FILE - In this April 4, 2012, file photo, Tulsa athletic director holds up a jersey during a news conference in Tulsa, Okla. Parmley has been placed on leave as the school investigates gambling allegations. University President Steadman Upham issued a brief statement Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, saying Parmley will be on paid administrative leave during the investigation. Upham didn't offer details about whether the allegations involved sports betting or other forms of gambling. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
FILE - In this April 4, 2012, file photo, Tulsa athletic director holds up a jersey during a news conference in Tulsa, Okla. Parmley has been placed on leave as the school investigates gambling allegations. University President Steadman Upham issued a brief statement Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, saying Parmley will be on paid administrative leave during the investigation. Upham didn't offer details about whether the allegations involved sports betting or other forms of gambling. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ? Tulsa athletic director Ross Parmley was placed on paid leave Tuesday as the university investigates allegations that he may have been involved with an alleged bookie in Oklahoma City.
University President Steadman Upham issued a brief statement saying Parmley will be on paid administrative leave during the investigation. Upham didn't offer details about whether the allegations involved sports betting or other forms of gambling that may or may not be illegal in the state.
The 39-year-old Parmley was hired at Tulsa in January after serving three months as interim AD. He previously served as Tulsa's director of football operations and assistant athletic director for football, according to the school's athletic department website.
His lawyer, Derek Chance, said Parmley is cooperating with investigators.
Upham said the university's executive vice president, Kevan Buck, will be the acting athletic director while Parmley is on leave. A school spokesman declined further comment.
Parmley's name was linked last week to Teddy Mitchell of Oklahoma City, who is accused of running an illegal gambling operation. In recently unsealed court documents, Parmley is described as an "admitted gambler with Mitchell," who is awaiting trial in April.
Parmley has not been charged in the case, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Troester. The prosecutor would not comment on whether Parmley may testify for prosecutors during Mitchell's trial.
Chance stressed that Parmley is not the focus of the investigation.
"I just want everyone to know that he is not a target or a subject of the investigation. But he has cooperated with federal authorities in the investigation of alleged gambling activities by Teddy Mitchell," Chance said.
The Oklahoma City-based attorney said he was trying to keep up with developments in the case. When asked if Parmley expected to testify at Mitchell's trial, Chance said: "Therein lies some of the struggle." He declined further comment.
The affidavit unsealed last week alleges that a check for $1,782 from Parmley, along with other funds, were deposited into one of Mitchell's account in late 2009.
Mitchell, 57, and his two sons are among nine people named in an 81-count federal indictment unsealed in September. All are accused of participating in an illegal gambling business that operated poker games, took sports wagers, used an illegal gambling website and laundered illegal gambling proceeds.
Mitchell, who prosecutors allege was the leader of the operation, has pleaded not guilty.
Authorities say Mitchell has been under investigation for more than two years as state and federal grand juries looked into the alleged criminal activity, as well as the November 2010 beating death of his wife, Julie Mitchell, whose body was found inside the couple's Oklahoma City home. Her death remains unsolved.
According to the NCAA website, the organization's rules "prohibit student-athletes, and athletics department, conference office, and NCAA national office employees from wagering on intercollegiate, amateur, and professional sports in which the association conducts championships."
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? A Tampa socialite embroiled in the scandal that cost CIA Director David Petraeus his job fought back Tuesday after more than two weeks of silence as her attorneys released emails, telephone recordings and other material that they say show she never tried to exploit her friendship with Petraeus.
Jill Kelley, through her attorneys, went on the attack against a New York businessman who accused her of incompetence in her work trying to set up a deal he was negotiating with South Korean companies; an attorney who accused her of name-dropping and of being a social climber; and the FBI agent who first leaked her name in connection with the Petraeus scandal.
Kelley, 37, became the focus of national media attention earlier this month after it was revealed that she was the recipient of anonymous emails from Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' biographer and mistress.
Broadwell allegedly told Kelley she should stay away from the former general and Gen. John Allen, who had replaced Petraeus as leader of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Petraeus and Allen had become friends with Kelley and her husband, Scott Kelley, a noted cancer surgeon, when the generals served at U.S. Central Command, which is headquartered at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base. Kelley became an unofficial social ambassador for the base, hosting numerous parties for the officers.
