Acoustic evaluation of the Helmholtz resonator treatment in the NASA Lewis 8- by 6-foot supersonic wind tunnel

The acoustic consequences of sealing the Helmholtz resonators of the NASA Lewis 8- by 6-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel (8x6 SWT) were experimentally evaluated. This resonator sealing was proposed in order to avoid entrapment of hydrogen during tests of advanced hydrogen-fueled engines. The resonators were designed to absorb energy in the 4- to 20-Hz range; thus, this investigation is primarily concerned with infrasound. Limited internal and external noise measurements were made at tunnel Mach numbers ranging from 0.5 to 2.0. Although the resonators were part of the acoustic treatment installed because of a community noise problem their sealing did not seem to indicate a reoccurrence of the problem would result. Two factors were key to this conclusion: (1) A large bulk treatment muffler downstream of the resonators was able to make up for much of the attenuation originally provided by the resonators, and (2) there was no noise source in the tunnel test section. The previous community noise problem occurred when a large ramjet was tested in an open-loop tunnel configuration. If a propulsion system producing high noise levels at frequencies of less than 10 Hz were tested, the conclusion on community noise would have to be reevaluated

Cost Saving or Cost Effective? Unanswered Questions in the Screening of Patients With Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151870/1/hep41386_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151870/2/hep41386.pd

Toll-like receptor 3 blockade in rhinovirus-induced experimental asthma exacerbations:A Randomized Controlled Study

BACKGROUND: Human rhinoviruses (HRVs) commonly precipitate asthma exacerbations. Toll-like receptor 3, an innate pattern recognition receptor, is triggered by HRV, driving inflammation that can worsen asthma. OBJECTIVE: We sought to evaluate an inhibitory mAb to Toll-like receptor 3, CNTO3157, on experimental HRV-16 inoculation in healthy subjects and asthmatic patients. METHODS: In this double-blind, multicenter, randomized, parallel-group study in North America and Europe, healthy subjects and patients with mild-to-moderate stable asthma received single or multiple doses of CNTO3157 or placebo, respectively, and were then inoculated with HRV-16 within 72 hours. All subjects were monitored for respiratory symptoms, lung function, and nasal viral load. The primary end point was maximal decrease in FEV1 during 10 days after inoculation. RESULTS: In asthmatic patients (n = 63) CNTO3157 provided no protection against FEV1 decrease (least squares mean: CNTO3157 [n = 30] = -7.08% [SE, 8.15%]; placebo [n = 25] = -5.98% [SE, 8.56%]) or symptoms after inoculation. In healthy subjects (n = 12) CNTO3157 versus placebo significantly attenuated upper (P = .03) and lower (P = .02) airway symptom scores, with area-under-the-curve increases of 9.1 (15.1) versus 34.9 (17.6) and 13.0 (18.4) versus 50.4 (25.9) for the CNTO3157 (n = 8) and placebo (n = 4) groups, respectively, after inoculation. All of the severe and 4 of the nonserious asthma exacerbations occurred while receiving CNTO3157. CONCLUSION: In summary, CNTO3157 was ineffective in attenuating the effect of HRV-16 challenge on lung function, asthma control, and symptoms in asthmatic patients but suppressed cold symptoms in healthy subjects. Other approaches, including blockade of multiple pathways or antiviral agents, need to be sought for this high unmet medical need

Spin injection and spin accumulation in all-metal mesoscopic spin valves

We study the electrical injection and detection of spin accumulation in lateral ferromagnetic metal-nonmagnetic metal-ferromagnetic metal (F/N/F) spin valve devices with transparent interfaces. Different ferromagnetic metals, permalloy (Py), cobalt (Co) and nickel (Ni), are used as electrical spin injectors and detectors. For the nonmagnetic metal both aluminium (Al) and copper (Cu) are used. Our multi-terminal geometry allows us to experimentally separate the spin valve effect from other magneto resistance signals such as the anomalous magneto resistance (AMR) and Hall effects. We find that the AMR contribution of the ferromagnetic contacts can dominate the amplitude of the spin valve effect, making it impossible to observe the spin valve effect in a 'conventional' measurement geometry. In a 'non local' spin valve measurement we are able to completely isolate the spin valve signal and observe clear spin accumulation signals at T=4.2 K as well as at room temperature (RT). For aluminum we obtain spin relaxation lengths (lambda_{sf}) of 1.2 mu m and 600 nm at T=4.2 K and RT respectively, whereas for copper we obtain 1.0 mu m and 350 nm. The spin relaxation times tau_{sf} in Al and Cu are compared with theory and results obtained from giant magneto resistance (GMR), conduction electron spin resonance (CESR), anti-weak localization and superconducting tunneling experiments. The spin valve signals generated by the Py electrodes (alpha_F lambda_F=0.5 [1.2] nm at RT [T=4.2 K]) are larger than the Co electrodes (alpha_F lambda_F=0.3 [0.7] nm at RT [T=4.2 K]), whereas for Ni (alpha_F lambda_F<0.3 nm at RT and T=4.2 K) no spin signal is observed. These values are compared to the results obtained from GMR experiments.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, submitted to PR

Deriving and critiquing an empirically-based framework for pharmaceutical ethics.

Background: The pharmaceutical industry has been responsible for major medical advances, but the industry has also been heavily criticized. Such criticisms, and associated regulatory responses, are no doubt often warranted, but do not provide a framework for those who wish to reason systematically about the moral dimensions of drug development. We set out to develop such a framework using Beauchamp and Childress’s “four principles” as organizing categories. Methods: We conducted a qualitative interview study of people working in the “medical affairs” departments of pharmaceutical companies to determine: (1) whether our data could meaningfully be organized under the headings of “autonomy,” “beneficence,” “nonmaleficence,” and “justice”; (2) how principles might be expressed in this particular commercial setting; and (3) if these principles are expressed, whether and how competing principles are balanced. We then critiqued these findings using existing normative theory. Results: Our interviews demonstrated that three of Beauchamp and Childress’ four principles were salient to our participants: beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Within each of these principles, participants had two broad ethical orientations: an altruistic public focus (“other-ness”) and a commitment to their companies (“firm-ness”). Our participants also demonstrated efforts to balance these principles and highlighted the importance of phronesis (or practical wisdom) in balancing and enacting principles. Notably, however, our participants did not spontaneously emphasize the importance of autonomy. Conclusions: It is possible to use qualitative empirical research, together with normative analysis, to derive a framework for pharmaceutical ethics. We suggest that our framework would be useful for those who wish to reason ethically within, or in collaboration with, the pharmaceutical industry. Keywords: Empirical ethics, principle-based ethics, pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical ethics, qualitative researchNHMRC Career Development Fellowship APP106356

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Evidence for the Higgs-boson Yukawa coupling to tau leptons with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for H → τ τ decays are presented, based on the full set of proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC during 2011 and 2012. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of 4.5 fb−1 and 20.3 fb−1 at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV respectively. All combinations of leptonic (τ → `νν¯ with ` = e, µ) and hadronic (τ → hadrons ν) tau decays are considered. An excess of events over the expected background from other Standard Model processes is found with an observed (expected) significance of 4.5 (3.4) standard deviations. This excess provides evidence for the direct coupling of the recently discovered Higgs boson to fermions. The measured signal strength, normalised to the Standard Model expectation, of µ = 1.43 +0.43 −0.37 is consistent with the predicted Yukawa coupling strength in the Standard Model

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV