Sexual decision making in the absence of choice: The African American female dating experience.

Although links between low mate availability and increased HIV and STI risk for African American women have been documented in the literature, we know little about the impact of limited mate choices on the quality of relationships between Black men and women and how these relationship dynamics impact risk for young Black women. We conducted a qualitative study with African American female young adults (N=12) to explore the perceived impact of structural forces on African American female young adults’ dating and sexual behavior. Participants reported (1) perceptions of Black men as untrustworthy and manipulative, (2) the limited and often negative roles for Black men in the larger Black community, and (3) heterosexual relationships in the Black community as increasingly influenced by economics and commerce. Recommendations for HIV prevention interventions that include micro and macro level approaches are discussed

A perspective on the impact of radiation therapy on the immune rheostat.

The advent and success of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in cancer treatment has broadened the spectrum of tumours that might be considered "immunogenic" and susceptible to immunotherapeutic (IT) intervention. Not all cancer types are sensitive, and not all patients with any given type respond. Combination treatment of ICIs with an established cytotoxic modality such as radiation therapy (RT) is a logical step towards improvement. For one, RT alone has been shown to be genuinely immunomodulatory and secondly pre-clinical data generally support combined ICI-RT approaches. This new integrated therapy for cancer treatment holds much promise, although there is still a lot to be learned about how best to schedule the treatments, manage the toxicities and determine what biomarkers might predict response, as well as many other issues. This review examines how RT alters the immune rheostat and how it might best be positioned to fully exploit IT

A novel function for the Caenorhabditis elegans torsin OOC-5 in nucleoporin localization and nuclear import.

Torsin proteins are AAA+ ATPases that localize to the endoplasmic reticular/nuclear envelope (ER/NE) lumen. A mutation that markedly impairs torsinA function causes the CNS disorder DYT1 dystonia. Abnormalities of NE membranes have been linked to torsinA loss of function and the pathogenesis of DYT1 dystonia, leading us to investigate the role of the Caenorhabditis elegans torsinA homologue OOC-5 at the NE. We report a novel role for torsin in nuclear pore biology. In ooc-5-mutant germ cell nuclei, nucleoporins (Nups) were mislocalized in large plaques beginning at meiotic entry and persisted throughout meiosis. Moreover, the KASH protein ZYG-12 was mislocalized in ooc-5 gonads. Nups were mislocalized in adult intestinal nuclei and in embryos from mutant mothers. EM analysis revealed vesicle-like structures in the perinuclear space of intestinal and germ cell nuclei, similar to defects reported in torsin-mutant flies and mice. Consistent with a functional disruption of Nups, ooc-5-mutant embryos displayed impaired nuclear import kinetics, although the nuclear pore-size exclusion barrier was maintained. Our data are the first to demonstrate a requirement for a torsin for normal Nup localization and function and suggest that these functions are likely conserved

Photon Counting Using Edge-Detection Algorithm

New applications such as high-datarate, photon-starved, free-space optical communications require photon counting at flux rates into gigaphoton-per-second regimes coupled with subnanosecond timing accuracy. Current single-photon detectors that are capable of handling such operating conditions are designed in an array format and produce output pulses that span multiple sample times. In order to discern one pulse from another and not to overcount the number of incoming photons, a detection algorithm must be applied to the sampled detector output pulses. As flux rates increase, the ability to implement such a detection algorithm becomes difficult within a digital processor that may reside within a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Systems have been developed and implemented to both characterize gigahertz bandwidth single-photon detectors, as well as process photon count signals at rates into gigaphotons per second in order to implement communications links at SCPPM (serial concatenated pulse position modulation) encoded data rates exceeding 100 megabits per second with efficiencies greater than two bits per detected photon. A hardware edge-detection algorithm and corresponding signal combining and deserialization hardware were developed to meet these requirements at sample rates up to 10 GHz. The photon discriminator deserializer hardware board accepts four inputs, which allows for the ability to take inputs from a quadphoton counting detector, to support requirements for optical tracking with a reduced number of hardware components. The four inputs are hardware leading-edge detected independently. After leading-edge detection, the resultant samples are ORed together prior to deserialization. The deserialization is performed to reduce the rate at which data is passed to a digital signal processor, perhaps residing within an FPGA. The hardware implements four separate analog inputs that are connected through RF connectors. Each analog input is fed to a high-speed 1-bit comparator, which digitizes the input referenced to an adjustable threshold value. This results in four independent serial sample streams of binary 1s and 0s, which are ORed together at rates up to 10 GHz. This single serial stream is then deserialized by a factor of 16 to create 16 signal lines at a rate of 622.5 MHz or lower for input to a high-speed digital processor assembly. The new design and corresponding hardware can be employed with a quad-photon counting detector capable of handling photon rates on the order of multi-gigaphotons per second, whereas prior art was only capable of handling a single input at 1/4 the flux rate. Additionally, the hardware edge-detection algorithm has provided the ability to process 3-10 higher photon flux rates than previously possible by removing the limitation that photoncounting detector output pulses on multiple channels being ORed not overlap. Now, only the leading edges of the pulses are required to not overlap. This new photon counting digitizer hardware architecture supports a universal front end for an optical communications receiver operating at data rates from kilobits to over one gigabit per second to meet increased mission data volume requirements

