Telecommunications and radio-metric support for a manned mission to Mars

Some general characteristics of the Deep Space Network are described and related to services needed by a manned mission to Mars. Specific details of the current Network capabilities and those planned for the near future may be found in the reference

Brain energy rescue:an emerging therapeutic concept for neurodegenerative disorders of ageing

The brain requires a continuous supply of energy in the form of ATP, most of which is produced from glucose by oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria, complemented by aerobic glycolysis in the cytoplasm. When glucose levels are limited, ketone bodies generated in the liver and lactate derived from exercising skeletal muscle can also become important energy substrates for the brain. In neurodegenerative disorders of ageing, brain glucose metabolism deteriorates in a progressive, region-specific and disease-specific manner — a problem that is best characterized in Alzheimer disease, where it begins presymptomatically. This Review discusses the status and prospects of therapeutic strategies for countering neurodegenerative disorders of ageing by improving, preserving or rescuing brain energetics. The approaches described include restoring oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis, increasing insulin sensitivity, correcting mitochondrial dysfunction, ketone-based interventions, acting via hormones that modulate cerebral energetics, RNA therapeutics and complementary multimodal lifestyle changes

Zone melting of cyclohexane-rich polystyrene-cyclohexane solid solutions

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/7375/5/bad1746.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/7375/4/bad1746.0001.001.tx

Zone fractionation of cyclohexane-rich polystyrene–cyclohexane solid solutions This investigation was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant. Presented before the International Symposium on Macromolecular Chemistry; I.U.P.A.C., Montreal, Canada, July 1961.

Experimental results on the application of zone melting techniques to dilute solutions of polystyrene in cyclohexane under various operating conditions are reported together with observations on static solidification tests on the solutions. The variables investigated were: polymer concentration, number of zones passed, zone length, and zone travel rate. The results showed that at slow zone travel rates (ca. 4.01 cm./hr.) redistribution of solute species occurs in conformity with thermodynamic predictions. In this case, a cyclohexane-rich liquid and a polymer-rich liquid, which coexist at temperatures just above the solidification range, react to form a cyclohexane-rich solid solution upon solidification. The solid solution contained a higher concentration of all polymer species than the cyclohexane-rich liquid, with the ratio of the concentration in the solid to the concentration in the liquid increasing exponentially with molecular weight of the solute. The net result was the accumulation of all solute species toward the head (i.e., first melted and first frozen) end of the zone melted ingot, with the higher molecular weight species enjoying the greatest redistribution in this respect. At moderately faster speeds of zone travel (ca. 4.83 cm./hr.), a reversal in the accumulation trend with molecular weight was found; the higher molecular weight species were carried increasingly to the tail (i.e., the last frozen) end of the sample. Increases in total polymer concentration enhanced this effect. These facts have been interpreted as suggesting that resorption of some of the higher molecular weight species from the polymer-rich phase was not sufficiently fast compared to the rate of freezing, and part of the polymer-rich phase was carried in the moving liquid zone. At significantly faster speeds of zone travel (ca. 9.66 cm./hr.) a decreased redistribution of solute species was found. Increased total polymer concentration reduced the selectivity of fractionation. This effect was interpreted as being the result of the lesser extent to which the resorption reaction in these experiments occurred in relation to the rate of movement of the interphase. Qualitative considerations on the thermodynamic characteristics of the polymer–solvent system most suitable for effective zone fractionation are discussed. The effect of zone fractionation upon the distribution of molecular weight for some of the samples is reported.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/38605/1/070080203_ftp.pd

Religion and British Sociology: The Power and Necessity of the Spiritual

Understanding the role of religion in early British sociology, as well as its fate in later sociology, requires a variety of perspectives: one is intellectual and concerns the various forms that the topic of religion took for British sociology. Another is organisational and ecological. British sociology as embodied in the Sociological Society was a part of a vast array of organisations that were part of a massive movement of social reform, international in scope, and motivated largely by the newly ‘social’ Christianity of the late Victorian era. As a kind of public discourse, sociology was part of what Maurice Cowling called the ‘Public Doctrine’ replacing religion (1980). As Cowling demonstrates for British intellectual life as a whole, the withdrawing roar of the sea of faith, as Matthew Arnold put it (1867), was in the ears of generations of British academics and thinkers, and especially in those who used the term ‘sociology’ or referred to sociological thinkers, such as Comte, or their precursors

The structure of the mouse parvalbumin gene

Schleef M, Zühlke C, Jockusch H, Schöffl F. The structure of the mouse parvalbumin gene. Mammalian Genome. 1992;3(4):217-225.Parvalbumin (PV) is a calcium-binding protein of the EF-hand family, expressed mainly in fast contracting/relaxing muscles of vertebrates. We have isolated five overlapping genomic PV clones which overall span 28 kilobase pairs (kb) around the Pva locus on mouse Chromosome (Chr) 15. The positions of four introns were determined by DNA sequencing. They interrupt the coding sequences at positions corresponding to those in rat and human PV genes. The transcription start site, 25 bp downstream from the TATA-box, was mapped by oligonucleotide primer extension on poly(A)+-RNA. The analysis of 0.4 kb promoter sequence of the mouse PV gene revealed CCAAT- and TATA-box sequences and a 59 bp GC-rich stretch between positions -59 and -118. Similar motifs have been found in the parvalbumin genes of rat and human. A perfect 11-bp repeat upstream to positions -149 and -163 respectively is homologous only to the rat promoter. These results will be related to tissue and species differences in PV expression