Transportation Systems Evaluation

A methodology for the analysis of transportation systems consisting of five major interacting elements is reported. The analysis begins with the causes of travel demand: geographic, economic, and demographic characteristics as well as attitudes toward travel. Through the analysis, the interaction of these factors with the physical and economic characteristics of the transportation system is determined. The result is an evaluation of the system from the point of view of both passenger and operator. The methodology is applicable to the intraurban transit systems as well as major airlines. Applications of the technique to analysis of a PRT system and a study of intraurban air travel are given. In the discussion several unique models or techniques are mentioned: i.e., passenger preference modeling, an integrated intraurban transit model, and a series of models to perform airline analysis

Listening to Voices: Understanding Chinese Students' Journey at a Canadian University

This research explored the motivations of Chinese students to study in Canada and analyzed their cultural adaptation process at a Canadian university. This served the Canadian educational administrators and prospective Chinese students who were interested in studying in Canada. The following three research questions provided the direction for this study: 1 What are Chinese students’ motivations to study in Canada? 2 What are Chinese students’ experiences at Canadian universities and how do their motivations shape their journey in Canada? 3 What challenges and opportunities do Chinese students face in their cultural adaptation, and what strategies do Chinese students think can be applied by Canadian educational administrators to assist Chinese students? A qualitative approach was the research method utilized in this study. Using semi-structured life-story interviews, data were collected from a purposeful sample of four Chinese graduate students studying at a Canadian university. Utilizing a narrative research method, from an emic perspective, I listened to Chinese students’ voices and their life stories and to explore deeply their experiences in Canada. Three theoretical frameworks were employed to analyze the data. The synthesis model was used to explore the decision making process of participants to come to Canada; the push-pull model was employed to identify the factors attracting people to move to another country; and Self- Determined Theory was used to analyze the connection between participants’ motivations to study abroad and their subsequent cultural adaptation. Data collected from semi-structured interviews with four participants indicated that Chinese students were easily attracted to study in Canada by its favorable and tolerant environment, positive reputation for diversity, high quality post-secondary institutions and the possibility of securing a visa relatively easily. In their decision making process, Chinese students were influenced by some important factors: student characteristics, parental factors, and other external important factors. Among those factors influencing Chinese students’ decisions to move to Canada, family was recognized a very important factor and participants’ narratives suggested that having family connections in Canada could be a helpful factor for Chinese students to adapt to a new culture, which was reported as a best case scenario in this research. However, family also acted as a barrier for Chinese students to acquire English proficiency and interact with local people. Findings from this study supported earlier research that suggested students who were more self-determined to study abroad were more likely to succeed academically and had fewer traumas in navigating cross-cultural adaptations

Investigation of MRSA transmission between pigs and the environment following intra-nasal inoculation

Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) ST398 has not been detected in pigs in Ireland. However, other strains of MRSA, including MRSA t002, have been isolated from animals and humans in Ireland. The aim of this study was to determine if nasal colonization of pigs with a non-ST398 strain of MRSA could be reproduced using intra-nasal inoculation and to investigate subsequent transmission of this strain. Six pigs were inoculated intra-nasally with 2 x 109cfu MRSA t002. Six days post-inoculation these pigs were washed and moved to a clean house with 15 unexposed pigs (In-contact group). Another 15 unexposed pigs were added to the vacated house (Environment group)

Elucidation of the RamA Regulon in Klebsiella pneumoniae Reveals a Role in LPS Regulation

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a significant human pathogen, in part due to high rates of multidrug resistance. RamA is an intrinsic regulator in K. pneumoniae established to be important for the bacterial response to antimicrobial challenge; however, little is known about its possible wider regulatory role in this organism during infection. In this work, we demonstrate that RamA is a global transcriptional regulator that significantly perturbs the transcriptional landscape of K. pneumoniae, resulting in altered microbe-drug or microbe-host response. This is largely due to the direct regulation of 68 genes associated with a myriad of cellular functions. Importantly, RamA directly binds and activates the lpxC, lpxL-2 and lpxO genes associated with lipid A biosynthesis, thus resulting in modifications within the lipid A moiety of the lipopolysaccharide. RamA-mediated alterations decrease susceptibility to colistin E, polymyxin B and human cationic antimicrobial peptide LL-37. Increased RamA levels reduce K. pneumoniae adhesion and uptake into macrophages, which is supported by in vivo infection studies, that demonstrate increased systemic dissemination of ramA overexpressing K. pneumoniae. These data establish that RamA-mediated regulation directly perturbs microbial surface properties, including lipid A biosynthesis, which facilitate evasion from the innate host response. This highlights RamA as a global regulator that confers pathoadaptive phenotypes with implications for our understanding of the pathogenesis of Enterobacter, Salmonella and Citrobacter spp. that express orthologous RamA proteins

Factors associated with the weight of individual primal cuts and their inter-relationship in cattle

peer-reviewedInput parameters for decision support tools are comprised of, amongst others, knowledge of the associated factors and the extent of those associations with the animal-level feature of interest. The objective of the present study was to quantify the association between the animal-level factors with primal cut yields in cattle and to understand the extent of the variability in primal cut yields independent of other primal cuts or as carcass weight itself. The data used consisted of the weight of 14 primal carcass cuts (as well as carcass weight, conformation and fat score) on up to 54,250 young cattle slaughtered between 2013 and 2017. Linear mixed models, with contemporary group of herd-sex-season of slaughter as a random effect, were used to quantify the associations between a range of model fixed effects with each primal cut separately. Fixed effects in the model were dam parity, heterosis coefficient, recombination loss, a covariate per breed representing the proportion of Angus, Belgian Blue, Charolais, Jersey, Hereford, Limousin, Simmental, and Holstein-Friesian and a three-way interaction between whether the animal was born in a dairy or beef herd, sex, and age at slaughter, with or without carcass weight as a covariate in the mixed model. The raw correlations among all cuts were all positive varying from 0.33 (between the bavette and the striploin) to 0.93 (between the topside and knuckle). The partial correlation among cuts, following adjustment for differences in carcass weight, varied from -0.36 to 0.74. Age at slaughter, sex, dam parity and breed were all associated (P<0.05) with the primal cut weight. Knowledge of the relationship between the individual primal cuts, and the solutions from the models developed in the study, could prove useful inputs for decision support systems level to increase performance

Impact of supplemental home enteral feeding postesophagectomy on nutrition, body composition, quality of life, and patient satisfaction

The aim of this prospective cohort study is to analyze the impact of supplemental home enteral nutrition (HEN) post-esophageal cancer surgery on nutritional parameters, quality of life (QL), and patient satisfaction. A systematic review reported that over 60% of patients lose \u3e10% of both body weight and BMI by 6 months after esophagectomy. Enteral feeding (EF) is increasingly a modern standard postoperatively; however, the impact of extended HEN postdischarge has not been systematically studied. One hundred forty-nine consecutive patients [mean age 62 ± 9, 80% male,76% adenocarcinoma, 66% on multimodal protocols, and 69% with BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2] were studied. Jejunal EF commenced day 1 postoperatively, and supplemental overnight HEN (764 kcal; 32g protein) continued on discharge for a planned further 4 weeks. Weight, BMI, and body composition analysis (bioimpedance analysis) were measured at baseline, preoperatively and at 1, 3, and 6 months, along with the EORTC QLQ-C30/OES18 QL measures. A patient satisfaction questionnaire addressed eight key items in relation to HEN (max score 100/item). Median (range) total duration of EF was 49 days (28-96). Overall compliance was 96%. At 6 months, compared with preoperatively, 58 (39%) patients lost \u3e10% weight, with median (IQR) loss of 6.8 (4-9) kg, and 62 (41%) patients lost \u3e10% BMI. Lean body mass and body fat were significantly (p \u3c 0.001) decreased. Mean global QL decreased (p \u3c 0.01) from 82 to 72. A high mean satisfaction score (\u3e70 ± 11/100) was reported, \u3e80 for practical training, activities of daily living, pain, anxiety, recovery and impact on caregivers, with lower scores for appetite (33 ± 24) and sleep (63 ± 30). Supplemental HEN for a minimum of one month postdischarge is associated with high compliance and patient satisfaction. Weight and BMI loss may still be substantial, however this may be less than published literature, in addition the impact on HR-QL may be attenuated. HEN has both subjective and objective rationale and merits further validation toward optimizing nutritional recovery and overall wellbeing

The interactive effects of fertiliser nitrogen with dung and urine on nitrous oxide emissions in grassland

