Wave climate for inland vessels between Zeebrugge and the mouth of the Western Scheldt: estimation by the Belgian coast model in SWAN

The Masterplan 'Vlaamse Baaien' outlines the need to develop an integrated vision for the Belgian coast. One of the Masterplan’s goals is to achieve a win-win situation between coastal protection and the maintenance and improvement of the maritime access to the port of Zeebrugge.The hinterland connection of the port of Zeebrugge by means of inland vessels is a major issue. Therefore, a specific type of inland vessels is conditionally allowed to make use of the 16 nautical miles long sea trajectory between Zeebrugge and the mouth of the Western Scheldt estuary to connect the port with the inland waterway network.Detailed information about the wave climate in the area between the eastern dam of the port of Zeebrugge, Pas van het Zand, Scheur-Oost/Wielingen, Vlissingen, Breskens and the coastline is essential to maximize the efficiency of the sea-river traffic in the present situation, and to decrease the requirements of inland vessels for safe navigation on a coastal route between the port of Zeebrugge and the mouth of the Western Scheldt.The existing project focuses on the model set-up and calculation of the detailed wave climate between Zeebrugge and the mouth of the Western Scheldt estuary in the present situation and also a future configuration for wind, wave and water level conditions throughout the year 2013 by means of the validated numerical model. The result of the simulation are delivered to the client for the further analysis (e.g. shading effects of new islands scenarios for the ship navigation). Research results can be used for the further analysis of the navigation of all vessels which are making use of the present route and future alternative routes. Besides, it can serve as a basis to evaluate the impact of measures on the response of inland vessels

Benchmarking homogenization algorithms for monthly data

The COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action ES0601: Advances in homogenization methods of climate series: an integrated approach (HOME) has executed a blind intercomparison and validation study for monthly homogenization algorithms. Time series of monthly temperature and precipitation were evaluated because of their importance for climate studies. The algorithms were validated against a realistic benchmark dataset. Participants provided 25 separate homogenized contributions as part of the blind study as well as 22 additional solutions submitted after the details of the imposed inhomogeneities were revealed. These homogenized datasets were assessed by a number of performance metrics including i) the centered root mean square error relative to the true homogeneous values at various averaging scales, ii) the error in linear trend estimates and iii) traditional contingency skill scores. The metrics were computed both using the individual station series as well as the network average regional series. The performance of the contributions depends significantly on the error metric considered. Although relative homogenization algorithms typically improve the homogeneity of temperature data, only the best ones improve precipitation data. Moreover, state-of-the-art relative homogenization algorithms developed to work with an inhomogeneous reference are shown to perform best. The study showed that currently automatic algorithms can perform as well as manual ones

Expression Profiling of CYP1B1 in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Counterintuitive Downregulation in Tumors

Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) has a very flagitious treatment regime. A prodrug approach is thought to aid in targeting chemotherapy. CYP1B1, a member of cytochrome P450 family, has been implicated in chemical carcinogenesis. There exists a general accordance that this protein is overexpressed in a variety of cancers, making it an ideal candidate for a prodrug therapy. The activation of the prodrug facilitated by CYP1B1 would enable the targeting of chemotherapy to tumor tissues in which CYP1B1 is specifically overexpressed as a result reducing the non-specific side effects that the current chemotherapy elicits. This study was aimed at validating the use of CYP1B1 as a target for the prodrug therapy in OSCC. The expression profile of CYP1B1 was analysed in a panel of 51 OSCC tumors, their corresponding normal tissues, an epithelial dysplasia lesion and its matched normal tissue by qRT-PCR, Western blotting and Immunohistochemistry. CYP1B1 was found to be downregulated in 77.78% (28/36) tumor tissues in comparison to their corresponding normal tissues as well as in the epithelial dysplasia lesion compared to its matched normal tissue at the transcriptional level, and in 92.86% (26/28) of tumor tissues at the protein level. This report therefore clearly demonstrates the downregulation of CYP1B1 at the transcriptional and translational levels in tumor tissues in comparison to their corresponding normal tissues. These observations indicate that caution should be observed as this therapy may not be applicable universally to all cancers and also suggest the possibility of a prophylactic therapy for oral cancer

The MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey: I. Survey overview and highlights

Please abstract in the article.The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), the National Research Foundation (NRF), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, US National Science Foundation, the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the DSI/NRF, the SARAO HCD programme, the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation.http://www.aanda.orghj2022Physic