Colorectal Cancer Through Simulation and Experiment

Colorectal cancer has continued to generate a huge amount of research interest over several decades, forming a canonical example of tumourigenesis since its use in Fearon and Vogelstein’s linear model of genetic mutation. Over time, the field has witnessed a transition from solely experimental work to the inclusion of mathematical biology and computer-based modelling. The fusion of these disciplines has the potential to provide valuable insights into oncologic processes, but also presents the challenge of uniting many diverse perspectives. Furthermore, the cancer cell phenotype defined by the ‘Hallmarks of Cancer’ has been extended in recent times and provides an excellent basis for future research. We present a timely summary of the literature relating to colorectal cancer, addressing the traditional experimental findings, summarising the key mathematical and computational approaches, and emphasising the role of the Hallmarks in current and future developments. We conclude with a discussion of interdisciplinary work, outlining areas of experimental interest which would benefit from the insight that mathematical and computational modelling can provide

Infrastructure for Detector Research and Development towards the International Linear Collider

The EUDET-project was launched to create an infrastructure for developing and testing new and advanced detector technologies to be used at a future linear collider. The aim was to make possible experimentation and analysis of data for institutes, which otherwise could not be realized due to lack of resources. The infrastructure comprised an analysis and software network, and instrumentation infrastructures for tracking detectors as well as for calorimetry.Comment: 54 pages, 48 picture

Small Engine Component Technology (SECT)

A study of small gas turbine engines was conducted to identify high payoff technologies for year-2000 engines and to define companion technology plans. The study addressed engines in the 186 to 746 KW (250 to 1000 shp) or equivalent thrust range for rotorcraft, commuter (turboprop), cruise missile (turbojet), and APU applications. The results show that aggressive advancement of high payoff technologies can produce significant benefits, including reduced SFC, weight, and cost for year-2000 engines. Mission studies for these engines show potential fuel burn reductions of 22 to 71 percent. These engine benefits translate into reductions in rotorcraft and commuter aircraft direct operating costs (DOC) of 7 to 11 percent, and in APU-related DOCs of 37 to 47 percent. The study further shows that cruise missile range can be increased by as much as 200 percent (320 percent with slurry fuels) for a year-2000 missile-turbojet system compared to a current rocket-powered system. The high payoff technologies were identified and the benefits quantified. Based on this, technology plans were defined for each of the four engine applications as recommended guidelines for further NASA research and technology efforts to establish technological readiness for the year 2000

MODELING SUSTAINABILITY IN RENEWABLE ENERGY SUPPLY CHAIN SYSTEMS

This dissertation aims at modeling sustainability of renewable fuel supply chain systems against emerging challenges. In particular, the dissertation focuses on the biofuel supply chain system design, and manages to develop advanced modeling framework and corresponding solution methods in tackling challenges in sustaining biofuel supply chain systems. These challenges include: (1) to integrate \u27environmental thinking\u27 into the long-term biofuel supply chain planning; (2) to adopt multimodal transportation to mitigate seasonality in biofuel supply chain operations; (3) to provide strategies in hedging against uncertainty from conversion technology; and (4) to develop methodologies in long-term sequential planning of the biofuel supply chain under uncertainties. All models are mixed integer programs, which also involves multi-objective programming method and two-stage/multistage stochastic programming methods. In particular for the long-term sequential planning under uncertainties, to reduce the computational challenges due to the exponential expansion of the scenario tree, I also developed efficient ND-Max method which is more efficient than CPLEX and Nested Decomposition method. Through result analysis of four independent studies, it is found that the proposed modeling frameworks can effectively improve the economic performance, enhance environmental benefits and reduce risks due to systems uncertainties for the biofuel supply chain systems

Innovative magnetorheological devices for shock and vibration mitigation

Vibration and impact protection have been a popular topic in research fields, which could directly affect the passengers’ and drivers’ comfort and safety, even cause spines fracture. Therefore, an increasing number of vehicle suspensions and aircraft landing gears are proposed and manufactured. Magnetorheological fluids (MRFs), as a smart material, are growly applied into the above device owing to its unique properties such as fast response, reversible properties, and broad controllable range, which could improve the vibration/impact mitigation performance. MRF was utilized to achieve adaptive parameters of the vehicle suspensions by controlling the magnetic field strength of the MRF working areas. Generally, the magnetic field is provided by a given current, subsequently, it would consume massive energy from a long-term perspective. Thus, a self-powered concept was applied as well. This thesis reports a compact stiffness controllable MR damper with a self-powered capacity. After the prototype of the MR damper, its property tests were conducted to verify the stiffness controllability and the energy generating ability using a hydraulic Instron test system. Then, a quarter-car test rig was built, and the semi-active MR suspension integrated with the self-powered MR damper was installed on a test rig. Two controllers, one based on short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and a classical skyhook controller was developed to control the stiffness. The evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed MR damper incorporated with STFT controller or skyhook controller could suppress the response displacements and accelerations obviously comparing with the conventional passive systems

