A Metabolomic Approach to Assessing Life-History Traits in Caenorhabditis elegans

The proximate causes of ageing and the biological processes that determine lifespan are still unclear. However, many studies using model organisms have led to the identification of genes associated with longevity. While there is a clear link between changes in metabolism and changes in longevity, there has been relatively little ageing-related research that has measured metabolites directly. Metabolic profiling of low molecular weight metabolites (metabolomics) has an advantage over other 'omics' techniques, in that it directly samples the metabolic changes in an organism, and integrates information from changes at the gene, transcript and protein levels, as well as post-translational modification. This thesis demonstrates that metabolic profiling provides a new and useful phenotyping tool for studying ageing in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Using both nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), I have identified metabolites that are linked with long life. I have carried out the first characterisation of the C. elegans metabolome throughout both development and ageing. Comparing these metabolic changes in wild type worms with those seen in a long-lived mutant aid the understanding of when and how mutant worms acquire their long-lived phenotype. In addition to this, I have examined the effects on metabolism of a commonly used technique in C. elegans ageing research: the inhibition of DNA synthesis to maintain synchronous ageing populations. This provided a way to control for the effects of this technique when used in my work, but also demonstrated that its use may result in artefacts in data. I have also investigated the effect of mutation accumulation on the C. elegans metabolic profile. I have shown that metabolomics provides a way to obtain new phenotypes in this type of study, and novel information about the variation that occurs as a result of spontaneous mutation

Regulating Government

Federal, state, and local governments are major polluters of the environment. They account for more than 7% of SO2 air pollution emissions and more than 5% of all NO2 air emissions in the United States. Public entities are more likely than private ones to be in violation of the Clean Water Act, and they account for two-thirds of all major facilities in significant noncompliance with the act. Department of Energy nuclear sites are the worst hazardous waste problems in the nation. A lack of adequate data makes it difficult to fully characterize the extent of pollution caused by government agencies and to compare the performance of the public and private sectors. There are many reasons why government pollution is difficult to regulate. The paper discusses political dimensions, legal problems, resource constraints, psychological dimensions, and public opinion. Further research is urgently needed, and the paper delineates areas that require more investigation.pollution control, federal facilities, regulation, intergovernmental relations

How could Johnny Utah and Bodhi survive the skydiving jump in Point Break?

The 1991 American crime thriller Point Break is famous for its action-packed adrenaline-filled scenes. It gives the famous scene where a mid-air fight between the two main characters causes the parachute to be pulled only 8 seconds before hitting the ground. This paper investigates how large the cross-sectional area of the parachute would have had to have been to slow them down to safe speed of 6 ms-1 in 8 seconds before hitting the ground. It results that the cross-sectional area of parachute would have to have been 59.62 m2 to ensure their safety

Type and location of speech disruptions in adolescents with and without specific language impairment

This research project analyzed the types and locations of speech disruptions in adolescents with and without Specific Language Impairment (SLI). The narrative samples of 12 adolescents with SLI and 12 typically developing (TD) adolescents were analyzed. Using Schwalbe’s (2012) classification system, the speech disruptions in the 24 narratives were coded for the type and reason for disruption. The broad category of speech disruptions were classified under revisions, repetitions, filled pauses and orphans, and silent pauses. The reason for the disruption was coded as the part of speech of the word that was determined to have caused the disruption. Comparisons were made between the two cohorts in the number of speech disruptions used, the average length of narrative sample, the types of speech disruptions, and the reason for the disruptions. The types of speech disruptions were broken down into the types of revisions, repetitions, filled pauses and orphans, and silent pauses used. In regard to the reason for the disruptions, it was predicted that the adolescents with SLI would have more disruptions caused by verbs over nouns, but this was not the case in this study. The characteristics found in the adolescents with SLI were expected to mimic those seen in children with SLI from previous research, but the results show that the disorder may manifest itself differently from childhood to adolescence. Possible explanations of the findings and clinical implications were addressed

How fast could a mermaid swim?

