Nanoparticles For Soot Reduction [Div]

Novel nano-sized rare earth metal oxide prepared from aqueous reverse micelles is provided. The engineered nanoparticles have large surface area to volume ratios, and sufficient oxygen vacancies on the surface of each particle, so that when mixed with carbon-containing combustible fuels, the particles remain suspended indefinitely; there is a significant reduction in soot and other by-products of combustion, an increase in engine efficiency and less fuel consumed per mile traveled in various vehicles, such as, but not limited to, automobiles, defense vehicles, airplanes, ships and other surface or air-bearing vehicles

Burn Rate Sensitization of Solid Propellants Using A Nano-Titania Additive

Adding nanoparticles as a catalyst to solid propellant fuel to increase and enhance burn rates of the fuel by up to 10 times or more and or modifying the pressure index. A preferred embodiment uses titanium dioxide nanoparticles mixed with a solid propellant fuel, where the nanoparticles are approximately 2% or less of total propellant mixture. The high surface to volume ratio of the nanoparticles improve the performance of the solid propellant fuel

Burn Rate Sensitization of Solid Propellants Using A Nano-Titania Additive

Adding nanoparticles as a catalyst to solid propellant fuel to increase and enhance burn rates of the fuel by up to 10 times or more and or modifying the pressure index. A preferred embodiment uses titanium dioxide nanoparticles mixed with a solid propellant fuel, where the nanoparticles are approximately 2% or less of total propellant mixture. The high surface to volume ratio of the nanoparticles improve the performance of the solid propellant fuel

Solid Propellant Rocket Motor Having Self-Extinguishing Propellant Grain and Systems Therefrom

A solid rocket motor includes a combustion chamber bounded by an outer casing, a propellant grain within the combustion chamber, and an igniter within the outer casing for igniting the propellant grain. A nozzle is coupled to the combustion chamber for releasing hot gasses evolved from burning the propellant grain to provide thrust for propelling the solid rocket motor. The propellant grain is a self-extinguishing propellant grain that includes at least one fuel, at least one oxidizing agent, at least one binder, and at least one surfactant that imparts the self-extinguishing property. The propellant grain provides a burning rate as a function of pressure that includes a negative pressure dependence portion, wherein the burning rate in the negative pressure dependence portion decreases with increasing pressure until a cutoff pressure is reached which results in the extinguishment of the propellant grain

Self-Extinguishable Solid Propellant

Solid composite propellant compositions include at least one fuel, at least one oxidizing agent, at least one binder, and at least one sufactant. The surfactant provides the solid propellant the property of being self-extinguishing , where the burning rate of the solid composite propellant as a function of pressure includes a negative pressure dependent on portion, wherein the burning rate in the negative pressure dependence portion decreases with increasing pressure until a cutoff pressure is reached which results in extinguishment of the solid composite propellant. The solid composite propellant can also include at least one catalyst that modifies the burning rate of the solid composite propellant. Solid composite propellants according to embodiments of the invention can be extinguished without the need of depressurization by reaching a cutoff pressure, and with a tailored burning rate

The Emerald International Handbook of Feminist Perspectives on Women’s Acts of Violence

Over the past twenty years, interest in women’s violence has grown as an area of academic research and teaching across disciplines such as criminology, sociology, history, international relations, public health and film and literary studies. This handbook makes a timely contribution by acting as a comprehensive introduction to a wide range of international, interdisciplinary scholarship which applies feminist perspectives to the phenomenon of women’s violence. Violence is enabled and enacted by individuals, organisations and states with interconnections between these different levels (Collins, 1998, 2017). We adopt this multilevel understanding of violence in the handbook, bringing together contributions on interpersonal and intimate violence by women, women’s violence as agents of institutions, and women’s political violence as state and non-state actors. The handbook is international in scope with contributions from scholars across countries in the Global South and North. Women’s acts of violence are rarer than men’s and frequently perceived as more shocking. Violence by women is regularly sensationalised and stigmatised, especially in media discourses. This sensationalisation and stigmatisation relies on and reproduces misogynistic tropes about violent women as ‘evil’, ‘unnatural’ and masculinised. The chapters in this handbook are written from a feminist perspective and eschew or deconstruct stereotypical portrayals in favour of more considered and complex analyses of the violence women enact and the relevance of their social and political positioning, as well as cultural understandings of womanhood and how these inform understandings of and responses to this violence. Previous literature has emphasised that women’s violence is frequently understood as deviant and transgressive, violating norms of ideal femininity. Such ideas are explored throughout the handbook in contributions which consider, for instance, the vilification and monsterisation of women who kill. These chapters tease out the ways in which violent women are profiled as unnatural and abject. The handbook therefore retains a focus on scholarship which considers the ‘abnormality’ of violent women while also including contributions which demonstrate that women’s violent acts can be normalised and made invisible, for example when perpetrated during a professional role. Adding further nuance, various chapters address how, due to marginalisation across axes of race and class, certain women are not always presumed to be non-violent or perceived through norms of ideal femininity. The handbook explores how these assumptions can lead to overcriminalisation and harsh treatment within the criminal justice system. The significance of women’s intersectional identities is a consistent theme throughout the handbook. Running through the chapters too is the seemingly intractable problem of agency – including the obstacles to fully assigning agency to violent women as well as the frequently unwanted consequences when they are considered to have acted with agency and are punished more harshly. Throughout the handbook, authors grapple with questions of women’s volitional capacity, considering difficult questions of how far we should consider the contexts in which women commit violence, which include structural oppression, domestic- and gender-based violence, and cultural norms. The contributions reveal the necessity of abandoning a binary view of victim-perpetrator, agency/non-agency and evolving a more complex framework in which to gauge questions of intention and deliberation. The handbook is divided into eight sections: historical perspectives; understanding women’s acts of violence; women as perpetrators of interpersonal and intimate violence; power and women’s violence; women and non-state political violence; cultural interpretations of violent women; fictional representations of violent women; and violent women and girls in the criminal justice system. The rest of this introductory chapter outlines the handbook’s structure and summarises each contribution

