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Despite the benefits of crossbreeding on animal performance, genetic evaluation of sheep in the U.S. does not directly incorporate records from crossbred lambs. Crossbred animals may be raised in different environments as compared to purebreds. Systemic factors such as age of dam and birth and rearing type may, therefore, affect purebred and crossbred performance differently. Furthermore, crossbred performance may benefit from heterozygosity, and genetic and environmental variances may be heterogeneous in different breeds and their crosses. Such issues must be accounted for in a combined (purebred and crossbred) genetic evaluation. The objectives of this study were to i) determine the effect of dam age and birth type on birth weight, and dam age and birth-rearing type on weaning weight, in purebred and crossbred lambs, ii) test for heterogeneous genetic and environmental variances in those weights, and iii) assess the impact of including weights on crossbred progeny on sire estimated breeding values (EBV). Performance records were available on purebred Columbia and Suffolk lambs. Crossbred information was available on lambs sired by Suffolk, Columbia or Texel rams mated to Columbia, Suffolk, or crossbred ewes. A multiple-trait animal model was fitted in which weights from Columbia, Suffolk, or crossbred lambs were considered different traits. At birth, there were 4,160, 2,356, and 5,273 Columbia, Suffolk, and crossbred records, respectively, with means (SD) of 5.14 (1.04), 5.32 (1.14), and 5.43 (1.23) kg, respectively. At weaning, on average at 122 (12) d, there were 2,557, 980, and 3,876 Columbia, Suffolk, and crossbred records, respectively, with corresponding means of 39.8 (7.2), 40.3 (7.9), and 39.6 (8.0) kg. Dam age had a large positive effect on birth and weaning weight in pure and crossbred lambs. At birth, however, the predicted effect was larger in crossbred and Suffolk lambs. While an increase in a number of lambs born and reared had a strong and negative influence on birth and weaning weight, the size of the effect did not differ across-breed types. Environmental variances were similar at birth and weaning, but additive variances differed among breed types for both weights. Combining purebred and crossbred information in the evaluation not only improved predictions of genetic merit in purebred sires but also allowed for direct comparisons of sires of different breeds. Breeders thus can benefit from an additional tool for making selection decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sources of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays, which can have energies up to 1020 eV, remain a mystery. UHE neutrinos may provide important clues to understanding the nature of cosmic-ray sources. ARIANNA aims to detect UHE neutrinos via radio (Askaryan) emission from particle showers when a neutrino interacts with ice, which is an efficient method for neutrinos with energies between 1016 eV and 1020 eV. The ARIANNA radio detectors are located in Antarctic ice just beneath the surface. Neutrino observation requires that radio pulses propagate to the antennas at the surface with minimum distortion by the ice and firn medium. Using the residual hole from the South Pole Ice Core Project, radio pulses were emitted from a transmitter located up to 1.7 km below the snow surface. By measuring these signals with an ARIANNA surface station, the angular and polarization reconstruction abilities are quantified, which are required to measure the direction of the neutrino. After deconvolving the raw signals for the detector response and attenuation from propagation through the ice, the signal pulses show no significant distortion and agree with a reference measurement of the emitter made in an anechoic chamber. Furthermore, the signal pulses reveal no significant birefringence for our tested geometry of mostly vertical ice propagation. The origin of the transmitted radio pulse was measured with an angular resolution of 0.37◦ indicating that the neutrino direction can be determined with good precision if the polarization of the radio-pulse can be well determined. In the present study we obtained a resolution of the polarization vector of 2.7◦. Neither measurement show a significant offset relative to expectation.

