Apparatus and method for determining the dynamic indentation hardness of materials

An apparatus and method for determining dynamic indentation hardness values of a material using a propagating stress wave to make an indentation in the material. The invention provides such values without any prior knowledge of the material properties and enables the dynamic indentation hardness values to be directly compared to static indentation hardness values for the material.https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/patents/1060/thumbnail.jp

Global marine bacterial diversity peaks at high latitudes in winter.

Genomic approaches to characterizing bacterial communities are revealing significant differences in diversity and composition between environments. But bacterial distributions have not been mapped at a global scale. Although current community surveys are way too sparse to map global diversity patterns directly, there is now sufficient data to fit accurate models of how bacterial distributions vary across different environments and to make global scale maps from these models. We apply this approach to map the global distributions of bacteria in marine surface waters. Our spatially and temporally explicit predictions suggest that bacterial diversity peaks in temperate latitudes across the world's oceans. These global peaks are seasonal, occurring 6 months apart in the two hemispheres, in the boreal and austral winters. This pattern is quite different from the tropical, seasonally consistent diversity patterns observed for most macroorganisms. However, like other marine organisms, surface water bacteria are particularly diverse in regions of high human environmental impacts on the oceans. Our maps provide the first picture of bacterial distributions at a global scale and suggest important differences between the diversity patterns of bacteria compared with other organisms

Doppler optical frequency domain reflectometry for remote fiber sensing

Coherent optical frequency domain reflectometry has been widely used to locate static reflectors with high spatial resolution. Here, we present a new type of Doppler optical frequency domain reflectometry that offers simultaneous measurement of the position and speed of moving objects. The system is exploited to track optically levitated "flying" particles inside a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. As an example, we demonstrate distributed temperature sensing with sub-mm-scale spatial resolution and a standard deviation of similar to 10 degrees C up to 200 degrees C. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreemen

Predicting base editing outcomes using position-specific sequence determinants.

CRISPR/Cas base editors promise nucleotide-level control over DNA sequences, but the determinants of their activity remain incompletely understood. We measured base editing frequencies in two human cell lines for two cytosine and two adenine base editors at ∼14 000 target sequences and find that base editing activity is sequence-biased, with largest effects from nucleotides flanking the target base. Whether a base is edited depends strongly on the combination of its position in the target and the preceding base, acting to widen or narrow the effective editing window. The impact of features on editing rate depends on the position, with sequence bias efficacy mainly influencing bases away from the center of the window. We use these observations to train a machine learning model to predict editing activity per position, with accuracy ranging from 0.49 to 0.72 between editors, and with better generalization across datasets than existing tools. We demonstrate the usefulness of our model by predicting the efficacy of disease mutation correcting guides, and find that most of them suffer from more unwanted editing than pure outcomes. This work unravels the position-specificity of base editing biases and allows more efficient planning of editing campaigns in experimental and therapeutic contexts

Role of p53 Serine 46 in p53 Target Gene Regulation

The tumor suppressor p53 plays a crucial role in cellular growth control inducing a plethora of different response pathways. The molecular mechanisms that discriminate between the distinct p53-responses have remained largely elusive. Here, we have analyzed the p53-regulated pathways induced by Actinomycin D and Etoposide treatment resulting in more growth arrested versus apoptotic cells respectively. We found that the genome-wide p53 DNA-binding patterns are almost identical upon both treatments notwithstanding transcriptional differences that we observed in global transcriptome analysis. To assess the role of post-translational modifications in target gene choice and activation we investigated the genome-wide level of phosphorylation of Serine 46 of p53 bound to DNA (p53-pS46) and of Serine 15 (p53-pS15). Interestingly, the extent of S46 phosphorylation of p53 bound to DNA is considerably higher in cells directed towards apoptosis while the degree of phosphorylation at S15 remains highly similar. Moreover, our data suggest that following different chemotherapeutical treatments, the amount of chromatin-associated p53 phosphorylated at S46 but not at pS15 is higher on certain apoptosis related target genes. Our data provide evidence that cell fate decisions are not made primarily on the level of general p53 DNA-binding and that post-translationally modified p53 can have distinct DNA-binding characteristics

