Storage Life of an Aluminised HE Composition .

Most high explosive compositions are organic in nature and they tend to undergo slow decomposition during storage under different environmental conditions. The decomposition degrade the molecular stability of the explosive, thereby resulting in reduced performance and service life. The knowledge of decomposition behaviour of the explosive mass determines the storage life of the composition. Hence, change in the chemical stability, sensitivity, mechanical strength and performance are of utmost importance in the prediction of storage life of explosive/ammunitions systems. This paper presents the results on the rate of gas evolution, change in sensitivity, and thermal stability and weight loss of high explosive compositions, viz., Dentex and TNT when exposed to elevated temperature. Based on the collected data, a tentative storage life for the aluminised (Dentex) composition has been computed to be 15 years. The data has been compared with TNT, a standard explosive for assessing the storage life

In silico evolution of diauxic growth

The glucose effect is a well known phenomenon whereby cells, when presented with two different nutrients, show a diauxic growth pattern, i.e. an episode of exponential growth followed by a lag phase of reduced growth followed by a second phase of exponential growth. Diauxic growth is usually thought of as a an adaptation to maximise biomass production in an environment offering two or more carbon sources. While diauxic growth has been studied widely both experimentally and theoretically, the hypothesis that diauxic growth is a strategy to increase overall growth has remained an unconfirmed conjecture. Here, we present a minimal mathematical model of a bacterial nutrient uptake system and metabolism. We subject this model to artificial evolution to test under which conditions diauxic growth evolves. As a result, we find that, indeed, sequential uptake of nutrients emerges if there is competition for nutrients and the metabolism/uptake system is capacity limited. However, we also find that diauxic growth is a secondary effect of this system and that the speed-up of nutrient uptake is a much larger effect. Notably, this speed-up of nutrient uptake coincides with an overall reduction of efficiency. Our two main conclusions are: (i) Cells competing for the same nutrients evolve rapid but inefficient growth dynamics. (ii) In the deterministic models we use here no substantial lag-phase evolves. This suggests that the lag-phase is a consequence of stochastic gene expression

RBF-TSS: Identification of Transcription Start Site in Human Using Radial Basis Functions Network and Oligonucleotide Positional Frequencies

Accurate identification of promoter regions and transcription start sites (TSS) in genomic DNA allows for a more complete understanding of the structure of genes and gene regulation within a given genome. Many recently published methods have achieved high identification accuracy of TSS. However, models providing more accurate modeling of promoters and TSS are needed. A novel identification method for identifying transcription start sites that improves the accuracy of TSS recognition for recently published methods is proposed. This method incorporates a metric feature based on oligonucleotide positional frequencies, taking into account the nature of promoters. A radial basis function neural network for identifying transcription start sites (RBF-TSS) is proposed and employed as a classification algorithm. Using non-overlapping chunks (windows) of size 50 and 500 on the human genome, the proposed method achieves an area under the Receiver Operator Characteristic curve (auROC) of 94.75% and 95.08% respectively, providing increased performance over existing TSS prediction methods

Anomalous Shubnikov-de Haas effect and observation of the Bloch-Gr\"uneisen temperature in the Dirac semimetal ZrTe5

Appearance of quantum oscillations (QO) in both thermodynamic and transport properties of metals at low temperatures is the most striking experimental consequence of the existence of a Fermi surface (FS). The frequency of these oscillations and the temperature dependence of their amplitude provides essential information about the FS topology and fermionic quasiparticle properties. Here, we report the observation of an anomalous suppression of the QO amplitude seen in resistivity (Shubnikov de-Haas effect) at sub-kelvin temperatures in ZrTe5 samples with a single small FS sheet comprising less than 5% of the first Brillouin zone. By comparing these results with measurements of the magneto-acoustic QO and the recovery of the usual Lifshitz-Kosevich behavior of the Shubnikov de-Haas (SdH) effect in ZrTe$_5$ samples with a multi-sheet FS, we show that the suppression of the SdH effect originates from a decoupling of the electron liquid from the lattice. On crossing the so-called Bloch-Gr\"uneisen temperature, T$_BG$, electron-phonon scattering becomes strongly suppressed and in the absence of Umklapp scattering the electronic liquid regains Galilean invariance. In addition, we show, using a combination of zero-field electrical conductivity and ultrasonic-absorption measurements, that entering this regime leads to an abrupt increase of electronic viscosity

Prospective Evaluation of Transseptal TMVR for Failed Surgical Bioprostheses: MITRAL Trial Valve-in-Valve Arm 1-Year Outcomes

