Variability in spawning frequency and reproductive development of the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) along the west coast of Australia

The narrow-barred Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) is widespread throughout the Indo-West Pacific region. This study describes the reproductive biology of S. commerson along the west coast of Australia, where it is targeted for food consumption and sports fishing. Development of testes occurred at a smaller body size than for ovaries, and more than 90% of males were sexually mature by the minimum legal length of 900 mm TL compared to 50% of females. Females dominated overall catches although sex ratios within daily catches vary considerably and females were rarely caught when spaw n ing. Scomberomorus commerson are seasonally abundant in coastal waters and most of the commercial catch is taken prior to the reproductive season. Spawning occurs between about August and November in the Kimberley region and between October and January in the Pilbara region. No spawning activity was recorded in the more southerly West Coast region, and only in the north Kimberley region were large numbers of fish with spawning gonads collected. Catches dropped to a minimum when spawning began in the Pilbara region, when fish became less abundant in inshore waters and inclement weather conditions limited fishing on still productive offshore reefs. Final maturation and ovulation of oocytes took place within a 24-hour period, and females spawned in the afternoon-evening every three days. A third of these spawning females released batches of eggs on consecutive days. Relationships between length, weight, and batch fecundity are presented

Formal Reports: Robotic Mouse Group

The purpose of this project is to design an autonomous robotic mouse that is able to navigate through a maze, locate a doll, and transport the doll to the beginning of the maze. This opportunity will provide students an application in everthing they have learned in their electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering courses. The concept for this project was originally taken from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering) robotic mouse competition held ammally in Japan, which is a competition in how quickly a robotic mouse can solve a maze. We decided to add a realistic component to the design and simulate a search and rescue mission, hence including the need to rescue a doll and return it to the start of the maze. This project will also lay a foundation for fuhu-e Trinity engineers who wish to compete in IEEE Micromouse Competitions or in developing similar projects. The Micromouse itself is a three-tiered, circular robot (about 10 centimeters to a side) with two wheels on both sides and a single ball bearing located towards the back of the body which provides balance for the robot. The chassis is made of 118th inch Plexiglas and is cut into two tiered sheets in order to provide a body for the robot. The major hardware components of our design include sensors, servo motors, DC motors, encoders, wheels, a microcontroller, chassis, battery and a gripper. Three sensors are attached to the front of the robot in order to help locate the walls of the maze and orient the robot. The DC motors are tucked within the body of the robot and are used to power the wheels. The battery is stored within the body of the mouse and is positioned by the Plexiglas columns connecting the three tiers of the chassis. A project control board (PCB) is located in the middle tier and contains all of the electrical components that are necessary to complete our design. Encoders are located on either side of the middle tier and are also used to help the robot determine how far it has travelled in order to navigate the maze. The gripper will be attached to the top tier of the Micromouse and will rotate downwards to pick up the doll when it is within a certain range. Four prototypes have been developed in order to reach our final design. A wall follower was developed as the first prototype and worked properly. The second prototype failed because the hand soldered board was causing issues when all the components were co1mected to each other. Prototype #3 included a gripper circuit as well as a robotic circuit that was supposed to navigate the maze. The gripper circuit was developed and worked properly, but similar issues that had occurred with Prototype #2 were apparent within the robotic circuit of Prototype #3. These issues were eventually fixed by including encoders which would help the robot trace how far it has travelled while navigating the maze. Multiple microcontrollers were also destroyed in the process of developing prototype #3. It was determined that by hooking the motors up to the same power source as the microcontroller, a back-EMF voltage was being applied, which was causing the microcontroller to stop working. By isolating the power sources using two individual batteries, this problem was solved. After testing our final design, the robot was able to navigate the maze, locate the doll, pick up the doll and then return it to the start of the maze within 15 minutes. It was able to this autonomously without leaving any parts behind. Unfortunately, our design was not as robust as we would have liked. On average, the robot was able to complete the objective perfectly every fifth time it was tested. Because of this, we were not able to complete the objective three times in a row without fail. Nevertheless, our robot was able to accomplish four out of the five objectives that we initially stated in our project charter while adhering to all of the project constraints

