The Future of United States - Chinese Space Relations
In recent years the U.S. space program has been in decline, mostly due to budget cuts. Because of those reductions, NASA is struggling to fund its space exploration programs. One solution to this problem is to collaborate with other space agencies to share the cost and the knowledge gained. The Chinese have recently put a lot of effort into becoming a global space power and are willing to collaborate with other agencies in their space exploration efforts. The United States, however, is very reluctant to enter into any type of collaborative effort with the Chinese for a host of reasons. In order to gain greater insight into this issue, a survey will be conducted using the following three control groups: 1) individuals affiliated with the U.S. space program and related agencies, 2) individuals affiliated with the U.S. military and related security agencies, and 3) individuals not affiliated with either group previously mentioned. It is believed that these three groups will give a good indication of the general feelings of the United States population towards cooperating with the Chinese in spaceflight and what obstacles need to be overcome. The central research questions will focus on whether the participants believe the United States should collaborate with the Chinese, what they believe are the main objectives of the Chinese space program, and what issues need to be addressed before collaboration is possible. The author predicts that the individuals affiliated with the space program and those of the military will be diametrically opposed to one another while most of the general public will support collaboration.
Implanted Helium-3 Abundance Distribution on the Moon
Introduction: Helium-3 (He) is expected to be the cleanest fuel of choice for potential 21st century fusion reactors, because its reaction is efficient and produces low residual radioactivity. He is very rare on the Earth and much concentrated in the lunar regolith. It is possibly the most valuable resource on the Moon. As we had known, the mineral ilmenite [FeTiO3] retains helium much better than other major lunar materials. The more mature soils should contain high concentration of He, because they have been exposed to the solar wind longer and contain greater amounts of fine-grained aggregates that absorb He. A map of implanted He abundance distribution on the Moon is constructed in this paper. The map is calibrated using a correlation between the He concentration and the TiO2 concentration and maturity index Is/FeO of lunar regolith. The distributions of the TiO2 concentration and the regolith maturity Is/FeO are derived from the multispectral lunar digital image model (DIM) of the Moon in five spectral ranges (415, 750, 900, 950, 1000 nm wavelengths), which was obtained. Data Source: This multi-spectral lunar digital image model (DIM) of the Moon is a radiometrically and geometrically controlled, photometrically modeled global image mosaic compiled using more than 400,000 images from multiple filter observations of the UltraViolet-Visible (UVVIS) camera onboard the Clementine Spacecraft. The DIM mosaic is mapped in the simple_cylindrical projection at a spatial resolution of 100 meters per pixel. Final PDS (Planetary Data System) data set archive volumes CL_4001 through CL_4078 were produced in July, 1999 by a group led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) branch of astrogeology at flagstaff, Arizona (http://pdsmaps.wr.usgs.gov/maps.html) Algorithm: Taylor (1994) found that the abundance of He in the lunar regolith at a given location depends on surface maturity, and titanium content, because ilmenite (FeTiO3) retains helium much better than other major lunar minerals. He proposed a correlation between the abundance of He and TiO2 content and maturity index Is/FeO of lunar soil from the statistical analysis of the measurement of Apollo lunar soil sample [1]. The abundance of He in the lunar regolith is determined by: 3 0 2 He (ppb)=0.2043 [(Is/FeO) TiO ] × .645
Coexistence of Virulence and Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Pasteurella multocida Isolated from Diseased Rabbits
Pasteurella multocida (P. multocida)is considered a predominant pathogenic bacterial agent causing respiratory manifestations (snuffles) in rabbits with considerable economic losses and unfavorable prognosis in Egypt. A few recent P. multocida strains exhibit resistance to the most commonly used antibiotics in the veterinary field. Therefore, the present study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of both virulence and antibiotic resistance genes among P. multocida isolated from diseased rabbits in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt. Only 10 out of 100 tested rabbits` nasal swabs were finally confirmed positive for P. multocida of serogroup A by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Antibiotic susceptibility testing of the recovered isolates revealed that they were all multidrug resistant (MDR) with a predominance of resistance to amoxicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, neomycin and tetracycline (100% each), followed by kanamycin and streptomycin (90% each). All the recovered isolates were further subjected to PCR screening of some common virulence and antibiotic resistance genes of interest . With the exception of toxA gene, the other virulence associated genes (ptfA, Omp87 and nanB) were found among all the examined isolates. Totally, all MDR P. multocida isolates contained at least one antibiotic resistance gene with aphA1 being the most prevalent (100%), followed by ermX gene (40%). Antibiotic resistance genotyping demonstrated the presence of multiple antibiotic resistance genes among majority of the isolates (40%) with only one isolate harboring 4 genes encoding identical resistance phenotypes. Evidentially, all MDR P. multocida isolates possessed at least 3 virulence genes accompanied by the attendance of antibiotic resistance genes. These findings evidenced that rabbits are potential sources of pathogenic P. multocida strains harboring virulence and antibiotic resistance genes. Therefore, it is evident that there is an urgent need for the judicious use of antibiotics in rabbits` treatment systems to successfully mitigate the propagation of drug resistance across P. multocida species.