The Flame Emission of Indium from a Pyrotechnical View

Until today, all blue‐colored light‐generating pyrotechnics are still based on copper and a halogen‐source providing the blue‐emitting species copper(I) chloride, copper(I) bromide or copper(I) iodide. The use of indium as a potential halogen‐free blue light emitter in modern pyrotechnics is described. Therefore, metallic indium was introduced as both fuel and colorant in various pyrotechnical formulations including guanidine nitrate or potassium nitrate as oxidizing agent as well as magnesium, hexamethylentetramine and 5‐amino‐1H‐tetrazole as fuel. The effect of incandescence was examined by applying different magnesium contents within the mixtures. Emission spectra and occurring emission lines of indium‐based pyrotechnical compositions were recorded and evaluated for the first time. Since the expected blue flame color could not be completely achieved, the emission of indium was discussed from an academic point of view

Social assistance performance in Central and Eastern Europe: A pre-transfer post-transfer comparison

The anti-poverty impact of national social assistance programmes in eight Central and Eastern European countries is examined using data from the European Union-Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Results indicate that social assistance programmes achieve only limited poverty reduction, while spending a significant amount of their resources on the non-poor. The more extensive and generous programmes achieve higher effectiveness in reducing poverty. Efficiency on the other hand appears to be linked only to programme size and not to benefit levels. Unlike Western Europe, no trade-off between effectiveness and efficiency could be detected

Biomarkers in Urachal Cancer and Adenocarcinomas in the Bladder: A Comprehensive Review Supplemented by Own Data

Urachal cancer (UrC) is a rare but aggressive cancer. Due to overlapping histomorphology, discrimination of urachal from primary bladder adenocarcinomas (PBAC) and adenocarcinomas secondarily involving the bladder (particularly colorectal adenocarcinomas, CRC) can be challenging. Therefore, we aimed to give an overview of helpful (immunohistochemical) biomarkers and clinicopathological factors in addition to survival analyses and included institutional data from 12 urachal adenocarcinomas. A PubMed search yielded 319 suitable studies since 1930 in the English literature with 1984 cases of UrC including 1834 adenocarcinomas (92%) and 150 nonadenocarcinomas (8%). UrC was more common in men (63%), showed a median age at diagnosis of 50.8 years and a median tumor size of 6.0 cm. No associations were noted for overall survival and progression-free survival (PFS) and clinicopathological factors beside a favorable PFS in male patients (p = 0.047). The immunohistochemical markers found to be potentially helpful in the differential diagnostic situation are AMACR and CK34betaE12 (UrC versus CRC and PBAC), CK7, beta-Catenin and CD15 (UrC and PBAC versus CRC), and CEA and GATA3 (UrC and CRC versus PBAC). Serum markers like CEA, CA19-9 and CA125 might additionally be useful in the follow-up and monitoring of UrC

Atmospheric mixing ratios of methyl ethyl ketone (2-butanone) in tropical, boreal, temperate and marine environments

Methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) enters the atmosphere following direct emission from vegetation and anthropogenic activities, as well as being produced by the gas-phase oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as n-butane. This study presents the first overview of ambient MEK measurements at six different locations, characteristic of forested, urban and marine environments. In order to understand better the occurrence and behaviour of MEK in the atmosphere, we analyse diel cycles of MEK mixing ratios, vertical profiles, ecosystem flux data, and HYSPLIT back trajectories, and compare with co-measured VOCs. MEK measurements were primarily conducted with proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometer (PTR-MS) instruments. Results from the sites under biogenic influence demonstrate that vegetation is an important source of MEK. The diel cycle of MEK follows that of ambient temperature and the forest structure plays an important role in air mixing. At such sites, a high correlation of MEK with acetone was observed (e.g. r2 = 0.96 for the SMEAR Estonia site in a remote hemiboreal forest in Tartumaa, Estonia, and r2 = 0.89 at the ATTO pristine tropical rainforest site in central Amazonia). Under polluted conditions, we observed strongly enhanced MEK mixing ratios. Overall, the MEK mixing ratios and flux data presented here indicate that both biogenic and anthropogenic sources contribute to its occurrence in the global atmosphere

Transcriptional regulation of the urokinase receptor (u-PAR) - A central molecule of invasion and metastasis

The phenomenon of tumor-associated proteolysis has been acknowledged as a decisive step in the progression of cancer. This short review focuses on the urokinase receptor (u-PAR), a central molecule involved in tumor-associated invasion and metastasis, and summarizes the transcriptional regulation of u-PAR. The urokinase receptor (u-PAR) is a heavily glycosylated cell surface protein and binds the serine protease urokinase specifically and with high affinity. It consists of three similar cysteine-rich repeats and is anchored to the cell membrane via a GPI-anchor. The u-PAR gene comprises 7 exons and is located on chromosome 19q13. Transcriptional activation of the u-PAR promoter region can be induced by binding of transcription factors (Sp1, AP-1, AP-2, NF-kappaB). One current study gives an example for transcriptional downregulation of u-PAR through a PEA3/ets transcriptional silencing element. Knowledge of the molecular regulation of this molecule in tumor cells could be very important for diagnosis and therapy in the near future

The fate of the interstellar medium in early-type galaxies I. First direct measurement of the timescale of dust removal

An important aspect of quenching star formation is the removal of the cold interstellar medium (ISM; non-ionised gas and dust) from a galaxy. In addition, dust grains can be destroyed in a hot or turbulent medium. The adopted timescale of dust removal usually relies on uncertain theoretical estimates. It is tricky to track the dust removal, because usually dust is constantly replenished by consecutive generations of stars. Our objective is to measure observationally the timescale of dust removal. We here explore an approach to select galaxies which do have detectable amounts of dust and cold ISM but exhibit a low current dust production rate. Any decrease of the dust and gas content as a function of the age of such galaxies therefore must be attributed to processes governing the ISM removal. We used a sample of galaxies detected by Herschel in the far-infrared with visually assigned early-type morphology or spirals with red colours. We also obtained JCMT/SCUBA-2 observations for five of them. We discovered an exponential decline of the dust-to-stellar mass ratio with age, which we interpret as an evolutionary trend of dust removal from these galaxies. For the first time we directly measure the dust removal timescale in such galaxies to be tau=(2.5+-0.4) Gyr (the corresponding half-life time is (1.75+-0.25) Gyr). This quantity may be used in models in which it must be assumed a priori and cannot be derived. Any process which removes dust in these galaxies, such as dust grain destruction, cannot happen on shorter timescales. The timescale is comparable to the quenching timescales found in simulations for galaxies with similar stellar masses. The dust is likely of internal, not external origin. It was either formed in the past directly by supernovae, or from seeds produced by SNe and with grain growth in the ISM contributing substantially to the dust mass accumulation.Comment: Astronomy & Astrophysics, accepted; 13 pages, 9 figures, 1 tabl

Precision luminosity measurements at LHCb

Measuring cross-sections at the LHC requires the luminosity to be determined accurately at each centre-of-mass energy √s. In this paper results are reported from the luminosity calibrations carried out at the LHC interaction point 8 with the LHCb detector for √s = 2.76, 7 and 8 TeV (proton-proton collisions) and for √sNN = 5 TeV (proton-lead collisions). Both the "van der Meer scan" and "beam-gas imaging" luminosity calibration methods were employed. It is observed that the beam density profile cannot always be described by a function that is factorizable in the two transverse coordinates. The introduction of a two-dimensional description of the beams improves significantly the consistency of the results. For proton-proton interactions at √s = 8 TeV a relative precision of the luminosity calibration of 1.47% is obtained using van der Meer scans and 1.43% using beam-gas imaging, resulting in a combined precision of 1.12%. Applying the calibration to the full data set determines the luminosity with a precision of 1.16%. This represents the most precise luminosity measurement achieved so far at a bunched-beam hadron collider

The Liquid Argon Jet Trigger of the H1 Experiment at HERA

We report on a novel trigger for the liquid argon calorimeter which was installed in the H1 Experiment at HERA.This trigger, called the “Jet Trigger”, was running at level 1 and implemented a real-time cluster algorithm. Within only 800 ns, the Jet Trigger algorithm found local energy maxima in the calorimeter, summed their immediate neighbors, sorted the resulting jets by energy, and applied topological conditions for the final level 1 trigger decision. The Jet Trigger was in operation from the year 2006 until the end of the HERA running in the summer of 2007. With the Jet Trigger it was possible to substantially reduce the thresholds for triggering on electronsand jets, giving access to a largely extended phase space for physical observables which could not have been reached in H1 before. The concepts of the Jet Trigger may be an interesting upgrade option for the LHC experiments

Performance of the LHCb vertex locator

The Vertex Locator (VELO) is a silicon microstrip detector that surrounds the proton-proton interaction region in the LHCb experiment. The performance of the detector during the first years of its physics operation is reviewed. The system is operated in vacuum, uses a bi-phase CO2 cooling system, and the sensors are moved to 7 mm from the LHC beam for physics data taking. The performance and stability of these characteristic features of the detector are described, and details of the material budget are given. The calibration of the timing and the data processing algorithms that are implemented in FPGAs are described. The system performance is fully characterised. The sensors have a signal to noise ratio of approximately 20 and a best hit resolution of 4 μm is achieved at the optimal track angle. The typical detector occupancy for minimum bias events in standard operating conditions in 2011 is around 0.5%, and the detector has less than 1% of faulty strips. The proximity of the detector to the beam means that the inner regions of the n+-on-n sensors have undergone space-charge sign inversion due to radiation damage. The VELO performance parameters that drive the experiment's physics sensitivity are also given. The track finding efficiency of the VELO is typically above 98% and the modules have been aligned to a precision of 1 μm for translations in the plane transverse to the beam. A primary vertex resolution of 13 μm in the transverse plane and 71 μm along the beam axis is achieved for vertices with 25 tracks. An impact parameter resolution of less than 35 μm is achieved for particles with transverse momentum greater than 1 GeV/c

An Experiential View to Children Learning in Museums with Augmented Reality

Museums facilitate schoolchildren’s experiential learning, and when combined with Augmented Reality (AR) applications, schoolchildren can benefit from interactive, engaging learning experiences. Experiential learning is therefore situated in a context relevant to schoolchildren’s learning experience with digital technologies such as AR in museums, hence, it seems appropriate to employ Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle as a theoretical base. A museum in the UK was used as a single case study, and experiments and three focus groups were conducted with 19 schoolchildren and data analysed using thematic analysis. This study revealed three new themes specific to schoolchildren’s experiential learning experiences with AR in museums including: (1) integrating AR could further enhance knowledge acquisition, (2) schoolchildren were able to identify their preferred learning style, and (3) schoolchildren are motivated to continue learning with AR in museums. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are presented, as well as suggestions for future research