New strawberry breeding lines – enhanced phytochemical composition and bioaccessibility

Screening of phytochemicals has been of interest in strawberry genotypes as there is emerging evidence from epidemiological and clinical studies that consumption of phytochemical-rich strawberry cultivars may provide health benefits. The aim of the present study was (1) to quantify selected phytochemicals in new strawberry breeding lines (BL) and (2) to assess the in vitro bioaccessibility of phytochemicals as an initial measure to predict their bioavailability

Storm event to seasonal evolution of nearshore bathymetry derived from shore-based video imagery

Coastal evolution occurs on a wide range of time-scales, from storms, seasonal and inter-annual time-scales to longer-term adaptation to changing environmental conditions. Measuring campaigns typically either measure morphological evolution on a short-time scale (days) with high frequency (hourly) or long-time scales (years) but intermittently (monthly). This leaves an important observational gap that limits morphological variability assessments. Traditional echo sounding measurements on this long time-scale and high-frequency sampling require a significant financial injection. Shore-based video systems with high spatiotemporal resolution can bridge this gap. For the first time, hourly Kalman filtered video-derived bathymetries covering 1.5 years of morphological evolution with an hourly resolution obtained at Porhtowan, UK are presented. Here, the long-term hourly dataset is used and aims to show its added value for, and provide an in-depth, morphological analyses with unprecedented temporal resolution. The time-frame includes calm and extreme (storm) wave conditions in a macro-tidal environment. The video-derived bathymetries allow hourly beach state classification while before this was not possible due to the dependence on foam patterns of wave breaking (e.g., saturation during storms). The study period covers extreme storm erosion during the most energetic winter season in 60 years (2013-2014). Recovery of the beach takes place on several time-scales: (1) an immediate initial recovery after the storm season (first 2 months), (2) limited recovery during low energetic summer conditions and (3) accelerated recovery as the wave conditions picked up in the subsequent fallunder wave conditions that are typically erosive. The video-derived bathymetries are shown to be effective in determining bar-positions, outer-bar three-dimensionality and volume analyses with an unprecedented hourly temporal resolution

CAMKII as a therapeutic target for growth factor-induced retinal and choroidal neovascularisation

This study was supported by grants from the British Heart Foundation (PG/11/99/29207 and PG/11/94/29169), Fight for Sight, UK (1387/88), Health & Social Care R&D Division, Northern Ireland (STL/4748/13) and the Medical Research Council (MC_PC_15026). We would like to thank Gordon Revolta for excellent assistance with colony management and genotyping.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Learning from organisational embedding for climate resilience

The term ‘resilience’, which is integral to the UK Climate Resilience Programme (UKCR), has been used increasingly in academic, practice and public discourse around climate change, and crises more generally. The term’s appeal comes from its ability to frame crises not as uncontrollable and uncertain phenomena to be feared, but as challenges over which one can triumph, with the potential for improving society

A new efficient trial design for assessing reliability of ankle-brachial index measures by three different observer groups

BACKGROUND: The usual method of assessing the variability of a measure such as the ankle brachial index (ABI) as a function of different observer groups is to obtain repeated measurements. Because the number of possible observer-subject combinations is impractically large, only a few small studies on inter- and intraobserver variability of ABI measures have been carried out to date. The present study proposes a new and efficient study design. This paper describes the study methodology. METHODS: Using a partially balanced incomplete block design, six angiologists, six primary-care physicians and six trained medical office assistants performed two ABI measurements each on six individuals from a group of 36 unselected subjects aged 65–70 years. Each test subject is measured by one observer from each of the three observer groups, and each observer measures exactly six of the 36 subjects in the group. Each possible combination of two observers occurs exactly once per patient and is not repeated on a second subject. The study involved four groups of 36 subjects (144), plus standbys. RESULTS: The 192 volunteers present at the study day were similar in terms of demographic characteristics and vascular risk factors: mean age 68.6 ± 1.7; mean BMI 29.1 ± 4.6; mean waist-hip ratio 0.92 ± 0.09; active smokers 12%; hypertension 60.9%; hypercholesterolemia 53.4%; diabetic 17.2%. A complete set of ABI measurements (three observers performing two Doppler measurements each) was obtained from 108 subjects. From all other subjects at least one ABI measurement was obtained. The mean ABI was 1.08 (± 0.13), 15 (7.9%) volunteers had an ABI <0.9, and none had an ABI >1.4, i.e. a ratio that may be associated with increased stiffening of the arterial walls. CONCLUSION: This is the first large-scale study investigating the components of variability and thus reliability in ABI measurements. The advantage of the new study design introduced here is that only one sixth of the number of theoretically possible measurements is required to obtain information about measurement errors. Bland-Altman plots show that there are only small differences and no systematic bias between the observers from three occupational groups with different training backgrounds

US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report

This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference