Flight characteristics of the AD-1 oblique-wing research aircraft

The AD-1 is a low-speed oblique-wing research airplane. This report reviews the vehicle's basic flight characteristics, including many aerodynamic, stability, and control effects that are unique to an oblique-wing configuration. These effects include the change in sideforce with angle of attack, moment changes with angle of attack and load factor, initial stall on the trailing wing, and inertial coupling caused by a roll-pitch cross product of inertia. An assessment of the handling qualities includes pilot ratings and comments. Ratings were generally satisfactory through 30 deg of wing sweep but degraded with increased sweep. A piloted simulation study indicated that a basic rate feedback control system could be used to improve the handling qualities at higher wing sweeps

Investigating the extent to which children use mobile phone application stores

This paper reports the results of a short survey aimed at examining the extent to which children use mobile phone application stores. Aspects investigated included whether children used application stores on their own or parents’ devices, how children use application stores and whether they think app stores could be improved. The key contribution of this paper is the provision of evidence that children are prolific users of smart phone application stores, children are using both their parents phones and their own phones to access app stores and over half the children who download games do so at a rate of 1-2 per week. The paper also looks at how children choose the games they do on the app store and their view on how easy it is to find their chosen game. Over half the children who download games do so either having played the game before or on the recommendation of a friend. The findings raise issues about the design of app store interfaces / information architectures and whether or not children should be considered in the design of future app store interfaces

A Suboptimal Receiver with Turbo Block Coding for Ultra-Wideband Communications

In this paper, the performance of adaptive equalization and turbo product coding is investigated for pulse-based UWB communications in short-range indoor environments. The sensitivity of adaptive LMS linear and nonlinear (decision-feedback) equalizers with respect to the number of training symbols and number of taps is considered. To reduce the error performance variation with respect to changing channel conditions, a turbo product code (TPC) with two component (31,26,3) Hamming codes is proposed. We report simulation results showing that channel coding not only improves error performance, but also reduces significantly the sensitivity of UWB systems in short-range indoor wireless communications

Complement activation and protein adsorption by carbon nanotubes

As a first step to validate the use of carbon nanotubes as novel vaccine or drug delivery devices, their interaction with a part of the human immune system, complement, has been explored. Haemolytic assays were conducted to investigate the activation of the human serum complement system via the classical and alternative pathways. Western blot and sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) techniques were used to elucidate the mechanism of activation of complement via the classical pathway, and to analyse the interaction of complement and other plasma proteins with carbon nanotubes. We report for the first time that carbon nanotubes activate human complement via both classical and alternative pathways. We conclude that complement activation by nanotubes is consistent with reported adjuvant effects, and might also in various circumstances promote damaging effects of excessive complement activation, such as inflammation and granuloma formation. C1q binds directly to carbon nanotubes. Protein binding to carbon nanotubes is highly selective, since out of the many different proteins in plasma, very few bind to the carbon nanotubes. Fibrinogen and apolipoproteins (AI, AIV and CIII) were the proteins that bound to carbon nanotubes in greatest quantit

Adolescent Health Services: Missing Opportunities

Examines the status of adolescents' health and health services, including critical needs, promising models, and components for improving disease prevention and health promotion. Recommends better primary care, coordinated policy, and expanded coverage

Human interleukin-1 receptor antagonist is expressed in liver

AbstractUsing PCR and Northern blot analysis, an IL-1 receptor antagonist specific transcript was amplified from HepG2- and liver mRNA, cDNA clones coding for IL-1 receptor antagonist were isolated from a liver cDNA library and sequence comparison revealed complete identity with the secreted, monocytic form of IL-1 receptor antagonist

The Platelet as a Model for Chemical Genetics

AbstractChemical genetics is an emerging strategy in chemical biology that promises to bring the power of true genetics to mammalian systems and facilitate the transfer of biological discoveries to therapeutics. The platelet is an anucleate cell with several features that render it suitable for chemical genetic analysis. This review addresses the benefits and challenges of chemical genetics using platelets as a model system