Benchmarking leakage from water reticulation systems in South Africa

A project to assess the levels of leakage in 30 water utilities throughout South Africa was initiated by the Water Research Commission. The BENCHLEAK software was used to evaluate the water utilities and performance indicators calculated by the model were used to compare levels of non-revenue water. Results showed that utilities ranked differently according to the different indicators, and that the South African results are similar to world norms. Feed back from the water utilities showed that some of the data requested were confusing and required clarity. The number of service connections, apparent losses and length of pipe between the street edge and the meter were looked at in more detail. Standard drawings were developed to assist water utilities in determining their number of service connections. A table is presented to assess the apparent losses of each water utility in a more pragmatic way. Water SA Vol. 30 (5) 2005: pp.25-3

Modeling hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: Mechanistic insights and pharmacological intervention

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a prevalent and complex cardiovascular disease where cardiac dysfunction often associates with mutations in sarcomeric genes. Various models based on tissue explants, isolated cardiomyocytes, skinned myofibrils, and purified actin/myosin preparations have uncovered disease hallmarks, enabling the development of putative therapeutics, with some reaching clinical trials. Newly developed human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-based models could be complementary by overcoming some of the inconsistencies of earlier systems, whilst challenging and/or clarifying previous findings. In this article we compare recent progress in unveiling multiple HCM mechanisms in different models, highlighting similarities and discrepancies. We explore how insight is facilitating the design of new HCM therapeutics, including those that regulate metabolism, contraction and heart rhythm, providing a future perspective for treatment of HCM

CRISPR-Cas9 gene targeting of human induced pluripotent stem cells to generate a palette of optical reporter cell lines towards investigating hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is an inherited cardiomyopathy with a variety of causative mutations, largely within sarcomeric proteins. This can result in thickening of the left ventricle of the heart, altered contractility, arrhythmias, and in some cases, sudden cardiac death. Human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) are a valuable tool for disease modelling cardiomyopathies such as HCM, and screening for potential pharmaceutical interventions. The recent emergence of CRISPR Cas9 has opened new opportunities to carry out precise gene editing to correct disease-causing mutations, as well as providing an accessible method of introducing reporter genes into the genome of hiPSCs. This project sought to utilise CRISPR-Cas9 to generate a palette of genetically encoded calcium indicator (GECI) hiPSC lines in both healthy and diseased backgrounds to investigate HCM in vitro. Site-specific guide RNAs and targeting vectors were designed to target the AAVS1 locus, an apparent safe harbour, with the GECIs RGECO or GEM-GECO, using CRISPR Cas9. These reporter lines were generated in three different genetic backgrounds, representing two different mutation backgrounds associated with HCM, two ACTC1 G301A isogenic pairs of healthy and heterozygous mutant hiPSCs and an MYH7 C9123T isogenic trio of healthy, heterozygous and homozygous mutant hiPSCs. These lines were validated with PCR, immunostaining and live imaging microscopy. By utilising confocal line scan microscopy and repurposing software to quantify and measure calcium transients, an arrhythmic phenotype was found in MYH7 C9123T mutant hiPSC-CMs. This arrhythmic phenotype was also seen in P1 ACTC1 G301A mutant hiPSC-CMs, but not P2 ACTC1 G301A mutant hiPSC-CMs, suggesting that this particular mutation is necessary yet not sufficient to cause an arrhythmic phenotype. Based on the observation that MYH7 mutants were resistant to calcium channel blockers and the arrhythmic phenotype was rescued in low extracellular calcium conditions, a focused drug screen was performed which identified the late sodium current inhibitor ranolazine, and the ryanodine receptor antagonist dantrolene, as viable drug treatments for phenotypic rescue in mutant hiPSC-CMs. Through this study, new insights into the mechanisms underlying HCM and the variability between mutations and within individuals have been elucidated

Multi-band optical variability of three TeV Blazars on Diverse Timescales

We present our optical photometric observations of three TeV blazars, PKS 1510-089, PG 1553+113 and Mrk 501 taken using two telescopes in India, one in Bulgaria, one in Greece and one in Serbia during 2012 - 2014. These observations covered a total of 95 nights with a total of 202 B filter frames, 247 images in V band, 817 in R band while 229 images were taken in the I filter. This work is focused on multi-band flux and colour variability studies of these blazars on diverse timescales which are useful in understanding the emission mechanisms. We studied the variability characteristics of above three blazars and found all to be active over our entire observational campaigns. We also searched for any correlation between the brightness of the sources and their colour indices. During the times of variability, no significant evidence for the sources to display spectral changes correlated with magnitude was found on timescales of a few months. We briefly discuss the possible physical mechanisms most likely responsible for the observed flux variability.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 9 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Understanding the Session Durability in Peer-to-Peer Storage System

This paper emphasizes that instead of long-term availability and reliability, the short-term session durability analysis will greatly impact the design of the real large-scale Peer-to-Peer storage system. In this paper, we use a Markov chain to model the session durability, and then derive the session durability probability distribution. Subsequently, we show the difference between our analysis and the traditional Mean Time to Failure (MTTF) analysis, from which we conclude that the misuse of MTTF analysis will greatly mislead our understanding of the session durability. We further show the impact of session durability analysis on the real system design. To our best knowledge, this is the first time ever to discuss the effects of session durability in large-scale Peer-to-Peer storage system.Computer Science, Theory & MethodsSCI(E)EICPCI-S(ISTP)

