Health and sustainable development

If sustainable development is to mean anything, people must be healthy enough to benefit from it and not have their lives cut off prematurely. Development without health is meaningless. But the processes which are likely to occur in a world undergoing globalisation, climate change, urbanisation, population increase and many other changes, will impact upon human health in complex ways. Some of them will benefit us, others will create new or augmented threats to survival and health, while many others will have a complex mixture of effects

Decoupled freshwater transport and meridional overturning in the South Atlantic

Freshwater transports (F_ov) by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are sensitive to salinity distributions and may determine AMOC stability. However, climate models show large salinity biases, distorting the relation between F_ov and the AMOC. Using free-running models and ocean reanalyses with realistic salinities but quite different AMOCs, we show that the fresh Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) layer eliminates salinity differences across the AMOC branches at ~1200 m, ∆S_1200m, which decouples F_ov from the AMOC south of ~10˚N. As AAIW disappears north of ~10˚N, a large ∆S_1200m allows the AMOC to drive substantial southward F_ov in the North Atlantic. In the South Atlantic the 0-300 m zonal salinity contrasts control the gyre freshwater transports F_gyre, which also determine the total freshwater transports. This decoupling makes the southern F_ov unlikely to play any role in AMOC stability, leaving indirect F_gyre feedbacks or F_ov in the north, as more relevant factors

South Atlantic meridional transports from NEMO-based model simulations and reanalyses

The South Atlantic meridional transports are evaluated for four state-of-the-art global Ocean Reanalyses (ORAs) and two Free-Running Models (FRMs) in the period 1997-2010. All products employ the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Oceans model, and the ORAs share very similar configurations. The ORA basin interior transports are consistently modified relative to the FRMs, especially in the Argo period, with an improved representation of the south equatorial currents. The ORAs also exhibit systematically higher meridional transports than the FRMs, in closer agreement with large-scale observational estimates at 35˚S and western boundary measurements at 11˚S. However, the transport impacts by data assimilation still greatly vary between the ORAs, leading to differences up to ~8 Sv and 0.4 PW in the South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Meridional Heat Transports (MHTs), respectively. Large inter-product discrepancies arise in the ORA western boundary currents at both upper and deep levels explaining up to ~85% of the inter-product differences in their total MHTs, and meridional velocity differences, rather than temperatures differences, drive ~83% of this spread. Further analysis shows that only very confined temperature differences right against the western boundary geostrophically explain the large boundary current velocity differences. These findings suggest that the current data assimilation schemes, even with Argo data, can consistently constrain the basin interior circulation in the ORAs, but not the overturning transport component dominated by the narrow western boundary currents as in the South Atlantic

Testing the Modern Merger Hypothesis via the Assembly of Massive Blue Elliptical Galaxies in the Local Universe

The modern merger hypothesis offers a method of forming a new elliptical galaxy through merging two equal-mass, gas-rich disk galaxies fuelling a nuclear starburst followed by efficient quenching and dynamical stabilization. A key prediction of this scenario is a central concentration of young stars during the brief phase of morphological transformation from highly-disturbed remnant to new elliptical galaxy. To test this aspect of the merger hypothesis, we use integral field spectroscopy to track the stellar Balmer absorption and 4000\AA\ break strength indices as a function of galactic radius for 12 massive (${\rm M_{*}}\ge10^{10}{\rm M_{\odot}}$), nearby (${\rm z}\le0.03$), visually-selected plausible new ellipticals with blue-cloud optical colours and varying degrees of morphological peculiarities. We find that these index values and their radial dependence correlate with specific morphological features such that the most disturbed galaxies have the smallest 4000\AA\ break strengths and the largest Balmer absorption values. Overall, two-thirds of our sample are inconsistent with the predictions of the modern merger hypothesis. Of these eight, half exhibit signatures consistent with recent minor merger interactions. The other half have star formation histories similar to local, quiescent early-type galaxies. Of the remaining four galaxies, three have the strong morphological disturbances and star-forming optical colours consistent with being remnants of recent, gas-rich major mergers, but exhibit a weak, central burst consistent with forming $\sim5\%$ of their stars. The final galaxy possesses spectroscopic signatures of a strong, centrally-concentrated starburst and quiescent core optical colours indicative of recent quenching (i.e., a post-starburst signature) as prescribed by the modern merger hypothesis.Comment: 25 pages, 37 figures, accepted to MNRA

