Reducing Urban Pollution Exposure from Road Transport(RUPERT)

This paper presents the preliminary results of a two-year study on reducing urban pollution exposure from road transport (RUPERT). The main aim of this project is to develop a new modelling framework for nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter to simulate exposures of different population groups across a city, and to assess the impact of roadside concentrations on these exposures. This will be achieved by modelling the frequency distribution of personal exposures (PEFDs) as a function of urban background and roadside concentrations, under different traffic conditions. The modelling approach combines new and existing models relating traffic and air pollution data, with particular emphasis of the impact of congestion, and the probabilistic modelling framework of personal exposure. Modelling of roadside concentrations consists of two main elements, namely the analysis of concentrations patterns at different roadside sites and of the relationship between traffic conditions and added roadside pollution. Roadside concentrations are predicted using empirically derived relationships; statistical models, novel statistics and artificial neural networks namely feed forward neural network and radial basis neural network. The exposure modelling is carried out by linking two models: the INDAIR model, which is designed to simulate probabilistically diurnal profiles of air pollutant concentrations in a range of microenvironments, and the EXPAIR model, which is designed to simulate population exposure patterns based on population time-activity patterns and a library of micro-environmental concentrations derived from the INDAIR model

An all-solid-state optical parametric oscillator for the infrared

A low threshold, efficient optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on the material Potassium Titanyl Phosphate (KTP) and pumped by a diode-laser-pumped, Q-switched Nd:YLF laser has been demonstrated and investigated. This all-solid-state device was operated in a non-critical phase match (NCPM) geometry converting the 1 mum pump light to output wavelengths of 1.54 and 3.28 mum, and has potential as an 'eyesafe' laser source with scaling to higher powers. A major contributing factor to the success of this work was the extension of the steady state theory of the singly resonant OPO to include the build-up time effects that are dominant in the pulsed regime. A number of diode pumped lasers were constructed, allowing a comparison to be made between side- and end-pumping geometries, and also between the materials Nd:YAG and Nd:YLF. The end-pumping geometry in conjunction with the higher absorption and longer upper state lifetime in Nd:YLF made it the design of choice for the case of low pump pulse energies (~ 12 mJ at 797 nm). Anamorphic expansion of the laser mode in the plane parallel to the diode laser junction was employed to achieve TEM00 operation of this laser. Subsequent Q-switching with a polariser and LiNbO3 Pockels cell combination produced 2.2 mJ at 1.047 mum in an 18 ns pulse. Investigation of the dynamic loss of the Q-switch (which is due to the elasto-optic effect) allowed improvement of laser performance. The established model for a pulsed singly resonant OPO which describes the case for a plane-plane resonator was inappropriate in this work and so the steady state focused beam theory was extended to include time dependence. Fair agreement was found between the computer model and the experimental results, where the effects of pump and signal focusing, and output coupling were investigated. The high conversion efficiency of 30% for converting the 1 mum pump light to the eyesafe wavelength of 1.54 mum is superior to the present alternative source of the Er:glass laser. Pump energy thresholds of less than 0.5 mJ were obtained, along with internal conversions approaching 50 %. An empirical relation describing pump depletion was derived which showed good agreement with experiment. A high resolution investigation of the spectral properties of the OPO identified the roles of resonant reflection and doubly resonant behaviour on the mode structure of the output. The former suggests a way in which single mode operation could be achieved without the use of additional intracavity elements, or a seeding source

Crop Updates 1999 - Lupins

This article contains twenty three papers 1998 LUPIN HIGHLIGHTS LUPIN ANTHRACNOSE 1. Anthracnose overview, Greg Shea, Geoff Thomas and Mark Sweetingham, Agriculture Western Australia 2. Anthracnose – Critical seed infection levels for resistant and susceptible varieties, Geoff Thomas, Mark Sweetingham, Bill O\u27Neill and Greg Shea, Agriculture Western Australia 3. Fungicide seed treatment for anthracnose and brown spot control in lupin, G. Thomas and M. Sweetingham, Agriculture Western Australia LUPIN BREEDING AND AGRONOMY 4. Anthracnose resistance in lupins – an innovative Australian research effort 1996-1998, Wallace Cowling1\u272, Bevan Buirchell1,2 Mark Sweetinqham1,2, Hua\u27an Yang2, Geoff Thomas 1, David Luckett3, Allan Brown4 and John Hamblin2, 1 Agriculture Western Australia, 2 Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, University of Western Australia, 3 NSW Agriculture, Agricultural Institute, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 4 Consultant, 16 Rochester Way, Dianella, WA 5. Gene transfer to pulses: Challenges through 1989-99. Joanne E. Barton, Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, University of Western Australia 6. Can we select for restricted branching in narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius) Kedar Adhikari1, Nick Galwey1and Miles Dracup2, 1Plant Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia,2 Agriculture Western Australia 7. Getting the beat out of new lupin varieties, Dr Bob French, Grain Legume Agronomist, Agriculture Western Australia 8. Starter nitrogen on lupins, Dr Bob French, Grain Legume Agronomist, Agriculture Western Australia APHIDS AND VIRUS CONTROL 9. Forecasting aphid and virus risk in lupins, Debbie Thackray and Roger Jones, CRC for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture and Agriculture Western Australia 10. Screening for resistance to cucumber mosaic virus in lupins, Roger Jones, Brenda Coutts, Narelle Reeve, Wallace Cowling and Bevan Buirchell, Agriculture Western Australia and CRC for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture 11. The non-necrotic strain of bean yellow mosaic virus spreads faster than the necrotic strain in lupins, Y. Cheng 1 and R.A.C. Jones 1•2, 1 Cooperative Research Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, 2 Agriculture Western Australia 12. Spraying to control aphid feeding damage increases yields of some lupin varieties and faba bean, Francoise Berlandier and Linnet Cartwright, Entomology, Agriculture Western Australia LUPIN NUTRITION 13. Calculated lime requirements for rotations, James Fisher1, Art Diggle 1•2 and Bill Bowden 1•2, 1 Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, 2 Agriculture Western Australia 14. What does lime do to acidic soils – lupin nutrition, Chris Gazey, Research Officer, Agriculture Western Australia 15. Effect of application method of manganese fertiliser and manganese concentration of seed source on seed yield of lupins grown in the West Midlands, Luigi Moreschi, CSBP Area Manager HERBICIDE TOLERANCE AND WEED CONTROL 16. Herbicide tolerance of lupins, Terry Piper, Weed Science Group, Agriculture Western Australia 17. Weed control in Wodjil yellow lupins, Terry Piper, Weed Science Group, Agriculture Western Australia 18. Herbicide tolerance of new lupin varieties, Peter Newman, Agronomist, Elders Mingenew 19. Control of volunteer canola in lupins, Terry Piper and Dave Nicholson, Weed Science Group, Agriculture Western Australia LUPIN ESTABLISHMENT 20. A new seed pressing system for healthy lupin establishment and productivity, Mohammad Amjad, Glen Riethmuller and Ron Jarvis, Agriculture Western Australia 21. Encouragement for controlled traffic farming in the Northern Wheatbelt, Paul Blackwell, Agriculture Western Australia LUPIN HARVESTING 22. Improved lupin harvesting efficiency with different knife guard extensions, Glen Riethmuller, Agriculture Western Australia LUPIN AND PULSE UTILISATION 23. The value of pulse grains for sheep, C.L. White, CSIRO Division of Animal Productio

Tamoxifen and risk of contralateral breast cancer for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Purpose To determine whether adjuvant tamoxifen treatment for breast cancer (BC) is associated with reduced contralateral breast cancer (CBC) risk for BRCA1 and/or BRCA2 mutation carriers. Methods Analysis of pooled observational cohort data, self-reported at enrollment and at follow-up from the International BRCA1, and BRCA2 Carrier Cohort Study, Kathleen Cuningham Foundation Consortium for Research into Familial Breast Cancer, and Breast Cancer Family Registry. Eligible women were BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers diagnosed with unilateral BC since 1970 and no other invasive cancer or tamoxifen use before first BC. Hazard ratios (HRs) for CBC associated with tamoxifen use were estimated using Cox regression, adjusting for year and age of diagnosis, country, and bilateral oophorectomy and censoring at contralateral mastectomy, death, or loss to follow-up. Results Of 1,583 BRCA1 and 881 BRCA2 mutation carriers, 383 (24%) and 454 (52%), respectively, took tamoxifen after first BC d

Inheritance of deleterious mutations at both BRCA1 and BRCA2 in an international sample of 32,295 women

Background: Most BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers have inherited a single (heterozygous) mutation. Transheterozygotes (TH) who have inherited deleterious mutations in both BRCA1 and BRCA2 are rare, and the consequences of transheterozygosity are poorly understood. Methods: From 32,295 female BRCA1/2 mutation carriers, we identified 93 TH (0.3 %). "Cases" were defined as TH, and "controls" were single mutations at BRCA1 (SH1) or BRCA2 (SH2). Matched SH1 "controls" carried a BRCA1 mutation found in the TH "case". Matched SH2 "controls" carried a BRCA2 mutation found in the TH "case". After matching the TH carriers with SH1 or SH2, 91 TH were matched to 9316 SH1, and 89 TH were matched to 3370 SH2. Results: The majority of TH (45.2 %) involved the three common Jewish mutations. TH were more likely than SH1 and SH2 women to have been ever diagnosed with breast cancer (BC; p = 0.002). TH were more likely to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer (OC) than SH2 (p = 0.017), but not SH1. Age at BC diagnosis was the same in TH vs. SH1 (p = 0.231), but was on average 4.5 years younger in TH than in SH2 (p < 0.001). BC in TH was more likely to be estrogen receptor (ER) positive (p = 0.010) or progesterone receptor (PR) positive (p = 0.013) than in SH1, but less likely to be ER positive (p < 0.001) or PR positive (p = 0.012) than SH2. Among 15 tumors from TH patients, there was no clear pattern of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) for BRCA1 or BRCA2 in either BC or OC. Conclusions: Our observations suggest that clinical TH phenotypes resemble SH1. However, TH breast tumor marker characteristics are phenotypically intermediate to SH1 and SH2

Identification of independent association signals and putative functional variants for breast cancer risk through fine-scale mapping of the 12p11 locus.

BACKGROUND: Multiple recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs10771399, at 12p11 that is associated with breast cancer risk. METHOD: We performed a fine-scale mapping study of a 700 kb region including 441 genotyped and more than 1300 imputed genetic variants in 48,155 cases and 43,612 controls of European descent, 6269 cases and 6624 controls of East Asian descent and 1116 cases and 932 controls of African descent in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC; http://bcac.ccge.medschl.cam.ac.uk/ ), and in 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers in the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA). Stepwise regression analyses were performed to identify independent association signals. Data from the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements project (ENCODE) and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were used for functional annotation. RESULTS: Analysis of data from European descendants found evidence for four independent association signals at 12p11, represented by rs7297051 (odds ratio (OR) = 1.09, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1.06-1.12; P = 3 × 10(-9)), rs805510 (OR = 1.08, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.12, P = 2 × 10(-5)), and rs1871152 (OR = 1.04, 95 % CI = 1.02-1.06; P = 2 × 10(-4)) identified in the general populations, and rs113824616 (P = 7 × 10(-5)) identified in the meta-analysis of BCAC ER-negative cases and BRCA1 mutation carriers. SNPs rs7297051, rs805510 and rs113824616 were also associated with breast cancer risk at P < 0.05 in East Asians, but none of the associations were statistically significant in African descendants. Multiple candidate functional variants are located in putative enhancer sequences. Chromatin interaction data suggested that PTHLH was the likely target gene of these enhancers. Of the six variants with the strongest evidence of potential functionality, rs11049453 was statistically significantly associated with the expression of PTHLH and its nearby gene CCDC91 at P < 0.05. CONCLUSION: This study identified four independent association signals at 12p11 and revealed potentially functional variants, providing additional insights into the underlying biological mechanism(s) for the association observed between variants at 12p11 and breast cancer risk.UK funding includes Cancer Research UK and NIH.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BioMed Central via http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13058-016-0718-

Refined histopathological predictors of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status: A large-scale analysis of breast cancer characteristics from the BCAC, CIMBA, and ENIGMA consortia

Introduction: The distribution of histopathological features of invasive breast tumors in BRCA1 or BRCA2 germline mutation carriers differs from that of individuals with no known mutation. Histopathological features thus have utility for mutation prediction, including statistical modeling to assess pathogenicity of BRCA1 or BRCA2 variants of uncertain clinical significance. We analyzed large pathology datasets accrued by the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA) and the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) to reassess histopathological predictors of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status, and provide robust likelihood ratio (LR) estimates for statistical modeling. Methods: Selection criteria for study/center inclusion were estrogen receptor (ER) status or grade data available for invasive breast cancer diagnosed younger than 70 years. The dataset included 4,477 BRCA1 mutation carriers, 2,565 BRCA2 mutation carriers, and 47,565 BCAC breast cancer cases. Country-stratified estimates of the

Associations of common breast cancer susceptibility alleles with risk of breast cancer subtypes in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Introduction: More than 70 common alleles are known to be involved in breast cancer (BC) susceptibility, and several exhibit significant heterogeneity in their associations with different BC subtypes. Although there are differences in the association patterns between BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers and the general population for several loci, no study has comprehensively evaluated the associations of all known BC susceptibility alleles with risk of BC subtypes in BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers. Methods: We used data from 15,252 BRCA1 and 8,211 BRCA2 carriers to analyze the associations between approximately 200,000 genetic variants on the iCOGS array and risk of BC subtypes defined by estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and triple-negative- (TN) status; morphologic subtypes; histological grade; and nodal involvement. Results: The estimated BC hazard ratios (HRs) for the 74 known BC alleles in BRCA1 carriers exhibited moderate correlations with the corresponding odds ratios from the general population. However, their associations with ER-positive BC in BRCA1 carriers were more consistent with the ER-positive as

Assessing associations between the AURKAHMMR-TPX2-TUBG1 functional module and breast cancer risk in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers

While interplay between BRCA1 and AURKA-RHAMM-TPX2-TUBG1 regulates mammary epithelial polarization, common genetic variation in HMMR (gene product RHAMM) may be associated with risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 mutation carriers. Following on these observations, we further assessed the link between the AURKA-HMMR-TPX2-TUBG1 functional module and risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers. Forty-one single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in 15,252 BRCA1 and 8,211 BRCA2 mutation carriers and subsequently analyzed using a retrospective likelihood appr