1,000 research outputs found

    Energy efficient engine: Low-pressure turbine subsonic cascade component development and integration program

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    A subsonic cascade test program was conducted to provide technical data for optimizing the blade and vane airfoil designs for the Energy Efficient Engine Low-Pressure Turbine component. The program consisted of three parts. The first involved an evaluation of the low-chamber inlet guide vane. The second, was an evaluation of two candidate aerodynamic loading philosophies for the fourth blade root section. The third part consisted of an evaluation of three candidate airfoil geometries for the fourth blade mean section. The performance of each candidate airfoil was evaluated in a linear cascade configuration. The overall results of this study indicate that the aft-loaded airfoil designs resulted in lower losses which substantiated Pratt & Whitney Aircraft's design philosophy for the Energy Efficient Engine low-pressure turbine component

    Energy efficient engine high-pressure turbine supersonic cascade technology report

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    The performance of two vane endwall geometries and three blade sections for the high-pressure turbine was evaluated in terms of the efficiency requirements of the Energy Efficient Engine high-pressure turbine component. The van endwall designs featured a straight wall and S-wall configuration. The blade designs included a base blade, straightback blade, and overcambered blade. Test results indicated that the S-wall vane configuration and the base blade configuration offered the most promising performance characteristics for the Energy Efficient Engine high-pressure turbine component

    Diagnostic approaches, aetiological agents and their associations with short-term survival and laminitis in horses with acute diarrhoea admitted to referral institutions

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    Background: An international description of the diagnostic approaches used in different institutions to diagnose acute equine diarrhoea and the pathogens detected is lacking. Objectives: To describe the diagnostic approach, aetiological agents, outcome, and development of laminitis for diarrhoeic horses worldwide. Study design: Multicentre retrospective case series. Methods: Information from horses with acute diarrhoea presenting to participating institutions between 2016 and 2020, including diagnostic approaches, pathogens detected and their associations with outcomes, were compared between institutions or geographic regions. Results: One thousand four hundred and thirty‐eight horses from 26 participating institutions from 4 continents were included. Overall, aetiological testing was limited (44% for Salmonella spp., 42% for Neorickettsia risticii [only North America], 40% for Clostridiodes difficile, and 29% for ECoV); however, 13% (81/633) of horses tested positive for Salmonella, 13% (35/262) for N. risticii, 9% (37/422) for ECoV, and 5% (27/578) for C. difficile. C. difficile positive cases had greater odds of non‐survival than horses negative for C. difficile (OR: 2.69, 95%CI: 1.23–5.91). In addition, horses that were positive for N. risticii had greater odds of developing laminitis than negative horses (OR: 2.76, 95%CI: 1.12–6.81; p = 0.029). Main limitations: Due to the study's retrospective nature, there are missing data. Conclusions: This study highlighted limited diagnostic investigations in cases of acute equine diarrhoea. Detection rates of pathogens are similar to previous reports. Non‐survival and development of laminitis are related to certain detected pathogens

    Reduced Efficacy of Anti-A\u3cem\u3eβ\u3c/em\u3e Immunotherapy in a Mouse Model of Amyloid Deposition and Vascular Cognitive Impairment Comorbidity

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    Vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) is the second most common form of dementia behind Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD). It is estimated that 40% of AD patients also have some form of VCID. One promising therapeutic for AD is anti-Aβ immunotherapy, which uses antibodies against Aβ to clear it from the brain. While successful in clearing Aβ and improving cognition in mice, anti-Aβ immunotherapy failed to reach primary cognitive outcomes in several different clinical trials. We hypothesized that one potential reason the anti-Aβ immunotherapy clinical trials were unsuccessful was due to this high percentage of VCID comorbidity in the AD population. We used our unique model of VCID-amyloid comorbidity to test this hypothesis. We placed 9-month-old wild-type and APP/PS1 mice on either a control diet or a diet that induces hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy). After being placed on the diet for 3 months, the mice then received intraperotineal injections of either IgG2a control or 3D6 for another 3 months. While we found that treatment of our comorbidity model with 3D6 resulted in decreased total Aβ levels, there was no cognitive benefit of the anti-Aβ immunotherapy in our AD/VCID mice. Further, microhemorrhages were increased by 3D6 in the APP/PS1/control but further increased in an additive fashion when 3D6 was administered to the APP/PS1/HHcy mice. This suggests that the use of anti-Aβ immunotherapy in patients with both AD and VCID would be ineffective on cognitive outcomes

