The Stability of the Drygalski Ice Tongue

Antarctica has the potential to contribute to sea-level rise by up to 58 m if it were to entirely melt. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is fringed by floating ice in the form of ice shelves and ice tongues, which help to buttress and slow the flow of grounded ice into the ocean. Monitoring the stability of these ice shelves and ice tongues is increasingly important in a warming world, as several areas of floating ice across Antarctica are already experiencing considerable mass loss and thinning due to warming air and ocean conditions. The primary goal of this thesis is to examine several factors contributing to the stability of the Drygalski Ice Tongue in East Antarctica using a combination of remote sensing imagery analysis and subglacial hydrology modelling. The Drygalski Ice Tongue is ~140 km long with an unconfined length of 90 km extending into the Ross Sea. This unconfined length influences local ocean conditions and has a significant control on the size of the nearby Terra Nova Bay polynya, keeping the area free of sea ice. The ice tongue has experienced three large scale calving events in its recorded history since the early 1900s. In this study, Landsat imagery from 1988 to 2018 is used to track the advance of the ice tongue, marginal fracture propagation, and to derive velocity using manual feature tracking. The Glacier Drainage Systems (GlaDS) model is applied to the David Glacier catchment, which feeds into the ice tongue, to reveal the locations and discharge from subglacial channels along the grounding line. These channels are compared with basal channels beneath the floating ice tongue that are identified using airborne radar-derived ice thickness and hydrostatically-derived ice thickness, which can reveal channels in basal draft beneath the ice tongue. The results of this study propose a cyclical relationship between the occurrence of large calving events and large marginal fracture formation, in which large calving events result in the formation of new large fractures where the ice tongue emerges from the coast. When these fractures advance to the ice front, they create an area of weakness where future large calving events can occur. The model output produces three subglacial channels at the grounding line, which align with three channels identified through ice thickness. The propagation of the marginal fractures into the width of the ice tongue is controlled by the presence of these basal channels, as fractures can propagate through the areas of thinner ice in the centre of the northmost channel and stops once they reach the channel keel where ice is thicker. These findings provide insight on the roles that subglacial hydrology, ice draft, and marginal rifting have on ice tongue stability for the Drygalski Ice Tongue and for other floating ice bodies

Palladium-mediated in situ synthesis of an anticancer agent

Biocompatible heterogeneous Pd(0) catalysts were used in a Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction to synthesise an anticancer agent in situ, leading to apoptosis of prostate cancer cells.</p

Progetto Parco-Rifugio

Il volume raccoglie i risultati degli studenti del Corso di Studi Architettura, DPIA, Universit\ue0 degli studi di Udine, che hanno partecipato ad un workshop indirizzato a produrre spunti di riflessione e idee di progetto per il parco del nuovo Parco Rifugio della Sezione di Udine dell\u2019Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali - E.N.P.A. - in fase di realizzazione con la donazione della Fondazione F&F Foundation in memoria di Franco Faccin

Intracellular delivery of a catalytic organometallic complex

A homogeneous carbene-based palladium catalyst was conjugated to a cell-penetrating peptide, allowing intracellular delivery of catalytically active Pd complexes that demonstrated bioorthogonal activation of a profluorophore within prostate cancer cells

Sampling Mechanism for Low Gravity Bodies

In future exploration missions to low gravity bodies (e.g. a Mars moon or a near-Earth asteroid) it is planned to collect more than 100 grams of soil and return them to Earth. In previous studies several sampling tools have been proposed but there is no single sampling technology for low-gravity bodies that has been specifically conceived to provide the ability to collect material in any envisaged situation. Low gravity bodies present indeed peculiar conditions which need to be taken into account during the design and test of sampling and sample handling systems. Primarily, the very reduced gravity limits the thrust reaction capability in support to drilling operations; and, although reactions can be achieved by spacecraft anchoring or by thrust reversal, these operative conditions could limit the effectiveness of the sampling action. An alternative solution is the exploitation of the forces naturally arising from Spacecraft momentum inversion, which can be achieved by ‘touch and go’ techniques (as e.g. performed in Hayabusa mission). Although the small duration of the contact with the soil would anyhow limit the sampling depth and the collectable soil types, a properly designed sampling system would require to conclude the operation with a great effectiveness. In the last three years an ESA founded study has been carried on and a fully functional sampling mechanism for "touch and go" sampling on a low-gravity body has been selected, designed and breadboarded. Based on the results of several Proof-Of-Principle models tested on different types of specimen and after the analysis performed on a dynamic simulation model for the sampling action, a device implementing the most promising sampling technique has been designed and manufactured. It has been then tested under ambient conditions using various kinds of asteroid soil stimulants. The proposed paper will resume the key aspects and the main achievements of the study

