Relationship between casting modulus and grain size in cast A356 aluminium alloys

Microstructure of Al-Si alloy castings depends most generally on melt preparation and on the cooling rate imposed by the thermal modulus of the component. In the case of Al-Si alloys, emphasis is put during melt preparation on refinement of pro-eutectic (Al) grains and on modification of the Al-Si eutectic. Thermal analysis has been used since long to check melt preparation before casting, i.e. by analysis of the cooling curve during solidification of a sample cast in an instrumented cup. The conclusions drawn from such analysis are however valid for the particular cooling conditions of the cups. It thus appeared of interest to investigate how these conclusions could extrapolate to predict microstructure in complicated cast parts showing local changes in the solidification conditions. For that purpose, thermal analysis cups and instrumented sand and die castings with different thermal moduli and thus cooling rates have been made, and the whole set of cooling curves thus recorded has been analysed. A statistical analysis of the characteristic features of the cooling curves related to grain refinement in sand and die castings allowed determining the most significant parameters and expressing the cube of grain size as a polynomial of these parameters. After introduction of a further parameter quantifying melt refining an excellent correlation, with a R2 factor of 0.99 was obtained

Diffraction enhanced X-ray imaging

Abstract. Diffraction enhanced imaging is a new x-ray radiographic imaging modality using monochromatic x-rays from a synchrotron which produces images of thick absorbing objects that are almost completely free of scatter. They show dramatically improved contrast over standard imaging applied to the same phantom. The contrast is based not only on attenuation but also the refraction and diffraction properties of the sample. This imaging method may improve image quality for medical applications, industrial radiography for non-destructive testing and x-ray computed tomography

Real-time imaging of density ducts between the plasmasphere and ionosphere

Ionization of the Earth's atmosphere by sunlight forms a complex, multilayered plasma environment within the Earth's magnetosphere, the innermost layers being the ionosphere and plasmasphere. The plasmasphere is believed to be embedded with cylindrical density structures (ducts) aligned along the Earth's magnetic field, but direct evidence for these remains scarce. Here we report the first direct wide-angle observation of an extensive array of field-aligned ducts bridging the upper ionosphere and inner plasmasphere, using a novel ground-based imaging technique. We establish their heights and motions by feature tracking and parallax analysis. The structures are strikingly organized, appearing as regularly spaced, alternating tubes of overdensities and underdensities strongly aligned with the Earth's magnetic field. These findings represent the first direct visual evidence for the existence of such structures

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

High-latitude observations of impulse-driven ULF pulsations in the ionosphere and on the ground

We report the simultaneous observation of 1.6–1.7 mHz pulsations in the ionospheric F-region with the CUTLASS bistatic HF radar and an HF Doppler sounder, on the ground with the IMAGE and SAMNET magnetometer arrays, and in the upstream solar wind. CUTLASS was at the time being operated in a special mode optimized for high resolution studies of ULF waves. A novel use is made of the ground returns to detect the ionospheric signature of ULF waves. The pulsations were initiated by a strong, sharp decrease in solar wind dynamic pressure near 09:28 UT on 23 February 1996, and persisted for some hours. They were observed with the magnetometers over 20° in latitude, coupling to a field line resonance near 72° magnetic latitude. The magnetic pulsations had azimuthal m numbers ~ -2, consistent with propagation away from the noon sector. The radars show transient high velocity flows in the cusp and auroral zones, poleward of the field line resonance, and small amplitude 1.6–1.7 mHz F-region oscillations across widely spaced regions at lower latitudes. The latter were detected in the radar ground scatter returns and also with the vertical incidence Doppler sounder. Their amplitude is of the order of ± 10 ms⁻¹. A similar perturbation frequency was present in the solar wind pressure recorded by the WIND spacecraft. The initial solar wind pressure decrease was also associated with a decrease in cosmic noise absorption on an imaging riometer near 66° magnetic latitude. The observations suggest that perturbations in the solar wind pressure or IMF result in fast compressional mode waves that propagate through the magnetosphere and drive forced and resonant oscillations of geomagnetic field lines. The compressional wave field may also stimulate ionospheric perturbations. The observations demonstrate that HF radar ground scatter may contain important information on small-amplitude features, extending the scope and capability of these radars to track features in the ionosphere