The scandal this week cost Kelley her appointment as an honorary consul for the South Korean government, which she had gotten because of her friendship with Petraeus. The Koreans said she had misused the title in her personal business dealings.
Kelley's attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter to New York businessman Adam Victor; a complaint to the Florida bar against Tampa attorney Barry Cohen, and a letter to the U.S. Attorney's Office demanding that it investigate to find out who in the FBI leaked her name to the news media. Representatives of attorney Abbe Lowell emailed copies of the letters to The Associated Press.
In one of the letters, Lowell asks W. Stephen Muldrow, the assistant U.S. Attorney in Tampa, why Jill and Scott Kelley's names were released in the course of the FBI's investigation of Petraeus and Broadwell. Lowell said federal privacy laws could be applicable to the couple's information.
"As you know, there are several rules and laws that seek to protect United States citizens against such leaks," Lowell wrote.
He also wanted to know whether the U.S. Attorney's Office was investigating the source of the leaks.
"You no doubt have seen the tremendous attention that the Kelleys have received in the media," wrote Lowell. "All they did to receive this attention was to let law enforcement know that they had been the subjects of inappropriate and potentially threatening behavior by someone else."
Another letter spoke of a business deal that Kelley tried to broker with South Korea.
Kelley met Victor in late August at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, where they discussed having Kelley represent Victor's company on a coal-gasification deal being negotiated with South Korean companies.
On Aug. 30, according to the documents provided by Lowell's office, Victor sent Kelley an email saying his company was seeking bids from four major Korean firms ? Samsung, Hyundai, GS and GK ? and that he expected the bidding to potentially reach $3 billion.
There are several back-and-forth emails through mid-September as Victor and Kelley tried to negotiate a fee for her work, with Kelley saying she was seeking 2 percent of the deal and Victor trying to clarify what she meant.
There were no other emails until Victor sent one Nov. 9, when Kelley's name surfaced in the Petraeus scandal. He wrote two more times after that before she responded.
When she finally did, he sent back another email in which he remarked, "When I heard about Petraeus, I thought of you." In a follow-up email, he asked if she was still in a position to help with Korea. She didn't respond.
In a Nov. 14 interview with the AP, Victor said it had become clear that Kelley was not a skilled negotiator and that he had wasted his time dealing with her.
In a letter released Tuesday and dated Nov. 21, Lowell accused Victor of seeking his "15 minutes of fame" by talking to the news media about his client. Lowell said Victor had defamed Kelley with his clients and misstated her desire for 2 percent of the profits by saying she wanted 2 percent of the entire deal. Lowell also accused Victor of unspecified inappropriate behavior toward Kelley.
"If you want to continue seeking publicity for yourself, that is one thing," Lowell wrote to Victor. "However, if you do that by maligning a person, that is something else." He then accused Victor of casting Kelley in a false light and suggested his attorney contact Lowell to discuss the matter.
Victor told the AP late Tuesday that he never accused Kelley of wrongdoing, only that she was naive and not an experienced negotiator. He also said his female assistant was present every time he met with Kelley.
"It's not a crime to be a novice," Victor said. "I don't know why they are talking to me."
The third letter was sent from Kelley's attorney Tuesday to the Attorney Consumer Assistance Program, which handles complaints about lawyers on behalf of the Florida Bar. In that letter, Lowell accused Cohen of breaking attorney-client privilege by publicly speaking about conversations he had with Kelley in 2009 while representing her in a dispute she had with a tenant. In those conversations, Lowell said, they discussed her friendships with various military personnel.
Kelley's sister, Natalie Khawam, once worked as an attorney in Cohen's firm and later sued him for sexual harassment and breach of contract. In court responses, Cohen said Khawam "has a judicially documented recent history and continuing propensity for the commission of perjury."
Cohen said Tuesday evening that he had not seen Lowell's complaint letter and that Kelley had "lost the battle in the court of public opinion."
"No matter how many high-priced lawyers and publicists she employs, she has been exposed for what she is," he said.
Prior to Tuesday, Kelley, her attorney and her publicist had only publicly addressed the situation once, in a statement to the news media when the scandal first broke.
