Use of Ground Penetrating Radar to identify the presence and orientation of Graves in St. Brigitts Cemetery, Bergen New York

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was employed to determine the location of all caskets buried at the St. Brigitts cemetery, located at the intersection of Munger Rd and Rte 33 in Bergen, New York. The study, which located 432 sites in the cemetery where caskets are buried, will assist the Diocese of St. Brigitts Church in their plans to improve the cemetery. These improvements include the refurbishment of existing headstones, the replacement of headstones where none currently exist, and the identification of land areas where new graves may be located

Frederick Farm Well Contamination: Borehole Camera Analysis of Bedrock Structure

A borehole camera analysis was conducted at the Frederick Farm to characterize bedrock structure, quantify fractures, and establish the condition of the well casing. Through the use of a GeoVISION Jr.™ and recording equipment, footage of the camera decent was recorded for data analysis. The 5 ft well casing appeared intact and was properly constructed within bedrock. The well above the water table contained few fractures and appeared to be weathered. Flowing water was visible in the two main fractures, located on the south (5.5 ft depth) and south-western (13.5 ft depth) walls of the well respectively. The water table interface was observed at 31.125 ft depth. Below the water table the well was laden with many fractures. The size of the fractures appear to increase in size with depth, with the larger fractures approaching ~1 ft in thickness. Also noted in this interval were areas of enhanced chemical weathering, particularly below 62.5 ft. The bedrock fracture profile is indicative of a well built within heavily fractured karstic limestone

Manipulator-based grasping pose selection by means of task-objective optimisation

This paper presents an alternative to inverse kinematics for mobile manipulator grasp pose selection which integrates obstacle avoidance and joint limit checking into the pose selection process. Given the Cartesian coordinates of an object in 3D space and its normal vector, end-effector pose objectives including collision checking and joint limit checks are used to create a series of cost functions based on sigmoid functions. These functions are optimised using Levenberg-Marquardt's algorithm to determine a valid pose for a given object. The proposed method has been shown to extend the workspace of the manipulator, eliminating the need for precomputed grasp sets and post pose selection collision checking and joint limit checks. This method has been successfully used on a 6 DOF manipulator both in simulation and in the real world environment

Determination of Venlafaxine and Modafinil in Individual Tablet Dosage Forms using Single RP-HPLC Method

Purpose: To develop a simple and selective isocratic method for the determination of venlafaxine and modafinil in tablet dosage forms.Methods: The compounds were analyzed on Waters symmetry C18 column (4.6 mm x 250 mm i.d, 5μm) using a mobile phase consisting of a mixture of ammonium acetate buffer (pH was adjusted to 4.0 with glacial acetic acid):10 % methanol in acetonitrile, in the ratio of 60:40. The flow rate was 1.0 ml/min and column effluents were monitored at 225 nm. The method was validated according to ICH guidelines.Results: Venlafaxine and modafinil were eluted with retention times of 4.416 min and 6.443 min, respectively. The method was linear in the range of 1.0 - 50 μg/ml for both venlafaxine and modafinil. The relative standard deviation (%RSD) was < 1 for both drugs while mean recovery values at different concentration levels were within limits. The performance of the method was not changed when small variations in the method were made.Conclusion: The proposed method is accurate, reproducible and low-cost, and can be used for the routine analysis of the individual drugs in formulations.Keywords: Venlafaxine, Modafinil, Isocratic method, Validatio

Rab11 rescues synaptic dysfunction and behavioural deficits in a Drosophila model of Huntington's disease

Synapse abnormalities in Huntington's disease (HD) patients can precede clinical diagnosis and neuron loss by decades. The polyglutamine expansion in the huntingtin (htt) protein that underlies this disorder leads to perturbations in many cellular pathways, including the disruption of Rab11-dependent endosomal recycling. Impairment of the small GTPase Rab11 leads to the defective formation of vesicles in HD models and may thus contribute to the early stages of the synaptic dysfunction in this disorder. Here, we employ transgenic Drosophila melanogaster models of HD to investigate anomalies at the synapse and the role of Rab11 in this pathology. We find that the expression of mutant htt in the larval neuromuscular junction decreases the presynaptic vesicle size, reduces quantal amplitudes and evoked synaptic transmission and alters larval crawling behaviour. Furthermore, these indicators of early synaptic dysfunction are reversed by the overexpression of Rab11. This work highlights a potential novel HD therapeutic strategy for early intervention, prior to neuronal loss and clinical manifestation of disease

Two New Techniques for Evaluating Connectivity of Septic Fields to Great Lake Watersheds and Embayments

