Feasibility of a nuclear gauge for fuel quantity measurement aboard aircraft

Capacitance fuel gauges have served as the basis for fuel quantity indicating systems in aircraft for several decades. However, there have been persistent reports by the airlines that these gauges often give faulty indications due to microbial growth and other contaminants in the fuel tanks. This report describes the results of a feasibility study of using gamma ray attenuation as the basis for measuring fuel quantity in the tanks. Studies with a weak Am-241 59.5-keV radiation source indicate that it is possible to continuously monitor the fuel quantity in the tanks to an accuracy of better than 1 percent. These measurements also indicate that there are easily measurable differences in the physical properties and resultant attenuation characteristics of JP-4, JP-5, and Jet A fuels. The experimental results, along with a suggested source-detector geometrical configuration are described

Multi-Spacecraft Observations of Recurrent 3He-Rich Solar Energetic Particles

We study the origin of 3He-rich solar energetic particles (<1 MeV/nucleon) that are observed consecutively on STEREO-B, ACE, and STEREO-A spacecraft when they are separated in heliolongitude by more than 90{\deg}. The 3He-rich period on STEREO-B and STEREO-A commences on 2011 July 1 and 2011 July 16, respectively. The ACE 3He-rich period consists of two sub-events starting on 2011 July 7 and 2011 July 9. We associate the STEREO-B July 1 and ACE July 7 3He-rich events with the same sizeable active region producing X-ray flares accompanied by prompt electron events, when it was near the west solar limb as seen from the respective spacecraft. The ACE July 9 and STEREO-A July 16 events were dispersionless with enormous 3He enrichment, lacking solar energetic electrons and occurring in corotating interaction regions. We associate these events with a small, recently emerged active region near the border of a low-latitude coronal hole that produced numerous jet-like emissions temporally correlated with type III radio bursts. For the first time we present observations of 1) solar regions with long-lasting conditions for 3He acceleration and 2) solar energetic 3He that is temporary confined/re-accelerated in interplanetary space.Comment: accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Cohomology of bundles on homological Hopf manifold

We discuss the properties of complex manifolds having rational homology of $S^1 \times S^{2n-1}$ including those constructed by Hopf, Kodaira and Brieskorn-van de Ven. We extend certain previously known vanishing properties of cohomology of bundles on such manifolds.As an application we consider degeneration of Hodge-deRham spectral sequence in this non Kahler setting.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of 2007 conference on Several complex variables and Complex Geometry. Xiamen. Chin

Observations of the longitudinal spread of solar energetic particle events in solar cycle 24

With the twin STEREO spacecraft, significantly separated from L1-based satellites such as ACE, simultaneous multi-point measurements of solar energetic particle (SEP) events can be made for H-Fe ions from a few hundred keV/nuc to over 100 MeV/nuc and for electrons from tens to hundreds of keV. These observations allow studies of the longitudinal characteristics of SEP events to advance beyond statistical analysis of single point measurements. Although there have been few large SEP events thus far in cycle 24, there have been a number of smaller events that have been detected by more than one spacecraft. The composition of these SEP events, as indicated by the H/He and Fe/O abundance ratios, shows a dependence on longitudinal distance from the solar source in some events, at times with ratios varying by an order of magnitude. However, these variations are not organized by either the speed or width of the associated coronal mass ejections

User evaluation indicates high quality of the Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS) after field deployment in Nigeria in 2015 and 2018

During the West African Ebola virus disease outbreak in 2014-15, health agencies had severe challenges with case notification and contact tracing. To overcome these, we developed the Surveillance, Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS). The objective of this study was to measure perceived quality of SORMAS and its change over time. We ran a 4-week-pilot and 8-week-implementation of SORMAS among hospital informants in Kano state, Nigeria in 2015 and 2018 respectively. We carried out surveys after the pilot and implementation asking about usefulness and acceptability. We calculated the proportions of users per answer together with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) and compared whether the 2015 response distributions differed from those from 2018. Total of 31 and 74 hospital informants participated in the survey in 2015 and 2018, respectively. In 2018, 94% (CI: 89-100%) of users indicated that the tool was useful, 92% (CI: 86-98%) would recommend SORMAS to colleagues and 18% (CI: 10-28%) had login difficulties. In 2015, the proportions were 74% (CI: 59-90%), 90% (CI: 80-100%), and 87% (CI: 75-99%) respectively. Results indicate high usefulness and acceptability of SORMAS. We recommend mHealth tools to be evaluated to allow repeated measurements and comparisons between different versions and users

