Toward an effective strategy in glioblastoma treatment. Part II: RNA interference as a promising way to sensitize glioblastomas to temozolomide.

International audience

Flow around a hemisphere-cylinder at high angle of attack and low Reynolds number. Part II: POD and DMD applied to reduced domains

Three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNS) have been performed on a finite-size hemispherecylinder model at angle of attack AoA = 20◦ and Reynolds numbers Re = 350 and 1000. Under these conditions, massive separation exists on the nose and lee-side of the cylinder, and at both Reynolds numbers the flow is found to be unsteady. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) are employed in order to study the primary instability that triggers unsteadiness at Re = 350. The dominant coherent flow structures identified at the lower Reynolds number are also found to exist at Re = 1000; the question is then posed whether the flow oscillations and structures found at the two Reynolds numbers are related. POD and DMD computations are performed using different subdomains of the DNS computational domain. Besides reducing the computational cost of the analyses, this also permits to isolate spatially localized oscillatory structures from other, more energetic structures present in the flow. It is found that POD and DMD are in general sensitive to domain truncation and noneducated choices of the subdomain may lead to inconsistent results. Analyses at Re = 350 show that the primary instability is related to the counter rotating vortex pair conforming the three-dimensional afterbody wake, and characterized by the frequency St ≈ 0.11, in line with results in the literature. At Re = 1000, vortex-shedding is present in the wake with an associated broadband spectrum centered around the same frequency. The horn/leeward vortices at the cylinder lee-side, upstream of the cylinder base, also present finite amplitude oscillations at the higher Reynolds number. The spatial structure of these oscillations, described by the POD modes, is easily differentiated from that of the wake oscillations. Additionally, the frequency spectra associated with the lee-side vortices presents well defined peaks, corresponding to St ≈ 0.11 and its few harmonics, as opposed to the broadband spectrum found at the wake.

A computational model of hydrogen production by steam reforming of dimethyl ether in a large scale CFB reactor. Part II:parametric analysis

This study presents a computational parametric analysis of DME steam reforming in a large scale Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) reactor. The Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model used, which is based on Eulerian-Eulerian dispersed flow, has been developed and validated in Part I of this study [1]. The effect of the reactor inlet configuration, gas residence time, inlet temperature and steam to DME ratio on the overall reactor performance and products have all been investigated. The results have shown that the use of double sided solid feeding system remarkable improvement in the flow uniformity, but with limited effect on the reactions and products. The temperature has been found to play a dominant role in increasing the DME conversion and the hydrogen yield. According to the parametric analysis, it is recommended to run the CFB reactor at around 300 °C inlet temperature, 5.5 steam to DME molar ratio, 4 s gas residence time and 37,104 ml gcat -1 h-1 space velocity. At these conditions, the DME conversion and hydrogen molar concentration in the product gas were both found to be around 80%.

Alternate furrow irrigation of four fresh-market tomato cultivars under semi-arid condition of Ethiopia – Part II: Physiological response

Understanding the variation in physiological response to deficit irrigation together with better knowledge on physiological characteristics of different genotypes that contribute to drought adaptation mechanisms would be helpful in transferring different irrigation technologies to farmers. A field experiment was carried to investigate the physiological response of four tomato cultivars (Fetan, Chali, Cochoro and ARP Tomato d2) to moderate water deficit induced by alternate furrow irrigation (AFI) and deficit irrigation (DI) under semi-arid condition of Ethiopia during 2013 and 2014. The study also aimed at identifying physiological attributes to the fruit yield of tomato under different deficit irrigation techniques. A factorial combination of irrigation treatments and cultivar were arranged in a complete randomized design with three replicates. Results showed that stomatal conductance (g_s) was significantly reduced while photosynthetic performance measured as chlorophyll fluorescence (Fv’/Fm’), relative water content (RWC) and leaf ash content remained unaffected under deficit irrigations. Significant differences among cultivars were found for water use efficiency (WUE), g_s, chlorophyll content (Chl_SPAD), normal difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf ash content and fruit growth rate. However, cultivar differences in WUE were more accounted for by the regulation of g_s, therefore, g_s could be useful for breeders for screening large numbers of genotypes with higher WUE under deficit irrigation condition. The study result also demonstrated that cultivar with traits that contribute to achieve higher yields under deficit irrigation strategies has the potential to increase WUE.

