α-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (nagalase) accumulates in the serum of cancer patients and its activity correlates with tumor burden, aggressiveness and clinical disease progression. The administration of GC protein-derived macrophage-activating factor (GcMAF) to cancer patients with elevated levels of nagalase has been associated with a decrease of serum nagalase activity and with significant clinical benefits. Here, we report the results of the administration of GcMAF to a heterogeneous cohort of patients with histologically diverse, advanced neoplasms, generally considered as “incurable” diseases. In most cases, GcMAF therapy was initiated at late stages of tumor progression. As this is an open-label, non-controlled, retrospective analysis, caution must be employed when establishing cause-effect relationships between the administration GcMAF and disease outcome. However, the response to GcMAF was generally robust and some trends emerged. All patients (n = 20) presented with elevated serum nagalase activity, well above normal values. All patients but one showed a significant decrease of serum nagalase activity upon weekly GcMAF injections. Decreased nagalase activity was associated with improved clinical conditions and no adverse side effects were reported. The observations reported here confirm and extend previous results and pave the way to further studies aimed at assessing the precise role and indications for GcMAF-based anticancer immunotherapy.

The Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory initiated the Self-Repairing Flight Control System Program in 1984. The program objective is to significantly improve the reliability, maintainability, survivability, and life cycle cost of aircraft flight control systems through aerodynamic reconfiguration and maintenance diagnostics. When a control surface becomes impaired due to a failure or battle damage, a reconfiguration strategy uses the remaining control surfaces to substitute for the lost force and moment generating capability. The reduced criticality of individual control surfaces allows for simplification of upstream flight control system components, e.g., actuators. Reconfiguration technology includes a Positive Pilot Alert system which informs the pilot of impairments and new performance limits. Maintenance diagnostics technology includes both expert ground based systems, to help flight line maintenance personnel, and airborne systems, to begin the diagnostics process before the aircraft lands. The diagnostics systems significantly decrease the time to diagnose failures and lover cannot duplicate and retest OK maintenance actions. The program transitions technology to current and advanced fighter aircraft through feasibility studies, development studies, design criteria development, ground simulations, field demonstrations, and fighter flight tests.

An electronic tracking and scoring system which gives access to relatively complete response data is described. Input, output, error and acceleration data are recorded on magnetic tape and may either be read out for visual inspection or read directly into analog computers and correlators for further analysis. An important feature of the system is that it readily permits the programming of various complex wave form inputs of either regular or irregular patterns in sequences of any length. Type or pattern of input may be varied between trials. The system is highly automated and easily calibrated.

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