Improvements to ISRU for Rocket Fuel Generation

The development of efficient in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technologies is crucial for the establishment of an extraterrestrial, self-sustaining colony. The generation of rocket fuel at potential colony locations is necessary to provide the transportation of people and cargo to and from these locations.Three processes are discussed for the improvement of ISRU methods to generate rocket fuel: electrolysis and electrochemical improvements to the process of crude fuel production, physical and chemical methods for separation of gaseous H2 and O2, and materials and cryogenics engineering for storage and transportation of liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX). Storage and transportation of cryogenics like LOX and LH2 is a highly researched field due to its applications in making clean and renewable energy widely available and similar methods can also be applied for the acquisition of rocket fuel. Storage methods such as the self-evaporating vapor cooled shield (VCS) or thermoacoustic refrigerator shield (TRS) have been shown to decrease the loss of evaporated cryogenics. Additional methods such as solid-state material engineering with materials such as cesium superoxide (CeO2) have also shown potential for long-term storage of LH2 and LOX

Use of the prevented fraction for the population to determine deaths averted by existing prevalence of physical activity: a descriptive study

Abstract Background: The disease or mortality burdens of unhealthy lifestyle behaviours are often reported. The positive side of the story, the burden that existing levels have averted, is rarely discussed. We present what we believe to be global application of the Prevented Fraction for the Population to obtain estimates of the percentage of premature mortality and number of premature deaths averted by total physical activity levels for 168 countries. Methods: We combined previously published activity prevalence data (2001-2016) and relative risks of mortality in Monte-Carlo simulations to estimate country-specific Prevented Fractions for the Population (percentage of mortality averted) and their 95% confidence intervals. Higher Prevented Fractions indicate a greater proportion of deaths averted due to physical activity. Using mortality data for 40-74 year olds, we estimated the number of premature deaths averted due to activity levels for all adults and by sex. We presented the median and range of the Prevented Fractions globally, by region, and by income classification. Results: The global median Prevented Fraction for the Population was 15.0% (range 6.6-20.5%), conservatively equating to 3.9 million (95% confidence interval: 2.5-5.6) premature deaths averted annually. The African region had the highest median (16.6%, range 12.1-20.5%), the Americas had the lowest (13.1%, range 10.8-16.6%). Low income countries tended to have higher median Prevented Fractions (17.9%, range 12.3-20.5%) than high income countries (14.1%, range 6.6-17.8%). Globally, the median Prevented Fraction was higher for men than women (16.0% (range 7.8-20.7% and 14.1% (range 5.0-20.4%), respectively). Interpretation: Existing physical activity levels have contributed to averting premature mortality across all countries. The Prevented Fraction for the Population has utility as an advocacy tool to promote healthy lifestyle behaviours as, by making the case of what has been achieved, it could demonstrate the value of current investment and services. This may be more conducive to political support.TS, SJS, and SB are funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12015/1 and MC_UU_12015/3). DD is funded by a Future Leader Fellowship by Heart Foundation Australia (No. 101234). At the time of this work, MT was a member of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (MR/K023187/1), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UKClinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. MT was also funded on the METAHIT project (Medical Research Council grant MR/P02663X/1)

Poison ivy, poison oak and similar plant identification

The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service periodically issues revisions to its publications. The most current edition is made available. For access to an earlier edition, if available for this title, please contact the Oklahoma State University Library Archives by email at [email protected] or by phone at 405-744-6311

Ks-band detection of thermal emission and color constraints to CoRoT-1b: A low-albedo planet with inefficient atmospheric energy redistribution and a temperature inversion

We report the detection in Ks-band of the secondary eclipse of the hot Jupiter CoRoT-1b, from time series photometry with the ARC 3.5-m telescope at Apache Point Observatory. The eclipse shows a depth of 0.336+/-0.042 percent and is centered at phase 0.5022 (+0.0023,-0.0027), consistent with a zero eccentricity orbit ecos{\omega} = 0.0035 (+0.0036,-0.0042). We perform the first optical to near-infrared multi-band photometric analysis of an exoplanet's atmosphere and constrain the reflected and thermal emissions by combining our result with the recent 0.6, 0.71, and 2.09 micron secondary eclipse detections by Snellen et al. (2009), Gillon et al. (2009), and Alonso et al. (2009a). Comparing the multi-wavelength detections to state-of-the-art radiative-convective chemical-equilibrium atmosphere models, we find the near-infrared fluxes difficult to reproduce. The closest blackbody-based and physical models provide the following atmosphere parameters: a temperature T = 2454 (+84,-170) K, a very low Bond albedo A_B = 0.000 (+0.087,-0.000), and an energy redistribution parameter P_n = 0.1, indicating a small but nonzero amount of heat transfer from the day- to night-side. The best physical model suggests a thermal inversion layer with an extra optical absorber of opacity kappa_e =0.05cm^2g^-1, placed near the 0.1-bar atmospheric pressure level. This inversion layer is located ten times deeper in the atmosphere than the absorbers used in models to fit mid-infrared Spitzer detections of other irradiated hot Jupiters.Comment: accepted for publication on Ap

Basic plant care: Understanding your plant's needs

The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service periodically issues revisions to its publications. The most current edition is made available. For access to an earlier edition, if available for this title, please contact the Oklahoma State University Library Archives by email at [email protected] or by phone at 405-744-6311

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER)

