The 2010 R-ISEW (regional index of sustainable economic well-being) for all the English regions

This is the fourth consecutive report presenting R-ISEW (regional index of sustainable economic well-being) calculations for the nine Government Office Regions (GORs) of England.1 New data available in the summer of 2010 allows a continuous time series from 1994 to 2008 – 15 years. Because of the nature of the data required for the R-ISEW, there is always a two-year lag before results for any given year can be completed

The 2009 R-ISEW (regional index of sustainable economic well-being) for all the English regions

This latest report presents new data calculated in 2009 for the years 1994–2007. The data, which also includes the updating of several sets of figures that previously had to be estimated for 2006, show that a nine-year increase in the English R-ISEW since 1994, began to peter out in 2003, such that total per capita growth between 2003 and 2007 was only 2.4%. Indeed, between 2005 and 2006, per capita R-ISEW fell slightly

Regional index of sustainable economic well-being development project: final report

This report presents results from a development project carried out by nef (the new economics foundation) on behalf of emda (the East Midlands Development Agency) and Natural England, to improve the methodologies used in the calculation of the R-ISEW (Regional Index of Sustainable Economic Well-Being)

Downregulation of plasma MiR-142-3p and MiR-26a-5p in patients with colorectal carcinoma

Background: Colorectal cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers and cancer- related death worldwide. Identification of new specific biomarkers could be helpful to detection of this malignancy. Altered plasma microRNA expression has been identified in many cancers, including colorectal cancer. Objectives: The main objective of this study was to identify the circulating microRNAs with the most expression changes in colorectal cancer patients compared with neoplasm free healthy individuals. Materials and Methods: MicroRNA expression profiling was performed on plasma samples of 37 colorectal cancer patients and 8 normal subjects using microRNA microarray. Quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was used to validate the two selected altered microR NAs. Plasma samples from 61 colorectal cancer patients and 24 normal subjects were used in our validation study. Results: In profiling study we found a panel of six plasma microRNAs with significant downregulation. MicroRNA-142-3p and microRNA-26a-5p were selected and validated by polymerase chain reaction. Our results demonstrated that expression levels of plasma microRNA-142-3p and microRNA-26a-5p were significantly downregulated in patients with colorectal cancer when compared to control group. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that downregulation of plasma microRNA-142-3p and microRNA-26a-5p might serve as novel noninvasive biomarkers in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer, although more studies are needed to highlight the theoretical strengths. © 2015, Iranian Journal of Cancer Prevention

The root growth of forage grasses at different soil P levels

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Low-Cost Chemical Sensing Platform With Organic Polymer Functionalization

The characteristics of an inexpensive transistor-based chemical sensing platforms with organic polymer, polyaniline (PANI), was investigated in terms of tranconductance, pH sensitivity, and drift properties. The platform consists of a printed circuit board manufactured in a standard manufacturing process and commercial discrete MOSFETs. The platform is funtionalized with PANI by a simple low-cost drop casting. The platform shows low average pH sensitivity of 9.1 mV/pH in the range 4-7 where physiological recognition events take place and as such is a promising candidate for intrinsic charge-based biosensing since PANI is able to directly interact with charged macromolecules such as proteins and DNA. In addition, the PANI functionalized sensors show low nonmonotonic drift and only slightly reduced transconductance compared with the MOSFET counterpart.</p

Aerosol growth in CO2 absorption with MEA, modelling and comparison with experimental results

A new and improved aerosol model has been developed and tested against experimental data. An e-NRTL equilibrium model for MEA was extended to cover sulphuric acid containing droplets and validated against new eboulliometer data in this work. The droplet model predicts emissions without demister installed in the absorber, within ± 20% and with demister, 30-80% of the measured emissions. The model predicts well the change in emissions from NG-based to coal-based exhaust. Under conditions reported in this work, the droplet number concentration was found to have a small effect on predicted emissions because of more MEA gas-phase depletion with high droplet concentrations and slower growth. The effects counteract each other. With significant MEA depletion in the gas phase, the emissions are largely determined by the mass transfer rate from the bulk liquid. The initial droplet sulphuric acid concentration had a minor effect on the outlet droplet size distribution. The effect on MEA emissions was significant: the emissions went up with increased initial sulphuric acid concentration. The effect of sulphuric acid was stronger for low inlet gas CO2 concentration (NG) than for coal-based exhaust. The increase in emissions is believed to be caused by the increase in overall driving force for MEA between bulk liquid phase and droplets. The log-normal model does not catch small inlet droplet sizes in the range below 20-30nm. These droplet sizes hardly grow in the absorber and water wash and in the total emissions, these droplets have a negligible impact on emissions.publishedVersio

CGHpower: exploring sample size calculations for chromosomal copy number experiments

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