371 research outputs found
Two-stage potassium test turbine. Volume 3 - Test facilities
Design, and performance of facility for Rankine cycle testing of two stage potassium vapor turbin
Semiclassical wave equation and exactness of the WKB method
The exactness of the semiclassical method for three-dimensional problems in
quantum mechanics is analyzed. The wave equation appropriate in the
quasiclassical region is derived. It is shown that application of the standard
leading-order WKB quantization condition to this equation reproduces exact
energy eigenvalues for all solvable spherically symmetric potentials.Comment: 13 page
Weight gain and enteric methane production of cattle fed on tropical grasses
Context: Planted grasses are becoming an increasingly important feed resource for tropical smallholder ruminant production; yet, limited research has been conducted to quantify productivity or enteric methane (CH) production of animals consuming these grasses.
Aim: An experiment was conducted to assess yields and nutritional attributes of the following three tropical grasses: Cenchrus purpureus var. Kakamega 1 (Napier), Chloris gayana var. Boma (Rhodes) and Urochloa brizantha var. Xaeres (Brachiaria), and quantify enteric CH production of cattle fed on them.
Methods: Yearling Boran steers (n:18; initial liveweight 216 ± 5.8 kg (mean ± s.e.m.) were allocated to one of three grasses, in a completely randomised design and fed ad libitum for two feeding periods, each period lasting for 70 days. Intake, liveweight (LW), apparent total-tract digestibility and enteric CH production were assessed. The grasses used were grown on site and biomass yields were monitored over a 2-year period. Animal growth was also simulated to a final weight of 350 kg, and the amount of feed and size of land required to produce, and days to reach final weight, were estimated.
Key results: Mean voluntary dry-matter intake (DMI) and ADG were higher (P 0.05) within period. Methane yield (MY; CH g/DMI kg) was similar among treatments (26.7–28.5, P = 0.26) but Napier had a higher CH conversion factor [Ym; CH (MJ)/gross energy intake (MJ)] than did Rhodes and Brachiaria (0.0987 vs 0.0873 and 0.0903 respectively; P = 0.013). Our modelling indicated that steers consuming Rhodes took at least 30 more days to reach the target LW, required larger land area for feed production and produced more enteric CH than did the other two diets.
Conclusion: Even though animal performance and MY among treatments did not differ, the animals had higher MY and Y than currently estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Implication: The three grasses supported similar animal growth rate, implying that growing of higher-yielding grasses such as Napier offers an opportunity to optimise land productivity in the tropics. However, suitable feeding practices such as protein supplementation need to be explored to enhance ruminant production and reduce enteric CH production
Local T/B cooperation in inflamed tissues is supported by T follicular helper-like cells
Autoimmune diseases and other inflammatory conditions are characterized by large lymphocytic tissue infiltrates in which T and B cells can be found in close contact. Here, using a murine airway inflammation model, we compare antigen-specific T and B cells in lung tissue versus lung-draining lymph node. In the lung we identify a B-cell population exhibiting a classical germinal centre phenotype without being organized into ectopic lymphoid tissue. By contrast, classical CXCR5+ Bcl-6+ T follicular helper cells are not present. Nevertheless, lung-infiltrating T cells exhibit follicular helper-like properties including the potential to provide help to naive B cells. The lung tissue is also a survival niche for memory T and B cells remaining in residual peribronchial infiltrates after resolution of inflammation. Collectively, this study shows the importance of T/B cooperation not only in lymph nodes but also in inflamed peripheral tissues for local antibody responses to infection and autoimmunity
Mechanisms controlling anaemia in Trypanosoma congolense infected mice.
