions featuring custodial symmetry cannot accommodate a heavy Higgs.

High precision target center determination from a point cloud

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Kregar

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Many applications of terrestrial laser scanners (TLS require the determination of a specific point from a point cloud. In this paper procedure of high precision planar target center acquisition from point cloud is presented. The process is based on an image matching algorithm but before we can deal with raster image to fit a target on it, we need to properly determine the best fitting plane and project points on it. The main emphasis of this paper is in the precision estimation and propagation through the whole procedure which allows us to obtain precision assessment of final results (target center coordinates. Theoretic precision estimations – obtained through the procedure were rather high so we compared them with the empiric precision estimations obtained as standard deviations of results of 60 independently scanned targets. An χ2-test confirmed that theoretic precisions are overestimated. The problem most probably lies in the overestimated precisions of the plane parameters due to vast redundancy of points. However, empirical precisions also confirmed that the proposed procedure can ensure a submillimeter precision level. The algorithm can automatically detect grossly erroneous results to some extent. It can operate when the incidence angles of a laser beam are as high as 80°, which is desirable property if one is going to use planar targets as tie points in scan registration. The proposed algorithm will also contribute to improve TLS calibration procedures.

Optimal Frequency Ranges for Sub-Microsecond Precision Pulsar Timing

Science.gov (United States)

Lam, Michael Timothy; McLaughlin, Maura; Cordes, James; Chatterjee, Shami; Lazio, Joseph

2018-01-01

Precision pulsar timing requires optimization against measurement errors and astrophysical variance from the neutron stars themselves and the interstellar medium. We investigate optimization of arrival time precision as a function of radio frequency and bandwidth. We find that increases in bandwidth that reduce the contribution from receiver noise are countered by the strong chromatic dependence of interstellar effects and intrinsic pulse-profile evolution. The resulting optimal frequency range is therefore telescope and pulsar dependent. We demonstrate the results for five pulsars included in current pulsar timing arrays and determine that they are not optimally observed at current center frequencies. We also find that arrival-time precision can be improved by increases in total bandwidth. Wideband receivers centered at high frequencies can reduce required overall integration times and provide significant improvements in arrival time uncertainty by a factor of $\\sim$$\\sqrt{2}$ in most cases, assuming a fixed integration time. We also discuss how timing programs can be extended to pulsars with larger dispersion measures through the use of higher-frequency observations.

Detecting Chemical Weapons: Threats, Requirements, Solutions, and Future Challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Boso, Brian

2011-03-01

Although chemicals have been reportedly used as weapons for thousands of years, it was not until 1915 at Ypres, France that an industrial chemical, chlorine, was used in World War I as an offensive weapon in significant quantity, causing mass casualties. From that point until today the development, detection, production and protection from chemical weapons has be an organized endeavor of many of the world's armed forces and in more recent times, non-governmental terrorist organizations. The number of Chemical Warfare Agents (CWAs) has steadily increased as research into more toxic substances continued for most of the 20 th century. Today there are over 70 substances including harassing agents like tear gas, incapacitating agents, and lethal agents like blister, blood, chocking, and nerve agents. The requirements for detecting chemical weapons vary depending on the context in which they are encountered and the concept of operation of the organization deploying the detection equipment. The US DoD, for example, has as a requirement, that US forces be able to continue their mission, even in the event of a chemical attack. This places stringent requirements on detection equipment. It must be lightweight (developed for this application, including, but not limited to: mass spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, RAMAN spectroscopy, MEMs micro-cantilever sensors, surface acoustic wave sensors, differential mobility spectrometry, and amplifying fluorescence polymers. In the future the requirements for detection equipment will continue to become even more stringent. The continuing increase in the sheer number of threats that will need to be detected, the development of binary agents requiring that even the precursor chemicals be detected, the development of new types of agents unlike any of the current chemistries, and the expansion of the list of toxic industrial chemical will require new techniques with higher specificity and more sensitivity.

Precision studies of Drell-Yan pT distributions and polarization angular coefficients in Z boson decays with the ATLAS detector at 8 TeV

CERN Document Server

Schmieden, Kristof; The ATLAS collaboration

2016-01-01

The ATLAS collaboration has performed precision measurements sensitive to the transverse momentum of the Z/gamma* bosons, both directly through the transverse momentum of the di­lepton pair and through the angular decorrelation as measured in the phi* observable. These measurements are sensitive to soft resummation effects and hard jet emissions for small and large momentum transfers, respectively, probing QCD in a unique way. The studies carried out with 20.3 /fb of data at a center­of­mass energy of 8TeV probe a wide di­lepton invariant mass region from 12 GeV to 150 GeV, both integrated and differential in the di­lepton rapidity. The measurements are compared to a variety of resummation calculations and parton shower Monte Carlos at up to NNLO+NNLL as well as fixed order predictions at NNLO QCD including NLO electroweak corrections. The precision measurement of angular distributions of the Drell­Yan lepton pairs around the Z­boson mass peak provide a stringent test of the underlying QCD dynamic of t...

High precision flux measurements in conventional neutrino beams: the ENUBET project

CERN Document Server

Longhin, Andrea

2017-01-01

The challenges of precision neutrino physics require measurements of absolute neutrino cross sec- tions at the GeV scale with exquisite (1%) precision. This precision is presently limited to by the uncertainties on neutrino flux at the source. A reduction of this uncertainty by one order of mag- nitude can be achieved monitoring the positron production in the decay tunnel originating from the K e 3 decays of charged kaons in a sign and momentum selected narrow band beam. This novel technique enables the measurement of the most relevant cross-sections for CP violation ( ν e and ̄ ν e ) with a precision of 1% and requires a special instrumented beam-line. Such non-conventional beam-line will be developed in the framework of the ENUBET Horizon-2020 Consolidator Grant, recently approved by the European Research Council. We present the Project, the first experimen- tal results on ultra-compact calorimeters that can embedded in the instrumented decay tunnel and the advances on the simulation of the beamline. A r...

Towards an Open Software Platform for Field Robots in Precision Agriculture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kjeld Jensen

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Robotics in precision agriculture has the potential to improve competitiveness and increase sustainability compared to current crop production methods and has become an increasingly active area of research. Tractor guidance systems for supervised navigation and implement control have reached the market, and prototypes of field robots performing precision agriculture tasks without human intervention also exist. But research in advanced cognitive perception and behaviour that is required to enable a more efficient, reliable and safe autonomy becomes increasingly demanding due to the growing software complexity. A lack of collaboration between research groups contributes to the problem. Scientific publications describe methods and results from the work, but little field robot software is released and documented for others to use. We hypothesize that a common open software platform tailored to field robots in precision agriculture will significantly decrease development time and resources required to perform experiments due to efficient reuse of existing work across projects and robot platforms. In this work we present the FroboMind software platform and evaluate the performance when applied to precision agriculture tasks.

High-precision performance testing of the LHC power converters

CERN Document Server

Bastos, M; Dreesen, P; Fernqvist, G; Fournier, O; Hudson, G

2007-01-01

The magnet power converters for LHC were procured in three parts, power part, current transducers and control electronics, to enable a maximum of industrial participation in the manufacturing and still guarantee the very high precision (a few parts in 10-6) required by LHC. One consequence of this approach was several stages of system tests: factory reception tests, CERN reception tests, integration tests , short-circuit tests and commissioning on the final load in the LHC tunnel. The majority of the power converters for LHC have now been delivered, integrated into complete converter and high-precision performance testing is well advanced. This paper presents the techniques used for high-precision testing and the results obtained.

Technology on precision measurement of mass

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2005-10-01

This book mentions mass and scales about technology for precision measurement, which deal with how to measure mass with scale. So it describes the basic things of mass and scales. It includes translated book of international standard OIML with demand of measurement and technology and form for test report and international original standard OIML with metrological and technical requirements and test report format.

Guide for reviewing safety analysis reports for packaging: Review of quality assurance requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moon, D.W.

1988-10-01

This review section describes quality assurance requirements applying to design, purchase, fabrication, handling, shipping, storing, cleaning, assembly, inspection, testing, operation, maintenance, repair, and modification of components of packaging which are important to safety. The design effort, operation's plans, and quality assurance requirements should be integrated to achieve a system in which the independent QA program is not overly stringent and the application of QA requirements is commensurate with safety significance. The reviewer must verify that the applicant's QA section in the SARP contains package-specific QA information required by DOE Orders and federal regulations that demonstrate compliance. 8 refs

High-precision analog circuit technology for power supply integrated circuits; Dengen IC yo koseido anarogu kairo gijutsu

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nakamori, A.; Suzuki, T.; Mizoe, K. [Fuji Electric Corporate Research and Development,Ltd., Kanagawa (Japan)

2000-08-10

With the recent rapid spread of portable electronic appliances, specification requirements such as compact power supply and long operation with batteries have become severer. Power supply ICs (integrated circuits) are required to reduce power consumption in the circuit and perform high-precision control. To meet these requirements, Fuji Electric develops high-precision CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) analog technology. This paper describes three analog circuit technologies of a voltage reference, an operational amplifier and a comparator as circuit components particularly important for the precision of power supply ICs. (author)

Generating Graphical User Interfaces from Precise Domain Specifications

OpenAIRE

Kamil Rybiński; Norbert Jarzębowski; Michał Śmiałek; Wiktor Nowakowski; Lucyna Skrzypek; Piotr Łabęcki

2014-01-01

Turning requirements into working systems is the essence of software engineering. This paper proposes automation of one of the aspects of this vast problem: generating user interfaces directly from requirements models. It presents syntax and semantics of a comprehensible yet precise domain specification language. For this language, the paper presents the process of generating code for the user interface elements. This includes model transformation procedures to generate window initiation code...

Status of the U.S. nuclear option, conditions leading to its resurgence, and current licensing requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ioannidi, J.

2007-01-01

The projected increase in electricity demand, increased concern over emissions along with more stringent emission requirements, volatility of the gas and oil supplies and prices, and the convergence of favourable conditions and legislation make nuclear power a practical option for meeting future electricity base-load demands. (author)

Towards High Productivity in Precision Grinding

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Brian Rowe

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Over the last century, substantial advances have been made, based on improved understanding of the requirements of grinding processes, machines, control systems, materials, abrasives, wheel preparation, coolants, lubricants, and coolant delivery. This paper reviews a selection of areas in which the application of scientific principles and engineering ingenuity has led to the development of new grinding processes, abrasives, tools, machines, and systems. Topics feature a selection of areas where relationships between scientific principles and new techniques are yielding improved productivity and better quality. These examples point towards further advances that can fruitfully be pursued. Applications in modern grinding technology range from high-precision kinematics for grinding very large lenses and reflectors through to medium size grinding machine processes and further down to grinding very small components used in micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS devices. The importance of material issues is emphasized for the range of conventional engineering steels, through to aerospace materials, ceramics, and composites. It is suggested that future advances in productivity will include the wider application of artificial intelligence and robotics to improve precision, process efficiency, and features required to integrate grinding processes into wider manufacturing systems.

High Precision Edge Detection Algorithm for Mechanical Parts

Science.gov (United States)

Duan, Zhenyun; Wang, Ning; Fu, Jingshun; Zhao, Wenhui; Duan, Boqiang; Zhao, Jungui

2018-04-01

High precision and high efficiency measurement is becoming an imperative requirement for a lot of mechanical parts. So in this study, a subpixel-level edge detection algorithm based on the Gaussian integral model is proposed. For this purpose, the step edge normal section line Gaussian integral model of the backlight image is constructed, combined with the point spread function and the single step model. Then gray value of discrete points on the normal section line of pixel edge is calculated by surface interpolation, and the coordinate as well as gray information affected by noise is fitted in accordance with the Gaussian integral model. Therefore, a precise location of a subpixel edge was determined by searching the mean point. Finally, a gear tooth was measured by M&M3525 gear measurement center to verify the proposed algorithm. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the local edge fluctuation is reduced effectively by the proposed method in comparison with the existing subpixel edge detection algorithms. The subpixel edge location accuracy and computation speed are improved. And the maximum error of gear tooth profile total deviation is 1.9 μm compared with measurement result with gear measurement center. It indicates that the method has high reliability to meet the requirement of high precision measurement.

High-precision ground-based photometry of exoplanets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

de Mooij Ernst J.W.

2013-04-01

Full Text Available High-precision photometry of transiting exoplanet systems has contributed significantly to our understanding of the properties of their atmospheres. The best targets are the bright exoplanet systems, for which the high number of photons allow very high signal-to-noise ratios. Most of the current instruments are not optimised for these high-precision measurements, either they have a large read-out overhead to reduce the readnoise and/or their field-of-view is limited, preventing simultaneous observations of both the target and a reference star. Recently we have proposed a new wide-field imager for the Observatoir de Mont-Megantic optimised for these bright systems (PI: Jayawardhana. The instruments has a dual beam design and a field-of-view of 17' by 17'. The cameras have a read-out time of 2 seconds, significantly reducing read-out overheads. Over the past years we have obtained significant experience with how to reach the high precision required for the characterisation of exoplanet atmospheres. Based on our experience we provide the following advice: Get the best calibrations possible. In the case of bad weather, characterise the instrument (e.g. non-linearity, dome flats, bias level, this is vital for better understanding of the science data. Observe the target for as long as possible, the out-of-transit baseline is as important as the transit/eclipse itself. A short baseline can lead to improperly corrected systematic and mis-estimation of the red-noise. Keep everything (e.g. position on detector, exposure time as stable as possible. Take care that the defocus is not too strong. For a large defocus, the contribution of the total flux from the sky-background in the aperture could well exceed that of the target, resulting in very strict requirements on the precision at which the background is measured.

DNA and Protein Requirements for Substrate Conformational Changes Necessary for Human Flap Endonuclease-1-catalyzed Reaction*

Science.gov (United States)

Algasaier, Sana I.; Exell, Jack C.; Bennet, Ian A.; Thompson, Mark J.; Gotham, Victoria J. B.; Shaw, Steven J.; Craggs, Timothy D.; Finger, L. David; Grasby, Jane A.

2016-01-01

Human flap endonuclease-1 (hFEN1) catalyzes the essential removal of single-stranded flaps arising at DNA junctions during replication and repair processes. hFEN1 biological function must be precisely controlled, and consequently, the protein relies on a combination of protein and substrate conformational changes as a prerequisite for reaction. These include substrate bending at the duplex-duplex junction and transfer of unpaired reacting duplex end into the active site. When present, 5′-flaps are thought to thread under the helical cap, limiting reaction to flaps with free 5′-termini in vivo. Here we monitored DNA bending by FRET and DNA unpairing using 2-aminopurine exciton pair CD to determine the DNA and protein requirements for these substrate conformational changes. Binding of DNA to hFEN1 in a bent conformation occurred independently of 5′-flap accommodation and did not require active site metal ions or the presence of conserved active site residues. More stringent requirements exist for transfer of the substrate to the active site. Placement of the scissile phosphate diester in the active site required the presence of divalent metal ions, a free 5′-flap (if present), a Watson-Crick base pair at the terminus of the reacting duplex, and the intact secondary structure of the enzyme helical cap. Optimal positioning of the scissile phosphate additionally required active site conserved residues Tyr40, Asp181, and Arg100 and a reacting duplex 5′-phosphate. These studies suggest a FEN1 reaction mechanism where junctions are bound and 5′-flaps are threaded (when present), and finally the substrate is transferred onto active site metals initiating cleavage. PMID:26884332

The Nab Spectrometer, Precision Field Mapping, and Associated Systematic Effects

Science.gov (United States)

Fry, Jason; Nab Collaboration

2017-09-01

The Nab experiment will make precision measurements of a, the e- ν correlation parameter, and b, the Fierz interference term, in neutron beta decay, aiming to deliver an independent determination of the ratio λ =GA /GV to sensitively test CKM unitarity. Nab utilizes a novel, long asymmetric spectrometer to measure the proton TOF and electron energy. We extract a from the slope of the measured TOF distribution for different electron energies. A reliable relation of the measured proton TOF to a requires detailed knowledge of the effective proton pathlength, which in turn imposes further requirements on the precision of the magnetic fields in the Nab spectrometer. The Nab spectrometer, magnetometry, and associated systematics will be discussed.

Precision medicine in myasthenia graves: begin from the data precision

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Yu; Xie, Yanchen; Hao, Hong-Jun; Sun, Ren-Cheng

2016-01-01

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a prototypic autoimmune disease with overt clinical and immunological heterogeneity. The data of MG is far from individually precise now, partially due to the rarity and heterogeneity of this disease. In this review, we provide the basic insights of MG data precision, including onset age, presenting symptoms, generalization, thymus status, pathogenic autoantibodies, muscle involvement, severity and response to treatment based on references and our previous studies. Subgroups and quantitative traits of MG are discussed in the sense of data precision. The role of disease registries and scientific bases of precise analysis are also discussed to ensure better collection and analysis of MG data. PMID:27127759

The g-factor of the electron bound in 28Si13+. The most stringent test of bound-state quantum electrodynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sturm, Sven

2012-01-01

This thesis describes the ultra-precise determination of the g-factor of the electron bound to hydrogenlike 28 Si 13+ . The experiment is based on the simultaneous determination of the cyclotron- and Larmor frequency of a single ion, which is stored in a triple Penning-trap setup. The continuous Stern-Gerlach effect is used to couple the spin of the bound electron to the motional frequencies of the ion via a magnetic bottle, which allows the non-destructive determination of the spin state. To this end, a highly sensitive, cryogenic detection system was developed, which allowed the direct, non-destructive detection of the eigenfrequencies with the required precision. The development of a novel, phase sensitive detection technique finally allowed the determination of the g-factor with a relative accuracy of 4 . 10 -11 , which was previously inconceivable. The comparison of the hereby determined value with the value predicted by quantumelectrodynamics (QED) allows the verification of the validity of this fundamental theory under the extreme conditions of the strong binding potential of a highly charged ion. The exact agreement of theory and experiment is an impressive demonstration of the exactness of QED. The experimental possibilities created in this work will allow in the near future not only further tests of theory, but also the determination of the mass of the electron with a precision that exceeds the current literature value by more than an order of magnitude.

Big Data's Role in Precision Public Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Dolley, Shawn

2018-01-01

Precision public health is an emerging practice to more granularly predict and understand public health risks and customize treatments for more specific and homogeneous subpopulations, often using new data, technologies, and methods. Big data is one element that has consistently helped to achieve these goals, through its ability to deliver to practitioners a volume and variety of structured or unstructured data not previously possible. Big data has enabled more widespread and specific research and trials of stratifying and segmenting populations at risk for a variety of health problems. Examples of success using big data are surveyed in surveillance and signal detection, predicting future risk, targeted interventions, and understanding disease. Using novel big data or big data approaches has risks that remain to be resolved. The continued growth in volume and variety of available data, decreased costs of data capture, and emerging computational methods mean big data success will likely be a required pillar of precision public health into the future. This review article aims to identify the precision public health use cases where big data has added value, identify classes of value that big data may bring, and outline the risks inherent in using big data in precision public health efforts.

Precision machining commercialization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1978-01-01

To accelerate precision machining development so as to realize more of the potential savings within the next few years of known Department of Defense (DOD) part procurement, the Air Force Materials Laboratory (AFML) is sponsoring the Precision Machining Commercialization Project (PMC). PMC is part of the Tri-Service Precision Machine Tool Program of the DOD Manufacturing Technology Five-Year Plan. The technical resources supporting PMC are provided under sponsorship of the Department of Energy (DOE). The goal of PMC is to minimize precision machining development time and cost risk for interested vendors. PMC will do this by making available the high precision machining technology as developed in two DOE contractor facilities, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory of the University of California and the Union Carbide Corporation, Nuclear Division, Y-12 Plant, at Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Enabling Precision Cardiology Through Multiscale Biology and Systems Medicine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kipp W. Johnson, BS

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Summary: The traditional paradigm of cardiovascular disease research derives insight from large-scale, broadly inclusive clinical studies of well-characterized pathologies. These insights are then put into practice according to standardized clinical guidelines. However, stagnation in the development of new cardiovascular therapies and variability in therapeutic response implies that this paradigm is insufficient for reducing the cardiovascular disease burden. In this state-of-the-art review, we examine 3 interconnected ideas we put forth as key concepts for enabling a transition to precision cardiology: 1 precision characterization of cardiovascular disease with machine learning methods; 2 the application of network models of disease to embrace disease complexity; and 3 using insights from the previous 2 ideas to enable pharmacology and polypharmacology systems for more precise drug-to-patient matching and patient-disease stratification. We conclude by exploring the challenges of applying a precision approach to cardiology, which arise from a deficit of the required resources and infrastructure, and emerging evidence for the clinical effectiveness of this nascent approach. Key Words: cardiology, clinical informatics, multi-omics, precision medicine, translational bioinformatics

A primer on precision medicine informatics.

Science.gov (United States)

Sboner, Andrea; Elemento, Olivier

2016-01-01

In this review, we describe key components of a computational infrastructure for a precision medicine program that is based on clinical-grade genomic sequencing. Specific aspects covered in this review include software components and hardware infrastructure, reporting, integration into Electronic Health Records for routine clinical use and regulatory aspects. We emphasize informatics components related to reproducibility and reliability in genomic testing, regulatory compliance, traceability and documentation of processes, integration into clinical workflows, privacy requirements, prioritization and interpretation of results to report based on clinical needs, rapidly evolving knowledge base of genomic alterations and clinical treatments and return of results in a timely and predictable fashion. We also seek to differentiate between the use of precision medicine in germline and cancer. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Penning Trap Experiments with the Most Exotic Nuclei on Earth: Precision Mass Measurements of Halo Nuclei

Science.gov (United States)

Brodeur, M.; Brunner, T.; Ettenauer, S.; Lapierre, A.; Ringle, R.; Delheij, P.; Dilling, J.

2009-05-01

Exotic nuclei are characterized with an extremely unbalanced protons-neutrons ratio (p/n) where for instance, the halo isotopes of He and Li have up to 3X more n than p (compared to p/n = 1 in ^12C). The properties of these exotic halo nuclei have long been recognized as the most stringent tests of our understanding of the strong force. ^11Li belongs to a special category of halos called Borromean, bound as a three-body family, while the two-body siblings, ^10Li and 2 n, are unbound as separate entities. Last year, a first mass measurement of the radioisotope ^11Li using a Penning trap spectrometer was carried out at the TITAN (Triumf's Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear science) facility at TRIUMF-ISAC. Penning traps are proven to be the most precise device to make mass measurements, yet until now they were unable to reach these nuclei. At TRIUMF we managed to measure the mass of ^11Li to an unprecedented precision of dm/m = 60 ppb, which is remarkable since it has a half-life of only 8.8 ms which it the shortest-lived nuclide to be measured with this technique. Furthermore, new and improved masses for the 2 and 4 n halo ^6,8He, as well has the 1 n halo ^11Be have been performed. An overview of the TITAN mass measurement program and its impact in understanding the most exotic nuclei will be given.

Why precision?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bluemlein, Johannes

2012-05-15

Precision measurements together with exact theoretical calculations have led to steady progress in fundamental physics. A brief survey is given on recent developments and current achievements in the field of perturbative precision calculations in the Standard Model of the Elementary Particles and their application in current high energy collider data analyses.

Why precision?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bluemlein, Johannes

2012-05-01

Precision measurements together with exact theoretical calculations have led to steady progress in fundamental physics. A brief survey is given on recent developments and current achievements in the field of perturbative precision calculations in the Standard Model of the Elementary Particles and their application in current high energy collider data analyses.

Precision medicine and traditional chinese medicine of dialogue

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lou Xin

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The precision medicine is more precise individualized medicine, based on the patient’s genes or physiological to formulate the specific treatment plan, for the realization of individualized treatment of various diseases to provide valuable information.But with the progress of modern science and technology, modern medicine dependence on medical instruments are too serious, traditional ways are gradually forgotten.If the machine depends on the instrument test results too serious which don’t combined with the actual diagnosis, the cause of misdiagnosis, so we should pay attention to the overall analysis of diseases and systematic diagnosis and examination, use of the overall treatment concept traced back to find the cause of Traditional Chinese Medicine, finally decide to select a best treatment plan.We should use the dialectical attitude to look at the precise medical. Not blindly requirements according to the road of precision medicine of Traditional Chinese Medicine to go, to shine in himself field, form of self characteristic of Traditional Chinese Medicine.Can learn some of the advantages of accurate concept, the good and rejecting the bad, hope the Traditional Chinese Medicine in the modern environment more walk more far.

High Precision Edge Detection Algorithm for Mechanical Parts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Duan Zhenyun

2018-04-01

Full Text Available High precision and high efficiency measurement is becoming an imperative requirement for a lot of mechanical parts. So in this study, a subpixel-level edge detection algorithm based on the Gaussian integral model is proposed. For this purpose, the step edge normal section line Gaussian integral model of the backlight image is constructed, combined with the point spread function and the single step model. Then gray value of discrete points on the normal section line of pixel edge is calculated by surface interpolation, and the coordinate as well as gray information affected by noise is fitted in accordance with the Gaussian integral model. Therefore, a precise location of a subpixel edge was determined by searching the mean point. Finally, a gear tooth was measured by M&M3525 gear measurement center to verify the proposed algorithm. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the local edge fluctuation is reduced effectively by the proposed method in comparison with the existing subpixel edge detection algorithms. The subpixel edge location accuracy and computation speed are improved. And the maximum error of gear tooth profile total deviation is 1.9 μm compared with measurement result with gear measurement center. It indicates that the method has high reliability to meet the requirement of high precision measurement.

Method of high precision interval measurement in pulse laser ranging system

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zhen; Lv, Xin-yuan; Mao, Jin-jin; Liu, Wei; Yang, Dong

2013-09-01

Laser ranging is suitable for laser system, for it has the advantage of high measuring precision, fast measuring speed,no cooperative targets and strong resistance to electromagnetic interference,the measuremen of laser ranging is the key paremeters affecting the performance of the whole system.The precision of the pulsed laser ranging system was decided by the precision of the time interval measurement, the principle structure of laser ranging system was introduced, and a method of high precision time interval measurement in pulse laser ranging system was established in this paper.Based on the analysis of the factors which affected the precision of range measure,the pulse rising edges discriminator was adopted to produce timing mark for the start-stop time discrimination,and the TDC-GP2 high precision interval measurement system based on TMS320F2812 DSP was designed to improve the measurement precision.Experimental results indicate that the time interval measurement method in this paper can obtain higher range accuracy. Compared with the traditional time interval measurement system,the method simplifies the system design and reduce the influence of bad weather conditions,furthermore,it satisfies the requirements of low costs and miniaturization.

Precision mechatronics based on high-precision measuring and positioning systems and machines

Science.gov (United States)

Jäger, Gerd; Manske, Eberhard; Hausotte, Tino; Mastylo, Rostyslav; Dorozhovets, Natalja; Hofmann, Norbert

2007-06-01

Precision mechatronics is defined in the paper as the science and engineering of a new generation of high precision systems and machines. Nanomeasuring and nanopositioning engineering represents important fields of precision mechatronics. The nanometrology is described as the today's limit of the precision engineering. The problem, how to design nanopositioning machines with uncertainties as small as possible will be discussed. The integration of several optical and tactile nanoprobes makes the 3D-nanopositioning machine suitable for various tasks, such as long range scanning probe microscopy, mask and wafer inspection, nanotribology, nanoindentation, free form surface measurement as well as measurement of microoptics, precision molds, microgears, ring gauges and small holes.

AMCP Partnership Forum: Managing Care in the Wave of Precision Medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

2018-05-23

Precision medicine, the customization of health care to an individual's genetic profile while accounting for biomarkers and lifestyle, has increasingly been adopted by health care stakeholders to guide the development of treatment options, improve treatment decision making, provide more patient-centered care, and better inform coverage and reimbursement decisions. Despite these benefits, key challenges prevent its broader use and adoption. On December 7-8, 2017, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy convened a group of stakeholders to discuss these challenges and provide recommendations to facilitate broader adoption and use of precision medicine across health care settings. These stakeholders represented the pharmaceutical industry, clinicians, patient advocacy, private payers, device manufacturers, health analytics, information technology, academia, and government agencies. Throughout the 2-day forum, participants discussed evidence requirements for precision medicine, including consistent ways to measure the utility and validity of precision medicine tests and therapies, limitations of traditional clinical trial designs, and limitations of value assessment framework methods. They also highlighted the challenges with evidence collection and data silos in precision medicine. Interoperability within and across health systems is hindering clinical advancements. Current medical coding systems also cannot account for the heterogeneity of many diseases, preventing health systems from having a complete understanding of their patient population to inform resource allocation. Challenges faced by payers, such as evidence limitations, to inform coverage and reimbursement decisions in precision medicine, as well as legal and regulatory barriers that inhibit more widespread data sharing, were also identified. While a broad range of perspectives was shared throughout the forum, participants reached consensus across 2 overarching areas. First, there is a greater need for common

Glass ceramic ZERODUR enabling nanometer precision

Science.gov (United States)

Jedamzik, Ralf; Kunisch, Clemens; Nieder, Johannes; Westerhoff, Thomas

2014-03-01

The IC Lithography roadmap foresees manufacturing of devices with critical dimension of digit nanometer asking for nanometer positioning accuracy requiring sub nanometer position measurement accuracy. The glass ceramic ZERODUR® is a well-established material in critical components of microlithography wafer stepper and offered with an extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), the tightest tolerance available on market. SCHOTT is continuously improving manufacturing processes and it's method to measure and characterize the CTE behavior of ZERODUR® to full fill the ever tighter CTE specification for wafer stepper components. In this paper we present the ZERODUR® Lithography Roadmap on the CTE metrology and tolerance. Additionally, simulation calculations based on a physical model are presented predicting the long term CTE behavior of ZERODUR® components to optimize dimensional stability of precision positioning devices. CTE data of several low thermal expansion materials are compared regarding their temperature dependence between - 50°C and + 100°C. ZERODUR® TAILORED 22°C is full filling the tight CTE tolerance of +/- 10 ppb / K within the broadest temperature interval compared to all other materials of this investigation. The data presented in this paper explicitly demonstrates the capability of ZERODUR® to enable the nanometer precision required for future generation of lithography equipment and processes.

High precision locating control system based on VCM for Talbot lithography

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Jingwei; Zhao, Lixin; Deng, Qian; Hu, Song

2016-10-01

Aiming at the high precision and efficiency requirements of Z-direction locating in Talbot lithography, a control system based on Voice Coil Motor (VCM) was designed. In this paper, we built a math model of VCM and its moving characteristic was analyzed. A double-closed loop control strategy including position loop and current loop were accomplished. The current loop was implemented by driver, in order to achieve the rapid follow of the system current. The position loop was completed by the digital signal processor (DSP) and the position feedback was achieved by high precision linear scales. Feed forward control and position feedback Proportion Integration Differentiation (PID) control were applied in order to compensate for dynamic lag and improve the response speed of the system. And the high precision and efficiency of the system were verified by simulation and experiments. The results demonstrated that the performance of Z-direction gantry was obviously improved, having high precision, quick responses, strong real-time and easily to expend for higher precision.

An Emerging Role for Polystores in Precision Medicine

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Begoli, Edmon [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Christian, J. Blair [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Gadepally, Vijay [Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Papadopoulos, Stavros [TileDB, Inc., Cambridge, MA (United States)

2017-08-26

Medical data is organically heterogeneous, and it usually varies significantly in both size and composition. Yet, this data is also a key for the recent and promising field of precision medicine, which focuses on identifying and tailoring appropriate medical treatments for the needs of the individual patients, based on their specific conditions, their medical history, lifestyle, genetic, and other individual factors. As we, and a database community at large, recognize that a “one size does not fit all” solution is required to work with such data, we present in this paper our observations based on our experiences, and the applications in the field of precision medicine. Finally, we make the case for the use of polystore architecture; how it applies for precision medicine; we discuss the reference architecture; describe some of its critical components (array database); and discuss the specific types of analysis that directly benefit from this database architecture, and the ways it serves the data.

Flight-Test Evaluation of Kinematic Precise Point Positioning of Small UAVs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jason N. Gross

2016-01-01

Full Text Available An experimental analysis of Global Positioning System (GPS flight data collected onboard a Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (SUAV is conducted in order to demonstrate that postprocessed kinematic Precise Point Positioning (PPP solutions with precisions approximately 6 cm 3D Residual Sum of Squares (RSOS can be obtained on SUAVs that have short duration flights with limited observational periods (i.e., only ~≤5 minutes of data. This is a significant result for the UAV flight testing community because an important and relevant benefit of the PPP technique over traditional Differential GPS (DGPS techniques, such as Real-Time Kinematic (RTK, is that there is no requirement for maintaining a short baseline separation to a differential GNSS reference station. Because SUAVs are an attractive platform for applications such as aerial surveying, precision agriculture, and remote sensing, this paper offers an experimental evaluation of kinematic PPP estimation strategies using SUAV platform data. In particular, an analysis is presented in which the position solutions that are obtained from postprocessing recorded UAV flight data with various PPP software and strategies are compared to solutions that were obtained using traditional double-differenced ambiguity fixed carrier-phase Differential GPS (CP-DGPS. This offers valuable insight to assist designers of SUAV navigation systems whose applications require precise positioning.

Comprehensive laboratory and field testing of cavity ring-down spectroscopy analyzers measuring H2O, CO2, CH4 and CO

Science.gov (United States)

Yver Kwok, C.; Laurent, O.; Guemri, A.; Philippon, C.; Wastine, B.; Rella, C. W.; Vuillemin, C.; Truong, F.; Delmotte, M.; Kazan, V.; Darding, M.; Lebègue, B.; Kaiser, C.; Xueref-Rémy, I.; Ramonet, M.

2015-09-01

To develop an accurate measurement network of greenhouse gases, instruments in the field need to be stable and precise and thus require infrequent calibrations and a low consumption of consumables. For about 10 years, cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) analyzers have been available that meet these stringent requirements for precision and stability. Here, we present the results of tests of CRDS instruments in the laboratory (47 instruments) and in the field (15 instruments). The precision and stability of the measurements are studied. We demonstrate that, thanks to rigorous testing, newer models generally perform better than older models, especially in terms of reproducibility between instruments. In the field, we see the importance of individual diagnostics during the installation phase, and we show the value of calibration and target gases that assess the quality of the data. Finally, we formulate recommendations for use of these analyzers in the field.

Comprehensive laboratory and field testing of cavity ring-down spectroscopy analyzers measuring H2O, CO2, CH4 and CO

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Yver Kwok

2015-09-01

Full Text Available To develop an accurate measurement network of greenhouse gases, instruments in the field need to be stable and precise and thus require infrequent calibrations and a low consumption of consumables. For about 10 years, cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS analyzers have been available that meet these stringent requirements for precision and stability. Here, we present the results of tests of CRDS instruments in the laboratory (47 instruments and in the field (15 instruments. The precision and stability of the measurements are studied. We demonstrate that, thanks to rigorous testing, newer models generally perform better than older models, especially in terms of reproducibility between instruments. In the field, we see the importance of individual diagnostics during the installation phase, and we show the value of calibration and target gases that assess the quality of the data. Finally, we formulate recommendations for use of these analyzers in the field.

Development of millimeter-wave accelerating structures using precision metal forming technology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

2003-06-03

High gradients in radio-frequency (RF) driven accelerators require short wavelengths that have the concomitant requirements of small feature size and high tolerances, 1-2 {micro}m for millimeter wavelengths. Precision metal-forming stampling has the promise of meeting those tolerances with high production rates. This STI will evaluate that promise.

