To assess the value of satellite photographs in resource evaluation on a national scale

The author has identified the following significant results. The limit of resolution on ERTS imagery is normally acknowledged to be about 60 miles although very long features such as roads and railways which are often less than 10 miles long are easily detectable. An example is the north-south road and railway from Lobatse to Francistown. Vegetation growth from winter to summer is readily monitored on false color imagery. The limits of government ranches and special farming areas can be quite accurately ascertained from ERTS imagery. Another aspect to which ERTS imagery lends itself is the location and demarcation of bush fires, many of which were seen on the first imagery which was acquired at the end of the cold, dry season. As a whole, MSS 7 offers maximum reflectance contrast among black and white imagery and is the wavelength used most for interpretation

To assess the value of satellite photographs in resource evaluation on a national scale

The author has identified the following significant results. Small scale ERTS-1 imagery has enabled investigators to study large areas at a time. The imagery appears to confirm a new theory that Archean greenstone belts in NE Botswanna and SW Rhodesia are co-extensive and that these so-called schist relics formerly covered a much wider area than is apparent now. The central parts of the region bounded by the schist relics are believed to have suffered granitization. A remnant of an older drainage system to the southwest of the Okavango Swamps, which seems to have been newly discovered on the imagery, may be an indication of the seismic instability of the region. Even quite small earth movements in the swamps could radically affect the direction of water flow. The imagery has proved successful in showing areas infested by the water weed Salvinia Auriculata in the Chobe and Zambesi rivers. This will be immensely valuable in later surveys on the ground. If the satellite was to have continued working, the imagery would have enabled workers to determine the extent of encroachment of the weed without recourse to field observations

Hyperspectral imaging based detection of PVC during Sellafield repackaging procedures.

Traditionally, Special Nuclear Material (SNM) at Sellafield has been stored in multi-layered packages, consisting of metallic cans and an over-layer of plasticized Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) as an intermediate layer when transitioning between areas of different radiological classification. However, it has been found that plasticized PVC can break down in the presence of both radiation and heat, releasing hydrochloric acid which can corrode these metallic containers. Therefore, internal repackaging procedures at Sellafield have focused recently on the removal of these PVC films from containers, where as much degraded and often adhered PVC as possible is manually removed based on visual inspection. This manual operation is time-consuming and it is possible that residual fragments of PVC could remain, leading to corrosion-related issues in future. In this work, Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) was evaluated as a new tool for detecting PVC on metallic surfaces. Samples of stainless steel type 1.4404 – also known as 316L, the same as is used to construct SNM cans – and PVC were imaged in our experiments, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification models were used to generate detection maps. In these maps, pixels were classified into either PVC or 316L based on their spectral responses in the range 954-1700nm of the electromagnetic spectrum. Results suggest that HSI could be used for an effective automated detection and quantification of PVC during repackaging procedures, detection and quantification that could be extended to other similar applications

Admixture enhanced controlled low-strength material for direct underwater injection with minimal cross-contamination

Commercially available admixtures have been developed for placing traditional concrete products under water. This paper evaluates adapting anti-washout admixture (AWA) and high range water reducing admixture (HRWRA) products to enhance controlled low-strength materials (CLSMs) for underwater placement. A simple experimental scale model (based on dynamic and geometric similitude) of typical grout pump emplacement equipment has been developed to determine the percentage of cementing material washed out. The objective of this study was to identify proportions of admixtures and underwater CLSM emplacement procedures which would minimize the cross-contamination of the displaced water while maintaining the advantages of CLSM. Since the displaced water from radioactively contaminated systems must be subsequently treated prior to release to the environment, the amount of cross-contamination is important for cases in which cementing material could form hard sludges in a water treatment facility and contaminate the in-place CLSM stabilization medium

A Quantitative Prioritisation of Human and Domestic Animal Pathogens in Europe

Abstract Disease or pathogen risk prioritisations aid understanding of infectious agent impact within surveillance or mitigation and biosecurity work, but take significant development. Previous work has shown the H-(Hirsch-)index as an alternative proxy. We present a weighted risk analysis describing infectious pathogen impact for human health (human pathogens) and wellbeing (domestic animal pathogens) using an objective, evidence-based, repeatable approach; the H-index. This study established the highest H-index European pathogens. Commonalities amongst pathogens not included in previous surveillance or risk analyses were examined. Differences between host types (humans/animals/zoonotic) in pathogen Hindices were explored as a One Health impact indicator. Finally, the acceptability of the H-index proxy for animal pathogen impact was examined by comparison with other measures. 57 pathogens appeared solely in the top 100 highest H-indices (1) human or (2) animal pathogens list, and 43 occurred in both. Of human pathogens, 66 were zoonotic and 67 were emerging, compared to 67 and 57 for animals. There were statistically significant differences between H-indices for host types (humans, animal, zoonotic), and there was limited evidence that H-indices are a reasonable proxy for animal pathogen impact. This work addresses measures outlined by the European Commission to strengthen climate change resilience and biosecurity for infectious diseases. The results include a quantitative evaluation of infectious pathogen impact, and suggest greater impacts of human-only compared to zoonotic pathogens or scientific under-representation of zoonoses. The outputs separate high and low impact pathogens, and should be combined with other risk assessment methods relying on expert opinion or qualitative data for priority setting, or could be used to prioritise diseases for which formal risk assessments are not possible because of data gaps