DHAKA/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Bangladesh said a fire that killed 111 textile workers was sabotage, as protesters took to the streets for a second day on Tuesday and garment factories across the world's second-biggest clothes exporter stopped work to mourn.
Meanwhile two other incidents this week, neither of which caused injuries, had local manufacturing leaders scrambling to assess whether their industry was under attack.
Saturday's fire has put a spotlight on global retailers that source clothes from Bangladesh, where the cost of labor is low - as little as $37 a month for some workers - and rights groups have called on firms to sign up to a fire safety program.
U.S. retailer Sears Holdings Corp said its clothing was not meant to be made in that textile factory, and was investigating reports that one of its brands had been found in the charred debris. Other brands, such as Esprit Holdings Ltd, continued to deny any connection and distanced themselves from the disaster.
The country's worst-ever industrial blaze consumed a multi-story building of a Tazreen Fashions factory. More than 150 workers were injured.
The interior minister, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, said that, according to a preliminary inquiry, the fire was the result of arson. He promised to bring the culprits to justice.
"We have come to the conclusion that it was an act of sabotage. We are finding out as of now who exactly the saboteurs are and all culprits will be brought to book," Alamgir said.
Earlier, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she suspected the fire was an act of sabotage, but she did not identify any suspect or say why she thought the cause might have been arson.
In addition to Saturday's blaze, two other incidents outside Dhaka -- a fire at a factory Monday morning and an explosion and fire at a facility Tuesday evening -- had the country's manufacturing leaders scared something bigger was at play.
"If you ask me as to what happened at the factory, today I'm a little confused because having such incidents all around naturally raises questions in the mind," said Annisul Huq, former president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, in an interview.
"The government today says they are smelling sabotage. We don't yet know what they mean by that, we will know in a few days. I don't know what information they have but we don't like this link," he said, adding that association members would meet Wednesday to discuss the recent events.
RECORD OF POOR CONDITIONS
Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, said one of its suppliers subcontracted work to the burned factory without authorization and would no longer be used. Sears also suggested something illicit may have taken place.
"Any merchandise found at that factory should NOT have been manufactured there and we are currently investigating further," the company said in a statement.
The International Labor Rights Forum, in a statement on Sunday, said evidence discovered in the factory suggested Sears' True Desire line may have been manufactured there, as well as other prominent brands.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a petition on Change.org calling on major retailers to join an industry fire safety program for suppliers had more than 13,000 supporters.
Representatives of the Tazreen Fashions factory, including the owner, were not available for comment.
Bangladesh has about 4,500 garment factories and is the world's biggest exporter of clothing after China, with garments making up 80 percent of its $24 billion annual exports.
Working conditions at Bangladeshi factories are notoriously poor, with little enforcement of safety laws. Overcrowding and locked fire doors are common.
More than 300 factories near the capital were shut for almost a week earlier this year as workers demanded higher wages and better conditions. At least 500 people have died in garment factory accidents in Bangladesh since 2006, according to fire brigade officials.
More than 1,000 workers, some carrying black flags, demonstrated Tuesday in the Ashulia industrial belt on the outskirts of the capital where the factory is located. They blocked traffic moving on a highway and vowed to avenge the deaths of their colleagues, witnesses said.
"Never shall we give up demands for punishment for those responsible for the tragedy," one worker said.
Dhaka district police chief Habibur Rahman told Reuters his men were investigating complaints from some survivors that factory managers stopped workers from running out of the building when a fire alarm went off.
(Reporting by Ruma Paul and Anis Ahmed in Dhaka and Jessica Wohl and Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Chicago; Additional reporting by Anne Marie Roantree in Hong Kong and Dhanya Skariachan in New York; Writing by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Robert Birsel, Gunna Dickson and Tim Dobbyn)
LONDON (Reuters) - A British farmer and flying enthusiast who has spent the past 16 years scouring the jungles of Myanmar believes he has finally found what he was searching for - a horde of buried Spitfire fighter planes dating back to World War Two.
Rumours of a huge treasure trove of buried aircraft in Myanmar have circulated for years but now geological surveys of one specific site have lent credibility to the idea and David Cundall plans to start digging as soon as possible.
"I've been digging up dumpsites and crashed military aircraft for 35 years, but this is something else," Cundall, 62, told reporters.
