Vibration characteristics of 1/8-scale dynamic models of the space-shuttle solid-rocket boosters

Vibration tests and analyses of six 1/8 scale models of the space shuttle solid rocket boosters are reported. Natural vibration frequencies and mode shapes were obtained for these aluminum shell models having internal solid fuel configurations corresponding to launch, midburn (maximum dynamic pressure), and near endburn (burnout) flight conditions. Test results for longitudinal, torsional, bending, and shell vibration frequencies are compared with analytical predictions derived from thin shell theory and from finite element plate and beam theory. The lowest analytical longitudinal, torsional, bending, and shell vibration frequencies were within + or - 10 percent of experimental values. The effects of damping and asymmetric end skirts on natural vibration frequency were also considered. The analytical frequencies of an idealized full scale space shuttle solid rocket boosted structure are computed with and without internal pressure and are compared with the 1/8 scale model results

Sustainable Water Management in the Southwestern United States: Reality or Rhetoric?

Background: While freshwater sustainability is generally defined as the provisioning of water for both people and the environment, in practice it is largely focused only on supplying water to furnish human population growth. Symptomatic of this is the state of Arizona, where rapid growth outside of the metropolitan Phoenix-Tucson corridor relies on the same groundwater that supplies year-round flow in rivers. Using Arizona as a case study, we present the first study in the southwestern United States that evaluates the potential impact of future population growth and water demand on streamflow depletion across multiple watersheds. Methodology/Principal Findings: We modeled population growth and water demand through 2050 and used four scenarios to explore the potential effects of alternative growth and water management strategies on river flows. Under the base population projection, we found that rivers in seven of the 18 study watersheds could be dewatered due to municipal demand. Implementing alternative growth and water management strategies, however, could prevent four of these rivers from being dewatered. Conclusions/Significance: The window of opportunity to implement water management strategies is narrowing. Because impacts from groundwater extraction are cumulative and cannot be immediately reversed, proactive water management strategies should be implemented where groundwater will be used to support new municipal demand. Our approach provides a low-cost method to identify where alternative water and growth management strategies may have the most impact, and demonstrates that such strategies can maintain a continued water supply for both people and the environment

Beam Performance of Tracking Detectors with Industrially Produced GEM Foils

Three Gas-Electron-Multiplier tracking detectors with an active area of 10 cm x 10 cm and a two-dimensional, laser-etched orthogonal strip readout have been tested extensively in particle beams at the Meson Test Beam Facility at Fermilab. These detectors used GEM foils produced by Tech-Etch, Inc. They showed an efficiency in excess of 95% and spatial resolution better than 70 um. The influence of the angle of incidence of particles on efficiency and spatial resolution was studied in detail.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, accepted by Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research

An experimental survey of the production of alpha decaying heavy elements in the reactions of 238^{238}U +232^{232}Th at 7.5-6.1 MeV/nucleon

The production of alpha particle decaying heavy nuclei in reactions of 7.5-6.1 MeV/nucleon $^{238}$U +$^{232}$Th has been explored using an in-beam detection array composed of YAP scintillators and gas ionization chamber-Si telescopes. Comparisons of alpha energies and half-lives for the observed products with those of the previously known isotopes and with theoretically predicted values indicate the observation of a number of previously unreported alpha emitters. Alpha particle decay energies reaching as high as 12 MeV are observed. Many of these are expected to be from decay of previously unseen relatively neutron rich products. While the contributions of isomeric states require further exploration and specific isotope identifications need to be made, the production of heavy isotopes with quite high atomic numbers is suggested by the data.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

