Investigation of Lunar Surface Chemical Contamination by LEM Descent Engine and Associated Equipment

Lunar surface and atmospheric contamination study caused by LEM rocket exhaust and inorganic, organic, and microbiological contaminant

Investigation of lunar surface chemical contamination by LEM descent engine and associated equipment Final report

Lunar surface contamination from LEM rocket exhaust - methods of minimizing sample contaminatio

Renormalization of Crumpled Manifolds

We consider a model of D-dimensional tethered manifold interacting by excluded volume in R^d with a single point. By use of intrinsic distance geometry, we first provide a rigorous definition of the analytic continuation of its perturbative expansion for arbitrary D, 0 < D < 2. We then construct explicitly a renormalization operation, ensuring renormalizability to all orders. This is the first example of mathematical construction and renormalization for an interacting extended object with continuous internal dimension, encompassing field theory.Comment: 10 pages (1 figure, included), harvmac, SPhT/92-15

A ring laser gyroscope without lock-in phenomenon

We theoretically and numerically study the effect of backscattering on rotating ring lasers by employing the Maxwell-Bloch equations. We show that frequency shifts due to the Sagnac effect incorporating the effect of backscattering can be observed without lock-in phenomenon, if the strength of backscattering originating in the bumps of the refractive index is larger than a certain value. It is also shown that the experimental results corresponding to the theoretical ones can actually be obtained by using a semiconductor fiber-optic ring laser gyroscope.Comment: 9 pages, 6figure

Cost-effective strategies to knock down genes of interest in the retinas of adult zebrafish

High throughput sequencing has generated an enormous amount of information about the genes expressed in various cell types and tissues throughout the body, and about how gene expression changes over time and in diseased conditions. This knowledge has made targeted gene knockdowns an important tool in screening and identifying the roles of genes that are differentially expressed among specific cells of interest. While many approaches are available and optimized in mammalian models, there are still several limitations in the zebrafish model. In this article, we describe two approaches to target specific genes in the retina for knockdown: cell-penetrating, translation-blocking Vivo-Morpholino oligonucleotides and commercially available lipid nanoparticle reagents to deliver siRNA. We targeted expression of the PCNA gene in the retina of a P23H rhodopsin transgenic zebrafish model, in which rapidly proliferating progenitor cells replace degenerated rod photoreceptors. Retinas collected 48 h after intravitreal injections in adult zebrafish reveal that both Vivo-Morpholinos and lipid encapsulated siRNAs were able to successfully knock down expression of PCNA. However, only retinas injected with Vivo-Morpholinos showed a significant decrease in the formation of P23H rhodopsin-expressing rods, a downstream effect of PCNA inhibition. Surprisingly, Vivo-Morpholinos were able to exit the injected eye and enter the contralateral non-injected eye to inhibit PCNA expression. In this article we describe the techniques, concentrations, and considerations we found necessary to successfully target and inhibit genes through Vivo-Morpholinos and lipid encapsulated siRNAs

The science of clinical practice: disease diagnosis or patient prognosis? Evidence about "what is likely to happen" should shape clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis is the traditional basis for decision-making in clinical practice. Evidence is often lacking about future benefits and harms of these decisions for patients diagnosed with and without disease. We propose that a model of clinical practice focused on patient prognosis and predicting the likelihood of future outcomes may be more useful. DISCUSSION: Disease diagnosis can provide crucial information for clinical decisions that influence outcome in serious acute illness. However, the central role of diagnosis in clinical practice is challenged by evidence that it does not always benefit patients and that factors other than disease are important in determining patient outcome. The concept of disease as a dichotomous 'yes' or 'no' is challenged by the frequent use of diagnostic indicators with continuous distributions, such as blood sugar, which are better understood as contributing information about the probability of a patient's future outcome. Moreover, many illnesses, such as chronic fatigue, cannot usefully be labelled from a disease-diagnosis perspective. In such cases, a prognostic model provides an alternative framework for clinical practice that extends beyond disease and diagnosis and incorporates a wide range of information to predict future patient outcomes and to guide decisions to improve them. Such information embraces non-disease factors and genetic and other biomarkers which influence outcome. SUMMARY: Patient prognosis can provide the framework for modern clinical practice to integrate information from the expanding biological, social, and clinical database for more effective and efficient care