Why an estimated 36 planes - and possibly more - should have been buried in the tropics of southeast Asia, is a source of much speculation.
But what is known is that after four years of brutal battles against the occupying Japanese forces, the victorious British buried much of their inventory in 1945.
And at Mingaladon airfield, just outside the former capital city of Yangon, Cundall thinks he's found the exact location.
Cundall first caught wind of the tales of buried British airplanes in the late 1990s.
He spent two years grappling with visa restrictions, and after amassing eight matching eyewitness accounts of the exact location where U.S. and British servicemen had dug a massive trench, he devoted himself to the project.
Long encumbered by unhelpful local bureaucrats and beaten to the initial contract by an Israeli bid, a thaw in the West's relations with Myanmar - formerly known as Burma - facilitated the excavation process.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is believed to have discussed the recovery of the aircraft during a trade visit to Myanmar earlier this year.
In the event, with a 50 percent share in whatever is dug up, Myanmar's cooperation is not entirely altruistic.
There are only about 40 airworthy Spitfires left in the world, and with models in good condition commanding prices of several million pounds each, Cundall is potentially sitting on a fortune.
However, what condition the haul will be in after decades immersed in tropical soil remains to be seen.
"Unlike some aircraft which suffered terribly from the heat and humidity, Spitfires had a very good reputation for reliability," said John Delaney, collections manager at Britain's Imperial War Museum in Duxford, eastern England which has several vintage military aircraft.
"But what kind of condition they're in now depends on how well they were packed."
Cundall says he's unconcerned by their exact state.
"It's like opening a can of 67-year-old beans. It's not going to be at its best, but if you're hungry, you'll eat it."
Project archaeologists are at pains to point out that no physical evidence has been uncovered yet.
Neither is there any obvious reason why an air force should take the trouble to pack and bury a near-obsolete model of aircraft.
Even lead archaeologist Andy Brockman concedes it might all turn out to be an elaborate wild goose chase.
"It's a story that needs investigating," he said.
The monsoon season rains ended in late October, and after a two month hiatus to allow the water table to drop, Cundall and his team hope to start digging in earnest in early January.
(Reporting by Peter Schwartzstein, editing by Paul Casciato)
ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2012) ? Some infants are more susceptible to potentially life-threatening breathing problems after birth, and rare, inherited DNA differences may explain why, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The study is the first to identify a single gene -- ABCA3 -- that is associated with a significant number of cases of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in babies born at or near full term. RDS is the most common respiratory problem in newborns and the most common lung-related cause of death and disease among U.S. infants less than a year old.
Their findings will be published in the December 2012 issue of Pediatrics and are available online.
The research may lead to new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for prevention and treatment to improve respiratory outcomes for babies.
"We found that mutations in ABCA3 account for about 10 percent of respiratory disease in babies born near their due dates," said Jennifer A. Wambach, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics and the study's lead author. "These are babies who we typically think should have mature lungs and breathe normally. While we have known for a while that RDS is a heritable disease, this is the first gene to account for a significant proportion of disease among infants that are full-term or nearly full-term."
RDS occurs when an infant's lungs don't produce enough surfactant, a liquid that coats the inside of the lungs and helps keep them open so the baby can breathe. If there isn't enough surfactant, an infant has to work hard to breathe and may suffer from a lack of oxygen. Premature infants are at especially high risk of RDS, as surfactant production increases as babies near term. However, 2 percent to 3 percent of term and near-term babies also develop RDS.
The researchers' findings suggest a range of possibilities, Wambach said. These include using the genetic knowledge to plan affected infants' births near hospitals with neonatal intensive-care units and developing medical therapies to target the abnormal protein resulting from these mutations.
Wambach said the researchers hope to identify additional genes that cause neonatal RDS and better identify babies at risk.
"But right now we're studying how these mutations function in the laboratory," Wambach said. "Statistical associations help guide us, but we also need to understand the biology of these mutations."
The research team -- including Aaron Hamvas, MD, and F. Sessions Cole, MD -- evaluated five genes known to be important for normal breathing immediately after birth. Hamvas is the James Keating Professor of Pediatrics and medical director of the newborn intensive care unit at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Cole is the Park J. White, MD, Professor of Pediatrics.