Usability of rectal swabs for microbiome sampling in a cohort study of hematological and oncological patients

Objectives Large-scale clinical studies investigating associations between intestinal microbiota signatures and human diseases usually rely on stool samples. However, the timing of repeated stool sample collection cannot be predefined in longitudinal settings. Rectal swabs, being straightforward to obtain, have the potential to overcome this drawback. Therefore, we assessed the usability of rectal swabs for microbiome sampling in a cohort of hematological and oncological patients. Study design We used a pipeline for intestinal microbiota analysis from deep rectal swabs which was established and validated with test samples and negative controls. Consecutively, a cohort of patients from hematology and oncology wards was established and weekly deep rectal swabs taken during their admissions and re-admissions. Results Validation of our newly developed pipeline for intestinal microbiota analysis from rectal swabs revealed consistent and reproducible results. Over a period of nine months, 418 rectal swabs were collected longitudinally from 41 patients. Adherence to the intended sampling protocol was 97%. After DNA extraction, sequencing, read pre-processing and filtering of chimeric sequences, 405 of 418 samples (96.9%) were eligible for further analyses. Follow-up samples and those taken under current antibiotic exposure showed a significant decrease in alpha diversity as compared to baseline samples. Microbial domination occurred most frequently by Enterococcaceae (99 samples, 24.4%) on family level and Enterococcus (90 samples, 22.2%) on genus level. Furthermore, we noticed a high abundance of potential skin commensals in 99 samples (24.4%). Summary Deep rectal swabs were shown to be reliable for microbiome sampling and analysis, with practical advantages related to high sampling adherence, easy timing, transport and storage. The relatively high abundance of putative skin commensals in this patient cohort may be of potential interest and should be further investigated. Generally, previous findings on alpha diversity dynamics obtained from stool samples were confirmed

Расчет бокового магнитного сопротивления электромагнитных молотков

Hemolysis is an inevitable side effect of cardiopulmonary bypass resulting in increased plasma free hemoglobin that may impair tissue perfusion by scavenging nitric oxide. Acute kidney injury after on-pump cardiovascular surgery arises from a number of causes and severely affects patient morbidity and mortality. Here, we studied the effect of acute hemolysis on renal injury in 35 patients undergoing on-pump surgical repair of thoracic and thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms of whom 19 experienced acute kidney injury. During surgery, plasma free hemoglobin increased, as did urinary excretion of the tubular injury marker N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase, in patients with and without acute kidney injury, reaching peak levels at 2 h and 15 min, respectively, after reperfusion. Furthermore, plasma free hemoglobin was independently and significantly correlated with the urine biomarker, which, in turn, was independently and significantly associated with the later postoperative increase in serum creatinine. Importantly, peak plasma free hemoglobin and urine N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase concentrations had significant predictive value for postoperative acute kidney injury. Thus, we found an association between increased plasma free hemoglobin and renal injury casting new light on the pathophysiology of acute kidney injury. Therefore, free hemoglobin is a new therapeutic target to improve clinical outcome after on-pump cardiovascular surgery

