Recommendations for MYRRHA relevant cross section data to the JEFF project

Within the framework of Work Package 10 of the EC FP7 CHANDA project, nuclear data of importance for the operation of MYRRHA, a lead-bismuth cooled accelerator driven reactor under development at SCK•CEN (BE), were studied. Based on data in the main nuclear data libraries, i.e. JEFF, JENDL, ENDF/B and BROND, and in the TENDL and CIELO libraries and on experimental data reported in the literature, recommendations to the JEFF project were made for several nuclides of interest to the MYRRHA reactor.JRC.G.2-Standards for Nuclear Safety, Security and Safeguard

A Smooth Interface Method for Simulating Liquid Crystal Colloid Dispersions

A new method is presented for mesoscopic simulations of particle dispersions in liquid crystal solvents. It allows efficient first-principle simulations of the dispersions involving many particles with many-body interactions mediated by the solvents. Demonstrations have been performed for the aggregation of colloid dispersions in two-dimensional nematic and smectic-C* solvents neglecting hydrodynamic effects, which will be taken into account in the near future.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Modes of Foreign Entry under Asymmetric Information about Potential Technology Spillovers

This paper studies the effect of technology spillovers on the entry decision of a multinational enterprise into a foreign market. Two alternative entry modes for a foreign direct investment are considered: Greenfield investment versus acquisition. We find that with quantity competition a spillover makes acquisitions less attractive, while with price competition acquisitions become more attractive. Asymmetric information about potential spillovers always reduces the number of acquisitions independently of whether the host country or the entrant has private information. Interestingly, we find that asymmetric information always hurts the entrant, while it sometimes is in favor of the host country

Early results of treatment for congenital clubfoot using the Ponseti method

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the early results of the Ponseti method in reducing extensive corrective surgery rates for congenital idiopathic clubfoot in patients treated in Children’s Orthopaedic Clinic and Rehabilitation Department Medical University of Lublin between the years 2007–2011. Thirty-five patients with 47 idiopathic clubfeet were followed prospectively while being managed with the Ponseti method. Clubfoot severity was graded with use of the Dimeglio system. The initial correction was achieved, and early results were measured by using Pirani scoring method

Uncovering Disease Mechanisms in a Novel Mouse Model Expressing Humanized APOEε4 and Trem2*R47H.

Late-onset Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD; LOAD) is the most common human neurodegenerative disease, however, the availability and efficacy of disease-modifying interventions is severely lacking. Despite exceptional efforts to understand disease progression via legacy amyloidogenic transgene mouse models, focus on disease translation with innovative mouse strains that better model the complexity of human AD is required to accelerate the development of future treatment modalities. LOAD within the human population is a polygenic and environmentally influenced disease with many risk factors acting in concert to produce disease processes parallel to those often muted by the early and aggressive aggregate formation in popular mouse strains. In addition to extracellular deposits of amyloid plaques and inclusions of the microtubule-associated protein tau, AD is also defined by synaptic/neuronal loss, vascular deficits, and neuroinflammation. These underlying processes need to be better defined, how the disease progresses with age, and compared to human-relevant outcomes. To create more translatable mouse models, MODEL-AD (Model Organism Development and Evaluation for Late-onset AD) groups are identifying and integrating disease-relevant, humanized gene sequences from public databases beginning with APOEε4 and Trem2*R47H, two of the most powerful risk factors present in human LOAD populations. Mice expressing endogenous, humanized APOEε4 and Trem2*R47H gene sequences were extensively aged and assayed using a multi-disciplined phenotyping approach associated with and relative to human AD pathology. Robust analytical pipelines measured behavioral, transcriptomic, metabolic, and neuropathological phenotypes in cross-sectional cohorts for progression of disease hallmarks at all life stages. In vivo PET/MRI neuroimaging revealed regional alterations in glycolytic metabolism and vascular perfusion. Transcriptional profiling by RNA-Seq of brain hemispheres identified sex and age as the main sources of variation between genotypes including age-specific enrichment of AD-related processes. Similarly, age was the strongest determinant of behavioral change. In the absence of mouse amyloid plaque formation, many of the hallmarks of AD were not observed in this strain. However, as a sensitized baseline model with many additional alleles and environmental modifications already appended, the dataset from this initial MODEL-AD strain serves an important role in establishing the individual effects and interaction between two strong genetic risk factors for LOAD in a mouse host

Design and control of a bio-inspired soft wearable robotic device for ankle-foot rehabilitation

Abstract We describe the design and control of a wearable robotic device powered by pneumatic artificial muscle actuators for use in ankle-foot rehabilitation. The design is inspired by the biological musculoskeletal system of the human foot and lower leg, mimicking the morphology and the functionality of the biological muscle-tendon-ligament structure. A key feature of the device is its soft structure that provides active assistance without restricting natural degrees of freedom at the ankle joint. Four pneumatic artificial muscles assist dorsiflexion and plantarflexion as well as inversion and eversion. The prototype is also equipped with various embedded sensors for gait pattern analysis. For the subject tested, the prototype is capable of generating an ankle range of motion of 27 • (14 • dorsiflexion and 13 • plantarflexion). The controllability of the system is experimentally demonstrated using a linear time-invariant (LTI) controller. The controller is found using an identified LTI model of the system, resulting from the interaction of the soft orthotic device with a human leg, and model-based classical control design techniques. The suitability of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated with several angle-reference following experiments

Astrophysical S-factor of 4He12C radiative capture at low energies

The possibility to describe the astrophysical S-factor of the 4He12C radiative capture is considered in the potential cluster model at the energy range 0.1-4.0 MeV. It is shown that the approach used, which takes into account E2 transitions only, gives a good description of the new experimental data for adjusted parameters of potentials and leads to the value S(300) = 16.0$\cdotp$keV b.Comment: 8 Pag

Multi-instrumental observations of a positive gigantic jet produced by a winter thunderstorm in Europe

At 2336:56 UTC on 12 December 2009, a bright gigantic jet (GJ) was recorded by an observer in Italy. Forty-nine additional sprites, elves, halos and two cases of upward lightning were observed that night. The location of the GJ corresponded to a distinct cloud top (-34°C) west of Ajaccio, Corsica. The GJ reached approximately 91 km altitude, with a "trailing jet" reaching 49-59 km, matching with earlier reported GJs. The duration was short at 120-160 ms. This is the first documented GJ which emerged from a maritime winter thunderstorm only 6.5 km tall, showing high cloud tops are not required for initiation of GJs. In the presence of strong vertical wind shear, the meteorological situation was different from typical outbreaks of fall and winter thunderstorms in the Mediterranean. During the trailing jet phase of the GJ, a sprite with halo triggered by a nearby cloud-to-ground lightning flash occurred at a relatively low altitude (<72 km). At the same time, the trailing jet and beads were reilluminated. Electromagnetic waveforms from Hungary, Poland, and the USA revealed this GJ is the first reported to transfer negative charge (approximately 136 C) from the ionosphere to the positively charged origins in the cloud (i.e., a positive cloud-to-ionosphere discharge, +CI), with a large total charge moment change of 11600 C km and a maximum current of 3.3 kA. Early VLF transmitter amplitude perturbations detected concurrently with the GJ confirm the production of large conductivity changes due to electron density enhancements in the D-region of the ionosphere. Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union