Technology for the Future: In-Space Technology Experiments Program, part 1

The purpose of the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST) In-Space Technology Experiment Program (In-STEP) 1988 Workshop was to identify and prioritize technologies that are critical for future national space programs and require validation in the space environment, and review current NASA (In-Reach) and industry/university (Out-Reach) experiments. A prioritized list of the critical technology needs was developed for the following eight disciplines: structures; environmental effects; power systems and thermal management; fluid management and propulsion systems; automation and robotics; sensors and information systems; in-space systems; and humans in space. This is part one of two parts and is the executive summary and experiment description. The executive summary portion contains keynote addresses, strategic planning information, and the critical technology needs summaries for each theme. The experiment description portion contains brief overviews of the objectives, technology needs and backgrounds, descriptions, and development schedules for current industry, university, and NASA space flight technology experiments

Technology for the Future: In-Space Technology Experiments Program, part 2

The purpose of the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST) In-Space Technology Experiments Program In-STEP 1988 Workshop was to identify and prioritize technologies that are critical for future national space programs and require validation in the space environment, and review current NASA (In-Reach) and industry/ university (Out-Reach) experiments. A prioritized list of the critical technology needs was developed for the following eight disciplines: structures; environmental effects; power systems and thermal management; fluid management and propulsion systems; automation and robotics; sensors and information systems; in-space systems; and humans in space. This is part two of two parts and contains the critical technology presentations for the eight theme elements and a summary listing of critical space technology needs for each theme

ARGem: a new metagenomics pipeline for antibiotic resistance genes: metadata, analysis, and visualization

Antibiotic resistance is of crucial interest to both human and animal medicine. It has been recognized that increased environmental monitoring of antibiotic resistance is needed. Metagenomic DNA sequencing is becoming an attractive method to profile antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), including a special focus on pathogens. A number of computational pipelines are available and under development to support environmental ARG monitoring; the pipeline we present here is promising for general adoption for the purpose of harmonized global monitoring. Specifically, ARGem is a user-friendly pipeline that provides full-service analysis, from the initial DNA short reads to the final visualization of results. The capture of extensive metadata is also facilitated to support comparability across projects and broader monitoring goals. The ARGem pipeline offers efficient analysis of a modest number of samples along with affordable computational components, though the throughput could be increased through cloud resources, based on the user’s configuration. The pipeline components were carefully assessed and selected to satisfy tradeoffs, balancing efficiency and flexibility. It was essential to provide a step to perform short read assembly in a reasonable time frame to ensure accurate annotation of identified ARGs. Comprehensive ARG and mobile genetic element databases are included in ARGem for annotation support. ARGem further includes an expandable set of analysis tools that include statistical and network analysis and supports various useful visualization techniques, including Cytoscape visualization of co-occurrence and correlation networks. The performance and flexibility of the ARGem pipeline is demonstrated with analysis of aquatic metagenomes. The pipeline is freely available at https://github.com/xlxlxlx/ARGem

Crowdsourced assessment of common genetic contribution to predicting anti-TNF treatment response in rheumatoid arthritis

Correction: vol 7, 13205, 2016, doi:10.1038/ncomms13205Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects millions world-wide. While anti-TNF treatment is widely used to reduce disease progression, treatment fails in Bone-third of patients. No biomarker currently exists that identifies non-responders before treatment. A rigorous community-based assessment of the utility of SNP data for predicting anti-TNF treatment efficacy in RA patients was performed in the context of a DREAM Challenge (http://www.synapse.org/RA_Challenge). An open challenge framework enabled the comparative evaluation of predictions developed by 73 research groups using the most comprehensive available data and covering a wide range of state-of-the-art modelling methodologies. Despite a significant genetic heritability estimate of treatment non-response trait (h(2) = 0.18, P value = 0.02), no significant genetic contribution to prediction accuracy is observed. Results formally confirm the expectations of the rheumatology community that SNP information does not significantly improve predictive performance relative to standard clinical traits, thereby justifying a refocusing of future efforts on collection of other data.Peer reviewe