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OBJECTIVES To determine recent trends in: (1) human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) diagnoses, (2) the proportion of patients newly diagnosed with HIV with injection drug use (IDU) and (3) patients' patterns of healthcare utilization in the year before diagnosis at an urban, academic medical center. METHODS We performed a cross sectional study of patients newly diagnosed with HIV at a healthcare system in southern New Jersey between January 1st, 2014 and December 31st, 2019. Patients 18 years or older with HIV diagnosed during the study period were included. Demographics, comorbidities, HIV test results, and healthcare utilization data were collected from the electronic medical record. RESULTS Of 192 patients newly diagnosed with HIV, 36 (19%) had documented IDU. New HIV diagnoses doubled from 22 to 47 annual cases between 2014 and 2019. The proportion of patients with newly diagnosed HIV and documented IDU increased from 9% in 2014 to 32% in 2019, chi-square test for linear trend P value = 0.001. Eighty-nine percent of patients with IDU had at least one contact with the healthcare system in the year before diagnosis compared to 63% of patients without IDU, P value 0.003. The median (interquartile range IQR) number of healthcare visits was 7 [2-16] for patients with IDU versus 1 [0-3] for patients without IDU, P

Offshore oil and gas production platforms are complex and hazardous process facilities which are usually attended by a permanent human crew to run the daily operations. In recent years, the oil and gas industry has demonstrated strong commitment to change this traditional operations approach and move towards inherently safer philosophy in offshore facilities design and operations, i.e. removing human crew from the facility and operating it remotely from a safe location over extended periods. This paper aims to demonstrate the readiness of robotics technologies coupled with digitalization technologies in process control and facility automation in transforming offshore oil and gas production platforms into smart unmanned installations. This paper is focused on the application of smart robotics, with highly dexterous capabilities and equipped with multiple sensing instruments, in maintaining an offshore oil and gas production facility in full operation without a permanent human crew, and with planned visits to the platform at 12-week intervals, in a case study. The robots are developed to be remotely operated from an onshore control center and/or may be programmed to function autonomously for routine missions on the offshore facility.

A variable transmission thin film for visible light is proposed based on a mechanically actuated origami structure coated with metallic nanoparticles. The transmissivity can be tuned continuously from 0 to > 90 % for unpolarized incident light. Power is only required for switching and is not necessary to maintain the desired transmittance state. The asymmetric metal nanorods create two distinct plasmon resonances. Controlling the orientation of the nanorods with respect to the direction of the incident light changes the optical transmittance. The switching speed is only limited by the mechanical actuation and not by the optical response of the materials. The applicability of the proposed film for smart glass applications is investigated. Good image transmission clarity with minimal distortion is shown.

Ultrasonography is commonly used to examine testes as part of a breeding soundness examination in sheep, especially, in cases of infertility or when gross testicular abnormalities are present. A descriptive, prospective, prevalence study was conducted to characterize the ultrasonographic, histopathologic, and spermatozoal morphology abnormalities present in a group of yearling tropic hair rams on the island of St. Kitts. Hyperechoic and shadowing abnormalities increased over a 6 month study period. Hyperechoic abnormalities were present in one or both testes in 89% (25/28) of yearling rams and 71% (40/56) of testes at castration. Shadowing abnormalities were present in one or both testes in 46% (13/28) of rams and 34% (19/56) of testes at castration. Shadowing was present more with moderate and severe hyperechoic abnormalities, with few testes in the mild category having any shadowing. As hyperechoic and shadowing abnormalities increased in severity, so did the severity of microscopic lesions including increased interstitial cellularity/fibrosis, interstitial mineralization, seminiferous tubules mineralization (hyperechoic only), and chronic lymphoplasmacytic orchitis. There were no spermatozoal morphologic abnormalities other than an increase in distal cytoplasmic droplets. The study findings detail a pathologic event in this group of yearling rams that has an unknown etiology. Potential causes may include scrotal insulation, trauma, infectious causes, immunity alterations, nutritional imbalances, and ingestion of a toxin. Further studies are required to elucidate the causative agent.

