113 research outputs found

    Antibodies to Enteroviruses in Cerebrospinal Fluid of Patients with Acute Flaccid Myelitis.

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    Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) has caused motor paralysis in >560 children in the United States since 2014. The temporal association of enterovirus (EV) outbreaks with increases in AFM cases and reports of fever, respiratory, or gastrointestinal illness prior to AFM in >90% of cases suggest a role for infectious agents. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from 14 AFM and 5 non-AFM patients with central nervous system (CNS) diseases in 2018 were investigated by viral-capture high-throughput sequencing (VirCapSeq-VERT system). These CSF and serum samples, as well as multiple controls, were tested for antibodies to human EVs using peptide microarrays. EV RNA was confirmed in CSF from only 1 adult AFM case and 1 non-AFM case. In contrast, antibodies to EV peptides were present in CSF of 11 of 14 AFM patients (79%), significantly higher than controls, including non-AFM patients (1/5 [20%]), children with Kawasaki disease (0/10), and adults with non-AFM CNS diseases (2/11 [18%]) (P = 0.023, 0.0001, and 0.0028, respectively). Six of 14 CSF samples (43%) and 8 of 11 sera (73%) from AFM patients were immunoreactive to an EV-D68-specific peptide, whereas the three control groups were not immunoreactive in either CSF (0/5, 0/10, and 0/11; P = 0.008, 0.0003, and 0.035, respectively) or sera (0/2, 0/8, and 0/5; P = 0.139, 0.002, and 0.009, respectively).IMPORTANCE The presence in cerebrospinal fluid of antibodies to EV peptides at higher levels than non-AFM controls supports the plausibility of a link between EV infection and AFM that warrants further investigation and has the potential to lead to strategies for diagnosis and prevention of disease

    Palaeozoic petroleum systems of the Orcadian Basin to Forth Approaches, Quadrants 6 - 21, UK

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    This report synthesises the results of the 21CXRM Palaeozoic project to describe the Carboniferous and Devonian petroleum systems of the Orcadian Basin to Forth Approaches area (Quadrants 6 – 21). Petroleum systems of the Orcadian study area that involve significant Palaeozoic elements are not wholly contained within Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian strata. A number of producing fields attest to two main proven petroleum systems; i. Co-sourced Devonian oil (with Jurassic oil) within a Jurassic reservoir: the Beatrice, Jacky and Lybster fields; ii. Jurassic-sourced oil in a Devonian and/or Carboniferous reservoir: the Buchan, Stirling, Claymore, Highlander fields. (Jurassic-sourced oil in a Permian (Zechstein) reservoir is also proven in the Carnoustie, Ettrick and Claymore fields, and in a Rotliegend reservoir in the Dee discovery). A number of additional unproven petroleum system elements are considered in this report; i. Possibilities for Devonian and Carboniferous sourcing or co-sourcing (with Jurassic oil) of Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian (Rotliegend) reservoirs in those areas underlain by proven Palaeozoic source rock; ii. Possibilities for migrated Jurassic and/or Devonian and/or Carboniferous hydrocarbons onto horst blocks and the regional Grampian High, into basement, Palaeozoic or younger reservoirs. Focusing on frontier areas north and east of the Inner Moray Firth and from the north-eastern Forth Approaches to Grampian High, integration of a large volume of seismic, well, geophysical, organic geochemistry, maturity and reservoir property data at regional scale has established: Source rocks A wide extent of potential Devonian lacustrine source rocks mapped seismically from the Inner Moray Firth to the East Orkney Basin and north of the Halibut Horst. Geochemically-typed Devonian-sourced oil shows, oil seep data outside the area of mature Kimmeridge Clay Formation, burial depth and a limited organic geochemistry/maturity dataset indicative of Devonian source rocks that are potentially mature for oil generation outside the Inner Moray Firth. Good quality gas- and oil-prone Carboniferous source rocks are mapped from the Witch Ground Graben to north eastern end of the Forth Approaches. Wells drilled on highs indicate oil-window thermal maturity levels. Oil and gas shows and basin modelling indicate Carboniferous strata buried more deeply in adjacent basins may reach gas maturity levels, with Cenozoic maturation. Key source rock intervals are: o Lower Devonian, lacustrine Struie Formation (Quadrants 11, 12), oil prone. o Middle Devonian, lacustine Orcadia Formation and Eday Group (Quadrants 11- 15 and possibly Quadrants 19, 20), oil prone. o Visean – Namurian (lower-mid Carboniferous) fluvio-deltaic Firth Coal Formation, gas and oil prone. (This unit is age-equivalent of the Scremerston and Yoredale Formations, Cleveland Group source rocks in Quadrants 25-44