Experimental observations on the influence of hydrogen atoms diffusion on laminar and turbulent premixed burning velocities

Measurements of the laminar and turbulent burning velocity of premixed hydrogen–air, n-hexane–air and n-octane–air flames were made and compared to corresponding measurements of deuterium–air, n-hexane-d14–air and n-octane-d18–air flames performed at identical initial conditions. Experiments were conducted in a constant volume, optically accessed vessel, at elevated initial pressure and temperature of 0.5 MPa and 360 K, for a range of equivalence ratios. Burn rate data was determined via schlieren imaging of flames. It was found that the isotope effect accounted for an average reduction of 20% in the laminar burn rate of alkanes. Similarly, deuterium was measured to burn around 30% slower than hydrogen at the range of equivalence ratios explored. The isotope effect on burn rate was significantly reduced under turbulence. The difference between the turbulent burn rates of the deuterated alkanes and their normal alkane counterparts were measured to be approximately 10%. The difference between the turbulent burn rates of deuterium and hydrogen was even smaller. Nonetheless, the laminar burn rate ranking was maintained under turbulence for all fuels and conditions explored, thus suggesting a degree of influence of radical transport and chemistry under turbulent burning

The true cost to the State of maternity services in Ireland

Accounting for the cost of delivery of maternity services in Ireland ignores the cost of claims settlements caused by negligence in delivery. We show that the true cost of maternity services is more than double the generally reported cost when proper account is taken of the associated cost of maternity claims. There must come a tipping point, if it is not already exceeded, when the sums paid out by way of settlements for mismanagement of maternity services become larger than the additional costs of operating a sound service

The Impact of Heat Load on Cattle

Heat stress and cold stress have a negative influence on cattle welfare and productivity. There have been some studies investigating the influence of cold stress on cattle, however the emphasis within this review is the influence of heat stress on cattle. The impact of hot weather on cattle is of increasing importance due to the changing global environment. Heat stress is a worldwide phenomenon that is associated with reduced animal productivity and welfare, particularly during the summer months. Animal responses to their thermal environment are extremely varied, however, it is clear that the thermal environment influences the health, productivity, and welfare of cattle. Whilst knowledge continues to be developed, managing livestock to reduce the negative impact of hot climatic conditions remains somewhat challenging. This review provides an overview of the impact of heat stress on production and reproduction in bovines

Findings from Year Two of the External Evaluation of the Healthy & Active Communities Initiative

The Missouri Foundation for Health has funded 33 projects under its Healthy & Active Communities (H&AC) Initiative in two-year funding cycles. A set of 15 projects was funded beginning in 2005 while a set of 18 was funded starting in 2006. This report is the second of three annual reports that assess the extent to which the H&AC Initiative is achieving its objectives. The report builds upon the findings described in “Findings from Year One of the External Evaluation of the Healthy & Active Communities Initiative.” The Missouri Foundation for Health contracted with the Institute of Public Policy, Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri to provide an evaluation of the success of the Initiative as a whole. This focus differs from the typical evaluation where evaluators are assessing and reporting on the success of individual funded projects. Instead, the evaluation looked across the funded projects to identify common factors of success. Continuing from the framework established in 2006, the evaluation team worked from a socio-ecological model. This model assumes that complex prevention programs such as the H&AC projects must use a multi-faceted approach in order to change behavior on individual, organizational and community levels simultaneously. To evaluate programs with multiple approaches such as these, the evaluators determined that cluster evaluation, a strategy developed by the Kellogg Foundation, could be used to identify successful features of the Initiative as a whole. This method enables the evaluators to identify successful program and community conditions that transcend the individual projects

Ethnic-minority groups in England and Wales-factors associated with the size and timing of elevated COVID-19 mortality: a retrospective cohort study linking census and death records

BACKGROUND: We estimated population-level associations between ethnicity and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality using a newly linked census-based data set and investigated how ethnicity-specific mortality risk evolved during the pandemic. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of respondents to the 2011 Census of England and Wales in private households, linked to death registrations and adjusted for emigration (n = 47 872 412). The outcome of interest was death involving COVID-19 between 2 March 2020 and 15 May 2020. We estimated hazard ratios (HRs) for ethnic-minority groups compared with the White population, controlling for individual, household and area characteristics. HRs were estimated on the full outcome period and separately for pre- and post-lockdown periods. RESULTS: In age-adjusted models, people from all ethnic-minority groups were at elevated risk of COVID-19 mortality; the HRs for Black males and females were 3.13 (95% confidence interval: 2.93 to 3.34) and 2.40 (2.20 to 2.61), respectively. However, in fully adjusted models for females, the HRs were close to unity for all ethnic groups except Black [1.29 (1.18 to 1.42)]. For males, the mortality risk remained elevated for the Black [1.76 (1.63 to 1.90)], Bangladeshi/Pakistani [1.35 (1.21 to 1.49)] and Indian [1.30 (1.19 to 1.43)] groups. The HRs decreased after lockdown for all ethnic groups, particularly Black and Bangladeshi/Pakistani females. CONCLUSION: Differences in COVID-19 mortality between ethnic groups were largely attenuated by geographical and socio-demographic factors, though some residual differences remained. Lockdown was associated with reductions in excess mortality risk in ethnic-minority populations, which has implications for a second wave of infection

COVID-19 vaccination uptake amongst ethnic minority communities in England: a linked study exploring the drivers of differential vaccination rates

BACKGROUND: Despite generally high coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination rates in the UK, vaccination hesitancy and lower take-up rates have been reported in certain ethnic minority communities. METHODS: We used vaccination data from the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) linked to the 2011 Census and individual health records for subjects aged ≥40 years (n = 24 094 186). We estimated age-standardized vaccination rates, stratified by ethnic group and key sociodemographic characteristics, such as religious affiliation, deprivation, educational attainment, geography, living conditions, country of birth, language skills and health status. To understand the association of ethnicity with lower vaccination rates, we conducted a logistic regression model adjusting for differences in geographic, sociodemographic and health characteristics. ResultsAll ethnic groups had lower age-standardized rates of vaccination compared with the white British population, whose vaccination rate of at least one dose was 94% (95% CI: 94%-94%). Black communities had the lowest rates, with 75% (74-75%) of black African and 66% (66-67%) of black Caribbean individuals having received at least one dose. The drivers of these lower rates were partly explained by accounting for sociodemographic differences. However, modelled estimates showed significant differences remained for all minority ethnic groups, compared with white British individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Lower COVID-19 vaccination rates are consistently observed amongst all ethnic minorities

Targeting the DNA Double Strand Break Repair Machinery in Prostate Cancer

Regardless of the achievable remissions with first line hormone therapy in patients with prostate cancer (CaP), the disease escapes the hormone dependent stage to a more aggressive status where chemotherapy is the only effective treatment and no treatment is curative. This makes it very important to identify new targets that can improve the outcome of treatment. ATM and DNA-PK are the two kinases responsible for signalling and repairing double strand breaks (DSB). Thus, both kinases are pertinent targets in CaP treatment to enhance the activity of the numerous DNA DSB inducing agents used in CaP treatment such as ionizing radiation (IR). Colony formation assay was used to assess the sensitivity of hormone dependent, p53 wt (LNCaP) and hormone independent p53 mutant (PC3) CaP cell lines to the cytotoxic effect of IR and Doxorubicin in the presence or absence of Ku55933 and NU7441 which are small molecule inhibitors of ATM and DNA-PK, respectively. Flow cytometry based methods were used to assess the effect of the two inhibitors on cell cycle, apoptosis and H2AX foci formation. Neutral comet assay was used to assess the induction of DNA DSBs. Ku55933 or NU7441 alone increased the sensitivity of CaP cell lines to the DNA damaging agents, however combining both inhibitors together resulted in further enhancement of sensitivity. The cell cycle profile of both cell lines was altered with increased cell death, DNA DSBs and H2AX foci formation. This study justifies further evaluation of the ATM and DNA-PK inhibitors for clinical application in CaP patients. Additionally, the augmented effect resulting from combining both inhibitors may have a significant implication for the treatment of CaP patients who have a defect in one of the two DSB repair pathways