How Not to Build a CubeSat – Lessons Learned from Developing and Launching NMSU\u27s First CubeSat

Ionospheric Neutron Content Analyzer (INCA), a student led CubeSat project at New Mexico State University (NMSU). INCA is launching on NASA’s ELaNa 20 mission carrying a neutron detector designed and built by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The INCA mission is the first spacecraft built by New Mexico State University in many years, as such, the program was essentially started from scratch with minimal pre-existing resources. While eventually successful, INCA took many missteps along the way, starting out as a 6U, eventually being completely redesigned to a 3U, before launching after around six years of development. This paper documents INCA’s design, build, and early operations, along the way the team learned many lessons about designing and building a small satellite in the context of a university program. This paper is targeted at new university teams considering starting a mission, documenting best practices learned by the INCA team, and some pitfalls to avoid

Abundance and Seasonal Occurrence of Pest Fruit Flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Residential and Rural Areas of Oahu (Hawaiian Islands)

A trapping network is maintained on Oahu (Hawaiian Islands) for early detection of invading fruit flies. The 359 sites are concentrated around the main ports of entry in the south, the community gardens throughout the island, and the commercial farming areas in Waialua and northeast Oahu. Data on abun- dance and seasonal fluctuation cycles, based on five years (2009-2013) of male lure and protein trapping data, are presented for three species of pest fruit flies, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett), B. dorsalis (Hendel) and Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann). Over 87,000 samples yielded 8.5 million flies of the four established species (54.9% B. dorsalis, 43.7% B. cucurbitae, 1.4% C. capitata, plus a few B. latifrons (Hendel)). No new invading species were collected. Trap captures for all three species were highest during summer months each year, with secondary peaks for B. cucurbitae later in the year in rural areas of southern Oahu, related to cucurbit host commercial production. At one site, with coffee in cultivation, C. capitata peaked between October and December. Seasonal cycles of B. dorsalis and C. capitata in residential areas appeared to be determined by the fruiting of ornamental trees and shrubs, including mango, rather than guava for B. dorsalis or coffee for C. capitata. The high correlation between captures of males in male lure traps and females in protein traps for the three species suggests that both attractants can be used to monitor seasonal abundance

Urologist burnout: Frequency, causes, and potential solutions to an unspoken entity

Physician burnout has been linked to decreased job performance, increased medical errors, interpersonal conflicts, and depression. Recent multispecialty studies suggest that urologists have higher rates (up to 63.6%) of burnout compared to physicians in other specialties; however, these reports were limited by low sample sizes.1 We aimed to evaluate the prevalence of urologist burnout, verify risk factors, and recommend preventative measures and solutions for colleagues at risk or suffering from burnout. Urologist burnout is a true entity that transcends level of training and nationality. Its roots appear to be deep-seated in our tireless efforts to strive for excellence in care for our patients, our growing academic and research pursuits, and surmounting administrative responsibilities; these virtues, which are regarded as the foundations of our career successes, are often obtained at the expense of personal health and wellbeing, as well as family sacrifice. Various other medical societies have become increasingly vocal about the issue of physician burnout and have actively initiated successful strategies to minimize its impact on their members. As an organization with a strong national presence, the Canadian Urological Association (CUA) should promote tools to prevent and interventions to assist those at risk for and suffering from burnout. Increased awareness in the general medical community has led to strategies and tools that can help prevent, identify, or assist physicians in their recovery from burnout. The CUA should develop and facilitate access to information and offer comprehensive support for urologists struggling with burnout

Continuous transport of Pacific-derived anthropogenic radionuclides towards the Indian Ocean

Unusually high concentrations of americium and plutonium have been observed in a sediment core collected from the eastern Lombok Basin between Sumba and Sumbawa Islands in the Indonesian Archipelago. Gamma spectrometry and accelerator mass spectrometry data together with radiometric dating of the core provide a high-resolution record of ongoing deposition of anthropogenic radionuclides. A plutonium signature characteristic of the Pacific Proving Grounds (PPG) dominates in the first two decades after the start of the high yield atmospheric tests in 1950’s. Approximately 40–70% of plutonium at this site in the post 1970 period originates from the PPG. This sediment record of transuranic isotopes deposition over the last 55 years provides evidence for the continuous long-distance transport of particle-reactive radionuclides from the Pacific Ocean towards the Indian Ocean

