Metropolitan water supply allocation and operation

In metropolitan areas, water is supplied to consumers from one or more sources through separate but adjacent systems of facilities commonly owned and operated by municipal governments. Allocation of production and distribution is determined by the demand contained within municipal boundaries rather than on the basis of regional efficiency. Some systems may have more capacity than required to meet their needs, while others have insufficient capacity; and the excess capacity of one system could be used to augment the system that lacks capacity and thereby improve the overall efficiency of utilization. When viewed as a regional allocation problem, then, the challenge is to minimize the total cost of providing potable water with a given set of facilities (in the economic short-run sense). This can be accomplished by equating the marginal costs of production plus transportation among all interconnected systems of the region, while meeting, as constraints, water demands and capacity limitations. Production cost and transportation (distribution) cost functions were determined for selected water supply systems (or subsystems) in the Chicago area. Production cost and transportation cost functions were determined econometrically and, for transportation costs, technologically using a geometric programming procedure. The resulting cost functions were then used in an example problem to illustrate the utility of the proposed methodology for allocation and operation.U.S. Geological SurveyU.S. Department of the InteriorOpe

An ECOOP web portal for visualising and comparing distributed coastal oceanography model and in situ data

As part of a large European coastal operational oceanography project (ECOOP), we have developed a web portal for the display and comparison of model and in situ marine data. The distributed model and in situ datasets are accessed via an Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) respectively. These services were developed independently and readily integrated for the purposes of the ECOOP project, illustrating the ease of interoperability resulting from adherence to international standards. The key feature of the portal is the ability to display co-plotted timeseries of the in situ and model data and the quantification of misfits between the two. By using standards-based web technology we allow the user to quickly and easily explore over twenty model data feeds and compare these with dozens of in situ data feeds without being concerned with the low level details of differing file formats or the physical location of the data. Scientific and operational benefits to this work include model validation, quality control of observations, data assimilation and decision support in near real time. In these areas it is essential to be able to bring different data streams together from often disparate locations

Sediment Transfer From Gravel-Bed Rivers to Beaches

A morphological approach was used to quantify the transfer of gravel-sized (> 2mm) sediment from one river to the coast and its subsequent redistribution within the coastal zone. The study investigates sediment transport in wandering gravel-bed rivers, river mouth processes and sediment transport on gravel beaches. The research was largely field based and used results from repeat morphologic surveys of the lower, wandering gravel-bed reach of the River Spey, the Speymouth delta and gravel beaches of Spey Bay, north-east Scotland. The supply of gravel to the river mouth was episodic, with transport rates varying from 41 000 +/- 6 000 m3a-1 (1993-1994) to 6 000 +/- 4 000 m3a-1 (1997-1999). Transport rates were not directly related to flow conditions because the availability of sediment for transport was critical. Sediment was mobilised according to the recent local history of erosion, deposition and channel adjustment and not only the magnitude of the flood. Delivery to the coast of this episodic sediment supply was made more variable depending on the operation of the delta. A gravel spit complex extended westwards across the river mouth at a mean rate of 150 ma' between 1997 and 1999. This resulted in temporary storage of sediment in the extending spit which had implications for the downdrift coast. Cycles of accretion and erosion were created in the lee of the spit which were most significant at the river mouth before being propagated downdrift. Volumetric information obtained from successive beach profile surveys indicated that zones of accretion and erosion were spatially and temporally variable along the 16km coastline of Spey Bay. This variability was caused by the passage of pulses (or slugs) of sediment which moved alongshore in response to variations in sediment supply (e.g. episodic delivery of fluvial sediment, river mouth processes, beach feeding and storms). It is argued that gravel sediment moves alongshore as slugs by a given distance depending on the magnitude of storm events. Travel distances of ca. 2-3km were recorded following a major storm event in March 1998. This has important implications for the management of gravel beaches, as erosional zones (or "problems") are not static and vary in space and time. . Fluvial, deltaic and coastal volume changes were combined to estimate a short-term (3 year) sediment budget for the system. A medium-term budget (100 year) was also compiled from map analysis and river-modelling studies. Both budgets showed a net loss of sediment from the system, indicating a system that has been erosional for at least the last century

OAO-3 end of mission tests report

Twelve engineering type tests were performed on several subsystems and experiment(s) of the OAO 3 spacecraft near its end of mission. The systems tested include: Princeton experiment package (PEP), fine error system guidance, inertial reference unit, star trackers, heat pipes, thermal control coatings, command and data handling, solar array; batteries, and onboard processor/power boost regulator. Generally, the systems performed well for the 8 1/2 years life of OAO 3, although some degradation was noted in the sensitivity of PEP and in the absorptivity of the skin coatings. Battery life was prolonged during the life of the mission in large part by carefully monitoring the charge-discharge cycle with careful attention not to overcharge

Will the Scottish Cancer Target for the year 2000 be met? The use of cancer registration and death records to predict future cancer incidence and mortality in Scotland.

Cancer mortality data reflect disease incidence and the effectiveness of treatment. Incidence data, however, reflect the burden of disease in the population and indicate the need for prevention measures, diagnostic services and cancer treatment facilities. Monitoring of targets mandates that both be considered. The Scottish Cancer Target, established in 1991, proposed that a reduction of 15% in mortality from cancer in the under-65s should be achieved between 1986 and 2000. Each year in Scotland approximately 8300 persons under 65 are diagnosed with cancer and 4500 die from the disease. The most common malignancies, in terms of both incident cases and deaths, in the under-65s, are lung and large bowel cancer in males, and breast, large bowel and lung cancer in females. A decrease of 6% in the number of cancer cases diagnosed in males under 65 is predicted between 1986 and 2000, whereas the number of cases in females in the year 2000 is expected to remain at the 1986 level. In contrast, substantial reductions in mortality are expected for both sexes: 17% and 25% in males and females respectively. Demographic changes will influence the numbers of cancer cases and deaths in the Scottish population in the year 2000. However, long-term trends in the major risk factors, such as smoking, are likely to be the most important determinants of the future cancer burden

Comparative genomics of Campylobacter concisus:Analysis of clinical strains reveals genome diversity and pathogenic potential

We thank members of the GI Research Team for discussions and advice. The authors thank Brennan Martin and the Centre for Genome Enabled Biology and Medicine for Illumina sequencing and useful discussions. This work was supported by a Fulbright Scholarship to G.L.H., an NHS Grampian Endowment grant fund to I.M. and G.L.H., a CSO clinical academic fellowship to R.H. (CAF/08/01). R.H. is supported by an NHS Research Scotland Career Researcher Fellowship. This work was generously supported by the Catherine McEwan Foundation. Sequence deposition The C. concisus raw sequencing reads and genome assemblies are freely available from the EMBL-EBI ENA under the study Accession PRJEB22351.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Phosphorylation of the androgen receptor is associated with reduced survival in hormonerefractory prostate cancer patients

Cell line studies demonstrate that the PI3K/Akt pathway is upregulated in hormone-refractory prostate cancer (HRPC) and can result in phosphorylation of the androgen receptor (AR). The current study therefore aims to establish if this has relevance to the development of clinical HRPC. Immunohistochemistry was employed to investigate the expression and phosphorylation status of Akt and AR in matched hormone-sensitive and -refractory prostate cancer tumours from 68 patients. In the hormone-refractory tissue, only phosphorylated AR (pAR) was associated with shorter time to death from relapse (<i>P</i>=0.003). However, when an increase in expression in the transition from hormone-sensitive to -refractory prostate cancer was investigated, an increase in expression of PI3K was associated with decreased time to biochemical relapse (<i>P</i>=0.014), and an increase in expression of pAkt<sup>473</sup> and pAR<sup>210</sup> were associated with decreased disease-specific survival (<i>P</i>=0.0019 and 0.0015, respectively). Protein expression of pAkt<sup>473</sup> and pAR<sup>210</sup> also strongly correlated (<i>P</i><0.001, c.c.=0.711) in the hormone-refractory prostate tumours. These results provide evidence using clinical specimens, that upregulation of the PI3K/Akt pathway is associated with phosphorylation of the AR during development of HRPC, suggesting that this pathway could be a potential therapeutic target

Mast cells in human periodontal disease

Recently, mast cells have been shown to produce cytokines which can direct the development of T-cell subsets. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between mast cells and the Th1/Th2 response in human periodontal disease. Tryptase+ mast cell numbers were decreased in chronic periodontitis tissues compared with healthy/gingivitis lesions. Lower numbers of c-kit+ cells, which remained constant regardless of clinical status, indicate that there may be no increased migration of mast cells into periodontal disease lesions. While there were no differences in IgG2+ or IgG4+ cell numbers in healthy/gingivitis samples, there was an increase in IgG4+ cells compared with IgG2+ cells in periodontitis lesions, numbers increasing with disease severity. This suggests a predominance of Th2 cells in periodontitis, although mast cells may not be the source of Th2-inducing cytokines