Formation potential of disinfection by products of 4 water sources after Nanofiltration (NF) and Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) at optimal and sub-optimal conditions

The importance of understanding the impact of different precursor removal treatments on disinfection byproducts (DBP) formation concentrations. This can be elucidated by exploiting the physico-chemical characteristics of NOM in raw water source groups to minimise the formation of DBPs.. Pre-curser technology treatments include coagulation, Ion exchange, Adsorption, membranes biotreatment, ozone and AOPs. Establishing correlations experimentally between different raw water sources, water treatment used and DBP formation, by measuring raw water characteristics at the point before treatment and DBP-FP in the corresponding final water just after treatment using the analytical methods as above and the previously established methods for HAA and THM analysis. Analytical methods for the determination of DBPs from 16 categories are used to determine an extensive range of DBPs, giving a better understanding of the composition of the DBP mixture as a whole. The analytical methods can then be used to determine and compare water treatment technologies under optimal and suboptimal conditions and hence provide operational advice on minimising DBP formation by comparing treatment methods

Liquid Argon Hadronic EndCap Production Database

This document describes the contents of the Liquid Argon Hadronic EndCap (HEC) Production Database. At the time of the PRR (Production Readiness Review), the groups responsible for the production of the LAr HEC components and modules were required to provide a detailed plan as to what data should be stored in the production database and how the data should be accessed, displayed and queried in all reasonable foreseeable circumstances. This document describes the final database

Police officer physical fitness to work: A case for health and fitness training

There is no reference point currently available to the Irish police force (An Garda Síochána) for measurement of baseline physical fitness or for tracking its current members, as no such data exists. Currently there is no defined health and fitness policy or strategy following a trainee Irish police force two year training period. Measurements of the various health-related components of physical fitness have been developed and, in some cases, standardised, with good to excellent accuracy and reliability (American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM, 2011), as physiological measures (as a proxy for actual physical fitness) with predictive accuracy of an individual’s health outcomes better than physical activity recall (Bovet et al., 2007). These measures were utilised within this research to ascertain if there were fitness changes within a group of Irish police force trainees during their period in college training. An improvement was predicted for the trainee group that was at odds with the actual findings. The focus of this particular study is to provide the information to establish if there is a need for mandatory health and fitness testing (while allowing for individual differences) for this unique Irish work force

Liquid Argon HEC Wheel Assembly Database

This document describes the details of the contents of the LAr Hadronic EndCap Wheel Assembly Database. This database contains the important data from the wheel assembly: mechanical alignment, electrical properties, cabling, and a summary of the readout gap failures. This document describes the final database that is intended mainly for archival purposes. This database should be viewed in conjunction with the HEC module production database that describes the modules that form the wheel and the Feedthrough database that describes the signal feedthroughs. This wheel database lists for instance the location of the modules, the amplifiers to which they are connected, and the details of the alignment measurements. It also details all non-conformances. It is important that for all non-conformances, whether they occurred during wheel assembly or in the B180 cold tests, that a single table be produced of all the non-conformances listing the non-conformance in a format suitable for making offline corrections to the data. This non-conformance table will be derived from a set of queries of this database

Statistical and Dynamic Models of Charge Balance Functions

Charge balance functions, which identify balancing particle-antiparticle pairs on a statistical basis, have been shown to be sensitive to whether hadronization is delayed by several fm/c in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Results from two classes of models are presented here, microscopic hadronic models and thermal models. The microscopic models give results which are contrary to recently published pi+pi- balance functions from the STAR collaboration, whereas the thermal model roughly reproduce the experimental results. This suggests that charge conservation is local at breakup, which is in line with expectations for a delayed hadronization. Predictions are also presented for balance functions binned as a function of Q_inv.Comment: 12 pages 6 figure

The challenges of surgical research in children

Trials in children needed</jats:p

Hadronic eta and eta-prime decays

The hadronic decays eta, eta-prime -> 3 pi and eta-prime -> eta pi pi are investigated within the framework of U(3) chiral effective field theory in combination with a relativistic coupled-channels approach. Final state interactions are included by deriving s- and p-wave interaction kernels for meson-meson scattering from the chiral effective Lagrangian and iterating them in a Bethe-Salpeter equation. Very good overall agreement with currently available data on decay widths and spectral shapes is achieved.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures, 8 table

