Titanium honeycomb acoustic lining structural and thermal test report

The results are presented of static, fatigue and thermal testing of titanium honeycomb acoustic panels representing the acoustic tailpipe for the Pratt and Whitney Aircraft JT8D Refan engine which is being studied for use on the Boeing 727-200 airplane. Test specimens represented the engine and tailpipe flange joints, the rail to which the thrust reverser is attached and shear specimens of the tailpipe honeycomb. Specimens were made in four different batches with variations in configuration, materials and processes in each. Static strength of all test specimens exceeded the design ultimate load requirements. Fatigue test results confirmed that aluminum brazed titanium, as used in the Refan tailpipe design, meets the fatigue durability objectives. Quality of welding was found to be critical to life, with substandard welding failing prematurely, whereas welding within the process specification exceeded the panel skin life. Initial fatigue testing used short grip length bolts which failed prematurely. These were replaced with longer bolts and subsequent testing demonstrated the required life. Thermal tests indicate that perforated skin acoustic honeycomb has approximately twice the heat transfer of solid skin honeycomb

An assessment of nitrogen fixation in 'organically managed' spring-sown lupins and leaching under a following winter cereal

Three spring-sown species of lupins (Bora, Prima and Wodjil) and peas were compared in terms of N fixation and subsequent leaching under a following winter cereal crop. Although peas out-yielded lupins (5.4 t compared with ca 3.5 t grain, respectively), the yellow lupin (Wodjil) fixed more N than peas (180 compared with 120 kg N ha-1) and all three lupins contained more protein (> 30%) than the peas (22%). Wodjil was the most effective at suppressing weeds, carrying only 12% of the weed burden found in fallow plots, followed by peas (19%). Winter leaching amounted to > 50 kg nitrate-N ha-1 from under the winter cereal, regardless of whether the previous treatment was a legume crop or was left fallow. There were no significant differences in leaching between the three species of lupin. Leachate in the first 350 mm of drainage under the winter cereal exceeded the EU limit on nitrate in drinking water in all treatments. This work is part of a wider collaborative study supported by Defra which covers a range of UK sites

Set in Stone: Building America's New Generation of Arts Facilities, 1994-2008

In 2007, just before the domestic economy experienced a major trauma, the Cultural Policy Center at the Harris School and NORC at the University of Chicago launched a national study of cultural building in the United States. It was motivated by multiple requests from leading consultants in the cultural sector who found themselves involved in a steadily growing number of major building projects -- museums, performing arts centers (PACs), and theaters -- and from foundation officers who were frequently asked to help fund these infrastructure projects. With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, we were able to conduct systematic scientific research on cultural building in the United States between 1994 and 2008 and come to a number of conclusions that have important implications for the cultural sector

Field Experiments to Help Optimise Nitrogen Fixation by Legumes on Organic Farms

During an organic rotation, the aim is to increase the nitrogen (N) content of the soil (and hence build up soil fertility) by recycling crop residues, applying manures/composts and from N fixed by legumes. IGER, with ADAS, Duchy College Cornwall and Abacus Organic Associates are developing improved guidance for organic farmers in the use of fertility-building crops. The main questions are: how to maximise N fixation and how to make the most efficient use of the fixed N? Available soil mineral N, which is generally thought to reduce N fixation, will be increased by manure applications, cutting/mulching and grazing. We describe an experiment to establish the extent to which animal and green manures can adversely affect N fixation. The results from the first year (2003) were reported recently (Hatch et al., 2004). Here we summarise the findings from 2 years’ results (2003-4) to show the changes that occurred after the legume crop became fully established

Facile Preparation of Organic Nanoparticles by Interfacial Cross-Linking of Reverse Micelles and Template Synthesis of Subnanometer Au−Pt Nanoparticles

