Microgravity research at the University of Mexico: Experiments in payload G-006

The experiments contained in the G-006 payload related to thin film vapor deposition, vacuum variations in a chamber vented to space, solidification of a Zn-Al-Cu alloy, and multiple location temperature monitoring for thermal model validation are described in detail. A discussion of the expected results is presented, together with the methods selected to conduct the postflight analysis, and finally, a overview of the future activities in this field

First-line therapy in HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer. Is the mosaic fully completed or are we missing additional pieces?

The discovery of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and its role in the biology of breast cancer and the subsequent development of HER2-targeted therapies, have dramatically improved clinical outcomes for women with early-stage and advanced HER2-positive breast cancer (BC). HER-2 targeted therapies represent a major step forward in achieving the goal of delivering individualized targeted therapy for BC, and trastuzumab was the first anti-HER-2 strategy to be approved for treatment of HER-2 positive BC. This review discusses the treatment of metastatic HER2-positive BC and describes efficacy and safety of novel anti-HER2 target therapies in first-line metastatic settings and the future challenges include refining such treatments, reducing toxicity and simultaneously developing innovative therapies. Furthermore, combinations of trastuzumab and drugs targeting the downstream pathway are described. In the next future will be possible to use an ample armamentarium of combination therapies directed against HER2 and key signaling components integrated in the HER network. This approach will allow clinicians to tailor the management of the individual patient on the basis of tumor- specific biomarker profiles. There is an urgent need for prospective biomarker-driven trials to identify patients for whom targeting is cost-effective

Influence of occupant's behaviour on indoor environmental quality and energy consumptions

Buildings are dynamic, and the interactions of operators, occupants, and designers all influence the way in which buildings will perform. At the core of this research is the belief that technical solutions alone are not sufficient to face great challenges of saving energy while still maintaining or even improving current comfort levels. Buildings are engineered using tested components and generally reliable systems whereas people can be unreliable, variable, and perhaps even irrational. The studies in literature also reveal the gap between how designers expect occupants to use a building, and how they will actually operate it. Actually, there is often a significant discrepancy between the designed and the real total energy use in buildings. The reasons of this gap are generally poorly understood and largely have more to do with the role of human behaviour than the building design. Knowledge of user’s interactions within building is crucial to better understanding and a more valid predictions of building performance (energy use, indoor climate) and effective operation of building systems. The present work undertakes a theoretical and empirical study of the uncertainty of energy consumption assessment related to occupants’ behaviour in residential buildings. The main purpose of this research is to propose a methodology to model the user behaviour in the context of real energy use and applied it to a case study. The methodology, based on a medium/long-term monitoring, is aimed at shifting towards a probabilistic modelling the occupant behaviour related to the control of indoor environment with respect to the energy-related issues. The goal is to determine users’ behavioural patterns describing user’s interaction with the building controls. The procedure is applied first at modelling occupants’ interactions with windows (opening and closing behaviour) and then at modelling the heating set-point preferences. This research is based on the assumption that only switching from a deterministic approach in building energy simulation to a probabilistic one it will be feasible to obtain energy consumption prediction closer to reality. This probability is related to variability and unpredictability during the whole building operation. In this way, it become crucial to take into account the occupants’ presence and interactions with the building and systems. Actually, building energy simulation tools often reproduce building dynamics using numerical approximations of equations modelling only deterministic (fully predictable and repeatable) behaviours. In such a way, “occupant behaviour simulation” could refer to a computer simulation generating “fixed occupant schedules”, representing a fictional behaviour of a building occupant over the course of a single day. This is an important limitation of energy simulation tools for modelling occupant’s interactions with buildings, and highlights that the results are essentially unrealistic. The whole dissertation consists of four parts. In the first part the development of a theoretical model of the occupant behaviour is described based on a comprehensive literature review. With respect to the complexity of this issue, a specific literature survey is addressed to derive the most dominating driving forces useful for a more accurate description of occupant behaviour related to the habits of opening and closing the windows. Existing studies on the topic of window opening behaviour are highlighted and a theoretical framework to deal with occupants’ interactions with building controls, aimed at improving or maintaining the preferred indoor environmental conditions, is elaborated. The analysis of the literature highlights how a shared approach on identifying the driving forces for occupants’ window opening and closing behaviour has not yet been reached. In the second part of this dissertation, a method for defining occupant behaviour in simulation programs based on measurements is proposed. The proposed approach is based on measurements of both indoor and outdoor environmental parameters and the behavioural actions of the building occupants (window opening, TRV’s set point adjustments, occupancy sensors, etc..). From the collected data, different suitable user behavioural patterns (models) were defined by means of statistical analysis (logistic regression, Markov chain, etc..) and implemented in a building energy simulation tool. Moreover, a probabilistic distribution instead that a single value is preferred as a representation of energy consumptions. The proposed procedure was applied for modelling the human behaviour related to the window opening and closing and the change in thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs), and its implementation in the simulation tool IDA ICE so that the results obtained are probabilistic in nature. The third part of the dissertation deals with the validation of the obtained models to ensure the effectiveness of the models. In this section, the validation procedure is carried out using other data coming from an analogue dataset of dwellings where the same indoor and outdoor parameters are measured. These data will be used to validate the models of window opening behaviour. The validation is performed by comparing the probabilities of window opening and closing with the actual measured state of the windows in the dwellings. In literature, a variety of logistic models expressing the probability with which actions will be performed on windows, as a function of indoor temperature, outdoor temperature or both. Previously published models are then also compared using this validation procedure. The fourth part of the thesis represents a sightseeing of the future application of this field of research, focusing on the understanding of how technology and building design can improve energy efficiency exploiting the goal of making users more aware and hence careful on energy consumption. Overall, this dissertation highlights the importance of researching the individual’s behaviour in order to understand the differences in real building energy usage. Besides being limited to the cases of window opening and closing for most of the analyses, the methodology presented can also be applied to other types of behaviours

