The Response of Driven Single Piles Subjected to Combined Loads

The behaviour of piles subjected to lateral load has generally been investigated experimentally using free-headed piles with a lateral load applied close to the pile head. In practice, however, there is some degree of restraint at the head of many piles and these are often subjected to a combination of lateral and vertical loads. The case history described in this paper involved full-scale field experiments comprising instrumented precast concrete piles subjected to a range of loading conditions including combined lateral and axial loading with partial rotational restraint at the pile head. The pile instrumentation, which included electrolevels and electrical resistance strain gauges, allowed accurate determination of the lateral soil reaction-lateral displacement (p-y) response adjacent to the test piles. This paper concentrates on the analysis and interpretation of the test data for the pile subjected to combined loading. These results are presented in conjunction with test data from an adjacent pile subjected to the same lateral load to allow the difference in behaviour to be evaluated

Capturing the magic of carbon dioxide: Engaging hands-on demonstrations to explain geological storage

Bureau of Economic Geolog

Sheep productivity in an Astrebla grassland of south-west Queensland

A grazing study conducted between 1979 and 1983 assessed the seasonal trends of ewe productivity in Astrebla grassland in southwestern Queensland. This study was designed originally to compare productivity on two pastures with different compositions, however, these differences in pastures composition were not achieved. Large differences in liveweight, wool growth and reproductive performance occurred between years in response to differences in pasture growth resulting from large variation in the seasonal incidence of rainfall. Rainfall effective for plant growth, both forbs and grasses, resulted in a high quality diet which resulted, in turn, in increased sheep productivity. Reproductive performance was particularly sensitive to the quality of the ewes diet around the time of lambing through the effect of diet quality on lamb survival and growth rate. It is suggested that the effect of rainfall on reproductive performance is of greater importance than the yield of forbs present in the pasture

International Glossina Genome Initiative 2004-2014: a driver for post-genomic era research on the African continent

Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness, is a neglected disease that impacts 70 million people distributed over 1.55 million km2 in sub- Saharan Africa and includes at least 50% of the population of theDemocratic Republic of the Congo [1]. Trypanosoma brucei gambiense accounts for more than 98% of the infections in central and West Africa, the remaining infections being from Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense in East Africa [2]. The parasites are transmitted to the hosts through the bite of an infected tsetse fly. Disease control is challenging as there are no vaccines, and effective, easily delivered drugs are still lacking. Treatment invariably involves lengthy hospitalization, with both medical and socioeconomic consequences.Web of Scienc

Influence of past trauma and health interactions on homeless women’s views of perinatal care: a qualitative study

Background Homeless women are twice as likely to become pregnant and are less likely to receive antenatal care than women who are not homeless. Prevalent biopsychosocial complexity and comorbidities, including substance use and mental illness, increase the risk of obstetric complications, postnatal depression, and child loss to social services. Aim To explore the perspectives of women who have experienced pregnancy and homelessness to ascertain how to improve perinatal care. Design and setting A qualitative study with a purposive sample of women who had experienced pregnancy and homelessness, recruited from three community settings. Method Semi-structured interviews continued to data saturation and were recorded, transcribed, and analysed thematically using a self-conscious approach, with independent verification of emergent themes. Results Eleven women, diverse in age (18–40 years) and parity (one to five children), participated. Most women had experienced childhood trauma, grief, mental illness, and substance use. Overarching themes of ‘mistrust‘ and ‘fear of child loss to social services’ (CLSS) influenced their interactions with practitioners. The women experienced stigma from practitioners, and lacked effective support networks. Women who mistrusted practitioners attended appointments but concealed their needs, preventing necessary care. Further themes were being seen to do ‘the best for the baby’; pregnancy-enabled access to necessary holistic biopsychosocial care; and lack of postnatal support for CLSS or parenting. Conclusion Pregnancy offered a pivotal opportunity for homeless women to engage with care for their complex needs and improve self-care, despite mistrust of practitioners. Poor postnatal support and the distress of CLSS reinforced an ongoing cycle of grief, mental health crises, substance use relapse, and homelessness

Degrees of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium - Is the redox system involved?

