Overview of 10 inch Diameter HTPB Hybrid Motor Testing with Liquid Oxygen at Stennis Space Center

To further explore the operation of hybrid rocket motors and to demonstrate the performance characteristics of the motor design Lockheed Martin funded research on a series of 10 inch diameter hybrid motors that produce less than 10 klbf sea level thrust. This test series was given the name "Hybrid Technology Test Program." These motors were fired in the existing test stand at the SSC E-3 complex Cell 1. The fuel and oxidizer for these 10 inch diameter motors are HTPB and LO2, respectively. The original goal of the testing was to verify that the predicted performance matched the actual performance of these 10 inch motors (ref. figure 1) and then confirm that the motors performed acceptably. For this element of testing horizontally fired hybrid motors will be tested using LO2 supplied from the existing facility 100 gallon LO2 tank that is pressurized with facility GN2. The thrust produced by the motor will be measured by a Lockheed Martin supplied load cell

Music and the city: normalisation, marginalisation, and resistance in Birmingham’s musicscape

Drawing on qualitative research conducted in Birmingham (2009-2014), this thesis explores the role music plays in shaping and producing the urban environment via a focus on three specific processes; normalisation, marginalisation, and resistance. The contemporary city’s relationship with music has undergone substantial change in recent years within the UK, including significant growth in the live music industry and the increased targeting of musical activities within urban policy. The thesis examines the implications of these changes in the context of Birmingham. Chapter One introduces the research aims and objectives. Chapter Two positions the thesis within the current geographies of music field and grounds the thesis in an anti-essentialist approach to geography and cultural politics. Chapter Three provides an overview of the research location and methodology. Chapter Four explores ‘normalisation’ by examining the role of public bodies in shaping local musical activities. Chapter Five explores ‘marginalisation’ by examining the exclusion of local rap music from the mainstream live musicscape, and rap music’s place in shaping marginal geographies. Chapter Six explores ‘resistance’ through three in-depth examples of how different individuals use music as a tool of resistance against dominant power relations and the production of uneven urban geographies

An improved method for surface immobilisation of RNA: application to small Non-Coding RNA - mRNA pairing

Characterisation of RNA and its intermolecular interactions is increasing in importance as the inventory of known RNA functions continues to expand. RNA-RNA interactions are central to post-transcriptional gene regulation mechanisms in bacteria, and the interactions of bacterial small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) with their mRNA targets are the subject of much current research. The technology of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is an attractive approach to studying these interactions since it is highly sensitive, and allows interaction measurements to be recorded in real-time. Whilst a number of approaches exist to label RNAs for surface-immobilisation, the method documented here is simple, quick, efficient, and utilises the high-affinity streptavidin-biotin interaction. Specifically, we ligate a biotinylated nucleotide to the 3' end of RNA using T4 RNA ligase. Although this is a previously recognised approach, we have optimised the method by our discovery that the incorporation of four or more adenine nucleotides at the 3' end of the RNA (a poly-A-tail) is required in order to achieve high ligation efficiencies. We use this method within the context of investigating small non-coding RNA (sRNA)-mRNA interactions through the application of surface technologies, including quantitative SPR assays. We first focus on validating the method using the recently characterised Escherichia coli sRNA-mRNA pair, MicA-ompA, specifically demonstrating that the addition of the poly-A-tail to either RNA does not affect its subsequent binding interactions with partner molecules. We then apply this method to investigate the novel interactions of a Vibrio cholerae Qrr sRNA with partner mRNAs, hapR and vca0939; RNA-RNA pairings that are important in mediating pathogenic virulence. The calculated binding parameters allow insights to be drawn regarding sRNA-mRNA interaction mechanisms

The representation of protein complexes in the Protein Ontology

Representing species-specific proteins and protein complexes in ontologies that are both human and machine-readable facilitates the retrieval, analysis, and interpretation of genome-scale data sets. Although existing protin-centric informatics resources provide the biomedical research community with well-curated compendia of protein sequence and structure, these resources lack formal ontological representations of the relationships among the proteins themselves. The Protein Ontology (PRO) Consortium is filling this informatics resource gap by developing ontological representations and relationships among proteins and their variants and modified forms. Because proteins are often functional only as members of stable protein complexes, the PRO Consortium, in collaboration with existing protein and pathway databases, has launched a new initiative to implement logical and consistent representation of protein complexes. We describe here how the PRO Consortium is meeting the challenge of representing species-specific protein complexes, how protein complex representation in PRO supports annotation of protein complexes and comparative biology, and how PRO is being integrated into existing community bioinformatics resources. The PRO resource is accessible at http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro/

The IT framework of the European Archive of Historical Earthquake Data (AHEAD)

The European Archive of Historical EArthquake Data (AHEAD) has been developed in the frame of the EC project NERIES and maintained in the frame of the EC project SHARE.AHEAD makes available on the web the result of a networked historical earthquake data research, formalised in terms of studies (papers, reports, macroseismic data points, etc). It provides an updated wealth of data that are unique for many European events in the time-window 1000-1963.A series of IT solutions have been developed in order to support both the research and the networking activities carried out within the building process of AHEAD. The resulting framework is an equally balanced effort in both the back-end and front-end design and implementation, a key feature in a research approach very much human-centred, where the quantity of data is small if compared to terabytes of instrumental data.AHEAD is composed of five mutually dependent data-components: 1) the “Digital Library”, where all the historical earthquake studies are stored and described by bibliographical metadata, 2) the “Consensus Earthquake Inventory”, where the relevant macroseismic data (event date, epicentral area, number of macroseismic data-point, maximum observed intensity) are extrapolated, the best available information are selected and fake earthquakes are highlighted, 3) the “European Macroseismic Database”, where all the available macroseismic data-points (MDPs) are stored, 4) the “Parameters Laboratory”, where earthquakes parameterisation methods are applied to MDPs in order to obtain epicentral locations and magnitudes and 5) the “European Earthquake Catalogue”.The presentation will demonstrate the adopted IT solutions separately for the back-end and the front-end, both for the access-restricted website and the general-purpose implementation designed to be included in the “Earthquake Data Portal”, developed within the EC project NERIES, which targets a much broader scientific community