Precision luminosity measurements at LHCb

CERN Document Server

Aaij, Roel; Adinolfi, Marco; Affolder, Anthony; Ajaltouni, Ziad; Akar, Simon; Albrecht, Johannes; Alessio, Federico; Alexander, Michael; Ali, Suvayu; Alkhazov, Georgy; Alvarez Cartelle, Paula; Alves Jr, Antonio Augusto; Amato, Sandra; Amerio, Silvia; Amhis, Yasmine; An, Liupan; Anderlini, Lucio; Anderson, Jonathan; Andreassen, Rolf; Andreotti, Mirco; Andrews, Jason; Appleby, Robert; Aquines Gutierrez, Osvaldo; Archilli, Flavio; Artamonov, Alexander; Artuso, Marina; Aslanides, Elie; Auriemma, Giulio; Baalouch, Marouen; Bachmann, Sebastian; Back, John; Badalov, Alexey; Baesso, Clarissa; Baldini, Wander; Barlow, Roger; Barschel, Colin; Barsuk, Sergey; Barter, William; Batozskaya, Varvara; Battista, Vincenzo; Bay, Aurelio; Beaucourt, Leo; Beddow, John; Bedeschi, Franco; Bediaga, Ignacio; Belogurov, Sergey; Belous, Konstantin; Belyaev, Ivan; Ben-Haim, Eli; Bencivenni, Giovanni; Benson, Sean; Benton, Jack; Berezhnoy, Alexander; Bernet, Roland; Bettler, Marc-Olivier; van Beuzekom, Martinus; Bien, Alexander; Bifani, Simone; Bird, Thomas; Bizzeti, Andrea; Bjørnstad, Pål Marius; Blake, Thomas; Blanc, Frédéric; Blouw, Johan; Blusk, Steven; Bocci, Valerio; Bondar, Alexander; Bondar, Nikolay; Bonivento, Walter; Borghi, Silvia; Borgia, Alessandra; Borsato, Martino; Bowcock, Themistocles; Bowen, Espen Eie; Bozzi, Concezio; Brambach, Tobias; Bressieux, Joël; Brett, David; Britsch, Markward; Britton, Thomas; Brodzicka, Jolanta; Brook, Nicholas; Brown, Henry; Bursche, Albert; Buytaert, Jan; Cadeddu, Sandro; Calabrese, Roberto; Calvi, Marta; Calvo Gomez, Miriam; Campana, Pierluigi; Campora Perez, Daniel; Carbone, Angelo; Carboni, Giovanni; Cardinale, Roberta; Cardini, Alessandro; Carson, Laurence; Carvalho Akiba, Kazuyoshi; Casse, Gianluigi; Cassina, Lorenzo; Castillo Garcia, Lucia; Cattaneo, Marco; Cauet, Christophe; Cenci, Riccardo; Charles, Matthew; Charpentier, Philippe; Chefdeville, Maximilien; Chen, Shanzhen; Cheung, Shu-Faye; Chiapolini, Nicola; Chrzaszcz, Marcin; Ciba, Krzystof; Cid Vidal, Xabier; Ciezarek, Gregory; Clarke, Peter; Clemencic, Marco; Cliff, Harry; Closier, Joel; Coco, Victor; Cogan, Julien; Cogneras, Eric; Cojocariu, Lucian; Collazuol, Gianmaria; Collins, Paula; Comerma-Montells, Albert; Contu, Andrea; Cook, Andrew; Coombes, Matthew; Coquereau, Samuel; Corti, Gloria; Corvo, Marco; Counts, Ian; Couturier, Benjamin; Cowan, Greig; Craik, Daniel Charles; Cruz Torres, Melissa Maria; Cunliffe, Samuel; Currie, Robert; D'Ambrosio, Carmelo; Dalseno, Jeremy; David, Pascal; David, Pieter; Davis, Adam; De Bruyn, Kristof; De Capua, Stefano; De Cian, Michel; De Miranda, Jussara; De Paula, Leandro; De Silva, Weeraddana; De Simone, Patrizia; Dean, Cameron Thomas; Decamp, Daniel; Deckenhoff, Mirko; Del Buono, Luigi; Déléage, Nicolas; Derkach, Denis; Deschamps, Olivier; Dettori, Francesco; Di Canto, Angelo; Dijkstra, Hans; Donleavy, Stephanie; Dordei, Francesca; Dorigo, Mirco; Dosil Suárez, Alvaro; Dossett, David; Dovbnya, Anatoliy; Dreimanis, Karlis; Dujany, Giulio; Dupertuis, Frederic; Durante, Paolo; Dzhelyadin, Rustem; Dziurda, Agnieszka; Dzyuba, Alexey; Easo, Sajan; Egede, Ulrik; Egorychev, Victor; Eidelman, Semen; Eisenhardt, Stephan; Eitschberger, Ulrich; Ekelhof, Robert; Eklund, Lars; El Rifai, Ibrahim; Elsasser, Christian; Ely, Scott; Esen, Sevda; Evans, Hannah Mary; Evans, Timothy; Falabella, Antonio; Färber, Christian; Farinelli, Chiara; Farley, Nathanael; Farry, Stephen; Fay, Robert; Ferguson, Dianne; Fernandez Albor, Victor; Ferreira Rodrigues, Fernando; Ferro-Luzzi, Massimiliano; Filippov, Sergey; Fiore, Marco; Fiorini, Massimiliano; Firlej, Miroslaw; Fitzpatrick, Conor; Fiutowski, Tomasz; Fol, Philip; Fontana, Marianna; Fontanelli, Flavio; Forty, Roger; Francisco, Oscar; Frank, Markus; Frei, Christoph; Frosini, Maddalena; Fu, Jinlin; Furfaro, Emiliano; Gallas Torreira, Abraham; Galli, Domenico; Gallorini, Stefano; Gambetta, Silvia; Gandelman, Miriam; Gandini, Paolo; Gao, Yuanning; García Pardiñas, Julián; Garofoli, Justin; Garra Tico, Jordi; Garrido, Lluis; Gascon, David; Gaspar, Clara; Gauld, Rhorry; Gavardi, Laura; Geraci, Angelo; Gersabeck, Evelina; Gersabeck, Marco; Gershon, Timothy; Ghez, Philippe; Gianelle, Alessio; Gianì, Sebastiana; Gibson, Valerie; Giubega, Lavinia-Helena; Gligorov, V.V.; Göbel, Carla; Golubkov, Dmitry; Golutvin, Andrey; Gomes, Alvaro; Gotti, Claudio; Grabalosa Gándara, Marc; Graciani Diaz, Ricardo; Granado Cardoso, Luis Alberto; Graugés, Eugeni; Graziani, Giacomo; Grecu, Alexandru; Greening, Edward; Gregson, Sam; Griffith, Peter; Grillo, Lucia; Grünberg, Oliver; Gui, Bin; Gushchin, Evgeny; Guz, Yury; Gys, Thierry; Hadjivasiliou, Christos; Haefeli, Guido; Haen, Christophe; Haines, Susan; Hall, Samuel; Hamilton, Brian; Hampson, Thomas; Han, Xiaoxue; Hansmann-Menzemer, Stephanie; Harnew, Neville; Harnew, Samuel; Harrison, Jonathan; He, Jibo; Head, Timothy; Heijne, Veerle; Hennessy, Karol; Henrard, Pierre; Henry, Louis; Hernando Morata, Jose Angel; van Herwijnen, Eric; Heß, Miriam; Hicheur, Adlène; Hill, Donal; Hoballah, Mostafa; Hombach, Christoph; Hulsbergen, Wouter; Hunt, Philip; Hussain, Nazim; Hutchcroft, David; Hynds, Daniel; Idzik, Marek; Ilten, Philip; Jacobsson, Richard; Jaeger, Andreas; Jalocha, Pawel; Jans, Eddy; Jaton, Pierre; Jawahery, Abolhassan; Jing, Fanfan; John, Malcolm; Johnson, Daniel; Jones, Christopher; Joram, Christian; Jost, Beat; Jurik, Nathan; Kandybei, Sergii; Kanso, Walaa; Karacson, Matthias; Karbach, Moritz; Karodia, Sarah; Kelsey, Matthew; Kenyon, Ian; Ketel, Tjeerd; Khanji, Basem; Khurewathanakul, Chitsanu; Klaver, Suzanne; Klimaszewski, Konrad; Kochebina, Olga; Kolpin, Michael; Komarov, Ilya; Koopman, Rose; Koppenburg, Patrick; Korolev, Mikhail; Kozlinskiy, Alexandr; Kravchuk, Leonid; Kreplin, Katharina; Kreps, Michal; Krocker, Georg; Krokovny, Pavel; Kruse, Florian; Kucewicz, Wojciech; Kucharczyk, Marcin; Kudryavtsev, Vasily; Kurek, Krzysztof; Kvaratskheliya, Tengiz; La Thi, Viet Nga; Lacarrere, Daniel; Lafferty, George; Lai, Adriano; Lambert, Dean; Lambert, Robert W; Lanfranchi, Gaia; Langenbruch, Christoph; Langhans, Benedikt; Latham, Thomas; Lazzeroni, Cristina; Le Gac, Renaud; van Leerdam, Jeroen; Lees, Jean-Pierre; Lefèvre, Regis; Leflat, Alexander; Lefrançois, Jacques; Leo, Sabato; Leroy, Olivier; Lesiak, Tadeusz; Leverington, Blake; Li, Yiming; Likhomanenko, Tatiana; Liles, Myfanwy; Lindner, Rolf; Linn, Christian; Lionetto, Federica; Liu, Bo; Lohn, Stefan; Longstaff, Iain; Lopes, Jose; Lopez-March, Neus; Lowdon, Peter; Lu, Haiting; Lucchesi, Donatella; Luo, Haofei; Lupato, Anna; Luppi, Eleonora; Lupton, Oliver; Machefert, Frederic; Machikhiliyan, Irina V; Maciuc, Florin; Maev, Oleg; Malde, Sneha; Malinin, Alexander; Manca, Giulia; Mancinelli, Giampiero; Mapelli, Alessandro; Maratas, Jan; Marchand, Jean François; Marconi, Umberto; Marin Benito, Carla; Marino, Pietro; Märki, Raphael; Marks, Jörg; Martellotti, Giuseppe; Martens, Aurelien; Martín Sánchez, Alexandra; Martinelli, Maurizio; Martinez Santos, Diego; Martinez Vidal, Fernando; Martins Tostes, Danielle; Massafferri, André; Matev, Rosen; Mathe, Zoltan; Matteuzzi, Clara; Maurin, Brice; Mazurov, Alexander; McCann, Michael; McCarthy, James; McNab, Andrew; McNulty, Ronan; McSkelly, Ben; Meadows, Brian; Meier, Frank; Meissner, Marco; Merk, Marcel; Milanes, Diego Alejandro; Minard, Marie-Noelle; Moggi, Niccolò; Molina Rodriguez, Josue; Monteil, Stephane; Morandin, Mauro; Morawski, Piotr; Mordà, Alessandro; Morello, Michael Joseph; Moron, Jakub; Morris, Adam Benjamin; Mountain, Raymond; Muheim, Franz; Müller, Katharina; Mussini, Manuel; Muster, Bastien; Naik, Paras; Nakada, Tatsuya; Nandakumar, Raja; Nasteva, Irina; Needham, Matthew; Neri, Nicola; Neubert, Sebastian; Neufeld, Niko; Neuner, Max; Nguyen, Anh Duc; Nguyen, Thi-Dung; Nguyen-Mau, Chung; Nicol, Michelle; Niess, Valentin; Niet, Ramon; Nikitin, Nikolay; Nikodem, Thomas; Novoselov, Alexey; O'Hanlon, Daniel Patrick; Oblakowska-Mucha, Agnieszka; Obraztsov, Vladimir; Oggero, Serena; Ogilvy, Stephen; Okhrimenko, Oleksandr; Oldeman, Rudolf; Onderwater, Gerco; Orlandea, Marius; Otalora Goicochea, Juan Martin; Owen, Patrick; Oyanguren, Maria Arantza; Pal, Bilas Kanti; Palano, Antimo; Palombo, Fernando; Palutan, Matteo; Panman, Jacob; Papanestis, Antonios; Pappagallo, Marco; Pappalardo, Luciano; Parkes, Christopher; Parkinson, Christopher John; Passaleva, Giovanni; Patel, Girish; Patel, Mitesh; Patrignani, Claudia; Pearce, Alex; Pellegrino, Antonio; Pepe Altarelli, Monica; Perazzini, Stefano; Perret, Pascal; Perrin-Terrin, Mathieu; Pescatore, Luca; Pesen, Erhan; Pessina, Gianluigi; Petridis, Konstantin; Petrolini, Alessandro; Picatoste Olloqui, Eduardo; Pietrzyk, Boleslaw; Pilař, Tomas; Pinci, Davide; Pistone, Alessandro; Playfer, Stephen; Plo Casasus, Maximo; Polci, Francesco; Poluektov, Anton; Polycarpo, Erica; Popov, Alexander; Popov, Dmitry; Popovici, Bogdan; Potterat, Cédric; Price, Eugenia; Price, Joseph David; Prisciandaro, Jessica; Pritchard, Adrian; Prouve, Claire; Pugatch, Valery; Puig Navarro, Albert; Punzi, Giovanni; Qian, Wenbin; Rachwal, Bartolomiej; Rademacker, Jonas; Rakotomiaramanana, Barinjaka; Rama, Matteo; Rangel, Murilo; Raniuk, Iurii; Rauschmayr, Nathalie; Raven, Gerhard; Redi, Federico; Reichert, Stefanie; Reid, Matthew; dos Reis, Alberto; Ricciardi, Stefania; Richards, Sophie; Rihl, Mariana; Rinnert, Kurt; Rives Molina, Vincente; Robbe, Patrick; Rodrigues, Ana Barbara; Rodrigues, Eduardo; Rodriguez Perez, Pablo; Roiser, Stefan; Romanovsky, Vladimir; Romero Vidal, Antonio; Rotondo, Marcello; Rouvinet, Julien; Ruf, Thomas; Ruiz, Hugo; Ruiz Valls, Pablo; Saborido Silva, Juan Jose; Sagidova, Naylya; Sail, Paul; Saitta, Biagio; Salustino Guimaraes, Valdir; Sanchez Mayordomo, Carlos; Sanmartin Sedes, Brais; Santacesaria, Roberta; Santamarina Rios, Cibran; Santovetti, Emanuele; Sarti, Alessio; Satriano, Celestina; Satta, Alessia; Saunders, Daniel Martin; Savrina, Darya; Schiller, Manuel; Schindler, Heinrich; Schlupp, Maximilian; Schmelling, Michael; Schmidt, Burkhard; Schneider, Olivier; Schopper, Andreas; Schubiger, Maxime; Schune, Marie Helene; Schwemmer, Rainer; Sciascia, Barbara; Sciubba, Adalberto; Semennikov, Alexander; Sepp, Indrek; Serra, Nicola; Serrano, Justine; Sestini, Lorenzo; Seyfert, Paul; Shapkin, Mikhail; Shapoval, Illya; Shcheglov, Yury; Shears, Tara; Shekhtman, Lev; Shevchenko, Vladimir; Shires, Alexander; Silva Coutinho, Rafael; Simi, Gabriele; Sirendi, Marek; Skidmore, Nicola; Skwarnicki, Tomasz; Smith, Anthony; Smith, Edmund; Smith, Eluned; Smith, Jackson; Smith, Mark; Snoek, Hella; Sokoloff, Michael; Soler, Paul; Soomro, Fatima; Souza, Daniel; Souza De Paula, Bruno; Spaan, Bernhard; Sparkes, Ailsa; Spradlin, Patrick; Sridharan, Srikanth; Stagni, Federico; Stahl, Marian; Stahl, Sascha; Steinkamp, Olaf; Stenyakin, Oleg; Stevenson, Scott; Stoica, Sabin; Stone, Sheldon; Storaci, Barbara; Stracka, Simone; Straticiuc, Mihai; Straumann, Ulrich; Stroili, Roberto; Subbiah, Vijay Kartik; Sun, Liang; Sutcliffe, William; Swientek, Krzysztof; Swientek, Stefan; Syropoulos, Vasileios; Szczekowski, Marek; Szczypka, Paul; Szumlak, Tomasz; T'Jampens, Stephane; Teklishyn, Maksym; Tellarini, Giulia; Teubert, Frederic; Thomas, Christopher; Thomas, Eric; van Tilburg, Jeroen; Tisserand, Vincent; Tobin, Mark; Tolk, Siim; Tomassetti, Luca; Tonelli, Diego; Topp-Joergensen, Stig; Torr, Nicholas; Tournefier, Edwige; Tourneur, Stephane; Tran, Minh Tâm; Tresch, Marco; Trisovic, Ana; Tsaregorodtsev, Andrei; Tsopelas, Panagiotis; Tuning, Niels; Ubeda Garcia, Mario; Ukleja, Artur; Ustyuzhanin, Andrey; Uwer, Ulrich; Vacca, Claudia; Vagnoni, Vincenzo; Valenti, Giovanni; Vallier, Alexis; Vazquez Gomez, Ricardo; Vazquez Regueiro, Pablo; Vázquez Sierra, Carlos; Vecchi, Stefania; Velthuis, Jaap; Veltri, Michele; Veneziano, Giovanni; Vesterinen, Mika; Viaud, Benoit; Vieira, Daniel; Vieites Diaz, Maria; Vilasis-Cardona, Xavier; Vollhardt, Achim; Volyanskyy, Dmytro; Voong, David; Vorobyev, Alexey; Vorobyev, Vitaly; Voß, Christian; de Vries, Jacco; Waldi, Roland; Wallace, Charlotte; Wallace, Ronan; Walsh, John; Wandernoth, Sebastian; Wang, Jianchun; Ward, David; Watson, Nigel; Websdale, David; Whitehead, Mark; Wicht, Jean; Wiedner, Dirk; Wilkinson, Guy; Williams, Matthew; Williams, Mike; Wilschut, Hans; Wilson, Fergus; Wimberley, Jack; Wishahi, Julian; Wislicki, Wojciech; Witek, Mariusz; Wormser, Guy; Wotton, Stephen; Wright, Simon; Wyllie, Kenneth; Xie, Yuehong; Xing, Zhou; Xu, Zhirui; Yang, Zhenwei; Yuan, Xuhao; Yushchenko, Oleg; Zangoli, Maria; Zavertyaev, Mikhail; Zhang, Liming; Zhang, Wen Chao; Zhang, Yanxi; Zhelezov, Alexey; Zhokhov, Anatoly; Zhong, Liang; Zvyagin, Alexander

2014-12-05

Measuring cross-sections at the LHC requires the luminosity to be determined accurately at each centre-of-mass energy $\\sqrt{s}$. In this paper results are reported from the luminosity calibrations carried out at the LHC interaction point 8 with the LHCb detector for $\\sqrt{s}$ = 2.76, 7 and 8 TeV (proton-proton collisions) and for $\\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5 TeV (proton-lead collisions). Both the "van der Meer scan" and "beam-gas imaging" luminosity calibration methods were employed. It is observed that the beam density profile cannot always be described by a function that is factorizable in the two transverse coordinates. The introduction of a two-dimensional description of the beams improves significantly the consistency of the results. For proton-proton interactions at $\\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV a relative precision of the luminosity calibration of 1.47% is obtained using van der Meer scans and 1.43% using beam-gas imaging, resulting in a combined precision of 1.12%. Applying the calibration to the full data set determin...

Magnitude, precision, and realism of depth perception in stereoscopic vision.

Science.gov (United States)

Hibbard, Paul B; Haines, Alice E; Hornsey, Rebecca L

2017-01-01

Our perception of depth is substantially enhanced by the fact that we have binocular vision. This provides us with more precise and accurate estimates of depth and an improved qualitative appreciation of the three-dimensional (3D) shapes and positions of objects. We assessed the link between these quantitative and qualitative aspects of 3D vision. Specifically, we wished to determine whether the realism of apparent depth from binocular cues is associated with the magnitude or precision of perceived depth and the degree of binocular fusion. We presented participants with stereograms containing randomly positioned circles and measured how the magnitude, realism, and precision of depth perception varied with the size of the disparities presented. We found that as the size of the disparity increased, the magnitude of perceived depth increased, while the precision with which observers could make depth discrimination judgments decreased. Beyond an initial increase, depth realism decreased with increasing disparity magnitude. This decrease occurred well below the disparity limit required to ensure comfortable viewing.

Precise Thrust Actuation by a Micro RF Ion Engine, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The NASA Science Mission Directorate has plans to launch high-performance advanced space telescopes for astrophysics missions that require precision formation flying...

Practical precision measurement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwak, Ho Chan; Lee, Hui Jun

1999-01-01

This book introduces basic knowledge of precision measurement, measurement of length, precision measurement of minor diameter, measurement of angles, measurement of surface roughness, three dimensional measurement, measurement of locations and shapes, measurement of screw, gear testing, cutting tools testing, rolling bearing testing, and measurement of digitalisation. It covers height gauge, how to test surface roughness, measurement of plan and straightness, external and internal thread testing, gear tooth measurement, milling cutter, tab, rotation precision measurement, and optical transducer.

Robust precision alignment algorithm for micro tube laser forming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Folkersma, Ger; Brouwer, Dannis Michel; Römer, Gerardus Richardus, Bernardus, Engelina; Herder, Justus Laurens

2016-01-01

Tube laser forming on a small diameter tube can be used as a high precision actuator to permanently align small (optical)components. Applications, such as the alignment of optical fibers to photonic integrated circuits, often require sub-micron alignment accuracy. Although the process causes

Proliferation of Precision Strike: Issues for Congress

Science.gov (United States)

2012-05-14

industrial base. Finally, should Congress legislate requirements for DOD to develop precision strike countermeasures and then provide funding for that...Defense, Part 187 – Environmental Effects Abroad of Major Department of Defense Actions, Section 187.3: Definitions. 32 Bryan Clark and Dan Whiteneck...so many missiles ... referring to reports of Venezuelan arms flowing to Colombian guerrillas.... The Chavez regime also has close ties with

Big Data’s Role in Precision Public Health

Science.gov (United States)

Dolley, Shawn

2018-01-01

Precision public health is an emerging practice to more granularly predict and understand public health risks and customize treatments for more specific and homogeneous subpopulations, often using new data, technologies, and methods. Big data is one element that has consistently helped to achieve these goals, through its ability to deliver to practitioners a volume and variety of structured or unstructured data not previously possible. Big data has enabled more widespread and specific research and trials of stratifying and segmenting populations at risk for a variety of health problems. Examples of success using big data are surveyed in surveillance and signal detection, predicting future risk, targeted interventions, and understanding disease. Using novel big data or big data approaches has risks that remain to be resolved. The continued growth in volume and variety of available data, decreased costs of data capture, and emerging computational methods mean big data success will likely be a required pillar of precision public health into the future. This review article aims to identify the precision public health use cases where big data has added value, identify classes of value that big data may bring, and outline the risks inherent in using big data in precision public health efforts. PMID:29594091

Analytical Performance Requirements for Systems for Self-Monitoring of Blood Glucose With Focus on System Accuracy: Relevant Differences Among ISO 15197:2003, ISO 15197:2013, and Current FDA Recommendations.

Science.gov (United States)

Freckmann, Guido; Schmid, Christina; Baumstark, Annette; Rutschmann, Malte; Haug, Cornelia; Heinemann, Lutz

2015-07-01

In the European Union (EU), the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 15197 standard is applicable for the evaluation of systems for self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) before the market approval. In 2013, a revised version of this standard was published. Relevant revisions in the analytical performance requirements are the inclusion of the evaluation of influence quantities, for example, hematocrit, and some changes in the testing procedures for measurement precision and system accuracy evaluation, for example, number of test strip lots. Regarding system accuracy evaluation, the most important change is the inclusion of more stringent accuracy criteria. In 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States published their own guidance document for the premarket evaluation of SMBG systems with even more stringent system accuracy criteria than stipulated by ISO 15197:2013. The establishment of strict accuracy criteria applicable for the premarket evaluation is a possible approach to further improve the measurement quality of SMBG systems. However, the system accuracy testing procedure is quite complex, and some critical aspects, for example, systematic measurement difference between the reference measurement procedure and a higher-order procedure, may potentially limit the apparent accuracy of a given system. Therefore, the implementation of a harmonized reference measurement procedure for which traceability to standards of higher order is verified through an unbroken, documented chain of calibrations is desirable. In addition, the establishment of regular and standardized post-marketing evaluations of distributed test strip lots should be considered as an approach toward an improved measurement quality of available SMBG systems. © 2015 Diabetes Technology Society.

Automation of Precise Time Reference Stations (PTRS)

Science.gov (United States)

Wheeler, P. J.

1985-04-01

The U.S. Naval Observatory is presently engaged in a program of automating precise time stations (PTS) and precise time reference stations (PTBS) by using a versatile mini-computer controlled data acquisition system (DAS). The data acquisition system is configured to monitor locally available PTTI signals such as LORAN-C, OMEGA, and/or the Global Positioning System. In addition, the DAS performs local standard intercomparison. Computer telephone communications provide automatic data transfer to the Naval Observatory. Subsequently, after analysis of the data, results and information can be sent back to the precise time reference station to provide automatic control of remote station timing. The DAS configuration is designed around state of the art standard industrial high reliability modules. The system integration and software are standardized but allow considerable flexibility to satisfy special local requirements such as stability measurements, performance evaluation and printing of messages and certificates. The DAS operates completely independently and may be queried or controlled at any time with a computer or terminal device (control is protected for use by authorized personnel only). Such DAS equipped PTS are operational in Hawaii, California, Texas and Florida.

Precise Documentation: The Key to Better Software

Science.gov (United States)

Parnas, David Lorge

The prime cause of the sorry “state of the art” in software development is our failure to produce good design documentation. Poor documentation is the cause of many errors and reduces efficiency in every phase of a software product's development and use. Most software developers believe that “documentation” refers to a collection of wordy, unstructured, introductory descriptions, thousands of pages that nobody wanted to write and nobody trusts. In contrast, Engineers in more traditional disciplines think of precise blueprints, circuit diagrams, and mathematical specifications of component properties. Software developers do not know how to produce precise documents for software. Software developments also think that documentation is something written after the software has been developed. In other fields of Engineering much of the documentation is written before and during the development. It represents forethought not afterthought. Among the benefits of better documentation would be: easier reuse of old designs, better communication about requirements, more useful design reviews, easier integration of separately written modules, more effective code inspection, more effective testing, and more efficient corrections and improvements. This paper explains how to produce and use precise software documentation and illustrate the methods with several examples.

[Application of target restoration space quantity and quantitative relation in precise esthetic prosthodontics].

Science.gov (United States)

Haiyang, Yu; Tian, Luo

2016-06-01

Target restoration space (TRS) is the most precise space required for designing optimal prosthesis. TRS consists of an internal or external tooth space to confirm the esthetics and function of the final restoration. Therefore, assisted with quantitive analysis transfer, TRS quantitative analysis is a significant improvement for minimum tooth preparation. This article presents TRS quantity-related measurement, analysis, transfer, and internal relevance of three TR. classifications. Results reveal the close bond between precision and minimally invasive treatment. This study can be used to improve the comprehension and execution of precise esthetic prosthodontics.

About the problems and perspectives of making precision compressor blades

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. E. Galiev

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The problems of manufacturing blades with high precision profile geometry are considered in the article. The variant of the technology under development rules out the use of mechanical processing methods for blades airfoil. The article consists of an introduction and six small sections.The introduction sets out the requirements for modern aircraft engines, makes a list of problems arisen in the process of their manufacturing, and marks the relevance of the work.The first section analyzes the existing technology of precision blades. There is an illustration reflecting the stages of the process. Their advantages and disadvantages are marked.The second section provides an illustration, which shows the system-based blades used in the manufacturing process and a model of the work piece using the technology being developed. An analysis of each basing scheme is presented.In the third section we list the existing control methods of geometrical parameters of blades airfoil and present the measurement error data of devices. The special attention is paid to the impossibility to control the accuracy of geometrical parameters of precision blades.The fourth section presents the advantages of the electrochemical machining method with a consistent vibration of tool-electrode and with feeding the pulses of technology current over the traditional method. The article presents data accuracy and surface roughness of the blades airfoil reached owing to precision electrochemical machining. It illustrates machines that implement the given method of processing and components manufactured on them.The fifth section describes the steps of the developed process with justification for the use of the proposed operations.Based on the analysis, the author argues that the application of the proposed process to manufacture the precision compressor blades ensures producing the items that meet the requirements of the drawing.

Supporting domain experts to select and configure precise compliance rules

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ramezani, E.; Fahland, D.; Aalst, van der W.M.P.; Lohmann, N.; Song, M.; Wohed, P.

2014-01-01

Compliance specifications concisely describe selected aspects of what a business operation should adhere to. To enable automated techniques for compliance checking, it is important that these requirements are specified correctly and precisely, describing exactly the behavior intended. Although there

Design Tools for Cost-Effective Implementation of Planetary Protection Requirements

Science.gov (United States)

Hamlin, Louise; Belz, Andrea; Evans, Michael; Kastner, Jason; Satter, Celeste; Spry, Andy

2006-01-01

Since the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s, accounting for the costs associated with planetary protection implementation has not been done systematically during early project formulation phases, leading to unanticipated costs during subsequent implementation phases of flight projects. The simultaneous development of more stringent planetary protection requirements, resulting from new knowledge about the limits of life on Earth, together with current plans to conduct life-detection experiments on a number of different solar system target bodies motivates a systematic approach to integrating planetary protection requirements and mission design. A current development effort at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is aimed at integrating planetary protection requirements more fully into the early phases of mission architecture formulation and at developing tools to more rigorously predict associated cost and schedule impacts of architecture options chosen to meet planetary protection requirements.

Hidden SUSY from precision gauge unification

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Krippendorf, Sven; Nilles, Hans Peter [Bonn Univ. (Germany). Bethe Center for Theoretical Physics; Bonn Univ. (Germany). Physikalisches Inst.; Ratz, Michael [Technische Univ. Muenchen, Garching (Germany). Physik-Department; Winkler, Martin Wolfgang [Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg (Germany)

2013-06-15

We revisit the implications of naturalness and gauge unification in the MSSM. We find that precision unification of the couplings in connection with a small {mu} parameter requires a highly compressed gaugino pattern as it is realized in mirage mediation. Due to the small mass difference between gluino and LSP, collider limits on the gluino mass are drastically relaxed. Without further assumptions, the relic density of the LSP is very close to the observed dark matter density due to coannihilation effects.

Hidden SUSY from precision gauge unification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krippendorf, Sven; Nilles, Hans Peter

2013-06-01

We revisit the implications of naturalness and gauge unification in the MSSM. We find that precision unification of the couplings in connection with a small μ parameter requires a highly compressed gaugino pattern as it is realized in mirage mediation. Due to the small mass difference between gluino and LSP, collider limits on the gluino mass are drastically relaxed. Without further assumptions, the relic density of the LSP is very close to the observed dark matter density due to coannihilation effects.

Automatic Compensation of Workpiece Positioning Tolerances for Precise Laser

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. C. Stache

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Precise laser welding plays a fundamental role in the production of high-tech goods, particularly in precision engineering. In this working field, precise adjustment and compensation of positioning tolerances of the parts to be welded with respect to the laser beam is of paramount importance. This procedure mostly requires tedious and error-prone manual adjustment, which additionally results in a sharp increase in production costs. We therefore developed a system which automates and thus accelerates this procedure significantly. To this end, the welding machine is equipped with a camera to acquire high resolution images of the parts to be welded. In addition, a software framework is developed which enables precise automatic position detection of these parts and adjusts the position of the welding contour correspondingly. As a result, the machine is rapidly prepared for welding, and it is much more flexible in adapting to unknown parts.This paper describes the entire concept of extending a conventional welding machine with means for image acquisition and position estimation. In addition to this description, the algorithms, the results of an evaluation of position estimation, and a final welding result are presented. 

A development of an accelerator board dedicated for multi-precision arithmetic operations and its application to Feynman loop integrals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Motoki, S; Ishikawa, T; Yuasa, F; Daisaka, H; Nakasato, N; Fukushige, T; Kawai, A; Makino, J

2015-01-01

Higher order corrections in perturbative quantum field theory are required for precise theoretical analysis to investigate new physics beyond the Standard Model. This indicates that we need to evaluate Feynman loop diagrams with multi-loop integrals which may require multi-precision calculation. We developed a dedicated accelerator system for multiprecision calculations (GRAPE9-MPX). We present performance results of our system for the case of Feynman two-loop box and three-loop selfenergy diagrams with multi-precision. (paper)

Precise Mapping Of A Spatially Distributed Radioactive Source

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beck, A.; Caras, I.; Piestum, S.; Sheli, E.; Melamud, Y.; Berant, S.; Kadmon, Y.; Tirosh, D.

1999-01-01

Spatial distribution measurement of radioactive sources is a routine task in the nuclear industry. The precision of each measurement depends upon the specific application. However, the technological edge of this precision is motivated by the production of standards for calibration. Within this definition, the most demanding field is the calibration of standards for medical equipment. In this paper, a semi-empirical method for controlling the measurement precision is demonstrated, using a relatively simple laboratory apparatus. The spatial distribution of the source radioactivity is measured as part of the quality assurance tests, during the production of flood sources. These sources are further used in calibration of medical gamma cameras. A typical flood source is a 40 x 60 cm 2 plate with an activity of 10 mCi (or more) of 57 Co isotope. The measurement set-up is based on a single NaI(Tl) scintillator with a photomultiplier tube, moving on an X Y table which scans the flood source. In this application the source is required to have a uniform activity distribution over its surface

Testing the precision optical calibration module for PINGU

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jurkovic, Martin; Holzapfel, Kilian [TU Muenchen, Physik-Department, Excellence Cluster Universe, Boltzmannstr. 2, 85748 Garching (Germany); Collaboration: IceCube-Collaboration

2015-07-01

The Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade (PINGU) is primarily designed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. This measurement requires an accurate calibration of the detector in order to reduce systematic uncertainties. The Precision Optical Calibration Modules (POCAM) will be placed in the detector as a well calibrated artificial light source in the ice. The POCAM will be enclosed in a glass sphere identical to those used for the detector modules. To construct and simulate a prototype of the POCAM, every component needs to be analyzed by their optical characteristics and by the behavior in temperatures down to -50 C. Therefore a highly shielded an isolated environment has to be build up. We report the status of the testing environment and the hardware selected.

Thin films for precision optics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Araujo, J.F.; Maurici, N.; Castro, J.C. de

1983-01-01

The technology of producing dielectric and/or metallic thin films for high precision optical components is discussed. Computer programs were developed in order to calculate and register, graphically, reflectance and transmittance spectra of multi-layer films. The technology of vacuum evaporation of several materials was implemented in our thin-films laboratory; various films for optics were then developed. The possibility of first calculate film characteristics and then produce the film is of great advantage since it reduces the time required to produce a new type of film and also reduces the cost of the project. (C.L.B.) [pt

The g-factor of the electron bound in {sup 28}Si{sup 13+}. The most stringent test of bound-state quantum electrodynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sturm, Sven

2012-09-06

This thesis describes the ultra-precise determination of the g-factor of the electron bound to hydrogenlike {sup 28}Si{sup 13+}. The experiment is based on the simultaneous determination of the cyclotron- and Larmor frequency of a single ion, which is stored in a triple Penning-trap setup. The continuous Stern-Gerlach effect is used to couple the spin of the bound electron to the motional frequencies of the ion via a magnetic bottle, which allows the non-destructive determination of the spin state. To this end, a highly sensitive, cryogenic detection system was developed, which allowed the direct, non-destructive detection of the eigenfrequencies with the required precision. The development of a novel, phase sensitive detection technique finally allowed the determination of the g-factor with a relative accuracy of 4 . 10{sup -11}, which was previously inconceivable. The comparison of the hereby determined value with the value predicted by quantumelectrodynamics (QED) allows the verification of the validity of this fundamental theory under the extreme conditions of the strong binding potential of a highly charged ion. The exact agreement of theory and experiment is an impressive demonstration of the exactness of QED. The experimental possibilities created in this work will allow in the near future not only further tests of theory, but also the determination of the mass of the electron with a precision that exceeds the current literature value by more than an order of magnitude.

Low Cost Precision Lander for Lunar Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Head, J. N.; Gardner, T. G.; Hoppa, G. V.; Seybold, K. G.

2004-12-01

For 60 years the US Defense Department has invested heavily in producing small, low mass, precision guided vehicles. The technologies matured under these programs include terrain-aided navigation, closed loop terminal guidance algorithms, robust autopilots, high thrust-to-weight propulsion, autonomous mission management software, sensors, and data fusion. These technologies will aid NASA in addressing New Millennium Science and Technology goals as well as the requirements flowing from the Vision articulated in January 2004. Establishing and resupplying a long term lunar presence will require automated landing precision not yet demonstrated. Precision landing will increase safety and assure mission success. In the DOD world, such technologies are used routinely and reliably. Hence, it is timely to generate a point design for a precise planetary lander useful for lunar exploration. In this design science instruments amount to 10 kg, 16% of the lander vehicle mass. This compares favorably with 7% for Mars Pathfinder and less than 15% for Surveyor. The mission design flies the lander in an inert configuration to the moon, relying on a cruise stage for navigation and TCMs. The lander activates about a minute before impact. A solid booster reduces the vehicle speed to 300-450 m/s. The lander is now about 2 minutes from touchdown and has 600 to 700 m/s delta-v capability, allowing for about 10 km of vehicle divert during terminal descent. This concept of operations is chosen because it closely mimics missile operational timelines used for decades: the vehicle remains inert in a challenging environment, then must execute its mission flawlessly on a moment's notice. The vehicle design consists of a re-plumbed propulsion system, using propellant tanks and thrusters from exoatmospheric programs. A redesigned truss provides hard points for landing gear, electronics, power supply, and science instruments. A radar altimeter and a Digital Scene Matching Area Correlator (DSMAC

Controlling Precision Stepper Motors in Flight Using (Almost) No Parts

Science.gov (United States)

Randall, David

2010-01-01

This concept allows control of high-performance stepper motors with minimal parts count and minimal flight software complexity. Although it uses a small number of common flight-qualified parts and simple control algorithms, it is capable enough to meet demanding system requirements. Its programmable nature makes it trivial to implement changes to control algorithms both during integration & test and in flight. Enhancements such as microstepping, half stepping, back-emf compensation, and jitter reduction can be tailored to the requirements of a large variety of stepper motor based applications including filter wheels, focus mechanisms, antenna tracking subsystems, pointing and mobility. The hardware design (using an H-bridge motor controller IC) was adapted from JPL's MER mission, still operating on Mars. This concept has been fully developed and incorporated into the MCS instrument on MRO, currently operating in Mars orbit. It has been incorporated into the filter wheel mechanism and linear stage (focus) mechanism for the AMT instrument. On MCS/MRO, two of these circuits control the elevation and azimuth of the MCS telescope/radiometer assembly, allowing the instrument to continuously monitor the limb of the Martian atmosphere. Implementation on MCS/MRO resulted in a 4:1 reduction in the volume and mass required for the motor driver electronics (100:25 square inches of PCB space), producing a very compact instrument. In fact, all of the electronics for the MCS instrument are packaged within the movable instrument structure. It also saved approximately 3 Watts of power. Most importantly, the design enabled MCS to meet very its stringent maximum allowable torque disturbance requirements.

High precision capacitive beam phase probe for KHIMA project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hwang, Ji-Gwang, E-mail: windy206@hanmail.net [Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences, 215–4, Gongneung-dong, Nowon-t, Seoul 139–706 (Korea, Republic of); Yang, Tae-Keun [Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences, 215–4, Gongneung-dong, Nowon-t, Seoul 139–706 (Korea, Republic of); Forck, Peter [GSI Helmholtz Centre for Ion Research, Darmstadt 64291, German (Germany)

2016-11-21

In the medium energy beam transport (MEBT) line of KHIMA project, a high precision beam phase probe monitor is required for a precise tuning of RF phase and amplitude of Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) accelerator and IH-DTL linac. It is also used for measuring a kinetic energy of ion beam by time-of-flight (TOF) method using two phase probes. The capacitive beam phase probe has been developed. The electromagnetic design of the high precision phase probe was performed to satisfy the phase resolution of 1° (@200 MHz). It was confirmed by the test result using a wire test bench. The measured phase accuracy of the fabricated phase probe is 1.19 ps. The pre-amplifier electronics with the 0.125 ∼ 1.61 GHz broad-band was designed and fabricated for amplifying the signal strength. The results of RF frequency and beam energy measurement using a proton beam from the cyclotron in KIRAMS is presented.

Discovery Mondays "State-of-the-art technologies for precision"

CERN Multimedia

2007-01-01

Ceramic plate drilled with high precision in CERN’s workshop. The diameter of each hole is only 0.02 millimetres, comparable to the diameter of a hair.Scientists have to be infinitely precise to study the infinitely small. Thus, even though the LHC is the world’s largest accelerator, it has to be aligned to within a tenth of a millimetre. The detectors weigh several thousand tonnes but are capable of detecting the tiniest vibration of the Earth. Join us at the next Discovery Monday to find out about CERN’s state-of-the-art tools for achieving the degrees of resolution required in the field of particle physics. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover the world of precision! The event will be conducted in FrenchCome along to the Microcosm (Reception Building 33, Meyrin site) on Monday 5 November from 7.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. Entrance Free http://www.cern.ch/LundisDecouverte/

Precision luminosity measurement at LHCb with beam-gas imaging

CERN Document Server

Barschel, Colin

The luminosity is the physical quantity which relates the cross-section to the production rate in collider experiments. The cross-section being the particle physics observable of interest, a precise determination of the luminosity is required. This work presents the absolute luminosity calibration results performed at the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN using a novel method based on beam-gas interactions with data acquired at a center of mass energy $\\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV and $\\sqrt{s}=2.76$ TeV. Reconstructed beam-gas interaction vertices in LHCb are used to measure the beam profiles, thus making it possible to determine the beams overlap integral. An important element of this work was to install and use a neon gas injection system to increase the beam-gas interaction rate. The precision reached with the beam-gas imaging method relies on the two-dimensional beam shape determination developed in this work. For such precision, the interaction vertex resolution is an important ingredient. There...

Precise estimation of total solar radiation on tilted surface

African Journals Online (AJOL)

rajeev

rarely available required for precise sizing of energy systems. The total solar radiation at different orientation and slope is needed to calculate the efficiency of the installed solar energy systems. To calculate clearness index (Kt) used by Gueymard (2000) for estimating solar irradiation H, irradiation at the earth's surface has ...

Precision Muon Tracking at Future Hadron Colliders with sMDT Chambers

CERN Document Server

Kortner, Oliver; Müller, Felix; Nowak, Sebastian; Richter, Robert

2016-01-01

Small-diameter muon drift tube (sMDT) chambers are a cost-effective technology for high-precision muon tracking. The rate capability of the sMDT chambers has been extensively tested at the Gamma Irradiation Facility at CERN in view of expected rates at future high-energy hadron colliders. Results show that it fulfills the requirements over most of the acceptance of muon detectors. The optimization of the read-out electronics to further increase the rate capability of the detectors is discussed. Chambers of this type are under construction for upgrades of the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at high LHC luminosities. Design and construction procedures have been optimized for mass production while providing a precision of better than 10 micrometers in the sense wire positions and the mechanical stability required to cover large areas.

Application of high precision temperature control technology in infrared testing

Science.gov (United States)

Cao, Haiyuan; Cheng, Yong; Zhu, Mengzhen; Chu, Hua; Li, Wei

2017-11-01

In allusion to the demand of infrared system test, the principle of Infrared target simulator and the function of the temperature control are presented. The key technology of High precision temperature control is discussed, which include temperature gathering, PID control and power drive. The design scheme of temperature gathering is put forward. In order to reduce the measure error, discontinuously current and four-wire connection for the platinum thermal resistance are adopted. A 24-bits AD chip is used to improve the acquisition precision. Fuzzy PID controller is designed because of the large time constant and continuous disturbance of the environment temperature, which result in little overshoot, rapid response, high steady-state accuracy. Double power operational amplifiers are used to drive the TEC. Experiments show that the key performances such as temperature control precision and response speed meet the requirements.

Recent high precision surveys at PEP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sah, R.C.

1980-12-01

The task of surveying and aligning the components of PEP has provided an opportunity to develop new instruments and techniques for the purpose of high precision surveys. The new instruments are quick and easy to use, and they automatically encode survey data and read them into the memory of an on-line computer. When measurements of several beam elements have been taken, the on-line computer analyzes the measured data, compares them with desired parameters, and calculates the required adjustments to beam element support stands

An Assessment of Imaging Informatics for Precision Medicine in Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Chennubhotla, C; Clarke, L P; Fedorov, A; Foran, D; Harris, G; Helton, E; Nordstrom, R; Prior, F; Rubin, D; Saltz, J H; Shalley, E; Sharma, A

2017-08-01

Objectives: Precision medicine requires the measurement, quantification, and cataloging of medical characteristics to identify the most effective medical intervention. However, the amount of available data exceeds our current capacity to extract meaningful information. We examine the informatics needs to achieve precision medicine from the perspective of quantitative imaging and oncology. Methods: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) organized several workshops on the topic of medical imaging and precision medicine. The observations and recommendations are summarized herein. Results: Recommendations include: use of standards in data collection and clinical correlates to promote interoperability; data sharing and validation of imaging tools; clinician's feedback in all phases of research and development; use of open-source architecture to encourage reproducibility and reusability; use of challenges which simulate real-world situations to incentivize innovation; partnership with industry to facilitate commercialization; and education in academic communities regarding the challenges involved with translation of technology from the research domain to clinical utility and the benefits of doing so. Conclusions: This article provides a survey of the role and priorities for imaging informatics to help advance quantitative imaging in the era of precision medicine. While these recommendations were drawn from oncology, they are relevant and applicable to other clinical domains where imaging aids precision medicine. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

Waste management system requirements document

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1991-02-01

This volume defines the top level requirements for the Mined Geologic Disposal System (MGDS). It is designed to be used in conjunction with Volume 1 of the WMSR, General System Requirements. It provides a functional description expanding the requirements allocated to the MGDS in Volume 1 and elaborates on each requirement by providing associated performance criteria as appropriate. Volumes 1 and 4 of the WMSR provide a minimum set of requirements that must be satisfied by the final MGDS design. This document sets forth specific requirements that must be fulfilled. It is not the intent or purpose of this top level document to describe how each requirement is to be satisfied in the final MGDS design. Each subsequent level of the technical document hierarchy must provide further guidance and definition as to how each of these requirements is to be implemented in the design. It is expected that each subsequent level of requirements will be significantly more detailed. Section 2 of this volume provides a functional description of the MGDS. Each function is addressed in terms of requirements, and performance criteria. Section 3 provides a list of controlling documents. Each document cited in a requirement of Chapter 2 is included in this list and is incorporated into this document as a requirement on the final system. The WMSR addresses only federal requirements (i.e., laws, regulations and DOE orders). State and local requirements are not addressed. However, it will be specifically noted at the potentially affected WMSR requirements that there could be additional or more stringent regulations imposed by a state or local requirements or administering agency over the cited federal requirements

Optical Comb from a Whispering Gallery Mode Resonator for Spectroscopy and Astronomy Instruments Calibration

Science.gov (United States)

Strekalov, Dmitry V.; Yu, Nam; Thompson, Robert J.

2012-01-01

The most accurate astronomical data is available from space-based observations that are not impeded by the Earth's atmosphere. Such measurements may require spectral samples taken as long as decades apart, with the 1 cm/s velocity precision integrated over a broad wavelength range. This raises the requirements specifically for instruments used in astrophysics research missions -- their stringent wavelength resolution and accuracy must be maintained over years and possibly decades. Therefore, a stable and broadband optical calibration technique compatible with spaceflights becomes essential. The space-based spectroscopic instruments need to be calibrated in situ, which puts forth specific requirements to the calibration sources, mainly concerned with their mass, power consumption, and reliability. A high-precision, high-resolution reference wavelength comb source for astronomical and astrophysics spectroscopic observations has been developed that is deployable in space. The optical comb will be used for wavelength calibrations of spectrographs and will enable Doppler measurements to better than 10 cm/s precision, one hundred times better than the current state-of-the- art.

The implementation of modern digital technology in x-ray medical diagnosis in Republic of Moldova - a stringent necessity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rosca, Andrei

2011-01-01

The study includes analyses of current technical state of radiodiagnostic equipment from the Public Medico-Sanitary Institution of Ministry of Health of Republic of Moldova (IMSP MS RM). The traditional radiodiagnostic apparatuses were morally and physically outrun at 96,6% (in regional MSPI - 93,5%), inclusive the dental one - 92,0% (in raional MSPI - 97,2%), X-Ray exam -100%, mobile - 84,1% etc. The exploitation of the traditional radiodiagnostic apparatuses with high degree of physical and moral wear essentially diminished the quality of profile investigation, creates premises for diagnostic error perpetrating, increase the collective ionizing irradiation of population etc. In recent years the subvention of MSPI HM RM with digital radiodiagnostic equipment was started. This process is very hard unfold because of grave socio-economic crises in Republic of Moldova. Despite these obstacles the subvention of MSPI HM RM with digital equipment represents a stringent necessity and a time request.

Rapid species responses to changes in climate require stringent climate protection targets

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vliet, van A.J.H.; Leemans, R.

2006-01-01

The Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change book consolidates the scientific findings of the Exeter conference and gives an account of the most recent developments on critical thresholds and key vulnerabilities of the climate system, impacts on human and natural systems, emission pathways and

Thermosetting polyimide resin matrix composites with interpenetrating polymer networks for precision foil resistor chips based on special mechanical performance requirements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, X.Y., E-mail: wxy@tju.edu.cn [School of Electronic Information Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072 (China); Ma, J.X.; Li, C.G. [School of Electronic Information Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072 (China); Wang, H.X. [ZHENGHE electronics Co., Ltd, Jining 272023 (China)

2014-04-01

Highlights: • Macromolecular materials were chosen to modify thermosetting polyimide (TSPI). • The formation of IPN structure in TSPI composite polymers was discussed. • The special mechanical properties required were the main study object. • The desired candidate materials should have proper hardness and toughness. • The specific mechanical data are quantitatively determined by experiments. - Abstract: Based on interpenetrating networks (IPNs) different macromolecular materials such as epoxy, phenolic, and silicone resin were chosen to modify thermosetting polyimide (TSPI) resin to solve the lack of performance when used for protecting precision foil resistor chips. Copolymerization modification, controlled at curing stage, was used to prepare TSPI composites considering both performance and process requirements. The mechanical properties related to trimming process were mainly studied due to the special requirements of the regularity of scratch edges caused by a tungsten needle. The analysis on scratch edges reveals that the generation and propagation of microcracks caused by scratching together with crack closure effect may lead to regular scratch traces. Experiments show that the elongation at break of TSPI composites is the main reason that determines the special mechanical properties. The desired candidate materials should have proper hardness and toughness, and the specific mechanical data are that the mean elongation at break and tensile strength of polymer materials are in the range of 9.2–10.4% and 100–107 MPa, respectively. Possible reasons for the effect of the modifiers chosen on TSPI polymers, the reaction mechanisms on modified TSPI resin and the IPN structure in TSPI composite polymers were discussed based on IR and TG analysis.

Thermosetting polyimide resin matrix composites with interpenetrating polymer networks for precision foil resistor chips based on special mechanical performance requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, X.Y.; Ma, J.X.; Li, C.G.; Wang, H.X.