Guidelines for post-cardiac arrest care recommend blood pressure optimization as one component of neuroprotection. Although some retrospective clinical studies suggest that postresuscitation hypotension may be harmful, and laboratory studies suggest that a postresuscitation hypertensive surge may be protective, empirical data are few. In this study, we prospectively measured blood pressure over time during the postresuscitation period and tested its association with neurologic outcome.Single center, prospective observational study from 2009 to 2012.Inclusion criteria were age 18 years old or older, prearrest independent functional status, resuscitation from cardiac arrest, and comatose immediately after resuscitation.Our research protocol measured blood pressure noninvasively every 15 minutes for the first 6 hours after resuscitation. We calculated the 0- to 6-hour time-weighted average mean arterial pressure and used multivariable logistic regression to test the association between increasing time-weighted average mean arterial pressures and good neurologic outcome, defined as Cerebral Performance Category 1 or 2 at hospital discharge. Among 151 patients, 44 (29%) experienced good neurologic outcome. The association between blood pressure and outcome appears to have a threshold effect at time-weighted average mean arterial pressure value of 70 mm Hg. This threshold (mean arterial pressure70 mm Hg) had the strongest association with good neurologic outcome (odds ratio, 4.11; 95% CI, 1.34-12.66; p = 0.014). A sustained intrinsic hypertensive surge was relatively uncommon and was not associated with neurologic outcome.We found that time-weighted average mean arterial pressure was associated with good neurologic outcome at a threshold of mean arterial pressure greater than 70 mm Hg.

How speech is separated perceptually from other speech remains poorly understood. Recent research indicates that the ability of an extraneous formant to impair intelligibility depends on the variation of its frequency contour. This study explored the effects of manipulating the depth and pattern of that variation. Three formants (F1+F2+F3) constituting synthetic analogues of natural sentences were distributed across the 2 ears, together with a competitor for F2 (F2C) that listeners must reject to optimize recognition (left = F1+F2C; right = F2+F3). The frequency contours of F1 − F3 were each scaled to 50% of their natural depth, with little effect on intelligibility. Competitors were created either by inverting the frequency contour of F2 about its geometric mean (a plausibly speech-like pattern) or using a regular and arbitrary frequency contour (triangle wave, not plausibly speech-like) matched to the average rate and depth of variation for the inverted F2C. Adding a competitor typically reduced intelligibility; this reduction depended on the depth of F2C variation, being greatest for 100%-depth, intermediate for 50%-depth, and least for 0%-depth (constant) F2Cs. This suggests that competitor impact depends on overall depth of frequency variation, not depth relative to that for the target formants. The absence of tuning (i.e., no minimum in intelligibility for the 50% case) suggests that the ability to reject an extraneous formant does not depend on similarity in the depth of formant-frequency variation. Furthermore, triangle-wave competitors were as effective as their more speech-like counterparts, suggesting that the selection of formants from the ensemble also does not depend on speech-specific constraints.

The use of landholder typologies to assist in the development of natural resource management (NRM) policies and agricultural extension programs has increased considerably in the past decade. In this paper we explore the potential of developing a typology of graziers to more effectively tailor policies and programs with the aim of improving land management outcomes. This is of particular importance since growing public concern about the environmental performance of the beef industry has led to increasing pressures on graziers to change their land management practices to decrease off-property impacts. To gain a better understanding of graziers’ land management practices and the factors that inform their decisions on how they manage their land we first developed a conceptual model of the relationship between grazier and grazing land where both can, ideally, thrive through conscious and timely land management decisions made and implemented by the grazier. A successful grazier land relationship is likely to be consistent with value systems and social and economic factors, although the particulars of any individual approach may vary spatially and temporally. These factors, in particular graziers’ values and motivations to follow a particular management strategy, guided the development of our typology of graziers. Australia's Bowen-Broken basin, which has been identified as a major contributor of sediment and nutrients that enter the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, served as a case study for this research. Three broad types of graziers emerged: (1) traditionalists, (2) diversifiers, and (3) innovators. The authors argue that by understanding graziers’ values and motivations underlying each of the grazier types, government agencies and NRM organisations can more effectively tailor their policy and extension programs towards specific types of graziers and can work with specific groups to achieve reductions in sediment and nutrient runoff from grazing properties.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how practitioners from Canada, the UK, Singapore, and the USA, university educational administration faculty from the USA, and the editor of a premier international journal of educational management engaged in a collaborative process to discover how to improve the preparation and practice of educational administration on a global basis.Design/methodology/approachAn appreciative inquiry theoretical research perspective was used to discover a positive core of experiences that could add to cultural proficiency as it relates to educational administration.FindingsIn each cultural context, the central nature of the highpoint stories focused on appreciative ways to work with other people. The stories suggest that relationships and collaboration are at the heart of an educational administrator's practice. It was discovered that twenty‐first century educational administrators operating in a global context believed that they could become difference makers in education.Originality/valueThe findings from this study provide encouragement for extended global collaboration for practicing educational administrators as well as those who are responsible for their preparation. The findings also suggest that using collaborative technologies in the framework of a cross‐cultural educator partnership can enhance the preparation and practice in educational administration programs.

