Inventory estimation for inherently safer design

Traditional approaches to safety in process plants tend to rely on 'added-on' safety measures as a means of minimising risk. During the design process the first stage at which safety is considered in detail is the HAZOP study. Inherent safety, where safety is designed into a plant has been found to have great benefits with regards to both safety performance and operating costs. In order to implement inherent safety fully it must be considered as early as possible in the design process, before decisions have been made which are fixed and costly to change. The major barrier to this is the lack of data available in the early design stage, which prevents different options being assessed for safety. The most important variable is that of inventory, as the quantity of material present is a major factor in determining the hazard posed by that material. The use of short-cut design methods together with simplifying assumptions was investigated to determine if they could be used in an inventory estimation study. It was found that such methods could be used. Although there are uncertainties in the available data it would be possible to use the methods to estimate the inventory of a process at the route selection stage of the design study. This would enable the comparison of different process routes in order to select the route that is the safest in relation to hazardous inventories and also to pinpoint which areas of a process have the greatest effect on safety. This would aid the design engineer to focus on the most hazardous items in a process plant and minimise that hazard

Romantic Relationships in Emerging Adulthood: Modeling Intimacy, Commitment, and Factors Influencing their Interaction

Intimacy and commitment are constructs essential to a successful romantic relationship, but for emerging adults navigating the world of dating, it is not always clear how these two elements interact. Data from a self-report survey of 162 undergraduate students were used to better understand how intimacy and commitment are related to one another as a function of gender and perceived social power. Results showed that intimacy predicted commitment, but differentially for men and women based on their levels of social power. For men, increased social power was associated with a decreased effect of intimacy on commitment. Among men with low social power, intimacy most strongly predicted commitment, whereas for men with high levels of social power, intimacy ceased to be associated with commitment at all. The opposite effect was found in women, where for women with greater social power, intimacy much more strongly predicted commitment than it did among women with little power. These findings suggest that men and women may both be using social power to achieve their goals in romantic relationships, but that, consistent with evolutionary theory, men ultimately desire intimacy without commitment and women, intimacy with commitment.Bachelor of Art

USP compendial methods for analysis of heparin: chromatographic determination of molecular weight distributions for heparin sodium

Heparin is a polysaccharide product isolated from glycosaminoglycans of porcine mucosa (or occasionally other tissues and species). It is a linear non-uniform polymer consisting of alternating glucosamine and uronic acid monosaccharide residues and is highly sulfated. Heparin sodium drug product (HP) used in medicine consists of chains with molecular weight (MW) ranging from under 5,000 to over 50,000. Although HP has been used as an injectable antithrombotic medicine for more than 70 years, many aspects of its structure and purity, including its MW, have not been specified by public standards until recent years. In 2008, a number of HP lots associated with severe adverse effects, including fatalities, were found to have been contaminated with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate. This incident led to thorough revision of compendial standards worldwide. In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) encouraged the inclusion of enhanced standards for purity and identity in the relevant monographs of the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) including acceptance criteria for MW distribution

A Renewable and Ultrasensitive Electrochemiluminescence Immunosenor Based on Magnetic RuL@SiO2-Au∼RuL-Ab2 Sandwich-Type Nano-Immunocomplexes

An ultrasensitive and renewable electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunosensor was developed for the detection of tumor markers by combining a newly designed trace tag and streptavidin-coated magnetic particles (SCMPs). The trace tag (RuL@SiO2-Au∼RuL-Ab2) was prepared by loading Ru(bpy)32+(RuL)-conjuged secondary antibodies (RuL-Ab2) on RuL@SiO2 (RuL-doped SiO2) doped Au (RuL@SiO2-Au). To fabricate the immunosensor, SCMPs were mixed with biotinylated AFP primary antibody (Biotin-Ab1), AFP, and RuL@SiO2-Au∼RuL-Ab2 complexes, then the resulting SCMP/Biotin-Ab1/AFP/RuL@SiO2-Au∼RuL-Ab2 (SBAR) sandwich-type immunocomplexes were absorbed on screen printed carbon electrode (SPCE) for detection. The immunocomplexes can be easily washed away from the surface of the SPCE when the magnetic field was removed, which made the immunosensor reusable. The present immunosensor showed a wide linear range of 0.05–100 ng mL−1 for detecting AFP, with a low detection limit of 0.02 ng mL−1 (defined as S/N = 3). The method takes advantage of three properties of the immunosensor: firstly, the RuL@SiO2-Au∼RuL-Ab2 composite exhibited dual amplification since SiO2 could load large amount of reporter molecules (RuL) for signal amplification. Gold particles could provide a large active surface to load more reporter molecules (RuL-Ab2). Accordingly, through the ECL response of RuL and tripropylamine (TPA), a strong ECL signal was obtained and an amplification analysis of protein interaction was achieved. Secondly, the sensor is renewable because the sandwich-type immunocomplexes can be readily absorbed or removed on the SPCE’s surface in a magnetic field. Thirdly, the SCMP modified probes can perform the rapid separation and purification of signal antibodies in a magnetic field. Thus, the present immunosensor can simultaneously realize separation, enrichment and determination. It showed potential application for the detection of AFP in human sera

