Band-monitoring Payload for a CubeSat Satellite

During changing sun activity, the ionosphere is responding accordingly and therefore it is interesting to observe the propagation behavior of shortwave bands. For the above mentioned purpose we have designed a band-monitoring payload for an experimental CubeSat satellite. The payload consists of a receiver, which is able to receive SSB modulated narrowband signals in 28 MHz uplink band, and a transmitter with FM modulation in UHF downlink band. The receiver frequency is selected to be at the center of radio amateur activity with low data rate digital modulations

Novel Optimization Method of Active Frequency Multiplier Utilizing Harmonic Terminating Impedances with DGS

A novel method for the optimization of the active frequency multiplier utilizing the harmonic terminating impedances with the defected ground structures (DGS) has been developed. Furthermore, a new type of the low-pass filter with DGS for the higher harmonic suppression will be reported. Experimental conversion gains (14.52 dB for the doubler, 5.56 dB for the tripler and 0.43 dB for the quadrupler) and real power-added efficiency (32.76 % for the doubler, 10.15 % for the tripler and 1.42 % for the quadrupler) have been attained. To our knowledge, in the considered frequency range, these results represent the best performance reported up to date for the active frequency multipliers utilizing the low-cost BJTs

Erythropoietin-induced hypertension and vascular injury in mice overexpressing human endothelin-1: exercise attenuated hypertension, oxidative stress, inflammation and immune response

OBJECTIVE: Erythropoietin used to correct anaemia in chronic kidney disease (CKD) has been shown to increase blood pressure (BP) in CKD patients and experimental animals. Endothelin (ET)-1 expression is increased in CKD animals and patients, and enhanced by erythropoietin. Erythropoietin-induced BP rise was blunted by ETA receptor blockers. This study was designed to determine whether preexisting endothelin (ET)-1 overexpression is required for erythropoietin to cause adverse vascular effects and whether this could be prevented by exercise training. METHODS: Eight to 10-week old male wild-type mice and mice with endothelial-specific ET-1 overexpression (eET-1) were treated or not with EPO (100 IU/kg, SC, 3 times/week). eET-1 was subjected or not to swimming exercise training (1 h/day, 6 days/week) for 8 weeks. SBP, mesenteric artery endothelial function and remodelling, NADPH oxidase activity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, vascular cell adhesion protein (VCAM)-1, monocyte/macrophage infiltration, T regulatory cells (Tregs) and tissue ET-1 and plasma endothelin were determined. RESULTS: Erythropoietin increased SBP by 24 mmHg (P < 0.05) and decreased by 25% vasodilatory responses to acetylcholine (P < 0.01) in eET-1 mice. Erythropoietin enhanced ET-1 induced increase in resistance artery media/lumen ratio (31%, P < 0.05), aortic NADPH oxidase activity (50%, P < 0.05), ROS generation (93%, P < 0.001), VCAM-1 (80%, P < 0.01) and monocyte/macrophage infiltration (159%, P < 0.001), and raised plasma and aortic ET-1 levels (>/=130%, P < 0.05). EPO had no effect in wild-type mice. Exercise training prevented all of the above (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Erythropoietin-induced adverse vascular effects are dependent on preexisting elevated ET-1 expression. Exercise training prevented erythropoietin-induced adverse vascular effects in part by inhibiting ET-1 overexpression-induced oxidative stress, inflammation and immune activation

Identification Of Novel Autoinducer-2 Receptors In Clostridia Reveals Plasticity In The Binding Site Of The LsrB Receptor Family

Autoinducer-2 (AI-2) is unique among quorum-sensing signaling molecules, as it is produced and recognized by a wide variety of bacteria and thus facilitates interspecies communication. To date, two classes of AI-2 receptors have been identified: the LuxP-type, present in the Vibrionales, and the LsrB-type, found in a number of phylogenetically distinct bacterial families. Recently, AI-2 was shown to affect the colonization levels of a variety of bacteria in the microbiome of the mouse gut, including members of the genus Clostridium, but no AI-2 receptor had been identified in this genus. Here, we identify a noncanonical, functional LsrB-type receptor in Clostridium saccharobutylicum. This novel LsrB-like receptor is the first one reported with variations in the binding-site amino acid residues that interact with AI-2. The crystal structure of the C. saccharobutylicum receptor determined at 1.35 Å resolution revealed that it binds the same form of AI-2 as the other known LsrB-type receptors, and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) assays showed that binding of AI-2 occurs at a submicromolar concentration. Using phylogenetic analysis, we inferred that the newly identified noncanonical LsrB receptor shares a common ancestor with known LsrB receptors and that noncanonical receptors are present in bacteria from different phyla. This led us to identify putative AI-2 receptors in bacterial species in which no receptors were known, as in bacteria belonging to the Spirochaetes and Actinobacteria phyla. Thus, this work represents a significant step toward understanding how AI-2–mediated quorum sensing influences bacterial interactions in complex biological niches

Increasing providers’ PrEP prescription for Black cisgender women: A qualitative study to improve provider knowledge and competency via PrEP training

