MIUS integration and subsystems test program

The MIUS Integration and Subsystems Test (MIST) facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center was completed and ready in May 1974 for conducting specific tests in direct support of the Modular Integrated Utility System (MIUS). A series of subsystems and integrated tests was conducted since that time, culminating in a series of 24-hour dynamic tests to further demonstrate the capabilities of the MIUS Program concepts to meet typical utility load profiles for a residential area. Results of the MIST Program are presented which achieved demonstrated plant thermal efficiencies ranging from 57 to 65 percent

Social Patterning of Screening Uptake and the Impact of Facilitating Informed Choices: Psychological and Ethical Analyses

Screening for unsuspected disease has both possible benefits and harms for those who participate. Historically the benefits of participation have been emphasized to maximize uptake reflecting a public health approach to policy; currently policy is moving towards an informed choice approach involving giving information about both benefits and harms of participation. However, no research has been conducted to evaluate the impact on health of an informed choice policy. Using psychological models, the first aim of this study was to describe an explanatory framework for variation in screening uptake and to apply this framework to assess the impact of informed choices in screening. The second aim was to evaluate ethically that impact. Data from a general population survey (n = 300) of beliefs and attitudes towards participation in diabetes screening indicated that greater orientation to the present is associated with greater social deprivation and lower expectation of participation in screening. The results inform an explanatory framework of social patterning of screening in which greater orientation to the present focuses attention on the disadvantages of screening, which tend to be immediate, thereby reducing participation. This framework suggests that an informed choice policy, by increasing the salience of possible harms of screening, might reduce uptake of screening more in those who are more deprived and orientated to the present. This possibility gives rise to an apparent dilemma where an ethical decision must be made between greater choice and avoiding health inequality. Philosophical perspectives on choice and inequality are used to point to some of the complexities in assessing whether there really is such a dilemma and if so how it should be resolved. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ethics of paternalism

Discourses of conflict and collaboration and institutional context in the implementation of forest conservation policies in Soria, Spain

This article examines the emergence of conflict and collaboration in the implementation of forest conservation policies in Soria, Spain. We draw insights from discursive institutionalism and use a comparative case study approach to analyse and compare a situation of social conflict over the Natural Park declaration in the Sierra de Urbión, and a civil society led collaborative process to develop management plans for the “Sierra de Cabrejas” in Soria. The implementation of the EU Habitats Directive generated different outcomes in these two cases, which unfolded in the context of the same nature conservation legislation and national and provincial administrative structures but differed in terms of types of forests involved, property rights arrangements and forest use histories. We critically examine the influence of the institutional context and dominant discourses on the emergence of outcomes: conflict emerged where local institutions and discourses were threatened by the EU directive, while collaboration was possible where local institutions and counter-discourses were weak. We find that the institutional context plays an important part in determining local discourses in the implementation of forest conservation policies. Yet local counter-discourses have limited influence in the implementation and policy processes in the face of contestation by the discourses of regional civil servants conservation activists

Mobile phone voting for participation and engagement in a large compulsory law course

This article reports on an action-research project designed to investigate the effect of a technological intervention on the complex interactions between student engagement, participation, attendance and preparation in a large lecture delivered as part of a compulsory first-year law course, a discipline which has not been the focus of any previous study. The technology used was VotApedia, a form of mobile phone voting, and it was implemented in tandem with constructivist pedagogies such as explicit pre-reading and a prior context of interactive lecturing. Data were collected through observation, via mobile phone voting in class and by an online survey designed to specifically explore the relationship between attendance at VotApedia lectures and factors such as self-reported engagement, attendance and preparation. The findings indicated that student response systems (SRSs) are just as applicable to more Humanities-style disciplines which require divergent questioning, and supported complex interactions between engagement, attendance and preparation. Preliminary findings indicated that, although more work needs to be done, especially on the types of students who prefer to use these systems, there is a clear potential to increase student engagement in large law lectures through the use of SRSs.Chad Habel, Matthew Stubb

Recruitment in the sea: bacterial genes required for inducing larval settlement in a polychaete worm

