Spin-Dependent Electron Scattering from Polarized Protons and Deuterons with the BLAST Experiment at MIT-Bates

The Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid (BLAST) experiment was operated at the MIT-Bates Linear Accelerator Center from 2003 until 2005. The experiment was designed to exploit the power of a polarized electron beam incident on polarized targets of hydrogen and deuterium to measure, in a systematic manner, the neutron, proton, and deuteron form factors as well as other aspects of the electromagnetic interaction on few-nucleon systems. We briefly describe the experiment, and present and discuss the numerous results obtained.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.

Assessing the Impact of Climate and Change and Variability on Irish Potato (Solanum Tuberosum L. ) Production from 1995 to 2015 in Tubah Sub Division, North West Region, Cameroon

Climate change and variability are common phenomena that affect crop productivity globally but with significant differences between different regions of the world. Studies of the impacts of these phenomena on Irish potato –Solanum tuberosum L.-production within Tubah Sub-Division based on records of precipitation and temperatures from 1995 to 2015, indicated an increasing mean annual temperature rate of 0.09 0C per year and a slight  increasing annual rainfall rate of 25.8 mm per year. Potato yields within the same period equally increased by 1.26 t/ha per year until 2012 when the yields started decreasing due to a correspondingly marked  increase in both temperature and rainfall. The drop in potato yields has also been attributed to disease infestation such as potato blight and rot which are favoured by the increases in temperature and rainfall. Statistical correlation and regression analyses of these data revealed that the potato yields showed weak positive correlations with temperature (R= 0.02) and with rainfall (R= 0.12). Results from questionnaire survey, focus group discussions and semistructured interviews indicated that the potato crop (63 %) of most farmers were negatively affected by climate change and  variability through the increased sporadic rainfall which enhanced potato blight and rot. Some adaptation strategies to these climatic factors are already being practised by most farmers (81 %) who are making use of a combination of fertilizers, pesticides, improved seeds and irrigation  practices to remedy the situation although further approaches such as the use of resistant species are necessary towards improving on the dwindling potato yields.Keywords: Climate, Change, Variability, Tubah Sub Division, Irish Potato, Adaptation Strategies, Cameroon

Effect of temporary cements on the shear bond strength of luting cements

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate, by shear bond strength (SBS) testing, the influence of different types of temporary cements on the final cementation using conventional and self-etching resin-based luting cements. Material and Methods: Forty human teeth divided in two halves were assigned to 8 groups (n=10): I and V (no temporary cementation); II and VI: Ca(OH)2-based cement; III and VII: zinc oxide (ZO)-based cement; IV and VIII: ZO-eugenol (ZOE)-based cement. Final cementation was done with RelyX ARC cement (groups I to IV) and RelyX Unicem cement (groups V to VIII). Data were analyzed statistically by ANOVA and Tukey's test at 5% significance level. RESULTS: Means were (MPa): I - 3.80 (&plusmn;1.481); II - 5.24 (&plusmn;2.297); III - 6.98 (&plusmn;1.885); IV - 6.54 (&plusmn;1.459); V - 5.22 (&plusmn;2.465); VI - 4.48 (&plusmn;1.705); VII - 6.29 (&plusmn;2.280); VIII - 2.47 (&plusmn;2.076). Comparison of the groups that had the same temporary cementation (Groups II and VI; III and VII; IV and VIII) showed statistically significant difference (p<0.001) only between Groups IV and VIII, in which ZOE-based cements were used. The use of either Ca(OH)2-based (Groups II and VI) or ZO-based (Groups III and VII) cements showed no statistically significant difference (p>0.05) for the different luting cements (RelyX TM ARC and RelyX TM Unicem). The groups that had no temporary cementation (Groups I and V) did not differ significantly from each other either (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: When temporary cementation was done with ZO- or ZOE-based cements and final cementation was done with RelyX ARC, there was an increase in the SBS compared to the control. In the groups cemented with RelyX Unicem, however, the use of a ZOE-based temporary cement affected negatively the SBS of the luting agent used for final cementation

The Mine Action Trauma Care Collaborative: Enhancing Coordination Between Humanitarian Mine Action and the Emergency Health Response to Civilian Casualties of Explosive Ordnance

