Thermography Inspection for Early Detection of Composite Damage in Structures During Fatigue Loading

Advanced composite structures are commonly tested under controlled loading. Understanding the initiation and progression of composite damage under load is critical for validating design concepts and structural analysis tools. Thermal nondestructive evaluation (NDE) is used to detect and characterize damage in composite structures during fatigue loading. A difference image processing algorithm is demonstrated to enhance damage detection and characterization by removing thermal variations not associated with defects. In addition, a one-dimensional multilayered thermal model is used to characterize damage. Lastly, the thermography results are compared to other inspections such as non-immersion ultrasonic inspections and computed tomography X-ray

Gendered endings: Narratives of male and female suicides in the South African Lowveld

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9258-y. Copyright @ Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012.Durkheim’s classical theory of suicide rates being a negative index of social solidarity downplays the salience of gendered concerns in suicide. But gendered inequalities have had a negative impact: worldwide significantly more men than women perpetrate fatal suicides. Drawing on narratives of 52 fatal suicides in Bushbuckridge, South Africa, this article suggests that Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘masculine domination’ provide a more appropriate framework for understanding this paradox. I show that the thwarting of investments in dominant masculine positions have been the major precursor to suicides by men. Men tended to take their own lives as a means of escape. By contrast, women perpetrated suicide to protest against the miserable consequences of being dominated by men. However, contra the assumption of Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’, the narrators of suicide stories did reflect critically upon gender constructs

Prolonged Survival in a Patient with Neuroendocrine Tumor of the Cecum and Diffuse Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis is a well-known factor of poor prognosis in patients with digestive adenocarcinomas. Peritoneal dissemination may also occur in midgut well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors, but its influence on survival is ill-defined. We report here the history of a 64-year-old woman who had a neuroendocrine tumor of the cecum with multiple synchronous metastases in the liver and diffuse peritoneal carcinomatosis. She underwent surgical resection of the primary tumor and cytoreduction of liver metastases, and received subsequently chemotherapy and somatostatin analogs. In spite of the widespread extension of the disease, she survived for 13 years and died from a carcinoid heart disease. We discuss the natural history and prognostic factors in patients with midgut well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors, with a focus on the impact of the peritoneal carcinomatosis

Genetic events in the progression of adenoid cystic carcinoma of the breast to high-grade triple-negative breast cancer

Adenoid cystic carcinoma of the breast is a rare histologic type of triple-negative breast cancer with an indolent clinical behavior, often driven by the MYB-NFIB fusion gene. Here we sought to define the repertoire of somatic genetic alterations in two adenoid cystic carcinomas associated with high-grade triple-negative breast cancer. The different components of each case were subjected to copy number profiling and massively parallel sequencing targeting all exons and selected regulatory and intronic regions of 488 genes. Reverse transcription PCR and fluorescence in situ hybridization were employed to investigate the presence of the MYB-NFIB translocation. The MYB-NFIB fusion gene was detected in both adenoid cystic carcinomas and their associated high-grade triple-negative breast cancer components. Whilst the distinct components of both cases displayed similar patterns of gene copy number alterations, massively parallel sequencing analysis revealed intra-tumor genetic heterogeneity. In case 1, progression from the trabecular adenoid cystic carcinoma to the high-grade triple-negative breast cancer was found to involve clonal shifts with enrichment of mutations affecting EP300, NOTCH1, ERBB2 and FGFR1 in the high-grade triple-negative breast cancer. In case 2, a clonal KMT2C mutation was present in the cribriform adenoid cystic carcinoma, solid adenoid cystic carcinoma and high-grade triple-negative breast cancer components, whereas a mutation affecting MYB was present only in the solid and high-grade triple-negative breast cancer areas and additional three mutations targeting STAG2, KDM6A and CDK12 were restricted to the high-grade triple-negative breast cancer. In conclusion, adenoid cystic carcinomas of the breast with high-grade transformation are underpinned by MYB-NFIB fusion gene, and, akin to other forms of cancer, may be constituted by a mosaic of cancer cell clones at diagnosis. The progression from adenoid cystic carcinoma to high-grade triple-negative breast cancer of no special type may involve the selection of neoplastic clones and/ or the acquisition of additional genetic alterations

