Effects of Alternative Performance Criteria upon Composition of Air Transportable Spare Parts Kits

Airlift capacity is a definitive factor in the success of large-scale military operations. History proves that the demand for airlift soon exceeds its capacity during simultaneous deployment of forces. Therefore good solutions to the airlift capacity problem are important. This thesis contributes to the resolution of this problem by seeking ways to reduce readiness spare parts packages (RSPs) deployed for Air Force squadrons through addition of airlift criteria into the RSP selection process. We find that item cost, weight, and volume are three important criteria for RSP computations. We then offer a method for implementing these three criteria in the RSP selection process. We evaluate our method using an experimental design based on the USAF Aircraft Sustainability Model. The experiment results show that RSP sizes can be reduced, but typically at a high increase in cost. However in some cases the three criteria used together can achieve smaller cheaper RSPs than the current USAF approach (using only cost-based analysis) can produce. These results suggest that this method should be adopted for the RSP selection process, to enable cost vs. airlift requirement tradeoffs and to achieve cost reductions on selected RSPs

Phytoextraction of toxic elements by Amaranthus Tricolor grown on technogenically polluted soils in open ground conditions

Using the INAA method, the ability of Amaranthus tricolor L. variety “Valentina” growing on soils with different degree of pollution to extract heavy metals was evaluated in the field experiments. It was found that amaranth of the studied variety characterized by the content of betacianin pigment, amaranthine, in the shoots and generative organ, is able to accumulate elements such as Mn, Fe and Ni from soils. The content of most of the studied elements decreases in the following order: leaves inflorescences stems. Under conditions of soil pollution with emissions from metallurgical plant, the phytoextraction of such elements as Mn, Fe, Co, Sb increases. The content of Fe and Mn in the leaves of A. tricolor var. “Valentina” exceeds the average data for vegetation from 7 to 17 times; the Co content exceeds the average data for vegetable from 4 to 7 times; the Sb content in the leaves exceeds the average data for vegetable from 10 to 23 times. Due to the fact that amaranth forms a sufficient biomass for the growing season, it can be recommended for phytoextraction of heavy metals from soils in case of polymetallic pollution

Magnetization screening from gluonic currents and scaling law violation in the ratio of magnetic form factors for neutron and proton

The ratio ${\mu_p}G_E^p/G_M^p$ exhibits a decrease for four-momentum transfer Q^2 increasing beyond 1 GeV^2 indicating different spatial distributions for charge and for magnetization inside the proton. One-gluon exchange currents can explain this behaviour. The SU(6) breaking induced by gluonic currents predicts furthermore that the ratio of neutron to proton magnetic form factors ${\mu_p}G_M^n/{\mu_n}G_M^p$ falls with increasing Q^2. We find that the experimental data are consistent with our expectations of an almost linear decrease of the ratio ${\mu_p}G_M^n/{\mu_n}G_M^p$ with increasing Q^2, supporting the statement that the spatial distributions of magnetization are different for protons and for neutrons.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Acute brucella melitensis M16 infection model in mice treated with tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors

Introduction: There is limited data in the literature about brucellosis related to an intracellular pathogen and anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (anti-TNFα) medication. The aim of this study was to evaluate acute Brucella infections in mice receiving anti-TNFα drug treatment. Methodology: Anti-TNFα drugs were injected in mice on the first and fifth days of the study, after which the mice were infected with B. melitensis M16 strain. Mice were sacrificed on the fourteenth day after infection. Bacterial loads in the liver and spleen were defined, and histopathological changes were evaluated. Results: Neither the liver nor the spleen showed an increased bacterial load in all anti-TNFα drug groups when compared to a non-treated, infected group. The most significant histopathological findings were neutrophil infiltrations in the red pulp of the spleen and apoptotic cells with hepatocellular pleomorphism in the liver. There was no significant difference among the groups in terms of previously reported histopathological findings, such as extramedullary hematopoiesis and granuloma formation. Conclusions: There were no differences in hepatic and splenic bacterial load and granuloma formation, which indicate worsening of the acute Brucella infection in mice; in other words, anti-TNFα treatment did not exacerbate the acute Brucella spp. infection in mice. © 2015 Kutlu et al

Direct genetic characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from clinical samples from Denmark : not only genotypes II and III

