Discovering Knitting at the Regent Street Polytechnic, 1898‐1948

The archive concerning the development and activities of the Regent Street Polytechnic held at the University of Westminster, London is an especially rich source of information concerning knitting, its changing status as craft, leisure activity, charitable work, and morale booster. Charting knitting's role in both world wars, the Boer War, and as a vital mainstay of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, the text provides a unique insight into the spaces occupied by knitting within an educational institution and how it provided a voice and increased instrumentality for women within that establishment at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries

Assessing the genetic diversity of rice originating from Bangladesh, Assam and West Bengal

Acknowledgements This work was funded by BBSRC research project BB/J00336/1. FS and a part of the proportion of the cost of the Illumina genotyping was funded by a Beachell-Borlag International Fellowship. The authors would like to acknowledge the help of Dr MK Sarmah in collecting seed samples of the landraces and improved cultivars from Assam used in this study and Dr. Ma. Elizabeth B. Naredo and Ms. Sheila Mae Q. Mercado for handling of IRGC accessions and preparation of DNAs for genotyping. All rice seeds used here were obtained with MTA agreements and seed and dry leaves imported into the UK under import licence IMP⁄SOIL⁄18⁄2009 issued by Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The transformation of earth-system observations into information of socio-economic value in GEOSS

The Group on Earth Observations System of Systems, GEOSS, is a co-ordinated initiative by many nations to address the needs for earth-system information expressed by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. We discuss the role of earth-system modelling and data assimilation in transforming earth-system observations into the predictive and status-assessment products required by GEOSS, across many areas of socio-economic interest. First we review recent gains in the predictive skill of operational global earth-system models, on time-scales of days to several seasons. We then discuss recent work to develop from the global predictions a diverse set of end-user applications which can meet GEOSS requirements for information of socio-economic benefit; examples include forecasts of coastal storm surges, floods in large river basins, seasonal crop yield forecasts and seasonal lead-time alerts for malaria epidemics. We note ongoing efforts to extend operational earth-system modelling and assimilation capabilities to atmospheric composition, in support of improved services for air-quality forecasts and for treaty assessment. We next sketch likely GEOSS observational requirements in the coming decades. In concluding, we reflect on the cost of earth observations relative to the modest cost of transforming the observations into information of socio-economic value

The Genotype of Early-Transmitting HIV gp120s Promotes α4β7 –Reactivity, Revealing α4β7+/CD4+ T cells As Key Targets in Mucosal Transmission

Mucosal transmission of HIV is inefficient. The virus must breach physical barriers before it infects mucosal CD4+ T cells. Low-level viral replication occurs initially in mucosal CD4+ T cells, but within days high-level replication occurs in Peyer's patches, the gut lamina propria and mesenteric lymph nodes. Understanding the early events in HIV transmission may provide valuable information relevant to the development of an HIV vaccine. The viral quasispecies in a donor contracts through a genetic bottleneck in the recipient, such that, in low-risk settings, infection is frequently established by a single founder virus. Early-transmitting viruses in subtypes A and C mucosal transmission tend to encode gp120s with reduced numbers of N-linked glycosylation sites at specific positions throughout the V1-V4 domains, relative to typical chronically replicating isolates in the donor quasispecies. The transmission advantage gained by the absence of these N-linked glycosylation sites is unknown. Using primary α4β7+/CD4+ T cells and a flow-cytometry based steady-state binding assay we show that the removal of transmission-associated N-linked glycosylation sites results in large increases in the specific reactivity of gp120 for integrin- α4β7. High-affinity for integrin α4β7, although not found in many gp120s, was observed in early-transmitting gp120s that we analyzed. Increased α4β7 affinity is mediated by sequences encoded in gp120 V1/V2. α4β7-reactivity was also influenced by N-linked glycosylation sites located in C3/V4. These results suggest that the genetic bottleneck that occurs after transmission may frequently involve a relative requirement for the productive infection of α4β7+/CD4+ T cells. Early-transmitting gp120s were further distinguished by their dependence on avidity-effects to interact with CD4, suggesting that these gp120s bear unusual structural features not present in many well-characterized gp120s derived from chronically replicating viruses. Understanding the structural features that characterize early-transmitting gp120s may aid in the design of an effective gp120-based subunit vaccine

Mechanistic modeling to predict titers and infected cells in the two-stage continuous production of a viral vaccine

