Design and applications of optical interferometers in astronomy Final report

Interferometer application to optical instrument testing, double star separation measurements, and photoelectric techniques for stellar diameter measurement

The Role of the Dominant Modes of Precipitation Variability over Eastern Africa in Modulating the Hydrology of Lake Victoria

Previous water budget studies over Lake Victoria basin have shown that there is near balance between rainfall and evaporation and that the variability of Lake Victoria levels is determined virtually entirely by changes in rainfall since evaporation is nearly constant. The variability of rainfall over East Africa is dominated by El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO); however, the second and third most dominant rainfall climate modes also account for significant variability across the region. The relationship between ENSO and other significant modes of precipitation variability with Lake Victoria levels is nonlinear. This relationship should be studied to determine which modes need to be accurately modeled in order to accurately model Lake Victoria levels, which are important to the hydroelectric industry in East Africa. The objective of this analysis is to estimate the relative contributions of the dominant modes of annual precipitation variability to the modulation of Lake Victoria levels for the present day (1950–2012). The first mode of annual rainfall variability accounts for most of the variability in Lake Victoria levels, while the effects of the second and third modes are negligible even though these modes are also significant over the region

Applications of shearing and Kosters prisms of the alignment of optical telescope Final report

Applicability of shearing and Kosters interferometers in detecting misalignment in optical telescope

The development of an index for accommodative findings

The development of an index for accommodative finding

Definition of Naturally Processed Peptides Reveals Convergent Presentation of Autoantigenic Topoisomerase I Epitopes in Scleroderma.

ObjectiveAutoimmune responses to DNA topoisomerase I (topo I) are found in a subset of scleroderma patients who are at high risk for interstitial lung disease (ILD) and mortality. Anti-topo I antibodies (ATAs) are associated with specific HLA-DRB1 alleles, and the frequency of HLA-DR-restricted topo I-specific CD4+ T cells is associated with the presence, severity, and progression of ILD. Although this strongly implicates the presentation of topo I peptides by HLA-DR in scleroderma pathogenesis, the processing and presentation of topo I has not been studied.MethodsWe developed a natural antigen processing assay (NAPA) to identify putative CD4+ T cell epitopes of topo I presented by monocyte-derived dendritic cells (mo-DCs) from 6 ATA-positive patients with scleroderma. Mo-DCs were pulsed with topo I protein, HLA-DR-peptide complexes were isolated, and eluted peptides were analyzed by mass spectrometry. We then examined the ability of these naturally presented peptides to induce CD4+ T cell activation in 11 ATA-positive and 11 ATA-negative scleroderma patients.ResultsWe found that a common set of 10 topo I epitopes was presented by Mo-DCs from scleroderma patients with diverse HLA-DR variants. Sequence analysis revealed shared peptide-binding motifs within the HLA-DRβ chains of ATA-positive patients and a subset of topo I epitopes with distinct sets of anchor residues capable of binding to multiple different HLA-DR variants. The NAPA-derived epitopes elicited robust CD4+ T cell responses in 73% of ATA-positive patients (8 of 11), and the number of epitopes recognized correlated with ILD severity (P = 0.025).ConclusionThese findings mechanistically implicate the presentation of a convergent set of topo I epitopes in the development of scleroderma

Detection of pulsar beams deflected by the black hole in Sgr A*: effects of black hole spin

Some Galactic models predict a significant population of radio pulsars close to the our galactic center. Beams from these pulsars could get strongly deflected by the supermassive black hole (SMBH) believed to reside at the galactic center and reach the Earth. Earlier work assuming a Schwarzschild SMBH gave marginal chances of observing this exotic phenomenon with current telescopes and good chances with future telescopes. Here we calculate the odds of observability for a rotating SMBH. We find that the estimates of observation are not affected by the SMBH spin, but a pulsar timing analysis of deflected pulses might be able to provide an estimate of the spin of the central black hole.Comment: 15 pages aastex, 8 Fig