Saran film is fire-retardant in oxygen atmosphere

Saran was tested for flammability as a wrapping on TFE-insulated electrical wire bundles in oxygen gas at pressures of 7.5 psia and 14.7 psia. It was found to be fire retardant or self-extinguishing in most instances

ADP correspondence system: Unsolicited proposal evaluation tracking application

A complete description of a correspondence control system, designed to be used by non-ADP clerical personnel is provided. In addition to operating instructions, sufficient design and conceptual information is provided to allow use or adaption of the system in related applications. The complete COBOL program and documentation are available

Delayed collapse of concentrated dispersions flocculated in a secondary minimum

The effect of volume fraction, varied from ca. 0.05 to 0.5 on the rigidity and induction time for collapse are presented. The effect of centrifugal acceleration is examined also. It is argued that scalings of the data are consistent with the idea coming from the LAMPPS simulations of Zia et al. (Journal of Rheology 2014) that coarsening occurs by means of Interfacial diffusion and fluidisation.Comment: An extended abstract of 6 pages with 6 figs. Comments (to RB) are most welcom

The shape of the initial cluster mass function: what it tells us about the local star formation efficiency

We explore how the expulsion of gas from star-cluster forming cloud-cores due to supernova explosions affects the shape of the initial cluster mass function, that is, the mass function of star clusters when effects of gas expulsion are over. We demonstrate that if the radii of cluster-forming gas cores are roughly constant over the core mass range, as supported by observations, then more massive cores undergo slower gas expulsion. Therefore, for a given star formation efficiency, more massive cores retain a larger fraction of stars after gas expulsion. The initial cluster mass function may thus differ from the core mass function substantially, with the final shape depending on the star formation efficiency. A mass-independent star formation efficiency of about 20 per cent turns a power-law core mass function into a bell-shaped initial cluster mass function, while mass-independent efficiencies of order 40 per cent preserve the shape of the core mass function.Comment: accepted in Ap

Office of university affairs management information system: Users guide and documentation

Data on the NASA-University relationship are reported that encompass research in over 600 schools through several thousand grants and contracts. This user-driven system is capable of producing a variety of cyclical and query-type reports describing the total NASA-University profile. The capabilities, designed as part of the system, require a minimum of user maintenance in order to ensure system efficiency and data validity to meet the recurrent Statutory and Executive Branch information requirements as well as ad hoc inquiries from NASA general management, Congress, other Federal agencies, private sector organizations, universities and individuals. The data base contains information on each university, the individual projects and the financial details, current and historic, on all contracts and grants. Complete details are given on the system from its unique design features to the actual steps required for daily operation

Sites of Biosynthesis of Outer and Inner Membrane Proteins of Neurospora crassa Mitochondria

Outer and inner membranes of Neurospora crassa mitochondria were separated by the combined swelling, shrinking, sonication procedure. Membranes were characterized by electron microscopy and by marker enzyme activities. A red carotenoid pigment was found to be concentrated in the outer membrane. The inner mitochondrial membrane was resolved into about 20 protein bands on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, whereas the outer membrane shows essentially one single protein band. Only negligible incorporation of radioactive amino acids occurs into outer membrane when isolated mitochondria are synthesizing polypeptide chains. In agreement with this observation labeling of outer membrane protein is almost entirely blocked, when whole Neurospora cells are incubated with radioactive amino acids in the presence of cycloheximide, an inhibitor of cytoplasmic protein synthesis. Finally, the essential electrophoretic protein band from outer membrane does not become labeled when mitochondria are incubated with radioactive amino acids either in vitro or in vivo in the presence of cycloheximide. It is concluded that the vast majority, if not all, of the outer membrane protein is synthesized by the cytoplasmic system and that polypeptide chains formed by the mitochondrial ribosomes are integrated into the inner mitochondrial membrane

Highly neurotic never-depressed students have negative biases in information processing

BACKGROUND: Cognitive theories associate depression with negative biases in information processing. Although negatively biased cognitions are well documented in depressed patients and to some extent in recovered patients, it remains unclear whether these abnormalities are present before the first depressive episode. METHOD: High neuroticism (N) is a well-recognized risk factor for depression. The current study therefore compared different aspects of emotional processing in 33 high-N never-depressed and 32 low-N matched volunteers. Awakening salivary cortisol, which is often elevated in severely depressed patients, was measured to explore the neurobiological substrate of neuroticism. RESULTS: High-N volunteers showed increased processing of negative and/or decreased processing of positive information in emotional categorization and memory, facial expression recognition and emotion-potentiated startle (EPS), in the absence of global memory or executive deficits. By contrast, there was no evidence for effects of neuroticism on attentional bias (as measured with the dot-probe task), over-general autobiographical memory, or awakening cortisol levels. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that certain negative processing biases precede depression rather than arising as a result of depressive experience per se and as such could in part mediate the vulnerability of high-N subjects to depression. Longitudinal studies are required to confirm that such cognitive vulnerabilities predict subsequent depression in individual subjects

Modeling soil-water-plant relationships in the cerrado soils of Brasil: the case of maize (Zea mays L.).

A soil-water balance simulation model developed for the Cerrado soils of central Brazil is presented. The model calculates daily soil water evaporation, plant transpiration and soil-water balance for fourteen soil layers of 15 mm each. The model includes a subroutine to calculated capillary water movement. Computer simulations of daily soil water levels at five soil depths (15, 30, 45, 60 and 90 cm) for a field of maize are compared with actual field measurements over an-8--day period. Results indicated that the developed model can, in general, estimate the soil-water balance of the various depths within +/- 10% of actual measurements

Rheology of Aqueous Suspensions of Polystyrene Latex Stabilized by Grafted Poly(Ethylene Oxide)

A water-soluble carbodiimide has been used to end-graft aminated poly (ethylene oxide)(PEO) chemically onto colloidal polystyrene particles. Two particle sizes (115 and 347 nm diameter) and two PEO molecular weights (112 000 and 615 000 g mol–1) were combined to give suspensions with four different ratios of polymer layer thickness to particle radius. Electrophoresis demonstrated that the PEO was grafted, not just adsorbed. Dynamic light scattering showed that the adsorbed and grafted layers had similar structures and that non-ionic surfactant perturbed the PEO configurations. Steady shear and oscillatory rheometry indicated that long-ranged polymeric forces between particles governed the variation of viscosity and storage modulus with applied stress and PS volume fraction. Hard-sphere and effective hard-sphere scaling helps rationalize the rheological behaviour in terms of the variation of the polymeric force among the different suspensions and hydrodynamic deformation of the polymer layers

Theory for the Ultrafast Structural Response of optically excited small clusters: Time-dependence of the Ionization Potential

Combining an electronic theory with molecular dynamics simulations we present results for the ultrafast structural changes in small clusters. We determine the time scale for the change from the linear to a triangular structure after the photodetachment process Ag$_3^- \rightarrow {\rm Ag}_3$. We show that the time-dependent change of the ionization potential reflects in detail the internal degrees of freedom, in particular coherent and incoherent motion, and that it is sensitive to the initial temperature. We compare with experiment and point out the general significance of our results.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex, 3 postscript figure