Crizotinib-induced antitumour activity in human alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma cells is not solely dependent on ALK and MET inhibition

BACKGROUND: Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most commonly diagnosed malignant soft tissue tumour in children and adolescents. Aberrant expression of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) and MET gene has been implicated in the malignant progression of RMS, especially in the alveolar subtype. This observation suggests that crizotinib (PF-02341066), a kinase inhibitor against ALK and MET, may have a therapeutic role in RMS, although its antitumour activity in this malignancy has not yet been studied. METHODS: RH4 and RH30 alveolar RMS (ARMS) cell lines were treated with crizotinib and then assessed by using proliferation, viability, migration and colony formation assays. Multiple approaches, including flow cytometry, immunofluorescence, western blotting and siRNA-based knock-down, were used in order to investigate possible molecular mechanisms linked to crizotinib activity. RESULTS: In vitro treatment with crizotinib inhibited ALK and MET proteins, as well as Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 Receptor (IGF1R), with a concomitant robust dephosphorylation of AKT and ERK, two downstream kinases involved in RMS cell proliferation and survival. Exposure to crizotinib impaired cell growth, and accumulation at G2/M phase was attributed to an altered expression and activation of checkpoint regulators, such as Cyclin B1 and Cdc2. Crizotinib was able to induce apoptosis and autophagy in a dose-dependent manner, as shown by caspase-3 activation/PARP proteolytic cleavage down-regulation and by LC3 activation/p62 down-regulation, respectively. The accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) seemed to contribute to crizotinib effects in RH4 and RH30 cells. Moreover, crizotinib-treated RH4 and RH30 cells exhibited a decreased migratory/invasive capacity and clonogenic potential. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide a further insight into the molecular mechanisms affected by crizotinib in ARMS cells inferring that it could be a useful therapeutic tool in ARMS cancer treatment

Method for Reducing Nitrosamines in Tobacco

Nitrosamines are reduces in tobacco by treating a whole tobacco lead with ferulic acid. Treatment is conducted by applying an aqueous solution of ferulic acid to the whole tobacco lead immediately before, at, or after harvesting, or fire curing the whole tobacco lead with wood smoke containing the ferulic acid

Optimising the chick chorioallantoic membrane xenograft model of neuroblastoma for drug delivery

Background Neuroblastoma is a paediatric cancer that despite multimodal therapy still has a poor outcome for many patients with high risk tumours. Retinoic acid (RA) promotes differentiation of some neuroblastoma tumours and cell lines, and is successfully used clinically, supporting the view that differentiation therapy is a promising strategy for treatment of neuroblastoma. To improve treatment of a wider range of tumour types, development and testing of novel differentiation agents is essential. New pre-clinical models are therefore required to test therapies in a rapid cost effective way in order to identify the most useful agents. Methods As a proof of principle, differentiation upon ATRA treatment of two MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma cell lines, IMR32 and BE2C, was measured both in cell cultures and in tumours formed on the chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM). Differentiation was assessed by 1) change in cell morphology, 2) reduction in cell proliferation using Ki67 staining and 3) changes in differentiation markers (STMN4 and ROBO2) and stem cell marker (KLF4). Results were compared to MLN8237, a classical Aurora Kinase A inhibitor. For the in vivo experiments, cells were implanted on the CAM at embryonic day 7 (E7), ATRA treatment was between E11 and E13 and tumours were analysed at E14. Results Treatment of IMR32 and BE2C cells in vitro with 10 μM ATRA resulted in a change in cell morphology, a 65% decrease in cell proliferation, upregulation of STMN4 and ROBO2 and downregulation of KLF4. ATRA proved more effective than MLN8237 in these assays. In vivo, 100 μM ATRA repetitive treatment at E11, E12 and E13 promoted a change in expression of differentiation markers and reduced proliferation by 43% (p < 0.05). 40 μM ATRA treatment at E11 and E13 reduced proliferation by 37% (p < 0.05) and also changed cell morphology within the tumour. Conclusion Differentiation of neuroblastoma tumours formed on the chick CAM can be analysed by changes in cell morphology, proliferation and gene expression. The well-described effects of ATRA on neuroblastoma differentiation were recapitulated within 3 days in the chick embryo model, which therefore offers a rapid, cost effective model compliant with the 3Rs to select promising drugs for further preclinical analysis