Airborne tracking sunphotometer apparatus and system

An airborne tracking Sun photometer apparatus has a rotatable dome. An azimuth drive motor is connected to rotate the dome. The dome has an equatorial slot. A cylindrical housing is pivotally mounted inside the dome at the equatorial slot. A photometer is mounted in the housing to move in the equatorial slot as the housing pivots. The photometer has an end facing from the slot with an optical flat transparent window. An elevation drive motor is connected to pivot the cylindrical housing. The rotatable dome is mounted in the bulkhead of an aircraft to extend from the interior of the aircraft. A Sun sensor causes the photometer to track the Sun automatically. Alternatively, the photometer may be oriented manually or by computer

Complete and Voluntary Starvation of 50 days

A 34-year-old obese male (96.8 kg; BMI, 30.2 kg m⁻¹) volitionally undertook a 50-day fast with the stated goal of losing body mass. During this time, only tea, coffee, water, and a daily multivitamin were consumed. Severe and linear loss of body mass is recorded during these 50 days (final 75.4 kg; BMI, 23.5 kg m⁻¹). A surprising resilience to effects of fasting on activity levels and physical function is noted. Plasma samples are suggestive of early impairment of liver function, and perturbations to cardiovascular dynamics are also noted. One month following resumption of feeding behavior, body weight was maintained (75.0 kg; BMI, 23.4 kg m⁻¹). Evidence-based decision-making with the fasting or hunger striking patient is limited by a lack of evidence. This case report suggests that total body mass, not mass lost, may be a key observation in clinical decision-making during fasting and starvation

Trisecant Lemma for Non Equidimensional Varieties

The classic trisecant lemma states that if $X$ is an integral curve of \PP^3 then the variety of trisecants has dimension one, unless the curve is planar and has degree at least 3, in which case the variety of trisecants has dimension 2. In this paper, our purpose is first to present another derivation of this result and then to introduce a generalization to non-equidimensional varities. For the sake of clarity, we shall reformulate our first problem as follows. Let $Z$ be an equidimensional variety (maybe singular and/or reducible) of dimension $n$, other than a linear space, embedded into \PP^r, $r \geq n+1$. The variety of trisecant lines of $Z$, say $V_{1,3}(Z)$, has dimension strictly less than $2n$, unless $Z$ is included in a $(n+1)-$dimensional linear space and has degree at least 3, in which case $\dim(V_{1,3}(Z)) = 2n$. Then we inquire the more general case, where $Z$ is not required to be equidimensional. In that case, let $Z$ be a possibly singular variety of dimension $n$, that may be neither irreducible nor equidimensional, embedded into \PP^r, where $r \geq n+1$, and $Y$ a proper subvariety of dimension $k \geq 1$. Consider now $S$ being a component of maximal dimension of the closure of \{l \in \G(1,r) \vtl \exists p \in Y, q_1, q_2 \in Z \backslash Y, q_1,q_2,p \in l\}. We show that $S$ has dimension strictly less than $n+k$, unless the union of lines in $S$ has dimension $n+1$, in which case $dim(S) = n+k$. In the latter case, if the dimension of the space is stricly greater then $n+1$, the union of lines in $S$ cannot cover the whole space. This is the main result of our work. We also introduce some examples showing than our bound is strict

An Analysis on the English Multiple-choice Item Test for Primary Students

This research concentrates on specific questions regarding the item validity, the test scores reliability, and item analysis in order to provide information that will lead to the improvement of test items construction. A descriptive method is applied to describe and examine the data. The research findings show that the test has fulfilled the criteria of having content validity. However the reliability value of the test scores is 0.67 which is categorized as unreliable. Through the item analysis, there are 11 items that are in need of improvement which are categorized “too easy” for the difficulty and “poor” for the discriminability. It means that almost 40% of the test items need to be revised as the items do not meet the criteria

Optimizing Electrode Configuration for Electrical Impedance Measurements of Muscle via the Finite Element Method