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Macromolecular materials were chosen to modify thermosetting polyimide (TSPI). • The formation of IPN structure in TSPI composite polymers was discussed. • The special mechanical properties required were the main study object. • The desired candidate materials should have proper hardness and toughness. • The specific mechanical data are quantitatively determined by experiments. - Abstract: Based on interpenetrating networks (IPNs) different macromolecular materials such as epoxy, phenolic, and silicone resin were chosen to modify thermosetting polyimide (TSPI) resin to solve the lack of performance when used for protecting precision foil resistor chips. Copolymerization modification, controlled at curing stage, was used to prepare TSPI composites considering both performance and process requirements. The mechanical properties related to trimming process were mainly studied due to the special requirements of the regularity of scratch edges caused by a tungsten needle. The analysis on scratch edges reveals that the generation and propagation of microcracks caused by scratching together with crack closure effect may lead to regular scratch traces. Experiments show that the elongation at break of TSPI composites is the main reason that determines the special mechanical properties. The desired candidate materials should have proper hardness and toughness, and the specific mechanical data are that the mean elongation at break and tensile strength of polymer materials are in the range of 9.2–10.4% and 100–107 MPa, respectively. Possible reasons for the effect of the modifiers chosen on TSPI polymers, the reaction mechanisms on modified TSPI resin and the IPN structure in TSPI composite polymers were discussed based on IR and TG analysis

Investigation of the proton-neutron interaction by high-precision nuclear mass measurements

CERN Multimedia

Savreux, R P; Akkus, B

2007-01-01

We propose to measure the atomic masses of a series of short-lived nuclides, including $^{70}$Ni, $^{122-130}$Cd, $^{134}$Sn, $^{138,140}$Xe, $^{207-210}$Hg, and $^{223-225}$Rn, that contribute to the investigation of the proton-neutron interaction and its role in nuclear structure. The high-precision mass measurements are planned for the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP that reaches the required precision of 10 keV in the nuclear mass determination.

The newest precision measurement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Jing Gu; Lee, Jong Dae

1974-05-01

This book introduces basic of precision measurement, measurement of length, limit gauge, measurement of angles, measurement of surface roughness, measurement of shapes and locations, measurement of outline, measurement of external and internal thread, gear testing, accuracy inspection of machine tools, three dimension coordinate measuring machine, digitalisation of precision measurement, automation of precision measurement, measurement of cutting tools, measurement using laser, and point of choosing length measuring instrument.

Strategy for Realizing High-Precision VUV Spectro-Polarimeter

Science.gov (United States)

Ishikawa, R.; Narukage, N.; Kubo, M.; Ishikawa, S.; Kano, R.; Tsuneta, S.

2014-12-01

Spectro-polarimetric observations in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) range are currently the only means to measure magnetic fields in the upper chromosphere and transition region of the solar atmosphere. The Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Spectro-Polarimeter (CLASP) aims to measure linear polarization at the hydrogen Lyman- α line (121.6 nm). This measurement requires a polarization sensitivity better than 0.1 %, which is unprecedented in the VUV range. We here present a strategy with which to realize such high-precision spectro-polarimetry. This involves the optimization of instrument design, testing of optical components, extensive analyses of polarization errors, polarization calibration of the instrument, and calibration with onboard data. We expect that this strategy will aid the development of other advanced high-precision polarimeters in the UV as well as in other wavelength ranges.

Stringent tests of constrained Minimal Flavor Violation through ΔF=2 transitions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Buras, Andrzej J.; Girrbach, Jennifer

2013-01-01

New Physics contributions to ΔF=2 transitions in the simplest extensions of the Standard Model (SM), the models with constrained Minimal Flavor Violation (CMFV), are parametrized by a single variable S(v), the value of the real box diagram function that in CMFV is bounded from below by its SM value S 0 (x t ). With already very precise experimental values of ε K , ΔM d , ΔM s and precise values of the CP-asymmetry S ψK S and of B K entering the evaluation of ε K , the future of CMFV in the ΔF = 2 sector depends crucially on the values of vertical stroke V cb vertical stroke, vertical stroke V ub vertical stroke, γ, F B s √(B B s ) and F B d √(B B d ). The ratio ξ of the latter two non-perturbative parameters, already rather precisely determined from lattice calculations, allows then together with ΔM s / ΔM d and S ψK S to determine the range of the angle γ in the unitarity triangle independently of the value of S(v). Imposing in addition the constraints from vertical stroke ε K vertical stroke and ΔM d allows to determine the favorite CMFV values of vertical stroke V cb vertical stroke, vertical stroke V ub vertical stroke, F B s √(B B s ) and F B d √(B B d ) as functions of S(v) and γ. The vertical stroke V cb vertical stroke 4 dependence of ε K allows to determine vertical stroke V cb vertical stroke for a given S(v) and γ with a higher precision than it is presently possible using tree-level decays. The same applies to vertical stroke V ub vertical stroke, vertical stroke V td vertical stroke and vertical stroke V ts vertical stroke that are automatically determined as functions of S(v) and γ. We derive correlations between F B s √(B B s ) and F B d √(B B d ), vertical stroke V cb vertical stroke, vertical stroke V ub vertical stroke and γ that should be tested in the coming years. Typically F B s √(B B s ) and F B d √(B B d ) have to be lower than their present lattice values, while vertical stroke V cb vertical stroke has to

Precision luminosity measurement at LHCb with beam-gas imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barschel, Colin

2014-01-01

The luminosity is the physical quantity which relates the cross-section to the production rate in collider experiments. The cross-section being the particle physics observable of interest, a precise determination of the luminosity is required. This work presents the absolute luminosity calibration results performed at the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN using a novel method based on beam-gas interactions with data acquired at a center of mass energy √(s)=8 TeV and √(s)=2.76 TeV. Reconstructed beam-gas interaction vertices in LHCb are used to measure the beam profiles, thus making it possible to determine the beams overlap integral. An important element of this work was to install and use a neon gas injection system to increase the beam-gas interaction rate. The precision reached with the beam-gas imaging method relies on the two-dimensional beam shape determination developed in this work. For such precision, the interaction vertex resolution is an important ingredient. Therefore, a new method has been developed using all reconstructed vertices in order to improve the understanding of the vertex resolution. In addition to the overlap integral, the knowledge of the colliding bunch populations is required to measure the luminosity. The determination of the bunch populations relies on LHC instruments to measure the bunch population fractions and the total beam intensity. Studies performed as part of this work resulted in a reduction of the bunch current normalization uncertainty from ±2.7% to ±0.2% and making it possible to achieve precision luminosity measurements at all LHC experiments. Furthermore, information on beam-gas interactions not originating from nominally filled bunches was analyzed to determine the charge fraction not participating in bunch collisions. The knowledge of this fraction is required to correct the total beam intensity. The reference cross-section of pp interactions with at least two tracks in the vertex detector

Precision Attitude Control for the BETTII Balloon-Borne Interferometer

Science.gov (United States)

Benford, Dominic J.; Fixsen, Dale J.; Rinehart. Stephen

2012-01-01

The Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) is an 8-meter baseline far-infrared interferometer to fly on a high altitude balloon. Operating at wavelengths of 30-90 microns, BETTII will obtain spatial and spectral information on science targets at angular resolutions down to less than half an arcsecond, a capability unmatched by other far-infrared facilities. This requires attitude control at a level ofless than a tenth of an arcsecond, a great challenge for a lightweight balloon-borne system. We have designed a precision attitude determination system to provide gondola attitude knowledge at a level of 2 milliarcseconds at rates up to 100Hz, with accurate absolute attitude determination at the half arcsecond level at rates of up to 10Hz. A mUlti-stage control system involving rigid body motion and tip-tilt-piston correction provides precision pointing stability to the level required for the far-infrared instrument to perform its spatial/spectral interferometry in an open-loop control. We present key aspects of the design of the attitude determination and control and its development status.

MRPC-PET: A new technique for high precision time and position measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Doroud, K.; Hatzifotiadou, D.; Li, S.; Williams, M.C.S.; Zichichi, A.; Zuyeuski, R.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to consider a new technology for medical diagnosis: the MRPC-PET. This technology allows excellent time resolution together with 2-D position information thus providing a fundamental step in this field. The principle of this method is based on the Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) capable of high precision time measurements. We have previously found that the route to precise timing is differential readout (this requires matching anode and cathode strips); thus crossed strip readout schemes traditionally used for 2-D readout cannot be exploited. In this paper we consider the time difference from the two ends of the strip to provide a high precision measurement along the strip; the average time gives precise timing. The MRPC-PET thus provides a basic step in the field of medical technology: excellent time resolution together with 2-D position measurement.

Detector Development for the abBA Experiment.

Science.gov (United States)

Seo, P-N; Bowman, J D; Mitchell, G S; Penttila, S I; Wilburn, W S

2005-01-01

We have developed a new type of field-expansion spectrometer to measure the neutron beta decay correlations (a, b, B, and A). A precision measurement of these correlations places stringent requirements on charged particle detectors. The design employs large area segmented silicon detectors to detect both protons and electrons in coincidence. Other requirements include good energy resolution (electron-backscattering events, and nearly unity efficiency. We report results of testing commercially available surface-barrier silicon detectors for energy resolution and timing performance, and measurement of the dead-layer thickness of ion-implanted silicon detectors with a 3.2 MeV alpha source.

Developing the Cleanliness Requirements for an Organic-detection Instrument MOMA-MS

Science.gov (United States)

Perry, Radford; Canham, John; Lalime, Erin

2015-01-01

The cleanliness requirements for an organic-detection instrument, like the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer Mass Spectrometer (MOMA-MS), on a Planetary Protection Class IVb mission can be extremely stringent. These include surface molecular and particulate, outgassing, and bioburden. The prime contractor for the European Space Agencys ExoMars 2018 project, Thales Alenia Space Italy, provided requirements based on a standard, conservative approach of defining limits which yielded levels that are unverifiable by standard cleanliness verification methods. Additionally, the conservative method for determining contamination surface area uses underestimation while conservative bioburden surface area relies on overestimation, which results in inconsistencies for the normalized reporting. This presentation will provide a survey of the challenge to define requirements that can be reasonably verified and still remain appropriate to the core science of the ExoMars mission.

Applications of an automated stem measurer for precision forestry

Science.gov (United States)

N. Clark

2001-01-01

Accurate stem measurements are required for the determination of many silvicultural prescriptions, i.e., what are we going to do with a stand of trees. This would only be amplified in a precision forestry context. Many methods have been proposed for optimal ways to evaluate stems for a variety of characteristics. These methods usually involve the acquisition of total...

Precision Medicine in Cardiovascular Diseases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yan Liu

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Since President Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative in the United States, more and more attention has been paid to precision medicine. However, clinicians have already used it to treat conditions such as cancer. Many cardiovascular diseases have a familial presentation, and genetic variants are associated with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, which are the basis for providing precise care to patients with cardiovascular diseases. Large-scale cohorts and multiomics are critical components of precision medicine. Here we summarize the application of precision medicine to cardiovascular diseases based on cohort and omic studies, and hope to elicit discussion about future health care.

A novel approach for pulse width measurements with a high precision (8 ps RMS) TDC in an FPGA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ugur, C.; Linev, S.; Schweitzer, T.; Traxler, M.; Michel, J.

2016-01-01

High precision time measurements are a crucial element in particle identification experiments, which likewise require pulse width information for Time-over-Threshold (ToT) measurements and charge measurements (correlated with pulse width). In almost all of the FPGA-based TDC applications, pulse width measurements are implemented using two of the TDC channels for leading and trailing edge time measurements individually. This method however, requires twice the number of resources. In this paper we present the latest precision improvements in the high precision TDC (8 ps RMS) developed before [1], as well as the novel way of measuring ToT using a single TDC channel, while still achieving high precision (as low as 11.7 ps RMS). The effect of voltage, generated by a DC-DC converter, over the precision is also discussed. Finally, the outcome of the temperature change over the pulse width measurement is shown and a correction method is suggested to limit the degradation

High spatial precision nano-imaging of polarization-sensitive plasmonic particles

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Yunbo; Wang, Yipei; Lee, Somin Eunice

2018-02-01

Precise polarimetric imaging of polarization-sensitive nanoparticles is essential for resolving their accurate spatial positions beyond the diffraction limit. However, conventional technologies currently suffer from beam deviation errors which cannot be corrected beyond the diffraction limit. To overcome this issue, we experimentally demonstrate a spatially stable nano-imaging system for polarization-sensitive nanoparticles. In this study, we show that by integrating a voltage-tunable imaging variable polarizer with optical microscopy, we are able to suppress beam deviation errors. We expect that this nano-imaging system should allow for acquisition of accurate positional and polarization information from individual nanoparticles in applications where real-time, high precision spatial information is required.

Are Dutch residents ready for a more stringent policy to enhance the energy performance of their homes?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Middelkoop, Manon van; Vringer, Kees; Visser, Hans

2017-01-01

Investments in the energy performance of houses offer good prospects for reducing energy consumption and CO_2 emissions. However, people are not easily convinced of the need to take measures to improve the energy performance of their houses, even when financial benefits outweigh the costs. This article analyses the factors that influence the decision for improving the energy performance of existing homes, including policy instruments. Subsequently, the article provides policy suggestions on how to stimulate energy performance improvements. Both owners and tenants (50–70%) support government policy on energy performance improvements to existing homes. Nevertheless, people also have strong feelings of autonomy regarding their homes. Our results underline the importance of well-informed and competent decision-makers. Introducing the use of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) into the tax system for energy and residential buildings might therefore be an effective way to increase the interest of owners in the EPC, improve the use and effect of this informative instrument, and make the first step towards bridging the tension between autonomy and more stringent instruments.

Statistical precision in charged particle EDM search in storage rings

Science.gov (United States)

Aksentev, A. E.; Senichev, Y. V.

2017-12-01

Currently, the “Jülich Electric Dipole moment Investigations” (JEDI) collaboration, together with present EDM experiments at the COSY ring, is developing the conceptual design of a ring specifically for the search for the deuteron electric dipole moment (dEDM). One of the main problems in the EDM study is the spin precession in the vertical plane caused by the non-ideal positioning of accelerator elements through the magnetic dipole moment (MDM). The idea of how to separate the EDM from MDM is based on measuring the spin tune in different processes and comparing the results. The high precision of the spin tune measurement is achieved by collecting huge amounts of data. The JEDI collaboration aims at detecting the EDM at a level better than 10-29 e · cm, for which one requires a precision in the frequency estimate ˜ 10-9 rad/sec. An estimate’s statistical precision is conditional on the following factors: the total measurement time, determining the independent variable spread; measurement error; temporal modulation and spacing of sample points. In this paper we analyze the interplay between these factors, and estimate the best achievable precision under given conditions.

Comparison of tool feed influence in CNC polishing between a novel circular-random path and other pseudo-random paths.

Science.gov (United States)

Takizawa, Ken; Beaucamp, Anthony

2017-09-18

A new category of circular pseudo-random paths is proposed in order to suppress repetitive patterns and improve surface waviness on ultra-precision polished surfaces. Random paths in prior research had many corners, therefore deceleration of the polishing tool affected the surface waviness. The new random path can suppress velocity changes of the polishing tool and thus restrict degradation of the surface waviness, making it suitable for applications with stringent mid-spatial-frequency requirements such as photomask blanks for EUV lithography.

Modified precision-husky progrind H-3045 for chipping biomass

Science.gov (United States)

Dana Mitchell; Fernando Seixas; John. Klepac

2008-01-01

A specific size of whole tree chip was needed to co-mill wood chips with coal. The specifications are stringent because chips must be mixed with coal, as opposed to a co-firing process. In co-firing, two raw products are conveyed separately to a boiler. In co-milling, such as at Alabama Power's Plant Gadsden, the chip and coal mix must pass through a series of...

Reconciling evidence-based medicine and precision medicine in the era of big data: challenges and opportunities.

Science.gov (United States)

Beckmann, Jacques S; Lew, Daniel

2016-12-19

This era of groundbreaking scientific developments in high-resolution, high-throughput technologies is allowing the cost-effective collection and analysis of huge, disparate datasets on individual health. Proper data mining and translation of the vast datasets into clinically actionable knowledge will require the application of clinical bioinformatics. These developments have triggered multiple national initiatives in precision medicine-a data-driven approach centering on the individual. However, clinical implementation of precision medicine poses numerous challenges. Foremost, precision medicine needs to be contrasted with the powerful and widely used practice of evidence-based medicine, which is informed by meta-analyses or group-centered studies from which mean recommendations are derived. This "one size fits all" approach can provide inadequate solutions for outliers. Such outliers, which are far from an oddity as all of us fall into this category for some traits, can be better managed using precision medicine. Here, we argue that it is necessary and possible to bridge between precision medicine and evidence-based medicine. This will require worldwide and responsible data sharing, as well as regularly updated training programs. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities for achieving clinical utility in precision medicine. We project that, through collection, analyses and sharing of standardized medically relevant data globally, evidence-based precision medicine will shift progressively from therapy to prevention, thus leading eventually to improved, clinician-to-patient communication, citizen-centered healthcare and sustained well-being.

Precision intercomparison of beam current monitors at CEBAF

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kazimi, R.; Dunham, B.; Krafft, G.A.; Legg, R.; Liang, C.; Sinclair, C.; Mamosser, J.

1995-01-01

The CEBAF accelerator delivers a CW electron beam at fundamental 1497 MHz, with average beam current up to 200 μA. Accurate, stable nonintercepting beam current monitors are required for: setup/control, monitoring of beam current and beam losses for machine protection and personnel safety, and providing beam current information to experimental users. Fundamental frequency stainless steel RF cavities have been chosen for these beam current monitors. This paper reports on precision intercomparison between two such RF cavities, an Unser monitor, and two Faraday cups, all located in the injector area. At the low beam energy in the injector, it is straightforward to verify the high efficiency of the Faraday cups, and the Unser monitor included a wire through it to permit an absolute calibration. The cavity intensity monitors have proven capable of stable, high precision monitoring of the beam current

Stringent tests of constrained Minimal Flavor Violation through {Delta}F=2 transitions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Buras, Andrzej J. [TUM-IAS, Garching (Germany); Girrbach, Jennifer [TUM, Physik Department, Garching (Germany)

2013-09-15

New Physics contributions to {Delta}F=2 transitions in the simplest extensions of the Standard Model (SM), the models with constrained Minimal Flavor Violation (CMFV), are parametrized by a single variable S(v), the value of the real box diagram function that in CMFV is bounded from below by its SM value S{sub 0}(x{sub t}). With already very precise experimental values of {epsilon}{sub K}, {Delta}M{sub d}, {Delta}M{sub s} and precise values of the CP-asymmetry S{sub {psi}K{sub S}} and of B{sub K} entering the evaluation of {epsilon}{sub K}, the future of CMFV in the {Delta}F = 2 sector depends crucially on the values of vertical stroke V{sub cb} vertical stroke, vertical stroke V{sub ub} vertical stroke, {gamma}, F{sub B{sub s}} {radical}(B{sub B{sub s}}) and F{sub B{sub d}} {radical}(B{sub B{sub d}}). The ratio {xi} of the latter two non-perturbative parameters, already rather precisely determined from lattice calculations, allows then together with {Delta}M{sub s} / {Delta}M{sub d} and S{sub {psi}K{sub S}} to determine the range of the angle {gamma} in the unitarity triangle independently of the value of S(v). Imposing in addition the constraints from vertical stroke {epsilon}{sub K} vertical stroke and {Delta}M{sub d} allows to determine the favorite CMFV values of vertical stroke V{sub cb} vertical stroke, vertical stroke V{sub ub} vertical stroke, F{sub B{sub s}} {radical}(B{sub B{sub s}}) and F{sub B{sub d}} {radical}(B{sub B{sub d}}) as functions of S(v) and {gamma}. The vertical stroke V{sub cb} vertical stroke {sup 4} dependence of {epsilon}{sub K} allows to determine vertical stroke V{sub cb} vertical stroke for a given S(v) and {gamma} with a higher precision than it is presently possible using tree-level decays. The same applies to vertical stroke V{sub ub} vertical stroke, vertical stroke V{sub td} vertical stroke and vertical stroke V{sub ts} vertical stroke that are automatically determined as functions of S(v) and {gamma}. We derive correlations

Precision tubes for high-pressure diesel injection lines; Praezisrohre fuer Hochdruck-Dieseleinspritzleitungen

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hagedorn, M.; Lechtenfeld, U.; Zaremba, A. [Mannesmann Praezisrohr GmbH, Hamm (Germany)

2008-03-15

The requirements on diesel injection lines raise because of increasing customers demands and more rigid environmental laws. In this context higher injection pressures effect both aspects positively. One important condition for increasing pressure levels is the economical provision of suitable injection lines. To reach this aim, Mannesmann Praezisrohr GmbH developed precision tubes for injection lines, which are fulfilling these increasing requirements. (orig.)

From requirements to Java in a snap model-driven requirements engineering in practice

CERN Document Server

Smialek, Michal

2015-01-01

This book provides a coherent methodology for Model-Driven Requirements Engineering which stresses the systematic treatment of requirements within the realm of modelling and model transformations. The underlying basic assumption is that detailed requirements models are used as first-class artefacts playing a direct role in constructing software. To this end, the book presents the Requirements Specification Language (RSL) that allows precision and formality, which eventually permits automation of the process of turning requirements into a working system by applying model transformations and co

Using cold deformation methods in flow-production of steel high precision shaped sections

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zajtsev, M.L.; Makhnev, I.F.; Shkurko, I.I.

1975-01-01

A final size with a preset tolerance and a required surface finish of steel high-precision sections could be achieved by a cold deformation of hot-rolled ingots-by drawing through dismountable, monolith or roller-type drawing tools or by cold rolling in roller dies. The particularities of the both techniques are compared as regards a number of complicated shaped sections and the advantages of cold rolling are showna more uniform distribution of deformations (strain hardening) across the section, that is a greater margin of plasticity with the same reductions, the less number of the operations required. Rolling is recommended in all the cases when possible as regards the section shape and the bulk volume. The rolling-mill for the calibration of high-precision sections should have no less than two shafts (so that the size could be controlled in both directions) and arrangements to withstand high axial stresses on the rollers (the stresses appearing during rolling in skew dies). When manufacturing precise shaped sections by the cold rolling method the operations are less plentiful than in the cold drawing manufacturing

Precision Airdrop (Largage de precision)

Science.gov (United States)

2005-12-01

NAVIGATION TO A PRECISION AIRDROP OVERVIEW RTO-AG-300-V24 2 - 9 the point from various compass headings. As the tests are conducted, the resultant...rate. This approach avoids including a magnetic compass for the heading reference, which has difficulties due to local changes in the magnetic field...Scientifica della Difesa ROYAUME-UNI Via XX Settembre 123 Dstl Knowledge Services ESPAGNE 00187 Roma Information Centre, Building 247 SDG TECEN / DGAM

Precision medicine for nurses: 101.

Science.gov (United States)

Lemoine, Colleen

2014-05-01

To introduce the key concepts and terms associated with precision medicine and support understanding of future developments in the field by providing an overview and history of precision medicine, related ethical considerations, and nursing implications. Current nursing, medical and basic science literature. Rapid progress in understanding the oncogenic drivers associated with cancer is leading to a shift toward precision medicine, where treatment is based on targeting specific genetic and epigenetic alterations associated with a particular cancer. Nurses will need to embrace the paradigm shift to precision medicine, expend the effort necessary to learn the essential terminology, concepts and principles, and work collaboratively with physician colleagues to best position our patients to maximize the potential that precision medicine can offer. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Precision genome editing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Steentoft, Catharina; Bennett, Eric P; Schjoldager, Katrine Ter-Borch Gram

2014-01-01

Precise and stable gene editing in mammalian cell lines has until recently been hampered by the lack of efficient targeting methods. While different gene silencing strategies have had tremendous impact on many biological fields, they have generally not been applied with wide success in the field...... of glycobiology, primarily due to their low efficiencies, with resultant failure to impose substantial phenotypic consequences upon the final glycosylation products. Here, we review novel nuclease-based precision genome editing techniques enabling efficient and stable gene editing, including gene disruption...... by introducing single or double-stranded breaks at a defined genomic sequence. We here compare and contrast the different techniques and summarize their current applications, highlighting cases from the field of glycobiology as well as pointing to future opportunities. The emerging potential of precision gene...

Testing the Deployment Repeatability of a Precision Deployable Boom Prototype for the Proposed SWOT Karin Instrument

Science.gov (United States)

Agnes, Gregory S.; Waldman, Jeff; Hughes, Richard; Peterson, Lee D.

2015-01-01

NASA's proposed Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, scheduled to launch in 2020, would provide critical information about Earth's oceans, ocean circulation, fresh water storage, and river discharge. The mission concept calls for a dual-antenna Ka-band radar interferometer instrument, known as KaRIn, that would map the height of water globally along two 50 km wide swaths. The KaRIn antennas, which would be separated by 10 meters on either side of the spacecraft, would need to be precisely deployable in order to meet demanding pointing requirements. Consequently, an effort was undertaken to design build and prototype a precision deployable Mast for the KaRIn instrument. Each mast was 4.5-m long with a required dilitation stability of 2.5 microns over 3 minutes. It required a minimum first mode of 7 Hz. Deployment repeatability was less than +/- 7 arcsec in all three rotation directions. Overall mass could not exceed 41.5 Kg including any actuators and thermal blanketing. This set of requirements meant the boom had to be three times lighter and two orders of magnitude more precise than the existing state of the art for deployable booms.

Precision Cosmology

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Bernard J. T.

2017-04-01

Preface; Notation and conventions; Part I. 100 Years of Cosmology: 1. Emerging cosmology; 2. The cosmic expansion; 3. The cosmic microwave background; 4. Recent cosmology; Part II. Newtonian Cosmology: 5. Newtonian cosmology; 6. Dark energy cosmological models; 7. The early universe; 8. The inhomogeneous universe; 9. The inflationary universe; Part III. Relativistic Cosmology: 10. Minkowski space; 11. The energy momentum tensor; 12. General relativity; 13. Space-time geometry and calculus; 14. The Einstein field equations; 15. Solutions of the Einstein equations; 16. The Robertson-Walker solution; 17. Congruences, curvature and Raychaudhuri; 18. Observing and measuring the universe; Part IV. The Physics of Matter and Radiation: 19. Physics of the CMB radiation; 20. Recombination of the primeval plasma; 21. CMB polarisation; 22. CMB anisotropy; Part V. Precision Tools for Precision Cosmology: 23. Likelihood; 24. Frequentist hypothesis testing; 25. Statistical inference: Bayesian; 26. CMB data processing; 27. Parametrising the universe; 28. Precision cosmology; 29. Epilogue; Appendix A. SI, CGS and Planck units; Appendix B. Magnitudes and distances; Appendix C. Representing vectors and tensors; Appendix D. The electromagnetic field; Appendix E. Statistical distributions; Appendix F. Functions on a sphere; Appendix G. Acknowledgements; References; Index.

Precision and accuracy, two steps towards the standardization of XRPD measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berti, G.

1996-01-01

Any standardization process requires to get at results comprehensible, reproducible and traceable. Precision and accuracy of the measurements play a key role in getting at these requirements. The adoption of either physical (standard) or mathematical models allows for describing the whole diffraction measurement process with the necessary physical significance. From an other hand, the adoption of procedure, which are capable of controlling the measurement process, renders it reproducible and traceable. The falling of those requirements make difficult to transfer or replicate elsewhere experiences which may give even excellent result in a given laboratory

Precision and accuracy, two steps towards the standardization of XRPD measurements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Berti, G [Pisa Univ. (Italy). Dept. of Earth Sciences

1996-09-01

Any standardization process requires to get at results comprehensible, reproducible and traceable. Precision and accuracy of the measurements play a key role in getting at these requirements. The adoption of either physical (standard) or mathematical models allows for describing the whole diffraction measurement process with the necessary physical significance. From an other hand, the adoption of procedure, which are capable of controlling the measurement process, renders it reproducible and traceable. The falling of those requirements make difficult to transfer or replicate elsewhere experiences which may give even excellent result in a given laboratory.

Interdisciplinary training to build an informatics workforce for precision medicine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marc S. Williams

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The proposed Precision Medicine Initiative has the potential to transform medical care in the future through a shift from interventions based on evidence from population studies and empiric response to ones that account for a range of individual factors that more reliably predict response and outcomes for the patient. Many things are needed to realize this vision, but one of the most critical is an informatics workforce that has broad interdisciplinary training in basic science, applied research and clinical implementation. Current approaches to informatics training do not support this requirement. We present a collaborative model of training that has the potential to produce a workforce prepared for the challenges of implementing precision medicine.

Development of sustainable precision farming systems for swine: estimating real-time individual amino acid requirements in growing-finishing pigs.

Science.gov (United States)

Hauschild, L; Lovatto, P A; Pomar, J; Pomar, C

2012-07-01

The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a mathematical model used to estimate the daily amino acid requirements of individual growing-finishing pigs. The model includes empirical and mechanistic model components. The empirical component estimates daily feed intake (DFI), BW, and daily gain (DG) based on individual pig information collected in real time. Based on DFI, BW, and DG estimates, the mechanistic component uses classic factorial equations to estimate the optimal concentration of amino acids that must be offered to each pig to meet its requirements. The model was evaluated with data from a study that investigated the effect of feeding pigs with a 3-phase or daily multiphase system. The DFI and BW values measured in this study were compared with those estimated by the empirical component of the model. The coherence of the values estimated by the mechanistic component was evaluated by analyzing if it followed a normal pattern of requirements. Lastly, the proposed model was evaluated by comparing its estimates with those generated by the existing growth model (InraPorc). The precision of the proposed model and InraPorc in estimating DFI and BW was evaluated through the mean absolute error. The empirical component results indicated that the DFI and BW trajectories of individual pigs fed ad libitum could be predicted 1 d (DFI) or 7 d (BW) ahead with the average mean absolute error of 12.45 and 1.85%, respectively. The average mean absolute error obtained with the InraPorc for the average individual of the population was 14.72% for DFI and 5.38% for BW. Major differences were observed when estimates from InraPorc were compared with individual observations. The proposed model, however, was effective in tracking the change in DFI and BW for each individual pig. The mechanistic model component estimated the optimal standardized ileal digestible Lys to NE ratio with reasonable between animal (average CV = 7%) and overtime (average CV = 14%) variation

A real-time surface inspection system for precision steel balls based on machine vision

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yi-Ji; Tsai, Jhy-Cherng; Hsu, Ya-Chen

2016-07-01

Precision steel balls are one of the most fundament components for motion and power transmission parts and they are widely used in industrial machinery and the automotive industry. As precision balls are crucial for the quality of these products, there is an urgent need to develop a fast and robust system for inspecting defects of precision steel balls. In this paper, a real-time system for inspecting surface defects of precision steel balls is developed based on machine vision. The developed system integrates a dual-lighting system, an unfolding mechanism and inspection algorithms for real-time signal processing and defect detection. The developed system is tested under feeding speeds of 4 pcs s-1 with a detection rate of 99.94% and an error rate of 0.10%. The minimum detectable surface flaw area is 0.01 mm2, which meets the requirement for inspecting ISO grade 100 precision steel balls.

PRECISION SPECTROPHOTOMETRY AT THE LEVEL OF 0.1%

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yan Renbin

2011-01-01

Accurate relative spectrophotometry is critical for many science applications. Small wavelength-scale residuals in the flux calibration can significantly impact the measurements of weak emission and absorption features in the spectra. Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, we demonstrate that the average spectra of carefully selected red-sequence galaxies can be used as a spectroscopic standard to improve the relative spectrophotometry precision to 0.1% on small wavelength scales (from a few to hundreds of Angstroms). We achieve this precision by comparing stacked spectra across tiny redshift intervals. The redshift intervals must be small enough that any systematic stellar population evolution is minimized and is less than the spectrophotometric uncertainty. This purely empirical technique does not require any theoretical knowledge of true galaxy spectra. It can be applied to all large spectroscopic galaxy redshift surveys that sample a large number of galaxies in a uniform population.

Precision Column CO2 Measurement from Space Using Broad Band LIDAR

Science.gov (United States)

Heaps, William S.

2009-01-01

In order to better understand the budget of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere it is necessary to develop a global high precision understanding of the carbon dioxide column. To uncover the missing sink" that is responsible for the large discrepancies in the budget as we presently understand it, calculation has indicated that measurement accuracy of 1 ppm is necessary. Because typical column average CO2 has now reached 380 ppm this represents a precision on the order of 0.25% for these column measurements. No species has ever been measured from space at such a precision. In recognition of the importance of understanding the CO2 budget to evaluate its impact on global warming the National Research Council in its decadal survey report to NASA recommended planning for a laser based total CO2 mapping mission in the near future. The extreme measurement accuracy requirements on this mission places very strong constraints on the laser system used for the measurement. This work presents an overview of the characteristics necessary in a laser system used to make this measurement. Consideration is given to the temperature dependence, pressure broadening, and pressure shift of the CO2 lines themselves and how these impact the laser system characteristics. We are examining the possibility of making precise measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide using a broad band source of radiation. This means that many of the difficulties in wavelength control can be treated in the detector portion of the system rather than the laser source. It also greatly reduces the number of individual lasers required to make a measurement. Simplifications such as these are extremely desirable for systems designed to operate from space.

Reliability of Pressure Ulcer Rates: How Precisely Can We Differentiate Among Hospital Units, and Does the Standard Signal‐Noise Reliability Measure Reflect This Precision?

Science.gov (United States)

Cramer, Emily

2016-01-01

Abstract Hospital performance reports often include rankings of unit pressure ulcer rates. Differentiating among units on the basis of quality requires reliable measurement. Our objectives were to describe and apply methods for assessing reliability of hospital‐acquired pressure ulcer rates and evaluate a standard signal‐noise reliability measure as an indicator of precision of differentiation among units. Quarterly pressure ulcer data from 8,199 critical care, step‐down, medical, surgical, and medical‐surgical nursing units from 1,299 US hospitals were analyzed. Using beta‐binomial models, we estimated between‐unit variability (signal) and within‐unit variability (noise) in annual unit pressure ulcer rates. Signal‐noise reliability was computed as the ratio of between‐unit variability to the total of between‐ and within‐unit variability. To assess precision of differentiation among units based on ranked pressure ulcer rates, we simulated data to estimate the probabilities of a unit's observed pressure ulcer rate rank in a given sample falling within five and ten percentiles of its true rank, and the probabilities of units with ulcer rates in the highest quartile and highest decile being identified as such. We assessed the signal‐noise measure as an indicator of differentiation precision by computing its correlations with these probabilities. Pressure ulcer rates based on a single year of quarterly or weekly prevalence surveys were too susceptible to noise to allow for precise differentiation among units, and signal‐noise reliability was a poor indicator of precision of differentiation. To ensure precise differentiation on the basis of true differences, alternative methods of assessing reliability should be applied to measures purported to differentiate among providers or units based on quality. © 2016 The Authors. Research in Nursing & Health published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PMID:27223598

Helicopter precision approach capability using the Global Positioning System

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufmann, David N.

1992-01-01

The period between 1 July and 31 December, 1992, was spent developing a research plan as well as a navigation system document and flight test plan to investigate helicopter precision approach capability using the Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition, all hardware and software required for the research was acquired, developed, installed, and verified on both the test aircraft and the ground-based reference station.

Environmental analytical laboratory setup operation and QA/QC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hsu, J.P.; Boyd, J.A.; DeViney, S.

1991-01-01

Environmental analysis requires precise and timely measurements. The required precise measurement is ensured with quality control and timeliness through an efficient operation. The efficiency of the operation also ensures cost-competitiveness. Environmental analysis plays a very important role in the environmental protection program. Due to the possible litigation involvement, most environmental analyses follow stringent criteria, such as the U.S. EPA Contract Laboratory Program procedures with analytical results documented in an orderly manner. The documentation demonstrates that all quality control steps are followed and facilitates data evaluation to determine the quality and usefulness of the data. Furthermore, the tedious documents concerning sample checking, chain-of-custody, standard or surrogate preparation, daily refrigerator and oven temperature monitoring, analytical and extraction logbooks, standard operation procedures, etc., also are an important part of the laboratory documentation. Quality control for environmental analysis is becoming more stringent, required documentation is becoming more detailed and turnaround time is shorter. However, the business is becoming more cost-competitive and it appears that this trend will continue. In this paper, we discuss what should be done to deal this high quality, fast-paced and tedious environmental analysis process at a competitive cost. The success of environmental analysis is people. The knowledge and experience of the staff are the key to a successful environmental analysis program. In order to be successful in this new area, the ability to develop new methods is crucial. In addition, the laboratory information system, laboratory automation and quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) are major factors for laboratory success. This paper concentrates on these areas

Elekta Precise Table characteristics of IGRT remote table positioning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Riis, Hans L.; Zimmermann, Sune J.

2009-01-01

Cone beam CT is a powerful tool to ensure an optimum patient positioning in radiotherapy. When cone beam CT scan of a patient is acquired, scan data of the patient are compared and evaluated against a reference image set and patient position offset is calculated. Via the linac control system, the patient is moved to correct for position offset and treatment starts. This procedure requires a reliable system for movement of patient. In this work we present a new method to characterize the reproducibility, linearity and accuracy in table positioning. The method applies to all treatment tables used in radiotherapy. Material and methods. The table characteristics are investigated on our two recent Elekta Synergy Platforms equipped with Precise Table installed in a shallow pit concrete cavity. Remote positioning of the table uses the auto set-up (ASU) feature in the linac control system software Desktop Pro R6.1. The ASU is used clinically to correct for patient positioning offset calculated via cone beam CT (XVI)-software. High precision steel rulers and a USB-microscope has been used to detect the relative table position in vertical, lateral and longitudinal direction. The effect of patient is simulated by applying external load on the iBEAM table top. For each table position an image is exposed of the ruler and display values of actual table position in the linac control system is read out. The table is moved in full range in lateral direction (50 cm) and longitudinal direction (100 cm) while in vertical direction a limited range is used (40 cm). Results and discussion. Our results show a linear relation between linac control system read out and measured position. Effects of imperfect calibration are seen. A reproducibility within a standard deviation of 0.22 mm in lateral and longitudinal directions while within 0.43 mm in vertical direction has been observed. The usage of XVI requires knowledge of the characteristics of remote table positioning. It is our opinion

Air humidity requirements for human comfort

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Toftum, Jørn; Fanger, Povl Ole

1999-01-01

level near 100% rh. For respiratory comfort are the requirements much more stringent and results in lower permissible indoor air humidities. Compared with the upper humidity limit specified in existing thermal comfort standards, e.g. ASHRAE Addendum 55a, the humidity limit based on skin humidity......Upper humidity limits for the comfort zone determined from two recently presented models for predicting discomfort due to skin humidity and insufficient respiratory cooling are proposed. The proposed limits are compared with the maximum permissible humidity level prescribed in existing standards...... for the thermal indoor environment. The skin humidity model predicts discomfort as a function of the relative humidity of the skin, which is determined by existing models for human heat and moisture transfer based on environmental parameters, clothing characteristics and activity level. The respiratory model...

Automated characterization of glass microspheres used for laser fusion experiments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tajima, Tsuyoshi; Norimatsu, Takayoshi; Izawa, Yasukazu; Yamanaka, Chiyoe.

1985-01-01

In laser fusion experiments glass microspheres of 100 to 1000 μm in diameter and 1 to 20 μm in wall thickness are most commonly used as fuel containers. The glass microspheres should be characterized precisely to meet stringent experimental requirements. Much time is consumed to characterize and select good quality spheres among thousands of spheres. We have developed an automated system to characterize and select glass microspheres. The system consists of charger, quadrupole rail, image processing and X-Y stage control with micro-computer. Total processing time primarily depends on the time required for image analysis, which should be compromised with the accuracy of characterization. The time for simple characterization requires about 10 sec. at present. (author)

High precision electromagnetic calorimetry with 40 MHz readout: the CMS crystal ECAL for the High-Luminosity LHC

CERN Document Server

Orimoto, Toyoko Jennifer

2017-01-01

The electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) of the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment (CMS) will be upgraded to meet the challenging running conditions expected after the High-Luminosity upgrade of the LHC (HL-LHC). Particular challenges at HL-LHC are the harsh radiation environment, the increasing data rates and the extreme level of pile-up events, with up to 200 simultaneous proton-proton collisions. The detector will have to sustain an instantaneous luminosity of above $5 \\times 10^{34} cm^2 s^{-1}$, maintaining a performance similar to the one of LHC Run I for an integrated luminosity of 3 to 5 $ab^{-1}$. This poses stringent requirements on the radiation resistance of detector components, the readout and data transfer from the front end to the back end electronics, as well as the latency of the trigger system. The barrel region of the CMS ECAL will be able to retain the current lead tungstate crystals and avalanche photodiode detectors which will meet the energy measurement performance requirements throughout t...

Environmental impacts of precision feeding programs applied in pig production.

Science.gov (United States)

Andretta, I; Hauschild, L; Kipper, M; Pires, P G S; Pomar, C

2017-12-04

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effect that switching from conventional to precision feeding systems during the growing-finishing phase would have on the potential environmental impact of Brazilian pig production. Standard life-cycle assessment procedures were used, with a cradle-to-farm gate boundary. The inputs and outputs of each interface of the life cycle (production of feed ingredients, processing in the feed industry, transportation and animal rearing) were organized in a model. Grain production was independently characterized in the Central-West and South regions of Brazil, whereas the pigs were raised in the South region. Three feeding programs were applied for growing-finishing pigs: conventional phase feeding by group (CON); precision daily feeding by group (PFG) (whole herd fed the same daily adjusted diet); and precision daily feeding by individual (PFI) (diets adjusted daily to match individual nutrient requirements). Raising pigs (1 t pig BW at farm gate) in South Brazil under the CON feeding program using grain cultivated in the same region led to emissions of 1840 kg of CO2-eq, 13.1 kg of PO4-eq and 32.2 kg of SO2-eq. Simulations using grain from the Central-West region showed a greater climate change impact. Compared with the previous scenario, a 17% increase in climate change impact was found when simulating with soybeans produced in Central-West Brazil, whereas a 28% increase was observed when simulating with corn and soybeans from Central-West Brazil. Compared with the CON feeding program, the PFG and PFI programs reduced the potential environmental impact. Applying the PFG program mitigated the potential climate change impact and eutrophication by up to 4%, and acidification impact by up to 3% compared with the CON program. Making a further adjustment by feeding pigs according to their individual nutrient requirements mitigated the potential climate change impact by up to 6% and the potential eutrophication and acidification impact

Artificial Intelligence in Precision Cardiovascular Medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Krittanawong, Chayakrit; Zhang, HongJu; Wang, Zhen; Aydar, Mehmet; Kitai, Takeshi

2017-05-30

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field of computer science that aims to mimic human thought processes, learning capacity, and knowledge storage. AI techniques have been applied in cardiovascular medicine to explore novel genotypes and phenotypes in existing diseases, improve the quality of patient care, enable cost-effectiveness, and reduce readmission and mortality rates. Over the past decade, several machine-learning techniques have been used for cardiovascular disease diagnosis and prediction. Each problem requires some degree of understanding of the problem, in terms of cardiovascular medicine and statistics, to apply the optimal machine-learning algorithm. In the near future, AI will result in a paradigm shift toward precision cardiovascular medicine. The potential of AI in cardiovascular medicine is tremendous; however, ignorance of the challenges may overshadow its potential clinical impact. This paper gives a glimpse of AI's application in cardiovascular clinical care and discusses its potential role in facilitating precision cardiovascular medicine. Copyright © 2017 American College of Cardiology Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Value of the space perception test for evaluation of the aptitude for precision work in geodesy].

Science.gov (United States)

Remlein-Mozolewska, G

1982-01-01

The visual spatial localization ability of geodesy and cartography - employers and of the pupils trained for the mentioned profession has been examined. The examination has been based on work duration and the time of its performance. A correlation between the localization ability and the precision of the hand - movements required in everyday work has been proven. The better the movement precision, the more efficient the visual spatial localization. The length of work has not been significant. The test concerned appeared to be highly useful in geodesy for qualifying workers for the posts requiring good hands efficiency.

High-precision relative position and attitude measurement for on-orbit maintenance of spacecraft

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Bing; Chen, Feng; Li, Dongdong; Wang, Ying

2018-02-01

In order to realize long-term on-orbit running of satellites, space stations, etc spacecrafts, in addition to the long life design of devices, The life of the spacecraft can also be extended by the on-orbit servicing and maintenance. Therefore, it is necessary to keep precise and detailed maintenance of key components. In this paper, a high-precision relative position and attitude measurement method used in the maintenance of key components is given. This method mainly considers the design of the passive cooperative marker, light-emitting device and high resolution camera in the presence of spatial stray light and noise. By using a series of algorithms, such as background elimination, feature extraction, position and attitude calculation, and so on, the high precision relative pose parameters as the input to the control system between key operation parts and maintenance equipment are obtained. The simulation results show that the algorithm is accurate and effective, satisfying the requirements of the precision operation technique.

