Antibodies for immunolabeling by light and electron microscopy : not for the faint hearted

Reliable antibodies represent crucial tools in the arsenal of the cell biologist and using them to localize antigens for immunocytochemistry is one of their most important applications. However, antibody-antigen interactions are much more complex and unpredictable than suggested by the old 'lock and key' analogy, and the goal of trying to prove that an antibody is specific is far more difficult than is generally appreciated. Here, we discuss the problems associated with the very complicated issue of trying to establish that an antibody (and the results obtained with it) is specific for the immunolabeling approaches used in light or electron microscopy. We discuss the increasing awareness that significant numbers of commercial antibodies are often not up to the quality required. We provide guidelines for choosing and testing antibodies in immuno-EM. Finally, we describe how quantitative EM methods can be used to identify reproducible patterns of antibody labeling and also extract specific labeling distributions.Peer reviewe

‘The Greatest Bubble in History’: Stock Prices during the British Railway Mania

Although the British Railway Mania has been described as one of the greatest bubbles in history, it has been largely neglected by academics. This paper attempts to redress this neglect by creating a daily stock price index for the 1843-50 period and by assessing the contribution of the many newly-created railways to the bubble-like pattern in stock prices. The paper then examines whether this bubble-like pattern was due to an increase in the stochastic discount factor arising from an increase in the probability of large-scale adoption of railway technology. We find little evidence to support this hypothesis.bubbles, financial crises, Railway Mania

Perspectives on innovation within medium-sized firms in Wales

The Welsh economy is heading towards a post-Brexit future with historically lower levels of productivity continuing to leave the country lagging behind the UK average (Huggins and Williams, 2011; Welsh Government, 2017). An understanding of how new models of innovation are constructed and developed are then particularly important for policy makers and academia in Wales. As noted by Baughan (2015), innovation accounts for 25-50% of labour productivity growth

'Learning Styles' and 'Approaches to Studying' in Sports-Related Programmes: Relationships to Academic Achievement and Implications for Successful Learning, Teaching and Assessment: Project Report Summary

There are relatively few recent investigations that have addressed the issues of preferred learning styles and approaches to studying in sports-related disciplines such as: Sports Studies; Sports and Exercise Science; Coaching Science; Sport and Leisure Management and Outdoor Recreation Management. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine student learning across a range of sport-related programmes at a UK University College. It applied tools from two related, but different, educational research paradigms: approaches to learning and learning styles analysis. Thus, these differing means of researching student learning were tested against the same student group. Results were compared to students’ perceptions of their own developing autonomy of learning and achieved grades; insights were generated into the particular learning approaches and styles of sports students; and tentative recommendations are made on the implications of the findings for higher education teachers seeking to promote improvements in the learning of sports subjects

An analysis of question processing of English and Chinese for the NTCIR 5 cross-language question answering task

An important element in question answering systems is the analysis and interpretation of questions. Using the NTCIR 5 Cross-Language Question Answering (CLQA) question test set we demonstrate that the accuracy of deep question analysis is dependent on the quantity and suitability of the available linguistic resources. We further demonstrate that applying question analysis tools developed on monolingual training materials to questions translated Chinese-English and English-Chinese using machine translation produces much reduced effectiveness in interpretation of the question. This latter result indicates that question analysis for CLQA should primarily be conducted in the question language prior to translation

Designing and Delivering a Curriculum for Data Science Education across Europe

Data is currently being produced at an incredible rate globally, fuelled by the increasing ubiquity of the Web, and stoked by social media, sensors, and mobile devices. However, as the amount of available data continues to increase, so does the demand for professionals who have the necessary skills to manage and manipulate this data. This paper presents the European Data Science Academy (EDSA), an initiative for bridging the data science skills gap across Europe and training a new generation of world-leading data scientists. The EDSA project has established a rigorous process and a set of best practices for the production and delivery of curricula for data science. Additionally, the project’s efforts are dedicated to linking the demand for data science skills with the supply of learning resources that offer these skills

Potential for natural flood management and land management practices to mitigate flooding in upland catchments

