Challenge Alaska

Leaching barley straw has been found to eliminate reactor slagging and fluidised bed agglomeration under continuous gasification.

The Mock LISA Data Challenges are a programme to demonstrate and encourage the development of LISA data-analysis capabilities, tools and techniques. At the time of this workshop, three rounds of challenges had been completed, and the next was about to start. In this article we provide a critical analysis of entries to the latest completed round, Challenge 1B. The entries confirm the consolidation of a range of data-analysis techniques for Galactic and massive--black-hole binaries, and they include the first convincing examples of detection and parameter estimation of extreme--mass-ratio inspiral sources. In this article we also introduce the next round, Challenge 3. Its data sets feature more realistic waveform models (e.g., Galactic binaries may now chirp, and massive--black-hole binaries may precess due to spin interactions), as well as new source classes (bursts from cosmic strings, isotropic stochastic backgrounds) and more complicated nonsymmetric instrument noise.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">The University of Alberta Clean Snowmobile Challenge Team modified a 1998 Polaris XCR 440 Snowmobile to compete in the 2001 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge (CSC). A modified fuel injected four-stroke Suzuki GSX-R600 engine and a custom exhaust system were installed to reduce the emissions and the noise emitted from the snowmobile. The objectives of the CSC competition were to reduce the hydrocarbon emissions by at least 50% and emitted a noise level below 74 dBA at 50 ft and at wide open throttle (WOT).</div>