Condensation Risk – Impact of Improvements to Part L and Robust Details on Part C -Interim report number 7: Final report on project fieldwork

This report sets out, in draft1, the results of the fieldwork phase of research into the impacts of the 2002 revisions to Part L of the building regulations (Approved Document L1 - DTLR, 2001), and the adoption of Robust Details (RDs - DEFRA 2001) on the extent of condensation risk in the construction of dwellings (Oreszczyn and Bell, 2003). The objective of the fieldwork was to explore the practical application of the revised Part L and its associated robust details by housing developers. This was done through a qualitative evaluation of the design and construction of 16 housing schemes designed in accordance with the revised part L and making use of robust details2. The results of the analysis are to be used to enable condensation modelling that takes into account not only the guidance of robust details but also the way in which construction details were actually designed and, perhaps more importantly, constructed. To this end the report identifies 7 areas of construction detailing (yielding some 15 separate detail models) that are to be included in the condensation modelling phase of the project

Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War

Bringing a Secret Society into the Light Historians have spent the last quarter-century reaching a substantive, though not total, consensus that the expansion of slavery and Republican opposition to slavery’s expansion represents the most proximate and authentic cause of the Civil War. Ro...

Effects of Cultural Practices on Soybean Nectar Production

Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of cultural practices such as irrigation, planting date, and maturity group on soybean nectar production. Multiple interactions between different factors influences the amount of total sugar present in soybean flowers. Pod production was increased in later planted soybean, but later planting resulted in reduction in yield. Another study was conducted to explore the effects that variety selection had on soybean nectar production. Soybean nectar production was highly variable among varieties and was influenced further depending on their growing location. Later maturing varieties produced significantly more soybean pods. This increase in pod production was not reflected in yield, as the later maturing varieties usually yielded less

Influence of the host cell factors CK2, hTERT, and PML, on the antiviral response to herpes simplex virus type I infection

Herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) is a significant human pathogen that infects a large portion of the human population. As an obligate intracellular parasite, HSV-1 requires certain cellular factors for its replication; on the other hand, the cell deploys a variety of defenses to limit the extent to which the virus can replicate. This thesis is the summation of projects that examined the impact of three host cell factors - those being CK2, hTERT, and PML - on HSV-1 replication. CK2 is a cellular kinase that, through its phosphorylation of a large number of targets, broadly functions to promote cellular growth and survival. HSV-1 encodes nine proteins that are either potential or bona fide substrates of CK2, the virus packages the kinase into progeny virions, and CK2 activity is stimulated during infection, suggesting that this kinase is important for viral replication. Two viral substrates (i.e., ICP0 and ICP27) act to counter the interferon response while a number of cellular targets function against HSV-1. I show as part of this thesis that, while the activity of CK2 is largely dispensable for viral replication, the use of CK2 pharmacological inhibitors sensitized HSV-1 to the interferon (IFN) response, an innate cellular antiviral pathway. This effect appears to function through the viral E3 ubiquitin ligase, ICP0, though it did not affect ICP0's ability to induce the loss of two of its targets. Additionally, the effect these inhibitors had on IFN sensitivity was specific to HSV-1, as there was no such result on adenovirus or vesicular stomatitis virus. hTERT is a cellular reverse transcriptase that functions in a complex termed telomerase to regenerate the ends of human chromosomes in pluripotent cells but whose lack of expression in the major factor limiting the lifespan of terminally differentiated cells. While the reintroduction of hTERT into primary cells has been reported to extend the proliferative capacity of differentiated fibroblasts, other reports have demonstrated non-telomerase activities for hTERT and changes in the transcription profile in hTERT-restored cells. To date, however, cellular antiviral pathways have not been examined in these studies. In this thesis, I demonstrate that the IFN response is largely unchanged in fibroblasts immortalized by hTERT and that, unlike transformation by oncogenes, the requirement for HSV-1 proteins involved in overcoming cellular antiviral effectors remained high. PML is the nucleating and central organizing factor of a nuclear suborganelle, ND10s, and coordinates the cellular efforts in response to a number of stress stimuli. Available evidence suggests that PML serves in intrinsic and innate cellular antiviral defenses against HSV-1. While the role of PML in a number of pathways is regulated through post-translational modifications, the effects of phosphorylation on its antiviral activity toward HSV-1 has been largely unexplored. As part of this thesis, a mapping of phosphorylation sites on PML was undertaken and sites of phosphorylation then examined for their effects on a number of PML's activities. I have identified a number of novel sites of phosphorylation and found that sites near a SUMO interaction motif influence the ability of PML to respond to HSV-1 infection

