Short-term isothermic heat acclimation elicits beneficial adaptations but medium-term elicits a more complete adaptation

Purpose To investigate the effects of 60 min daily, short-term (STHA) and medium-term (MTHA) isothermic heat acclimation (HA) on the physiological and perceptual responses to exercise heat stress. Methods Sixteen, ultra-endurance runners (female = 3) visited the laboratory on 13 occasions. A 45 min sub-maximal (40% Wmax) cycling heat stress test (HST) was completed in the heat (40 °C, 50% relative humidity) on the first (HSTPRE), seventh (HSTSTHA) and thirteenth (HSTMTHA) visit. Participants completed 5 consecutive days of a 60 min isothermic HA protocol (target Tre 38.5 °C) between HSTPRE and HSTSTHA and 5 more between HSTSTHA and HSTMTHA. Heart rate (HR), rectal (Tre), skin (Tsk) and mean body temperature (Tbody), perceived exertion (RPE), thermal comfort (TC) and sensation (TS) were recorded every 5 min. During HSTs, cortisol was measured pre and post and expired air was collected at 15, 30 and 45 min. Results At rest, Tre and Tbody were lower in HSTSTHA and HSTMTHA compared to HSTPRE, but resting HR was not different between trials. Mean exercising Tre, Tsk, Tbody, and HR were lower in both HSTSTHA and HSTMTHA compared to HSTPRE. There were no differences between HSTSTHA and HSTMTHA. Perceptual measurements were lowered by HA and further reduced during HSTMTHA. Conclusion A 60 min a day isothermic STHA was successful at reducing physiological and perceptual strain experienced when exercising in the heat; however, MTHA offered a more complete adaptation

Forever connected: the lifelong biological consequences of fetomaternal and maternofetal microchimerism

BACKGROUND: Originally studied as a mechanism to understand eclampsia-related deaths during pregnancy, fetal cells in maternal blood have more recently garnered attention as a noninvasive source of fetal material for prenatal testing. In the 21st century, however, intact fetal cells have been largely supplanted by circulating cell-free placental DNA for aneuploidy screening. Instead, interest has pivoted to the ways in which fetal cells influence maternal biology. In parallel, an increasing appreciation of the consequences of maternal cells in the developing fetus has occurred.CONTENT: In this review, we highlight the potential clinical applications and functional consequences of the bidirectional trafficking of intact cells between a pregnant woman and her fetus. Fetal cells play a potential role in the pathogenesis of maternal disease and tissue repair. Maternal cells play an essential role in educating the fetal immune system and as a factor in transplant acceptance. Naturally occurring maternal microchimerism is also being explored as a source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplant in fetal hematopoietic disorders.SUMMARY: Future investigations in humans need to include complete pregnancy histories to understand maternal health and transplant success or failure. Animal models are useful to understand the mechanisms underlying fetal wound healing and/or repair associated with maternal injury and inflammation. The lifelong consequences of the exchange of cells between a mother and her child are profound and have many applications in development, health, and disease. This intricate exchange of genetically foreign cells creates a permanent connection that contributes to the survival of both individuals.IP2Immunopathology of vascular and renal diseases and of organ and celltransplantatio

Mathematical practice, crowdsourcing, and social machines

The highest level of mathematics has traditionally been seen as a solitary endeavour, to produce a proof for review and acceptance by research peers. Mathematics is now at a remarkable inflexion point, with new technology radically extending the power and limits of individuals. Crowdsourcing pulls together diverse experts to solve problems; symbolic computation tackles huge routine calculations; and computers check proofs too long and complicated for humans to comprehend. Mathematical practice is an emerging interdisciplinary field which draws on philosophy and social science to understand how mathematics is produced. Online mathematical activity provides a novel and rich source of data for empirical investigation of mathematical practice - for example the community question answering system {\it mathoverflow} contains around 40,000 mathematical conversations, and {\it polymath} collaborations provide transcripts of the process of discovering proofs. Our preliminary investigations have demonstrated the importance of "soft" aspects such as analogy and creativity, alongside deduction and proof, in the production of mathematics, and have given us new ways to think about the roles of people and machines in creating new mathematical knowledge. We discuss further investigation of these resources and what it might reveal. Crowdsourced mathematical activity is an example of a "social machine", a new paradigm, identified by Berners-Lee, for viewing a combination of people and computers as a single problem-solving entity, and the subject of major international research endeavours. We outline a future research agenda for mathematics social machines, a combination of people, computers, and mathematical archives to create and apply mathematics, with the potential to change the way people do mathematics, and to transform the reach, pace, and impact of mathematics research.Comment: To appear, Springer LNCS, Proceedings of Conferences on Intelligent Computer Mathematics, CICM 2013, July 2013 Bath, U

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM

Diode-pumped garnet crystal waveguide structures fabricated by pulsed laser deposition

We report progress with diode-pumping of garnet crystal waveguide structures fabricated by PLD. Lasing has been achieved in a single-layer Nd:GGG film, and a four-layer structure with a Nd:GSGG core is currently undergoing laser trials

The nature and impacts of fines in smelter-grade alumina

Fines in smelter-grade aluminas art recognized (is a significant process problem in aluminum smelting. However understanding the nature of this fine material and how it impacts the reduction process arc, less clearly understood The combination of new analytical methods such as variable pressure scanning electron microscopy and very; high field solid state nuclear magnetic resonance provide new insights into the phases present and their spatial distribution within aluminas, and suggest how such fine materials are generated, particularly during calcination in the alumina refinery