U.S. East Coast Trough Indices at 500 hPa and New England Winter Climate Variability

Using monthly gridded 500-hPa data, two synoptic indices are defined to better understand the principle mechanisms controlling intraseasonal to multiannual winter climate variability in NewEngland (NE). The “trough axis index” (TAI) is created to quantify the mean longitudinal position of the common East Coast pressure trough, and the “trough intensity index” (TII) is calculated to estimate the relative amplitude of this trough at 42.5°N. The TAI and TII are then compared with records for NE regional winter precipitation, temperature, and snowfall with the goal of understanding physical mechanisms linking NE winter climate with regional sea surface temperatures (SST), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Pacific–North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern. The TAI correlates most significantly with winter precipitation at inland sites, such that a western (eastern)trough axis position is associated with greater (lower) average monthly precipitation. Also, significant correlations between the TAI and both NE regional SSTs and the NAO suggest that longitudinal shifting of the trough is one possible mechanism linking the North Atlantic with NE regional winterclimate variability. The NE winter temperature is significantly correlated with the TII, regional SSTs, and the NAO. While the PNA also correlates with the TII, NE winter climate variables are apparently unrelated to the PNA index

Content moderators’ strategies for coping with the stress of moderating content online

Content moderators are exposed to a range of stressors at work, including analysing content that has been flagged as harmful. However, not much is known about their specific coping strategies. Depth interviews were conducted with 11 content moderators exposed to child sexual abuse material (CSAM) as part of their job, and thematically analysed to investigate both individual coping strategies and those deployed organisationally. Results highlighted the importance of social support especially from colleagues. Supportive relationships fulfilled several needs including helping content moderators process emotions, normalise their reactions and reducing feelings of isolation. Additionally, the ability to create boundaries between work and home life was important for distancing and distracting themselves from the work. Moderators expressed a preference for mandatory, individual therapy with professionals who had specific experience supporting those exposed to CSAM and reported disclosure was hindered if not, due to worries about traumatising the therapist. How content moderators cope and can be further supported are discussed

Eliminating helper phage from phage display

Phage display technology involves the display of proteins or peptides, as coat protein fusions, on the surface of a phage or phagemid particles. Using standard technology, helper phage are essential for the replication and assembly of phagemid particles, during library production and biopanning. We have eliminated the need to add helper phage by using 'bacterial packaging cell lines' that provide the same functions. These cell lines contain M13-based helper plasmids that express phage packaging proteins which assemble phagemid particles as efficiently as helper phage, but without helper phage contamination. This results in genetically pure phagemid particle preparations. Furthermore, by using constructs differing in the form of gene 3 that they contain, we have shown that the display, from a single library, can be modulated between monovalent (phagemid-like) and multivalent display (phage-like) without any further engineering. These packaging cells eliminate the use of helper phage from phagemid-based selection protocols; reducing the amount of technical preparation, facilitating automation, optimizing selections by matching display levels to diversity, and effectively using the packaged phagemid particles as means to transfer genetic information at an efficiency approaching 100%

The value of habitats of conservation importance to climate change mitigation in the UK

The input of PS contributes to the following UKRI-funded projects: DEVIL (NE/M021327/1) and Soils-R-GRREAT (NE/P019455/1). The contributions of RHF, GMB, AH and RBB were funded by RSPB. Thanks to Olly Watts and Phil Grice and three anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper, their comments immeasurably improved it. Thanks also to Ruth Davies, Mel Coath, Vicki Swales, Arfon Williams, Tom Lancaster, Andrew Midgely, Phillip Carson, Jonathan Cryer, Adam Barnett, Paul Morling, Pat Thompson, Beatriz Luraschi, Kate Jennings and Jonathon Bell who helped frame the question addressed here and shape the ‘storymap’ based on this work, available at https://arcg.is/098uiD.Peer reviewedPostprin