Background: Awareness and uptake of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) remains low among Black/African American cisgender women, partly due to low self-reported PrEP knowledge and comfort among primary care providers. Ensuring providers are trained on PrEP is crucial, as increased PrEP knowledge is associated with higher rates of PrEP prescription. Objective: We aimed to develop a PrEP training for providers to improve their self-efficacy in discussing and prescribing PrEP for Black women, with the ultimate goal of increasing PrEP awareness and utilization among Black women. Design: In this qualitative study, we conducted focus groups with medical providers at three federally qualified health centers in the Southern and Midwestern United States to identify themes informing the development of a provider PrEP training. Methods: Providers were asked for input on content/design of PrEP training. Transcripts underwent rapid qualitative analysis using the Stanford Lightning Report Method. Themes were identified and presented under the domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Results: Ten providers completed four focus groups. Themes included the individual characteristics of providers (low comfort initiating PrEP discussions, particularly among White providers) and the outer setting of client attitudes (perceptions of potential provider bias/racism, varying levels of concern about HIV acquisition). Opportunities were identified to maximize the benefit of training design (e.g., developing case scenarios to enhance providers' cultural competency with Black women and PrEP knowledge). Conclusion: This comprehensive PrEP training features both didactic material and interactive role-plays to equip providers with the clinical knowledge for prescribing PrEP while building their competency discussing PrEP with Black women. This training is particularly important for providers who have racial or gender discordance with Black women and express lower comfort discussing PrEP with these clients. Provider training could lead to minimizing racial- and gender-based inequities in PrEP use.</p

Compressive performance of fiber reinforced polymer encased recycled concrete with nanoparticles

Nanomaterials have been used in improving the performance of construction materials due to their compacting micro-structure effect and accelerating cement hydration reaction. Considering the brittle characteristic of fiber reinforced polymer (termed as FRP) tube encased concrete and inferior properties of recycled concrete, nanoparticles were used in FRP tube encased recycled aggregate concrete. The axial compressive performance of FRP tube used in recycled concrete treated with nanoparticles strengthening, termed as FRPNPRC, were investigated by axial compression experiments and theoretical analysis. Five experimental variables were considered including (1) the dosages and (2) varieties of nanoparticles (i.e. 1% and 2% of nanoSiO2, 1% and 2% of nanoCaCO3), (3) replacement ratios of recycled coarse aggregates (termed as RCAs) (0%, 50%, 70% and 100%) the RCAs were mainly produced from the waste cracked bricks, (4) the number of glass FRP (GFRP) tube layers (2, 4 and 6-layer) and (5) the mixing methods of concrete. Results indicate that the combination of FRP confinement and nanoparticle modification in recycled concrete exhibited up to 76.2% increase in compressive strength and 7.62 times ductility improvement. Furthermore, a design-oriented stressestrain model on the basis of the ultimate condition analysis were executed to evaluate the stressestrain property of this strengthened component.National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC0703300); Bundesministerium fu ¨r Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany; Grant No.: 031B0914A)..The authors acknowledge support by the German Research Foundation and the Open Access Publication Funds of the Technische Universit€ at Braunschweig

Using data-driven rules to predict mortality in severe community acquired pneumonia

Prediction of patient-centered outcomes in hospitals is useful for performance benchmarking, resource allocation, and guidance regarding active treatment and withdrawal of care. Yet, their use by clinicians is limited by the complexity of available tools and amount of data required. We propose to use Disjunctive Normal Forms as a novel approach to predict hospital and 90-day mortality from instance-based patient data, comprising demographic, genetic, and physiologic information in a large cohort of patients admitted with severe community acquired pneumonia. We develop two algorithms to efficiently learn Disjunctive Normal Forms, which yield easy-to-interpret rules that explicitly map data to the outcome of interest. Disjunctive Normal Forms achieve higher prediction performance quality compared to a set of state-of-the-art machine learning models, and unveils insights unavailable with standard methods. Disjunctive Normal Forms constitute an intuitive set of prediction rules that could be easily implemented to predict outcomes and guide criteria-based clinical decision making and clinical trial execution, and thus of greater practical usefulness than currently available prediction tools. The Java implementation of the tool JavaDNF will be publicly available. © 2014 Wu et al

Irreversible renal damage after transient renin-angiotensin system stimulation:involvement of an AT1-receptor mediated immune response

Transient activation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) induces irreversible renal damage causing sustained elevation in blood pressure (BP) in Cyp1a1-Ren2 transgenic rats. In our current study we hypothesized that activation of the AT1-receptor (AT1R) leads to a T-cell response causing irreversible impairment of renal function and hypertension. Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats harbor a construct for activation of the RAS by indole-3-carbinol (I3C). Rats were fed a I3C diet between 4-8 weeks of age to induce hypertension. Next, I3C was withdrawn and rats were followed-up for another 12 weeks. Additional groups received losartan (20 mg/kg/day) or hydralazine (100 mg/kg/day) treatment between 4-8 weeks. Rats were placed for 24h in metabolic cages before determining BP at week 8, 12 and 20. At these ages, subsets of animals were sacrificed and the presence of kidney T-cell subpopulations was investigated by immunohistochemistry and molecular marker analysis. The development of sustained hypertension was completely prevented by losartan, whereas hydralazine only caused a partial decrease in BP. Markers of renal damage: KIM-1 and osteopontin were highly expressed in urine and kidney samples of I3C-treated rats, even until 20 weeks of age. Additionally, renal expression of regulatory-T cells (Tregs) was highly increased in I3C-treated rats, whereas the expression of T-helper 1 (Th1) cells demonstrated a strong decrease. Losartan prevented these effects completely, whereas hydralazine was unable to affect these changes. In young Cyp1a1-Ren2 rats AT1R activation leads to induction of an immune response, causing a shift from Th1-cells to Tregs, contributing to the development of irreversible renal damage and hypertension

Raeumlich hochaufloesende Flammendiagnostik mit Hilfe der spontanen Ramanspektroskopie

SIGLETIB: DR 5025 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman