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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 55 records · Page 3

Complex Chromosomal Rearrangements Induced in Vivo by Heavy Ions

It has been suggested that the ratio complex/simple exchanges can be used as a biomarker of exposure to high-LET radiation. We tested this hypothesis in vivo, by considering data from several studies that measured complex exchanges in peripheral blood from humans exposed to mixed fields of low- and high-LET radiation. In particular, we studied data from astronauts involved in long-term missions in low-Earth-orbit, and uterus cancer patients treated with accelerated carbon ions. Data from two studies of chromosomal aberrations in astronauts used blood samples obtained before and after space flight, and a third study used blood samples from patients before and after radiotherapy course. Similar methods were used in each study, where lymphocytes were stimulated to grow in vitro, and collected after incubation in either colcemid or calyculin A. Slides were painted with whole-chromosome DNA fluorescent probes (FISH), and complex and simple chromosome exchanges in the painted genome were classified separately. Complex-type exchanges were observed at low frequencies in control subjects, and in our test subjects before the treatment. No statistically significant increase in the yield of complex-type exchanges was induced by the space flight. Radiation therapy induced a high fraction of complex exchanges, but no significant differences could be detected between patients treated with accelerated carbon ions or X-rays. Complex chromosomal rearrangements do not represent a practical biomarker of radiation quality in our test subjects. Copyright 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Ions/adverse effects/therapeutic use↗

Divergence of the total cross section for three body rearrangement collisions with coulomb interactions

Three charged particles 1, 2, 3 collide according to the reaction 1+(2+3) yields (1+3)+2, where (2+3) and (1+3) are hydrogenlike bound states. It is shown when (1+3) is in a highly excited state n, due to the repulsive potential, the cross section in the first Born approximation behaves as 1/n which makes the total cross section to diverge like ln n. The total cross sections in the higher orders of the Born approximation are similarly divergent logarithmically.

Omidvar, K.↗

Thermal rearrangements in polypentenamer and polyoctenamer

Experiments were conducted to show that polypentenamer and polyoctenamer, in common with 1,4-polybutadiene, undergo anaerobic thermal cis-trans isomerization at temperatures as low as 200 degrees C. Their activation energies for isomerization are comparable to that of polybutadiene. The relative rate constants are found to decrease in the order: polybutadiene, polypentenamer, polyoctenamer. When heated in a vacuum at 200 to 270 degrees C, polypentenamer exhibits a loss of double bonds. This disappearance of unsaturation has no counterpart in polybutadiene or polyoctenamer. In polypentenamer, a mechanism for a thermally-induced ring closure that is different from the one shown for the cyclization-depolymerization of various unsaturated polymers is evident. The cyclization-depolymerization process does cause a loss of double bonds in polybutadiene and polyoctenamer at temperatures greater than or equal to 275 degrees C.

Golub, M. A.↗

Thermal rearrangements of unsaturated polymers

Thermal anaerobic uncatalyzed cyclizations and cis-trans isomerizations observed in unsaturated hydrocarbon polymers are surveyed. Three main types of cyclizations are described. Type I is a radical reaction which is caused by chain rupture and gives rise to six-membered rings; this reaction occurs during pyrolysis of polymers with double bonds in a 1,5- or 1,6-diene configuration. Type II is a (2 + 2) thermal cycloaddition of double bonds in certain polymers with a 1,6-diene structure; bicycloheptane structures result. Type III is an intramolecular ene reaction. Many polymers containing a double bond linking CH units display thermal cis-trans isomerization. The common activation energy is approximately 130 kJ/mol, and the initial rate constants are lower, for homologous polymers, the greater the separation of the carbon-carbon double bonds.

Golub, M. A.↗

Evidence for magnetic field rearrangement in a solar flare

An example of the change in transverse magnetic field in the course of a solar flare is presented. A filament consisting of sheared field lines along an inversion line of longitudinal field is replaced by a set of much shorter field transition arches across the inversion line. The eruption itself results from the invasion of the area by fields associated with a moving sunspot.

Zirin, H.↗

Thermal Rearrangements of Polybutadienes with Different Vinyl Contents

A study was made of the loss of double bonds in equibinary (1,4-1,2) polybutadiene (EB) and in polybutadienes with 30% 1,2, 70% 1,4 (FI), and 10% 1,2, 90% 1,4 (DI) double-bond content, when heated in vacuum under nonpyrolitic conditions (temperature range 220-280 C). These polymers were found to undergo second-order loss of 1,2 unsaturation with similar activation energies (E(sub a) = 34.0 +/- 3 kcal/mole), by analogy to the previously reported thermally induced loss of double bonds in 1,2-polybutadiene (VB) (E(sub a) = 33.6 +/- 3 kcal/mole). Moreover, EB and Fl exhibited also second-order loss of 1,4 unsaturation, with E(sub a) ca. 36 and 40 kcal/mole, respectively, while DI showed negligible loss of 1,4 unsaturation below 260 C, in common with cis-1,4-polybutadiene (CB) (with 2% 1,2 double bonds) examined earlier. The loss of 1,2 double bonds in the various polybutadienes with different vinyl contents is accompanied by substantial methyl production, ranging from about one methyl group formed for every 4-5 vinyl units lost in VB, to one methyl for every two vinyls lost in EB,and to almost one methyl for each vinyl lost in DI or CB. Mechanisms are proposed for the thermally induced loss of 1,2 and 1,4 unsaturation in various polybutadienes and for the accompanying methyl production.

