Improvement of Quality in Publication of Experimental Thermophysical Property Data: Challenges, Assessment Tools, Global Implementation, and Online Support

Article on the improvement of quality in the publication of experimental thermophysical property data

Marathons and myasthenia gravis: a case report.

The cardinal symptoms of auto-immune myasthenia gravis are fatigue and weakness. Endurance events such as marathon running would seem incompatible with this chronic disease. Many patients stop sport altogether. There is limited literature of patients with auto-immune myasthenia gravis undergoing regular endurance exercise. We report the case of a 36-year-old female who began long-distance running whilst experiencing initial symptoms of myasthenia gravis. She was diagnosed with auto-immune myasthenia gravis and whilst advised to stop all sport, her way of fighting and living with this chronic and unpredictable disease was to continue running to maintain a healthy body and mind. Despite suffering from ocular, bulbar and localized limb fatigability, she managed to complete multiple marathons and achieve disease stability with cholinesterase inhibitors. Marathon and half-marathon running lead to distinct changes in mediators of inflammation in an exercise-dose-dependent manner. Despite symptoms of weakness and fatigue in certain muscles in myasthenia gravis, physical exertion remains possible and may not worsen symptoms as demonstrated in this case and recent studies. The immunomodulatory role of exercise could be considered in this case however this hypothesis remains to be confirmed in future studies with quantitative data

John Clare and place

This chapter tackles issues of place in the self-presentation and critical reception of John Clare, and pursues it across a number of axes. The argument centres on the placing of Clare both socio-economically and ‘naturally’, and limitations exerted upon perceptions of his work. Interrogating criticism this chapter finds a pervasive awkwardness especially in relation to issues of class and labour. It assesses the contemporary ‘placing’ of Clare, and seemingly unavoidable insensitivities to labour and poverty in the history industry, place-naming, and polemical ecocriticism. It assesses the ways Clare represents place – in poverty, in buildings, in nature – and, drawing on Michel de Certeau, considers the tactics Clare uses to negotiate his place. It pursues trajectories to ‘un-place’ Clare: the flight of fame in Clare’s response to Byron; and the flight of an early poem in songbooks and beyond, across the nineteenth century

The life of rural scenery

John Clare observed and described the natural world with an unsurpassed accuracy and intimacy. But his landscapes also bore the memories of life and labour. Like Wordsworth, he sought to create textual objects in transmissible forms, to deliver their reported worlds – expansive, dynamic, somehow inhabitable – to distant readers, drawing them into sympathetic intercommunion with a complex living scene. His intimate descriptive poetry reveals the tangible qualities of light and sound, and the material basis of the apparently abstract concept of time. Memory and imagination are understood to inhabit bodily spaces, provoking ‘real transport’: an observer lost in – and to – the moment. From his place and time, Clare felt solidarity with isolated birds, alienation from labour, estrangement from human communities. Publications such as annuals often showcased formulaic reflections on nature and on memory; Clare exploited textual duplicability, his meditative descriptive poetry spanning the history and futurity of an observed scene

SCALISS: A European tool for automated SCAling of LIfe Support Systems

Designing the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) for exploration missions to the interplanetary space is a complex task beginning from the definition of the needs (e.g. diet, safety, radiation level,..) up to the selection of technology possibilities. In this context a major issue is the influence of crew number and mission duration to the ECLSS design. These are the main reasons why during mission studies the design of the ECLSS system mostly starts from scratch. Uncertainties about requirements, functions and technologies most suitable for the mission lead to a high number of iterations before a baseline design can be achieved. The aim of the SCALISS (Scaling of Life Support Systems) study was to understand and investigate in ECLSS functionality, technologies and scalabilities in order to produce a robust initial design starting point for future Phase-A studies with an automated tool. The developed Java-based ECLSS sizing tool is described in this paper together with the validation case study results. The possible evolutions and interactions with the ALiSSE tool are also described