Spaceborne power systems preference analyses. Volume 2: Decision analysis

Sixteen alternative spaceborne nuclear power system concepts were ranked using multiattribute decision analysis. The purpose of the ranking was to identify promising concepts for further technology development and the issues associated with such development. Four groups were interviewed to obtain preference. The four groups were: safety, systems definition and design, technology assessment, and mission analysis. The highest ranked systems were the heat-pipe thermoelectric systems, heat-pipe Stirling, in-core thermionic, and liquid-metal thermoelectric systems. The next group contained the liquid-metal Stirling, heat-pipe Alkali Metal Thermoelectric Converter (AMTEC), heat-pipe Brayton, liquid-metal out-of-core thermionic, and heat-pipe Rankine systems. The least preferred systems were the liquid-metal AMTEC, heat-pipe thermophotovoltaic, liquid-metal Brayton and Rankine, and gas-cooled Brayton. The three nonheat-pipe technologies selected matched the top three nonheat-pipe systems ranked by this study

Spaceborne power systems preference analyses. Volume 1: Summary

Sixteen alternative spaceborne nuclear power system concepts were ranked using multiattribute decision analysis to identify promising concepts for further technology development. Four groups interviewed were: safety, systems definition and design, technology assessment, and mission analysis. The ranking results were consistent from group and for different utility function models for individuals

The Implementation of Common Core Standards and Teacher Intent to Persist

The purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of the Common Core Standards (CCS) into schools had an impact on teacher intent to persist in the classroom. Specifically, this study sought to determine if the implementation of the CCS was a factor of novice and veteran teachers’ intent to persist in schools located in south Mississippi. A review of the literature indicated that teacher shortages were not primarily due to recruitment and training, but rather, to a significant extent, were the result of teachers leaving the profession long before retirement (Ingersoll & Smith, 2004). Data were collected and analyzed from 208 participants located in three school districts in south Mississippi regarding their perspectives on the implementation of the Common Core Standards and their intent to persist in the classroom. Results indicated that there were no significant differences in teachers’ perspectives by grade levels taught or between novice and veteran teachers regarding the implementation of the CCS. However, there was a small significant correlation between the implementation of the CCS and teachers’ intent to persist in the classroom. Reponses to the survey questions suggest that teachers were happy in their current teaching positions and believe the CCS will fade away like many other government mandates have done in the past. The implications of this study suggest that the implementation of the Common Core Standards does have an impact on teachers’ intent to persist in the classroom

Testing The Adaptive Efficiency Of U.S. Stock Markets: A Genetic Programming Approach

Genetic programming is employed to develop trading rules, which are applied to test the efficient market hypothesis. Most previous tests of the efficient market hypothesis were limited to trading rules that returned simple buy-sell signals. The broader approach taken here, developed under a framework consistent with the standard portfolio model, allows use of trading rules that are defined as the proportion of an investor’s total wealth invested into the risky asset (rather than being a simple buy-sell signal). The methodology uses average utility of terminal wealth as the fitness function, as a means of adjusting returns for risk. With data on daily stock prices from 1985 to 2005, the algorithm finds trading rules for 24 individual stocks. These rules then are applied to out-of-sample data to test adaptive efficiency of these markets. Applying more stringent thresholds to choose the trading rules to be applied out-of-sample (an extension of previous research) improves out-of-sample fitness; however, the rules still do not outperform the simple buy-and-hold strategy. These findings therefore imply that the 24 stock markets studied were adaptively efficient during the period under study

Improved Limits on Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter using Full-Sky Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor Data

A sterile neutrino of ~keV mass is a well motivated dark matter candidate. Its decay generates an X-ray line that offers a unique target for X-ray telescopes. For the first time, we use the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) onboard the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope to search for sterile neutrino decay lines; our analysis covers the energy range 10-25 keV (sterile neutrino mass 20-50 keV), which is inaccessible to X-ray and gamma-ray satellites such as Chandra, Suzaku, XMM-Newton, and INTEGRAL. The extremely wide field of view of the GBM enables a large fraction of the Milky Way dark matter halo to be probed. After implementing careful data cuts, we obtain ~53 days of full sky observational data. We observe an excess of photons towards the Galactic Center, as expected from astrophysical emission. We search for sterile neutrino decay lines in the energy spectrum, and find no significant signal. From this, we obtain upper limits on the sterile neutrino mixing angle as a function of mass. In the sterile neutrino mass range 25-40 keV, we improve upon previous upper limits by approximately an order of magnitude. Better understanding of detector and astrophysical backgrounds, as well as detector response, will further improve the sensitivity of a search with the GBM.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, references added, discussion expanded, some typos fixed, matches the published versio