Report of the Regional Co-ordination Meeting for the North Sea and Eastern Arctic (RCM NS&EA) 2013

Report of the Regional Co-ordination Meeting for the North Sea and Eastern Arctic (RCM NS&EA) 2013 final report European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) Vigo, Spain 09/09/2013-13/09/2013The Regional Coordination Meeting for the North Sea & Eastern Arctic (RCM NS&EA) was held in September 2013 in Vigo (Spain). The main task of the RCM’s is to coordinate the National Programmes (NP), which propose the national data collection to be carried out by the Member States (MS) under the EU Data Collection Framework (DCF). It was envisaged that, from 2104 onwards, data collection by the MS would be carried out under a new framework (DC-MAP). However, the legislation for this framework is not ready yet. Therefore the Commission has decided to extend the present DCF for the time being and the most recent NPs have been adopted for 2014. Since these NP have been adopted without any changes, there is no need for major coordinatio

Architecture and roles of periplasmic adaptor proteins in tripartite efflux assemblies.

Recent years have seen major advances in the structural understanding of the different components of tripartite efflux assemblies, which encompass the multidrug efflux (MDR) pumps and type I secretion systems. The majority of these investigations have focused on the role played by the inner membrane transporters and the outer membrane factor (OMF), leaving the third component of the system - the Periplasmic Adaptor Proteins (PAPs) - relatively understudied. Here we review the current state of knowledge of these versatile proteins which, far from being passive linkers between the OMF and the transporter, emerge as active architects of tripartite assemblies, and play diverse roles in the transport process. Recognition between the PAPs and OMFs is essential for pump assembly and function, and targeting this interaction may provide a novel avenue for combating multidrug resistance. With the recent advances elucidating the drug efflux and energetics of the tripartite assemblies, the understanding of the interaction between the OMFs and PAPs is the last piece remaining in the complete structure of the tripartite pump assembly puzzle

Impacts on cooling energy consumption due to the UHI and vegetation changes in Manchester, UK

Climate change projections estimate a rise of approximately 3°C by the 2080s for most of the UK (medium emissions scenario at 50% probability level, 1961-1990 baseline). Warming is a particular concern for urban areas due to urban densification and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. To counteract the UHI, one adaptation strategy for urban areas is increasing the proportion of greenspace, such as parks, street tree plantings, and green roofs. This research employed an interdisciplinary approach to measure and model fine-scale microclimate changes due to greenspace and explore the implications for building energy demand in Manchester, UK. Both the modelled and measured microclimate data informed development of a series of weather files for building energy modelling of three commercial building types. For a scenario adding 5% mature trees to the urban case study, the combination of microclimate modelling and data analysis estimated a maximum hourly air temperature reduction of nearly 1.0°C under peak UHI conditions and wind speed reductions up to 1.0 m/s. These results were used to change the weather files in the building energy modelling, which estimated a reduction of 2.7% in July chiller energy due to the combination of reduced UHI peak hours and eight additional trees shading a three-storey shallow plan building. Energy savings increased to 4.8% under a three-day period of peak UHI conditions.</p

Mind the gap: A comparison of socio-technical limitations of national house rating systems in the UK and Australia

This paper reviews the national house rating tools in the UK and Australia, evaluates the energy performance of eight different case study houses, and quantifies the magnitude of the performance gap between as-designed energy performance and as-occupied (actual) energy use. To identify contributing factors to the performance gap, post-occupancy evaluations were conducted, and all case study houses were monitored over two years. It was observed that there are performance gaps in all case study houses, however, the gap can be negative (i.e. more actual energy use than simulated) or positive (i.e. less actual energy use than simulated). Results show that the actual heating loads were less than simulated in 5 of the 8 houses (2 UK and 3 AU), and only 1 house (AU) had an actual cooling load more than simulated. The heating discrepancies ranged from 73% to 180% for the UK houses, and 19%–172% for the AU houses. For the cooling loads, actual energy use in the AU house was up to 4.8 times higher than the simulated. To understand the underlying causes, several influencing factors (including internal temperature conditions, climate, house form and urban context, construction quality, and processes and assumptions of national house rating tools) were analysed. It was found that a key challenge relates to a limited definition of the energy system (household energy use), focusing on technical issues and largely ignoring or simplifying existing and changing socio-cultural issues. Additionally, the paper argues for the need for extending the system boundary beyond individual buildings to neighbourhood, community and city scales. At both a building scale and community scale, deeper understandings of socio-cultural issues that impact on, and are impacted by, energy metabolism, are required

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700