The interaction between clothing and air weapon pellets

Comparatively few studies have been carried out on air weapon injuries yet there are significant number of injuries and fatalities caused by these low power weapons because of their availability and the public perception that because they need no licence they are assumed to be safe. In this study ballistic gel was tested by Bloom and rupture tests to check on consistency of production. Two series of tests were carried out firing into unclothed gel blocks and blocks loosely covered by different items of clothing to simulate attire (tee shirt, jeans, fleece, and jacket).The damage to the clothing caused by different shaped pellets when fired at different ranges was examined. The apparent hole size was affected by the shape of pellet (round, pointed, flat and hollow point) and whether damage was predominantly caused by pushing yarn to one side or by laceration of the yarn through cutting or tearing.The study also compared penetration into clothed gel and unclothed gel under identical conditions, and loose clothing greatly reduced penetration. With loose clothing at 9.1 m range clothing reduced penetration to 50–70% of the penetration of unclothed gel but at 18.3 m range only 7 out of 36 shots penetrated the gel. This cannot be accounted for by the energy loss at the longer range (3–7% reduction from 9.1 m to 18.3 m range in unclothed gels) and it is suggested that impulse may have a role to play.Shots that did not penetrate the gel were used to estimate the possible stopping time for the pellet (around 75 μs) and force (1700 N) or stress (100 MPa) required to bring the pellet to a halt.Even with these low energy projectiles, cloth fibres were entrained in the gel showing the potential for penetration of the body and subsequent infection

Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis (ESCA) study of atmospheric particles

The results of analyses by ESCA (Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis) on several Nuclepore filters which were exposed during air pollution studies are presented along with correlative measurements by Neutron Activation Analysis and Scanning Electron Microscopy. Samples were exposed during air pollution studies at Norfolk, Virginia and the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC). It was demonstrated that with the ESCA technique it was possible to identify the chemical (bonding) state of elements contained in the atmospheric particulate matter collected on Nuclepore filters. Sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, chlorine, alkali, and alkaline earth metal species were identified in the Norfolk samples. ESCA binding energy data for aluminum indicated that three chemically different types of aluminum are present in the launch and background samples from NASA-KSC

VAPB/ALS8 interacts with FFAT-like proteins including the p97 cofactor FAF1 and the ASNA1 ATPase

BACKGROUND: FAF1 is a ubiquitin-binding adaptor for the p97 ATPase and belongs to the UBA-UBX family of p97 cofactors. p97 converts the energy derived from ATP hydrolysis into conformational changes of the p97 hexamer, which allows the dissociation of its targets from cellular structures or from larger protein complexes to facilitate their ubiquitin-dependent degradation. VAPB and the related protein VAPA form homo- and heterodimers that are anchored in the endoplasmic reticulum membrane and can interact with protein partners carrying a FFAT motif. Mutations in either VAPB or p97 can cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disorder that affects upper and lower motor neurons. RESULTS: We show that FAF1 contains a non-canonical FFAT motif that allows it to interact directly with the MSP domain of VAPB and, thereby, to mediate VAPB interaction with p97. This finding establishes a link between two proteins that can cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis when mutated, VAPB/ALS8 and p97/ALS14. Subsequently, we identified a similar FFAT-like motif in the ASNA1 subunit of the transmembrane-domain recognition complex (TRC), which in turn mediates ASNA1 interaction with the MSP domain of VAPB. Proteasome inhibition leads to the accumulation of ubiquitinated species in VAPB immunoprecipitates and this correlates with an increase in FAF1 and p97 binding. We found that VAPB interaction with ubiquitinated proteins is strongly reduced in cells treated with FAF1 siRNA. Our efforts to determine the identity of the ubiquitinated targets common to VAPB and FAF1 led to the identification of RPN2, a subunit of an oligosaccharyl-transferase located at the endoplasmic reticulum, which may be regulated by ubiquitin-mediated degradation. CONCLUSIONS: The FFAT-like motifs we identified in FAF1 and ASNA1 demonstrate that sequences containing a single phenylalanine residue with the consensus (D/E)(D/E)FEDAx(D/E) are also proficient to mediate interaction with VAPB. Our findings indicate that the repertoire of VAPB interactors is more diverse than previously anticipated and link VAPB to the function of ATPase complexes such as p97/FAF1 and ASNA1/TRC

