3,297 research outputs found
Flight investigation of the effect of tail boom strakes on helicopter directional control
A joint U.S. Army/NASA flight investigation was conducted utilizing a single-rotor helicopter to determine the effectiveness of horizontally mounted tail boom strakes on directional controllability and tail rotor power during low-speed, crosswind operating conditions. Three configurations were investigated: (1) baseline (strakes off), (2) single strake (strake at upper shoulder on port side of boom), and (3) double strake (upper strake plus a lower strake on same side of boom). The strakes were employed as a means to separate airflow over the tail boom and change fuselage yawing moments in a direction to improve the yaw control margin and reduce tail rotor power. Crosswind data were obtained in 5-knot increments of airspeed from 0 to 35 knots and in 30 deg increments of wind azimuth from 0 deg to 330 deg. At the most critical wind azimuth and airspeed in terms of tail rotor power, the strakes improved the pedal margin by 6 percent of total travel and reduced tail rotor power required by 17 percent. The increase in yaw control and reduction in tail rotor power offered by the strakes can expand the helicopter operating envelope in terms of gross weight and altitude capability. The strakes did not affect the flying qualities of the vehicle at airspeeds between 35 and 100 knots
Susceptibility to intestinal infection and diarrhoea in Zambian adults in relation to HIV status and CD4 count.
BACKGROUND: The HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has had a major impact on infectious disease, and there is currently great interest in the impact of HIV on intestinal barrier function. A three year longitudinal cohort study in a shanty compound in Lusaka, Zambia, carried out before anti-retroviral therapy was widely available, was used to assess the impact of HIV on susceptibility to intestinal infectious disease. We measured the incidence and seasonality of intestinal infection and diarrhoea, aggregation of disease in susceptible individuals, clustering by co-habitation and genetic relatedness, and the disease-to-infection ratio. METHODS: Adults living in a small section of Misisi, Lusaka, were interviewed every two weeks to ascertain the incidence of diarrhoea. Monthly stool samples were analysed for selected pathogens. HIV status and CD4 count were determined annually. RESULTS: HIV seroprevalence was 31% and the prevalence of immunosuppression (CD4 count 200 cells/microL or less) was 10%. Diarrhoea incidence was 1.1 episodes per year and the Incidence Rate Ratio for HIV infection was 2.4 (95%CI 1.7-3.3; p < 0.001). The disease-to-infection ratio was increased at all stages of HIV infection. Aggregation of diarrhoea in susceptible individuals was observed irrespective of immunosuppression, but there was little evidence of clustering by co-habitation or genetic relatedness. There was no evidence of aggregation of asymptomatic infections. CONCLUSION: HIV has an impact on intestinal infection at all stages, with an increased disease-to-infection ratio. The aggregation of disease in susceptible individuals irrespective of CD4 count suggests that this phenomenon is not a function of cell mediated immunity
Recommended from our members
Draft Genome Sequence of Rhodococcus sp. Strain ATCC 49988, a Quinoline-Degrading Bacterium.
