VALUING THE PROTECTION OF MINIMUM INSTREAM FLOWS IN NEW MEXICO

Currently, New Mexico law does not provide any legal avenue of protecting instream flows. A change in the status quo requires that a prima facie case be made— establishing sufficient evidence of the public benefits from maintaining instream flows to warrant consideration, or standing, in future water policy deliberations. Using the contingent valuation (CV) method, we investigate the nonmarket benefits of protecting minimum instream flows in New Mexico. Results from a dichotomous choice CV telephone survey show significant nonmarket values for protecting instream flows that are sensitive to a change in scope and insensitive to a group-size reminder.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Development and validation of a VISA tendinopathy questionnaire for greater trochanteric pain syndrome, the VISA-G

BACKGROUND Greater trochanteric pain syndrome (GTPS) is common, resulting in significant pain and disability. There is no condition specific outcome score to evaluate the degree of severity of disability associated with GTPS in patients with this condition. OBJECTIVE To develop a reliable and valid outcome measurement capable of evaluating the severity of disability associated with GTPS. METHODS A phenomenological framework using in-depth semi structured interviews of patients and medical experts, and focus groups of physiotherapists was used in the item generation. Item and format clarification was undertaken via piloting. Multivariate analysis provided the basis for item reduction. The resultant VISA-G was tested for reliability with the inter class co-efficient (ICC), internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha), and construct validity (correlation co-efficient) on 52 naïve participants with GTPS and 31 asymptomatic participants. RESULTS The resultant outcome measurement tool is consistent in style with existing tendinopathy outcome measurement tools, namely the suite of VISA scores. The VISA-G was found to be have a test-retest reliability of ICC2,1 (95% CI) of 0.827 (0.638-0.923). Internal consistency was high with a Cronbach's Alpha of 0.809. Construct validity was demonstrated: the VISA-G measures different constructs than tools previously used in assessing GTPS, the Harris Hip Score and the Oswestry Disability Index (Spearman Rho:0.020 and 0.0205 respectively). The VISA-G did not demonstrate any floor or ceiling effect in symptomatic participants. CONCLUSION The VISA-G is a reliable and valid score for measuring the severity of disability associated GTPS.The study was funded through the Australian National University, Monash University and LaTrobe University. Prof Cook was supported by the Australian Centre for Research into Sports Injury and its Prevention, which is one of the International Research Centres for Prevention of Injury and Protection of Athlete Health supported by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Prof Cook is a NHMRC practitioner fellow (ID 1058493)

Computational and Structural Evidence for Neurotransmitter-mediated Modulation of the Oligomeric States of Human Insulin in Storage Granules

Human insulin is a pivotal protein hormone controlling metabolism, growth and ageing, and whose malfunctioning underlies diabetes, some cancers and neuro-degeneration. Despite its central position in human physiology, the in vivo oligomeric state and conformation of insulin in its storage granules in the pancreas are not known. In contrast, many in vitro structures of hexamers of this hormone are available, which fall into three conformational states: T6, T3Rf3 and R6. As there is strong evidence for accumulation of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine, in insulin storage granules in pancreatic β-cells, we probed by molecular dynamics (MD) and protein crystallography (PC) if these endogenous ligands affect and stabilize insulin oligomers. Parallel studies independently converged on the observation that serotonin binds well within the insulin hexamer (site I), stabilizing it in the T3R3 conformation. Both methods indicated serotonin binding on the hexamer surface (site III) as well. MD, but not PC, indicated that dopamine was also a good site III ligand. Some of the PC studies also included arginine, which may be abundant in insulin granules upon processing of pro-insulin, and stable T3R3 hexamers loaded with both serotonin and arginine were obtained. The MD and PC results were supported further by in solution spectroscopic studies with R-state specific chromophore. Our results indicate that the T3R3 oligomer is a plausible insulin pancreatic storage form, resulting from its complex interplay with neurotransmitters, and pro-insulin processing products. These findings may have implications for clinical insulin formulations

Potential of a cyclone prototype spacer to improve in vitro dry powder delivery

Copyright The Author(s) 2013. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are creditedPurpose: Low inspiratory force in patients with lung disease is associated with poor deagglomeration and high throat deposition when using dry powder inhalers (DPIs). The potential of two reverse flow cyclone prototypes as spacers for commercial carrierbased DPIs was investigated. Methods: Cyclohaler®, Accuhaler® and Easyhaler® were tested with and without the spacers between 30-60 Lmin-1. Deposition of particles in the next generation impactor and within the devices was determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Results: Reduced induction port deposition of the emitted particles from the cyclones was observed due to the high retention of the drug within the spacers (e.g. salbutamol sulphate (SS): 67.89 ± 6.51 % at 30 Lmin-1 in Cheng 1). Fine particle fractions of aerosol as emitted from the cyclones were substantially higher than the DPIs alone. Moreover, the aerodynamic diameters of particles emitted from the cyclones were halved compared to the DPIs alone (e.g. SS from the Cyclohaler® at 4 kPa: 1.08 ± 0.05 μm vs. 3.00 ± 0.12 μm, with and without Cheng 2, respectively) and unaltered with increased flow rates. Conclusion: This work has shown the potential of employing a cyclone spacer for commercial carrier-based DPIs to improve inhaled drug delivery.Peer reviewe

High-resolution, large-scale laboratory measurements of a sandy beach and dynamic cobble berm revetment

AbstractHigh quality laboratory measurements of nearshore waves and morphology change at, or near prototype-scale are essential to support new understanding of coastal processes and enable the development and validation of predictive models. The DynaRev experiment was completed at the GWK large wave flume over 8 weeks during 2017 to investigate the response of a sandy beach to water level rise and varying wave conditions with and without a dynamic cobble berm revetment, as well as the resilience of the revetment itself. A large array of instrumentation was used throughout the experiment to capture: (1) wave transformation from intermediate water depths to the runup limit at high spatio-temporal resolution, (2) beach profile change including wave-by-wave changes in the swash zone, (3) detailed hydro and morphodynamic measurements around a developing and a translating sandbar.</jats:p

A certified plasmid reference material for the standardisation of BCR-ABL1 mRNA quantification by real-time quantitative PCR

Serial quantification of BCR–ABL1 mRNA is an important therapeutic indicator in chronic myeloid leukaemia, but there is a substantial variation in results reported by diff