A Lane-Level LBS System for Vehicle Network with High-Precision BDS/GPS Positioning

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Chi; Guo, Wenfei; Cao, Guangyi; Dong, Hongbo

2015-01-01

In recent years, research on vehicle network location service has begun to focus on its intelligence and precision. The accuracy of space-time information has become a core factor for vehicle network systems in a mobile environment. However, difficulties persist in vehicle satellite positioning since deficiencies in the provision of high-quality space-time references greatly limit the development and application of vehicle networks. In this paper, we propose a high-precision-based vehicle network location service to solve this problem. The major components of this study include the following: (1) application of wide-area precise positioning technology to the vehicle network system. An adaptive correction message broadcast protocol is designed to satisfy the requirements for large-scale target precise positioning in the mobile Internet environment; (2) development of a concurrence service system with a flexible virtual expansion architecture to guarantee reliable data interaction between vehicles and the background; (3) verification of the positioning precision and service quality in the urban environment. Based on this high-precision positioning service platform, a lane-level location service is designed to solve a typical traffic safety problem. PMID:25755665

Measurement Model and Precision Analysis of Accelerometers for Maglev Vibration Isolation Platforms.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Qianqian; Yue, Honghao; Liu, Rongqiang; Zhang, Xiaoyou; Ding, Liang; Liang, Tian; Deng, Zongquan

2015-08-14

High precision measurement of acceleration levels is required to allow active control for vibration isolation platforms. It is necessary to propose an accelerometer configuration measurement model that yields such a high measuring precision. In this paper, an accelerometer configuration to improve measurement accuracy is proposed. The corresponding calculation formulas of the angular acceleration were derived through theoretical analysis. A method is presented to minimize angular acceleration noise based on analysis of the root mean square noise of the angular acceleration. Moreover, the influence of installation position errors and accelerometer orientation errors on the calculation precision of the angular acceleration is studied. Comparisons of the output differences between the proposed configuration and the previous planar triangle configuration under the same installation errors are conducted by simulation. The simulation results show that installation errors have a relatively small impact on the calculation accuracy of the proposed configuration. To further verify the high calculation precision of the proposed configuration, experiments are carried out for both the proposed configuration and the planar triangle configuration. On the basis of the results of simulations and experiments, it can be concluded that the proposed configuration has higher angular acceleration calculation precision and can be applied to different platforms.

Finite Precision Logistic Map between Computational Efficiency and Accuracy with Encryption Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wafaa S. Sayed

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Chaotic systems appear in many applications such as pseudo-random number generation, text encryption, and secure image transfer. Numerical solutions of these systems using digital software or hardware inevitably deviate from the expected analytical solutions. Chaotic orbits produced using finite precision systems do not exhibit the infinite period expected under the assumptions of infinite simulation time and precision. In this paper, digital implementation of the generalized logistic map with signed parameter is considered. We present a fixed-point hardware realization of a Pseudo-Random Number Generator using the logistic map that experiences a trade-off between computational efficiency and accuracy. Several introduced factors such as the used precision, the order of execution of the operations, parameter, and initial point values affect the properties of the finite precision map. For positive and negative parameter cases, the studied properties include bifurcation points, output range, maximum Lyapunov exponent, and period length. The performance of the finite precision logistic map is compared in the two cases. A basic stream cipher system is realized to evaluate the system performance for encryption applications for different bus sizes regarding the encryption key size, hardware requirements, maximum clock frequency, NIST and correlation, histogram, entropy, and Mean Absolute Error analyses of encrypted images.

Capacity and precision in an animal model of visual short-term memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Lara, Antonio H; Wallis, Jonathan D

2012-03-14

Temporary storage of information in visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a key component of many complex cognitive abilities. However, it is highly limited in capacity. Understanding the neurophysiological nature of this capacity limit will require a valid animal model of VSTM. We used a multiple-item color change detection task to measure macaque monkeys' VSTM capacity. Subjects' performance deteriorated and reaction times increased as a function of the number of items in memory. Additionally, we measured the precision of the memory representations by varying the distance between sample and test colors. In trials with similar sample and test colors, subjects made more errors compared to trials with highly discriminable colors. We modeled the error distribution as a Gaussian function and used this to estimate the precision of VSTM representations. We found that as the number of items in memory increases the precision of the representations decreases dramatically. Additionally, we found that focusing attention on one of the objects increases the precision with which that object is stored and degrades the precision of the remaining. These results are in line with recent findings in human psychophysics and provide a solid foundation for understanding the neurophysiological nature of the capacity limit of VSTM.

Measurement Model and Precision Analysis of Accelerometers for Maglev Vibration Isolation Platforms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qianqian Wu

2015-08-01

Full Text Available High precision measurement of acceleration levels is required to allow active control for vibration isolation platforms. It is necessary to propose an accelerometer configuration measurement model that yields such a high measuring precision. In this paper, an accelerometer configuration to improve measurement accuracy is proposed. The corresponding calculation formulas of the angular acceleration were derived through theoretical analysis. A method is presented to minimize angular acceleration noise based on analysis of the root mean square noise of the angular acceleration. Moreover, the influence of installation position errors and accelerometer orientation errors on the calculation precision of the angular acceleration is studied. Comparisons of the output differences between the proposed configuration and the previous planar triangle configuration under the same installation errors are conducted by simulation. The simulation results show that installation errors have a relatively small impact on the calculation accuracy of the proposed configuration. To further verify the high calculation precision of the proposed configuration, experiments are carried out for both the proposed configuration and the planar triangle configuration. On the basis of the results of simulations and experiments, it can be concluded that the proposed configuration has higher angular acceleration calculation precision and can be applied to different platforms.

Precision muonium spectroscopy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jungmann, Klaus P.

2016-01-01

The muonium atom is the purely leptonic bound state of a positive muon and an electron. It has a lifetime of 2.2 µs. The absence of any known internal structure provides for precision experiments to test fundamental physics theories and to determine accurate values of fundamental constants. In particular ground state hyperfine structure transitions can be measured by microwave spectroscopy to deliver the muon magnetic moment. The frequency of the 1s–2s transition in the hydrogen-like atom can be determined with laser spectroscopy to obtain the muon mass. With such measurements fundamental physical interactions, in particular quantum electrodynamics, can also be tested at highest precision. The results are important input parameters for experiments on the muon magnetic anomaly. The simplicity of the atom enables further precise experiments, such as a search for muonium–antimuonium conversion for testing charged lepton number conservation and searches for possible antigravity of muons and dark matter. (author)

Precision linac and laser technologies for nuclear photonics gamma-ray sources

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Albert, F.; Hartemann, F. V.; Anderson, S. G.; Cross, R. R.; Gibson, D. J.; Hall, J.; Marsh, R. A.; Messerly, M.; Wu, S. S.; Siders, C. W.; Barty, C. P. J. [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NIF and Photon Science, 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, California 94550 (United States)

2012-05-15

Tunable, high precision gamma-ray sources are under development to enable nuclear photonics, an emerging field of research. This paper focuses on the technological and theoretical challenges related to precision Compton scattering gamma-ray sources. In this scheme, incident laser photons are scattered and Doppler upshifted by a high brightness electron beam to generate tunable and highly collimated gamma-ray pulses. The electron and laser beam parameters can be optimized to achieve the spectral brightness and narrow bandwidth required by nuclear photonics applications. A description of the design of the next generation precision gamma-ray source currently under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is presented, along with the underlying motivations. Within this context, high-gradient X-band technology, used in conjunction with fiber-based photocathode drive laser and diode pumped solid-state interaction laser technologies, will be shown to offer optimal performance for high gamma-ray spectral flux, narrow bandwidth applications.

Precision engineering: an evolutionary perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Chris J

2012-08-28

Precision engineering is a relatively new name for a technology with roots going back over a thousand years; those roots span astronomy, metrology, fundamental standards, manufacturing and money-making (literally). Throughout that history, precision engineers have created links across disparate disciplines to generate innovative responses to society's needs and wants. This review combines historical and technological perspectives to illuminate precision engineering's current character and directions. It first provides us a working definition of precision engineering and then reviews the subject's roots. Examples will be given showing the contributions of the technology to society, while simultaneously showing the creative tension between the technological convergence that spurs new directions and the vertical disintegration that optimizes manufacturing economics.

Application of precise MPD & pressure balance cementing technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yong Ma

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The precise managed pressure drilling (MPD technology is mainly used to deal with the difficulties encountered when oil and gas open hole sections with multiple pressure systems and the strata with narrow safety density window are drilled through. If its liner cementing is carried out according to the conventional method, lost circulation is inevitable in the process of cementing while the displacement efficiency of small-clearance liner cementing is satisfied. If the positive and inverse injection technology is adopted, the cementing quality cannot meet the requirements of later well test engineering of ultradeep wells. In this paper, the cementing operation of Ø114.3 mm liner in Well Longgang 70 which was drilled in the Jiange structure of the Sichuan Basin was taken as an example to explore the application of the cementing technology based on the precise MPD and pressure balancing method to the cementing of long open-hole sections (as long as 859 m with both high and low pressures running through multiple reservoirs. On the one hand, the technical measures were taken specifically to ensure the annulus filling efficiency of slurry and the pressure balance in the whole process of cementing. And on the other hand, the annulus pressure balance was precisely controlled by virtue of precise MPD devices and by injecting heavy weight drilling fluids through central pipes, and thus the wellbore pressure was kept steady in the whole process of cementing in the strata with narrow safety density window. It is indicated that Ø114.3 mm liner cementing in this well is good with qualified pressure tests and no channeling emerges at a funnel during the staged density reduction. It is concluded that this method can enhance the liner cementing quality of complex ultradeep gas wells and improve the wellbore conditions for the later safe well tests of high-pressure gas wells. Keywords: Ultradeep well, Liner cementing, Narrow safety density window, Precise

Toward precision medicine in Alzheimer's disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Reitz, Christiane

2016-03-01

In Western societies, Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and the sixth leading cause of death. In recent years, the concept of precision medicine, an approach for disease prevention and treatment that is personalized to an individual's specific pattern of genetic variability, environment and lifestyle factors, has emerged. While for some diseases, in particular select cancers and a few monogenetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis, significant advances in precision medicine have been made over the past years, for most other diseases precision medicine is only in its beginning. To advance the application of precision medicine to a wider spectrum of disorders, governments around the world are starting to launch Precision Medicine Initiatives, major efforts to generate the extensive scientific knowledge needed to integrate the model of precision medicine into every day clinical practice. In this article we summarize the state of precision medicine in AD, review major obstacles in its development, and discuss its benefits in this highly prevalent, clinically and pathologically complex disease.

FROM PERSONALIZED TO PRECISION MEDICINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. V. Raskina

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The need to maintain a high quality of life against a backdrop of its inevitably increasing duration is one of the main problems of modern health care. The concept of "right drug to the right patient at the right time", which at first was bearing the name "personalized", is currently unanimously approved by international scientific community as "precision medicine". Precision medicine takes all the individual characteristics into account: genes diversity, environment, lifestyles, and even bacterial microflora and also involves the use of the latest technological developments, which serves to ensure that each patient gets assistance fitting his state best. In the United States, Canada and France national precision medicine programs have already been submitted and implemented. The aim of this review is to describe the dynamic integration of precision medicine methods into routine medical practice and life of modern society. The new paradigm prospects description are complemented by figures, proving the already achieved success in the application of precise methods for example, the targeted therapy of cancer. All in all, the presence of real-life examples, proving the regularity of transition to a new paradigm, and a wide range  of technical and diagnostic capabilities available and constantly evolving make the all-round transition to precision medicine almost inevitable.

Constraints on the fourth-generation quark mixing matrix from precision flavour observables

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Menzel, Andreas

2016-01-01

achieved by combining the Electroweak Precision Observables and Higgs inputs with Flavour physics data. However, the exact effect of the Flavour physics input on the significance of the SM4's exclusion cannot be given at this point because the CKMfitter software is currently not able to perform a statistically stringent likelihood comparison of non-nested models.

Precision cosmology with weak gravitational lensing

Science.gov (United States)

Hearin, Andrew P.

In recent years, cosmological science has developed a highly predictive model for the universe on large scales that is in quantitative agreement with a wide range of astronomical observations. While the number and diversity of successes of this model provide great confidence that our general picture of cosmology is correct, numerous puzzles remain. In this dissertation, I analyze the potential of planned and near future galaxy surveys to provide new understanding of several unanswered questions in cosmology, and address some of the leading challenges to this observational program. In particular, I study an emerging technique called cosmic shear, the weak gravitational lensing produced by large scale structure. I focus on developing strategies to optimally use the cosmic shear signal observed in galaxy imaging surveys to uncover the physics of dark energy and the early universe. In chapter 1 I give an overview of a few unsolved mysteries in cosmology and I motivate weak lensing as a cosmological probe. I discuss the use of weak lensing as a test of general relativity in chapter 2 and assess the threat to such tests presented by our uncertainty in the physics of galaxy formation. Interpreting the cosmic shear signal requires knowledge of the redshift distribution of the lensed galaxies. This redshift distribution will be significantly uncertain since it must be determined photometrically. In chapter 3 I investigate the influence of photometric redshift errors on our ability to constrain dark energy models with weak lensing. The ability to study dark energy with cosmic shear is also limited by the imprecision in our understanding of the physics of gravitational collapse. In chapter 4 I present the stringent calibration requirements on this source of uncertainty. I study the potential of weak lensing to resolve a debate over a long-standing anomaly in CMB measurements in chapter 5. Finally, in chapter 6 I summarize my findings and conclude with a brief discussion of my

Use of genome editing tools in human stem cell-based disease modeling and precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Yu-da; Li, Shuang; Liu, Gai-gai; Zhang, Yong-xian; Ding, Qiu-rong

2015-10-01

Precision medicine emerges as a new approach that takes into account individual variability. The successful conduct of precision medicine requires the use of precise disease models. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), as well as adult stem cells, can be differentiated into a variety of human somatic cell types that can be used for research and drug screening. The development of genome editing technology over the past few years, especially the CRISPR/Cas system, has made it feasible to precisely and efficiently edit the genetic background. Therefore, disease modeling by using a combination of human stem cells and genome editing technology has offered a new platform to generate " personalized " disease models, which allow the study of the contribution of individual genetic variabilities to disease progression and the development of precise treatments. In this review, recent advances in the use of genome editing in human stem cells and the generation of stem cell models for rare diseases and cancers are discussed.

Design of a self-calibration high precision micro-angle deformation optical monitoring scheme

Science.gov (United States)

Gu, Yingying; Wang, Li; Guo, Shaogang; Wu, Yun; Liu, Da

2018-03-01

In order to meet the requirement of high precision and micro-angle measurement on orbit, a self-calibrated optical non-contact real-time monitoring device is designed. Within three meters, the micro-angle variable of target relative to measuring basis can be measured in real-time. The range of angle measurement is +/-50'', the angle measurement accuracy is less than 2''. The equipment can realize high precision real-time monitoring the micro-angle deformation, which caused by high strength vibration and shock of rock launching, sun radiation and heat conduction on orbit and so on.

High Precision Clock Bias Prediction Model in Clock Synchronization System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zan Liu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Time synchronization is a fundamental requirement for many services provided by a distributed system. Clock calibration through the time signal is the usual way to realize the synchronization among the clocks used in the distributed system. The interference to time signal transmission or equipment failures may bring about failure to synchronize the time. To solve this problem, a clock bias prediction module is paralleled in the clock calibration system. And for improving the precision of clock bias prediction, the first-order grey model with one variable (GM(1,1 model is proposed. In the traditional GM(1,1 model, the combination of parameters determined by least squares criterion is not optimal; therefore, the particle swarm optimization (PSO is used to optimize GM(1,1 model. At the same time, in order to avoid PSO getting stuck at local optimization and improve its efficiency, the mechanisms that double subgroups and nonlinear decreasing inertia weight are proposed. In order to test the precision of the improved model, we design clock calibration experiments, where time signal is transferred via radio and wired channel, respectively. The improved model is built on the basis of clock bias acquired in the experiments. The results show that the improved model is superior to other models both in precision and in stability. The precision of improved model increased by 66.4%~76.7%.

Accurate and emergent applications for high precision light small aerial remote sensing system

Science.gov (United States)

Pei, Liu; Yingcheng, Li; Yanli, Xue; Qingwu, Hu; Xiaofeng, Sun

2014-03-01

In this paper, we focus on the successful applications of accurate and emergent surveying and mapping for high precision light small aerial remote sensing system. First, the remote sensing system structure and three integrated operation modes will be introduced. It can be combined to three operation modes depending on the application requirements. Second, we describe the preliminary results of a precision validation method for POS direct orientation in 1:500 mapping. Third, it presents two fast response mapping products- regional continuous three-dimensional model and digital surface model, taking the efficiency and accuracy evaluation of the two products as an important point. The precision of both products meets the 1:2 000 topographic map accuracy specifications in Pingdingshan area. In the end, conclusions and future work are summarized.

Accurate and emergent applications for high precision light small aerial remote sensing system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pei, Liu; Yingcheng, Li; Yanli, Xue; Xiaofeng, Sun; Qingwu, Hu

2014-01-01

In this paper, we focus on the successful applications of accurate and emergent surveying and mapping for high precision light small aerial remote sensing system. First, the remote sensing system structure and three integrated operation modes will be introduced. It can be combined to three operation modes depending on the application requirements. Second, we describe the preliminary results of a precision validation method for POS direct orientation in 1:500 mapping. Third, it presents two fast response mapping products- regional continuous three-dimensional model and digital surface model, taking the efficiency and accuracy evaluation of the two products as an important point. The precision of both products meets the 1:2 000 topographic map accuracy specifications in Pingdingshan area. In the end, conclusions and future work are summarized

Development of sensor guided precision sprayers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenhuizen, A.T.; Zande, van de J.C.

2013-01-01

Sensor guided precision sprayers were developed to automate the spray process with a focus on emission reduction and identical or increased efficacy, with the precision agriculture concept in mind. Within the project “Innovations2” sensor guided precision sprayers were introduced to leek,

Precise measurement of cat patellofemoral joint surface geometry with multistation digital photogrammetry.

Science.gov (United States)

Ronsky, J L; Boyd, S K; Lichti, D D; Chapman, M A; Salkauskas, K

1999-04-01

Three-dimensional joint models are important tools for investigating mechanisms related to normal and pathological joints. Often these models necessitate accurate three-dimensional joint surface geometric data so that reliable model results can be obtained; however, in models based on small joints, this is often problematic due to limitations of the present techniques. These limitations include insufficient measurement precision the requirement of contact for the measurement process, and lack of entire joint description. This study presents a new non-contact method for precise determination of entire joint surfaces using multistation digital photogrammetry (MDPG) and is demonstrated by determining the cartilage and subchondral bone surfaces of the cat patellofemoral (PF) joint. The digital camera-lens setup was precisely calibrated using 16 photographs arranged to achieve highly convergent geometry to estimate interior and distortion parameters of the camera-lens setup. Subsequently, six photographs of each joint surface were then acquired for surface measurement. The digital images were directly imported to a computer and newly introduced semi-automatic computer algorithms were used to precisely determine the image coordinates. Finally, a rigorous mathematical procedure named the bundle adjustment was used to determine the three-dimensional coordinates of the joint surfaces and to estimate the precision of the coordinates. These estimations were validated by comparing the MDPG measurements of a cylinder and plane to an analytical model. The joint surfaces were successfully measured using the MDPG method with mean precision estimates in the least favorable coordinate direction being 10.3 microns for subchondral bone and 17.9 microns for cartilage. The difference in measurement precision for bone and cartilage primarily reflects differences in the translucent properties of the surfaces.

THE MIRA–TITAN UNIVERSE: PRECISION PREDICTIONS FOR DARK ENERGY SURVEYS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Heitmann, Katrin; Habib, Salman; Biswas, Rahul; Frontiere, Nicholas; Bhattacharya, Suman [HEP Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439 (United States); Bingham, Derek; Bergner, Steven [Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC (Canada); Lawrence, Earl [CCS-6, CCS Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States); Higdon, David [Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech, Arlington, VA 22203 (United States); Pope, Adrian; Finkel, Hal [ALCF Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL 60439 (United States)

2016-04-01

Large-scale simulations of cosmic structure formation play an important role in interpreting cosmological observations at high precision. The simulations must cover a parameter range beyond the standard six cosmological parameters and need to be run at high mass and force resolution. A key simulation-based task is the generation of accurate theoretical predictions for observables using a finite number of simulation runs, via the method of emulation. Using a new sampling technique, we explore an eight-dimensional parameter space including massive neutrinos and a variable equation of state of dark energy. We construct trial emulators using two surrogate models (the linear power spectrum and an approximate halo mass function). The new sampling method allows us to build precision emulators from just 26 cosmological models and to systematically increase the emulator accuracy by adding new sets of simulations in a prescribed way. Emulator fidelity can now be continuously improved as new observational data sets become available and higher accuracy is required. Finally, using one ΛCDM cosmology as an example, we study the demands imposed on a simulation campaign to achieve the required statistics and accuracy when building emulators for investigations of dark energy.

THE MIRA–TITAN UNIVERSE: PRECISION PREDICTIONS FOR DARK ENERGY SURVEYS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heitmann, Katrin; Habib, Salman; Biswas, Rahul; Frontiere, Nicholas; Bhattacharya, Suman; Bingham, Derek; Bergner, Steven; Lawrence, Earl; Higdon, David; Pope, Adrian; Finkel, Hal

2016-01-01

Large-scale simulations of cosmic structure formation play an important role in interpreting cosmological observations at high precision. The simulations must cover a parameter range beyond the standard six cosmological parameters and need to be run at high mass and force resolution. A key simulation-based task is the generation of accurate theoretical predictions for observables using a finite number of simulation runs, via the method of emulation. Using a new sampling technique, we explore an eight-dimensional parameter space including massive neutrinos and a variable equation of state of dark energy. We construct trial emulators using two surrogate models (the linear power spectrum and an approximate halo mass function). The new sampling method allows us to build precision emulators from just 26 cosmological models and to systematically increase the emulator accuracy by adding new sets of simulations in a prescribed way. Emulator fidelity can now be continuously improved as new observational data sets become available and higher accuracy is required. Finally, using one ΛCDM cosmology as an example, we study the demands imposed on a simulation campaign to achieve the required statistics and accuracy when building emulators for investigations of dark energy

Improved Visual Hook Capturing and Tracking for Precision Hoisting of Tower Crane

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yanming Li

2013-01-01

Full Text Available To maintain safe operation of the tower crane, it is important to monitor the activities of the hook system. Visual monitoring and image recognition are the optimum methods for crane hook tracking and precision hoisting. High real-time performance and low computation requirements are required for tower crane hook capturing and tracking system which is implemented on the embedded Advanced RISC Machines (ARM processor or Microcontrol Unit (MCU. Using the lift rope of a tower crane as the target object, a new high-performance hook tracking method suitble for ARM processor or MCU applications is presented. The features of the lifting process are analyzed, and an improved progressive probabilistic Hough transform (IPPHT algorithm is proposed which canreduce capturing time by up to 80%. Combining color histogram with a binary search algorithm, an adaptive zooming method for precise hoisting is presented. Using this method the optimum zoom scale can be achieved within a few iterations.

Progress in Precision Measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bernardis, P. de; Calvo, M.; Coppolecchia, A.; Cruciani, A.; Giordano, C.; Masi, S.; Nati, F.; Salatino, M.; Schillaci, A. [Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita La Sapienza, P.le A. Moro 2, 00185 Roma (Italy)

2011-08-15

High precision measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) represent one of the most difficult challenges in observational cosmology, but promise to unveil the mysteries of the very early Universe and of the birth of structures. Three observables are available. The small polarized CMB signal is probably carrying a signature of the early inflationary dynamics of the Universe. It is, however, embedded in overwhelming noise, systematic effects, and polarized foreground. The imprint of the large scale structure in the universe is present in the small-scale anisotropy of the CMB and in its spectral signatures (secondary anisotropy), again mixed with foreground contaminants. Low-level non-Gaussian components of CMB anisotropy and polarization also provide a very promising way to constrain inflation and the physics of ultra-high energies, if foregrounds can be efficiently separated from the measured signal. If measured with high precision, as required by the science issues above, the spectra of CMB anisotropy and polarization also constrain efficiently neutrino properties, hence their interest in this conference. Here we summarize the current status of CMB measurements, dominated by the Planck survey, and delineate the forthcoming activities, needed to exploit the huge scientific potential of precision measurements of the CMB, including the detection of neutrino masses.

Precision time distribution within a deep space communications complex

Science.gov (United States)

Curtright, J. B.

1972-01-01

The Precision Time Distribution System (PTDS) at the Golstone Deep Space Communications Complex is a practical application of existing technology to the solution of a local problem. The problem was to synchronize four station timing systems to a master source with a relative accuracy consistently and significantly better than 10 microseconds. The solution involved combining a precision timing source, an automatic error detection assembly and a microwave distribution network into an operational system. Upon activation of the completed PTDS two years ago, synchronization accuracy at Goldstone (two station relative) was improved by an order of magnitude. It is felt that the validation of the PTDS mechanization is now completed. Other facilities which have site dispersion and synchronization accuracy requirements similar to Goldstone may find the PTDS mechanization useful in solving their problem. At present, the two station relative synchronization accuracy at Goldstone is better than one microsecond.

Wet drift chambers for precise luminosity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anderson, B.E.; Kennedy, B.W.; Ahmet, K.; Attree, D.J.; Barraclough, G.A.; Cresswell, M.J.; Hayes, D.A.; Miller, D.J.; Selby, C.; Sherwood, P.

1994-01-01

A set of high-precision compact drift chambers has been a vital component of the OPAL luminosity monitor since the start of data-taking at LEP. They were augmented in 1992 by the addition of Small Angle Reference Chambers with a very similar design to the original chamber. The performance of the chambers is reviewed, highlighting both the importance of using polyalkylene glycol (Breox) to maintain a uniform and parallel electric field and the construction techniques used to sustain the required field strength. We describe some of the operating problems, with their solutions, and show how the chambers have been used in achieving a systematic error of 0.41% on the luminosity measurement. ((orig.))

A Dynamic Precision Evaluation Method for the Star Sensor in the Stellar-Inertial Navigation System.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Jiazhen; Lei, Chaohua; Yang, Yanqiang

2017-06-28

Integrating the advantages of INS (inertial navigation system) and the star sensor, the stellar-inertial navigation system has been used for a wide variety of applications. The star sensor is a high-precision attitude measurement instrument; therefore, determining how to validate its accuracy is critical in guaranteeing its practical precision. The dynamic precision evaluation of the star sensor is more difficult than a static precision evaluation because of dynamic reference values and other impacts. This paper proposes a dynamic precision verification method of star sensor with the aid of inertial navigation device to realize real-time attitude accuracy measurement. Based on the gold-standard reference generated by the star simulator, the altitude and azimuth angle errors of the star sensor are calculated for evaluation criteria. With the goal of diminishing the impacts of factors such as the sensors' drift and devices, the innovative aspect of this method is to employ static accuracy for comparison. If the dynamic results are as good as the static results, which have accuracy comparable to the single star sensor's precision, the practical precision of the star sensor is sufficiently high to meet the requirements of the system specification. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

What is precision medicine?

Science.gov (United States)

König, Inke R; Fuchs, Oliver; Hansen, Gesine; von Mutius, Erika; Kopp, Matthias V

2017-10-01

The term "precision medicine" has become very popular over recent years, fuelled by scientific as well as political perspectives. Despite its popularity, its exact meaning, and how it is different from other popular terms such as "stratified medicine", "targeted therapy" or "deep phenotyping" remains unclear. Commonly applied definitions focus on the stratification of patients, sometimes referred to as a novel taxonomy, and this is derived using large-scale data including clinical, lifestyle, genetic and further biomarker information, thus going beyond the classical "signs-and-symptoms" approach.While these aspects are relevant, this description leaves open a number of questions. For example, when does precision medicine begin? In which way does the stratification of patients translate into better healthcare? And can precision medicine be viewed as the end-point of a novel stratification of patients, as implied, or is it rather a greater whole?To clarify this, the aim of this paper is to provide a more comprehensive definition that focuses on precision medicine as a process. It will be shown that this proposed framework incorporates the derivation of novel taxonomies and their role in healthcare as part of the cycle, but also covers related terms. Copyright ©ERS 2017.

Inertially Stabilized Platforms for Precision Pointing Applications to Directed-Energy Weapons and Space-Based Lasers (Preprint)

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Negro, J; Griffin, S

2006-01-01

.... This article addresses directed-energy-weapon (DEW) precision pointing requirements and implementation alternatives in the context of strapdown and stable-platform inertial-reference technologies...

Molecular and functional analyses of a maize autoactive NB-LRR protein identify precise structural requirements for activity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guan-Feng Wang

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Plant disease resistance is often mediated by nucleotide binding-leucine rich repeat (NLR proteins which remain auto-inhibited until recognition of specific pathogen-derived molecules causes their activation, triggering a rapid, localized cell death called a hypersensitive response (HR. Three domains are recognized in one of the major classes of NLR proteins: a coiled-coil (CC, a nucleotide binding (NB-ARC and a leucine rich repeat (LRR domains. The maize NLR gene Rp1-D21 derives from an intergenic recombination event between two NLR genes, Rp1-D and Rp1-dp2 and confers an autoactive HR. We report systematic structural and functional analyses of Rp1 proteins in maize and N. benthamiana to characterize the molecular mechanism of NLR activation/auto-inhibition. We derive a model comprising the following three main features: Rp1 proteins appear to self-associate to become competent for activity. The CC domain is signaling-competent and is sufficient to induce HR. This can be suppressed by the NB-ARC domain through direct interaction. In autoactive proteins, the interaction of the LRR domain with the NB-ARC domain causes de-repression and thus disrupts the inhibition of HR. Further, we identify specific amino acids and combinations thereof that are important for the auto-inhibition/activity of Rp1 proteins. We also provide evidence for the function of MHD2, a previously uncharacterized, though widely conserved NLR motif. This work reports several novel insights into the precise structural requirement for NLR function and informs efforts towards utilizing these proteins for engineering disease resistance.

Molecular and functional analyses of a maize autoactive NB-LRR protein identify precise structural requirements for activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Guan-Feng; Ji, Jiabing; El-Kasmi, Farid; Dangl, Jeffery L; Johal, Guri; Balint-Kurti, Peter J

2015-02-01

Plant disease resistance is often mediated by nucleotide binding-leucine rich repeat (NLR) proteins which remain auto-inhibited until recognition of specific pathogen-derived molecules causes their activation, triggering a rapid, localized cell death called a hypersensitive response (HR). Three domains are recognized in one of the major classes of NLR proteins: a coiled-coil (CC), a nucleotide binding (NB-ARC) and a leucine rich repeat (LRR) domains. The maize NLR gene Rp1-D21 derives from an intergenic recombination event between two NLR genes, Rp1-D and Rp1-dp2 and confers an autoactive HR. We report systematic structural and functional analyses of Rp1 proteins in maize and N. benthamiana to characterize the molecular mechanism of NLR activation/auto-inhibition. We derive a model comprising the following three main features: Rp1 proteins appear to self-associate to become competent for activity. The CC domain is signaling-competent and is sufficient to induce HR. This can be suppressed by the NB-ARC domain through direct interaction. In autoactive proteins, the interaction of the LRR domain with the NB-ARC domain causes de-repression and thus disrupts the inhibition of HR. Further, we identify specific amino acids and combinations thereof that are important for the auto-inhibition/activity of Rp1 proteins. We also provide evidence for the function of MHD2, a previously uncharacterized, though widely conserved NLR motif. This work reports several novel insights into the precise structural requirement for NLR function and informs efforts towards utilizing these proteins for engineering disease resistance.

Precision Medicine in Cancer Treatment

Science.gov (United States)

Precision medicine helps doctors select cancer treatments that are most likely to help patients based on a genetic understanding of their disease. Learn about the promise of precision medicine and the role it plays in cancer treatment.

High precision innovative micropump for artificial pancreas

Science.gov (United States)

Chappel, E.; Mefti, S.; Lettieri, G.-L.; Proennecke, S.; Conan, C.

2014-03-01

The concept of artificial pancreas, which comprises an insulin pump, a continuous glucose meter and a control algorithm, is a major step forward in managing patient with type 1 diabetes mellitus. The stability of the control algorithm is based on short-term precision micropump to deliver rapid-acting insulin and to specific integrated sensors able to monitor any failure leading to a loss of accuracy. Debiotech's MEMS micropump, based on the membrane pump principle, is made of a stack of 3 silicon wafers. The pumping chamber comprises a pillar check-valve at the inlet, a pumping membrane which is actuated against stop limiters by a piezo cantilever, an anti-free-flow outlet valve and a pressure sensor. The micropump inlet is tightly connected to the insulin reservoir while the outlet is in direct communication with the patient skin via a cannula. To meet the requirement of a pump dedicated to closed-loop application for diabetes care, in addition to the well-controlled displacement of the pumping membrane, the high precision of the micropump is based on specific actuation profiles that balance effect of pump elasticity in low-consumption push-pull mode.

Precision Medicine in Gastrointestinal Pathology.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, David H; Park, Jason Y

2016-05-01

-Precision medicine is the promise of individualized therapy and management of patients based on their personal biology. There are now multiple global initiatives to perform whole-genome sequencing on millions of individuals. In the United States, an early program was the Million Veteran Program, and a more recent proposal in 2015 by the president of the United States is the Precision Medicine Initiative. To implement precision medicine in routine oncology care, genetic variants present in tumors need to be matched with effective clinical therapeutics. When we focus on the current state of precision medicine for gastrointestinal malignancies, it becomes apparent that there is a mixed history of success and failure. -To present the current state of precision medicine using gastrointestinal oncology as a model. We will present currently available targeted therapeutics, promising new findings in clinical genomic oncology, remaining quality issues in genomic testing, and emerging oncology clinical trial designs. -Review of the literature including clinical genomic studies on gastrointestinal malignancies, clinical oncology trials on therapeutics targeted to molecular alterations, and emerging clinical oncology study designs. -Translating our ability to sequence thousands of genes into meaningful improvements in patient survival will be the challenge for the next decade.

Becoming partners, retaining autonomy: ethical considerations on the development of precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Blasimme, Alessandro; Vayena, Effy

2016-11-04

Precision medicine promises to develop diagnoses and treatments that take individual variability into account. According to most specialists, turning this promise into reality will require adapting the established framework of clinical research ethics, and paying more attention to participants' attitudes towards sharing genotypic, phenotypic, lifestyle data and health records, and ultimately to their desire to be engaged as active partners in medical research.Notions such as participation, engagement and partnership have been introduced in bioethics debates concerning genetics and large-scale biobanking to broaden the focus of discussion beyond individual choice and individuals' moral interests. The uptake of those concepts in precision medicine is to be welcomed. However, as data and medical information from research participants in precision medicine cohorts will be collected on an individual basis, translating a participatory approach in this emerging area may prove cumbersome. Therefore, drawing on Joseph Raz's perfectionism, we propose a principle of respect for autonomous agents that, we reckon, can address many of the concerns driving recent scholarship on partnership and public participation, while avoiding some of the limitations these concept have in the context of precision medicine. Our approach offers a normative clarification to how becoming partners in precision is compatible with retaining autonomy.Realigning the value of autonomy with ideals of direct engagement, we show, can provide adequate normative orientation to precision medicine; it can do justice to the idea of moral pluralism by stressing the value of moral self-determination: and, finally, it can reconcile the notion of autonomy with other more communitarian values such as participation and solidarity.

[Progress in precision medicine: a scientific perspective].

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, B; Li, L M

2017-01-10

Precision medicine is a new strategy for disease prevention and treatment by taking into account differences in genetics, environment and lifestyles among individuals and making precise diseases classification and diagnosis, which can provide patients with personalized, targeted prevention and treatment. Large-scale population cohort studies are fundamental for precision medicine research, and could produce best evidence for precision medicine practices. Current criticisms on precision medicine mainly focus on the very small proportion of benefited patients, the neglect of social determinants for health, and the possible waste of limited medical resources. In spite of this, precision medicine is still a most hopeful research area, and would become a health care practice model in the future.

Precision of coherence analysis to detect cerebral autoregulation by near-infrared spectroscopy in preterm infants

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hahn, GH; Christensen, KB; Leung, TS

2010-01-01

Coherence between spontaneous fluctuations in arterial blood pressure (ABP) and the cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy signal can detect cerebral autoregulation. Because reliable measurement depends on signals with high signal-to-noise ratio, we hypothesized that coherence is more precisely...... determined when fluctuations in ABP are large rather than small. Therefore, we investigated whether adjusting for variability in ABP (variabilityABP) improves precision. We examined the impact of variabilityABP within the power spectrum in each measurement and between repeated measurements in preterm infants....... We also examined total monitoring time required to discriminate among infants with a simulation study. We studied 22 preterm infants (GAABP within the power spectrum did not improve the precision. However, adjusting...

Precision crystal alignment for high-resolution electron microscope imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wood, G.J.; Beeching, M.J.

1990-01-01

One of the more difficult tasks involved in obtaining quality high-resolution electron micrographs is the precise alignment of a specimen into the required zone. The current accepted procedure, which involves changing to diffraction mode and searching for symmetric point diffraction pattern, is insensitive to small amounts of misalignment and at best qualitative. On-line analysis of the fourier space representation of the image, both for determining and correcting crystal tilt, is investigated. 8 refs., 42 figs

Modeling and control of precision actuators

CERN Document Server

Kiong, Tan Kok

2013-01-01

IntroductionGrowing Interest in Precise ActuatorsTypes of Precise ActuatorsApplications of Precise ActuatorsNonlinear Dynamics and ModelingHysteresisCreepFrictionForce RipplesIdentification and Compensation of Preisach Hysteresis in Piezoelectric ActuatorsSVD-Based Identification and Compensation of Preisach HysteresisHigh-Bandwidth Identification and Compensation of Hysteretic Dynamics in Piezoelectric ActuatorsConcluding RemarksIdentification and Compensation of Frict

IMPACT OF ENERGY GROUP STRUCTURE ON NUCLEAR DATA TARGET ACCURACY REQUIREMENTS FOR ADVANCED REACTOR SYSTEMS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

G. Palmiotti; M. Salvatores; H. Hiruta

2011-06-01

A target accuracy assessment study using both a fine and a broad energy structure has shown that less stringent nuclear data accuracy requirements are needed for the latter energy structure. However, even though a reduction is observed, still the requirements will be very difficult to be met unless integral experiments are also used to reduce nuclear data uncertainties. Target accuracy assessment is the inverse problem of the uncertainty evaluation. To establish priorities and target accuracies on data uncertainty reduction, a formal approach can be adopted by defining target accuracy on design parameters and finding out required accuracy on data in order to meet them. In fact, the unknown uncertainty data requirements can be obtained by solving a minimization problem where the sensitivity coefficients in conjunction with the constraints on the integral parameters provide the needed quantities for finding the solutions.

PRECISE:PRivacy-prEserving Cloud-assisted quality Improvement Service in hEalthcare.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Feng; Wang, Shuang; Mohammed, Noman; Cheng, Samuel; Jiang, Xiaoqian

2014-10-01

Quality improvement (QI) requires systematic and continuous efforts to enhance healthcare services. A healthcare provider might wish to compare local statistics with those from other institutions in order to identify problems and develop intervention to improve the quality of care. However, the sharing of institution information may be deterred by institutional privacy as publicizing such statistics could lead to embarrassment and even financial damage. In this article, we propose a PRivacy-prEserving Cloud-assisted quality Improvement Service in hEalthcare (PRECISE), which aims at enabling cross-institution comparison of healthcare statistics while protecting privacy. The proposed framework relies on a set of state-of-the-art cryptographic protocols including homomorphic encryption and Yao's garbled circuit schemes. By securely pooling data from different institutions, PRECISE can rank the encrypted statistics to facilitate QI among participating institutes. We conducted experiments using MIMIC II database and demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed PRECISE framework.

Towards an Open Software Platform for Field Robots in Precision Agriculture

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Kjeld; Larsen, Morten; Nielsen, Søren H

2014-01-01

Robotics in precision agriculture has the potential to improve competitiveness and increase sustainability compared to current crop production methods and has become an increasingly active area of research. Tractor guidance systems for supervised navigation and implement control have reached...... the market, and prototypes of field robots performing precision agriculture tasks without human intervention also exist. But research in advanced cognitive perception and behaviour that is required to enable a more efficient, reliable and safe autonomy becomes increasingly demanding due to the growing...... software complexity. A lack of collaboration between research groups contributes to the problem. Scientific publications describe methods and results from the work, but little field robot software is released and documented for others to use. We hypothesize that a common open software platform tailored...

Enhancement of precision and reduction of measuring points in tomographic reconstructions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lustfeld, H.; Hirschfeld, J.A.; Reissel, M.; Steffen, B.

2011-01-01

Accurate external measurements are required in tomographic problems to obtain a reasonable knowledge of the internal structures. Crucial is the distribution of the external measuring points. We suggest a procedure how to systematically optimize this distribution viz. to increase the precision (i.e. to shrink error bars) of the reconstruction by detecting the important and by eliminating the irrelevant measuring points. In a realistic numerical example we apply our scheme to magnetotomography of fuel cells. The result is striking: Starting from a smooth distribution of measuring points on a surface of a cuboid around the fuel cell, the number of measuring points can systematically be reduced by more than 90%. At the same time the precision increases by a factor of nearly 3.

Python Leap Second Management and Implementation of Precise Barycentric Correction (barycorrpy)

Science.gov (United States)

Kanodia, Shubham; Wright, Jason

2018-01-01

We announce barycorrpy (BCPy) , a Python implementation to calculate precise barycentric corrections well below the 1 cm/s level, following the algorithm of Wright and Eastman (2014). This level of precision is required in the search for 1 Earth mass planets in the Habitable Zones of Sun-like stars by the Radial Velocity (RV) method, where the maximum semi-amplitude is about 9 cm/s. We have developed BCPy to be used in the pipeline for the next generation Doppler Spectrometers - Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF) and NEID. In this work, we also develop an automated leap second management routine to improve upon the one available in Astropy. It checks for and downloads a new leap second file before converting from the UT time scale to TDB.

Design optimisation of the ATLAS Barrel Toroid structure - the warm structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Daeel, A.; Desvard, J-P.; Pabot, Y.; Sun, Z.; Hille, H. van; Vedrine, P.

2001-01-01

The magnetic bending of muon tracks for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer is provided by the large air-core toroid magnets. The Barrel Toroid structure, named the warm structure, is an open structure inside which the muon chambers are installed. The physics performance of the muon spectrometer imposes stringent requirements on the design of the warm structure. It should support the muon chambers with required precision and stability, the deformation of the structure must be minimised. At the same time, the quantities of the materials used in the structure must also be minimised. Through extensive structural analyses, the design optimisation has been achieved to fit with the physics requirements. This paper gives an overview on the design considerations of the warm structure

Precision engineering center. 1988 Annual report, Volume VI

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dow, T. [ed.; Fornaro, R.; Keltie, R.; Paesler, M. [and others

1988-12-01

To reverse the downward trend in the balance of trade, American companies must concentrate on increasing research into new products, boosting productivity, and improving manufacturing processes. The Precision Engineering Center at North Carolina State University is a multidisciplinary research and graduate education program dedicated to providing the new technology necessary to respond to this challenge. One extremely demanding manufacturing area is the fabrication and assembly of optical systems. These systems are at the heart of such consumer products as cameras, lenses, copy machines, laser bar-code scanners, VCRs, and compact audio discs - products that the Japanese and other East Asian countries are building dominance. A second critical area is the fabrication of VLSI and ULSI circuits. The tolerances required to produce the next generation of components for such systems have created the need for new approaches - approaches that could either make or break America`s competitive position. This report contains individual reports on research projects grouped into three broad areas: measurement and actuation; real-time control; precision fabrication. Separate abstracts for these articles have been indexed into the energy database.

