The future of social is personal: the potential of the personal data store

This chapter argues that technical architectures that facilitate the longitudinal, decentralised and individual-centric personal collection and curation of data will be an important, but partial, response to the pressing problem of the autonomy of the data subject, and the asymmetry of power between the subject and large scale service providers/data consumers. Towards framing the scope and role of such Personal Data Stores (PDSes), the legalistic notion of personal data is examined, and it is argued that a more inclusive, intuitive notion expresses more accurately what individuals require in order to preserve their autonomy in a data-driven world of large aggregators. Six challenges towards realising the PDS vision are set out: the requirement to store data for long periods; the difficulties of managing data for individuals; the need to reconsider the regulatory basis for third-party access to data; the need to comply with international data handling standards; the need to integrate privacy-enhancing technologies; and the need to future-proof data gathering against the evolution of social norms. The open experimental PDS platform INDX is introduced and described, as a means of beginning to address at least some of these six challenges

Age-associated murine cardiac lesions are attenuated by the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant SkQ1

Age-related changes in mammalian hearts often result in cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis that are preceded by inflammatory infiltration. In this paper, we show that lifelong treatment of BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice with the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant SkQ1 retards senescence-associated myocardial disease (cardiomyopathy), cardiac hypertrophy, and diffuse myocardial fibrosis. To investigate the molecular basis of the action of SkQ1, we have applied DNA microarray analysis. The global gene expression profile in heart tissues was not significantly affected by administration of SkQ1. However, we found some small but statistically significant modifications of the pathways related to cellto-cell contact, adhesion, and leukocyte infiltration. Probably, SkQ1-induced decrease in leukocyte and mesenchymal cell adhesion and/or infiltration lead to a reduction in age-related inflammation and subsequent fibrosis. The data indicate a causative role of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species in cardiovascular aging and imply that SkQ1 has poteential as a drug against age-related cardiac dysfunction

Shoreline Changes in West-Central Florida between 1987 and 2008 from Landsat Observations

Shoreline changes caused by sediment erosion and accretion have important consequences for coastal ecosystems and coastal communities. Assessing such changes over long stretches of coastline, such as along the west-central Florida coast, represents a challenge to coastal zone managers. In this study, we used nine Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images from the west-central Florida coast (adjacent to Tampa Bay, FL) to study historical shoreline changes from 1987 to 2008. Specifically, we sought to evaluate the change of shorelines during the cold (1987-1998) and warm (1998-2008) phases of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The cloud-free images selected for this study were collected during the periods when maximum tidal excursions were less than 9 cm from mean sea level, assuring minimal interference from tidal influence. The images revealed that the southern section of the Tampa Bay inlet showed a mean shoreline accretion rate of 1.30 m year-1 and a cumulative mean shoreline change of 27.29 m over the past 21 years. The northern section of the Tampa Bay inlet showed a mean accretion rate of 0.34 m year-1, with a cumulative mean shoreline change of 7.06 m during the past 21 years. Both sections experienced beach nourishment conducted by local communities which, while irregular, were effective in reducing beach erosion. The dynamics of opposing shores in the various inlets in the barrier islands of the study region varied substantially, with many showing accretion in the channel on one side but erosion on the other side

Industrial waste origin succinic anhydride-grafted atactic polypropylene as compatibilizer of full range polypropylene/polyamide 6 blends as revealed by dynamic mechanical analysis at the polypropylene glass transition

This work deals with a dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) study on the effect of a novel interfacial agent containing maleated grafts on an industrial waste origin atactic polypropylene. This contains 3% of bridge-, backbone-, and terminal-grafted succinic anhydride groups (aPP-SA/SA). By considering a polymer blend as a special case of composite where the dispersed phase is mobile, it is assumed that both the amounts of polyamide 6 (PA6) and the interfacial agent (aPP-SA/SA) cause changes in the glass transition temperature of the polypropylene phase in the blend. In this work, we have used DMA parameters to evidence the real interfacial modifications caused by the presence of aPP-SA/SA in the isotactic polypropylene (iPP)/PA6 system at the iPP glass transition temperature on the basis that this is an unfavorable scenario for the action of aPP-SA/SA. Since each component of the blend is interacting with each other, and to include the influence of the dispersed phase, it is possible to use a Box–Wilson experimental design model by resembling the so-called “agent based models” to obtain algorithms forecasting the dynamic mechanical parameters (storage, E’, and loss moduli, E”) at the glass transition of iPP, in all the composition range of whatever iPP/PA6/aPP-SA/SA-modified blend. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers.The results discussed at present work were partially obtained under the auspices of the MAT 2000-1499 and MAT2013-47902-C2-1-R Research ProjectsPeer Reviewe