Development of a Miniature Electrostatic Accelerometer /MESA/ for low g applications Summary report

Design, fabrication, and testing of miniature digital electrostatic accelerometer for low gravity measurements in spac

Proactive or Reactive? Optimal Management of an Invasive Forest Pest in a Spatial Framework

This paper offers a preliminary investigation into the conditions under which it might be optimal to engage in proactive management of a non-timber forest resource in the presence of an invasive species whose spread is unaffected by management action. Proactive management is defined as treating an uninfected area in order to encourage healthy ecosystem function, given that the arrival of the invasive is inevitable. Inspired by the problem of white pine blister rust in the Rocky Mountain west, the model was solved under varying assumptions concerning the scale of management action, benefit and costs, the discount rate, and uncertainty of spread. Results showed that proactive strategies tended to be optimal when, ceteris paribus, a) more resources are available for treatment; b) the costs of treatment are rapidly increasing in forest health, or conversely, the benefits of healthy and unhealthy stands are relatively similar; and c) the discount rate is low. The introduction of uncertainty did not significantly affect the likelihood of a proactive management strategy being optimal, but did show that the conditional probabilities of infection play important role in the decision of which uninfected stand should be treated if a choice is available to the manager.Crop Production/Industries, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Radiation-induced myeloid leukaemia in CBA/H mice: a non-immunogenic malignant disease in syngeneic mice.

In vivo growth characteristics of myeloid leukaemia induced by whole-body irradiation of CBA/H male mice were examined in the strain of origin by procedures expected to enhance or depress immunological responses. Syngeneic growth in vivo (survival time and frequency of takes) was not modified by attempted active immunization with radiation-inactivated cells or by sublethal whole-body irradiation of recipients before inoculation of small numbers of clonogenic cells. Since the growth stimuli involved in in vivo repair of severely damaged normal haemopoietic tissue also did not modify the growth of the radiation-induced leukaemia cells in syngeneic passage, their growth in vivo in the irradiated primary hosts can be regarded as autonomous by the stage at which leukaemia was diagnosed. Challenge inocula in the "immunization" experiments were 1-9 clonogenic cells from 4 different passaged lines and in the whole-body radiation experiments, 1-10(3) clonogenic cells derived from 11 different primary hosts and 4 different passaged lines

Fertilizer Backs Bombs

One source of “ammunition” for the “war food front” which many an Iowa farmer should seriously consider using this year is commercial fertilizer. If used wisely, it can profitably increase crop production

Predicting the movements of permanently installed electrodes on an active landslide using time-lapse geoelectrical resistivity data only

If electrodes move during geoelectrical resistivity monitoring and their new positions are not incorporated in the inversion, then the resulting tomographic images exhibit artefacts that can obscure genuine time-lapse resistivity changes in the subsurface. The effects of electrode movements on time-lapse resistivity tomography are investigated using a simple analytical model and real data. The correspondence between the model and the data is sufficiently good to be able to predict the effects of electrode movements with reasonable accuracy. For the linear electrode arrays and 2D inversions under consideration, the data are much more sensitive to longitudinal than transverse or vertical movements. Consequently the model can be used to invert the longitudinal offsets of the electrodes from their known baseline positions using only the time-lapse ratios of the apparent resistivity data. The example datasets are taken from a permanently installed electrode array on an active lobe of a landslide. Using two sets with different levels of noise and subsurface resistivity changes, it is found that the electrode positions can be recovered to an accuracy of 4 % of the baseline electrode spacing. This is sufficient to correct the artefacts in the resistivity images, and provides for the possibility of monitoring the movement of the landslide and its internal hydraulic processes simultaneously using electrical resistivity tomography only

Preventative tele-health supported services for early stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a protocol for a pragmatic randomized controlled trial pilot

Background Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a prevalent debilitating long term condition. It is the second most common cause of emergency admission to hospital in the UK and remains one of the most costly conditions to treat through acute care. Tele-health monitoring offers potential to reduce the rates of re-hospitalisation and emergency department visits and improve quality of life for people with COPD. However, the current evidence base to support technology adoption and implementation is limited and the resource implications for implementing tele-health in practice can be very high. This trial will employ tele-health monitoring in a preventative capacity for patients diagnosed with early stage COPD following discharge from hospital to determine whether it reduces their need for additional health service support or hospital admission and improves their quality of life. Methods/Design We describe a pilot study for a two arm, one site randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine the effect of tele-health monitoring on self-management, quality of life and patient satisfaction. Sixty patients who have been discharged from one acute trust with a primary diagnosis of COPD and who have agreed to receive community clinical support following discharge from acute care will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: (a) Tele-health supported Community COPD Service; or (b) Usual Care. The tele-health supported service involves the patient receiving two home visits with a specialist COPD clinician (nurse or physiotherapist) then participating in daily tele-monitoring over an eight week period. Usual care consists of six home visits to the patient by specialist COPD clinicians again over eight successive weeks. Health status and quality of life data for all participants will be measured at baseline, on discharge from the service and at six months post discharge from the service. Discussion The tele-health service under study is a complex service delivered through a collaboration between local authority and health care partners. The implementation of this service demanded significant changes to established working patterns and has been a challenging process requiring considerable planning - a challenge that many providers are likely to face in the future. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN6885601

Perturbation of cell renewal in the haemopoetic tissues of drug-treated and leukaemic mice

The murine lympho-myeloid complex is depleted by a large dose of nitrogen mustard and the pattern of recovery of the haemopoietic tissues and cells followed to establish the relationships ox the precursor and mature cells. Culture of bone marrow in agar and stathmokinetic techniques are used to examine the controlled proliferation for the granulocyte elements in the bone marrow recovering from nitrogen mustard and the influence of the spleen is also considered. The control of the proliferation of the granulocyte cells is lost in myeloid leukaemia. Stathmokinetic methods and spleen colon assays are used to asses cell proliferation in irradiation-induced myeloid leukaemias in mice and the relevance of these parameters so measured to those demonstrated by normal bone marrow is discussed