A 300 GHz "Always-in-Focus" Focusing System for Target Detection

A focusing system for a 300 GHz radar with 5 m target distance and 10 mm diameter spot size resolution is proposed. The focusing system is based on a Gaussian telescope scheme and its main parameters have been de¬signed using Gaussian beam quasi-optical propagation theory with an in-house developed MATLAB® based analysis tool. Then, this approach has been applied to a real focusing system based on two elliptical mirrors in order to reduce the distortion and cross-polar level and a plane mirror to provide scanning capabilities. The over¬all system has been simulated with a full-wave electromag¬netic simulator and its behavior is presented. With this approach, the focusing system always works "in-focus" since the only mirror that is rotated when scanning is the output plane mirror, so the beam is almost not distorted. The design process, although based in the well-known Gaussian beam quasi-optical propagation theory, provides a fast and accurate method and minimizes the overall size of the mirrors. As a consequence, the size of the focusing system is also reduced

Optimización del Tratamiento Térmico de Productos Tubulares de Acero

[Optimization of Heat Treatment of Steel Tubular Products] El problema a abordar es el de la optimización del tratamiento térmico de productos tubulares de acero, presente en la empresa siderúrgica Tenaris. Más específicamente, se estudia el problema de dar un tratamiento adecuado a cargas retenidas en el horno de revenido. En este caso, el tratamiento térmico se compone de un primer calentamiento de los tubos a temperaturas cercanas a los 900°C, en el que se austeniza el material, seguido por un enfriamiento rápido en el que el material se transforma en martensita. Esta etapa constituye el templado del acero. Para lograr las propiedades metalúrgicas finales especificadas para el producto se realiza un segundo calentamiento a temperaturas entre 500 y 700°C, que se denomina revenido. Para simplificar el análisis, en este trabajo se considera una única propiedad metalúrgica, la dureza, que para el producto que se analiza debe estar en el rango de 270-300 Hv

The Quiescent Optical and Infrared Counterpart to EXO 0748-676 = UY Vol

We present optical and infrared photometry of the low-mass X-ray binary EXO 0748-676 in quiescence for the first time in 24 years since it became X-ray active in 1985. We find the counterpart at average magnitudes of R=22.4 and J=21.3. We monitored the source approximately nightly through 2008 November to 2009 January. During this time there was considerable night-to-night optical variability but no long term trends were apparent. The night-to-night variability reveals a periodicity of P=0.159331+/-0.000012d, consistent with the X-ray orbital period to within 0.01%. This indicates that the quiescent optical modulation is indeed orbital in nature rather than a superhump. Interestingly, the modulation remains single-peaked with a deep minimum coincident with the times of X-ray eclipse, and there is no indication of a double-peaked ellipsoidal modulation. This indicates that even in `quiescence' emission from the accretion disk and/or X-ray heated inner face of the companion star dominate the optical emission, and implies that obtaining an accurate dynamical mass estimate in quiescence will be challenging.Comment: Accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Allocation of endogenous and dietary protein in the reconstitution of the gastrointestinal tract in migratory blackcaps at stopover sites

During migratory flight, the mass of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and its associated organs in small birds decreases in size by as much as 40%, compared with the preflight condition because of the catabolism of protein. At stopover sites, birds need 2–3 days to rebuild their GIT so that they can restore body mass and fat reserves to continue migration. The source of protein used to rebuild the GIT may be exogenous (from food ingested) or endogenous (reallocated from other organs) or both. Because the relative contribution of these sources to rebuild the GIT of migratory birds is not yet known, we mimicked in-flight fasting and then re-feeding in two groups of blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla), a Palearctic migratory passerine. The birds were fed a diet containing either 3% or 20% protein to simulate different refueling scenarios. During re-feeding, birds received known doses of 15N-l-leucine before we measured the isotope concentrations in GIT and associated digestive organs and in locomotory muscles. We then quantified the extent to which blackcaps rebuilt their GIT with endogenous and/or dietary protein while refeeding after a fast. Our results indicate that blackcaps fed the low-protein diet incorporated less exogenous nitrogen into their tissues than birds fed the 20% protein diet. They also allocated relatively more exogenous protein to the GIT than to pectoral muscle than those birds re-fed with the high-protein diet. However, this compensation was not sufficient for birds eating the low-protein diet to rebuild their intestine at the same rate as the birds re-fed the high-protein diet. We concluded that blackcaps must choose stopover sites at which they can maximize protein intake to minimize the time it takes to rebuild their GIT and, thus, resume migration as soon as possible

Highly photostable solid-state dye lasers based on silicon-modified organic matrices

11 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables.-- PACS: 42.55.Rz; 42.60.FcWe report on the synthesis, characterization, and physical properties of modified polymeric matrices incorporating silicon atoms in their structure and doped with laser dyes. When the silicon-modified organic matrices incorporated pyrromethene 567 (PM567) and pyrromethene 597 (PM597) dyes as actual solid solutions, highly photostable laser operation with reasonable, nonoptimized efficiencies was obtained under transversal pumping at 532 nm. At a pump repetition rate of 10 Hz, the intensity of the laser emission remained at the level or above the initial lasing intensity after 100 000 pump pulses in the same position of the sample, corresponding to an estimated accumulated pump energy absorbed by the system of 518 and 1295 GJ/mol for PM567 and PM597, respectively. When the pump repetition rate was increased to 30 Hz, the laser emission of dye PM567 decreased steadily and the output energy fell to one-half its initial value after an accumulated pump energy of 989 GJ/mol. Dye PM597 demonstrated a remarkable photostability, and under 30 Hz pumping the laser emission from some samples remained stable after 700 000 pump pulses in the same position of the sample, corresponding to an accumulated pump energy of 17 300 GJ/mol. Narrow linewidth operation with tuning ranges of up to 31 nm was obtained with both pyrromethene dyes when some of the samples were incorporated into a grazing-incidence grating oscillator.This work was supported by Project Nos. 7N/0100/02 of the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid ( CAM) and MAT2004- 04643-C03-01 of the Spanish CICYT. One of the authors (O.G.) thanks the MEC for awarding her a Ramón y Cajal scientific contract. Another author (D.A.) thanks CAM for a predoctoral scholarship.Peer reviewe

