Explore the vast range of titles available.

LISA Pathfinder (LPF), the second of the European Space Agency's Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology (SMART), is a dedicated technology validation mission for future spaceborne gravitational wave detectors, such as the proposed eLISA mission. LISA Pathfinder, and its scientific payload - the LISA Technology Package - will test, in flight, the critical technologies required for low frequency gravitational wave detection: it will put two test masses in a near-perfect gravitational free-fall and control and measure their motion with unprecedented accuracy. This is achieved through technology comprising inertial sensors, high precision laser metrology, drag-free control and an ultra-precise micro-Newton propulsion system. LISA Pathfinder is due to be launched in mid-2015, with first results on the performance of the system being available 6 months thereafter. The paper introduces the LISA Pathfinder mission, followed by an explanation of the physical principles of measurement concept and associated hardware. We then provide a detailed discussion of the LISA Technology Package, including both the inertial sensor and interferometric readout. As we approach the launch of the LISA Pathfinder, the focus of the development is shifting towards the science operations and data analysis - this is described in the final section of the paper

Objectives Mindfulness practice is thought to underlie the therapeutic effects of mindfulness interventions. Yet, more research is needed to evaluate mindfulness practice effects and identify effective practice types. The present study examined the effects of two types of mindfulness practice (audio-guided and daily life mindfulness practice) on measures of stress and coping in a workplace sample. Methods Employees from a digital marketing firm undergoing stressful organizational restructuring ( n final  = 60; aged 21–57; 95.0% white; 66.7% women) were randomly assigned to a high- (1-day seminar plus 6-week practice) or low-dose (1-day seminar) mindfulness training program. Participants completed 3 days of ecological momentary assessments of stress/coping pre- and post-interventions. Audio-guided mindfulness practice was assessed by the number of audio-guided practice sessions completed during the intervention period; daily life mindfulness practice was indexed by how often participants reported applying mindfulness to daily activities during the intervention period. Results Across the full sample, more frequent daily life mindfulness practice buffered against pre- to post-intervention increases in stress ratings ( β  =  − .18, p  = .002), stressor frequency ( β  =  − .32, p  < .001), and stressor intensity ( β  =  − .27, p  = .003), and decreases in successful coping ( β  = .25, p  = .005). Comparable (but weaker) results were observed for audio-guided mindfulness practice (stress ratings: β  =  − .15, p  = .013; stressor frequency: β  =  − .27, p  < .001; stressor intensity: β  =  − .22, p  = .015; successful coping: β  = .17, p  = .066). Conclusions Much of the mindfulness meditation RCT literature to date has not measured or reported guided or daily life practices, and this work suggests that measuring both may be important for understanding the stress buffering effects of mindfulness meditation training.

Mindfulness-based interventions have been suggested as one way to improve employee well-being in the workplace. Despite these purported benefits, there have been few well-controlled randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating mindfulness training in the workplace. Here, we conducted a two-arm RCT at work among employees of a digital marketing firm comparing the efficacy of a high-dose 6-week mindfulness training to a low-dose single-day mindfulness training for improving multiple measures of employee well-being assessed using ecological momentary assessment. High-dose mindfulness training reduced both perceived and momentary stress, and buffered employees against worsened affect and decreased coping efficacy compared to low-dose mindfulness training. These results provide well-controlled evidence that mindfulness training programs can reduce momentary stress at work, suggesting that more intensive mindfulness training doses (i.e., 6 weeks) may be necessary for improving workplace well-being outcomes. This RCT utilizes a novel experience sampling approach to measure the effects of a mindfulness intervention on employee well-being and considers potential dose-response effects of mindfulness training at work.

LISA Pathfinder is perhaps the most precise accelerometry instrument ever flown in space. The drag-free control system can sense and react to external disturbances of an extremely small magnitude. One class of such disturbances are the impacts of micrometeoroids or dust. A simple model of the LPF system suggests that individual impacts with transferred momentum exceeding a few tens of nanoNewton-meters are detectable. Furthermore, the ability of LPF to resolve both the linear and angular momentum transfer as vector quantities allows information such as the sky location and the impact location of the impactor to be reconstructed. This novel approach to micrometeoroid detection and characterization, as well as the location of LPF at L1, provide an opportunity to improve our understanding of the dust environment in the inner solar system. Here we present some preliminary findings from LPF, including four candidate impact events.

Magnetically-induced forces on the inertial masses on-board LISA Pathfinder are expected to be one of the dominant contributions to the mission noise budget, accounting for up to 40%. The origin of this disturbance is the coupling of the residual magnetization and susceptibility of the test masses with the environmental magnetic field. In order to fully understand this important part of the noise model, a set of coils and magnetometers are integrated as a part of the diagnostics subsystem. During operations a sequence of magnetic excitations will be applied to precisely determine the coupling of the magnetic environment to the test mass displacement using the on-board magnetometers. Since no direct measurement of the magnetic field in the test mass position will be available, an extrapolation of the magnetic measurements to the test mass position will be carried out as a part of the data analysis activities. In this paper we show the first results on the magnetic experiments during an end- to-end LISA Pathfinder simulation, and we describe the methods under development to map the magnetic field on-board.

Thermal Diagnostics experiments to be carried out on board LISA Pathfinder (LPF) will yield a detailed characterisation of how temperature fluctuations affect the LTP (LISA Technology Package) instrument performance, a crucial information for future space based gravitational wave detectors as the proposed eLISA. Amongst them, the study of temperature gradient fluctuations around the test masses of the Inertial Sensors will provide as well information regarding the contribution of the Brownian noise, which is expected to limit the LTP sensitivity at frequencies close to 1 mHz during some LTP experiments. In this paper we report on how these kind of Thermal Diagnostics experiments were simulated in the last LPF Simulation Campaign (November, 2013) involving all the LPF Data Analysis team and using an end-to-end simulator of the whole spacecraft. Such simulation campaign was conducted under the framework of the preparation for LPF operations.

The cold gas micro-propulsion system that will be used during the LISA-Pathfinder mission will be one of the most important component used to ensure the \"free-fall\" of the enclosed test masses. In this paper we present a possible strategy to characterize the effective direction and amplitude gain of each of the 6 thrusters of this system.

Objective. To summarize and analyze the focus and methodologies of the Translating Research into Practice (TRIP) projects funded in 1999–2000 by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Data sources and study design. An analysis of the successful applications for the TRIP I and II requests for applications in 1999 and 2000 was produced from the data collected. Data collection. The following items were abstracted from each of the successful applications: provider focus, patient population, vulnerable populations, methodologies, interventions for change, outcomes measured, and conceptual framework used. Principal findings. AHRQ funded 27 TRIP grants in 1999 and 2000. A wide variety of health care providers, settings, and patients were the target of the grants. The most common study design was a randomized controlled trial. The most common TRIP interventions were educational and the most common frameworks were either adult learning theory or organizational theory. More than half of the projects planned to use information technology and half the projects had a focus on reducing errors. Conclusions. The TRIP projects encompass a broad range of providers, environments, patients, and interventions. The field of applied research and quality improvements should be considerably enhanced by these research projects.

The main goal of LISA Pathfinder (LPF) mission is to estimate the acceleration noise models of the overall LISA Technology Package (LTP) experiment on-board. This will be of crucial importance for the future space-based Gravitational-Wave (GW) detectors, like eLISA. Here, we present the Bayesian analysis framework to process the planned system identification experiments designed for that purpose. In particular, we focus on the analysis strategies to predict the accuracy of the parameters that describe the system in all degrees of freedom. The data sets were generated during the latest operational simulations organised by the data analysis team and this work is part of the LTPDA Matlab toolbox.