Sonic Booms in Atmospheric Turbulence (SonicBAT): The Influence of Turbulence on Shaped Sonic Booms

The objectives of the Sonic Booms in Atmospheric Turbulence (SonicBAT) Program were to develop and validate, via research flight experiments under a range of realistic atmospheric conditions, one numeric turbulence model research code and one classic turbulence model research code using traditional N-wave booms in the presence of atmospheric turbulence, and to apply these models to assess the effects of turbulence on the levels of shaped sonic booms predicted from low boom aircraft designs. The SonicBAT program has successfully investigated sonic boom turbulence effects through the execution of flight experiments at two NASA centers, Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) and Kennedy Space Center (KSC), collecting a comprehensive set of acoustic and atmospheric turbulence data that were used to validate the numeric and classic turbulence models developed. The validated codes were incorporated into the PCBoom sonic boom prediction software and used to estimate the effect of turbulence on the levels of shaped sonic booms associated with several low boom aircraft designs. The SonicBAT program was a four year effort that consisted of turbulence model development and refinement throughout the entire period as well as extensive flight test planning that culminated with the two research flight tests being conducted in the second and third years of the program. The SonicBAT team, led by Wyle, includes partners from the Pennsylvania State University, Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream Aerospace, Boeing, Eagle Aeronautics, Technical & Business Systems, and the Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics (France). A number of collaborators, including the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, also participated by supporting the experiments with human and equipment resources at their own expense. Three NASA centers, AFRC, Langley Research Center (LaRC), and KSC were essential to the planning and conduct of the experiments. The experiments involved precision flight of either an F-18A or F-18B executing steady, level passes at supersonic airspeeds in a turbulent atmosphere to create sonic boom signatures that had been distorted by turbulence. The flights spanned a range of atmospheric turbulence conditions at NASA Armstrong and Kennedy in order to provide a variety of conditions for code validations. The SonicBAT experiments at both sites were designed to capture simultaneous F-18A or F-18B onboard flight instrumentation data, high fidelity ground based and airborne acoustic data, surface and upper air meteorological data, and additional meteorological data from ultrasonic anemometers and SODARs to determine the local atmospheric turbulence and boundary layer height

Measuring Five Dimensions of Religiosity Across Adolescence

This paper theorizes and tests a latent variable model of adolescent religiosity in which five dimensions of religiosity are interrelated: religious beliefs, religious exclusivity, external religiosity, private practice, and religious salience. Research often theorizes overlapping and independent influences of single items or dimensions of religiosity on outcomes such as adolescent sexual behavior, but rarely operationalizes the dimensions in a measurement model accounting for their associations with each other and across time. We use longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) with latent variables to analyze data from two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion. We test our hypothesized measurement model as compared to four alternate measurement models and find that our proposed model maintains superior fit. We then discuss the associations between the five dimensions of religiosity we measure and how these change over time. Our findings suggest how future research might better operationalize multiple dimensions of religiosity in studies of the influence of religion in adolescence

At-wavelength characterization of the extreme ultraviolet Engineering Test Stand Set-2 optic

At-wavelength interferometric characterization of a new 4x-reduction lithographic-quality extreme ultraviolet (EUV) optical system is described. This state-of-the-art projection optic was fabricated for installation in the EUV lithography Engineering Test Stand (ETS) and is referred to as the ETS Set-2 optic. EUV characterization of the Set-2 optic is performed using the EUV phase-shifting point diffraction interferometer (PS/PDI) installed on an undulator beamline at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source. This is the same interferometer previously used for the at-wavelength characterization and alignment of the ETS Set-1 optic. In addition to the PS/PDI-based full-field wavefront characterization, we also present wavefront measurements performed with lateral shearing interferometry, the chromatic dependence of the wavefront error, and the system-level pupil-dependent spectral-bandpass characteristics of the optic; the latter two properties are only measurable using at-wavelength interferometry

In Search of a Trade Mark: Search Practices and Bureaucratic Poetics

Trade marks have been understood as quintessential ‘bureaucratic properties’. This article suggests that the making of trade marks has been historically influenced by bureaucratic practices of search and classification, which in turn were affected by the possibilities and limits of spatial organisation and technological means of access and storage. It shows how the organisation of access and retrieval did not only condition the possibility of conceiving new trade marks, but also served to delineate their intangible proprietary boundaries. Thereby they framed the very meaning of a trade mark. By advancing a historical analysis that is sensitive to shifts, both in actual materiality and in the administrative routines of trade mark law, the article highlights the legal form of trade mark as inherently social and materially shaped. We propose a historical understanding of trade mark law that regards legal practice and bureaucratic routines as being co-constitutive of the very legal object itself

Nanotools for Neuroscience and Brain Activity Mapping

Neuroscience is at a crossroads. Great effort is being invested into deciphering specific neural interactions and circuits. At the same time, there exist few general theories or principles that explain brain function. We attribute this disparity, in part, to limitations in current methodologies. Traditional neurophysiological approaches record the activities of one neuron or a few neurons at a time. Neurochemical approaches focus on single neurotransmitters. Yet, there is an increasing realization that neural circuits operate at emergent levels, where the interactions between hundreds or thousands of neurons, utilizing multiple chemical transmitters, generate functional states. Brains function at the nanoscale, so tools to study brains must ultimately operate at this scale, as well. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are poised to provide a rich toolkit of novel methods to explore brain function by enabling simultaneous measurement and manipulation of activity of thousands or even millions of neurons. We and others refer to this goal as the Brain Activity Mapping Project. In this Nano Focus, we discuss how recent developments in nanoscale analysis tools and in the design and synthesis of nanomaterials have generated optical, electrical, and chemical methods that can readily be adapted for use in neuroscience. These approaches represent exciting areas of technical development and research. Moreover, unique opportunities exist for nanoscientists, nanotechnologists, and other physical scientists and engineers to contribute to tackling the challenging problems involved in understanding the fundamentals of brain function

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely

Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron is an immune escape variant with an altered cell entry pathway

Vaccines based on the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 are a cornerstone of the public health response to COVID-19. The emergence of hypermutated, increasingly transmissible variants of concern (VOCs) threaten this strategy. Omicron (B.1.1.529), the fifth VOC to be described, harbours multiple amino acid mutations in spike, half of which lie within the receptor-binding domain. Here we demonstrate substantial evasion of neutralization by Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 variants in vitro using sera from individuals vaccinated with ChAdOx1, BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273. These data were mirrored by a substantial reduction in real-world vaccine effectiveness that was partially restored by booster vaccination. The Omicron variants BA.1 and BA.2 did not induce cell syncytia in vitro and favoured a TMPRSS2-independent endosomal entry pathway, these phenotypes mapping to distinct regions of the spike protein. Impaired cell fusion was determined by the receptor-binding domain, while endosomal entry mapped to the S2 domain. Such marked changes in antigenicity and replicative biology may underlie the rapid global spread and altered pathogenicity of the Omicron variant