Unusual Near-Horizon Cosmic-Ray-like Events Observed by ANITA-IV.

ANITA's fourth long-duration balloon flight in 2016 detected 29 cosmic-ray (CR)-like events on a background of 0.37_{-0.17}^{+0.27} anthropogenic events. CRs are mainly seen in reflection off the Antarctic ice sheets, creating a phase-inverted waveform polarity. However, four of the below-horizon CR-like events show anomalous noninverted polarity, a p=5.3×10^{-4} chance if due to background. All anomalous events are from locations near the horizon; ANITA-IV observed no steeply upcoming anomalous events similar to the two such events seen in prior flights.

Observation of an Unusual Upward-Going Cosmic-Ray-like Event in the Third Flight of ANITA.

We report on an upward traveling, radio-detected cosmic-ray-like impulsive event with characteristics closely matching an extensive air shower. This event, observed in the third flight of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA), a NASA-sponsored long-duration balloon payload, is consistent with a similar event reported in a previous flight. These events could be produced by the atmospheric decay of an upward-propagating τ lepton produced by a ν_{τ} interaction, although their relatively steep arrival angles create tension with the standard model neutrino cross section. Each of the two events have a posteriori background estimates of ≲10^{-2} events. If these are generated by τ-lepton decay, then either the charged-current ν_{τ} cross section is suppressed at EeV energies, or the events arise at moments when the peak flux of a transient neutrino source was much larger than the typical expected cosmogenic background neutrinos.

Invited Article: miniTimeCube.

We present the development of the miniTimeCube (mTC), a novel compact neutrino detector. The mTC is a multipurpose detector, aiming to detect not only neutrinos but also fast/thermal neutrons. Potential applications include the counterproliferation of nuclear materials and the investigation of antineutrino short-baseline effects. The mTC is a plastic 0.2% (10)B-doped scintillator (13 cm)(3) cube surrounded by 24 Micro-Channel Plate (MCP) photon detectors, each with an 8 × 8 anode totaling 1536 individual channels/pixels viewing the scintillator. It uses custom-made electronics modules which mount on top of the MCPs, making our detector compact and able to both distinguish different types of events and reject noise in real time. The detector is currently deployed and being tested at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research nuclear reactor (20 MWth) in Gaithersburg MD. A shield for further tests is being constructed, and calibration and upgrades are ongoing. The mTC's improved spatiotemporal resolution will allow for determination of incident particle directions beyond previous capabilities.

Digital Heart-Rate Variability Parameter Monitoring and Assessment ASIC.

This paper describes experimental results for an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), designed for digital heart rate variability (HRV) parameter monitoring and assessment. This ASIC chip measures beat-to-beat (RR) intervals and stores HRV parameters into its internal memory in real time. A wide range of short-term and long-term ECG signals obtained from Physionet was used for testing. The system detects R peaks with millisecond accuracy, and stores up to 2 min of continuous RR interval data and up to 4 min of RR interval histogram. The prototype chip was fabricated in a 0.5 ¿m complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology on a 3×3 mm(2) die area, with a measured dynamic power consumption of 10 ¿W and measured leakage current of 2.62 nA. The HRV monitoring system including this HRV ASIC, an analog-to-digital converter, and a low complexity microcontroller was estimated to consume 32.5 ¿V, which is seven times lower power than a stand-alone microcontroller performing the same functions. Compact size, low cost, and low power consumption make this chip suitable for a miniaturized portable HRV monitoring system.

Fully-integrated heart rate variability monitoring system with an efficient memory.

Heart rate variability is a strong indicator of a number of medical conditions. Current HRV systems typically determine R-R intervals from pre-recorded ECG signals, which include a large amount of redundant data. In this paper we describe a more efficient HRV monitoring and assessment system on chip. By applying digital techniques to store the difference between every two adjacent R-R intervals in a single-port synchronous, high-performance SRAM, up to 24 hours of continuous ECG data can be stored on chip with a fixed resolution of 1 ms. The system has been tested for functionality, synthesized and laid out in a commercial 0.18 microm CMOS process in a 2.5 x 2.5 mm2 hardware core with less than 155 microW power consumption. Such a system can enable HRV monitoring with home based health care and implantable devices.