Genetic variation among lambs in peripheral IgE activity against the larval stages of <i>Teladorsagia circumcincta</i>

IgA and IgE activity against Teladorsagia circumcincta was investigated in a flock of Texel lambs following natural, mixed nematode infection among lambs. The distribution of IgA activity was similar to a gamma distribution whereas IgE activity was different. Box-Cox analysis demonstrated that X0.25 was a suitable transformation to normalise IgE responses. The transformed IgE activity was under moderate to strong genetic control. Nine different allergens were identified by proteomic analysis. Tropomyosin was selected for further analysis. IgE activity against tropomyosin was moderately heritable and associated with decreased egg counts and with reduced body weight at the time of sampling

Mobile access to personal digital photograph archives

Handheld computing devices are becoming highly connected devices with high capacity storage. This has resulted in their being able to support storage of, and access to, personal photo archives. However the only means for mobile device users to browse such archives is typically a simple one-by-one scroll through image thumbnails in the order that they were taken, or by manually organising them based on folders. In this paper we describe a system for context-based browsing of personal digital photo archives. Photos are labeled with the GPS location and time they are taken and this is used to derive other context-based metadata such as weather conditions and daylight conditions. We present our prototype system for mobile digital photo retrieval, and an experimental evaluation illustrating the utility of location information for effective personal photo retrieval

My digital photos: where and when?

In recent years digital cameras have seen an enormous rise in popularity, leading to a huge increase in the quantity of digital photos being taken. This brings with it the challenge of organising these large collections. We preset work which organises personal digital photo collections based on date/time and GPS location, which we believe will become a key organisational methodology over the next few years as consumer digital cameras evolve to incorporate GPS and as cameras in mobile phones spread further. The accompanying video illustrates the results of our research into digital photo management tools which contains a series of screen and user interactions highlighting how a user utilises the tools we are developing to manage a personal archive of digital photos

SNIFFER WFD119: Enhancement of the River Invertebrate Classification Tool (RICT)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Project funders/partners: Environment Agency (EA), Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), Scotland & Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research (SNIFFER), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) Background to research The Regulatory Agencies in the UK (the Environment Agency; Scottish Environment Protection Agency; and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency) now use the River Invertebrate Classification Tool (RICT) to classify the ecological quality of rivers for Water Framework Directive compliance monitoring. RICT incorporates RIVPACS IV predictive models and is a highly capable tool written in a modern software programming language. While RICT classifies waters for general degradation and organic pollution stress, producing assessments of status class and uncertainty, WFD compliance monitoring also requires the UK Agencies to assess the impacts of a wide range of pressures including hydromorphological and acidification stresses. Some of these pressures alter the predictor variables that current RIVPACS models use to derive predicted biotic indices. This project has sought to broaden the scope of RICT by developing one or more RIVPACS model(s) that do not use predictor variables that are affected by these stressors, but instead use alternative GIS based variables that are wholly independent of these pressures. This project has also included a review of the wide range of biotic indices now available in RICT, identifying published sources, examining index performance, and where necessary making recommendations on further needs for index testing and development. Objectives of research •To remove and derive alternative predictive variables that are not affected by stressors, with particular emphasis on hydrological/acidification metric predictors. •To construct one or more new RIVPACS model(s) using stressor independent variables. •Review WFD reporting indices notably AWIC(species), LIFE (species), PSI & WHPT. Key findings and recommendations : Predictor variables and intellectual property rights : An extensive suite of new variables have been derived by GIS for the RIVPACS reference sites that have been shown to act as stressor-independent predictor variables. These include measures of stream order, solid and drift geology, and a range of upstream catchment characteristics (e.g. catchment area, mean altitude of upstream catchment, and catchment aspect). It is recommended that decisions are reached on which of the newly derived model(s) are implemented in RICT so that IPR issues for the relevant datasets can be quickly resolved and the datasets licensed. It is also recommended that licensing is sought for a point and click system (where the dataset cannot be reverse engineered) that is capable of calculating any of the time-invariant RIVPACS environmental predictor variables used by any of the newly derived (and existing) RIVPACS models, and for any potential users. New stressor-independent RIVPACS models : Using the existing predictor variables, together with new ones derived for their properties of stressor-independence, initial step-wise forward selection discriminant models suggested a range of 36 possible models that merited further testing. Following further testing, the following models are recommended for assessing watercourses affected by flow/hydromorphological and/or acidity stress: • For flow/hydromorphological stressors that may have modified width, depth and/or substrate in GB, it is suggested that a new ‘RIVPACS IV – Hydromorphology Independent’ model (Model 24) is used (this does not use the predictor variables width, depth and substratum, but includes a suite of new stressor-independent variables). • For acidity related stressors in GB, it is suggested that a new ‘RIVPACS IV – Alkalinity Independent’ model (Model 35) is used (this does not use the predictor variable alkalinity, but includes new stressor-independent variables). • For flow/hydromorphological stressors and acidity related stressors in GB, it is suggested that a new ‘RIVPACS IV – Hydromorphology & Alkalinity Independent’ model (Model 13) is used (this does not use the predictor variables width, depth, substratum and alkalinity, but includes a suite of new stressor-independent variables). • Reduced availability of appropriate GIS tools at this time has meant that no new models have been developed for Northern Ireland. Discriminant functions and end group means have now been calculated to enable any of these models to be easily implemented in the RICT software. Biotic indices : The RIVPACS models in RICT can now produce expected values for a wide range of biotic indices addressing a variety of stressors. These indices will support the use of RICT as a primary tool for WFD classification and reporting of the quality of UK streams and rivers. There are however a number of outstanding issues with indices that need to be addressed: • There is a need to develop a biotic index for assessing metal pollution. • WFD EQR banding schemes are required for many of the indices to report what is considered an acceptable degree of stress (High-Good) and what is not (Moderate, Poor or Bad). • A comprehensive objective testing process needs to be undertaken on the indices in RICT using UK-wide, large-scale, independent test datasets to quantify their index-stressor relationships and their associated uncertainty, for example following the approach to acidity index testing in Murphy et al., (in review) or organic/general degradation indices in Banks & McFarland (2010). • Following objective testing, the UK Agencies should make efforts to address any index under-performance issues that have been identified, and where necessary new work should be commissioned to modify existing indices, or develop new ones where required so that indices for all stress types meet certain minimum performance criteria. • Testing needs to be done to examine index-stressor relationships with both observed index scores and RIVPACS observed/expected ratios. Work should also be done to compare the existing RIVPACS IV and the new stressor-independent models (developed in this project) as alternative sources of the expected index values for these tests. • Consideration should be given to assessing the extent to which chemical and biological monitoring points co-occur. Site-matched (rather than reach-matched) chemical and biological monitoring points would i) generate the substantial training datasets needed to refine or develop new indices and ii) generate the independent datasets for testing

