Lower limb stiffness estimation during running: the effect of using kinematic constraints in muscle force optimization algorithms

The focus of this paper is on the effect of muscle force optimization algorithms on the human lower limb stiffness estimation. By using a forward dynamic neuromusculoskeletal model coupled with a muscle short-range stiffness model we computed the human joint stiffness of the lower limb during running. The joint stiffness values are calculated using two different muscle force optimization procedures, namely: Toque-based and Torque/Kinematic-based algorithm. A comparison between the processed EMG signal and the corresponding estimated muscle forces with the two optimization algorithms is provided. We found that the two stiffness estimates are strongly influenced by the adopted algorithm. We observed different magnitude and timing of both the estimated muscle forces and joint stiffness time profile with respect to each gait phase, as function of the optimization algorithm used

Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers

One of the greatest challenges humanity faces is feeding the world's human population in a sustainable, nutritious, equitable and ethical way under a changing climate. Urgent transformations are needed that allow farmers to adapt and develop while also being climate resilient and contributing minimal emissions. This paper identifies several illustrative adaptation and development pathways, recognising the variety of starting points of different types of farmers and the ways their activities intersect with global trends, such as population growth, climate change, rapid urbanisation dietary changes, competing land uses and the emergence of new technologies. The feasibility of some pathways depends on factors such as farm size and land consolidation. For other pathways, particular infrastructure, technology, access to credit and market access or collective action are required. The most viable pathway for some farmers may be to exit agriculture altogether, which itself requires careful management and planning. While technology offers hope and opportunity, as a disruptor, it also risks maladaptations and can create tradeoffs and exacerbate inequalities, especially in the context of an uncertain future. For both the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2015 Paris Agreement to be achieved, a mix of levers that combine policy, technology, education and awareness-raising, dietary shifts and financial/economic mechanisms is required, attending to multiple time dimensions, to assist farmers along different pathways. Vulnerable groups such as women and the youth must not be left behind. Overall, strong good governance is needed at multiple levels, combining top-down and bottom-up processes

Environmental baseline monitoring - Vale of Pickering: Phase I - final report (2015/16)

This report presents the collated results from the BGS-led project Science-based environmental baseline monitoring associated with shale gas development in the Vale of Pickering (including supplementary air quality monitoring in Lancashire). The project has been funded by a grant awarded by DECC for the period August 2015 – 31st March 2016. It complements (and extends to air quality) an on-going project, funded by BGS and the other project partners, in which similar activities are being carried out in the Fylde area of Lancashire. The project has initiated a wide-ranging environmental baseline monitoring programme that includes water quality (groundwater and surface water), seismicity, ground motion, atmospheric composition (greenhouse gases and air quality), soil gas and radon in air (indoors and outdoors). The motivation behind the project(s) was to establish independent monitoring in the area around the proposed shale gas hydraulic fracturing sites in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire (Third Energy) and in Lancashire (Cuadrilla) before any shale gas operations take place. As part of the project, instrumentation has been deployed to measure, in real-time or near real-time, a range of environmental variables (water quality, seismicity, atmospheric composition). These data are being displayed on the project’s web site (www.bgs.ac.uk/Valeofpickering). Additional survey, sampling and monitoring has also been carried out through a co-ordinated programme of fieldwork and laboratory analysis, which has included installation of new monitoring infrastructure, to allow compilation of one of the most comprehensive environmental datasets in the UK. It is generally recognised that at least 12 months of baseline data are required. The duration of the grant award (7 months) has meant that this has not yet been possible. However there are already some very important findings emerging from the limited datasets which need be taken in to account when developing future monitoring strategy, policy and regulation. The information is not only relevant to the Vale of Pickering and Lancashire but will be more widely applicable in the UK and internationally. Although shale gas operations in other parts of the world are well-established there is a paucity of good baseline data and effective guidance on monitoring. It is hoped that the monitoring project will continue to allow at least 12 months of data for each of the work packages to be compiled and analysed. It will also allow the experience gained and the scientifically-robust findings to be used to develop and establish effective environmental monitoring strategies for shale gas and similar industrial activities

Knot soliton in Weinberg-Salam model

We study numerically the topological knot solution suggested recently in the Weinberg-Salam model. Applying the SU(2) gauge invariant Abelian projection we demonstrate that the restricted part of the Weinberg-Salam Lagrangian containing the interaction of the neutral boson with the Higgs scalar can be reduced to the Ginzburg-Landau model with the hidden SU(2) symmetry. The energy of the knot composed from the neutral boson and Higgs field has been evaluated by using the variational method with a modified Ward ansatz. The obtained numerical value is 39 Tev which provides the upper bound on the electroweak knot energy.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, analysis of stability adde

Proteomic profiling of urine for the detection of colon cancer.

BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer related death in the developed world. To date, no blood or stool biomarkers with both high sensitivity and specificity for potentially curable early stage disease have been validated for clinical use. SELDI and MALDI profiling are being used increasingly to search for biomarkers in both blood and urine. Both techniques provide information predominantly on the low molecular weight proteome (<15 kDa). There have been several reports that colorectal cancer is associated with changes in the serum proteome that are detectable by SELDI and we hypothesised that proteomic changes would also be detectable in urine. RESULTS: We collected urine from 67 patients with colorectal cancer and 72 non-cancer control subjects, diluted to a constant protein concentration and generated MALDI and SELDI spectra. The intensities of 19 peaks differed significantly between cancer and non-cancer patients by both t-tests and after adjusting for confounders using multiple linear regressions. Logistic regression classifiers based on peak intensities identified colorectal cancer with up to 78% sensitivity at 87% specificity. We identified and independently quantified 3 of the discriminatory peaks using synthetic stable isotope peptides (an 1885 Da fragment of fibrinogen and hepcidin-20) or ELISA (beta2-microglobulin). CONCLUSION: Changes in the urine proteome may aid in the early detection of colorectal cancer

Environmental Baseline Monitoring Project. Phase II, final report

This report is submitted in compliance with the conditions set out in the grant awarded to the British Geological Survey (BGS), for the period April 2016 – March 2017, to support the jointly-funded project "Science-based environmental baseline monitoring". It presents the results of monitoring and/or measurement and preliminary interpretation of these data to characterise the baseline environmental conditions in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire and for air quality, the Fylde in Lancashire ahead of any shale gas development. The two areas where the monitoring is taking place have seen, during the project, planning applications approved for the exploration for shale gas and hydraulic fracturing. It is widely recognised that there is a need for good environmental baseline data and establishment of effective monitoring protocols ahead of any shale gas/oil development. This monitoring will enable future changes that may occur as a result of industrial activity to be identified and differentiated from other natural and man-made changes that are influencing the baseline. Continued monitoring will then enable any deviations from the baseline, should they occur, to be identified and investigated independently to determine the possible causes, sources and significance to the environment and public health. The absence of such data in the United States has undermined public confidence, led to major controversy and inability to identify and effectively deal with impact/contamination where it has occurred. A key aim of this work is to avoid a similar situation and the independent monitoring being carried out as part of this project provides an opportunity to develop robust environmental baseline for the two study areas and monitoring procedures, and share experience that is applicable to the wider UK situation. This work is internationally unique and comprises an inter-disciplinary researcher-led programme that is developing, testing and implementing monitoring methodologies to enable future environmental changes to be detected at a local scale (individual site) as well as across a wider area, e.g. ‘shale gas play’ where cumulative impacts may be significant. The monitoring includes: water quality (groundwater and surface water), seismicity, ground motion, soil gas, atmospheric composition (greenhouse gases and air quality) and radon in air. Recent scientific and other commissioned studies have highlighted that credible and transparent monitoring is key to gaining public acceptance and providing the evidence base to demonstrate the industry’s impact on the environment and importantly on public health. As a result, BGS and its partners initiated in early 2015, a co-ordinated programme of environmental monitoring in Lancashire that was then extended to the Vale of Pickering in North Yorkshire after the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (BEIS) awarded a grant to the British Geological Survey (BGS). The current duration of the grant award is to 31st March 2018. It has so far enabled baseline environmental monitoring for a period of more than 12 months. With hydraulic fracturing of shale gas likely to take place during late 2017/early 2018, the current funding will allow the environmental monitoring to continue during the transition from baseline to monitoring during shale gas operations. This report presents the monitoring results to April 2017 and a preliminary interpretation. A full interpretation is not presented in this report as monitoring is continuing and it is expected that there will be at least six months of additional baseline data before hydraulic fracturing takes place. This represents up to 50% more data for some components of the montoring, and when included in the analysis will significantly improve the characterisation and interpretation of the baseline. In addition to this report, the BGS web site contains further information on the project, near real-time data for some components of the monitoring and links to other projects outputs, e.g. reports and videos (www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/shaleGas/monitoring/home.html)

Beyond the Syndrome: Extensive Congenital Abnormalities in an Infant With Trisomy 21

