Assessment of apparent nonstationarity in time series of annual inflow, daily precipitation, and atmospheric circulation indices: A case study from southwest Western Australia

The southwest region of Western Australia has experienced a sustained sequence of low annual inflows to major water supply dams over the past 30 years. Until recently, the dominant interpretation of this phenomenon has been predicated on the existence of one or more sharp breaks (change or jump points), with inflows fluctuating around relatively constant levels between them. This paper revisits this interpretation. To understand the mechanisms behind the changes, we also analyze daily precipitation series at multiple sites in the vicinity and time series for several indices of regional atmospheric circulation that may be considered as drivers of regional precipitation. We focus on the winter half-year for the region (May to October) as up to 80% of annual precipitation occurs during this "season". We find that the decline in the annual inflow is in fact more consistent with a smooth declining trend than with a sequence of sharp breaks, the decline is associated with decreases both in the frequency of daily precipitation occurrence and in wet-day amounts, and the decline in regional precipitation is strongly associated with a marked decrease in moisture content in the lower troposphere, an increase in regionally averaged sea level pressure in the first half of the season, and intraseasonal changes in the regional north-south sea level pressure gradient. Overall, our approach provides an integrated understanding of the linkages between declining dam inflows, declining precipitation, and changes in regional atmospheric circulation that favor drier conditions

Collagen-hyaluronic acid scaffolds for adipose tissue engineering.

Three-dimensional (3-D) in vitro models of the mammary gland require a scaffold matrix that supports the development of adipose stroma within a robust freely permeable matrix. 3-D porous collagen-hyaluronic acid (HA: 7.5% and 15%) scaffolds were produced by controlled freeze-drying technique and crosslinking with 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-carbodiimide hydrochloride. All scaffolds displayed uniform, interconnected pore structure (total porosity approximately 85%). Physical and chemical analysis showed no signs of collagen denaturation during the formation process. The values of thermal characteristics indicated that crosslinking occurred and that its efficiency was enhanced by the presence of HA. Although the crosslinking reduced the swelling of the strut material in water, the collagen-HA matrix as a whole tended to swell more and show higher dissolution resistance than pure collagen samples. The compressive modulus and elastic collapse stress were higher for collagen-HA composites. All the scaffolds were shown to support the proliferation and differentiation 3T3-L1 preadipocytes while collagen-HA samples maintained a significantly increased proportion of cycling cells (Ki-67+). Furthermore, collagen-HA composites displayed significantly raised Adipsin gene expression with adipogenic culture supplementation for 8 days vs. control conditions. These results indicate that collagen-HA scaffolds may offer robust, freely permeable 3-D matrices that enhance mammary stromal tissue development in vitro.This was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Development of three-dimensional collagen scaffolds with controlled architecture for cell migration studies using breast cancer cell lines

Cancer is characterized by cell heterogeneity and the development of 3D $\textit{in vitro }$ assays that can distinguish more invasive or migratory phenotypes could enhance diagnosis or drug discovery. 3D collagen scaffolds have been used to develop analogues of complex tissues $\textit{in vitro }$ and are suited to routine biochemical and immunological assays. We sought to increase 3D model tractability and modulate the migration rate of seeded cells using an ice-templating technique to create either directional/anisotropic or non-directional/isotropic porous architectures within cross-linked collagen scaffolds. Anisotropic scaffolds supported the enhanced migration of an invasive breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 with an altered spatial distribution of proliferative cells in contrast to invasive MDA-MB-468 and non-invasive MCF-7 cells lines. In addition, MDA-MB-468 showed increased migration upon epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in anisotropic scaffolds. The provision of controlled architecture in this system may act both to increase assay robustness and as a tuneable parameter to capture detection of a migrated population within a set time, with consequences for primary tumour migration analysis. The separation of invasive clones from a cancer biomass with in vitro platforms could enhance drug development and diagnosis testing by contributing assay metrics including migration rate, as well as modelling cell-cell and cell-matrix interaction in a system compatible with routine histopathological testing.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the ERC Advanced Grant 320598 3D-E and the Newton Trust. A.H. held a Daphne Jackson Fellowship funded by the University of Cambridge for part of the work. R.D.H. is funded through a NC3Rs studentship

