The use of email as a component of adult stammering therapy : a preliminary report

In West Glasgow email has evolved from a rapid means of arranging therapy appointments with adults who stammer into a medium for exchange of therapeutic messages with some clients. Since 2004, sixteen clients have used email to communicate as part of their therapy programme. The benefits include improving access to services, supporting speech change, facilitating lasting personal growth, improving clinical decision-making, equalizing the therapist-client relationship and enhancing caseload management. Although this experience suggests that email is appropriate for stammering therapy, the effectiveness and ethics of, and the rationale for, clinical practice that includes email need careful consideration. Further research is required to formally evaluate the client experience

On the prevalence of bridged macrocyclic pyrroloindolines formed in regiodivergent alkylations of tryptophan.

A Friedel-Crafts alkylation is described that efficiently transforms tryptophan-containing peptides into macrocycles of varying ring connectivity. Factors are surveyed that influence the distribution of regioisomers, with a focus on indole C3-alkylations leading to bridged endo-pyrroloindolines. We probe the stability and stereochemistry of these pyrroloindolines, study their rearrangement to C2-linked indolic macrocycles, and demonstrate a scalable, stereoselective synthesis of this compound class. Placing the macrocyclization in sequence with further template-initiated annulation leads to extraordinary polycyclic products and further demonstrates the potential for this chemistry to drive novel peptidomimetic lead discovery programs

Dust in the Circumgalactic Medium of Low-Redshift Galaxies

Using spectroscopically selected galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey we present a detection of reddening due to dust in the circumgalactic medium of galaxies. We detect the mean change in the colors of "standard crayons" correlated with the presence of foreground galaxies at z ~0.05 as a function of angular separation. Following Peek & Graves (2010), we create standard crayons using passively evolving galaxies corrected for Milky Way reddening and color-redshift trends, leading to a sample with as little as 2% scatter in color. We devise methods to ameliorate possible systematic effects related to the estimation of colors, and we find an excess reddening induced by foreground galaxies at a level ranging from 10 to 0.5 millimagnitudes on scales ranging from 30 kpc to 1 Mpc. We attribute this effect to a large-scale distribution of dust around galaxies similar to the findings of Menard et al. 2010. We find that circumgalactic reddening is a weak function of stellar mass over the range $6 \times 10^9 M_\odot$ -- $6 \times 10^{10} M_\odot$ and note that this behavior appears to be consistent with recent results on the distribution of metals in the gas phase.Comment: Submitted to Ap

Policy measures and cyber insurance: a framework

The role of the insurance industry in driving improvements in cyber security has been identified as mutually beneficial for both insurers and policy-makers. To date, there has been no consideration of the roles governments and the insurance industry should pursue in support of this public–private partnership. This paper rectifies this omission and presents a framework to help underpin such a partnership, giving particular consideration to possible government interventions that might affect the cyber insurance market. We have undertaken a qualitative analysis of reports published by policy-making institutions and organisations working in the cyber insurance domain; we have also conducted interviews with cyber insurance professionals. Together, these constitute a stakeholder analysis upon which we build our framework. In addition, we present a research roadmap to demonstrate how the ideas described might be taken forward

Rapid identification of mutations in GJC2 in primary lymphoedema using whole exome sequencing combined with linkage analysis with delineation of the phenotype.

Background: Primary lymphoedema describes a chronic, frequently progressive, failure of lymphatic drainage. This disorder is frequently genetic in origin, and a multigenerational family in which eight individuals developed postnatal lymphoedema of all four limbs was ascertained from the joint Lymphoedema/Genetic clinic at St George's Hospital. Methods: Linkage analysis was used to determine a locus, and exome sequencing was employed to look for causative variants. Results: Linkage analysis revealed cosegregation of a 16.1 Mb haplotype on chromosome 1q42 that contained 173 known or predicted genes. Whole exome sequencing in a single affected individual was undertaken, and the search for the causative variant was focused to within the linkage interval. This approach revealed two novel non-synonymous single nucleotide substitutions within the chromosome 1 locus, in NVL and GJC2. NVL and GJC2 were sequenced in an additional cohort of individuals with a similar phenotype and non-synonymous variants were found in GJC2 in four additional families. Conclusion: This report demonstrates the power of exome sequencing efficiently applied to a traditional positional cloning pipeline in disease gene discovery, and suggests that the phenotype produced by GJC2 mutations is predominantly one of 4 limb lymphoedema

Eimeria spp. and Tyzzeria perniciosa Allen, 1936 (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) from a Pacific black duck, Anas superciliosa Gmelin (Aves: Anseriformes), in western Australia

Four species of the Eimeriidae, Eimeria anatis Scholtyseck, 1955, Eimeria aythyae Farr, 1965, Eimeria krylovi Svanbaev & Rakhmatullina, 1967 and Tyzzeria perniciosa Allen, 1936, were morphologically identified from oöcysts recovered from a Pacific black duck, Anas superciliosa Gmelin. Additionally, genotypic characterization of E. anatis is provided via sequencing of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and the small subunit ribosomal RNA (18S) genes. The four species are redescribed, providing additional morphological details. The validity of genera and coccidian species parasitizing birds of the order Anseriformes such as Wenyonella Hoare, 1933 and some Tyzzeria spp. are discussed. Molecular phylogenetic analyses for the cox1 and 18S rRNA genes resulted in monophylies of Eimeria spp. from Anseriformes which included the sequences obtained from E. anatis oöcysts