Photo- and solvatochromic properties of nitrobenzospiropyran in ionic liquids containing the [NTf2]- anion

The photo-, thermo- and solvatochromic properties of 2,3-dihydro-10,30,30-trimethyl-6-nitrospiro- [1-benzopyran-2,20-1H-indole] (BSP-NO2) were studied in ILs containing the anion [NTf2]- by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, ab initio molecular orbital theory and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. It was found that the kinetics and thermodynamics of the BSP-NO2 MC (merocyanine) equilibrium was sensitive to the nature of the cation. It was also observed that the imidazolium cation can form a through-space orbital interaction with the MC isomer, rather than a simple electrostatic interaction, thus preventing the MC conversion back to the BSP-NO2 isomer. The BSP-NO2 MC equilibrium thus serves as a model system for studying modes of interaction of the cations in ionic liquids

Telephone cognitive behavioural therapy to prevent the development of chronic widespread pain : a qualitative study of patient perspectives and treatment acceptability

The authors would like to thank: the MAmMOTH investigators, Phil Keeley, Gordon Prescott, Paul McNamee, Majid Artus, John McBeth, Philip Hannaford, Gareth Jones, Neil Basu, and John Norrie. Kathy Longley, patient representative from Arthritis Research UK, for help with designing the MAmMOTH Study. The staff and patients at the following practices in Scotland: Mount Florida Medical Centre, Midlock Medical Centre, Buckingham Terrace Medical Practice, Levern Medical Group, Bridgetown Medical Centre, Cardonald Medical Centre, Denburn Medical Practice, Ellon Medical Group, Laurencekirk Medical Centre, Aultbea & Gairloch Medical Practice, Dr. Pearson’s Medical Practice, Cairn Medical Practice, Grantown On Spey Medical Practice, Strathpeffer Medical Practice, Fairfield Medical Practice, and Fortrose Medical Practice. The Scottish Primary Care Research Network coordinators, Samantha Holden in NHS Highland, Tracy Ibbotson in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and Amanda Cardy in NHS Grampian. Christine Molloy, CBT coordinator at University of Manchester. The therapists delivering the intervention, Anna Pruszynska, Christine Molloy, Clare Stephenson, Gary Lamph, Gary McNamee, Jayne Fox, Mike Fitzsimmons, Marie Pope, Natalie Broad, and Nicola McConnell. The programmers at Centre for Health Centre Randomised Trials (CHaRT), including Mark Forrest, senior IT development manager, and Brian Taylor, senior programmer. Funding The MAmMOTH study is funded by the Arthritis Research UK Grant no. 20748. Arthritis Research UK had no input into the design of the study, collection, interpretation of data or writing of the manuscript. Availability of data and materials The anonymised framework template is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Peer reviewedPublisher PDFsupplementary_datasupplementary_datasupplementary_dat

Identification of three wheat globulin genes by screening a Triticum aestivum BAC genomic library with cDNA from a diabetes-associated globulin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Exposure to dietary wheat proteins in genetically susceptible individuals has been associated with increased risk for the development of Type 1 diabetes (T1D). Recently, a wheat protein encoded by cDNA WP5212 has been shown to be antigenic in mice, rats and humans with autoimmune T1D. To investigate the genomic origin of the identified wheat protein cDNA, a hexaploid wheat genomic library from Glenlea cultivar was screened.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Three unique wheat globulin genes, <it>Glo-3A</it>, <it>Glo3-B </it>and <it>Glo-3C</it>, were identified. We describe the genomic structure of these genes and their expression pattern in wheat seeds. The <it>Glo-3A </it>gene shared 99% identity with the cDNA of WP5212 at the nucleotide and deduced amino acid level, indicating that we have identified the gene(s) encoding wheat protein WP5212. Southern analysis revealed the presence of multiple copies of <it>Glo-3</it>-like sequences in all wheat samples, including hexaploid, tetraploid and diploid species wheat seed. Aleurone and embryo tissue specificity of WP5212 gene expression, suggested by promoter region analysis, which demonstrated an absence of endosperm specific <it>cis </it>elements, was confirmed by immunofluorescence microscopy using anti-WP5212 antibodies.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Taken together, the results indicate that a diverse group of globulins exists in wheat, some of which could be associated with the pathogenesis of T1D in some susceptible individuals. These data expand our knowledge of specific wheat globulins and will enable further elucidation of their role in wheat biology and human health.</p