Semitransparent photovoltaics are of interest for building integration and window coatings, though demonstrate an intrinsic tradeoff between transparency and absorption / efficiency. We propose alleviating this tradeoff using light management nanostructures which selectively scatter light based on incident wavelength and angle, allowing transmission of normally incident light for window visibility and absorption of light at elevated angles. Two structures of interest are proposed and described: metal nanorods which scatter light via their localized surface plasmon resonance properties, and arrays of subwavelength nanopores in a dielectric which demonstrate coherent multiple scattering. Both structures can potentially be patterned over large areas by electrochemical oxidation of aluminum into self assembled nanoporous anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) films.

Part I: Theoretical Advances 1. Biographical Research: Past, present, future 2. When Bodies Need Stories: Narrative analysis in action 3. Keepin' It Real: Social action research, psychoanalytic theory, and the moving to the beat project 4. The Narrative Construction and Performance of Identity Part II: Methodological Advances 5. Participatory Biographies: Walking, sensing, belonging 6. Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain: Exploration of virtual reality 7. Biographical Research, Longitudinal Study and Theorisation Part III: Advances in Applying Biographical Methods 8. Not a Problem: Translation and the silencing of narratives 9. Finding the Manly Man in Archives, Historical / Archival Research as the Documents of Life 10. Combining Biographical and Visual Methods in Practice: A vegan comic case study

The rhythm created by spacing a series of brief tones in a regular pattern can be disguised by interleaving identical distractors at irregular intervals. The disguised rhythm can be unmasked if the distractors are allocated to a separate stream from the rhythm by integration with temporally overlapping captors. Listeners identified which of 2 rhythms was presented, and the accuracy and rated clarity of their judgment was used to estimate the fusion of the distractors and captors. The extent of fusion depended primarily on onset asynchrony and degree of temporal overlap. Harmonic relations had some influence, but only an extreme difference in spatial location was effective (dichotic presentation). Both preattentive and attentionally driven processes governed performance.

Academic misconduct in research is of growing concern to funding agencies, scholars, and academic journal editors. Scholarly publication has ethical implications researchers, reviewers, and journal editors. The theoretical background of the ethics of scholarly publication is explored as well as the use of a case study of an untenured researcher illustrates the dilemma faced by the researcher's colleagues, reviewers, and the journal editor. It also explores how the higher education culture promotes a “publish or perish” environment that impacts the behavior of faculty seeking tenure and promotion.

We describe the Ranger robotic system and its autonomous hazard control system, which is designed to meet the stringent criteria imposed on space shuttle payloads. Mature Ranger systems have enabled evaluation of telerobotic servicing tasks in a variety of 1-g and neutral buoyancy environments. These evaluations have included rigorous testing with operators that ranged from experienced system designers to small children who frequently activate the safety system as they operate manipulators without skill or caution. Originally developed to demonstrate space-based robotic servicing as a shuttle payload, Ranger has subsequently evolved into an Earth-based test bed for robotic servicing tasks.

Character is at the core of leadership. Leaders with virtuous character provide benefit to their schools and communities. Whereas, leaders with character flaws create harm for themselves as well as their community. The ethical lapses among teachers, principals, and superintendents create an even larger issue when one considers the fiduciary trust placed in educators by the public. Character development requires behavioral change as well as knowledge acquisition. Incorporating behavioral change into university administrator preparation programs requires faculty to consider recent findings in neuroscience on how the brain learns and the incorporation of these findings into program design and instruction.

Winner of the Planning Institute of Australia’s 2015 Cutting Edge Research and Teaching Award! Australians from all walks of life have begun to realise the nation’s cities cannot sustain profligate growth indefinitely. Dwindling water supplies, failing food bowls, increased energy costs, more severe bushfires, severe storms, flooding, coastal erosion, rising transport expenses, housing shortages and environmental pollution are now daily news headlines. Australia’s cities may have reached their ecological limits: a new model for planning the places we live is needed. Understanding the natural cycles of the city is just as important to planning our cities as knowledge of local ordinances, indeed much more so. A profound knowledge of environmental processes is critical for successful planning in today’s world. Environmental planners take as their guiding principle the concept of designing with nature, approaching cities as living organisms that consume water, energy and raw materials, and produce waste. This metabolic view of cities means we can find new solutions to old problems, and steer our cities towards a more sustainable form of planning. Written specifically for students and professionals working in city planning in Australia, this ground-breaking new book enables Australian planners, architects and developers to get a better understanding of the fundamental principles of environmental planning for cities, showing how land, water, air, energy, wildlife and people shape our built environments, and how in turn environmental processes must be better understood if we are to make informed decisions about developing cities that are more sustainable. The book’s coverage is comprehensive: from an overview of the concepts and theories of environmental planning, through analysis of governance systems and urban environmental processes to agendas and policies for the future, all the key topics are covered in depth, with recommendations for supporting reading and an unrivalled selection of additional materials. Ideal for students, essential for professionals, Australian Environmental Planning is vital reading for more sustainable cities in a more sustainable world.