Tax us if you can

A comprehensive introduction to tax justice. Second edition

Keep it simple: three indicators to deal with overfishing

Three simple fisheries indicators are presented: (i) percentage of mature fish in catch, with 100% as target; (ii) percent of specimens with optimum length in catch, with 100% as target; and (iii) percentage of ‘mega-spawners‘ in catch, with 0% as target, and 30–40% as representative of reasonable stock structure if no upper size limit exists. Application of these indicators to stocks of Gadus morhua, Sardinella aurita and Epinephelus aeneus demonstrate their usefulness. It is argued that such simple indicators have the potential to allow more stakeholders such as fishers, fish dealers, supermarket managers, consumers and politicians to participate in fisheries management and eventually hold and reverse the global pattern of convenience overfishing, which is defined here as deliberate overfishing sanctioned by official bodies who find it more convenient to risk eventual collapse of fish stocks than to risk social and political conflicts

Experiments in terabyte searching, genomic retrieval and novelty detection for TREC 2004

In TREC2004, Dublin City University took part in three tracks, Terabyte (in collaboration with University College Dublin), Genomic and Novelty. In this paper we will discuss each track separately and present separate conclusions from this work. In addition, we present a general description of a text retrieval engine that we have developed in the last year to support our experiments into large scale, distributed information retrieval, which underlies all of the track experiments described in this document

Dublin City University video track experiments for TREC 2003

In this paper, we describe our experiments for both the News Story Segmentation task and Interactive Search task for TRECVID 2003. Our News Story Segmentation task involved the use of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) to combine evidence from audio-visual analysis tools in order to generate a listing of news stories from a given news programme. Our Search task experiment compared a video retrieval system based on text, image and relevance feedback with a text-only video retrieval system in order to identify which was more effective. In order to do so we developed two variations of our Físchlár video retrieval system and conducted user testing in a controlled lab environment. In this paper we outline our work on both of these two tasks

Genetic Variants of Milk Proteins - Relevance to Milk Composition and Cheese Production.

End of Project ReportObjectives: (i) to develop rapid screening procedures for the determination of milk protein polymorphism (genetic variants) (ii) to determine the frequency distribution of milk protein genetic variants in a large population of Irish Holstein-Friesians and to determine if there was an association between κ-casein variant and milk yield and composition in this group of animals, and (iii) to make Cheddar and low-moisture part-skim Mozzarella cheese from different κ-casein genetic variant milks and to assess any effect on cheese yield, composition and functional characteristics. Conclusions:Analysis of 6,007 individual Irish Holstein-Friesian milks showed that the phenotype distribution of the κ-casein BB variant was very low at 1.98% compared to 53.07% for κ-casein AA and 44.95% for κ-casein AB. While no statistically significant associations were observed between κ-casein variant and milk yield and composition, κ-casein BB variant milks had superior rennet coagulation properties to that of the AA or AB variants. Generally, κ-casein variant had little effect on compositional attributes of cheese apart from FDM (fat in dry matter) which was significantly higher in cheeses from κ-casein BB milk than in those from κ-casein AA milk. Generally, κ-casein variant had no significant effects on either primary or secondary proteolysis, or on the sensory and/or textural characteristics of Cheddar or Mozzarella cheese throughout ripening; or on the functional characteristics (e.g. flow and stretch) of baked Mozzarella on storage for 90 days at 4°C. However, κ-casein BB variant milk gave significantly higher actual, and moisture adjusted yields of Cheddar and Mozzarella cheese than either κ-casein AB or AA variant milks. For example, the moisture adjusted Cheddar yield from κ-casein BB milk was 8.2% higher than from κ-casein AA milk. In the case of Mozzarella, the moisture adjusted yield was 12% higher. Based on the results, it is estimated that the actual yield of cheese in a plant producing 20,000 tonnes per year from κ-casein AA milk would increase to approximately 21,180 tonnes of Cheddar, or 21,780 tonnes of Mozzarella if made from κ-casein BB milk. Where κ-casein AB milk is used instead of κ-casein BB milk, the estimated yield of Mozzarella would increase to 21,580 tonnes.Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marin