A Technique for Tensile Fatigue and Creep Testing of Fiber-Reinforced Ceramics

An experimental technique for the elevated temperature tensile fatigue and creep testing of fiber-reinforced ceramics is discussed. The experimental approach utilizes edge-loaded specimens with rectangular gage-sections. Novel furnace and grip designs which allow testing in air to 1500°C are provided. The specimen, furnace and grip designs discussed in the paper have been successfully used to test unidirectional and cross-ply SiCf/Si3N 4, SiCf/SiC, Cf/SiC and SiCf/calcium-aluminosilicate composites.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66679/2/10.1177_002199839202600608.pd

Commensal viruses of mosquitoes: Host restriction, transmission, and interaction with arboviral pathogens

Recent advances in virus detection strategies and deep sequencing technologies have enabled the identification of a multitude of new viruses that persistently infect mosquitoes but do not infect vertebrates. These are usually referred to as insect-specific viruses (ISVs). These novel viruses have generated considerable interest in their modes of transmission, persistence in mosquito populations, the mechanisms that restrict their host range to mosquitoes, and their interactions with pathogens transmissible by the same mosquito. In this article, we discuss studies in our laboratory and others that demonstrate that many ISVs are efficiently transmitted directly from the female mosquito to their progeny via infected eggs, and, moreover, that persistent infection of mosquito cell cultures or whole mosquitoes with ISVs can restrict subsequent infection, replication, and transmission of some mosquito-borne viral pathogens. This suggests that some ISVs may act as natural regulators of arboviral transmission. We also discuss viral and host factors that may be responsible for their host restriction

Positive-strand RNA viruses—a Keystone Symposia report

Positive-strand RNA viruses have been the cause of several recent outbreaks and epidemics, including the Zika virus epidemic in 2015, the SARS outbreak in 2003, and the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. On June 18–22, 2022, researchers focusing on positive-strand RNA viruses met for the Keystone Symposium “Positive-Strand RNA Viruses” to share the latest research in molecular and cell biology, virology, immunology, vaccinology, and antiviral drug development. This report presents concise summaries of the scientific discussions at the symposium

Critical assessment of automated flow cytometry data analysis techniques

Traditional methods for flow cytometry (FCM) data processing rely on subjective manual gating. Recently, several groups have developed computational methods for identifying cell populations in multidimensional FCM data. The Flow Cytometry: Critical Assessment of Population Identification Methods (FlowCAP) challenges were established to compare the performance of these methods on two tasks: (i) mammalian cell population identification, to determine whether automated algorithms can reproduce expert manual gating and (ii) sample classification, to determine whether analysis pipelines can identify characteristics that correlate with external variables (such as clinical outcome). This analysis presents the results of the first FlowCAP challenges. Several methods performed well as compared to manual gating or external variables using statistical performance measures, which suggests that automated methods have reached a sufficient level of maturity and accuracy for reliable use in FCM data analysis.