Aluminum runway surface as possible aid to aircraft braking

Several concepts are described for use singly or in combination to improve aircraft braking. All involve a thin layer of aluminum covering all or part of the runway. Advantage would derive from faster heat conduction from the tire-runway interface. Heating of tread surface with consequent softening and loss of friction coefficient should be reduced. Equations are developed indicating that at least 99 percent of friction heat should flow into the aluminum. Preliminary test results indicate a coefficient of sliding friction of 1.4, with predictably slight heating of tread. Elimination of conventional brakes is at least a remote possibility

Preliminary Investigation of Several Root Designs for Cermet Turbine Blades in Turbojet Engine III : Curved-root Design

Stresses om tje root fastenings of turbine blades were appreciably reduced by redesign of the root. The redesign consisted in curving the root to approximately conform to the camber of the airfoil and elimination of the blade platform. Full-scale jet-engine tests at rated speed using cermet blades of the design confirmed the improvement

Comparative chromosome band mapping in primates byin situ suppression hybridization of band specific DNA microlibraries

A DNA-library established from microdissected bands 8q23 to 8q24.1 of normal human chromosomes 8 (Lüdecke et al., 1989) was used as a probe for chromosomal in situ suppression (CISS-) hybridization to metaphase chromosomes of man and primates including Hylobates lar and Macaca fuscata. Comparative band mapping as first applied in this study shows the specific visualization of a single subchromosomal region in all three species and thus demonstrates that synteny of the bulk sequences of a specific human chromosome subregion has been conserved for more than 20 million years

Molecular Cytogenetic Analysis of Spitz Nevi Shows Clear Differences to Melanoma

Spitz nevus is a benign neoplasm of melanocytes that can be difficult or impossible to distinguish from melanoma by clinical and histopathologic examination. We studied genomic DNA from 17 Spitz nevi by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH). Thirteen lesions showed no chromosomal aberrations, three cases had a gain involving the entire p-arm of chromosome 11, and one case showed a gain of chromosome 7q21-qter. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) on lesional tissue with a probe for the p-arm of chromosome 11 showed 6–10 p-arm signals per nucleus in those cases with a CGH-detected gain of chromosome 11p. One case with a normal CGH profile also showed increased copy number of 11p by FISH. Thus, the majority of Spitz nevi have a normal chromosomal complement at the level of CGH resolution; however some may contain gains, with 11p apparently being the most frequently involved location. These findings differ significantly from the previously reported changes in primary cutaneous melanoma, which show frequent deletions of chromosomes 9p (82%), 10q (63%), 6q (28%), and 8p (22%), as well as gains of chromosomes 7 (50%), 8 (34%), 6p (28%), 1q (25%) by CGH analysis. These clear differences in the location and frequencies of chromosomal aberrations in Spitz nevi and primary cutaneous melanomas could represent a basis for developing adjunctive techniques for refining accuracy in the difficult differential diagnosis of spitzoid melanocytic neoplasms

INCMap: A Journey towards ontology-based data integration

Ontology-based data integration (OBDI) allows users to federate over heterogeneous data sources using a semantic rich conceptual data model. An important challenge in ODBI is the curation of mappings between the data sources and the global ontology. In the last years, we have built IncMap, a system to semi-automatically create mappings between relational data sources and a global ontology. IncMap has since been put into practice, both for academic and in industrial applications. Based on the experience of the last years, we have extended the original version of IncMap in several dimensions to enhance the mapping quality: (1) IncMap can detect and leverage semantic-rich patterns in the relational data sources such as inheritance for the mapping creation. (2) IncMap is able to leverage reasoning rules in the ontology to overcome structural differences from the relational data sources. (3) IncMap now includes a fully automatic mode that is often necessary to bootstrap mappings for a new data source. Our experimental evaluation shows that the new version of IncMap outperforms its previous version as well as other state-of-the-art systems

Sorting of chromosomes by magnetic separation

Chromosomes were isolated from Chinese hamster x human hybrid cell lines containing four and nine human chromosomes. Human genomic DNA was biotinylated by nick translation and used to label the human chromosomes by in situ hybridization in suspension. Streptavidin was covalently coupled to the surface of magnetic beads and these were incubated with the hybridized chromosomes. The human chromosomes were bound to the magnetic beads through the strong biotin-streptavidin complex and then rapidly separated from nonlabeled Chinese hamster chromosomes by a simple permanent magnet. The hybridization was visualized by additional binding of avidin-FITC (fluorescein) to the unoccupied biotinylated human DNA bound to the human chromosomes. After magnetic separation, up to 98% of the individual chromosomes attached to magnetic beads were classified as human chromosomes by fluorescence microscopy

NACA Research Memorandums

Stresses on the root fastenings of turbine blades were appreciably reduced by redesign of the root. The redesign consisted in curving the root to approximately conform to the camber of the airfoil and elimination of the blade platform. Full-scale jet-engine tests at rated speed using cermet blades of the design confirmed the improvement

Improving Melanoma Classification by Integrating Genetic and Morphologic Features

Boris Bastian and colleagues present a refined morphological classification of primary melanomas that can be used to improve existing melanoma classifications by defining genetically homogeneous subgroups