30,631 research outputs found
Design considerations and test facilities for accelerated radiation effects testing
Test design parameters for accelerated dose rate radiation effects tests for spacecraft parts and subsystems used in long term mission (years) are detailed. A facility for use in long term accelerated and unaccelerated testing is described
Sympatric speciation: compliance with phenotype diversification from a single genotype
A novel mechanism for sympatric speciation that takes into account complex
bio-processes within each individual organism is proposed. According to
dynamical systems theory, organisms with identical genotypes can possess
differentiated physiological states and may coexist `symbiotically' through
appropriate mutual interaction. With mutations, the phenotypically
differentiated organisms gradually come to possess distinct genotypes, while
maintaining their symbiotic relationship. This symbiotic speciation is robust
against sexual recombination, because offspring of mixed parentage, with
intermediate genotypes, are less fit than their parents. This leads to
sterility of the hybrid. Accordingly, a basis for mating preference also
arises.Comment: 14 pages + 3 figures(1 Color), gziped Postscript file, Proc. Roy.
Soc. B (in press
Apparatus for establishing flow of a fluid mass having a known velocity
An apparatus for establishing a flow of fluid mass, such as gas, having a known velocity is introduced. The apparatus is characterized by an hermetically sealed chamber conforming to a closed-loop configuration and including a throat and a plurality of axially displaceable pistons for sweeping through the throat a stream of gas including a core and an unsheared boundary layer. Within the throat there is a cylindrical coring body concentrically related to the throat for receiving the core, and a chamber surrounding the cylindrical body for drawing off the boundary layer, whereby the velocity of the core is liberated from the effects of the velocity of the boundary layer
Ultrasound-guided trans-rectal high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for advanced cervical cancer ablation is feasible: a case report.
High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is an ablative treatment undergoing assessment for the treatment of benign and malignant disease. We describe the first reported intracavitary HIFU ablation for recurrent, unresectable and symptomatic cervical cancer.A 38 year old woman receiving palliative chemotherapy for metastatic cervical adenocarcinoma was offered ablative treatment from an intracavitary trans-rectal HIFU device (Sonablate® 500). Pre-treatment symptoms included vaginal bleeding and discharge that were sufficient to impede her quality of life. No peri-procedural adverse events occurred. Symptoms resolved completely immediately post-procedure, reappeared at 7 days, increasing to pre-procedural levels by day 30.This first time experience of intracavitary cervical HIFU suggests that it is feasible for palliation of advanced cervical cancer, with no early evidence of unexpected toxicity. Ethical approval had also been granted for the use of per-vaginal access if appropriate. This route, alone or in combination with the rectal route, may provide increased accessibility in future patients with a redesigned device more suited to trans-vaginal ablations.Intracavitary HIFU is a potentially safe procedure for the treatment of cervical cancer and able to provide symptomatic improvement in the palliative setting
The length of time's arrow
An unresolved problem in physics is how the thermodynamic arrow of time
arises from an underlying time reversible dynamics. We contribute to this issue
by developing a measure of time-symmetry breaking, and by using the work
fluctuation relations, we determine the time asymmetry of recent single
molecule RNA unfolding experiments. We define time asymmetry as the
Jensen-Shannon divergence between trajectory probability distributions of an
experiment and its time-reversed conjugate. Among other interesting properties,
the length of time's arrow bounds the average dissipation and determines the
difficulty of accurately estimating free energy differences in nonequilibrium
experiments
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