TB research at UT-Houston--a review of cord factor: new approaches to drugs, vaccines and the pathogenesis of tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis remains a major threat as drug resistance continues to increase. Pulmonary tuberculosis in adults is responsible for 80% of clinical cases and nearly 100% of transmission of infection. Unfortunately, since we have no animal models of adult type pulmonary tuberculosis, the most important type of disease remains largely out of reach of modern science and many fundamental questions remain unanswered. This paper reviews research dating back to the 1950\u27s providing compelling evidence that cord factor (trehalose 6,6 dimycolate [TDM]) is essential for understanding tuberculosis. However, the original papers by Bloch and Noll were too far ahead of their time to have immediate impact. We can now recognize that the physical and biologic properties of cord factor are unprecedented in science, especially its ability to switch between two sets of biologic activities with changes in conformation. While TDM remains on organisms, it protects them from killing within macrophages, reduces antibiotic effectiveness and inhibits the stimulation of protective immune responses. If it comes off organisms and associates with lipid, TDM becomes a driver of tissue damage and necrosis. Studies emanating from cord factor research have produced (1) a rationale for improving vaccines, (2) an approach to new drugs that overcome natural resistance to antibiotics, (3) models of caseating granulomas that reproduce multiple manifestations of human tuberculosis. (4) evidence that TDM is a key T cell antigen in destructive lesions of tuberculosis, and (5) a new understanding of the pathology and pathogenesis of postprimary tuberculosis that can guide more informative studies of long standing mysteries of tuberculosis

Pathogenic mycobacteria achieve cellular persistence by inhibiting the Niemann-Pick Type C disease cellular pathway

Background. Tuberculosis remains a major global health concern. The ability to prevent phagosome-lysosome fusion is a key mechanism by which intracellular mycobacteria, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis, achieve long-term persistence within host cells. The mechanisms underpinning this key intracellular pro-survival strategy remain incompletely understood. Host macrophages infected with intracellular mycobacteria share phenotypic similarities with cells taken from patients suffering from Niemann-Pick Disease Type C (NPC), a rare lysosomal storage disease in which endocytic trafficking defects and lipid accumulation within the lysosome lead to cell dysfunction and cell death. We investigated whether these shared phenotypes reflected an underlying mechanistic connection between mycobacterial intracellular persistence and the host cell pathway dysfunctional in NPC.  Methods. The induction of NPC phenotypes in macrophages from wild-type mice or obtained from healthy human donors was assessed via infection with mycobacteria and subsequent measurement of lipid levels and intracellular calcium homeostasis. The effect of NPC therapeutics on intracellular mycobacterial load was also assessed.  Results. Macrophages infected with intracellular mycobacteria phenocopied NPC cells, exhibiting accumulation of multiple lipid types, reduced lysosomal Ca 2+ levels, and defects in intracellular trafficking. These NPC phenotypes could also be induced using only lipids/glycomycolates from the mycobacterial cell wall. These data suggest that intracellular mycobacteria inhibit the NPC pathway, likely via inhibition of the NPC1 protein, and subsequently induce altered acidic store Ca 2+ homeostasis. Reduced lysosomal calcium levels may provide a mechanistic explanation for the reduced levels of phagosome-lysosome fusion in mycobacterial infection. Treatments capable of correcting defects in NPC mutant cells via modulation of host cell calcium were of benefit in promoting clearance of mycobacteria from infected host cells.  Conclusion. These findings provide a novel mechanistic explanation for mycobacterial intracellular persistence, and suggest that targeting interactions between the mycobacteria and host cell pathways may provide a novel avenue for development of anti-TB therapies