We report here the 4.9-Mb genome sequence of a quinoline-degrading bacterium, Rhodococcus sp. strain ATCC 49988. The draft genome data will enable the identification of genes and future genetic modification to enhance traits relevant to heteroaromatic compound degradation
AlGaInN laser diode technology for GHz high-speed visible light communication through plastic optical fiber and water
AlGaInN ridge waveguide laser diodes are fabricated to achieve single-mode operation with optical powers up to 100 mW at ∼420 nm∼420 nm for visible free-space, underwater, and plastic optical fiber communication. We report high-frequency operation of AlGaInN laser diodes with data transmission up to 2.5 GHz for free-space and underwater communication and up to 1.38 GHz through 10 m of plastic optical fiber
An integrative systematic framework helps to reconstruct skeletal evolution of glass sponges (Porifera, Hexactinellida)
BACKGROUND: Glass sponges (Class Hexactinellida) are important components of deep-sea ecosystems and are of interest from geological and materials science perspectives. The reconstruction of their phylogeny with molecular data has only recently begun and shows a better agreement with morphology-based systematics than is typical for other sponge groups, likely because of a greater number of informative morphological characters. However, inconsistencies remain that have far-reaching implications for hypotheses about the evolution of their major skeletal construction types (body plans). Furthermore, less than half of all described extant genera have been sampled for molecular systematics, and several taxa important for understanding skeletal evolution are still missing. Increased taxon sampling for molecular phylogenetics of this group is therefore urgently needed. However, due to their remote habitat and often poorly preserved museum material, sequencing all 126 currently recognized extant genera will be difficult to achieve. Utilizing morphological data to incorporate unsequenced taxa into an integrative systematics framework therefore holds great promise, but it is unclear which methodological approach best suits this task. RESULTS: Here, we increase the taxon sampling of four previously established molecular markers (18S, 28S, and 16S ribosomal DNA, as well as cytochrome oxidase subunit I) by 12 genera, for the first time including representatives of the order Aulocalycoida and the type genus of Dactylocalycidae, taxa that are key to understanding hexactinellid body plan evolution. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that Aulocalycoida is diphyletic and provide further support for the paraphyly of order Hexactinosida; hence these orders are abolished from the Linnean classification. We further assembled morphological character matrices to integrate so far unsequenced genera into phylogenetic analyses in maximum parsimony (MP), maximum likelihood (ML), Bayesian, and morphology-based binning frameworks. We find that of these four approaches, total-evidence analysis using MP gave the most plausible results concerning congruence with existing phylogenetic and taxonomic hypotheses, whereas the other methods, especially ML and binning, performed more poorly. We use our total-evidence phylogeny of all extant glass sponge genera for ancestral state reconstruction of morphological characters in MP and ML frameworks, gaining new insights into the evolution of major hexactinellid body plans and other characters such as different spicule types. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates how a comprehensive, albeit in some parts provisional, phylogeny of a larger taxon can be achieved with an integrative approach utilizing molecular and morphological data, and how this can be used as a basis for understanding phenotypic evolution. The datasets and associated trees presented here are intended as a resource and starting point for future work on glass sponge evolution
Through the looking GLASS: HST spectroscopy of faint galaxies lensed by the Frontier Fields cluster MACS0717.5+3745
The Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS) is a Hubble Space
Telescope (HST) Large Program, which will obtain 140 orbits of grism
spectroscopy of the core and infall regions of 10 galaxy clusters, selected to
be among the very best cosmic telescopes. Extensive HST imaging is available
from many sources including the CLASH and Frontier Fields programs. We
introduce the survey by analyzing spectra of faint multiply-imaged galaxies and
galaxy candidates obtained from the first seven orbits out of
fourteen targeting the core of the Frontier Fields cluster MACS0717.5+3745.
Using the G102 and G141 grisms to cover the wavelength range 0.8-1.7m, we
confirm 4 strongly lensed systems by detecting emission lines in each of the
images. For the 9 galaxy candidates clear from contamination, we do
not detect any emission lines down to a seven-orbit 1 noise level of
510erg scm. Taking lensing magnification
into account, our flux sensitivity reaches 0.2-510erg
scm. These limits over an uninterrupted wavelength range rule out
the possibility that the high- galaxy candidates are instead strong line
emitters at lower redshift. These results show that by means of careful
modeling of the background - and with the assistance of lensing magnification -
interesting flux limits can be reached for large numbers of objects, avoiding
pre-selection and the wavelength restrictions inherent to ground-based