A hisztériával kapcsolatos diskurzusok tanulságai a szomatizációs jelenségek és a betegségmagatartás megértéséhez = The relevance of discourses about hysteria in the understanding of somatization phenomena and illness behaviour

Napjainkban a magatartástudományok képviselőinek egyszerre kell számolniuk a betegségekkel kapcsolatos bizonyosság és tudás konfliktusait előhívó medikalizációs-technicizációs orvostudományi tendenciákkal és a társadalomtudományok ezekre reflektáló, kritikai és „posztmodern” megközelítéseivel. Ebből adódóan igen fontos kihívásként jelentkezik az interdiszciplináris megközelítés szükségessége. Különösen így van ez a nehezen definiálható betegségek - a szomatizációs és pszichoszomatikus zavarok - esetében, ahol a betegségmagatartás gyakorlati problémái, továbbá a tünetek, a diagnózisok és a szenvedés „valódiságának” episztemológiai kérdései egyszerre vannak jelen. Az utóbbi másfél évtized kritikai társadalomtudományi kutatásaiban rendkívüli figyelmet kapott a szomatizációs zavarok és a klasszikus pszichoszomatikus kórképek elődjének számító hisztéria kérdésköre. A tanulmány a szakmai és laikus szóhasználatban nem hivatalosan máig tovább élő betegséggel kapcsolatos társadalomtudományi és orvosi megközelítések közül azokat mutatja be, amelyek szempontokkal szolgálhatnak a szomatizációs és pszichoszomatikus kórképek, valamint a velük kapcsolatos érzelmi és viselkedéses reakciók elemzéséhez és megértéséhez

Conceivable security risks and authentication techniques for smart devices

With the rapidly escalating use of smart devices and fraudulent transaction of users’ data from their devices, efficient and reliable techniques for authentication of the smart devices have become an obligatory issue. This paper reviews the security risks for mobile devices and studies several authentication techniques available for smart devices. The results from field studies enable a comparative evaluation of user-preferred authentication mechanisms and their opinions about reliability, biometric authentication and visual authentication techniques

Educação, conflito e convivência democrática

Após uma caracterização sucinta da actual condição pós-moderna, serão desenvolvidas algumas questões que, pela sua relevância actual no campo da educação, merecem ser revisitadas de modo crítico, nomeadamente, e num primeiro momento, a escola, o conflito e a convivência. Num segundo momento, apontar-se-ão algumas características da escola que fazem dela uma organização com alguma perversidade, hipocrisia e irracionalidade. O último aspecto a ser tratado irá compreender a escola como organização comunicacional ou organização convivencial, onde os conceitos de disciplina, violência, conflito e convivência assumem um sentido mais profundamente democrático.After a succinct characterization of the current postmodern condition, some questions might be developed, because of its current relevance in the education field, they must to be reviewed in a critical way, namely, and firstly, the school, the conflict and the conviviality. Secondly, this article underlines some school’s characteristics that turns it into an organization with a little perversity, hypocrisy and irrationality. The last aspect to be treated is the understanding of the school as a communicative or convivial organization, in which the concepts of discipline, violence, conflict and conviviality assume a more democratic orientation.Enseguida a una caracterización sucinta de la actual condición pos-moderna, serán desarrolladas algunas cuestiones que, por su relevancia actual en el campo de la educación, merecen ser visitadas de modo crítico, nombradamente, y en primero momento, la escuela, el conflicto y la convivencia. En segundo momento, se apuntarán algunas características de la escuela que la hacen una organización con alguna perversidad, hipocresía e irracionalidad. El último aspecto a ser tratado irá comprender la escuela como organización de comunicación u organización de convivencia, donde los conceptos de disciplina, violencia, conflicto e convivencia asumen un sentido más profundamente democrático.(undefined