Hyperuniversality of Fully Anisotropic Three-Dimensional Ising Model

For the fully anisotropic simple-cubic Ising lattice, the critical finite-size scaling amplitudes of both the spin-spin and energy-energy inverse correlation lengths and the singular part of the reduced free-energy density are calculated by the transfer-matrix method and a finite-size scaling for cyclic L x L x oo clusters with L=3 and 4. Analysis of the data obtained shows that the ratios and the directional geometric means of above amplitudes are universal.Comment: RevTeX 3.0, 24 pages, 2 figures upon request, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Observations of TeV gamma rays from Markarian 501 at large zenith angles

TeV gamma rays from the blazar Markarian 501 have been detected with the University of Durham Mark 6 atmospheric Cerenkov telescope using the imaging technique at large zenith angles. Observations were made at zenith angles in the range 70 - 73 deg during 1997 July and August when Markarian 501 was undergoing a prolonged and strong flare.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. G.: Nucl. Part. Phy

VSOP and Ground-based VLBI Imaging of the TeV Blazar Markarian 421 at Multiple Epochs

We present thirty VLBI images of the TeV blazar Markarian 421 (1101+384) at fifteen epochs spanning the time range from 1994 to 1997, and at six different frequencies from 2.3 to 43 GHz. The imaged observations include a high-resolution 5 GHz VLBI Space Observatory Programme (VSOP) observation with the HALCA satellite on 1997 November 14; full-track VLBA observations from 1994 April, 1996 November, and 1997 May at frequencies between 5 and 43 GHz; six epochs of VLBA snapshot observations at frequencies between 2 and 15 GHz from Radio Reference Frame studies; and five geodetic VLBI observations at 2 and 8 GHz from the archive of the Washington VLBI Correlator Facility located at the U.S. Naval Observatory. The dense time coverage of the images allows us to unambiguously track components in the parsec-scale jet over the observed time range. We measure the speeds of three inner jet components located between 0.5 and 5 mas from the core (0.3 to 3 pc projected linear distance) to be 0.19 +/- 0.27, 0.30 +/- 0.07, and -0.07 +/- 0.07 c (H_{0}=65 km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1}). If the sole 43 GHz image is excluded, all measured speeds are consistent with no motion. These speeds differ from tentative superluminal speeds measured by Zhang & B\aa\aa th from three epochs of data from the early 1980's. Possible interpretations of these subluminal speeds in terms of the high Doppler factor demanded by the TeV variability of this source are discussed.Comment: 18 pages, including 7 figures, emulateapj.sty, accepted by The Astrophysical Journal; modified text describing Radio Reference Frame observation

Detection of epithelial cancer cells in peripheral blood by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction.

Circulating cancer cells in the blood play a central role in the metastatic process. Their number can be very small and techniques for their detection need to be both sensitive and specific. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been successfully used to detect small numbers of tumour cells in haematological cancer in which abnormalities in DNA are sufficiently consistent to make this possible. For most solid tumours this not yet feasible. However, we have found that reverse transcriptase (RT)-PRC for tissue-specific gene expression is a useful technique for identifying small numbers of circulating cells in melanoma and neuroblastoma patients. In this report we describe detection of colon carcinoma cells by RT-PCR using CK 20 mRNA as a marker. Unlike other cytokeratin genes examined (CK 8 and CK 19), CK 20 was not transcribed in normal haematopoietic cells. This suggests a role for RT-PCR in the detection of colon carcinoma metastasis in blood and bone marrow, using CK 20 as the target gene. Future analysis of clinical material will determine the clinical significance of this technique

Parsec Scale Properties of Markarian 501

We present the results of a high angular resolution study of the BL Lac object Markarian 501 in the radio band. We consider data taken at 14 different epochs, ranging between 1.6 GHz and 22 GHz in frequency, and including new Space VLBI observations obtained on 2001 March 5 and 6 at 1.6 and 5 GHz. We study the kinematics of the parsec-scale jet and estimate its bulk velocity and orientation with respect to the line of sight. Limb brightened structure in the jet is clearly visible in our data and we discuss its possible origin in terms of velocity gradients in the jet. Quasi-simultaneous multi-wavelength observations allow us to map the spectral index distribution and to compare it to the jet morphology. Finally, we estimate the physical parameters of the parsec-scale jet.Comment: accepted for publication in ApJ; 24 pages with 17 figures (fig. 1 and fig. 2 available only as .jpg files