The authors wish to thank the Environmental Protection Agency for funding support under the Environmental Research Technological Development and Innovation programme and the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for funding support (Grant numbers RSF 13S430 and 11S138).peer-reviewedNitrous oxide (N2O) is an important and potent greenhouse gas (GHG). Although application of nitrogen (N) fertiliser is a feature of many grazing systems, limited data is available on N2O emissions in grassland as a result of the interaction between urine, dung and fertiliser N. A small plot study was conducted to identify the individual and interactive effects of calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) fertiliser, dung and urine. Application of CAN with dung and urine significantly increased the mass of N2O-N emission. Importantly, the sum of N2O-N emitted from dung and CAN applied individually approximated the emission from dung and CAN fertiliser applied together, that is, an additive effect. However, in the case of urine and CAN applied together, the emission was more than double the sum of the emission from urine and CAN fertiliser applied individually, that is, a multiplicative effect. Nitrous oxide emissions from dung, urine and fertiliser N are typically derived individually and these individual emission estimates are aggregated to produce estimates of N2O emission. The presented findings have important implications for how individual emission factors are aggregated; they suggest that the multiplicative effect of the addition of CAN fertiliser to urine patches needs to be taken into account to refine the estimation of N2O emissions from grazing grasslands.The authors wish to thank the Environmental Protection Agency for funding support under the Environmental Research Technological Development and Innovation programme and the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for funding support (Grant numbers RSF 13S430 and 11S138)

Cortactin is necessary for E-cadherin–mediated contact formation and actin reorganization

Classical cadherin adhesion molecules are key determinants of cell–cell recognition during development and in post-embryonic life. A decisive step in productive cadherin-based recognition is the conversion of nascent adhesions into stable zones of contact. It is increasingly clear that such contact zone extension entails active cooperation between cadherin adhesion and the force-generating capacity of the actin cytoskeleton. Cortactin has recently emerged as an important regulator of actin dynamics in several forms of cell motility. We now report that cortactin is recruited to cell–cell adhesive contacts in response to homophilic cadherin ligation. Notably, cortactin accumulates preferentially, with Arp2/3, at cell margins where adhesive contacts are being extended. Recruitment of cortactin is accompanied by a ligation-dependent biochemical interaction between cortactin and the cadherin adhesive complex. Inhibition of cortactin activity in cells blocked Arp2/3-dependent actin assembly at cadherin adhesive contacts, significantly reduced cadherin adhesive contact zone extension, and perturbed both cell morphology and junctional accumulation of cadherins in polarized epithelia. Together, our findings identify a necessary role for cortactin in the cadherin–actin cooperation that supports productive contact formation

U-Pb SHRIMP zircon dating of Grenvillian metamorphism in Western Sierras Pampeanas (Argentina) : correlation with the Arequipa-Antofalla craton and constraints on the extent of the Precordillera Terrane

The Sierras Pampeanas of Argentina, the largest outcrop of pre-Andean crystalline basement in southern South America, resulted from plate interactions along the proto-Andean margin of Gondwana, from as early as Mesoproterozoic to Late Paleozoic times (e.g., Ramos, 2004, and references therein). Two discrete Paleozoic orogenic belts have been recognized: the Early Cambrian Pampean belt in the eastern sierras, and the Ordovician Famatinian belt, which partially overprints it to the west (e.g., Rapela et al., 1998). In the Western Sierras Pampeanas, Mesoproterozoic igneous rocks (ca. 1.0–1.2 Ga) have been recognized in the Sierra de Pie de Palo (Fig. 1) (McDonough et al., 1993 M.R. McDonough, V.A. Ramos, C.E. Isachsen, S.A. Bowring and G.I. Vujovich, Edades preliminares de circones del basamento de la Sierra de Pie de Palo, Sierras Pampeanas occidentales de San Juán: sus implicancias para el supercontinente proterozoico de Rodinia, 12° Cong. Geol. Argentino, Actas vol. 3 (1993), pp. 340–342.McDonough et al., 1993, Pankhurst and Rapela, 1998 and Vujovich et al., 2004) that are time-coincident with the Grenvillian orogeny of eastern and northeastern North America (e.g., Rivers, 1997 and Corrievau and van Breemen, 2000). These Grenvillian-age rocks have been considered to be the easternmost exposure of basement to the Precordillera Terrane, a supposed Laurentian continental block accreted to Gondwana during the Famatinian orogeny (Thomas and Astini, 2003, and references therein). However, the boundaries of this Grenvillian belt are still poorly defined, and its alleged allochthoneity has been challenged (Galindo et al., 2004). Moreover, most of the Grenvillian ages so far determined relate to igneous protoliths, and there is no conclusive evidence for a Grenvillian orogenic belt, other than inferred from petrographic evidence alone (Casquet et al., 2001). We provide here the first evidence, based on U–Pb SHRIMP zircon dating at Sierra de Maz, for a Grenville-age granulite facies metamorphism, leading to the conclusion that a continuous mobile belt existed throughout the proto-Andean margin of Gondwana in Grenvillian times