BPIFB1 (LPLUNC1) is upregulated in cystic fibrosis lung disease

Although the biology the PLUNC (recently renamed BPI fold, BPIF) family of secreted proteins is poorly understood, multiple array based studies have suggested that some are differentially expressed in lung diseases. We have examined the expression of BPIFB1 (LPLUNC1), the prototypic two-domain containing family member, in lungs from CF patients and in mouse models of CF lung disease. BPIFB1 was localized in CF lung samples along with BPIFA1, MUC5AC, CD68 and NE and directly compared to histologically normal lung tissues and that of bacterial pneumonia. We generated novel antibodies to mouse BPIF proteins to conduct similar studies on ENaC transgenic (ENaC-Tg) mice, a model for CF-like lung disease. Small airways in CF demonstrated marked epithelial staining of BPIFB1 in goblet cells but staining was absent from alveolar regions. BPIFA1 and BPIFB1 were not co-localised in the diseased lungs. In ENaC-Tg mice there was strong staining of both proteins in the airways and luminal contents. This was most marked for BPIFB1 and was noted within 2 weeks of birth. The two proteins were present in distinct cells within epithelium. BPIFB1 was readily detected in BAL from ENaC-Tg mice but was absent from wild-type mice. Alterations in the expression of BPIF proteins is associated with CF lung disease in humans and mice. It is unclear if this elevation of protein production, which results from phenotypic alteration of the cells within the diseased epithelium, plays a role in the pathogenesis of the disease

The extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole of 2019 and associated Indian summer monsoon rainfall response

The positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) event in 2019 was among the strongest on record, while the Indian Summer monsoon (ISM) was anomalously dry in June then very wet by September. We investigated the relationships between the IOD, Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) and ISM rainfall during 2019 with an atmospheric general circulation model forced by observed SST anomalies. The results show that the extremely positive IOD was conducive to a wetter-than-normal ISM, especially late in the season when the IOD strengthened and was associated with anomalous low-level divergence over the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean and convergence over India. However, a warm SST anomaly in the central equatorial Pacific contributed to low level divergence and decreased rainfall over India in June. These results help to better understand the influence of the tropical SST anomalies on the seasonal evolution of ISM rainfall during extreme IOD events

System size and energy dependence of near-side di-hadron correlations

Two-particle azimuthal ($\Delta\phi$) and pseudorapidity ($\Delta\eta$) correlations using a trigger particle with large transverse momentum ($p_T$) in $d$+Au, Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{NN}}}$ =\xspace 62.4 GeV and 200~GeV from the STAR experiment at RHIC are presented. The \ns correlation is separated into a jet-like component, narrow in both $\Delta\phi$ and $\Delta\eta$, and the ridge, narrow in $\Delta\phi$ but broad in $\Delta\eta$. Both components are studied as a function of collision centrality, and the jet-like correlation is studied as a function of the trigger and associated $p_T$. The behavior of the jet-like component is remarkably consistent for different collision systems, suggesting it is produced by fragmentation. The width of the jet-like correlation is found to increase with the system size. The ridge, previously observed in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV, is also found in Cu+Cu collisions and in collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{NN}}}$ =\xspace 62.4 GeV, but is found to be substantially smaller at $\sqrt{s_{{NN}}}$ =\xspace 62.4 GeV than at $\sqrt{s_{{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV for the same average number of participants ($\langle N_{\mathrm{part}}\rangle$). Measurements of the ridge are compared to models.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Measurements of D0D^{0} and D∗D^{*} Production in pp + pp Collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 200 GeV

We report measurements of charmed-hadron ($D^{0}$, $D^{*}$) production cross sections at mid-rapidity in $p$ + $p$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 200 GeV by the STAR experiment. Charmed hadrons were reconstructed via the hadronic decays $D^{0}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}$, $D^{*+}\rightarrow D^{0}\pi^{+}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}\pi^{+}$ and their charge conjugates, covering the $p_T$ range of 0.6$-$2.0 GeV/$c$ and 2.0$-$6.0 GeV/$c$ for $D^{0}$ and $D^{*+}$, respectively. From this analysis, the charm-pair production cross section at mid-rapidity is $d\sigma/dy|_{y=0}^{c\bar{c}}$ = 170 $\pm$ 45 (stat.) $^{+38}_{-59}$ (sys.) $\mu$b. The extracted charm-pair cross section is compared to perturbative QCD calculations. The transverse momentum differential cross section is found to be consistent with the upper bound of a Fixed-Order Next-to-Leading Logarithm calculation.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures. Revised version submitted to Phys. Rev.