The Earth-Coupled or Geothermal Heat Pump Air Conditioning System

As utility costs have risen despite political campaign promises and energy conserving measures implemented by the utility companies such as alternative fuel use (coal and nuclear), co-generation, etc., homeowners have begun to search for effective methods of reducing their electricity bills. In some cases homeowners are faced with utility bills That are approaching the cost of their mortgage payments. For those with fixed incomes, such as the elderly or those looking forward to retirement in the near future, this has become an alarming reality. Virtually every homeowner would like to reduce his utility bill but the question is, what items should he address in order to have a significant impact on his electricity costs? According to Houston Lighting h Power Company, 50% of an electricity bill can be attributed to the air conditioning system, and another 15-20% to the hot water heating system. Therefore, to dramatically reduce utility costs one should look first at these two "energy gulpers" and next at proper home insulation, window coverings, etc. The other electrical appliances in the home use relatively minor amounts of electricity compared to the air conditioning and hot water heating system. This paper will describe the geothermal heat pump and the desuperheater as the latest developments in energy efficient air conditioning and water heating

The Earth-Coupled or Geothermal Heat Pump Air Conditioning System

As utility costs have risen despite political campaign promises and energy conserving measures implemented by the utility companies such as alternative fuel use (coal and nuclear), co-generation, etc., homeowners have begun to search for effective methods of reducing their electricity bills. In some cases homeowners are faced with utility bills That are approaching the cost of their mortgage payments. For those with fixed incomes, such as the elderly or those looking forward to retirement in the near future, this has become an alarming reality. Virtually every homeowner would like to reduce his utility bill but the question is, what items should he address in order to have a significant impact on his electricity costs? According to Houston Lighting h Power Company, 50% of an electricity bill can be attributed to the air conditioning system, and another 15-20% to the hot water heating system. Therefore, to dramatically reduce utility costs one should look first at these two "energy gulpers" and next at proper home insulation, window coverings, etc. The other electrical appliances in the home use relatively minor amounts of electricity compared to the air conditioning and hot water heating system. This paper will describe the geothermal heat pump and the desuperheater as the latest developments in energy efficient air conditioning and water heating

The structure-sensitivity of memory access: evidence from Mandarin Chinese

The present study examined the processing of the Mandarin Chinese long-distance reflexive ziji to evaluate the role that syntactic structure plays in the memory retrieval operations that support sentence comprehension. Using the multiple-response speed-accuracy tradeoff (MR-SAT) paradigm, we measured the speed with which comprehenders retrieve an antecedent for ziji. Our experimental materials contrasted sentences where ziji's antecedent was in the local clause with sentences where ziji's antecedent was in a distant clause. Time course results from MR-SAT suggest that ziji dependencies with syntactically distant antecedents are slower to process than syntactically local dependencies. To aid in interpreting the SAT data, we present a formal model of the antecedent retrieval process, and derive quantitative predictions about the time course of antecedent retrieval. The modeling results support the Local Search hypothesis: during syntactic retrieval, comprehenders initially limit memory search to the local syntactic domain. We argue that Local Search hypothesis has important implications for theories of locality effects in sentence comprehension. In particular, our results suggest that not all locality effects may be reduced to the effects of temporal decay and retrieval interference

Логистическая координация транспортировки нефтепродуктов

Данная работа посвящена разработке направления оптимизации логистических процессов на предприятии АО "Томскнефть" ВНК на основе теоретического и практического опыта. В результате поведенного исследования были рассмотрены теоретические основы организации логистических процессов, проанализирована логистическая деятельность предприятия АО "Томскнефть" ВНК и разработаны направления совершенствования логистического процесса материального обеспечения АО "Томскнефть" ВНК.This work is devoted to the development of logistics optimization processes at the enterprise JSC Tomskneft VNK on the basis of theoretical and practical experience. As a result of the conducted research, the theoretical foundations of the organization of logistics processes were considered, the logistics activities of the enterprise JSC were analyzed Tomskneft VNK and developed areas for improving the logistics process material security JSC Tomskneft VNK

In vivo gene editing in dystrophic mouse muscle and muscle stem cells

Frame-disrupting mutations in the DMD gene, encoding dystrophin, compromise myofiber integrity and drive muscle deterioration in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Removing one or more exons from the mutated transcript can produce an in-frame mRNA and a truncated, but still functional, protein. In this study, we developed and tested a direct gene-editing approach to induce exon deletion and recover dystrophin expression in the mdx mouse model of DMD. Delivery by adeno-associated virus (AAV) of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 endonucleases coupled with paired guide RNAs flanking the mutated Dmd exon23 resulted in excision of intervening DNA and restored the Dmd reading frame in myofibers, cardiomyocytes, and muscle stem cells after local or systemic delivery. AAV-Dmd CRISPR treatment partially recovered muscle functional deficiencies and generated a pool of endogenously corrected myogenic precursors in mdx mouse muscle.National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U.S.) (Grant T2GM007753)National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant 5DP1-MH100706)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 5R01DK097768-03

