Investigation of a liquid-fed water resistojet plume

Measurements of mass flux and flow angle were taken throughout the forward flow region of the exhaust of a liquid-fed water resistojet using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The resistojet operated at a mass flow rate of 0.1 g/s with a power input of 330 Watts. Measured values were compared to theoretical predictions obtained by employing a source flow approximation. Excellent agreement between predicted and measured mass flux values was attained; however, this agreement was highly dependent on knowledge of nozzle flow conditions. Measurements of the temperature at which the exhaust condensed on the QCM were obtained as a function of incident mass flux

Overview: Solar Electric Propulsion Concept Designs for SEP Technology Demonstration Mission

JPC presentation of the Concept designs for NASA Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration mission paper. Multiple Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Missions were developed to assess vehicle performance and estimated mission cost. Concepts ranged from a 10,000 kg spacecraft capable of delivering 4000 kg of payload to one of the Earth Moon Lagrange points in support of future human-crewed outposts to a 180 kg spacecraft capable of performing an asteroid rendezvous mission after launched to a geostationary transfer orbit as a secondary payload

Federated data bases for the development of an operational monitoring and forecasting system of the ocean: the THREDDS Dataset Merger

During the last decade, operational monitoring and forecasting systems have been developed in all the European seas. The exchange of data and products and the development of services for a wide community of users pose some fundamental issues, whose solution has become a priority in integrated and GMES referring projects, such as the MERSEA European project. These projects aim to develop a European system for operational monitoring and forecasting on global and regional scales of ocean physics, bio-chemistry and ecosystems. GMES system and its operational projects need to federate resources and expertise coming from diverse organizations working on different Earth Sciences fields (e.g. satellite data processing, in situ observing systems, data management, ocean and ecosystem modeling, etc.). Therefore, it is required a Marine Information Management (MIM) system capable of facilitating the regular real-time exchange of high quality information, data and products. Moreover, MIM system must provide appropriate information for a wide range of external users both in real-time and delayed mode. </p><p style=&quot;line-height: 20px;&quot;> In this paper an architecture based on the OPeNDAP/THREDDS technology is proposed as a solution for these operational systems. In this context, a catalog merging solution is introduced for the MIM system, which results in the design and development of the THREDDS Dataset Merger (TDM): a set of services meant to merge THREDDS Dataset Inventory Catalogs, so to achieve a unique catalog service for a whole database federation. TDM service merges distributed and autonomous THREDDS catalogs in order to work out a virtual merged catalog. The TDM service was extended in order to provide automatic catalogs synchronization. This service allows extending the pull-based TDM paradigm to support push-based applications. Some security issues are also considered

Concept designs for NASA's Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission

Multiple Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission were developed to assess vehicle performance and estimated mission cost. Concepts ranged from a 10,000 kilogram spacecraft capable of delivering 4000 kilogram of payload to one of the Earth Moon Lagrange points in support of future human-crewed outposts to a 180 kilogram spacecraft capable of performing an asteroid rendezvous mission after launched to a geostationary transfer orbit as a secondary payload. Low-cost and maximum Delta-V capability variants of a spacecraft concept based on utilizing a secondary payload adapter as the primary bus structure were developed as were concepts designed to be co-manifested with another spacecraft on a single launch vehicle. Each of the Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission concepts developed included an estimated spacecraft cost. These data suggest estimated spacecraft costs of $200 million -$300 million if 30 kilowatt-class solar arrays and the corresponding electric propulsion system currently under development are used as the basis for sizing the mission concept regardless of launch vehicle costs. The most affordable mission concept developed based on subscale variants of the advanced solar arrays and electric propulsion technology currently under development by the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate has an estimated cost of $50M and could provide a Delta-V capability comparable to much larger spacecraft concepts

Forward and Inverse Modelling Approaches for Prediction of Light Stimulus from Electrophysiological Response in Plants

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.In this paper, system identification approach has been adopted to develop a novel dynamical model for describing the relationship between light as an environmental stimulus and the electrical response as the measured output for a bay leaf (Laurus nobilis) plant. More specifically, the target is to predict the characteristics of the input light stimulus (in terms of on-off timing, duration and intensity) from the measured electrical response - leading to an inverse problem. We explored two major classes of system estimators to develop dynamical models - linear and nonlinear - and their several variants for establishing a forward and also an inverse relationship between the light stimulus and plant electrical response. The best class of models are given by the Nonlinear Hammerstein-Wiener (NLHW) estimator showing good data fitting results over other linear and nonlinear estimators in a statistical sense. Consequently, a few set of models using different functional variants of NLHW has been developed and their accuracy in detecting the on-off timing and intensity of the input light stimulus are compared for 19 independent plant datasets (including 2 additional species viz. Zamioculcas zamiifolia and Cucumis sativus) under similar experimental scenario.The work reported in this paper was supported by project PLants Employed As SEnsor Devices (PLEASED), EC grant agreement number 296582

