Updates in metabolomics tools and resources: 2014-2015

Data processing and interpretation represent the most challenging and time-consuming steps in high-throughput metabolomic experiments, regardless of the analytical platforms (MS or NMR spectroscopy based) used for data acquisition. Improved machinery in metabolomics generates increasingly complex datasets that create the need for more and better processing and analysis software and in silico approaches to understand the resulting data. However, a comprehensive source of information describing the utility of the most recently developed and released metabolomics resources—in the form of tools, software, and databases—is currently lacking. Thus, here we provide an overview of freely-available, and open-source, tools, algorithms, and frameworks to make both upcoming and established metabolomics researchers aware of the recent developments in an attempt to advance and facilitate data processing workflows in their metabolomics research. The major topics include tools and researches for data processing, data annotation, and data visualization in MS and NMR-based metabolomics. Most in this review described tools are dedicated to untargeted metabolomics workflows; however, some more specialist tools are described as well. All tools and resources described including their analytical and computational platform dependencies are summarized in an overview Table

Distributed Control of Microscopic Robots in Biomedical Applications

Current developments in molecular electronics, motors and chemical sensors could enable constructing large numbers of devices able to sense, compute and act in micron-scale environments. Such microscopic machines, of sizes comparable to bacteria, could simultaneously monitor entire populations of cells individually in vivo. This paper reviews plausible capabilities for microscopic robots and the physical constraints due to operation in fluids at low Reynolds number, diffusion-limited sensing and thermal noise from Brownian motion. Simple distributed controls are then presented in the context of prototypical biomedical tasks, which require control decisions on millisecond time scales. The resulting behaviors illustrate trade-offs among speed, accuracy and resource use. A specific example is monitoring for patterns of chemicals in a flowing fluid released at chemically distinctive sites. Information collected from a large number of such devices allows estimating properties of cell-sized chemical sources in a macroscopic volume. The microscopic devices moving with the fluid flow in small blood vessels can detect chemicals released by tissues in response to localized injury or infection. We find the devices can readily discriminate a single cell-sized chemical source from the background chemical concentration, providing high-resolution sensing in both time and space. By contrast, such a source would be difficult to distinguish from background when diluted throughout the blood volume as obtained with a blood sample

‘Do you like taster menus?’ Beyond hybridity: The Trip & The Trip to Italy

In episode two of the cinematic-televisual hybrid The Trip, which has been released to various markets in diverse formats, providing different selections from core content, the protagonists discuss restaurant taster menus, one of which they are about to experience. This essay both utilises established approaches in television studies and examines developments in film and book marketing over two decades to explore how The Trip and its sequel The Trip to Italy contribute to, exploit, and satirize associated developments in literary, cinematic, and televisual culture. It concludes that, at a time when each of these aspects of art and entertainment, and institutions behind them, face unprecedented pressure from technological change, the series provide taster menus for BBC public service entertainment and educational output

A Money and Credit Real-Time Database for Canada

Model-based forecasts of important economic variables are part of the range of information considered for monetary policy decision making. Since some of the data underpinning these forecasts can be revised over time as new information is released, having access to the data that are available when decisions are made can have a significant impact on assessments of forecasting models. A database of published information for a set of money and credit variables has been developed at the Bank of Canada. This real-time database, which will make available estimates of money and credit data that have been published at different times, is expected to be of great help to researchers developing models based on money and credit data. The authors describe the contents of the new database and discuss patterns in data revisions. While they find that most revisions are unbiased, they provide evidence that revisions to some of the money and credit aggregates are biased. In particular, revisions to long-term business credit and total business credit tend to show an upward bias over longer periods. The authors argue that this may be because there tends to be a delay in factoring the effects of financial innovations into time series. Practitionners should consider this when interpreting developments in business credit.

Vampires, Viruses and Verbalisation: Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a genealogical window into fin-de-siècle science

This paper considers Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, published in 1897, as a window into techno-scientific and sociocultural developments of the fin-de-siècle era, ranging from blood transfusion and virology up to communication technology and brain research, but focusing on the birth of psychoanalysis in 1897, the year of publication. Stoker’s literary classic heralds a new style of scientific thinking, foreshadowing important aspects of post-1900 culture. Dracula reflects a number of scientific events which surfaced in the 1890s but evolved into major research areas that are still relevant today. Rather than seeing science and literature as separate realms, moreover, Stoker’s masterpiece encourages us to address the ways in which techno-scientific and psycho- cultural developments mutually challenge and mirror one another, so that we may use his novel to deepen our understanding of emerging research practices and vice versa (Zwart 2008, 2010). Psychoanalysis plays a double role in this. It is the research field whose genealogical constellation is being studied, but at the same time (Lacanian) psychoanalysis guides my reading strategy. Dracula, the infectious, undead Vampire has become an archetypal cinematic icon and has attracted the attention of numerous scholars (Browning & Picart 2009). The vampire complex built on various folkloristic and literary sources and culminated in two famous nineteenth-century literary publications: the story The Vampyre by John Polidori (published in 1819)2 and Stoker’s version. Most of the more than 200 vampire movies released since Nosferatu (1922) are based on the latter (Skal 1990; Browning & Picart 2009; Melton 2010; Silver & Ursini 2010). Yet, rather than on the archetypal cinematic image of the Vampire, I will focus on the various scientific ideas and instruments employed by Dracula’s antagonists to overcome the threat to civilisation he represents. Although the basic storyline is well-known, I will begin with a plot summary

