Photoelectric polarimetry of the tail of comet Ikey-Seki (1975 VIII)

Post-perihelion measurements of Comet 1965 VIII made on four nights in October-November 1965 using a Fabry photometer atop 3,052 m Mt. Haleakala, Hawaii are described. Detailed results of observations at 5300A on October 29, 1965 are presented

Rr2004 Test1 and 4 Data Analysis

Test 1 data analysis for Kydex, Royal Blue Cotton, and Silicon along with test 4 data analysis for Raychem Electrical Wire is presented

Antibodies to acetylcholine receptor in parous women with myasthenia: evidence for immunization by fetal antigen

The weakness in myasthenia gravis (MG) is mediated by autoantibodies against adult muscle acetylcholine receptors (AChR) at the neuromuscular junction; most of these antibodies also bind to fetal AChR, which is present in the thymus. In rare cases, babies of mothers with MG, or even of asymptomatic mothers, develop a severe developmental condition, arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, caused by antibodies that inhibit the ion channel function of the fetal AChR while not affecting the adult AChR. Here we show that these fetal AChR inhibitory antibodies are significantly more common in females sampled after pregnancy than in those who present before pregnancy, suggesting that they may be induced by the fetus. Moreover, we were able to clone high-affinity combinatorial Fab antibodies from thymic cells of two mothers with MG who had babies with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita. These Fabs were highly specific for fetal AChR and did not bind the main immunogenic region that is common to fetal and adult AChR. The Fabs show strong biases to VH3 heavy chains and to a single Vk1 light chain in one mother. Nevertheless, they each show extensive intraclonal diversification from a highly mutated consensus sequence, consistent with antigen-driven selection in successive steps. Collectively, our results suggest that, in some cases of MG, initial immunization against fetal AChR is followed by diversification and expansion of B cells in the thymus; maternal autoimmunity will result if the immune response spreads to the main immunogenic region and other epitopes common to fetal and adult AChR

United States Air Force Wipe Solvent Testing

The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB), as part of the Air Force Material Command, requested that NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) conduct testing and analyses in support of the United States Air Force Wipe Solvent Development Project. The purpose of the wipe solvent project is to develop an alternative to be used by Air Force flight line and maintenance personnel for the wipe cleaning of oxygen equipment. This report provides material compatibility, liquid oxygen (LOX) mechanical impact, autogenous ignition temperature (AIT), and gauge cleaning test data for some of the currently available solvents that may be used to replace CFC-113 and methyl chloroform. It provides data from previous WSTF test programs sponsored by the Naval Sea Systems Command, the Kennedy Space Center, and other NASA programs for the purpose of assisting WP AFB in identifying the best alternative solvents for validation testing

Global surrogacy practices

This report summarises discussions of participants in Thematic Area 5 (Global Surrogacy Practices) of the International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Global Surrogacy held in August 2014. The Forum brought together advocates of women’s health, children’s rights and human rights; scholars from a range of disciplines; social workers; and legal and policy analysts with expertise in third-party reproduction and/or adoption. To the best of our knowledge, this was the first major convening of scholars, advocates and policy experts to jointly consider these topics and to highlight practices that should be either encouraged or avoided. Participants affirmed the importance of resolving the legal and citizenship status of children resulting from international surrogacy arrangements. In addition, they highlighted the need for greater policy and public attention to a wide range of effects on all the parties involved, particularly women working as surrogates and the children they gestate and bear. In addition to these status issues, concerns deemed particularly troubling included practices posing unnecessary medical risks to surrogate mothers and children; restrictions on personal autonomy of surrogates; the need to maintain records so that participants in surrogacy arrangements retain the option of future contact; the absence of basic screening of commissioning parents to reduce risks of abandonment or abuse of children born via surrogacy; and the absence of regulation or oversight of intermediaries in these commercial arrangements. Participants stressed the importance of these concerns being taken into account in any future Hague Conference convention on intercountry surrogacy

A Preliminary Study on the Toxic Combustion Products Testing of Polymers Used in High-Pressure Oxygen Systems

