The value of tourist angling: a travel cost method estimation of demand for two destination salmon rivers in Ireland. ESRI WP570, August 2017

In this paper we use the travel cost method to estimate the demand function for two of western Ireland's destination salmon fisheries: the River Moy in County Mayo and the River Corrib in County Galway. Data were collected by an on-site survey questionnaire and demand was estimated using count data models. In the study sites commercial fishing was banned to avoid unsustainable harvesting of salmon, which removed an important source of income for the local communities. Therefore, the study is important to highlight whether recreational fishing presents an opportunity for further development of the local economy. Welfare estimates from our models indicate that anglers are willing to pay €867 for a day of angling on the Galway and Moy fisheries, approximately double the costs incurred. Differently from previous research, tourists anglers were found to be price sensitive, with a price elasticity close to unity. This means that escalating costs likely result in declining demand among tourist anglers. Corrib and Moy fisheries support local economic activity with visiting anglers' expenditure contributing €22-€31 per angler per day to local incomes, which is an indication of the potential of the fishery resource for economic development

Revealing Short GRB Jet Structure and Dynamics with Gravitational Wave Electromagnetic Counterparts

Compact object mergers are promising candidates for the progenitor system of short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Using gravitational wave (GW) triggers to identify a merger, any electromagnetic (EM) counterparts from the jet can be used to constrain the dynamics and structure of short GRB jets. GW triggered searches could reveal a hidden population of optical transients associated with the short-lived jets from the merger object. If the population of merger-jets is dominated by low-Lorentz-factors, then a GW triggered search will reveal the on-axis orphan afterglows from these failed GRBs. By considering the EM counterparts from a jet, with or without the prompt GRB, the jet structure and dynamics can be constrained. By modelling the afterglow of various jet structures with viewing angle, we provide observable predictions for the on- and off- axis EM jet counterparts. The predictions provide an indication for the various features expected from the proposed jet structure models

Economic contribution of visiting Salmon anglers to the Moy and Corrib fisheries. ESRI Research Bulletin 2018/7

This research paper considers salmon anglers visiting two of the top Atlantic salmon fisheries in the country, the Corrib in Co. Galway and the river Moy, at Ballina, Co. Mayo. Salmon fishing at these premier locations is highly valued with total willingness to pay estimated in excess of €800/day, however, the research also finds that tourist anglers are very sensitive to price. Expenditure by anglers visiting these fisheries is approximately €300/day excluding travel costs, which benefits local economies. The research also finds that spending by international anglers is not any higher than domestic tourist anglers, indicating that international anglers are not necessarily more lucrative to the local economy. An unexpected finding is that even when allowing for differences in travel costs there is reluctance among some domestic tourist anglers, e.g. anglers living in Dublin, to travel to these two fisheries

XMM-Newton observations of UW CrB -- detection of X-ray bursts and evidence for accretion disc evolution

UW CrB (MS1603+2600) is a peculiar short period X-ray binary that exhibits extraordinary optical behaviour. The optical light curve shape of the system changes drastically from night to night, without any changes in overall brightness. Here we report X-ray observations of UW CrB obtained with {\it XMM-Newton}. We find evidence for several X-ray bursts confirming a neutron star primary. This considerably strengthens the case that UW CrB is an Accretion Disc Corona (ADC) system located at a distance of at least 5--7 kpc, (3--5 kpc above the galactic plane). The X-ray and optical monitor (UV+optical) light curves show remarkable shape variation from one observing run to another, which we suggest are due to large scale variations in the accretion disc shape resulting from a warp which periodically obscures the optical and soft X-ray emission. This is also supported by the changes in phase-resolved X-ray spectra.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

Extracting Social Support and Social Isolation Information from Clinical Psychiatry Notes: Comparing a Rule-based NLP System and a Large Language Model

Background: Social support (SS) and social isolation (SI) are social determinants of health (SDOH) associated with psychiatric outcomes. In electronic health records (EHRs), individual-level SS/SI is typically documented as narrative clinical notes rather than structured coded data. Natural language processing (NLP) algorithms can automate the otherwise labor-intensive process of data extraction. Data and Methods: Psychiatric encounter notes from Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS, n=300) and Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM, n=225) were annotated and established a gold standard corpus. A rule-based system (RBS) involving lexicons and a large language model (LLM) using FLAN-T5-XL were developed to identify mentions of SS and SI and their subcategories (e.g., social network, instrumental support, and loneliness). Results: For extracting SS/SI, the RBS obtained higher macro-averaged f-scores than the LLM at both MSHS (0.89 vs. 0.65) and WCM (0.85 vs. 0.82). For extracting subcategories, the RBS also outperformed the LLM at both MSHS (0.90 vs. 0.62) and WCM (0.82 vs. 0.81). Discussion and Conclusion: Unexpectedly, the RBS outperformed the LLMs across all metrics. Intensive review demonstrates that this finding is due to the divergent approach taken by the RBS and LLM. The RBS were designed and refined to follow the same specific rules as the gold standard annotations. Conversely, the LLM were more inclusive with categorization and conformed to common English-language understanding. Both approaches offer advantages and are made available open-source for future testing.Comment: 2 figures, 3 table

