418 research outputs found
Advanced-power-reactor design concepts and performance characteristics
Five reactor cooling concepts which allow continued reactor operation following a single rupture of the coolant system are presented for application with the APR. These concepts incorporate convective cooling, double containment, or heat pipes to ensure operation after a coolant line rupture. Based on an evaluation of several control system concepts, a molybdenum clad, beryllium oxide sliding reflector located outside the pressure vessel is recommended
Experimental apparatus for investigation of fan aeroelastic instabilities in turbomachinery
The application, installation, and monitoring of dynamic strain gage instrumentation on the rotating fan blades for subsonic stalled flutter mode of the first fan rotor are described. The engine installation, the modifications to the engine controls to obtain off schedule operation of the fan, engine aerodynamic instrumentation, and general data acquisition systems are discussed
Direct observation of the tube model in F-actin solutions
Mutual uncrossability of polymers generates topological constraints on their
conformations and dynamics, which are generally described using the tube model.
We imaged confinement tubes for individual polymers within a F-actin solution
by sampling over many successive micrographs of fluorescently labeled probe
filaments. The resulting average tube width shows the predicted scaling
behavior. Unexpectedly, we found an exponential distribution of tube curvatures
which is attributed to transient entropic trapping in network void spaces.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Metastasis of prostate cancer and melanoma cells in a preclinical in vivo mouse model is enhanced by L-plastin expression and phosphorylation
BACKGROUND: Tumor cell migration and metastasis require dynamic rearrangements of the actin cytoskeleton. Interestingly, the F-actin cross-linking and stabilizing protein L-plastin, originally described as a leukocyte specific protein, is aberrantly expressed in several non-hematopoietic malignant tumors. Therefore, it has been discussed as a tumor marker. However, systematic in vivo analyses of the functional relevance of L-plastin for tumor cell metastasis were so far lacking. METHODS: We investigated the relevance of L-plastin expression and phosphorylation by ectopical expression of L-plastin in human melanoma cells (MV3) and knock-down of endogenous L-plastin in prostate cancer (PC3M). The growth and metastatic potential of tumor cells expressing no L-plastin, phosphorylatable or non-phosphorylatable L-plastin was analyzed in a preclinical mouse model after subcutaneous and intracardial injection of the tumor cells. RESULTS: Knock-down of endogenous L-plastin in human prostate carcinoma cells led to reduced tumor cell growth and metastasis. Vice versa, and in line with these findings, ectopic expression of L-plastin in L-plastin negative melanoma cells significantly increased the number of metastases. Strikingly, the metastasis promoting effect of L-plastin was not observed if a non-phosphorylatable L-plastin mutant was expressed. CONCLUSIONS: Our data provide the first in vivo evidence that expression of L-plastin promotes tumor metastasis and, importantly, that this effect depends on an additionally required phosphorylation of L-plastin. In conclusion, these findings imply that for determining the importance of tumor-associated proteins like L-plastin a characterization of posttranslational modifications is indispensable
Global Wheat Head Detection (GWHD) dataset: a large and diverse dataset of high resolution RGB labelled images to develop and benchmark wheat head detection methods
Detection of wheat heads is an important task allowing to estimate pertinent
traits including head population density and head characteristics such as
sanitary state, size, maturity stage and the presence of awns. Several studies
developed methods for wheat head detection from high-resolution RGB imagery.
They are based on computer vision and machine learning and are generally
calibrated and validated on limited datasets. However, variability in
observational conditions, genotypic differences, development stages, head
orientation represents a challenge in computer vision. Further, possible
blurring due to motion or wind and overlap between heads for dense populations
make this task even more complex. Through a joint international collaborative
effort, we have built a large, diverse and well-labelled dataset, the Global
Wheat Head detection (GWHD) dataset. It contains 4,700 high-resolution RGB
images and 190,000 labelled wheat heads collected from several countries around
the world at different growth stages with a wide range of genotypes. Guidelines
for image acquisition, associating minimum metadata to respect FAIR principles
and consistent head labelling methods are proposed when developing new head
detection datasets. The GWHD is publicly available at
http://www.global-wheat.com/ and aimed at developing and benchmarking methods
for wheat head detection.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, Dataset pape
Effects of continuous milking during a field trial on productivity, milk protein yield and health in dairy cows
The objective of this field study with an automatic milking system was to evaluate the effects of omitting the dry period on health and productivity during the subsequent lactation in dairy cows. A total of 98 German Simmental cows of six Southern German farms were assigned randomly to two experimental groups: The first group was dried-off 56 days before calving (D for dried-off, n=49), and the second group was milked continuously during this period until calving (CM for continuous milking, n=49). From the latter a third group emerged, including cows that dried-off themselves spontaneously (DS for dried-off spontaneously, n=14). Blood serum values of glucose, β-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and IGF-1 showed most pronounced fluctuations in D cows. Over the entire study period, the concentrations of BHBA and NEFA were markedly lower in the CM and DS groups. Furthermore, IGF-1 concentration was lowest for D cows and also decrease in back fat thickness was more pronounced. Mean concentration of milk protein was markedly higher in CM and DS cows (3.70% and 3.71%) compared with D cows (3.38%). Owing to the lower 305-day milk yield (−15.6%) and the lower total milk yield (−3.1%), the total amount of produced protein in the subsequent lactation was 2.5% (6.8 kg) lower, although the additional protein amount in CM cows from week −8 to calving was 35.7 kg. The greatest benefit resulted from positive effects on fertility and the lower incidence of diseases: CM cows had their first oestrus 1 week earlier compared with D cows, they also conceived earlier and showed a significantly lower risk of developing hypocalcaemia, ketosis and puerperal disorders. The present study showed that the costs of medical treatment and milk losses were twice as high in D cows, compared with CM and DS cows, and thus the reduced costs because of the more stable health outweighed the financial losses of milk yield by +18.49 € per cow and lactation
First Observation of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission in a Free-Electron Laser at 109 nm Wavelength
We present the first observation of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission
(SASE) in a free-electron laser (FEL) in the Vacuum Ultraviolet regime at 109
nm wavelength (11 eV). The observed free-electron laser gain (approx. 3000) and
the radiation characteristics, such as dependency on bunch charge, angular
distribution, spectral width and intensity fluctuations all corroborate the
existing models for SASE FELs.Comment: 6 pages including 6 figures; e-mail: [email protected]
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