Dissemination of Rodent Management Technologies in Arid Zone

ABSTRACT Arid region in India is spread over in 38.7 million hectare area. Out of the total, 31.7 m ha lies in hot region occupying major part of northwestern India (28.7 m ha) and remaining 3.13 m ha is in southern India. About 62 per cent area of arid region falls in western Rajasthan followed by 20 per cent in Gujarat and 7% in Haryana and Punjab. The main crops grown in the area are bajra, mung bean, moth bean, cluster bean sesame and groundnut in Kharif season. The productivity of these crops is low as compared to its potentiality. There is a considerable scope for increasing the production of Kharif crops. Among various biotic factors, rodents are one of the main problems affecting productivity of arid zone. Rodents cause 5-10 per cent loss of food grains annually during production, processing, storage and transport METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in Beenjwadia village of Jodhpur District. Farmers of the village grow bajra, mung bean, moth bean, cluster bean and groundnut in kharif season. The productivity of these crops is low. Among the biotic factors, rodents are one of the main problems in this village. Farmers are not much aware about rodent control technology. Keeping this in view the village was selected under the transfer of technology programme of CAZRI, Jodhpur in the year 2010 for dissemination of the rodent management technology to farmers. The various extension tools like demonstrations, training, group discussion, field days etc were used for dissemination of the technology. Rodent surveys and 15 Rodenticidal demonstrations on rodent management technologies along with evaluations were conducted at farmer's field on bajra, mung bean, moth bean, cluster bean and groundnut during last 4 years. The treatments comprising zinc phosphide (2%) and control were taken in bajra, mung bean, moth bean and cluster bean and four treatments i.e. zinc phosphide (2%) bromodiolone (.005%), zinc phosphid

Determination of a correlation for predicting lean blow off limits of gaseous fueled, premixed turbulent jet flame arrays enclosed in a hexagonal dump combustor

Combustion of natural gas with air in gas turbines is a key technology for efficient provision of electric energy and heat. More stringent regulations regarding the emission of pollutants, such as NOx emissions, are necessitating research on technologies to reduce NOx formation during the combustion process. One technical approach onto the reduction of NOx-formation during combustion is fuel-lean premixed combustion. Current lean combustion concepts applied in stationary gas turbine combustors rely on flame stabilization through recirculation of hot flue gas using swirling flows. Swirl stabilized flames may be prone to combustion instabilities especially in lean premixed arrangements. Therefore, another approach is followed in the present study. In this concept, a matrix of turbulent lean premixed jet flames in a dump combustor is applied. The matrix burner consists of a nozzle with an array of circular channels in a hexagonal arrangement and a combustion chamber with a hexagonal cross section. In order to develop an appropriate burner design based on this concept, the experimental determination and theoretical evaluation of the lean blow out limit using different nozzles and operating conditions were conducted in this work in order to quantify the influence of different parameters on the flame stability. The varied geometric parameters are the diameter of the circular channels in the burner matrix as well as the ratio of the free cross section area of the nozzle to the cross section are of the combustion chamber, the combustor area dump ratio. The lean blow limit was determined at different preheating temperatures and flow velocities. The results show that the velocity at the LBO limit increases with increasing channel diameter, area combustor dump ratio and preheating temperature. The experimental results of three matrix burner are correlated in terms of a critical Damkoehler number and it is shown through experimental validation, that the Damkoehler number correlation derived is capable of predicting the LBO of a scaled matrix burner

Autonomous multi-dimensional slicing for large-scale distributed systems

Slicing is a distributed systems primitive that allows to autonomously partition a large set of nodes based on node-local attributes. Slicing is decisive for automatically provisioning system resources for different services, based on their requirements or importance. One of the main limitations of existing slicing protocols is that only single dimension attributes are considered for partitioning. In practical settings, it is often necessary to consider best compromises for an ensemble of metrics. In this paper we propose an extension of the slicing primitive that allows multi-attribute distributed systems slicing. Our protocol employs a gossip-based approach that does not require centralized knowledge and allows self-organization. It leverages the notion of domination between nodes, forming a partial order between multi-dimensional points, in a similar way to SkyLine queries for databases. We evaluate and demonstrate the interest of our approach using large-scale simulations.This work received support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under grant SFRH/BD/71476/2010

Gender preferences among antenatal women: a cross-sectional study from coastal South India

Background: A balanced sex ratio is essential for a stable society.Objective: The main objective of the present research was to study the perceptions of women attending the antenatal care (ANC) facility regarding their gender preferences and family composition.Method: In this cross-sectional study 132 antenatal women were interviewed in their preferred language using a predesigned semi-structured questionnaire. The collected information was analyzed using SPSS version 11.5.Results: The mean age of the study participants was 27.2 ± 4.1 years. The majority of the antenatal women (60.6%, n=80) did not have any gender preferences. Among those who had a gender preference (39.4%, n=52), male and female preference was reported by 55.7% (n=29) and 44.3% (n=23) of the participants respectively. The overall son preference index was observed to be 1.3. No consistent relationship could be established between the socio-demographic factors and the preference for gender. The mean preferred family size in our study was 1.85±0.531 and more than half of the participants had a balanced gender preference. The majority of the participants were aware that the adverse sex ratio can lead to fall in the number of brides and that it would bring about a social imbalance.Conclusion: As a developed society we need to ensure that both the genders get equal respect and are free from any sort of preferences and prejudices. To achieve this, more and more people need to be made aware of the consequences of gender imbalance and adverse sex ratio in a society.Keywords: Gender preferences; family composition; antenatal women; coastal South Indi