Paper Session I-A - Space-Based Telemetry And Range Safety Flight Demonstration 1

Space-Based Telemetry and Range Safety (STARS) is a proof-of-concept project operational costs and operational flexibility using a satellite-based communications system to relay tracking data and telemetry to the ground and flight termination signals (FTS) from the ground to the vehicle the necessary reliability and coverage. STARS the Range Safety (RS) system for tracking and flight termination and the Range User (RU) system for voice, video, and vehicle/payload data. Flight Demonstration 1 consisted of seven flights at Dryden Flight Research Center during summer 2003. These flights successfully demonstrated STARS\u27 ability to maintain a communications link with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System Contributors included t NASA facilities and the US Air Force Eastern and Western Ranges. All test objectives were met arge amounts of data recorded for analysis. All FTS commands sent were successfully processed, the RS GPS receiver maintained track except duringextreme maneuvershe RS telemetry was sent in near realtime to NASA facilities for monitoringhe RU link margin met or exceeded predicted performance. The RS return link margin was less than predicted and post-flight testing to identify the root cause

Uncertainties in assessing the environmental impact of amine emissions from a CO 2 capture plant

In this study, a new model framework that couples the atmospheric chemistry transport model system WRF-EMEP and the multimedia fugacity level III model was used to assess the environmental impact of amine emissions to air from post-combustion carbon dioxide capture. The modelling framework was applied to a typical carbon capture plant artificially placed at Mongstad, west coast of Norway. WRF-EMEP enables a detailed treatment of amine chemistry in addition to atmospheric transport and deposition. Deposition fluxes of WRF-EMEP simulations were used as input to the fugacity model in order to derive concentrations of nitramines and nitrosamine in lake water. Predicted concentrations of nitramines and nitrosamines in ground-level air and drinking water were found to be highly sensitive to the description of amine chemistry, especially of the night time chemistry with the nitrate (NO3) radical. Sensitivity analysis of the fugacity model indicates that catchment characteristics and chemical degradation rates in soil and water are among the important factors controlling the fate of these compounds in lake water. The study shows that realistic emission of commonly used amines result in levels of the sum of nitrosamines and nitramines in ground-level air (0.6–10 pgm−3) and drinking water (0.04–0.25 ngL−1) below the current safety guideline for human health enforced by the Norwegian Environmental Directorate. The modelling framework developed in this study can be used to evaluate possible environmental impacts of emissions of amines from post-combustion capture in other regions of the world

Genome-wide screening for DNA variants associated with reading and language traits

This research was funded by: Max Planck Society, the University of St Andrews - Grant Number: 018696, US National Institutes of Health - Grant Number: P50 HD027802, Wellcome Trust - Grant Number: 090532/Z/09/Z, and Medical Research Council Hub Grant Grant Number: G0900747 91070Reading and language abilities are heritable traits that are likely to share some genetic influences with each other. To identify pleiotropic genetic variants affecting these traits, we first performed a genome‐wide association scan (GWAS) meta‐analysis using three richly characterized datasets comprising individuals with histories of reading or language problems, and their siblings. GWAS was performed in a total of 1862 participants using the first principal component computed from several quantitative measures of reading‐ and language‐related abilities, both before and after adjustment for performance IQ. We identified novel suggestive associations at the SNPs rs59197085 and rs5995177 (uncorrected P ≈ 10–7 for each SNP), located respectively at the CCDC136/FLNC and RBFOX2 genes. Each of these SNPs then showed evidence for effects across multiple reading and language traits in univariate association testing against the individual traits. FLNC encodes a structural protein involved in cytoskeleton remodelling, while RBFOX2 is an important regulator of alternative splicing in neurons. The CCDC136/FLNC locus showed association with a comparable reading/language measure in an independent sample of 6434 participants from the general population, although involving distinct alleles of the associated SNP. Our datasets will form an important part of on‐going international efforts to identify genes contributing to reading and language skills.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Phylogeny of Cyperaceae Based on DNA Sequence Data–a New rbcL Analysis

Since the Monocots II meeting in 1998, significant new data have been published that enhance our systematic knowledge of Cyperaceae. Phylogenetic studies in the family have also progressed steadily. For this study, a parsimony analysis was carried out using all rbcL sequences currently available for Cyperaceae, including data for two new genera. One of the four subfamilies (Caricoideae) and seven of the 14 tribes (Bisboeckelereae, Cariceae, Cryptangieae, Dulichieae, Eleocharideae, Sclerieae, Trilepideae) are monophyletic. Subfamily Mapanioideae and tribe Chrysitricheae are monophyletic if, as the evidence suggests, Hellmuthia is considered a member of Cypereae. Some other features of our analysis include: well-supported Trilepideae and Sclerieae–Bisboeckelereae clades; a possible close relationship between Cryptangieae and Schoeneae; polyphyletic tribes Schoeneae and Scirpeae; the occurrence of Cariceae within the Dulichieae–Scirpeae clade, and a strongly supported clade, representing Cyperus and allied genera in Cypereae, sister to a poorly supported Ficinia–Hellmuthia– Isolepis–Scirpoides clade. Such patterns are consistent with other studies based on DNA sequence data. One outcome may be that only two subfamilies, Mapanioideae and Cyperoideae, are recognized. Much further work is needed, with efforts carefully coordinated among researchers. The work should focus on obtaining morphological and molecular data for all genera in the family