Thermophysiochemical properties of pure and water-saturated ionic liquids

We have previously reported into the extent of structuring in ILs using photochromic molecular probes1. In order for Ionic Liquids (ILs) to be fully utilized to their potential, it is necessary to have a complete understanding of their physical properties. In this study we investigated the thermophysical interactions in several pure and water-saturated ionic liquids being hydrophilic and hydrophobic in nature, namely 1-alkyl-3-methyl imidazolium and trihexyltetradecylphosphonium family of ILs. The density, viscosity and conductivity of pure and water-saturated imidazolium and phosphonium-based ILs were measured over a broad temperature. Moreover, interactive and binding energies of the studied imidazolium ILs in the presence of H2O molecules were calculated using Gaussian and compared with experimental Raman spectroscopy of the same imidazolium ILs, with and without the presence of saturated water

N-methyl-N-alkylpyrrolidinium nonafluoro-1-butanesulfonate salts : Ionic liquid properties and plastic crystal behaviour

A series of N-methyl-N-alkylpyrrolidinium nonafluoro-1-butanesulfonate salts were synthesised and characterised. The thermophysical characteristics of this family of salts have been investigated with respect to potential use as ionic liquids and solid electrolytes. N-Methyl-N-butylpyrrolidinium nonafluoro-1-butanesulfonate (p1,4NfO) has the lowest melting point of the family, at 94 &deg;C. Electrochemical analysis of p1,4 NfO in the liquid state shows an electrochemical window of ~6 V. All compounds exhibit one or more solid&ndash;solid transitions at sub-ambient temperatures, indicating the existence of plastic crystal phases.<br /

Temperature & pH triggered release characteristics of water/fluorescein from 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethylsulfate based ionogels.

A crosslinked Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) ionogel encapsulating an ionic liquid exhibits improved transmittance properties, enhanced water uptake/release, greater thermal actuation behaviour and distinct solvatomorphology over its hydrogel equivalent. It was also found that the rate of release of fluorescein pre-loaded into membranes was considerably enhanced for ionogels compared to equivalent hydrogels, and could be triggered through changes in pH and temperature

Investigating the effects of a combined spatial and spectral dimensionality reduction approach for aerial hyperspectral target detection applications

Target detection and classification is an important application of hyperspectral imaging in remote sensing. A wide range of algorithms for target detection in hyperspectral images have been developed in the last few decades. Given the nature of hyperspectral images, they exhibit large quantities of redundant information and are therefore compressible. Dimensionality reduction is an effective means of both compressing and denoising data. Although spectral dimensionality reduction is prevalent in hyperspectral target detection applications, the spatial redundancy of a scene is rarely exploited. By applying simple spatial masking techniques as a preprocessing step to disregard pixels of definite disinterest, the subsequent spectral dimensionality reduction process is simpler, less costly and more informative. This paper proposes a processing pipeline to compress hyperspectral images both spatially and spectrally before applying target detection algorithms to the resultant scene. The combination of several different spectral dimensionality reduction methods and target detection algorithms, within the proposed pipeline, are evaluated. We find that the Adaptive Cosine Estimator produces an improved F1 score and Matthews Correlation Coefficient when compared to unprocessed data. We also show that by using the proposed pipeline the data can be compressed by over 90% and target detection performance is maintained

A fast hyperspectral hit-or-miss transform with integrated projection-based dimensionality reduction

The Hit-or-Miss transform (HMT) is a common tool in Mathematical Morphology (MM) used in template matching and object detection and subsequent classification applications. The HMT probes a query image with a pair of structuring elements (SEs) which are designed to detect specific objects of interest. The relative size of hyperspectral image data in particular provides a wealth of information on a scene however, it also makes object detection via a HMT a computationally expensive process. We aim to solve this problem through employing both spatial and spectral dimensionality reduction (DR) techniques to transform a hyperspectral image and its associated SEs designed for the HMT into a reduced space

Object detection and classification in aerial hyperspectral imagery using a multivariate hit-or-miss transform

High resolution aerial and satellite borne hyperspectral imagery provides a wealth of information about an imaged scene allowing for many earth observation applications to be investigated. Such applications include geological exploration, soil characterisation, land usage, change monitoring as well as military applications such as anomaly and target detection. While this sheer volume of data provides an invaluable resource, with it comes the curse of dimensionality and the necessity for smart processing techniques as analysing this large quantity of data can be a lengthy and problematic task. In order to aid this analysis dimensionality reduction techniques can be employed to simplify the task by reducing the volume of data and describing it (or most of it) in an alternate way. This work aims to apply this notion of dimensionality reduction based hyperspectral analysis to target detection using a multivariate Percentage Occupancy Hit or Miss Transform that detects objects based on their size shape and spectral properties. We also investigate the effects of noise and distortion and how incorporating these factors in the design of necessary structuring elements allows for a more accurate representation of the desired targets and therefore a more accurate detection. We also compare our method with various other common Target Detection and Anomaly Detection techniques