Analysis of rainfall records from Dale Fort

A composite record of monthly rainfall is presented for Dale Fort Field Centre. The original observations were made in Haverfordwest from 1849 to 1909 and then a series from Stackpole Court was used for the period 1910-1970. The single homogenous series was produced by Dick Tabony at the UK Meteorological Office in 1980 since when the series has been extended using the Dale Fort observations. A daily rainfall record is available for Dale Fort from 1961 and this has been analysed to look at the frequency of measurable rainfall and heavy falls of rain. Some comparisons are made with rainfall inland where there is orographic enhancement of upland rainfall. The wettest day at Dale Fort was 11th October 2005 when exactly 92 mm was recorded

A Comparison of Methods for Determining Significant Wave Heights-Applied to a 3-m Discus Buoy during Hurricane Katrina

In August 2005, the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed 90 km to the west of a 3-m discus buoy deployed in the Mississippi Sound and operated by the Central Gulf of Mexico Ocean Observing System (CenGOOS). The buoy motions were measured with a strapped-down, 6 degrees of freedom accelerometer, a three-axis magnetometer, and from the displacement of a GPS antenna measured by postprocessed-kinematic GPS. Recognizing that an accelerometer experiences a large offset due to gravity, the authors investigated four different means of computing wave heights. In the most widely used method for a buoy with a strapped-down, 1D accelerometer, wave heights are overestimated by 26% on average and up to 56% during the peak of the hurricane. In the second method, the component of gravity is removed from the deck relative z-axis accelerations, requiring pitch and roll information. This is most similar to the motion of the GPS antenna and reduces the overestimation to only 5% on average. In the third method, the orientation data are used to obtain a very accurate estimate of the vertical acceleration, reducing the overestimation of wave heights to 1%. The fourth method computes an estimate of the true earth-referenced vertical accelerations using the accelerations from all three axes but not the pitch and roll information. It underestimates the wave heights by 2.5%. The fifth method uses the acceleration from all three axes and the pitch and roll information to obtain the earth-referenced vertical acceleration of the buoy, the most accurate measure of the true wave vertical acceleration. The primary conclusion of this work is that the measured deck relative accelerations from a strapped- down, 1D accelerometer must be tilt corrected in environments of high wave heights

Changing perceptions and practices regarding aspirin, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and cyclooxygenase-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs among US primary care providers

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74775/1/j.1365-2036.2008.03836.x.pd

CAMELS-GB : a large sample, open-source, hydro-meteorological dataset for Great Britain

Data underpins our knowledge and understanding of the hydrological system; they are used to drive, test and evaluate hydrological models and advance our understanding of hydrological processes and dynamics. With the increasing availability of observational datasets, the integration of information from many catchments for data and modelling analyses is becoming increasingly common. The production of new, open source, datasets for large samples of catchments is vital to advance knowledge on hydrological processes and to ensure hydrological research is reusable and reproducible through the use of common datasets and code. However, the availability of open source, large-sample catchment datasets is notably sparse. In this study, we present CAMELS-GB, the first large sample, open-source, hydro-meteorological catchment dataset for Great Britain (GB). CAMELS-GB integrates a wealth of different datasets derived from national, continental and global products based on observational, satellite and modelled data. The dataset consists of hydro-meteorological timeseries, catchment attributes and catchment boundaries for >800 catchments that cover a wide range of climatic, hydrological, landscape and human management characteristics across GB. Long daily timeseries is provided for a range of hydro-meteorological data (including rainfall, potential-evapotranspiration, temperature, radiation, humidity and flow) from 1970-2015 covering several major hydrological events. A comprehensive set of catchment attributes are provided describing a range of catchment characteristics including topography, climate, hydrology, land cover, soils and (hydro)-geology. Importantly, we also derive human impact attributes (including abstraction returns, percentage urban and gauge distance from reservoir), as well as attributes describing the quality of the flow data (including discharge uncertainty estimates and out of bank flow). The dataset and code used to derive the data will be made open source and provided with comprehensive metadata to allow its use in a wide range of hydro-meteorological data and environmental modelling analyses

Ubiquitination at the mitochondria in neuronal health and disease

The preservation of mitochondrial function is of particular importance in neurons given the high energy requirements of action potential propagation and synaptic transmission. Indeed, disruptions in mitochondrial dynamics and quality control are linked to cellular pathology in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Here, we will discuss the role of ubiquitination by the E3 ligases: Parkin, MARCH5 and Mul1, and how they regulate mitochondrial homeostasis. Furthermore, given the role of Parkin and Mul1 in the formation of mitochondria-derived vesicles we give an overview of this area of mitochondrial homeostasis. We highlight how through the activity of these enzymes and MDV formation, multiple facets of mitochondrial biology can be regulated, ensuring the functionality of the mitochondrial network thus preserving neuronal health