Spent Fuel Transportation Package Response to the Baltimore Tunnel Fire Scenario

On July 18, 2001, a freight train carrying hazardous (non-nuclear) materials derailed and caught fire while passing through the Howard Street railroad tunnel in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC), one of the agencies responsible for ensuring the safe transportation of radioactive materials in the United States, undertook an investigation of the train derailment and fire to determine the possible regulatory implications of this particular event for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel by railroad. Shortly after the accident occurred, the USNRC met with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB, the U.S. agency responsible for determining the cause of transportation accidents), to discuss the details of the accident and the ensuing fire. Following these discussions, the USNRC assembled a team of experts from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to determine the thermal conditions that existed in the Howard Street tunnel fire and analyze the effects of this fire on various spent fuel transportation package designs. The Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) code, developed by NIST, was used to determine the thermal environment present in the Howard Street tunnel during the fire. The FDS results were used as boundary conditions in the COBRA-SFS and ANSYS® computer codes to evaluate the thermal performance of different package designs. The staff concluded that larger transportation packages resembling the HOLTEC Model No. HI STAR 100 and TransNuclear Model No. TN-68 would withstand a fire with thermal conditions similar to those that existed in the Baltimore tunnel fire event with only minor damage to peripheral components. This is due to their sizable thermal inertia and design specifications in compliance with currently imposed regulatory requirements. The staff also concluded that some components of smaller transportation packages resembling the NAC Model No. LWT, despite placement within an ISO container, could degrade. USNRC staff evaluated the radiological consequences of the package responses to the Baltimore tunnel fire. Though components in some packages heated up beyond their service temperatures, the staff determined that there would be no significant dose as a result of the fire for any of these and similar packages

Использование жидкостей ГРП на основе дизельного топлива для низкотемпературных газовых пластов

Aim: Stroke and paraplegia are devasting complications of thoracic and thoracoabdominal aortic surgery. The aim of this study was to analyse the value of transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD), electroencephalogram (EEG) and motor-evoked potentials (MEP) in preventing neurological complications. Moreover, the principles, technology and surgical protocols are described. Patients and Methods: In 2009, 22 patients (4 females, 18 males) underwent thoracic or thoracoabdominal open aortic repair. We performed 2 arches with descending aortic replacement, 5 arches with TAAA repair, 2 type II, 9 type III, 3 type IV and one type V TAAA aortic repair. In 6 patients, the neuromonitoring included TCD, EEG and MEPs. In 15 patients only MEP monitoring was necessary. In one patient who was operated on in an emergency setting, neuromonitoring was not performed. The surgical approach was a left thoracotomy in 3 and a left thoracolaparotomy in 19 patients. The surgical protocol included cerebrospinal fluid drainage (n=22), moderate (n=19) or deep hypothermia (n=2), and extracorporeal circulation (n=21) with retrograde aortic perfusion and selective cerebral and/or viscerorenal perfusion. Results: In 21 patients, the neuromonitoring could be established successfully. Using TCD and EEG, a relevant cerebral ischaemia during supraaortic clamping was excluded. With a mean distal arterial pressure of 60 mmHg, the MEPs remained adequate in 15 patients (68.2%). Increasing of the blood pressure restored the MEPs in one patient. In 5 patients (22.7%), a reimplantation of segmental arteries (n=4) or of the left subclavian artery (n=1) re-established spinal cord perfusion, as indicated by restored MEPs. We had no absent MEPs at the end of the procedures. Delayed paraparesis developed in 2 patients with a haemodynamic instability during the postoperative course. Paraplegia was not observed. Conclusion: TCD, EEG and MEPs are reliable techniques to unmask cerebral or spinal cord ischaemia during aortic surgery. Immediate operative strategies based on neuromonitoring information prevent neurological complications in aortic surgery

Разработка плана локализации и ликвидации аварий на автозаправочной станции Юргинского ЛПУМГ ООО «Газпром трансгаз Томск»

Целью выпускной квалификационной работы является: разработка порядка действий производственного персонала Юргинского ЛПУМГ в случае аварии на опасном производственном объекте по сценарию аварии "Пожар пролива нефтепродуктов и взрыв топливно-воздушной смеси". В работе произведен анализ нормативных документов в области обеспечения пожарной безопасности, разработан порядок действий производственного персонала (руководителей и работников), расчет аварии по сценарию пожар пролива, произведены расчеты для выполнения мероприятий по локализации и ликвидации возможной ЧС.The purpose of the final qualification work is: development of a procedure for the production personnel of the Yurginsky LPUMG in the event of an accident at a hazardous production facility according to the accident scenario "A fire of the spill of oil products and an explosion of a fuel-air mixture." The paper analyzes regulatory documents in the field of ensuring fire safety, developed a procedure for actions of production personnel (managers and workers), calculation of an accident according to the scenario of a strait fire, calculations were made to carry out measures to localize and eliminate a possible emergency