Evaluation of bast fibre retting systems on hemp

In this paper the effect of eight different retting methods on decorticated hemp skins were analyzed. The methods were taken from six publications that looked at the retting of different bast fibres such as ramie, flax and kenaf. The fibres were batch retted in a package dye-vat at 100oC under 2 bar of pressure. The rinsed fibres were opened twice using a Shirley cotton trash separator. The opened fibre was assessed for fibre width, fibre width variation, colour and handle. It was found that the fibre that had undergone chemical retting with 7% Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and 0.5% Sodium Sulphite (Na2SO3) had the best diameter (18.39 micron) and the best coefficient of variation of diameter (57.32%). The fibre that was processed with 7% Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and 0.5% Sodium Sulphite (Na2SO3) had the whitest colour (YI D1925 = 31.61). The method treated with 1% Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and 1% Sodium Sulphite (Na2SO3) had the softest handle and the method treated with 1% Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and pre-rinsed with 0.3% Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) showed the best conversion of decorticated skins into spin able fibre (33.9% of dry green skins). It was decided that method treated with 1% Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and pre-rinsed with 0.3% Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) had the best fineness of fibre micron, conversion to spin able fibre (33.9% of dry green skins), whitest colour (YI D1925 = 36.13) and softest handle for the cost of chemicals involved.<br /

Meta-analysis of human and mouse ALS astrocytes reveals multi-omic signatures of inflammatory reactive states

Astrocytes contribute to motor neuron death in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but whether they adopt deleterious features consistent with inflammatory reactive states remains incompletely resolved. To identify inflammatory reactive features in ALS human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)–derived astrocytes, we examined transcriptomics, proteomics, and glutamate uptake in VCP-mutant astrocytes. We complemented this by examining other ALS mutations and models using a systematic meta-analysis of all publicly-available ALS astrocyte sequencing data, which included hiPSC-derived astrocytes carrying SOD1, C9orf72, and FUS gene mutations as well as mouse ALS astrocyte models with SOD1^{G93A} mutation, Tardbp deletion, and Tmem259 (also known as membralin) deletion. ALS astrocytes were characterized by up-regulation of genes involved in the extracellular matrix, endoplasmic reticulum stress, and the immune response and down-regulation of synaptic integrity, glutamate uptake, and other neuronal support processes. We identify activation of the TGFB, Wnt, and hypoxia signaling pathways in both hiPSC and mouse ALS astrocytes. ALS changes positively correlate with TNF, IL1A, and complement pathway component C1q-treated inflammatory reactive astrocytes, with significant overlap of differentially expressed genes. By contrasting ALS changes with models of protective reactive astrocytes, including middle cerebral artery occlusion and spinal cord injury, we uncover a cluster of genes changing in opposing directions, which may represent down-regulated homeostatic genes and up-regulated deleterious genes in ALS astrocytes. These observations indicate that ALS astrocytes augment inflammatory processes while concomitantly suppressing neuronal supporting mechanisms, thus resembling inflammatory reactive states and offering potential therapeutic targets

Cost-effective prescribed burning solutions vary between landscapes in eastern Australia

Fire management agencies undertake a range of fire management strategies in an attempt to reduce the risk posed by future wildfires. This can include fuel treatments (prescribed burning and mechanical removal), suppression and community engagement. However, no agency has an unlimited budget and numerically optimal solutions can rarely be implemented or may not even exist. Agencies are trying to quantify the extent to which their management actions reduce risk across multiple values in the most cost-effective manner. In this paper, we examine the cost-effectiveness of a range of prescribed burning strategies across multiple landscapes in south-eastern Australia. Landscapes considered include vegetated areas surrounding the cities of Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, and Sydney. Using a simulation approach, we examine the potential range of fires that could occur in a region with varying levels of edge and landscape prescribed burning treatment regimes. Damages to assets are measured for houses, lives, transmission lines, carbon and ecological assets. Costs of treatments are estimated from published models and all data are analyzed using multi-criteria decision analysis. Cost-effectiveness of prescribed burning varies widely between regions. Variations primarily relate to the spatial configuration of assets and natural vegetation. Regions with continuous urban interface adjacent to continuous vegetation had the most cost-effective fuel treatment strategies. In contrast, those regions with fragmented vegetation and discontinuous interfaces demonstrated the lowest cost-effectiveness of treatments. Quantifying the extent to which fuel treatments can reduce the risk to assets is vital for determining the location and extent of treatments across a landscape

