The Regional Impact of Heritage Railways

Dotted across Europe can be found a large number of heritage railways and museums, the remnants of former elaborate railway networks bypassed by industrial and economic change. In the past, upon such railways depended industrial development and the economy’s secondary sector. Today, having lost their primary transportation function, they represent for many a remote area a key tourist attraction, the mainstay of the local tertiary sector. Most lie in regions that have undergone significant change in their productive profile, with wide de-industrialisation and its concomitant population loss explaining the original network’s demise. As they are visited by a total of around 20 million people a year, almost twice the annual visitor intake of Disneyland Paris, they merit some attention in terms of their impact on regional development.This paper attempts to present a methodology for assessing the quantifiable impacts of heritage railways and museums on local economies and the findings of a research project in which it has been applied and tested. Issues, such as investment on the railway and in allied sectors, income and employment generation, the dissemination and (often) re-appropriation by local communities of traditional skills, the social function of heritage railways as providers of state-assisted youth training scheme job opportunities, etc., are examined in the light of their repercussions on regional development. It also endeavours to gauge the significance of non-quantifiable elements, such as the sense of pride accruing to a local community in touch with the relics of its industrial and transport past, the advantageous ‘local distinctiveness’ characterising localities possessing a heritage railway, and perhaps, for some, the mystique of old trains, the symbolic power of steam, still mesmerising ‘The Railway Children’. The paper shows that heritage railways can perform most potently in their role as tourist attraction if their offer to visitors is combined with that of other local tourist assets, such as industrial archaeology sites, natural beauty spots, etc., in the provision of an integrated visitor package. Their immersion in communities, both as local heritage and present-day specialist, traditional skills, employer, further ensures the sustainable character of their contribution to regional development.

Adaptive Multi-Channel Offset Assignment for Reliable IEEE 802.15.4 TSCH Networks

International audienceMore and more IoT applications require low-power operations and high reliability (close to 100%). Unfortunately, radio transmissions are unreliable by nature since they are prone to collision and external interference. The IEEE 802.15.4-2015 TSCH standard has been recently proposed to provide high-reliability through radio channel hopping and by appropriately scheduling all the transmissions. Since some of the radio channels still suffer from external interference, blacklisting techniques consist in detecting bad radio channels, and in privileging the good ones to transmit the packets. MABO-TSCH is a centralized scheduling algorithm which allocates several channel offsets to allow each radio link to apply a localized blacklist. However, such strategy is inefficient for large blacklists. In this study, we propose to allocate the channel offsets dynamically at each timeslot according to the number of parallel transmissions, while still avoiding collisions. We evaluate the performance of our solution relying on a real experimental dataset, highlighting the relevance of dynamic and per timeslot channel offset assignment for environments with high external interference, such as a smart building

Angiogenic Factor Expression in Hepatic Cirrhosis

The pathogenesis of fibrosis in hepatic cirrhosis remains obscure. This study examines the eventual role of angiogenic factors in the fibrotic process. A series of 55 cirrhotic livers was studied for the proliferation state of fibroblasts, and the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), thymidine phosphorylase (TP) and the basic and acidic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF, aFGF) in both fibroblasts and hepatic cells. The angiogenic and/or fibrogenic factors VEGF, TP, bFGF, and aFGF were clearly expressed in regenerative hepatocytes, but not in fibroblasts of diffuse hepatic fibrosis. The immunohistochemical findings suggest that angiogenic factors and factors promoting oxidative stress (i.e., TP) produced by hepatocytes may contribute to the development of fibrous bands in hepatic cirrhosis

Decompression sickness related to breath-hold diving: A case report

Despite the increasing diving activity, the risk of suffering from decompression sickness after breath-hold diving is often not acknowledged.This case shows that repetitive breath-hold dives, particularly the deep ones with short time of surface intervals, may trigger the appearance of decompression sickness that usually involves the central nervous system

