Two phase detonation studies

An experimental study of the passage of a shock wave over a burning fuel drop is described. This includes high speed framing photographs of the interaction taken at 500,000 frames per second. A theoretical prediction of the ignition of a fuel drop by a shock wave is presented and the results compared with earlier experimental work. Experimental attempts to generate a detonation in a liquid fuel drop (kerosene)-liquid oxidizer drop (hydrogen peroxide)-inert gas-environment are described. An appendix is included which gives the analytical prediction of power requirements for the drop generator to produce certain size drops at a certain mass rate. A bibliography is also included which lists all of the publications resulting from this research grant

Continuous Uniform Finite Time Stabilization of Planar Controllable Systems

Continuous homogeneous controllers are utilized in a full state feedback setting for the uniform finite time stabilization of a perturbed double integrator in the presence of uniformly decaying piecewise continuous disturbances. Semiglobal strong $\mathcal{C}^1$ Lyapunov functions are identified to establish uniform asymptotic stability of the closed-loop planar system. Uniform finite time stability is then proved by extending the homogeneity principle of discontinuous systems to the continuous case with uniformly decaying piecewise continuous nonhomogeneous disturbances. A finite upper bound on the settling time is also computed. The results extend the existing literature on homogeneity and finite time stability by both presenting uniform finite time stabilization and dealing with a broader class of nonhomogeneous disturbances for planar controllable systems while also proposing a new class of homogeneous continuous controllers

Role of yogic practices in individuals with hypertension and low-Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEFR) of Ahmedabad city

Hypertension is one of the most important risk factors for various heart related diseases in India, especially in South-Asian region. Nowadays because of very fast life style, breathing pattern and its duration is changed considerably. Breathing duration becomes very short. The main aim of the present study was to assess the therapeutic role of yoga on various cardiovascular parameters, peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) through pulmonary function test and peripheral capillary oxygen saturation (SpO2), amount of oxygen in the blood in Ahmedabad population. Total 50 individuals with hypertension, low-PEFR and low-SpO2 were selected for the present study. All participants were subjected to yoga therapy (pranayama, yoga postures and meditation) for various time intervals of 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Heart rate (HR), systolic pressure (SP), diastolic pressure (DP), pulse pressure (PP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), rate pressure product (RPP), double product (DoP), PEFR and SpO2 were measured from all individuals at different intervals. At 0 month, all individuals had very high heart rate (HR), systolic pressure (SP), diastolic pressure (DP), pulse pressure (PP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), rate pressure product (RPP), double product (DoP), but PEFR and SpO2 levels were very low. At the end of 12 month of yoga intervention, significant decrease in all cardiovascular parameters whereas significant elevation of PEFR and SpO2 levels were observed. In conclusion, a comprehensive yoga therapy programme has immense potential to augment the beneficial effects of standard medical management of hypertension, lungs function and total oxygen concentration. Hence it can be used as an effective complementary therapy for heart related diseases

Comparison of ERBS orbit determination accuracy using batch least-squares and sequential methods

The Flight Dynamics Div. (FDD) at NASA-Goddard commissioned a study to develop the Real Time Orbit Determination/Enhanced (RTOD/E) system as a prototype system for sequential orbit determination of spacecraft on a DOS based personal computer (PC). An overview is presented of RTOD/E capabilities and the results are presented of a study to compare the orbit determination accuracy for a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) user spacecraft obtained using RTOS/E on a PC with the accuracy of an established batch least squares system, the Goddard Trajectory Determination System (GTDS), operating on a mainframe computer. RTOD/E was used to perform sequential orbit determination for the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), and the Goddard Trajectory Determination System (GTDS) was used to perform the batch least squares orbit determination. The estimated ERBS ephemerides were obtained for the Aug. 16 to 22, 1989, timeframe, during which intensive TDRSS tracking data for ERBS were available. Independent assessments were made to examine the consistencies of results obtained by the batch and sequential methods. Comparisons were made between the forward filtered RTOD/E orbit solutions and definitive GTDS orbit solutions for ERBS; the solution differences were less than 40 meters after the filter had reached steady state

Direct observation of 4+ to 2+ gamma transition in 8Be

The low lying states in $^8$Be are believed to have a two-alpha cluster structure and hence a large intrinsic quadrupole deformation. An earlier calculation showed a large collective enhancement in gamma transition probability between the low lying states leading to a 4$^+$ to 2$^+$ gamma branch of $\sim10^{-7}$ and a resonant radiative cross section of 134 nb for the $\alpha+\alpha$ entrance channel. We report here the first experimental evidence for this transition through a $\gamma-\alpha-\alpha$ coincidence measurement in the reaction $^4$He($\alpha,\alpha \gamma$)$^4$He using a gas target. The measured cross sections on and off the 4$^+$ resonance are 165 $\pm$ 41 (stat) $\pm$35 (sys) nb and 39 $\pm$ 25 (stat) $\pm$7 (sys) nb, respectively.Comment: Total 4 pages, 4 figures, in RevTeX format, submitted to PR