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to assess 1-year clinical outcomes among high-risk patients with failed surgical mitral bioprostheses who underwent transseptal mitral valve-in-valve (MViV) with the SAPIEN 3 aortic transcatheter heart valve (THV) in the MITRAL (Mitral Implantation of Transcatheter Valves) trial. BACKGROUND: The MITRAL trial is the first prospective study evaluating transseptal MViV with the SAPIEN 3 aortic THV in high-risk patients with failed surgical mitral bioprostheses. METHODS: High-risk patients with symptomatic moderate to severe or severe mitral regurgitation (MR) or severe mitral stenosis due to failed surgical mitral bioprostheses were prospectively enrolled. The primary safety endpoint was technical success. The primary THV performance endpoint was absence of MR grade ≥2+ or mean mitral valve gradient ≥10 mm Hg (30 days and 1 year). Secondary endpoints included procedural success and all-cause mortality (30 days and 1 year). RESULTS: Thirty patients were enrolled between July 2016 and October 2017 (median age 77.5 years [interquartile range (IQR): 70.3 to 82.8 years], 63.3% women, median Society of Thoracic Surgeons score 9.4% [IQR: 5.8% to 12.0%], 80% in New York Heart Association functional class III or IV). The technical success rate was 100%. The primary performance endpoint in survivors was achieved in 96.6% (28 of 29) at 30 days and 82.8% (24 of 29) at 1 year. Thirty-day all-cause mortality was 3.3% and was unchanged at 1 year. The only death was due to airway obstruction after swallowing several pills simultaneously 29 days post-MViV. At 1-year follow-up, 89.3% of patients were in New York Heart Association functional class I or II, the median mean mitral valve gradient was 6.6 mm Hg (interquartile range: 5.5 to 8.9 mm Hg), and all patients had MR grade ≤1+. CONCLUSIONS: Transseptal MViV in high-risk patients was associated with 100% technical success, low procedural complication rates, and very low mortality at 1 year. The vast majority of patients experienced significant symptom alleviation, and THV performance remained stable at 1 year

Lung Volume, Breathing Pattern and Ventilation Inhomogeneity in Preterm and Term Infants

BACKGROUND: Morphological changes in preterm infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) have functional consequences on lung volume, ventilation inhomogeneity and respiratory mechanics. Although some studies have shown lower lung volumes and increased ventilation inhomogeneity in BPD infants, conflicting results exist possibly due to differences in sedation and measurement techniques. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We studied 127 infants with BPD, 58 preterm infants without BPD and 239 healthy term-born infants, at a matched post-conceptional age of 44 weeks during quiet natural sleep according to ATS/ERS standards. Lung function parameters measured were functional residual capacity (FRC) and ventilation inhomogeneity by multiple breath washout as well as tidal breathing parameters. Preterm infants with BPD had only marginally lower FRC (21.4 mL/kg) than preterm infants without BPD (23.4 mL/kg) and term-born infants (22.6 mL/kg), though there was no trend with disease severity. They also showed higher respiratory rates and lower ratios of time to peak expiratory flow and expiratory time (t(PTEF)/t(E)) than healthy preterm and term controls. These changes were related to disease severity. No differences were found for ventilation inhomogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that preterm infants with BPD have a high capacity to maintain functional lung volume during natural sleep. The alterations in breathing pattern with disease severity may reflect presence of adaptive mechanisms to cope with the disease process

International league of associations for rheumatology recommendations for the management of psoriatic arthritis in resource-poor settings

Background Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a challenging heterogeneous disease. The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and PsA (GRAPPA) last published their respective recommendations for the management of PsA in 2015. However, these guidelines are primarily based on studies conducted in resource replete countries and may not be applicable in countries in the Americas (except Canada and USA) and Africa. We sought to adapt the existing recommendations for these regions under the auspices of the International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR). Process The ADAPTE Collaboration (2009) process for guideline adaptation was followed to adapt the EULAR and GRAPPA PsA treatment recommendations for the Americas and Africa. The process was conducted in three recommended phases: set-up phase; adaptation phase (defining health questions, assessing source recommendations, drafting report), and finalization phase (external review, aftercare planning, and final production). Result ILAR recommendations have been derived principally by adapting the GRAPPA recommendations, additionally, EULAR recommendations where appropriate and supplemented by expert opinion and literature from these regions. A paucity of data relevant to resource-poor settings was found in PsA management literature. Conclusion The ILAR Treatment Recommendations for PsA intends to serve as reference for the management of PsA in the Americas and Africa. This paper illustrates the experience of an international working group in adapting existing recommendations to a resource-poor setting. It highlights the need to conduct research on the management of PsA in these regions as data are currently lacking