A digital twin framework for Industry 4.0 enabling next-gen manufacturing

Digital twins offer a framework to support the ever-rising demands in the fast-paced industrial evolution. This technology not only adds to the reliability of industrial processes but also offers an insight in to long-term behaviors and pattern during the aging of the industrial equipment. In this paper, a digital twin framework is presented to replicate the processes of a real production line for product assembly. The proposed work implements a digital/graphical replica of Festo Cyber Physical Factory (CPF) for Industry 4.0 (I4.0). The implemented system allows to schedule orders and specify product configuration which embodies the actions of CPF in digital world. In addition, the paper also presents a viable framework to interlink the physical system with the digital instance to offer extended services and a pathway towards realization of fully functional digital twins

Downsampling Photodetector Array with Windowing

In a photon counting detector array, each pixel in the array produces an electrical pulse when an incident photon on that pixel is detected. Detection and demodulation of an optical communication signal that modulated the intensity of the optical signal requires counting the number of photon arrivals over a given interval. As the size of photon counting photodetector arrays increases, parallel processing of all the pixels exceeds the resources available in current application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and gate array (GA) technology; the desire for a high fill factor in avalanche photodiode (APD) detector arrays also precludes this. Through the use of downsampling and windowing portions of the detector array, the processing is distributed between the ASIC and GA. This allows demodulation of the optical communication signal incident on a large photon counting detector array, as well as providing architecture amenable to algorithmic changes. The detector array readout ASIC functions as a parallel-to-serial converter, serializing the photodetector array output for subsequent processing. Additional downsampling functionality for each pixel is added to this ASIC. Due to the large number of pixels in the array, the readout time of the entire photodetector is greater than the time between photon arrivals; therefore, a downsampling pre-processing step is done in order to increase the time allowed for the readout to occur. Each pixel drives a small counter that is incremented at every detected photon arrival or, equivalently, the charge in a storage capacitor is incremented. At the end of a user-configurable counting period (calculated independently from the ASIC), the counters are sampled and cleared. This downsampled photon count information is then sent one counter word at a time to the GA. For a large array, processing even the downsampled pixel counts exceeds the capabilities of the GA. Windowing of the array, whereby several subsets of pixels are designated for processing, is used to further reduce the computational requirements. The grouping of the designated pixel frame as the photon count information is sent one word at a time to the GA, the aggregation of the pixels in a window can be achieved by selecting only the designated pixel counts from the serial stream of photon counts, thereby obviating the need to store the entire frame of pixel count in the gate array. The pixel count se quence from each window can then be processed, forming lower-rate pixel statistics for each window. By having this processing occur in the GA rather than in the ASIC, future changes to the processing algorithm can be readily implemented. The high-bandwidth requirements of a photon counting array combined with the properties of the optical modulation being detected by the array present a unique problem that has not been addressed by current CCD or CMOS sensor array solutions

Transient Mathematical Modeling for Liquid Rocket Engine Systems: Methods, Capabilities, and Experience

The subject of mathematical modeling of the transient operation of liquid rocket engines is presented in overview form from the perspective of engineers working at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The necessity of creating and utilizing accurate mathematical models as part of liquid rocket engine development process has become well established and is likely to increase in importance in the future. The issues of design considerations for transient operation, development testing, and failure scenario simulation are discussed. An overview of the derivation of the basic governing equations is presented along with a discussion of computational and numerical issues associated with the implementation of these equations in computer codes. Also, work in the field of generating usable fluid property tables is presented along with an overview of efforts to be undertaken in the future to improve the tools use for the mathematical modeling process