Heat sterilizable Ni-Cd battery development Quarterly progress report, 1 Oct. - 31 Dec. 1967

Microscopic, X ray diffraction, porosity, and pore size distribution data for heat sterilizable Ni-Cd batter

Heat sterilizable Ni-Cd battery development Quarterly report, 1 Jul. - 30 Sep. 1967

Effect of heat sterilization on electrochemistry of nickel-cadmium batterie

Dancing in the Streets - a design case study

How do you transform a city center at night to enhance the experience of residents and visitors and to combat the public’s fears over safety and security after dark? This challenge was set by the York City Council’s “Renaissance Project: Illuminating York,” and we took them up on it. We made it our goal to get pedestrians to engage with our interactive light installation—and to get them dancing without even realizing it. People out shopping or on their way to restaurants and nightclubs found themselves followed by ghostly footprints, chased by brightly colored butterflies, playing football with balls of light, or linked together by a “cat’s cradle” of colored lines. As they moved within the light projections, participants found that they were literally dancing in the street

Heat sterilizable and impact resistant Ni-Cd battery development Quarterly report, 1 Apr. - 30 Jun. 1969

Electrochemistry, battery engineering, and impact tests of heat sterilizable nickel cadmium cell

Multilevel principal component analysis (mPCA) in shape analysis: a feasibility study in medical and dental imaging

Background and objective Methods used in image processing should reflect any multilevel structures inherent in the image dataset or they run the risk of functioning inadequately. We wish to test the feasibility of multilevel principal components analysis (PCA) to build active shape models (ASMs) for cases relevant to medical and dental imaging. Methods Multilevel PCA was used to carry out model fitting to sets of landmark points and it was compared to the results of “standard” (single-level) PCA. Proof of principle was tested by applying mPCA to model basic peri-oral expressions (happy, neutral, sad) approximated to the junction between the mouth/lips. Monte Carlo simulations were used to create this data which allowed exploration of practical implementation issues such as the number of landmark points, number of images, and number of groups (i.e., “expressions” for this example). To further test the robustness of the method, mPCA was subsequently applied to a dental imaging dataset utilising landmark points (placed by different clinicians) along the boundary of mandibular cortical bone in panoramic radiographs of the face. Results Changes of expression that varied between groups were modelled correctly at one level of the model and changes in lip width that varied within groups at another for the Monte Carlo dataset. Extreme cases in the test dataset were modelled adequately by mPCA but not by standard PCA. Similarly, variations in the shape of the cortical bone were modelled by one level of mPCA and variations between the experts at another for the panoramic radiographs dataset. Results for mPCA were found to be comparable to those of standard PCA for point-to-point errors via miss-one-out testing for this dataset. These errors reduce with increasing number of eigenvectors/values retained, as expected. Conclusions We have shown that mPCA can be used in shape models for dental and medical image processing. mPCA was found to provide more control and flexibility when compared to standard “single-level” PCA. Specifically, mPCA is preferable to “standard” PCA when multiple levels occur naturally in the dataset

Genomic characterisation of an endometrial pathogenic <i>Escherichia coli</i> strain reveals the acquisition of genetic elements associated with extra-intestinal pathogenicity

&lt;b&gt;Background&lt;/b&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Strains of &lt;i&gt;Escherichia coli&lt;/i&gt; cause a wide variety of intestinal and extra-intestinal diseases in both humans and animals, and are also often found in healthy individuals or the environment. Broadly, a strong phylogenetic relationship exists that distinguishes most &lt;i&gt;E. Coli&lt;/i&gt; causing intestinal disease from those that cause extra-intestinal disease, however, isolates within a recently described subclass of Extra-Intestinal Pathogenic &lt;i&gt;E. Coli&lt;/i&gt; (ExPEC), termed endometrial pathogenic &lt;i&gt;E. Coli&lt;/i&gt;, tend to be phylogenetically distant from the vast majority of characterised ExPECs, and more closely related to human intestinal pathogens. In this work, we investigate the genetic basis for ExPEC infection in the prototypic endometrial pathogenic &lt;i&gt;E. Coli&lt;/i&gt; strain MS499.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Results&lt;/b&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; By investigating the genome of MS499 in comparison with a range of other E. coli sequences, we have discovered that this bacterium has acquired substantial lengths of DNA which encode factors more usually associated with ExPECs and less frequently found in the phylogroup relatives of MS499. Many of these acquired factors, including several iron acquisition systems and a virulence plasmid similar to that found in several ExPECs such as APEC O1 and the neonatal meningitis &lt;i&gt;E. Coli&lt;/i&gt; S88, play characterised roles in a variety of typical ExPEC infections and appear to have been acquired recently by the evolutionary lineage leading to MS499.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Conclusions&lt;/b&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Taking advantage of the phylogenetic relationship we describe between MS499 and several other closely related &lt;i&gt;E. Coli&lt;/i&gt; isolates from across the globe, we propose a step-wise evolution of a novel clade of sequence type 453 ExPECs within phylogroup B1, involving the recruitment of ExPEC virulence factors into the genome of an ancestrally non-extraintestinal &lt;i&gt;E. Coli&lt;/i&gt;, which has repurposed this lineage with the capacity to cause extraintestinal disease. These data reveal the genetic components which may be involved in this phenotype switching, and argue that horizontal gene exchange may be a key factor in the emergence of novel lineages of ExPECs.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt

Management of orthodontic emergencies in primary care – self-reported confidence of general dental practitioners

Objective: To determine general dental practitioners’ (GDPs) confidence in managing orthodontic emergencies. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Primary dental care. Subjects and methods: An online survey was distributed to dentists practicing in Wales. The survey collected basic demographic information and included descriptions of ten common orthodontic emergency scenarios. Main outcome measure Respondents’ self-reported confidence in managing the orthodontic emergency scenarios on a 5‑point Likert scale. Differences between the Likert responses and the demographic variables were investigated using chi-squared tests. Results: The median number of orthodontic emergencies encountered by respondents over the previous six months was 1. Overall, the self-reported confidence of respondents was high with 7 of the 10 scenarios presented scoring a median of 4 indicating that GDPs were ‘confident’ in their management. Statistical analysis revealed that GDPs who saw more orthodontic emergencies in the previous six months were more confident when managing the presented scenarios. Other variables such as age, gender, geographic location of practice and number of years practising dentistry were not associated with self reported confidence. Conclusions: Despite GDPs encountering very few orthodontic emergencies in primary care, they appear to be confident in dealing with commonly arising orthodontic emergency situations

Heat sterilizable and impact resistant Ni-Cd battery development Quarterly report, 1 Jan. - 31 Mar. 1969

Research and development of heat sterilizable impact resistant nickel cadmium batterie