Neonatal cause-of-death estimates for the early and late neonatal periods for 194 countries: 2000-2013.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate cause-of-death distributions in the early (0-6 days of age) and late (7-27 days of age) neonatal periods, for 194 countries between 2000 and 2013. METHODS: For 65 countries with high-quality vital registration, we used each country's observed early and late neonatal proportional cause distributions. For the remaining 129 countries, we used multinomial logistic models to estimate these distributions. For countries with low child mortality we used vital registration data as inputs and for countries with high child mortality we used neonatal cause-of-death distribution data from studies in similar settings. We applied cause-specific proportions to neonatal death estimates from the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, by country and year, to estimate cause-specific risks and numbers of deaths. FINDINGS: Over time, neonatal deaths decreased for most causes. Of the 2.8 million neonatal deaths in 2013, 0.99 million deaths (uncertainty range: 0.70-1.31) were estimated to be caused by preterm birth complications, 0.64 million (uncertainty range: 0.46-0.84) by intrapartum complications and 0.43 million (uncertainty range: 0.22-0.66) by sepsis and other severe infections. Preterm birth (40.8%) and intrapartum complications (27.0%) accounted for most early neonatal deaths while infections caused nearly half of late neonatal deaths. Preterm birth complications were the leading cause of death in all regions of the world. CONCLUSION: The neonatal cause-of-death distribution differs between the early and late periods and varies with neonatal mortality rate level. To reduce neonatal deaths, effective interventions to address these causes must be incorporated into policy decisions

Volatile Loss and Classification of Kuiper Belt Objects

Observations indicate that some of the largest Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) have retained volatiles in the gas phase, which implies the presence of an atmosphere that can affect their reflectance spectra and thermal balance. Volatile escape rates driven by solar heating of the surface were estimated by Schaller and Brown (2007) (SB) and Levi and Podolak (2009)(LP) using Jeans escape from the surface and a hydrodynamic model respectively. Based on recent molecular kinetic simulations these rates can be hugely in error (e.g., a factor of $\sim 10^{16}$ for the SB estimate for Pluto). In this paper we estimate the loss of primordial N$_2$ for several large KBOs guided by recent molecular kinetic simulations of escape due to solar heating of the surface and due to UV/EUV heating of the upper atmosphere. For the latter we extrapolate simulations of escape from Pluto (Erwin et al. 2013) using the energy limited escape model recently validated for the KBOs of interest by molecular kinetic simulations (Johnson et al. 2013). Unless the N$_2$ atmosphere is thin ($\lesssim 10^{18}$ N$_2$/cm$^2$) and/or the radius small ($\lesssim 200-300$ km), we find that escape is primarily driven by the UV/EUV radiation absorbed in the upper atmosphere rather than the solar heating of the surface. This affects the previous interpretations of the relationship between atmospheric loss and the observed surface properties. The long-term goal is to connect detailed atmospheric loss simulations with a model for volatile transport (e.g., Young, 2014) for individual KBOs.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures; submitted to Ap

Identifying mRNA targets of microRNA dysregulated in cancer: with application to clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

BACKGROUND. MicroRNA regulate mRNA levels in a tissue specific way, either by inducing degradation of the transcript or by inhibiting translation or transcription. Putative mRNA targets of microRNA identified from seed sequence matches are available in many databases. However, such matches have a high false positive rate and cannot identify tissue specificity of regulation. RESULTS. We describe a simple method to identify direct mRNA targets of microRNA dysregulated in cancers from expression level measurements in patient matched tumor/normal samples. The word "direct" is used here in a strict sense to: a) represent mRNA which have an exact seed sequence match to the microRNA in their 3'UTR, b) the seed sequence match is strictly conserved across mouse, human, rat and dog genomes, c) the mRNA and microRNA expression levels can distinguish tumor from normal with high significance and d) the microRNA/mRNA expression levels are strongly and significantly anti-correlated in tumor and/or normal samples. We apply and validate the method using clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC) and matched normal kidney samples, limiting our analysis to mRNA targets which undergo degradation of the mRNA transcript because of a perfect seed sequence match. Dysregulated microRNA and mRNA are first identified by comparing their expression levels in tumor vs normal samples. Putative dysregulated microRNA/mRNA pairs are identified from these using seed sequence matches, requiring that the seed sequence be conserved in human/dog/rat/mouse genomes. These are further pruned by requiring a strong anti-correlation signature in tumor and/or normal samples. The method revealed many new regulations in ccRCC. For instance, loss of miR-149, miR-200c and mir-141 causes gain of function of oncogenes (KCNMA1, LOX), VEGFA and SEMA6A respectively and increased levels of miR-142-3p, miR-185, mir-34a, miR-224, miR-21 cause loss of function of tumor suppressors LRRC2, PTPN13, SFRP1, ERBB4, and (SLC12A1, TCF21) respectively. We also found strong anti-correlation between VEGFA and the miR-200 family of microRNA: miR-200a*, 200b, 200c and miR-141. Several identified microRNA/mRNA pairs were validated on an independent set of matched ccRCC/normal samples. The regulation of SEMA6A by miR-141 was verified by a transfection assay. CONCLUSIONS. We describe a simple and reliable method to identify direct gene targets of microRNA in any cancer. The constraints we impose (strong dysregulation signature for microRNA and mRNA levels between tumor/normal samples, evolutionary conservation of seed sequence and strong anti-correlation of expression levels) remove spurious matches and identify a subset of robust, tissue specific, functional mRNA targets of dysregulated microRNA.Cancer Institute of New Jersy; New Jersey Commission for Cacner Research; Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Tissue Procurement and Genomics Core Facility; Crawford Fun