Computer-controlled detection system for high-precision isotope ratio measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McCord, B.R.; Taylor, J.W.

1986-01-01

In this paper the authors describe a detection system for high-precision isotope ratio measurements. In this new system, the requirement for a ratioing digital voltmeter has been eliminated, and a standard digital voltmeter interfaced to a computer is employed. Instead of measuring the ratio of the two steadily increasing output voltages simultaneously, the digital voltmeter alternately samples the outputs at a precise rate over a certain period of time. The data are sent to the computer which calculates the rate of charge of each amplifier and divides the two rates to obtain the isotopic ratio. These results simulate a coincident measurement of the output of both integrators. The charge rate is calculated by using a linear regression method, and the standard error of the slope gives a measure of the stability of the system at the time the measurement was taken

LHC Power Converters: A Precision Game

CERN Multimedia

2001-01-01

The LHC test-bed, String 2, is close to commissioning and one important element to get a first chance to prove what it can do is the power converter system. In String 2 there are 16 converters, in the full LHC there will be almost 1800. This article takes a look at what is so special about the power converters for the LHC. The 13 000 Amps power converters with the watercooled cables going to the String 2 feedboxes. The LHC's superconducting magnets will be the pinnacle of high technology. But to work, they'll need the help of high-precision power converters to supply them with extremely stable DC current. Perfection will be the name of the game, with an accuracy of just 1-2 parts per million (ppm) required. LEP, for the sake of comparison, could live with 10-20 ppm. The LHC's power converters will be very different from those of LEP or the SPS since the new accelerator's magnets are mostly superconducting. That means that they require much higher currents at a lower voltage since superconductors have no re...

Nanomaterials for Cancer Precision Medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yilong; Sun, Shuyang; Zhang, Zhiyuan; Shi, Donglu

2018-04-01

Medical science has recently advanced to the point where diagnosis and therapeutics can be carried out with high precision, even at the molecular level. A new field of "precision medicine" has consequently emerged with specific clinical implications and challenges that can be well-addressed by newly developed nanomaterials. Here, a nanoscience approach to precision medicine is provided, with a focus on cancer therapy, based on a new concept of "molecularly-defined cancers." "Next-generation sequencing" is introduced to identify the oncogene that is responsible for a class of cancers. This new approach is fundamentally different from all conventional cancer therapies that rely on diagnosis of the anatomic origins where the tumors are found. To treat cancers at molecular level, a recently developed "microRNA replacement therapy" is applied, utilizing nanocarriers, in order to regulate the driver oncogene, which is the core of cancer precision therapeutics. Furthermore, the outcome of the nanomediated oncogenic regulation has to be accurately assessed by the genetically characterized, patient-derived xenograft models. Cancer therapy in this fashion is a quintessential example of precision medicine, presenting many challenges to the materials communities with new issues in structural design, surface functionalization, gene/drug storage and delivery, cell targeting, and medical imaging. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Impacts of the precision agricultural technologies in Iran: An analysis experts' perception & their determinants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Somayeh Tohidyan Far

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Nowadays agricultural methods developments that are productively, economically, environmentally and socially sustainable are required immediately. The concept of precision agriculture is becoming an attractive idea for managing natural resources and realizing modern sustainable agricultural development. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing impacts of precision agriculture from the viewpoints of Boushehr Province experts. The research method was a cross sectional survey and multi-stage random sampling was used to collect data from 115 experts in Boushehr province. According to the results, experts found underground and surface waters conservation, rural areas development, increase of productivity and increasing income as the most important impacts of precision agricultural technologies. Experts’ attitudes indicate their positive view toward these kinds of impacts. Also behavioral attitude has the most effect on impacts.

Generation of spectral–temporal response surfaces by combining multispectral satellite and hyperspectral UAV imagery for precision agriculture applications

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gevaert, C.; Suomalainen, J.M.; Tang, J.; Kooistra, L.

2015-01-01

Precision agriculture requires detailed crop status information at high spatial and temporal resolutions. Remote sensing can provide such information, but single sensor observations are often incapable of meeting all data requirements. Spectral–temporal response surfaces (STRSs) provide continuous

An aberrant precision account of autism.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebecca P Lawson

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by problems with social-communication, restricted interests and repetitive behaviour. A recent and controversial article presented a compelling normative explanation for the perceptual symptoms of autism in terms of a failure of Bayesian inference (Pellicano and Burr, 2012. In response, we suggested that when Bayesian interference is grounded in its neural instantiation – namely, predictive coding – many features of autistic perception can be attributed to aberrant precision (or beliefs about precision within the context of hierarchical message passing in the brain (Friston et al., 2013. Here, we unpack the aberrant precision account of autism. Specifically, we consider how empirical findings – that speak directly or indirectly to neurobiological mechanisms – are consistent with the aberrant encoding of precision in autism; in particular, an imbalance of the precision ascribed to sensory evidence relative to prior beliefs.

NCI and the Precision Medicine Initiative®

Science.gov (United States)

NCI's activities related to precision medicine focuses on new and expanded precision medicine clinical trials; mechanisms to overcome drug resistance to cancer treatments; and developing a shared digital repository of precision medicine trials data.

High-precision MoSi multilayer coatings for radial and 2D designs on curved optics

Science.gov (United States)

Kriese, Michael D.; Li, Yang; Platonov, Yuriy Y.

2017-10-01

The development of industrial infrastructure for EUV lithography requires a wide array of optics beyond the mask and the scanner optics, which include optics for critical instruments such as exposure testing and actinic inspection. This paper will detail recent results in the production of a variety of high-precision multilayer coatings achieved to support this development. It is critical that the optical designs factor in the capabilities of the achievable multilayer gradients and the associated achievable precision, including impact to surface distortion from the added figure error of the multilayer coating, which adds additional requirements of a specific shape to the period distribution. For example, two different coatings may achieve a ±0.2% variation in multilayer period, but have considerably different added figure error. Part I of the paper will focus on radially-symmetric spherical and aspherical optics. Typical azimuthal uniformity (variation at a fixed radius) achieved is less than ±0.005nm total variation, including measurement precision, on concave optics up to 200mm diameter. For highly curved convex optics (radius of curvature less than 50mm), precision is more challenging and the total variation increases to ±0.01nm total variation for optics 10-30mm in diameter. Total added figure error achieved has been as low as 0.05nm. Part II of the paper will focus on multilayer designs graded in two directions, rather than radially, in order to accommodate the increased complexity of elliptical, toroidal and hyperbolic surfaces. In most cases, the symmetry of the required multilayer gradient does not match the symmetry of the optical surface, and this interaction must be countered via the process design. Achieving such results requires additional flexibility in the design of the deposition equipment, and will be discussed with several examples in the paper, such as the use of variable velocity of an inline substrate carrier in conjunction with a shaped

Budget impact and cost-effectiveness: can we afford precision medicine in oncology?

Science.gov (United States)

Doble, Brett

2016-01-01

Over the past decade there have been remarkable advancements in the understanding of the molecular underpinnings of malignancy. Methods of testing capable of elucidating patients' molecular profiles are now readily available and there is an increased desire to incorporate the information derived from such tests into treatment selection for cancer patients. This has led to more appropriate application of existing treatments as well as the development of a number of innovative and highly effective treatments or what is known collectively as precision medicine. The impact that precision medicine will have on health outcomes is uncertain, as are the costs it will incur. There is, therefore, a need to develop economic evidence and appropriate methods of evaluation to support its implementation to ensure the resources allocated to these approaches are affordable and offer value for money. The market for precision medicine in oncology continues to rapidly expand, placing an increased pressure on reimbursement decision-makers to consider the value and opportunity cost of funding such approaches to care. The benefits of molecular testing can be complex and difficult to evaluate given currently available economic methods, potentially causing a distorted appreciation of their value. Funding decisions of precision medicine will also have far-reaching implications, requiring the consideration of both patient and public perspectives in decision-making. Recommendations to improve the value proposition of precision medicine are, therefore, provided with the hopes of facilitating a better understanding of its impact on outcomes and the overall health budget.

Study of the LHCb Muon Detector performance using 2010 beam data

CERN Document Server

Graziani, Giacomo; Satta, Alessia

2011-01-01

The LHCb muon detector is used online in level-0 (L0) and high-level (HLT) triggers and for the offline muon identification. All these applications require a very high efficiency in the very short LHC time gate. The most stringent requirement is dictated by the L0 trigger, which, in order to effectively reduce the background, asks the muon system to give a signal in all the five stations. To efficiently satisfy such requirement the muon chambers were designed to have a detection efficiency larger than 99% within the 25 ns LHC gate. Cosmic data and collision data acquired in 2009 were used for the first calibrations with physics signals and the first evaluation of performance, but the precisions was limited by statistical and systematic uncertaintites. The large p-p collisions data sample made available by the 2010 LHC run allowed for improving these results, and in particular for a precise determination of the chamber efficiency. In this note, after summarizing the main features of detector operations during ...

New methods for precision Moeller polarimetry*

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gaskell, D.; Meekins, D.G.; Yan, C.

2007-01-01

Precision electron beam polarimetry is becoming increasingly important as parity violation experiments attempt to probe the frontiers of the standard model. In the few GeV regime, Moeller polarimetry is well suited to high-precision measurements, however is generally limited to use at relatively low beam currents (<10 μA). We present a novel technique that will enable precision Moeller polarimetry at very large currents, up to 100 μA. (orig.)

Precise numerical results for limit cycles in the quantum three-body problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mohr, R.F.; Furnstahl, R.J.; Hammer, H.-W.; Perry, R.J.; Wilson, K.G.

2006-01-01

The study of the three-body problem with short-range attractive two-body forces has a rich history going back to the 1930s. Recent applications of effective field theory methods to atomic and nuclear physics have produced a much improved understanding of this problem, and we elucidate some of the issues using renormalization group ideas applied to precise nonperturbative calculations. These calculations provide 11-12 digits of precision for the binding energies in the infinite cutoff limit. The method starts with this limit as an approximation to an effective theory and allows cutoff dependence to be systematically computed as an expansion in powers of inverse cutoffs and logarithms of the cutoff. Renormalization of three-body bound states requires a short range three-body interaction, with a coupling that is governed by a precisely mapped limit cycle of the renormalization group. Additional three-body irrelevant interactions must be determined to control subleading dependence on the cutoff and this control is essential for an effective field theory since the continuum limit is not likely to match physical systems (e.g., few-nucleon bound and scattering states at low energy). Leading order calculations precise to 11-12 digits allow clear identification of subleading corrections, but these corrections have not been computed

Readout for intersatellite laser interferometry: Measuring low frequency phase fluctuations of high-frequency signals with microradian precision

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gerberding, Oliver; Diekmann, Christian; Kullmann, Joachim

2015-01-01

Precision phase readout of optical beat note signals is one of the core techniques required for inter-satellite laser interferometry. Future space based gravitational wave detectors like eLISA require such a readout over a wide range of MHz frequencies, due to orbit induced Doppler shifts...

Numerical precision control and GRACE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fujimoto, J.; Hamaguchi, N.; Ishikawa, T.; Kaneko, T.; Morita, H.; Perret-Gallix, D.; Tokura, A.; Shimizu, Y.

2006-01-01

The control of the numerical precision of large-scale computations like those generated by the GRACE system for automatic Feynman diagram calculations has become an intrinsic part of those packages. Recently, Hitachi Ltd. has developed in FORTRAN a new library HMLIB for quadruple and octuple precision arithmetic where the number of lost-bits is made available. This library has been tested with success on the 1-loop radiative correction to e + e - ->e + e - τ + τ - . It is shown that the approach followed by HMLIB provides an efficient way to track down the source of numerical significance losses and to deliver high-precision results yet minimizing computing time

Technology Requirements For a Square-Meter, Arcsecond-Resolution Telescope for X-Rays: The SMART-X Mission

Science.gov (United States)

Schwartz, Daniel A.; Allured, Ryan; Bookbinder, Jay; Cotroneo, Vincenzo; Forman, William; Freeman, Mark; McMuldroch, Stuart; Reid, Paul; Tananbaum, Harvey; Vikhlinin, Alexey;

Improving Precision and Reducing Runtime of Microscopic Traffic Simulators through Stratified Sampling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khewal Bhupendra Kesur

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the application of Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS and Antithetic Variables (AVs to reduce the variance of estimated performance measures from microscopic traffic simulators. LHS and AV allow for a more representative coverage of input probability distributions through stratification, reducing the standard error of simulation outputs. Two methods of implementation are examined, one where stratification is applied to headways and routing decisions of individual vehicles and another where vehicle counts and entry times are more evenly sampled. The proposed methods have wider applicability in general queuing systems. LHS is found to outperform AV, and reductions of up to 71% in the standard error of estimates of traffic network performance relative to independent sampling are obtained. LHS allows for a reduction in the execution time of computationally expensive microscopic traffic simulators as fewer simulations are required to achieve a fixed level of precision with reductions of up to 84% in computing time noted on the test cases considered. The benefits of LHS are amplified for more congested networks and as the required level of precision increases.

DNA requirements for interaction of the C-terminal region of Ku80 with the DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs).

Science.gov (United States)

Radhakrishnan, Sarvan Kumar; Lees-Miller, Susan P

2017-09-01

Non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) is the major pathway for the repair of ionizing radiation induced DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) in human cells. Critical to NHEJ is the DNA-dependent interaction of the Ku70/80 heterodimer with the DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs) to form the DNA-PK holoenzyme. However, precisely how Ku recruits DNA-PKcs to DSBs ends to enhance its kinase activity has remained enigmatic, with contradictory findings reported in the literature. Here we address the role of the Ku80 C-terminal region (CTR) in the DNA-dependent interaction of Ku70/80 with DNA-PKcs using purified components and defined DNA structures. Our results show that the Ku80 CTR is required for interaction with DNA-PKcs on short segments of blunt ended 25bp dsDNA or 25bp dsDNA with a 15-base poly dA single stranded (ss) DNA extension, but this requirement is less stringent on longer dsDNA molecules (35bp blunt ended dsDNA) or 25bp duplex DNA with either a 15-base poly dT or poly dC ssDNA extension. Moreover, the DNA-PKcs-Ku complex preferentially forms on 25 bp DNA with a poly-pyrimidine ssDNA extension.Our work clarifies the role of the Ku80 CTR and dsDNA ends on the interaction of DNA-PKcs with Ku and provides key information to guide assembly and biology of NHEJ complexes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Precision oncology: origins, optimism, and potential.

Science.gov (United States)

Prasad, Vinay; Fojo, Tito; Brada, Michael

2016-02-01

Imatinib, the first and arguably the best targeted therapy, became the springboard for developing drugs aimed at molecular targets deemed crucial to tumours. As this development unfolded, a revolution in the speed and cost of genetic sequencing occurred. The result--an armamentarium of drugs and an array of molecular targets--set the stage for precision oncology, a hypothesis that cancer treatment could be markedly improved if therapies were guided by a tumour's genomic alterations. Drawing lessons from the biological basis of cancer and recent empirical investigations, we take a more measured view of precision oncology's promise. Ultimately, the promise is not our concern, but the threshold at which we declare success. We review reports of precision oncology alongside those of precision diagnostics and novel radiotherapy approaches. Although confirmatory evidence is scarce, these interventions have been widely endorsed. We conclude that the current path will probably not be successful or, at a minimum, will have to undergo substantive adjustments before it can be successful. For the sake of patients with cancer, we hope one form of precision oncology will deliver on its promise. However, until confirmatory studies are completed, precision oncology remains unproven, and as such, a hypothesis in need of rigorous testing. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Advances in the Control System for a High Precision Dissolved Organic Carbon Analyzer

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, M.; Stubbins, A.; Haidekker, M.

2017-12-01

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a master variable in aquatic ecosystems. DOC in the ocean is one of the largest carbon stores on earth. Studies of the dynamics of DOC in the ocean and other low DOC systems (e.g. groundwater) are hindered by the lack of high precision (sub-micromolar) analytical techniques. Results are presented from efforts to construct and optimize a flow-through, wet chemical DOC analyzer. This study focused on the design, integration and optimization of high precision components and control systems required for such a system (mass flow controller, syringe pumps, gas extraction, reactor chamber with controlled UV and temperature). Results of the approaches developed are presented.

Machine vision for high-precision volume measurement applied to levitated containerless material processing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bradshaw, R.C.; Schmidt, D.P.; Rogers, J.R.; Kelton, K.F.; Hyers, R.W.

2005-01-01

By combining the best practices in optical dilatometry with numerical methods, a high-speed and high-precision technique has been developed to measure the volume of levitated, containerlessly processed samples with subpixel resolution. Containerless processing provides the ability to study highly reactive materials without the possibility of contamination affecting thermophysical properties. Levitation is a common technique used to isolate a sample as it is being processed. Noncontact optical measurement of thermophysical properties is very important as traditional measuring methods cannot be used. Modern, digitally recorded images require advanced numerical routines to recover the subpixel locations of sample edges and, in turn, produce high-precision measurements

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in precision medicine: Unraveling the factors that contribute to individual variability.

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, John D; Cherrington, Nathan J

2015-07-01

There are numerous factors in individual variability that make the development and implementation of precision medicine a challenge in the clinic. One of the main goals of precision medicine is to identify the correct dose for each individual in order to maximize therapeutic effect and minimize the occurrence of adverse drug reactions. Many promising advances have been made in identifying and understanding how factors such as genetic polymorphisms can influence drug pharmacokinetics (PK) and contribute to variable drug response (VDR), but it is clear that there remain many unidentified variables. Underlying liver diseases such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) alter absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) processes and must be considered in the implementation of precision medicine. There is still a profound need for clinical investigation into how NASH-associated changes in ADME mediators, such as metabolism enzymes and transporters, affect the pharmacokinetics of individual drugs known to rely on these pathways for elimination. This review summarizes the key PK factors in individual variability and VDR and highlights NASH as an essential underlying factor that must be considered as the development of precision medicine advances. A multifactorial approach to precision medicine that considers the combination of two or more risk factors (e.g. genetics and NASH) will be required in our effort to provide a new era of benefit for patients. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Robustness of spiking Deep Belief Networks to noise and reduced bit precision of neuro-inspired hardware platforms.

Science.gov (United States)

Stromatias, Evangelos; Neil, Daniel; Pfeiffer, Michael; Galluppi, Francesco; Furber, Steve B; Liu, Shih-Chii

2015-01-01

Increasingly large deep learning architectures, such as Deep Belief Networks (DBNs) are the focus of current machine learning research and achieve state-of-the-art results in different domains. However, both training and execution of large-scale Deep Networks require vast computing resources, leading to high power requirements and communication overheads. The on-going work on design and construction of spike-based hardware platforms offers an alternative for running deep neural networks with significantly lower power consumption, but has to overcome hardware limitations in terms of noise and limited weight precision, as well as noise inherent in the sensor signal. This article investigates how such hardware constraints impact the performance of spiking neural network implementations of DBNs. In particular, the influence of limited bit precision during execution and training, and the impact of silicon mismatch in the synaptic weight parameters of custom hybrid VLSI implementations is studied. Furthermore, the network performance of spiking DBNs is characterized with regard to noise in the spiking input signal. Our results demonstrate that spiking DBNs can tolerate very low levels of hardware bit precision down to almost two bits, and show that their performance can be improved by at least 30% through an adapted training mechanism that takes the bit precision of the target platform into account. Spiking DBNs thus present an important use-case for large-scale hybrid analog-digital or digital neuromorphic platforms such as SpiNNaker, which can execute large but precision-constrained deep networks in real time.

MEASUREMENT AND PRECISION, EXPERIMENTAL VERSION.

Science.gov (United States)

Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA. Harvard Project Physics.

THIS DOCUMENT IS AN EXPERIMENTAL VERSION OF A PROGRAMED TEXT ON MEASUREMENT AND PRECISION. PART I CONTAINS 24 FRAMES DEALING WITH PRECISION AND SIGNIFICANT FIGURES ENCOUNTERED IN VARIOUS MATHEMATICAL COMPUTATIONS AND MEASUREMENTS. PART II BEGINS WITH A BRIEF SECTION ON EXPERIMENTAL DATA, COVERING SUCH POINTS AS (1) ESTABLISHING THE ZERO POINT, (2)…

Ultracold Anions for High-Precision Antihydrogen Experiments.

Science.gov (United States)

Cerchiari, G; Kellerbauer, A; Safronova, M S; Safronova, U I; Yzombard, P

2018-03-30

Experiments with antihydrogen (H[over ¯]) for a study of matter-antimatter symmetry and antimatter gravity require ultracold H[over ¯] to reach ultimate precision. A promising path towards antiatoms much colder than a few kelvin involves the precooling of antiprotons by laser-cooled anions. Because of the weak binding of the valence electron in anions-dominated by polarization and correlation effects-only few candidate systems with suitable transitions exist. We report on a combination of experimental and theoretical studies to fully determine the relevant binding energies, transition rates, and branching ratios of the most promising candidate La^{-}. Using combined transverse and collinear laser spectroscopy, we determined the resonant frequency of the laser cooling transition to be ν=96.592 713(91)  THz and its transition rate to be A=4.90(50)×10^{4}  s^{-1}. Using a novel high-precision theoretical treatment of La^{-} we calculated yet unmeasured energy levels, transition rates, branching ratios, and lifetimes to complement experimental information on the laser cooling cycle of La^{-}. The new data establish the suitability of La^{-} for laser cooling and show that the cooling transition is significantly stronger than suggested by a previous theoretical study.

General Approaches and Requirements on Safety and Security of Radioactive Materials Transport in Russian Federation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ershov, V.N.; Buchel'nikov, A.E.; Komarov, S.V.

2016-01-01

Development and implementation of safety and security requirements for transport of radioactive materials in the Russian Federation are addressed. At the outset it is worth noting that the transport safety requirements implemented are in full accordance with the IAEA's ''Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (2009 Edition)''. However, with respect to security requirements for radioactive material transport in some cases the Russian Federation requirements for nuclear material are more stringent compared to IAEA recommendations. The fundamental principles of safety and security of RM managements, recommended by IAEA documents (publications No. SF-1 and GOV/41/2001) are compared. Its correlation and differences concerning transport matters, the current level and the possibility of harmonization are analysed. In addition a reflection of the general approaches and concrete transport requirements is being evaluated. Problems of compliance assessment, including administrative and state control problems for safety and security provided at internal and international shipments are considered and compared. (author)

Important requirements for RF generators for Accelerator-Driven Transmutation Technologies (ADTT)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lynch, M.T.; Tallerico, P.J.; Lawrence, G.P.

1994-01-01

All Accelerator-Driven Transmutation applications require very large amounts of RF Power. For example, one version of a Plutonium burning system requires an 800-MeV, 80-mA, proton accelerator running at 100% duty factor. This accelerator requires approximately 110-MW of continuous RF power if one assumes only 10% reserve power for control of the accelerator fields. In fact, to minimize beam spill, the RF controls may need as much as 15 to 20% of reserve power. In addition, unlike an electron accelerator in which the beam is relativistic, a failed RF station can disturb the synchronism of the beam, possibly shutting down the entire accelerator. These issues and more lead to a set of requirements for the RF generators which are stringent, and in some cases, conflicting. In this paper, we will describe the issues and requirements, and outline a plan for RF generator development to meet the needs of the Accelerator-Driven Transmutation Technologies. The key issues which will be discussed include: operating efficiency, operating linearity, effect on the input power grid, bandwidth, gain, reliability, operating voltage, and operating current

Field-flood requirements for emission computed tomography with an Anger camer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rogers, W.L.; Clinthorne, N.H.; Harkness, B.A.; Koral, K.F.; Keyes, J.W. Jr.

1982-01-01

Emission computed tomography with a rotating camera places stringent requirements on camera uniformity and the stability of camera response. In terms of clinical tomographic imaging, we have studied the statistical accuracy required for camera flood correction, the requirements for flood accuracy, the utility and validity of flood and data image smoothing to reduce random noise effects, and the magnitude and effect of camera variations as a function of angular position, energy window, and tuning. Uniformity of the corrected flood response must be held to better than 1% to eliminate image artifacts that are apparent in a million-count image of a liver slice. This requires calibration with an accurate, well-mixed flood source. Both random fluctuations and variations in camera response with rotation must be kept below 1%. To meet the statistical limit, one requires at least 30 million counts for the flod-correction image. Smoothing the flood image alone introduces unacceptable image artifacts. Smoothing both the flood image and data, however, appears to be a good approach toward reducing noise effects. Careful camera tuning and magnetic shield design provide camera stability suitable for present clinical applications

Demonstration of a Fast, Precise Propane Measurement Using Infrared Spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Zahniser, M. S.; Roscioli, J. R.; Nelson, D. D.; Herndon, S. C.

2016-12-01

Propane is one of the primary components of emissions from natural gas extraction and processing activities. In addition to being an air pollutant, its ratio to other hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane can serve as a "fingerprint" of a particular facility or process, aiding in identifying emission sources. Quantifying propane has typically required laboratory analysis of flask samples, resulting in low temporal resolution and making plume-based measurements infeasible. Here we demonstrate fast (1-second), high precision (infrared spectroscopy at 2967 wavenumbers. In addition, we explore the impact of nearby water and ethane absorption lines on the accuracy and precision of the propane measurement. Finally, we discuss development of a dual-laser instrument capable of simultaneous measurements of methane, ethane, and propane (the C1-C3 compounds), all within a small spatial package that can be easily deployed aboard a mobile platform.

Precision Experiments at LEP

CERN Document Server

de Boer, Wim

2015-01-01

The Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) established the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics with unprecedented precision, including all its radiative corrections. These led to predictions for the masses of the top quark and Higgs boson, which were beautifully confirmed later on. After these precision measurements the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 1999 jointly to 't Hooft and Veltman "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics". Another hallmark of the LEP results were the precise measurements of the gauge coupling constants, which excluded unification of the forces within the SM, but allowed unification within the supersymmetric extension of the SM. This increased the interest in Supersymmetry (SUSY) and Grand Unified Theories, especially since the SM has no candidate for the elusive dark matter, while Supersymmetry provides an excellent candidate for dark matter. In addition, Supersymmetry removes the quadratic divergencies of the SM and {\\it predicts} the Hig...

What Is Trust? Ethics and Risk Governance in Precision Medicine and Predictive Analytics.

Science.gov (United States)

Adjekum, Afua; Ienca, Marcello; Vayena, Effy

2017-12-01

Trust is a ubiquitous term used in emerging technology (e.g., Big Data, precision medicine), innovation policy, and governance literatures in particular. But what exactly is trust? Even though trust is considered a critical requirement for the successful deployment of precision medicine initiatives, nonetheless, there is a need for further conceptualization with regard to what qualifies as trust, and what factors might establish and sustain trust in precision medicine, predictive analytics, and large-scale biology. These new fields of 21st century medicine and health often deal with the "futures" and hence, trust gains a temporal and ever-present quality for both the present and the futures anticipated by new technologies and predictive analytics. We address these conceptual gaps that have important practical implications in the way we govern risk and unknowns associated with emerging technologies in biology, medicine, and health broadly. We provide an in-depth conceptual analysis and an operative definition of trust dynamics in precision medicine. In addition, we identify three main types of "trust facilitators": (1) technical, (2) ethical, and (3) institutional. This three-dimensional framework on trust is necessary to building and maintaining trust in 21st century knowledge-based innovations that governments and publics invest for progressive societal change, development, and sustainable prosperity. Importantly, we analyze, identify, and deliberate on the dimensions of precision medicine and large-scale biology that have carved out trust as a pertinent tool to its success. Moving forward, we propose a "points to consider" on how best to enhance trust in precision medicine and predictive analytics.

Precision Health Economics and Outcomes Research to Support Precision Medicine: Big Data Meets Patient Heterogeneity on the Road to Value

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yixi Chen

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The “big data” era represents an exciting opportunity to utilize powerful new sources of information to reduce clinical and health economic uncertainty on an individual patient level. In turn, health economic outcomes research (HEOR practices will need to evolve to accommodate individual patient–level HEOR analyses. We propose the concept of “precision HEOR”, which utilizes a combination of costs and outcomes derived from big data to inform healthcare decision-making that is tailored to highly specific patient clusters or individuals. To explore this concept, we discuss the current and future roles of HEOR in health sector decision-making, big data and predictive analytics, and several key HEOR contexts in which big data and predictive analytics might transform traditional HEOR into precision HEOR. The guidance document addresses issues related to the transition from traditional to precision HEOR practices, the evaluation of patient similarity analysis and its appropriateness for precision HEOR analysis, and future challenges to precision HEOR adoption. Precision HEOR should make precision medicine more realizable by aiding and adapting healthcare resource allocation. The combined hopes for precision medicine and precision HEOR are that individual patients receive the best possible medical care while overall healthcare costs remain manageable or become more cost-efficient.

Newborn Screening in the Era of Precision Medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Lan; Chen, Jiajia; Shen, Bairong

2017-01-01

As newborn screening success stories gained general confirmation during the past 50 years, scientists quickly discovered diagnostic tests for a host of genetic disorders that could be treated at birth. Outstanding progress in sequencing technologies over the last two decades has made it possible to comprehensively profile newborn screening (NBS) and identify clinically relevant genomic alterations. With the rapid developments in whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and whole-exome sequencing (WES) recently, we can detect newborns at the genomic level and be able to direct the appropriate diagnosis to the different individuals at the appropriate time, which is also encompassed in the concept of precision medicine. Besides, we can develop novel interventions directed at the molecular characteristics of genetic diseases in newborns. The implementation of genomics in NBS programs would provide an effective premise for the identification of the majority of genetic aberrations and primarily help in accurate guidance in treatment and better prediction. However, there are some debate correlated with the widespread application of genome sequencing in NBS due to some major concerns such as clinical analysis, result interpretation, storage of sequencing data, and communication of clinically relevant mutations to pediatricians and parents, along with the ethical, legal, and social implications (so-called ELSI). This review is focused on these critical issues and concerns about the expanding role of genomics in NBS for precision medicine. If WGS or WES is to be incorporated into NBS practice, considerations about these challenges should be carefully regarded and tackled properly to adapt the requirement of genome sequencing in the era of precision medicine.

Elevation data fitting and precision analysis of Google Earth in road survey

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Haibin; Luan, Xiaohan; Li, Hanchao; Jia, Jiangkun; Chen, Zhao; Han, Leilei

2018-05-01

Objective: In order to improve efficiency of road survey and save manpower and material resources, this paper intends to apply Google Earth to the feasibility study stage of road survey and design. Limited by the problem that Google Earth elevation data lacks precision, this paper is focused on finding several different fitting or difference methods to improve the data precision, in order to make every effort to meet the accuracy requirements of road survey and design specifications. Method: On the basis of elevation difference of limited public points, any elevation difference of the other points can be fitted or interpolated. Thus, the precise elevation can be obtained by subtracting elevation difference from the Google Earth data. Quadratic polynomial surface fitting method, cubic polynomial surface fitting method, V4 interpolation method in MATLAB and neural network method are used in this paper to process elevation data of Google Earth. And internal conformity, external conformity and cross correlation coefficient are used as evaluation indexes to evaluate the data processing effect. Results: There is no fitting difference at the fitting point while using V4 interpolation method. Its external conformity is the largest and the effect of accuracy improvement is the worst, so V4 interpolation method is ruled out. The internal and external conformity of the cubic polynomial surface fitting method both are better than those of the quadratic polynomial surface fitting method. The neural network method has a similar fitting effect with the cubic polynomial surface fitting method, but its fitting effect is better in the case of a higher elevation difference. Because the neural network method is an unmanageable fitting model, the cubic polynomial surface fitting method should be mainly used and the neural network method can be used as the auxiliary method in the case of higher elevation difference. Conclusions: Cubic polynomial surface fitting method can obviously

Particle physics: Matter and antimatter scrutinized

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jungmann, Klaus Peter

2015-01-01

A search for differences in the charge-to-mass ratio of protons and antiprotons, conducted at unprecedented levels of precision, results in stringent limits to the validity of fundamental physical symmetries.

Precision manufacturing of polymer micro-nano fluidic systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Garnæs, Jørgen; Calaon, Matteo; Tosello, Guido

2015-01-01

Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) technologies require the possibility of fabricating devices which include micro down to sub-micrometre features with high production rate and low cost. In the present study precision injection moulding is performed using a COC Topas 5013 L10 polymer to produce LoC devices...... in the sample. Design of experiment (DOE) was adopted to characterize the replication fidelity of produced polymer features. Results have shown the possibility of performing quality control of micro- and sub-μm features, taking into account the polymer shrinkage, depending on process conditions at both micro...

Critical analysis of the stringent complete response in multiple myeloma: contribution of sFLC and bone marrow clonality.

Science.gov (United States)

Martínez-López, Joaquín; Paiva, Bruno; López-Anglada, Lucía; Mateos, María-Victoria; Cedena, Teresa; Vidríales, María-Belén; Sáez-Gómez, María Auxiliadora; Contreras, Teresa; Oriol, Albert; Rapado, Inmaculada; Teruel, Ana-Isabel; Cordón, Lourdes; Blanchard, María Jesús; Bengoechea, Enrique; Palomera, Luis; de Arriba, Felipe; Cueto-Felgueroso, Cecilia; Orfao, Alberto; Bladé, Joan; San Miguel, Jesús F; Lahuerta, Juan José

2015-08-13

Stringent complete response (sCR) criteria are used in multiple myeloma as a deeper response category compared with CR, but prospective validation is lacking, it is not always clear how evaluation of clonality is performed, and is it not known what the relative clinical influence is of the serum free light chain ratio (sFLCr) and bone marrow (BM) clonality to define more sCR. To clarify this controversy, we focused on 94 patients that reached CR, of which 69 (73%) also fulfilled the sCR criteria. Patients with sCR displayed slightly longer time to progression (median, 62 vs 53 months, respectively; P = .31). On analyzing this contribution to the prognosis of sFLCr or clonality, it was found that the sFLCr does not identify patients in CR at distinct risk; by contrast, low-sensitive multiparametric flow cytometry (MFC) immunophenotyping (2 colors), which is equivalent to immunohistochemistry, identifies a small number of patients (5 cases) with high residual tumor burden and dismal outcome; nevertheless, using traditional 4-color MFC, persistent clonal BM disease was detectable in 36% of patients, who, compared with minimal residual disease-negative cases, had a significantly inferior outcome. These results show that the current definition of sCR should be revised. © 2015 by The American Society of Hematology.

Incorporating a constrained optimization algorithm into remote sensing/precision agriculture methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Moreenthaler, George W.; Khatib, Nader; Kim, Byoungsoo

2003-08-01

For two decades now, the use of Remote Sensing/Precision Agriculture to improve farm yields while reducing the use of polluting chemicals and the limited water supply has been a major goal. With world population growing exponentially, arable land being consumed by urbanization, and an unfavorable farm economy, farm efficiency must increase to meet future food requirements and to make farming a sustainable, profitable occupation. "Precision Agriculture" refers to a farming methodology that applies nutrients and moisture only where and when they are needed in the field. The real goal is to increase farm profitability by identifying the additional treatments of chemicals and water that increase revenues more than they increase costs and do no exceed pollution standards (constrained optimization). Even though the economic and environmental benefits appear to be great, Remote Sensing/Precision Agriculture has not grown as rapidly as early advocates envisioned. Technology for a successful Remote Sensing/Precision Agriculture system is now in place, but other needed factors have been missing. Commercial satellite systems can now image the Earth (multi-spectrally) with a resolution as fine as 2.5 m. Precision variable dispensing systems using GPS are now available and affordable. Crop models that predict yield as a function of soil, chemical, and irrigation parameter levels have been developed. Personal computers and internet access are now in place in most farm homes and can provide a mechanism for periodically disseminating advice on what quantities of water and chemicals are needed in specific regions of each field. Several processes have been selected that fuse the disparate sources of information on the current and historic states of the crop and soil, and the remaining resource levels available, with the critical decisions that farmers are required to make. These are done in a way that is easy for the farmer to understand and profitable to implement. A "Constrained

Precision Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease and Hunting Elephants.

Science.gov (United States)

Joyner, Michael J

2016-01-01

Precision medicine postulates improved prediction, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease based on patient specific factors especially DNA sequence (i.e., gene) variants. Ideas related to precision medicine stem from the much anticipated "genetic revolution in medicine" arising seamlessly from the human genome project (HGP). In this essay I deconstruct the concept of precision medicine and raise questions about the validity of the paradigm in general and its application to cardiovascular disease. Thus far precision medicine has underperformed based on the vision promulgated by enthusiasts. While niche successes for precision medicine are likely, the promises of broad based transformation should be viewed with skepticism. Open discussion and debate related to precision medicine are urgently needed to avoid misapplication of resources, hype, iatrogenic interventions, and distraction from established approaches with ongoing utility. Failure to engage in such debate will lead to negative unintended consequences from a revolution that might never come. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Design of Phase-Locked-Loop Circuit for Precision Capacitance Micrometer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li Shujie

2016-01-01

Full Text Available High precision non-contact micrometer is normally divided into three categories: inductance micrometer, capacitance micrometer and optical interferometer micrometer. The capacitance micrometer is widely used because it has high performance to price ratio. With the improvement of automation level, precision of capacitance micrometer is required higher and higher. Generally, capacitance micrometer consists of the capacitance sensor, capacitance/voltage conversion circuit, and modulation and demodulation circuits. However, due to the existing of resistors, capacitors and other components in the circuit, the phase shift of the carrier signal and the modulated signal might occur. In this case, the specific value of phase shift cannot be determined. Therefore, error caused by the phase shift cannot be eliminated. This will reduce the accuracy of micrometer. In this design, in order to eliminate the impact of the phase shift, the phase-locked-loop (PLL circuit is employed. Through the experiment, the function of tracking the input signal phase and frequency is achieved by the phase-locked-loop circuit. This signal processing method can also be applied to tuber electrical resistance tomography system and other precision measurement circuit.

Getting the balance right between functional and non-functional requirements: the case of requirement specification in IT procurement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Björn Johansson

2013-01-01

Full Text Available IT procurement represents a business process of high importance, including the ability to articulate requirements that the procurement deals with. Furthermore, specifying requirements is of importance for both procurer and potential supplier, as it functions as central contractual element between the two. The purpose of this article is two-fold: (i to show how established terminology for requirement specification is represented in current call for bids for the procurement of IT; and (ii to introduce an organizing framework that may assist procurers in actively addressing functional requirements and business requirements. Ten “call for bids” were examined from a Swedish national procurement database. From the analysis of the bids, it can be concluded that: (i the call for bids displays a high degree of precision regarding hardware aspects, but less precision regarding software; (ii supplier experience and competence is stressed, but rarely elaborated on in detail; and (iii call for bids vagueness may be used as a lock-in opportunity for suppliers. From the discussion on this, a tentative procurement framework is suggested, aiming on increasing the logical transparency for the procurement of IT.

Transforming Cancer Prevention through Precision Medicine and Immune-oncology.

Science.gov (United States)

Kensler, Thomas W; Spira, Avrum; Garber, Judy E; Szabo, Eva; Lee, J Jack; Dong, Zigang; Dannenberg, Andrew J; Hait, William N; Blackburn, Elizabeth; Davidson, Nancy E; Foti, Margaret; Lippman, Scott M

2016-01-01

We have entered a transformative period in cancer prevention (including early detection). Remarkable progress in precision medicine and immune-oncology, driven by extraordinary recent advances in genome-wide sequencing, big-data analytics, blood-based technologies, and deep understanding of the tumor immune microenvironment (TME), has provided unprecedented possibilities to study the biology of premalignancy. The pace of research and discovery in precision medicine and immunoprevention has been astonishing and includes the following clinical firsts reported in 2015: driver mutations detected in circulating cell-free DNA in patients with premalignant lesions (lung); clonal hematopoiesis shown to be a premalignant state; molecular selection in chemoprevention randomized controlled trial (RCT; oral); striking efficacy in RCT of combination chemoprevention targeting signaling pathway alterations mechanistically linked to germline mutation (duodenum); molecular markers for early detection validated for lung cancer and showing promise for pancreatic, liver, and ovarian cancer. Identification of HPV as the essential cause of a major global cancer burden, including HPV16 as the single driver of an epidemic of oropharyngeal cancer in men, provides unique opportunities for the dissemination and implementation of public health interventions. Important to immunoprevention beyond viral vaccines, genetic drivers of premalignant progression were associated with increasing immunosuppressive TME; and Kras vaccine efficacy in pancreas genetically engineered mouse (GEM) model required an inhibitory adjuvant (Treg depletion). In addition to developing new (e.g., epigenetic) TME regulators, recent mechanistic studies of repurposed drugs (aspirin, metformin, and tamoxifen) have identified potent immune activity. Just as precision medicine and immune-oncology are revolutionizing cancer therapy, these approaches are transforming cancer prevention. Here, we set out a brief agenda for the

Principles of precision medicine in stroke.

Science.gov (United States)

Hinman, Jason D; Rost, Natalia S; Leung, Thomas W; Montaner, Joan; Muir, Keith W; Brown, Scott; Arenillas, Juan F; Feldmann, Edward; Liebeskind, David S

2017-01-01

The era of precision medicine has arrived and conveys tremendous potential, particularly for stroke neurology. The diagnosis of stroke, its underlying aetiology, theranostic strategies, recurrence risk and path to recovery are populated by a series of highly individualised questions. Moreover, the phenotypic complexity of a clinical diagnosis of stroke makes a simple genetic risk assessment only partially informative on an individual basis. The guiding principles of precision medicine in stroke underscore the need to identify, value, organise and analyse the multitude of variables obtained from each individual to generate a precise approach to optimise cerebrovascular health. Existing data may be leveraged with novel technologies, informatics and practical clinical paradigms to apply these principles in stroke and realise the promise of precision medicine. Importantly, precision medicine in stroke will only be realised once efforts to collect, value and synthesise the wealth of data collected in clinical trials and routine care starts. Stroke theranostics, the ultimate vision of synchronising tailored therapeutic strategies based on specific diagnostic data, demand cerebrovascular expertise on big data approaches to clinically relevant paradigms. This review considers such challenges and delineates the principles on a roadmap for rational application of precision medicine to stroke and cerebrovascular health. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Precision validation of MIPAS-Envisat products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Piccolo

2007-01-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the variation and validation of the precision, or estimated random error, associated with the ESA Level 2 products from the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS. This quantity represents the propagation of the radiometric noise from the spectra through the retrieval process into the Level 2 profile values. The noise itself varies with time, steadily rising between ice decontamination events, but the Level 2 precision has a greater variation due to the atmospheric temperature which controls the total radiance received. Hence, for all species, the precision varies latitudinally/seasonally with temperature, with a small superimposed temporal structure determined by the degree of ice contamination on the detectors. The precision validation involves comparing two MIPAS retrievals at the intersections of ascending/descending orbits. For 5 days per month of full resolution MIPAS operation, the standard deviation of the matching profile pairs is computed and compared with the precision given in the MIPAS Level 2 data, except for NO2 since it has a large diurnal variation between ascending/descending intersections. Even taking into account the propagation of the pressure-temperature retrieval errors into the VMR retrieval, the standard deviation of the matching pairs is usually a factor 1–2 larger than the precision. This is thought to be due to effects such as horizontal inhomogeneity of the atmosphere and instability of the retrieval.

Laser performance upgrade for precise ICF experiment in SG-Ⅲ laser facility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wanguo Zheng

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The SG-Ⅲ laser facility (SG-Ⅲ is the largest laser driver for inertial confinement fusion (ICF researches in China, which has 48 beamlines and can deliver 180 kJ ultraviolet laser energy in 3 ns. In order to meet the requirements of precise physics experiments, some new functionalities need to be added to SG-Ⅲ and some intrinsic laser performances need upgrade. So at the end of SG-Ⅲ's engineering construction, the 2-year laser performance upgrade project started. This paper will introduce the newly added functionalities and the latest laser performance of SG-Ⅲ. With these function extensions and performance upgrade, SG-Ⅲ is now fully prepared for precise ICF experiments and solidly paves the way towards fusion ignition.

