Public perception and acceptance of CCUS: preliminary findings of a qualitative case study in Greece.

The development and implementation of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies plays an increasingly important part in European Union (EU) and global decarbonisation policies and strategies that seek to address climate change to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. Several studies have shown the important role social acceptance plays in determining the outcomes of CCUS projects and how social acceptance is shaped by the national and local contexts. Yet most studies on CCUS and social acceptance have focused on countries in northern Europe and North America despite the increasing numbers of CCUS projects in other regions of the world. This study seeks to help address this gap by conducting a case study on how local dynamics shaped people's acceptance and awareness of CCUS in a Greek community. Based on semi-structured interviews with community members near a CCUS pilot plant, this single case study explores the factors and dynamics that shaped the interviewees' perceptions of CCUS technologies. Our findings indicate that, despite the low level of awareness of CCUS technologies, participants could draw on their situated knowledge to identify potential drawbacks with their application. We identified scepticism regarding the adoption of new technologies and the organisations involved based on past experiences, and a notable lack provision of technology and location-specific information as well public engagement by the project consortium. Our recommendations for future projects and community engagement include the early involvement of the public in project development, location-based transparent information, appropriate channels to facilitate knowledge exchange, and educational initiatives to build communities' capability to influence projects

Genetic evaluation of paediatric nephrocalcinosis: phenotype-driven genetic panels reveal a rare diagnosis

Monogenic causes of paediatric nephrocalcinosis are associated with extensive phenotypic variability. We report a 14-year-old male who presented at eight years of age with incidentally identified nephrocalcinosis alongside growth impairment and dental anomalies. Extensive genetic investigation confirmed a molecular diagnosis of Bartter syndrome type II (BSII). This is exceptional in both late presentation and the presence of amelogenesis imperfecta, a very rare association of inherited tubulopathies. Details of the nephrocalcinosis gene panel analysed and associated phenotypes are presented to highlight the utility of a phenotype-driven genetic panel in resolving an atypical presentation of nephrocalcinosis, allowing precise diagnosis, tailored therapy and prognostication

Topological methods in zero-sum Ramsey theory

A cornerstone result of Erd\H os, Ginzburg, and Ziv (EGZ) states that any sequence of $2n-1$ elements in $\mathbb{Z}/n$ contains a zero-sum subsequence of length $n$. While algebraic techniques have predominated in deriving many deep generalizations of this theorem over the past sixty years, here we introduce topological approaches to zero-sum problems which have proven fruitful in other combinatorial contexts. Our main result (1) is a topological criterion for determining when any $\mathbb{Z}/n$-coloring of an $n$-uniform hypergraph contains a zero-sum hyperedge. In addition to applications for Kneser hypergraphs, for complete hypergraphs our methods recover Olson's generalization of the EGZ theorem for arbitrary finite groups. Furthermore, we (2) give a fractional generalization of the EGZ theorem with applications to balanced set families and (3) provide a constrained EGZ theorem which imposes combinatorial restrictions on zero-sum sequences in the original result.Comment: 18 page

Multiplex PCR assay to detect high risk lineages of Salmonella Typhi and Paratyphi A

Enteric fever infections remain a significant public health issue, with up to 20 million infections per year. Increasing rates of antibiotic resistant strains have rendered many first-line antibiotics potentially ineffective. Genotype 4.3.1 (H58) is the main circulating lineage of S. Typhi in many South Asian countries and is associated with high levels of antibiotic resistance. The emergence and spread of extensively drug resistant (XDR) typhoid strains has increased the need for a rapid molecular test to identify and track these high-risk lineages for surveillance and vaccine prioritisation. Current methods require samples to be cultured for several days, followed by DNA extraction and sequencing to determine the specific lineage. We designed and evaluated the performance of a new multiplex PCR assay, targeting S. Paratyphi A as well as the H58 and XDR lineages of S. Typhi on a collection of bacterial strains. Our assay was 100% specific for the identification of lineage specific S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi A, when tested with a mix of non-Typhi Salmonella and non-Salmonella strains. With additional testing on clinical and environmental samples, this assay will allow rapid lineage level detection of typhoid of clinical significance, at a significantly lower cost to whole-genome sequencing. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a SNP-based multiplex PCR assay for the detection of lineage specific serovars of Salmonella Typhi

Extended local similarity analysis (eLSA) of microbial community and other time series data with replicates

© The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in BMC Systems Biology 5 Suppl 2 (2011): S15, doi:10.1186/1752-0509-5-S2-S15.The increasing availability of time series microbial community data from metagenomics and other molecular biological studies has enabled the analysis of large-scale microbial co-occurrence and association networks. Among the many analytical techniques available, the Local Similarity Analysis (LSA) method is unique in that it captures local and potentially time-delayed co-occurrence and association patterns in time series data that cannot otherwise be identified by ordinary correlation analysis. However LSA, as originally developed, does not consider time series data with replicates, which hinders the full exploitation of available information. With replicates, it is possible to understand the variability of local similarity (LS) score and to obtain its confidence interval. We extended our LSA technique to time series data with replicates and termed it extended LSA, or eLSA. Simulations showed the capability of eLSA to capture subinterval and time-delayed associations. We implemented the eLSA technique into an easy-to-use analytic software package. The software pipeline integrates data normalization, statistical correlation calculation, statistical significance evaluation, and association network construction steps. We applied the eLSA technique to microbial community and gene expression datasets, where unique time-dependent associations were identified. The extended LSA analysis technique was demonstrated to reveal statistically significant local and potentially time-delayed association patterns in replicated time series data beyond that of ordinary correlation analysis. These statistically significant associations can provide insights to the real dynamics of biological systems. The newly designed eLSA software efficiently streamlines the analysis and is freely available from the eLSA homepage, which can be accessed at http://meta.usc.edu/softs/lsaThis research is partially supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) DMS-1043075 and OCE 1136818

Pushing Boundaries: Experimental Expressions - Natural (Part One)

Part One - Natural As a collective, we aim to explore the interplay between nature and humanity through experimental photographic mediums both 2D and 3d. We hope to convey eight different interconnected perspectives on this concept. To achieve this, we incorporate photographic mediums involving elements from the natural world such as the obvious, plants, butterflies, and spider webs, to the more abstract existence of humans. We were once heavily connected with nature, relying on it to sustain life. While nature continues to be essential to human survival, we have become disconnected