Herein we discuss the clinical course and subsequent autopsy of a female infant with trisomy 21 with balanced Rastelli Type ?C? complete atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD), tetralogy of Fallot and right aortic arch with mirror image branching pattern who underwent a palliative right modified Blalock-Taussig-Thomas shunt (mBTTS) for hypoxemia from progressive right ventricular outflow tract obstruction. The baby was found to have multiple concomitant pathologic findings not typically seen with this constellation of cardiac anatomy. Autopsy revealed significant abdominal adhesions with near-complete stenosis of the transverse colon. In addition, the infant was found to have significantly elongated villi within the small and large bowel and a relatively large collagenous polyp in the small bowel. The decedent also had an abnormal tracheal bronchus, characterized by an additional superior right-sided bronchus, which is an extremely rare abnormality. Her clinical course was complicated by severe pulmonary hypertensive arteriolar changes out of proportion to what would be typical for her age, trisomy 21 status, and degree of left to right intracardiac shunting. Furthermore, she had refractory anasarca and recurrent chylous pleural effusions without gross lymphatic abnormalities that may have been secondary to systemic capillary leak syndrome (SCLS) versus severe pulmonary hypertension. Due to the aforementioned findings, the family elected for comfort care and the baby expired shortly after extubation. Overall, the infant had multiple, rare coexisting congenital abnormalities that likely represents an extreme phenotype of trisomy 21 that has not been described in the literature to date

The changing of the guard: groupwork with people who have intellectual disabilities

This paper considers the impact of service systems on group activities. It describes an inter-professional groupwork project facilitated by a social worker and a community nurse. The project provided an emancipatory experience for a group of adults who had intellectual disabilities. The group was charged with the task of reviewing and updating the recruitment and interview processes used by a 'Learning Disability Partnership Board', when employing new support workers. The paper begins with a brief history of intellectual disability and provides a context to the underpinning philosophical belief that people should be encouraged and supported to inhabit valued social roles no matter what disability they may have. It then identifies the ways in which the sponsoring health, education and social care services impacted on the creation and development of a groupwork project. It might have been expected that the nature of the intellectual disability would have been the major influence on group process. However the paper reveals that organisational constraints had a significant impact on group functioning. Issues including, staffing budgets and transport contracts impacted on group process and function. The results of the project show how, with adequate support, people with intellectual disability can make important decisions that have long-reaching impacts on the services

Recent developments in planet migration theory

Planetary migration is the process by which a forming planet undergoes a drift of its semi-major axis caused by the tidal interaction with its parent protoplanetary disc. One of the key quantities to assess the migration of embedded planets is the tidal torque between the disc and planet, which has two components: the Lindblad torque and the corotation torque. We review the latest results on both torque components for planets on circular orbits, with a special emphasis on the various processes that give rise to additional, large components of the corotation torque, and those contributing to the saturation of this torque. These additional components of the corotation torque could help address the shortcomings that have recently been exposed by models of planet population syntheses. We also review recent results concerning the migration of giant planets that carve gaps in the disc (type II migration) and the migration of sub-giant planets that open partial gaps in massive discs (type III migration).Comment: 52 pages, 18 figures. Review article to be published in "Tidal effects in Astronomy and Astrophysics", Lecture Notes in Physic

Preliminary assessment of the environmental baseline in the Fylde, Lancashire

This report presents the collated preliminary results from the British Geological Survey (BGS) led project Science-based environmental baseline monitoring associated with shale gas development in the Fylde, Lancashire. The project has been funded by a combination of BGS National Capability funding, in-kind contributions from project partners and a grant awarded by the Department of Business Energy and Investment Strategy (BEIS). It complements an on-going project, in which similar activities are being carried out, in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire. Further information on the projects can be found on the BGS website: www.bgs.ac.uk. The project has initiated a wide-ranging environmental baseline monitoring programme that includes water quality (groundwater and surface water), seismicity, ground motion, atmospheric composition (greenhouse gases and air quality), soil gas and radon in air (indoors and outdoors). The motivation behind the project(s) was to establish independent monitoring in the area around the proposed shale gas hydraulic fracturing sites in the Fylde, Lancashire (Cuadrilla Resources Ltd) before any shale gas operations take place. As part of the project, instrumentation has been deployed to measure, in real-time or near real-time, a range of environmental variables (water quality, seismicity, atmospheric composition). These data are being displayed on the project’s web site (www.bgs.ac.uk/lancashire). Additional survey, sampling and monitoring has also been carried out through a co-ordinated programme of fieldwork and laboratory analysis, which has included installation of new monitoring infrastructure, to allow compilation of one of the most comprehensive environmental datasets in the UK. The monitoring programme is continuing. However, there are already some very important findings emerging from the limited datasets which should be taken into account when developing future monitoring strategy, policy and regulation. The information is not only relevant to Lancashire but will be applicable more widely in the UK and internationally. Although shale gas operations in other parts of the world are well-established, there is a paucity of good baseline data and effective guidance on monitoring. The project will also allow the experience gained, and the scientifically-robust findings to be used, to develop and establish effective environmental monitoring strategies for shale gas and similar industrial activities