08005-002 Silver Lake Watershed Final Report

Silver Lake is located in an 18,053-acre watershed. The watershed is intensively farmed with almost all of the wetlands being previously drained or degraded over the last 50 years. Silver Lake is listed on the State of Iowa’s impaired water bodies list due to sediment and high nutrient level. Silver Lake is also known be in the bottom 25 percentile of Iowa’s lakes due Secchi disk readings and Chlorophyll a level. Farming in the watershed is the principle concern and cause for many of the problems occurring in Silver Lake currently with 78% of the watershed being intensively farmed. There are two major drainage ditches that have been used to drain the major wetlands and sloughs that, at one time, filtered the water and slowed it down before it reached Silver Lake. With these two major drainage ditches, water is able to reach the lake much faster and unfiltered than it once did historically. The loss of 255 restorable wetland basins to row crop production has caused serious problems in Silver Lake. These wetland basins once slowed and filtered water as it moved through the watershed. With their loss over the last 50 years that traditional drainage no longer occurs. We propose to create a Wetland Reserve Program incentive project to make WRP a more attractive option to landowners within the watershed. The incentive will be based on the amount of sediment delivery reduction to the lake, therefore paying a greater payment for a greater benefit to the lake. The expected result of this project is the restoration of over 250 acres of wetland basins with an associated 650 acres of upland buffers. The benefit for these wetlands and buffers would be reduced sediment, reduced nutrients, and slowed waters to the lake.

Versatile iPad forensic acquisition using the Apple Camera Connection Kit

Peer reviewed

General electromagnetic simulation tool to predict the microwave nonlinear response of planar, arbitrarily-shaped HTS structures

This work describes a simulation tool being developed at UPC to predict the microwave nonlinear behavior of planar superconducting structures with very few restrictions on the geometry of the planar layout. The software is intended to be applicable to most structures used in planar HTS circuits, including line, patch, and quasi-lumped microstrip resonators. The tool combines Method of Moments (MoM) algorithms for general electromagnetic simulation with Harmonic Balance algorithms to take into account the nonlinearities in the HTS material. The Method of Moments code is based on discretization of the Electric Field Integral Equation in Rao, Wilton and Glisson Basis Functions. The multilayer dyadic Green's function is used with Sommerfeld integral formulation. The Harmonic Balance algorithm has been adapted to this application where the nonlinearity is distributed and where compatibility with the MoM algorithm is required. Tests of the algorithm in TM010 disk resonators agree with closed-form equations for both the fundamental and third-order intermodulation currents. Simulations of hairpin resonators show good qualitative agreement with previously published results, but it is found that a finer meshing would be necessary to get correct quantitative results. Possible improvements are suggested.

Isolation and in vitro chondrogenic potential of human foetal spine cells.

Cell therapy for nucleus pulposus (NP) regeneration is an attractive treatment for early disc degeneration as shown by studies using autologous NP cells or stem cells. Another potential source of cells is foetal cells. We investigated the feasibility of isolating foetal cells from human foetal spine tissues and assessed their chondrogenic potential in alginate bead cultures. Histology and immunohistochemistry of foetal tissues showed that the structure and the matrix composition (aggrecan, type I and II collagen) of foetal intervertebral disc (IVD) were similar to adult IVD. Isolated foetal cells were cultured in monolayer in basic media supplemented with 10% Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) and from each foetal tissue donation, a cell bank of foetal spine cells at passage 2 was established and was composed of around 2000 vials of 5 million cells. Gene expression and immunohistochemistry of foetal spine cells cultured in alginate beads during 28 days showed that cells were able to produce aggrecan and type II collagen and very low level of type I and type X collagen, indicating chondrogenic differentiation. However variability in matrix synthesis was observed between donors. In conclusion, foetal cells could be isolated from human foetal spine tissues and since these cells showed chondrogenic potential, they could be a potential cell source for IVD regeneration.

Laser Cutting of Austenitic Stainless Steel with a High Quality Laser Beam

The thin disk and fiber lasers are new solid-state laser technologies that offer a combinationof high beam quality and a wavelength that is easily absorbed by metal surfacesand are expected to challenge the CO2 and Nd:YAG lasers in cutting of metals ofthick sections (thickness greater than 2mm). This thesis studied the potential of the disk and fiber lasers for cutting applications and the benefits of their better beam quality. The literature review covered the principles of the disk laser, high power fiber laser, CO2 laser and Nd:YAG laser as well as the principle of laser cutting. The cutting experiments were made with thedisk, fiber and CO2 lasers using nitrogen as an assist gas. The test material was austenitic stainless steel of sheet thickness 1.3mm, 2.3mm, 4.3mm and 6.2mm for the disk and fiber laser cutting experiments and sheet thickness of 1.3mm, 1.85mm, 4.4mm and 6.4mm for the CO2 laser cutting experiments. The experiments focused on the maximum cutting speeds with appropriate cut quality. Kerf width, cutedge perpendicularity and surface roughness were the cut characteristics used to analyze the cut quality. Attempts were made to draw conclusions on the influence of high beam quality on the cutting speed and cut quality. The cutting speeds were enormous for the disk and fiber laser cutting experiments with the 1.3mm and 2.3mm sheet thickness and the cut quality was good. The disk and fiber laser cutting speeds were lower at 4.3mm and 6.2mm sheet thickness but there was still a considerable percentage increase in cutting speeds compared to the CO2 laser cutting speeds at similar sheet thickness. However, the cut quality for 6.2mm thickness was not very good for the disk and fiber laser cutting experiments but could probably be improved by proper selection of cutting parameters.

