ON ORBIT DEPLOYMENT OF THE EU:CROPIS SOLAR PANEL BY GFRP TAPE SPRING HINGES

Eu:CROPIS is a compact satellite featuring a biological payload. The Satellite was launched on December 3rd 2018. The cylindrical Satellite of 1m diameter has four deployable panels for power generation. Those panels are connected to the main structure by glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) tape spring hinges. The hinges, comparable to curved metallic measuring tapes, have elastic energy stored when flattened and folded and thus deploy the panels by simply unfolding. When unfolded the hinges snap into their original shape and support the panels with considerable stiffness. No friction or mechanical locking is involved in the deploying process. The presented paper focuses on the practical handling of the hinges and the mechanisms during the final integration and the deployment process. The integration of the panels requires some special consideration. The hinges are not able to support the panels under gravity. The release mechanisms only work at a correct positioning of the panels. The measures taken to ensure the integrity and functionality of the hinges and mechanisms are described and examples are given for a correct and a false outcome. The separation is done by breaking a bolt with a heated bushing from shape memory alloy. Though reliable the separation cannot be timed down to the second and there is no direct feedback of the separation. To prevent an uneven opening of the panels several on orbit pre-tests are performed to ensure the functionality of the mechanisms for the actual deployment. At the actual separation the heating is monitored to ensure that all mechanisms are activated and the separation is working as proposed. Furthermore, a method was developed to detect the successful breaking of the bolts by use of the heating temperature data. The paper describes these checks and surveillance methods. As not all things go as planned some decisions were to be made before and at panel deployment. Also, the unfolding of the hinges was slower than during the on ground. Tests were made to simulate and understand the on-orbit behaviour. Lessons learned for further use of the mechanisms are presented

The Eu:Cropis Assembly, Integration and Verification Campaigns: Building the first DLR Compact Satellite

Eu:CROPIS (Euglena Combined Regenerative Organic Food Production In Space) is the first mission of DLR's Compact Satellite program. The Compact Satellite is a small, highly customizable and high performance satellite bus, providing a platform for scientific research as well as for demonstration of innovative concepts in space tech-nology. The launch of Eu:CROPIS onboard a Falcon 9 is scheduled in Q4 2018 within Spaceflight Industries SSO-A mission. The name-giving primary payload features a biological experiment in the context of coupled life support systems. The stability of such kind of a system shall be proven under different gravity levels with a focus on long term operations. In this context the rotation of the spacecraft will be used to utilize simulated gravity for the first time. A further biological experiment dealing with synthetic biology comprising genetically modified organisms (GMOs) was provided by NASA Ames Research Center as secondary payload. The integration and acceptance of a satellite flight model containing biological experiments faces constraints regard-ing schedule, facility certification and process definition. The driving parameters for the Eu:CROPIS AIV campaign are the degradation time of chemicals stored inside the primary payload, the GMOs used in the secondary payload, which cause handling and transport restrictions due to biosafety regulations, as well as schedule constraints due to the chosen dedicated rideshare mission. Furthermore the development of a spin stabilized system for gravity simula-tion had impact on the overall verification approach, especially towards the attitude control subsystem. This paper describes the model and verification strategies to design and build the spacecraft under said constraints. The applied verification processes comprises the hardware, software as well as all third party payloads and focuses on the utilization of a flexible tabletop engineering model approach. To achieve a smooth transition to project phase E, this concept enables co-alignment of the ground segment development and verification with spacecraft AIV as of early phase C. Furthermore scientific projects like Eu:CROPIS, with small project teams and financial budgets, en-counter few personnel redundancy. The existing structural organization gets confronted with challenges where de-pendability, testability and safety of the processes and the product are expected to be achieved with minimal effort. The paper presents how the technical management adapts work flows, cooperation and tools in project phases C and D to achieve a reliable system realization

Vermessen und Teilen - Praktiken und Diskurse des Teilens digitaler Selbstvermessungsdaten