Scanning electrochemical cell microscopy : a versatile technique for nanoscale electrochemistry and functional imaging

Scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) is a new pipette-based imaging technique purposely designed to allow simultaneous electrochemical, conductance, and topographical visualization of surfaces and interfaces. SECCM uses a tiny meniscus or droplet, confined between the probe and the surface, for high-resolution functional imaging and nanoscale electrochemical measurements. Here we introduce this technique and provide an overview of its principles, instrumentation, and theory. We discuss the power of SECCM in resolving complex structure-activity problems and provide considerable new information on electrode processes by referring to key example systems, including graphene, graphite, carbon nanotubes, nanoparticles, and conducting diamond. The many longstanding questions that SECCM has been able to answer during its short existence demonstrate its potential to become a major technique in electrochemistry and interfacial science

General advanced job shop scheduling approach

The development of this thesis aims to design a new approach for solving production planning and scheduling in the process industries in such a way to be adaptable to any manufacturing plant, the description of which would have to be previously provided together with a series of ordered jobs. The planning and scheduling solving is concerned with the allocation over time of scarce resources between competing activities to meet a given set of requirements with an efficient organization. But, things get complicated as larger the scale of the problem is, i.e. as more resources, activities and requirements are involved. That is why the orientation of the work is focused on an innovative method in the style of Artificial Intelligence, by means of an automated process seeking to converge to a predefined objective. Although this research object has been studied since the middle of the last century, major breakthroughs were not achieved until the emergence of high-performance computing technologies; since by nature these are combinatorial problems which, the larger the scale, the more exploration they require to find some optimal. In addition, most of the last years related articles has been focused on solution approaches based on mathematical programming techniques, and it is important to note that there are other solution methods for dealing with this kind of problems. These methods can be used either as alternative methods, or as methods that can be combined with mathematical programming models, like the one proposed in this documen

NASA Tech Briefs, June 2012

Topics covered include: iGlobe Interactive Visualization and Analysis of Spatial Data; Broad-Bandwidth FPGA-Based Digital Polyphase Spectrometer; Small Aircraft Data Distribution System; Earth Science Datacasting v2.0; Algorithm for Compressing Time-Series Data; Onboard Science and Applications Algorithm for Hyperspectral Data Reduction; Sampling Technique for Robust Odorant Detection Based on MIT RealNose Data; Security Data Warehouse Application; Integrated Laser Characterization, Data Acquisition, and Command and Control Test System; Radiation-Hard SpaceWire/Gigabit Ethernet-Compatible Transponder; Hardware Implementation of Lossless Adaptive Compression of Data From a Hyperspectral Imager; High-Voltage, Low-Power BNC Feedthrough Terminator; SpaceCube Mini; Dichroic Filter for Separating W-Band and Ka-Band; Active Mirror Predictive and Requirement Verification Software (AMP-ReVS); Navigation/Prop Software Suite; Personal Computer Transport Analysis Program; Pressure Ratio to Thermal Environments; Probabilistic Fatigue Damage Program (FATIG); ASCENT Program; JPL Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) Portal; Data::Downloader; Fault Tolerance Middleware for a Multi-Core System; DspaceOgreTerrain 3D Terrain Visualization Tool; Trick Simulation Environment 07; Geometric Reasoning for Automated Planning; Water Detection Based on Color Variation; Single-Layer, All-Metal Patch Antenna Element with Wide Bandwidth; Scanning Laser Infrared Molecular Spectrometer (SLIMS); Next-Generation Microshutter Arrays for Large-Format Imaging and Spectroscopy; Detection of Carbon Monoxide Using Polymer-Composite Films with a Porphyrin-Functionalized Polypyrrole; Enhanced-Adhesion Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes on Titanium Substrates for Stray Light Control; Three-Dimensional Porous Particles Composed of Curved, Two-Dimensional, Nano-Sized Layers for Li-Ion Batteries 23 Ultra-Lightweight; and Ultra-Lightweight Nanocomposite Foams and Sandwich Structures for Space Structure Applications