CT head reporting by radiographers: Findings of an accredited postgraduate programme

Content of Presentation: Reporting by radiographers is now widely adopted into the service delivery of English NHS trusts. CT Head reporting courses have been running since the early 2000’s, and has been running at Canterbury Christ Church University since 2007. Relevance: To analyse the objective structured examination (OSE) results of the last four cohorts of radiographers (n=24) who successfully completed the postgraduate training. Outcomes: Using OSE scores of Agreement, Sensitivity and Specificity and using Kappa agreement of scores for comparison to 3 groups of consultant radiologists who produced the initial OSE reports. The cases contained a prevalence of 50% abnormal cases and 50% normal cases. Discussion: At the end of this study of training, radiographers appear to achieve high standards of CT head reporting. The findings for this study suggest that the agreement rates for appropriately educated and trained radiographers is likely to be similar to consultant radiologists, although further work is on-going to investigate this, and confirm the clinical application of these initial encouraging findings that support the radiographers contribution to this aspect of the reporting service

The Development of Buffalo

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Exponential Mixing for a Stochastic PDE Driven by Degenerate Noise

We study stochastic partial differential equations of the reaction-diffusion type. We show that, even if the forcing is very degenerate (i.e. has not full rank), one has exponential convergence towards the invariant measure. The convergence takes place in the topology induced by a weighted variation norm and uses a kind of (uniform) Doeblin condition.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Spotlight on the microbes that produce heat shock protein 90-targeting antibiotics

Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is a promising cancer drug target as a molecular chaperone critical for stabilization and activation of several of the oncoproteins that drive cancer progression. Its actions depend upon its essential ATPase, an activity fortuitously inhibited with a very high degree of selectivity by natural antibiotics: notably the actinomycete-derived benzoquinone ansamycins (e.g. geldanamycin) and certain fungal-derived resorcyclic acid lactones (e.g. radicicol). The molecular interactions made by these antibiotics when bound within the ADP/ATP-binding site of Hsp90 have served as templates for the development of several synthetic Hsp90 inhibitor drugs. Much attention now focuses on the clinical trials of these drugs. However, because microbes have evolved antibiotics to target Hsp90, it is probable that they often exploit Hsp90 inhibition when interacting with each other and with plants. Fungi known to produce Hsp90 inhibitors include mycoparasitic, as well as plant-pathogenic, endophytic and mycorrhizal species. The Hsp90 chaperone may, therefore, be a prominent target in establishing a number of mycoparasitic (interfungal), fungal pathogen–plant and symbiotic fungus–plant relationships. Furthermore the Hsp90 family proteins of the microbes that produce Hsp90 inhibitor antibiotics are able to reveal how drug resistance can arise by amino acid changes in the highly conserved ADP/ATP-binding site of Hsp90

Role of Endophytes in Tall Fescue

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is the most commonly grown cool season grass used for pastures in Arkansas. Most tall fescue contains a fungal endophyte (Acremonium coenophialum Morgan-Jones & Gams), which causes fescue toxicosis in livestock and costs cattle producers millions of dollars annually in lost production. Endophyte presence is known to reduce wild mammal populations in areas where tall fescue is prevalent. The endophyte spends its entire life cycle within the plant and is transmitted through the seed. The association is mutualistic with the plant providing nutrients for the endophyte and the endophyte conferring drought, insect, and nematode resistance to the plant. Several classes of alkaloids exist in endophyte-infected tall fescue including ergopeptides and lolines. The ergopeptides are animal toxins, where as lolines deter insects. Our present work is on elucidating physiological mechanisms explaining animal disorders and improved host drought tolerance due to endophyte, and on identifying endophyte strains that are not toxic to livestock but improve drought and pest resistance in tall fescue

Plants infected with non-toxic endophytes

A grass with improved environmental stress tolerance and low animal toxicity is disclosed where the grass is infected with an isolated endophyte selected from the groups consisting of: USDA-PI no. 269850; Ijoukak Morocco 92060; Quarzazate, Morocco KBG 5938; Oujda, Morocco KBG 5892; El-Kelaa-des-Mgouna, Morocco KBG 5914; Boumalne-de-Dades, Morocco KBG 5921; USDA-PIKBG 516560; Zeida, Morocco KBG 93001; Zeida, Morocco KBG 93002; Midelt, Morocco KBG 93006; Midelt, Morocco KBG 93007; Midelt, Morocco KBG 93008,Midelt (Zebzat), Morocco KBG 93010; Midelt, Morocco KBG 93011; Midelt, Morocco KBG 93012; mixtures and combinations thereof. A method for stably infecting the grasses is also disclosed

Quantum state preparation in semiconductor dots by adiabatic rapid passage

Preparation of a specific quantum state is a required step for a variety of proposed practical uses of quantum dynamics. We report an experimental demonstration of optical quantum state preparation in a semiconductor quantum dot with electrical readout, which contrasts with earlier work based on Rabi flopping in that the method is robust with respect to variation in the optical coupling. We use adiabatic rapid passage, which is capable of inverting single dots to a specified upper level. We demonstrate that when the pulse power exceeds a threshold for inversion, the final state is independent of power. This provides a new tool for preparing quantum states in semiconductor dots and has a wide range of potential uses.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

321W average power, 1GHz, 20ps 1060nm pulsed fiber MOPA source

Pulses from a gain-switched laser diode were amplified in a fiber MOPA system to produce in excess of 320W of average power in 20ps pulses at 1GHz repetition rate at 1060nm