Golub, Morton A.↗

Simulated Microgravity Induced Cytoskeletal Rearrangements are Modulated by Protooncogenes

Microgravity is the environment living systems encounter during space flight and gravitational unloading is the effect of this environment on living systems. The cell, being a multiphasic chemical system, is a useful starting point to study the potential impact of gravity unloading on physiological function. In the absence of gravity, sedimentation of organelles including chromosomes, mitochondria, nuclei, the Golgi apparatus, vacuoles, and the endoplasmic reticulum may be affected. Most of these organelles, however, are somewhat held in place by cytoskeleton. Hansen and Igber suggest that intermediate filaments act to stabilize the nuleus against rotational movement, and integrate cell and nuclear structure. The tensegrity theory supports the idea that mechanical or physical forces alters the cytoskeletal structures of a cell resulting in the changes in cell: matrix interactions and receptor-signaling coupling. This type of stress to the cytoskeleton may be largely responsible regulating cell shape, growth, movement and metabolism. Mouse MC3T3 El cells under microgravity exhibited significant cytoskeletal changes and alterations in cell growth. The alterations in cytoskeleton architecture may be due to changes in the expression of actin related proteins or integrins. Philopott and coworkers reported on changes in the distribution of microtubule and cytoskeleton elements in the cells of heart tissue from space flight rats and those centrifuged at 1.7g. Other researchers have showed that microgravity reduced EGF-induced c-fos and c-jun expression compared to 1 g controls. Since c-fos and c-jun are known regulators of cell growth, it is likely that altered signal transduction involving protooncogenes may play a crucial role in the reduced growth and alterations in cytoskeletal arrangements found during space flight. It is clear that a microgravity environment induces a number of changes in cell shape, cell surface molecules, gene expression, and cytoskeletal reorganization. However the underlying mechanism for these cellular changes have not been clearly defined. We examined alterations in endothelial migration, and cytoskeleton architecture (microfilamentous f-actin and vimentin-rich- intermediate filaments) following wounding under simulated microgravity. We also examined the possibility that altered signal transduction pathways, involving protooncogenes, may play a crucial role in microgravity-induced retardation of cell migration and alterations in cytoskeletal organization. We hypothesize that, based on the tensegrity theory, cytoskeletal organization respond to gravitational unloading and through this response, cell behavior, function and gene expression are modified.

Melhado, C. D.↗

Yaw sensory rearrangement alters pitch vestibulo-ocular reflex responses

Ten male subjects underwent two types of adaptation paradigm designed either to enhance or to attenuate the gain of the canal-ocular reflex (COR), before undergoing otolith-ocular reflex (OOR) testing with constant velocity, earth horizontal axis and pitch rotation. The adaptation paradigm paired a 0.2 Hz sinusoidal rotation about an earth vertical axis with a 0.2 Hz optokinetic stimulus that was deliberately mismatched in peak velocity or phase and was designed to produce short-term changes in the COR. Preadaptation and postadaptation OOR tests occurred at a constant velocity of 60 degrees/sec in the dark and produced a modulation component of the slow phase velocity with a frequency of 0.16 Hz due to otolithic stimulation by the sinusoidally changing gravity vector. Of the seven subjects who showed enhancement of the COR gain, six also showed enhancement of the OOR modulation component. Of the seven subjects who showed attenuation of the COR gain, five also showed attenuation of the OOR modulation component. The probability that these two cross-axis adaptation effects would occur by chance is less than 0.02. This suggests that visual-vestibular conditioning of the yaw axis COR also induced changes in the pitch axis OOR. We thus postulate that the central nervous system pathways that process horizontal canal yaw stimuli have elements in common with those processing otolithic stimuli about the pitch axis.

NASA Discipline Neuroscience↗

Electron-impact promoted fragmentation of alkyl-n-/1-phenylethyl/-carbamates of primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols.

The mass spectra of twenty alkyl carbamates derived from primary, secondary, and tertiary alcohols are investigated, using deuterium labeling and high-resolution mass spectrometry. Several of the primary and secondary alcohol derivatives are found to yield an ion formally equivalent to the product ion of a McLafferty rearrangement. Deuterium labeling, however, revealed a lack, in these carbamate derivatives, of the usual site specificity associated with the McLafferty rearrangement. A double hydrogen rearrangement process was observed in the mass spectra of several carbamates derived from tertiary alcohols.

Pereira, W. E.↗

Time-dependent lunar density models

Simple models of the geochemical and geophysical evolution of the moon were constructed with the particular aim of investigating the mass density distribution within the moon as a function of time. The strongly inverted (densest material on top) density distribution resulting from fractional crystallization of the lunar magma ocean was found to rearrange itself into a highly stable stratification. Density stratification due to compositional variation dominated gravitational stability; thus, thermally driven convection was found to be suppressed in regions with relaxed (rearranged so as to minimize the gravitational potential energy) compositional density variation. The suppression of convection as a heat transfer process results in considerable modification of thermal evolution. The models produced sufficient density segregation from magma oceans of a few hundred km thickness, such that relaxation to the most stable rearrangement yielded a polar moment of inertia approximating that measured for the present-day moon. Thus, lunar models matching moment-of-inertia constraints but lacking a metallic core are motivated.

Herbert, F.↗