Columbus: Attached Pressurized Module Configuration-MTFF Pressurized Module Configuration

The first part of this paper describes the main technical features of the European Space Agency\u27s Columbus Attached Pressurized Module. The Module is an integral part of the manned core of the International Space Station, and is a development of the ESA Spacelab Module. As such it is a modular 4 segment construction of 12 m length, 4 m diameter which will be launched on an NSTS flight, currently scheduled in 1994 as Station assembly flight 16. Its internal configuration is a doubly symmetric cross section of 4 identical rack envelopes separated by standoffs carrying utilities. Being a part of the Space Station core, it has system and subsystem architectures which will be compatible with those of the other Modules. Its purpose is to provide resources for materials, fluid and life sciences payloads over a 30 year lifetime, The on-orbit payload accommodation is for up to 10.000 kg housed in up to 25 m of rack volume, with 10 kw power and 100 mbits I sec data transfer, The module will normally be occupied by two crew working in a one atmosphere shirt-sleeve environment, operating the payloads and performing maintenance as required

MTFF Operational Design Features

This paper describes the main design features incorporated in the European Space Agency\u27s Man-Tended Free Flyer which enable the MTFF to be operational on-orbit for a 30 year period via servicing and maintenance. The MTFF is to be serviced at the Station or by Hermes every 6 months in one of two ways - using man in the Pressurized Module and using robotics for the external equipment of the PM and the Resource Module. EVA is a contingency back-up to the latter. Crew servicing inside the PM is enhanced by the proper attention to design details allowing good access to the payload and subsystem equipment in the same manner as for the Attached Modules of the Station, that is by mounting all equipment in standard racks to which the crew have easy access. Servicing of the external items is achieved by mounting them in Orbital Replacement Units (ORU\u27s) which are compatible with the Station and/or Hermes manipulator arms. The ORU\u27s have standardized interface provisions for end effectors and also for attachment to their parent Spacecraft. There are also non-standard ORU\u27s such as solar arrays and comms antennae. The MTFF has attitude/orbit control, stability and position features, has RVD sensors and propulsive capabilities for orbit maintenanck, transfer and rendezvous functions

No contribution of object category information in perceptual thresholds : evidence from Candy Crush

An emerging view in visual learning is that the rewards associated with particular visual stimuli lead to enhanced early sensory representations. However, it is unclear whether object category information is required for reward-related facilitation of early sensory representations, or whether any facilitation occurs at a more fundamental level. Video games which rely on in-game icons of rewarding or neutral value offer an excellent arena in which to investigate the development of any changes in representation. To test these alternative explanations, we compared the ability of 33 Candy-Crush players against 32 non-players to detect icons which had rewarding or neutral roles within the game. Using diffeomorphic scrambling to preserve the basic visual properties, the threshold for detection of a rewarding icon, a neutral icon and a control pair of non-game icons within a 7x7 grid of distractor icons was measured. Each participant's thresholds were measured in a 2AFC staircase procedure. Both players and non-players were significantly better at detecting the rewarding in-game icon than the neutral icon and all participants showed similar reductions in threshold for the reward-associated control icon compared to the neutral control icon. Even though our most practiced players had accumulated years of experience, there was no association between playing time and perceptual thresholds. Our results suggest that there is a strong contribution of the basic visual features to performance levels both with the Candy-Crush and control targets, and provide no evidence that even long experience with reward-association heightens perceptual sensitivity independent of object category information

Pleiotropic functions of the tumor- and metastasis-suppressing Matrix Metalloproteinase-8 in mammary cancer in MMTV-PyMT transgenic mice

Matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8; neutrophil collagenase) is an important regulator of innate immunity which has onco-suppressive actions in numerous tumor types

Multifractality in Time Series

We apply the concepts of multifractal physics to financial time series in order to characterize the onset of crash for the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index x(t). It is found that within the framework of multifractality, the "analogous" specific heat of the S&P500 discrete price index displays a shoulder to the right of the main peak for low values of time lags. On decreasing T, the presence of the shoulder is a consequence of the peaked, temporal x(t+T)-x(t) fluctuations in this regime. For large time lags (T>80), we have found that C_{q} displays typical features of a classical phase transition at a critical point. An example of such dynamic phase transition in a simple economic model system, based on a mapping with multifractality phenomena in random multiplicative processes, is also presented by applying former results obtained with a continuous probability theory for describing scaling measures.Comment: 22 pages, Revtex, 4 ps figures - To appear J. Phys. A (2000

Overview of the Acoustic Testing of the European Service Module Structural Test Article (E-STA)

