Navy Acquisition via leasing: policy, politics, and polemics with the Maritime Prepositioned Ships

In recent months, leasing has been prominent in the press in connection with the Air Force's ill-fated attempt to obtain the use of Boeing re-fueling tankers without buying them. Gone from memory is the early 1980's controversial Navy leasing program of Maritime Pre-positioned Ships that had a different result. This paper presents an analysis of the various issues and parties to the very creative and innovative financing on behalf of the Navy's Military Sealift Command. Still in existence today, the 1983 contracts for thirteen TAKX ships were valued at approximately $2.6 billion. While the decision is often framed as a lease versus purchase choice, the facts indicate that the option to purchase was not seen as viable at the time. In hindsight, the TAKX leasing program was successful and cost effective, despite the whirlwind of political commentary and intrigue and the dueling quantitative analyses surrounding it. However, as an unintended (or, perhaps, intended) consequence, laws and policies have since been changed so that leasing is no longer viable for financing military assets. The case presented here considers altering existing laws and regulations to once again permit leasing of military resources.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

A Comparative Analysis of Soccer Skill Tests on Varying Experience Levels

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Assessment of radiological releases to the environment from a fusion reactor power plant

This report summarizes the expected tritium and activation-product inventories and presents an assessment of the potential radiological releases from a fusion reactor power plant, hypothetically located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Routine tritium releases and the resulting dose assessment are discussed. Uncertainties associated with the conversion of tritium gas to tritium oxide and the global tritium cycling are evaluated. The difficulties of estimating releases of activated materials and the subsequent dose commitment are reviewed

Deep-sea microbes as tools to refine the rules of innate immune pattern recognition.

The assumption of near-universal bacterial detection by pattern recognition receptors is a foundation of immunology. The limits of this pattern recognition concept, however, remain undefined. As a test of this hypothesis, we determined whether mammalian cells can recognize bacteria that they have never had the natural opportunity to encounter. These bacteria were cultivated from the deep Pacific Ocean, where the genus Moritella was identified as a common constituent of the culturable microbiota. Most deep-sea bacteria contained cell wall lipopolysaccharide (LPS) structures that were expected to be immunostimulatory, and some deep-sea bacteria activated inflammatory responses from mammalian LPS receptors. However, LPS receptors were unable to detect 80% of deep-sea bacteria examined, with LPS acyl chain length being identified as a potential determinant of immunosilence. The inability of immune receptors to detect most bacteria from a different ecosystem suggests that pattern recognition strategies may be defined locally, not globally.R01 AI093589 - NIAID NIH HHS; P30 DK034854 - NIDDK NIH HHS; U19 AI133524 - NIAID NIH HHS; R01 AI147314 - NIAID NIH HHS; R01 AI116550 - NIAID NIH HHS; R37 AI116550 - NIAID NIH HHS; R01 AI123820 - NIAID NIH HHSAccepted manuscrip

Impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on a deep-water coral community in the Gulf of Mexico

To assess the potential impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on offshore ecosystems, 11 sites hosting deep-water coral communities were examined 3 to 4 mo after the well was capped. Healthy coral communities were observed at all sites \u3e20 km from the Macondo well, including seven sites previously visited in September 2009, where the corals and communities appeared unchanged. However, at one site 11 km southwest of the Macondo well, coral colonies presented widespread signs of stress, including varying degrees of tissue loss, sclerite enlargement, excessmucous production, bleached commensal ophiuroids, and covering by brown flocculent material (floc). On the basis of these criteria the level of impact to individual colonies was ranked from 0 (least impact) to 4 (greatest impact). Of the 43 corals imaged at that site, 46% exhibited evidence of impact onmore than half of the colony,whereas nearly a quarter of all of the corals showed impact to \u3e90% of the colony. Additionally, 53% of these corals\u27 ophiuroid associates displayed abnormal color and/or attachment posture. Analysis of hopanoid petroleumbiomarkers isolated from the floc provides strong evidence that this material contained oil fromtheMacondowell. The presence of recently damaged and deceased corals beneath the path of a previously documented plume emanating from the Macondo well provides compelling evidence that the oil impacted deep-water ecosystems. Our findings underscore the unprecedented nature of the spill in terms of its magnitude, release at depth, and impact to deep-water ecosystems