The effect of vitamin B12 and folic acid supplementation on routine haemotological parameters in older people ::an individual participant data meta-analysis

Background/objectives Low vitamin B12 and folate levels in community-dwelling older people are usually corrected with supplements. However, the effect of this supplementation on haematological parameters in older persons is not known. Therefore, we executed a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis of randomised placebo-controlled trials (RCTs). Subjects/methods We performed a systematic search in PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane and CENTRAL for RCTs published between January 1950 and April 2016, where community-dwelling elderly (60+ years) who were treated with vitamin B12 or folic acid or placebo. The presence of anaemia was not required. We analysed the data on haematological parameters with a two-stage IPD meta-analysis. Results We found 494 full papers covering 14 studies. Data were shared by the authors of four RCTs comparing vitamin B12 with placebo (n = 343) and of three RCTs comparing folic acid with placebo (n = 929). We found no effect of vitamin B12 supplementation on haemoglobin (change 0.00 g/dL, 95% CI: −0.19;0.18), and no effect of folic acid supplementation (change −0.09 g/dL, 95% CI: −0.19;0.01). The effects of supplementation on other haematological parameters were similar. The effects did not differ by sex or by age group. Also, no effect was found in a subgroup of patients with anaemia and a subgroup of patients who were treated >4 weeks. Conclusions Evidence on the effects of supplementation of low concentrations of vitamin B12 and folate on haematological parameters in community-dwelling older people is inconclusive. Further research is needed before firm recommendations can be made concerning the supplementation of vitamin B12 and folate

Consensus coding sequence (CCDS) database: a standardized set of human and mouse protein-coding regions supported by expert curation.

The Consensus Coding Sequence (CCDS) project provides a dataset of protein-coding regions that are identically annotated on the human and mouse reference genome assembly in genome annotations produced independently by NCBI and the Ensembl group at EMBL-EBI. This dataset is the product of an international collaboration that includes NCBI, Ensembl, HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee, Mouse Genome Informatics and University of California, Santa Cruz. Identically annotated coding regions, which are generated using an automated pipeline and pass multiple quality assurance checks, are assigned a stable and tracked identifier (CCDS ID). Additionally, coordinated manual review by expert curators from the CCDS collaboration helps in maintaining the integrity and high quality of the dataset. The CCDS data are available through an interactive web page (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CCDS/CcdsBrowse.cgi) and an FTP site (ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/CCDS/). In this paper, we outline the ongoing work, growth and stability of the CCDS dataset and provide updates on new collaboration members and new features added to the CCDS user interface. We also present expert curation scenarios, with specific examples highlighting the importance of an accurate reference genome assembly and the crucial role played by input from the research community. Nucleic Acids Res 2018 Jan 4; 46(D1):D221-D228

Vaccines as alternatives to antibiotics for food producing animals. Part 1:challenges and needs

Vaccines and other alternative products can help minimize the need for antibiotics by preventing and controlling infectious diseases in animal populations, and are central to the future success of animal agriculture. To assess scientific advancements related to alternatives to antibiotics and provide actionable strategies to support their development, the United States Department of Agriculture, with support from the World Organisation for Animal Health, organized the second International Symposium on Alternatives to Antibiotics. It focused on six key areas: vaccines; microbial-derived products; non-nutritive phytochemicals; immune-related products; chemicals, enzymes, and innovative drugs; and regulatory pathways to enable the development and licensure of alternatives to antibiotics. This article, part of a two-part series, synthesizes and expands on the expert panel discussions regarding opportunities, challenges and needs for the development of vaccines that may reduce the need for use of antibiotics in animals; new approaches and potential solutions will be discussed in part 2 of this series. Vaccines are widely used to prevent infections in food animals. Various studies have demonstrated that their animal agricultural use can lead to significant reductions in antibiotic consumption, making them promising alternatives to antibiotics. To be widely used in food producing animals, vaccines have to be safe, effective, easy to use, and cost-effective. Many current vaccines fall short in one or more of these respects. Scientific advancements may allow many of these limitations to be overcome, but progress is funding-dependent. Research will have to be prioritized to ensure scarce public resources are dedicated to areas of potentially greatest impact first, and private investments into vaccine development constantly compete with other investment opportunities. Although vaccines have the potential to improve animal health, safeguard agricultural productivity, and reduce antibiotic consumption and resulting resistance risks, targeted research and development investments and concerted efforts by all affected are needed to realize that potential

RNAcentral 2021: secondary structure integration, improved sequence search and new member databases

RNAcentral is a comprehensive database of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) sequences that provides a single access point to 44 RNA resources and >18 million ncRNA sequences from a wide range of organisms and RNA types. RNAcentral now also includes secondary (2D) structure information for >13 million sequences, making RNAcentral the world's largest RNA 2D structure database. The 2D diagrams are displayed using R2DT, a new 2D structure visualization method that uses consistent, reproducible and recognizable layouts for related RNAs. The sequence similarity search has been updated with a faster interface featuring facets for filtering search results by RNA type, organism, source database or any keyword. This sequence search tool is available as a reusable web component, and has been integrated into several RNAcentral member databases, including Rfam, miRBase and snoDB. To allow for a more fine-grained assignment of RNA types and subtypes, all RNAcentral sequences have been annotated with Sequence Ontology terms. The RNAcentral database continues to grow and provide a central data resource for the RNA community