We investigate the optical scattering properties of self-assembled nanoporous anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) films, and propose integrating AAO as a backscattering layer for light management in thin film photovoltaics. Angle selective scattering and direction of light to extreme, near-horizontal angles can enable new functionality for semitransparent PV window coatings, allowing improved absorption of direct sunlight without sacrificing transparency in the normal direction. Scattering to extreme angles can also be exploited to aid light trapping in thin epitaxial semiconductor absorbers, without texturing.

The actions of school leaders have direct and profound ethical implications on their organizations and corresponding stakeholders. Each action impacts the ethical notion of mutuality and either adds to or detracts from the existing social capital in the school leader’s organization and surrounding school community. Whether or not the school leader chooses to act out of self‐interest and contribute to the growth of fragmentation in the organization or chooses to act with integrity based on sound ethical principles is determined in large extent by the school leader’s character.

In 1933 two maps reconstructing the woodlands of England were published by Hilda A. Wilcox: one of these, woodland ‘deduced from early literature’, is re-assessed in this paper. The distribution it shows is compared with a recently constructed map of national woodland, created as part of an English Heritage project, and based on the analysis of the Domesday Book by Sir Clifford Darby and his co-workers, together with the results of investigations by numerous place-name scholars. In spite of differences in detail, the two maps are in remarkably close accord. This conclusion is used as the basis for a brief synoptic analysis of the distribution of cleared land and woodland in the centuries preceding 1086, and touching even the Roman period. The recent computer-based reconstruction, drawing upon published, sound and accepted sources, and supported by the earlier and wholly independent work by scholars such as Rackham and Thirsk, provides a national picture of fundamental importance to the historical geography of the English environment.

Differences in the timbre of sounds in a sequence can affect their perceptual organization. Using a performance measure, Hartmann and Johnson (1991) concluded that streaming could be predicted primarily by the extent to which sounds were passed by different peripheral channels. However, results from a rating task by Dannenbring and Bregman (1976) suggested that sounds in the same spectral region (passed by the same peripheral channels) can be allocated to different streams. In Experiment 1, it was found, using an interleaved melody task, that target sounds could be selected from distractors in the same spectral region more easily when they differed in timbre. This finding might result from primitive stream segregation or schema-driven selection, but not from peripheral channeling. In Experiment 2, a rhythm discrimination task was used, requiring the sounds to be integrated for good performance. Differences in timbre impaired performance, indicating the occurrence of primitive stream segregation.

Purpose. The use of a hinge for a removable partial denture with an opening labial bow was replaced by the design and construction of a flexible plate incorporated as part of a cobalt-chromium casting. Methods. Three similar prostheses were constructed and tested in vitro on an endurance test machine. Each test piece completed 12,000 opening and closing operations without fracture, which a previous study showed is a probable life cycle of a typical removable partial denture with a hinged section. Results. This plate provided sufficient flexibility to allow functional operation of the removable partial denture by a patient. (J Prosthet Dent 1998;80:220-3.)

Optical backscattering by anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) thin films has been experimentally shown to change significantly with the angle of incident light. We investigate the scattering physics of self-assembled nanoporous dielectric AAO structures and propose applying them to improve performance in thin film and semitransparent photovoltaics (PVs). Pairing AAO scatterers with thin absorbing layers can improve absorption via the scattered field component and enable angle-selective light management for new functionality. Numerical models show that incident light can be backscattered to extreme, near-horizontal angles, coupling to horizontally propagating modes and greatly improving optical path length and absorption in thin PV films.

The automated metrology capabilities of a STEM using a commercially available 22nm microprocessor were evaluated. Artifact-free TEM samples with a thickness of 10-15nm were prepared from inverter structures at various locations within an SRAM array. Static and dynamic precision measurements made on fin and gate stack features show sub-nm precision, suggesting that fully automated STEM metrology on finFET devices is capable of supporting finFET production. This paper also discusses sample preparation, automated data acquisition and data analysis, as well as the throughput benefits that arise from hardware connectivity between the sample prep and data acquisition tools. Simultaneous STEM imaging and compositional analysis is also briefly discussed.

