Optical measurement methods in thermogasdynamics

A review is presented of a number of optical methods of flow measurements. Consideration is given to such spectroscopic methods as emission and absorption techniques, electron beam-stimulated fluorescence, and light scattering - Rayleigh, Raman and Mie - methods. The following visualization methods are also discussed: shadow photography, schlieren photography, interferometry, holographic interferometry, laser anemometry, particle holography, and electron-excitation imaging. A large bibliography is presented and the work is copiously illustrated with figures and photographs

Development of a Radioimmunoassay for Pig Pancreatic Kallikrein

Peer Reviewe

Early results in the treatment of proximal humeral fractures with a polyaxial locking plate

Objectives: We report early results using a second generation locking plate, non-contact bridging plate (NCB PH®, Zimmer Inc. Warsaw, IN, USA), for the treatment of proximal humeral fractures. The NCB PH® combines conventional plating technique with polyaxial screw placement and angular stability. Design: Prospective case series. Setting: A single level-1 trauma center. Patients: A total of 50 patients with proximal humeral fractures were treated from May 2004 to December 2005. Intervention: Surgery was performed in open technique in all cases. Main outcome measures: Implant-related complications, clinical parameters (duration of surgery, range of motion, Constant-Murley Score, subjective patient satisfaction, complications) and radiographic evaluation [union, implant loosening, implant-related complications and avascular necrosis (AVN) of the humeral head] at 6, 12 and 24weeks. Results: All fractures available to follow-up (48 of 50) went to union within the follow-up period of 6months. One patient was lost to follow-up, one patient died of a cause unrelated to the trauma, four patients developed AVN with cutout, one patient had implant loosening, three patients experienced cutout and one patient had an axillary nerve lesion (onset unknown). The average age- and gender-related Constant Score (n=35) was 76. Conclusions: The NCB PH® combines conventional plating technique with polyaxial screw placement and angular stability. Although the complication rate was 19%, with a reoperation rate of 12%, the early results show that the NCB PH® is a safe implant for the treatment of proximal humeral fracture

Elastic scattering of low energy pions by nuclei and the in-medium isovector pi N amplitude

Measurements of elastic scattering of 21.5 MeV pi+ and pi- by Si, Ca, Ni and Zr were made using a single arm magnetic spectrometer. Absolute calibration was made by parallel measurements of Coulomb scattering of muons. Parameters of a pion-nucleus optical potential were obtained from fits to all eight angular distributions put together. The `anomalous' s-wave repulsion known from pionic atoms is clearly observed and could be removed by introducing a chiral-motivated density dependence of the isovector scattering amplitude, which also greatly improved the fits to the data. The empirical energy dependence of the isoscalar amplitude also improves the fits to the data but, contrary to what is found with pionic atoms, on its own is incapable of removing the anomaly.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables. V2 added details on uncertainties,extended discussion. To appear in PR

RflM mediates target specificity of the RcsCDB phosphorelay system for transcriptional repression of flagellar synthesis in Salmonella enterica: Repression of flhDC transcription by a RcsB-RflM complex

The bacterial flagellum enables directed movement of Salmonella enterica towards favorable conditions in liquid environments. Regulation of flagellar synthesis is tightly controlled by various environmental signals at transcriptional and post- transcriptional levels. The flagellar master regulator FlhD₄C₂ resides on top of the flagellar transcriptional hierarchy and is under autogenous control by FlhD₄C₂- dependent activation of the repressor rflM. The inhibitory activity of RflM depends on the presence of RcsB, the response regulator of the RcsCDB phosphorelay system. In this study, we elucidated the molecular mechanism of RflM- dependent repression of flhDC. We show that RcsB and RflM form a heterodimer that coordinately represses flhDC transcription independent of RcsB phosphorylation. RcsB-RflM complex binds to a RcsB box downstream the P1 transcriptional start site of the flhDC promoter with increased affinity compared to RcsB in the absence of RflM. We propose that RflM stabilizes binding of unphosphorylated RcsB to the flhDC promoter in absence of environmental cues. Thus, RflM is a novel auxiliary regulatory protein that mediates target specificity of RcsB for flhDC repression. The cooperative action of the RcsB-RflM repressor complex allows Salmonella to fine-tune initiation of flagellar gene expression and adds another level to the complex regulation of flagellar synthesis

Search for Exotic Muon Decays

Recently, it has been proposed that the observed anomaly in the time distribution of neutrino induced reactions, reported by the KARMEN collaboration, can be interpreted as a signal from an exotic muon decay branch mu+ to e+ X. It has been shown that this hypothesis gives an acceptable fit to the KARMEN data if the boson X has a mass of m_X=103.9MeV/c^2, close to the kinematical limit. We have performed a search for the X particle by studying for the first time the very low energy part of the Michel spectrum in mu+ decays. Using a HPGe detector setup at the muE4 beamline at PSI we find branching ratios BR(mu+ to e+ X)<5.7e-4 (90% C.L.) for most of the region 103MeV/c^2<m_X<105MeV/c^2.Comment: 9 page