Modern armed conflict is characterized by the use of a wide variety of explosive weapons (EW), creating complex injury patterns with need for rapid first aid including hemorrhage control close to the point of injury. Yet, in many places where these injuries occur, formal trauma systems are weakened by conflict and resource limitations. In conflict zones, where immediate trauma care is often challenging to access for civilian casualties of EW, the humanitarian mine action (HMA) sector’s unique position and capabilities present a critical opportunity to bridge this gap—a potential that has been realized with the creation of the Mine Action Trauma Care Collaborative (MA-TCC). By fostering collaboration between the mine action sector and health responders, the MA-TCC aims to leverage HMA’s extensive field presence and expertise to enhance trauma care delivery, ensuring a more coordinated, effective response to the urgent medical needs of those injured by EW

A Phylogenomic Study of the Genus Alphavirus Employing Whole Genome Comparison

The phylogenetics of the genus Alphavirus have historically been characterized using partial gene, single gene or partial proteomic data. We have mined cDNA and amino acid sequences from GenBank for all fully sequenced and some partially sequenced alphaviruses and generated phylogenomic analyses of the genus Alphavirus genus, employing capsid encoding structural regions, non-structural coding regions and complete viral genomes. Our studies support the presence of the previously reported recombination event that produced the Western Equine Encephalitis clade, and confirm many of the patterns of geographic radiation and divergence of the multiple species. Our data suggest that the Salmon Pancreatic Disease Virus and Sleeping Disease Virus are sufficiently divergent to form a separate clade from the other alphaviruses. Also, unlike previously reported studies employing limited sequence data for correlation of phylogeny, our results indicate that the Barmah Forest Virus and Middelburg Virus appear to be members of the Semliki Forest clade. Additionally, our analysis indicates that the Southern Elephant Seal Virus is part of the Semliki Forest clade, although still phylogenetically distant from all known members of the genus Alphavirus. Finally, we demonstrate that the whole Rubella viral genome provides an ideal outgroup for phylogenomic studies of the genus Alphavirus

Improving the annotation of the Heterorhabditis bacteriophora genome

Background: Genome assembly and annotation remain exacting tasks. As the tools available for these tasks improve, it is useful to return to data produced with earlier techniques to assess their credibility and correctness. The entomopathogenic nematode Heterorhabditis bacteriophora is widely used to control insect pests in horticulture. The genome sequence for this species was reported to encode an unusually high proportion of unique proteins and a paucity of secreted proteins compared to other related nematodes. Findings: We revisited the H. bacteriophora genome assembly and gene predictions to determine whether these unusual characteristics were biological or methodological in origin. We mapped an independent resequencing dataset to the genome and used the blobtools pipeline to identify potential contaminants. While present (0.2% of the genome span, 0.4% of predicted proteins), assembly contamination was not significant. Conclusions: Re-prediction of the gene set using BRAKER1 and published transcriptome data generated a predicted proteome that was very different from the published one. The new gene set had a much reduced complement of unique proteins, better completeness values that were in line with other related species’ genomes, and an increased number of proteins predicted to be secreted. It is thus likely that methodological issues drove the apparent uniqueness of the initial H. bacteriophora genome annotation and that similar contamination and misannotation issues affect other published genome assemblies

The BLAST Observatory: A sensitivity study for far-IR balloon-borne polarimeters

Sensitive wide-field observations of polarized thermal emission from interstellar dust grains will allow astronomers to address key outstanding questions about the life cycle of matter and energy driving the formation of stars and the evolution of galaxies. Stratospheric balloon-borne telescopes can map this polarized emission at far-infrared wavelengths near the peak of the dust thermal spectrum—wavelengths that are inaccessible from the ground. In this paper we address the sensitivity achievable by a Super Pressure Balloon polarimetry mission, using as an example the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) Observatory. By launching from Wanaka, New Zealand, the BLAST Observatory can obtain a 30 days flight with excellent sky coverage—overcoming limitations of past experiments that suffered from short flight duration and/or launch sites with poor coverage of nearby star-forming regions. This proposed polarimetry mission will map large regions of the sky at sub-arcminute resolution, with simultaneous observations at 175, 250, and 350 μm, using a total of 8274 microwave kinetic inductance detectors. Here, we describe the scientific motivation for the BLAST Observatory, the proposed implementation, and the forecasting methods used to predict its sensitivity. We also compare our forecasted experiment sensitivity with other facilities