A microangiographic study of the effect of hyperthermia on the rabbit bladder

A model was used to study the effect of hyperthermia on a normal tissue. The model selected was the rabbit bladder and the end point measured was the changes in the micro-vasculature of the bladder wall. It was already demonstrated clinically that hot water bladder infusions produce regression in bladder tumors

Energy Access and Electricity Planning

As developing countries look for ways to achieve sustainable energy services, which is essential to lift people out of poverty, the big challenge centers around providing access for all while avoiding past pitfalls without creating new ones. The reality is that this can only occur if there is a fundamental transformation of energy systems along the entire set of resource to energy service chains - and that will necessitate greater energy efficiency and a bigger role for renewables in the global energy mix energy. Competitive and private sector dominated energy markets rely on clear and consistent government energy-environment policies to align their investment decisions with sustainable development objectives. This paper tries to shed light on how developing countries can carry out energy planning by reviewing the available methodologies and tools, including their potential to integrate rural energy access and encourage the uptake of renewable energy technologies. It also probes how investment needs and cost-effectiveness are reflected in different analytic and planning tools - with a case study on Ethiopia. And it examines the interaction of energy planning and scenario development and how these are applied to informed policy making. The findings suggest that energy planning is essential and feasible. However, support is required to improve data collection and access, develop open accessible modelling tools, and build sustainable national capacity to undertake plannin

Techno-economic demand projections and scenarios for the Bolivian energy system

Increasing energy access in emerging economies has played an important role to maintain or achieve desirable social and economic development targets. As a consequence, the growing energy requirements need policy instruments to ensure energy supply for future generations. The literature reports many studies with different approaches to model and test policy measures in the energy sector, however few energy-related studies for Bolivia are available. This paper addresses this knowledge gap, representing the first national level energy demand model and projections for Bolivia. The model use demographic, economic, technology and policy trends with a pragmatic model structure that combines bottom-up and top-down modelling. The scenario analysis has a particular focus on alternatives for energy savings, energy mix diversification and air quality. Three scenarios were analysed: Energy Savings, Fuel Substitution and the aggregate effects in a Combined scenario. The reference scenario results show the overall energy consumption grows 134% in 2035 compared to 2012 with an annual average growth of 3.8%. The final energy demand in the energy savings scenario is 8.5% lower than the Reference scenario, 1.5% lower in the fuel substitution scenario and 9.4% lower in the combined Scenario. The aggregate impact of both energy savings and fuel substitution measures leads to potential avoided emissions of 25.84 million Tons of CO2 equivalent in the model horizon 2012-2035

Fermi Surface Nesting and the Origin of the Charge Density Wave in NbSe2_2

We use highly accurate density functional calculations to study the band structure and Fermi surfaces of NbSe2. We calculate the real part of the non-interacting susceptibility, Re chi_0(q), which is the relevant quantity for a charge density wave (CDW) instability and the imaginary part, Im chi_0(q), which directly shows Fermi surface (FS) nesting. We show that there are very weak peaks in Re chi_0(q) near the CDW wave vector, but that no such peaks are visible in Im chi_0(q), definitively eliminating FS nesting as a factor in CDW formation. Because the peak in Re chi_0(q) is broad and shallow, it is unlikely to be the direct cause of the CDW instability. We briefly address the possibility that electron-electron interactions (local field effects) produce additional structure in the total (renormalized) susceptibility, and we discuss the role of electron-ion matrix elements.Comment: Replacement of Table II values, minor changes to tex

Influence of Electrification Pathways in the Electricity Sector of Ethiopia—Policy Implications Linking Spatial Electrification Analysis and Medium to Long-Term Energy Planning

Ethiopia is a low-income country, with low electricity access (45%) and an inefficient power transmission network. The government aims to achieve universal access and become an electricity exporter in the region by 2025. This study provides an invaluable perspective on different aspects of Ethiopia’s energy transition, focusing on achieving universal access and covering the country’s electricity needs during 2015–2065. We co-developed and investigated three scenarios to examine the policy and technology levels available to the government to meet their national priorities. To conduct this analysis, we soft-linked OnSSET, a modelling tool used for geospatial analysis, with OSeMOSYS, a cost-optimization modelling tool used for medium to long-run energy planning. Our results show that the country needs to diversify its power generation system to achieve universal access and cover its future electricity needs by increasing its overall carbon dioxide emissions and fully exploit hydropower. With the aim of achieving universal access by 2025, the newly electrified population is supplied primarily by the grid (65%), followed by stand-alone (32%) technologies. Similarly, until 2065, most of the electrified people by 2025 will continue to be grid-connected (99%). The country’s exports will increase to 17 TWh by 2065, up from 832 GWh in 2015, leading to a cumulative rise in electricity export revenues of 184 billion USD

Corals in the hottest reefs in the world exhibit symbiont fidelity not flexibility