Dieser Lehrforschungsbericht untersucht die Praktiken und Diskurse beim Umgang mit persönlichen Körperdaten, die mittels digitaler Selbstvermessung erfasst werden. Werden Körpderdaten wie Puls, Gewicht, Laufstrecke, Essverhalten etc geteilt und wenn ja, wie? Die Forschungsgruppe führte dazu Interviews mit Nutzern solcher Selbstvermessungsgeräte und machte Diskursanalysen zu Fitness, Gesundheit und Datennutzung. Die Forschungsdaten wurden sowohl praxistheoretisch interpretiert als auch mit den Techniken der Situationsanalyse strukturiert. Dieses Vorgehen bettete sich in den Forschungsstil der Grounded Theory ein

Extracellular loops 2 and 3 of the calcitonin receptor selectively modify agonist binding and efficacy.

Class B peptide hormone GPCRs are targets for the treatment of major chronic disease. Peptide ligands of these receptors display biased agonism and this may provide future therapeutic advantage. Recent active structures of the calcitonin (CT) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptors reveal distinct engagement of peptides with extracellular loops (ECLs) 2 and 3, and mutagenesis of the GLP-1R has implicated these loops in dynamics of receptor activation. In the current study, we have mutated ECLs 2 and 3 of the human CT receptor (CTR), to interrogate receptor expression, peptide affinity and efficacy. Integration of these data with insights from the CTR and GLP-1R active structures, revealed marked diversity in mechanisms of peptide engagement and receptor activation between the CTR and GLP-1R. While the CTR ECL2 played a key role in conformational propagation linked to Gs/cAMP signalling this was mechanistically distinct from that of GLP-1R ECL2. Moreover, ECL3 was a hotspot for distinct ligand- and pathway- specific effects, and this has implications for the future design of biased agonists of class B GPCRs

Glutathione Provides a Source of Cysteine Essential for Intracellular Multiplication of Francisella tularensis

Francisella tularensis is a highly infectious bacterium causing the zoonotic disease tularemia. Its ability to multiply and survive in macrophages is critical for its virulence. By screening a bank of HimarFT transposon mutants of the F. tularensis live vaccine strain (LVS) to isolate intracellular growth-deficient mutants, we selected one mutant in a gene encoding a putative γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT). This gene (FTL_0766) was hence designated ggt. The mutant strain showed impaired intracellular multiplication and was strongly attenuated for virulence in mice. Here we present evidence that the GGT activity of F. tularensis allows utilization of glutathione (GSH, γ-glutamyl-cysteinyl-glycine) and γ-glutamyl-cysteine dipeptide as cysteine sources to ensure intracellular growth. This is the first demonstration of the essential role of a nutrient acquisition system in the intracellular multiplication of F. tularensis. GSH is the most abundant source of cysteine in the host cytosol. Thus, the capacity this intracellular bacterial pathogen has evolved to utilize the available GSH, as a source of cysteine in the host cytosol, constitutes a paradigm of bacteria–host adaptation

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p<0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p<0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Optimales Design ausfallsicherer Multi-layer-Telekommunikationsnetze

