Defra Lowland Peat 2: Managing agricultural systems on lowland peat for decreased greenhouse gas emissions whilst maintaining agricultural productivity. Report to Defra for Project SP1218

DescriptionThis report describes the results of the Defra "Lowland Peat 2" project, which ran from 2019 to 2023. This Project assessed the opportunities and challenges of managing lowland agricultural peat for reduced greenhouse gas emissions, providing evidence to support Departmental Net Zero ambitions, as well as help inform policy linked to the England Peat Action Plan (2021). Key findings include a detailed review of the opportunities and challenges for paludiculture (wetland-based agriculture) as a potential emissions mitigation measure; additional review scoping the societal impacts of lowland peat drainage, with a focus on the impacts of long-term subsidence; analyses from what is believed to be the largest network of flux towers on agricultural peatlands globally, suggesting that raising water levels could help to mitigate peat GHG emissions, and if correctly optimised may not lead to yield declines.The report also explores the role of "regenerative" farming measures in reducing peat GHGs.ObjectiveThe project assessed the opportunities and challenges of managing lowland agricultural peat for reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Primarily work in this area looks to support priorities of net zero, climate adaptation and mitigation, national food security, water security, and protection of biodiversity and habitats.. Following the earlier Lowland Peat 1 project (2014-2017) which generated fundamental data on GHG emissions from a range of contrasting lowland peat sites across England and Wales, the project focused primarily on developing and testing options to mitigate these emissions, whilst maintaining the agricultural productivity of lowland peatlands. The project coincided with a number of major peatland-related policy initiatives across the UK, including the Committee on Climate Change's 6th Carbon Budget and Net Zero Strategy, the England Peat Action Plan, and the Defra Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force. Interim results from the project have fed into many of these initiatives, as well as to an update of emission factors for cropland and grassland on peat in the UK?s National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory

The SDSS-V Black Hole Mapper Reverberation Mapping project : a kinematically variable broad-line region and consequences for the masses of luminous quasars

Funding: L.B.F., J.R.T., and M.C.D. acknowledge support from NSF grant CAREER-1945546, and with C.J.G. acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-2108668. J.R.T., C.J.G., and Y.S. also acknowledge support from NSF grants AST-2009539 and AST-2009947. M.K. acknowledges support by DFG grant No. KR 3338/4-1. B.T. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 950533) and from the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 1849/19). X.L. acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-2206499. C.R. acknowledges support from the Fondecyt Iniciación grant No. 11190831 and ANID BASAL project FB210003. R.J.A. was supported by FONDECYT grant No. 1231718 and by the ANID BASAL project FB210003. M.L.M.-A. acknowledges financial support from Millenium Nucleus NCN19_058 (TITANs). P.B.H. acknowledges support from NSERC grant No. 2023-05068.We present a velocity-resolved reverberation mapping analysis of the hypervariable quasar RM160 (SDSS J141041.25+531849.0) at z = 0.359 with 153 spectroscopic epochs of data representing a 10 yr baseline (2013–2023). We split the baseline into two regimes based on the 3× flux increase in the light curve: a “low state” phase during the years 2013–2019 and a “high state” phase during the years 2022–2023. The velocity-resolved lag profiles (VRLPs) indicate that gas with different kinematics dominates the line emission in different states. The Hβ VRLP begins with a signature of inflow onto the broad-line region (BLR) in the low state, while in the high state it is flatter with less signature of inflow. The Hα VRLP begins consistent with a virialized BLR in the low state, while in the high state shows a signature of inflow. The differences in the kinematics between the Balmer lines and between the low state and the high state suggests complex BLR dynamics. We find that the BLR radius and velocity (both FWHM and σ) do not obey a constant virial product throughout the monitoring period. We find that the BLR lags and continuum luminosity are correlated, consistent with rapid response of the BLR gas to the illuminating continuum. The BLR kinematic profile changes in unpredictable ways that are not related to continuum changes and reverberation lag. Our observations indicate that nonvirial kinematics can significantly contribute to observed line profiles, suggesting caution for black hole mass estimation in luminous and highly varying quasars like RM160.Peer reviewe

The SDSS-V Black Hole Mapper Reverberation Mapping Project: Unusual Broad-Line Variability in a Luminous Quasar

We present a high-cadence multi-epoch analysis of dramatic variability of three broad emission lines (MgII, H$\beta$, and H$\alpha$) in the spectra of the luminous quasar ($\lambda L_{\lambda}$(5100\r{A}) = $4.7 \times 10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$) SDSS J141041.25+531849.0 at $z = 0.359$ with 127 spectroscopic epochs over 9 years of monitoring (2013-2022). We observe anti-correlations between the broad emission-line widths and flux in all three emission lines, indicating that all three broad emission lines "breathe" in response to stochastic continuum variations. We also observe dramatic radial velocity shifts in all three broad emission lines, ranging from $\Delta{v}$ $\sim$400 km s$^{-1}$ to $\sim$800 km s$^{-1}$, that vary over the course of the monitoring period. Our preferred explanation for the broad-line variability is complex kinematics in the broad-line region gas. We suggest a model for the broad-line variability that includes a combination of gas inflow with a radial gradient, an azimuthal asymmetry (e.g., a hot spot), superimposed on the stochastic flux-driven changes to the optimal emission region ("line breathing"). Similar instances of line-profile variability due to complex gas kinematics around quasars are likely to represent an important source of false positives in radial velocity searches for binary black holes, which typically lack the kind of high-cadence data we analyze here. The long-duration, wide-field, and many-epoch spectroscopic monitoring of SDSS-V BHM-RM provides an excellent opportunity for identifying and characterizing broad emission-line variability, and the inferred nature of the inner gas environment, of luminous quasars

Histone deacetylases as new therapy targets for platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer

Introduction: In developed countries, ovarian cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. Due to the nonspecific symptomatology associated with the disease many patients with ovarian cancer are diagnosed late, which leads to significantly poorer prognosis. Apart from surgery and radiotherapy, a substantial number of ovarian cancer patients will undergo chemotherapy and platinum based agents are the mainstream first-line therapy for this disease. Despite the initial efficacy of these therapies, many women relapse; therefore, strategies for second-line therapies are required. Regulation of DNA transcription is crucial for tumour progression, metastasis and chemoresistance which offers potential for novel drug targets. Methods: We have reviewed the existing literature on the role of histone deacetylases, nuclear enzymes regulating gene transcription. Results and conclusion: Analysis of available data suggests that a signifant proportion of drug resistance stems from abberant gene expression, therefore HDAC inhibitors are amongst the most promising therapeutic targets for cancer treatment. Together with genetic testing, they may have a potential to serve as base for patient-adapted therapies

Accelerating Innovation in the Creation of Biovalue : The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult

The field of regenerative medicine (RM) has considerable therapeutic promise that is proving difficult to realize. As a result, governments have supported the establishment of intermediary agencies to “accelerate” innovation. This paper examines in detail one such agency, the UK's Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGTC). We describe CGTC’s role as an accelerator agency and its value-narrative, which combines both “health and wealth.” Drawing on the notion of socio-technical imaginaries, we unpack the tensions within this narrative and its instantiation as the CGTC cell therapy infrastructure is built and engages with other agencies, some of which have different priorities and roles to play within the RM field

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie