Predicting Visibility of Aircraft

Visual detection of aircraft by human observers is an important element of aviation safety. To assess and ensure safety, it would be useful to be able to be able to predict the visibility, to a human observer, of an aircraft of specified size, shape, distance, and coloration. Examples include assuring safe separation among aircraft and between aircraft and unmanned vehicles, design of airport control towers, and efforts to enhance or suppress the visibility of military and rescue vehicles. We have recently developed a simple metric of pattern visibility, the Spatial Standard Observer (SSO). In this report we examine whether the SSO can predict visibility of simulated aircraft images. We constructed a set of aircraft images from three-dimensional computer graphic models, and measured the luminance contrast threshold for each image from three human observers. The data were well predicted by the SSO. Finally, we show how to use the SSO to predict visibility range for aircraft of arbitrary size, shape, distance, and coloration

Microbial Regulation of p53 Tumor Suppressor

p53 tumor suppressor has been identified as a protein interacting with the large T antigen produced by simian vacuolating virus 40 (SV40). Subsequent research on p53 inhibition by SV40 and other tumor viruses has not only helped to gain a better understanding of viral biology, but also shaped our knowledge of human tumorigenesis. Recent studies have found, however, that inhibition of p53 is not strictly in the realm of viruses. Some bacterial pathogens also actively inhibit p53 protein and induce its degradation, resulting in alteration of cellular stress responses. This phenomenon was initially characterized in gastric epithelial cells infected with Helicobacter pylori, a bacterial pathogen that commonly infects the human stomach and is strongly linked to gastric cancer. Besides H. pylori, a number of other bacterial species were recently discovered to inhibit p53. These findings provide novel insights into host-bacteria interactions and tumorigenesis associated with bacterial infections