Low Reynolds Number Aerodynamic Characteristics of Several Airplane Configurations Designed to Fly in the Mars Atmosphere at Subsonic Speeds

A 1/4-scale wind tunnel model of an airplane configuration developed for short duration flight at subsonic speeds in the Martian atmosphere has been tested in the Langley Research Center Transonic Dynamics Tunnel. The tunnel was pumped down to extremely low pressures to represent Martian Mach/Reynolds number conditions. Aerodynamic data were obtained and upper and lower surface wind pressures were measured at one spanwise station on some configurations. Three unswept wings of the same planform but different airfoil sections were tested. Horizontal tail incidence was varied as was the deflection of plain and split trailing-edge flaps. One unswept wing configuration was tested with the lower part of the fuselage removed and the vertical/horizontal tail assembly inverted and mounted from beneath the fuselage. A sweptback wing was also tested. Tests were conducted at Mach numbers from 0.50 to 0.90. Wing chord Reynolds number was varied from 40,000 to 100,000 and angles of attack and sideslip were varied from -10deg to 20deg and -10deg to 10deg, respectively

MINLO: Multi-scale improved NLO

In the present work we consider the assignment of the factorization and renormalization scales in hadron collider processes with associated jet production, at next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbation theory. We propose a simple, definite prescription to this end, including Sudakov form factors to consistently account for the distinct kinematic scales occuring in such collisions. The scheme yields results that are accurate at NLO and, for a large class of observables, it resums to all orders the large logarithms that arise from kinematic configurations involving disparate scales. In practical terms the method is most simply understood as an NLO extension of the matrix element reweighting procedure employed in tree level matrix element-parton shower merging algorithms. By way of a proof-of-concept, we apply the method to Higgs and Z boson production in association with up to two jets.Comment: 27 pages, 17 figure

Common patterns of morbidity and multi-morbidity and their impact on health-related quality of life: evidence from a national survey.

BACKGROUND: There is limited evidence about the impact of specific patterns of multi-morbidity on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) from large samples of adult subjects. METHODS: We used data from the English General Practice Patient Survey 2011-2012. We defined multi-morbidity as the presence of two or more of 12 self-reported conditions or another (unspecified) long-term health problem. We investigated differences in HRQoL (EQ-5D scores) associated with combinations of these conditions after adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic deprivation and the presence of a recent illness or injury. Analyses were based on 831,537 responses from patients aged 18 years or older in 8,254 primary care practices in England. RESULTS: Of respondents, 23 % reported two or more chronic conditions (ranging from 7 % of those under 45 years of age to 51 % of those 65 years or older). Multi-morbidity was more common among women, White individuals and respondents from socio-economically deprived areas. Neurological problems, mental health problems, arthritis and long-term back problem were associated with the greatest HRQoL deficits. The presence of three or more conditions was commonly associated with greater reduction in quality of life than that implied by the sum of the differences associated with the individual conditions. The decline in quality of life associated with an additional condition in people with two and three physical conditions was less for older people than for younger people. Multi-morbidity was associated with a substantially worse HRQoL in diabetes than in other long-term conditions. With the exception of neurological conditions, the presence of a comorbid mental health problem had a more adverse effect on HRQoL than any single comorbid physical condition. CONCLUSION: Patients with multi-morbid diabetes, arthritis, neurological, or long-term mental health problems have significantly lower quality of life than other people. People with long-term health conditions require integrated mental and physical healthcare services

Single-top t-channel hadroproduction in the four-flavour scheme with POWHEG and aMC@NLO

We present results for the QCD next-to-leading order (NLO) calculation of single-top t-channel production in the 4-flavour scheme, interfaced to Parton Shower (PS) Monte Carlo programs according to the POWHEG and MC@NLO methods. Comparisons between the two methods, as well as with the corresponding process in the 5-flavour scheme are presented. For the first time results for typical kinematic distributions of the spectator-b jet are presented in an NLO+PS approach.Comment: 16+1 pages, 8 figures, matches version accepted for publication in JHE