Evaluating the use of smart sensors in ground-based monitoring of landslide movement with laboratory experiments

Boulders and cobbles embedded on the body of landslides are carried downstream under the action of gravity, and the study of their transport can give important insight on their dynamics and hence the related hazard. The study examines the reliability of smart sensors to track movements of a cobble and discern between intensity and mode of movement in laboratory experiments. A tag equipped with accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer sensors was installed inside a cobble. The experiments consisted of letting the cobble fall on an inclined plane. By tilting the inclined plane at different angles, different modes of movement such as rolling, bouncing, or sliding were generated. Sliding was generated by embedding the cobble within a thin layer of sand. The position of the cobble travelling down the slope was derived from camera videos. Raw sensor data allowed detection of movement and separation of two modes of movement, namely rolling, and sliding. Additionally, reliable values for the position, velocity, and acceleration were determined by feeding a Kalman filter with smart sensor measurements and camera-based positions. Furthermore, by testing LoRaWAN wireless transmission through sand, the study showed that the signal strength tended to decrease for thicker sand layers. These findings confirm the potential to use these sensors to improve early warning systems and further studies are in progress to assess practicalities of their use in field settings

In vitro simulation of dental implant bridges removal: Influence of luting agent and abutments geometry on retrievability

Implant fixed dental prostheses are widely used for the treatment of edentulism, often preferred over the screw-retained ones. However, one of the main features of an implant-supported prosthesis is retrievability, which could be necessary in the case of implant complications. In this study, the retrievability of implant-fixed dental prostheses was investigated considering two of the main factors dental practitioners have to deal with: the abutments geometry and the luting agent. Impulsive forces were applied to dental bridge models to simulate crowns’ retrievability in clinical conditions. The number of impulses and the impulsive force delivered during each test were recorded and used as retrievability indexes. One-hundred-and-five tests were conducted on 21 combinations of bridges and luting agents, and a Kruskal-Wallis test was performed on the results. The abutment geometry significantly influenced the number of impulses needed for retrieval (p < 0.05), and a cement-dependent trend was observed as well. On the other hand, the forces measured during tests showed no clear correlation with bridge retrievability. The best retrievability was obtained with long, slightly tapered abutments and a temporary luting agent

The PU.1 transcription factor induces cyclin D2 expression in U937 cells [16]

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BCR-ABL1 doubling-times and halving-times may predict CML response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors

In Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML), successful treatment requires accurate molecular monitoring to evaluate disease response and provide timely interventions for patients failing to achieve the desired outcomes. We wanted to determine whether measuring BCR-ABL1 mRNA doubling-times (DTs) could distinguish inconsequential rises in the oncogene’s expression from resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Thus, we retrospectively examined BCR-ABL1 evolution in 305 chronic-phase CML patients receiving imatinib mesylate (IM) as a first line treatment. Patients were subdivided in two groups: those with a confirmed rise in BCR-ABL1 transcripts without MR3.0 loss and those failing IM. We found that the DTs of the former patients were significantly longer than those of patients developing IM resistance (57.80 vs. 41.45 days, p = 0.0114). Interestingly, the DT values of individuals failing second-generation (2G) TKIs after developing IM resistance were considerably shorter than those observed at the time of IM failure (27.20 vs. 41.45 days; p = 0.0035). We next wanted to establish if decreases in BCR-ABL1 transcripts would identify subjects likely to obtain deep molecular responses. We therefore analyzed the BCR-ABL1 halving-times (HTs) of a different cohort comprising 174 individuals receiving IM in first line and observed that, regardless of the time point selected for our analyses (6, 12, or 18 months), HTs were significantly shorter in subjects achieving superior molecular responses (p = 0.002 at 6 months; p &lt; 0.001 at 12 months; p = 0.0099 at 18 months). Moreover, 50 patients receiving 2G TKIs as first line therapy and obtaining an MR3.0 (after 6 months; p = 0.003) or an MR4.0 (after 12 months; p = 0.019) displayed significantly shorter HTs than individuals lacking these molecular responses. Our findings suggest that BCR-ABL1 DTs and HTs are reliable tools to, respectively, identify subjects in MR3.0 that are failing their assigned TKI or to recognize patients likely to achieve deep molecular responses that should be considered for treatment discontinuation