multi-slit spectroscopy. These observations confirm the power of slitless HST
spectroscopy even in fields as crowded as a cluster core.Comment: Accepted by ApJ letters, 8 pages, 4 figures, GLASS website at
http://glass.physics.ucsb.ed
The Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS). I. Survey overview and first data release
We give an overview of the Grism Lens Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS), a
large Hubble Space Telescope program aimed at obtaining grism spectroscopy of
the fields of ten massive clusters of galaxies at redshift z=0.308-0.686,
including the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF). The Wide Field Camera 3 yields near
infrared spectra of the cluster cores, covering the wavelength range
0.81-1.69mum through grisms G102 and G141, while the Advanced Camera for
Surveys in parallel mode provides G800L spectra of the infall regions of the
clusters. The WFC3 spectra are taken at two almost orthogonal position angles
in order to minimize the effects of confusion. After summarizing the scientific
drivers of GLASS, we describe the sample selection as well as the observing
strategy and data processing pipeline. We then utilize MACSJ0717.5+3745, a HFF
cluster and the first one observed by GLASS, to illustrate the data quality and
the high-level data products. Each spectrum brighter than H_AB=23 is visually
inspected by at least two co-authors and a redshift is measured when sufficient
information is present in the spectra. Furthermore, we conducted a thorough
search for emission lines through all the GLASS WFC3 spectra with the aim of
measuring redshifts for sources with continuum fainter than H_AB=23. We provide
a catalog of 139 emission-line based spectroscopic redshifts for extragalactic
sources, including three new redshifts of multiple image systems (one probable,
two tentative). In addition to the data itself we also release software tools
that are helpful to navigate the data.Comment: ApJ in press. GLASS data available at
https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/glass/ . More info on GLASS available at
http://glass.physics.ucsb.edu
Effective Action of Spontaneously Broken Gauge Theories
The effective action of a Higgs theory should be gauge-invariant. However,
the quantum and/or thermal contributions to the effective potential seem to be
gauge-dependent, posing a problem for its physical interpretation. In this
paper, we identify the source of the problem and argue that in a Higgs theory,
perturbative contributions should be evaluated with the Higgs fields in the
polar basis, not in the Cartesian basis. Formally, this observation can be made
from the derivation of the Higgs theorem, which we provide. We show explicitly
that, properly defined, the effective action for the Abelian Higgs theory is
gauge invariant to all orders in perturbation expansion when evaluated in the
covariant gauge in the polar basis. In particular, the effective potential is
gauge invariant. We also show the equivalence between the calculations in the
covariant gauge in the polar basis and the unitary gauge. These points are
illustrated explicitly with the one-loop calculations of the effective action.
With a field redefinition, we obtain the physical effective potential. The
SU(2) non-Abelian case is also discussed.Comment: Expanded version, 32 pages, figures produced by LaTeX, plain LaTe
The Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS) X. Sub-kpc resolution gas-phase metallicity maps at cosmic noon behind the Hubble Frontier Fields cluster MACS1149.6+2223
(Abridged) We combine deep HST grism spectroscopy with a new Bayesian method
to derive maps of gas-phase metallicity, nebular dust extinction, and
star-formation rate for 10 star-forming galaxies at high redshift
(). Exploiting lensing magnification by the foreground cluster
MACS1149.6+2223, we reach sub-kpc spatial resolution and push the stellar mass
limit associated with such high-z spatially resolved measurements below
for the first time. Our maps exhibit diverse morphologies,
indicative of various effects such as efficient radial mixing from tidal
torques, rapid accretion of low-metallicity gas, etc., which can affect the gas
and metallicity distributions in individual galaxies. Based upon an exhaustive
sample of all existing sub-kpc metallicity gradients at high-z, we find that
predictions given by analytical chemical evolution models assuming a relatively
extended star-formation profile in the early disk formation phase can explain
the majority of observed gradients, without involving galactic feedback or
radial outflows. We observe a tentative correlation between stellar mass and
metallicity gradient, consistent with the downsizing galaxy formation picture
that more massive galaxies are more evolved into a later phase of disk growth,
where they experience more coherent mass assembly at all radii and thus show
shallower metallicity gradients. In addition, we compile a sample of
homogeneously cross-calibrated integrated metallicity measurements spanning
three orders of magnitude in stellar mass at . We use this sample to
study the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) and test the fundamental metallicity
relation (FMR). The slope of the observed MZR can rule out the momentum-driven
wind model at 3- confidence level. We find no significant offset with
respect to the FMR, taking into account the intrinsic scatter and measurement
uncertainties.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, and 6 table
- …