Baseline adjustment methodology in a shared water savings contract during severe water restrictions – a case study in the Western Cape, South Africa

A novel method for baseline adjustment in a shared water savings contract under serious drought conditions was presented in a companion paper. The newly developed baseline adjustment method was subsequently applied to a case study, as discussed in this manuscript. The case study involved application of the method to 24 relatively complex sites, spread over the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The sites included, for example, military bases, naval dockyards, an airforce base, prison facilities, large multi-storey blocks of flats and administrative office buildings. Baseline adjustment became essential mid-contract during the serious water restrictions in Cape Town at the time. The restrictions were linked to the ‘Day Zero’ scenario in 2018 when water supply would potentially run out, and resulted in water savings at baseline sites that were ascribed to external factors. The study incorporated a comprehensive review of the approved baseline reports with site visits to 12 of the properties. The baseline adjustment method provided a robust means to obtain adjustments for sites with relatively limited data. The minimum data requirement was a record of monthly water consumption per site. The adjustments varied between 0% and 64% of the original baseline value for the different sites in the study sample. The relatively higher adjustments were linked to sites where outdoor irrigation and pool water use was prevalent during the baseline-setting period, but was banned during the drought. Zero adjustments were found for sites with exceptionally high leakage flows that had subsequently been repaired; leaks dwarfed actual use in these cases. The results for all 24 sites were accepted by the contracting parties as being reasonable and fair.Keywords: baselines, shared water savings contrac

Probing Reflection from Aerosols with the Near-infrared Dayside Spectrum of WASP-80b

The presence of aerosols is intimately linked to the global energy budget and the composition of a planet's atmosphere. Their ability to reflect incoming light prevents energy from being deposited into the atmosphere, and they shape the spectra of exoplanets. We observed five near-infrared secondary eclipses of WASP-80b with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope to provide constraints on the presence and properties of atmospheric aerosols. We detect a broadband eclipse depth of 34 ± 10 ppm for WASP-80b. We detect a higher planetary flux than expected from thermal emission alone at 1.6σ, which hints toward the presence of reflecting aerosols on this planet's dayside, indicating a geometric albedo of Ag < 0.33 at 3σ. We paired the WFC3 data with Spitzer data and explored multiple atmospheric models with and without aerosols to interpret this spectrum. Albeit consistent with a clear dayside atmosphere, we found a slight preference for near-solar metallicities and for dayside clouds over hazes. We exclude soot haze formation rates higher than 10−10.7 g cm−2s−1 and tholin formation rates higher than 10−12.0 g cm−2s−1 at 3σ. We applied the same atmospheric models to a previously published WFC3/Spitzer transmission spectrum for this planet and found weak haze formation. A single soot haze formation rate best fits both the dayside and the transmission spectra simultaneously. However, we emphasize that no models provide satisfactory fits in terms of the chi-square of both spectra simultaneously, indicating longitudinal dissimilarity in the atmosphere's aerosol composition

Human Blood Lipoprotein Predictions from ¹H NMR Spectra:Protocol, Model Performances, and Cage of Covariance

Lipoprotein subfractions are biomarkers for the early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. The reference method, ultracentrifugation, for measuring lipoproteins is time-consuming, and there is a need to develop a rapid method for cohort screenings. This study presents partial least-squares regression models developed using 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra and concentrations of lipoproteins as measured by ultracentrifugation on 316 healthy Danes. This study explores, for the first time, different regions of the 1H NMR spectrum representing signals of molecules in lipoprotein particles and different lipid species to develop parsimonious, reliable, and optimal prediction models. A total of 65 lipoprotein main and subfractions were predictable with high accuracy, Q2 of >0.6, using an optimal spectral region (1.4-0.6 ppm) containing methylene and methyl signals from lipids. The models were subsequently tested on an independent cohort of 290 healthy Swedes with predicted and reference values matching by up to 85-95%. In addition, an open software tool was developed to predict lipoproteins concentrations in human blood from standardized 1H NMR spectral recordings

Dielectronic Recombination in He+ Ions

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Ubiquitinome Profiling Reveals <i>in Vivo</i> UBE2D3 Targets and Implicates UBE2D3 in Protein Quality Control

Ubiquitination has crucial roles in many cellular processes, and dysregulation of ubiquitin machinery enzymes can result in various forms of pathogenesis. Cells only have a limited set of ubiquitin-conjugating (E2) enzymes to support the ubiquitination of many cellular targets. As individual E2 enzymes have many different substrates and interactions between E2 enzymes and their substrates can be transient, it is challenging to define all in vivo substrates of an individual E2 and the cellular processes it affects. Particularly challenging in this respect is UBE2D3, an E2 enzyme with promiscuous activity in vitro but less defined roles in vivo. Here, we set out to identify in vivo targets of UBE2D3 by using stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture–based and label-free quantitative ubiquitin diGly proteomics to study global proteome and ubiquitinome changes associated with UBE2D3 depletion. UBE2D3 depletion changed the global proteome, with the levels of proteins from metabolic pathways, in particular retinol metabolism, being the most affected. However, the impact of UBE2D3 depletion on the ubiquitinome was much more prominent. Interestingly, molecular pathways related to mRNA translation were the most affected. Indeed, we find that ubiquitination of the ribosomal proteins RPS10 and RPS20, critical for ribosome-associated protein quality control, is dependent on UBE2D3. We show by Targets of Ubiquitin Ligases Identified by Proteomics 2 methodology that RPS10 and RPS20 are direct targets of UBE2D3 and demonstrate that the catalytic activity of UBE2D3 is required to ubiquitinate RPS10 in vivo. In addition, our data suggest that UBE2D3 acts at multiple levels in autophagic protein quality control. Collectively, our findings show that depletion of an E2 enzyme in combination with quantitative diGly-based ubiquitinome profiling is a powerful tool to identify new in vivo E2 substrates, as we have done here for UBE2D3. Our work provides an important resource for further studies on the in vivo functions of UBE2D3.Dutch Ministry of Health KWF-NKI2012- 5305Dutch Cancer Society 11369/2017-

A dual point description of mesoscopic superconductors

We present an analysis of the magnetic response of a mesoscopic superconductor, i.e. a system of sizes comparable to the coherence length and to the London penetration depth. Our approach is based on special properties of the two dimensional Ginzburg-Landau equations, satisfied at the dual point $(\kappa = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}).$ Closed expressions for the free energy and the magnetization of the superconductor are derived. A perturbative analysis in the vicinity of the dual point allows us to take into account vortex interactions, using a new scaling result for the free energy. In order to characterize the vortex/current interactions, we study vortex configurations that are out of thermodynamical equilibrium. Our predictions agree with the results of recent experiments performed on mesoscopic aluminium disks.Comment: revtex, 20 pages, 9 figure

Role of marker lesion when applying intravesical instillations of IL-2 for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer comparison of the therapeutic effects in two pilot studies

Comparison of the therapeutic effect of treatment of non-muscle invasive bladder carcinoma (NMIBC) after intravesical Interleukin-2 (IL-2) instillations in the presence and absence of a marker tumour. Two pilot studies were performed in patients with NMIBC. The first study (10 patients) was performed in Krakow (Poland), the second (26 patients) in Vilnius (Lithuania). In Krakow the tumours were treated with incomplete transurethral resection (TUR) leaving a marker tumour of 0.5-1.0-cm followed by IL-2 instillations (3 × 10(6) IU IL-2) on five consecutive days. In Vilnius the tumours were treated with complete TUR, followed by IL-2 instillations (9 × 10(6) IU IL-2) on five consecutive days. During 30 months follow-up, the recurrence-free survival was 5/10 (50%) and 6/26 (23%) after incomplete and complete TUR, respectively. So, the ratio of the recurrence-free survival after incomplete/complete TUR of 50/23=2.2. The median of the recurrence-free survival is >20.5 months and 7 months after incomplete and complete TUR, respectively. So, this ratio was >20.5/7= >2.9. The hazard ratio which combines both the chance of the disease recurrence and its timing for both censored and uncensored cases was 0.53, again confirming the better outcome after incomplete TUR. A possible explanation for the better therapeutic effects after incomplete TUR compared with complete TUR is that the marker tumour has tumour-associated antigens (TAA) that could lead to an immune reaction that is stimulated by local application of IL-2. After complete TUR, no TAA are available to initiate and to stimulate an immune reaction; consequently, local IL-2 therapy is less effective after complete TUR. The results of these two pilot studies have led to the recent start of a randomised prospective clinical trial in which therapeutic effects of local IL-2 therapy after complete and incomplete TUR are compare

Associations of 5-year changes in alcoholic beverage intake with 5-year changes in waist circumference and BMI in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study

Objective This study aimed to shed light on contradictory associations of alcohol intake with waist circumference (WC) and body mass index (BMI) by examining 5-yr changes in alcohol intake in relation to 5-yr WC and BMI changes. Methods This prospective study included 4,355 participants (1,974 men and 2,381 women) enrolled in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study at baseline (1985–1986) and followed over 25 years (2010–2011). Longitudinal random effects linear regression models were used to test whether changes in drinking (defined categorically) as starting to drink, increasing, decreasing, stable drinking or stopping drinking (versus stable non-drinking) over a series of 5-yr periods were associated with corresponding 5-yr WC and BMI changes. Associations with 5-yr changes (defined categorically as starting, stable or stopping) in drinking level (i.e., light/moderate and excessive) and 5-yr changes (defined categorically as increasing, no change, or decreasing) by beverage type (i.e., beer, wine and liquor/mixed drinks) were also examined. Results In men, compared to stable non-drinking, decreasing total alcohol intake was associated with lower 5-yr WC (β:-0.62 cm; 95% CI: -1.09, -0.14 cm) and BMI gains (β:-0.20 kg/m2; 95% CI: -0.30, -0.03 kg/m2) and stopping excessive drinking was associated with lower 5-yr WC gains (β:-0.77 cm; 95% CI: -1.51, -0.03 cm). In women, compared to those with stable non-drinking habits, starting light/moderate drinking was associated with lower 5-yr WC (β: -0.78 cm; 95% CI: -1.29, -0.26 cm) and BMI gains (β:-0.42 kg/m2; 95% CI: -0.64, -0.20 kg/ m2). Increasing wine intake was associated with a lower 5-yr BMI gain (β:-0.27 kg/m2; 95% CI: -0.51, -0.03 kg/m2). Decreasing liquor/mixed drink (β:-0.33 kg/m2; 95% CI: -0.56, -0.09 kg/m2) intake was associated with lower 5-yr WC (β:-0.88 cm; 95% CI: -1.43, -0.34 cm) and BMI (β:-0.33 kg/m2; 95% CI: -0.56, -0.09 kg/m2) gains. Conclusions Associations of alcohol intake with obesity measures are complex. In women, wine and liquor/mixed drink intakes had contrasting associations with WC and BMI change. In men, decreasing weekly alcoholic beverage intake with an emphasis on stopping excessive consumption may be beneficial in managing WC and BMI gains