PNNL Results from 2010 CALIBAN Criticality Accident Dosimeter Intercomparison Exercise

This document reports the results of the Hanford personnel nuclear accident dosimeter (PNAD) and fixed nuclear accident dosimeter (FNAD) during a criticality accident dosimeter intercomparison exercise at the CEA Valduc Center on September 20-23, 2010. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) participated in a criticality accident dosimeter intercomparison exercise at the Commissariat a Energie Atomique (CEA) Valduc Center near Dijon, France on September 20-23, 2010. The intercomparison exercise was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Nuclear Criticality Safety Program, with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as the lead Laboratory. PNNL was one of six invited DOE Laboratory participants. The other participating Laboratories were: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Savannah River Site (SRS), the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL). The goals of PNNL's participation in the intercomparison exercise were to test and validate the procedures and algorithm currently used for the Hanford personnel nuclear accident dosimeters (PNADs) on the metallic reactor, CALIBAN, to test exposures to PNADs from the side and from behind a phantom, and to test PNADs that were taken from a historical batch of Hanford PNADs that had varying degrees of degradation of the bare indium foil. Similar testing of the PNADs was done on the Valduc SILENE test reactor in 2009 (Hill and Conrady, 2010). The CALIBAN results are reported here

The Consequences of Choking in Sport: A Constructive or Destructive Experience?

Through an empirical phenomenological methodology, the study examined the short- and long-term consequences of choking in sport. Eleven intermediate golfers (10 male, 1 female; age 23–50 years, M = 34.6, SD = 8.9) with handicaps of 6–18 (M = 10.91, SD = 3.98) completed phenomenological interviews that explored the perceived psychological impact of their choking episode(s). While the reported short-term consequences were negative (i.e., collapse in performance standards, limited attention/emotional control, and negative affect), most participants thought the long-term impact of choking was constructive, for it encouraged adversity-related growth. However, a small number of golfers identified the long-term consequences as highly destructive, including a loss of self-confidence, withdrawal from the sport, and, in 1 case, lowered self-worth. The findings of the study extend the choking literature by informing strategies that can be used to encourage constructive, rather than destructive, consequences from any choking episode that athletes may experience

Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor instability

The effect of rotation upon the classical Rayleigh-Taylor instability is considered. We consider a two-layer system with an axis of rotation that is perpendicular to the interface between the layers. In general we find that a wave mode’s growth rate may be reduced by rotation. We further show that in some cases, unstable axisymmetric wave modes may be stabilized by rotating the system above a critical rotation rate associated with the mode’s wavelength, the Atwood number and the flow’s aspect ratio

A single Streptomyces symbiont makes multiple antifungals to support the fungus farming ant Acromyrmex octospinosus

Attine ants are dependent on a cultivated fungus for food and use antibiotics produced by symbiotic Actinobacteria as weedkillers in their fungus gardens. Actinobacterial species belonging to the genera Pseudonocardia, Streptomyces and Amycolatopsis have been isolated from attine ant nests and shown to confer protection against a range of microfungal weeds. In previous work on the higher attine Acromyrmex octospinosus we isolated a Streptomyces strain that produces candicidin, consistent with another report that attine ants use Streptomyces-produced candicidin in their fungiculture. Here we report the genome analysis of this Streptomyces strain and identify multiple antibiotic biosynthetic pathways. We demonstrate, using gene disruptions and mass spectrometry, that this single strain has the capacity to make candicidin and multiple antimycin compounds. Although antimycins have been known for > 60 years we report the sequence of the biosynthetic gene cluster for the first time. Crucially, disrupting the candicidin and antimycin gene clusters in the same strain had no effect on bioactivity against a co-evolved nest pathogen called Escovopsis that has been identified in similar to 30% of attine ant nests. Since the Streptomyces strain has strong bioactivity against Escovopsis we conclude that it must make additional antifungal(s) to inhibit Escovopsis. However, candicidin and antimycins likely offer protection against other microfungal weeds that infect the attine fungal gardens. Thus, we propose that the selection of this biosynthetically prolific strain from the natural environment provides A. octospinosus with broad spectrum activity against Escovopsis and other microfungal weeds.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Price Discovery and the Accuracy of Consolidated Data Feeds in the U.S. Equity Markets

Both the scientific community and the popular press have paid much attention to the speed of the Securities Information Processor, the data feed consolidating all trades and quotes across the US stock market. Rather than the speed of the Securities Information Processor, or SIP, we focus here on its accuracy. Relying on Trade and Quote data, we provide various measures of SIP latency relative to high-speed data feeds between exchanges, known as direct feeds. We use first differences to highlight not only the divergence between the direct feeds and the SIP, but also the fundamental inaccuracy of the SIP. We find that as many as 60 percent or more of trades are reported out of sequence for stocks with high trade volume, therefore skewing simple measures such as returns. While not yet definitive, this analysis supports our preliminary conclusion that the underlying infrastructure of the SIP is currently unable to keep pace with the trading activity in today's stock market.Comment: 18 pages, 20 figures, 2 table

Autopodial development is selectively impaired by misexpression of chordin-like 1 in the chick limb