British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part III: More reform than renegotiation or repatriation. EPIN [Working] Paper No. 42/December 2014. [see Abstract for I and II]

This paper, the third in a series for a CEPS project on the ‘The British Question’, is pegged on an ambitious exercise by the British government to review all the competences of the European Union on the basis of evidence submitted by independent stakeholders. The reviews considered in this paper cover the following EU policies: the single market for services, financial markets, the free movement of people, cohesion, energy, agriculture, fisheries, competition, social and employment policies, and fundamental rights. The declared objective of Prime Minister Cameron is to secure a ‘new settlement’ between the UK and the EU. From political speeches in the UK one can identify three different types of possible demand: reform of EU policies, renegotiation of the UK’s specific terms of membership, and repatriation of competences from the EU back to the member states. As most of the reviews are now complete, three points are becoming increasingly clear: i) The reform agenda – past, present or future - concerns virtually every branch of EU policy, including several cases reviewed here that are central to stated UK economic interests. The argument that the EU is ‘unreformable’ is shown to be a myth. ii) The highly sensitive cases of immigration from the EU and social policies may translate into requests for renegotiation of specific conditions for the UK, but further large-scale opt-outs, as in the case of the euro and justice and home affairs, are implausible. iii) While demands for repatriation of EU competences are voiced in general terms in public debate in the UK, no specific proposals emerge from the evidence as regards competences at the level at which they are identified in the treaties, and there is no chance of achieving consensus for such ideas among member states. Michael Emerson and Steven Blockmans, “British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part I: ‘Competences about right, so far’”, CEPS/EPIN Working Paper No. 35, October 2013 (www.ceps.eu/book/british-balance-competence-reviews-part-i-%E2%80%98competences-about-right-so-far%E2%80%99)(http://aei.pitt.edu/45599/); Michael Emerson, Steven Blockmans, Steve Peers and Michael Wriglesworth, “British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part II: Again, a huge contradiction between the evidence and Eurosceptic populism”, CEPS/EPIN Working Paper No. 40, June 2014 (www.ceps.eu/book/british-balance-competence-reviews-part-ii-again-huge-contradiction-between-evidence-and-eurosc)(http://aei.pitt.edu/52452/).

Motor vehicle safety seminar. Public policy, politics and motor vehicle safety standards. Part I and II. [Transcript of proceedings.].

Mode of access: Internet.

Part 1 MOO methods for multidisciplinary design using parallel evolutionary algorithms, game theory and hierarchical topology. (Part 1.) Theoretical aspects

Two lecture notes describe recent developments of evolutionary multi objective optimization (MO) techniques in detail and their advantages and drawbacks compared to traditional deterministic optimisers. The role of Game Strategies (GS), such as Pareto, Nash or Stackelberg games as companions or pre-conditioners of Multi objective Optimizers is presented and discussed on simple mathematical functions in Part I , as well as their implementations on simple aeronautical model optimisation problems on the computer using a friendly design framework in Part II. Real life (robust) design applications dealing with UAVs systems or Civil Aircraft and using the EAs and Game Strategies combined material of Part I & Part II are solved and discussed in Part III providing the designer new compromised solutions useful to digital aircraft design and manufacturing. Many details related to Lectures notes Part I, Part II and Part III can be found by the reader in [68].

Drag på parnassen. Två sextiotalsstudier. : Del I: Medelklass med mänskligt ansikte. Medelklassradikalism i fyra romaner av Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus och Ulla-Lena Lundberg. Del II: Modernistdebatten. Sak, person och fält i en finlandssvensk litteraturdebatt år 1965.