Infinite Infrared Regularization and a State Space for the Heisenberg Algebra

We present a method for the construction of a Krein space completion for spaces of test functions, equipped with an indefinite inner product induced by a kernel which is more singular than a distribution of finite order. This generalizes a regularization method for infrared singularities in quantum field theory, introduced by G. Morchio and F. Strocchi, to the case of singularites of infinite order. We give conditions for the possibility of this procedure in terms of local differential operators and the Gelfand- Shilov test function spaces, as well as an abstract sufficient condition. As a model case we construct a maximally positive definite state space for the Heisenberg algebra in the presence of an infinite infrared singularity.Comment: 18 pages, typos corrected, journal-ref added, reference adde

The role of infrared divergence for decoherence

Continuous and discrete superselection rules induced by the interaction with the environment are investigated for a class of exactly soluble Hamiltonian models. The environment is given by a Boson field. Stable superselection sectors emerge if and only if the low frequences dominate and the ground state of the Boson field disappears due to infrared divergence. The models allow uniform estimates of all transition matrix elements between different superselection sectors.Comment: 11 pages, extended and simplified proo

Mathematical structure of the temporal gauge

The mathematical structure of the temporal gauge of QED is critically examined in both the alternative formulations characterized by either positivity or regularity of the Weyl algebra. The conflict between time translation invariance and Gauss law constraint is shown to lead to peculiar features. In the positive case only the correlations of exponentials of fields exist (non regularity), the space translations are not strongly continuous, so that their generators do not exist, a theta vacuum degeneracy occurs, associated to a spontaneous symmetry breaking. In the indefinite case the spectral condition only holds in terms of positivity of the energy, gauge invariant theta-vacua exist on the observables, with no extension to time translation invariant states on the field algebra, the vacuum is faithful on the longitudinal algebra and a KMS structure emerges. Functional integral representations are derived in both cases, with the alternative between ergodic measures on real random fields or complex Gaussian random fields.Comment: Late

Interacting Vector-Spinor and Nilpotent Supersymmetry

We formulate an interacting theory of a vector-spinor field that gauges anticommuting spinor charges \{Q_\alpha{}^I, Q_\beta{}^J \} = 0 in arbitrary space-time dimensions. The field content of the system is (\psi_\mu{}^{\alpha I}, \chi^{\alpha I J}, A_\mu{}^I), where \psi_\mu{}^{\alpha I} is a vector-spinor in the adjoint representation of an arbitrary gauge group, and A_\mu{}^I is its gauge field, while \chi^{\alpha I J} is an extra spinor with antisymmetric adjoint indices I J. Amazingly, the consistency of the vector-spinor field equation is maintained, despite its non-trivial interactions.Comment: 10 pages, no figure

Relativistic Coulomb problem for particles with arbitrary half-integer spin

Using relativistic tensor-bispinorial equations proposed in hep-th/0412213 we solve the Kepler problem for a charged particle with arbitrary half-integer spin interacting with the Coulomb potential.Comment: Misprints are correcte

Non-Commutative Geometry and Measurements of Polarized Two Photon Coincidence Counts

Employing Maxwell's equations as the field theory of the photon, quantum mechanical operators for spin, chirality, helicity, velocity, momentum, energy and position are derived. The photon ``Zitterbewegung'' along helical paths is explored. The resulting non-commutative geometry of photon position and the quantum version of the Pythagorean theorem is discussed. The distance between two photons in a polarized beam of given helicity is shown to have a discrete spectrum. Such a spectrum should become manifest in measurements of two photon coincidence counts. The proposed experiment is briefly described.Comment: Latex, 13 pages, 3 figure

Conformally invariant wave-equations and massless fields in de Sitter spacetime

Conformally invariant wave equations in de Sitter space, for scalar and vector fields, are introduced in the present paper. Solutions of their wave equations and the related two-point functions, in the ambient space notation, have been calculated. The ``Hilbert'' space structure and the field operator, in terms of coordinate independent de Sitter plane waves, have been defined. The construction of the paper is based on the analyticity in the complexified pseudo-Riemanian manifold, presented first by Bros et al.. Minkowskian limits of these functions are analyzed. The relation between the ambient space notation and the intrinsic coordinates is then studied in the final stage.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, some details adde