Properties of Exotic Matter for Heavy Ion Searches

We examine the properties of both forms of strange matter, small lumps of strange quark matter (strangelets) and of strange hadronic matter (Metastable Exotic Multihypernuclear Objects: MEMOs) and their relevance for present and future heavy ion searches. The strong and weak decays are discussed separately to distinguish between long-lived and short-lived candidates where the former ones are detectable in present heavy ion experiments while the latter ones in future heavy ion experiments, respectively. We find some long-lived strangelet candidates which are highly negatively charged with a mass to charge ratio like a anti deuteron (M/Z=-2) but masses of A=10 to 16. We predict also many short-lived candidates, both in quark and in hadronic form, which can be highly charged. Purely hyperonic nuclei are bound and have a negative charge while carrying a positive baryon number. We demonstrate also that multiply charmed exotics (charmlets) might be bound and can be produced at future heavy ion colliders.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, uses IOP style and epsf.sty, to be published in Journal of Physics, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Strangeness in Quark Matter 1997, April 14-18, Thera (Santorini), Hellas. Corrected typos, added comment about bag constant

Stable developmental patterns of gene expression without morphogen gradients

Gene expression patterns are established by cross-regulating target genes that interpret morphogen gradients. However, as development progresses, morphogen activity is reduced, leaving the emergent pattern without stabilizing positional cues. The pattern then can be deteriorated by the intrinsically noisy biochemical processes acting at the cellular level. But remarkably, the established gene expression patterns remain spatially and temporally stable in many biological systems. Here we combine spatial-stochastic simulations with an enhanced sampling method and a recently developed stability theory to address how spatiotemporal integrity of a gene expression pattern is maintained in developing tissue lacking morphogen gradients. Using a minimal embryo model consisting of spatially coupled biochemical reactor volumes, we study a stripe pattern in which weak cross-repression between nearest neighbor domians alternates with strong repression between next-nearest neighbor domains, inspired by the gap gene system in the Drosophila embryo. We find that fine-tuning of the weak repressive interactions to an optimal level can significantly increase temporal stability of the expression patterns, allowing for stable patterns over developmentally relevant times in the absence of morphogen gradients. The numerically determined optimal parameters closely agree with the predictions of the stability theory. By analizing the dynamics of factors characterizing pattern integrity, we trace back the stability enhancement to the emergence of restoring forces, maintaining the pattern in a meta-stable basin. Altogether our results demonstrate that metastable attractors can emerge as a property of stochastic gene expression patterns even without system-wide positional cues, provided that the gene regulatory interactions shaping the pattern are optimally tuned

The presence of B7-H4+ macrophages and CD25+CD4+ and FOXP3+ regulatory T cells in the microenvironment of nasal polyps - a preliminary report.

The nasal polyp (NP) seems to represent the end-stage of longstanding inflammation in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis. The aim of our study has been to evaluate the presence of two regulatory cell populations in the microenvironment of NP: CD4+CD25high Foxp3+ (Treg) cells and B7-H4-expressing macrophages. Treg cells are actively able to inhibit T lymphocytes, while the population of B7-H4-expressing macrophages has recently been described as characterized by a regulatory function similar to that of Treg cells. For our study, we evaluated 14 NP tissue samples. The samples were divided into two main groups, eosinophilic (NP) and lymphocytic (NP), according to the predominant type of immune cell infiltration. The presence of Treg cells and B7-H4 positive macrophages in the samples was analyzed by FACS. Treg cells and B7-H4-expressing macrophages were identified in all the examined nasal polyps. The percentages of both Treg cells and of B7H4 positive cells found in the eosinophilic nasal polyps were higher than those found in the lymphocytic nasal polyps. Treg cells and B7H4+ macrophage subpopulations were present in the NP microenvironment and the alterations in their percentages were related to a distinct pattern of immune cell infiltration

Freeze-out configuration properties in the 197Au + 197Au reaction at 23 AMeV

Data from the experiment on the 197Au + 197Au reaction at 23 AMeV are analyzed with an aim to find signatures of exotic nuclear configurations such as toroid-shaped objects. The experimental data are compared with predictions of the ETNA code dedicated to look for such configurations and with the QMD model. A novel criterion of selecting events possibly resulting from the formation of exotic freeze-out configurations, "the efficiency factor", is tested. Comparison between experimental data and model predictions may indicate for the formation of flat/toroidal nuclear systems