Insights into pancreatic β cell energy metabolism using rodent β cell models

Mitochondrial diabetes is primarily caused by β-cell failure, a cell type whose unique properties are important in pathogenesis. By reducing glucose, we induced energetic stress in two rodent β-cell models to assess effects on cellular function. Culturing rat insulin-secreting INS-1 cells in low glucose conditions caused a rapid reduction in whole cell respiration, associated with elevated mitochondrial reactive oxygen species production, and an altered glucose-stimulated insulin secretion profile. Prolonged exposure to reduced glucose directly impaired mitochondrial function and reduced autophagy. Insulinoma cell lines have a very different bioenergetic profile to many other cell lines and provide a useful model of mechanisms affecting β-cell mitochondrial function

Canonical BMP–Smad Signalling Promotes Neurite Growth in Rat Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons

Ventral midbrain (VM) dopaminergic (DA) neurons project to the dorsal striatum via the nigrostriatal pathway to regulate voluntary movements, and their loss leads to the motor dysfunction seen in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Despite recent progress in the understanding of VM DA neurogenesis, the factors regulating nigrostriatal pathway development remain largely unknown. The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) family regulates neurite growth in the developing nervous system and may contribute to nigrostriatal pathway development. Two related members of this family, BMP2 and growth differentiation factor (GDF)5, have neurotrophic effects, including promotion of neurite growth, on cultured VM DA neurons. However, the molecular mechanisms regulating their effects on DA neurons are unknown. By characterising the temporal expression profiles of endogenous BMP receptors (BMPRs) in the developing and adult rat VM and striatum, this study identified BMP2 and GDF5 as potential regulators of nigrostriatal pathway development. Furthermore, through the use of noggin, dorsomorphin and BMPR/Smad plasmids, this study demonstrated that GDF5- and BMP2-induced neurite outgrowth from cultured VM DA neurons is dependent on BMP type I receptor activation of the Smad 1/5/8 signalling pathway

Multimodal and Multiscale Deep Neural Networks for the Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease using structural MR and FDG-PET images

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease where biomarkers for disease based on pathophysiology may be able to provide objective measures for disease diagnosis and staging. Neuroimaging scans acquired from MRI and metabolism images obtained by FDG-PET provide in-vivo measurements of structure and function (glucose metabolism) in a living brain. It is hypothesized that combining multiple different image modalities providing complementary information could help improve early diagnosis of AD. In this paper, we propose a novel deep-learning-based framework to discriminate individuals with AD utilizing a multimodal and multiscale deep neural network. Our method delivers 82.4% accuracy in identifying the individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who will convert to AD at 3 years prior to conversion (86.4% combined accuracy for conversion within 1–3 years), a 94.23% sensitivity in classifying individuals with clinical diagnosis of probable AD, and a 86.3% specificity in classifying non-demented controls improving upon results in published literature

The : A travel cost method estimation of demand for two destination salmon rivers in Ireland

In this paper we use the travel cost method to estimate the demand function for two of western Ireland's destination salmon fisheries: the River Moy in County Mayo and the River Corrib in County Galway. Data were collected by an on-site survey questionnaire and demand was estimated using count data models. In the study sites commercial fishing was banned to avoid unsustainable harvesting of salmon, which removed an important source of income for the local communities. Therefore, the study is important to highlight whether recreational fishing presents an opportunity for further development of the local economy. Welfare estimates from our models indicate that anglers are willing to pay €867 for a day of angling on the Galway and Moy fisheries, approximately double the costs incurred. Differently from previous research, tourists anglers were found to be price sensitive, with a price elasticity close to unity. This means that escalating costs likely result in declining demand among tourist anglers. Corrib and Moy fisheries support local economic activity with visiting anglers' expenditure contributing €22-€31 per angler per day to local incomes, which is an indication of the potential of the fishery resource for economic development