Exploratory electromagnetic thruster research, phase 3, 23 June - 23 December 1969

Performance evaluation of MPD arc jets operating in quasi-steady mode

Investigation of pulsed quasi-steady MPD arc jets

Evaluation of magnetohydrodynamic arc thrusters operating in quasi-steady mode with electrode vapor as propellan

Crustal evolution of the Capricorn Orogen, Western Australia

The Capricorn Orogen, Western Australia records the Palaeoproterozoic convergence and collision of the Archaean Yilgarn and Pilbara Cratons during the formation of the West Australian Craton, and over one billion years of subsequent intracontinental crustal reworking. This study uses an integrated analytical study of the isotopic and geochemical systematics in zircon from Capricorn Orogen granites in order to identify the magmatic sources and the fundamental geodynamic processes that have contributed to its crustal evolution

A Review of the Benefit of Pre-Operative Education Prior to Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Coronary Artery Bypass Graft surgery is the most common type of heart surgery performed each year in the United States (U.S. Department of HHS, 2010). If your healthcare provider were to tell you that you needed heart surgery what would be the first thing to come to mind, would it be fear, pain, anxiety, denial? Do you have any idea what this procedure entails or what to expect before, during, or after your hospitalization? Preparation is most often a prerequisite for success. Multiple research studies have shown that proper patient preparation can lead to better patient outcomes, including pain and anxiety reduction, cost savings, reduced mortality and morbidity, as well as greater staff satisfaction. Too often patients are inundated with dozens of pages of information and booklets regarding surgery that they become too overwhelmed to even know where to begin. The purpose of this literature review is to identify the potential benefit(s) of a simplified and concise pre-operative patient education brochure or pamphlet prior to Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CA.BG) surgery. The main search engines used included PubMed, CINAHL, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar. If literat11re shows that properly educated patients display better post operative outcomes in terms of anxiety reduction, pain control, and reduced readmission rates, it would seem prudent that for optimal patient outcomes, hospitals and more explicitly surgical departments within the hospitals integrate a tool such as this factor that has a great effect on an individual\u27s recovery is pain. Pain has significant negative effects on breathing, eating, movement, perfusion, emotions, and wound 5 healing. While setting a goal of no pain after surgery is not realistic, teaching patients the different methods to control, express, and minimize their pain is beneficial to healing. This paper will attempt to identify documented benefits of patient education about these factors prior to CABG surgery. Key Words: pre-operative education, Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CA.BG), pre-operative anxiety, formal patient education, cardiac surgery education, hospital readmission after cardiac surgery, readmission rate

The Path Integral for 1+1-dimensional QCD

We derive a path integral expression for the transition amplitude in 1+1-dimensional QCD starting from canonically quantized QCD. Gauge fixing after quantization leads to a formulation in terms of gauge invariant but curvilinear variables. Remainders of the curved space are Jacobians, an effective potential, and sign factors just as for the problem of a particle in a box. Based on this result we derive a Faddeev-Popov like expression for the transition amplitude avoiding standard infinities that are caused by integrations over gauge equivalent configurations.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 3 PostScript figures, uses epsf.st

Clinical Lung Cancer Mutation Detection

As the promise of personalized medicine in the treatment of cancer begins to be realized, the diagnostic techniques needed to drive that revolution have continued to evolve. What started as optical imaging of banded chromosomes for karyotyping has progressed to DNA sequencing and now next‐generation sequencing capable of producing billions of reads. There are currently a large number of techniques that are used in the clinical laboratory for assessing the presence of mutations in lung tumors, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Here, we survey the technology that is available and take a closer look at next‐generation sequencing. We discuss the instruments that are currently on the market and demonstrate the common workflow from patient to data. Additionally, the outside factors that influence the use of these technologies, from government regulation to insurance reimbursement, are presented

Peritumoral administration of GPI-anchored TIMP-1 inhibits colon carcinoma growth in Rag-2 gamma chain-deficient mice

Exogenous application of recombinant TIMP-1 protein modified by addition of a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor allows efficient insertion of the fusion protein into cell membranes. This `cell surface engineering' leads to changes in the proteolytic environment. TIMP-1-GPI shows enhanced as well as novel in vitro biological activities including suppression of proliferation, reduced migration, and inhibition of invasion of the colon carcinoma cell line SW480. Treatment of SW480 tumors implanted in Rag (-/-) common gamma chain (-/-) C57BL/6 mice with peritumorally applied TIMP-1-GPI, control rhTIMP-1 protein, or vehicle shows that TIMP-1-GPI leads to a significant reduction in tumor growth

Static and dynamic Jahn-Teller effect in the alkali metal fulleride salts A4C60 (A = K, Rb, Cs)

We report the temperature dependent mid- and near-infrared spectra of K4C60, Rb4C60 and Cs4C60. The splitting of the vibrational and electronic transitions indicates a molecular symmetry change of C604- which brings the fulleride anion from D2h to either a D3d or a D5d distortion. In contrast to Cs4C60, low temperature neutron diffraction measurements did not reveal a structural phase transition in either K4C60 and Rb4C60. This proves that the molecular transition is driven by the molecular Jahn-Teller effect, which overrides the distorting potential field of the surrounding cations at high temperature. In K4C60 and Rb4C60 we suggest a transition from a static to a dynamic Jahn-Teller state without changing the average structure. We studied the librations of these two fullerides by temperature dependent inelastic neutron scattering and conclude that both pseudorotation and jump reorientation are present in the dynamic Jahn-Teller state.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

A population-based case-control study on social factors and risk of testicular germ cell tumours

Objectives Incidence rates for testicular cancer have risen over the last few decades. Findings of an association between the risk of testicular cancer and social factors are controversial. The association of testicular cancer and different indicators of social factors were examined in this study.<p></p> Design Case–control study.<p></p> Setting Population-based multicentre study in four German regions (city states Bremen and Hamburg, the Saarland region and the city of Essen).<p></p> Participants The study included 797 control participants and 266 participants newly diagnosed with testicular cancer of which 167 cases were classified as seminoma and 99 as non-seminoma. The age of study participants ranged from 15 to 69 years.<p></p> Methods Social position was classified by educational attainment level, posteducational training, occupational sectors according to Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarrero (EGP) and the socioeconomic status (SES) on the basis of the International SocioEconomic Index of occupational status (ISEI). ORs and corresponding 95% CIs (95% CIs) were calculated for the whole study sample and for seminoma and non-seminoma separately.<p></p> Results Testicular cancer risk was modestly increased among participants with an apprenticeship (OR=1.7 (95% CI 1.0 to 2.8)) or a university degree (OR=1.6 (95% CI 0.9 to 2.8)) relative to those whose education was limited to school. Analysis of occupational sectors revealed an excess risk for farmers and farm-related occupations. No clear trend was observed for the analyses according to the ISEI-scale.<p></p> Conclusions Social factors based on occupational measures were not a risk factor for testicular cancer in this study. The elevated risk in farmers and farm-related occupations warrants further research including analysis of occupational exposures.<p></p&gt