A Threefold Approach for Precise and Efficient Locomotion in Virtual Environments with Varying Accessibility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Arnskov, Thomas; Elmholdt, Anders; Jensen, Kristian Hagemann

2018-01-01

This poster details the design and evaluation of Locomotion3 - a framework that allows users to freely alternate between real walking, walking-in-place (WIP), and a skateboard metaphor depending on whether navigation requires efficiency, precision, or both. The user study compared the framework t...

Electroweak effective couplings for future precision experiments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jegerlehner, F.

2011-01-01

The leading hadronic effects in electroweak theory derive from vacuum polarization which are non-perturbative hadronic contributions to the running of the gauge couplings, the electromagnetic α em (s)and the SU(2) L coupling α 2 (s). I will report on my recent package alphaQED, which besides the effective fine structure constant α em (s) also allows for a fairly precise calculation of the SU(2) L gauge coupling α 2 (s). I will briefly review the role, future requirements and possibilities. Applied together with the R had package by Harlander and Steinhauser, the package allows to calculate all SM running couplings as well as running sin 2 Θ versions with state-of-the-art accuracy.

Electroweak effective couplings for future precision experiments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jegerlehner, F.; Humboldt-Universitaet, Berlin

2011-07-01

The leading hadronic effects in electroweak theory derive from vacuum polarization which are non-perturbative hadronic contributions to the running of the gauge couplings, the electromagnetic α em (s) and the SU(2) L coupling α 2 (s). I report on my recent package alphaQED [1], which besides the effective fine structure constant α em (s) also allows for a fairly precise calculation of the SU(2) L gauge coupling α 2 (s). I will briefly review the role, future requirements and possibilities. Applied together with the Rhad package by Harlander and Steinhauser [2], the package allows to calculate all SM running couplings as well as running sin 2 Θ versions with state-of-the-art accuracy. (orig.)

Reliable low precision simulations in land surface models

Science.gov (United States)

Dawson, Andrew; Düben, Peter D.; MacLeod, David A.; Palmer, Tim N.

2017-12-01

Weather and climate models must continue to increase in both resolution and complexity in order that forecasts become more accurate and reliable. Moving to lower numerical precision may be an essential tool for coping with the demand for ever increasing model complexity in addition to increasing computing resources. However, there have been some concerns in the weather and climate modelling community over the suitability of lower precision for climate models, particularly for representing processes that change very slowly over long time-scales. These processes are difficult to represent using low precision due to time increments being systematically rounded to zero. Idealised simulations are used to demonstrate that a model of deep soil heat diffusion that fails when run in single precision can be modified to work correctly using low precision, by splitting up the model into a small higher precision part and a low precision part. This strategy retains the computational benefits of reduced precision whilst preserving accuracy. This same technique is also applied to a full complexity land surface model, resulting in rounding errors that are significantly smaller than initial condition and parameter uncertainties. Although lower precision will present some problems for the weather and climate modelling community, many of the problems can likely be overcome using a straightforward and physically motivated application of reduced precision.

Unique electron polarimeter analyzing power comparison and precision spin-based energy measurement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Joseph Grames; Charles Sinclair; Joseph Mitchell; Eugene Chudakov; Howard Fenker; Arne Freyberger; Douglas Higinbotham; Poelker, B.; Michael Steigerwald; Michael Tiefenback; Christian Cavata; Stephanie Escoffier; Frederic Marie; Thierry Pussieux; Pascal Vernin; Samuel Danagoulian; Kahanawita Dharmawardane; Renee Fatemi; Kyungseon Joo; Markus Zeier; Viktor Gorbenko; Rakhsha Nasseripour; Brian Raue; Riad Suleiman; Benedikt Zihlmann

2004-01-01

Precision measurements of the relative analyzing powers of five electron beam polarimeters, based on Compton, Moller, and Mott scattering, have been performed using the CEBAF accelerator at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Laboratory). A Wien filter in the 100 keV beamline of the injector was used to vary the electron spin orientation exiting the injector. High statistical precision measurements of the scattering asymmetry as a function of the spin orientation were made with each polarimeter. Since each polarimeter receives beam with the same magnitude of polarization, these asymmetry measurements permit a high statistical precision comparison of the relative analyzing powers of the five polarimeters. This is the first time a precise comparison of the analyzing powers of Compton, Moller, and Mott scattering polarimeters has been made. Statistically significant disagreements among the values of the beam polarization calculated from the asymmetry measurements made with each polarimeter reveal either errors in the values of the analyzing power, or failure to correctly include all systematic effects. The measurements reported here represent a first step toward understanding the systematic effects of these electron polarimeters. Such studies are necessary to realize high absolute accuracy (ca. 1%) electron polarization measurements, as required for some parity violation measurements planned at Jefferson Laboratory. Finally, a comparison of the value of the spin orientation exiting the injector that provides maximum longitudinal polarization in each experimental hall leads to an independent and very precise (better than 10-4) absolute measurement of the final electron beam energy

MITP Workshop on Low-Energy Precision Physics

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

The scientific program will be focussed on the theory of low-energy precision physics relevant to the MESA and TRIGA initiatives. Topics include searches for TeV-scale physics beyond the Standard Model via ultra-precise measurements of parity-violating electron scattering asymmetries, determinations of neutron decay parameters via precision measurements of its lifetime and decay asymmetries, and searches for EDMs of nucleons, nuclei and atoms. The necessary high-precision theoretical tools to analyse these experiments, which include advanced calculations of radiative corrections, will be explored and developed.

Development of an experiment for ultrahigh-precision g-factor measurements in a Penning-trap setup

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alonso Otamendi, J.

2007-07-13

This thesis is concerned with the design and construction of an experimental setup aiming to perform ultrahigh-precision g-factor measurements on a bound electron in highly-charged ions. The g-factor of a particle is a dimensionless constant which determines the strength of its interaction with a magnetic field. In the case of an electron bound to a highly-charged ion, it serves as one of the most stringent tests of bound-state quantum electrodynamics (BS-QED). The measurement is based on a triple-Penning-trap system and the continuous Stern-Gerlach effect. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the current knowledge on magnetic moments and motivates the techniques and experimental setup used during the work described. As a major challenge to overcome, the charge breeding of the ions is dealt with in detail, along with the solution found, based on a field-emission-point array. The tools included allow for the measurement of ionization cross-sections by electron impact. The last part of the thesis is dedicated to the design and operation of the triple-Penning-trap setup and the detection schemes implemented. At present, all the experimental setup for the production of highly-charged ions and the corresponding g-factor measurement is completely finalized, including the control system needed for the first measurement stages, so the ion-creation and charge-breeding processes will be the next steps to be taken. (orig.)

Development of an experiment for ultrahigh-precision g-factor measurements in a Penning-trap setup

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alonso Otamendi, J.

2007-01-01

This thesis is concerned with the design and construction of an experimental setup aiming to perform ultrahigh-precision g-factor measurements on a bound electron in highly-charged ions. The g-factor of a particle is a dimensionless constant which determines the strength of its interaction with a magnetic field. In the case of an electron bound to a highly-charged ion, it serves as one of the most stringent tests of bound-state quantum electrodynamics (BS-QED). The measurement is based on a triple-Penning-trap system and the continuous Stern-Gerlach effect. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the current knowledge on magnetic moments and motivates the techniques and experimental setup used during the work described. As a major challenge to overcome, the charge breeding of the ions is dealt with in detail, along with the solution found, based on a field-emission-point array. The tools included allow for the measurement of ionization cross-sections by electron impact. The last part of the thesis is dedicated to the design and operation of the triple-Penning-trap setup and the detection schemes implemented. At present, all the experimental setup for the production of highly-charged ions and the corresponding g-factor measurement is completely finalized, including the control system needed for the first measurement stages, so the ion-creation and charge-breeding processes will be the next steps to be taken. (orig.)

Accuracy and precision in thermoluminescence dosimetry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marshall, T.O.

1984-01-01

The question of accuracy and precision in thermoluminescent dosimetry, particularly in relation to lithium fluoride phosphor, is discussed. The more important sources of error, including those due to the detectors, the reader, annealing and dosemeter design, are identified and methods of reducing their effects on accuracy and precision to a minimum are given. Finally, the accuracy and precision achievable for three quite different applications are discussed, namely, for personal dosimetry, environmental monitoring and for the measurement of photon dose distributions in phantoms. (U.K.)

Precision medicine for psychopharmacology: a general introduction.

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Cheolmin; Han, Changsu; Pae, Chi-Un; Patkar, Ashwin A

2016-07-01

Precision medicine is an emerging medical model that can provide accurate diagnoses and tailored therapeutic strategies for patients based on data pertaining to genes, microbiomes, environment, family history and lifestyle. Here, we provide basic information about precision medicine and newly introduced concepts, such as the precision medicine ecosystem and big data processing, and omics technologies including pharmacogenomics, pharamacometabolomics, pharmacoproteomics, pharmacoepigenomics, connectomics and exposomics. The authors review the current state of omics in psychiatry and the future direction of psychopharmacology as it moves towards precision medicine. Expert commentary: Advances in precision medicine have been facilitated by achievements in multiple fields, including large-scale biological databases, powerful methods for characterizing patients (such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, diverse cellular assays, and even social networks and mobile health technologies), and computer-based tools for analyzing large amounts of data.

Precision surveying the principles and geomatics practice

CERN Document Server

Ogundare, John Olusegun

2016-01-01

A comprehensive overview of high precision surveying, including recent developments in geomatics and their applications This book covers advanced precision surveying techniques, their proper use in engineering and geoscience projects, and their importance in the detailed analysis and evaluation of surveying projects. The early chapters review the fundamentals of precision surveying: the types of surveys; survey observations; standards and specifications; and accuracy assessments for angle, distance and position difference measurement systems. The book also covers network design and 3-D coordinating systems before discussing specialized topics such as structural and ground deformation monitoring techniques and analysis, mining surveys, tunneling surveys, and alignment surveys. Precision Surveying: The Principles and Geomatics Practice: * Covers structural and ground deformation monitoring analysis, advanced techniques in mining and tunneling surveys, and high precision alignment of engineering structures *...

Numerical Algorithms for Precise and Efficient Orbit Propagation and Positioning

Science.gov (United States)

Bradley, Ben K.

Motivated by the growing space catalog and the demands for precise orbit determination with shorter latency for science and reconnaissance missions, this research improves the computational performance of orbit propagation through more efficient and precise numerical integration and frame transformation implementations. Propagation of satellite orbits is required for astrodynamics applications including mission design, orbit determination in support of operations and payload data analysis, and conjunction assessment. Each of these applications has somewhat different requirements in terms of accuracy, precision, latency, and computational load. This dissertation develops procedures to achieve various levels of accuracy while minimizing computational cost for diverse orbit determination applications. This is done by addressing two aspects of orbit determination: (1) numerical integration used for orbit propagation and (2) precise frame transformations necessary for force model evaluation and station coordinate rotations. This dissertation describes a recently developed method for numerical integration, dubbed Bandlimited Collocation Implicit Runge-Kutta (BLC-IRK), and compare its efficiency in propagating orbits to existing techniques commonly used in astrodynamics. The BLC-IRK scheme uses generalized Gaussian quadratures for bandlimited functions. It requires significantly fewer force function evaluations than explicit Runge-Kutta schemes and approaches the efficiency of the 8th-order Gauss-Jackson multistep method. Converting between the Geocentric Celestial Reference System (GCRS) and International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS) is necessary for many applications in astrodynamics, such as orbit propagation, orbit determination, and analyzing geoscience data from satellite missions. This dissertation provides simplifications to the Celestial Intermediate Origin (CIO) transformation scheme and Earth orientation parameter (EOP) storage for use in positioning and

A compact codimension-two braneworld with precisely one brane

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Akerblom, Nikolas; Cornelissen, Gunther

2010-01-01

Building on earlier work on football-shaped extra dimensions, we construct a compact codimension-two braneworld with precisely one brane. The two extra dimensions topologically represent a 2-torus which is stabilized by a bulk cosmological constant and magnetic flux. The torus has positive constant curvature almost everywhere, except for a single conical singularity at the location of the brane. In contradistinction to the football-shaped case, there is no fine-tuning required for the brane tension. We also present some plausibility arguments why the model should not suffer from serious stability issues.

Study of multi-functional precision optical measuring system for large scale equipment

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Wei; Lao, Dabao; Zhou, Weihu; Zhang, Wenying; Jiang, Xingjian; Wang, Yongxi

2017-10-01

The effective application of high performance measurement technology can greatly improve the large-scale equipment manufacturing ability. Therefore, the geometric parameters measurement, such as size, attitude and position, requires the measurement system with high precision, multi-function, portability and other characteristics. However, the existing measuring instruments, such as laser tracker, total station, photogrammetry system, mostly has single function, station moving and other shortcomings. Laser tracker needs to work with cooperative target, but it can hardly meet the requirement of measurement in extreme environment. Total station is mainly used for outdoor surveying and mapping, it is hard to achieve the demand of accuracy in industrial measurement. Photogrammetry system can achieve a wide range of multi-point measurement, but the measuring range is limited and need to repeatedly move station. The paper presents a non-contact opto-electronic measuring instrument, not only it can work by scanning the measurement path but also measuring the cooperative target by tracking measurement. The system is based on some key technologies, such as absolute distance measurement, two-dimensional angle measurement, automatically target recognition and accurate aiming, precision control, assembly of complex mechanical system and multi-functional 3D visualization software. Among them, the absolute distance measurement module ensures measurement with high accuracy, and the twodimensional angle measuring module provides precision angle measurement. The system is suitable for the case of noncontact measurement of large-scale equipment, it can ensure the quality and performance of large-scale equipment throughout the process of manufacturing and improve the manufacturing ability of large-scale and high-end equipment.

High-Precision Mass Measurements of Exotic Nuclei with the Triple-Trap Mass Spectrometer Isoltrap

CERN Multimedia

Blaum, K; Zuber, K T; Stanja, J

2002-01-01

The masses of close to 200 short-lived nuclides have already been measured with the mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP with a relative precision between 1$\\times$10$^{-7}$ and 1$\\times$10^{-8}$. The installatin of a radio-frequency quadrupole trap increased the overall efficiency by two orders of magnitude which is at present about 1%. In a recent upgrade, we installed a carbon cluster laser ion source, which will allow us to use carbon clusters as mass references for absolute mass measurements. Due to these improvements and the high reliability of ISOLTRAP we are now able to perform accurate high-precision mass measurements all over the nuclear chart. We propose therefore mass measurements on light, medium and heavy nuclides on both sides of the valley of stability in the coming four years. ISOLTRAP is presently the only instrument capable of the high precision required for many of the proposed studies.

[Precision Oncology and "Molecular Tumor Boards" - Concepts, Chances and Challenges].

Science.gov (United States)

Holch, Julian Walter; Westphalen, Christoph Benedikt; Hiddemann, Wolfgang; Heinemann, Volker; Jung, Andreas; Metzeler, Klaus Hans

2017-11-01

Recent developments in genomics allow a more and more comprehensive genetic analysis of human malignancies, and have sparked hopes that this will contribute to the development of novel targeted, effective and well-tolerated therapies.While targeted therapies have improved the prognosis of many cancer patients with certain tumor types, "precision oncology" also brings along new challenges. Highly personalized treatment strategies require new strategies for clinical trials and translation into routine clinical practice. We review the current technical approaches for "universal genetic testing" in cancer, and potential pitfalls in the interpretation of such data. We then provide an overview of the available evidence supporting treatment strategies based on extended genetic analysis. Based on the available data, we conclude that "precision oncology" approaches that go beyond the current standard of care should be pursued within the framework of an interdisciplinary "molecular tumor board", and preferably within clinical trials. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Precision medicine for advanced prostate cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Mullane, Stephanie A; Van Allen, Eliezer M

2016-05-01

Precision cancer medicine, the use of genomic profiling of patient tumors at the point-of-care to inform treatment decisions, is rapidly changing treatment strategies across cancer types. Precision medicine for advanced prostate cancer may identify new treatment strategies and change clinical practice. In this review, we discuss the potential and challenges of precision medicine in advanced prostate cancer. Although primary prostate cancers do not harbor highly recurrent targetable genomic alterations, recent reports on the genomics of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer has shown multiple targetable alterations in castration-resistant prostate cancer metastatic biopsies. Therapeutic implications include targeting prevalent DNA repair pathway alterations with PARP-1 inhibition in genomically defined subsets of patients, among other genomically stratified targets. In addition, multiple recent efforts have demonstrated the promise of liquid tumor profiling (e.g., profiling circulating tumor cells or cell-free tumor DNA) and highlighted the necessary steps to scale these approaches in prostate cancer. Although still in the initial phase of precision medicine for prostate cancer, there is extraordinary potential for clinical impact. Efforts to overcome current scientific and clinical barriers will enable widespread use of precision medicine approaches for advanced prostate cancer patients.

Precision forging technology for aluminum alloy

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Lei; Wang, Xinyun; Jin, Junsong; Xia, Juchen

2018-03-01

Aluminum alloy is a preferred metal material for lightweight part manufacturing in aerospace, automobile, and weapon industries due to its good physical properties, such as low density, high specific strength, and good corrosion resistance. However, during forging processes, underfilling, folding, broken streamline, crack, coarse grain, and other macro- or microdefects are easily generated because of the deformation characteristics of aluminum alloys, including narrow forgeable temperature region, fast heat dissipation to dies, strong adhesion, high strain rate sensitivity, and large flow resistance. Thus, it is seriously restricted for the forged part to obtain precision shape and enhanced property. In this paper, progresses in precision forging technologies of aluminum alloy parts were reviewed. Several advanced precision forging technologies have been developed, including closed die forging, isothermal die forging, local loading forging, metal flow forging with relief cavity, auxiliary force or vibration loading, casting-forging hybrid forming, and stamping-forging hybrid forming. High-precision aluminum alloy parts can be realized by controlling the forging processes and parameters or combining precision forging technologies with other forming technologies. The development of these technologies is beneficial to promote the application of aluminum alloys in manufacturing of lightweight parts.

Apparatus for precision micromachining with lasers

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, J.J.; Dragon, E.P.; Warner, B.E.

1998-04-28

A new material processing apparatus using a short-pulsed, high-repetition-rate visible laser for precision micromachining utilizes a near diffraction limited laser, a high-speed precision two-axis tilt-mirror for steering the laser beam, an optical system for either focusing or imaging the laser beam on the part, and a part holder that may consist of a cover plate and a back plate. The system is generally useful for precision drilling, cutting, milling and polishing of metals and ceramics, and has broad application in manufacturing precision components. Precision machining has been demonstrated through percussion drilling and trepanning using this system. With a 30 W copper vapor laser running at multi-kHz pulse repetition frequency, straight parallel holes with size varying from 500 microns to less than 25 microns and with aspect ratios up to 1:40 have been consistently drilled with good surface finish on a variety of metals. Micromilling and microdrilling on ceramics using a 250 W copper vapor laser have also been demonstrated with good results. Materialographic sections of machined parts show little (submicron scale) recast layer and heat affected zone. 1 fig.

Equity and Value in 'Precision Medicine'.

Science.gov (United States)

Gray, Muir; Lagerberg, Tyra; Dombrádi, Viktor

2017-04-01

Precision medicine carries huge potential in the treatment of many diseases, particularly those with high-penetrance monogenic underpinnings. However, precision medicine through genomic technologies also has ethical implications. We will define allocative, personal, and technical value ('triple value') in healthcare and how this relates to equity. Equity is here taken to be implicit in the concept of triple value in countries that have publicly funded healthcare systems. It will be argued that precision medicine risks concentrating resources to those that already experience greater access to healthcare and power in society, nationally as well as globally. Healthcare payers, clinicians, and patients must all be involved in optimising the potential of precision medicine, without reducing equity. Throughout, the discussion will refer to the NHS RightCare Programme, which is a national initiative aiming to improve value and equity in the context of NHS England.

The Cook Agronomy Farm LTAR: Knowledge Intensive Precision Agro-ecology

Science.gov (United States)

Huggins, D. R.

2015-12-01

Drowning in data and starving for knowledge, agricultural decision makers require evidence-based information to enlighten sustainable intensification. The agro-ecological footprint of the Cook Agronomy Farm (CAF) Long-Term Agro-ecosystem Research (LTAR) site is embedded within 9.4 million ha of diverse land uses primarily cropland (2.9 million ha) and rangeland (5.3 million ha) that span a wide annual precipitation gradient (150 mm through 1400 mm) with diverse social and natural capital (see Figure). Sustainable intensification hinges on the development and adoption of precision agro-ecological practices that rely on meaningful spatio-temporal data relevant to land use decisions at within-field to regional scales. Specifically, the CAF LTAR will provide the scientific foundation (socio-economical and bio-physical) for enhancing decision support for precision and conservation agriculture and synergistic cropping system intensification and diversification. Long- and short-term perspectives that recognize and assess trade-offs in ecosystem services inherent in any land use decision will be considered so as to promote the development of more sustainable agricultural systems. Presented will be current and future CAF LTAR research efforts required for the development of sustainable agricultural systems including cropping system cycles and flows of nutrients, water, carbon, greenhouse gases and other biotic and abiotic factors. Evaluation criteria and metrics associated with long-term agro-ecosystem provisioning, supporting, and regulating services will be emphasized.

Robustness of spiking Deep Belief Networks to noise and reduced bit precision of neuro-inspired hardware platforms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Evangelos eStromatias

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Increasingly large deep learning architectures, such as Deep Belief Networks (DBNs are the focus of current machine learning research and achieve state-of-the-art results in different domains. However, both training and execution of large-scale Deep Networks requires vast computing resources, leading to high power requirements and communication overheads. The on-going work on design and construction of spike-based hardware platforms offers an alternative for running deep neural networks with significantly lower power consumption, but has to overcome hardware limitations in terms of noise and limited weight precision, as well as noise inherent in the sensor signal. This article investigates how such hardware constraints impact the performance of spiking neural network implementations of DBNs. In particular, the influence of limited bit precision during execution and training, and the impact of silicon mismatch in the synaptic weight parameters of custom hybrid VLSI implementations is studied. Furthermore, the network performance of spiking DBNs is characterized with regard to noise in the spiking input signal. Our results demonstrate that spiking DBNs can tolerate very low levels of hardware bit precision down to almost 2 bits, and shows that their performance can be improved by at least 30% through an adapted training mechanism that takes the bit precision of the target platform into account. Spiking DBNs thus present an important use-case for large-scale hybrid analog-digital or digital neuromorphic platforms such as SpiNNaker, which can execute large but precision-constrained deep networks in real time.

A Compositional Knowledge Level Process Model of Requirements Engineering

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Herlea, D.E.; Jonker, C.M.; Treur, J.; Wijngaards, W.C.A.

2002-01-01

In current literature few detailed process models for Requirements Engineering are presented: usually high-level activities are distinguished, without a more precise specification of each activity. In this paper the process of Requirements Engineering has been analyzed using knowledge-level

Development of 30-pin connectors for electronic modules of C and I systems for NPP's confirming to customized MIL STD-1344 requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marathe, P.P.; Madala, Kalyan C.; Ramakrishna, P.

2014-01-01

The electrical connectors form an important constituent of C and I system where customized circuits and hardware is required to be configured meeting the Nuclear Power Plant regulatory requirements. C and I hardware has to handle multiple hundreds of I/O's and the system architectures are made in modular construction having C and I system hardware packaged in plug-in electronic modules in the required form factors. In addition if the system has to satisfy customized JSS 55555 requirements meeting stringent shock, vibration and environmental specifications, the connectors used for the electronic modules shall meet the customized MIL STD-1344 requirements and meet reliability target for the system. 30-pin type special connectors for electronic modules and 2x30 (60) pin field cabling connectors were developed meeting the required qualification specifications. (author)

Spectrophotometric high-precision seawater pH determination for use in underway measuring systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Aßmann

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Autonomous sensors are required for a comprehensive documentation of the changes in the marine carbon system and thus to differentiate between its natural variability and anthropogenic impacts. Spectrophotometric determination of pH – a key variable of the seawater carbon system – is particularly suited to achieve precise and drift-free measurements. However, available spectrophotometric instruments are not suitable for integration into automated measurement systems (e.g. FerryBox since they do not meet the major requirements of reliability, stability, robustness and moderate cost. Here we report on the development and testing of a~new indicator-based pH sensor that meets all of these requirements. This sensor can withstand the rough conditions during long-term deployments on ships of opportunity and is applicable to the open ocean as well as to coastal waters with a complex matrix and highly variable conditions. The sensor uses a high resolution CCD spectrometer as detector connected via optical fibers to a custom-made cuvette designed to reduce the impact of air bubbles. The sample temperature can be precisely adjusted (25 °C ± 0.006 °C using computer-controlled power supplies and Peltier elements thus avoiding the widely used water bath. The overall setup achieves a measurement frequency of 1 min⁻¹ with a precision of ±0.0007 pH units, an average offset of +0.0005 pH units to a reference system, and an offset of +0.0081 pH units to a certified standard buffer. Application of this sensor allows monitoring of seawater pH in autonomous underway systems, providing a key variable for characterization and understanding of the marine carbon system.

Precision Optical Coatings for Large Space Telescope Mirrors

Science.gov (United States)

Sheikh, David

This proposal “Precision Optical Coatings for Large Space Telescope Mirrors” addresses the need to develop and advance the state-of-the-art in optical coating technology. NASA is considering large monolithic mirrors 1 to 8-meters in diameter for future telescopes such as HabEx and LUVOIR. Improved large area coating processes are needed to meet the future requirements of large astronomical mirrors. In this project, we will demonstrate a broadband reflective coating process for achieving high reflectivity from 90-nm to 2500-nm over a 2.3-meter diameter coating area. The coating process is scalable to larger mirrors, 6+ meters in diameter. We will use a battery-driven coating process to make an aluminum reflector, and a motion-controlled coating technology for depositing protective layers. We will advance the state-of-the-art for coating technology and manufacturing infrastructure, to meet the reflectance and wavefront requirements of both HabEx and LUVOIR. Specifically, we will combine the broadband reflective coating designs and processes developed at GSFC and JPL with large area manufacturing technologies developed at ZeCoat Corporation. Our primary objectives are to: Demonstrate an aluminum coating process to create uniform coatings over large areas with near-theoretical aluminum reflectance Demonstrate a motion-controlled coating process to apply very precise 2-nm to 5- nm thick protective/interference layers to large areas, Demonstrate a broadband coating system (90-nm to 2500-nm) over a 2.3-meter coating area and test it against the current coating specifications for LUVOIR/HabEx. We will perform simulated space-environment testing, and we expect to advance the TRL from 3 to >5 in 3-years.

High-precision mass measurements of neutron-deficient Tl isotopes at ISOLTRAP and the development of an ultra-stable voltage source for the PENTATRAP experiment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boehm, Christine

2015-01-14

Atomic masses and hence binding energies of nuclides are of great importance for studies of nuclear structure since they reflect all effective interactions in a nucleus. Within this thesis the masses of seven nuclides, namely {sup 194}Au, {sup 194}Hg, {sup 190,193,198}Tl and {sup 202,208}Pb, were determined at the Penning-trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP at ISOLDE/CERN. The thallium region in the chart of isotopes is of special interest due to the occurrence of nuclear structure effects like low-lying isomers, level inversion, shape coexistence and deformations. These effects are investigated by applying finite-difference mass formulas, such as the two-neutron separation energies or the so-called empirical pairing gaps. The second topic addressed within the present thesis is an ultra-stable voltage source, called StaReP (Stable Reference for Penning Trap Experiments), which was developed at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik. It is one of the key components of the high-precision mass spectrometer PENTATRAP, containing a tower of five Penning traps. A 25-channel voltage source with a relative stability of few 10{sup -8} over a period of 10 minutes in the range of 0 to -100V is mandatory for PENTATRAP aiming for mass measurements with relative mass uncertainties of ≤ 10{sup -11}. Mass values with such a high precision allow for stringent tests of quantum electrodynamics in strong electric fields, testing Einstein's mass-energy relation E = mc{sup 2} as well as measurements of decay energies (Q-values) with applications in neutrino physics.

A passion for precision

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva. Audiovisual Unit

2006-01-01

For more than three decades, the quest for ever higher precision in laser spectroscopy of the simple hydrogen atom has inspired many advances in laser, optical, and spectroscopic techniques, culminating in femtosecond laser optical frequency combs as perhaps the most precise measuring tools known to man. Applications range from optical atomic clocks and tests of QED and relativity to searches for time variations of fundamental constants. Recent experiments are extending frequency comb techniques into the extreme ultraviolet. Laser frequency combs can also control the electric field of ultrashort light pulses, creating powerful new tools for the emerging field of attosecond science.

Improving Precision of Types

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Winther, Johnni

Types in programming languages provide a powerful tool for the programmer to document the code so that a large aspect of the intent can not only be presented to fellow programmers but also be checked automatically by compilers. The precision with which types model the behavior of programs...... is crucial to the quality of these automated checks, and in this thesis we present three different improvements to the precision of types in three different aspects of the Java programming language. First we show how to extend the type system in Java with a new type which enables the detection of unintended...

NCI Precision Medicine

Science.gov (United States)

This illustration represents the National Cancer Institute’s support of research to improve precision medicine in cancer treatment, in which unique therapies treat an individual’s cancer based on specific genetic abnormalities of that person’s tumor.

P2. A fused silica Cherenkov detector for the high precision determination of the weak mixing angle

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gerz, Kathrin; Becker, Dominik; Jennewein, Thomas; Baunack, Sebastian [Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz (Germany); Kumar, Krishna [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook (United States); Maas, Frank [Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz (Germany); Helmholtz Institut Mainz (Germany)

2016-07-01

The weak mixing angle is a central parameter of the standard model and its high precision determination is tantamount to probing for new physics effects. The P2 experiment at the MESA accelerator in Mainz will perform such a measurement of the weak mixing angle via parity violating electron-proton scattering. We aim to determine sin{sup 2}(Θ{sub W}) to a relative precision of 0.13%. Since the weak charge of the proton is small compared to its electric charge, the measurable asymmetry is only 33 ppb, requiring a challenging measurement to a precision of only 0.44 ppb. In order to achieve this precision we need to collect very high statistics and carefully minimize interfering effects like apparatus induced false asymmetries. We present the status of the development of an integrating fused-silica Cherenkov detector, which is suitable for a high precision and high intensity experiment like P2. The contribution will focus on the investigation of the detector's response to incoming signal and background particles both by simulations and by beam tests at the MAMI accelerator.

Index change of chalcogenide materials from precision glass molding processes

Science.gov (United States)

Deegan, J.; Walsh, K.; Lindberg, G.; Benson, R.; Gibson, D.; Bayya, S.; Sanghera, J.; Stover, E.

2015-05-01

With the increase in demand for infrared optics for thermal applications and the use of glass molding of chalcogenide materials to support these higher volume optical designs, an investigation of changes to the optical properties of these materials is required. Typical precision glass molding requires specific thermal conditions for proper lens molding of any type of optical glass. With these conditions a change (reduction) of optical index occurs after molding of all oxide glass types and it is presumed that a similar behavior will happen with chalcogenide based materials. We will discuss the effects of a typical molding thermal cycle for use with commercially and newly developed chalcogenide materials and show results of index variation from nominally established material data.

Trigger algorithms and electronics for the ATLAS muon new small wheel upgrade

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guan, L.

2016-01-01

The New Small Wheel Upgrade for the ATLAS experiment will replace the innermost station of the Muon Spectrometer in the forward region in order to maintain its current performance during high luminosity data-taking after the LHC Phase-I upgrade. The New Small Wheel, comprising Micromegas and small Thin Gap Chambers, will reduce the rate of fake triggers coming from backgrounds in the forward region and significantly improve the Level-1 muon trigger selectivity by providing precise on-line segment measurements with ∼ 1 mrad angular resolution. Such demanding precision, together with the short time (∼ 1 μs) to prepare trigger data and perform on-line reconstruction, implies very stringent requirements on the design of trigger system and trigger electronics. This paper presents an overview of the design of the New Small Wheel trigger system, trigger algorithms and processor hardware

The Development of Precise Engineering Surveying Technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

LI Guangyun

2017-10-01

Full Text Available With the construction of big science projects in China, the precise engineering surveying technology developed rapidly in the 21th century. Firstly, the paper summarized up the current development situation for the precise engineering surveying instrument and theory. Then the three typical cases of the precise engineering surveying practice such as accelerator alignment, industry measurement and high-speed railway surveying technology are focused.

Precise Point Positioning Using Triple GNSS Constellations in Various Modes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akram Afifi

2016-05-01

Full Text Available This paper introduces a new dual-frequency precise point positioning (PPP model, which combines the observations from three different global navigation satellite system (GNSS constellations, namely GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou. Combining measurements from different GNSS systems introduces additional biases, including inter-system bias and hardware delays, which require rigorous modelling. Our model is based on the un-differenced and between-satellite single-difference (BSSD linear combinations. BSSD linear combination cancels out some receiver-related biases, including receiver clock error and non-zero initial phase bias of the receiver oscillator. Forming the BSSD linear combination requires a reference satellite, which can be selected from any of the GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou systems. In this paper three BSSD scenarios are tested; each considers a reference satellite from a different GNSS constellation. Natural Resources Canada’s GPSPace PPP software is modified to enable a combined GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou PPP solution and to handle the newly introduced biases. A total of four data sets collected at four different IGS stations are processed to verify the developed PPP model. Precise satellite orbit and clock products from the International GNSS Service Multi-GNSS Experiment (IGS-MGEX network are used to correct the GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou measurements in the post-processing PPP mode. A real-time PPP solution is also obtained, which is referred to as RT-PPP in the sequel, through the use of the IGS real-time service (RTS for satellite orbit and clock corrections. However, only GPS and Galileo observations are used for the RT-PPP solution, as the RTS-IGS satellite products are not presently available for BeiDou system. All post-processed and real-time PPP solutions are compared with the traditional un-differenced GPS-only counterparts. It is shown that combining the GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou observations in the post-processing mode improves the

Precision medicine: In need of guidance and surveillance.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Jian-Zhen; Long, Jun-Yu; Wang, An-Qiang; Zheng, Ying; Zhao, Hai-Tao

2017-07-28

Precision medicine, currently a hotspot in mainstream medicine, has been strongly promoted in recent years. With rapid technological development, such as next-generation sequencing, and fierce competition in molecular targeted drug exploitation, precision medicine represents an advance in science and technology; it also fulfills needs in public health care. The clinical translation and application of precision medicine - especially in the prevention and treatment of tumors - is far from satisfactory; however, the aims of precision medicine deserve approval. Thus, this medical approach is currently in its infancy; it has promising prospects, but it needs to overcome numbers of problems and deficiencies. It is expected that in addition to conventional symptoms and signs, precision medicine will define disease in terms of the underlying molecular characteristics and other environmental susceptibility factors. Those expectations should be realized by constructing a novel data network, integrating clinical data from individual patients and personal genomic background with existing research on the molecular makeup of diseases. In addition, multi-omics analysis and multi-discipline collaboration will become crucial elements in precision medicine. Precision medicine deserves strong support, and its development demands directed momentum. We propose three kinds of impetus (research, application and collaboration impetus) for such directed momentum toward promoting precision medicine and accelerating its clinical translation and application.

Five critical elements to ensure the precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Chengshui; He, Mingyan; Zhu, Yichun; Shi, Lin; Wang, Xiangdong

2015-06-01

The precision medicine as a new emerging area and therapeutic strategy has occurred and was practiced in the individual and brought unexpected successes, and gained high attentions from professional and social aspects as a new path to improve the treatment and prognosis of patients. There will be a number of new components to appear or be discovered, of which clinical bioinformatics integrates clinical phenotypes and informatics with bioinformatics, computational science, mathematics, and systems biology. In addition to those tools, precision medicine calls more accurate and repeatable methodologies for the identification and validation of gene discovery. Precision medicine will bring more new therapeutic strategies, drug discovery and development, and gene-oriented treatment. There is an urgent need to identify and validate disease-specific, mechanism-based, or epigenetics-dependent biomarkers to monitor precision medicine, and develop "precision" regulations to guard the application of precision medicine.

Precision measurements at a muon collider

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dawson, S.

1995-01-01

We discuss the potential for making precision measurements of M W and M T at a muon collider and the motivations for each measurement. A comparison is made with the precision measurements expected at other facilities. The measurement of the top quark decay width is also discussed

Precise subtyping for synchronous multiparty sessions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariangiola Dezani-Ciancaglini

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The notion of subtyping has gained an important role both in theoretical and applicative domains: in lambda and concurrent calculi as well as in programming languages. The soundness and the completeness, together referred to as the preciseness of subtyping, can be considered from two different points of view: operational and denotational. The former preciseness has been recently developed with respect to type safety, i.e. the safe replacement of a term of a smaller type when a term of a bigger type is expected. The latter preciseness is based on the denotation of a type which is a mathematical object that describes the meaning of the type in accordance with the denotations of other expressions from the language. The result of this paper is the operational and denotational preciseness of the subtyping for a synchronous multiparty session calculus. The novelty of this paper is the introduction of characteristic global types to prove the operational completeness.

Canadian energy standards : residential energy code requirements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cooper, K. [SAR Engineering Ltd., Burnaby, BC (Canada)

2006-09-15

A survey of residential energy code requirements was discussed. New housing is approximately 13 per cent more efficient than housing built 15 years ago, and more stringent energy efficiency requirements in building codes have contributed to decreased energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, a survey of residential energy codes across Canada has determined that explicit demands for energy efficiency are currently only present in British Columbia (BC), Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. The survey evaluated more than 4300 single-detached homes built between 2000 and 2005 using data from the EnerGuide for Houses (EGH) database. House area, volume, airtightness and construction characteristics were reviewed to create archetypes for 8 geographic areas. The survey indicated that in Quebec and the Maritimes, 90 per cent of houses comply with ventilation system requirements of the National Building Code, while compliance in the rest of Canada is much lower. Heat recovery ventilation use is predominant in the Atlantic provinces. Direct-vent or condensing furnaces constitute the majority of installed systems in provinces where natural gas is the primary space heating fuel. Details of Insulation levels for walls, double-glazed windows, and building code insulation standards were also reviewed. It was concluded that if R-2000 levels of energy efficiency were applied, total average energy consumption would be reduced by 36 per cent in Canada. 2 tabs.

Deficits in Coordinative Bimanual Timing Precision in Children With Specific Language Impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Vuolo, Janet; Goffman, Lisa; Zelaznik, Howard N

2017-02-01

Our objective was to delineate components of motor performance in specific language impairment (SLI); specifically, whether deficits in timing precision in one effector (unimanual tapping) and in two effectors (bimanual clapping) are observed in young children with SLI. Twenty-seven 4- to 5-year-old children with SLI and 21 age-matched peers with typical language development participated. All children engaged in a unimanual tapping and a bimanual clapping timing task. Standard measures of language and motor performance were also obtained. No group differences in timing variability were observed in the unimanual tapping task. However, compared with typically developing peers, children with SLI were more variable in their timing precision in the bimanual clapping task. Nine of the children with SLI performed greater than 1 SD below the mean on a standardized motor assessment. The children with low motor performance showed the same profile as observed across all children with SLI, with unaffected unimanual and impaired bimanual timing precision. Although unimanual timing is unaffected, children with SLI show a deficit in timing that requires bimanual coordination. We propose that the timing deficits observed in children with SLI are associated with the increased demands inherent in bimanual performance.

Concept of modular flexure-based mechanisms for ultra-high precision robot design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Richard

2011-05-01

Full Text Available This paper introduces a new concept of modular flexure-based mechanisms to design industrial ultra-high precision robots, which aims at significantly reducing both the complexity of their design and their development time. This modular concept can be considered as a robotic Lego, where a finite number of building bricks is used to quickly build a high-precision robot. The core of the concept is the transformation of a 3-D design problem into several 2-D ones, which are simpler and well-mastered. This paper will first briefly present the theoretical bases of this methodology and the requirements of both types of building bricks: the active and the passive bricks. The section dedicated to the design of the active bricks will detail the current research directions, mainly the maximisation of the strokes and the development of an actuation sub-brick. As for the passive bricks, some examples will be presented, and a discussion regarding the establishment of a mechanical solution catalogue will conclude the section. Last, this modular concept will be illustrated with a practical example, consisting in the design of a 5-degree of freedom ultra-high precision robot.

Morphometry and kinematics of landslides inferred from precise DTMs in West Belgium

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

O. Dewitte

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The Flemish Ardennes (W Belgium are known to be affected by deep-seated landslides. The assessment of the landslide reactivation hazard requires understanding the driving processes and delimiting precisely not only the landslide boundaries but especially that of their most active parts. Precise 3D models of 13 landslides were produced by digital stereophotogrammetry using aerial photographs of different dates. Dealing with photographs at the scale 1:25000 or larger, we obtained for each model an accuracy better than 0.5m. As a first result, the main size parameters of the landslides (width, length, depth, volume, ... are easily computed. Moreover, the obtained DTMs may be subtracted from each other in order to determine the apparent vertical displacement of each pixel during the interval of time considered. Provided that more than 2 epochs are documented, such DTMs not only supply precise information about distribution and style of the landslide activity but may also point to temporal variations in this activity. The subtraction of DTMs allows us to give an estimation of the volume of the 'uplifted' and 'collapsed' terrains between two epochs.

Accuracy and precision evaluation of seven self-monitoring blood glucose systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuo, Chih-Yi; Hsu, Cheng-Teng; Ho, Cheng-Shiao; Su, Ting-En; Wu, Ming-Hsun; Wang, Chau-Jong

2011-05-01

Self-monitoring blood glucose (SMBG) systems play a critical role in management of diabetes. SMBG systems should at least meet the minimal requirement of the World Health Organization's ISO 15197:2003. For tight glycemic control, a tighter accuracy requirement is needed. Seven SMBG systems were evaluated for accuracy and precision: Bionime Rightest(™) GM550 (Bionime Corp., Dali City, Taiwan), Accu-Chek(®) Performa (Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis, IN), OneTouch(®) Ultra(®)2 (LifeScan Inc., Milpitas, CA), MediSense(®) Optium(™) Xceed (Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Alameda, CA), Medisafe (TERUMO Corp., Tokyo, Japan), Fora(®) TD4227 (Taidac Technology Corp., Wugu Township, Taiwan), and Ascensia Contour(®) (Bayer HealthCare LLC, Mishawaka, IN). The 107 participants (44 men and 63 women) were between 23 and 91 years old. The analytical results of seven SMBG systems were compared with those of plasma analyzed with the hexokinase method (Olympus AU640, Olympus America Inc., Center Valley, PA). The imprecision of the seven blood glucose meters ranged from 1.1% to 4.7%. Three of the seven blood glucose meters (42.9%) fulfilled the minimum accuracy criteria of ISO 15197:2003. The mean absolute relative error value for each blood glucose meter was calculated and ranged from 6.5% to 12.0%. More than 40% of evaluated SMBG systems meet the minimal accuracy criteria requirement of ISO 15197:2003. However, considering tighter criteria for accuracy of ±15%, only the Bionime Rightest GM550 meets this requirement. Because SMBG systems play a critical role in management of diabetes, manufacturers have to strive to improve accuracy and precision and to ensure the good quality of blood glucose meters and test strips.