This paper investigates the potential swimming speed of the popular mythical creature, the mermaid. In order to calculate this speed, the motion of swimming was considered and the assumption that the tail of the mermaid would swim and produce the same amount of power as a bottle-nose dolphin’s tail during swimming. Through the consideration of the forces of thrust, the power generated by one stroke and drag, the speed was calculated at 5.93 ms-1

A national scale inventory of resource provision for biodiversity within domestic gardens

The human population is increasingly disconnected from nature due to urbanisation. To counteract this phenomenon, the UK government has been actively promoting wildlife gardening. However, the extent to which such activities are conducted and the level of resource provision for biodiversity (e.g., food and nesting sites) within domestic gardens remains poorly documented. Here we generate estimates for a selection of key resources provided within gardens at a national scale, using 12 survey datasets gathered across the UK. We estimate that 22.7 million households (87% of homes) have access to a garden. Average garden SiZe is 190 m(2), extrapolating to a total area of 432,924 ha. Although substantial, this coverage is still an order of magnitude less than that of statutory protected areas. Approximately 12.6 million (48%) households provide supplementary food for birds, 7.4 million of which specifically use bird feeders. Similarly, there are a minimum of 4.7 million nest boxes within gardens. These figures equate to one bird feeder for every nine potentially feeder-using birds in the UK, and at least one nest box for every six breeding pairs of cavity nesting birds. Gardens also contain 2.5-3.5 million ponds and 28.7 million trees, which is just under a quarter of all trees occurring outside woodlands. Ongoing urbanisation, characterised by increased housing densities, is inevitable throughout the UK and elsewhere. The important contribution domestic gardens make to the green space infrastructure in residential areas must be acknowledged, as their reduction will impact biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and the well-being of the human population

Door Knocking as a Method of Recruiting a Sample

Part of the Real Life Methods "toolkit" series, this document explores the practice of recruiting participants for an interview study by knocking on doors in the chosen fieldsite. It outlines the benefits of this recruitment method and gives some tips on how to put doorknocking into practice in your study

Informed Consent in Visual Research

Part of the Real Life Methods "toolkit" series, this document aims to share experiences of seeking informed consent to use digital photographs made of participants' family photographs in the Living Resemblances project, where we employed photo elicitation methods during wider semi-structured interviews. It covers when to seek consent, getting different levels of consent, how to manage the process and some top tips

‘’It just happens’. Care home residents’ experiences and expectations of accessing GP care.

Background: Care homes provide personal care and support for older people who can no longer be supported in the community. As part of a larger study of integrated working between the NHS and care homes we asked older people how they accessed health care services. Our aim was to understand how older people resident in care homes access health services using the Andersen model of health care access. Methods: Case studies were conducted in six care homes with different socio-economic characteristics, size and ownership in three study sites. Residents in all care homes with capacity to participate were eligible for the study. Interviews explored how residents accessed NHS professionals. The Andersen model of health seeking behaviour was our analytic framework. Findings: Thirty-five participants were interviewed with an average of 4 different conditions. Expectations of their health and the effectiveness of services to mitigate their problems were low. Enabling factors were the use of intermediaries (usually staff, but also relatives) to seek access. Residents expected that care home staff would monitor changes in their health and seek appropriate help unprompted. Conclusions: Care home residents may normalise their health care needs and frame services as unable to remediate these which may combine to disincline older care home residents to seek care. Care access was enabled using intermediaries -either staff or relatives-and the expectation that staff would proactively seek care when they observed new/changed needs. Residents may over-estimate the health-related knowledge of care home staff and their ability to initiate referrals to NHS professionals.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

An observational study of paracetamol (acetaminophen) deprescribing in patients with cancer pain receiving opioids for moderate-to-severe pain

   Background. The objective of the study was to investigate the utility of deprescribing paracetamol in cancer patients receiving opioids for moderate-to-severe pain. Material and methods. Patients with well-controlled cancer pain (average pain intensity ≤ 4/10), who were receiving regular paracetamol and an opioid for moderate-to-severe pain, completed the Brief Pain Inventory — Short Form at baseline and at seven days post discontinuation of the paracetamol (or sooner if restarting the paracetamol). The study employed a Simon optimal two-stage design with the aim of reducing the number of subjects exposed to a “futile” intervention. Results. Forty-four patients were enrolled, and 40 patients completed the study. Eighteen (45%) patients restarted the paracetamol, although another four patients reported a worsening of pain control and/or an increase in the use of rescue medication. The only factor associated with restarting paracetamol was the pathophysiology of the pain, with patients with mixed pain more likely to restart paracetamol than patients with nociceptive pain (P = 0.013). Conclusions. On the basis of these results we would recommend a trial of discontinuing paracetamol in all patients receiving opioids for moderate-to-severe pain, who are deemed to be adequately pain controlled. The patients can be reassured that there is approximately a one in two chance of not needing to restart the paracetamol, and that if they do need to start the paracetamol, pain control can be re-gained within a very short period of time