48 research outputs found

    A Vision of Quantitative Imaging Technology for Validation of Advanced Flight Technologies

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    Flight-testing is traditionally an expensive but critical element in the development and ultimate validation and certification of technologies destined for future operational capabilities. Measurements obtained in relevant flight environments also provide unique opportunities to observe flow phenomenon that are often beyond the capabilities of ground testing facilities and computational tools to simulate or duplicate. However, the challenges of minimizing vehicle weight and internal complexity as well as instrumentation bandwidth limitations often restrict the ability to make high-density, in-situ measurements with discrete sensors. Remote imaging offers a potential opportunity to noninvasively obtain such flight data in a complementary fashion. The NASA Hypersonic Thermodynamic Infrared Measurements Project has demonstrated such a capability to obtain calibrated thermal imagery on a hypersonic vehicle in flight. Through the application of existing and accessible technologies, the acreage surface temperature of the Shuttle lower surface was measured during reentry. Future hypersonic cruise vehicles, launcher configurations and reentry vehicles will, however, challenge current remote imaging capability. As NASA embarks on the design and deployment of a new Space Launch System architecture for access beyond earth orbit (and the commercial sector focused on low earth orbit), an opportunity exists to implement an imagery system and its supporting infrastructure that provides sufficient flexibility to incorporate changing technology to address the future needs of the flight test community. A long term vision is offered that supports the application of advanced multi-waveband sensing technology to aid in the development of future aerospace systems and critical technologies to enable highly responsive vehicle operations across the aerospace continuum, spanning launch, reusable space access and global reach. Motivations for development of an Agency level imagery-based measurement capability to support cross cutting applications that span the Agency mission directorates as well as meeting potential needs of the commercial sector and national interests of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance community are explored. A recommendation is made for an assessment study to baseline current imaging technology including the identification of future mission requirements. Development of requirements fostered by the applications suggested in this paper would be used to identify technology gaps and direct roadmapping for implementation of an affordable and sustainable next generation sensor/platform system

    Remote Infrared Imaging of the Space Shuttle During Hypersonic Flight: HYTHIRM Mission Operations and Coordination

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    The Hypersonic Thermodynamic Infrared Measurements (HYTHIRM) project has been responsible for obtaining spatially resolved, scientifically calibrated in-flight thermal imagery of the Space Shuttle Orbiter during reentry. Starting with STS-119 in March of 2009 and continuing through to the majority of final flights of the Space Shuttle, the HYTHIRM team has to date deployed during seven Shuttle missions with a mix of airborne and ground based imaging platforms. Each deployment of the HYTHIRM team has resulted in obtaining imagery suitable for processing and comparison with computational models and wind tunnel data at Mach numbers ranging from over 18 to under Mach 5. This paper will discuss the detailed mission planning and coordination with the NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Control Center that the HYTHIRM team undergoes to prepare for and execute each mission

    Patient engagement in designing, conducting, and disseminating clinical pain research : IMMPACT recommended considerations

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    The consensus recommendations are based on the views of IMMPACT meeting participants and do not necessarily represent the views of the organizations with which the authors are affiliated. The following individuals made important contributions to the IMMPACT meeting but were not able to participate in the preparation of this article: David Atkins, MD (Department of Veterans Affairs), Rebecca Baker, PhD (National Institutes of Health), Allan Basbaum, PhD (University of California San Francisco), Robyn Bent, RN, MS (Food and Drug Administration), Nathalie Bere, MPH (European Medicines Agency), Alysha Croker, PhD (Health Canada), Stephen Bruehl, PhD (Vanderbilt University), Michael Cobas Meyer, MD, MBS (Eli Lilly), Scott Evans, PhD (George Washington University), Gail Graham (University of Maryland), Jennifer Haythornthwaite, PhD (Johns Hopkins University), Sharon Hertz, MD (Hertz and Fields Consulting), Jonathan Jackson, PhD (Harvard Medical School), Mark Jensen, PhD (University of Washington), Francis Keefe, PhD (Duke University), Karim Khan, MD, PhD, MBA (Canadian Institutes of Health Research), Lynn Laidlaw (University of Aberdeen), Steven Lane (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute), Karen Morales, BS (University of Maryland), David Leventhal, MBA (Pfizer), Jeremy Taylor, OBE (National Institute for Health Research), and Lena Sun, MD (Columbia University). The manuscript has not been submitted, presented, or published elsewhere. Parts of the manuscript have been presented in a topical workshop at IASP World Congress on Pain in Toronto, in 2022.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

