Predicting the oceanic input of organic carbon by continental erosion

For a large set of major world rivers we established the empirical relations existing betwin the observed organic carbon fluxes and the climatic, biologic, and geomorphologic paterns characterizing the river basins.These characteristics where extracting from various ecological databases. The corresponding carbon fluxes were taken from the literature. Dissolved organic carbon fluxes are mainly related to drainage intensity, basin slope, and the amount of carbon stored in soils. Particulate organic carbon fluxes are calculated as a function of sediment fluxes, which depend principally upon drainage intensy, rainfall intensity, and basin slope. Although the drainage intensity is mainly related to the amount of precipitation and to mean temperature in the basin, slope is also retained as one of controlling factors. Our empirical models result in a total organic carbon flux to the oceans of about 0.38 Gt per year globally. About 0.21 Gt carbon (Gt C)enter the oceans in dissolved from and about 0.17 Gt C in particulate form. we further regionalize fluxes with respect to major climates, different continents, and different ocean basins. About 45% of the organic carbon is discharged from tropical wet regions. the major part of the dissolved organic carbon is discharged into the Atlantic Ocean, while the bulk of the particulate organic carbon is discharged into the Indian and Pacific Oceans

Quantum Cryptography

Quantum cryptography could well be the first application of quantum mechanics at the individual quanta level. The very fast progress in both theory and experiments over the recent years are reviewed, with emphasis on open questions and technological issues.Comment: 55 pages, 32 figures; to appear in Reviews of Modern Physic

Albiglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (Harmony Outcomes): a double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial

Background: Glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists differ in chemical structure, duration of action, and in their effects on clinical outcomes. The cardiovascular effects of once-weekly albiglutide in type 2 diabetes are unknown. We aimed to determine the safety and efficacy of albiglutide in preventing cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke. Methods: We did a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 610 sites across 28 countries. We randomly assigned patients aged 40 years and older with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (at a 1:1 ratio) to groups that either received a subcutaneous injection of albiglutide (30–50 mg, based on glycaemic response and tolerability) or of a matched volume of placebo once a week, in addition to their standard care. Investigators used an interactive voice or web response system to obtain treatment assignment, and patients and all study investigators were masked to their treatment allocation. We hypothesised that albiglutide would be non-inferior to placebo for the primary outcome of the first occurrence of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke, which was assessed in the intention-to-treat population. If non-inferiority was confirmed by an upper limit of the 95% CI for a hazard ratio of less than 1·30, closed testing for superiority was prespecified. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02465515. Findings: Patients were screened between July 1, 2015, and Nov 24, 2016. 10 793 patients were screened and 9463 participants were enrolled and randomly assigned to groups: 4731 patients were assigned to receive albiglutide and 4732 patients to receive placebo. On Nov 8, 2017, it was determined that 611 primary endpoints and a median follow-up of at least 1·5 years had accrued, and participants returned for a final visit and discontinuation from study treatment; the last patient visit was on March 12, 2018. These 9463 patients, the intention-to-treat population, were evaluated for a median duration of 1·6 years and were assessed for the primary outcome. The primary composite outcome occurred in 338 (7%) of 4731 patients at an incidence rate of 4·6 events per 100 person-years in the albiglutide group and in 428 (9%) of 4732 patients at an incidence rate of 5·9 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·78, 95% CI 0·68–0·90), which indicated that albiglutide was superior to placebo (p<0·0001 for non-inferiority; p=0·0006 for superiority). The incidence of acute pancreatitis (ten patients in the albiglutide group and seven patients in the placebo group), pancreatic cancer (six patients in the albiglutide group and five patients in the placebo group), medullary thyroid carcinoma (zero patients in both groups), and other serious adverse events did not differ between the two groups. There were three (<1%) deaths in the placebo group that were assessed by investigators, who were masked to study drug assignment, to be treatment-related and two (<1%) deaths in the albiglutide group. Interpretation: In patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, albiglutide was superior to placebo with respect to major adverse cardiovascular events. Evidence-based glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists should therefore be considered as part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes. Funding: GlaxoSmithKline

Continuous Fibre reinforced Thermploastic Material as an Alternative in High Performance Lightweight Structures

The focus on process improvements in high performance lightweight structures is mainly located on thermoset material. Resin transfer moulding processes have been developed to decrease cost for high performance structures in competition to prepreg material. However, thermoplastic materials, such as CF/PEEK, CF/PEKK or CF/PPS, offer interesting opportunities despite the higher material cost compared to thermosets. This paper shows two examples using continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic material and the joining processes among themselves as well as to titanium in a hybrid structure design. Cost reduction is demonstrated using vacuum consolidation, special moulds and several welding techniques. The first example is a rudder from the vertical tail plane of a military aircraft. Several manufacturing steps including forming or shaping with flat plates, positioning stringers during vacuum consolidation, welding of ribs and welding of the central spar are shown. A cost statement is given analysing the overall manufacturing process. The second example shows the design study of a hybrid fan blade of an aero engine, made from titanium and CFRP part joined along an extended surface. The fan blade is a newly developed high performance blade to save weight and to increase the pressure ratio per compressor stage, so that one complete compressor stage is obsolete. A newly developed finite element model for combining titanium and CFRP is introduced and the special aspects of draping and consolidation in low cost moulds are shown. Future prospects are the integration of additional functions into the structure like lightning protection, bird impact improvement and combination of short fibre and continuous fibre material. Heated press processes during consolidating or welding are reducing cycle times. Some examples such as the man hole access cover, door frame or suspension arm in automotive application are shown with feasible process cycles

Benchmarking Object-Oriented Database Systems for CAD

Object-oriented databases integrated into a C++ software engineering environment promise an appealing platform for managing complex data and engineering tasks. In competitive markets like CAD for civil engineering and architecture stringent reliability and performance criteria must be met before entering into commercial products. We present a benchmark study specifically tailored to such CAD domains. The results reveal that the big promises of the ODBS lobby begin to become reality, though several areas can be pointed out where further improvements are clearly needed