Glucocorticoids Inhibit CRH/AVP-Evoked Bursting Activity of Male Murine Anterior Pituitary Corticotrophs

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Corticotroph cells from the anterior pituitary are an integral component of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which governs the neuroendocrine response to stress. Corticotrophs are electrically excitable and fire spontaneous single-spike action potentials and also display secretagogue-induced bursting behavior. The HPA axis function is dependent on effective negative feedback in which elevated plasma glucocorticoids result in inhibition at the level of both the pituitary and the hypothalamus. In this study, we have used an electrophysiological approach coupled with mathematical modeling to investigate the regulation of spontaneous and CRH/arginine vasopressin-induced activity of corticotrophs by glucocorticoids. We reveal that pretreatment of corticotrophs with 100 nM corticosterone (CORT; 90 and 150 min) reduces spontaneous activity and prevents a transition from spiking to bursting after CRH/arginine vasopressin stimulation. In addition, previous studies have identified a role for large-conductance calcium- and voltage-activated potassium (BK) channels in the generation of secretagogue-induced bursting in corticotrophs. Using the dynamic clamp technique, we demonstrated that CRH-induced bursting can be switched to spiking by subtracting a fast BK current, whereas the addition of a fast BK current can induce bursting in CORT-treated cells. In addition, recordings from BK knockout mice (BK(-/-)) revealed that CORT can also inhibit excitability through BK-independent mechanisms to control spike frequency. Thus, we have established that glucocorticoids can modulate multiple properties of corticotroph electrical excitability through both BK-dependent and BK-independent mechanisms.This work was supported by Grant 082407 from the Wellcome Trust (to M.J.S. and P.R.), Grant J008893 from the Medical Research Council (to M.J.S.), and Grant DK43200 from the National Institutes of Health (to R.B.). P.J.D. was supported by a Medical Reseach Council PhD studentship in the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh

Effect of different exercise programs on the psychological and cognitive functions of people with Parkinson's disease

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of different exercise programs on the psychological and cognitive functions in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Forty-five patients with PD participated in the study. The participants were randomized in three intervention programs: Group-1 (n=15, cognitive-activities), Group-2 (n=15, multimodal exercise) and Group-3 (n=15, exercises for posture and gait). The clinical, psychological and cognitive functions were assessed before and after 4 months of intervention. Univariate analysis did not reveal significant interactions between groups and time (p>0.05). However, univariate analysis for time revealed differences in stress level and memory. Participants showed less physical stress (p<0.01) and overall stress (p < 0.04) and higher performance in episodic declarative memory (p < 0.001) after exercise. These findings suggest that group work with motor or non-motor activities can improve cognitive and psychological functions of patients with PD

Symbiotic Futures: Health, Well-being and Care in the Post-Covid World

The "Symbiotic Futures: Health, Well-being and Care in the Post-Covid World" project was jointly conceived by the Innovation School at Glasgow School of Art and the Institute of Cancer Sciences at the University of Glasgow. The project partnership involved a community of experts working across both organisations including the University of Glasgow’s new Mazumdar-Shaw Advanced Research Centre (ARC). Future experiences is a collaborative, futures-focused design project where students benefit from the input of a community of experts to design speculative future worlds and experiences based on research within key societal contexts. This iteration of the project asked the students to consider what happens in the Post-Covid landscape ten years from now, where symbiotic experiences of health, well-being and care have evolved to the extent that new forms of medical practice, health communities and cultures of care transform how we interact with each other, with professionals and the world around us. The GSA Innovation School’s final year BDes Product Design students and faculty formed a dynamic community of practice with health, wellbeing and care practitioners and researchers from The University of Glasgow and beyond. This gave the students the opportunity to reflect on the underlying complexities of the future of health, well-being and care, technological acceleration, human agency and quality of life, to envision a 2031 blueprint as a series of six future world exhibits, and design the products, services and system experiences for the people and environments within it. In the first part of the project (Stage 1), Future worlds are groups of students working together on specific topics, to establish the context for their project and collaborate on research and development. In this iteration of Future Experiences, the "Health, Well-being and Care" worlds were clustered together around ‘People focused’ and ‘Environment focused’, but also joined up across these groups to create pairs of worlds, and in the process generate symbiosis between the groups. These worlds were then the starting points which the students explored in their individual projects. The second part of the project (Stage 2) saw individual students select an aspect of their Future World research to develop as a design direction, which they then prototyped and produced as products, services, and/or systems. These are designed for specific communities, contexts or scenarios of use defined by the students to communicate a future experience. These Future experiences reflect the societal contexts explored during the research phase, projected 10 years into the future, and communicated in a manner that makes the themes engaging and accessible. The deposited materials are arranged as follows: 1. Project Landscape Map - A report and blueprint for the project that gives a visual overview of the structure and timeline of the project. 2. Stage one data folders - the data folders for stage one of the project are named after the themes the groups explored to create their Future Worlds. 3. Stage two data folders - the data folders for stage two of the project are named after the individual students who created the project

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