Metamorphically competent larvae of the marine tubeworm Hydroides elegans can be induced to metamorphose by biofilms of the bacterium Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea strain HI1. Mutational analysis was used to identify four genes that are necessary for metamorphic induction and encode functions that may be related to cell adhesion and bacterial secretion systems. No major differences in biofilm characteristics, such as biofilm cell density, thickness, biomass and EPS biomass, were seen between biofilms composed of P. luteoviolacea (HI1) and mutants lacking one of the four genes. The analysis indicates that factors other than those relating to physical characteristics of biofilms are critical to the inductive capacity of P. luteoviolacea (HI1), and that essential inductive molecular components are missing in the non-inductive deletion-mutant strains

Lessons Learned from a Decade of Sudden Oak Death in California: Evaluating Local Management

Sudden Oak Death has been impacting California’s coastal forests for more than a decade. In that time, and in the absence of a centrally organized and coordinated set of mandatory management actions for this disease in California’s wildlands and open spaces, many local communities have initiated their own management programs. We present five case studies to explore how local-level management has attempted to control this disease. From these case studies, we glean three lessons: connections count, scale matters, and building capacity is crucial. These lessons may help management, research, and education planning for future pest and disease outbreaks

Adenoviruses in Lymphocytes of the Human Gastro-Intestinal Tract

Objective: Persistent adenoviral shedding in stools is known to occur past convalescence following acute adenoviral infections. We wished to establish the frequency with which adenoviruses may colonize the gut in normal human subjects. Methods: The presence of adenoviral DNA in intestinal specimens obtained at surgery or autopsy was tested using a nested PCR method. The amplified adenoviral DNA sequences were compared to each other and to known adenoviral species. Lamina propria lymphocytes (LPLs) were isolated from the specimens and the adenoviral copy numbers in the CD4+ and CD8+ fractions were determined by quantitative PCR. Adenoviral gene expression was tested by amplification of adenoviral mRNA. Results: Intestinal tissue from 21 of 58 donors and LPLs from 21 of 24 donors were positive for the presence of adenoviral DNA. The majority of the sequences could be assigned to adenoviral species E, although species B and C sequences were also common. Multiple sequences were often present in the same sample. Forty-one non-identical sequences were identified from 39 different tissue donors. Quantitative PCR for adenoviral DNA in CD4+ and CD8+ fractions of LPLs showed adenoviral DNA to be present in both cell types and ranged from a few hundred to several million copies per million cells on average. Active adenoviral gene expression as evidenced by the presence of adenoviral messenger RNA in intestinal lymphocytes was demonstrated in 9 of the 11 donors tested

Isolation and Characterization of Adenoviruses Persistently Shed from the Gastrointestinal Tract of Non-Human Primates

Adenoviruses are important human pathogens that have been developed as vectors for gene therapies and genetic vaccines. Previous studies indicated that human infections with adenoviruses are self-limiting in immunocompetent hosts with evidence of some persistence in adenoid tissue. We sought to better understand the natural history of adenovirus infections in various non-human primates and discovered that healthy populations of great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) and macaques shed substantial quantities of infectious adenoviruses in stool. Shedding in stools from asymptomatic humans was found to be much less frequent, comparable to frequencies reported before. We purified and fully sequenced 30 novel adenoviruses from apes and 3 novel adenoviruses from macaques. Analyses of the new ape adenovirus sequences (as well as the 4 chimpanzee adenovirus sequences we have previously reported) together with 22 complete adenovirus genomes available from GenBank revealed that (a) the ape adenoviruses could clearly be classified into species corresponding to human adenovirus species B, C, and E, (b) there was evidence for intraspecies recombination between adenoviruses, and (c) the high degree of phylogenetic relatedness of adenoviruses across their various primate hosts provided evidence for cross species transmission events to have occurred in the natural history of B and E viruses. The high degree of asymptomatic shedding of live adenovirus in non-human primates and evidence for zoonotic transmissions warrants caution for primate handling and housing. Furthermore, the presence of persistent and/or latent adenovirus infections in the gut should be considered in the design and interpretation of human and non-human primate studies with adenovirus vectors