Trypanosoma congolense are extracellular protozoan parasites of the blood stream of artiodactyls and are one of the main constraints on cattle production in Africa. In cattle, anaemia is the key feature of disease and persists after parasitaemia has declined to low or undetectable levels, but treatment to clear the parasites usually resolves the anaemia. The progress of anaemia after Trypanosoma congolense infection was followed in three mouse strains. Anaemia developed rapidly in all three strains until the peak of the first wave of parasitaemia. This was followed by a second phase, characterized by slower progress to severe anaemia in C57BL/6, by slow recovery in surviving A/J and a rapid recovery in BALB/c. There was no association between parasitaemia and severity of anaemia. Furthermore, functional T lymphocytes are not required for the induction of anaemia, since suppression of T cell activity with Cyclosporin A had neither an effect on the course of infection nor on anaemia. Expression of genes involved in erythropoiesis and iron metabolism was followed in spleen, liver and kidney tissues in the three strains of mice using microarrays. There was no evidence for a response to erythropoietin, consistent with anaemia of chronic disease, which is erythropoietin insensitive. However, the expression of transcription factors and genes involved in erythropoiesis and haemolysis did correlate with the expression of the inflammatory cytokines Il6 and Ifng. The innate immune response appears to be the major contributor to the inflammation associated with anaemia since suppression of T cells with CsA had no observable effect. Several transcription factors regulating haematopoiesis, Tal1, Gata1, Zfpm1 and Klf1 were expressed at consistently lower levels in C57BL/6 mice suggesting that these mice have a lower haematopoietic capacity and therefore less ability to recover from haemolysis induced anaemia after infection
Probabilistic Model-Based Safety Analysis
Model-based safety analysis approaches aim at finding critical failure
combinations by analysis of models of the whole system (i.e. software,
hardware, failure modes and environment). The advantage of these methods
compared to traditional approaches is that the analysis of the whole system
gives more precise results. Only few model-based approaches have been applied
to answer quantitative questions in safety analysis, often limited to analysis
of specific failure propagation models, limited types of failure modes or
without system dynamics and behavior, as direct quantitative analysis is uses
large amounts of computing resources. New achievements in the domain of
(probabilistic) model-checking now allow for overcoming this problem.
This paper shows how functional models based on synchronous parallel
semantics, which can be used for system design, implementation and qualitative
safety analysis, can be directly re-used for (model-based) quantitative safety
analysis. Accurate modeling of different types of probabilistic failure
occurrence is shown as well as accurate interpretation of the results of the
analysis. This allows for reliable and expressive assessment of the safety of a
system in early design stages
Superior cerebellar artery aneurysms: incidence, clinical presentation and midterm outcome of endovascular treatment
Energy dependence of multiplicity fluctuations in heavy ion collisions
The energy dependence of multiplicity fluctuations was studied for the most central Pb+Pb collisions at 20A, 30A, 40A, 80A and 158A GeV by the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS. The multiplicity distribution for negatively and positively charged hadrons is significantly narrower than Poisson one for all energies. No significant structure in energy dependence of the scaled variance of multiplicity fluctuations is observed. The measured scaled variance is lower than the one predicted by the grand-canonical formulation of the hadron-resonance gas model. The results for scaled variance are in approximate agreement with the string-hadronic model UrQMD
Pimecrolimus in atopic dermatitis: Consensus on safety and the need to allow use in infants
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a distressing dermatological disease, which is highly prevalent during infancy, can persist into later life and requires long-term management with anti-inflammatory compounds. The introduction of the topical calcineurin inhibitors (TCIs), tacrolimus and pimecrolimus, more than 10 yr ago was a major breakthrough for the topical anti-inflammatory treatment of AD. Pimecrolimus 1% is approved for second-line use in children (≥2 yr old) and adults with mild-to-moderate AD. The age restriction was emphasized in a boxed warning added by the FDA in January 2006, which also highlights the lack of long-term safety data and the theoretical risk of skin malignancy and lymphoma. Since then, pimecrolimus has been extensively investigated in short- and long-term studies including over 4000 infants (<2 yr old). These studies showed that pimecrolimus effectively treats AD in infants, with sustained improvement with long-term intermittent use. Unlike topical corticosteroids, long-term TCI use does not carry the risks of skin atrophy, impaired epidermal barrier function or enhanced percutaneous absorption, and so is suitable for AD treatment especially in sensitive skin areas. Most importantly, the studies of pimecrolimus in infants provided no evidence for systemic immunosuppression, and a comprehensive body of evidence from clinical studies, post-marketing surveillance and epidemiological investigations does not support potential safety concerns. In conclusion, the authors consider that the labelling restrictions regarding the use of pimecrolimus in infants are no longer justified and recommend that the validity of the boxed warning for TCIs should be reconsidered
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