The European Space Agency (ESA) and their prime contractor Airbus Defense Space (ADS) are developing the European Service Module (ESM) for integration and utilization with other modules of NASAs Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. As part of this development, ESA, ADS, NASA and the Lockheed Martin Company performed a series of reverberant acoustic tests in April-May 2016 on the ESM Structural Test Article (E-STA), the mechanical mock-up of the ESM designated for mechanical tests. Testing the E-STA under acoustic qualification loads verifies whether it can successfully withstand the medium and high frequency mechanical environment occurring during the vehicles lift-off and atmospheric phases of flight. The testing occurred at the Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility (RATF) at the NASA Glenn Research Centers Plum Brook Station site in Sandusky, OH, USA. This highly successful acoustic test campaign excited the E-STA to acoustic test levels as high as 149.4 dB Overall Sound Pressure Level. This acoustic testing met all the ESA and ADSs test objectives, including establishingverifying the random vibration qualification test levels for numerous hardware components of the ESM, and qualifying the ESMs Solar Array Wing electrical power system. This paper will address the test objectives, the test articles configuration, the test instrumentation and excitation levels, the RATF site and capabilities, the series of acoustic tests performed, and the technical issues faced and overcome to result in a successful acoustic test campaign for the ESM. A discussion of several test results is also included

A Novel Task for the Investigation of Action Acquisition

We present a behavioural task designed for the investigation of how novel instrumental actions are discovered and learnt. The task consists of free movement with a manipulandum, during which the full range of possible movements can be explored by the participant and recorded. A subset of these movements, the ‘target’, is set to trigger a reinforcing signal. The task is to discover what movements of the manipulandum evoke the reinforcement signal. Targets can be defined in spatial, temporal, or kinematic terms, can be a combination of these aspects, or can represent the concatenation of actions into a larger gesture. The task allows the study of how the specific elements of behaviour which cause the reinforcing signal are identified, refined and stored by the participant. The task provides a paradigm where the exploratory motive drives learning and as such we view it as in the tradition of Thorndike [1]. Most importantly it allows for repeated measures, since when a novel action is acquired the criterion for triggering reinforcement can be changed requiring a new action to be discovered. Here, we present data using both humans and rats as subjects, showing that our task is easily scalable in difficulty, adaptable across species, and produces a rich set of behavioural measures offering new and valuable insight into the action learning process

Signature Movements Lead to Efficient Search for Threatening Actions

The ability to find and evade fighting persons in a crowd is potentially life-saving. To investigate how the visual system processes threatening actions, we employed a visual search paradigm with threatening boxer targets among emotionally-neutral walker distractors, and vice versa. We found that a boxer popped out for both intact and scrambled actions, whereas walkers did not. A reverse correlation analysis revealed that observers' responses clustered around the time of the “punch", a signature movement of boxing actions, but not around specific movements of the walker. These findings support the existence of a detector for signature movements in action perception. This detector helps in rapidly detecting aggressive behavior in a crowd, potentially through an expedited (sub)cortical threat-detection mechanism

Knockdown of MTDH Sensitizes Endometrial Cancer Cells to Cell Death Induction by Death Receptor Ligand TRAIL and HDAC Inhibitor LBH589 Co-Treatment

Understanding the molecular underpinnings of chemoresistance is vital to design therapies to restore chemosensitivity. In particular, metadherin (MTDH) has been demonstrated to have a critical role in chemoresistance. Over-expression of MTDH correlates with poor clinical outcome in breast cancer, neuroblastoma, hepatocellular carcinoma and prostate cancer. MTDH is also highly expressed in advanced endometrial cancers, a disease for which new therapies are urgently needed. In this present study, we focused on the therapeutic benefit of MTDH depletion in endometrial cancer cells to restore sensitivity to cell death. Cells were treated with a combination of tumor necrosis factor-α-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), which promotes death of malignant cells of the human reproductive tract, and histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, which have been shown to increase the sensitivity of cancer cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Our data indicate that depletion of MTDH in endometrial cancer cells resulted in sensitization of cells that were previously resistant in response to combinatorial treatment with TRAIL and the HDAC inhibitor LBH589. MTDH knockdown reduced the proportion of cells in S and increased cell arrest in G2/M in cells treated with LBH589 alone or LBH589 in combination with TRAIL, suggesting that MTDH functions at the cell cycle checkpoint to accomplish resistance. Using microarray technology, we identified 57 downstream target genes of MTDH, including calbindin 1 and galectin-1, which may contribute to MTDH-mediated therapeutic resistance. On the other hand, in MTDH depleted cells, inhibition of PDK1 and AKT phosphorylation along with increased Bim expression and XIAP degradation correlated with enhanced sensitivity to cell death in response to TRAIL and LBH589. These findings indicate that targeting or depleting MTDH is a potentially novel avenue for reversing therapeutic resistance in patients with endometrial cancer