Electrical impedance myography (EIM) is a technique for the evaluation of neuromuscular diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. In this study, we evaluated how alterations in the size and conductivity of muscle and thickness of subcutaneous fat impact the EIM data, with the aim of identifying an optimized electrode configuration for EIM measurements. Finite element models were developed for the human upper arm based on anatomic data; material properties of the tissues were obtained from rat and published sources. The developed model matched the frequency-dependent character of the data. Of the three major EIM parameters, resistance, reactance, and phase, the reactance was least susceptible to alterations in the subcutaneous fat thickness, regardless of electrode arrangement. For example, a quadrupling of fat thickness resulted in a 375% increase in resistance at 35 kHz but only a 29% reduction in reactance. By further optimizing the electrode configuration, the change in reactance could be reduced to just 0.25%. For a fixed 30 mm distance between the sense electrodes centered between the excitation electrodes, an 80 mm distance between the excitation electrodes was found to provide the best balance, with a less than 1% change in reactance despite a doubling of subcutaneous fat thickness or halving of muscle size. These analyses describe a basic approach for further electrode configuration optimization for EIM

The tourism and economic growth enigma: Examining an ambiguous relationship through multiple prisms

This paper revisits the ambiguous relationship between tourism and economic growth, providing a comprehensive study of destinations across the globe which takes into account the key dynamics that influence tourism and economic performance. We focus on 113 countries over the period 1995-2014, clustered, for the first time, around six criteria that reflect their economic, political and tourism dimensions. A Panel Vector Autoregressive model is employed which, in contrast to previous studies, allows the data to reveal any tourism-economy interdependencies across these clusters, without imposing a priori the direction of causality. Overall, the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis seems to prevail in countries which are developing, non-democratic, highly bureaucratic and have low tourism specialization. Conversely, bidirectional relationships are established for economies which are stronger, democratic and with higher levels of government effectiveness. Thus, depending on the economic, political and tourism status of a destination, different policy implications apply

Consumers Buying Behaviors’ Loans and Credits: A Situationer

This study aimed to describe the situation of the consumers buying behaviors loans\u27 and credits with the use of descriptive research design. The researchers found out that micro–financing business or lending institutions and private individuals are credit service providers of the respondents. The types of loan and credit they avail are investment loan or business loan which is worth more than Php 100,000 and consumer credit amounting to less than Php 20,000. Loans can provide their needs, they do not have stable source of income, their salary are not enough, they want to buy gadgets, apparels and vehicles are the main reasons why the respondents avail loans and credits. On the other hand, long process of approval, time to repayment of maturity date and high interest rate are problems encountered by the respondents in availing credit services. Complex–buying and habitual–buying are the consumer behaviors manifested by the respondents

Asymmetric simple exclusion process in one-dimensional chains with long-range links

We study the boundary-driven asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) in a one-dimensional chain with long-range links. Shortcuts are added to a chain by connecting $pL$ different pairs of sites selected randomly where $L$ and $p$ denote the chain length and the shortcut density, respectively. Particles flow into a chain at one boundary at rate $\alpha$ and out of a chain at the other boundary at rate $\beta$, while they hop inside a chain via nearest-neighbor bonds and long-range shortcuts. Without shortcuts, the model reduces to the boundary-driven ASEP in a one-dimensional chain which displays the low density, high density, and maximal current phases. Shortcuts lead to a drastic change. Numerical simulation studies suggest that there emerge three phases; an empty phase with $\rho = 0$, a jammed phase with $\rho = 1$, and a shock phase with $0<\rho<1$ where $\rho$ is the mean particle density. The shock phase is characterized with a phase separation between an empty region and a jammed region with a localized shock between them. The mechanism for the shock formation and the non-equilibrium phase transition is explained by an analytic theory based on a mean-field approximation and an annealed approximation.Comment: revised version (16 pages and 6 eps figures