Ejecta- and Size-Scaling Considerations from Impacts of Glass Projectiles into Sand

One of the most promising means of learning how initial impact conditions are related to the processes leading to the formation of a planetary-scale crater is through scaling relationships.1,2,3 The first phase of deriving such relationships has led to great insight into the cratering process and has yielded predictive capabilities that are mathematically rigorous and internally consistent. Such derivations typically have treated targets as continuous media; in many, cases, however, planetary materials represent irregular and discontinuous targets, the effects of which on the scaling relationships are still poorly understood.4,5 We continue to examine the effects of varying impact conditions on the excavation and final dimensions of craters formed in sand. Along with the more commonly treated variables such as impact speed, projectile size and material, and impact angle,6 such experiments also permit the study of changing granularity and friction angle of the target materials. This contribution presents some of the data collected during and after the impact of glass spheres into a medium-grained sand

The lncRNA landscape of breast cancer reveals a role for DSCAM-AS1 in breast cancer progression.

Molecular classification of cancers into subtypes has resulted in an advance in our understanding of tumour biology and treatment response across multiple tumour types. However, to date, cancer profiling has largely focused on protein-coding genes, which comprise <1% of the genome. Here we leverage a compendium of 58,648 long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) to subtype 947 breast cancer samples. We show that lncRNA-based profiling categorizes breast tumours by their known molecular subtypes in breast cancer. We identify a cohort of breast cancer-associated and oestrogen-regulated lncRNAs, and investigate the role of the top prioritized oestrogen receptor (ER)-regulated lncRNA, DSCAM-AS1. We demonstrate that DSCAM-AS1 mediates tumour progression and tamoxifen resistance and identify hnRNPL as an interacting protein involved in the mechanism of DSCAM-AS1 action. By highlighting the role of DSCAM-AS1 in breast cancer biology and treatment resistance, this study provides insight into the potential clinical implications of lncRNAs in breast cancer

Adolescent Male Attitudes About Singing in Choir

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence adolescent males to enroll in school choir as an elective class and to assess their attitudes about singing in general, self-concept of their own voices, and perception of others’ view of adolescent males’ participation in choir. Data were obtained from 101 adolescent males who were enrolled in choir at one of six participating schools, and were in Grade 7 or Grade 8. Data analysis showed that most participants enrolled in choir because they thought it was fun and/or they were good singers. Results also indicated that peer pressure factored less than the enjoyment of singing in influencing their decision to enroll in choir. Other results suggested that the participants perceived support from their families, principals, and nonmusic teachers in their decision to take choir and that they perceived slightly less support from coaches at their school. The study indicates a need for future research of adolescent males who have chosen not to participate in choir and their attitudes about choir participation. Future research studying the attitudes of adolescent males from other regions and their attitudes about choir participation is also recommended.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Social presence and dishonesty in retail

Self-service checkouts (SCOs) in retail can benefit consumers and retailers, providing control and autonomy to shoppers independent from staff, together with reduced queuing times. Recent research indicates that the absence of staff may provide the opportunity for consumers to behave dishonestly, consistent with a perceived lack of social presence. This study examined whether a social presence in the form of various instantiations of embodied, visual, humanlike SCO interface agents had an effect on opportunistic behaviour. Using a simulated SCO scenario, participants experienced various dilemmas in which they could financially benefit themselves undeservedly. We hypothesised that a humanlike social presence integrated within the checkout screen would receive more attention and result in fewer instances of dishonesty compared to a less humanlike agent. This was partially supported by the results. The findings contribute to the theoretical framework in social presence research. We concluded that companies adopting self-service technology may consider the implementation of social presence in technology applications to support ethical consumer behaviour, but that more research is required to explore the mixed findings in the current study.<br/

Ants, Cataglyphis cursor, Use Precisely Directed Rescue Behavior to Free Entrapped Relatives

Although helping behavior is ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom, actual rescue activity is particularly rare. Nonetheless, here we report the first experimental evidence that ants, Cataglyphis cursor, use precisely directed rescue behavior to free entrapped victims; equally important, they carefully discriminate between individuals in distress, offering aid only to nestmates. Our experiments simulate a natural situation, which we often observed in the field when collecting Catagyphis ants, causing sand to collapse in the process. Using a novel experimental technique that binds victims experimentally, we observed the behavior of separate, randomly chosen groups of 5 C. cursor nestmates under one of six conditions. In five of these conditions, a test stimulus (the “victim”) was ensnared with nylon thread and held partially beneath the sand. The test stimulus was either (1) an individual from the same colony; (2) an individual from a different colony of C cursor; (3) an ant from a different ant species; (4) a common prey item; or, (5) a motionless (chilled) nestmate. In the final condition, the test stimulus (6) consisted of the empty snare apparatus. Our results demonstrate that ants are able to recognize what, exactly, holds their relative in place and direct their behavior to that object, the snare, in particular. They begin by excavating sand, which exposes the nylon snare, transporting sand away from it, and then biting at the snare itself. Snare biting, a behavior never before reported in the literature, demonstrates that rescue behavior is far more sophisticated, exact and complexly organized than the simple forms of helping behavior already known, namely limb pulling and sand digging. That is, limb pulling and sand digging could be released directly by a chemical call for help and thus result from a very simple mechanism. However, it's difficult to see how this same releasing mechanism could guide rescuers to the precise location of the nylon thread, and enable them to target their bites to the thread itself