Forest fire threatens global carbon sinks and population centres under rising atmospheric water demand

Levels of fire activity and severity that are unprecedented in the instrumental record have recently been observed in forested regions around the world. Using a large sample of daily fire events and hourly climate data, here we show that fire activity in all global forest biomes responds strongly and predictably to exceedance of thresholds in atmospheric water demand, as measured by maximum daily vapour pressure deficit. The climatology of vapour pressure deficit can therefore be reliably used to predict forest fire risk under projected future climates. We find that climate change is projected to lead to widespread increases in risk, with at least 30 additional days above critical thresholds for fire activity in forest biomes on every continent by 2100 under rising emissions scenarios. Escalating forest fire risk threatens catastrophic carbon losses in the Amazon and major population health impacts from wildfire smoke in south Asia and east Africa.he authors acknowledge the New South Wales Government’s Department of Planning, Industry & Environment for providing funds to support this research via the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modelling groups for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. Some of the analysis was carried out on the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) which is supported by the Australian Commonwealth Government

A parallel group randomised open blinded evaluation of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for depression after psychosis: Pilot trial outcomes (ADAPT)

BACKGROUND: Depression is one of the major contributors to poorer quality of life amongst individuals with psychosis and schizophrenia. The study was designed as a Pilot Trial to determine the parameters of a larger, definitive pragmatic multi-centre randomised controlled trial of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for depression after psychosis (ACTdp) for individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who also meet diagnostic criteria for major depression. METHODS: Participants were required to meet criteria for schizophrenia and major depression. Blinded follow-ups were undertaken at 5-months (end of treatment) and at 10-months (5-months posttreatment). Primary outcomes were depression as measured by the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). RESULTS: A total of 29 participants were randomised to ACTdp + Standard Care (SC) (n=15) or SC alone (n=14). We did not observe significant differences between groups on the CDSS total score at 5-months (Coeff=-1.43, 95%CI -5.17, 2.32, p=0.45) or at 10-months (Coeff=1.8, 95%CI -2.10, 5.69, p=0.36). In terms of BDI, we noted a statistically significant effect in favour of ACTdp+SC at 5-months (Coeff=-8.38, 95%CI -15.49, -1.27, p=0.02) but not at 10-months (Coeff=-4.85, 95%CI -12.10, 2.39, p=0.18). We also observed significant effects on psychological flexibility at 5-months (Coeff=-8.83, 95%CI -14.94, -2.71, p&lt;0.01) but not 10-months (Coeff=-4.92, 95%CI -11.09, 1.25, p=0.11). IMPLICATIONS: In this first RCT of a psychological therapy with depression as the primary outcome, ACT is a promising intervention for depression in the context of psychosis. A further large-scale definitive randomised controlled trial is required to determine effectiveness. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN: 33306437

The Proximal Drivers of Large Fires: A Pyrogeographic Study

Variations in global patterns of burning and fire regimes are relatively well measured, however, the degree of influence of the complex suite of biophysical and human drivers of fire remains controversial and incompletely understood. Such an understanding is required in order to support current fire management and to predict the future trajectory of global fire patterns in response to changes in these determinants. In this study we explore and compare the effects of four fundamental controls on fire, namely the production of biomass, its drying, the influence of weather on the spread of fire and sources of ignition. Our study area is southern Australia, where fire is currently limited by either fuel production or fuel dryness. As in most fire-prone environments, the majority of annual burned area is due to a raelatively small number of large fires. We train and test an Artificial Neural Networks ability to predict spatial patterns in the probability of large fires (>1,250 ha) in forests and grasslands as a function of proxies of the four major controls on fire activity. Fuel load is represented by predicted forested biomass and remotely sensed grass biomass, drying is represented by fraction of the time monthly potential evapotranspiration exceeds precipitation, weather is represented by the frequency of severe fire weather conditions and ignitions are represented by the average annual density of reported ignitions. The response of fire to these drivers is often non-linear. Our results suggest that fuel management will have limited capacity to alter future fire occurrence unless it yields landscape-scale changes in fuel amount, and that shifts between, rather than within, vegetation community types may be more important. We also find that increased frequency of severe fire weather could increase the likelihood of large fires in forests but decrease it in grasslands. These results have the potential to support long-term strategic planning and risk assessment by fire management agencies.OP’s salary was provided by the NSW Rural Fire Service. MB was partly financially supported by the Bushfires and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre

Fast and deep phosphoproteome analysis with the Orbitrap Astral mass spectrometer.