Prenatal Care for Undocumented Immigrants: Implications for Policy, Practice, and Ethics

Nearly 250,000 babies are born each year to undocumented immigrant parents in the U.S. These babies are U.S. citizens, but undocumented immigrants are ineligible for most public insurance, making it difficult for them to access prenatal care. This research brief describes restrictive policies related to prenatal care for undocumented immigrants and discusses how these policies affect health care providers and the care they are able to offer pregnant immigrant women

Deep Fast Vision: A Python Library for Accelerated Deep Transfer Learning Vision Prototyping

Deep learning-based vision is characterized by intricate frameworks that often necessitate a profound understanding, presenting a barrier to newcomers and limiting broad adoption. With many researchers grappling with the constraints of smaller datasets, there's a pronounced reliance on pre-trained neural networks, especially for tasks such as image classification. This reliance is further intensified in niche imaging areas where obtaining vast datasets is challenging. Despite the widespread use of transfer learning as a remedy to the small dataset dilemma, a conspicuous absence of tailored auto-ML solutions persists. Addressing these challenges is "Deep Fast Vision", a python library that streamlines the deep learning process. This tool offers a user-friendly experience, enabling results through a simple nested dictionary definition, helping to democratize deep learning for non-experts. Designed for simplicity and scalability, Deep Fast Vision appears as a bridge, connecting the complexities of existing deep learning frameworks with the needs of a diverse user base.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Evolution of magnetic fields and energetics of flares in active region 8210

To better understand eruptive events in the solar corona, we combine sequences of multi-wavelength observations and modelling of the coronal magnetic field of NOAA AR 8210, a highly flare-productive active region. From the photosphere to the corona, the observations give us information about the motion of magnetic elements (photospheric magnetograms), the location of flares (e.g., H$\alpha$, EUV or soft X-ray brightenings), and the type of events (H$\alpha$ blueshift events). Assuming that the evolution of the coronal magnetic field above an active region can be described by successive equilibria, we follow in time the magnetic changes of the 3D nonlinear force-free (nlff) fields reconstructed from a time series of photospheric vector magnetograms. We apply this method to AR 8210 observed on May 1, 1998 between 17:00 UT and 21:40 UT. We identify two types of horizontal photospheric motions that can drive an eruption: a clockwise rotation of the sunspot, and a fast motion of an emerging polarity. The reconstructed nlff coronal fields give us a scenario of the confined flares observed in AR 8210: the slow sunspot rotation enables the occurence of flare by a reconnection process close to a separatrix surface whereas the fast motion is associated with small-scale reconnections but no detectable flaring activity. We also study the injection rates of magnetic energy, Poynting flux and relative magnetic helicity through the photosphere and into the corona. The injection of magnetic energy by transverse photospheric motions is found to be correlated with the storage of energy in the corona and then the release by flaring activity. The magnetic helicity derived from the magnetic field and the vector potential of the nlff configuration is computed in the coronal volume. The magnetic helicity evolution shows that AR 8210 is dominated by the mutual helicity between the closed and potential fields and not by the self helicity of the closed field which characterizes the twist of confined flux bundles. We conclude that for AR 8210 the complex topology is a more important factor than the twist in the eruption process