Morphological Changes of Gingiva in Streptozotocin Diabetic Rats

Gingivitis and periodontitis are chronic bacterial diseases of the underlying and surrounding tooth tissues. Diabetes mellitus is responsible for tooth deprivation both by decay and periodontal disease. The streptozotocin-induced diabetes results in a diabetic status in experimental animals similar to that observed in diabetes patients. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the gingival lesions and the microangiopathy changes in streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus. Forty male Wistar rats were divided into two groups (control and experimental). Diabetes mellitus was induced by 45 mg/kg IV streptozotocin. The histological investigation of the marginal gingival and the relevant gingival papilla showed inflammation of the lamina propria and the squamous epithelium as well as marked thickness of the arteriole in the diabetic group, but no changes were observed in the control group. The results suggested a probable application of a routine gingival histological investigation in diabetic patients in order to control the progress of disease complications. It may be concluded that histological gingival investigation can be used as a routine assay for the control of the diabetic disease and prevention of its complications

Hyperbaric oxygen treatment of intractable ulcers in a systemic sclerosis patient

Development of ischemic ulcers is a major clinical manifestation of systemic sclerosis (SSc). The management of these ulcers is often difficult despite the variety of the therapeutic approaches that are used.This report presents a case of intractable ulcers in a patient with SSc, successfully treated with Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment

A mobility-supporting MAC scheme for bursty traffic in IoT and WSNs

International audienceRecent boom of mobile applications has become an essential class of mobile Internet of Things (IoT), whereby large amounts of sensed data are collected and shared by mobile sensing devices for observing phenomena such as traffic or the environmental. Currently, most of the proposed Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols mainly focus on static networks. However, mobile sensor nodes may pose many communication challenges during the design and development of a MAC protocol. These difficulties first require an efficient connection establishment between a mobile and static node, and then an efficient data packet transmissions. In this study, we propose MobIQ, an advanced mobility-handling MAC scheme for low-power MAC protocols, which achieves for efficient neighbour(hood) discovery and low-delay communication. Our thorough performance evaluation, conducted on top of Contiki OS, shows that MobIQ outperforms state-of-the-art solutions such as MoX-MAC, MOBINET and ME-ContikiMAC, in terms of significantly reducing delay, contention to the medium and energy consumption

IL-33/ST2 Axis in Organ Fibrosis

Interleukin 33 (IL-33) is highly expressed in barrier sites, acting via the suppression of tumorigenicity 2 receptor (ST2). IL-33/ST2 axis has long been known to play a pivotal role in immunity and cell homeostasis by promoting wound healing and tissue repair. However, it is also involved in the loss of balance between extensive inflammation and tissue regeneration lead to remodeling, the hallmark of fibrosis. The aim of the current review is to critically evaluate the available evidence regarding the role of the IL-33/ST2 axis in organ fibrosis. The role of the axis in tissue remodeling is better understood considering its crucial role reported in organ development and regeneration. Generally, the IL-33/ST2 signaling pathway has mainly anti-inflammatory/anti-proliferative effects; however, chronic tissue injury is responsible for pro-fibrogenetic responses. Regarding pulmonary fibrosis mature IL-33 enhances pro-fibrogenic type 2 cytokine production in an ST2- and macrophage-dependent manner, while full-length IL-33 is also implicated in the pulmonary fibrotic process in an ST2-independent, Th2-independent fashion. In liver fibrosis, evidence indicate that when acute and massive liver damage occurs, the release of IL-33 might act as an activator of tissue-protective mechanisms, while in cases of chronic injury IL-33 plays the role of a hepatic fibrotic factor. IL-33 signaling has also been involved in the pathogenesis of acute and chronic pancreatitis. Moreover, IL-33 could be used as an early marker for ulcer-associated activated fibroblasts and myofibroblast trans-differentiation; thus one cannot rule out its potential role in inflammatory bowel disease-associated fibrosis. Similarly, the upregulation of the IL-33/ST2 axismay contribute to tubular cell injury and fibrosis via epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) of various cell types in the kidneys. Of note, IL-33 exerts a cardioprotective role via ST2 signaling, while soluble ST2 has been demonstrated as a marker of myocardial fibrosis. Finally, IL-33 is a crucial cytokine in skin pathology responsible for abnormal fibroblast proliferation, leukocyte infiltration and morphologic differentiation of human endothelial cells. Overall, emerging data support a novel contribution of the IL-33/ST2 pathway in tissue fibrosis and highlight the significant role of the Th2 pattern of immune response in the pathophysiology of organ fibrosis