NASA D3R: 2.0, Enhanced Radar with New Data and Control Features

The NASA dual-frequency, dual-polarization, Doppler radar (D3R) was developed to support development of algorithms and validation for the global precipitation measurement (GPM) missions dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR). The D3R has participated extensively in various field campaigns in North America with geographic features covering both summer and winter climatic regimes. During the year 2017, D3R went through a major upgrade, specially with the digital receiver and waveform generation subsystems. In this work, the D3R systems upgrade will be discussed with a focus on key features of the new system. The new flexible architecture will enable new research capabilities that will be described

A study of effect of alcohol on liver function tests (LFT) in Garhwal hills, India

Background: There has been frequent researches on liver pathologies and its variables in the world. There is no known research carried on liver in Garhwal region. Uttarakhand is one area where the hill people are more habitual of alcohol abuse and alcoholism is more endemic here. Primary objective was to correlate alcohol intake and its effect on liver function test. Secondary objectives were to screen the patients for abnormal LFTs and to observe and understand changes needed in lifestyle to reduce risk of developing liver disorders.Methods: A cross sectional observational study was conducted on patients in a medical college in north India. The participants above the age of 10 years were included for the study.Results: Out of all the 150 study participants screened, 120 (80%) were detected to have abnormal liver function tests (LFT) (65 females and 55 males). Maximum numbers of participants with abnormal LFT belong to age group of 21-30 yrs. More frequent and higher amount of alcohol consumption was found to adversely affect the liver physiology.Conclusions: The most important risk factor for liver damage is frequent consumption of alcohol in excess of 4 pegs a day for males and 2 for females (One standard drink contains 10 grams of alcohol).

Evaluating Precipitation Observed in Complex Terrain During GPM Field Campaigns with the SIMBA Data-fusion Tool

No abstract availabl

Retrieving microphysical properties of concurrent pristine ice and snow using polarimetric radar observations

Ice and mixed-phase clouds play a key role in our climate system because of their strong controls on global precipitation and radiation budget. Their microphysical properties have been characterized commonly by polarimetric radar measurements. However, there remains a lack of robust estimates of microphysical properties of concurrent pristine ice and aggregates because larger snow aggregates often dominate the radar signal and mask contributions of smaller pristine ice crystals. This paper presents a new method that separates the scattering signals of pristine ice embedded in snow aggregates in scanning polarimetric radar observations and retrieves their respective abundances and sizes for the first time. This method, dubbed ENCORE-ice, is built on an iterative stochastic ensemble retrieval framework. It provides the number concentration, ice water content, and effective mean diameter of pristine ice and snow aggregates with uncertainty estimates. Evaluations against synthetic observations show that the overall retrieval biases in the combined total microphysical properties are within 5 % and that the errors with respect to the truth are well within the retrieval uncertainty. The partitioning between pristine ice and snow aggregates also agrees well with the truth. Additional evaluations against in situ cloud probe measurements from a recent campaign for a stratiform cloud system are promising. Our median retrievals have a bias of 98 % in the total ice number concentration and 44 % in the total ice water content. This performance is generally better than the retrieval from empirical relationships. The ability to separate signals of different ice species and to provide their quantitative microphysical properties will open up many research opportunities, such as secondary ice production studies and model evaluations for ice microphysical processes

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

Peer reviewe

Secret or sacred?: a typology of liminal exchange accommodating Mumbai's hijra community

A design project submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture (Professional) July 2021The anthropological beginnings of this thesis encapsulates a community considered as part of a third gender within South Asian cities. Their lack-of-place within the heteronormative cisgendered world forces hijras to maintain a secret nature. This response of secretness as a means of survival is a way of coping in a post-colonial India that is rapidly westernizing in which the traditional forms of income generation begin to fade. As the post-colonial world attempts to deconstruct the rigid framework of its colonial past, the hijra community maintains that its pre-colonial roots were already considered equal in terms of their gender identity. Society accepts this in some instances and considers the hijra community sacred, even demigods. However, the same society rejects the hijra community when it comes to finding appropriate work. In this duality of outlook, a society that worships the sacredness within the hijra and also pays for sex-work within the same being maintains a liminal outlook on the liminal being. In this manner, the thesis considers the complexity as well as ambiguity of these societal stances on hijras. In this consideration of ambiguity, a reflection of this outlook is tested when mirrored spatially. But can space reflect liminality in being? Can architecture allow itself to maintain liminal programs as a mirror to liminal beings, particularly in it’s secret and sacredness? This site in which these speculative architectural concepts are tested lie in an abandoned railway yard located in Mumbai, India. Semi-fictional characters that relate back to hijras and the different secret and sacreds are used as tools in which the space is given a program. Ultimately, the recognition and re-empowerment of the hijra community through liminal space is applied in this thesis. Ambiguity and various theoretically justified liminal architectural elements are employed as tools to make place as well as allow hijras to generate an income through a settler perspectiveCK202

Salient features of the D3R radar enhancements

2018 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.D3R radar was developed to serve as a ground validation tool for the dual precipitation radar in the core satellite for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission. In order to have more flexibility in operations and improve the features of D3R, the radar was upgraded. Simulations were carried out so that the best design could be determined and implemented on the upgraded D3R (D3R 2.0). The IF subsystems and the digital receiver module which consist of arbitrary waveform generators and the digital receivers of the Ku and Ka bands were changed to support the new features. To enhance signal processing features and make the system compatible with the new design, the D3R software was also upgraded. In this thesis, the design, implementation and tests carried out during the upgrade work for the D3R are presented. The range-velocity ambiguity techniques which work well with low frequency radars pose a challenge in the case of higher frequency radars such as in D3R due to limited Doppler spectrum available. The existing method in D3R to mitigate the range ambiguity problem using random phase codes and staggered PRT is analyzed and the performance of the method is demonstrated for D3R data. The performance of random phase codes and systematic phase codes for range ambiguity mitigation and future changes in D3R 2.0 range ambiguity mitigation technique are discussed. A velocity ambiguity mitigation technique using the dual-frequency information is developed for D3R 2.0; the implementation is explained along with its performance on radar observations. The D3R 2.0 went through initial calibration and testing before being deployed to the ICE-POP field campaign in South Korea. The first results after the upgrade are presented