Autoantibodies in systemic sclerosis: unanswered questions

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by vascular abnormalities, and cutaneous and visceral fibrosis. Serum autoantibodies directed to multiple intracellular antigens are present in more than 95% of patients and are considered a hallmark of SSc. They are helpful biomarkers for the early diagnosis of SSc and are associated with distinctive clinical manifestations. With the advent of more sensitive, multiplexed immunoassays, new and old questions about the relevance of autoantibodies in SSc are emerging. in this review, we discuss the clinical relevance of autoantibodies in SSc emphasizing the more recently published data. Moreover, we will summarize recent advances regarding the stability of SSc autoantibodies over the course of disease, whether they are mutually exclusive and their potential roles in the disease pathogenesis.Universidade Federal de São Paulo UNIFESP, Escola Paulista Med, Div Rheumatol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilUniv Calgary, Fac Med, Cumming Sch Med, Calgary, AB, CanadaUniversidade Federal de São Paulo UNIFESP, Escola Paulista Med, Div Rheumatol, BR-04023062 São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

The Resource Prospector Neutron Spectrometer System: RP's Bloodhound

The primary goal of the Resource Prospector Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS) is to locate and characterize hydrogen-bearing volatile deposits, especially subsurface ice, that may exist at the lunar poles. A key objective is to detect water-equivalent hydrogen concentrations of 0.5 wt% or greater while on a moving rover. A second objective is to determine approximate burial depth of enhanced hydrogen-bearing materials up to 1 meter below otherwise dry regolith. The instrument will be carried aboard a landed mobility system at the lunar poles. The instrument operates by measuring the changes in the leakage flux of low energy neutrons out of the regolith. These neutrons are produced by galactic cosmic rays, which are so energetic that they shatter the nuclei in surface materials. The neutrons interact with other nuclei and lose energy, becoming thermalized in the process. Hydrogen is most efficient at thermalizing neutrons owing to protons' similar mass - statistically, neutrons lose half their energy per collision with protons. With hydrogen in the soil, leakage fluxes of neutrons in the 0.5 eV to 500 keV energy range are reduced. A concentration of only1-2 wt% water-equivalent hydrogen results in a decrease in epithermal leakage flux of a factor of two. The leakage flux of thermal neutrons, from 0 to 0.5 eV in energy, can either increase or decrease depending on the hydrogen abundance and stratigraphy. As with the highly successful Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer, the RP NSS detects both thermal and epithermal neutrons by using two helium-3 gas proportional counters, one covered by cadmium and the other uncovered. The former detects only epithermal neutrons with energies above approximately 0.5 eV, the latter detects both thermal (less than 0.5 eV) and epithermal energies (greater than 0.5 eV). When a neutron enters the detector tube and interacts with a helium-3 nucleus, the resulting reaction produces an energetic proton and triton that ionize the gas. The resulting electrons are accelerated toward a high-voltage anode and cascade, amplifying the net charge, which is collected at the anode. The number of electrons produced is proportional to the energy that the triton and proton deposit in the gas. A charge sensitive pre-amplifier converts the total charge to a step voltage output. A shaper amplifier then shapes this step into a uni-polar waveform with peaking time appropriate for the detection depending on the event rate. The integrated shaped waveform, representing the deposited triton/proton energy, is then measured. A histogram, or pulse height analysis, is performed to record the main capture peak and wall effect pulses. A threshold for detection is also required to limit the low amplitude counting rate such as noise floor. The system electronics consists of 2 modules - the Sensor Module (SM) front-end and the Data Processing Module (DPM) back-end circuits. SM is designed as a light-weight and low power front-end housing the two helium-3 proportional counter detectors, preamp and HVPS. It is mounted external to the rover body to detect the thermalized neutron flux with a minimum of host background. The DPM is located inside the rover; it digitizes the SM signals, performs pulse height analysis and accumulates the count rate for each spectral channel. The DPM controls high voltage and thresholding, and sends the science data to the host craft via an RS422 serial asynchronous protocol. The payload host provides all thermal management and control for the SM and DPM

A Femtosecond Neutron Source

The possibility to use the ultrashort ion bunches produced by circularly polarized laser pulses to drive a source of fusion neutrons with sub-optical cycle duration is discussed. A two-side irradiation of a thin foil deuterated target produces two countermoving ion bunches, whose collision leads to an ultrashort neutron burst. Using particle-in-cell simulations and analytical modeling, it is evaluated that, for intensities of a few $10^{19} W cm^{-2}$, more than $10^3$ neutrons per Joule may be produced within a time shorter than one femtosecond. Another scheme based on a layered deuterium-tritium target is outlined.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