The team looked at five genes involved in the metabolism of lung surfactant by taking DNA samples from more than 500 infants of African and European descent, with and without respiratory distress, who were carried to term or near term. They evaluated the same genes in an additional 48 babies with especially severe respiratory distress to see if their findings applied to that group, and in a third group of 1,066 Missouri babies, to determine the frequency of the mutations in a general population.
In comparing babies with and without respiratory distress, they found that babies of European descent with respiratory distress were more likely to have a single mutation in ABCA3, one of the five genes tested, than the infants with no breathing problems. Babies of African descent with respiratory distress also were more likely to have single ABCA3 mutations, but this difference did not reach statistical significance.
More than one-quarter of the babies with especially severe respiratory distress had a single mutation in ABCA3. Infants who inherit two defective copies of the ABCA3 gene usually require lung transplantation for survival. However, this is the first study to show that a single mutation in ABCA3 predisposes infants to respiratory distress that can usually be treated with neonatal intensive care.
The researchers also found that 1.5 percent to 3.6 percent of babies born in Missouri carry a single ABCA3 mutation, leading the researchers to estimate that about 10 percent of RDS cases among term and near-term infants may be attributable to mutations in ABCA3.
"We picked five candidate genes and thought we would find rare mutations in all of the genes," Wambach said. "However, we found very few mutations in the other genes, and they were not associated with RDS. Our findings were really isolated to this one gene, ABCA3."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine. The original article was written by Elizabethe Holland Durando.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
J. A. Wambach, D. J. Wegner, K. DePass, H. Heins, T. E. Druley, R. D. Mitra, P. An, Q. Zhang, L. M. Nogee, F. S. Cole, A. Hamvas. Single ABCA3 Mutations Increase Risk for Neonatal Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Pediatrics, 2012; 130 (6): e1575 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2012-0918
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
The Tempur-Pedic Story: Aggressive Growth Through IT System Transformation
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I recently had the pleasure to interview, Stuart Scott, Tempur-Pedic? CIO. Stuart?s impressive experience serving numerous large companies including GE and Microsoft translates into a wealth of knowledge that any company, large or small, can start learning from immediately. I know I did.
When Stuart started with Tempur-Pedic in 2009, they had aggressive growth plans both domestically and internationally. He was hired to totally revamp IT and enable it to support the expanding business in 24 countries, some with unique go-to-market strategies.
You may ask where does one begin? I will try to share a few key points from our discussion, but trust me; it?s worth the 50+ minutes to listen to it in its entirety here. Read on for a few nuggets:
Look for ways to reduce the amount of traditional IT work that needs to be done like coding, customization, and connecting disparate systems; this frees up IT time to focus on business issues and growth. For example, Collaboration is very important to Tempur-Pedic?s entrepreneurial culture. Moving onto a single global footprint for communication tools, voice, phone, email and document management vastly simplified IT?s involvement and needed support.
Choose a Tier-One ERP system supplier that will grow with your company. Stuart believes every company and industry has unique attributes that no single solution can address off the shelf; there will always be gaps. Go into your implementation understanding those gaps. Tempur-Pedic had very specific ranking criteria for their selection process. They ultimately chose Microsoft Dynamics AX because rapid implementation was critical to them achieving their business goals. AX is flexible and feature-rich; its simplicity has allowed IT to quickly become more proficient in configuring and tuning. From a user standpoint, the familiar User Interface (UI) has lowered training time and resulted in users becoming more proficient more quickly.
Understand that any ERP implementation represents dramatic change and is disruptive to the business. However, if everyone understands the importance of the change in transforming the business, it?s easier to stay on track. According to Stuart, keep in perspective that a new ERP system is more about human change management and so many things you have to get right that go well beyond IT. The process changes, training, communication, education and adoption represent a whole new set of business activities and change that people have to adapt to. If you realize this, and always make decisions with the human factor in mind, you will be better positioned to achieve your goals.
There are many other topics I discussed with Stuart, including the five pillars Tempur-Pedic used as a framework for their transformation, business process re-engineering, change management, implementation process, executive involvement, their approach to customization, and more.
I hope you take the time to listen to this in-depth discussion. I?d be interested to hear what you think about this perspective, and how your company has addressed some of these important issues. You can listen to the Tempur-Pedic discussion here.