The Polarized Instrument for Long-wavelength Observation of the Tenuous interstellar medium (PILOT) is a balloon-borne experiment that aims to measure the polarized emission of thermal dust at a wavelength of 240µm (1.2 THz). The PILOT experiment flew from Timmins, Ontario, Canada in 2015 and 2019 and from Alice Springs, Australia in April 2017. The in-flight performance of the instrument during the second flight was described in [1]. In this paper, we present data processing steps that were not presented in [1] and that we have recently implemented to correct for several remaining instrumental effects. The additional data processing concerns corrections related to detector cross-talk and readout circuit memory effects, and leakage from total intensity to polarization. We illustrate the above effects and the performance of our corrections using data obtained during the third flight of PILOT, but the methods used to assess the impact of these effects on the final science-ready data, and our strategies for correcting them will be applied to all PILOT data. We show that the above corrections, and in particular that for the intensity to polarization leakage, which is most critical for accurate polarization measurements with PILOT, are accurate to better than 0.4% as measured on Jupiter during flight#3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In clinical trials, the responses of patients usually depend on the assigned treatment as well as some important covariates, which may cause heteroscedasticity in treatment responses. As clinical trials are generally designed to demonstrate efficacy for the overall population, they are usually not adequately powered for detecting interactions. To improve the power of interaction tests, this article develops two model-based adaptive randomization procedures for heteroscedasticity of treatment responses, and derives their limiting allocation proportions, which are generalizations of the Neyman allocation. Issues of hypothesis testing and sample size estimation are also addressed. Simulation studies show that compared with complete randomization, the two model-based randomization procedures have greater power to detect differences in systematic effects, main treatment effects and treatment–covariate interactions. In addition, the validity of limiting allocation proportion is also verified through simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Milkability is defined as the ability of an animal to give a regular, complete, and rapid milk secretion by the mammary gland in response to a proper milking technique. Indicators of milk production and milkability of ewes were determined in 359-370 ewes of 9 genotypes. For each ewe, the milk flow was recorded during the individual control measurements. The amount of milked milk was measured in individual time intervals after the attachment of milking cups to teats on udder of the ewe (10 indicators). We processed the obtained data using the REML methodology, with the MIXED procedure of the SAS statistical package. All indicators characterizing milk production and milkability of ewes were statistically significantly influenced by the genotype and the control year factors (p < 0.001). The order and stage of lactation were also significant factors in some cases. The machine milk yield of the monitored population of ewes was 318.26 mL on average. The total milk yield was 436.58 mL and the machine stripping ratio was 27.73% on average, ranging from 0 to 95%. The highest machine stripping ratio was determined in the Lacaune breed (37.69%), which had the highest total milk yield (524.69 mL) and one of the highest machine milk yield (332.70 mL). Compared with purebred Tsigai ewes and ewes of the Improved Valachian breed, crossbreeds with specialized dairy breeds (Lacaune and East Friesian) had better milk production and, in some indicators, also better milkability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The uncertainty of measurements associated with the following correction methods: advanced correction of additive linear drift, correction of additive and multiplicative effects, as well as joint correction of a linear drift and systematic additive and multiplicative effects is analyzed in the present article. For each correction method sensitivity coefficients and amplitude responses according to which noise and internal and external interferences influence the corrected measurement result have been determined. Besides uncertainty of reference quantities, the main factors which limit the efficiency of correction are: non-linearity of measurement function including non-linearity of ADC, no idealities of the switching systems and external and internal noises and periodic interferences. The efficiency of correction of systematic additive and multiplicative effects was studied for the multifunction 16 bit PCI DAQ of family NI 6250.

We present the design and implementation of a thermal model, developed in COMSOL, aiming to probe the wafer-scale thermal response arising from realistic rates and energies of cosmic rays at L2 impacting the detector wafer of Athena X-IFU. The wafer thermal model is a four-layer 2D model, where two layers represent the constituent materials (Si bulk and Si3N4 membrane) and two layers represent the Au metallization layer's phonon and electron temperatures. We base the simulation geometry on the current specifications for the X-IFU detector wafer and simulate cosmic ray impacts using a simple power injection into the Si bulk. We measure the temperature at the point of the instrument's most central TES detector. By probing the response of the system and pulse characteristics as a function of the thermal input energy and location, we reconstruct cosmic ray pulses in Python. By utilizing this code, along with the results of the GEANT4 simulations produced for X-IFU, we produce realistic time-ordered data (TOD) of the temperature seen by the central TES, which we use to simulate the degradation of the energy resolution of the instrument in space-like conditions on this wafer. We find a degradation to the energy resolution of 7 keV X-rays of ≈ 0.04 eV. By modifying wafer parameters and comparing the simulated TOD, this study is a valuable tool for probing design changes on the thermal background seen by the detectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce the 'Joule stepping' technique, whereupon a constantly biased bolometer has its bias voltage modified by a small additional step. We demonstrate this technique using a composite NTD semiconductor bolometer and a pulsing device that sends an extra step in voltage. We demonstrate the results of