PhD ThesisThere is an increasing uptake of Natural Flood Management (NFM) and land use management (LUM) schemes to tackle excessive, rapid runoff in rural catchments. At the local scale, there is a growing knowledge base regarding the impacts of NFM and LUM. However, evidence and understanding of how these local impacts manifest at a larger catchment scale is less well understood. There are many types of model that have been used for investigating NFM and LUM impacts at larger scales (>10 km2), ranging from the comparatively simple lumped conceptual approaches to more complex, physically-based, distributed models. How best to represent NFM and LUM impacts in models is ambiguous. This thesis presents research into impact modelling of flood mitigation measures from the hillslope to the catchment scale, using the lumped FEH rainfall-runoff model and a novel physicallybased, distributed model, Juke. A Flood Impact Modelling (FIM) methodology is proposed for rapid impact assessment using the FEH approach; FEH hydrographs are generated for sub-catchments and routed to the outlet. The impact of changes in timing and runoff generation in specific sub-catchments on the downstream hydrograph can be investigated to inform catchment planning. The Juke methodology is designed to make best use of field observations and existing GIS datasets for parameterising the runoff and routing components. Juke uses some of the knowledge embedded in the FEH approach regarding the timing and runoff generation and applies it spatially. Juke is capable of emulating the FEH, but also allows consideration of spatial changes in LUM. Two catchments in the north of England have been instrumented to characterise the rainfall-runoff behaviour and understand what causes the largest flood events, where NFM and LUM have taken place. This knowledge informs the LUM and NFM scenarios explored as well as for model parametrisation. Results from the lumped FEH modelling suggest that the mitigation of flood flow by managing the volume and timing of fast runoff will have the greatest impact on floods caused by short duration, high intensity rainfall events. The Juke modelling also suggests that the impact of NFM and LUM is likely to be minimal (<10 % flood peak reduction for 12 % coverage of riparian woodland) and depends on the duration and intensity of rainfall events and the internal synchronisation of the component sub-catchments. The flood peaks for some events ii may increase due to the effects of timing and synchronisation of flows from the landscape elements. The outcomes of this thesis recommends flood managers make field observations to better understand the causes of flooding within a catchment. Schemes using NFM and LUM are likely to be most beneficial for comparatively small catchments (<10 km2) that suffer from frequent flooding from short duration, high intensity rainfall.combination of Defra, through the Demonstration Test Catchments (DTC) and the Environment Agency (EA: Great Ayton Flood mitigation

Temporal Processing Deficits in Children with Dyslexia and Developmental Coordination Disorder

This thesis set out to examine whether temporal processing deficits were evident in both children with developmental dyslexia and children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and if there were, whether there were similar patterns of deficits in both conditions which suggest evidence of a possible underlying cognitive deficit common to both conditions, as suggested by some researchers (for example, Kaplan, Wilson, Dewey, and Crawford, 1998, and Nicolson, 2000). A pilot study was carried out to investigate the feasibility of initial tasks that may be used in main studies. The findings from this study suggested automatisation and temporal processing may be areas to explore further. Consequently, Study One began by investigating the performance of children with dyslexia, DCD and typically developing children on a rapid naming task. The duration of their articulations and non-articulations was measured and the results indicated that the children with dyslexia showed longer and more variable non-articulation durations than the other two groups; the children with DCD had significantly longer articulation durations than the other two groups. Main Study Two investigated whether there were temporal production deficits in the two special needs groups relative to controls. The findings here suggested a subtle auditory deficit in children with dyslexia, however the children with DCD did not differ significantly from the typically developing group. Main Study Three investigated temporal perception, using a temporal generalisation task. This study found no significant differences between the groups on their performance on the task, but intergroup correlations suggested that the ability to carry out temporal generalisations was associated with different abilities in each group. Finally, Main Study Four looked at temporal order judgements (TOJs) across several modalities by using different types of stimuli: phonological stimuli, tones, shapes, and letters. Here, the children with dyslexia were significantly less accurate than the other two groups in making TOJs with phonological stimuli, but the children with DCD were not significantly different from the controls. All children performed least accurately on the tone condition suggesting that the nature of this condition is generally difficult. The results do not support the hypothesis that there is a general temporal processing deficit in children with dyslexia or children with DCD or that this may be a common deficit between the two conditions. However, the findings were in line with the idea that children with dyslexia have a phonological and / or speech perception deficit, and further work with children who have DCD needs to be conducted to study the heterogeneity of this condition at the cognitive level