    Palaeozoic petroleum systems of the central North Sea/Mid North Sea High

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    This report synthesises the results of the 21CXRM Palaeozoic project to describe the Carboniferous and Devonian petroleum systems of the Central North Sea/Mid North Sea High area (Quadrants 25–44). Focusing on frontier areas to the north of the Southern North Sea gas fields and west of the Auk-Flora ridge, integration of a large volume of seismic, well, geophysical, organic geochemistry, maturity and reservoir property data at regional scale has established: Extensional to strike-slip Devonian and Carboniferous basins cutting across the Mid North Sea High on orientations strongly controlled by basement inheritance, granites and a complex Palaeozoic stress field. Varsican orogenic transpression and inversion was superimposed resulting in a variety of structural trapping styles and burial/uplift histories, and a complicated pre-Permian subcrop map. A widespread spatial and temporal extent of oil and gas mature source rock intervals within the Carboniferous succession particularly; o lower Carboniferous (Visean) coals and mudstones of the Scremerston Formation, dominantly fluvio-deltaic and lacustrine with some marine influence, dominantly gas prone. Gas mature in Quadrant 41 and central-southern Quadrants 42-44 and oil mature in the Forth Approaches and North Dogger Basin o lower-mid Carboniferous (Visean-Namurian) coals and mudstones of the Yoredale and Millstone Grit formations in fluvio-deltaic to marine cycles, gas prone with oil prone intervals. Gas mature in central Quadrant 41 and southern Quadrants 42-43, oil mature across northern Quadrants 41-44, Quadrant 36, 38 and 39. o Lower-mid Carboniferous (Visean-Namurian) mudstones and siltstones of the Cleveland Group, over 1 km thick, deposited in dominantly marine environments. Gas mature to overmature in southern Quadrants 41-44 and modelled as having generated oil and gas. Potentially widespread reservoir intervals of varying reservoir quality. Favourable intervals include the Upper Devonian sandstone of the Buchan Formation expecially where fractured, channels within the fluvio-deltaic lower-mid Carboniferous (Visean-Namurian) Scremerston, Yoredale and Millstone Grit formations, the laterally extensive, high net:gross Fell Sandstone Formation, and possibly turbidites or shoreface sands within marine mudstones/siltstones in southern Quadrants 41-44 (likely tight gas unless early hydrocarbon charged) Widespread opportunities for structural (fault/fold/dip) traps utilising a Silverpit mudstone, or Zechstein evaporite seal as in the Breagh Field. Intraformational Carboniferous seals are documented widely in onshore Carboniferous fields and in some offshore fields and should be further investigated, particularly in mudstone/siltstone-dominated basinal successions with modelled Carboniferous and recent hydrocarbon generation, along with possibilities for stratigraphic traps. Basin modelling predicts oil and gas generation at a variety of times (Carboniferous, Mesozoic and Cenozoic dependent on the well) from lower-mid Carbonferous (Visean-Namurian) strata in Quadrants 41-44. In the Forth Approaches, Quadrant 29/North Dogger basins and on the poorly constrained Devonian-Carboniferous Mid North Sea High, oil window maturity levels are modelled at selected wells in a largely gas-prone sequence, though basinwards gas maturity may be achieved. It is recommended that the contribution and volumetrics of relatively thin oil-prone intervals within the Carboniferous succession be further investigated

    Overview of the 21CXRM Palaeozoic Project : a regional petroleum systems analysis of the offshore Carboniferous and Devonian of the UKCS

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    This report gives an overview of the 21CXRM Palaeozoic Project background, scope and products (Sections 1-3). It explains how the component reports and datasets of the project fit together. Overview technical information (e.g. key diagrams and charts applicable across the reports for each area) is reproduced in Sections 6 and 7 for reference, particularly as background for users of the specialist reports. A visual representation of the regional coverage and quantity of digital Palaeozoic Project products is given in Figure 1

    Louis I. Kahn and Richard Kelly: collaborative design in creation of the luminous environment

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    As one of the most prominent architects of the twentieth century, Louis I. Kahn aspired to use natural light to shape his architecture. The lighting designer Richard Kelly, one of his close collaborators, had significant influence on modern architectural lighting design in the twentieth century. Kahn and Kelly designed the luminous environments in three art-gallery and museum buildings, The Yale University Art Gallery, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Yale Center for British Art. Collaboration between the architect and the lighting designer resulted in well-resolved lighting solutions. This research investigated the collaboration between Louis I. Kahn and Richard Kelly from both theoretical and pragmatic perspectives. In terms of the theoretical perspective, a detailed overview of their collaborative work is provided through literature review. In terms of the pragmatic perspective, the background of their cooperation and the technical details are presented. In addition, daylighting performance analysis of these three buildings through digital modelling was undertaken. This study found that the lighting design solutions produced together by Louis I. Kahn and Richard Kelly, especially the way of using daylight, have had significant impact on architectural space and the luminous environment. More importantly, this kind of collaborative working method could provide a useful reference and guidance for contemporary architecture and lighting design