Chloroquine (CQ) was once a very effective antimalarial drug that, at its peak, was consumed in the hundreds of millions of doses per year. The drug acts against the Plasmodium parasite during the asexual intra-erythrocytic phase of its lifecycle. Unfortunately, clinical resistance to this drug is now widespread. Questions remain about precisely how CQ kills malaria parasites, and by what means some CQ-resistant (CQR) parasites can withstand much higher concentrations of the drug than others that also fall in the CQR category. In this review we investigate the evidence for and against the proposal that CQ kills parasites by generating oxidative stress. Further, we examine a long-held idea that the glutathione system of malaria parasites plays a role in CQ resistance. We conclude that there is strong evidence that glutathione levels modulate CQ response in the rodent malaria species Plasmodium berghei, but that a role for redox in contributing to the degree of CQ resistance in species infectious to humans has not been firmly established.Adele M. Lehane, Christopher A. McDevitt, Kiaran Kirk, David A. Fidoc

Epigenetics and primary care

Epigenetics is the study of how changes to chromosome structure record and/ or transmit changes in the expression of genes. Epigenetic mechanisms act during development to control mechanisms such as cell proliferation and differentiation, tissue formation, organogenesis, and the emergence of physiological function. They also act throughout life to regulate gene expression over the long term. Epigenetic mechanisms respond to a wide range of biological signals, including stimuli from the external and social environments. So, why should this matter to general practice? We know that poverty and socioeconomic deprivation are directly linked to premature mortality and morbidity.1 We also know that, despite universal access to free health care, inequitable healthcare outcomes persist in socioeconomically deprived populations.2 Although some of the disease-causing effects of poverty and deprivation are biologically direct, such as inadequate diet or exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and other toxins, there may also be later-emerging effects, in which epigenetic mechanisms play a part

An Investigation into the Protein Composition of the Teneral Glossina morsitans morsitans Peritrophic Matrix.

BACKGROUND Tsetse flies serve as biological vectors for several species of African trypanosomes. In order to survive, proliferate and establish a midgut infection, trypanosomes must cross the tsetse fly peritrophic matrix (PM), which is an acellular gut lining surrounding the blood meal. Crossing of this multi-layered structure occurs at least twice during parasite migration and development, but the mechanism of how trypanosomes do so is not understood. In order to better comprehend the molecular events surrounding trypanosome penetration of the tsetse PM, a mass spectrometry-based approach was applied to investigate the PM protein composition using Glossina morsitans morsitans as a model organism. METHODS PMs from male teneral (young, unfed) flies were dissected, solubilised in urea/SDS buffer and the proteins precipitated with cold acetone/TCA. The PM proteins were either subjected to an in-solution tryptic digestion or fractionated on 1D SDS-PAGE, and the resulting bands digested using trypsin. The tryptic fragments from both preparations were purified and analysed by LC-MS/MS. RESULTS Overall, nearly 300 proteins were identified from both analyses, several of those containing signature Chitin Binding Domains (CBD), including novel peritrophins and peritrophin-like glycoproteins, which are essential in maintaining PM architecture and may act as trypanosome adhesins. Furthermore, 27 proteins from the tsetse secondary endosymbiont, Sodalis glossinidius, were also identified, suggesting this bacterium is probably in close association with the tsetse PM. CONCLUSION To our knowledge this is the first report on the protein composition of teneral G. m. morsitans, an important vector of African trypanosomes. Further functional analyses of these proteins will lead to a better understanding of the tsetse physiology and may help identify potential molecular targets to block trypanosome development within the tsetse

Enhancing accuracy and precision of transparent synthetic soil modelling

Over recent years non-intrusive modelling techniques have been developed to investigate soil-structure interaction problems of increasingly complex geometry. This paper concerns the development of a small-scale, 1 g, modelling technique using a transparent analogue for soil with particle image velocimetry for internal displacement measurement. Larger model geometry achieved in this research using fine-grained transparent synthetic soils has led to an increased need for rigorous photogrammetric correction techniques. A correction framework, based upon a modified version of the pinhole camera model, is presented that corrects for lens and camera movement induced errors as well as scaling from image space to object space. An additional statistical approach is also developed to enhance the system precision, by minimising the impact of increased non-coplanarity between the photogrammetry control plane and the target plane. The enhanced data correction and statistical precision is demonstrated using a case study examining the failure mechanism around a double helical screw pile installed in transparent synthetic soil representative of a soft clay