Estimating the costs for the airport operator and airlines of a drone-related shutdown:An application to Frankfurt International Airport

Commercially-acquired drones threaten airport operations due to limited knowledge of airspace safety regulations or deliberate action by drone operators. This study aims to determine whether the investment cost of a drone-defence system can be justified in relation to the financial cost of a drone-related shutdown. To that end, a case study of Frankfurt Airport is carried out with simulations of different disruptions during a peak-activity period similar to the 2018 Gatwick drone incident. With data on passenger traffic and airline schedules, we developed a passenger recovery algorithm to determine the amount of delays caused by the disruptions and the costs for the airport operator and the airlines. Results show that the investment in a drone-defence system is offset by the costs of a 48-h continued closure or several smaller closures, but since the largest share of costs is borne by the airlines, investments should be shared between both stakeholder

Natural language processing for aviation safety: Extracting knowledge from publicly-available loss of separation reports

Background: The air traffic management (ATM) system has historically coped with a global increase in traffic demand ultimately leading to increased operational complexity. When dealing with the impact of this increasing complexity on system safety it is crucial to automatically analyse the losses of separation (LoSs) using tools able to extract meaningful and actionable information from safety reports. Current research in this field mainly exploits natural language processing (NLP) to categorise the reports,with the limitations that the considered categories need to be manually annotated by experts and that general taxonomies are seldom exploited. Methods: To address the current gaps,authors propose to perform exploratory data analysis on safety reports combining state-of-the-art techniques like topic modelling and clustering and then to develop an algorithm able to extract the Toolkit for ATM Occurrence Investigation (TOKAI) taxonomy factors from the free-text safety reports based on syntactic analysis. TOKAI is a tool for investigation developed by EUROCONTROL and its taxonomy is intended to become a standard and harmonised approach to future investigations. Results: Leveraging on the LoS events reported in the public databases of the Comisión de Estudio y Análisis de Notificaciones de Incidentes de Tránsito Aéreo and the United Kingdom Airprox Board,authors show how their proposal is able to automatically extract meaningful and actionable information from safety reports,other than to classify their content according to the TOKAI taxonomy. The quality of the approach is also indirectly validated by checking the connection between the identified factors and the main contributor of the incidents. Conclusions: Authors' results are a promising first step toward the full automation of a general analysis of LoS reports supported by results on real-world data coming from two different sources. In the future,authors' proposal could be extended to other taxonomies or tailored to identify factors to be included in the safety taxonomies

Comparison of Three-Phase Active Rectifiers For Aircraft Application

In aircraft applications, there has been an increasing trend related with the More Electric Aircraft (MEA), which results in rapid rise in the electrical power demand on-board. One of its goals lies in minimizing weight and volume of the electrical subsystem while maintaining good power quality and efficiency. The main purpose of this paper is to present and analyze an electrical design of three-phase Boost rectifier, three-phase Buck rectifier and three-phase Vienna rectifier for 10 kW active rectifiers and compare them in terms of weight, volume, efficiency etc. Moreover, the design is obliged to comply with DO-160 standard for avionic equipment with 230 V AC, 360-800 Hz grid conditions. Even though all proposed solutions satisfy the standard requirements, it will be shown that the Vienna rectifier has the lowest volume and therefore, the better solution overall. However, due to increased number of semiconductors and additional circuitry required for soft start-up, the Buck rectifier would prove to be the safest solution failure-wise

Targeting Src in endometriosis-associated ovarian cancer

The SRC proto-oncogene is commonly overexpressed or activated during cancer development. Src family kinase inhibitors are approved for the treatment of certain leukemias, and are in clinical trials for the treatment of solid tumors. Src signaling is activated in endometriosis, a precursor of clear cell and endometrioid subtypes of epithelial ovarian cancers (OCs). We examined the expression of phosphorylated Src (Src-pY416) in 381 primary OC tissues. Thirty-six percent of OCs expressed Src-pY416. Src-pY416 expression was most common in endometriosis-associated OCs (EAOCs) (P=0.011), particularly in clear cell OCs where 58.5% of cases expressed Src-pY416. Src-pY416 expression was associated with shorter overall survival (log rank P=0.002). In vitro inhibition of Src signaling using 4-amino-5-(4-chlorophenyl)-7-(dimethylethyl)pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine (PP2) resulted in reduced anchorage-independent and -dependent growth, and in three-dimensional cell culture models PP2 disrupted aggregate formation in Src-pY416-positive but not in Src-pY416-negative cell lines. These data suggest that targeting active Src signaling could be a novel therapeutic opportunity for EAOCs, and support the further pre-clinical investigation of Src family kinase inhibitors for treating OCs expressing Src-pY416

Comparison of Three-phase Active Rectifier Solutions for Avionic Applications: Impact of the Avionic Standard DO-160 F and Failure Modes

In aircraft applications, there has been an increasing trend related with the More Electric Aircraft (MEA), which results in rapid rise in the electrical power demand on-board. One of its goals lies in minimizing weight and volume of the electrical subsystem while maintaining good power quality and efficiency. The main purpose of this paper is to present and analyze an electrical design of a three-phase Boost rectifier, a three-phase Buck rectifier and a three-phase Vienna rectifier for output power level of 10 kW and compare them in terms of weight, volume, efficiency etc. Moreover, the design is obliged to comply with specific sections of DO-160 standard for avionic equipment with 230 VAC, 360-800 Hz grid conditions. Even though all proposed solutions satisfy the standard requirements, it will be shown that the Vienna rectifier has the lowest volume and not considering failure modes, the better solution overall. However, due to increased number of semiconductors and additional circuitry required for soft start-up, the Buck rectifier would prove to be the more robust solution failure-wise

Stress related epigenetic changes may explain opportunistic success in biological invasions in Antipode mussels

Different environmental factors could induce epigenetic changes, which are likely involved in the biological invasion process. Some of these factors are driven by humans as, for example, the pollution and deliberate or accidental introductions and others are due to natural conditions such as salinity. In this study, we have analysed the relationship between different stress factors: time in the new location, pollution and salinity with the methylation changes that could be involved in the invasive species tolerance to new environments. For this purpose, we have analysed two different mussels’ species, reciprocally introduced in antipode areas: the Mediterranean blue mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the New Zealand pygmy mussel Xenostrobus securis, widely recognized invaders outside their native distribution ranges. The demetylathion was higher in more stressed population, supporting the idea of epigenetic is involved in plasticity process. These results can open a new management protocols, using the epigenetic signals as potential pollution monitoring tool. We could use these epigenetic marks to recognise the invasive status in a population and determine potential biopollutants

Male gynecomastia and risk for malignant tumours – a cohort study

BACKGROUND: Men with gynecomastia may suffer from absolute or relative estrogen excess and their risk of different malignancies may be increased. We tested whether men with gynecomastia were at greater risk of developing cancer. METHODS: A cohort was formed of all the men having a histopathological diagnosis of gynecomastia at the Department of Pathology, University of Lund, following an operation for either uni- or bilateral breast enlargement between 1970–1979. All possible causes of gynecomastia were accepted, such as endogenous or exogenous hormonal exposure as well as cases of unknown etiology. Prior to diagnosis of gynecomastia eight men had a diagnosis of prostate carcinoma, two men a diagnosis of unilateral breast cancer and one had Hodgkin's disease. These patients were included in the analyses. The final cohort of 446 men was matched to the Swedish Cancer Registry, Death Registry and General Population Registry. RESULTS: At the end of the follow up in December 1999, the cohort constituted 8375.2 person years of follow-up time. A total of 68 malignancies versus 66.07 expected were observed; SIR = 1.03 (95% CI 0.80–1.30). A significantly increased risk for testicular cancer; SIR = 5.82 (95% CI 1.20–17.00) and squamous cell carcinoma of the skin; SIR = 3.21 (95% CI 1.71–5.48) were noted. The increased risk appeared after 2 years of follow-up. A non-significantly increased risk for esophageal cancer was also seen while no new cases of male breast cancer were observed. However, in the prospective cohort, diagnostic operations for gynecomastia may substantially have reduced this risk CONCLUSIONS: There is a significant increased risk of testicular cancer and squamous cell carcinoma of the skin in men who have been operated on for gynecomastia

BRCA2 polymorphic stop codon K3326X and the risk of breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers

Background: The K3326X variant in BRCA2 (BRCA2*c.9976A>T; p.Lys3326*; rs11571833) has been found to be associated with small increased risks of breast cancer. However, it is not clear to what extent linkage disequilibrium with fully pathogenic mutations might account for this association. There is scant information about the effect of K3326X in other hormone-related cancers. Methods: Using weighted logistic regression, we analyzed data from the large iCOGS study including 76 637 cancer case patients and 83 796 control patients to estimate odds ratios (ORw) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for K3326X variant carriers in relation to breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer risks, with weights defined as probability of not having a pathogenic BRCA2 variant. Using Cox proportional hazards modeling, we also examined the associations of K3326X with breast and ovarian cancer risks among 7183 BRCA1 variant carriers. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: The K3326X variant was associated with breast (ORw = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.17 to 1.40, P = 5.9x10- 6) and invasive ovarian cancer (ORw = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.10 to 1.43, P = 3.8x10-3). These associations were stronger for serous ovarian cancer and for estrogen receptor–negative breast cancer (ORw = 1.46, 95% CI = 1.2 to 1.70, P = 3.4x10-5 and ORw = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.28 to 1.76, P = 4.1x10-5, respectively). For BRCA1 mutation carriers, there was a statistically significant inverse association of the K3326X variant with risk of ovarian cancer (HR = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.22 to 0.84, P = .013) but no association with breast cancer. No association with prostate cancer was observed. Conclusions: Our study provides evidence that the K3326X variant is associated with risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers independent of other pathogenic variants in BRCA2. Further studies are needed to determine the biological mechanism of action responsible for these associations