The Hunger Games and the Gen Z Revolution

Art impacts people, not just as individuals but on a larger, societal scale, if enough people are paying attention to it. A boy wizard\u27s adventures leads millions of kids to dream of getting their letter to the wizard school. But only once in a lifetime does a work affect an entire generation to the point of giving them the skills and ideas to light the fire of revolution. Noreena Hertz, in her article for the Guardian, “Think millennials have it tough? For \u27Generation K\u27, life is even harsher”, nicknamed kids born from 1995-2012 “Generation K”; “K” for Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of the book/film series, The Hunger Games, doing so because she saw how much Gen Z kids connected with the series, citing many struggles both Katniss and Gen Z kids are facing, from income inequality (and it\u27s relation to race), a distressing amount of mental illness like anxiety and depression, and an increasing amount of distrust in the government. So, for my Research Day project, I decided to look at The Hunger Games series (both the films and novels), what kind of ideas it presents, and its impact on young people when it comes to political action. For my research, I’ll be going through each of the books and films and marking different examples of some of the main struggles that Gen Z people face and some of the revolutionary ideas they hold. I’ll also be looking at the voting and political patterns of Gen Z folks and data on demographics of people who read/watched The Hunger Games, to see if there are any sort of correlations. I believe that by the end of my research, we will see how Suzanne Collins’ novels and subsequent adaptations impacted the current political landscape and the youth of the world

Incidence, Clinical Manifestations and Risk Factors of Acute Rheumatic Fever: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Global Perspective

Acute Rheumatic Fever (ARF) is a system-wide disease in which chronic, wide spread inflammatory changes occur in response to a group A streptococcal (GAS) infection that most often affects children and adolescents and those from developing countries. The aim of this study is to calculate the global incidence of ARF and identify the frequencies of major and clinical manifestations and risk factors globally to provide a better indication of the burden of disease and additional information on the dispersion of manifestations and risk factors. A meta-analysis was conducted by pooling cross-sectional and cohort studies, and Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs) that were English, full-text, peer-reviewed articles published after 1990 that included ARF cases of any race or nationality that were aged 0 to 19 years at the time of evaluation. Measures of interest included incidence rates and frequencies of clinical and major manifestation of ARF. In total, 27 studies met all inclusion criteria; twelve (44.4%) were crosssectional and another 12 (44.4%) were cohort studies. A linear mixed effects model was used to calculate a pooled risk ratio; however, heterogeneity was found to be significantly high across all articles. When exploring heterogeneity of the effect by study region and age, those from the Americas (β = -4.880, p \u3c0.001) and Africa (β = -2.919, p = 0.021), and those that included children under the age of 5 (β = -2.103, p = 0.006) had incidence estimates that were significantly lower compared to their respective stratifications, indicating that characteristics of these populations may be introducing bias. Clinical and major manifestations were unable to be explored due to the way that these variables were presented. Although substantial heterogeneity existed between studies, the results provide evidence of where gaps exist regarding ARF research on a global scale. Properly describing the characteristics of this disease is the first step towards creating adequate criteria and guidelines that will lead to better health outcomes for those suffering from ARF, reduce the economic burden of this disease, and improve the quality of life of these individuals

SCINTILLATION CONDITIONING OF TANTALUM CAPACITORS WITH MANGANESE DIOXIDE CATHODES

Scintillation testing is a method that activates the self-healing mechanism in tantalum capacitors. In preliminary experiments, the deliberate activation of self-healing yielded up to 27% higher breakdown voltages in weak parts that had an increased risk of ignition failure. This improvement results in a better performance under surge current conditions. This paper demonstrates that scintillation conditioning reduces surge current failures in tantalum capacitors with manganese dioxide cathodes. Tantalum capacitors with MnO2 cathodes from two manufacturers are subjected to scintillation conditioning and compared to non-conditioned populations in a surge current test. To ensure that the activation of the self-healing mechanism has no detrimental effect on the reliability of the parts, a life test is conducted. The results show that the conditioning method increases the breakdown voltage of self-healed tantalum capacitors by up to 25% under surge current conditions, which mitigates the risk of ignition failures. No detrimental effect on the life of the conditioned samples was observed. Additional tests to assess the reliability of tantalum capacitors with manganese dioxide cathodes under simultaneous thermo-mechanical and voltage stresses were performed. Even though these tests are not directly related to scintillation conditioning the study was included as an additional chapter, since it pertains to the general subject of tantalum capacitor reliability

Building REEAFS: repackaging and personalizing library services to remote marine science facilities

pp. 41-4