Ecodrive Training Delivers Substantial Fuel Savings for Heavy Vehicle Drivers

A small group of heavy vehicle drivers underwent an ecodrive training course. Their driving was assessed for various ecodrive variables as they completed an 18 mile circuit in normal traffic immediately after the course and again 6 and 12 weeks later. Compared to pre-course measures, these drivers reduced their fuel consumption by an average of 27%, the number of gear changes by 29%, and the number of brake applications by 41%, though not all differences were statistically significant due to the size of this pilot and large driver variability. Importantly, the improvements were not offset by increases in the time taken to complete the circuit. At the 6 week point a control group was also assessed, and they used more fuel and more gear changes, and applied their brakes more often than the control group. Safety variables were inconclusive. A larger, in-service trial is warranted

GOES imagery fills gaps in Montserrat volcanic cloud observations

GOES satellite imagery offers great potential to lessen the risk of volcanic ash clouds to aviation, and the situation at Montserrat in the Caribbean is providing the proof. Many transatlantic, commercial, and private aircraft use airspace around Montserrat, where the Soufriere Hills Volcano has been erupting since 1995. Worldwide over the last 15 years, more than 80 airplanes have reported encountering volcanic ash along flight paths. Encounters cannot be avoided because onboard radar cannot detect fine-grained ash particles—those with a radius of 15 microns or less. In recent years volcanic cloud encounters are estimated to have caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage and in a few cases have caused in-flight engine failure [Casadevall et al., 1996]

Evolution of size-dependent flowering in a variable environment: construction and analysis of a stochastic integral projection model

Understanding why individuals delay reproduction is a classic problem in evolutionary biology. In plants, the study of reproductive delays is complicated because growth and survival can be size and age dependent, individuals of the same size can grow by different amounts and there is temporal variation in the environment. We extend the recently developed integral projection approach to include size- and age-dependent demography and temporal variation. The technique is then applied to a long-term individually structured dataset for Carlina vulgaris, a monocarpic thistle. The parameterized model has excellent descriptive properties in terms of both the population size and the distributions of sizes within each age class. In Carlina, the probability of flowering depends on both plant size and age. We use the parameterized model to predict this relationship, using the evolutionarily stable strategy approach. Considering each year separately, we show that both the direction and the magnitude of selection on the flowering strategy vary from year to year. Provided the flowering strategy is constrained, so it cannot be a step function, the model accurately predicts the average size at flowering. Elasticity analysis is used to partition the size- and age-specific contributions to the stochastic growth rate, λs. We use λs to construct fitness landscapes and show how different forms of stochasticity influence its topography. We prove the existence of a unique stochastic growth rate, λs, which is independent of the initial population vector, and show that Tuljapurkar's perturbation analysis for log(λs) can be used to calculate elasticities

Report of the panel on volcanology, section 4

Two primary goals are identified as focal to NASA's research efforts in volcanology during the 1990s: to understand the eruption of lavas, gases, and aerosols from volcanoes, the dispersal of these materials on the Earth's surface and through the atmosphere, and the effects of these eruptions on the climate and environment; and to understand the physical processes that lead to the initiation of volcanic activity, that influence the styles of volcanic eruptions, and that dictate the morphology and evolution of volcanic landforms. Strategy and data requirements as well as research efforts are discussed

Dynamic localization of yeast Fus2p to an expanding ring at the cell fusion junction during mating

Fus2p is a pheromone-induced protein associated with the amphiphysin homologue Rvs161p, which is required for cell fusion during mating in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We constructed a functional Fus2p–green fluorescent protein (GFP), which exhibits highly dynamic localization patterns in pheromone-responding cells (shmoos): diffuse nuclear, mobile cytoplasmic dots and stable cortical patches concentrated at the shmoo tip. In mitotic cells, Fus2p-GFP is nuclear but becomes cytoplasmic as cells form shmoos, dependent on the Fus3p protein kinase and high levels of pheromone signaling. The rapid cytoplasmic movement of Fus2p-GFP dots requires Rvs161p and polymerized actin and is aberrant in mutants with compromised actin organization, which suggests that the Fus2p dots are transported along actin cables, possibly in association with vesicles. Maintenance of Fus2p-GFP patches at the shmoo tip cortex is jointly dependent on actin and a membrane protein, Fus1p, which suggests that Fus1p is an anchor for Fus2p. In zygotes, Fus2p-GFP forms a dilating ring at the cell junction, returning to the nucleus at the completion of cell fusion

Up-beat UK: a programme of research into the relationship between coronary heart disease and depression in primary care patients.

