Since the start of the space race in the 1950‟s the outer space environment has significantly changed due to human expansion and the subsequent by-products known as outer space pollution/debris. As outer space rapidly evolved from a military high-ground into a commercialised asset exploited by private and state owned enterprises, the treaties negotiated in the 1960‟s and 1970‟s quickly became out-dated. As a result outer space, especially the orbits around the Earth are occupied by countless masses of non-functional manmade objects, some expected to remain for millions of years. This dissertation argues that the current national and international legal framework will be inadequate to address the problem of outer space pollution and that legal and political action will be necessary on a global scale. With the planned developments as set out in the National Space Policy, South Africa is set on becoming a leading provider of outer space services on the African continent and will, as a consequence, have a progressively bigger impact on the outer space environment. With a growing dependence on outer space technologies, developed and developing economies around the world cannot ignore the immense negative consequences that outer space debris could pose to their development. This study will thus, by examining the international and national legal framework regarding outer space pollution, provide legal recommendations pertaining to the principles and obligations that the South African legal framework will have to make provision for, in order to minimise the negative effect on the outer space environment. / LLM (Environmental Law and Governance), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is associated with renal medullary hypoxia. The medullary thick ascending limb (mTAL) in the renal outer medulla is most susceptible to hypoxic injury, due to marginal O2 supply and high O2 consumption. The objectives of this study were to document the earliest effect of hypoxia (8% O2 for 2.5 hrs) on the mTAL function, and to identify strategies to protect the mTAL from hypoxia. The earliest effect of hypoxia is large water diuresis, due to a fall in the medullary osmolality and increase in vasopressinase. Desmopressin acetate (dDAVP), a synthetic vasopressin analogue resistant to vasopressinase that may also increase O2 delivery, prevented water diuresis. A low dose (0.8mg/kg) of furosemide may significantly reduce the mTAL work without a large excretion of essential electrolytes. Large water diuresis may be diagnostically valuable in detecting renal tissue hypoxia, and dDAVP and furosemide may prevent AKI in the clinical setting.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is associated with renal medullary hypoxia. The medullary thick ascending limb (mTAL) in the renal outer medulla is most susceptible to hypoxic injury, due to marginal O2 supply and high O2 consumption. The objectives of this study were to document the earliest effect of hypoxia (8% O2 for 2.5 hrs) on the mTAL function, and to identify strategies to protect the mTAL from hypoxia. The earliest effect of hypoxia is large water diuresis, due to a fall in the medullary osmolality and increase in vasopressinase. Desmopressin acetate (dDAVP), a synthetic vasopressin analogue resistant to vasopressinase that may also increase O2 delivery, prevented water diuresis. A low dose (0.8mg/kg) of furosemide may significantly reduce the mTAL work without a large excretion of essential electrolytes. Large water diuresis may be diagnostically valuable in detecting renal tissue hypoxia, and dDAVP and furosemide may prevent AKI in the clinical setting.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst. / Härtill 8 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-257).

Aeromonas hydrophila ML09-119 is an important fish pathogen that severely affects channel catfish aquaculture. To better understand this strain’s virulence factors, outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) were isolated, and their proteome was assessed. Using transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering, OMVs were shown to be monodispersed particles with an average diameter of 120.33 nm. OMV proteins were identified using mass spectrometry, and analysis of the resulting proteome of 74 proteins revealed that many originated from the cytoplasm, but there was an enrichment of outer membrane, periplasmic, and extracellular proteins compared to the total proteome. The majority of the functional classifications were associated with bacterial metabolism. Of the predicted virulence factors, several had a putative function in adherence, and there were type III secretions system proteins as well as three secreted exotoxins. Overall, our data reveal new insights into A. hydrophila OMVs and their potential roles in physiology and virulence.

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This dissertation presents three observational projects designed to characterize the outer disks of nearby galaxies (beyond the optical radius R₂₅). Until very recently, outer disks remained an elusive and poorly-understood component of disk galaxies. We first present a Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) optical imaging survey of nearby outer disks to examine the basic properties of this component. Our LBT observations indicate that most nearby galaxies host an outer disk with star formation occurring at a very low level. We detect hundreds of outer disk star clusters and show that they typically have masses ∼ 10² − 10⁴M⊙ and ages up to a Gyr. The clusters are born in groups that can remain clustered for a Gyr or more, while the clusters slowly evaporate stars into a diffuse stellar component. The clusters appear to form from localized overdensities in the gas distribution primarily associated with spiral structure. The clusters extend to 2R₂₅ in our sample. We find that some clusters may also reside well outside of their host galaxy’s gas disk. Our second project is a kinematic study of Hɑ knots in the outer disk of the large, isolated, face-on galaxy NGC 628, using Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) observations from the Magellan telescope. This galaxy shows a kinematically cold outer disk (velocity dispersion < 11 km s⁻¹) with a mass density ∑ = 7.5 M⊙ pc⁻². Our observations cannot exclude uniform star formation lasting a Hubble time in this outer disk and confirm that this component is an extension of the kinematically-cold inner disk. Our third project is a search for molecular emission in the outer disk of NGC 628, using the sensitive Atacama LargeMillimeter Array (ALMA) receiver on the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT). We did not detect emission from our outer disk pointings, though we are able to provide useful estimates for future ALMA observations of outer disk knots. Our SMT observations indicate that the H₂ / H I ratio is ∼ 100× lower in the outer disk than in the inner disk, which likely explains, at least in part, the trend towards smaller clusters and lower star formation rates at larger radii.

No description available.