Preliminary evaluation of spectral, normal and meteorological crop stage estimation approaches

Several of the projects in the AgRISTARS program require crop phenology information, including classification, acreage and yield estimation, and detection of episodal events. This study evaluates several crop calendar estimation techniques for their potential use in the program. The techniques, although generic in approach, were developed and tested on spring wheat data collected in 1978. There are three basic approaches to crop stage estimation: historical averages for an area (normal crop calendars), agrometeorological modeling of known crop-weather relationships agrometeorological (agromet) crop calendars, and interpretation of spectral signatures (spectral crop calendars). In all, 10 combinations of planting and biostage estimation models were evaluated. Dates of stage occurrence are estimated with biases between -4 and +4 days while root mean square errors range from 10 to 15 days. Results are inconclusive as to the superiority of any of the models and further evaluation of the models with the 1979 data set is recommended

In Search of the Solar Wind Nitrogen Isotope Composition: Analysis of a Gold Plate from the Genesis Spacecraft Concentrator

We report N isotope analysis of a gold plate from the Genesis spacecraft concentrator. We did not find evidence for a light N component in the solar wind

Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE). Composition and assembly of a spectral-met data base for spring and winter wheat, volume 2

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Markers for the identification of late breast cancer recurrence

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited

Decontamination of Genesis Array Materials by UV Ozone Cleaning

Shortly after the NASA Genesis Mission sample return capsule returned to earth on September 8, 2004, the science team discovered that all nine ultra-pure semiconductor materials were contaminated with a thin molecular organic film approximately 0 to 100 angstroms thick. The organic contaminate layer, possibly a silicone, situated on the surface of the materials is speculated to have formed by condensation of organic matter from spacecraft off-gassing at the Lagrange 1 halo orbit during times of solar exposure. While the valuable solar wind atoms are safely secured directly below this organic contamination and/or native oxide layer in approximately the first 1000 angstroms of the ultra-pure material substrate, some analytical techniques that precisely measure solar wind elemental abundances require the removal of this organic contaminate. In 2005, Genesis science team laboratories began to develop various methods for removing the organic thin film without removing the precious material substrate that contained the solar wind atoms. Stephen Sestak and colleagues at Open University first experimented with ultraviolet radiation ozone (UV/O3) cleaning of several non-flight and flown Genesis silicon wafer fragments under a pure flowing oxygen environment. The UV/O3 technique was able to successfully remove organic contamination without etching into the bulk material substrate. At NASA Johnson Space Center Genesis Curation Laboratory, we have installed an UV/O3 cleaning devise in an ambient air environment to further experimentally test the removal of the organic contamination on Genesis wafer materials. Preliminary results from XPS analysis show that the UV/O3 cleaning instrument is a good non-destructive method for removing carbon contamination from flown Genesis array samples. However, spectroscopic ellipsometry results show little change in the thickness of the surface film. All experiments to date have shown UV/O3 cleaning method to be the best non-destructive method for removing organic contamination from the surface of the Genesis materials. The UV/O3 cleaning process can also clean carbon contamination to levels below non-flight standards. This can be seen by comparing sample 60260's carbon 10667 cps with non-flight Si carbon 21675 cps. Therefore, surface carbon contamination should not hinder the analysis of solar wind

Interpretation of LANDSAT digital data using a cubic color model based on relative energies

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Residual risk assessment with the Breast Cancer Index (BCI) for prediction of late distant recurrence (DR) in patients from the TransATAC study.

Background: The Breast Cancer Index (BCI) is a gene-expression based signature comprised of two complementary functional domains: the molecular grade index (MGI) for tumor proliferation, and the HoxB13/IL17BR ratio (H/I) for estrogen signalling. BCI provides a quantitative assessment of the likelihood of overall (0-10yr), late (5-10yr) DR and reported to show endocrine benefit in patients with estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer. The aim of the current study was to further characterize BCI performance to predict late DR for postmenopausal women with N- and N+ disease treated with either anastrozole or tamoxifen. Methods: 883 women with ER+, N- or N+ (1 to 3 nodes) breast cancer from TransATAC study who were recurrence free at 5 years were included in this analysis. Time to late DR (5 years after diagnosis) was the primary endpoint. Cox regression models were utilized to determine the prognostic value of the BCI and KM-estimates were used to determine 5-10 year DR. Results: 75 late DRs were recorded in all 883 patients who were recurrence free at 5 years. Patients with a high BCI score were associated with a significantly worse outcome compared to those with a low BCI score (HR = 1.88 (1.49-2.39)). This relationship was observed for both N- (HR = 1.96 (1.41-2.72)) and N+ (HR = 1.51 (1.08-2.12)) patients. BCI added significant prognostic information beyond that from CTS in all patients (∆LR-χ2= 11.51, P = 0.0007). For women with N- disease, significant differential risk stratification was observed between low and intermediate groups and between low and high groups. For N+ patients a significant difference was observed between low and high risk groups (HR = 3.10 (1.28-7.49)), but not low and intermediate or intermediate and high. For N+ patients, a BCI model integrating tumor size and grade provided significantly more prognostic value than BCI alone (LR-χ2= 21.34 vs. LR-χ2= 5.86, respectively). Conclusions: In this post-hoc analysis with an expanded group of patients from the TransATAC cohort, BCI was a significant prognostic factor for late DR in both N- and N+ patients, with a combined BCI model providing more prognostic value in N+ patients

Retrospective analysis of molecular scores for the prediction of distant recurrence according to baseline risk factors

This work was funded by grants from Cancer Research UK (programme Grant C569-A16891), the Royal Marsden NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, and AstraZenec