Working memory load improves early stages of independent visual processing.

Increasing evidence suggests that working memory and perceptual processes are dynamically interrelated due to modulating activity in overlapping brain networks. However, the direct influence of working memory on the spatio-temporal brain dynamics of behaviorally relevant intervening information remains unclear. To investigate this issue, subjects performed a visual proximity grid perception task under three different visual-spatial working memory (VSWM) load conditions. VSWM load was manipulated by asking subjects to memorize the spatial locations of 6 or 3 disks. The grid was always presented between the encoding and recognition of the disk pattern. As a baseline condition, grid stimuli were presented without a VSWM context. VSWM load altered both perceptual performance and neural networks active during intervening grid encoding. Participants performed faster and more accurately on a challenging perceptual task under high VSWM load as compared to the low load and the baseline condition. Visual evoked potential (VEP) analyses identified changes in the configuration of the underlying sources in one particular period occurring 160-190 ms post-stimulus onset. Source analyses further showed an occipito-parietal down-regulation concurrent to the increased involvement of temporal and frontal resources in the high VSWM context. Together, these data suggest that cognitive control mechanisms supporting working memory may selectively enhance concurrent visual processing related to an independent goal. More broadly, our findings are in line with theoretical models implicating the engagement of frontal regions in synchronizing and optimizing mnemonic and perceptual resources towards multiple goals.

Multispectral image compression using the wavelet transform

Multispectral images contain information from several spectral wavelengths and currently multispectral images are widely used in remote sensing and they are becoming more common in the field of computer vision and in industrial applications. Typically, one multispectral image in remote sensing may occupy hundreds of megabytes of disk space and several this kind of images may be received from a single measurement. This study considers the compression of multispectral images. The lossy compression is based on the wavelet transform and we compare the suitability of different waveletfilters for the compression. A method for selecting a wavelet filter for the compression and reconstruction of multispectral images is developed. The performance of the multidimensional wavelet transform based compression is compared to other compression methods like PCA, ICA, SPIHT, and DCT/JPEG. The quality of the compression and reconstruction is measured by quantitative measures like signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we have developed a qualitative measure, which combines the information from the spatial and spectral dimensions of a multispectral image and which also accounts for the visual quality of the bands from the multispectral images.

Painless Indirect Argon Laser in High Risk Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy.

Background: Proliferative retinopathy is an important cause of vision loss in diabetic patients. Incomplete panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) can lead to recurrent proliferation of new vessels. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively analysed the outcome of patients with high risk proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) previously treated with slit lamp PRP who underwent indirect fill in argon laser treatment with scleral indentation under anesthesia for persistent neovascular proliferation. Results: Seventeen eyes of ten patients were included. The mean age at diabetes onset was 17.3 years SD 16.2 (range 2-44). All patients reported long standing poor glycemic control (mean HbA1c: 8.5 % SD 1.3 range 5.9-10.2). The area of retinal ischemia decreased significantly from 15 ± 7.5 disk areas (DA) before fill-in laser to 3.2 ± 4.2 DA after fill-in laser (p = 0.001). The new vessels also regressed significantly after laser treatment 8.6 ± 6.1 DA before treatment versus 6.5 ± 6.4 DA after laser treatment, (p = 0.044). Quiescent PDR was reached in 10 eyes (58.8 %) at the last visit. Conclusions: Fill-in indirect argon laser under general anesthesia should be considered to achieve further new vessels regression in high risk PDR patients. Scleral indentation and absence of pain may allow for more extensive laser application.