Genetic variation within Toxoplasma gondii can have both clinical and epidemiological significance, while the genotypes circulating in many parts of the world, including the Nordic country Denmark, are still unknown. We genetically characterized T. gondii strains that had been detected in human clinical samples in Denmark in 2011-2016. Samples that had tested positive for T. gondii DNA and had a quantification cycle value <33 were included in this study and subjected to direct genetic characterization of T. gondii based on length-polymorphism of 15 microsatellite markers. A total of 23 DNA samples from 22 individual patients were analyzed. The results were consistent with genotype II with 15/15 markers amplified from seven samples from the central nervous system (CNS) including two samples from one patient, four ocular samples, and one unspecified sample; with genotype III with 15/15 markers amplified from two ocular samples; with genotype Africa 1 with 15/15 markers amplified from one amniotic fluid sample and from one CNS-sample; with atypical genotype with 15/15 markers amplified from one CNS-sample and with 11/15 markers amplified from one CNS-sample; and with HG12-like genotype with 9/15 markers amplified from one CNS-sample. Genotype II, which is endemic in Europe, was predominant, but more than a third of the successfully genotyped strains were non-type-II. The possibility that clinical toxoplasmosis is caused by a strain that is not considered endemic to the region is definitely not negligible.Peer reviewe

From Human to Robot Interactions: A Circular Approach towards Trustworthy Social Robots

Human trust research uncovered important catalysts for trust building between interaction partners such as appearance or cognitive factors. The introduction of robots into social interactions calls for a reevaluation of these findings and also brings new challenges and opportunities. In this paper, we suggest approaching trust research in a circular way by drawing from human trust findings, validating them and conceptualizing them for robots, and finally using the precise manipulability of robots to explore previously less-explored areas of trust formation to generate new hypotheses for trust building between agents.Comment: In SCRITA 2023 Workshop Proceedings (arXiv:2311.05401) held in conjunction with 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication, 28/08 - 31/08 2023, Busan (Korea

Unidirectional Invisibility and PT-Symmetry with Graphene

We investigate the reflectionlessness and invisibility properties in the transverse electric (TE) mode solution of a linear homogeneous optical system which comprises the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric structures covered by graphene sheets. We derive analytic expressions, indicate roles of each parameter governing optical system with graphene and justify that optimal conditions of these parameters give rise to broadband and wide angle invisibility. Presence of graphene turns out to shift the invisible wavelength range and to reduce the required gain amount considerably, based on its chemical potential and temperature. We substantiate that our results yield broadband reflectionless and invisible configurations for realistic materials of small refractive indices, usually around $\eta = 1$, and of small thickness sizes with graphene sheets of rather small temperatures and chemical potentials. Finally, we demonstrate that pure $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric graphene yields invisibility at small temperatures and chemical potentials.Comment: 20 pages, 1 table 17 figure

A Web-based interactive Student Advising system using Java frameworks

The use of open source frameworks and tools has become popular in Java development. These frameworks and tools have core strengths and weaknesses and are selected accordingly for development. Consequently, one of the key issues that developers face is to integrate and configure these tools together. This paper demonstrates the use of popular Java frameworks and tools to develop a Web-based interactive Student Registration and Advising system

Correctors for some nonlinear monotone operators

In this paper we study homogenization of quasi-linear partial differential equations of the form -\mbox{div}\left( a\left( x,x/\varepsilon _h,Du_h\right) \right) =f_h on $\Omega$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Here the sequence $\left( \varepsilon _h\right)$ tends to $0$ as $h\rightarrow \infty$ and the map $a\left( x,y,\xi \right)$ is periodic in $y,$ monotone in $\xi$ and satisfies suitable continuity conditions. We prove that $u_h\rightarrow u$ weakly in $W_0^{1,p}\left( \Omega \right)$ as $h\rightarrow \infty ,$ where $u$ is the solution of a homogenized problem of the form -\mbox{div}\left( b\left( x,Du\right) \right) =f on $\Omega .$ We also derive an explicit expression for the homogenized operator $b$ and prove some corrector results, i.e. we find $\left( P_h\right)$ such that $Du_h-P_h\left( Du\right) \rightarrow 0$ in $L^p\left( \Omega, \mathbf{R}^n\right)$