AbstractChordin-like 1 (CHRDL1) is a secreted bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) antagonist expressed in mesenchymal tissues whose function in development of the skeleton has not been examined in detail. Here we show Chrdl1 is dynamically expressed in the early distal limb bud mesenchyme, with expression becoming downregulated as development proceeds. Chrdl1 expression is largely excluded from the critical signaling center of the posterior limb bud, the Zone of Polarizing Activity (ZPA), as has been described for the BMP antagonist Gremlin (GREM1) (Scherz et al., 2004, Science, 305, 396–399). Unlike Grem1, Chrdl1 is expressed in the hindlimb by a small subset of ZPA cells and their descendants suggesting divergent regulation and function between the various BMP antagonists. Ectopic expression of Chrdl1 throughout the avian limb bud using viral misexpression resulted in an oligodactyly phenotype with loss of digits from the anterior limb, although the development of more proximal elements of the zeugopod and stylopod were unaffected. Overgrowths of soft tissue and syndactyly were also observed, resulting from impaired apoptosis and failure of the anterior mesenchyme to undergo SOX9-dependent chondrogenesis, instead persisting as an interdigital-like soft tissue phenotype. Sonic hedgehog (SHH) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling were upregulated and persisted later in development, however these changes were only detected late in limb development at timepoints when endogenous Grem1 would normally be downregulated and increasing BMP signaling would cause termination of Shh and Fgf expression. Our results suggest that the early stages of the GREM1–SHH–FGF signaling network are resistant to Chrdl1-overexpression, leading to normal formation of proximal limb structures, but that later Bmp expression, impaired by ectopic CHRDL1, is essential for formation of the correct complement of digits

Effect of ovariectomy on the progression of chronic kidney disease-mineral bone disorder (CKD-MBD) in female Cy/+ rats

Male Cy/+ rats have shown a relatively consistent pattern of progressive kidney disease development that displays multiple key features of late stage chronic kidney disease-mineral bone disorder (CKD-MBD), specifically the development of cortical bone porosity. However, progression of disease in female Cy/+ rats, assessed in limited studies, is more heterogeneous and to date has failed to show development of the CKD-MBD phenotype, thus limiting their use as a practical model of progressive CKD-MBD. Animal and human studies suggest that estrogen may be protective against kidney disease in addition to its established protective effect on bone. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to determine the effect of ovariectomy (OVX) on the biochemical and skeletal manifestations of CKD-MBD in Cy/+ female rats. We hypothesized that OVX would accelerate development of the biochemical and skeletal features of CKD-MBD in female Cy/+ rats, similar to those seen in male Cy/+ rats. Female Cy/+ rats underwent OVX (n = 8) or Sham (n = 8) surgery at 15 weeks of age. Blood was collected every 5 weeks post-surgery until 35 weeks of age, when the rats underwent a 4-day metabolic balance, and the tibia and final blood were collected at the time of sacrifice. OVX produced the expected changes in trabecular and cortical parameters consistent with post-menopausal disease, and negative phosphorus balance compared with Sham. However, indicators of CKD-MBD were similar between OVX and Sham (similar kidney weight, plasma blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, creatinine clearance, phosphorus, calcium, parathyroid hormone, and no cortical porosity). Contrary to our hypothesis, OVX did not produce evidence of development of the CKD-MBD phenotype in female Cy/+ rats

A haplome alignment and reference sequence of the highly polymorphic Ciona savignyi genome

The high degree of polymorphism in the genome of the sea squirt Ciona savignyi complicated the assembly of sequence contigs, but a new alignment method results in a much improved sequence

Photoionization of High Altitude Gas in a Supernova-Driven Turbulent Interstellar Medium

We investigate models for the photoionization of the widespread diffuse ionized gas in galaxies. In particular we address the long standing question of the penetration of Lyman continuum photons from sources close to the galactic midplane to large heights in the galactic halo. We find that recent hydrodynamical simulations of a supernova-driven interstellar medium have low density paths and voids that allow for ionizing photons from midplane OB stars to reach and ionize gas many kiloparsecs above the midplane. We find ionizing fluxes throughout our simulation grids are larger than predicted by one dimensional slab models, thus allowing for photoionization by O stars of low altitude neutral clouds in the Galaxy that are also detected in Halpha. In previous studies of such clouds the photoionization scenario had been rejected and the Halpha had been attributed to enhanced cosmic ray ionization or scattered light from midplane H II regions. We do find that the emission measure distributions in our simulations are wider than those derived from Halpha observations in the Milky Way. In addition, the horizontally averaged height dependence of the gas density in the hydrodynamical models is lower than inferred in the Galaxy. These discrepancies are likely due to the absence of magnetic fields in the hydrodynamic simulations and we discuss how magnetohydrodynamic effects may reconcile models and observations. Nevertheless, we anticipate that the inclusion of magnetic fields in the dynamical simulations will not alter our primary finding that midplane OB stars are capable of producing high altitude diffuse ionized gas in a realistic three-dimensional interstellar medium.Comment: ApJ accepted. 17 pages, 7 figure