The objective of my dissertation Pull (or Draught, or Moves) at the Parnassus , is to provide a deeper understanding of Nordic Middle Class radicalism of the 1960 s as featured in Finland-Swedish literature. My approach is cultural materialist in a broad sense; social class is regarded a crucial aspect of the contents and contexts of the novels and literary discussions explored. In the first volume, Middle Class With A Human Face , novels by Christer Kihlman, Jarl Sjöblom, Marianne Alopaeus, and Ulla-Lena Lundberg, respectively, are read from the points of view of place, emotion, and power. The term "cryptotope" is used to designate the hidden places found to play an important role in all of these four narratives. Also, the "chronotope of the provincial small town", described by Mikhail Bakhtin in 1938, is exemplified in Kihlman s satirical novel, as is the chronotope of of war (Algeria, Vietnam) in those of Alopaeus and Lundberg s. All the four novels signal changes in the way general "scripts of emotions", e.g. jealousy, are handled and described. The power relations in the novels are also read, with reference to Michel Foucault. As the protagonists in two of them work as journalists, a critical discussion about media and Bourgeois hegemony is found; the term "repressive legitimation" is created to grasp these patterns of manipulation. The Modernist Debate , part II of the study, concerns a literary discussion between mainly Finland-Swedish authors and critics. Essayist Johannes Salminen (40) provided much of the fuel for the debate in 1963, questioning the relevance to contemporary life of the Finland-Swedish modernist tradition of the 1910 s and 1920 s. In 1965, a group of younger authors and critics, including poet Claes Andersson (28), followed up this critique in a debate taking place mainly in the newspaper Vasabladet. Poets Rabbe Enckell (62), Bo Carpelan (39) and others defended a timeless poetry. This debate is contextualized and the changing literary field is analyzed using concepts provided by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In the thesis, the historical moment of Middle Class radicalism with a human face is regarded a temporary luxury that new social groups could afford themselves, as long as they were knocking over the statues and symbols of the Old Bourgeoisie. This is not to say that all components of the Sixties strategy have lost their power. Some of them have survived and even grown, others remain latent in the gene bank of utopias, waiting for new moments of change.

Structural stability of slender aerospace vehicles: Part I Mathematical modeling

A detailed mechanics based model is developed to analyze the problem of structural instability in slender aerospace vehicles. Coupling among the rigid-body modes, the longitudinal vibrational modes and the transverse vibrational modes due to asymmetric lifting-body cross-section are considered. The model also incorporates the effects of aerodynamic pressure and the propulsive thrust of the vehicle. The model is one-dimensional, and it can be employed to idealized slender vehicles with complex shapes. Condition under which a flexible body with internal stress waves behaves like a perfect rigid body is derived. Two methods are developed for finite element discretization of the system: (1) A time-frequency Fourier spectral finite element method and (2) h-p finite element method. Numerical results using the above methods are presented in Part II of this paper. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A non-orthogonal distributed space-time coded protocol - Part 1:Signal model and design criteria

In this two-part series of papers, a generalized non-orthogonal amplify and forward (GNAF) protocol which generalizes several known cooperative diversity protocols is proposed. Transmission in the GNAF protocol comprises of two phases - the broadcast phase and the cooperation phase. In the broadcast phase, the source broadcasts its information to the relays as well as the destination. In the cooperation phase, the source and the relays together transmit a space-time code in a distributed fashion. The GNAF protocol relaxes the constraints imposed by the protocol of Jing and Hassibi on the code structure. In Part-I of this paper, a code design criteria is obtained and it is shown that the GNAF protocol is delay efficient and coding gain efficient as well. Moreover GNAF protocol enables the use of sphere decoders at the destination with a non-exponential Maximum likelihood (ML) decoding complexity. In Part-II, several low decoding complexity code constructions are studied and a lower bound on the Diversity-Multiplexing Gain tradeoff of the GNAF protocol is obtained.

