High Level Architecture Distributed Interactive Simulation Federation Object Model (FOM)

Reports describes in detail the procedure required to generate the distributed interactive simulation Super FOM (federation object model)

National Educators' Workshop: Update 1996

This document contains a collection of experiments presented and demonstrated at the National Educators' Workshop: Update 96, held at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico on October 27-30, 1996. The experiments related to the nature and properties of engineering materials and provided information to assist in teaching about materials in the education community

Optimisation of a high-efficiency solar-driven organic Rankine cycle for applications in the built environment

Recent years have seen a strong increase in the uptake of solar technologies in the built environment. In combined heat and power (CHP) or cogeneration systems, the thermodynamic and economic ‘value’ of the electrical output is usually considered to be greater than that of (an equivalent) thermal output, and therefore the prioritisation of the electrical output in terms of system-level optimisation has been driving much of the research, innovation and technology development in this area. In this work, the potential of a solar CHP technology based on an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) engine is investigated. We present thermodynamic models developed for different collectors, including flat-plate collectors (FPC) and evacuated-tube collectors (ETC) coupled with a non-recuperative sub-critical ORC architecture to deliver power and hot water by using thermal energy rejected from the engine. Results from dynamic 3-D simulations of the solar collectors together with a thermal energy storage (TES) tank are presented. TES offers an important buffering capability during periods of intermittent solar radiation, as well as the potential for demand-side management (DSM). Results are presented of an optimisation analysis to identify the most suitable working fluids for the ORC unit, in which the configuration and operational constraints of the collector array are taken into account. The most suitable working fluids (R245fa and R1233zd) are then chosen for a whole-system optimisation performed in a southern European climate. The system configuration with an ETC array is found to be best-suited for electricity prioritisation, delivering an electrical output of 3,605 kWh/yr from a 60 m2 array. In addition, the system supplies 13,175 kWh/yr in the form of domestic hot water, which is equivalent to more than 6 times the average annual household demand. A brief cost analysis and comparison with photovoltaic (PV) systems are also performed

Optimization of DNA extraction from human urinary samples for mycobiome community profiling.

IntroductionRecent data suggest the urinary tract hosts a microbial community of varying composition, even in the absence of infection. Culture-independent methodologies, such as next-generation sequencing of conserved ribosomal DNA sequences, provide an expansive look at these communities, identifying both common commensals and fastidious organisms. A fundamental challenge has been the isolation of DNA representative of the entire resident microbial community, including fungi.Materials and methodsWe evaluated multiple modifications of commonly-used DNA extraction procedures using standardized male and female urine samples, comparing resulting overall, fungal and bacterial DNA yields by quantitative PCR. After identifying protocol modifications that increased DNA yields (lyticase/lysozyme digestion, bead beating, boil/freeze cycles, proteinase K treatment, and carrier DNA use), all modifications were combined for systematic confirmation of optimal protocol conditions. This optimized protocol was tested against commercially available methodologies to compare overall and microbial DNA yields, community representation and diversity by next-generation sequencing (NGS).ResultsOverall and fungal-specific DNA yields from standardized urine samples demonstrated that microbial abundances differed significantly among the eight methods used. Methodologies that included multiple disruption steps, including enzymatic, mechanical, and thermal disruption and proteinase digestion, particularly in combination with small volume processing and pooling steps, provided more comprehensive representation of the range of bacterial and fungal species. Concentration of larger volume urine specimens at low speed centrifugation proved highly effective, increasing resulting DNA levels and providing greater microbial representation and diversity.ConclusionsAlterations in the methodology of urine storage, preparation, and DNA processing improve microbial community profiling using culture-independent sequencing methods. Our optimized protocol for DNA extraction from urine samples provided improved fungal community representation. Use of this technique resulted in equivalent representation of the bacterial populations as well, making this a useful technique for the concurrent evaluation of bacterial and fungal populations by NGS

Law, politics and the governance of English and Scottish joint-stock companies 1600-1850

This article examines the impact of law on corporate governance by means of a case study of joint-stock enterprise in England and Scotland before 1850. Based on a dataset of over 450 company constitutions together with qualitative information on governance practice, it finds little evidence to support the hypothesis that common-law regimes such as England were more supportive of economic growth than civil-law jurisdictions such as Scotland: indeed, levels of shareholder protection were slightly stronger in the civil-law zone. Other factors, such as local political institutions, played a bigger role in shaping organisational forms and business practice

Stakeholder Theory and Marketing: Moving from a Firm-Centric to a Societal Perspective

This essay is inspired by the ideas and research examined in the special section on “Stakeholder Marketing” of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing in 2010. The authors argue that stakeholder marketing is slowly coalescing with the broader thinking that has occurred in the stakeholder management and ethics literature streams during the past quarter century. However, the predominant view of stakeholders that many marketers advocate is still primarily pragmatic and company centric. The position advanced herein is that stronger forms of stakeholder marketing that reflect more normative, macro/societal, and network-focused orientations are necessary. The authors briefly explain and justify these characteristics in the context of the growing “prosociety” and “proenvironment” perspectives—orientations that are also in keeping with the public policy focus of this journal. Under the “hard form” of stakeholder theory, which the authors endorse, marketing managers must realize that serving stakeholders sometimes requires sacrificing maximum profits to mitigate outcomes that would inflict major damage on other stakeholders, especially society

Identification of genetic changes associated with drug resistance by reverse in situ hybridization.

The molecular cytogenetic techniques of comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and reverse in situ hybridization (REVISH) allow the entire genomes of tumours to be screened for genetic changes without the requirement for specific probes or markers. In order to define the ability of REVISH to detect and map regions of amplification associated with drug resistance, we investigated a panel of cell lines selected for resistance to doxorubicin and intrinsic sensitivity to topoisomerase II-inhibitory drugs. We have defined a modified REVISH protocol, which involves double hybridizations with genomic DNA from the test cell lines and chromosome-specific whole chromosome paints to identify the chromosomes to which the amplicons localize. Sites of amplification are then mapped by fractional length measurements (Flpter), using published genome databases. Our findings show that amplification of the topoisomerase II alpha gene is readily detected and mapped, as is amplification of the MDR and MRP loci. Interestingly, REVISH detected a new amplicon in the doxorubicin-resistant lung cancer cell line, GLC4-ADR, which mapped to chromosome 1q. REVISH is therefore ideally suited to characterize genetic changes specific for drug resistance within a background of genetic anomalies associated with tumour progression