Plasma Electronics

Contains research objectives and reports on twelve research projects.National Science Foundation under Grant G-9330U. S. Navy (Office of Naval Research) under Contract Nonr-1841(78)U. S. NavyLincoln Laboratory, Purchase Order DDL B-00306U. S. ArmyU. S. Air Force under Air Force Contract AF19(604)-740

Plasma Electronics

Contains research objectives and reports on seven research projects.U. S. ArmyLincoln Laboratory, Purchase Order DDL B-00368U. S. Air Force under Air Force Contract AF19(604)-7400U. S. NavyNational Science Foundation (Grant G-24073)U.S. Navy (Office of Naval Research) under Contract Nonr-1841(78

Plasma Dynamics

Contains reports on three research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant G-9330)United States Air Force, Air Force Cambridge Research Center (Contract AF19(604)-5992)United States ArmyUnited States Air Force (Contract AF19(604)-7400)Lincoln Laboratory (Purchase Order B-00306)Flight Accessories Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WADD Contract AF33(616)-7624)United States Air Force, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (Contract AF19(604)-4551)United States NavyUnited States Atomic Energy Commission (Contract AT(30-1)-1842

Plasmas and Controlled Nuclear Fusion

Contains research objectives and reports on three research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant GK-1165)National Science Foundation (Grant GK-57

The economics of debt clearing mechanisms

We examine the evolution of decentralized clearinghouse mechanisms from the 13th to the 18th century; in particular, we explore the clearing of non- or limitedtradable debts like bills of exchange. We construct a theoretical model of these clearinghouse mechanisms, similar to the models in the theoretical matching literature, and show that specific decentralized multilateral clearing algorithms known as rescontre, skontrieren or virement des parties used by merchants were efficient in specific historical contexts. We can explain both the evolutionary self-organizing emergence of late medieval and early modern fairs, and its robustness during the 17th and 18th century

A taxonomy for community-based care programs focused on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care in resource-poor settings

Community-based care (CBC) can increase access to key services for people affected by HIV/AIDS through the mobilization of community interests and resources and their integration with formal health structures. Yet, the lack of a systematic framework for analysis of CBC focused on HIV/AIDS impedes our ability to understand and study CBC programs. We sought to develop taxonomy of CBC programs focused on HIV/AIDS in resource-limited settings in an effort to understand their key characteristics, uncover any gaps in programming, and highlight the potential roles they play. Our review aimed to systematically identify key CBC programs focused on HIV/AIDS in resource-limited settings. We used both bibliographic database searches (Medline, CINAHL, and EMBASE) for peer-reviewed literature and internet-based searches for gray literature. Our search terms were ‘HIV’ or ‘AIDS’ and ‘community-based care’ or ‘CBC’. Two co-authors developed a descriptive taxonomy through an iterative, inductive process using the retrieved program information. We identified 21 CBC programs useful for developing taxonomy. Extensive variation was observed within each of the nine categories identified: region, vision, characteristics of target populations, program scope, program operations, funding models, human resources, sustainability, and monitoring and evaluation strategies. While additional research may still be needed to identify the conditions that lead to overall program success, our findings can help to inform our understanding of the various aspects of CBC programs and inform potential logic models for CBC programming in the context of HIV/AIDS in resource-limited settings. Importantly, the findings of the present study can be used to develop sustainable HIV/AIDS-service delivery programs in regions with health resource shortages

The unexpected resurgence of Weyl geometry in late 20-th century physics

Weyl's original scale geometry of 1918 ("purely infinitesimal geometry") was withdrawn by its author from physical theorizing in the early 1920s. It had a comeback in the last third of the 20th century in different contexts: scalar tensor theories of gravity, foundations of gravity, foundations of quantum mechanics, elementary particle physics, and cosmology. It seems that Weyl geometry continues to offer an open research potential for the foundations of physics even after the turn to the new millennium.Comment: Completely rewritten conference paper 'Beyond Einstein', Mainz Sep 2008. Preprint ELHC (Epistemology of the LHC) 2017-02, 92 pages, 1 figur

Augmented acquisition of cocaine self-administration and altered brain glucose metabolism in adult female but not male rats exposed to a cannabinoid agonist during adolescence

Marijuana consumption during adolescence has been proposed to be a stepping stone for adult cocaine addiction. However, experimental evidence for this hypothesis is missing. In this work we chronically injected male and female Wistar rats with either the cannabinoid agonist CP 55,940 (CP; 0.4 mg/kg) or its corresponding vehicle. Adult acquisition (seven 30 min daily sessions) and maintenance (fourteen 2 h daily sessions) of cocaine self administration (1 mg/kg), food reinforced operant learning under conditions of normal (ad libitum access to food), and high motivation (food restriction schedule) were measured. Additionally, brain metabolic activity was analyzed by means of [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography. During the acquisition phase, female CP treated rats showed a higher rate of cocaine self administration as compared to vehicle treated females and males; no differences were found between both male groups. This effect disappeared in the maintenance phase. Moreover, no differences among groups were evident in the food reinforced operant task, pointing to the cocaine specific nature of the effect seen in self administration rather than a general change in reward processing. Basal brain metabolic activity also changed in CP treated females when compared to their vehicle treated counterparts with no differences being found in the males; more specifically we observed a hyper activation of the frontal cortex and a hypo activation of the amygdalo entorhinal cortex. Our results suggest that a chronic exposure to cannabinoids during adolescence alters the susceptibility to acquire cocaine self administration, in a sex specific fashion. This increased susceptibility could be related to thechanges in brain metabolic activity induced by cannabinoids during adolescenceThis work was supported by Grants FIS G03/05 (Red de Trastornos Adictivos), BSO2001-1099, FIS 01-05-01, Plan Nacional sobre Drogas (PNSD) 2001–2003, PNSD 2004–2007, GR-SAL/0260/2004 to EA and Grants INT/2012/ 2002, CB06/01/0079, and CENIT (2006–2009) to MDPublicad

Community health workers for ART in sub-Saharan Africa: learning from experience – capitalizing on new opportunities

Low-income countries with high HIV/AIDS burdens in sub-Saharan Africa must deal with severe shortages of qualified human resources for health. This situation has triggered the renewed interest in community health workers, as they may play an important role in scaling-up antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS by taking over a number of tasks from the professional health workers. Currently, a wide variety of community health workers are active in many antiretroviral treatment delivery sites