Communicating future overheating risks to building design practitioners:Using the Low Carbon Futures tool

The Low Carbon Futures tool provides a probabilistic assessment of future overheating risks and cooling demands for domestic and nondomestic buildings in the UK. The approach adopted for the development of the Low Carbon Futures tool includes academic rigour within the development of the calculation engine, and also practitioner feedback throughout the process. This paper discusses the journey of the tool from modelling and simulation to the practitioner engagement, which took place by means of a questionnaire, focus groups and interviews with building design professionals aimed at understanding how the issue of overheating in buildings is being addressed. Throughout these events, the synergies between designing for low-carbon targets and designing for a future climate were explored. A final dissemination event was held to identify output styles that could be generated by the Low Carbon Futures tool that would be more practical and useful for specific client types. The workshop discussions serve to shape the outputs from the tool, and the feedback gathered will be used to inform a number of output styles, based on client type. Practical application: This paper outlines the development of the Low Carbon Futures tool for analysing overheating risks in buildings and discusses the practitioner feedback obtained from industry professionals on the use and applicability of the tool, in a final event hosted by the Low Carbon Futures research team in London. This event confirmed that practitioners need to be comfortable with the layout and format of the output in order to communicate its meaning and possible implications to a range of clients. A balanced output is required, which conveys some of the complexity of the underlying analysis, but which is easily understood and conveyed to a potentially lay audience. </jats:p

Revealing the mid-infrared emission structure of IRAS 16594-4656 and IRAS 07027-7934

TIMMI2 diffraction-limited mid-infrared images of a multipolar proto-planetary nebula IRAS 16594-4656 and a young [WC] elliptical planetary nebula IRAS 07027-7934 are presented. Their dust shells are for the first time resolved (only marginally in the case of IRAS 07027-7934) by applying the Lucy-Richardson deconvolution algorithm to the data, taken under exceptionally good seeing conditions (<0.5"). IRAS 16594-4656 exhibits a two-peaked morphology at 8.6, 11.5 and 11.7 microns which is mainly attributed to emission from PAHs. Our observations suggest that the central star is surrounded by a toroidal structure observed edge-on with a radius of 0.4" (~640 AU at an assumed distance of 1.6 kpc) with its polar axis at P.A.~80 degrees, coincident with the orientation defined by only one of the bipolar outflows identified in the HST optical images. We suggest that the material expelled from the central source is currently being collimated in this direction and that the multiple outflow formation has not been coeval. IRAS 07027-7934 shows a bright, marginally extended emission (FWHM=0.3") in the mid-infrared with a slightly elongated shape along the N-S direction, consistent with the morphology detected by HST in the near-infrared. The mid-infrared emission is interpreted as the result of the combined contribution of small, highly ionized PAHs and relatively hot dust continuum. We propose that IRAS 07027-7934 may have recently experienced a thermal pulse (likely at the end of the AGB) which has produced a radical change in the chemistry of its central star.Comment: 35 pages, 8 figures (figures 1, 2, 4 and 6 are in low resolution) accepted for publication in Ap

{BOAO Photometric Survey of Galactic Open Clusters. II. Physical Parameters of 12 Open Clusters

We have initiated a long-term project, the BOAO photometric survey of open clusters, to enlarge our understanding of galactic structure using UBVI CCD photometry of open clusters which have been little studied before. This is the second paper of the project in which we present the photometry of 12 open clusters. We have determined the cluster parameters by fitting the Padova isochrones to the color-magnitude diagrams of the clusters. All the clusters except for Be 0 and NGC 1348 are found to be intermediate-age to old (0.2 - 4.0 Gyrs) open clusters with a mean metallicity of [Fe/H] = 0.0.Comment: 11 page

A baseline method for benchmarking mortality losses in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) production