CDMSlite: A Search for Low-Mass WIMPs using Voltage-Assisted Calorimetric Ionization Detection in the SuperCDMS Experiment

SuperCDMS is an experiment designed to directly detect Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), a favored candidate for dark matter ubiquitous in the Universe. In this paper, we present WIMP-search results using a calorimetric technique we call CDMSlite, which relies on voltage- assisted Luke-Neganov amplification of the ionization energy deposited by particle interactions. The data were collected with a single 0.6 kg germanium detector running for 10 live days at the Soudan Underground Laboratory. A low energy threshold of 170 eVee (electron equivalent) was obtained, which allows us to constrain new WIMP-nucleon spin-independent parameter space for WIMP masses below 6 GeV/c2.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Disparities in post-acute rehabilitation care for joint replacement

To determine the extent to which demographic and geographic disparities exist in the use of post-acute rehabilitation care (PARC) for joint replacement

Protein profiling in hepatocellular carcinoma by label-free quantitative proteomics in two west african populations.

Background Hepatocellular Carcinoma is the third most common cause of cancer related death worldwide, often diagnosed by measuring serum AFP; a poor performance stand-alone biomarker. With the aim of improving on this, our study focuses on plasma proteins identified by Mass Spectrometry in order to investigate and validate differences seen in the respective proteomes of controls and subjects with LC and HCC. Methods Mass Spectrometry analysis using liquid chromatography electro spray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight was conducted on 339 subjects using a pooled expression profiling approach. ELISA assays were performed on four significantly differentially expressed proteins to validate their expression profiles in subjects from the Gambia and a pilot group from Nigeria. Results from this were collated for statistical multiplexing using logistic regression analysis. Results Twenty-six proteins were identified as differentially expressed between the three subject groups. Direct measurements of four; hemopexin, alpha-1-antitrypsin, apolipoprotein A1 and complement component 3 confirmed their change in abundance in LC and HCC versus control patients. These trends were independently replicated in the pilot validation subjects from Nigeria. The statistical multiplexing of these proteins demonstrated performance comparable to or greater than ALT in identifying liver cirrhosis or carcinogenesis. This exercise also proposed preliminary cut offs with achievable sensitivity, specificity and AUC statistics greater than reported AFP averages. Conclusions The validated changes of expression in these proteins have the potential for development into high-performance tests usable in the diagnosis and or monitoring of HCC and LC patients. The identification of sustained expression trends strengthens the suggestion of these four proteins as worthy candidates for further investigation in the context of liver disease. The statistical combinations also provide a novel inroad of analyses able to propose definitive cut-offs and combinations for evaluation of performance

Disparities in Postacute Rehabilitation Care for Stroke: An Analysis of the State Inpatient Databases

Abstract Freburger JK, Holmes GM, Ku L-JE, Cutchin MP, Heatwole-Shank K, Edwards LJ. Disparities in postacute rehabilitation care for stroke: an analysis of the state inpatient databases. Objective To determine the extent to which sociodemographic and geographic disparities exist in the use of postacute rehabilitation care (PARC) after stroke. Design Cross-sectional analysis of data for 2 years (2005–2006) from the State Inpatient Databases. Setting All short-term acute-care hospitals in 4 demographically and geographically diverse states. Participants Individuals (age, ≥45y; mean age, 72.6y) with a primary diagnosis of stroke who survived their inpatient stay (N=187,188). The sample was 52.4% women, 79.5% white, 11.4% black, and 9.1% Hispanic. Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures (1) Discharge to an institution versus home. (2) For those discharged to home, receipt of home health (HH) versus no HH care. (3) For those discharged to an institution, receipt of inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) or skilled nursing facility (SNF) care. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify sociodemographic and geographic disparities in PARC use, controlling for illness severity/comorbid conditions, hospital characteristics, and PARC supply. Results Blacks, women, older individuals, and those with lower incomes were more likely to receive institutional care; Hispanics and the uninsured were less likely. Racial minorities, women, older individuals, and those with lower incomes were more likely to receive HH care; uninsured individuals were less likely. Blacks, women, older individuals, the uninsured, and those with lower incomes were more likely to receive SNF versus IRF care. PARC use varied significantly by hospital and geographic location. Conclusions Several sociodemographic and geographic disparities in PARC use were identified