    Treatment- and Population-Dependent Activity Patterns of Behavioral and Expression QTLs

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    Genetic control of gene expression and higher-order phenotypes is almost invariably dependent on environment and experimental conditions. We use two families of recombinant inbred strains of mice (LXS and BXD) to study treatment- and genotype-dependent control of hippocampal gene expression and behavioral phenotypes. We analyzed responses to all combinations of two experimental perturbations, ethanol and restraint stress, in both families, allowing for comparisons across 8 combinations of treatment and population. We introduce the concept of QTL activity patterns to characterize how associations between genomic loci and traits vary across treatments. We identified several significant behavioral QTLs and many expression QTLs (eQTLs). The behavioral QTLs are highly dependent on treatment and population. We classified eQTLs into three groups: cis-eQTLs (expression variation that maps to within 5 Mb of the cognate gene), syntenic trans-eQTLs (the gene and the QTL are on the same chromosome but not within 5 Mb), and non-syntenic trans-eQTLs (the gene and the QTL are on different chromosomes). We found that most non-syntenic trans-eQTLs were treatment-specific whereas both classes of syntenic eQTLs were more conserved across treatments. We also found there was a correlation between regions along the genome enriched for eQTLs and SNPs that were conserved across the LXS and BXD families. Genes with eQTLs that co-localized with the behavioral QTLs and displayed similar QTL activity patterns were identified as potential candidate genes associated with the phenotypes, yielding identification of novel genes as well as genes that have been previously associated with responses to ethanol

    Genetic Dissection of Acute Ethanol Responsive Gene Networks in Prefrontal Cortex: Functional and Mechanistic Implications

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    Background Individual differences in initial sensitivity to ethanol are strongly related to the heritable risk of alcoholism in humans. To elucidate key molecular networks that modulate ethanol sensitivity we performed the first systems genetics analysis of ethanol-responsive gene expression in brain regions of the mesocorticolimbic reward circuit (prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, and ventral midbrain) across a highly diverse family of 27 isogenic mouse strains (BXD panel) before and after treatment with ethanol. Results Acute ethanol altered the expression of ~2,750 genes in one or more regions and 400 transcripts were jointly modulated in all three. Ethanol-responsive gene networks were extracted with a powerful graph theoretical method that efficiently summarized ethanol\u27s effects. These networks correlated with acute behavioral responses to ethanol and other drugs of abuse. As predicted, networks were heavily populated by genes controlling synaptic transmission and neuroplasticity. Several of the most densely interconnected network hubs, including Kcnma1 and Gsk3β, are known to influence behavioral or physiological responses to ethanol, validating our overall approach. Other major hub genes like Grm3, Pten and Nrg3 represent novel targets of ethanol effects. Networks were under strong genetic control by variants that we mapped to a small number of chromosomal loci. Using a novel combination of genetic, bioinformatic and network-based approaches, we identified high priority cis-regulatory candidate genes, including Scn1b,Gria1, Sncb and Nell2. Conclusions The ethanol-responsive gene networks identified here represent a previously uncharacterized intermediate phenotype between DNA variation and ethanol sensitivity in mice. Networks involved in synaptic transmission were strongly regulated by ethanol and could contribute to behavioral plasticity seen with chronic ethanol. Our novel finding that hub genes and a small number of loci exert major influence over the ethanol response of gene networks could have important implications for future studies regarding the mechanisms and treatment of alcohol use disorders