The nature and space density of fossil groups of galaxies

We describe the properties of a sample of galaxy groups with very unusual distributions of galaxy luminosities. The most extreme example has an X-ray luminosity similar to that of the Virgo cluster but has a very low richness, with only one galaxy brighter than L*, compared with six in Virgo. That one galaxy, however, is optically more luminous than any galaxy in Virgo and has an optical luminosity as bright as many of the central cD galaxies in rich Abell clusters. The characteristic feature of the fossil groups we study is that most of the light arises from one dominant, central galaxy. We define a fossil system and, based on this definition, construct a small X-ray selected, flux-limited sample of fossil groups with well known selection criteria. We confirm that these systems are indeed groups of galaxies, but dominated by one central luminous giant elliptical galaxy and with few, or no, L* galaxies. We find that fossil systems represent 8%-20% of all systems of the same X-ray luminosity. Fossil groups are at least as numerous as all poor and rich clusters combined, and are thus a possible site for the formation of luminous central cluster galaxies before infall into clusters occurs. The fossil systems in our sample have significantly higher X-ray luminosities than normal groups of similar total optical luminosities (or similar X-ray temperature, where the latter can be measured). These enhanced X-ray luminosities may be due to relatively cool gas in the innermost regions or due to a low central gas entropy. We interpret fossil groups as old, undisturbed systems which have avoided infall into clusters, but where galaxy merging of most of the L* galaxies has occurred. An early formation epoch, before that of most groups, could explain low central gas entropies and high X-ray luminosities.Comment: to appear in MNRAS, 13 pages, 8 figure

Managing Wicked Herbicide-Resistance: Lessons from the Field

Herbicide resistance is ‘wicked’ in nature; therefore, results of the many educational efforts to encourage diversification of weed control practices in the United States have been mixed. It is clear that we do not sufficiently understand the totality of the grassroots obstacles, concerns, challenges, and specific solutions needed for varied crop production systems. Weed management issues and solutions vary with such variables as management styles, regions, cropping systems, and available or affordable technologies. Therefore, to help the weed science community better understand the needs and ideas of those directly dealing with herbicide resistance, seven half-day regional listening sessions were held across the United States between December 2016 and April 2017 with groups of diverse stakeholders on the issues and potential solutions for herbicide resistance management. The major goals of the sessions were to gain an understanding of stakeholders and their goals and concerns related to herbicide resistance management, to become familiar with regional differences, and to identify decision maker needs to address herbicide resistance. The messages shared by listening-session participants could be summarized by six themes: we need new herbicides; there is no need for more regulation; there is a need for more education, especially for others who were not present; diversity is hard; the agricultural economy makes it difficult to make changes; and we are aware of herbicide resistance but are managing it. The authors concluded that more work is needed to bring a community-wide, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the complexity of managing weeds within the context of the whole farm operation and for communicating the need to address herbicide resistance

Managing Wicked Herbicide-Resistance: Lessons from the Field

Herbicide resistance is ‘wicked’ in nature; therefore, results of the many educational efforts to encourage diversification of weed control practices in the United States have been mixed. It is clear that we do not sufficiently understand the totality of the grassroots obstacles, concerns, challenges, and specific solutions needed for varied crop production systems. Weed management issues and solutions vary with such variables as management styles, regions, cropping systems, and available or affordable technologies. Therefore, to help the weed science community better understand the needs and ideas of those directly dealing with herbicide resistance, seven half-day regional listening sessions were held across the United States between December 2016 and April 2017 with groups of diverse stakeholders on the issues and potential solutions for herbicide resistance management. The major goals of the sessions were to gain an understanding of stakeholders and their goals and concerns related to herbicide resistance management, to become familiar with regional differences, and to identify decision maker needs to address herbicide resistance. The messages shared by listening-session participants could be summarized by six themes: we need new herbicides; there is no need for more regulation; there is a need for more education, especially for others who were not present; diversity is hard; the agricultural economy makes it difficult to make changes; and we are aware of herbicide resistance but are managing it. The authors concluded that more work is needed to bring a community-wide, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the complexity of managing weeds within the context of the whole farm operation and for communicating the need to address herbicide resistance

Measurement of χ c1 and χ c2 production with s√ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

The prompt and non-prompt production cross-sections for the χ c1 and χ c2 charmonium states are measured in pp collisions at s√ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using 4.5 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. The χ c states are reconstructed through the radiative decay χ c → J/ψγ (with J/ψ → μ + μ −) where photons are reconstructed from γ → e + e − conversions. The production rate of the χ c2 state relative to the χ c1 state is measured for prompt and non-prompt χ c as a function of J/ψ transverse momentum. The prompt χ c cross-sections are combined with existing measurements of prompt J/ψ production to derive the fraction of prompt J/ψ produced in feed-down from χ c decays. The fractions of χ c1 and χ c2 produced in b-hadron decays are also measured

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson