An extreme ultraviolet spectrometer experiment for the Shuttle Get Away Special Program

An extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectrometer experiment operated successfully during the STS-7 mission in an experiment to measure the global and diurnal variation of the EUV airglow. The spectrometer is an F 3.5 Wadsworth mount with mechanical collimator, a 75 x 75 mm grating, and a bare microchannel plate detector providing a spectral resolution of 7 X FWHM. Read-out of the signal is through discrete channels or resistive anode techniques. The experiment includes a microcomputer, 20 Mbit tape recorder, and a 28V, 40 Ahr silver-zinc battery. It is the first GAS payload to use an opening door. The spectrometer's 0.1 x 4.2 deg field of view is pointed vertically out of the shuttle bay. During the STS-7 flight data were acquired continuously for a period of 5 hours and 37 minutes, providing spectra of the 570 A to 850 A wavelength region of the airglow. Five diurnal cycles of the 584 A emission of neutral helium and the 834 A emission of ionized atomic oxygen were recorded. The experiment also recorded ion events and pressure pulses associated with thruster firings. The experiment is to fly again on Mission 41-F

Visible and near-ultraviolet spectroscopy at Thule AFB (76.5 N) from January 28 - February 15, 1988

Near-ultraviolet and visible spectrographs identical to those employed at McMurdo Station, Antarctica (77.8 S) during the austral spring seasons of 1986 and 1987 were used to study the stratosphere above Thule, Greenland (76.5 N) during early spring, 1988. Observations were carried out both at night using the direct moon as a light source, and during the day by collecting the scattered light from the zenith sky when solar zenith angles were less than about 94.5 degrees. Excellent meteorological conditions prevailed in the troposphere and stratosphere at Thule. Surface weather was extremely clear over most of the period, facilitating measurements of the direct light from the moon. The lower stratospheric arctic polar vortex was located very near Thule throughout the observing period, and temperature at the 30 mbar level were typically below -80 C above Thule, according to the National Meteorological Center daily analyses. Thus conditions were favorable for polar stratospheric cloud formation above Thule. Total column ozone abundances were about 350 to 400 Dobson units, and did not suggest a clear temporal trend over the observing period. Stratospheric nitrogen dioxide measurements were complicated by the presence of a large component of tropospheric pollution on many occasions. Stratospheric nitrogen dioxide could be identified on most days using the absorption in the scattered light from the zenith sky, which greatly enhances the stratospheric airmass while suppressing the tropospheric contribution. These measurements suggest that the total vertical column abundance of nitrogen dioxide present over Thule in February was extremely low, sometimes as low as 3 x 10 to the 14th per sq cm. The abundance of nitrogen dioxide increased systemically from about 3 x 10 to the 14th in late January to 1.0 x 10 to the 15th per sq cm in mid-February, perhaps because of photolysis of N2O5 in the upper part of the stratosphere, near 25 to 35 km

Performance, emissions, and physical characteristics of a rotating combustion aircraft engine

The RC2-75, a liquid cooled two chamber rotary combustion engine (Wankel type), designed for aircraft use, was tested and representative baseline (212 KW, 285 BHP) performance and emissions characteristics established. The testing included running fuel/air mixture control curves and varied ignition timing to permit selection of desirable and practical settings for running wide open throttle curves, propeller load curves, variable manifold pressure curves covering cruise conditions, and EPA cycle operating points. Performance and emissions data were recorded for all of the points run. In addition to the test data, information required to characterize the engine and evaluate its performance in aircraft use is provided over a range from one half to twice its present power. The exhaust emissions results are compared to the 1980 EPA requirements. Standard day take-off brake specific fuel consumption is 356 g/KW-HR (.585 lb/BHP-HR) for the configuration tested

Near UV atmospheric absorption measurements from the DC-8 aircraft during the 1987 airborne Antarctic ozone experiment

During the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment from 28 August to 30 September 1987 near UV zenith scattered sky measurements were made over Antarctic from the NASA DC-8 aircraft using a one third m spectrograph equipped with a diode-array detector. Scattered sky light data in the wavelength range 348 nm to 388 nm was spectrally analyzed for O3, NO2, OClO, and BrO column abundances. Slant column abudances of O3, NO2, OClO and BrO were determined, using a computer algorithm of non-linear and linear least square correlation of Antarctic scattered sky spectra to laboratory absorption cross section data. Using measured vertical electrochemical sonde ozone profiles from Palmer, Halley Bay, and the South Pole Stations the slant columns of O3 were converted into vertical column abundances. The vertical column amounts of NO2, OClO, and BrO were derived using vertical profiles calculated by a chemical model appropriate for Antarctica. NO2 vertical column abundances show steep latitudinal decrease with increasing latitude for all 13 flights carried out during the mission. In the regions where NO2 abudances are low, OClO and BrO were observed. The spatial and temporal vertical column abundances of these species are discussed in the context of the chemistry and dynamics in the antarctic polar vortex during the austral spring

Integrated care and the working record

By default, many discussions and specifications of electronic health records or integrated care records often conceptualize the record as a passive information repository. This article presents data from a case study of work in a medical unit in a major metropolitan hospital. It shows how the clinicians tailored, re-presented and augmented clinical information to support their own roles in the delivery of care for individual patients. This is referred to as the working record: a set of complexly interrelated clinician-centred documents that are locally evolved, maintained and used to support delivery of care in conjunction with the more patient-centred chart that will be stored in the medical records department on the patient’s discharge. Implications are drawn for how an integrated care record could support the local tailorability and flexibility that underpin this working record and hence underpin practice

Frequency of Rare Allelic Variation in Candidate Genes among Individuals with Low and High Urinary Calcium Excretion

Our study investigated the association of rare allelic variants with extremes of 24-hour urinary calcium excretion because higher urinary calcium excretion is a dominant risk factor for calcium-based kidney stone formation. We resequenced 40 candidate genes potentially related to urinary calcium excretion in individuals from the Nurses' Health Studies I & II and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. A total of 960 participants were selected based on availability of 24-hour urine collection data and level of urinary calcium excretion (low vs. high). We utilized DNA sample pooling, droplet-based target gene enrichment, multiplexing, and high-throughput sequencing. Approximately 64% of samples (n = 615) showed both successful target enrichment and sequencing data with >20-fold deep coverage. A total of 259 novel allelic variants were identified. None of the rare gene variants (allele frequencies <2%) were found with increased frequency in the low vs. high urinary calcium groups; most of these variants were only observed in single individuals. Unadjusted analysis of variants with allele frequencies ≥2% suggested an association of the Claudin14 SNP rs113831133 with lower urinary calcium excretion (6/520 versus 29/710 haplotypes, P value = 0.003). Our data, together with previous human and animal studies, suggest a possible role for Claudin14 in urinary calcium excretion. Genetic validation studies in larger sample sets will be necessary to confirm our findings for rs113831133. In the tested set of candidate genes, rare allelic variants do not appear to contribute significantly to differences in urinary calcium excretion between individuals