A. C. Power Losses in MOV Surge Arrestors

It was the objective of this study to measure power losses occurring in MOV surge arrestors as they were subjected to various voltage Excitations. In particular, power losses were observed in two MOV devices as sinusoidal voltages of different magnitudes were applied, at various frequencies in the range of typical power frequencies and common harmonics. Power losses were also observed in an MOV device for applied voltages consisting of the sum of 60 Hertz sinusoids and a single harmonic. The measurement procedure consisted of obtaining digital records representing the waveforms of voltage across and current through the MOV device during operation; power was calculated as the mean of the product of these digitally represented waveforms; This report contains a detailed description of the implementation of this procedure, as well as a discussion of some of its limitations when making measurements on highly reactive devices. Experimental results indicate that power losses in the MOV devices studied were primarily dependent upon frequency of operation, and peak amplitude of applied voltage. The results indicate that 60 Hertz specifications given for a particular device do not, in general, apply for other frequencies or non-sinusoidal excitation

Sacred turf: the Wimbledon tennis championships and the changing politics of Englishness

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. This article is about ‘Wimbledon’, widely celebrated – not least in its own publicity material – as the world’s premier tennis tournament. It examines ‘Wimbledon’ essentially as a text (hence the inverted commas), viewed politically and historically. In this context, ‘Wimbledon’ is seen as a signifier of a certain kind of Englishness, carefully adapted to meet changing social and economic circumstance. Loose parallels are drawn between the cultural trajectory of ‘Wimbledon’ and that of the British royal family. The transmutations of ‘Wimbledon’ as a tennis championship are also seen as reflecting Britain’s decline as a world power during the twentieth century

From basic mechanisms to clinical applications in heart protection, new players in cardiovascular diseases and cardiac theranostics: meeting report from the third international symposium on "New frontiers in cardiovascular research"

In this meeting report, particularly addressing the topic of protection of the cardiovascular system from ischemia/reperfusion injury, highlights are presented that relate to conditioning strategies of the heart with respect to molecular mechanisms and outcome in patients' cohorts, the influence of co-morbidities and medications, as well as the contribution of innate immune reactions in cardioprotection. Moreover, developmental or systems biology approaches bear great potential in systematically uncovering unexpected components involved in ischemia-reperfusion injury or heart regeneration. Based on the characterization of particular platelet integrins, mitochondrial redox-linked proteins, or lipid-diol compounds in cardiovascular diseases, their targeting by newly developed theranostics and technologies opens new avenues for diagnosis and therapy of myocardial infarction to improve the patients' outcome

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

EBV renders B cells susceptible to HIV-1 in humanized mice

HIV and EBV are human pathogens that cause a considerable burden to worldwide health. In combination, these viruses are linked to AIDS-associated lymphomas. We found that EBV, which transforms B cells, renders them susceptible to HIV-1 infection in a CXCR4 and CD4-dependent manner in vitro and that CXCR4-tropic HIV-1 integrates into the genome of these B cells with the same molecular profile as in autologous CD4$^{+}$ T cells. In addition, we established a humanized mouse model to investigate the in vivo interactions of EBV and HIV-1 upon coinfection. The respective mice that reconstitute human immune system components upon transplantation with CD34$^{+}$ human hematopoietic progenitor cells could recapitulate aspects of EBV and HIV immunobiology observed in dual-infected patients. Upon coinfection of humanized mice, EBV/HIV dual-infected B cells could be detected, but were susceptible to CD8$^{+}$ T-cell-mediated immune control

Water vapour intercomparison effort in the frame of the Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study

The main objective of this work is to provide accurate error estimates for the different water vapour profiling sensors based on an intensive inter-comparison effort. The inter-comparison, performed in the framework of COPS - Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (01 June-31 August 2007), involves airborne and ground-based water vapour lidar systems, radiosondes with different humidity sensors, GPS and Microwave radiometers (MWR). Simultaneous and co-located data from different sensors are used to compute relative bias and root-mean square (RMS) deviations as a function of altitude. Comparisons between airborne CNRS DIAL and ground-based Raman lidar BASIL from three dedicated flights performed in the frame of the H2Olidar EUFAR project indicate a mean relative bias between the two sensors of 3.9% (0.11 g/kg) and a mean RMS deviation of 13.7% (0.97 g/kg) in the altitude region 0-4.5 kin above ground level. A specific inter-comparison between radiosondes with different humidity sensors (Vaisala RS80-A, RS80-H and RS92) was also performed during COPS. Results from the radiosonde inter-comparison indicate that RS80-A and RS80-H are affected by several systematic sources of error (contamination error, time-lag error, etc.), which have been corrected through established algorithms [1, 2, 3]. After correction for these error sources, mean bias between RS80 (A&H) and RS92 is found to be reduced to -4.5%. Based on the 3 comparisons between BASIL vs airborne DLR DIAL, the mean relative bias is about -3.5% in the altitude region 0-3 Km, while the RMS is approx. 13%. There are also ongoing comparisons between BASIL vs GPS, MWR and radiosondes and between the water vapor sensors located at different sites and the airborne DIALs which will be discussed at the symposium. Thus on the present statistics of comparisons between BASIL vs both the airborne DIALs and GPS and putting equal weight on the data reliability of each instrument, it results in the bias values of. BASIL Raman Lidar-0.3%, DLR DIAL 3.2%, CNRS DIAL-3.6% and GPS 0.6%. More ongoing comparisons between water vapor profiling sensors, especially benefiting from the extraordinary performances of the ground-based UHOH DIAL system, will be discussed at the symposium

Valuing Public Goods: The Life Satisfaction Approach

"This paper discusses a novel approach to elicit people's preferences fornpublic goods, namely the life satisfaction approach. Reported subjective well-beingndata are used to directly evaluate utility consequences of public goods. The strengthsnof this approach are compared to traditional approaches and identification issues arenaddressed. Moreover, it is applied to estimate utility losses caused by terroristnactivities in France, the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Terrorism in these countriesndepresses life satisfaction in a sizeable and robust way. However, the calculation ofnthe trade-off between terrorism and income requires improved measurement of thenmarginal utility of income.