Lurbinectedin in patients with pretreated neuroendocrine tumours: Results from a phase II basket study

Lurbinectedin; Neuroendocrine tumours; Small cellLurbinectedina; Tumores neuroendocrinos; Célula pequeñaLurbinectedina; Tumors neuroendocrins; Cèl·lula petitaBackground Patients with neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) need alternative therapies after failure of first-line therapy. Patients and methods This phase II trial evaluated lurbinectedin, a selective inhibitor of oncogenic transcription, at 3.2 mg/m2 as a 1-h intravenous infusion every 3 weeks in 32 NETs patients treated in the second- or third-line setting. The primary efficacy endpoint was overall response rate (ORR) according to RECIST v1.1 assessed by the investigators. Secondary endpoints included duration of response (DoR), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS) and safety. Results Two of 31 evaluable patients had confirmed partial responses (ORR = 6.5%; 95%CI, 0.8–21.4%). Median DoR was 4.7 months (95% CI, 4.0–5.4 months), median PFS was 1.4 months (95% CI, 1.2–3.0 months) and median OS was 7.4 months (95% CI, 3.4–16.2 months). Lurbinectedin showed an acceptable, predictable and manageable safety profile. The most common grade 3/4 toxicity was neutropenia (40.6%; grade 4, 12.4%; febrile neutropenia, 3.1%). Conclusions Considering the exploratory aim of this trial that evaluated a heterogeneous population of NETs patients, and the signs of antitumour activity observed (two confirmed partial responses and seven long disease stabilisations), further development of lurbinectedin is warranted in a more selected NETs population

Transcriptional dissection of pancreatic tumors engrafted in mice.

BACKGROUND: Engraftment of primary pancreas ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) in mice to generate patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models is a promising platform for biological and therapeutic studies in this disease. However, these models are still incompletely characterized. Here, we measured the impact of the murine tumor environment on the gene expression of the engrafted human tumoral cells. METHODS: We have analyzed gene expression profiles from 35 new PDX models and compared them with previously published microarray data of 18 PDX models, 53 primary tumors and 41 cell lines from PDAC. The results obtained in the PDAC system were further compared with public available microarray data from 42 PDX models, 108 primary tumors and 32 cell lines from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We developed a robust analysis protocol to explore the gene expression space. In addition, we completed the analysis with a functional characterization of PDX models, including if changes were caused by murine environment or by serial passing. RESULTS: Our results showed that PDX models derived from PDAC, or HCC, were clearly different to the cell lines derived from the same cancer tissues. Indeed, PDAC- and HCC-derived cell lines are indistinguishable from each other based on their gene expression profiles. In contrast, the transcriptomes of PDAC and HCC PDX models can be separated into two different groups that share some partial similarity with their corresponding original primary tumors. Our results point to the lack of human stromal involvement in PDXs as a major factor contributing to their differences from the original primary tumors. The main functional differences between pancreatic PDX models and human PDAC are the lower expression of genes involved in pathways related to extracellular matrix and hemostasis and the up- regulation of cell cycle genes. Importantly, most of these differences are detected in the first passages after the tumor engraftment. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that PDX models of PDAC and HCC retain, to some extent, a gene expression memory of the original primary tumors, while this pattern is not detected in conventional cancer cell lines. Expression changes in PDXs are mainly related to pathways reflecting the lack of human infiltrating cells and the adaptation to a new environment. We also provide evidence of the stability of gene expression patterns over subsequent passages, indicating early phases of the adaptation process

Matching microscopic and macroscopic responses in glasses

We first reproduce on the Janus and Janus II computers a milestone experiment that measures the spin-glass coherence length through the lowering of free-energy barriers induced by the Zeeman effect. Secondly we determine the scaling behavior that allows a quantitative analysis of a new experiment reported in the companion Letter [S. Guchhait and R. Orbach, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 157203 (2017)]. The value of the coherence length estimated through the analysis of microscopic correlation functions turns out to be quantitatively consistent with its measurement through macroscopic response functions. Further, non-linear susceptibilities, recently measured in glass-forming liquids, scale as powers of the same microscopic length.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Critical Behavior of Three-Dimensional Disordered Potts Models with Many States

We study the 3D Disordered Potts Model with p=5 and p=6. Our numerical simulations (that severely slow down for increasing p) detect a very clear spin glass phase transition. We evaluate the critical exponents and the critical value of the temperature, and we use known results at lower $p$ values to discuss how they evolve for increasing p. We do not find any sign of the presence of a transition to a ferromagnetic regime.Comment: 9 pages and 9 Postscript figures. Final version published in J. Stat. Mec