The Water Poverty Index: an International Comparison

This paper reports on the construction of an International Water Poverty Index, part of the first phase of a research project into building a locally based version of the index. The purpose of the Water Poverty Index is to express an interdisciplinary measure which links household welfare with water availability and indicates the degree to which water scarcity impacts on human populations. Such an index makes it possible to rank countries and communities within countries taking into account both physical and socio-economic factors associated with water scarcity. This enables national and international organisations concerned with water provision and management to monitor both the resources available and the socio-economic factors which impact on access and use of those resources. This paper presents details of the methodology used and the results obtained for 140 countries covering measures of resources, access, capacity, use and environment.Indicators, water, environment, water poverty, income poverty

MODELS OF OXIDATIVE STRESS INDUCED BY DISEASE OR POLLUTION IN INVERTEBRATES AND VERTEBRATES

Glutathione and its related enzymes have a central role in the antioxidant mechanisms of both invertebrates and vertebrates. Evidence suggests that changes in antioxidant defence mechanisms are associated with the late complications of diabetes. In addition, invertebrates show changes in antioxidant mechanisms in response to contamination; these changes have the potential to be utilised in the environmental monitoring of pollution. The present study investigated the role of glutathione and its related enzymes with regard to complications of diabetes and toxicity exposure using the crab, Carcinus maenas. A preliminary investigation showed that glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase activities are unaltered in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells from diabetic patients with long term complications of the disease. However, crabs were shown to have significantly reduced glutathione-s-transferase and glutathione peroxidase activities in response to cadmium exposure. The biochemical responses of crabs to pollution exposure were investigated in further experiments. Crabs are exposed to a variety of influences within their natural environment that may affect their ability to tolerate oxidative stress. These stressors include climatic changes, age, sex, nutritional status, contamination, accumulation of toxins and adaptation to a polluted environment. Results showed that seasonality also affects the activities of glutathione related enzymes glutathione reductase and glutathione-s-transferase, as well as physiological parameters such as tissue protein composition. Seasonal changes of enzyme activities may be partly due to the altered nutritional status of the crab over the year. Nutritional status also reduced the total glutathione status and total antioxidant scavenging ability of crab haemolymph and gill tissues. The levels of these parameters were reinstated to normal when the starved crabs were exposed to a mixed affluent. The ability to control the production of antioxidant scavenging compounds during fasting may help to preserve the crabs energy reserves. The promptly reinstated glutathione and total antioxidant scavenging ability in response to contamination helps to prevent the oxidative damage caused by pollution exposure. Several tissues were removed from the crab and the amount that each contributed to the crabs overall antioxidant scavenging ability was calculated. Haemolymph and muscle tissues were found to contribute the most to the crabs overall antioxidant scavenging ability. This is due to the large proportion of the crab that these tissues occupy. The level of glutathione within the crabs haemolymph, gill and muscle tissues did not contribute significantly to their overall antioxidant scavenging ability in normal conditions. However, when the stress was induced in the crabs in response to mixed effluent exposure or fasting, total glutathione levels became significantly correlated with total antioxidant scavenging ability. The results suggest that under these circumstances glutathione levels are maintained by the activity of glutathione reductase. A field trial was performed in the highly industrialised area of the Tees Estuary to establish whether the biomarkers that had been successfully applied in laboratory experiments could be used within the field. The results were analysed using multi-dimensional scaling techniques. This allowed a suite of biomarkers to be analysed simultaneously. The biomarker responses measured at the different sites indicated a gradient of toxicity from the top of the estuary to its mouth. These results were consistent with water chemical analysis data. The study showed that more information could be gained from this type of analysis than by examining the biomarker results separately. The biomarkers measured and the method of data analysis have potential to be used in routine toxicity assessment

The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Reqiuis Circumspice) Leonardo article

This paper describes the concepts, ideas, background and operations of The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice), a digital video installation that produces a continuous stream of weather-responsive panoramic images from the top of the Monument in the City of London. The work, which was commissioned by Julian Harrap Architects, was part of a £4.5 million refurbishment of the 17th-century landmark, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Dr. Robert Hooke to commemorate the Great Fire of London in 1666

Caractéristiques statistiques de la crue régionale en Afrique de l'Ouest

Les estimations de débit de crue pour diverses périodes de retour peuvent être nécessaires à des sites à aménager où les hydrologues et les ingénieurs ne disposent pas de mesures de débit. Dans ce cas une analyse régionale peut s'avérer particulièrement utile. L'étude décrite dans cet article, s'appuie sur des chroniques de crues maximales provenant de 224 stations de jaugeages réparties sur l'ensemble de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Un total de 42OO stations-années a été emloyé pour déduire les relations régionales entre la crue annuelle, la superficie du bassin et les précipitations annuelles moyennes. Ces données permettent d'évaluer les courbes de fréquence de la crue régionale sans dimension. (Résumé d'auteur

Rule- versus instance-based learning in speech-like behavior: An evaluation of transfer and motor class effects

Two information-processing theories of motor control have been postulated for motor learning. Rule-based learning theory predicts transfer when new, untrained stimuli or behaviors share the same set of rules. Instance-based learning theory predicts transfer when new, untrained stimuli are similar in a specific way to the trained stimuli. The purpose of this study was to provide insight into the learning theory operating during nonword acquisition and transfer by evaluating reaction times during an old-new judgment task. Nonword stimuli were constructed to bias familiarity judgments by systematically varying two parameters associated with each theory: phonetic similarity (instance-based) and syllable stress pattern (rule-based). Twenty-four participants (18-35 years of age) with normal hearing and speech production participated in a syllable stress training task and an old-new judgment task. During training, participants articulated a series of nonword stimuli while producing a specific syllable stress pattern. Syllable stress accuracy was monitored by the examiner via perceptual judgments and custom software evaluating acoustic intensity of the articulated stressed syllable. Accurate articulation of nonwords was monitored with recognition probes throughout training. Participants met pre-established accuracy criteria for syllable stress and phonetic production of each experimental nonword. Once criterion was met, participants were assumed to have a highlyaccurate baseline memory representation of the trained items that was judged against a variety of untrained transfer stimuli varying in phonetic similarity and syllable stress pattern. Following training, an old-new judgment task was administered in which participants made familiarity judgments upon hearing a trained or untrained nonword; reaction times were collected via a response box. Reaction time results indicated participants responded faster to untrained nonwords with different phonemes than to untrained nonwords with similar phonemes. Syllable stress pattern did not affect reaction time. These results are consistent with instance-based learning. However, the direction of the similarity effect was in the opposite direction as originally predicted for this theory, i.e., positive transfer occurred when stimuli were dissimilar to one another. Future studies should evaluate what parameters need to be manipulated along a similarity index, and how the variable of dissimilarity may affect overall transfer patterns

CO2 directly modulates connexin 26 by formation of carbamate bridges between subunits

Homeostatic regulation of the partial pressure of CO2 (PCO2) is vital for life. Sensing of pH has been proposed as a sufficient proxy for determination of PCO2 and direct CO2-sensing largely discounted. Here we show that connexin 26 (Cx26) hemichannels, causally linked to respiratory chemosensitivity, are directly modulated by CO2. A ‘carbamylation motif’, present in CO2-sensitive connexins (Cx26, Cx30, Cx32) but absent from a CO2-insensitive connexin (Cx31), comprises Lys125 and four further amino acids that orient Lys125 towards Arg104 of the adjacent subunit of the connexin hexamer. Introducing the carbamylation motif into Cx31 created a mutant hemichannel (mCx31) that was opened by increases in PCO2. Mutation of the carbamylation motif in Cx26 and mCx31 destroyed CO2 sensitivity. Course-grained computational modelling of Cx26 demonstrated that the proposed carbamate bridge between Lys125 and Arg104 biases the hemichannel to the open state. Carbamylation of Cx26 introduces a new transduction principle for physiological sensing of CO2

In Darwin’s Garden

“In Darwin’s Garden” is a video installation that has been developed from digital images produced during a series of visits made to Down House, the former home of Charles Darwin, during 2010-2012. This work is centred on a set of time-lapse sequences and digital photographs of the ancient mulberry tree that grows close to the rear elevation of the house. This tree and its location can be seen to be representative of the relationship between the domestic life of the Darwin Family, the garden as a site for the careful and systematic observation of natural processes and the slow but inevitable change in the cycle of life and the seasons. This venerable tree was alive and growing both before and during the time that Charles Darwin and his family inhabited the house and although it is still alive at this time, the tree is now in the final phase of its life. An aspect of this project centres on having a dynamic digital experience of the tree after its death. This tree provides a special link across time back to Charles Darwin, his theories, work and ideas and his fascination with the forces of nature. Four time-lapse cameras were sited in positions around the tree to record its growth and associated human activity over a period of twelve months. The resulting images have been combined with additional conventional digital photographs to produce a sequential and spatial experience of the tree and its immediate environment. The installation developed from this visual material presents a complex multiple image and time-lapse view of the mulberry tree as it grows and changes throughout the year and through the seasons. Situated within a full-size replica of the framework of the man-made structures that now support the slowly dying tree, the work produces a view of the tree in both physical and virtual space that can be explored and engaged using augmented reality technologies.The artwork In Darwin’s Garden was exhibited in the exhibition Carbon Meets Silicon II at the Oriel Sycharth Gallery, Wrexham, curated by Dr Susan Liggett. The exhibition was associated to the ITA(17), the 7th International Conference on Internet Technologies and Applications, held at Glyndwr University, Wrexham

Voxel-lesion symptom mapping of coarse coding and suppression deficits in right hemisphere damaged patients

Several accounts of narrative comprehension deficits in adults with right hemisphere damage (RHD) focus on the basic comprehension processes of coarse semantic coding (CC) and suppression (SUP)1,2. CC activates wide-ranging aspects of word meaning, independent of the surrounding context. In RHD, CC deficits impair processing of more remote meanings/features of lexical-semantic representations (e.g., “rotten” as a feature of “apple”)3. The normal SUP process reduces mental activation of concepts that become contextually incompatible. SUP impairment in RHD is indexed by prolonged processing interference from contextually-inappropriate interpretations (e.g., the “ink” meaning of “pen,” in “He built a pen”)4,5. Adults with RHD may have deficits in CC, SUP, both, or neither6. Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping was used to identify right hemisphere (RH) anatomical correlates of CC and SUP deficits. Lesion-deficit correspondence data should help predict which RHD patients have which deficits and may be candidates for a deficit-focused treatment approach that simultaneously improves narrative comprehension7-9. The Bilateral Activation, Integration, and Selection (BAIS) framework of language processing10 suggests some basic hypotheses1. CC, related to the activation component, is hypothesized to involve posterior MTG and STG10,11. SUP, related to the attentionally-driven selection component, modulates lexical-level activation and message-level semantic integration to narrow representations to those most relevant to a comprehender’s goal. Selection is strongly associated with left IFGe.g,12 but RH IFG also is crucial for semantic filtering and selection13,14, especially for information more strongly active in the RH15. Basal ganglia circuits are likely involved, as well13,16