Optical scattering properties of nanoporous anodized aluminum oxide films are investigated and applied to improving absorption in thin film photovoltaics. Angle dependent scattering properties improve performance in semitransparent systems and could reduce solar tracking dependence.

A single even harmonic added to an odd-harmonic complex may be judged as perceptually more salient than the odd harmonics themselves (Roberts & Bregman, 1991). It is proposed that this effect occurs because the even harmonic is inconsistent with the regular spectral pattern formed by the odd-harmonic complex (the base). Therefore, a reduction in the regularity of the base spectrum should reduce the even—odd difference. Spectral regularity was reduced either by removing base components, or by including components in the base that were inconsistent with its original pattern. Subjects listened to (primarily) harmonic complex tones and rated the clarity of one of the harmonics, cued by a preceding pure tone. Both removing components from the base and including extraneous components in the base reduced the even—odd difference. The results suggest that it is easier to segregate a harmonic from a periodic complex tone when it does not form part of the regular pattern of spectral spacing defined by the other harmonics.

Background Coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) induces myocarditis, an inflammatory heart disease, which affects men more than women. Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling has been shown to determine the severity of CVB3-induced myocarditis. No direct role for signaling through TLR2 had been shown in myocarditis although published studies show that cardiac myosin is an endogenous TLR2 ligand and stimulates pro-inflammatory cytokine expression by dendritic cells in vitro. The goal of this study is to determine which TLRs show differential expression in CVB3 infected mice corresponding to male susceptibility and female resistance in this disease. Methods Male and female C57Bl/6 mice were infected with 102 PFU CVB3 and killed on day 3 or 6 post infection. Hearts were evaluated for virus titer, myocardial inflammation, and TLR mRNA expression by PCR array and microarray analysis. Splenic lymphocytes only were evaluated by flow cytometry for the number of TLR+/CD3+, TLR+/CD4+, TLR+F4/80+ and TLR+/CD11c+ subpopulations and the mean fluorescence intensity to assess upregulation of TLR expression on these cells. Mice were additionally treated with PAM3CSK4 (TLR2 agonist) or ultrapure LPS (TLR4 agonist) on the same day as CVB3 infection or 3 days post infection to confirm their role in myocarditis susceptibility. Results Despite equivalent viral titers, male C57Bl/6 mice develop more severe myocarditis than females by day 6 after infection. Microarray analysis shows a differential expression of TLR2 at day 3 with female mice having higher levels of TLR2 gene expression compared to males. Disease severity correlates to greater TLR4 protein expression on splenic lymphocytes in male mice 3 days after infection while resistance in females correlates to preferential TLR2 expression, especially in spleen lymphocytes. Treating male mice with PAM reduced mortality from 55% in control CVB3 infected animals to 10%. Treating female mice with LPS increased mortality from 0% in control infected animals to 60%. Conclusion CVB3 infection causes an up-regulation of TLR2 in female and of TLR4 in male mice and this differential expression between the sexes contributes to disease resistance of females and susceptibility of males. While previous reports demonstrated a pathogenic role for TLR4 this is the first report that TLR2 is preferentially up-regulated in CVB3 infected female mice or that signaling through this TLR directly causes myocarditis resistance.

In this study an apparatus is described that will open and close a hinged section of a removable partial denture. A metal framework based on a "swinglock" type of hinge and latch design was constructed. An electric motor provided the drive for the opening and closing mechanism, which when operated set the device in motion. The device and results of a test run of 12,000 opening and closing operations are discussed.

Semi-transparent photovoltiacs are of interest for improving integration of solar energy harvesting with architecture. However, the competing requirements of optical transparency and efficient absorption of the incident spectrum severely limit performance. To address this tradeoff, we propose an angle selective organic photovoltaic window structure, structured such that normally incident light is transmitted to maintain window-quality transparency, while direct sunlight at an elevated angle is targeted for absorption. The localized surface plasmon resonance properties of metal nanorods are employed for angle and spectrally dependant scattering. The optical interference patterns arising when light propagates through subwavelength planar dielectric stacks are engineered to optimize the optical mode created by the metal scatterers via an evolutionary algorithm. We numerically model the transmission and absorption performance of a thin semi-transparent organic photovoltiac film under angled solar illumination to evaluate the potential for the proposed design. An optimized selective structure can maintain 70% optical transparency at normal incidence while improving total absorbed power by a factor of 2.3 vs. a lone semi-transparent cell of comparable transparency.