the technique over a range of bias voltages at 100, 200 and 300 mK. Joule stepping allows us to directly measure long thermal tails with low amplitudes in the response of the global thermal architecture of bolometers and could be a useful tool to quickly and easily calibrate the thermal time response of individual bolometric detectors or channels. We also show that the derivative of the Joule step is equivalent to the bolometer response to a δ -pulse (or Joule pulse), which allows for greater understanding of transient behaviour with a better signal-to-noise ratio than pulsing alone can provide. Finally, we compare Joule step pulses with pulses produced by α particles, finding a good agreement between their fast decay constants, but a discrepancy between their thermal decay constants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of systematic and continuous environmental factors on 4% fat corrected milk (FCM) yield in 2805 Simmental cows over whole and standard lactations was evaluated using the general linear model. The test systematic or fixed factors included the effect of farm or breeding area, calving season, year of birth, season of birth, lactation group and interactions between year of birth and season of birth, breeding area and calving season, and breeding area and lactation group. The continuous factor analysed was the effect of age at first conception. The effect of breeding area, lactation group and calving season on 4%FCM yield over whole and standard lactations was found to be very highly significant (P

Pre-processing is a crucial step to ensure the efficiency of subsequent processes and the quality of recyclates. The efficiency of pre-processing can be affected by high losses to undesignated output fractions. Standard batch tests usually provide mass balances and are a good proxy for bulk materials balances (iron/steel, aluminum, plastics). This article aims at harmonizing methodologies and recommends a strategy for further study in pre-processing on a plant scale. We have developed an “extended batch test” method, which should help to • describe the fates of materials and elements, • assess the quality of output fractions, • identify access points for critical metals and other valuable elements to enable their recovery. A methodical approach was compiled with common material flow analysis methods and an extended set of methods, which improve the reliability via the assessment of uncertainties. This applies to systematic effects and random effects. This extended batch test was performed with a 40 Mg Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) batch to trace the flows of industrial base metals, precious metals and critical metals in a WEEE pre-processing plant. Results show that one-third of the input was separated and sorted manually, while the remaining material was subsequently crushed and automatically sorted. Copper and precious metals are distributed to various output fractions but are most concentrated in the sorting residues. Critical metals like cobalt and rare earth elements are mainly concentrated in the manually sorted materials but also appear in the ferrous metals scrap and the shredder light fraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring applications may require operating robotic total stations (RTS) at the limit of their sensitivity with respect to target displacements. Thorough understanding and mitigation of systematic effects are required in order to reach or push this limit. We investigate some of these effects, in particular effects external to the total station, using data and experience gained from a continuously operating monitoring system installed at the terminus of the Great Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland. The system consists of two robotic total stations, about 60 prisms, four global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers, thermocouples, inclinometers, and meteo-sensors. The purpose of the monitoring is to study reversible deformations of the adjacent slopes, likely driven by snowmelt and mountain water level changes. The deformations reach the millimeter- to centimeter-level and shall be studied on time scales ranging from annual to sub-annual, and ideally even down to daily or sub-daily resolution. Our investigation focuses on four aspects: protective housing, pillar stability, refraction, and stability of orientation, all of which were found to affect the measurements on the milligon-level with lines-of-sight of up to 2 km. The results highlight signatures of apparent point displacements, and the discussion comprises approaches to bounding or mitigating these effects which may also be expected in similar monitoring situations at other locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how three types of institutional pressure (i.e., coercive, mimetic and normative pressures) systematically impact on the safety climate of construction projects. These impacts are empirically tested by survey data collected from 186 questionnaires of construction companies operating in Shanghai, China. The results, obtained by partial least squares analysis, show that organizational management commitment to safety and employee involvement is positively related to all three institutional pressures, while the perception of responsibility for safety and health is significantly influenced by coercive and mimetic pressure. However, coercive and normative pressures have no significant effect on the applicability of safety rules and work practices, revealing the importance of external organizational pressures in improving project safety climate from a systematic view. The findings also provide insights into the use of institutional forces to facilitate the improvement of safety climate in the construction industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A still open issue, in uncertainty evaluation, is asymmetrical distributions of the values that can be attributed to the measurand. This problem generally becomes not negligible when the measurement function is highly nonlinear. In this case, the law of uncertainty propagation suggested by the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement is not correct any longer, and only Monte Carlo simulations can be used to obtain such distributions. This paper shows how this problem can be solved in a quite immediate way when measurement results are expressed in terms of random-fuzzy variables. Under this approach, nonrandom contributions to uncertainty can also be considered. An experimental example is reported and the results compared with those obtained by means of Monte Carlo simulations, showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditional probability distributions and Bayes’ theorem are important and powerful tools in measurement, whenever an a priori knowledge about the measurand is available. It is well known that, thanks to Bayes’ theorem, a new information about the measurand coming from a measurement result can be used to revise the a priori knowledge refining its uncertainty. Of course, this tool can be used only if both the a priori knowledge and the new information are expressed in terms of probability distributions. However, according to a recent approach to uncertainty evaluation, measurement results can be also expressed using random-fuzzy variables (RFVs), that is, using possibility distributions, instead of probability distributions. This paper proposes an extension of Bayes’ theorem to the possibility domain, thus leading to the definition of conditional RFVs. A simple experimental example is also considered to prove the effectiveness of the proposed extension. