Deliberating stratospheric aerosols for climate geoengineering and the SPICE project

Increasing concerns about the narrowing window for averting dangerous climate change have prompted calls for research into geoengineering, alongside dialogue with the public regarding this as a possible response. We report results of the first public engagement study to explore the ethics and acceptability of stratospheric aerosol technology and a proposed field trial (the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) ‘pipe and balloon’ test bed) of components for an aerosol deployment mechanism. Although almost all of our participants were willing to allow the field trial to proceed, very few were comfortable with using stratospheric aerosols. This Perspective also discusses how these findings were used in a responsible innovation process for the SPICE project initiated by the UK’s research councils

The convective storm initiation project

Copyright @ 2007 AMSThe Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP) is an international project to understand precisely where, when, and how convective clouds form and develop into showers in the mainly maritime environment of southern England. A major aim of CSIP is to compare the results of the very high resolution Met Office weather forecasting model with detailed observations of the early stages of convective clouds and to use the newly gained understanding to improve the predictions of the model. A large array of ground-based instruments plus two instrumented aircraft, from the U.K. National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the German Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK), Karlsruhe, were deployed in southern England, over an area centered on the meteorological radars at Chilbolton, during the summers of 2004 and 2005. In addition to a variety of ground-based remote-sensing instruments, numerous rawin-sondes were released at one- to two-hourly intervals from six closely spaced sites. The Met Office weather radar network and Meteosat satellite imagery were used to provide context for the observations made by the instruments deployed during CSIP. This article presents an overview of the CSIP field campaign and examples from CSIP of the types of convective initiation phenomena that are typical in the United Kingdom. It shows the way in which certain kinds of observational data are able to reveal these phenomena and gives an explanation of how the analyses of data from the field campaign will be used in the development of an improved very high resolution NWP model for operational use.This work is funded by the National Environment Research Council following an initial award from the HEFCE Joint Infrastructure Fund

Negative parental responses to coming out and family functioning in a sample of lesbian and gay young adults

Parental responses to youths' coming out (CO) are crucial to the subsequent adjustment of children and family. The present study investigated the negative parental reaction to the disclosure of same-sex attraction and the differences between maternal and paternal responses, as reported by their homosexual daughters and sons. Participants' perceptions of their parents' reactions (evaluated through the Perceived Parental Reactions Scale, PPRS), age at coming out, gender, parental political orientation, and religiosity involvement, the family functioning (assessed through the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales, FACES IV), were assessed in 164 Italian gay and lesbian young adults. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the relation between family functioning and parental reaction to CO. The paired sample t-test was used to compare mothers and fathers' scores on the PPRS. Hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to analyze the relevance of each variable. No differences were found between mothers and fathers in their reaction to the disclosure. The analysis showed that a negative reaction to coming out was predicted by parents' right-wing political conservatism, strong religious beliefs, and higher scores in the scales Rigid and Enmeshed. Findings confirm that a negative parental reaction is the result of poor family resources to face a stressful situation and a strong belief in traditional values. These results have important implications in both clinical and social fields

A review of assessment methods for river hydromorphology

The work leading to this paper has received funding for the EU’s FP7 under Grant Agreement No. 282656 (REFORM

Cleanup of industrial effluents containing heavy metals : a new opportunity of valorising the biomass produced by brewing industry

Heavy metal pollution is a matter of concern in industrialised countries. Contrary to organic pollutants, heavy metals are not metabolically degraded. This fact has two main consequences: its bioremediation requires another strategy and heavy metals can be indefinitely recycled. Yeast cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae are produced at high amounts as a by-product of brewing industry constituting a cheap raw material. In the present work, the possibility of valorising this type of biomass in the bioremediation of real industrial effluents containing heavy metals is reviewed. Given the auto-aggregation capacity (flocculation) of brewing yeast cells, a fast and off-cost yeast separation is achieved after the treatment of metal-laden effluent, which reduces the costs associated with the process. This is a critical issue when we are looking for an effective, eco-friendly, and low-cost technology. The possibility of the bioremediation of industrial effluents linked with the selective recovery of metals, in a strategy of simultaneous minimisation of environmental hazard of industrial wastes with financial benefits from reselling or recycling the metals, is discussed

Knowledge brokering: Exploring the process of transferring knowledge into action

There are many theories about knowledge transfer but there are few clear descriptions of knowledge transfer interventions or the processes they involve. This failure to characterise structure and process in proposed KT interventions is a major barrier to the design and implementation of evaluations of particular KT strategies. This study is designed to provide a detailed description of the processes involved in a knowledge transfer intervention and to develop and refine a useful model of the knowledge transfer process

