The NASA Altitude Wind Tunnel (AWT): Its role in advanced icing research and development

Currently experimental aircraft icing research is severely hampered by limitations of ground icing simulation facilities. Existing icing facilities do not have the size, speed, altitude, and icing environment simulation capabilities to allow accurate studies to be made of icing problems occurring for high speed fixed wing aircraft and rotorcraft. Use of the currently dormant NASA Lewis Altitude Wind Tunnel (AWT), as a proposed high speed propulsion and adverse weather facility, would allow many such problems to be studied. The characteristics of the AWT related to adverse weather simulation and in particular to icing simulation are discussed, and potential icing research programs using the AWT are also included

Capturing the scale and pattern of recurrent care proceedings: initial observations from a feasibility study

This article reports the initial findings of a feasibility study that has captured the scale and pattern of recurrent care proceedings. Although frontline professionals have reported long-standing concerns about the repeat clients of public law proceedings, prior to the study we report, the scale of the problem has been unknown. With funding from the Nuffield Foundation and support from the Child and Family Court Advisory Service (CAFCASS) and the President of the Family Division, the research team has arrived at a first estimate of prevalence, confirming that recurrence is a sizeable problem for the English family court. Based on cases that completed during the observational window 2007-2013 (calendar years), 7,143 birth mothers appeared in 15,645 recurrent care applications concerning 22,790 infants and children. Moreover, the study most likely underestimates recurrence, because reliable data concerning completed cases is not available before 2007. Initial observations are that the spacing between recurrent care proceedings is very short, which raises searching questions about prevention. Where episodes of care proceedings follow in swift succession, most likely prompted by the birth of another infant, this affords mothers little opportunity to effect change. Unless, this ‘status quo’ is tackled, it is difficult to envisage how vulnerable birth mothers can exit this cycle. Preliminary recommendations are made in respect of policy and practice change

Contrasts between Equilibrium and Non-equilibrium Steady States: Computer Aided Discoveries in Simple Lattice Gases

A century ago, the foundations of equilibrium statistical mechanics were laid. For a system in equilibrium with a thermal bath, much is understood through the Boltzmann factor, exp{-H[C]/kT}, for the probability of finding the system in any microscopic configuration C. In contrast, apart from some special cases, little is known about the corresponding probabilities, if the same system is in contact with more than one reservoir of energy, so that, even in stationary states, there is a constant energy flux through our system. These non-equilibrium steady states display many surprising properties. In particular, even the simplest generalization of the Ising model offers a wealth of unexpected phenomena. Mostly discovered through Monte Carlo simulations, some of the novel properties are understood while many remain unexplained. A brief review and some recent results will be presented, highlighting the sharp contrasts between the equilibrium Ising system and this non-equilibrium counterpart.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Ethnic parity in labour market outcomes for benefit claimants

A significant gap exists in the UK between the employment rate for Ethnic Minorities and that for Whites. From a policy perspective, it is important to know whether this gap is due to differences in the characteristics of White and Ethnic Minority groups (which reduce the employability of Ethnic Minority groups relative to Whites) or whether it results from some form of discriminatory behaviour in the labour market. In this paper, we use administrative data to estimate ethnic differences in employment and benefit receipt amongst individuals who began claiming a Jobcentre Plus benefit in 2003. In contrast to much of the previous UK literature, we use a number of different quantitative techniques to estimate this gap, and show that in a lot of cases the estimates obtained are very sensitive to the techniques used. We argue that for the questions we are interested in and the data we have, propensity score matching methods are the most robust approach to estimating ethnic parity. We compare this preferred approach with estimates derived using alternative approaches commonly used in the literature (generally regression-based techniques) to determine the extent to which more straightforward methods are able to replicate those produced by matching. In many cases, it turns out not to be possible to calculate satisfactory quantitative estimates even with matching techniques: the characteristics of Whites and Ethnic Minorities are simply too different before the Jobcentre Plus intervention to reliably estimate the parameters of interest. Moreover, for a number of the groups, results seem to be very sensitive to the methodology used. This calls into question previous results based on simple regression techniques, which are likely to hide the fact that observationally different ethnic groups are de facto being compared on the basis of parametric extrapolations. Two groups for which it was possible to calculate reasonably reliable results are incapacity benefit (IB) and income support (IS). For these groups we find that large and significant raw penalties almost always disappear once we appropriately control for pre-inflow background and labour market characteristics. There is also a good degree of consistency across methodologies

Screening of the transcriptional regulatory regions of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Background Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has neurotrophic activity which is mediated by its main agonist receptor, VEGFR2. Dysregulation of VEGF causes motor neurone degeneration in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and expression of VEGFR2 is reduced in motor neurones and spinal cord of patients with ALS. Methods We have screened the promoter region and 4 exonic regions of functional significance of the VEGFR2 gene in a UK population of patients with ALS, for mutations and polymorphisms that may affect expression or function of this VEGF receptor. Results No mutations were identified in the VEGFR2 gene. We found no association between polymorphisms in the regulatory regions of the VEGFR2 gene and ALS. Conclusion Mechanisms other than genetic variation may downregulate expression or function of the VEGFR2 receptor in patients with ALS

Throat stability-by pass systems to increase the stable airflow range of a Mach 2.5 inlet with 60-percent internal contraction

The results of an experimental investigation to increase the stable airflow range (without unstart) of a supersonic mixed-compression inlet are presented. Various stability bypass entrances were located on the cowl side of the inlet throat. The types of entrance were distributed porous (normal holes), forward-slanted slot, and distributed educated slots. A large stable airflow range was obtained for each entrance type if a constant pressure was maintained in the stability bypass plenum. The distributed porous entrance provided the largest stable airflow range. Inlet unstart angle of attack was unaffected by the entrances

Effects of systematic errors on the mixing ratios of trace gases obtained from occulation spectra

The influence of systematic errors in the parameters of the models describing the geometry and the atmosphere on the profiles of trace gases retrieved from simulated solar occultation spectra, collected at satellite altitudes, is investigated. Because of smearing effects and other uncertainties, it may be preferable to calibrate the spectra internally by measuring absorption lines of an atmospheric gas such as CO2 whose vertical distribution is assumed rather than to relay on externally supplied information

Distributed porous throat stability bypass to increase the stable airflow range of a Mach 2.5 inlet with 60 percent internal contraction

The results of an experimental investigation to increase the stable airflow operating range of a supersonic, mixed-compression inlet with 60-percent internal contraction are presented. Various distributed-porous, throat stability-bypass entrance configurations were tested. In terms of diffuser-exit corrected airflow, a large inlet stable airflow range of about 25 percent was obtained with the optimum configuration if a constant pressure was maintained in the by-pass plenum. The location of the centerbody bleed region had a decided effect on the overall inlet performance. Limited unstart angle-of-attack data are presented

Enhanced vaccine control of epidemics in adaptive networks

We study vaccine control for disease spread on an adaptive network modeling disease avoidance behavior. Control is implemented by adding Poisson distributed vaccination of susceptibles. We show that vaccine control is much more effective in adaptive networks than in static networks due to an interaction between the adaptive network rewiring and the vaccine application. Disease extinction rates using vaccination are computed, and orders of magnitude less vaccine application is needed to drive the disease to extinction in an adaptive network than in a static one