Thank you!
About Noman Akhtar
Noman Akhtar is currently the Director of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for Microsoft US. In his previous roles at Microsoft, Noman was instrumental in creating several customer facing programs, which included building a vibrant user community and sharing of best practices; his territory had the highest Customer and Partner Satisfaction across all of Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, Akhtar was an Account Manager for Lawson Software. Noman and his wife, reside in Chicago and are proud parents of 4 year old twin girls, and a 1 year old boy. Noman is an active member of the community and lends time to such causes as finding shelter for homeless kids, youth education and feeding the homeless. When not involved with the family or community, Noman enjoys reading and playing racquetball.
View all posts by Noman Akhtar ?
Developing 'second skin' military fabric to repel chemical and biological agentsPublic release date: 27-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Janet Lathrop jlathrop@admin.umass.edu 413-545-0444 University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Military uniforms of the future may offer a new layer of protection to wearers thanks to research at the UMass Amherst and elsewhere, developing a nanotube-based fabric that repels chemical and biological agents
AMHERST, Mass. Military uniforms of the future may offer a new layer of critical protection to wearers thanks to research by teams at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and several other institutions who are developing a nanotube-based fabric that repels chemical and biological agents.
UMass Amherst polymer scientists Kenneth Carter and James Watkins, collaborating with team leader Francesco Fornasiero of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), recently received a five-year $1.8 million grant to design ways to manufacture the new material as part of a $13 million project funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. It's estimated that the new uniforms could be deployed in the field in less than 10 years.
The researchers say the fabric will be able to switch reversibly from a highly breathable state to a protective one in response to the presence of the environmental threat without the need for an external control system. In the protective state, the uniform material will block the chemical threat while maintaining a good breathability level. "The uniform will be like a smart second skin that responds to the environment," says Fornasiero.
UMass Amherst polymer scientists bring expertise in additive-driven assembly processes that bring polymers and nanoparticles together to produce hybrid functional materials to the project. Membrane and layer fabrication will take place in part through the university's Roll-to-Roll Nanofabrication Laboratory.
The new fabric's reversibility is due to highly breathable membranes with pores made of a few-nanometer-wide, vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes modified with a functional surface layer designed to respond to the presence of a chemical warfare agent, says Watkins at UMass Amherst. The threat response would be triggered by direct chemical warfare agent attack. The fabric would switch to a protective state by closing the pore entrance or by shedding the contaminated surface layer.
For wearer comfort and safety, high breathability is a critical requirement for protective clothing to prevent heat stress when military personnel are engaged in missions in contaminated environments. To provide high breathability, the new composite material will take advantage of the unique transport properties of carbon nanotube pores, which offer gas transport rates two orders of magnitude faster than any other pore of similar size.
The polymer scientists point out that biological agents such as bacteria and viruses are close to 10 nanometers in size. Because the membrane pores on the uniform are only a few nanometers wide, these membranes will block such agents.
However, chemical agents such as mustard gas and nerve gas can be much smaller and require the membrane pores to be able to react to block that threat. To create a multifunctional membrane, the research team plans to modify the surface of the original prototype carbon nanotube membranes with chemical threat responsive functional groups. These functional groups sense and block the threat like gatekeepers on entrance.
The scientists also plan to develop a second, "shedding" response scheme in which the fabric exfoliates upon recation with a chemical agent. In this way, the fabric will be able to block chemical agents such as sulfur mustard (blister agent), GD and VX nerve agents, toxins such as staphylococcal enterotoxin and biological spores such as anthrax.
Carter at UMass Amherst says, "Mimicking the way real skin responds to threats by exfoliation and shedding of contaminated areas will allow for a dynamic responsive garment, all achieved through controlled chemical reactions in this new advanced fabric."
Tracee Harris, science and technology manager for the Dynamic Multifunctional Material for a Second Skin Program, says, "Development of chemical threat responsive carbon nanotube membranes is a great example of a novel material's potential to provide innovative solutions for the Department of Defense CB needs. This futuristic uniform would allow our military forces to operate safely for extended time periods and successfully complete their missions in environments contaminated with chemical and biological warfare agents."