Intensive disc-reverberation mapping of Fairall 9: 1st year of Swift & LCO monitoring

We present results of time-series analysis of the first year of the Fairall 9 intensive disc-reverberation campaign. We used Swift and the Las Cumbres Observatory global telescope network to continuously monitor Fairall 9 from X-rays to near-infrared at a daily to sub-daily cadence. The cross-correlation function between bands provides evidence for a lag spectrum consistent with the $\tau\propto\lambda^{4/3}$ scaling expected for an optically thick, geometrically thin blackbody accretion disc. Decomposing the flux into constant and variable components, the variable component's spectral energy distribution is slightly steeper than the standard accretion disc prediction. We find evidence at the Balmer edge in both the lag and flux spectra for an additional bound-free continuum contribution that may arise from reprocessing in the broad-line region. The inferred driving light curve suggests two distinct components, a rapidly variable ($100$ days) component with an opposite lag to the reverberation signal

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Histidine Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry for Probing the Microenvironment of Histidine Residues in Dihydrofolate Reductase

Histidine Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (His-HDX-MS) determines the HDX rates at the imidazole C(2)-hydrogen of histidine residues. This method provides not only the HDX rates but also the pK(a) values of histidine imidazole rings. His-HDX-MS was used to probe the microenvironment of histidine residues of E. coli dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), an enzyme proposed to undergo multiple conformational changes during catalysis.Using His-HDX-MS, the pK(a) values and the half-lives (t(1/2)) of HDX reactions of five histidine residues of apo-DHFR, DHFR in complex with methotrexate (DHFR-MTX), DHFR in complex with MTX and NADPH (DHFR-MTX-NADPH), and DHFR in complex with folate and NADP+ (DHFR-folate-NADP+) were determined. The results showed that the two parameters (pK(a) and t(1/2)) are sensitive to the changes of the microenvironment around the histidine residues. Although four of the five histidine residues are located far from the active site, ligand binding affected their pK(a), t(1/2) or both. This is consistent with previous observations of ligand binding-induced distal conformational changes on DHFR. Most of the observed pK(a) and t(1/2) changes could be rationalized using the X-ray structures of apo-DHFR, DHFR-MTX-NADPH, and DHFR-folate-NADP+. The availability of the neutron diffraction structure of DHFR-MTX enabled us to compare the protonation states of histidine imidazole rings.Our results demonstrate the usefulness of His-HDX-MS in probing the microenvironments of histidine residues within proteins

Significant associations of PAI-1 genetic polymorphisms with osteonecrosis of the femoral head

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The pathogenesis of osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) has been implicated in hypofibrinolysis and blood supply interruption. Previous studies have demonstrated that decreased fibrinolytic activity due to elevated plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) levels correlates with ONFH pathogenesis. The -675 4G/5G single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP rs1799889) in the PAI-1 gene promoter is associated with PAI-1 plasma level. We investigated whether rs1799889 and two other SNPs of the PAI-1 gene (rs2227631, -844 G/A in the promoter; rs11178, +10700 C/T in the 3'UTR) are associated with increased ONFH risk.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Three SNPs in PAI-1 were genotyped in 206 ONFH patients and 251 control subjects, using direct sequencing and a TaqMan^®5' allelic discrimination assay. We performed association analysis for genotyped SNPs and haplotypes with ONFH.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The 4G allele of rs1799889, A allele of rs2227631, and C allele of rs11178 were significantly associated with increased ONFH risk (p = 0.03, p = 0.003, and p = 0.002, respectively). When we divided the population according to gender, an association between the three SNPs and increased risk of ONFH was found only in men. In another subgroup analysis based on the etiology of ONFH, rs2227631 (A allele) and rs11178 (C allele) in the idiopathic subgroup (p = 0.007 and p = 0.021) and rs1799889 (4G allele) and rs11178 (C allele) in the alcohol-induced subgroup (p = 0.042 and p = 0.015) were associated with increased risk of ONFH. In addition, a certain haplotype (A-4G-C) of PAI-1 was also significantly associated with ONFH (p < 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings demonstrated that three SNPs (rs1799889, rs2227631, and rs11178) of the PAI-1 gene were associated with ONFH risk. This study also suggests that PAI-1 SNPs may play an important role in ONFH.</p