Conventional semi-transparent photovoltaics suffer from an inherent tradeoff between the amount of visible light transmitted versus absorbed, reducing energy conversion efficiency when higher transparency is desired. As a solution to lift this tradeoff, we propose a wavelength and angular selective reflector and demonstrate a potential implementation utilizing high aspect ratio metal nanoparticles. Using the anisotropy in the localized surface plasmon resonance wavelength, the proposed device can selectively harness sunlight incident at an elevated angle, increasing the power conversion efficiency by a factor of 1.44, while maintaining 70 percent optical transparency at normal incidence.

How can charities best survive through the ‘nineties and into the next century? In this paper the author suggests that charities should adopt the techniques of brand marketing in order to secure their position. He examines the need for charities to research their marketplace carefully and to consider the quality and positioning of their product and the possibility of identifying a market niche. Finally he discusses how a charity can create a desired brand personality.

Onset asynchrony is an important cue for auditory scene analysis. For example, a harmonic of a vowel that begins before the other components contributes less to the perceived phonetic quality. This effect was thought primarily to involve high-level grouping processes, because the contribution can be partly restored by accompanying the leading portion of the harmonic (precursor) with a synchronous captor tone an octave higher, and hence too remote to influence adaptation of the auditory-nerve response to that harmonic. However, recent work suggests that this restoration effect arises instead from inhibitory interactions relatively early in central auditory processing. The experiments reported here have reevaluated the role of adaptation in grouping by onset asynchrony and explored further the inhibitory account of the restoration effect. Varying the frequency of the precursor in the range ± 10% relative to the vowel harmonic (Experiment 1), or introducing a silent interval from 0 to 320 ms between the precursor and the vowel (Experiment 2), both produce effects on vowel quality consistent with those predicted from peripheral adaptation or recovery from it. However, there were some listeners for whom even the smallest gap largely eliminated the effect of the precursor. Consistent with the inhibitory account of the restoration effect, a contralateral pure tone whose frequency is close to that of the precursor is highly effective at restoring the contribution of the asynchronous harmonic (Experiment 3). When the frequencies match, lateralization cues arising from binaural fusion of the precursor and contralateral tone may also contribute to this restoration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The use of stochastic representations of systems to the areas of dynamics and control in aerospace applications shows potential to more efficiently analyze the merits of an engineering design. As aerospace systems require greater precision, the ability to account for small disturbances and errors becomes more important. Monte Carlo simulation has been the traditional method for analyzing a design in the presence of uncertainty, but the incredible computational cost of both a Monte Carlo simulation and CFD make it incredibly time-consuming to find the full range of responses of an uncertain system. This paper demonstrates a method for using wind tunnel testing and a statistical description of turbulence characteristics to efficiently analyze the open loopdynamics of a micro air vehicle. Micro air vehicles are of special interest both because their mission effectiveness is more sensitive to turbulence and they experience greater turbulent fluctuations in their flight regime than larger faster vehicles.

Building-integrated photovotaic facades can capture a significant amount of solar energy that is currently underused. Semitransparent photovoltaic devices are one of the most promising solutions for such applications. However, in conventional transparent photovoltaic structures, transparency inevitably translates to poor light harvesting and hence low power conversion efficiency. In this paper, we propose a plasmonic nanostructure based wavelength and angle selective back reflector that can provide excellent see-through clarity while providing effective light harvesting for efficient solar energy conversion. The proposed back reflector is independent from the solar cell design and can be integrated with nearly every type of transparent solar cell structures, ranging from amorphous to polymer absorbers and from single-junction to tandem cells. Uniquely, the plasmonic nanostructures can be integrated with a large-area thin-film solar cell device on flexible substrates, enabling “photovoltaic film” that can be retrofitted to the existing window systems. This paper presents the proposed concept and its validation using finite-difference-time-domain simulations. Results indicate that plasmonic light trapping can improve photovoltaic absorption of angled light by a factor of 1.7 on resonance while maintaining good transparency for normally incident light.

In 2010, the Government of Canada awarded major funding to the Wavefront Wireless Commercialization Centre under the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program. As a result, Wavefront's mandate has expanded to include development and execution of a national strategy for accelerating the commercialization of wireless technologies developed by startup companies, small & medium enterprises and academic researchers across Canada in a manner that will benefit all Canadians. The opportunity comes at a critical time in the evolution of the global market for telecommunications products and amidst competition from other centres around the world that have similar mandates. Wavefront's approach focuses on the development of effective strategies for engaging Canada's wireless innovators in both the private and academic sectors and for engaging potential resources, collaborators and customers at both the national and global levels. In doing so, Wavefront will build upon and leverage Canada's existing strengths in the commercialization of technology, including programs such as those offered by the National Research Council (NRC) and Precarn, and thereby contribute to the continuing success of the Canadian wireless innovation sector.