    Assessment: Feedback from Our Pasts, Feedforward for Our Futures

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    This chapter begins by pointing out that the behaviourist paradigm that still largely dominates assessment practices conflicts with more progressive understandings of constructivist and sociocultural approaches to learning and teaching. In order to progress assessment in Technology Education, Kay argues for adopting a pedagogic approach to assessment (where both teaching and assessment practices aim to support learning), maintaining authenticity in activities through which assessment is being undertaken, recognising the importance of judgement in valid processes of assessment, and maintaining a focus on equity and the inclusive role of the learner. The chapter also considers the potential affordances of new technologies in assessment. The chapter concludes by pointing out that future developments should support teachers to align learning and assessment. This is to ensure that learners engage in technological practice that makes visible to them and their teachers and assessors the learning that has taken place and the capability that has been developed

    The Role of Published Materials in Curriculum Development and Implementation for Secondary School Design and Technology in England and Wales

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    This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the International Journal of Technology and Design Education. The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com.This paper discusses the ways in which teachers exploited a set of curriculum materials published as a vehicle for curriculum innovation, and the relationship between chosen modes of exploitation and teachers’ own perceptions of how the materials had ’added value’ to their teaching. The materials in question were developed by the Nuffield Design and Technology Project (’the Project’) to offer a pedagogy appropriate to the statutory curriculum for secondary school design and technology education in England and Wales (DFE/WO 1995). The Project had sought both to inform the statutory curriculum, and respond to its requirements. An earlier case study (Givens 1997) laid the foundations for the survey that is reported here. This paper focuses on the teaching of pupils aged 11–14. It finds that while most teachers made at least some use of all the various components of the publications, they were selective. While the Study Guide, which carries out a meta-cognitive dialogue with pupils, was generally underused, those teachers who did use it perceived greater value added by the materials as a whole to the quality of pupils’ work, their effectiveness in design and technology and their autonomy

    Pair suppression caused by mosaic-twist defects in superconducting Sr 2 RuO 4 thin-films prepared using pulsed laser deposition

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    Funder: IBS Institute for Basic Science in Korea Grant No. IBS-R009-D1Abstract: Sr2RuO4 (SRO214) is a prototypical unconventional superconductor. However, since the discovery of its superconductivity a quarter of a century ago, the symmetry of the bulk and surface superconducting states in single crystal SRO214 remains controversial. Solving this problem is massively impeded by the fact that superconducting SRO214 is extremely challenging to achieve in thin-films as structural defects and impurities sensitively annihilate superconductivity. Here we report a protocol for the reliable growth of superconducting SRO214 thin-films by pulsed laser deposition and identify universal materials properties that are destructive to the superconducting state. We demonstrate that careful control of the starting material is essential in order to achieve superconductivity and use a single crystal target of Sr3Ru2O7 (SRO327). By systematically varying the SRO214 film thickness, we identify mosaic twist as the key in-plane defect that suppresses superconductivity. The results are central to the development of unconventional superconductivity

    Commentary: mechanistic considerations for associations between formaldehyde exposure and nasopharyngeal carcinoma

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    Occupational exposure to formaldehyde has been linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma. To date, mechanistic explanations for this association have primarily focused on formaldehyde-induced cytotoxicity, regenerative hyperplasia and DNA damage. However, recent studies broaden the potential mechanisms as it is now well established that formaldehyde dehydrogenase, identical to S-nitrosoglutathione reductase, is an important mediator of cGMP-independent nitric oxide signaling pathways. We have previously described mechanisms by which formaldehyde can influence nitrosothiol homeostasis thereby leading to changes in pulmonary physiology. Considering evidences that nitrosothiols govern the Epstein-Barr virus infection cycle, and that the virus is strongly implicated in the etiology of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, studies are needed to examine the potential for formaldehyde to reactivate the Epstein-Barr virus as well as additively or synergistically interact with the virus to potentiate epithelial cell transformation

    Redefining innovation processes: The digital designers at work

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    As design in digital innovation has become a thing, we highlight the inconclusive concepts that describe design activity in innovation processes. Proposing an alternative theoretical lens - a sociomaterial practice lens - we claim that this view can reveal the contribution of digital designers to the work of innovation. This paper draws on a research study with digital designers in the UK. At the same time as we begin to reconceptualise the ways digital design activity can be described, we also illustrate a theoretical framework based on 1) action and knowing as ordered by collectively produced objects, 2) sociomateriality and the configuration of human bodies and materials in action, 3) the co-emergence of objects and sociomaterial configurations where each is the condition of the other. This alternative way of looking at design activity may pose some challenges to the theoretical traditions in the field. We however believe that it contains immense potential too
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