Owing to its roles in cellular signal transduction, protein phosphorylation plays critical roles in myriad cell processes. That said, detecting and quantifying protein phosphorylation has remained a challenge. We describe the use of a novel mass spectrometer (Orbitrap Astral) coupled with data-independent acquisition (DIA) to achieve rapid and deep analysis of human and mouse phosphoproteomes. With this method, we map approximately 30,000 unique human phosphorylation sites within a half-hour of data collection. The technology is benchmarked to other state-of-the-art MS platforms using both synthetic peptide standards and with EGF-stimulated HeLa cells. We apply this approach to generate a phosphoproteome multi-tissue atlas of the mouse. Altogether, we detect 81,120 unique phosphorylation sites within 12 hours of measurement. With this unique dataset, we examine the sequence, structural, and kinase specificity context of protein phosphorylation. Finally, we highlight the discovery potential of this resource with multiple examples of phosphorylation events relevant to mitochondrial and brain biology

Connections of climate change and variability to large and extreme forest fires in southeast Australia

The 2019/20 Black Summer bushfire disaster in southeast Australia was unprecedented: the extensive area of forest burnt, the radiative power of the fires, and the extraordinary number of fires that developed into extreme pyroconvective events were all unmatched in the historical record. Australia’s hottest and driest year on record, 2019, was characterised by exceptionally dry fuel loads that primed the landscape to burn when exposed to dangerous fire weather and ignition. The combination of climate variability and long-term climate trends generated the climate extremes experienced in 2019, and the compounding effects of two or more modes of climate variability in their fire-promoting phases (as occurred in 2019) has historically increased the chances of large forest fires occurring in southeast Australia. Palaeoclimate evidence also demonstrates that fire-promoting phases of tropical Pacific and Indian ocean variability are now unusually frequent compared with natural variability in preindustrial times. Indicators of forest fire danger in southeast Australia have already emerged outside of the range of historical experience, suggesting that projections made more than a decade ago that increases in climate-driven fire risk would be detectable by 2020, have indeed eventuated. The multiple climate change contributors to fire risk in southeast Australia, as well as the observed non-linear escalation of fire extent and intensity, raise the likelihood that fire events may continue to rapidly intensify in the future. Improving local and national adaptation measures while also pursuing ambitious global climate change mitigation efforts would provide the best strategy for limiting further increases in fire risk in southeast Australia

Reactive astrocytes in ALS display diminished intron retention

Reactive astrocytes are implicated in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), although the mechanisms controlling reactive transformation are unknown. We show that decreased intron retention (IR) is common to human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived astrocytes carrying ALS-causing mutations in VCP, SOD1 and C9orf72. Notably, transcripts with decreased IR and increased expression are overrepresented in reactivity processes including cell adhesion, stress response and immune activation. This was recapitulated in public-datasets for (i) hiPSC-derived astrocytes stimulated with cytokines to undergo reactive transformation and (ii) in vivo astrocytes following selective deletion of TDP-43. We also re-examined public translatome sequencing (TRAP-seq) of astrocytes from a SOD1 mouse model, which revealed that transcripts upregulated in translation significantly overlap with transcripts exhibiting decreased IR. Using nucleocytoplasmic fractionation of VCP mutant astrocytes coupled with mRNA sequencing and proteomics, we identify that decreased IR in nuclear transcripts is associated with enhanced nonsense mediated decay and increased cytoplasmic expression of transcripts and proteins regulating reactive transformation. These findings are consistent with a molecular model for reactive transformation in astrocytes whereby poised nuclear reactivity-related IR transcripts are spliced, undergo nuclear-to-cytoplasmic translocation and translation. Our study therefore provides new insights into the molecular regulation of reactive transformation in astrocytes