A sudden change applied to a single component can cause its segregation from an ongoing complex tone as a pure-tone-like percept. Three experiments examined whether such pure-tone-like percepts are organized into streams by extending the research of Bregman and Rudnicky (1975). Those authors found that listeners struggled to identify the presentation order of 2 pure-tone targets of different frequency when they were flanked by 2 lower frequency “distractors.” Adding a series of matched-frequency “captor” tones, however, improved performance by pulling the distractors into a separate stream from the targets. In the current study, sequences of discrete pure tones were substituted by sequences of brief changes applied to an otherwise constant 1.2-s complex tone. Pure-tone-like percepts were evoked by applying 6-dB increments to individual components of a complex comprising harmonics 1–7 of 300 Hz (Experiment 1) or 0.5-ms changes in interaural time difference to individual components of a log-spaced complex (range 160–905 Hz; Experiment 2). Results were consistent with the earlier study, providing clear evidence that pure-tone-like percepts are organized into streams. Experiment 3 adapted Experiment 1 by presenting a global amplitude increment either synchronous with, or just after, the last captor prior to the 1st distractor. In the former case, for which there was no pure-tone-like percept corresponding to that captor, the captor sequence did not aid performance to the same extent as previously. It is concluded that this change to the captor-tone stream partially resets the stream-formation process, and so the distractors and targets became likely to integrate once more. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

We describe an angular selective photovoltaic window, designed to transmit normally incident light and absorb off-angle light by exploiting an anisotropic plasmonic nanostructure. The principles of operation and numerical simulation results are presented.

The recently formed Space Servicing Capabilities Project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is exploring in-space servicing of existing and future observatory-class scientific spacecraft, assessing robotic approaches to service space systems, and expending NASA’s understanding of servicing capabilities. The near-term plan is to carry out servicing demonstrations on legacy spacecraft subsystems using existing on-orbit robotic systems. Eight International Space Station-based experiments are described in this paper. The longterm plan is to conduct a pathfinder servicing mission on a legacy spacecraft after retiring some of the risk in these ISS-based demonstrations.

Bio-inspiration has led to a variety of robotic designs, especially small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for urban environment that have taken cues from birds, bats, and insects. However, one group of extinct flying animals, the pterosaurs that flew over the heads of dinosaurs, have been largely overlooked in this search for biological solutions to mechanical problems. This project will develop and demonstrate a next-generation capability for sensor emplacement using pterosaurs as the model animal. Tapejara wellnhoferi, a pterodactyloid from the Early Cretaceous of Brazil, shows promise to develop an UAV (Pterodrone) of much superior range, a sensor platform capable of aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic locomotion by altering its wing shape. Tapejara was a sophisticated flyer with a cruising speed of 30 km/hr. The cranial sail led to the design of a vertical tail at the nose of the Pterodrone that varies both longitudinally and vertically, as opposed to the more conventional, fixed aftlocated vertical tail. The novel forward-placed tail design shows a marked improvement in the allowable turning radius when flight vehicle capabilities are normalized to constant thrust or power. Fabricated of lightweight carbon fiber, the Pterodrone employs a flexible wing design to achieve a wide range of multimodal locomotion. On land, the Pterodrone could walk quadrupedally for gathering information. Wheel-pod, a new device, employs the retractable foot on demand for terrestrial locomotion, and is flexibly hinged to the rear wheel, with a gecko-like foot that permitted vertical landing on the wall. In aquatic environments, the Pterodrone achieves the configuration of a two-masted catamaran sailboat, where the cranial sail acts as a jib and the two upright wings function as a pair of mainsails to catch the bridge. The sternum and hindlimbs would have contacted the water much as trimaran’s hulls do to provide stability.

Micro air vehicles have the potential to complete useful missions in regions of dense obstacles near the Earth’s surface. However, the airflow profile in these regions is characterized by a high level of turbulence. Additionally, the characteristics of micro air vehicles make them much more susceptible to the effects of turbulence. To be effective in their missions, this new class of vehicles must be stable in the face of turbulence yet controllable and agile to perform the necessary maneuvers in an obstacle rich environment. This paper characterizes the impact of standard wing design parameters and turbulence intensity on the stability derivatives of micro air vehicles. Data show that turbulence has a significant impact on the lift, drag, and pitching moment on a micro air vehicle, of which some of the effects appear to be nonlinear. However, the potential for wing design to be used to counteract the effects of turbulence is still unclear.