    Survival rates and factors associated with survival and laminitis of horses with acute diarrhoea admitted to referral institutions

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    Background: Clinicopathological findings and their association with the outcome and development of laminitis in horses with acute diarrhoea has not been investigated in a multicentre study across different geographic regions.ObjectivesDescribe and compare clinicopathologic findings of diarrhoeic horses between different geographic regions, survival rates and factors associated with non‐survival and laminitis.Study designMulticentre retrospective case series. Methods: Information from horses with acute diarrhoea presenting to participating institutions between 2016 and 2020 was collected, and clinicopathological data were compared between surviving and non‐surviving horses and horses that did and did not develop laminitis. Survival rates and seasonal and geographic differences were also investigated. Results: One thousand four hundred thirty‐eight horses from 26 participating institutions from 4 continents were included; 76% survived to discharge with no differences identified between geographic regions. The survival proportion of horses with SIRS and creatinine concentrations > 159 μmol/L was 55% (154/279) compared with 81% (358/437) for those with SIRS and creatinine concentrations  2.8 mmol/L was 59% (175/298) compared with 81% (240/296) in horses with SIRS and L‐lactate concentration < 2.8 mmol/L (p < 0.001). The proportion of horses that developed laminitis was lower in Europe (4%, 19/479) compared with North America (8%, 52/619), Australia (8%, 12/138) and Latin America (11%, 16/146) (p < 0.05). More horses developed laminitis in the summer (46%, 39/85) compared with winter (18%, 15/85), spring (18%, 15/85) and fall (19%, 16/85) (p < 0.01). Horses with laminitis had greater odds of non‐survival than those without laminitis (OR: 3.73, 95% CI: 2.47–5.65). Main limitations: Not all variables were available for all horses due to the retrospective nature. Conclusions: Clinicopathological findings in horses with acute diarrhoea and their association with survival are similar across geographic regions. However, developing laminitis secondary to diarrhoea is less common in Europe. In addition, factors associated with non‐survival were indicative of disease severity and subsequent cardiovascular compromise

    deepregression: A Flexible Neural Network Framework for Semi-Structured Deep Distributional Regression

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    In this paper we describe the implementation of semi-structured deep distributional regression, a flexible framework to learn conditional distributions based on the combination of additive regression models and deep networks. Our implementation encompasses (1) a modular neural network building system based on the deep learning library TensorFlow for the fusion of various statistical and deep learning approaches, (2) an orthogonalization cell to allow for an interpretable combination of different subnetworks, as well as (3) pre-processing steps necessary to set up such models. The software package allows to define models in a user-friendly manner via a formula interface that is inspired by classical statistical model frameworks such as mgcv. The package's modular design and functionality provides a unique resource for both scalable estimation of complex statistical models and the combination of approaches from deep learning and statistics. This allows for state-of-the-art predictive performance while simultaneously retaining the indispensable interpretability of classical statistical models

    Improved limits on dark matter annihilation in the Sun with the 79-string IceCube detector and implications for supersymmetry

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    We present an improved event-level likelihood formalism for including neutrino telescope data in global fits to new physics. We derive limits on spin-dependent dark matter-proton scattering by employing the new formalism in a re-analysis of data from the 79-string IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in the Sun, including explicit energy information for each event. The new analysis excludes a number of models in the weak-scale minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) for the first time. This work is accompanied by the public release of the 79-string IceCube data, as well as an associated computer code for applying the new likelihood to arbitrary dark matter models.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figs, 1 table. Contact authors: Pat Scott & Matthias Danninger. Likelihood tool available at http://nulike.hepforge.org. v2: small updates to address JCAP referee repor
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