ACCELERATED PARAMETERIZED COMPUTATION OF THE THERMAL BEHAVIOUR OF DUAL PURPOSE CASKS

One of the fundamental requirements for dual purpose casks, which are used for the transport and interim storage of spent fuel assemblies, is the safe removal of the resulting decay heat. To ensure this the temperature fields are determined using numerical methods. However, their modelling is complex and the computation time-consuming.In order to accelerate this thermal assessment, we have developed z88ENSI, an independent simulation tool based on finite element analysis. With regard to the modelling, various parameters can be varied quickly with our newly designed mesh manipulation procedure. Concerning the computation time, we developed and implemented an approach for calculating three-dimensional temperature fields, based on an already existing two-dimensional method which lacked precision. We accelerate the calculation by using extended thermal gap constraints, which depict the thermal behaviour of the non-meshed, gas-filled gaps inside the cask. We validate the results of our calculation tool by comparing them with those generated with Ansys. The results of the comparison temperatures differ between −0.8% and 3.7%. The speedup of z88ENSI for the specific validation setting is between 6.9 and 15.0.

Objetos, cuerpos y memoria en el teatro argentino contemporáneo

En la década de 1990, el campo teatral argentino se encuentra determinado por la aparición de una heterogeneidad de formas agrupadas por la crítica bajo el título “Nuevo teatro argentino”. Estas formas evidencian la tensión entre una concepción idealista de la escena que había dominado el teatro independiente hasta la década de 1980 y una perspectiva materialista que se había ido desarrollando subrepticiamente en tensión con los modos en que la primera planteaba las relaciones de la escena con la historia, de los sujetos con los objetos, de las palabras con las cosas y, como correlato, en tensión con el modo en el que el teatro se pensaba a sí mismo como dispositivo de memoria.En ese contexto surge y se fortalece el Periférico de Objetos. Analizaré aquí la producción de este grupo entendiendo que entre las innovaciones que propone se encuentra la exploración, a partir del procedimiento de la manipulación, de objetos y cuerpos como dispositivos de memoria involuntaria. Con el objetivo de señalar que la productividad de la relación manipulación/memoria no se limita al teatro de objetos sino que se expande también a la producción dramatúrgica, analizo dos obras dramáticas que Daniel Veronese escribe en esa misma década, en paralelo a su actividad como integrante de este grupo. In the 1990s, Argentine theater field is determined by the emergence of a heterogeneity of forms grouped by critics under the title “New Argentine Theater.” These forms put in evidence the tension between an idealistic conception of the scene that had dominated independent theater until the 1980s and a materialist perspective that had developed surreptitiously in clear tension with the ways in which idealism conceive the relations between scene and history, subjects and objects, words and things but also in tension with the ways in which theater had thought itself as a memory device.In this context, El Periférico de Objetos arises and become stronger. I will analyze the production of this group, understanding that among the innovations it proposes from the manipulation procedure, is the exploration of objects and bodies as involuntary memory devices. With the aim of demonstrating that the productivity of the relationship between manipulation and memory is not limited to object theatre but also expands to dramaturgical production, I analyze two dramatic works that Daniel Veronese wrote in that same decade, in parallel to his activity as member of this group.

Short Vigilance Tasks are Hard Work Even If Time Flies

Vigilance research has found that observers find the task to be unpleasant and mentally demanding (Warm, Finomore, Vidulich, & Funke, 2015). However sustained attention plays a critical role in numerous operational settings where human operators must monitor automated human-machine systems in the event of potential problems. The current study extended the work from Dillard and his colleagues (Dillard, Warm, Funke, Vidulich, Nelson, Eggemeier, et al., 2013) who explored if there are other dimensions that might affect the workload associated with performing a vigilance task. The area that they explored was the temporal context of the vigilance task on its effects on task performance and perceived mental workload. Borrowing from a temporal manipulation procedure developed by Sackett and colleagues (Sackett, Meyvis, Nelson, Converse & Sackett, 2010) in which they manipulated perceived time progression (PTP) of the participant while they performed a cognitive task. Sackett et al., (2010) manipulated the PTP by developing their studies to deceive the participant into thinking the task they were performing was longer or shorter than the actual time. Upon completion of the task, participants filled out questionnaires related to the hedonic and temporal evaluation of the task. Participants that were told the task was longer than they actually participated for (time flies conditions) rated times as flying and the task more as more enjoyable.

Retroviral Gene Transfer of Suicide Genes in Human T Lymphocytes: Improved Transduction Conditions for a Clinical Protocol.

Aiming to control GVHD by means of the transfer of suicide genes into donor T cells, we seeked to optimise the transduction of human T cells using immobilized anti-CD3i/28i MoAbs for T cell stimulation. In previous studies we showed that reducing the concentration of anti-CD3i, from 1,000ng/ml down to 1ng/ml, helps to preserve the cytotoxicity of the samples to an allogeneic stimulus and maintains the susceptibility of the T cells to the retroviral transduction. Aiming to reduce the cost of the manipulation procedure, we also tried to reduce the amount of anti-CD28 MoAb during the activation (pre-infection) and expansion (post-infection) steps. To investigate this issue, different doses of anti-CD28i were combined either with 1,000 ng/ml or with 10 ng/ml of anti-CD3i. In contrast to the effects observed with anti-CD3i, lowering the dose of anti-CD28i, from 1,000 ng/ml to a range of 500 to 10 ng/ml significantly decreased the transduction efficacy, as well as the total number of transduced T cells, regardless of the concentration of anti-CD3i used in the experiments. With the purpose of minimizing potential effects mediated by retroviral supernatants on the viability and growth of the T cells, we investigated whether standard infections with supernatants could be replaced by alternative or complementary transduction procedures based on the pre-loading of the retroviral vectors in fibronectin-coated bags. In these experiments, fibronectin-coated cell culture bags were pre-loaded with retroviral vectors by means of a 3h-incubation with the infective supernatants. Thereafter, peripheral blood lymphocytes were added to the culture bags, incubated O/N and then subjected to further infection cycles, either with pre-loaded vectors or with infective supernatants. Performing only one cycle of infection with either method, rendered similar low yields of transduced cells compared to results obtained after 2 infection cycles. Under these conditions, we found no differences between both methods, neither with respect to the transduction efficacy nor with the total number of transduced cells. Conducting a third infection cycle, either using the pre-loading or the supernatant infection method, did not increase significantly the transduction efficacy of the samples. Also, to simplify and improve the safety of the manipulation procedure, we studied alternatives to the use of human allogeneic or autologous serum for the supplement of the cell culture medium (RPMI). In these experiments, RPMI supplemented with 10% autologous serum was replaced by the CellGro and X-Vivo 10 serum-free media. Similar transduction efficacies and similar number of transduced cells were generated as a result of the manipulation of the samples with either medium. We conclude that optimised conditions of T cell stimulation and gene expression are obtained with 1ng/ml anti-CD3i and 1,000 ng/ml anti CD28i, and that conventional supernatant infections conducted with serum-supplemented media can be partially or completely replaced by pre-loading infections in serum-free media. We propose these manipulations to simplify and to reduce risks and costs associated to the transduction of human T cells; something that is of particular interest for the development of clinical protocols that require the infusion of large numbers of transduced T lymphocytes.