Quality metrics for mutation testing with applications to WS-BPEL compositions

Mutation testing is a successful testing technique based on fault injection. However, it can be very costly, and several cost-reduction techniques for reducing the number of mutants have been proposed in the literature. Cost reduction can be aided by an analysis of mutation operators, but this requires the definition of specialized metrics. Several metrics have been proposed before, although their effectiveness and relative merits are not easy to assess. A step ahead in the evaluation of mutation-reduction techniques would be a better metric to determine objectively the quality of a set of mutants with respect to a given test suite. This work introduces such a metric, which is naturally extended to mutation operators and may be used to reduce the number of mutants, particularly of equivalent mutants. Finally, a firm mutation analysis tool for WS-BPEL service compositions is presented, and experimental results obtained by comparing different metrics on several compositions are presented

Loss of neuronal Miro1 disrupts mitophagy and induces hyperactivation of the integrated stress response

Clearance of mitochondria following damage is critical for neuronal homeostasis. Here, we investigate the role of Miro proteins in mitochondrial turnover by the PINK1/Parkin mitochondrial quality control system in vitro and in vivo. We find that upon mitochondrial damage, Miro is promiscuously ubiquitinated on multiple lysine residues. Genetic deletion of Miro or block of Miro1 ubiquitination and subsequent degradation lead to delayed translocation of the E3 ubiquitin ligase Parkin onto damaged mitochondria and reduced mitochondrial clearance in both fibroblasts and cultured neurons. Disrupted mitophagy in vivo, upon post-natal knockout of Miro1 in hippocampus and cortex, leads to a dramatic increase in mitofusin levels, the appearance of enlarged and hyperfused mitochondria and hyperactivation of the integrated stress response (ISR). Altogether, our results provide new insights into the central role of Miro1 in the regulation of mitochondrial homeostasis and further implicate Miro1 dysfunction in the pathogenesis of human neurodegenerative disease

Morbidity from in-hospital complications is greater than treatment failure in patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia

Background: Various studies have identified numerous factors associated with poor clinical outcomes in patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB). A new study was created to provide deeper insight into in-hospital complications and risk factors for treatment failure. Methods: Adult patients hospitalised with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) were recruited prospectively into a multi-centre cohort. The primary outcome was treatment failure at 30 days (composite of all-cause mortality, persistent bacteraemia, or recurrent bacteraemia), and secondary measures included in-hospital complications and mortality at 6- and 12-months. Data were available for 222 patients recruited from February 2011 to December 2012. Results: Treatment failure at 30-days was recorded in 14.4% of patients (30-day mortality 9.5%). Multivariable analysis predictors of treatment failure included age > 70 years, Pitt bacteraemia score ≥ 2, CRP at onset of SAB > 250 mg/L, and persistent fevers after SAB onset; serum albumin at onset of SAB, receipt of appropriate empiric treatment, recent healthcare attendance, and performing echocardiography were protective. 6-month and 12-month mortality were 19.1% and 24.2% respectively. 45% experienced at least one in-hospital complication, including nephrotoxicity in 19.5%. Conclusions: This study demonstrates significant improvements in 30-day outcomes in SAB in Australia. However, we have identified important areas to improve outcomes from SAB, particularly reducing renal dysfunction and in-hospital treatment-related complications

SpikeletFCN: Counting Spikelets from Infield Wheat Crop Images Using Fully Convolutional Networks

Currently, crop management through automatic monitoring is growing momentum, but presents various challenges. One key challenge is to quantify yield traits from images captured automatically. Wheat is one of the three major crops in the world with a total demand expected to exceed 850 million tons by 2050. In this paper we attempt estimation of wheat spikelets from high-definition RGB infield images using a fully convolutional model. We propose also the use of transfer learning and segmentation to improve the model. We report cross validated Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Mean Square Error (MSE) of 53.0, 71.2 respectively on 15 real field images. We produce visualisations which show the good fit of our model to the task. We also concluded that both transfer learning and segmentation lead to a very positive impact for CNN-based models, reducing error by up to 89%, when extracting key traits such as wheat spikelet counts