A water-filled garment to protect astronauts during interplanetary missions tested on board the ISS

Abstract As manned spaceflights beyond low Earth orbit are in the agenda of Space Agencies, the concerns related to space radiation exposure of the crew are still without conclusive solutions. The risk of long-term detrimental health effects needs to be kept below acceptable limits, and emergency countermeasures must be planned to avoid the short-term consequences of exposure to high particle fluxes during hardly predictable solar events. Space habitat shielding cannot be the ultimate solution: the increasing complexity of future missions will require astronauts to protect themselves in low-shielded areas, e.g. during emergency operations. Personal radiation shielding is promising, particularly if using available resources for multi-functional shielding devices. In this work we report on all steps from the conception, design, manufacturing, to the final test on board the International Space Station (ISS) of the first prototype of a water-filled garment for emergency radiation shielding against solar particle events. The garment has a good shielding potential and comfort level. On-board water is used for filling and then recycled without waste. The successful outcome of this experiment represents an important breakthrough in space radiation shielding, opening to the development of similarly conceived devices and their use in interplanetary missions as the one to Mars

APHRODITE: Design and Preliminary Tests of an Autonomous and Reusable Photo-sensing Device for Immunological Test aboard the International Space Station

Preliminary results of the design and manufacturing of APHRODITE, a compact and versatile device for carrying out analyses of biological fluids during space missions that will be used as a technological demonstrator on board the International Space Station (ISS) for the quantitative determination of salivary biomarkers indicators of alterations of functionality of the immune system. The paper addresses the design of the main subsystems of the analytical device and the preliminary results obtained during the first implementations of the device subsystems and testing measurements. In particular, the system design and the experiment data output of the lab-on-chip photosensors and of the front-end readout electronics are reported in detail

Measuring and Comparing Party Ideology and Heterogeneity

Estimates of party ideological positions in Western Democracies yield useful party-level information, but lack the ability to provide insight into intraparty politics. In this paper, we generate comparable measures of latent individual policy positions from elite survey data which enable analysis of elite-level party ideology and heterogeneity. This approach has advantages over both expert surveys and approaches based on behavioral data, such as roll call voting and is directly relevant to the study of party cohesion. We generate a measure of elite positions for several European countries using a common space scaling approach and demonstrate its validity as a measure of party ideology. We then apply these data to determine the sources of party heterogeneity, focusing on the role of intraparty competition in electoral systems, nomination rules, and party goals. We find that policy-seeking parties and centralized party nomination rules reduce party heterogeneity. While intraparty competition has no effect, the presence of these electoral rules conditions the effect of district magnitude

Not Quite Right: Representations of Eastern Europeans in ECJ Discourse

Although the increasing responsiveness of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the ‘ECJ’) jurisprudence to western Member States’ concerns regarding Central and Eastern European (‘CEE’) nationals’ mobility has garnered academic attention, ECJ discourse has not been scrutinised for how it approaches the CEE region or CEE movers. Applying postcolonial theory, this article seeks to fill this gap and to explore whether there are any indications that ECJ discourse is in line with the historical western-centric inferiorisation of the CEE region. A critical discourse analysis of a set of ECJ judgments and corresponding Advocate General opinions pertaining to CEE nationals illustrates not only how the ECJ adopts numerous discursive strategies to maintain its authority, but also how it tends to prioritise values of the western Member States, while overlooking interests of CEE movers. Its one-sided approach is further reinforced by referring to irrelevant facts and negative assumptions to create an image of CEE nationals as socially and economically inferior to westerners, as not belonging to the proper EU polity and as not quite deserving of EU law’s protections. By silencing CEE nationals’ voices, while disregarding the background of east/west socio-economic and political power differentials and precariousness experienced by many CEE workers in the west, such racialising discourse normalises ethnicity- and class-based stereotypes. These findings also help to contextualise both EU and western policies targeting CEE movers and evidence of their unequal outcomes in the west, and are in line with today’s nuanced expressions of racisms. By illustrating the ECJ’s role in addressing values pertinent to mobile CEE individuals, this study facilitates a fuller appreciation of the ECJ’s power in shaping and reflecting western-centric EU identity and policies. Engaging with such issues will not only allow us to better appreciate—and question—the ECJ’s legitimacy, but might also facilitate a better understanding of power dynamics within the EU. This study also makes significant theoretical and methodological contributions. It expands (and complicates) the application of postcolonial theory to contemporary intra-EU processes, while illustrating the usefulness of applying critical discourse analysis to exploring differentiation, exclusion, subordination and power within legal language

Micropropagation and in vitro culture of Pyrethrum [Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium (Trev.) Vis.]

Pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium (Trev.) Vis. = Tanacetum cineariaefolium (Trev.) Schultz-Bip.) is a perennial herbaceous plant belonging to the family Asteraceae, native to Albania and the area of former Yugoslavia. It is the only species in the genus Tanacetum having an agronomic importance, although the genus consists of several species producing similar types of bioactive metabolites. The species is grown in order to obtain the insecticidal compounds collectively termed pyrethrins, which are found primarily in the flower heads. In this work we discuss the results found from a worldwide literature review about the micropropagation techniques followed on Pyrethrum, the in vitro culture conditions, and the ex vitro establishment trials under Mediterranean environmental conditions. Many technical problems concerning the propagation of the species seem to have been solved, and detailed protocols are available for an easy and fast propagation by seeds, vegetative splits, stem cuttings (rooted under mist or not), and tissue culture. The first attempts to introduce its cultivation into the semi-arid Mediterranean environments have brought to satisfactory results, and the species may be suggested as a valuable opportunity for the development strategies in new Mediterranean farming systems

Gli strumenti musicali in uso nel mondo etrusco attraverso l'analisi della pittura funeraria

Analisi dell'uso e dei contesti di strumenti musicali nella pittura funeraria etrusca fra VI e III sec.a.C

Analysis of brain recurrence

Analysis of Brain Recurrence (ABR) is a method for extracting physiologically significant information from the electroencephalogram (EEG), a non-stationary electrical output of the brain, the ultimate complex dynamical system. ABR permits quantification of temporal patterns in the EEG produced by the non-autonomous differential laws that govern brain metabolism. In the context of appropriate experimental and statistical designs, ABR is ideally suited to the task of interpreting the EEG. Present applications of ABR include discovery of a human magnetic sense, increased mechanistic understanding of neuronal membrane processes, diagnosis of degenerative neurological disease, detection of changes in brain metabolism caused by weak environmental electromagnetic fields, objective characterization of the quality of human sleep, and evaluation of sleep disorders. ABR has important beneficial implications for the development of clinical and experimental neuroscience. © 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland