Ground Improvement for Oil Tank Farm in Indonesia

This case study describes the use of ground improvement to treat a highly variable site, where new oil storage tanks were constructed. Varied techniques were used comprising a combination of dynamic compaction, preload, vertical drains and replacement. Settlement data from the storage tanks during water test shows the treatment to have been successful

The sound of violets: the ethnographic potency of poetry?

This paper takes the form of a dialogue between the two authors, and is in two halves, the first half discursive and propositional, and the second half exemplifying the rhetorical, epistemological and metaphysical affordances of poetry in critically scrutinising the rhetoric, epistemology and metaphysics of educational management discourse. Phipps and Saunders explore, through ideas and poems, how poetry can interrupt and/or illuminate dominant values in education and in educational research methods, such as: • alternatives to the military metaphors – targets, strategies and the like – that dominate the soundscape of education; • the kinds and qualities of the cognitive and feeling spaces that might be opened up by the shifting of methodological boundaries; • the considerable work done in ethnography on the use of the poetic: anthropologists have long used poetry as a medium for expressing their sense of empathic connection to their field and their subjects, particularly in considering the creativity and meaning-making that characterise all human societies in different ways; • the particular rhetorical affordances of poetry, as a discipline, as a practice, as an art, as patterned breath; its capacity to shift phonemic, and therewith methodological, authority; its offering of redress to linear and reductive attempts at scripting social life, as always already given and without alternative

Learning from the children : exploring preschool children's encounters with ICT at home

This paper is an account of our attempts to understand preschool children's experiences with information and communication technologies (ICT) at home. Using case study data, we focus on what we can learn from talking directly to the children that might otherwise have been overlooked and on describing and evaluating the methods we adopted to ensure that we maximised the children's contributions to the research. By paying attention to the children's perspectives we have learned that they are discriminating users of ICT who evaluate their own performances, know what gives them pleasure and who differentiate between operational competence and the substantive activities made possible by ICT

Computational design, synthesis, structural analysis and biological evaluation some novel N-methylated indole incorporating pyrazole moieties

1121-1127A new method for N-methylation of indoles using methylating reagent dimethyl sulphate has been developed. Structures of the newly synthesized compounds have been established by elemental analysis and spectral data and evaluated as biological activity. The synthesized indoyl pyrazole compounds have been evaluated for their antioxidant and anticancer activities. The obtained results reveal clearly that compounds IVb and e display the highest antioxidant activity and compounds c and f exhibit better radical scavenging ability; whereas the same compound IVb exhibits excellent activity (IC50 24μM) against HeLa (human cervical carcinoma) cancer cell lines. Theoretical calculation of the title compounds have been carried out using density functional theory method. The geometrical optimization of the prepared target compounds has been theoretically analyzed. Based on the geometries, the HOMO and LUMO, Mulliken population analysis and reactivity indices have been calculated

Computational design, synthesis, structural analysis and biological evaluation some novel N-methylated indole incorporating pyrazole moieties

A new method for N-methylation of indoles using methylating reagent dimethyl sulphate has been developed. Structures of the newly synthesized compounds have been established by elemental analysis and spectral data and evaluated as biological activity. The synthesized indoyl pyrazole compounds have been evaluated for their antioxidant and anticancer activities. The obtained results reveal clearly that compounds IVb and e display the highest antioxidant activity and compounds c and f exhibit better radical scavenging ability; whereas the same compound IVb exhibits excellent activity (IC50 24µM) against HeLa (human cervical carcinoma) cancer cell lines. Theoretical calculation of the title compounds have been carried out using density functional theory method. The geometrical optimization of the prepared target compounds has been theoretically analyzed. Based on the geometries, the HOMO and LUMO, Mulliken population analysis and reactivity indices have been calculated.

Inherited and de novo biallelic pathogenic variants in COL11A1 result in type 2 Stickler syndrome with severe hearing loss.

BACKGROUND: Type 2 Stickler syndrome is usually a dominant disorder resulting from pathogenic variants in COL11A1 encoding the alpha 1 chain of type XI collagen. Typical molecular changes result in either substitution of an obligate glycine within the Gly-Xaa-Yaa amino acid sequence repeat region of the molecule, mRNA missplicing or deletions/duplications that typically leaves the message in-frame. Clinical features include myopia, retinal detachment, craniofacial, joint, and hearing problems. Fibrochondrogenesis is also a COL11A1 related disorder, but here disease-associated variants are recessive and may be either null alleles or substitutions of glycine, and the condition is usually lethal in infancy. METHODS: The patient was assessed in the NHS England Stickler syndrome diagnostic service. DNA from the patient and family were analyzed with Next Generation Sequencing on a panel of genes known to cause Stickler Syndrome. The effect of sequence variants was assessed using minigene analysis. Allele-specific RT-PCR was performed. RESULTS: This patient had clinical type 2 Stickler syndrome but with severe hearing loss and severe ocular features including retinal atrophy and retinal tears in childhood. We identified a de novo in frame deletion of COL11A1 (c.4109_4126del) consistent with dominantly inherited Stickler syndrome but also a second inherited variant (c.1245+2T>C), on the other allele, affecting normal splicing of COL11A1 exon 9. CONCLUSION: Exon 9 of COL11A1 is alternatively expressed and disease causing changes affecting only this exon modify the phenotype resulting from biallelic COL11A1 disease-associated variants and, instead of fibrochondrogenesis, produce a form of Stickler syndrome with severe hearing loss. Disease phenotypes from de novo pathogenic variants can be modified by inherited recessive variants on the other allele. This highlights the need for functional and family analysis to confirm the mode of inheritance in COL11A1-related disorders, particularly for those variants that may alter normal pre-mRNA splicing