ADVANCED RECIPROCATING COMPRESSION TECHNOLOGY (ARCT)

The U.S. natural gas pipeline industry is facing the twin challenges of increased flexibility and capacity expansion. To meet these challenges, the industry requires improved choices in gas compression to address new construction and enhancement of the currently installed infrastructure. The current fleet of installed reciprocating compression is primarily slow-speed integral machines. Most new reciprocating compression is and will be large, high-speed separable units. The major challenges with the fleet of slow-speed integral machines are: limited flexibility and a large range in performance. In an attempt to increase flexibility, many operators are choosing to single-act cylinders, which are causing reduced reliability and integrity. While the best performing units in the fleet exhibit thermal efficiencies between 90% and 92%, the low performers are running down to 50% with the mean at about 80%. The major cause for this large disparity is due to installation losses in the pulsation control system. In the better performers, the losses are about evenly split between installation losses and valve losses. The major challenges for high-speed machines are: cylinder nozzle pulsations, mechanical vibrations due to cylinder stretch, short valve life, and low thermal performance. To shift nozzle pulsation to higher orders, nozzles are shortened, and to dampen the amplitudes, orifices are added. The shortened nozzles result in mechanical coupling with the cylinder, thereby, causing increased vibration due to the cylinder stretch mode. Valve life is even shorter than for slow speeds and can be on the order of a few months. The thermal efficiency is 10% to 15% lower than slow-speed equipment with the best performance in the 75% to 80% range. The goal of this advanced reciprocating compression program is to develop the technology for both high speed and low speed compression that will expand unit flexibility, increase thermal efficiency, and increase reliability and integrity. Retrofit technologies that address the challenges of slow-speed integral compression are: (1) optimum turndown using a combination of speed and clearance with single-acting operation as a last resort; (2) if single-acting is required, implement infinite length nozzles to address nozzle pulsation and tunable side branch absorbers for 1x lateral pulsations; and (3) advanced valves, either the semi-active plate valve or the passive rotary valve, to extend valve life to three years with half the pressure drop. This next generation of slow-speed compression should attain 95% efficiency, a three-year valve life, and expanded turndown. New equipment technologies that address the challenges of large-horsepower, high-speed compression are: (1) optimum turndown with unit speed; (2) tapered nozzles to effectively reduce nozzle pulsation with half the pressure drop and minimization of mechanical cylinder stretch induced vibrations; (3) tunable side branch absorber or higher-order filter bottle to address lateral piping pulsations over the entire extended speed range with minimal pressure drop; and (4) semi-active plate valves or passive rotary valves to extend valve life with half the pressure drop. This next generation of large-horsepower, high-speed compression should attain 90% efficiency, a two-year valve life, 50% turndown, and less than 0.75 IPS vibration. This program has generated proof-of-concept technologies with the potential to meet these ambitious goals. Full development of these identified technologies is underway. The GMRC has committed to pursue the most promising enabling technologies for their industry

Toward Accelerated Authorization and Access to New Medicines for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

A meeting was organized to bring together multiple stakeholders involved in the testing and authorization of new medications for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) to discuss current issues surrounding clinical trials and access to new medications for children and adolescents with JIA. The Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance invited representatives of regulatory agencies (Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency), and major pharmaceutical companies with JIA‐approved products or products in development, patient and parent representatives, representatives of an advocacy organization (Arthritis Foundation), and pediatric rheumatology clinicians/investigators to a 1‐day meeting in April 2018. The participants engaged in discussion regarding issues in clinical trials. As the pharmacologic options to treat inflammatory arthritis rapidly expand, registration trial designs to test medications in JIA patients must adapt. Many methodologies successfully used in the recent past are no longer feasible. The pool of patients meeting entry criteria who are willing to participate is shrinking while the number of medications to be tested is growing. Suggested solutions included proposing innovative clinical trial methods to regulatory agencies, as well as open discussions among stakeholders. Ensuring that new medications are authorized in a timely manner to meet the needs of JIA patients worldwide is critical. Approaches should include open dialog between regulatory agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and other stakeholders to develop and implement novel study designs, including patient and clinician perspectives to define meaningful trial outcomes, and changing existing study plans

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival