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Creators/Authors contains: "Miller, Christopher"

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  1. Abstract The 3D radial escape-velocity profile of galaxy clusters has been suggested to be a promising and competitive tool for constraining mass profiles and cosmological parameters in an accelerating universe. However, the observed line-of-sight escape profile is known to be suppressed compared to the underlying 3D radial (or tangential) escape profile. Past work has suggested that velocity anisotropy in the phase-space data is the root cause. Instead, we find that the observed suppression is from the statistical undersampling of the phase spaces and that the 3D radial escape edge can be accurately inferred from projected data. We build an analytical model for this suppression that only requires the number of observed galaxiesNin the phase-space data within the sky-projected range 0.3 ≤r/R200,critical≤ 1. The radially averaged suppression function is an inverse power law Z v = 1 + ( N 0 / N ) λ withN0= 17.818 andλ= 0.362. We test our model withN-body simulations, using dark matter particles, subhalos, and semianalytic galaxies as the phase-space tracers, and find excellent agreement. We also assess the model for systematic biases from cosmology (ΩΛ,H0), cluster mass (M200,critical), and velocity anisotropy (β). We find that varying these parameters over large ranges can impart a maximal additional fractional change in 〈Zv〉 of 2.7%. These systematics are highly subdominant (by at least a factor of 13.7) to the suppression fromN. 
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  2. It is inherently difficult to plan water systems for a future that is non-predictive. This paper introduces a novel perspective for the design and operation of potable water systems under increasing water quality volatility ( e.g. , a relatively rapid and unpredicted deviation from baseline water quality). Increased water quality volatility and deep uncertainty stress water systems, confound design decisions, and increase the risk of decreased water system performance. Recent emphasis on resilience in drinking water treatment has partly addressed this issue, but still establishes an adversarial relationship with change. An antifragile system benefits from volatile change. By incorporating antifragility, water systems may move beyond resilience and improve performance with extreme events and other changes, rather than survive, or fail and quickly recover. Using examples of algal blooms, wildfires, and the COVID-19 pandemic, this work illustrates fragility, resilience, and antifragility within physicochemical process design including clarification, adsorption and disinfection. Methods for increasing antifragility, both individual process options and new system design tools, are discussed. Novel physicochemical processes with antifragile characteristics include ferrate preoxidation and magnetic iron (nano)particles. New design tools that allow for systematic evaluation of antifragile opportunities include artificial neural networks and virtual jar or pilot “stress testing”. Incorporating antifragile characteristics represents a trade-off with capital and/or operating cost. We present a real options analysis approach to considering costs in the context of antifragile design decisions. Adopting this antifragile perspective will help ensure water system improved performance during extreme events and a general increase in volatility. 
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  3. null (Ed.)
  4. Abstract. MethaneAIR is the airborne simulator of MethaneSAT, an area-mapping satellite currently under development with the goal of locating and quantifying large anthropogenic CH4 point sources as well as diffuse emissions at the spatial scale of an oil and gas basin. Built to closely replicate the forthcoming satellite, MethaneAIR consists of two imaging spectrometers. One detects CH4 and CO2 absorption around 1.65 and 1.61 µm, respectively, while the other constrains the optical path in the atmosphere by detecting O2 absorption near 1.27 µm. The high spectral resolution and stringent retrieval accuracy requirements of greenhouse gas remote sensing in this spectral range necessitate a reliable spectral calibration. To this end, on-ground laboratory measurements were used to derive the spectral calibration of MethaneAIR, serving as a pathfinder for the future calibration of MethaneSAT. Stray light was characterized and corrected for through fast-Fourier-transform-based Van Cittert deconvolution. Wavelength registration was examined and found to be best described by a linear relationship for both bands with a precision of ∼ 0.02 spectral pixel. The instrument spectral spread function (ISSF), measured with fine wavelength steps of 0.005 nm near a series of central wavelengths across each band, was oversampled to construct the instrument spectral response function (ISRF) at each central wavelength and spatial pixel. The ISRFs were smoothed with a Savitzky–Golay filter for use in a lookup table in the retrieval algorithm. The MethaneAIR spectral calibration was evaluated through application to radiance spectra from an instrument flight over the Colorado Front Range. 
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  5. Abstract Accurate HPV genotyping is crucial in facilitating epidemiology studies, vaccine trials, and HPV-related cancer research. Contemporary HPV genotyping assays only detect < 25% of all known HPV genotypes and are not accurate for low-risk or mixed HPV genotypes. Current genomic HPV genotyping algorithms use a simple read-alignment and filtering strategy that has difficulty handling repeats and homology sequences. Therefore, we have developed an optimized expectation–maximization algorithm, designated HPV-EM, to address the ambiguities caused by repetitive sequencing reads. HPV-EM achieved 97–100% accuracy when benchmarked using cell line data and TCGA cervical cancer data. We also validated HPV-EM using DNA tiling data on an institutional cervical cancer cohort (96.5% accuracy). Using HPV-EM, we demonstrated HPV genotypic differences in recurrence and patient outcomes in cervical and head and neck cancers. 
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