Study of an attitude control system for the astronaut maneuvering unit final report, dec. 1963 - jul. 1964

Attitude control system for astronaut maneuvering unit

Peripheral visual response time to colored stimuli imaged on the horizontal meridian

Two male observers were administered a binocular visual response time task to small (45 min arc), flashed, photopic stimuli at four dominant wavelengths (632 nm red; 583 nm yellow; 526 nm green; 464 nm blue) imaged across the horizontal retinal meridian. The stimuli were imaged at 10 deg arc intervals from 80 deg left to 90 deg right of fixation. Testing followed either prior light adaptation or prior dark adaptation. Results indicated that mean response time (RT) varies with stimulus color. RT is faster to yellow than to blue and green and slowest to red. In general, mean RT was found to increase from fovea to periphery for all four colors, with the curve for red stimuli exhibiting the most rapid positive acceleration with increasing angular eccentricity from the fovea. The shape of the RT distribution across the retina was also found to depend upon the state of light or dark adaptation. The findings are related to previous RT research and are discussed in terms of optimizing the color and position of colored displays on instrument panels

Substrate proteolysis is inhibited by dominant-negative Nedd4 and Rsp5 mutants harboring alterations in WW domain 1

Mammalian Nedd4 and its budding yeast orthologue Rsp5 are members of a large family of HECT-domain-containing ubiquitin ligases. Besides possessing a Ca2+/lipid-binding domain, both ligases have multiple protein-interacting modules termed WW domains. The C-terminal WW domains mediate interactions with substrates, but the function of the first WW domain remains unclear. We found that expression of a WW domain 1 Nedd4 mutant inhibits the growth of budding yeast by affecting the rsp5-ole1 pathway. The WW domain 1 mutant-induced phenotype is suppressed by ole1 cDNA overexpression or oleic acid supplementation of growth media and ole1 RNA levels are reduced in cells expressing this Nedd4 mutant. Also, the WW domain 1 Nedd4 mutant associates via WW domains 2 and 3 with Spt23, a Rsp5 target and ole1 transactivator. The dominant-negative activity of this mutant is associated with promoting accumulation of unprocessed Spt23 and inhibiting generation of processed and presumably active protein. Also, Spt23 processing is inhibited by a Nedd4 mutant that lacks ubiquitin ligase activity and Spt23-binding-competent Rsp5 mutants harboring WW domain 1 or ligase domain mutations. Interestingly, in mammalian cells, wild-type Nedd4 promotes proteasome-mediated degradation of the precursor form of Spt23. WW domain 1 and ligase domain Nedd4 mutants block its degradation. These results indicate that WW domain 1 of these ligases interacts with cofactors that are required for ubiquitin/proteasome-dependent proteolysis of bound substrates.Natalia Shcherbik, Sharad Kumar and Dale S. Haine

Analysis and testing of two-dimensional vented Coanda ejectors with asymmetric variable area mixing sections

The analysis of asymmetric, curved (Coanda) ejector flow has been completed using a finite difference technique and a quasi-orthogonal streamline coordinate system. The boundary layer type jet mixing analysis accounts for the effect of streamline curvature in pressure gradients normal to the streamlines and on eddy viscosities. The analysis assured perfect gases, free of pressure discontinuities and flow separation and treated three compound flows of supersonic and subsonic streams. Flow parameters and ejector performance were measured in a vented Coanda flow geometry for the verification of the computer analysis. A primary converging nozzle with a discharge geometry of 0.003175 m x 0.2032 m was supplied with 0.283 cu m/sec of air at about 241.3 KPa absolute stagnation pressure and 82 C stagnation temperature. One mixing section geometry was used with a 0.127 m constant radius Coanda surface. Eight tests were run at spacing between the Coanda surface and primary nozzle 0.01915 m and 0.318 m and at three angles of Coanda turning: 22.5 deg, 45.0 deg, and 75.0 deg. The wall static pressures, the loci of maximum stagnation pressures, and the stagnation pressure profiles agree well between analytical and experimental results