Rule-based treatment for acquired phonological dyslexia

In the context of a multiple-baseline design, this study demonstrated the positive effects of behavioural treatment using grapheme to phoneme correspondence rules to treat a patient with phonological dyslexia 17 years after stroke onset. Treatment used repeated exposure to real and nonsense word stimuli embodying the regularities of two grapheme to phoneme correspondence rules (GPCR) with hierarchical cueing and knowledge of results. Results revealed a pattern of performance that increased beyond baseline variability and coincided in time with the institution of treatment. Generalization of these treatment effects occurred to words requiring knowledge of other GPCR and to an independent processing based reading measure

Data infrastructure for evidence-based local government policy analysis

This paper outlines an approach for collecting and integrating data useful for evidence based planning and decision making in the not-for-profit sector, in particular for local government policy and planning. Given the methodological advances in multi-level analysis and the nature of rigorous policy analysis, leading academics and practitioners are advocating that policy driven research to be undertaken at a number of levels of analysis. Recent years have brought an explosion of public domain data in many aspects of social, economic and cultural aspects of society (cites and examples) and with this comes the opportunity, as outlined here, to integrate relevant public domain data in order to construct community profiles for local government areas in Victoria.E

Role of adiponectin and inflammation in insulin resistance of Mc3r and Mc4r knockout mice

Objective: To investigate the involvement of hypoadiponectinemia and inflammation in coupling obesity to insulin resistance in melanocortin-3 receptor and melanocortin-4 receptor knockout (KO) mice (Mc3/4rKO). Research Methods and Procedures: Sera and tissue were collected from 6-month-old Mc3rKO, Mc4rKO, and wild-type C57BL6J litter mates maintained on low-fat diet or exposed to high-fat diet (HFD) for 1 or 3 months. Inflammation was assessed by both real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis of macrophage-specific gene expression and immunohistochemistry. Results: Mc4rKO exhibited hypoadiponectinemia, exacerbated by HFD and obesity, previously reported in murine models of obesity. Mc4r deficiency was also associated with high levels of macrophage infiltration of adipose tissue, again exacerbated by HFD. In contrast, Mc3rKO exhibited normal serum adiponectin levels, irrespective of diet or obesity, and a delayed inflammatory response to HFD relative to Mc4rKO. Discussion: Our findings suggest that severe insulin resistance of Mc4rKO fed a HFD, as reported in other models of obesity such as leptin-deficient (Lep ob/Lepob) and KK-Ay mice, is linked to reduced serum adiponectin and high levels of inflammation in adipose tissue. Conversely, maintenance of normal serum adiponectin may be a factor in the relatively mild insulin-resistant phenotype of severely obese Mc3rKO. Mc3rKO are, thus, a unique mouse model where obesity is not associated with reduced serum adiponectin levels. A delay in macrophage infiltration of adipose tissue of Mc3rKO during exposure to HFD may also be a factor contributing to the mild insulin resistance in this model. Copyright © 2007 NAASO

Genetic dissection of a model complex trait using the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource

Genetic dissection of complex, polygenic trait variation is a key goal of medical and evolutionary genetics. Attempts to identify genetic variants underlying complex traits have been plagued by low mapping resolution in traditional linkage studies, and an inability to identify variants that cumulatively explain the bulk of standing genetic variation in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Thus, much of the heritability remains unexplained for most complex traits. Here we describe a novel, freely available resource for the Drosophila community consisting of two sets of recombinant inbred lines (RILs), each derived from an advanced generation cross between a different set of eight highly inbred, completely resequenced founders. The Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource (DSPR) has been designed to combine the high mapping resolution offered by multiple generations of recombination, with the high statistical power afforded by a linkage-based design. Here, we detail the properties of the mapping panel of >1600 genotyped RILs, and provide an empirical demonstration of the utility of the approach by genetically dissecting alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme activity. We confirm that a large fraction of the variation in this classic quantitative trait is due to allelic variation at the Adh locus, and additionally identify several previously unknown modest-effect trans-acting QTL (quantitative trait loci). Using a unique property of multiparental linkage mapping designs, for each QTL we highlight a relatively small set of candidate causative variants for follow-up work. The DSPR represents an important step toward the ultimate goal of a complete understanding of the genetics of complex traits in the Drosophila model system.This work was supported by the following NIH R01 grants: RR024862 to S.J.M. and A.D.L., GM085260 to S.J.M., GM085251 to A.D.L., GM078338 to S.S., and GM074244 to K.W.B