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A laboratory exercise for calculation of true coincidence summing correction factors as well as calculating the effect of deviations between sample and standard source (filling height) was developed. This laboratory exercise was held in a masters course in nuclear chemistry the first time during fall 2013. The aim of the exercise was to high-light the importance of correcting for biases due to different systematic effects in gamma spectrometric measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four calculation codes were implemented on experimental data to calculate corrections of common systematic effects within high resolution gamma spectrometry. The detector parameters were sparsely optimized to imitate the usage that can be expected from personnel with limited experience. The transfer of the efficiency from the calibration geometry (60 ml, density 1.0 g/cm) to 200 ml geometry (density 1.5 g/cm) failed with all codes, which was discouraging. However, a majority of the other corrected activities deviated with less than 10 % from the reference activity values, even for density corrections or when corrections had been calculated for new source-detector-geometries. Smaller deviations, around 5 % or less, were achieved when corrections were done within the calibrated geometry. This shows a robustness of the calculation codes even if the in-data is not perfectly optimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a new criterion for comparing measurement results and determining conformity with specifications is proposed, which essentially is a strategy of estimating the empirical relationships of objects. Comparing with traditional methods given in GUM: 2008 and ISO 14253-1, this criterion improves the resolution of comparison by reducing the sizes of the coverage intervals to be compared. Interval order (a binary relation) is used for comparing the coverage intervals of the measurand and represents the empirical relations. The systematic effects of measurement are classified into two types: monotonic and non-monotonic effects, so that, without correcting the monotonic effects, a biased measurand can be specified to represent the empirical relations. Thereby the uncertainty components arising from the monotonic effects can be removed from the combined uncertainty. A strategy is given for determining the relationships among measurement results and specification limits. An example is given to demonstrate the application of the criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of systematic and continuous environmental factors on milk performance traits over standard lactations in 2805 Simmental cows was evaluated using the general linear model. The systematic factors included the effect of farm or breeding area, calving season, year of birth, season of birth, lactation group and their interactions. The continuous factor analysed was the effect of age at first conception. The effect of farm, lactation group and calving season on standard lactation milk performance was found to be highly significant (P<0.01), excepting the effect of calving season on milk fat percent in standard lactations which showed statistical significance (P<0.05). The interactions between year and season of birth, farm and calving season, and farm and lactation group had a highly significant effect (P<0.01) on all performance traits studied. Age at first conception, as a continuous factor, had a highly significant effect (P<0.01) on milk yield and milk fat percent, and a non-significant effect on milk fat yield. The model used to correct the performance traits over standard lactations for the effect of systematic factors was highly significant (P<0.01). The variance of the model accounted for 20.06 and 37.31% of the total variance of milk fat yield and milk fat percent, respectively. The resulting coefficients of determination (R2) ranged from 0.20 for milk fat yield to 0.37 for milk fat percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background spectrum of HPGe detectors is found to vary significantly as function of the radon concentration in the air surrounding it, especially with regard to the count rates of 222 Rn daughter peaks. This effect is shown to potentially have a large impact on measured values of radon daughter activity concentration, as well as detection limits for low-level measurements. As these radionuclides are commonly used for estimating the activity of 226 Ra, care needs to be taken to ensure that background levels are accurately determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Imager infrared (IR) channels experience a midnight effect that can result in erroneous instrument responsivity around satellite midnight. An empirical method named the Midnight Blackbody Calibration Correction (MBCC) was developed and implemented in the GOES Imager IR operational calibration, aiming to correct the midnight calibration errors. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the MBCC performance for the GOES-11/-12 Imager IR channels by examining the diurnal variation of the mean brightness temperature (Tb) bias with respect to reference instruments. Two well-calibrated hyperspectral radiometers on low Earth orbits (LEOs), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder on the Aqua satellite and the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on the Metop-A satellite, are used as the reference instruments in this study. However, as the timing of the collocated geostationary-LEO intercalibration data is related to the GOES scan angle, it is then necessary to assess the GOES scan angle calibration variations, which becomes the second objective of this study. Our results show that the applications and performance of the MBCC method varies greatly between the different channels and different times. While it is usually applied with high frequency for about 8 h around satellite midnight for the short-wave channels (Ch2), it may only be intensively used right after satellite midnight or even barely used for the other IR channels. The MBCC method, if applied with high frequency, can reduce the mean day/night calibration difference to less than 0.15 K in almost all the GOES IR channels studied in this paper except for Ch4 (10.7 μm). The uncertainty of the nighttime GOES and IASI Tb difference for different scan angles is less than 0.1 K in each IR channel, indicating that there is no apparent systematic variation with the scan angle, and therefore, the estimated diurnal cycles of GOES Imager calibration is not prone to the systematic effects due to scan angle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Density functional theory (DFT) is today the unchallenged tool for routinely obtaining molecular information on chemical stability, reactivity, and electronic structure across the Periodic Table. The chemical bond is the fundamental unit of molecular structure and reactivity, and thus, large-scale DFT studies of inorganic systems in catalysis and bioinorganic chemistry rely directly on the ability to balance correlation effects in the involved bonds across the s-, p-, and d-blocks. This review concerns recent efforts to describe such bonds accurately and consistently across the s-, p-, and d-blocks. Physical effects and ingredients in functionals, their systematic errors, and approaches to deal with them are discussed, in order to identify broadly applicable methods for inorganic chemistry. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A few years ago the question arose whether different types of measurands can be the consequence of the different intrinsic nature of different types of standards, which prompted an analysis resulting in the proposal of two distinct ‘classes’ of standards be considered. They correspond to different situations depending upon whether the aim is to compare laboratory artefact standards (Class 1), or, instead, to compare standards whose values are a measure of the value of the same unequivocally defined physical or chemical condition (Class 2). This distinction is relevant to the statistical treatment of the comparison data, in particular, with respect to the issue of the correct modelling of the data and of the correct choice of the summary statistics for populations of non-repeated data. This paper, after a summary of the rational of making a distinction of standard in “classes”, and discussing the general issue of bias, is discussing some implications of the above distinction, concentrating on cases where the effect of the systematic error is dominating the experimental results, as it commonly happens in several metrology fields. A preferred way to tackle the problem for standards of Class 2 is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A comparison of the text of VIM recent III Edition with that of the GUM and of its contemporary VIM II Edition alights significant differences in the definition of basic measurement terms in the two documents, and with respect to the basic written standards in the field of testing, ISO 5725 and ISO 3534. The paper intends to introduce author’s interpretation of these – and companion – texts, concerning specifically the terminology and the statistical treatment of the influence quantities and of the effects of their variability (in time and standard-to-standard), either related to replicated measurements performed on a single standard (standard ‘reproducibility’) or to the comparisons of different standards, thus involving the concept of ‘accuracy’ and its estimate, and consequently directly relevant to traceability. Another question that arose a few years ago was whether different types of measurand could be the consequence of the different intrinsic nature of different types of standards. It prompted an analysis that resulted in the proposal of considering two distinct ‘classes’ of standards. These classes require different answers to the issue of the treatment of systematic effects. The distinction is relevant, in particular, to the statistical treatment of comparison data, which form the basis of the traceability assessment. The paper is presenting a discussion on the implications of the above distinction, concentrating on cases where systematic effects are dominating the experimental results, a common case in several metrology fields, and on ways to tackle the problem of the correction required by the GUM for standards of class 2 (standards whose values are accurate measures of a common measurand) – a class often not recognised in the general literature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The general problem of the subjective vs objective level of knowledge is widely and extensively treated in the literature. The paper intends to limit the discussion from the viewpoint of the metrologist to some aspects related to the concept of ‘true value’, abandoned by GUM but still present in other international reference documents, and about the use of non-quantitative information or of prior knowledge in connection with the uncertainty evaluation in measurement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We estimate the main systematic effects relevant in a mission to test and characterize the Pioneer anomaly through the flight formation concept, by launching probing spheres from a mother spacecraft and tracking their motion via laser ranging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate half-lives have been determined at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) using ionization-chamber measuring systems to assure the quality of radioactivity standards over the period of their use as detector calibrants or other purposes such as nuclear medicine and environmental monitoring. Some long-lived radionuclides have been measured for up to 28 years: 85Kr, 90Sr, 108Agm, 133Ba, 152Eu, 154Eu, and more recently 65Zn, 106Ru, 109Cd and 137Cs; short-lived radionuclides have also been studied such as: 18F, 67Ga, 81Rb, 99Mo, 99Tcm, 103Pd, 111In, 123I, 131I, 153Sm, 169Er, 177Lu, 186Re, 188Re, 201Tl, 222Rn and 224Ra. Relative uncertainties of half-life values of the order of 5×10−4 were obtained. These values are compared to the results of other measurements and evaluations, and the limiting systematic effects are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]