    Research objectives and general considerations for pragmatic clinical trials of pain treatments: IMMPACT statement

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    Many questions regarding the clinical management of people experiencing pain and related health policy decision-making may best be answered by pragmatic controlled trials. To generate clinically relevant and widely applicable findings, such trials aim to reproduce elements of routine clinical care or are embedded within clinical workflows. In contrast with traditional efficacy trials, pragmatic trials are intended to address a broader set of external validity questions critical for stakeholders (clinicians, healthcare leaders, policymakers, insurers, and patients) in considering the adoption and use of evidence-based treatments in daily clinical care. This article summarizes methodological considerations for pragmatic trials, mainly concerning methods of fundamental importance to the internal validity of trials. The relationship between these methods and common pragmatic trials methods and goals is considered, recognizing that the resulting trial designs are highly dependent on the specific research question under investigation. The basis of this statement was an Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (IMMPACT) systematic review of methods and a consensus meeting. The meeting was organized by the Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks (ACTTION) public-private partnership. The consensus process was informed by expert presentations, panel and consensus discussions, and a preparatory systematic review. In the context of pragmatic trials of pain treatments, we present fundamental considerations for the planning phase of pragmatic trials, including the specification of trial objectives, the selection of adequate designs, and methods to enhance internal validity while maintaining the ability to answer pragmatic research questions

    Identifying an indoor air exposure limit for formaldehyde considering both irritation and cancer hazards

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    Formaldehyde is a well-studied chemical and effects from inhalation exposures have been extensively characterized in numerous controlled studies with human volunteers, including asthmatics and other sensitive individuals, which provide a rich database on exposure concentrations that can reliably produce the symptoms of sensory irritation. Although individuals can differ in their sensitivity to odor and eye irritation, the majority of authoritative reviews of the formaldehyde literature have concluded that an air concentration of 0.3 ppm will provide protection from eye irritation for virtually everyone. A weight of evidence-based formaldehyde exposure limit of 0.1 ppm (100 ppb) is recommended as an indoor air level for all individuals for odor detection and sensory irritation. It has recently been suggested by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the National Toxicology Program (NTP), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) that formaldehyde is causally associated with nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) and leukemia. This has led US EPA to conclude that irritation is not the most sensitive toxic endpoint and that carcinogenicity should dictate how to establish exposure limits for formaldehyde. In this review, a number of lines of reasoning and substantial scientific evidence are described and discussed, which leads to a conclusion that neither point of contact nor systemic effects of any type, including NPC or leukemia, are causally associated with exposure to formaldehyde. This conclusion supports the view that the equivocal epidemiology studies that suggest otherwise are almost certainly flawed by identified or yet to be unidentified confounding variables. Thus, this assessment concludes that a formaldehyde indoor air limit of 0.1 ppm should protect even particularly susceptible individuals from both irritation effects and any potential cancer hazard

    Trans-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of prostate cancer identifies new susceptibility loci and informs genetic risk prediction.

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    Prostate cancer is a highly heritable disease with large disparities in incidence rates across ancestry populations. We conducted a multiancestry meta-analysis of prostate cancer genome-wide association studies (107,247 cases and 127,006 controls) and identified 86 new genetic risk variants independently associated with prostate cancer risk, bringing the total to 269 known risk variants. The top genetic risk score (GRS) decile was associated with odds ratios that ranged from 5.06 (95% confidence interval (CI), 4.84-5.29) for men of European ancestry to 3.74 (95% CI, 3.36-4.17) for men of African ancestry. Men of African ancestry were estimated to have a mean GRS that was 2.18-times higher (95% CI, 2.14-2.22), and men of East Asian ancestry 0.73-times lower (95% CI, 0.71-0.76), than men of European ancestry. These findings support the role of germline variation contributing to population differences in prostate cancer risk, with the GRS offering an approach for personalized risk prediction
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