The surface plasmon characteristics of metal nanostructures have the potential to improve optical absorption in thin film photovoltaics. We present a novel method for simulating and analyzing absorption in the active region of metal nanoparticle enhanced solar cells, capable of determining broad spectrum behavior from a single simulation and accurately accounting for optical losses in the metal. This method has several advantages over alternative simulations, and can be applied to modelling any number of thin film material systems.

The tendency to hear a tone sequence as 2 or more streams (segregated) builds up, but a sudden change in properties can reset the percept to 1 stream (integrated). This effect has not hitherto been explored using an objective measure of streaming. Stimuli comprised a 2.0-s fixed-frequency inducer followed by a 0.6-s test sequence of alternating pure tones (3 low [L]-high [H] cycles). Listeners compared intervals for which the test sequence was either isochronous or the H tones were slightly delayed. Resetting of segregation should make identifying the anisochronous interval easier. The HL frequency separation was varied (0-12 semitones), and properties of the inducer and test sequence were set to the same or different values. Inducer properties manipulated were frequency, number of onsets (several short bursts vs. one continuous tone), tone:silence ratio (short vs. extended bursts), level, and lateralization. All differences between the inducer and the L tones reduced temporal discrimination thresholds toward those for the no-inducer case, including properties shown previously not to affect segregation greatly. Overall, it is concluded that abrupt changes in a sequence cause resetting and improve subsequent temporal discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

(Abstract) The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Development Office spent over a year developing the Hubble Robotic Servicing and De-orbit Mission (HRSDM) with the objectives to autonomously rendezvous with and capture HST, perform robotic servicing tasks (gyroscope and battery changeout and installation of scientific instruments), and ultimately de-orbit the observatory after its useful scientific mission lifetime. During this time, the HST Development Office established the feasibility of performing Earth-based telerobotic servicing of a NASA asset in Low Earth Orbit and advanced the technology readiness level of the following component technologies and techniques: autonomous rendezvous and capture (ARC Object Recognition and Pose Estimation algorithms that successfully measured the relative position and orientation of a robotic interface fixture to an accuracy of ± 2mm in position and ± 2.0 degrees in orientation (with respect to the camera frame of reference) at a distance of 45 cm from the camera; and the development of a space flight qualified 1K x 1K monochrome digital video camera system that is going to be used as part of a Relative Navigation Sensor experiment during the next shuttle-based servicing mission to HST.

A harmonic that begins before the other harmonics contributes less than they do to vowel quality. This reduction can be partly reversed by accompanying the leading portion with a captor tone. This effect is usually interpreted as reflecting perceptual grouping of the captor with the leading portion. Instead, it has recently been proposed that the captor effect depends on broadband inhibition within the central auditory system. A test of psychophysical predictions based on this proposal showed that captor efficacy is (a) maintained for noise-band captors, (b) absent when a captor accompanies a harmonic that continues after the vowel, and (c) maintained for 80 ms or more over a gap between captor offset and vowel onset. These findings support and refine the inhibitory account. PsycINFO Database Record © 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

The University of Maryland Space Systems Laboratory has developed the Ranger Telerobotic Shuttle Experiment, which was intended to be an initial flight demonstration of dexterous robotics for space operations. Ranger TSX incorporates advanced robotic manipulators capable of using EVA interfaces and performing EVA tasks, and was intended for a space shuttle test flight in 2004 prior to recent programmatic cutbacks. To better quantify the impact of Ranger-level dexterous robotics on space operations, Hubble Space Telescope servicing was adopted as a set of reference missions. This was a logical decision, since Ranger was designed to be as capable as an astronaut in extravehicular activity (EVA), and several of the Ranger experimental tasks were directly taken from HST servicing experience. HST EVA operations from the first four servicing missions were broken down into tasks, subtasks, and primitives, and were evaluated for telerobotic operations. For each candidate, the primitives were quantified in terms of what percentage could be performed by a robot, and whether robotic operations were best performed before, during, or after the EVA operations. Initial resulted indicated that, for the first servicing mission, a single robotic assistant for the EVA crew would increase productivity by 60%. This would allow the five EVAs of SM-1 to be performed in three, or would allow the equivalent of three more EVA-only operational days to be included in five EVA sorties for the human/robot team activities. Further analysis of later missions, which had fewer contingency operations, showed that up to 80% of the EVA tasks could have been reassigned to the robot. This paper presents the results of this analysis, along with further research into specific interfaces required for telerobotic operations, and more global redesign of mission operations to optimize performance of the human/robotic teams.