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is a balloon-borne cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter designed to search for evidence of inflation by measuring the large-angular scale CMB polarization signal. BICEP2 recently reported a detection of B-mode power corresponding to the tensor-to-scalar ratio r = 0.2 on ~2 degree scales. If the BICEP2 signal is caused by inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs), then there should be a corresponding increase in B-mode power on angular scales larger than 18 degrees. PIPER is currently the only suborbital instrument capable of fully testing and extending the BICEP2 results by measuring the B-mode power spectrum on angular scales $\theta$ = ~0.6 deg to 90 deg, covering both the reionization bump and recombination peak, with sensitivity to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio down to r = 0.007, and four frequency bands to distinguish foregrounds. PIPER will accomplish this by mapping 85% of the sky in four frequency bands (200, 270, 350, 600 GHz) over a series of 8 conventional balloon flights from the northern and southern hemispheres. The instrument has background-limited sensitivity provided by fully cryogenic (1.5 K) optics focusing the sky signal onto four 32x40-pixel arrays of time-domain multiplexed Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers held at 140 mK. Polarization sensitivity and systematic control are provided by front-end Variable-delay Polarization Modulators (VPMs), which rapidly modulate only the polarized sky signal at 3 Hz and allow PIPER to instantaneously measure the full Stokes vector (I, Q, U, V) for each pointing. We describe the PIPER instrument and progress towards its first flight.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume 9153. Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2014, conference 915

Engineered living photosynthetic biocomposites for intensified biological carbon capture

Carbon capture and storage is required to meet Paris Agreement targets. Photosynthesis is nature’s carbon capture technology. Drawing inspiration from lichen, we engineered 3D photosynthetic cyanobacterial biocomposites (i.e., lichen mimics) using acrylic latex polymers applied to loofah sponge. Biocomposites had CO2 uptake rates of 1.57 ± 0.08 g CO2 g−1biomass d−1. Uptake rates were based on the dry biomass at the start of the trial and incorporate the CO2 used to grow new biomass as well as that contained in storage compounds such as carbohydrates. These uptake rates represent 14–20-fold improvements over suspension controls, potentially scaling to capture 570 tCO2 t−1biomass yr−1, with an equivalent land consumption of 5.5–8.17 × 106 ha, delivering annualized CO2 removal of 8–12 GtCO2, compared with 0.4–1.2 × 109 ha for forestry-based bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. The biocomposites remained functional for 12 weeks without additional nutrient or water supplementation, whereupon experiments were terminated. Engineered and optimized cyanobacteria biocomposites have potential for sustainable scalable deployment as part of humanity’s multifaceted technological stand against climate change, offering enhanced CO2 removal with low water, nutrient, and land use penalties

Towards a future-proof climate database for European energy system studies

In 2013, the European Network of Transmission System Operators (TSOs) for electricity (ENTSO-E) created the Pan-European Climate Database (PECD), a tool that has underpinned most studies conducted by TSOs ever since. So far, the different versions of the PECD have used so-called modern-era ‘reanalysis’ products that represent a gridded amalgamation of historical conditions from observations. However, scientific evidence suggests, and recent European regulation requires, that power system adequacy studies should take climate change into account when estimating the future potential of variable renewable resources, such as wind, solar and hydro, and the impact of temperature on electricity demand. This paper explains the need for future climate data in energy systems studies and provides high-level recommendations for building a future-proof reference climate dataset for TSOs, not just in Europe, but also globally

Towards a future-proof climate database for European energy system studies

In 2013, the European Network of Transmission System Operators (TSOs) for electricity (ENTSO-E) created the Pan-European Climate Database (PECD), a tool that has underpinned most studies conducted by TSOs ever since. So far, the different versions of the PECD have used so-called modern-era 'reanalysis' products that represent a gridded amalgamation of historical conditions from observations. However, scientific evidence suggests, and recent European regulation requires, that power system adequacy studies should take climate change into account when estimating the future potential of variable renewable resources, such as wind, solar and hydro, and the impact of temperature on electricity demand. This paper explains the need for future climate data in energy systems studies and provides high-level recommendations for building a future-proof reference climate dataset for TSOs, not just in Europe, but also globally

Rapid detection of heart failure using a spectroscopic liquid biopsy

Heart disease is growing annually across the globe with numbers expected to rise to 46% of the population by 2030. Early detection is vital for several reasons, firstly it improves the long-term prognosis of the patient by admitting them through the appropriate pathway faster, secondly it reduces healthcare costs by streamlining diagnosis and finally, in combination with management or treatment, it can prevent the progression of the disease which in turn improves the patient’s quality of life. Therefore, there lies an increasing need to develop assays which can rapidly detect heart disease at an early stage. The Dxcover® liquid biopsy platform employs infrared spectroscopy and artificial intelligence, to quickly analyse minute amounts of patient serum. In this study, discrimination between healthy controls and diseased patients was obtained with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.89. When assessing the heart failure vs all patients, which is most akin to what would be observed in a triage setting, the model when tuned to a minimum of 45% specificity yielded a sensitivity of 89% and an NPV of 0.996, conversely when sensitivity was set at a 45% minimum, the specificity was 96%, giving an NPV of 0.991 when using a 1.5% prevalence. Other models were assessed in parallel, but the performance of the ORFPLS model was overall superior to the other models tested. In this large scale (n = 404) proof-of-concept study, we have shown that the Dxcover liquid biopsy platform has the potential to be a viable triage tool in emergency and routine situations for the diagnosis of heart failure