Object Reuse and Exchange

The Open Archives Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) project defines standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of Web resources. The OAI-ORE abstract data model is conformant with the Architecture of the World Wide Web and leverages concepts from the Semantic Web, including RDF descriptions and Linked Data. In this paper we provide a brief review of a motivating example and its serialization in Atom

Astrometry with the Wide-Field InfraRed Space Telescope

The Wide-Field InfraRed Space Telescope (WFIRST) will be capable of delivering precise astrometry for faint sources over the enormous field of view of its main camera, the Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This unprecedented combination will be transformative for the many scientific questions that require precise positions, distances, and velocities of stars. We describe the expectations for the astrometric precision of the WFIRST WFI in different scenarios, illustrate how a broad range of science cases will see significant advances with such data, and identify aspects of WFIRST's design where small adjustments could greatly improve its power as an astrometric instrument.Comment: version accepted to JATI

Policy review – water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and climate change in urban planning systems in Melanesia

This document summarises a policy and legislation review conducted as part of the Water for Women funded research project conducted by the International WaterCentre (IWC), The University of the South Pacific (USP) and their partners. The overarching research question for this work is How can urban planning processes in Melanesia be strengthened through participation and integration to improve the resilience of WASH service delivery in informal settlements and areas identified for housing growth within the urban footprint? The sub-question this document intends to contribute towards is to: Understand what existing planning processes (knowledge, information systems/platforms, plans and policies) are in place for future and existing areas of growth and informal settlements. Following a broad overview of urban planning in Melanesia, this document is structured by city (Port Moresby, Suva, Port Vila and Honiara). The policy and legislative review attempted to collect the central documents for each of the following themes – urban planning, WASH, and climate change, as well as any overarching strategy or policy for development in the country of relevance. Fifty-eight (58) documents were reviewed across the four cities (Figure 1). In the following sections, those documents are briefly described, and then specific review of the main urban planning document for the city is reviewed using separate lenses of WASH; climate change; and informal settlements. Each of the documents was designated as (1) strategy, policy or implementation plan, (2) town planning scheme or urban development plan or (3) legislation or regulation; and further classified in terms of the dominant theme, as (1) cross-cutting (e.g., national sustainable development plans, (2) water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and water resource management (WRM), (3) urban development or planning and (4) climate change. A comparison of terminology using a pairwise word search in each of the four thematic groupings was conducted to assess the integration of these themes within across documents. In addition to the review of documents, stakeholder interviews with key informants were conducted in Suva (Fiji) and Port Vila (Vanuatu) to better understand the current urban planning, WASH and climate change landscape in those cities. Interviews were conducted with water utilities (3), national government department officials (5), and local government officials (2)

Opportunities for collaborative and integrated planning processes for climate - resilient urban WASH in informal settlements

There are existing urban planning processes in Melanesian cities, however they are often reactionary, out-dated, and siloed from development requirements of specific sectors. • Those with responsibility for urban planning mostly don’t consider themselves to hold a mandate to be involved in WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) service planning, or informal settlements, and water utilities mostly don’t consider themselves as leaders in planning WASH services in informal settlements due to tenure and urban planning constraints. There are examples of this changing. • Existing planning processes for WASH in urban Melanesia mostly don’t integrate climate resilience and adaptation information, activities and impacts. • There is some progress being made in Melanesian urban informal settlements with respect to formalisation and upgrading: Fiji is currently formalising 46 settlements across the country including service provision, Solomon Water has connected over 2,800 households in settlements to piped water in the last year, Papua New Guinea’s new Port Moresby Urban Development Plan describes their ongoing settlement upgrade process, and Vanuatu’s urban wastewater taskforce is considering sanitation in urban settlements. Notwithstanding progress, WASH services remain very unevenly distributed across Melanesian urban centres, particularly in urban informal settlements

The XMM Cluster Survey: The interplay between the brightest cluster galaxy and the intra-cluster medium via AGN feedback

