Effects of Notch Misalignment and Tip Radius on Displacement Field in V-Notch Rail Shear Test as Determined by Photogrammetry

Evolution of the 3D strain field during ASTM-D-7078 v-notch rail shear tests on 8-ply quasi-isotropic carbon fiber/epoxy laminates was determined by optical photogrammetry using an ARAMIS system. Specimens having non-optimal geometry and minor discrepancies in dimensional tolerances were shown to display non-symmetry and/or stress concentration in the vicinity of the notch relative to a specimen meeting the requirements of the standard, but resulting shear strength and modulus values remained within acceptable bounds of standard deviation. Based on these results, and reported difficulty machining specimens to the required tolerances using available methods, it is suggested that a parametric study combining analytical methods and experiment may provide rationale to increase the tolerances on some specimen dimensions, reducing machining costs, increasing the proportion of acceptable results, and enabling a wider adoption of the test method

Financiamiento externo desde una perspectiva de género

En términos generales, se estima que las empresas dirigidas por mujeres recurren al financiamiento externo en menor proporción a las empresas dirigidas por hombres. Además, dadas sus características y a la escasa demanda de financiamiento por parte de ellas, las primeras presentan mayores limitaciones para acceder al financiamiento externo en comparación con las segundas. En el presente trabajo se analiza la relación existente entre las fuentes de financiamiento utilizadas y el género del gerente de la empresa. Para ello se realiza un análisis bivariado que incluye datos para el año 2010 de 866 Micro, Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas argentinas. De acuerdo con los resultados, el acceso a las fuentes de financiamiento para las empresas dirigidas por mujeres se ve limitado principalmente, por las características de sus empresas: son más pequeñas, se inscriben con formas legales que no implican responsabilidad patrimonial, tienen mayor presencia de familiares en la empresa y pertenecen principalmente al sector servicios. Se concluye que el perfil de las empresas dirigidas por mujeres podría ser una causa, y al mismo tiempo, una consecuencia del menor uso y acceso al financiamiento externo.In general terms, it is estimated that companies run by women resort to external financing in a minor proportion compared to those run by men. In addition, given their characteristics and the scarce financing demand, the first ones present greater limitations to external financing access in comparison with the second ones. In the present study, the existent relation between de financing sources utilized and the gender of the company manager is analyzed. This is done through a bivariated analysis that includes 2010 data from 866 micro, small and mid-sized Argentinean enterprises. According to de results, the access to financing sources for women-run companies is limited principally due to the characteristics of their companies: They are smaller ones, they are registered with legal forms that do not imply patrimonial responsibility, they have more family presence in the company and they belong mostly to the services sector. It is concluded that the profile of the companies run by women could be a reason and at the same time, a consequence of the minor use and access to external financing

Cumulative Distribution of Ballistic Impact Failures of Common Twisted-Pair Data Cables at Orbital Speeds

Data wire cable runs are a significant presence on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS), and continued ISS mission support requires detailed assessment of cables due to micrometeoroid and orbit debris (MMOD) impact. These data wire cables are twisted-pair cables consisting of two 22AWG stranded conductors and fillers inside a tight fitting braided copper shield. The copper shield and its contents are covered with a jacket that has a nominal outer diameter of 3.76 mm and beta-cloth tape. The ISS engineering community has identified two loss-of-function mechanisms for these cables: open circuits due to severed conductors within the cable, and short circuits due to contact between conductors or grounded components. As these data cables are low power systems, short circuits are not expected to burn away the contact, so both open and short circuits are considered permanent loss-of-function for the cable. A total of ninety-seven impact experiments have been performed into these cables to develop a statistical model for the failure of these cables to be used in reliability studies. The experimental work has yielded cumulative distribution functions for these cables for steel and aluminum components of the orbital debris environment at representative speeds and impact obliquities

Scattering and absorption properties of biomaterials for dental restorative applications