The influence of sea surface temperature on the intensity and associated storm surge of tropical cyclone Yasi: a sensitivity study

Tropical cyclones (TCs) result in widespread damage associated with strong winds, heavy rainfall and storm surge. TC Yasi was one of the most powerful TCs to impact the Queensland coast since records began. Prior to Yasi, the SSTs in the Coral Sea were higher than average by 1-2ĝ€°C, primarily due to the 2010/2011 La Niña event. In this study, a conceptually simple idealised sensitivity analysis is performed using a high-resolution regional model to gain insight into the influence of SST on the track, size, intensity and associated rainfall of TC Yasi. A set of nine simulations with uniform SST anomalies of between ĝ'4 and 4ĝ€°C applied to the observed SSTs are analysed. The resulting surface winds and pressure are used to force a barotropic storm surge model to examine the influence of SST on the associated storm surge of TC Yasi. An increase in SST results in an increase in intensity, precipitation and integrated kinetic energy of the storm; however, there is little influence on track prior to landfall. In addition to an increase in precipitation, there is a change in the spatial distribution of precipitation as the SST increases. Decreases in SSTs result in an increase in the radius of maximum winds due to an increase in the asymmetry of the storm, although the radius of gale-force winds decreases. These changes in the TC characteristics also lead to changes in the associated storm surge. Generally, cooler (warmer) SSTs lead to reduced (enhanced) maximum storm surges. However, the increase in surge reaches a maximum with an increase in SST of 2ĝ€°C. Any further increase in SST does not affect the maximum surge but the total area and duration of the simulated surge increases with increasing upper ocean temperatures. A large decrease in maximum storm surge height occurs when a negative SST anomaly is applied, suggesting if TC Yasi had occurred during non-La Niña conditions the associated storm surge may have been greatly diminished, with a decrease in storm surge height of over 3ĝ€m when the SST is reduced by 2ĝ€°C. In summary, increases in SST lead to an increase in the potential destructiveness of TCs with regard to intensity, precipitation and storm surge, although this relationship is not linear

Synthesis, computational studies and antioxidant activity of some 3-(2-alkylamino-4-aminothiazole-5-oyl)pyridines

605-610A series of thiazoloylpyridine derivatives has been synthesized and analyzed to confirm the structure of the product using IR, 1H and 13C NMR, mass spectra and analytical data. Optimized structural and electronic parameters of all the compounds have been calculated by using B3LYP/ 6-31G basis set. The Mulliken charges of all atoms have been evaluated. The calculated IR spectrum has been analyzed by comparing the experimental IR. All the synthesized compounds have been examined for antioxidant activities. The antioxidant activity of 3-(2-alkylamino-4-aminothiazol -5-oyl)pyridines have been analyzed using DPPH radical scavenging assay. The compounds 6a and 6b possess higher radical scavenging activity

Association between chronic conditions and health-related quality of life: differences by level of urbanization in Peru.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the role of urbanization as an effect modifier for the association between specific chronic conditions and number of conditions with health-related quality of life (QOL). METHODS: We analyzed cross-sectional data from the CRONICAS Cohort Study conducted in Lima (highly urbanized), Tumbes (semi-urban), as well as rural and urban sites in Puno. Exposures of interest were chronic bronchitis, depressive mood, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and a composite variable aggregating the number of chronic conditions (the four exposures plus heart disease and stroke). QOL outcomes were assessed with EuroQol's EQ-5D visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS). We fitted linear regressions with robust variance to evaluate the associations of interest. Study site was assessed as a potential effect modifier using the likelihood-ratio (LR) test. RESULTS: We evaluated data on 2433 subjects: 51.3% were female, mean age was 57.2 years. Study site was found to be an effect modifier only for the association between depressive mood and EQ-VAS score (LR test p < 0.001). Compared to those without depressive mood, participants with depressive mood scored -13.7 points on the EQ-VAS in Lima, -7.9 in urban Puno, -11.0 in semi-urban Tumbes, and -2.7 in rural Puno. Study site was not found to be an effect modifier for the association between the number of chronic conditions and EQ-VAS (LR test p = 0.64). CONCLUSION: The impact of depressive mood on EQ-VAS was larger in urban than in rural sites, while site was not an effect modifier for the remaining associations