Reef-building corals are at risk of extinction from ocean warming. While some corals can enhance their thermal limits by associating with dinoflagellate photosymbionts of superior stress tolerance, the extent to which symbiont communities will reorganize under increased warming pressure remains unclear. Here we show that corals in the hottest reefs in the world in the Persian Gulf maintain associations with the same symbionts across 1.5 years despite extreme seasonal warming and acute heat stress (≥35°C). Persian Gulf corals predominantly associated with Cladocopium (clade C) and most also hosted Symbiodinium (clade A) and/or Durusdinium (clade D). This is in contrast to the neighbouring and milder Oman Sea, where corals associated with Durusdinium and only a minority hosted background levels of Cladocopium. During acute heat stress, the higher prevalence of Symbiodinium and Durusdinium in bleached versus nonbleached Persian Gulf corals indicates that genotypes of these background genera did not confer bleaching resistance. Within symbiont genera, the majority of ITS2 rDNA type profiles were unique to their respective coral species, confirming the existence of host-specific symbiont lineages. Notably, further differentiation among Persian Gulf sites demonstrates that symbiont populations are either isolated or specialized over tens to hundreds of kilometres. Thermal tolerance across coral species was associated with the prevalence of a single ITS2 intragenomic sequence variant (C3gulf), definitive of the Cladocopium thermophilum group. The abundance of C3gulf was highest in bleaching-resistant corals and at warmer sites, potentially indicating a specific symbiont genotype (or set of genotypes) that may play a role in thermal tolerance that warrants further investigation. Together, our findings indicate that co-evolution of host–Symbiodiniaceae partnerships favours fidelity rather than flexibility in extreme environments and under future warming

Sentinel lymph node biopsy with one-step nucleic acid assay relegates the need for preoperative ultrasound-guided biopsy staging of the axilla in patients with early stage breast cancer

Avoiding axillary node clearance in patients with early stage breast cancer and low‑burden node‑positive axillary disease is an emerging practice. Informing the decision to adopt axillary conservation is examined by comparing routine preoperative axillary staging using ultrasound (AUS) ± AUS biopsy (AUSB) with intraoperative staging using sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) and a one‑step nucleic acid cytokeratin‑19 amplification assay (OSNA). A single‑centre, retrospective cohort study of 1,315 consecutive new diagnoses of breast cancer in 1,306 patients was undertaken in the present study. An AUS ± AUSB was performed on all patients as part of their initial assessment. Patients who had a normal ultrasound (AUS‑) or negative biopsy (AUSB‑) followed by SLNB with OSNA ± axillary lymph node dissection (ALND), and those with a positive AUSB (AUSB+), were assessed. Tests for association were determined using a χ2 and Fisher's Exact test. A total of 266 (20.4%) patients with cT1‑3 cN0 staging received 271 AUSBs. Of these, 205 biopsies were positive and 66 were negative. The 684 patients with an AUS‑/AUSB‑assessment proceeded to SLNB with OSNA. AUS sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV) were 0.53 [0.44‑0.62; 95% confidence interval (CI)] and 0.58 (0.53‑0.64, 95% CI), respectively. Using a total tumour load cut‑off of 15,000 copies/µl to predict ≥2 macro‑metastases, the sensitivity and NPV for OSNA were 0.82 (0.71‑0.92, 95% CI) and 0.98 (0.97‑0.99, 95% CI) (OSNA vs. AUS P<0.0001). Of the AUSB+ patients, 51% had ≤2 positive nodes following ALND and were potentially over‑treated. Where available, SLNB with OSNA should replace AUSB for axillary assessment in cT1‑2 cN0 patients with ≤2 indeterminate nodes seen on AUS

Determinants of energy futures - a scenario discovery method applied to cost and carbon emission futures for South American electricity infrastructure

Energy policy and investment are commonly informed by a small number of scenarios, modelled with proprietary models and closed data-sets. It limits what levels of insight that can be derived from it. This paper overcomes these critical concerns by exploring a large number of scenarios with an open-data and open-source model to address regional mitigation policy. Focusing on South America, we translate an ensemble of long-term electricity supply scenarios into policy insights and use post-processing methods to present a systematic mapping of solution outputs to model inputs. We find demand levels, the cost of capital and the level of CO2-limits to be significant determinants of total investment cost. Low-carbon pathways are associated with low demand and low cost of capital. When cost of capital increases a shift away from wind and hydropower to natural gas and solar PV is seen. We further show that appropriate concessionary finance together with energy efficiency measures are critical – at a continental level – to unlock economic, low-carbon investment

Photoelectron diffraction: from phenomenological demonstration to practical tool

The potential of photoelectron diffraction—exploiting the coherent interference of directly-emitted and elastically scattered components of the photoelectron wavefield emitted from a core level of a surface atom to obtain structural information—was first appreciated in the 1970s. The first demonstrations of the effect were published towards the end of that decade, but the method has now entered the mainstream armoury of surface structure determination. This short review has two objectives: First, to outline the way that the idea emerged and the way this evolved in my own collaboration with Neville Smith and his colleagues at Bell Labs in the early years: Second, to provide some insight into the current state-of-the art in application of (scanned-energy mode) photoelectron diffraction to address two key issue in quantitative surface structure determination, namely, complexity and precision. In this regard a particularly powerful aspect of photoelectron diffraction is its elemental and chemical-state specificity

From Phineas Gage and Monsieur Leborgne to H.M.: Revisiting Disconnection Syndromes

On the 50th anniversary of Norman Geschwind's seminal paper entitled 'Disconnexion syndrome in animal and man', we pay tribute to his ideas by applying contemporary tractographymethods to understand whitematter disconnection in 3 classic cases that made history in behavioral neurology.We first documented the locus and extent of the brain lesion from the computerized tomography of Phineas Gage's skull and themagnetic resonance images of Louis Victor Leborgne's brain, Broca's first patient, and Henry Gustave Molaison. We then applied the reconstructed lesions to an atlas of white matter connections obtained from diffusion tractography of 129 healthy adults. Our results showed that in all 3 patients, disruption extended to connections projecting to areas distant from the lesion.We confirmed that the damaged tracts link areas that in contemporary neuroscience are considered functionally engaged for tasks related to emotion and decision-making (Gage), language production (Leborgne), and declarative memory (Molaison). Our findings suggest that even historic cases should be reappraised within a disconnection framework whose principles were plainly established by the associationist schools in the last 2 centuries