Development of NPP Safety Requirements into Kenya's Grid Codes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ndirangu, Nguni James; Koo, Chang Choong [KEPCO International Nuclear Graduate School, Ulsan (Korea, Republic of)

2015-10-15

As presently drafted, Kenya's grid codes do not contain any NPP requirements. Through case studies of selected grid codes, this paper will study frequency, voltage and fault ride through requirements for NPP connection and operation, and offer recommendation of how these requirements can be incorporated in the Kenya's grid codes. Voltage and frequency excursions in Kenya's grid are notably frequently outside the generic requirement and the values observed by the German and UK grid codes. Kenya's grid codes require continuous operation for ±10% of nominal voltage and 45.0 to 52Hz on the grid which poses safety issues for an NPP. Considering stringent NPP connection to grid and operational safety requirements, and the importance of the TSO to NPP safety, more elaborate requirements need to be documented in the Kenya's grid codes. UK and Germany have a history of meeting high standards of nuclear safety and it is therefore recommended that format like the one in Table 1 to 3 should be adopted. Kenya's Grid code considering NPP should have: • Strict rules for voltage variation, that is, -5% to +10% of the nominal voltage • Strict rules for frequency variation, that is, 48Hz to 52Hz of the nominal frequencyand.

Development of NPP Safety Requirements into Kenya's Grid Codes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ndirangu, Nguni James; Koo, Chang Choong

2015-01-01

As presently drafted, Kenya's grid codes do not contain any NPP requirements. Through case studies of selected grid codes, this paper will study frequency, voltage and fault ride through requirements for NPP connection and operation, and offer recommendation of how these requirements can be incorporated in the Kenya's grid codes. Voltage and frequency excursions in Kenya's grid are notably frequently outside the generic requirement and the values observed by the German and UK grid codes. Kenya's grid codes require continuous operation for ±10% of nominal voltage and 45.0 to 52Hz on the grid which poses safety issues for an NPP. Considering stringent NPP connection to grid and operational safety requirements, and the importance of the TSO to NPP safety, more elaborate requirements need to be documented in the Kenya's grid codes. UK and Germany have a history of meeting high standards of nuclear safety and it is therefore recommended that format like the one in Table 1 to 3 should be adopted. Kenya's Grid code considering NPP should have: • Strict rules for voltage variation, that is, -5% to +10% of the nominal voltage • Strict rules for frequency variation, that is, 48Hz to 52Hz of the nominal frequencyand

Epistemology, Ethics, and Progress in Precision Medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Hey, Spencer Phillips; Barsanti-Innes, Brianna

2016-01-01

The emerging paradigm of precision medicine strives to leverage the tools of molecular biology to prospectively tailor treatments to the individual patient. Fundamental to the success of this movement is the discovery and validation of "predictive biomarkers," which are properties of a patient's biological specimens that can be assayed in advance of therapy to inform the treatment decision. Unfortunately, research into biomarkers and diagnostics for precision medicine has fallen well short of expectations. In this essay, we examine the portfolio of research activities into the excision repair cross complement group 1 (ERCC1) gene as a predictive biomarker for precision lung cancer therapy as a case study in elucidating the epistemological and ethical obstacles to developing new precision medicines.

LHAPDF6: parton density access in the LHC precision era

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Buckley, Andy; Ferrando, James; Nordstroem, Karl; Lloyd, Stephen; Page, Ben; Ruefenacht, Martin; Schoenherr, Marek; Watt, Graeme

2015-01-01

The Fortran LHAPDF library has been a long-term workhorse in particle physics, providing standardised access to parton density functions for experimental and phenomenological purposes alike, following on from the venerable PDFLIB package. During Run 1 of the LHC, however, several fundamental limitations in LHAPDF's design have became deeply problematic, restricting the usability of the library for important physics-study procedures and providing dangerous avenues by which to silently obtain incorrect results. In this paper we present the LHAPDF 6 library, a ground-up re-engineering of the PDFLIB/LHAPDF paradigm for PDF access which removes all limits on use of concurrent PDF sets, massively reduces static memory requirements, offers improved CPU performance, and fixes fundamental bugs in multi-set access to PDF metadata. The new design, restricted for now to interpolated PDFs, uses centralised numerical routines and a powerful cascading metadata system to decouple software releases from provision of new PDF data and allow completely general parton content. More than 200 PDF sets have been migrated from LHAPDF 5 to the new universal data format, via a stringent quality control procedure. LHAPDF 6 is supported by many Monte Carlo generators and other physics programs, in some cases via a full set of compatibility routines, and is recommended for the demanding PDF access needs of LHC Run 2 and beyond. (orig.)

LHAPDF6: parton density access in the LHC precision era

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Buckley, Andy; Ferrando, James; Nordstroem, Karl [University of Glasgow, School of Physics and Astronomy, Glasgow (United Kingdom); Lloyd, Stephen [University of Edinburgh, School of Physics and Astronomy, Edinburgh (United Kingdom); Page, Ben [Universidad de Granada, Departamento de Fisica Teorica y del Cosmos y CAFPE, Granada (Spain); Ruefenacht, Martin [University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics, Edinburgh (United Kingdom); Schoenherr, Marek [Universitaet Zuerich, Physik-Institut, Zurich (Switzerland); Watt, Graeme [Durham University, Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Durham (United Kingdom)

2015-03-01

The Fortran LHAPDF library has been a long-term workhorse in particle physics, providing standardised access to parton density functions for experimental and phenomenological purposes alike, following on from the venerable PDFLIB package. During Run 1 of the LHC, however, several fundamental limitations in LHAPDF's design have became deeply problematic, restricting the usability of the library for important physics-study procedures and providing dangerous avenues by which to silently obtain incorrect results. In this paper we present the LHAPDF 6 library, a ground-up re-engineering of the PDFLIB/LHAPDF paradigm for PDF access which removes all limits on use of concurrent PDF sets, massively reduces static memory requirements, offers improved CPU performance, and fixes fundamental bugs in multi-set access to PDF metadata. The new design, restricted for now to interpolated PDFs, uses centralised numerical routines and a powerful cascading metadata system to decouple software releases from provision of new PDF data and allow completely general parton content. More than 200 PDF sets have been migrated from LHAPDF 5 to the new universal data format, via a stringent quality control procedure. LHAPDF 6 is supported by many Monte Carlo generators and other physics programs, in some cases via a full set of compatibility routines, and is recommended for the demanding PDF access needs of LHC Run 2 and beyond. (orig.)

Precision Clock Evaluation Facility

Data.gov (United States)

Federal Laboratory Consortium — FUNCTION: Tests and evaluates high-precision atomic clocks for spacecraft, ground, and mobile applications. Supports performance evaluation, environmental testing,...

High precision attachment of silver nanoparticles on AFM tips by dielectrophoresis.

Science.gov (United States)

Leiterer, Christian; Wünsche, Erik; Singh, Prabha; Albert, Jens; Köhler, Johann M; Deckert, Volker; Fritzsche, Wolfgang

2016-05-01

AFM tips are modified with silver nanoparticles using an AC electrical field. The used technique works with sub-micron precision and also does not require chemical modification of the tip. Based on the electrical parameters applied in the process, particle density and particle position on the apex of the tip can be adjusted. The feasibility of the method is proven by subsequent tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) measurements using the fabricated tips as a measurement probe. Since this modification process itself does not require any lithographic processing, the technique can be easily adapted to modify AFM tips with a variety of nanostructures with pre-defined properties, while being parallelizable for a potential commercial application.

20 CFR 416.968 - Skill requirements.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... (iii) The same or similar raw materials, products, processes, or services are involved. (3) Degrees of... jobs may require alertness and close attention to watching machine processes; or inspecting, testing or... suitability and needed quantities of materials, making precise measurements, reading blueprints or other...

Technology Requirements for a Square Meter, Arcsecond Resolution Telescope for X-Rays: The SMART-X Mission

Science.gov (United States)

Schwartz, Daniel A.; Allured, Ryan; Bookbinder, Jay A.; Cotroneo, Vincenzo; Forman, William R.; Freeman, Mark D.; McMuldroch, Stuart; Reid, Paul B.; Tananbaum, Harvey; Vikhlinin, Alexey A.;

High precision measurements of the luminosity at LEP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pietrzyk, B.

1994-01-01

The art of the luminosity measurements at LEP is presented. First generation LEP detectors have measured the absolute luminosity with the precision of 0.3-0.5%. The most precise present detectors have reached the 0.07% precision and the 0.05% is not excluded in future. Center-of-mass energy dependent relative precision of the luminosity detectors and the use of the theoretical cross-section in the LEP experiments are also discussed. (author). 18 refs., 6 figs., 6 tabs

Introduction to precision machine design and error assessment

CERN Document Server

Mekid, Samir

2008-01-01

While ultra-precision machines are now achieving sub-nanometer accuracy, unique challenges continue to arise due to their tight specifications. Written to meet the growing needs of mechanical engineers and other professionals to understand these specialized design process issues, Introduction to Precision Machine Design and Error Assessment places a particular focus on the errors associated with precision design, machine diagnostics, error modeling, and error compensation. Error Assessment and ControlThe book begins with a brief overview of precision engineering and applications before introdu

Development of Heavy-Duty and High-Precision Hydraulic Manipulator for Inspection, Maintenance and Decommission of Nuclear Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Sung Uk; Seo, Yong-chil; Jung, Kyung Min; Kim, Chang-hoi; Choi, Byung-seon; Moon, Jei-kwon [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

Robotic manipulators have been used for inspection, maintenance and decommission of nuclear power plants because nuclear power plants have high radiation and human workers cannot easily access the plants. And also, to inspecting, maintaining and decommissioning nuclear power plants require various manipulators. Only one manipulator cannot response to many required tasks. The existing manipulators that was used at nuclear power plants can only operate only focused specific task and cannot be used at several tasks. The actuators used at manipulators are varied and many companies sell actuators depending on power, torque and speed. However, the commercial product is not standardized. Therefore, the development of manipulator is time consuming and expensive. The essential item of a manipulator is an actuator module. If actuator module is standardized, it’s easier to develop a manipulator and also maintain a manipulator. Recently, manipulator having high-radiation, high-duty and high-precision is necessary to inspection, maintain and decommissioning of nuclear power plants. Hydraulic actuator has been used to development high-duty manipulator. But control performance of a hydraulic actuator is not better than that of an electric actuator so that hydraulic manipulator cannot easily satisfy the required precision. In this paper, we developed high-duty and high-precision actuator modules and hydraulic manipulator using the developed actuator modules. The developed hydraulic manipulator have a payload of 250kg and a precision of ±1mm. Four modularized hydraulic actuator modules were developed for inspection, maintenance and decommission. Using the developed actuator modules, the manipulator for decommissioning is easily developed. And also, various manipulators having different kinematic structure for specific tasks will be easily developed by using hydraulic modules.

Development of Heavy-Duty and High-Precision Hydraulic Manipulator for Inspection, Maintenance and Decommission of Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Sung Uk; Seo, Yong-chil; Jung, Kyung Min; Kim, Chang-hoi; Choi, Byung-seon; Moon, Jei-kwon

2016-01-01

Robotic manipulators have been used for inspection, maintenance and decommission of nuclear power plants because nuclear power plants have high radiation and human workers cannot easily access the plants. And also, to inspecting, maintaining and decommissioning nuclear power plants require various manipulators. Only one manipulator cannot response to many required tasks. The existing manipulators that was used at nuclear power plants can only operate only focused specific task and cannot be used at several tasks. The actuators used at manipulators are varied and many companies sell actuators depending on power, torque and speed. However, the commercial product is not standardized. Therefore, the development of manipulator is time consuming and expensive. The essential item of a manipulator is an actuator module. If actuator module is standardized, it’s easier to develop a manipulator and also maintain a manipulator. Recently, manipulator having high-radiation, high-duty and high-precision is necessary to inspection, maintain and decommissioning of nuclear power plants. Hydraulic actuator has been used to development high-duty manipulator. But control performance of a hydraulic actuator is not better than that of an electric actuator so that hydraulic manipulator cannot easily satisfy the required precision. In this paper, we developed high-duty and high-precision actuator modules and hydraulic manipulator using the developed actuator modules. The developed hydraulic manipulator have a payload of 250kg and a precision of ±1mm. Four modularized hydraulic actuator modules were developed for inspection, maintenance and decommission. Using the developed actuator modules, the manipulator for decommissioning is easily developed. And also, various manipulators having different kinematic structure for specific tasks will be easily developed by using hydraulic modules

Bit Grooming: statistically accurate precision-preserving quantization with compression, evaluated in the netCDF Operators (NCO, v4.4.8+)

Science.gov (United States)

Zender, Charles S.

2016-09-01

Geoscientific models and measurements generate false precision (scientifically meaningless data bits) that wastes storage space. False precision can mislead (by implying noise is signal) and be scientifically pointless, especially for measurements. By contrast, lossy compression can be both economical (save space) and heuristic (clarify data limitations) without compromising the scientific integrity of data. Data quantization can thus be appropriate regardless of whether space limitations are a concern. We introduce, implement, and characterize a new lossy compression scheme suitable for IEEE floating-point data. Our new Bit Grooming algorithm alternately shaves (to zero) and sets (to one) the least significant bits of consecutive values to preserve a desired precision. This is a symmetric, two-sided variant of an algorithm sometimes called Bit Shaving that quantizes values solely by zeroing bits. Our variation eliminates the artificial low bias produced by always zeroing bits, and makes Bit Grooming more suitable for arrays and multi-dimensional fields whose mean statistics are important. Bit Grooming relies on standard lossless compression to achieve the actual reduction in storage space, so we tested Bit Grooming by applying the DEFLATE compression algorithm to bit-groomed and full-precision climate data stored in netCDF3, netCDF4, HDF4, and HDF5 formats. Bit Grooming reduces the storage space required by initially uncompressed and compressed climate data by 25-80 and 5-65 %, respectively, for single-precision values (the most common case for climate data) quantized to retain 1-5 decimal digits of precision. The potential reduction is greater for double-precision datasets. When used aggressively (i.e., preserving only 1-2 digits), Bit Grooming produces storage reductions comparable to other quantization techniques such as Linear Packing. Unlike Linear Packing, whose guaranteed precision rapidly degrades within the relatively narrow dynamic range of values that

Precision Tiltmeter as a Reference for Slope MeasuringInstruments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kirschman, Jonathan L.; Domning, Edward E.; Morrison, Gregory Y.; Smith, Brian V.; Yashchuk, Valeriy V.

2007-08-01

The next generation of synchrotrons and free electron lasers require extremely high-performance x-ray optical systems for proper focusing. The necessary optics cannot be fabricated without the use of precise optical metrology instrumentation. In particular, the Long Trace Profiler (LTP) based on the pencil-beam interferometer is a valuable tool for low-spatial-frequency slope measurement with x-ray optics. The limitations of such a device are set by the amount of systematic errors and noise. A significant improvement of LTP performance was the addition of an optical reference channel, which allowed to partially account for systematic errors associated with wiggling and wobbling of the LTP carriage. However, the optical reference is affected by changing optical path length, non-homogeneous optics, and air turbulence. In the present work, we experimentally investigate the questions related to the use of a precision tiltmeter as a reference channel. Dependence of the tiltmeter performance on horizontal acceleration, temperature drift, motion regime, and kinematical scheme of the translation stage has been investigated. It is shown that at an appropriate experimental arrangement, the tiltmeter provides a slope reference for the LTP system with accuracy on the level of 0.1 {micro}rad (rms).

Precision Tiltmeter as a Reference for Slope Measuring Instruments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kirschman, Jonathan L.; Domning, Edward E.; Morrison, Gregory Y.; Smith, Brian V.; Yashchuk, Valeriy V.

2007-01-01

The next generation of synchrotrons and free electron lasers require extremely high-performance x-ray optical systems for proper focusing. The necessary optics cannot be fabricated without the use of precise optical metrology instrumentation. In particular, the Long Trace Profiler (LTP) based on the pencil-beam interferometer is a valuable tool for low-spatial-frequency slope measurement with x-ray optics. The limitations of such a device are set by the amount of systematic errors and noise. A significant improvement of LTP performance was the addition of an optical reference channel, which allowed to partially account for systematic errors associated with wiggling and wobbling of the LTP carriage. However, the optical reference is affected by changing optical path length, non-homogeneous optics, and air turbulence. In the present work, we experimentally investigate the questions related to the use of a precision tiltmeter as a reference channel. Dependence of the tiltmeter performance on horizontal acceleration, temperature drift, motion regime, and kinematical scheme of the translation stage has been investigated. It is shown that at an appropriate experimental arrangement, the tiltmeter provides a slope reference for the LTP system with accuracy on the level of 0.1 (micro)rad (rms)

Precision Medicine-Nobody Is Average.

Science.gov (United States)

Vinks, A A

2017-03-01

Medicine gets personal and tailor-made treatments are underway. Hospitals have started to advertise their advanced genomic testing capabilities and even their disruptive technologies to help foster a culture of innovation. The prediction in the lay press is that in decades from now we may look back and see 2017 as the year precision medicine blossomed. It is all part of the Precision Medicine Initiative that takes into account individual differences in people's genes, environments, and lifestyles. © 2017 ASCPT.

A passion for precision

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2006-01-01

For more than three decades, the quest for ever higher precision in laser spectroscopy of the simple hydrogen atom has inspired many advances in laser, optical, and spectroscopic techniques, culminating in femtosecond laser optical frequency combs  as perhaps the most precise measuring tools known to man. Applications range from optical atomic clocks and tests of QED and relativity to searches for time variations of fundamental constants. Recent experiments are extending frequency comb techniques into the extreme ultraviolet. Laser frequency combs can also control the electric field of ultrashort light pulses, creating powerful new tools for the emerging field of attosecond science.Organiser(s): L. Alvarez-Gaume / PH-THNote: * Tea & coffee will be served at 16:00.

Airborne Precision Spacing (APS) Dependent Parallel Arrivals (DPA)

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Colin L.

2012-01-01

The Airborne Precision Spacing (APS) team at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) has been developing a concept of operations to extend the current APS concept to support dependent approaches to parallel or converging runways along with the required pilot and controller procedures and pilot interfaces. A staggered operations capability for the Airborne Spacing for Terminal Arrival Routes (ASTAR) tool was developed and designated as ASTAR10. ASTAR10 has reached a sufficient level of maturity to be validated and tested through a fast-time simulation. The purpose of the experiment was to identify and resolve any remaining issues in the ASTAR10 algorithm, as well as put the concept of operations through a practical test.

High Precision Continuous and Real-Time Measurement of Atmospheric Oxygen Using Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim-Hak, D.; Hoffnagle, J.; Rella, C.; Sun, M.

2016-12-01

Oxygen is a major and vital component of the Earth atmosphere representing about 21% of its composition. It is consumed or produced through biochemical processes such as combustion, respiration, and photosynthesis. Although atmospheric oxygen is not a greenhouse gas, it can be used as a top-down constraint on the carbon cycle. The variation observations of oxygen in the atmosphere are very small, in the order of the few ppm's. This presents the main technical challenge for measurement as a very high level of precision is required and only few methods including mass spectrometry, fuel cell, and paramagnetic are capable of overcoming it. Here we present new developments of a high-precision gas analyzer that utilizes the technique of Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy to measure oxygen concentration and oxygen isotope. Its compact and ruggedness design combined with high precision and long-term stability allows the user to deploy the instrument in the field for continuous monitoring of atmospheric oxygen level. Measurements have a 1-σ 5-minute averaging precision of 1-2 ppm for O2 over a dynamic range of 0-20%. We will present supplemental data acquired from our 10m tower measurements in Santa Clara, CA.

An ultra-precision tool nanoindentation instrument for replication of single point diamond tool cutting edges

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Yindi; Chen, Yuan-Liu; Xu, Malu; Shimizu, Yuki; Ito, So; Matsukuma, Hiraku; Gao, Wei

2018-05-01

Precision replication of the diamond tool cutting edge is required for non-destructive tool metrology. This paper presents an ultra-precision tool nanoindentation instrument designed and constructed for replication of the cutting edge of a single point diamond tool onto a selected soft metal workpiece by precisely indenting the tool cutting edge into the workpiece surface. The instrument has the ability to control the indentation depth with a nanometric resolution, enabling the replication of tool cutting edges with high precision. The motion of the diamond tool along the indentation direction is controlled by the piezoelectric actuator of a fast tool servo (FTS). An integrated capacitive sensor of the FTS is employed to detect the displacement of the diamond tool. The soft metal workpiece is attached to an aluminum cantilever whose deflection is monitored by another capacitive sensor, referred to as an outside capacitive sensor. The indentation force and depth can be accurately evaluated from the diamond tool displacement, the cantilever deflection and the cantilever spring constant. Experiments were carried out by replicating the cutting edge of a single point diamond tool with a nose radius of 2.0 mm on a copper workpiece surface. The profile of the replicated tool cutting edge was measured using an atomic force microscope (AFM). The effectiveness of the instrument in precision replication of diamond tool cutting edges is well-verified by the experimental results.

Problems, challenges and promises: perspectives on precision medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Duffy, David J

2016-05-01

The 'precision medicine (systems medicine)' concept promises to achieve a shift to future healthcare systems with a more proactive and predictive approach to medicine, where the emphasis is on disease prevention rather than the treatment of symptoms. The individualization of treatment for each patient will be at the centre of this approach, with all of a patient's medical data being computationally integrated and accessible. Precision medicine is being rapidly embraced by biomedical researchers, pioneering clinicians and scientific funding programmes in both the European Union (EU) and USA. Precision medicine is a key component of both Horizon 2020 (the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation) and the White House's Precision Medicine Initiative. Precision medicine promises to revolutionize patient care and treatment decisions. However, the participants in precision medicine are faced with a considerable central challenge. Greater volumes of data from a wider variety of sources are being generated and analysed than ever before; yet, this heterogeneous information must be integrated and incorporated into personalized predictive models, the output of which must be intelligible to non-computationally trained clinicians. Drawing primarily from the field of 'oncology', this article will introduce key concepts and challenges of precision medicine and some of the approaches currently being implemented to overcome these challenges. Finally, this article also covers the criticisms of precision medicine overpromising on its potential to transform patient care. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Precision medicine in pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma: current and future concepts.

Science.gov (United States)

Björklund, P; Pacak, K; Crona, J

2016-12-01

Pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma (PPGL) are rare diseases but are also amongst the most characterized tumour types. Hence, patients with PPGL have greatly benefited from precision medicine for more than two decades. According to current molecular biology and genetics-based taxonomy, PPGL can be divided into three different clusters characterized by: Krebs cycle reprogramming with oncometabolite accumulation or depletion (group 1a); activation of the (pseudo)hypoxia signalling pathway with increased tumour cell proliferation, invasiveness and migration (group 1b); and aberrant kinase signalling causing a pro-mitogenic and anti-apoptotic state (group 2). Categorization into these clusters is highly dependent on mutation subtypes. At least 12 different syndromes with distinct genetic causes, phenotypes and outcomes have been described. Genetic screening tests have a documented benefit, as different PPGL syndromes require specific approaches for optimal diagnosis and localization of various syndrome-related tumours. Genotype-tailored treatment options, follow-up and preventive care are being investigated. Future new developments in precision medicine for PPGL will mainly focus on further identification of driver mechanisms behind both disease initiation and malignant progression. Identification of novel druggable targets and prospective validation of treatment options are eagerly awaited. To achieve these goals, we predict that collaborative large-scale studies will be needed: Pheochromocytoma may provide an example for developing precision medicine in orphan diseases that could ultimately aid in similar efforts for other rare conditions. © 2016 The Association for the Publication of the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Precision gravimetric survey at the conditions of urban agglomerations

Science.gov (United States)

Sokolova, Tatiana; Lygin, Ivan; Fadeev, Alexander

2014-05-01

Large cities growth and aging lead to the irreversible negative changes of underground. The study of these changes at the urban area mainly based on the shallow methods of Geophysics, which extensive usage restricted by technogenic noise. Among others, precision gravimetry is allocated as method with good resistance to the urban noises. The main the objects of urban gravimetric survey are the soil decompaction, leaded to the rocks strength violation and the karst formation. Their gravity effects are too small, therefore investigation requires the modern high-precision equipment and special methods of measurements. The Gravimetry division of Lomonosov Moscow State University examin of modern precision gravimeters Scintrex CG-5 Autograv since 2006. The main performance characteristics of over 20 precision gravimeters were examined in various operational modes. Stationary mode. Long-term gravimetric measurements were carried at a base station. It shows that records obtained differ by high-frequency and mid-frequency (period 5 - 12 hours) components. The high-frequency component, determined as a standard deviation of measurement, characterizes the level of the system sensitivity to external noise and varies for different devices from 2 to 5-7 μGals. Midrange component, which closely meet to the rest of nonlinearity gravimeter drifts, is partially compensated by the equipment. This factor is very important in the case of gravimetric monitoring or observations, when midrange anomalies are the target ones. For the examined gravimeters, amplitudes' deviations, associated with this parameter may reach 10 μGals. Various transportation modes - were performed by walking (softest mode), lift (vertical overload), vehicle (horizontal overloads), boat (vertical plus horizontal overloads) and helicopter. The survey quality was compared by the variance of the measurement results and internal convergence of series. The measurement results variance (from ±2 to ±4 μGals) and its

Future requirements for petroleum fuels - an environmental perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

White, R.

1998-01-01

The environmental impacts of fuel emissions were discussed. Emissions from petroleum fuels are the largest contributor to a wide range of environmental problems including damage to the ozone layer and risks to human health. Forecasts indicate that future demand for fossil fuels for energy will continue to grow. The transportation sector is the largest single source of air emissions in Canada. The environmental requirements for all fuels will become progressively more stringent. The pollutants of primary concern include toxics, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, and particulates. The U.S. auto-oil research program has conducted considerable research to understand the impact of fuel parameters of vehicle tailpipe emissions. In Canada, lead was removed from Canadian gas a decade ago. Since January 1998, low sulphur diesel (less than 500 ppm) is required for on-road use. Regulations have also been passed to reduce the level of benzene in gasoline to less than one per cent by mid-1999. It will be necessary to manage our fossil fuels to minimize the environmental impacts from combustion. In the longer term, it will be necessary to minimize fossil fuel use through conservation and shift to less polluting fuels

Precise muon drift tube detectors for high background rate conditions

CERN Document Server

Engl, Albert; Dünnweber, Wolfgang

The muon spectrometer of the ATLAS-experiment at the Large H adron Collider consists of drift tube chambers, which provide the precise m easurement of trajec- tories of traversing muons. In order to determine the moment um of the muons with high precision, the measurement of the position of the m uon in a single tube has to be more accurate than σ ≤ 100 m. The large cross section of proton-proton-collisions and th e high luminosity of the accelerator cause relevant background of neutrons and γ s in the muon spectrome- ter. During the next decade a luminosity upgrade [1] to 5 10 34 cm − 2 s − 1 is planned, which will increase the background counting rates consider ably. In this context this work deals with the further development of the existing drift chamber tech- nology to provide the required accuracy of the position meas urement under high background conditions. Two approaches of improving the dri ft tube chambers are described: • In regions of moderate background rates a faster and more lin ear ...

Knowledge of Precision Farming Beneficiaries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A.V. Greena

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Precision Farming is one of the many advanced farming practices that make production more efficient by better resource management and reducing wastage. TN-IAMWARM is a world bank funded project aims to improve the farm productivity and income through better water management. The present study was carried out in Kambainallur sub basin of Dharmapuri district with 120 TN-IAMWARM beneficiaries as respondents. The result indicated that more than three fourth (76.67 % of the respondents had high level of knowledge on precision farming technologies which was made possible by the implementation of TN-IAMWARM project. The study further revealed that educational status, occupational status and exposure to agricultural messages had a positive and significant contribution to the knowledge level of the respondents at 0.01 level of probability whereas experience in precision farming and social participation had a positive and significant contribution at 0.05 level of probability.

Conducting Precision Medicine Research with African Americans.

Science.gov (United States)

Halbert, Chanita Hughes; McDonald, Jasmine; Vadaparampil, Susan; Rice, LaShanta; Jefferson, Melanie

2016-01-01

Precision medicine is an approach to detecting, treating, and managing disease that is based on individual variation in genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. Precision medicine is expected to reduce health disparities, but this will be possible only if studies have adequate representation of racial minorities. It is critical to anticipate the rates at which individuals from diverse populations are likely to participate in precision medicine studies as research initiatives are being developed. We evaluated the likelihood of participating in a clinical study for precision medicine. Observational study conducted between October 2010 and February 2011 in a national sample of African Americans. Intentions to participate in a government sponsored study that involves providing a biospecimen and generates data that could be shared with other researchers to conduct future studies. One third of respondents would participate in a clinical study for precision medicine. Only gender had a significant independent association with participation intentions. Men had a 1.86 (95% CI = 1.11, 3.12, p = 0.02) increased likelihood of participating in a precision medicine study compared to women in the model that included overall barriers and facilitators. In the model with specific participation barriers, distrust was associated with a reduced likelihood of participating in the research described in the vignette (OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.34, 0.96, p = 0.04). African Americans may have low enrollment in PMI research. As PMI research is implemented, extensive efforts will be needed to ensure adequate representation. Additional research is needed to identify optimal ways of ethically describing precision medicine studies to ensure sufficient recruitment of racial minorities.

Precision control of recombinant gene transcription for CHO cell synthetic biology.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Adam J; James, David C

2016-01-01

The next generation of mammalian cell factories for biopharmaceutical production will be genetically engineered to possess both generic and product-specific manufacturing capabilities that may not exist naturally. Introduction of entirely new combinations of synthetic functions (e.g. novel metabolic or stress-response pathways), and retro-engineering of existing functional cell modules will drive disruptive change in cellular manufacturing performance. However, before we can apply the core concepts underpinning synthetic biology (design, build, test) to CHO cell engineering we must first develop practical and robust enabling technologies. Fundamentally, we will require the ability to precisely control the relative stoichiometry of numerous functional components we simultaneously introduce into the host cell factory. In this review we discuss how this can be achieved by design of engineered promoters that enable concerted control of recombinant gene transcription. We describe the specific mechanisms of transcriptional regulation that affect promoter function during bioproduction processes, and detail the highly-specific promoter design criteria that are required in the context of CHO cell engineering. The relative applicability of diverse promoter development strategies are discussed, including re-engineering of natural sequences, design of synthetic transcription factor-based systems, and construction of synthetic promoters. This review highlights the potential of promoter engineering to achieve precision transcriptional control for CHO cell synthetic biology. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Precision translator

Science.gov (United States)

Reedy, Robert P.; Crawford, Daniel W.

1984-01-01

A precision translator for focusing a beam of light on the end of a glass fiber which includes two turning fork-like members rigidly connected to each other. These members have two prongs each with its separation adjusted by a screw, thereby adjusting the orthogonal positioning of a glass fiber attached to one of the members. This translator is made of simple parts with capability to keep adjustment even in condition of rough handling.

A Low-cost Environmental Control System for Precise Radial Velocity Spectrometers

Science.gov (United States)

Sliski, David H.; Blake, Cullen H.; Halverson, Samuel

2017-12-01

We present an environmental control system (ECS) designed to achieve milliKelvin (mK) level temperature stability for small-scale astronomical instruments. This ECS is inexpensive and is primarily built from commercially available components. The primary application for our ECS is the high-precision Doppler spectrometer MINERVA-Red, where the thermal variations of the optical components within the instrument represent a major source of systematic error. We demonstrate ±2 mK temperature stability within a 0.5 m3 thermal enclosure using resistive heaters in conjunction with a commercially available PID controller and off-the-shelf thermal sensors. The enclosure is maintained above ambient temperature, enabling rapid cooling through heat dissipation into the surrounding environment. We demonstrate peak-to-valley (PV) temperature stability of better than 5 mK within the MINERVA-Red vacuum chamber, which is located inside the thermal enclosure, despite large temperature swings in the ambient laboratory environment. During periods of stable laboratory conditions, the PV variations within the vacuum chamber are less than 3 mK. This temperature stability is comparable to the best stability demonstrated for Doppler spectrometers currently achieving m s-1 radial velocity precision. We discuss the challenges of using commercially available thermoelectrically cooled CCD cameras in a temperature-stabilized environment, and demonstrate that the effects of variable heat output from the CCD camera body can be mitigated using PID-controlled chilled water systems. The ECS presented here could potentially provide the stable operating environment required for future compact “astrophotonic” precise radial velocity (PRV) spectrometers to achieve high Doppler measurement precision with a modest budget.

High-speed precision motion control

CERN Document Server

Yamaguchi, Takashi; Pang, Chee Khiang

2011-01-01

Written for researchers and postgraduate students in Control Engineering, as well as professionals in the Hard Disk Drive industry, this book discusses high-precision and fast servo controls in Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). The editors present a number of control algorithms that enable fast seeking and high precision positioning, and propose problems from commercial products, making the book valuable to researchers in HDDs. Each chapter is self contained, and progresses from concept to technique, present application examples that can be used within automotive, aerospace, aeronautical, and manufactu

Towards a compact and precise sample holder for macromolecular crystallography.

Science.gov (United States)

Papp, Gergely; Rossi, Christopher; Janocha, Robert; Sorez, Clement; Lopez-Marrero, Marcos; Astruc, Anthony; McCarthy, Andrew; Belrhali, Hassan; Bowler, Matthew W; Cipriani, Florent

2017-10-01

Most of the sample holders currently used in macromolecular crystallography offer limited storage density and poor initial crystal-positioning precision upon mounting on a goniometer. This has now become a limiting factor at high-throughput beamlines, where data collection can be performed in a matter of seconds. Furthermore, this lack of precision limits the potential benefits emerging from automated harvesting systems that could provide crystal-position information which would further enhance alignment at beamlines. This situation provided the motivation for the development of a compact and precise sample holder with corresponding pucks, handling tools and robotic transfer protocols. The development process included four main phases: design, prototype manufacture, testing with a robotic sample changer and validation under real conditions on a beamline. Two sample-holder designs are proposed: NewPin and miniSPINE. They share the same robot gripper and allow the storage of 36 sample holders in uni-puck footprint-style pucks, which represents 252 samples in a dry-shipping dewar commonly used in the field. The pucks are identified with human- and machine-readable codes, as well as with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. NewPin offers a crystal-repositioning precision of up to 10 µm but requires a specific goniometer socket. The storage density could reach 64 samples using a special puck designed for fully robotic handling. miniSPINE is less precise but uses a goniometer mount compatible with the current SPINE standard. miniSPINE is proposed for the first implementation of the new standard, since it is easier to integrate at beamlines. An upgraded version of the SPINE sample holder with a corresponding puck named SPINEplus is also proposed in order to offer a homogenous and interoperable system. The project involved several European synchrotrons and industrial companies in the fields of consumables and sample-changer robotics. Manual handling of mini

Factors affecting the precision of bone mineral measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cormack, J.; Evil, C.A.

1990-01-01

This paper discusses some statistical aspects of absorptiometric bone mineral measurements. In particular, the contribution of photon counting statistics to overall precision is estimated, and methods available for carrying out statistical comparisons of bone loss and determining their precision are reviewed. The use of replicate measurements as a means of improving measurement precision is also discussed. 11 refs

Precision pharmacology for Alzheimer's disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Hampel, Harald; Vergallo, Andrea; Aguilar, Lisi Flores; Benda, Norbert; Broich, Karl; Cuello, A Claudio; Cummings, Jeffrey; Dubois, Bruno; Federoff, Howard J; Fiandaca, Massimo; Genthon, Remy; Haberkamp, Marion; Karran, Eric; Mapstone, Mark; Perry, George; Schneider, Lon S; Welikovitch, Lindsay A; Woodcock, Janet; Baldacci, Filippo; Lista, Simone

2018-04-01

The complex multifactorial nature of polygenic Alzheimer's disease (AD) presents significant challenges for drug development. AD pathophysiology is progressing in a non-linear dynamic fashion across multiple systems levels - from molecules to organ systems - and through adaptation, to compensation, and decompensation to systems failure. Adaptation and compensation maintain homeostasis: a dynamic equilibrium resulting from the dynamic non-linear interaction between genome, epigenome, and environment. An individual vulnerability to stressors exists on the basis of individual triggers, drivers, and thresholds accounting for the initiation and failure of adaptive and compensatory responses. Consequently, the distinct pattern of AD pathophysiology in space and time must be investigated on the basis of the individual biological makeup. This requires the implementation of systems biology and neurophysiology to facilitate Precision Medicine (PM) and Precision Pharmacology (PP). The regulation of several processes at multiple levels of complexity from gene expression to cellular cycle to tissue repair and system-wide network activation has different time delays (temporal scale) according to the affected systems (spatial scale). The initial failure might originate and occur at every level potentially affecting the whole dynamic interrelated systems within an organism. Unraveling the spatial and temporal dynamics of non-linear pathophysiological mechanisms across the continuum of hierarchical self-organized systems levels and from systems homeostasis to systems failure is key to understand AD. Measuring and, possibly, controlling space- and time-scaled adaptive and compensatory responses occurring during AD will represent a crucial step to achieve the capacity to substantially modify the disease course and progression at the best suitable timepoints, thus counteracting disrupting critical pathophysiological inputs. This approach will provide the conceptual basis for effective

Study and application of micrometric alignment on the prototype girders of the CLIC Two-Beam Module

CERN Document Server

Gazis, Nikolaos; Mainaud-Durand, Hélène; Samochkine, Alexandre; Anastasopoulos, Michail

2011-01-01

The Compact LInear Collider (CLIC), currently under study at CERN, aims at the development of a Multi-TeV e+ e- collider. The micro-precision CLIC RF-structures will have an accelerating gradient of 100 MV/m and will be mounted and aligned on specially developed supporting girders. The girder fabrication constraints are dictated by stringent physics requirements. The micrometric pre-alignment over several kilometers of girders, allow for the CLIC structures to fulfill their acceleration and collision functionality. Study of such girders and their sophisticated alignment method, is a challenging case involving dedicated mechanical design as well as prototype production and experimental testing.

Fuzzy logic control for selective hydrogenation of acetylene in ethylene rich streams using visual basic

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Malik, S.R.; Suleman, H.; Khan, J.R.

2010-01-01

Presence of acetylene is technically disadvantageous in the ethylene rich gas streams from steam crackers. Acetylene tends to polymerize and inactivates the transition metal catalysts, forming highly explosive compounds. The acetylene content has to be selectively reduced to less than one part per million for such streams. The acetylene hydrogenation unit requires stringent control parameters and needs specialized process control techniques for its operation. This study is concerned with application of Fuzzy Logic Control to manipulate and control the process plant with higher precision and greater simplicity. The control program has been written in visual Basic and entails all major scenarios of work modes for successful hydrogenation of Acetylene. (author)

Use of 'MICROPROFILOMETER-2' in precise measurements of diameters of irradiated rod-type cylindrical specimens

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuprienko, M.V.; Dvoretsky, V.G.; Kubasov, E.V.; Rabinovich, A.D.

2002-01-01

The paper presents the basic principles of profilometer design, the imposed requirements and some problems emerged in their bringing into practice. Installation designed and made at SSC RF RIAR to precisely measure diameters of rod-type specimens is described. Some results of metrological certification of this installation are given. (author)

Precision Muonium Spectroscopy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jungmann, Klaus P.

2016-01-01

The muonium atom is the purely leptonic bound state of a positive muon and an electron. It has a lifetime of 2.2 mu s. The absence of any known internal structure provides for precision experiments to test fundamental physics theories and to determine accurate values of fundamental constants. In

Precision synchrotron radiation detectors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Levi, M.; Rouse, F.; Butler, J.

1989-03-01

Precision detectors to measure synchrotron radiation beam positions have been designed and installed as part of beam energy spectrometers at the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC). The distance between pairs of synchrotron radiation beams is measured absolutely to better than 28 /mu/m on a pulse-to-pulse basis. This contributes less than 5 MeV to the error in the measurement of SLC beam energies (approximately 50 GeV). A system of high-resolution video cameras viewing precisely-aligned fiducial wire arrays overlaying phosphorescent screens has achieved this accuracy. Also, detectors of synchrotron radiation using the charge developed by the ejection of Compton-recoil electrons from an array of fine wires are being developed. 4 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab

Towards precision medicine; a new biomedical cosmology.

Science.gov (United States)

Vegter, M W

2018-02-10

Precision Medicine has become a common label for data-intensive and patient-driven biomedical research. Its intended future is reflected in endeavours such as the Precision Medicine Initiative in the USA. This article addresses the question whether it is possible to discern a new 'medical cosmology' in Precision Medicine, a concept that was developed by Nicholas Jewson to describe comprehensive transformations involving various dimensions of biomedical knowledge and practice, such as vocabularies, the roles of patients and physicians and the conceptualisation of disease. Subsequently, I will elaborate my assessment of the features of Precision Medicine with the help of Michel Foucault, by exploring how precision medicine involves a transformation along three axes: the axis of biomedical knowledge, of biomedical power and of the patient as a self. Patients are encouraged to become the managers of their own health status, while the medical domain is reframed as a data-sharing community, characterised by changing power relationships between providers and patients, producers and consumers. While the emerging Precision Medicine cosmology may surpass existing knowledge frameworks; it obscures previous traditions and reduces research-subjects to mere data. This in turn, means that the individual is both subjected to the neoliberal demand to share personal information, and at the same time has acquired the positive 'right' to become a member of the data-sharing community. The subject has to constantly negotiate the meaning of his or her data, which can either enable self-expression, or function as a commanding Superego.

ELECTROWEAK PHYSICS AND PRECISION STUDIES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

MARCIANO, W.

2005-01-01

The utility of precision electroweak measurements for predicting the Standard Model Higgs mass via quantum loop effects is discussed. Current values of m W , sin 2 θ W (m Z ) # ovr MS# and m t imply a relatively light Higgs which is below the direct experimental bound but possibly consistent with Supersymmetry expectations. The existence of Supersymmetry is further suggested by a 2σ discrepancy between experiment and theory for the muon anomalous magnetic moment. Constraints from precision studies on other types of ''New Physics'' are also briefly described

Precision measurement with atom interferometry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Jin

2015-01-01

Development of atom interferometry and its application in precision measurement are reviewed in this paper. The principle, features and the implementation of atom interferometers are introduced, the recent progress of precision measurement with atom interferometry, including determination of gravitational constant and fine structure constant, measurement of gravity, gravity gradient and rotation, test of weak equivalence principle, proposal of gravitational wave detection, and measurement of quadratic Zeeman shift are reviewed in detail. Determination of gravitational redshift, new definition of kilogram, and measurement of weak force with atom interferometry are also briefly introduced. (topical review)

Introduction to precise numerical methods

CERN Document Server

Aberth, Oliver

2007-01-01

Precise numerical analysis may be defined as the study of computer methods for solving mathematical problems either exactly or to prescribed accuracy. This book explains how precise numerical analysis is constructed. The book also provides exercises which illustrate points from the text and references for the methods presented. All disc-based content for this title is now available on the Web. · Clearer, simpler descriptions and explanations ofthe various numerical methods· Two new types of numerical problems; accurately solving partial differential equations with the included software and computing line integrals in the complex plane.

Cardiovascular Precision Medicine in the Genomics Era

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandra M. Dainis, BS

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Summary: Precision medicine strives to delineate disease using multiple data sources—from genomics to digital health metrics—in order to be more precise and accurate in our diagnoses, definitions, and treatments of disease subtypes. By defining disease at a deeper level, we can treat patients based on an understanding of the molecular underpinnings of their presentations, rather than grouping patients into broad categories with one-size-fits-all treatments. In this review, the authors examine how precision medicine, specifically that surrounding genetic testing and genetic therapeutics, has begun to make strides in both common and rare cardiovascular diseases in the clinic and the laboratory, and how these advances are beginning to enable us to more effectively define risk, diagnose disease, and deliver therapeutics for each individual patient. Key Words: genome sequencing, genomics, precision medicine, targeted therapeutics

Description of precision colorimeter

OpenAIRE

Campos Acosta, Joaquín; Pons Aglio, Alicia; Corróns, Antonio

1987-01-01

Describes the use of a fully automatic, computer-controlled absolute spectroradiometer as a precision colorimeter. The chromaticity coordinates of several types of light sources have been obtained with this measurement system.