Developments in Australian refugee law and policy (2012 to August 2013)

Introduction: This Research paper provides a snap-shot of significant developments in refugee law and policy during the period 2012 to August 2013 when the 43rd Parliament was prorogued and the House of Representatives dissolved for a general election. The commencement of 2012 saw the Government and Coalition remain at an impasse on offshore processing following the successful 2011 High Court challenge to the Government’s proposed Malaysia Arrangement. In the absence of bi-partisan support to implement statutory amendments to facilitate offshore processing, the Government began implementing a single visa processing framework for all asylum seekers which saw irregular maritime arrivals being processed in the same way as onshore protection visa applicants. That is, both began to be assessed under a statutory process with independent merits review by the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) and have equal access to judicial review of negative decisions. However, by mid-2012, the report of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers had been released and without delay, the Government begun implementing key recommendations, including the introduction of legislation to support the transfer of asylum seekers to regional processing countries, and creating capacity in Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG) to process asylum claims. The Government had also increased its Humanitarian Program to 20,000 places per year (with a minimum of 12,000 places being allocated for refugees), and it had removed family reunion concessions for proposers who had arrived through irregular maritime voyages. By the end of 2012, the Government had also begun implementing the Expert Panel’s ill-defined ‘no advantage’ principle to prevent boat arrivals benefitting from circumventing regular migration arrangements. It implemented this principle by selecting and transferring some boat arrivals to the regional processing centres in PNG and Nauru. The principle was also applied to an increasing number of asylum seekers released into the community on the mainland on bridging visas by denying them the opportunity to work and offering them only limited financial support. Significantly, these boat arrivals also remained ineligible for the grant of protection visas ‘until such time that they would have been resettled in Australia after being processed in our region’. However, the Government never clarified the number of years it envisaged these asylum seekers would wait for final resolution of their status, nor did it rule out the possibility of sending them offshore at a later date. The Government subsequently estimated that some 19,000 asylum seekers living in the community were subject to the ‘no advantage’ principle. Two months before the 2013 federal election and in the wake of growing support for the Opposition’s tougher border protection policies, newly appointed Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd made a surprise announcement on 19 July 2013 that Australia had entered into a Regional Resettlement Arrangement with PNG. Under the Arrangement, all asylum seekers that henceforth arrive by boat would be liable for transfer to PNG for processing and resettlement in PNG and in any other participating regional State. He subsequently makes a similar Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Nauru. Notwithstanding the Government’s policy shift, the Australian Labor Party was unable to secure another term in office and on 7 September 2013, the Liberal and National parties were voted in to form a Coalition Government, led by Tony Abbott. This paper provides a brief chronology of these and other significant events during the reporting period. It also outlines key legal developments by examining significant Federal and High Court judgments and provides a brief overview of the Bills that were introduced. The paper also briefly examines key policy developments and provides an overview of significant reports and parliamentary inquiries finalised during the reporting period. In doing so, this paper builds upon previous Parliamentary Library publications, Developments in Australian refugee law and policy 2010—2011 and Developments in Australian refugee law and policy 2007–10: Labor’s first term in office

Time for a Change: The Case for LGBT-Inclusive Workplace Leave Laws and Nondiscrimination Protections

When Americans need time off work to recover from illness, bond with a new child, or care for a seriously ill family member, they often discover that their jobs provide little or no support. These important life moments can be especially difficult for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) workers to navigate. LGBT workers who need time off for personal health or family caregiving reasons often find themselves lost in a maze of legal questions:Am I entitled to any leave from work, and if so, is it job-protected and/or paid?Do any federal, state, or local laws provide protection or guarantee paid leave?Are my family relationships recognized under the law or my employer's personnel policies?Can I be fired from my job for disclosing that I am in a same-sex relationship or have an LGBT family?In April 2013, A Better Balance issued a comprehensive report to address these critical questions. Given significant developments in the law regarding LGBT Americans, as well as passage of several new state and local workplace leave laws, A Better Balance released this updated version of the report in November 2013