Fuel cells for power generation and organic waste treatment on the island of Mull

In-situ use of biomass and organic waste streams have the potential to provide the key to energy self sustainability for islands and remote communities. Traditionally biogas fuels have been used in combustion engines for electric power generation. However, fuel cells offer the prospect of achieving higher generating efficiencies, and additionally, important environmental benefits can be achieved by way of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, whilst providing a carbon sink. This paper presents the design details of a biogas gas plant and fuel cell installation that will provide a practical solution on an island (and be applicable in other remote and rural areas) where connection to the grid can be expensive, and where biofuels can be produced on site at no significant extra cost

An appreciation of, and tribute to, Will Johnson on the occasion of his retirement

This paper presents an overview of the scholarly work of Will Johnson on the occasion of his retirement from Cardiff University. It also includes new translations from two of his junior colleagues, Drs. Brodbeck and Hegarty, as tributes to his scholarly and collegial contribution

Prediction of Nitrogen Inputs for Sugar Beet.An Evaluation of Soil Tests and Soil

End of Project ReportCurrently, advice on nitrogen (N) use for tillage crops employs an index system based on crop management. However, there has not been a systematic evaluation of several of its components or of the relevance of soil tests, alone or in conjunction. The objective of the current study, therefore, was to evaluate relevant soil management data, various biological and chemical soil tests, and measurements of Nmin (NH4 + NO3) in the root profile, for prediction of fertiliser N requirements. The data used in the study were derived from a data bank of results of field and laboratory experiments for sugar beet. The following topics were addressed: selection of regression models based on soil management criteria; sustainability of contribution of soil N reserves; limitations of soil tests for N; long-term trends in Nmin and biomass C; relationship of mineral-N flush with biomass C; relevance of Nmin with growing-season rainfall; implications of winter rainfall for residual effects and their justification within the current soil N index.European Union Structural Funding (EAGGF

Flight test pilot evaluation of a delayed flap approach procedure

Using NASA's CV-990 aircraft, a delayed flap approach procedure was demonstrated to nine guest pilots from the air transport industry. Four demonstration flights and 37 approaches were conducted under VFR weather conditions. A limited pilot evaluation of the delayed flap procedure was obtained from pilot comments and from questionaires they completed. Pilot acceptability, pilot workload, and ATC compatibility were quantitatively rated. The delayed flap procedure was shown to be feasible, and suggestions for further development work were obtained

Targeting bone morphogenetic protein signalling in midbrain dopaminergic neurons as a therapeutic approach in Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, characterized by the degeneration of midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurons and their axons, and aggregation of α-synuclein, which leads to motor and late-stage cognitive impairments. As the motor symptoms of PD are caused by the degeneration of a specific population of mDA neurons, PD lends itself to neurotrophic factor therapy. The goal of this therapy is to apply a neurotrophic factor that can slow down, halt or even reverse the progressive degeneration of mDA neurons. While the best known neurotrophic factors are members of the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) family, their lack of clinical efficacy to date means that it is important to continue to study other neurotrophic factors. Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are naturally secreted proteins that play critical roles during nervous system development and in the adult brain. In this review, we provide an overview of the BMP ligands, BMP receptors (BMPRs) and their intracellular signalling effectors, the Smad proteins. We review the available evidence that BMP–Smad signalling pathways play an endogenous role in mDA neuronal survival in vivo, before outlining how exogenous application of BMPs exerts potent effects on mDA neuron survival and axon growth in vitro and in vivo. We discuss the molecular mechanisms that mediate these effects, before highlighting the potential of targeting the downstream effectors of BMP–Smad signalling as a novel neuroprotective approach to slow or stop the degeneration of mDA neurons in PD

Inhibition of miR-181a promotes midbrain neuronal growth through a Smad1/5-dependent mechanism: implications for Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, and is characterized by the progressive degeneration of nigrostriatal dopaminergic (DA) neurons. Current PD treatments are symptomatic, wear off over time and do not protect against DA neuronal loss. Finding a way to re-grow midbrain DA (mDA) neurons is a promising disease-modifying therapeutic strategy for PD. However, reliable biomarkers are required to allow such growth-promoting approaches to be applied early in the disease progression. miR-181a has been shown to be dysregulated in PD patients, and has been identified as a potential biomarker for PD. Despite studies demonstrating the enrichment of miR-181a in the brain, specifically in neurites of postmitotic neurons, the role of miR-181a in mDA neurons remains unknown. Herein, we used cell culture models of human mDA neurons to investigate a potential role for miR-181a in mDA neurons. We used a bioninformatics analysis to identify that miR-181a targets components of the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signalling pathway, including the transcription factors Smad1 and Smad5, which we find are expressed by rat mDA neurons and are required for BMP-induced neurite growth. We also found that inhibition of neuronal miR-181a, resulted in increased Smad signalling, and induced neurite growth in SH-SY5Y cells. Finally, using embryonic rat cultures, we demonstrated that miR-181a inhibition induces ventral midbrain (VM) and cortical neuronal growth. These data describe a new role for miR-181a in mDA neurons, and provide proof of principle that miR-181a dysresgulation in PD may alter the activation state of signalling pathways important for neuronal growth in neurons affected in PD