Further properties on the core partial order and other matrix partial orders

This paper carries further the study of core partial order initiated by Baksalary and Trenkler [Core inverse of matrices, Linear Multilinear Algebra. 2010;58:681-697]. We have extensively studied the core partial order, and some new characterizations are obtained in this paper. In addition, simple expressions for the already known characterizations of the minus, the star (and one-sided star), the sharp (and one-sided sharp) and the diamond partial orders are also obtained by using a Hartwig-Spindelbck decomposition.This author was partially supported by Ministry of Education of Spain [grant number DGI MTM2010-18228] and by Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Argentina, Facultad de Ingenieria [grant number Resol. No 049/11].Malik, SB.; Rueda, LC.; Thome, N. (2014). Further properties on the core partial order and other matrix partial orders. Linear and Multilinear Algebra. 62(12):1629-1648. https://doi.org/10.1080/03081087.2013.839676S162916486212Mitra, S. K., & Bhimasankaram, P. (2010). MATRIX PARTIAL ORDERS, SHORTED OPERATORS AND APPLICATIONS. SERIES IN ALGEBRA. doi:10.1142/9789812838452Baksalary, J. K., & Hauke, J. (1990). A further algebraic version of Cochran’s theorem and matrix partial orderings. Linear Algebra and its Applications, 127, 157-169. doi:10.1016/0024-3795(90)90341-9Baksalary, O. M., & Trenkler, G. (2010). Core inverse of matrices. Linear and Multilinear Algebra, 58(6), 681-697. doi:10.1080/03081080902778222Baksalary, J. K., Baksalary, O. M., & Liu, X. (2003). Further properties of the star, left-star, right-star, and minus partial orderings. Linear Algebra and its Applications, 375, 83-94. doi:10.1016/s0024-3795(03)00609-8Groβ, J., Hauke, J., & Markiewicz, A. (1999). Partial orderings, preorderings, and the polar decomposition of matrices. Linear Algebra and its Applications, 289(1-3), 161-168. doi:10.1016/s0024-3795(98)10108-8Mosić, D., & Djordjević, D. S. (2012). Reverse order law for the group inverse in rings. Applied Mathematics and Computation, 219(5), 2526-2534. doi:10.1016/j.amc.2012.08.088Patrício, P., & Costa, A. (2009). On the Drazin index of regular elements. Open Mathematics, 7(2). doi:10.2478/s11533-009-0015-6Rakić, D. S., & Djordjević, D. S. (2012). Space pre-order and minus partial order for operators on Banach spaces. Aequationes mathematicae, 85(3), 429-448. doi:10.1007/s00010-012-0133-2Tošić, M., & Cvetković-Ilić, D. S. (2012). Invertibility of a linear combination of two matrices and partial orderings. Applied Mathematics and Computation, 218(9), 4651-4657. doi:10.1016/j.amc.2011.10.052Hartwig, R. E., & Spindelböck, K. (1983). Matrices for whichA∗andA†commute. Linear and Multilinear Algebra, 14(3), 241-256. doi:10.1080/03081088308817561Baksalary, O. M., Styan, G. P. H., & Trenkler, G. (2009). On a matrix decomposition of Hartwig and Spindelböck. Linear Algebra and its Applications, 430(10), 2798-2812. doi:10.1016/j.laa.2009.01.015Mielniczuk, J. (2011). Note on the core matrix partial ordering. Discussiones Mathematicae Probability and Statistics, 31(1-2), 71. doi:10.7151/dmps.1134Meyer, C. (2000). Matrix Analysis and Applied Linear Algebra. doi:10.1137/1.978089871951

Current research into brain barriers and the delivery of therapeutics for neurological diseases: a report on CNS barrier congress London, UK, 2017.

This is a report on the CNS barrier congress held in London, UK, March 22-23rd 2017 and sponsored by Kisaco Research Ltd. The two 1-day sessions were chaired by John Greenwood and Margareta Hammarlund-Udenaes, respectively, and each session ended with a discussion led by the chair. Speakers consisted of invited academic researchers studying the brain barriers in relation to neurological diseases and industry researchers studying new methods to deliver therapeutics to treat neurological diseases. We include here brief reports from the speakers