Utility Coordination Deliverables and How to Get There

From certification letters to special provisions, expectations of the utility coordination process are ever evolving. We would like to focus on the timing of when those deliverables should be submitted to limit the risk of letting exceptions. In our interactive session, we will also touch on how utility coordination affects the delivery of right-of-way, environmental, and time-set

Integrating Project Delivery - Design, ROW, and Utilities

Utilities and ROW acquisition are two of the three most common critical path items for project delivery. Successful project teams build an awareness of these two processes early and strategically in their project. This interactive session focuses on improving reliability in project delivery by integrating a utility conflict management approach into design and project management, identifying when and how to use advanced utility investigations, and where ROW and utility coordination efforts strategically intersect

Electrostatic Stabilisation of Drop on Demand Bio‐Ink through the Cationic Encapsulation of Cells

The ability to formulate bioprinting inks in which suspensions of cells and other biological materials can be maintained, without affecting biological response, is crucial in producing robust printing strategies for tissue fabrication. A piezoelectrically actuated drop‐on‐demand printing system has been used to deposit electrostatically stabilised cells from a human osteosarcoma cell line (U2OS). Experiments were intended to investigate the effectiveness of a polyelectrolyte cell encapsulant to maintain cell dispersion within a bio ink. Cells were coated with a number of thicknesses of a Cationic Poly‐l‐lysine (PLL) encapsulant and their ability to release studied over 7 days, with the thinner coatings proving to be more favourable. Printing of both coated and uncoated cells indicated the dispersion and printability of coated cells was significantly better than that of uncoated cells. Preliminary results suggest that electrostatic stabilisation of bio inks could provide a solution to cell aggregation, increasing viable printing time and decreasing poor yields due to orifice obstruction.Mechanical Engineerin

Design Memo 16-04: Designer Summary of Required Utility Relocations - Project Design and Utility Summary

This session covers the effective use of all the tools necessary to understand the intent and application of the design memo requirement for designers, utility coordinators, and project managers. We will share candid experiences from consultant and project-owner perspectives. Understanding who owns the real risk of utility location data, going beyond 811, design flexibility options, subsurface utility engineering (SUE), constructability, and developing partnerships with each utility are essential elements in meeting this requirement

Novel properties of hnRNP-UL1: its possible role in the pathogenesis of ALS

Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein-U like 1 (hnRNP-UL1) is a protein with numerous roles within the cell, including RNA processing and responses to DNA damage. Within this study two novel aspects of the protein are explored: the role of a putative nucleotide-binding domain and the protein's possible involvement in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). hnRNP-UL1 is known to have a putative nucleotide-binding domain within its central region containing both a Walker A and Walker B motif. This region had not been investigated previously and was therefore of great interest in this study. The Walker A motif was shown to bind adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and the region appears to possess protein kinase activity. A biological substrate and function for these activities were not established, but these observations suggest that there are still layers of complexity to hnRNP-UL1's cellular roles to be elucidated. ALS is a late-onset neurodegenerative disease with limited treatment strategies and poor patient outcomes. Many of the proteins involved in its pathogenesis have two properties in common: they have roles in RNA-processing and possess prion-like domains (PrLDs). The properties of hnRNP-UL1 appertain to both of these and therefore it was of great interest when ALS patients were discovered with heterozygous hnRNP-UL1 mutations. Results showed that cells possessing the ALS patient mutations (R639C and R468C) had no DNA damage response (DDR) defects or mislocalisation of the protein, but their ssDNA/RNA-binding capability was markedly reduced. Whilst no direct causative links to ALS pathogenesis were shown with the hnRNP-UL1 patient mutations in this study, growing evidence implies good reason for the protein to have involvement in the disease

Plane of nutrition affects the phylogenetic diversity and relative abundance of transcriptionally active methanogens in the bovine rumen

peer-reviewedMethane generated during enteric fermentation in ruminant livestock species is a major contributor to global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. A period of moderate feed restriction followed by ad libitum access to feed is widely applied in cattle management to exploit the animal’s compensatory growth potential and reduce feed costs. In the present study, we utilised microbial RNA from rumen digesta samples to assess the phylogenetic diversity of transcriptionally active methanogens from feed-restricted and non-restricted animals. To determine the contribution of different rumen methanogens to methanogenesis during dietary restriction of cattle, we conducted high-throughput mcrA cDNA amplicon sequencing on an Illumina MiSeq and analysed both the abundance and phylogenetic origin of different mcrA cDNA sequences. When compared to their unrestricted contemporaries, in feed-restricted animals, the methanogenic activity, based on mcrA transcript abundance, of Methanobrevibacter gottschalkii clade increased while the methanogenic activity of the Methanobrevibacter ruminantium clade and members of the Methanomassiliicoccaceae family decreased. This study shows that the quantity of feed consumed can evoke large effects on the composition of methanogenically active species in the rumen of cattle. These data potentially have major implications for targeted CH4 mitigation approaches such as anti-methanogen vaccines and/or tailored dietary management

Nanostructure Scaling in Semi-Dilute Triblock Copolymer Gels

There is a considerable body of work that describes the scaling of diblock copolymer micelle dimensions in dilute and semi-dilute solution based upon block degrees of polymerization and copolymer concentration. However, there is a lack of analogous information for semi-dilute ABA triblock copolymer gels, which consist of ABA triblock copolymer dissolved in midblock-selective (B-selective) solvent. The present study uses small angle X-ray scattering to extract micelle dimensions for numerous triblock copolymer gels that vary in copolymer identity (and hence block lengths) and copolymer concentration, as well as gels that contain various ratios of two unique triblock copolymers. Analysis of micelle structural data subsequently translates to universal scaling expressions for the micelle core radius – rA ≈ NA0.53NB−0.14ϕABA0.16 where NA and NB are the endblock and midblock degrees of polymerization, respectively, and ϕABA is the volume fraction of triblock copolymer in the gel – and for the intermicelle spacing – lAA ≈ NA0.09NB0.29ϕABA−0.35. Each scaling expression describes the full collection of experimental data very well. Additionally, these scaling expressions are partially in line with expectations from semi-dilute diblock copolymer solution theory