Between feminism and anorexia: An autoethnography

Critical feminist work on eating disorders has grown substantially since its establishment in the 1980s, and has increasingly incorporated the use of anorexic stories, voices and experiences. Yet rarely do such accounts offer the anorexic a space to respond to the now established feminist conceptions of the problem which structure the books or articles in which they appear. Anorexic, or recovered anorexic, voices are used by the researcher to interpret the role played by gender, even whilst the subjects are invited to respond to and critique, medical and popular discourses on the disorder. This lack of dialogue is all the more striking in the context of the feminist aim to fight ‘back against the tendency to silence anorexic women’s’ own interpretations of their starving, treatment and construction (Saukko, 2008: 34). As someone who suffered from anorexia for 20 years, this article offers an autoethnographic account of my experience of encountering the feminist literature on anorexia in a bid to speak back, or enter into a dialogue between feminist politics and eating disorder experience

Budding yeast ATM/ATR control meiotic double-strand break (DSB) levels by down-regulating Rec114, an essential component of the DSB-machinery

An essential feature of meiosis is Spo11 catalysis of programmed DNA double strand breaks (DSBs). Evidence suggests that the number of DSBs generated per meiosis is genetically determined and that this ability to maintain a pre-determined DSB level, or "DSB homeostasis", might be a property of the meiotic program. Here, we present direct evidence that Rec114, an evolutionarily conserved essential component of the meiotic DSB-machinery, interacts with DSB hotspot DNA, and that Tel1 and Mec1, the budding yeast ATM and ATR, respectively, down-regulate Rec114 upon meiotic DSB formation through phosphorylation. Mimicking constitutive phosphorylation reduces the interaction between Rec114 and DSB hotspot DNA, resulting in a reduction and/or delay in DSB formation. Conversely, a non-phosphorylatable rec114 allele confers a genome-wide increase in both DSB levels and in the interaction between Rec114 and the DSB hotspot DNA. These observations strongly suggest that Tel1 and/or Mec1 phosphorylation of Rec114 following Spo11 catalysis down-regulates DSB formation by limiting the interaction between Rec114 and DSB hotspots. We also present evidence that Ndt80, a meiosis specific transcription factor, contributes to Rec114 degradation, consistent with its requirement for complete cessation of DSB formation. Loss of Rec114 foci from chromatin is associated with homolog synapsis but independent of Ndt80 or Tel1/Mec1 phosphorylation. Taken together, we present evidence for three independent ways of regulating Rec114 activity, which likely contribute to meiotic DSBs-homeostasis in maintaining genetically determined levels of breaks

A hybrid radiation detector for simultaneous spatial and temporal dosimetry

In this feasibility study an organic plastic scintillator is calibrated against ionisation chamber measurements and then embedded in a polymer gel dosimeter to obtain a quasi-4D experimental measurement of a radiation field. This hybrid dosimeter was irradiated with a linear accelerator, with temporal measurements of the dose rate being acquired by the scintillator and spatial measurements acquired with the gel dosimeter. The detectors employed in this work are radiologically equivalent; and we show that neither detector perturbs the intensity of the radiation field of the other. By employing these detectors in concert, spatial and temporal variations in the radiation intensity can now be detected and gel dosimeters can be calibrated for absolute dose from a single irradiation

Improving power and accuracy of genome-wide association studies via a multi-locus mixed linear model methodology

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been widely used in genetic dissection of complex traits. However, common methods are all based on a fixed-SNP-effect mixed linear model (MLM) and single marker analysis, such as efficient mixed model analysis (EMMA). These methods require Bonferroni correction for multiple tests, which often is too conservative when the number of markers is extremely large. To address this concern, we proposed a random-SNP-effect MLM (RMLM) and a multi-locus RMLM (MRMLM) for GWAS. The RMLM simply treats the SNP-effect as random, but it allows a modified Bonferroni correction to be used to calculate the threshold p value for significance tests. The MRMLM is a multi-locus model including markers selected from the RMLM method with a less stringent selection criterion. Due to the multi-locus nature, no multiple test correction is needed. Simulation studies show that the MRMLM is more powerful in QTN detection and more accurate in QTN effect estimation than the RMLM, which in turn is more powerful and accurate than the EMMA. To demonstrate the new methods, we analyzed six flowering time related traits in Arabidopsis thaliana and detected more genes than previous reported using the EMMA. Therefore, the MRMLM provides an alternative for multi-locus GWAS