Flow Generated By Pitched Blade Turbines Ii: Simulation Using Κ-Ε Model

Experimental data on average velocity and turbulence intensity generated by pitched blade downflow turbines (PTD) were presented in Part I of this paper. Part II presents the results of the simulation of flow generated by PTD The standard κ-ε model along with the boundary conditions developed in the Part 1 have been employed to predict the flow generated by PTD in cylindrical baffled vessel. This part describes the new software FIAT (Flow In Agitated Tanks) for the prediction of three dimensional flow in stirred tanks. The basis of this software has been described adequately. The influence of grid size, impeller boundary conditions and values of model parameters on the predicted flow have been analysed. The model predictions successfully reproduce the three dimensionality and the other essential characteristics of the flow. The model can be used to improve the overall understanding about the relative distribution of turbulence by PTD in the agitated tank

Deformation and failure of a film/substrate system subjected to spherical indentation: Part 1. Experimental validation of stresses and strains derived using Hankel transform technique in an elastic film/substrate system

Our concern here is to rationalize experimental observations of failure modes brought about by indentation of hard thin ceramic films deposited on metallic substrates. By undertaking this exercise, we would like to evolve an analytical framework that can be used for designs of coatings. In Part I of the paper we develop an algorithm and test it for a model system. Using this analytical framework we address the issue of failure of columnar TiN films in Part II [J. Mater. Res. 21, 783 (2006)] of the paper. In this part, we used a previously derived Hankel transform procedure to derive stress and strain in a birefringent polymer film glued to a strong substrate and subjected to spherical indentation. We measure surface radial strains using strain gauges and bulk film stresses using photo elastic technique (stress freezing). For a boundary condition based on Hertzian traction with no film interface constraint and assuming the substrate constraint to be a function of the imposed strain, the theory describes the stress distributions well. The variation in peak stresses also demonstrates the usefulness of depositing even a soft film to protect an underlying substrate.

Time-domain-finite-wave analysis of the engine exhaust system by means of the stationary-frame method of characteristics. Part I. Theory

Time-domain-finite-wave analysis of the engine exhaust system is usually done using the method of characteristics. This makes use of either the moving frame method, or the stationary frame method. The stationary frame method is more convenient than its counterpart inasmuch as it avoids the tedium of graphical computations. In this paper (part I), the stationary-frame computational scheme along with the boundary conditions has been implemented. The analysis of a uniform tube, cavity-pipe junction including the engine and the radiation ends, and also the simple area discontinuities has been presented. The analysis has been done accounting for wall friction and heat-transfer for a one-dimensional unsteady flow. In the process, a few inconsistencies in the formulations reported in the literature have been pointed out and corrected. In the accompanying paper (part II) results obtained from the simulation are shown to be in good agreement with the experimental observations.

Collocated and Distributed STBCs with Partial Interference Cancellation Decoding, Part I: Full-Diversity Criterion

Low complexity decoders called Partial Interference Cancellation (PIC) and PIC with Successive Interference Cancellation (PIC-SIC), which include the Zero Forcing (ZF) and ZF-SIC receivers as special cases, were given by Guo and Xia along with sufficient conditions for a Space-Time Block Code (STBC) to achieve full diversity with PIC/PIC-SIC decoding for point-to-point MIMO channels. In Part-I of this two part series of papers, we give new conditions for an STBC to achieve full diversity with PIC and PIC-SIC decoders, which are equivalent to Guo and Xia's conditions, but are much easier to check. We then show that PIC and PIC-SIC decoders are capable of achieving the full cooperative diversity available in wireless relay networks and give sufficient conditions for a Distributed Space-Time Block Code (DSTBC) to achieve full diversity with PIC and PIC-SIC decoders. In Part-II, we construct new low complexity full-diversity PIC/PIC-SIC decodable STBCs and DSTBCs that achieve higher rates than the known full-diversity low complexity ML decodable STBCs and DSTBCs.