A Building Stone Assessment of sandstone in Iona Nunnery and at Carsaig quarry on Mull

This report presents the outcomes of a project commissioned by Historic Scotland to determine, using a combination of archival records and geological evidence, whether blocks of sandstone in Iona Nunnery (a Scheduled Monument on the island of Iona) came from Carsaig quarry (a long-disused quarry on the south coast of Mull). The report also considers the feasibility of sourcing new stone to use in future repairs to the nunnery from Carsaig quarry and from the remains of nearby Carsaig pier. Details of the most suitable commercially available stones from elsewhere in the UK are also provided, should it prove not possible or not practical to obtain new stone from Carsaig quarry or Carsaig pier

A building stone assessment of The Engine Shed, Stirling

This report describes the outcomes of a project commissioned by Historic Scotland to identify suitable stone to use in forthcoming repairs to the building known as The Engine Shed, in Stirling, which will become Historic Scotland’s National Conservation Centre. A Building Stone Assessment has been conducted on three samples of sandstone supplied by Historic Scotland – two from different parts of The Engine Shed and one from the recently demolished Seaforth Place Bridge in Stirling – with a view to assessing whether stone recovered from the demolished bridge could be considered amongst the closest-matching currently available stones and therefore a suitable replacement stone. This assessment has shown that stone from the bridge is amongst the closest-matching stones, and should provide a good replacement stone for walling and copestones in The Engine Shed provided weathered stone is first removed from the recycled blocks and any blocks required to perform a load-bearing function are subjected to a geotechnical test to confirm they are sufficiently strong. Drumhead sandstone, which is currently quarried near Denny, should also provide a good replacement stone

Phylogeny and taxonomic synopsis of Poa subgenus Pseudopoa (including Eremopoa and Lindbergella) (Poaceae, Poeae, Poinae)

Eremopoa is a small genus of annual grasses distributed from Egypt to western China. Phylogenetic analyses of plastid and nuclear ribosomal DNA show that Eremopoa species, together with the monotypic genus Lindbergella and a single species of Poa (P. speluncarum), are nested within the genus Poa, in a clade that we accept as Poa subg. Pseudopoa. Here we accept seven species, four subspecies and four varieties in Poa subg. Pseudopoa. Five new combinations are made: Poa attalica, P. diaphora var. alpina, P. diaphora var. songarica, P. nephelochloides and P. persica subsp. multiradiata; P. millii is proposed as a replacement name for E. capillaris; and Poa sections Lindbergella and Speluncarae are proposed. We provide a diagnosis for Poa subg. Pseudopoa, synonymy for and a key to the taxa. Eight lectotypes are designated: Eragrostis barbeyi Post, Eremopoa nephelochloides Roshev., Glyceria taurica Steud., Nephelochloa tripolitana Boiss. & Blanche, Poa cilicensis Hance, Poa paradoxa Kar. & Kir., Poa persica var. alpina Boiss and Poa persica subsp. cypria Sam. Eremopoa medica is re-identified as a species of Puccinellia. © Lynn J. Gillespie et al.Canadian Museum of Nature; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERCWe thank the curators and staff at the following herbaria for loans and/or specimen images: E, G, BEI, BM, B, K, LE, P, US, ANK, ISTE, NKU and W. Ralf Hand kindly sent us leaf material and a duplicate of Lindbergella sintenisii from Cyprus; Mostafa Assadi and Mohammad Amini-Rad kindly sent leaf material from Iran from the TARI and IRAN herbaria. Nada Sinno Saoud kindly provided an image of Eragrostis barbeyi from the Post herbarium (BEI). We thank Roger Bull for assistance with the molecular research and Paul Peterson, Stephen Wagstaff and Clifford Morden for their helpful reviews. Part of the molecular study was performed by NA as part of her Masters thesis at the University of Ottawa and Canadian Museum of Nature. LJG acknowledges the support of the Canadian Museum of Nature and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Multiple verification in computational modeling of bone pathologies

We introduce a model checking approach to diagnose the emerging of bone pathologies. The implementation of a new model of bone remodeling in PRISM has led to an interesting characterization of osteoporosis as a defective bone remodeling dynamics with respect to other bone pathologies. Our approach allows to derive three types of model checking-based diagnostic estimators. The first diagnostic measure focuses on the level of bone mineral density, which is currently used in medical practice. In addition, we have introduced a novel diagnostic estimator which uses the full patient clinical record, here simulated using the modeling framework. This estimator detects rapid (months) negative changes in bone mineral density. Independently of the actual bone mineral density, when the decrease occurs rapidly it is important to alarm the patient and monitor him/her more closely to detect insurgence of other bone co-morbidities. A third estimator takes into account the variance of the bone density, which could address the investigation of metabolic syndromes, diabetes and cancer. Our implementation could make use of different logical combinations of these statistical estimators and could incorporate other biomarkers for other systemic co-morbidities (for example diabetes and thalassemia). We are delighted to report that the combination of stochastic modeling with formal methods motivate new diagnostic framework for complex pathologies. In particular our approach takes into consideration important properties of biosystems such as multiscale and self-adaptiveness. The multi-diagnosis could be further expanded, inching towards the complexity of human diseases. Finally, we briefly introduce self-adaptiveness in formal methods which is a key property in the regulative mechanisms of biological systems and well known in other mathematical and engineering areas.Comment: In Proceedings CompMod 2011, arXiv:1109.104

Grain Surface Models and Data for Astrochemistry

AbstractThe cross-disciplinary field of astrochemistry exists to understand the formation, destruction, and survival of molecules in astrophysical environments. Molecules in space are synthesized via a large variety of gas-phase reactions, and reactions on dust-grain surfaces, where the surface acts as a catalyst. A broad consensus has been reached in the astrochemistry community on how to suitably treat gas-phase processes in models, and also on how to present the necessary reaction data in databases; however, no such consensus has yet been reached for grain-surface processes. A team of ∼25 experts covering observational, laboratory and theoretical (astro)chemistry met in summer of 2014 at the Lorentz Center in Leiden with the aim to provide solutions for this problem and to review the current state-of-the-art of grain surface models, both in terms of technical implementation into models as well as the most up-to-date information available from experiments and chemical computations. This review builds on the results of this workshop and gives an outlook for future directions

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine design enabled by prototype pathogen preparedness

A vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is needed to control the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic. Structural studies have led to the development of mutations that stabilize Betacoronavirus spike proteins in the prefusion state, improving their expression and increasing immunogenicity1. This principle has been applied to design mRNA-1273, an mRNA vaccine that encodes a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that is stabilized in the prefusion conformation. Here we show that mRNA-1273 induces potent neutralizing antibody responses to both wild-type (D614) and D614G mutant2 SARS-CoV-2 as well as CD8+ T cell responses, and protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the lungs and noses of mice without evidence of immunopathology. mRNA-1273 is currently in a phase III trial to evaluate its efficacy

Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study

A41 Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study In: Addiction Science & Clinical Practice 2017, 12(Suppl 1): A4