Coronary heart disease and depression are both common health problems and by 2020 will be the two leading causes of disability worldwide. Depression has been found to be more common in patients with coronary heart disease but the nature of this relationship is uncertain. In the United Kingdom general practitioners are now being remunerated for case-finding for depression in patients with coronary heart disease, however it is unclear how general practitioners should manage these patients. We aim to explore the relationship between coronary heart disease and depression in a primary care population and to develop an intervention for patients with coronary heart disease and depression

Functional polarity is introduced by Dicer processing of short substrate RNAs

Synthetic RNA duplexes that are substrates for Dicer are potent triggers of RNA interference (RNAi). Blunt 27mer duplexes can be up to 100-fold more potent than traditional 21mer duplexes (1). Not all 27mer duplexes show increased potency. Evaluation of the products of in vitro dicing reactions using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry reveals that a variety of products can be produced by Dicer cleavage. Use of asymmetric duplexes having a single 2-base 3′-overhang restricts the heterogeneity that results from dicing. Inclusion of DNA residues at the ends of blunt duplexes also limits heterogeneity. Combination of asymmetric 2-base 3′-overhang with 3′-DNA residues on the blunt end result in a duplex form which directs dicing to predictably yield a single primary cleavage product. It is therefore possible to design a 27mer duplex which is processed by Dicer to yield a specific, desired 21mer species. Using this strategy, two different 27mers can be designed that result in the same 21mer after dicing, one where the 3′-overhang resides on the antisense (AS) strand and dicing proceeds to the ‘right’ (‘R’) and one where the 3′-overhang resides on the sense (S) strand and dicing proceeds to the ‘left’ (‘L’). Interestingly, the ‘R’ version of the asymmetric 27mer is generally more potent in reducing target gene levels than the ‘L’ version 27mer. Strand targeting experiments show asymmetric strand utilization between the two different 27mer forms, with the ‘R’ form favoring S strand and the ‘L’ form favoring AS strand silencing. Thus, Dicer processing confers functional polarity within the RNAi pathway

Fatal Outcome of Disseminated Strongyloidiasis despite Detectable Plasma and Cerebrospinal Levels of Orally Administered Ivermectin

Strongyloides stercoralis affects over 100 million people worldwide. Those people most susceptible to infection are those with an immunocompromising condition, such as cancer or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Local disease may spread throughout the body of the host, causing a condition termed disseminated strongyloidiasis. Standard treatment for Strongyloides stercoralis infection is oral ivermectin. We describe a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia diagnosed with disseminated strongyloidiasis two weeks after initial presentation. After repeated dosing of oral ivermectin with no clinical response, serum and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of ivermectin were measured to assess absorption. The peak serum concentration of 49.3 ng/mL correlated with a CSF concentration of 0.14 ng/mL. Despite these concentrations, the patient eventually succumbed to multi-system organ failure. We discuss the reasons for treatment failure and explore the utility of measuring ivermectin concentrations

Compression Behavior of Fluted-Core Composite Panels

In recent years, fiber-reinforced composites have become more accepted for aerospace applications. Specifically, during NASA s recent efforts to develop new launch vehicles, composite materials were considered and baselined for a number of structures. Because of mass and stiffness requirements, sandwich composites are often selected for many applications. However, there are a number of manufacturing and in-service concerns associated with traditional honeycomb-core sandwich composites that in certain instances may be alleviated through the use of other core materials or construction methods. Fluted-core, which consists of integral angled web members with structural radius fillers spaced between laminate face sheets, is one such construction alternative and is considered herein. Two different fluted-core designs were considered: a subscale design and a full-scale design sized for a heavy-lift-launch-vehicle interstage. In particular, axial compression of fluted-core composites was evaluated with experiments and finite-element analyses (FEA); axial compression is the primary loading condition in dry launch-vehicle barrel sections. Detailed finite-element models were developed to represent all components of the fluted-core construction, and geometrically nonlinear analyses were conducted to predict both buckling and material failures. Good agreement was obtained between test data and analyses, for both local buckling and ultimate material failure. Though the local buckling events are not catastrophic, the resulting deformations contribute to material failures. Consequently, an important observation is that the material failure loads and modes would not be captured by either linear analyses or nonlinear smeared-shell analyses. Compression-after-impact (CAI) performance of fluted core composites was also investigated by experimentally testing samples impacted with 6 ft.-lb. impact energies. It was found that such impacts reduced the ultimate load carrying capability by approximately 40% on the subscale test articles and by less than 20% on the full-scale test articles. Nondestructive inspection of the damage zones indicated that the detectable damage was limited to no more than one flute on either side of any given impact. More study is needed, but this may indicate that an inherent damage-arrest capability of fluted core could provide benefits over traditional sandwich designs in certain weight-critical applications