Telekommunikationsnetze bestehen aus verschiedenen technologischen Schichten, sogenannten Layern, die eng miteinander verknüpft sind. Ein Beispiel für ein solches Netz ist ein IP-Kernnetz, bei dem Verbindungen zwischen Internet-Routern durch Lichtwege in einem zugrundeliegenden optischen Glasfasernetz realisiert werden. Um sicherzustellen, dass das Netz in jeder Situation alle anfallenden Kommunikationsbedarfe routen kann, müssen die Abhängigkeiten zwischen den verschiedenen Schichten schon bei der Planung des Netzes berücksichtigt werden. Dies ist vor allem dann von Bedeutung, wenn Verbindungen in einer Schicht gegen Kabel- oder Geräteausfälle in einer anderen Schicht geschützt werden müssen. Der traditionelle sequentielle Ansatz, bei dem eine Schicht nach der anderen optimiert wird, kann solche Abhängigkeiten nicht ausreichend berücksichtigen. Dies ist nur mit einem integrierten Planungsansatz möglich, bei dem mehrere Schichten gemeinsam geplant werden. Diese Arbeit behandelt mathematische Modelle und Lösungsverfahren für die integrierte Optimierung zweier zusammenhängender Netzschichten mit Ausfallsicherheitsanforderungen. Wir stellen ein Multi-layer-Netzplanungsproblem vor, das in mehreren Technologien auftritt, und modellieren es in Form von gemischt-ganzzahligen Optimierungsmodellen (MIPs). Diese Modelle decken viele praktisch relevante Nebenbedingungen aus verschiedenen Technologien ab. Im Gegensatz zu vorherigen Modellen aus der Literatur können sie zur Lösung großer ausfallsicherer Zwei-layer-Netze verwendet werden. Im Zusammenhang damit diskutieren wir verschiedene Modellierungsoptionen für wesentliche Teile eines Multi-layer-Netzes. Wir lösen unsere Modelle mit einem Branch-and-cut-and-price-Verfahren in Verbindung mit verschiedenen problemspezifischen Techniken. Dies umfasst Presolving-Techniken zur Reduktion der Problemgröse, kombinatorische und MIP-basierte Primalheuristiken zur Berechnung von Netzkonfigurationen, spezielle Schnittebenen für Ausfallsicherheit über mehrere Schichten hinweg zur Verbesserung der unteren Schranke an die optimalen Netzkosten, sowie Spaltengenerierung zur dynamischen Erzeugung von Flussvariablen während des Algorithmus. Darüber hinaus entwickeln wir Verfahren, um Rechnungen mit einem Benders-Dekompositionsansatz zu beschleunigen. Die entwickelten Techniken werden verwendet, um große ausfallsichere Zwei-layer-Netze mit Methoden der linearen und ganzzahligen Optimierung zu planen. Wir evaluieren unsere Techniken auf realistischen Testinstanzen mit bis zu 67 Netzknoten und Ausfallsicherheitsanforderungen und berechnen mit ihrer Hilfe gute Netzkonfigurationen mit Qualitätsgarantien. Die meisten unserer Testinstanzen mit bis zu 17 Knoten können wir nahezu optimal lösen. Darŭber hinaus können wir selbst für große ausfallsichere Netze Lösungen und aussagekräftige untere Schranken für die optimalen Netzkosten berechnen, was bisher nicht möglich war.Telecommunication transport networks consist of a stack of technologically different subnetworks, so-called layers, which are strongly interdependent. For example, one layer may correspond to an Internet (IP) backbone network whose links are realized by lightpath connections in an underlying optical fiber layer. To ensure that the network can fulfill its task of routing all communication requests, the inter-layer dependencies have to be taken into account already in the planning phase of the network. This is particularly important with survivability constraints, where connections in one layer have to be protected against cable cuts or equipment failures in another layer. The traditional sequential planning approach where one layer is optimized after the other cannot properly take care of the inter-layer dependencies; this can only be achieved with an integrated planning of several network layers at the same time. This thesis provides mathematical models and algorithmic techniques for the integrated optimization of two network layers with survivability constraints. We describe a multi-layer network design problem which occurs in various technologies, and model it mathematically using mixed-integer programming (MIP) formulations. The presented models cover many important practical side constraints from different technological contexts. In contrast to previous models from the literature, they can be used to design large two-layer networks with survivability requirements. We discuss modeling alternatives for various aspects of a multi-layer network and compare different routing formulations under multi-layer survivability constraints. We solve our models using a branch-and-cut-and-price approach with various problem-specific enhancements. This includes a presolving technique based on linear programming to reduce the problem size, combinatorial and sub-MIP-based primal heuristics to compute feasible network configurations, cutting planes which take the multi-layer survivability constraints into account to improve the lower bound on the optimal network cost, and column generation to generate flow variables dynamically during the algorithm. We develop techniques to speed up computations in a Benders decomposition approach and compare this approach to the standard formulation with a single MIP. We use the developed techniques to design large survivable two-layer networks by means of linear and integer programming methods. On realistic test instances with up to 67 network nodes and survivability constraints, we investigate the algorithmic impact of our techniques and show how to use them to compute good network configurations with quality guarantees. Most of the smaller test instances with up to 17 nodes can be solved to near-optimality. Moreover, we can compute feasible solutions and dual bounds even for large networks with survivability constraints, which has not been possible before