Negative correlation of single-cell PAX3:FOXO1 expression with tumorigenicity in rhabdomyosarcoma

Rhabdomyosarcomas (RMS) are phenotypically and functionally heterogeneous. Both primary human RMS cultures and low-passage Myf6Cre,Pax3:Foxo1,p53 mouse RMS cell lines, which express the fusion oncoprotein Pax3:Foxo1 and lack the tumor suppressor Tp53 (Myf6Cre,Pax3:Foxo1,p53), exhibit marked heterogeneity in PAX3:FOXO1 (P3F) expression at the single cell level. In mouse RMS cells, P3F expression is directed by the Pax3 promoter and coupled to eYFP. YFP(low)/P3F(low) mouse RMS cells included 87% G0/G1 cells and reorganized their actin cytoskeleton to produce a cellular phenotype characterized by more efficient adhesion and migration. This translated into higher tumor-propagating cell frequencies of YFP(low)/P3F(low) compared with YFP(high)/P3F(high) cells. Both YFP(low)/P3F(low) and YFP(high)/P3F(high) cells gave rise to mixed clones in vitro, consistent with fluctuations in P3F expression over time. Exposure to the anti-tropomyosin compound TR100 disrupted the cytoskeleton and reversed enhanced migration and adhesion of YFP(low)/P3F(low) RMS cells. Heterogeneous expression of PAX3:FOXO1 at the single cell level may provide a critical advantage during tumor progression

A validation of Amazon Mechanical Turk for the collection of acceptability judgments in linguistic theory

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT) is a Web application that provides instant access to thousands of potential participants for survey-based psychology experiments, such as the acceptability judgment task used extensively in syntactic theory. Because AMT is a Web-based system, syntacticians may worry that the move out of the experimenter-controlled environment of the laboratory and onto the user-controlled environment of AMT could adversely affect the quality of the judgment data collected. This article reports a quantitative comparison of two identical acceptability judgment experiments, each with 176 participants (352 total): one conducted in the laboratory, and one conducted on AMT. Crucial indicators of data quality—such as participant rejection rates, statistical power, and the shape of the distributions of the judgments for each sentence type—are compared between the two samples. The results suggest that aside from slightly higher participant rejection rates, AMT data are almost indistinguishable from laboratory data

Task-related oxygen uptake and symptoms during activities of daily life in CHF patients and healthy subjects

Patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) have a significantly lower peak aerobic capacity compared to healthy subjects, and, may therefore experience more inconvenience during the performance of domestic activities of daily life (ADLs). To date, the extent to which task-related oxygen uptake, heart rate, ventilation and symptoms during the performance of ADLs in CHF patients is different than in healthy subjects remains uncertain. General demographics, pulmonary function, body composition and peak aerobic capacity were assessed in 23 CHF outpatients and 20 healthy peers. In addition, the metabolic requirement of five simple self-paced domestic ADLs was assessed using a mobile oxycon. Task-related oxygen uptake (ml/min) was similar or lower in CHF patients compared to healthy subjects. In contrast, patients with CHF performing ADLs consumed oxygen at a higher proportion of their peak aerobic capacity than healthy subjects (p < 0.05). For example, getting dressed resulted in a mean task-related oxygen uptake of 49% of peak aerobic capacity, while sweeping the floor resulted in a mean task-related oxygen uptake of 52% of peak aerobic capacity, accompanied by significantly higher Borg symptom scores for dyspnea and fatigue (p < 0.05). Patients with CHF experience use a higher proportion of their peak aerobic capacity, peak ventilation and peak heart rate during the performance of simple self-paced domestic ADL than their healthy peers. These findings represent a necessary step in improving our understanding of improving what troubles patients the most—not being able to do the things that they could when they were healthy

Experimental concepts for toxicity prevention and tissue restoration after central nervous system irradiation

Several experimental strategies of radiation-induced central nervous system toxicity prevention have recently resulted in encouraging data. The present review summarizes the background for this research and the treatment results. It extends to the perspectives of tissue regeneration strategies, based for example on stem and progenitor cells. Preliminary data suggest a scenario with individually tailored strategies where patients with certain types of comorbidity, resulting in impaired regeneration reserve capacity, might be considered for toxicity prevention, while others might be "salvaged" by delayed interventions that circumvent the problem of normal tissue specificity. Given the complexity of radiation-induced changes, single target interventions might not suffice. Future interventions might vary with patient age, elapsed time from radiotherapy and toxicity type. Potential components include several drugs that interact with neurodegeneration, cell transplantation (into the CNS itself, the blood stream, or both) and creation of reparative signals and a permissive microenvironment, e.g., for cell homing. Without manipulation of the stem cell niche either by cell transfection or addition of appropriate chemokines and growth factors and by providing normal perfusion of the affected region, durable success of such cell-based approaches is hard to imagine