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In addition to Carter, Watkins, Jeffrey Morse and YuYing Tang at UMass Amherst, with Fornasiero, Sangil Kim and Kuang Jen Wu at LLNL, the team includes Heidi Schreuder-Gibson at U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center, Timothy Swager at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jerry Shan at Rutgers University, and Robert Praino at Chasm Technologies, Inc. of Canton, Mass.
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Developing 'second skin' military fabric to repel chemical and biological agentsPublic release date: 27-Nov-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Janet Lathrop jlathrop@admin.umass.edu 413-545-0444 University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Military uniforms of the future may offer a new layer of protection to wearers thanks to research at the UMass Amherst and elsewhere, developing a nanotube-based fabric that repels chemical and biological agents
AMHERST, Mass. Military uniforms of the future may offer a new layer of critical protection to wearers thanks to research by teams at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and several other institutions who are developing a nanotube-based fabric that repels chemical and biological agents.
UMass Amherst polymer scientists Kenneth Carter and James Watkins, collaborating with team leader Francesco Fornasiero of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), recently received a five-year $1.8 million grant to design ways to manufacture the new material as part of a $13 million project funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. It's estimated that the new uniforms could be deployed in the field in less than 10 years.
The researchers say the fabric will be able to switch reversibly from a highly breathable state to a protective one in response to the presence of the environmental threat without the need for an external control system. In the protective state, the uniform material will block the chemical threat while maintaining a good breathability level. "The uniform will be like a smart second skin that responds to the environment," says Fornasiero.
UMass Amherst polymer scientists bring expertise in additive-driven assembly processes that bring polymers and nanoparticles together to produce hybrid functional materials to the project. Membrane and layer fabrication will take place in part through the university's Roll-to-Roll Nanofabrication Laboratory.
The new fabric's reversibility is due to highly breathable membranes with pores made of a few-nanometer-wide, vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes modified with a functional surface layer designed to respond to the presence of a chemical warfare agent, says Watkins at UMass Amherst. The threat response would be triggered by direct chemical warfare agent attack. The fabric would switch to a protective state by closing the pore entrance or by shedding the contaminated surface layer.
For wearer comfort and safety, high breathability is a critical requirement for protective clothing to prevent heat stress when military personnel are engaged in missions in contaminated environments. To provide high breathability, the new composite material will take advantage of the unique transport properties of carbon nanotube pores, which offer gas transport rates two orders of magnitude faster than any other pore of similar size.
The polymer scientists point out that biological agents such as bacteria and viruses are close to 10 nanometers in size. Because the membrane pores on the uniform are only a few nanometers wide, these membranes will block such agents.
However, chemical agents such as mustard gas and nerve gas can be much smaller and require the membrane pores to be able to react to block that threat. To create a multifunctional membrane, the research team plans to modify the surface of the original prototype carbon nanotube membranes with chemical threat responsive functional groups. These functional groups sense and block the threat like gatekeepers on entrance.
The scientists also plan to develop a second, "shedding" response scheme in which the fabric exfoliates upon recation with a chemical agent. In this way, the fabric will be able to block chemical agents such as sulfur mustard (blister agent), GD and VX nerve agents, toxins such as staphylococcal enterotoxin and biological spores such as anthrax.
Carter at UMass Amherst says, "Mimicking the way real skin responds to threats by exfoliation and shedding of contaminated areas will allow for a dynamic responsive garment, all achieved through controlled chemical reactions in this new advanced fabric."
Tracee Harris, science and technology manager for the Dynamic Multifunctional Material for a Second Skin Program, says, "Development of chemical threat responsive carbon nanotube membranes is a great example of a novel material's potential to provide innovative solutions for the Department of Defense CB needs. This futuristic uniform would allow our military forces to operate safely for extended time periods and successfully complete their missions in environments contaminated with chemical and biological warfare agents."
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In addition to Carter, Watkins, Jeffrey Morse and YuYing Tang at UMass Amherst, with Fornasiero, Sangil Kim and Kuang Jen Wu at LLNL, the team includes Heidi Schreuder-Gibson at U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center, Timothy Swager at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jerry Shan at Rutgers University, and Robert Praino at Chasm Technologies, Inc. of Canton, Mass.
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Public release date: 27-Nov-2012
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