A single- and a double-tailed cationic surfactant with the triallylammonium headgroup formed reverse micelles (RMs) in heptane/chloroform containing a small amount of water. The reverse micelles were cross-linked at the interface upon UV irradiation in the presence of a water-soluble dithiol cross-linker and a photoinitiator. The resulting interfacially cross-linked reverse micelles (ICRMs) of the single-tailed surfactant aggregated in a solvent-dependent fashion, whereas those of the double-tailed were identical in size as the corresponding RMs. The ICRMs could extract anionic metal salts, such as AuCl4− and PtCl62−, from water into the organic phase. Au and Pt metal nanoparticles were produced upon reduction of metal salts. The covalent nature of the ICRMs made the template synthesis highly predictable, with the size of the metal particles controlled by the amount of the metal salt and the method of reduction. Nanoalloys were obtained by combining two metal precursors in the same reaction. Reduction of the ICRM-entrapped aurate also occurred without any external reducing agents, and the gold nanoparticles differed dramatically from those obtained through sodium borohydride reduction. The same template allowed the preparation of luminescent Au4, Au8, and Au13−Au23 clusters, as well as gold nanoparticles several nanometers in size, simply by using different amounts of gold precursor and reducing conditions

Glial Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha (TNFα) Generates Metaplastic Inhibition of Spinal Learning

Injury-induced overexpression of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) in the spinal cord can induce chronic neuroinflammation and excitotoxicity that ultimately undermines functional recovery. Here we investigate how TNFα might also act to upset spinal function by modulating spinal plasticity. Using a model of instrumental learning in the injured spinal cord, we have previously shown that peripheral intermittent stimulation can produce a plastic change in spinal plasticity (metaplasticity), resulting in the prolonged inhibition of spinal learning. We hypothesized that spinal metaplasticity may be mediated by TNFα. We found that intermittent stimulation increased protein levels in the spinal cord. Using intrathecal pharmacological manipulations, we showed TNFα to be both necessary and sufficient for the long-term inhibition of a spinal instrumental learning task. These effects were found to be dependent on glial production of TNFα and involved downstream alterations in calcium-permeable AMPA receptors. These findings suggest a crucial role for glial TNFα in undermining spinal learning, and demonstrate the therapeutic potential of inhibiting TNFα activity to rescue and restore adaptive spinal plasticity to the injured spinal cord. TNFα modulation represents a novel therapeutic target for improving rehabilitation after spinal cord injury

Syndromics: A Bioinformatics Approach for Neurotrauma Research

Substantial scientific progress has been made in the past 50 years in delineating many of the biological mechanisms involved in the primary and secondary injuries following trauma to the spinal cord and brain. These advances have highlighted numerous potential therapeutic approaches that may help restore function after injury. Despite these advances, bench-to-bedside translation has remained elusive. Translational testing of novel therapies requires standardized measures of function for comparison across different laboratories, paradigms, and species. Although numerous functional assessments have been developed in animal models, it remains unclear how to best integrate this information to describe the complete translational “syndrome” produced by neurotrauma. The present paper describes a multivariate statistical framework for integrating diverse neurotrauma data and reviews the few papers to date that have taken an information-intensive approach for basic neurotrauma research. We argue that these papers can be described as the seminal works of a new field that we call “syndromics”, which aim to apply informatics tools to disease models to characterize the full set of mechanistic inter-relationships from multi-scale data. In the future, centralized databases of raw neurotrauma data will enable better syndromic approaches and aid future translational research, leading to more efficient testing regimens and more clinically relevant findings

The horror of orthodoxy: Christina Mirabilis, thirteenth-century ‘zombie’ saint

In 1232, Thomas of Cantimpré wrote his Life of Christina Mirabilis (c. 1150–1224), an account of the miraculous life and three deaths of an unenclosed holy woman from the Low Countries. The text opens with an explicit vindication of Christina’s return(s) as divinely mandated. Yet, the narrative shows that her community struggles to deal with the revenant in their midst. Through her example, they must confront the terrifying mechanics of purgatory, resurrection, and the co-incidence of body and soul. A similar unease is found in modern scholarship, in which Christina is typically referred to dismissively in terms more commonly applied to cinematic monsters. I work with such dismissive language – specifically the term ‘zombie’ – to move beyond this heuristic roadblock. The terms of filmic zombie-ism provide new insight into the merging of orthodoxy and terror in Christina’s vita