Wind tunnel tests of Space Shuttle external tank insulation material in the aerothermal tunnel at elevated (1440 deg F) total temperatures

Tests of the space shuttle external tank foam insulation were conducted in the von Karman Gas Dynamics Facility Tunnel C. For these tests, Tunnel C was run at Mach 4 with a total temperature of 1440 F and a total pressure which varied from 30-100 psia. Cold wall heating rates were changed by varying the test article support wedge angle and by adding and removing a shock generator or a cylindrical protuberance. Selected results are presented to illustrate the test techniques and typical data obtained

Self-Determination, Sovereignty and History: Situating Zionism in the Settler-Colonial Archive

Pre-existing models of Zionism as a Central European organic nationalist movement have sought to locate its rise to historic prominence primarily in the context of British imperial instrumentality which Zionist national histories themselves that have sought to emphasize. This thesis finds this specific connection unsatisfying, and therefore takes a broader historic and thematic view. Using the settler colonial research paradigm as a starting point, and its inherently comparative, trans-national and trans-historical perspective, it will attempt to trace several genealogies. The first, of the post-Enlightenment construction of the reasoning subject and the theory of self-determination, would be constituted against, and in front of, or prior to, the extended world, and the Others of a similarly constructed “mankind” that were seen to inhabit it. Through the philosophies of these self-determining subjects in common, in relation to private property and to the state that would secure it for them, it will come to an as yet unresolved problem of the sovereign subject and the universalization of that subject’s freedom in the sovereignty of the modern democratic state, a problem that many European thinkers would seek the resolution of in the potentiality of the settler colonial frontier. A second genealogy will trace the self-determining subjects of post-Enlightenment philosophy as they made their transits on the stage of history in and between what James Belich termed the “Settler Empire.” This imperium, encompassing the Second British Empire and the United States of America, contained and produced imagined communities, myths of racialized identity, technologies of racial government and settlement and attitudes to history and the future of the planet, that prefigured Zionism and practices of the state of Israel, which have proven to be one of its lasting legacies. A final genealogy will trace the sacred and secular messianic of Protestantism in Britain and America, which I argue after Gabriel Piterberg and Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin shows that Zionism is largely a continuance of Christian historicism and restorationist traditions rather than of the Jewish tradition and that the history of Protestantism in the settler colonial world had profound import on this development historically. This argument is reinforced by a close reading of key Christian and Jewish Zionist texts, analysed from the perspective of comparative settler colonial studies. This reveals that key ideological tropes of Zionism were pre-figured in the Christian Zionist tradition, that Jewish Zionism re-articulated Christian restorationist traditions, and importantly, that the legacies of settler colonial histories played an important role in shaping the development of Zionist ideology and the work of some of its key thinkers. The genealogy ultimately concludes that British elites and Zionist lobbyists in 1917 in many ways shared the same teleology of history and notion of history itself and their adoption of the Balfour Declaration was in large part consequence of this. The thesis closes by returning to the question of the unresolved problem of the universalization of self-determination in the modern democratic state and the question of sovereign violence in said state. This was a problem that European thought arguably has never fully resolved, but has found a heuristic outlet for the playing out of these issues in the open frontier of the settler colonies. We will show h0w profoundly dangerous a heuristic scheme this is by closely examining the play of sovereignties on the settler colonial frontier in America, Australia and then in contemporary Palestine, to indicate that such heuristic outlets are not to be seen as “practices of freedom” but rather mechanisms of structural invasion, elimination, and necropolitical violence

Peace Within the Traumatic Narrative: The Cyclic Process to the Silence of Shell Shock

In his novel A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway asserts that the experience of war “breaks down time, language, and the perceived unity of the subjective self in the face of incomprehensible violence” (Hemingway 83). His quote offers an ample description for the process of self fragmentation triggered by traumatic wartime experiences, which results in shell shock. In his novel, Shell Shock, Memory, and the Novel in the Wake of World War I, Trevor Dodman, an Associate Professor of English at Hood College, describes war narratives as an attempt to reconstruct this fragmented self through processes of writing and narrating, which succeeds as a form of meditation. Through this process, the soldier attempts to communicate or share distressing wartime descriptions between himself and others by actualizing and/or coming to terms with their tragedies. Yet, this was more complicated or nonexistent for a myriad of WWI soldiers. During the early 20th century, there was little to no understanding about how these traumatic experiences affected the mind psychologically; therefore, the concept and experience of WWI was distressing to many soldiers and civilians since there was no language available to describe its horrors. For soldiers, this lack of accessible words inhibited and 2 complicated any ability to describe, comprehend, or deal with the war. Furthermore, due to this limitation a language barrier between themselves and others, as well as between the soldier and his own reality, was created. This language barrier was noted by Paul Fussell in his novel, The Great War and Modern Memory. In The Great War, he attempts to give a general explanation to this concept: “That is why some men, when they think about war, fall silent. Language seems to falsify physical life and to betray those who have experienced it absolutely— the dead” (Fussell 184). This falsification and betrayal by language constitutes a deeper form of shell shock, language not only becomes a barrier but it limits the soldiers’ reconstruction: the soldier is compelled to mentally repeat such experiences in order to come to terms with such, yet this repetition further forces distressing experiences on the soldier. It is within this problem that silence becomes a common motif in WWI literature. Silence is found where soldiers uses narratives to attempt to recreate so as to reconstruct, but discover they are unable to and fall short