Endocytosis contributes to BMP2-induced Smad signalling and neuronal growth

Bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) is a neurotrophic factor which induces the growth of midbrain dopaminergic (DA) neurons in vitro and in vivo, and its neurotrophic effects have been shown to be dependent on activation of BMP receptors (BMPRs) and Smad 1/5/8 signalling. However, the precise intracellular cascades that regulate BMP2-BMPR-Smad-signalling-induced neurite growth remain unknown. Endocytosis has been shown to regulate Smad 1/5/8 signalling and differentiation induced by BMPs. However, these studies were carried out in non-neural cells. Indeed, there are scant reports regarding the role of endocytosis in BMP-Smad signalling in neurons. To address this, and to further characterise the mechanisms regulating the neurotrophic effects of BMP2, the present study examined the role of dynamin-dependent endocytosis in BMP2-induced Smad signalling and neurite growth in the SH-SY5Y neuronal cell line. The activation, temporal kinetics and magnitude of Smad 1/5/8 signalling induced by BMP2 were significantly attenuated by dynasore-mediated inhibition of endocytosis in SH-SY5Y cells. Furthermore, BMP2-induced increases in neurite length and neurite branching in SH-SY5Y cells were significantly reduced following inhibition of dynamin-dependent endocytosis using dynasore. This study demonstrates that BMP2-induced Smad signalling and neurite growth is regulated by dynamin-dependent endocytosis in a model of human midbrain dopaminergic neurons

Detection of advanced persistent threat using machine-learning correlation analysis

As one of the most serious types of cyber attack, Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) have caused major concerns on a global scale. APT refers to a persistent, multi-stage attack with the intention to compromise the system and gain information from the targeted system, which has the potential to cause significant damage and substantial financial loss. The accurate detection and prediction of APT is an ongoing challenge. This work proposes a novel machine learning-based system entitled MLAPT, which can accurately and rapidly detect and predict APT attacks in a systematic way. The MLAPT runs through three main phases: (1) Threat detection, in which eight methods have been developed to detect different techniques used during the various APT steps. The implementation and validation of these methods with real traffic is a significant contribution to the current body of research; (2) Alert correlation, in which a correlation framework is designed to link the outputs of the detection methods, aims to identify alerts that could be related and belong to a single APT scenario; and (3) Attack prediction, in which a machine learning-based prediction module is proposed based on the correlation framework output, to be used by the network security team to determine the probability of the early alerts to develop a complete APT attack. MLAPT is experimentally evaluated and the presented sy

Quantitative sensory testing in children with sickle cell disease: additional insights and future possibilities.

Quantitative sensory testing (QST) is used in a variety of pain disorders to characterize pain and predict prognosis and response to specific therapies. In this study, we aimed to confirm results in the literature documenting altered QST thresholds in sickle cell disease (SCD) and assess the test-retest reliability of results over time. Fifty-seven SCD and 60 control subjects aged 8-20 years underwent heat and cold detection and pain threshold testing using a Medoc TSAII. Participants were tested at baseline and 3 months; SCD subjects were additionally tested at 6 months. An important facet of our study was the development and use of a novel QST modelling approach, allowing us to model all data together across modalities. We have not demonstrated significant differences in thermal thresholds between subjects with SCD and controls. Thermal thresholds were consistent over a 3- to 6-month period. Subjects on whom hydroxycarbamide (HC) was initiated shortly before or after baseline testing (new HC users) exhibited progressive decreases in thermal sensitivity from baseline to 6 months, suggesting that thermal testing may be sensitive to effective therapy to prevent vasoocclusive pain. These findings inform the use of QST as an endpoint in the evaluation of preventative pain therapies

Deep sequencing of Suppression Subtractive Hybridisation drought and recovery libraries of the non-model crop Trifolium repens L.

Open Access Journal; Published online: 23 Feb. 2017White clover is a short-lived perennial whose persistence is greatly affected by abiotic stresses, particularly drought. The aim of this work was to characterize its molecular response to water deficit and recovery following re-hydration to identify targets for the breeding of tolerant varieties. We created a white clover reference transcriptome of 16,193 contigs by deep sequencing (mean base coverage 387x) four Suppression Subtractive Hybridization (SSH) libraries (a forward and a reverse library for each treatment) constructed from young leaf tissue of white clover at the onset of the response to drought and recovery. Reads from individual libraries were then mapped to the reference transcriptome and processed comparing expression level data. The pipeline generated four robust sets of transcripts induced and repressed in the leaves of plants subjected to water deficit stress (6,937 and 3,142, respectively) and following re-hydration (6,695 and 4,897, respectively). Semi-quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to verify the expression pattern of 16 genes. The differentially expressed transcripts were functionally annotated and mapped to biological processes and pathways. In agreement with similar studies in other crops, the majority of transcripts up-regulated in response to drought belonged to metabolic processes, such as amino acid, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism, while transcripts involved in photosynthesis, such as components of the photosystem and the biosynthesis of photosynthetic pigments, were up-regulated during recovery. The data also highlighted the role of raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) and the possible delayed response of the flavonoid pathways in the initial response of white clover to water withdrawal. The work presented in this paper is to our knowledge the first large scale molecular analysis of the white clover response to drought stress and re-hydration. The data generated provide a valuable genomic resource for marker discovery and ultimately for the improvement of white clover