Design and analysis considerations for deployment mechanisms in a space environment

On the second flight of the INTELSAT V spacecraft the time required for successful deployment of the north solar array was longer than originally predicted. The south solar array deployed as predicted. As a result of the difference in deployment times a series of experiments was conducted to locate the cause of the difference. Deployment rate sensitivity to hinge friction and temperature levels was investigated. A digital computer simulation of the deployment was created to evaluate the effects of parameter changes on deployment. Hinge design was optimized for nominal solar array deployment time for future INTELSAT V satellites. The nominal deployment times of both solar arrays on the third flight of INTELSAT V confirms the validity of the simulation and design optimization

Clonal analysis of a human antibody response. Quantitation of precursors of antibody-producing cells and generation and characterization of monoclonal IgM, IgG, and IgA to rabies virus.

We quantitated and characterized the changes in the human B cell repertoire, at the clonal level, before and after immunization with rabies virus. Moreover, we generated 10 monoclonal cell lines producing IgM, IgG, and IgA antibodies to the virus. We found that in healthy subjects, not previously exposed to the virus, nearly 2% of the circulating B lymphocytes were committed to the production of antibodies that bound the virus. These B cells expressed the surface CD5 molecule. The antibodies they produced were polyreactive IgM that displayed a relatively low affinity for the virus components (Kd, 1.0-2.4 x 10(-6) g/microliters). After immunization, different anti-virus (IgG and IgA) antibody-producing cells consistently appeared in the circulation and increased from less than 0.005% to greater than 10% of the total B cells committed to the production of IgG and IgA, respectively. Most of such B cells do not express CD5 and produce monoreactive antibodies of high affinity for rabies virus (Kd, 6.5 x 10(-9) to 1.2 x 10(-10) g/microliters). One of these IgG mAbs efficiently neutralized rabies virus in vitro and in vivo, as detailed elsewhere (Dietzschold, B., P. Casali, Y. Ueki, M. Gore, C. E. Rupprecht, A. L. Notkins, and H. Koprowski, manuscript submitted for publication). Hybridization experiments using probes specific for the different human V gene segment families revealed that cell precursors producing low affinity IgM binding to rabies virus utilized a restricted number of VH gene segments (i.e., only members of the VHIIIb subfamily), whereas cell precursors producing high affinity IgG and IgA to rabies virus utilized an assortment of different VH gene segments (i.e., members of the VHI, VHIII, VHIV, and VHVI families and VHIIIb subfamily). In conclusion, our studies show that EBV transformation in conjunction with limiting dilution technology and somatic cell hybridization techniques are useful methods for quantitating, at the B cell clonal level, the human antibody response to foreign Ags and for generating human mAbs of predetermined specificity and high affinity

SCREENING FOR HEPATITIS C Response from Hepatitis C Trust, BASL, BIA, BVHG, BSG, and BHIVA to article asking whether widespread screening for hepatitis C is justified

This is the peer reviewed published version of the following article: Response from Hepatitis C Trust, BASL, BIA, BVHG, BSG, and BHIVA to article asking whether widespread screening for hepatitis C is justified, which has been published in final form at 10.1136/bmj.h998. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with BMJ's Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0

Accounting for decarbonisation and reducing capital at risk in the S&P500

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Colin Haslam, Nick Tsitsianis, Glen Lehman, Tord Andersson, and John Malamatenios, ‘Accounting for decarbonisation and reducing capital at risk in the S&P500’, Accounting Forum, Vol. 42 91): 119-129, March 2018. Under embargo until 7 August 2019. The final, definitive version is available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accfor.2018.01.004.This article accounts for carbon emissions in the S&P 500 and explores the extent to which capital is at risk from decarbonising value chains. At a global level it is proving difficult to decouple carbon emissions from GDP growth. Top-down legal and regulatory arrangements envisaged by the Kyoto Protocol are practically redundant given inconsistent political commitment to mitigating global climate change and promoting sustainability. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and European Commission (EC) are promoting the role of financial markets and financial institutions as drivers of behavioural change mobilising capital allocations to decarbonise corporate activity.Peer reviewe

HypTrails: A Bayesian Approach for Comparing Hypotheses About Human Trails on the Web

When users interact with the Web today, they leave sequential digital trails on a massive scale. Examples of such human trails include Web navigation, sequences of online restaurant reviews, or online music play lists. Understanding the factors that drive the production of these trails can be useful for e.g., improving underlying network structures, predicting user clicks or enhancing recommendations. In this work, we present a general approach called HypTrails for comparing a set of hypotheses about human trails on the Web, where hypotheses represent beliefs about transitions between states. Our approach utilizes Markov chain models with Bayesian inference. The main idea is to incorporate hypotheses as informative Dirichlet priors and to leverage the sensitivity of Bayes factors on the prior for comparing hypotheses with each other. For eliciting Dirichlet priors from hypotheses, we present an adaption of the so-called (trial) roulette method. We demonstrate the general mechanics and applicability of HypTrails by performing experiments with (i) synthetic trails for which we control the mechanisms that have produced them and (ii) empirical trails stemming from different domains including website navigation, business reviews and online music played. Our work expands the repertoire of methods available for studying human trails on the Web.Comment: Published in the proceedings of WWW'1

Microbial decomposition of the floating weed Salvinia molesta Aublet in Cochin backwaters

From the live and decomposing S. molesta 13 strains of bacteria were isolated and the growth promoting effect of the weed extract in various concentrations in 5 selected strains of bacteria and a mixed culture was studied. Turbidity measurements gave maximum percentaae transmission in 5 % extract. Dry weight loss of dried weed in the laboratory was 20 and 25 % after to and 25 days of incubation respectively. Yield efficiency of 3 bacterial strains calculated for 48 hr was 20%. The results suggest the potential value of this primary source of organic material in the food web of Cocbin backwater

PROVAT – a versatile tool for Voronoi tessellation analysis of protein structures and complexes

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Effects of glycerol and creatine hyperhydration on doping-relevant blood parameters

Glycerol is prohibited as an ergogenic aid by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) due to the potential for its plasma expansion properties to have masking effects. However, the scientific basis of the inclusion of Gly as a “masking agent” remains inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a hyperhydrating supplement containing Gly on doping-relevant blood parameters. Nine trained males ingested a hyperhydrating mixture twice per day for 7 days containing 1.0 g•kg<sup>−1</sup> body mass (BM) of Gly, 10.0 g of creatine and 75.0 g of glucose. Blood samples were collected and total hemoglobin (Hb) mass determined using the optimized carbon monoxide (CO) rebreathing method pre- and post-supplementation. BM and total body water (TBW) increased significantly following supplementation by 1.1 ± 1.2 and 1.0 ± 1.2 L (BM, P < 0.01; TBW, P < 0.01), respectively. This hyperhydration did not significantly alter plasma volume or any of the doping-relevant blood parameters (e.g., hematocrit, Hb, reticulocytes and total Hb-mass) even when Gly was clearly detectable in urine samples. In conclusion, this study shows that supplementation with hyperhydrating solution containing Gly for 7 days does not significantly alter doping-relevant blood parameters

Controlling Light Through Optical Disordered Media : Transmission Matrix Approach

We experimentally measure the monochromatic transmission matrix (TM) of an optical multiple scattering medium using a spatial light modulator together with a phase-shifting interferometry measurement method. The TM contains all information needed to shape the scattered output field at will or to detect an image through the medium. We confront theory and experiment for these applications and we study the effect of noise on the reconstruction method. We also extracted from the TM informations about the statistical properties of the medium and the light transport whitin it. In particular, we are able to isolate the contributions of the Memory Effect (ME) and measure its attenuation length