Using a sample of 123 X-ray clusters and groups drawn from the XMM-Cluster Survey first data release, we investigate the interplay between the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG), its black hole, and the intra-cluster/group medium (ICM). It appears that for groups and clusters with a BCG likely to host significant AGN feedback, gas cooling dominates in those with Tx > 2 keV while AGN feedback dominates below. This may be understood through the sub-unity exponent found in the scaling relation we derive between the BCG mass and cluster mass over the halo mass range 10^13 < M500 < 10^15Msol and the lack of correlation between radio luminosity and cluster mass, such that BCG AGN in groups can have relatively more energetic influence on the ICM. The Lx - Tx relation for systems with the most massive BCGs, or those with BCGs co-located with the peak of the ICM emission, is steeper than that for those with the least massive and most offset, which instead follows self-similarity. This is evidence that a combination of central gas cooling and powerful, well fuelled AGN causes the departure of the ICM from pure gravitational heating, with the steepened relation crossing self-similarity at Tx = 2 keV. Importantly, regardless of their black hole mass, BCGs are more likely to host radio-loud AGN if they are in a massive cluster (Tx > 2 keV) and again co-located with an effective fuel supply of dense, cooling gas. This demonstrates that the most massive black holes appear to know more about their host cluster than they do about their host galaxy. The results lead us to propose a physically motivated, empirical definition of 'cluster' and 'group', delineated at 2 keV.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS - replaced to match corrected proo

Application of in vitro Drug Metabolism Studies in Chemical Structure Optimization for the Treatment of Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP)

Currently no approved treatment exists for fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP) patients, and disease progression results in severe restriction of joint function and premature mortality. LDN-193189 has been demonstrated to be efficacious in a mouse FOP disease model after oral administration. To support species selection for drug safety evaluation and to guide structure optimization for back-up compounds, in vitro metabolism of LDN-193189 was investigated in liver microsome and cytosol fractions of mouse, rat, dog, rabbit, monkey and human. Metabolism studies included analysis of reactive intermediate formation using glutathione and potassium cyanide (KCN) and analysis of non-P450 mediated metabolites in cytosol fractions of various species. Metabolite profiles and metabolic soft spots of LDN-193189 were elucidated using LC/UV and mass spectral techniques. The in vitro metabolism of LDN-193189 was significantly dependent on aldehyde oxidase, with formation of the major NIH-Q55 metabolite. The piperazinyl moiety of LDN-193189 was liable to NADPH-dependent metabolism which generated reactive iminium intermediates, as confirmed through KCN trapping experiments, and aniline metabolites (M337 and M380), which brought up potential drug safety concerns. Subsequently, strategies were employed to avoid metabolic liabilities leading to the synthesis of Compounds 1, 2, and 3. This study demonstrated the importance of metabolite identification for the discovery of novel and safe drug candidates for the treatment of FOP and helped medicinal chemists steer away from potential metabolic liabilities

Astrometry with the WFIRST Wide-Field Imager

The Wide-Field InfraRed Space Telescope (WFIRST) will be capable of delivering precise astrometry for faint sources over the enormous field of view of its main camera, the Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This unprecedented combination will be transformative for the many scientific questions that require precise positions, distances, and velocities of stars. We describe the expectations for the astrometric precision of the WFIRST WFI in different scenarios, illustrate how a broad range of science cases will see significant advances with such data, and identify aspects of WFIRST's design where small adjustments could greatly improve its power as an astrometric instrument

Astrometry with the WFIRST Wide-Field Imager

The Wide-Field InfraRed Space Telescope (WFIRST) will be capable of delivering precise astrometry for faint sources over the enormous field of view of its main camera, the Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This unprecedented combination will be transformative for the many scientific questions that require precise positions, distances, and velocities of stars. We describe the expectations for the astrometric precision of the WFIRST WFI in different scenarios, illustrate how a broad range of science cases will see significant advances with such data, and identify aspects of WFIRST's design where small adjustments could greatly improve its power as an astrometric instrument

Using Non-Homogeneous Models of Nucleotide Substitution to Identify Host Shift Events: Application to the Origin of the 1918 ‘Spanish’ Influenza Pandemic Virus

Nonhomogeneous Markov models of nucleotide substitution have received scant attention. Here we explore the possibility of using nonhomogeneous models to identify host shift nodes along phylogenetic trees of pathogens evolving in different hosts. It has been noticed that influenza viruses show marked differences in nucleotide composition in human and avian hosts. We take advantage of this fact to identify the host shift event that led to the 1918 ‘Spanish’ influenza. This disease killed over 50 million people worldwide, ranking it as the deadliest pandemic in recorded history. Our model suggests that the eight RNA segments which eventually became the 1918 viral genome were introduced into a mammalian host around 1882–1913. The viruses later diverged into the classical swine and human H1N1 influenza lineages around 1913–1915. The last common ancestor of human strains dates from February 1917 to April 1918. Because pigs are more readily infected with avian influenza viruses than humans, it would seem that they were the original recipient of the virus. This would suggest that the virus was introduced into humans sometime between 1913 and 1918