One likely cause of polymer ignition in a high-pressure oxygen system is adiabatic-compression heating of polymers caused by pneumatic impact. Oxidative _ pyrolysis or combustion of polymers in a high-pressure oxygen system could generate toxic gases. This paper reports the preliminary results of toxic combustion product testing of selected polymers in a pneumatic-impact test system. Five polymers commonly used in high-pressure oxygen systems, Nylon 6/6, polychlorotrifluoroethylene (CTFE), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluoroelastomer (Viton(TradeMark) A), and nitrile rubber (Buna N), were tested in a pneumatic-impact test system at 2500- or 3500-psia oxygen pressure. The polymers were ignited and burned, then combustion products were collected in a stainless-steel sample bottle and analyzed by GC/MS/IRD, GC/FID, and GC/Methanizer/FID. The results of adiabatic-compression tests show that combustion of hydrocarbon polymers, nitrogen-containing polymers, and halogenated polymers in high-pressure oxygen systems are relatively complete. Toxicity of the combustion product gas is presumably much lower than the combustion product gas generated from ambient-pressure oxygen (or air) environments. The NASA-Lewis equilibrium code was used to determine the composition of combustion product gas generated from a simulated, adiabatic-compression test of nine polymers. The results are presented and discussed

An Approach to Evaluate Precision and Inter-Laboratory Variability of Flammability Test Methods for Aerospace Materials

Materials selection for spacecraft is based on conventional flammability or ignition sensitivity acceptance tests. Current procedures for determining the inter-laboratory repeatability and reproducibility of aerospace materials flammability tests are not considering the dependence of data variability on test conditions and consequently attempts to characterize the precision of these methods were not successful. The inter-laboratory data variability is determined with tests conducted under arbitrary conditions, which consequently may not provide sufficient information to enable adequate determination of a method's precision. For evaluating the precision of NASA's flammability test methods, the protocol recommended includes selecting critical parameters and determining the 50% failure point by considering the specific failure criteria of each method using the critical parameter as a variable. Upon performing inter-laboratory round robin testing using this approach, the laboratories' performance could be evaluated by comparing the repeatability of the 50% failure point and/or the repeatability of critical conditions where the probabilities of passing and failing are unity, i.e., the transition zone repeatability. When a sufficient amount of data has been acquired with this method, an adequate estimation of precision of aerospace materials flammability test methods will be possible

The Impact of Working on Campus on the Academic Persistence of Freshmen

This longitudinal study of 3,578 matriculating freshmen at a midsized public doctoral university in the Midwest found that students working on campus academically persisted at higher rates from fall to spring of their first year, and year to year thereafter. Also, students who worked on campus during their first semester in college graduated within six years at higher rates than those who did not

An Advanced, Three-Dimensional Plotting Library for Astronomy

We present a new, three-dimensional (3D) plotting library with advanced features, and support for standard and enhanced display devices. The library - S2PLOT - is written in C and can be used by C, C++ and FORTRAN programs on GNU/Linux and Apple/OSX systems. S2PLOT draws objects in a 3D (x,y,z) Cartesian space and the user interactively controls how this space is rendered at run time. With a PGPLOT inspired interface, S2PLOT provides astronomers with elegant techniques for displaying and exploring 3D data sets directly from their program code, and the potential to use stereoscopic and dome display devices. The S2PLOT architecture supports dynamic geometry and can be used to plot time-evolving data sets, such as might be produced by simulation codes. In this paper, we introduce S2PLOT to the astronomical community, describe its potential applications, and present some example uses of the library.Comment: 12 pages, 10 eps figures (higher resolution versions available from http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/s2plot/paperfigures). The S2PLOT library is available for download from http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/s2plo

Enantioselective Organocatalytic α-Fluorination of Aldehydes

The first direct enantioselective catalytic α-fluorination of aldehydes has been accomplished. The use of enamine catalysis has provided a new organocatalytic strategy for the enantioselective fluorination of aldehydes to generate α-fluoro aldehydes, an important chiral synthon for medicinal agent synthesis. The use of imidazolidinone 1 as the asymmetric catalyst has been found to mediate the fluorination of a large variety of aldehyde substrates with N-fluorobenzenesulfonimide serving as the electrophilic source of fluorine. A diverse spectrum of aldehyde substrates can also be accommodated in this new organocatalytic transformation. While catalyst quantities of 20 mol % were generally employed in this study, successful halogenation can be accomplished using catalyst loadings as low as 2.5 mol %