Incorporating a Constrained Optimization Algorithm into Remote- Sensing/Precision Agriculture Methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Morgenthaler, George; Khatib, Nader; Kim, Byoungsoo

with information to improve their crop's vigor has been a major topic of interest. With world population growing exponentially, arable land being consumed by urbanization, and an unfavorable farm economy, the efficiency of farming must increase to meet future food requirements and to make farming a sustainable occupation for the farmer. "Precision Agriculture" refers to a farming methodology that applies nutrients and moisture only where and when they are needed in the field. The goal is to increase farm revenue by increasing crop yield and decreasing applications of costly chemical and water treatments. In addition, this methodology will decrease the environmental costs of farming, i.e., reduce air, soil, and water pollution. Sensing/Precision Agriculture has not grown as rapidly as early advocates envisioned. Technology for a successful Remote Sensing/Precision Agriculture system is now available. Commercial satellite systems can image (multi-spectral) the Earth with a resolution of approximately 2.5 m. Variable precision dispensing systems using GPS are available and affordable. Crop models that predict yield as a function of soil, chemical, and irrigation parameter levels have been formulated. Personal computers and internet access are in place in most farm homes and can provide a mechanism to periodically disseminate, e.g. bi-weekly, advice on what quantities of water and chemicals are needed in individual regions of the field. What is missing is a model that fuses the disparate sources of information on the current states of the crop and soil, and the remaining resource levels available with the decisions farmers are required to make. This must be a product that is easy for the farmer to understand and to implement. A "Constrained Optimization Feed-back Control Model" to fill this void will be presented. The objective function of the model will be used to maximize the farmer's profit by increasing yields while decreasing environmental costs and decreasing

Precision hole punching on composite fiber reinforced polymer panels

Science.gov (United States)

Abdullah, A. B.; Zain, M. S. M.; Chan, H. Y.; Samad, Z.

2017-12-01

Structural materials, such as composite panels, can only be assembled, and in most cases through the use of fasteners, which are fitted into the drilled holes. However, drilling is costly and time consuming, thus affecting productivity. This research aims to develop an alternative method to drilling. In this paper, the precision of the holes was measured and the effects of the die clearance to the areas around the holes were evaluated. Measurement and evaluation were performed based on the profile of the holes constructed using Alicona IFM, a 3D surface measurement technique. Results showed that punching is a potential alternative to drilling but still requires improvements.

Design and Manufacturing of a High-Precision Sun Tracking System Based on Image Processing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kianoosh Azizi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Concentration solar arrays require greater solar tracking precision than conventional photovoltaic arrays. This paper presents a high precision low cost dual axis sun tracking system based on image processing for concentration photovoltaic applications. An imaging device is designed according to the principle of pinhole imaging, making sun rays to be received on a screen through pinhole and to be a sun spot. The location of the spot is used to adjust the orientation of the solar panel. A fuzzy logic controller is developed to achieve this goal. A prototype was built, and experimental results have proven the good performance of the proposed system and low error of tracking. The operation of this system is independent of geographical location, initial calibration, and periodical regulations.

submitter LEP precision results

CERN Document Server

Kawamoto, T

2001-01-01

Precision measurements at LEP are reviewed, with main focus on the electroweak measurements and tests of the Standard Model. Constraints placed by the LEP measurements on possible new physics are also discussed.

Comparison of the precision of three commonly used GPS models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E Chavoshi

2016-04-01

of weather and time only receiver models had significant effect in precision. The lowest error between the models was belonged to MAP 78s (91 cm and the maximum error was belonged to eTrex VISTA model with the 4.7 m. In addition, results of this study showed that the correct application of GPS receivers in different conditions and select of appropriate receiver can be reduced positioning error considerably. According to the result the MAP 78s GPS receiver could be used for precision farming operations in the range of 1 to 3 meter such as crop monitoring and soil sampling and the other receivers (eTrex VISTA and MAP 60 csx could be used in operations that require less precision (range of 3 to 5 meters.

Spike timing precision of neuronal circuits.

Science.gov (United States)

Kilinc, Deniz; Demir, Alper

2018-04-17

Spike timing is believed to be a key factor in sensory information encoding and computations performed by the neurons and neuronal circuits. However, the considerable noise and variability, arising from the inherently stochastic mechanisms that exist in the neurons and the synapses, degrade spike timing precision. Computational modeling can help decipher the mechanisms utilized by the neuronal circuits in order to regulate timing precision. In this paper, we utilize semi-analytical techniques, which were adapted from previously developed methods for electronic circuits, for the stochastic characterization of neuronal circuits. These techniques, which are orders of magnitude faster than traditional Monte Carlo type simulations, can be used to directly compute the spike timing jitter variance, power spectral densities, correlation functions, and other stochastic characterizations of neuronal circuit operation. We consider three distinct neuronal circuit motifs: Feedback inhibition, synaptic integration, and synaptic coupling. First, we show that both the spike timing precision and the energy efficiency of a spiking neuron are improved with feedback inhibition. We unveil the underlying mechanism through which this is achieved. Then, we demonstrate that a neuron can improve on the timing precision of its synaptic inputs, coming from multiple sources, via synaptic integration: The phase of the output spikes of the integrator neuron has the same variance as that of the sample average of the phases of its inputs. Finally, we reveal that weak synaptic coupling among neurons, in a fully connected network, enables them to behave like a single neuron with a larger membrane area, resulting in an improvement in the timing precision through cooperation.

Precise predictions for V + jets dark matter backgrounds

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lindert, J.M.; Glover, N.; Morgan, T.A. [University of Durham, Department of Physics, Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Durham (United Kingdom); Pozzorini, S.; Gehrmann, T.; Schoenherr, M. [Universitaet Zuerich, Physik-Institut, Zurich (Switzerland); Boughezal, R. [Argonne National Laboratory, High Energy Physics Division, Argonne, IL (United States); Campbell, J.M. [Fermilab, Batavia, IL (United States); Denner, A. [Universitaet Wuerzburg, Institut fuer Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Wuerzburg (Germany); Dittmaier, S.; Maierhoefer, P. [Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg, Physikalisches Institut, Freiburg (Germany); Gehrmann-De Ridder, A. [Universitaet Zuerich, Physik-Institut, Zurich (Switzerland); Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH, Zurich (Switzerland); Huss, A. [Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH, Zurich (Switzerland); Kallweit, S.; Mangano, M.L.; Salam, G.P. [CERN, Theoretical Physics Department, Geneva (Switzerland); Mueck, A. [RWTH Aachen University, Institut fuer Theoretische Teilchenphysik und Kosmologie, Aachen (Germany); Petriello, F. [Argonne National Laboratory, High Energy Physics Division, Argonne, IL (United States); Northwestern University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Evanston, IL (United States); Williams, C. [University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Department of Physics, Buffalo (United States)

2017-12-15

High-energy jets recoiling against missing transverse energy (MET) are powerful probes of dark matter at the LHC. Searches based on large MET signatures require a precise control of the Z(ν anti ν) + jet background in the signal region. This can be achieved by taking accurate data in control regions dominated by Z(l{sup +}l{sup -}) + jet, W(lν) + jet and γ + jet production, and extrapolating to the Z(ν anti ν) + jet background by means of precise theoretical predictions. In this context, recent advances in perturbative calculations open the door to significant sensitivity improvements in dark matter searches. In this spirit, we present a combination of state-of-the-art calculations for all relevant V + jets processes, including throughout NNLO QCD corrections and NLO electroweak corrections supplemented by Sudakov logarithms at two loops. Predictions at parton level are provided together with detailed recommendations for their usage in experimental analyses based on the reweighting of Monte Carlo samples. Particular attention is devoted to the estimate of theoretical uncertainties in the framework of dark matter searches, where subtle aspects such as correlations across different V + jet processes play a key role. The anticipated theoretical uncertainty in the Z(ν anti ν) + jet background is at the few percent level up to the TeV range. (orig.)

Public health and precision medicine share a goal.

Science.gov (United States)

Vaithinathan, Asokan G; Asokan, Vanitha

2017-05-01

The advances made in genomics and molecular tools aid public health programs in the investigation of outbreaks and control of diseases by taking advantage of the precision medicine. Precision medicine means "segregating the individuals into subpopulations who vary in their disease susceptibility and response to a precise treatment" and not merely designing of drugs or creation of medical devices. By 2017, the United Kingdom 100,000 Genomes Project is expected to sequence 100,000 genomes from 70,000 patients. Similarly, the Precision Medicine Initiative of the United States plans to increase population-based genome sequencing and link it with clinical data. A national cohort of around 1 million people is to be established in the long term, to investigate the genetic and environmental determinants of health and disease, and further integrated to their electronic health records that are optional. Precision public health can be seen as administering the right intervention to the needy population at an appropriate time. Precision medicine originates from a wet-lab while evidence-based medicine is nurtured in a clinic. Linking the quintessential basic science research and clinical practice is necessary. In addition, new technologies to employ and analyze data in an integrated and dynamic way are essential for public health and precision medicine. The transition from evidence-based approach in public health to genomic approach to individuals with a paradigm shift of a "reactive" medicine to a more "proactive" and personalized health care may sound exceptional. However, a population perspective is needed for the precision medicine to succeed. © 2016 Chinese Cochrane Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Fundamental limits of scintillation detector timing precision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Derenzo, Stephen E; Choong, Woon-Seng; Moses, William W

2014-01-01

In this paper we review the primary factors that affect the timing precision of a scintillation detector. Monte Carlo calculations were performed to explore the dependence of the timing precision on the number of photoelectrons, the scintillator decay and rise times, the depth of interaction uncertainty, the time dispersion of the optical photons (modeled as an exponential decay), the photodetector rise time and transit time jitter, the leading-edge trigger level, and electronic noise. The Monte Carlo code was used to estimate the practical limits on the timing precision for an energy deposition of 511 keV in 3 mm × 3 mm × 30 mm Lu 2 SiO 5 :Ce and LaBr 3 :Ce crystals. The calculated timing precisions are consistent with the best experimental literature values. We then calculated the timing precision for 820 cases that sampled scintillator rise times from 0 to 1.0 ns, photon dispersion times from 0 to 0.2 ns, photodetector time jitters from 0 to 0.5 ns fwhm, and A from 10 to 10 000 photoelectrons per ns decay time. Since the timing precision R was found to depend on A −1/2  more than any other factor, we tabulated the parameter B, where R = BA −1/2 . An empirical analytical formula was found that fit the tabulated values of B with an rms deviation of 2.2% of the value of B. The theoretical lower bound of the timing precision was calculated for the example of 0.5 ns rise time, 0.1 ns photon dispersion, and 0.2 ns fwhm photodetector time jitter. The lower bound was at most 15% lower than leading-edge timing discrimination for A from 10 to 10 000 photoelectrons ns −1 . A timing precision of 8 ps fwhm should be possible for an energy deposition of 511 keV using currently available photodetectors if a theoretically possible scintillator were developed that could produce 10 000 photoelectrons ns −1 . (paper)

A special vegetation index for the weed detection in sensor based precision agriculture.

Science.gov (United States)

Langner, Hans-R; Böttger, Hartmut; Schmidt, Helmut

2006-06-01

Many technologies in precision agriculture (PA) require image analysis and image- processing with weed and background differentiations. The detection of weeds on mulched cropland is one important image-processing task for sensor based precision herbicide applications. The article introduces a special vegetation index, the Difference Index with Red Threshold (DIRT), for the weed detection on mulched croplands. Experimental investigations in weed detection on mulched areas point out that the DIRT performs better than the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The result of the evaluation with four different decision criteria indicate, that the new DIRT gives the highest reliability in weed/background differentiation on mulched areas. While using the same spectral bands (infrared and red) as the NDVI, the new DIRT is more suitable for weed detection than the other vegetation indices and requires only a small amount of additional calculation power. The new vegetation index DIRT was tested on mulched areas during automatic ratings with a special weed camera system. The test results compare the new DIRT and three other decision criteria: the difference between infrared and red intensity (Diff), the soil-adjusted quotient between infrared and red intensity (Quotient) and the NDVI. The decision criteria were compared with the definition of a worse case decision quality parameter Q, suitable for mulched croplands. Although this new index DIRT needs further testing, the index seems to be a good decision criterion for the weed detection on mulched areas and should also be useful for other image processing applications in precision agriculture. The weed detection hardware and the PC program for the weed image processing were developed with funds from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Visual thread quality for precision miniature mechanisms

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gillespie, L.K.

1981-04-01

Threaded features have eight visual appearance factors which can affect their function in precision miniature mechanisms. The Bendix practice in deburring, finishing, and accepting these conditions on miniature threads is described as is their impact in assemblies of precision miniature electromechanical assemblies.

MODIL cryocooler producibility demonstration project results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cruz, G.E.; Franks, R.M.

1993-01-01

The production of large quantities of spacecraft needed by SDIO will require a cultural change in design and production practices. Low rates production and the need for exceedingly high reliability has driven the industry to custom designed, hand crafted, and exhaustively tested satellites. These factors have mitigated against employing design and manufacturing cost reduction methods commonly used in tactical missile production. Additional challenges to achieving production efficiencies are presented by the SDI spacecraft mission requirement. IR sensor systems, for example, are comprised of subassemblies and components that require the design, manufacture, and maintenance of ultra precision tolerances over challenging operational lifetimes. These IR sensors demand the use of reliable, closed loop, cryogenic refrigerators or active cryocoolers to meet stringent system acquisition and pointing requirements. The authors summarize some spacecraft cryocooler requirements and discuss observations regarding Industry's current production capabilities of cryocoolers. The results of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Spacecraft Fabrication and Test (SF and T) MODIL's Phase I producibility demonstration project is presented

[Some reflections on evidenced-based medicine, precision medicine, and big data-based research].

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, J L; Li, L M

2018-01-10

Evidence-based medicine remains the best paradigm for medical practice. However, evidence alone is not decisions; decisions must also consider resources available and the values of people. Evidence shows that most of those treated with blood pressure-lowering, cholesterol-lowering, glucose-lowering and anti-cancer drugs do not benefit from preventing severe complications such as cardiovascular events and deaths. This implies that diagnosis and treatment in modern medicine in many circumstances is imprecise. It has become a dream to identify and treat only those few who can respond to the treatment. Precision medicine has thus come into being. Precision medicine is however not a new idea and cannot rely solely on gene sequencing as it was initially proposed. Neither is the large cohort and multi-factorial approach a new idea; in fact it has been used widely since 1950s. Since its very beginning, medicine has never stopped in searching for more precise diagnostic and therapeutic methods and already made achievements at various levels of our understanding and knowledge, such as vaccine, blood transfusion, imaging, and cataract surgery. Genetic biotechnology is not the only path to precision but merely a new method. Most genes are found only weakly associated with disease and are thus unlikely to lead to great improvement in diagnostic and therapeutic precision. The traditional multi-factorial approach by embracing big data and incorporating genetic factors is probably the most realistic way ahead for precision medicine. Big data boasts of possession of the total population and large sample size and claims correlation can displace causation. They are serious misleading concepts. Science has never had to observe the totality in order to draw a valid conclusion; a large sample size is required only when the anticipated effect is small and clinically less meaningful; emphasis on correlation over causation is equivalent to rejection of the scientific principles and methods

Integrated modeling and analysis methodology for precision pointing applications

Science.gov (United States)

Gutierrez, Homero L.

2002-07-01

Space-based optical systems that perform tasks such as laser communications, Earth imaging, and astronomical observations require precise line-of-sight (LOS) pointing. A general approach is described for integrated modeling and analysis of these types of systems within the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The approach can be applied during all stages of program development, from early conceptual design studies to hardware implementation phases. The main objective is to predict the dynamic pointing performance subject to anticipated disturbances and noise sources. Secondary objectives include assessing the control stability, levying subsystem requirements, supporting pointing error budgets, and performing trade studies. The integrated model resides in Simulink, and several MATLAB graphical user interfaces (GUI"s) allow the user to configure the model, select analysis options, run analyses, and process the results. A convenient parameter naming and storage scheme, as well as model conditioning and reduction tools and run-time enhancements, are incorporated into the framework. This enables the proposed architecture to accommodate models of realistic complexity.

Precision Medicine In Action | NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine

Science.gov (United States)

... page please turn JavaScript on. Feature: NIH Precision Medicine Initiative Precision Medicine In Action Past Issues / Fall 2015 Table of ... Dishman "I am totally motivated to support precision medicine because I am one of the early prototype ...

Mechanics and Physics of Precise Vacuum Mechanisms

CERN Document Server

Deulin, E. A; Panfilov, Yu V; Nevshupa, R. A

2010-01-01

In this book the Russian expertise in the field of the design of precise vacuum mechanics is summarized. A wide range of physical applications of mechanism design in electronic, optical-electronic, chemical, and aerospace industries is presented in a comprehensible way. Topics treated include the method of microparticles flow regulation and its determination in vacuum equipment and mechanisms of electronics; precise mechanisms of nanoscale precision based on magnetic and electric rheology; precise harmonic rotary and not-coaxial nut-screw linear motion vacuum feedthroughs with technical parameters considered the best in the world; elastically deformed vacuum motion feedthroughs without friction couples usage; the computer system of vacuum mechanisms failure predicting. This English edition incorporates a number of features which should improve its usefulness as a textbook without changing the basic organization or the general philosophy of presentation of the subject matter of the original Russian work. Exper...

Precision lifetime measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tanner, C.E.

1994-01-01

Precision measurements of atomic lifetimes provide important information necessary for testing atomic theory. The authors employ resonant laser excitation of a fast atomic beam to measure excited state lifetimes by observing the decay-in-flight of the emitted fluorescence. A similar technique was used by Gaupp, et al., who reported measurements with precisions of less than 0.2%. Their program includes lifetime measurements of the low lying p states in alkali and alkali like systems. Motivation for this work comes from a need to test the atomic many-body-perturbation theory (MBPT) that is necessary for interpretation of parity nonconservation experiments in atomic cesium. The authors have measured the cesium 6p 2 P 1/2 and 6p 2 P 3/2 state lifetimes to be 34.934±0.094 ns and 30.499±0.070 ns respectively. With minor changes to the apparatus, they have extended their measurements to include the lithium 2p 2 P 1/2 and 2p 2 P 3/2 states

Precision muon physics

Science.gov (United States)

Gorringe, T. P.; Hertzog, D. W.

2015-09-01

The muon is playing a unique role in sub-atomic physics. Studies of muon decay both determine the overall strength and establish the chiral structure of weak interactions, as well as setting extraordinary limits on charged-lepton-flavor-violating processes. Measurements of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment offer singular sensitivity to the completeness of the standard model and the predictions of many speculative theories. Spectroscopy of muonium and muonic atoms gives unmatched determinations of fundamental quantities including the magnetic moment ratio μμ /μp, lepton mass ratio mμ /me, and proton charge radius rp. Also, muon capture experiments are exploring elusive features of weak interactions involving nucleons and nuclei. We will review the experimental landscape of contemporary high-precision and high-sensitivity experiments with muons. One focus is the novel methods and ingenious techniques that achieve such precision and sensitivity in recent, present, and planned experiments. Another focus is the uncommonly broad and topical range of questions in atomic, nuclear and particle physics that such experiments explore.

Cluster lot quality assurance sampling: effect of increasing the number of clusters on classification precision and operational feasibility.

Science.gov (United States)

Okayasu, Hiromasa; Brown, Alexandra E; Nzioki, Michael M; Gasasira, Alex N; Takane, Marina; Mkanda, Pascal; Wassilak, Steven G F; Sutter, Roland W

2014-11-01

To assess the quality of supplementary immunization activities (SIAs), the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has used cluster lot quality assurance sampling (C-LQAS) methods since 2009. However, since the inception of C-LQAS, questions have been raised about the optimal balance between operational feasibility and precision of classification of lots to identify areas with low SIA quality that require corrective programmatic action. To determine if an increased precision in classification would result in differential programmatic decision making, we conducted a pilot evaluation in 4 local government areas (LGAs) in Nigeria with an expanded LQAS sample size of 16 clusters (instead of the standard 6 clusters) of 10 subjects each. The results showed greater heterogeneity between clusters than the assumed standard deviation of 10%, ranging from 12% to 23%. Comparing the distribution of 4-outcome classifications obtained from all possible combinations of 6-cluster subsamples to the observed classification of the 16-cluster sample, we obtained an exact match in classification in 56% to 85% of instances. We concluded that the 6-cluster C-LQAS provides acceptable classification precision for programmatic action. Considering the greater resources required to implement an expanded C-LQAS, the improvement in precision was deemed insufficient to warrant the effort. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2014. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

GPS-based satellite tracking system for precise positioning

Science.gov (United States)

Yunck, T. P.; Melbourne, W. G.; Thornton, C. L.

1985-01-01

NASA is developing a Global Positioning System (GPS) based measurement system to provide precise determination of earth satellite orbits, geodetic baselines, ionospheric electron content, and clock offsets between worldwide tracking sites. The system will employ variations on the differential GPS observing technique and will use a network of nine fixed ground terminals. Satellite applications will require either a GPS flight receiver or an on-board GPS beacon. Operation of the system for all but satellite tracking will begin by 1988. The first major satellite application will be a demonstration of decimeter accuracy in determining the altitude of TOPEX in the early 1990's. By then the system is expected to yield long-baseline accuracies of a few centimeters and instantaneous time synchronization to 1 ns.

Dynamic Flow Migration for Delay Constrained Traffic in Software-Defined Networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Berger, Andre; Gross, James; Danielis, Peter; Dán, György

2017-01-01

Various industrial control applications have stringent end-to-end latency requirements in the order of a few milliseconds. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a promising solution in order to meet these stringent requirements under varying traffic patterns, as it enables the flexible management of

Environment-assisted precision measurement

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Goldstein, G.; Cappellaro, P.; Maze, J. R.

2011-01-01

We describe a method to enhance the sensitivity of precision measurements that takes advantage of the environment of a quantum sensor to amplify the response of the sensor to weak external perturbations. An individual qubit is used to sense the dynamics of surrounding ancillary qubits, which...... are in turn affected by the external field to be measured. The resulting sensitivity enhancement is determined by the number of ancillas that are coupled strongly to the sensor qubit; it does not depend on the exact values of the coupling strengths and is resilient to many forms of decoherence. The method...... achieves nearly Heisenberg-limited precision measurement, using a novel class of entangled states. We discuss specific applications to improve clock sensitivity using trapped ions and magnetic sensing based on electronic spins in diamond...

Modeling of Non-Gravitational Forces for Precise and Accurate Orbit Determination

Science.gov (United States)

Hackel, Stefan; Gisinger, Christoph; Steigenberger, Peter; Balss, Ulrich; Montenbruck, Oliver; Eineder, Michael

2014-05-01

Remote sensing satellites support a broad range of scientific and commercial applications. The two radar imaging satellites TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X provide spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and interferometric SAR data with a very high accuracy. The precise reconstruction of the satellite's trajectory is based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements from a geodetic-grade dual-frequency Integrated Geodetic and Occultation Receiver (IGOR) onboard the spacecraft. The increasing demand for precise radar products relies on validation methods, which require precise and accurate orbit products. An analysis of the orbit quality by means of internal and external validation methods on long and short timescales shows systematics, which reflect deficits in the employed force models. Following the proper analysis of this deficits, possible solution strategies are highlighted in the presentation. The employed Reduced Dynamic Orbit Determination (RDOD) approach utilizes models for gravitational and non-gravitational forces. A detailed satellite macro model is introduced to describe the geometry and the optical surface properties of the satellite. Two major non-gravitational forces are the direct and the indirect Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP). The satellite TerraSAR-X flies on a dusk-dawn orbit with an altitude of approximately 510 km above ground. Due to this constellation, the Sun almost constantly illuminates the satellite, which causes strong across-track accelerations on the plane rectangular to the solar rays. The indirect effect of the solar radiation is called Earth Radiation Pressure (ERP). This force depends on the sunlight, which is reflected by the illuminated Earth surface (visible spectra) and the emission of the Earth body in the infrared spectra. Both components of ERP require Earth models to describe the optical properties of the Earth surface. Therefore, the influence of different Earth models on the orbit quality is assessed. The scope of

Community-based Approaches to Improving Accuracy, Precision, and Reproducibility in U-Pb and U-Th Geochronology

Science.gov (United States)

McLean, N. M.; Condon, D. J.; Bowring, S. A.; Schoene, B.; Dutton, A.; Rubin, K. H.

2015-12-01

The last two decades have seen a grassroots effort by the international geochronology community to "calibrate Earth history through teamwork and cooperation," both as part of the EARTHTIME initiative and though several daughter projects with similar goals. Its mission originally challenged laboratories "to produce temporal constraints with uncertainties approaching 0.1% of the radioisotopic ages," but EARTHTIME has since exceeded its charge in many ways. Both the U-Pb and Ar-Ar chronometers first considered for high-precision timescale calibration now regularly produce dates at the sub-per mil level thanks to instrumentation, laboratory, and software advances. At the same time new isotope systems, including U-Th dating of carbonates, have developed comparable precision. But the larger, inter-related scientific challenges envisioned at EARTHTIME's inception remain - for instance, precisely calibrating the global geologic timescale, estimating rates of change around major climatic perturbations, and understanding evolutionary rates through time - and increasingly require that data from multiple geochronometers be combined. To solve these problems, the next two decades of uranium-daughter geochronology will require further advances in accuracy, precision, and reproducibility. The U-Th system has much in common with U-Pb, in that both parent and daughter isotopes are solids that can easily be weighed and dissolved in acid, and have well-characterized reference materials certified for isotopic composition and/or purity. For U-Pb, improving lab-to-lab reproducibility has entailed dissolving precisely weighed U and Pb metals of known purity and isotopic composition together to make gravimetric solutions, then using these to calibrate widely distributed tracers composed of artificial U and Pb isotopes. To mimic laboratory measurements, naturally occurring U and Pb isotopes were also mixed in proportions to mimic samples of three different ages, to be run as internal

Advances in x-ray framing cameras at the National Ignition Facility to improve quantitative precision in x-ray imaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Benedetti, L R; Holder, J P; Perkins, M; Brown, C G; Anderson, C S; Allen, F V; Petre, R B; Hargrove, D; Glenn, S M; Simanovskaia, N; Bradley, D K; Bell, P

2016-02-01

We describe an experimental method to measure the gate profile of an x-ray framing camera and to determine several important functional parameters: relative gain (between strips), relative gain droop (within each strip), gate propagation velocity, gate width, and actual inter-strip timing. Several of these parameters cannot be measured accurately by any other technique. This method is then used to document cross talk-induced gain variations and artifacts created by radiation that arrives before the framing camera is actively amplifying x-rays. Electromagnetic cross talk can cause relative gains to vary significantly as inter-strip timing is varied. This imposes a stringent requirement for gain calibration. If radiation arrives before a framing camera is triggered, it can cause an artifact that manifests as a high-intensity, spatially varying background signal. We have developed a device that can be added to the framing camera head to prevent these artifacts.

Workshop on Precision Measurements of $\\alpha_s$

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bethke, Siegfried; /Munich, Max Planck Inst.; Hoang, Andre H.; /Vienna U.; Kluth, Stefan; /Munich, Max Planck Inst.; Schieck, Jochen; /Munich U.; Stewart, Iain W.; Aoki, S.; Beneke, M.; Bethke, S.; Blumlein, J.; Brambilla, N.; Brodsky, S.; /MIT, LNS

2011-10-01

These are the proceedings of the Workshop on Precision Measurements of {alpha}{sub s} held at the Max-Planck-Institute for Physics, Munich, February 9-11, 2011. The workshop explored in depth the determination of {alpha}{sub s}(m{sub Z}) in the {ovr MS} scheme from the key categories where high precision measurements are currently being made, including DIS and global PDF fits, {tau}-decays, electro-weak precision observables and Z-decays, event-shapes, and lattice QCD. These proceedings contain a short summary contribution from the speakers, as well as the lists of authors, conveners, participants, and talks.

High - speed steel for precise cased tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karwiarz, J.; Mazur, A.

2001-01-01

The test results of high-vanadium high - speed steel (SWV9) for precise casted tools are presented. The face -milling cutters of NFCa80A type have been tested in industrial operating conditions. An average life - time of SWV9 steel tools was 3-10 times longer compare to the conventional high - speed milling cutters. Metallography of SWB9 precise casted steel revealed beneficial for tool properties distribution of primary vanadium carbides in the steel matrix. Presented results should be a good argument for wide application of high - vanadium high - speed steel for precise casted tools. (author)

Geotechnology applied in precision livestock farming | Geotecnologia aplicada na pecuária de precisão

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alan Cézar Bezerra

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The current state of animal production has faced several challenges, such as environmental, animal welfare and food safety. This has generated a new paradigm for the management and animal production. This article aims to review literature regarding livestock precision farming concepts, traceability and its history, traceability in Brazil, traceability of components, identification systems, geotechnology used in precision livestock. We can conclude that geotechnology can assist in herd management, animal performance in optimization of the use of pastures and preservation of natural and minimizing negative impacts resources. Thus, it contributes to the livestock industry can satisfy the food safety requirements, animal welfare and environmental sustainability.

Progress on precision measurements of inner shell transitions in highly charged ions at an ECR ion source

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Szabo, Csilla I.; Indelicato, Paul; LeBigot, Eric-Olivier; Vallette, Alexandre; Amaro, Pedro; Guerra, Mauro; Gumberidze, Alex [Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Ecole Normale Superieure, CNRS, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie- Paris 6, Case 74, 4 place Jussieu, F-75005 Paris (France); Centro de Fisica Atomica, CFA, Departamento de Fisica (Portugal); Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica (Portugal); Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Ecole Normale Superieure, CNRS, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie- Paris 6, Case 74, 4 place Jussieu, F-75005 Paris (France)

2012-05-25

Inner shell transitions of highly charged ions produced in the plasma of an Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source (ECRIS) were observed the first time by a Double Crystal Spectrometer (DCS). The DCS is a well-used tool in precision x-ray spectroscopy due to its ability of precision wavelength measurement traced back to a relative angle measurement. Because of its requirement for a bright x-ray source the DCS has not been used before in direct measurements of highly charged ions (HCI). Our new precision measurement of inner shell transitions in HCI is not just going to provide new x-ray standards for quantum metrology but can also give information about the plasma in which the ions reside. Ionic temperatures and with that the electron density can be determined by thorough examination of line widths measured with great accuracy.

Manufacturing requirements of reactor assembly components for PFBR (Paper No. 041)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Murty, C.G.K.; Bhoje, S.B.

1987-02-01

This paper enumerates the requirements of 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) components and considering the present state of art of Indian industry an analysis is made on the challenges to be faced in manufacture highlighting the areas needing development. The large sizes and weights of the components coupled with the limitations on shop facilities and ODC transport, demand part of the fabrication to be done at shop and balance assembly work as well as certain assembly machining operations to be done at site work shop. The stringent geometrical tolerances coupled with extensive destructive and non-destructive examinations call for balanced and low heat input welding techniques and special inspection equipment like electronic co-ordinate determination system. The present paper deals with the specific manufacturing problems of the main reactor components. (author)

Analysis of Precision of Activation Analysis Method

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Heydorn, Kaj; Nørgaard, K.

1973-01-01

The precision of an activation-analysis method prescribes the estimation of the precision of a single analytical result. The adequacy of these estimates to account for the observed variation between duplicate results from the analysis of different samples and materials, is tested by the statistic T...

Prospects for Precision Neutrino Cross Section Measurements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Harris, Deborah A. [Fermilab

2016-01-28

The need for precision cross section measurements is more urgent now than ever before, given the central role neutrino oscillation measurements play in the field of particle physics. The definition of precision is something worth considering, however. In order to build the best model for an oscillation experiment, cross section measurements should span a broad range of energies, neutrino interaction channels, and target nuclei. Precision might better be defined not in the final uncertainty associated with any one measurement but rather with the breadth of measurements that are available to constrain models. Current experience shows that models are better constrained by 10 measurements across different processes and energies with 10% uncertainties than by one measurement of one process on one nucleus with a 1% uncertainty. This article describes the current status of and future prospects for the field of precision cross section measurements considering the metric of how many processes, energies, and nuclei have been studied.

Computer-aided design of control systems to meet many requirements

Science.gov (United States)

Schy, A. A.; Adams, W. M., Jr.; Johnson, K. G.

1974-01-01

A method is described for using nonlinear programing in the computer-aided design of airplane control systems. It is assumed that the quality of such systems depends on many criteria. These criteria are included in the constraints vector (instead of attempting to combine them into a single scalar criterion, as is usually done), and the design proceeds through a sequence of nonlinear programing solutions in which the designer varies the specification of sets of requirements levels. The method is applied to design of a lateral stability augmentation system (SAS) for a fighter airplane, in which the requirements vector is chosen from the official handling qualities specifications. Results are shown for several simple SAS configurations designed to obtain desirable handling qualities over all design flight conditions with minimum feedback gains. The choice of the final design for each case is not unique but depends on the designer's decision as to which achievable set of requirements levels represents the best for that system. Results indicate that it may be possible to design constant parameter SAS which can satisfy the most stringent handling qualities requirements for fighter airplanes in all flight conditions. The role of the designer as a decision maker, interacting with the computer program, is discussed. Advantages of this type of designer-computer interaction are emphasized. Desirable extensions of the method are indicated.

Precision half-life measurement of 11C: The most precise mirror transition F t value

Science.gov (United States)

Valverde, A. A.; Brodeur, M.; Ahn, T.; Allen, J.; Bardayan, D. W.; Becchetti, F. D.; Blankstein, D.; Brown, G.; Burdette, D. P.; Frentz, B.; Gilardy, G.; Hall, M. R.; King, S.; Kolata, J. J.; Long, J.; Macon, K. T.; Nelson, A.; O'Malley, P. D.; Skulski, M.; Strauss, S. Y.; Vande Kolk, B.

2018-03-01

Background: The precise determination of the F t value in T =1 /2 mixed mirror decays is an important avenue for testing the standard model of the electroweak interaction through the determination of Vu d in nuclear β decays. 11C is an interesting case, as its low mass and small QE C value make it particularly sensitive to violations of the conserved vector current hypothesis. The present dominant source of uncertainty in the 11CF t value is the half-life. Purpose: A high-precision measurement of the 11C half-life was performed, and a new world average half-life was calculated. Method: 11C was created by transfer reactions and separated using the TwinSol facility at the Nuclear Science Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. It was then implanted into a tantalum foil, and β counting was used to determine the half-life. Results: The new half-life, t1 /2=1220.27 (26 ) s, is consistent with the previous values but significantly more precise. A new world average was calculated, t1/2 world=1220.41 (32 ) s, and a new estimate for the Gamow-Teller to Fermi mixing ratio ρ is presented along with standard model correlation parameters. Conclusions: The new 11C world average half-life allows the calculation of a F tmirror value that is now the most precise value for all superallowed mixed mirror transitions. This gives a strong impetus for an experimental determination of ρ , to allow for the determination of Vu d from this decay.

The QCD coupling and parton distributions at high precision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bluemlein, Johannes

2010-07-01

A survey is given on the present status of the nucleon parton distributions and related precision calculations and precision measurements of the strong coupling constant α s (M 2 Z ). We also discuss the impact of these quantities on precision observables at hadron colliders. (orig.)

Role of Imaging in the Era of Precision Medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Giardino, Angela; Gupta, Supriya; Olson, Emmi; Sepulveda, Karla; Lenchik, Leon; Ivanidze, Jana; Rakow-Penner, Rebecca; Patel, Midhir J; Subramaniam, Rathan M; Ganeshan, Dhakshinamoorthy

2017-05-01

Precision medicine is an emerging approach for treating medical disorders, which takes into account individual variability in genetic and environmental factors. Preventive or therapeutic interventions can then be directed to those who will benefit most from targeted interventions, thereby maximizing benefits and minimizing costs and complications. Precision medicine is gaining increasing recognition by clinicians, healthcare systems, pharmaceutical companies, patients, and the government. Imaging plays a critical role in precision medicine including screening, early diagnosis, guiding treatment, evaluating response to therapy, and assessing likelihood of disease recurrence. The Association of University Radiologists Radiology Research Alliance Precision Imaging Task Force convened to explore the current and future role of imaging in the era of precision medicine and summarized its finding in this article. We review the increasingly important role of imaging in various oncological and non-oncological disorders. We also highlight the challenges for radiology in the era of precision medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A 2nd generation static model of greenhouse energy requirements (horticern) : a comparison with dynamic models

CERN Document Server

Jolliet, O; Munday, G L

1989-01-01

Optimisation of a greenhouse and its components requires a suitable model permitting precise determination of its energy requirements. Existing static models are simple but lack precision; dynamic models though more precise, are unsuitable for use over long periods and difficult to handle in practice. A theoretical study and measurements from the CERN trial greenhouse have allowed the development of new static model named "HORTICERN", precise and easy to use for predicting energy consumption and which takes into account effects of solar energy, wind and radiative loss to the sky. This paper compares the HORTICERN model with the dynamic models of Bot, Takakura, Van Bavel and Gembloux, and demonstrates that its precision is comparable; differences on average being less than 5%, it is independent of type of greenhouse (e.g. single or double glazing, Hortiplus, etc.) and climate. The HORTICERN method has been developed for PC use and is proving to be a powerful tool for greenhouse optimisation by research work...

Deep x-ray lithography for micromechanics and precision engineering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guckel, H.

1996-01-01

Micromechanics, an emerging technology for sensor and actuator fabrication, has already been exploited in the sensor area. Progress in actuators, devices that modify their environment and are fundamentally three dimensional, has been much more modest and is suffering from the availability of a fabrication tool with the necessary attributes. If the tool is based on photoresist technology, requirements include very large structure heights: in the millimeter range, for mask-defined prismatic photoresist shapes with flanks that differ from 90 degrees by less than 15 arc-seconds. Photoresist procedures that lead to these results are very different from their counterparts in the microelectronic industry. Thus, application is based on precast sheets of polymethyl methacrylate, PMMA, and solvent bonding followed by precision fly-cutting. Exposure is based on well-collimated x-ray sources, synchrotrons, with flux densities that can deposit 1,600 Joules per cubic centimeter in a finite time at the correct photoresist depth. Since PMMA has an absorption length that varies with photon energy, it is 100 micrometer at 3000 eV and increases to 1 cm at 20,000 eV, beamline and exposure designs center on transmission filters that control the low energy portion of the synchrotron spectrum. Since exposure latitude is large, overexposure by a factor of 15 is allowed, beamline and exposure design are relatively simple. Experiments via the Wisconsin machine, Aladdin, and the Brookhaven 2.6-GeV ring are being used to study the effectiveness issue of manufacturing with synchrotron radiation. Actuator test vehicles are linear and rotational magnetic micromotors with force outputs in the milli-Newton range. High energy exposures have produced large parts with submicron precision that are finding applications in ink jet printing and precision injection molding procedures. Both device types are unique to x-ray assisted processing. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics

Mechanical optimisation of a high-precision fast wire scanner at CERN

CERN Document Server

Samuelsson, Sebastian; Veness, Raymond

Wire scanners are instruments used to measure the transverse beam prole in particle accelerators by passing a thin wire through the particle beam. To avoid the issues of vacuum leakage through the bellows and wire failure related to current designs of wire scanners, a new concept for a wire scanner has been developed at CERN. This design has all moving parts inside the beam vacuum and has a nominal wire scanning speed of 20 m/s. The demands on the design associated with this together with the high precision requirements create a need for\

Sub-cell turning to accomplish micron-level alignment of precision assemblies

Science.gov (United States)

Kumler, James J.; Buss, Christian

2017-08-01

Higher performance expectations for complex optical systems demand tighter alignment requirements for lens assembly alignment. In order to meet diffraction limited imaging performance over wide spectral bands across the UV and visible wavebands, new manufacturing approaches and tools must be developed if the optical systems will be produced consistently in volume production. This is especially applicable in the field of precision microscope objectives for life science, semiconductor inspection and laser material processing systems. We observe a rising need for the improvement in the optical imaging performance of objective lenses. The key challenge lies in the micron-level decentration and tilt of each lens element. One solution for the production of high quality lens systems is sub-cell assembly with alignment turning. This process relies on an automatic alignment chuck to align the optical axis of a mounted lens to the spindle axis of the machine. Subsequently, the mount is cut with diamond tools on a lathe with respect to the optical axis of the mount. Software controlled integrated measurement technology ensures highest precision. In addition to traditional production processes, further dimensions can be controlled in a very precise manner, e.g. the air gaps between the lenses. Using alignment turning simplifies further alignment steps and reduces the risk of errors. This paper describes new challenges in microscope objective design and manufacturing, and addresses difficulties with standard production processes. A new measurement and alignment technique is described, and strengths and limitations are outlined.

Calibration of gyro G-sensitivity coefficients with FOG monitoring on precision centrifuge

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Jiazhen; Yang, Yanqiang; Li, Baoguo; Liu, Ming

2017-07-01

The advantages of mechanical gyros, such as high precision, endurance and reliability, make them widely used as the core parts of inertial navigation systems (INS) utilized in the fields of aeronautics, astronautics and underground exploration. In a high-g environment, the accuracy of gyros is degraded. Therefore, the calibration and compensation of the gyro G-sensitivity coefficients is essential when the INS operates in a high-g environment. A precision centrifuge with a counter-rotating platform is the typical equipment for calibrating the gyro, as it can generate large centripetal acceleration and keep the angular rate close to zero; however, its performance is seriously restricted by the angular perturbation in the high-speed rotating process. To reduce the dependence on the precision of the centrifuge and counter-rotating platform, an effective calibration method for the gyro g-sensitivity coefficients under fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) monitoring is proposed herein. The FOG can efficiently compensate spindle error and improve the anti-interference ability. Harmonic analysis is performed for data processing. Simulations show that the gyro G-sensitivity coefficients can be efficiently estimated to up to 99% of the true value and compensated using a lookup table or fitting method. Repeated tests indicate that the G-sensitivity coefficients can be correctly calibrated when the angular rate accuracy of the precision centrifuge is as low as 0.01%. Verification tests are performed to demonstrate that the attitude errors can be decreased from 0.36° to 0.08° in 200 s. The proposed measuring technology is generally applicable in engineering, as it can reduce the accuracy requirements for the centrifuge and the environment.

Advances in Precision Medicine: Tailoring Individualized Therapies.

Science.gov (United States)

Matchett, Kyle B; Lynam-Lennon, Niamh; Watson, R William; Brown, James A L

2017-10-25

The traditional bench-to-bedside pipeline involves using model systems and patient samples to provide insights into pathways deregulated in cancer. This discovery reveals new biomarkers and therapeutic targets, ultimately stratifying patients and informing cohort-based treatment options. Precision medicine (molecular profiling of individual tumors combined with established clinical-pathological parameters) reveals, in real-time, individual patient's diagnostic and prognostic risk profile, informing tailored and tumor-specific treatment plans. Here we discuss advances in precision medicine presented at the Irish Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, highlighting examples where personalized medicine approaches have led to precision discovery in individual tumors, informing customized treatment programs.

Estimates of laboratory accuracy and precision on Hanford waste tank samples

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dodd, D.A.

1995-01-01

A review was performed on three sets of analyses generated in Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories and three sets generated by Westinghouse Hanford Company, 222-S Analytical Laboratory. Laboratory accuracy and precision was estimated by analyte and is reported in tables. The sources used to generate this estimate is of limited size but does include the physical forms, liquid and solid, which are representative of samples from tanks to be characterized. This estimate was published as an aid to programs developing data quality objectives in which specified limits are established. Data resulting from routine analyses of waste matrices can be expected to be bounded by the precision and accuracy estimates of the tables. These tables do not preclude or discourage direct negotiations between program and laboratory personnel while establishing bounding conditions. Programmatic requirements different than those listed may be reliably met on specific measurements and matrices. It should be recognized, however, that these are specific to waste tank matrices and may not be indicative of performance on samples from other sources

The QCD coupling and parton distributions at high precision

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bluemlein, Johannes

2010-07-15

A survey is given on the present status of the nucleon parton distributions and related precision calculations and precision measurements of the strong coupling constant {alpha}{sub s}(M{sup 2}{sub Z}). We also discuss the impact of these quantities on precision observables at hadron colliders. (orig.)

Sensing technologies for precision irrigation

CERN Document Server