Equal and Autonomous Living of Secondary Education Pupils from Socially Vulnerable Groups

This paper presents two courses for pupils of special vocational secondary education from socially vulnerable groups, that addresses the issues of various stereotypes and discriminations, especially considering gender and cultural ones. Their methodology of implementation is particularly based on constructivism and teamwork. In addition, the interested educators of Special Education may implement these two courses that are described in sufficient details for this matter. A pilot application of them had been conducted in a vocational school of Special Secondary Education, at the city of Elefsis, Greece

Fog paradigm for local energy management systems

Cloud Computing infrastructures have been extensively deployed to support energy computation within built environments. This has ranged from predicting potential energy demand for a building (or a group of buildings), undertaking heat profile/energy distribution simulations, to understanding the impact of climate and weather on building operation. Cloud computing usage in these scenarios have benefited from resource elasticity, where the number and types of resources can change based on the complexity of the simulation being considered. While there are numerous advantages of using a cloud based energy management system, there are also significant limitations. For instance, many such systems assume that the data has been pre-staged at a cloud platform prior to simulation, and do not take account of data transfer times from the building to the simulation platform. The need for supporting computation at edge resources, which can be hosted within the building itself or shared within a building complex, has become important over recent year. Additionally, network connectivity between the sensing infrastructure within a built environment and a data centre where analysis is to be carried out can be intermittent or may fail. There is therefore also a need to better understand how computation/analysis can be carried out closer to the data capture site to complement analysis that would be undertaken at the data centre. We describe how the Fog computing paradigm can be used to support some of these requirements, extending the capability of a data centre to support energy simulation within built environments

Phenoloxidase activity acts as a mosquito innate immune response against infection with semliki forest virus

Several components of the mosquito immune system including the RNA interference (RNAi), JAK/STAT, Toll and IMD pathways have previously been implicated in controlling arbovirus infections. In contrast, the role of the phenoloxidase (PO) cascade in mosquito antiviral immunity is unknown. Here we show that conditioned medium from the Aedes albopictus-derived U4.4 cell line contains a functional PO cascade, which is activated by the bacterium Escherichia coli and the arbovirus Semliki Forest virus (SFV) (Togaviridae; Alphavirus). Production of recombinant SFV expressing the PO cascade inhibitor Egf1.0 blocked PO activity in U4.4 cell- conditioned medium, which resulted in enhanced spread of SFV. Infection of adult female Aedes aegypti by feeding mosquitoes a bloodmeal containing Egf1.0-expressing SFV increased virus replication and mosquito mortality. Collectively, these results suggest the PO cascade of mosquitoes plays an important role in immune defence against arboviruses

MDCK Cystogenesis Driven by Cell Stabilization within Computational Analogues

The study of epithelial morphogenesis is fundamental to increasing our understanding of organ function and disease. Great progress has been made through study of culture systems such as Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells, but many aspects of even simple morphogenesis remain unclear. For example, are specific cell actions tightly coupled to the characteristics of the cell's environment or are they more often cell state dependent? How does the single lumen, single cell layer cyst consistently emerge from a variety of cell actions? To improve insight, we instantiated in silico analogues that used hypothesized cell behavior mechanisms to mimic MDCK cystogenesis. We tested them through in vitro experimentation and quantitative validation. We observed novel growth patterns, including a cell behavior shift that began around day five of growth. We created agent-oriented analogues that used the cellular Potts model along with an Iterative Refinement protocol. Following several refinements, we achieved a degree of validation for two separate mechanisms. Both survived falsification and achieved prespecified measures of similarity to cell culture properties. In silico components and mechanisms mapped to in vitro counterparts. In silico, the axis of cell division significantly affects lumen number without changing cell number or cyst size. Reducing the amount of in silico luminal cell death had limited effect on cystogenesis. Simulations provide an observable theory for cystogenesis based on hypothesized, cell-level operating principles

Modelling Energy Demand Response Using Long-Short Term Memory Neural Networks

We propose a method for detecting and forecasting events of high energy demand, which are managed at the national level in demand side response programmes, such as the UK Triads. The methodology consists of two stages: load forecasting with long short-term memory neural network and dynamic filtering of the potential highest electricity demand peaks by using the exponential moving average. The methodology is validated on real data of a UK building management system case study. We demonstrate successful forecasts of Triad events with RRMSE ≈ 2.2% and MAPE ≈ 1.6% and general applicability of the methodology for demand side response programme management, with reduction of energy consumption and indirect carbon emissions

Adaptation of a Marine Echo-Sounder to Support UST Remediation Activities at Hanford Nuclear Reservation

A tremendous challenge exists in the remediation of some 200 underground storage tanks (USTs) in the DOE complex, which are currently used to store millions of gallons of high level nuclear waste. Hanford Nuclear Reservation, in eastern Washington state, houses 177 of these tanks and is the site of initial remediation development work [1]. The wastes consist of mixed solids, often in multiple layers formed at different times from different waste streams, in contact with concentrated salt solutions. The long term disposal of these wastes is a goal of considerable importance to the public, especially since some of the waste is stored in single shelled tanks (SSTs), a number of which are assumed to be leaking. Meeting this challenge will require the completion of three subtasks: make operational a long term geologic repostory for glass logs formed from vitrified waste, develop a process which can be approved in the U.S. for performing the vitrification, safely transfer the wastes between tanks as needed to prepare for long term storage.</p