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Pulsed plasma physical vapour deposition approach towards the facile synthesis of multilayer and monolayer graphene for anticoagulation applications

We demonstrate the growth of multilayer and single layer graphene on copper foil using bipolar pulsed direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering of a graphite target in pure Ar atmosphere. Single layer and few layer graphene films (SG and FLG) are deposited at temperatures ranging from 700-920 °C in less than 30 minutes. We find that the deposition and post-deposition annealing temperatures influence the layer thickness and quality of the graphene films formed. The films were characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and optical transmission spectroscopy techniques. Based on the above studies, a diffusion controlled mechanism was proposed for the graphene growth. A single step whole blood assay was used to investigate the anticoagulant activity of graphene surfaces. Platelet adhesion, activation and morphological changes on the graphene/glass surfaces compared to bare glass were analysed using fluorescence microscopy and SEM techniques. We have found significant suppression of the platelet adhesion, activation and aggregation on the graphene covered surfaces compared to the bare glass, indicating the anticoagulant activity of the deposited graphene films. Our production technique represents an industrially relevant method for the growth of single and few layer graphene for various applications including the biomedical field

Genome Wide Association mapping of grain and straw biomass traits in the rice Bengal and Assam Aus Panel (BAAP) grown under alternate wetting and drying and permanently flooded irrigation

The bulk of this work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council mostly from project BB/J003336/1 while a small part of the work by AT was also supported by project BB/N013492/1 (NEWS-India-UK). PR-a is studying for a Ph.D. funded by the Thai Government.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Age-period-cohort analysis of trends in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis incidence

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with an unknown cause. Studies have reported that the incidence rate of ALS might be changing. As ALS is an age related disease, crude incidence could increase as population structure changes and overall life expectancy improves. Age-period-cohort (APC) models are frequently used to investigate trends in demographic rates such as incidence. Age-specific incidence rate for ALS from 1996 to 2014 were taken from a population-based ALS register in Ireland. To circumvent the well-known identifiability issue in APC models, we apply the method of Partial Least Squares Regression to separate the effects of Age, Period and Cohort on ALS incidence over time. This APC analysis shows no cohort effect and the initial signs of a period effect; increasing incidence of ALS in the most recently diagnosed group. As further years of data accrue to the Irish register it will become clear if this effect emerges as a strong trend in the incidence of ALS in Ireland and replication of these analyses in other populations will show if our findings on temporal patterns in ALS incidence are shared elsewhere

BronchUK:protocol for an observational cohort study and biobank in bronchiectasis

Bronchiectasis has been a largely overlooked disease area in respiratory medicine. This is reflected by a shortage of large-scale studies and lack of approved therapies, in turn leading to a variation of treatment across centres. BronchUK (Bronchiectasis Observational Cohort and Biobank UK) is a multicentre, prospective, observational cohort study working collaboratively with the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration project. The inclusion criteria for patients entering the study are a clinical history consistent with bronchiectasis and computed tomography demonstrating bronchiectasis. Main exclusion criteria are 1) patients unable to provide informed consent, 2) bronchiectasis due to known cystic fibrosis or where bronchiectasis is not the main or co-dominant respiratory disease, 3) age <18 years, and 4) prior lung transplantation for bronchiectasis. The study is aligned to standard UK National Health Service (NHS) practice with an aim to recruit a minimum of 1500 patients from across at least nine secondary care centres. Patient data collected at baseline includes demographics, aetiology testing, comorbidities, lung function, radiology, treatments, microbiology and quality of life. Patients are followed up annually for a maximum of 5 years and, where able, blood and/or sputa samples are collected and stored in a central biobank. BronchUK aims to collect robust longitudinal data that can be used for analysis into current NHS practice and patient outcomes, and to become an integral resource to better inform future interventional studies in bronchiectasis

British signals intelligence and the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland

Historians for decades have placed Room 40, the First World War British naval signals intelligence organization, at the centre of narratives about the British anticipation of and response to the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916. A series of crucial decrypts of telegrams between the German embassy in Washington and Berlin, it has been believed, provided significant advance intelligence about the Rising before it took place. This article upends previous accounts by demonstrating that Room 40 possessed far less advance knowledge about the Rising than has been believed, with most of the supposedly key decrypts not being generated until months after the Rising had taken place