The physical understanding of the optical properties of dental biomaterials is mandatory for their final success in restorative applications.Light propagation in biological media is characterized by the absorption coefficient, the scattering coefficient, the scattering phase function,the refractive index, and the surface conditions (roughness). We have employed the inverse adding-doubling (IAD) method to combine transmittanceand reflectance measurements performed using an integrating-sphere setup with the results of the previous scattering-anisotropygoniometric measurements. This has led to the determination of the absorption and the scattering coefficients. The aim was to opticallycharacterize two different dental-resin composites (nanocomposite and hybrid) and one type of zirconia ceramic, and comparatively studythem. The experimental procedure was conducted under repeatability conditions of measurement in order to determine the uncertaintyassociated to the optical properties of the biomaterials. Spectral variations of the refraction index and the scattering anisotropy factor werealso considered. The whole experimental procedure fulfilled all the necessary requirements to provide optical-property values with lowerassociated uncertainties. The effective transport coefficient presented a similar spectral behavior for the two composites but completelydifferent for the zirconia ceramic. The results demonstrated that the scattering anisotropy exerted a clearly distinct impact on the opticalproperties of the zirconia ceramic compared with those of the dental-resin composites

New insight into the SSC8 genetic determination of fatty acid composition in pigs

[EN] Background:Fat content and fatty acid composition in swine are becoming increasingly studied because of their effect on sensory and nutritional quality of meat. A QTL (quantitative trait locus) for fatty acid composition in backfat was previously detected on porcine chromosome 8 (SSC8) in an Iberian x Landrace F-2 intercross. More recently, a genome-wide association study detected the same genomic region for muscle fatty acid composition in an Iberian x Landrace backcross population. ELOVL6, a strong positional candidate gene for this QTL, contains a polymorphism in its promoter region (ELOVL6:c.-533C < T), which is associated with percentage of palmitic and palmitoleic acids in muscle and adipose tissues. Here, a combination of single-marker association and the haplotype-based approach was used to analyze backfat fatty acid composition in 470 animals of an Iberian x Landrace F2 intercross genotyped with 144 SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) distributed along SSC8. Results:Two trait-associated SNP regions were identified at 93 Mb and 119 Mb on SSC8. The strongest statistical signals of both regions were observed for palmitoleic acid (C16:1(n-7)) content and C18:0/C16:0 and C18:1(n-7)/C16:1 (n-7) elongation ratios. MAML3 and SETD7 are positional candidate genes in the 93 Mb region and two novel microsatellites in MAML3 and nine SNPs in SETD7 were identified. No significant association for the MAML3 microsatellite genotypes was detected. The SETD7:c. 700G > T SNP, although statistically significant, was not the strongest signal in this region. In addition, the expression of MAML3 and SETD7 in liver and adipose tissue varied among animals, but no association was detected with the polymorphisms in these genes. In the 119 Mb region, the ELOVL6:c.-533C > T polymorphism showed a strong association with percentage of palmitic and palmitoleic fatty acids and elongation ratios in backfat. Conclusions:Our results suggest that the polymorphisms studied in MAML3 and SETD7 are not the causal mutations for the QTL in the 93 Mb region. However, the results for ELOVL6 support the hypothesis that the ELOVL6:c.-533C > T polymorphism has a pleiotropic effect on backfat and intramuscular fatty acid composition and that it has a role in the determination of the QTL in the 119 Mb region.This work was funded by MICINN AGL2008-04818-C03/GAN and MINECO AGL2011-29821-C02 and the Innovation Programme Consolider-Ingenio 2010 (CSD2007-00036). M. Revilla is a Master's student of Animal Breeding and Biotechnology of Reproduction (Polytechnical University of Valencia and Autonomous University of Barcelona). Y. Ramayo-Caldas was funded by a FPU grant (AP2008-01450), J. Corominas by a FPI scholarship from the Ministry of Education (BES-2009-018223) and A. Puig-Oliveras by a PIF scholarship (458-01-1/2011). 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Author Correction : Expression-based GWAS identifies variants, gene interactions and key regulators affecting intramuscular fatty acid content and composition in porcine meat

Altres ajuts: "Personal Investigador en Formació" (PIF) grant from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (458-01-1/2011)Aquesta és una correcció a l'article 10.1038/srep3180

Atmospheric polarimetric effects on GNSS radio occultations: the ROHP-PAZ field campaign

The ROHP-PAZ mission will collect, for the first time, GPS radio occultations at two polarizations with the aim of characterizing rain. Prior to the mission's launch (2016), a field campaign has been conducted to identify and understand the measurements. In this study we present the set-up and the results of such a campaign: the main finding is the confirmation of sensitivity to heavy rain and, unexpectedly, to other frozen hydrometeors. This is key information for the spaceborne experiment.This study was conducted under the Spanish ACI2010-1089 and AYA2011-29183-C02-02 grant, with contributions from EUMETSAT’s ROM SAF CDOP2