A Be-type star with a black-hole companion

Stellar-mass black holes have all been discovered through X-ray emission, which arises from the accretion of gas from their binary companions (this gas is either stripped from low-mass stars or supplied as winds from massive ones). Binary evolution models also predict the existence of black holes accreting from the equatorial envelope of rapidly spinning Be-type stars (stars of the Be type are hot blue irregular variables showing characteristic spectral emission lines of hydrogen). Of the ~80 Be X-ray binaries known in the Galaxy, however, only pulsating neutron stars have been found as companions. A black hole was formally allowed as a solution for the companion to the Be star MWC 656 (also known as HD 215227), although that was based on a single radial velocity curve of the Be star, a mistaken spectral classification and rough estimates of the inclination angle. Here we report observations of an accretion disk line mirroring the orbit of the Be star. This, together with an improved radial velocity curve of the Be star through fitting sharp Fe II profiles from the equatorial disk, and a refined Be classification (to that of a B1.5-B2 III star), reveals a black hole of 3.8 to 6.9 solar masses orbiting MWC 656, the candidate counterpart of the gamma-ray source AGL J2241+4454. The black hole is X-ray quiescent and fed by a radiatively inefficient accretion flow giving a luminosity less than 1.6 x 10-7 times the Eddington luminosity. This implies that Be binaries with black-hole companions are difficult to detect by conventional X-ray surveys.

Oliotietokannan muuttaminen relaatiotietokannaksi

Diplomityön tavoitteena oli parantaa oliotietokantaan perustuvan mökkivarausjärjestelmän pitkiä vasteaikoja ja epävakaata toimintaa sekä luoda tietokantaperusta uusille toiminnoille. Ratkaisua etsittiin korvaamalla oliotietokanta relaatiotietokannalla. Diplomityö on osa koko varausjärjestelmän uusintaa. Työn teoreettinen osuus käsittelee sekä olio- että relaatiotietokannan rakennetta ja oliomallin muuttamista relaatiomalliksi. Käytännön osassa esitellään relaatiotietokannan luominen vaiheittain ja kerrotaan tietojen siirron periaatteesta. Relaatiotietokannan havaittiin olevan vakaampi ja tehokkaampi vasteajoiltaan. Samoin sen vaatima levytilan ja muistin määrä oli pienempi kuin oliotietokannalla. Lisäksi siihen todettiin uusien järjestelmien liittämisen olevan yksinkertaisempaa.

The univalent Bloch-Landau constant, harmonic symmetry and conformal glueing

By modifying a domain first suggested by Ruth Goodman in 1935 and by exploiting the explicit solution by Fedorov of the Polyá-Chebotarev problem in the case of four symmetrically placed points, an improved upper bound for the univalent Bloch-Landau constant is obtained. The domain that leads to this improved bound takes the form of a disk from which some arcs are removed in such a way that the resulting simply connected domain is harmonically symmetric in each arc with respect to the origin. The existence of domains of this type is established, using techniques from conformal welding, and some general properties of harmonically symmetric arcs in this setting are established.

On the multiwavelength spectrum of the microquasar 1E1740.7-2942

The microquasar 1E 1740.7-2942 is a source located in the direction of the Galactic Center. It has been detected at X-rays, soft gamma-rays, and in the radio band, showing an extended radio component in the form of a double-sided jet. Although no optical counterpart has been found so far for 1E 1740.7-2942, its X-ray activity strongly points to a galactic nature. Aims.We aim to improve our understanding of the hard X-ray and gamma-ray production in the system, exploring whether the jet can emit significantly at high energies under the light of the present knowledge. Methods.We have modeled the source emission, from radio to gamma-rays, with a cold-matter dominated jet model. INTEGRAL data combined with radio and RXTE data, as well as EGRET and HESS upper-limits, are used to compare the computed and the observed spectra. Results.From our modeling, we find out that jet emission cannot explain the high fluxes observed at hard X-rays without violating at the same time the constraints from the radio data, favoring the corona origin of the hard X-rays. Also, 1E 1740.7-2942 might be detected by GLAST or AGILE at GeV energies, and by HESS and HESS-II beyond 100 GeV, with the spectral shape likely affected by photon-photon absorption in the disk and corona photon fields.

Estudio Mediante Tecnicas Interferometricas de las Propiedades Tribologicas de la ZrO2 Obtenida por Proyeccion Termica

Las barreras térmicas poseen unas propiedades mecánicas y tribológicas limitadas. Los tratamientos térmicos de sintetizado pueden utilizarse como una posible solución para su mejora. En el presente trabajo se evalúa la evolución de diversas propiedades tribológicas y mecánicas, a diferentes tiempos de sinterización, a temperatura de 1.000 °C. Se observa que el sintetizado produce un aumento de la resistencia al desgaste, de la dureza y del módulo de Young. A partir de los ensayos ball-on-disk, realizados utilizando un par friccionante de ZrO2 y de acero, se han estudiado los mecanismos de desgaste dominantes para cada uno de los pares friccionantes. Se ha observado que la delaminación entre partículas y la fractura frágil durante el proceso de desgaste son los mecanismos principales que controlan el proceso. Los caminos de desgaste estudiados mediante microscopía electrónica de barrido (SEM) e interferometría de barrido de luz blanca (SWLI) han permitido cuantificar el desgaste en cada uno de los casos. A fin de poder estudiar los recubrimientos de ZrO2 mediante SEM y SWLI ha sido necesario realizar una metalización con oro para así aumentar la conductividad eléctrica y reflectividad de las muestras.