Ultra thin gage plastic film

Process utilizing specially modified conventional equipment, with changes in process temperature, pressure, and cooling requirements produces ultra thin 1.56 micron /0.0614 mil/ thick polyethylene film

Ultra thin gauge polymeric films for space applications

Ultrathin gauge polymeric films for use in improving passive communications satellites and for cryogenic application

Orientation Control Method and System for Object in Motion

An object in motion has a force applied thereto at a point of application. By moving the point of application such that the distance between the object's center-of-mass and the point of application is changed, the object's orientation can be changed/adjusted

Phase 2: HGM air flow tests in support of HEX vane investigation

Following the start of SSME certification testing for the Pratt and Whitney Alternate Turbopump Development (ATD) High Pressure Oxidizer Turbopump (HPOTP), cracking of the leading edge of the inner HEX vane was experienced. The HEX vane, at the inlet of the oxidizer bowl in the Hot Gas Manifold (HGM), accepts the HPOTP turbine discharge flow and turns it toward the Gaseous Oxidizer Heat Exchanger (GOX HEX) coil. The cracking consistently initiated over a specific circumferential region of the hex vane, with other circumferential locations appearing with increased run time. Since cracking had not to date been seen with the baseline HPOTP, a fluid-structural interaction involving the ATD HPOTP turbine exit flowfield and the HEX inner vane was suspected. As part of NASA contract NAS8-36801, Pratt and Whitney conducted air flow tests of the ATD HPOTP turbine turnaround duct flowpath in the MSFC Phase 2 HGM air flow model. These tests included HEX vane strain gages and additional fluctuating pressure gages in the turnaround duct and HEX vane flowpath area. Three-dimensional flow probe measurements at two stations downstream of the turbine simulator exit plane were also made. Modifications to the HPOTP turbine simulator investigated the effects on turbine exit flow profile and velocity components, with the objective of reproducing flow conditions calculated for the actual ATD HPOTP hardware. Testing was done at the MSFC SSME Dynamic Fluid Air Flow (Dual-Leg) Facility, at air supply pressures between 50 and 250 psia. Combinations of turbine exit Mach number and pressure level were run to investigate the effect of flow regime. Information presented includes: (1) Descriptions of turbine simulator modifications to produce the desired flow environment; (2) Types and locations for instrumentation added to the flow model for improved diagnostic capability; (3) Evaluation of the effect of changes to the turbine simulator flowpath on the turbine exit flow environment; and (4) Comparison of the experimental turbine exit flow environment to the environment calculated for the ATD HPOTP

Analytical continuation of imaginary axis data for optical conductivity

We compare different methods for performing analytical continuation of spectral data from the imaginary time or frequency axis to the real frequency axis for the optical conductivity sigma(omega). We compare the maximum entropy (MaxEnt), singular value decomposition (SVD), sampling and Pade methods for analytical continuation. We also study two direct methods for obtaining sigma(0). For the MaxEnt approach we focus on a recent modification. The data are split up in batches, a separate MaxEnt calculation is done for each batch and the results are averaged. For the problems studied here, we find that typically the SVD, sampling and modified MaxEnt methods give comparable accuracy, while the Pade approximation is usually less reliable.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Risk-shifting Through Issuer Liability and Corporate Monitoring

This article explores how issuer liability re-allocates fraud risk and how risk allocation may reduce the incidence of fraud. In the US, the apparent absence of individual liability of officeholders and insufficient monitoring by insurers under-mine the potential deterrent effect of securities litigation. The underlying reasons why both mechanisms remain ineffective are collective action problems under the prevailing dispersed ownership structure, which eliminates the incentives to moni-tor set by issuer liability. This article suggests that issuer liability could potentially have a stronger deterrent effect when it shifts risk to individuals or entities holding a larger financial stake. Thus, it would enlist large shareholders in monitoring in much of Europe. The same risk-shifting effect also has implications for the debate about the relationship between securities litigation and creditor interests. Credi-tors’ claims should not be given precedence over claims of defrauded investors (e.g., because of the capital maintenance principle), since bearing some of the fraud risk will more strongly incentivise large creditors, such as banks, to monitor the firm in jurisdictions where corporate debt is relatively concentrated

Slepian functions and their use in signal estimation and spectral analysis

It is a well-known fact that mathematical functions that are timelimited (or spacelimited) cannot be simultaneously bandlimited (in frequency). Yet the finite precision of measurement and computation unavoidably bandlimits our observation and modeling scientific data, and we often only have access to, or are only interested in, a study area that is temporally or spatially bounded. In the geosciences we may be interested in spectrally modeling a time series defined only on a certain interval, or we may want to characterize a specific geographical area observed using an effectively bandlimited measurement device. It is clear that analyzing and representing scientific data of this kind will be facilitated if a basis of functions can be found that are "spatiospectrally" concentrated, i.e. "localized" in both domains at the same time. Here, we give a theoretical overview of one particular approach to this "concentration" problem, as originally proposed for time series by Slepian and coworkers, in the 1960s. We show how this framework leads to practical algorithms and statistically performant methods for the analysis of signals and their power spectra in one and two dimensions, and on the surface of a sphere.Comment: Submitted to the Handbook of Geomathematics, edited by Willi Freeden, Zuhair M. Nashed and Thomas Sonar, and to be published by Springer Verla

The Interstellar Environment of our Galaxy

We review the current knowledge and understanding of the interstellar medium of our galaxy. We first present each of the three basic constituents - ordinary matter, cosmic rays, and magnetic fields - of the interstellar medium, laying emphasis on their physical and chemical properties inferred from a broad range of observations. We then position the different interstellar constituents, both with respect to each other and with respect to stars, within the general galactic ecosystem.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures (including 3 figures in 2 parts

SILAC-based phosphoproteomics reveals an inhibitory role of KSR1 in p53 transcriptional activity via modulation of DBC1

BACKGROUND We have previously identified kinase suppressor of ras-1 (KSR1) as a potential regulatory gene in breast cancer. KSR1, originally described as a novel protein kinase, has a role in activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases. Emerging evidence has shown that KSR1 may have dual functions as an active kinase as well as a scaffold facilitating multiprotein complex assembly. Although efforts have been made to study the role of KSR1 in certain tumour types, its involvement in breast cancer remains unknown. METHODS A quantitative mass spectrometry analysis using stable isotope labelling of amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) was implemented to identify KSR1-regulated phosphoproteins in breast cancer. In vitro luciferase assays, co-immunoprecipitation as well as western blotting experiments were performed to further study the function of KSR1 in breast cancer. RESULTS Of significance, proteomic analysis reveals that KSR1 overexpression decreases deleted in breast cancer-1 (DBC1) phosphorylation. Furthermore, we show that KSR1 decreases the transcriptional activity of p53 by reducing the phosphorylation of DBC1, which leads to a reduced interaction of DBC1 with sirtuin-1 (SIRT1); this in turn enables SIRT1 to deacetylate p53. CONCLUSION Our findings integrate KSR1 into a network involving DBC1 and SIRT1, which results in the regulation of p53 acetylation and its transcriptional activity