Developing a new business model for enabling research - the case of the ACPFG in Australia

Publisher's postprint archived as permitted by publisher.The way in which companies, research centres and educational institutions are organised and structured may provide a competitive advantage for commercialisation, in particular if companies are dependent on the deployment of complementary assets and capabilities by third parties. This paper presents the case of the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG), a private agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) company specialising in early stage Research and Development (R&D) to produce superior adapted cereal varieties, tolerant to abiotic stress conditions such as drought, frost, salt, or mineral toxicity, all of which have a direct and negative impact on plant growth and crop productivity. The organisational structure of the company has been influenced and shaped by Government policy, shareholders expectations and trends in the agbiotech industrial organisation. It has proved attractive to potential alliance partners for collaborative R&D and commercialisation. We present the ACPFG as a new business model to fund basic research and facilitate technology transfer.Stephanie C. Agius, David Corkindale, Antonio G. Dottore, Michael Gilber

Morphological and genetic barcoding study confirming the first Stegastes variabilis (Castelnau, 1855) report in the Mediterranean Sea

This paper presents morphometric and genetic barcoding analyses of the first record of the Cocoa Damselfish, Stegastes variabilis in the Mediterranean Sea. A single specimen was captured from Senglea waterfront, Malta (Central Mediterranean) on the 15th of September 2013. The species is non-indigenous in the Mediterranean, as it is native to the tropical Western Atlantic. Apart from undertaking identification through meristics and morphometric measurements of the specimen, genetic analyss of the 3410 bp mtDNA genes were carried out to confirm the species' identity. The latter was useful given that the genus Stegastes is known to be composed of morphologically very similar species, with variable colour patterns

Chemical determinants of occupational hypersensitivity pneumonitis

Background: Workplace inhalational exposures to low molecular weight (LMW) chemicals cause hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) as well as the more common manifestation of respiratory hypersensitivity, occupational asthma (OA). Aims: To explore whether chemical causation of HP is associated with different structural and physico-chemical determinants from OA. Methods: Chemical causes of human cases of HP and OA were identified from searches of peer-reviewed literature up to the end of 2011. Each chemical was categorised according to whether or not it had been the attributed cause of at least one case of HP. The predicted asthma hazard was determined for each chemical using a previously developed quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model. The chemicals in both sets were independently and ‘blindly’ analysed by an expert in mechanistic chemistry for a qualitative prediction of protein cross-linking potential and determination of lipophilicity (log Kow). Results: Ten HP causing chemicals were identified and had a higher median QSAR predicted asthma hazard than the control group of 101 OA causing chemicals (p < 0.005). Nine of ten HP causing chemicals were predicted to be protein cross-linkers compared to 24/92 controls (p<0.0001). The distributions of log Kow indicated higher values for the HP list (median 3.47) compared to controls (median 0.81) (p < 0.05). Conclusion: These findings suggest that chemicals capable of causing HP tend to have higher predicted asthma hazard, are more lipophilic and are more likely to be protein cross-linkers than those causing OA. Key words: hypersensitivity pneumonitis, occupational chemicals, occupational respiratory disease, toxic inhalatio

Prospective three-year follow up of a cohort study of 240 patients with chronic facial pain

Background: Patients often present with facial pain ascribed to sinusitis, despite normal nasal endoscopy and sinus computed tomography. Facial pain is increasingly recognised to be of neurological origin. Method: A cohort of 240 patients with chronic facial pain was followed up for 36 months at an otolaryngological practice in Malta. The types of facial pain were classified according to International Headache Classification criteria. The body mass index, occupation and educational level of patients were compared with the general population. Results: Tension-type mid-facial pain and facial migraine without aura were the most common types of chronic facial pain. The sites of pain, symptoms, treatment and outcomes for these principal pain types are discussed. Patients with mid-facial pain were treated with low-dose amitriptyline for eight weeks. After three years, nearly half of the patients were symptom free, and in a third the pain changed from being chronic to being episodic. The treatment of patients with facial migraine was more varied but the length of time until recurrence of pain was similar. Conclusion: The most effective long-term treatments for tension-type mid-facial pain and facial migraine were low-dose amitriptyline and low-dose amitriptyline and triptans, respectively.peer-reviewe