Differentiated effects of the multimodal antidepressant vortioxetine on sleep architecture: Part 1, a pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic comparison with paroxetine in healthy men

We compared the effect of vortioxetine, paroxetine and placebo after three days of dosing on sleep architecture. This was a randomised, double-blind, four-way crossover, placebo-controlled, multiple-dose study in 24 healthy young men. Subjects received 20mg vortioxetine, 40mg vortioxetine, 20mg paroxetine or placebo for three consecutive days in four different periods with at least three weeks between them. Polysomnography and blood sampling for pharmacokinetic analysis were performed on the pre-dose night and nights 1 and 3 of dosing in each period. Plasma concentrations of vortioxetine and paroxetine during the polysomnography measurement were used to estimate SERT occupancies using published relationships in healthy subjects. All three active treatments significantly increased REM onset latency and decreased time spent in REM sleep. In the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamics analysis significant relationships were found between REM onset latency and time spent in REM sleep and vortioxetine/paroxetine exposure. The relation between REM suppression parameters and SERT occupancy was significantly different between vortioxetine and paroxetine, despite the same SERT occupancy. This indicates that vortioxetine has a different clinical pharmacological profile from paroxetine, which may explain the differences in adverse effect profile of the two drugs, for instance the lower incidence of nausea, weight gain and sexual dysfunction with vortioxetine

GABA-B receptor function in healthy volunteers, a pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic study of two doses of baclofen compared to placebo

AIMS AND HYPOTHESIS To assess the subjective and objective effects of baclofen on brain function in healthy volunteers. BACKGROUND Recent evidence suggests baclofen, a γ-aminobutyric acid type B (GABA-B) receptor agonist, reduces alcohol consumption and craving and promotes abstinence in alcoholics. However, characterisation of the GABA-B receptor system in clinical addiction is limited, and it is unclear why some patients require, or tolerate, higher doses to treat alcoholism. This study assesses the effects of baclofen on brain function in healthy volunteers to inform future studies investigating the sensitivity of GABA-B receptors in alcohol addiction. METHODS Eight healthy male volunteers completed a double blind randomised 3-way cross over study, receiving oral placebo (vitamin C 100mg), 10mg and 60mg baclofen. Subjective and objective measurements were taken at baseline (before medication) and at +30mins, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 hours after dosing. Objective measures included blood plasma samples, heart rate and blood pressure. Subjective measures included; the Subjective High Assessment Questionnaire (SHAS), visual analogue scales for sleepy, relaxed, tense and alert and a motor coordination task (zig-zag task). Pharmacokinetic data was obtained using liquid chromatography mass-spectrometry (LC-MS) to measure plasma baclofen concentrations. RESULTS 60mg Baclofen showed changes in subjective measures peaking at 2 hours post dosing compared with placebo, including a significant increase (p<0.05) in total SHAS scores with individual items, including feeling ‘drunk or intoxicated’, effects of alcohol and ‘muddled or confused’ particular affected.. Systolic blood pressure was significantly increased (p<0.05) at the 2 hours post 60mg dose. For both 10mg and 60mg baclofen, peak plasma concentration was achieved 60 minutes post dose. Pharmacokinetic data will be presented. There were no significant changes in these measures between 10mg Baclofen and placebo. CONCLUSIONS The objective and subjective measures used in this study are able to differentiate between placebo and 60mg baclofen. These findings will inform further research investigating the sensitivity of GABA-B receptors in alcohol addiction

Cognitive function in people with and without freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease

Freezing of gait (FOG) is common in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) which is extremely debilitating. One hypothesis for the cause of FOG episodes is impaired cognitive control, however, this is still in debate in the literature. We aimed to assess a comprehensive range of cognitive tests in older adults and people with Parkinson’s with and without FOG and associate FOG severity with cognitive performance. A total of 227 participants took part in the study which included 80 healthy older adults, 81 people with PD who did not have FOG and 66 people with PD and FOG. A comprehensive battery of neuropsychological assessments tested cognitive domains of global cognition, executive function/attention, working memory, and visuospatial function. The severity of FOG was assessed using the new FOG questionnaire and an objective FOG severity score. Cognitive performance was compared between groups using an ANCOVA adjusting for age, gender, years of education and disease severity. Correlations between cognitive performance and FOG severity were analyzed using partial correlations. Cognitive differences were observed between older adults and PD for domains of global cognition, executive function/attention, and working memory. Between those with and without FOG, there were differences for global cognition and executive function/attention, but these differences disappeared when adjusting for covariates. There were no associations between FOG severity and cognitive performance. This study identified no significant difference in cognition between those with and without FOG when adjusting for covariates, particularly disease severity. This may demonstrate that complex rehabilitation programs may be undertaken in those with FOG

Wind tunnel tests of space shuttle solid rocket booster insulation material in the aerothermal tunnel c

Wind tunnel tests of the space shuttle Solid Rocket Booster Insulation were conducted in the von Karman Gas Dynamics Facility Tunnel C. For these tests, Tunnel C was run at Mach 4 with a total temperature of 1100-1440 and a total pressure of 100 psia. Cold wall heating rates were changed by varying the test article support wedge angle. Selected results are presented to illustrate the test techniques and typical data obtained