Pictometry Oblique Imagery was successfully used to map septic fields in Oak Orchard watershed. Analysis of the imagery proved to be efficient for finding leach fields, and between 66 to 81% of the septic fields previously mapped by the Genesee Orleans County Department of Health, were identified. The remainder were not identified because of canopy cover, or were either septic systems without leach fields, the septic field postdated the imagery, or were not visible. Consequently under ideal conditions (septic systems with leach fields and no canopy or shadows) the method should be able to identify over 80% of the systems. Imagery taken during the transition from dormant to growing season proved best for identifying leach fields. One example of a plume from a short circuited system was recorded. A total of 1277 septic fields were mapped in the watershed. Spatial distribution was heterogenous, with dense sites of septic fields concentrated along residential road corridors. Approximately 4.2% of the leach fields were located less than 100 feet of a tributary. This is below the minimum separation distance of a leach field to a waterbody that is required by the NYS Department of Health code. The average distance of a leach field to a tributary is 327 meters with 50% of the leach fields occurring within 240 meters of mapped tributaries. Maps of important septic field “hotspots” were developed for watershed stakeholders and include tributaries along Batavia-Elba Townline Rd., Marsh Creek, and tributaries near the intersections of Alleghany and Lockport Rds, Judge Rd and Knowlesville Rd., and Lockport and Albion Rd. Considerable numbers of septic fields occur along Lake Alice in the main stem of the river, however this stretch is probably diluted by water input from the Erie Canal at the Glendale Dam. In a second set of experiments, a new DNA-based groundwater tracer was introduced to two septic systems to see if it could be used to trace individual septic systems. The tracer was not discovered in one site, however, a breakthrough curve was obtained in the second site 31 days after being introduced into the toilet. This tracer passed through at least 200 meters of groundwater flowpath and 1 km of stream. The results of these experiments suggest that frequent, systematic sampling and careful lab protocols to identify the signal to noise threshold of the procedure are critical to the success of the technique. In summary we suggest that Pictometry Oblique Imagery can be used to map septic fields in a watershed and that the DNA Tracer technique may be successful in some septic systems. Further research needs to be conducted to improve the success of the latter

3-D kinematic comparison of treadmill and overground running.

Studies investigating the mechanics of human movement are often conducted using the treadmill. The treadmill is an attractive device for the analysis of human locomotion. Studies comparing overground and treadmill running have analyzed discrete variables, however differences in excursion from footstrike to peak angle and range of motion during stance have yet to be examined. This study aimed to examine the 3-D kinematics of the lower extremities during overground and treadmill locomotion to determine the extent to which the two modalities differ. Twelve participants ran at 4.0m/s in both treadmill and overground conditions. 3-D angular kinematic parameters during the stance phase were collected using an eight camera motion analysis system. Hip, knee and ankle joint kinematics were quantified in the sagittal, coronal and transverse planes, then compared using paired t-tests. Of the parameters analyzed hip flexion at footstrike 12° hip range of motion 17°, peak hip flexion 12.7°, hip transverse plane range of motion 8° peak knee flexion 5° and peak ankle excursion range 6.6°, coronal plane ankle angle at toe-off 6.5° and peak ankle eversion 6.3° were found to be significantly different. These results lead to the conclusion that the mechanics of treadmill locomotion cannot be generalized to overground

A Flexible Spatio-Temporal Model for Air Pollution: Allowing for Spatio-Temporal Covariates

Given the increasing interest in the association between exposure to air pollution and adverse health outcomes, the development of models that provide accurate spatio-temporal predictions of air pollution concentrations at small spatial scales is of great importance when assessing potential health effects of air pollution. The methodology presented here has been developed as part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Air Pollution (MESA Air), a prospective cohort study funded by the US EPA to investigate the relationship between chronic exposure to air pollution and cardiovascular disease. We present a spatio-temporal framework that models and predicts ambient air pollution by combining data from several different monitoring networks with the output from deterministic air pollution model(s). The model can accommodate arbitrarily missing observations and allows for a complex spatio-temporal correlation structure. We apply the model to predict long-term average concentrations of gaseous oxides of nitrogen (NOx) ─ one of the primary pollutants of interest in the MESA Air study ─ during a ten year period in the Los Angeles area, based on measurements from the EPA Air Quality System and MESA Air monitoring. The measurements are augmented by a spatio-temporal covariate based on the output from a source dispersion model for traffic related air pollution (Caline3QHC) and the model is evaluated using cross-validation. The predictive ability of the model is good with cross-validated R2 of approximately 0.7 at subject sites. The incorporation of a dispersion model output into the overall prediction model was feasible, but the particular implementation of Caline3QHC used here did not improve predictions in a model that also includes road information. However, excluding the road information the inclusion of model output improves predictions and we find some evidence that the source dispersion model can replace road covariates. The model presented in this paper has been implemented in an R package, SpatioTemporal, which will be available on CRAN shortly

RobotAssist - A platform for human robot interaction research

This paper presents RobotAssist, a robotic platform designed for use in human robot interaction research and for entry into Robocup@Home competition. The core autonomy of the system is implemented as a component based software framework that allows for integration of operating system independent components, is designed to be expandable and integrates several layers of reasoning. The approaches taken to develop the core capabilities of the platform are described, namely: path planning in a social context, Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM), human cue sensing and perception, manipulatable object detection and manipulation