On-farm databases provide a large diversity of information regarding fish health and stock performance. Mortality records held in on-farm database are indicators of fish health status and of great interest for studying fish health, such as patterns of diseases. Mortality records from a Scottish Atlantic salmon production database of one company were used to develop a method of benchmarking production losses due to mortality. The records used concerned mortality loss numbers of Atlantic salmon in the seawater phase. The median, 10th and 90th percentiles of mortality were calculated for each week of production from 88 production recorded cycles. These values were used to delimit the range of a standard mortality curve through the production cycle. The effects of the different mortality losses from each cycle on production in terms of costs and time consumed were also described. Likewise, substantial interannual variation in mortality time series is described as well as the mortality variation associated with three diseases (Pancreas Disease, Cardiomyopathy Syndrome and Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis)

Design and Synthesis of Broad Spectrum Trypanosomatid Selective Inhibitors

Neglected tropical diseases caused by parasitic infections are an ongoing and increasing concern that have a devastating effect on the developing world due to their burden on human and animal health. In this work, we detail the preparation of a focused library of substituted-tetrahydropyran derivatives and their evaluation as selective chemical tools for trypanosomatid inhibition and the follow-on development of photoaffinity probes capable of labeling target protein(s) <i>in vitro</i>. Several of these functionalized compounds maintain low micromolar activity against <i>Trypanosoma brucei</i>, <i>Trypanosoma cruzi</i>, <i>Leishmania major</i>, and <i>Leishmania donovani</i>. In addition, we demonstrate the utility of the photoaffinity probes for target identification through preliminary cellular localization studies

Photometric Properties of Kiso Ultraviolet-Excess Galaxies in the Lynx-Ursa Major Region

We have performed a systematic study of several regions in the sky where the number of galaxies exhibiting star formation (SF) activity is greater than average. We used Kiso ultraviolet-excess galaxies (KUGs) as our SF-enhanced sample. By statistically comparing the KUG and non-KUG distributions, we discovered four KUG-rich regions with a size of $\sim 10^\circ \times 10^\circ$. One of these regions corresponds spatially to a filament of length $\sim 60 h^{-1}$ Mpc in the Lynx-Ursa Major region ($\alpha \sim 9^{\rm h} - 10^{\rm h}, \delta \sim 42^\circ - 48^\circ$). We call this ``the Lynx-Ursa Major (LUM) filament''. We obtained $V(RI)_{\rm C}$ surface photometry of 11 of the KUGs in the LUM filament and used these to investigate the integrated colors, distribution of SF regions, morphologies, and local environments. We found that these KUGs consist of distorted spiral galaxies and compact galaxies with blue colors. Their star formation occurs in the entire disk, and is not confined to just the central regions. The colors of the SF regions imply that active star formation in the spiral galaxies occurred $10^{7 - 8}$ yr ago, while that of the compact objects occurred $10^{6-7}$ yr ago. Though the photometric characteristics of these KUGs are similar to those of interacting galaxies or mergers, most of these KUGs do not show direct evidence of merger processes.Comment: 39 pages LaTeX, using aasms4.sty, 20 figures, ApJS accepted. The Title of the previous one was truncated by the author's mistake, and is corrected. Main body of the paper is unchange

Progression free survival of myeloma patients who become IFE-negative correlates with the detection of residual monoclonal free light chain (FLC) by mass spectrometry

Deeper responses are associated with improved survival in patients being treated for myeloma. However, the sensitivity of the current blood-based assays is limited. Historical studies suggested that normalisation of the serum free light chain (FLC) ratio in patients who were negative by immunofixation electrophoresis (IFE) was associated with improved outcomes. However, recently this has been called into question. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based FLC assessments may offer a superior methodology for the detection of monoclonal FLC due to greater sensitivity. To test this hypothesis, all available samples from patients who were IFE negative after treatment with carfilzomib and lenalidomide-based induction and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in the Myeloma XI trial underwent FLC-MS testing. FLC-MS response assessments from post-induction, day+100 post-ASCT and six months post-maintenance randomisation were compared to serum FLC assay results. Almost 40% of patients had discordant results and 28.7% of patients with a normal FLC ratio had residual monoclonal FLC detectable by FLC-MS. FLC-MS positivity was associated with reduced progression-free survival (PFS) but an abnormal FLC ratio was not. This study demonstrates that FLC-MS provides a superior methodology for the detection of residual monoclonal FLC with FLC-MS positivity identifying IFE-negative patients who are at higher risk of early progression