H-ATLAS/GAMA and HeViCS – dusty early-type galaxies in different environments

The Herschel Space Observatory has had a tremendous impact on the study of extragalactic dust. Specifically, early-type galaxies (ETG) have been the focus of several studies. In this paper, we combine results from two Herschel studies – a Virgo cluster study Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey (HeViCS) and a broader, low-redshift Herschel-Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS)/Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) study – and contrast the dust and associated properties for similar mass galaxies. This comparison is motivated by differences in results exhibited between multiple Herschel studies of ETG. A comparison between consistent modified blackbody derived dust mass is carried out, revealing strong differences between the two samples in both dust mass and dust-to-stellar mass ratio. In particular, the HeViCS sample lacks massive ETG with as high a specific dust content as found in H-ATLAS. This is most likely connected with the difference in environment for the two samples. We calculate nearest neighbour environment densities in a consistent way, showing that H-ATLAS ETG occupy sparser regions of the local Universe, whereas HeViCS ETG occupy dense regions. This is also true for ETG that are not Herschel-detected but are in the Virgo and GAMA parent samples. Spectral energy distributions are fit to the panchromatic data. From these, we find that in H-ATLAS the specific star formation rate anticorrelates with stellar mass and reaches values as high as in our Galaxy. On the other hand HeViCS ETG appear to have little star formation. Based on the trends found here, H-ATLAS ETG are thought to have more extended star formation histories and a younger stellar population than HeViCS ETG

An MPEG-7 scheme for semantic content modelling and filtering of digital video

Abstract Part 5 of the MPEG-7 standard specifies Multimedia Description Schemes (MDS); that is, the format multimedia content models should conform to in order to ensure interoperability across multiple platforms and applications. However, the standard does not specify how the content or the associated model may be filtered. This paper proposes an MPEG-7 scheme which can be deployed for digital video content modelling and filtering. The proposed scheme, COSMOS-7, produces rich and multi-faceted semantic content models and supports a content-based filtering approach that only analyses content relating directly to the preferred content requirements of the user. We present details of the scheme, front-end systems used for content modelling and filtering and experiences with a number of users

OVERLAPPING PHENOMENA OF BIPOLAR DISORDER AND EPILEPSY - A COMMON PHARMACOLOGICAL PATHWAY

Background: Studies and data on prevalence, recognition and clinical features of bipolar disorder (BD) in epilepsy remain limited. Still, there is a growing evidence of BD and epilepsy being frequent co-morbid conditions with some features suggesting shared pathophysiological mechanisms that include the episodic course of both conditions, the possible kindling mechanism and the efficacy of some antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in BD. Subjects and methods: The aim of this paper is to review concepts of overlapping phenomena of bipolar disorder and epilepsy. A literature review of the theoretical bases of the relationship between BD and epilepsy is presented. Conclusions: The comorbidity of epilepsy and mood disorders was a subject of interest of many studies for decades. Bipolar disorder and epilepsy have a number of clinical, biochemical and pathophysiological features in common. Bipolar disorder in epilepsy, excluding the ictal or periictal symptoms, can be categorized using standardized measures. Standardized psychiatric interview procedures based on DSM criteria like SCID-I or MINI provide comprehensive way to diagnose mood disorders in patients with epilepsy

Evidence for melt leakage from the Hawaiian plume above the mantle transition zone

Dehydration reactions at the top of the mantle transition zone (MTZ) can stabilize partial melt in a seismic low-velocity layer (LVL), but the seismic effects of temperature, melt and volatile content are difficult to distinguish. We invert P-to-S receiver function phases converted at the top and bottom of a LVL above the MTZ beneath Hawaii. To separate the thermal and melting related seismic anomalies, we carry out over 10 million rock physics inversions. These inversions account for variations arising from the Clapeyron slope of phase transition, bulk solid composition, dihedral angle, and mantle potential temperature. We use two independent seismic constraints to evaluate the temperature and shear wave speed within the LVL. The thermal anomalies reveal the presence of a hot and seismically slow plume stem surrounded by a “halo” of cold and fast mantle material. In contrast to this temperature distribution, the plume stem contains less than 0.5 vol% melt, while the surrounding LVL—within the coverage area—contains up to 1.7 vol% melt, indicating possible lateral transport of the melt. When compared to the melting temperatures of mantle rocks, the temperature within the LVL, calculated from seismic observations of MTZ thickness, suggests that the observed small degrees of melting are sustained by the presence of volatiles such as CO2 and H2O. We estimate the Hawaiian plume loses up to 1.9 Mt/yr H2O and 10.7 Mt/yr CO2 to the LVL, providing a crucial missing flux for global volatile cycles