What Makes a Top-Performing Precision Medicine Search Engine? Tracing Main System Features in a Systematic Way

From 2017 to 2019 the Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) held a challenge task on precision medicine using documents from medical publications (PubMed) and clinical trials. Despite lots of performance measurements carried out in these evaluation campaigns, the scientific community is still pretty unsure about the impact individual system features and their weights have on the overall system performance. In order to overcome this explanatory gap, we first determined optimal feature configurations using the Sequential Model-based Algorithm Configuration (SMAC) program and applied its output to a BM25-based search engine. We then ran an ablation study to systematically assess the individual contributions of relevant system features: BM25 parameters, query type and weighting schema, query expansion, stop word filtering, and keyword boosting. For evaluation, we employed the gold standard data from the three TREC-PM installments to evaluate the effectiveness of different features using the commonly shared infNDCG metric.Comment: Accepted for SIGIR2020, 10 page

Genome-wide association and HLA fine-mapping studies identify risk loci and genetic pathways underlying allergic rhinitis

Allergic rhinitis is the most common clinical presentation of allergy, affecting 400 million people worldwide, with increasing incidence in westernized countries1,2. To elucidate the genetic architecture and understand the underlying disease mechanisms, we carried out a meta-analysis of allergic rhinitis in 59,762 cases and 152,358 controls of European ancestry and identified a total of 41 risk loci for allergic rhinitis, including 20 loci not previously associated with allergic rhinitis, which were confirmed in a replication phase of 60,720 cases and 618,527 controls. Functional annotation implicated genes involved in various immune pathways, and fine mapping of the HLA region suggested amino acid variants important for antigen binding. We further performed genome-wide association study (GWAS) analyses of allergic sensitization against inhalant allergens and nonallergic rhinitis, which suggested shared genetic mechanisms across rhinitis-related traits. Future studies of the identified loci and genes might identify novel targets for treatment and prevention of allergic rhinitis

Dynamic cerebral autoregulation reproducibility is affected by physiological variability

Parameters describing dynamic cerebral autoregulation (DCA) have limited reproducibility. In an international, multi-center study, we evaluated the influence of multiple analytical methods on the reproducibility of DCA. Fourteen participating centers analyzed repeated measurements from 75 healthy subjects, consisting of 5 min of spontaneous fluctuations in blood pressure and cerebral blood flow velocity signals, based on their usual methods of analysis. DCA methods were grouped into three broad categories, depending on output types: (1) transfer function analysis (TFA); (2) autoregulation index (ARI); and (3) correlation coefficient. Only TFA gain in the low frequency (LF) band showed good reproducibility in approximately half of the estimates of gain, defined as an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of > 0.6. None of the other DCA metrics had good reproducibility. For TFA-like and ARI-like methods, ICCs were lower than values obtained with surrogate data (p less than 0.05). For TFA-like methods, ICCs were lower for the very LF band (gain 0.38 ± 0.057, phase 0.17 ± 0.13) than for LF band (gain 0.59 ± 0.078, phase 0.39 ± 0.11, p ? 0.001 for both gain and phase). For ARI-like methods, the mean ICC was 0.30 ± 0.12 and for the correlation methods 0.24 ± 0.23. Based on comparisons with ICC estimates obtained from surrogate data, we conclude that physiological variability or non-stationarity is likely to be the main reason for the poor reproducibility of DCA parameters. Copyright © 2019 Sanders, Elting, Panerai, Aries, Bor-Seng-Shu, Caicedo, Chacon, Gommer, Van Huffel, Jara, Kostoglou, Mahdi, Marmarelis, Mitsis, Müller, Nikolic, Nogueira, Payne, Puppo, Shin, Simpson, Tarumi, Yelicich, Zhang and Claassen

New genetic loci implicated in fasting glucose homeostasis and their impact on type 2 diabetes risk.

Levels of circulating glucose are tightly regulated. To identify new loci influencing glycemic traits, we performed meta-analyses of 21 genome-wide association studies informative for fasting glucose, fasting insulin and indices of beta-cell function (HOMA-B) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in up to 46,186 nondiabetic participants. Follow-up of 25 loci in up to 76,558 additional subjects identified 16 loci associated with fasting glucose and HOMA-B and two loci associated with fasting insulin and HOMA-IR. These include nine loci newly associated with fasting glucose (in or near ADCY5, MADD, ADRA2A, CRY2, FADS1, GLIS3, SLC2A2, PROX1 and C2CD4B) and one influencing fasting insulin and HOMA-IR (near IGF1). We also demonstrated association of ADCY5, PROX1, GCK, GCKR and DGKB-TMEM195 with type 2 diabetes. Within these loci, likely biological candidate genes influence signal transduction, cell proliferation, development, glucose-sensing and circadian regulation. Our results demonstrate that genetic studies of glycemic traits can identify type 2 diabetes risk loci, as well as loci containing gene variants that are associated with a modest elevation in glucose levels but are not associated with overt diabetes