Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise Of 8 Beaches In Shoalhaven: A New Multi-Dimensional Assessment Methodology

Coastal councils around the world are likely to be affected by future climatic impacts such as sea level rise and extreme flooding. Shoalhaven City Council is responsible for the sustainable management of 165 kilometres of open coast, the longest of any local government area in New South Wales. In order to prepare a comprehensive coastal zone management plan, Council investigated present and expected future coastal risks on its beaches. Detailed studies identified eight beaches where coastal hazards would significantly impact private properties and public assets. In order to help decision-makers in prioritising management actions for the eight areas, an analytical tool is needed that would not only quantify the physical risks to infrastructure but would also be able to integrate social and environmental considerations towards a holistic assessment of the vulnerability of each beach area. Following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conceptualisation, the vulnerability of a community to a climate hazard can be seen as determined by the degree of physical exposure to the hazard, as well as the community’s sensitivity to its impacts and its ability to cope with, or adapt to, these impacts. Hence, vulnerability assessment presents a number of theoretical and methodological challenges, the most important of which are epitomized by the following questions: 1. how to determine, say whether a community with high exposure and high adaptive capacity is more vulnerable or less vulnerable than a community with lower exposure but lower adaptive capacity? (problem of compensation). 2. how to incorporate the imprecision and value-judgments inevitably present in multistakeholder vulnerability assessments while maintaining a consistent and robust scientific process? (problem of fuzziness). A new methodology has been developed at the University of Sydney that addresses these questions and offers a clear and consistent approach for conducting vulnerability assessments. The paper describes the application of this methodology to the ranking of vulnerabilities to sea level rise of eight beaches in Shoalhaven

Electron charge transport in non-peripherally substituted copper phthalocyanine

Bottom-gate, bottom-contact organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) were fabricated using solvent soluble copper-1,4,8,11,15,18,22,25-octakis(hexyl)phthalocyanine as the active semiconductor layer. The compound was deposited as 70 nm thick spin-coated films onto gold source-drain electrodes supported on octadecyltrichlorosilane treated 250 nm thick SiO2 gate insulator. The analysis of experimental results showed the n-type field effect behaviour. Devices annealed at 100 oC under vacuum were found to exhibit the field-effect mobility of 0.0989 cm2 V-1 s-1, with an on/off current modulation ratio of ∼106, a reduced threshold voltage of 0.7 V and a sub-threshold swing of 2.12 V decade-1. The variations in surface morphology of the devices are found reflected considerably in the electrical measurements. The device contact resistance was found to be decreased as the gate bias increased and also with the annealing

Characterization of a junctionless diode

A diode has been realised using a silicon junctionless (JL) transistor. The device contains neither PN junction nor Schottky junction. The device is measured at different temperatures. The characteristics of the JL diode are essentially identical to those of a regular PN junction diode. The JL diode has an on/off current ratio of 10(8), an ideality factor of 1.09, and a reverse leakage current of 1 x 10(-14) A at room temperature. The mechanism of the leakage current is discussed using the activation energy (E-A). The turn-on voltage of the device can be tuned by JL transistor threshold voltage. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. (doi: 10.1063/1.3608150

Investigational drugs for recurrent or primary advanced metastatic cervical cancer: what is in the clinical development pipeline?

Recurrent cervical cancer; Combination therapy; ImmunotherapyCáncer cervical recurrente; Terapia de combinación; InmunoterapiaCàncer cervical recurrent; Teràpia combinada; ImmunoteràpiaIntroduction: Recurrent or primary advanced metastatic cervical cancer (R/M CC) has a poor prognosis with a 5-year-survival rate of 16.5%, demanding novel and improved therapies for the treatment of these patients. The first-line standard of care for R/M CC now benefits from the addition of the immune checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab, to platinum-based chemotherapy with paclitaxel and bevacizumab. Additionally, new options for second-line treatment have become available in recent years. Areas covered: Here, we review current investigational drugs and discuss their relative targets, efficacies, and potential within the R/M CC treatment landscape. This review will focus on recently published data and key ongoing clinical trials in patients with R/M CC, covering multiple modes of action, including immunotherapies, antibody-drug conjugates, and tyrosine kinase inhibitors. We searched clinicaltrials.gov for ongoing trials and pubmed.ncbi.nih.gov for recently published trial data, as well as recent years' proceedings from the annual conferences of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO), and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society (IGCS). Expert opinion: Therapeutics currently attracting attention include novel immune checkpoint inhibitors, therapeutic vaccinations, antibody-drug conjugates, such as tisotumab vedotin, tyrosine kinase inhibitors targeting HER2, and multitarget synergistic combinations

Emerging treatment strategies in recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer: focus on trabectedin.

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the leading cause of death from gynecological malignancies. In spite of high response rates to the standard front-line treatment for advanced disease with cytoreductive surgical debulking, followed by platinum/taxane-based chemotherapy, most patients eventually relapse developing drug-resistant disease. Owing to the molecular heterogeneity, genetic instability and mutagenicity of OC, increases in survival might be achieved by translating recent insights at the morpho-molecular levels to individual therapeutic strategies. Several emerging treatments have been shown to be active in platinum-sensitive (PS) recurrent OC (ROC), but an optimal strategy still has not been established. Based on the recent results, it is likely that the introduction of novel non-platinum based chemotherapies and molecular targeted therapies will have a major impact on the management of ROC. Some current strategies are focused on the extension of platinum-free interval (PFI) in patients with PS, particularly in those with partially PS disease. Apparently, the PFI extension by an effective non-platinum intervention, such as trabectedin plus pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD), may reduce cumulative platinum-induced toxicities leading to longer survival after the reintroduction of subsequent platinum. The introduction of novel therapies, such as the antiangiogenic monoclonal antibody bevacizumab, opens a new field of targeted therapies in this indication. In this review, we aim to outline the therapeutic potential of new emerging approaches, particularly the role of non-platinum therapy with trabectedin in combination with PLD in patients with PS ROC. © 2013 The Authors

Channel Length Dependent Characterisations of Organic Thin Film Transistors with Solution Processable Gadolinium Phthalocyanine Derivatives

Spin-coated 52-nm-thick films of newly synthesised gadolinium liquid crystalline bisphthalocyanine sandwich (GdPc 2) complexes with octyl chains non-peripheral positions have been successfully employed as active layers for bottom-gate organic field effect transistors having both short (5μm) and long (20μm) channels. The scaling down of the channel length (L) decreases the field effect mobility due to the increase in the contact resistance between the gold electrodes and the GdPc 2 semiconducting layer. Values of on–off ratio and sub-threshold voltage swing are higher nearly one order of magnitude for L=5μm than those for L=20μm

The Changing Landscape of Systemic Treatment for Cervical Cancer: Rationale for Inhibition of the TGF-β and PD-L1 Pathways

Cervical cancer; Tumor microenvironmentCáncer de cuello uterino; Microambiente tumoralCàncer de coll uterí; Microambient tumoralCervical cancer is one of the most common and lethal cancers among women worldwide. Treatment options are limited in patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer, with 5 years. Persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infection has been implicated in almost all cases of cervical cancer. HPV infection not only causes normal cervical cells to transform into cancer cells, but also creates an immunosuppressive environment for cancer cells to evade the immune system. Recent clinical trials of drugs targeting the PD-(L)1 pathway have demonstrated improvement in overall survival in patients with cervical cancer, but only 20% to 30% of patients show overall survival benefit beyond 2 years, and resistance to these treatments remains common. Therefore, novel treatment strategies targeting HPV infection–associated factors are currently being evaluated in clinical trials. Bintrafusp alfa is a first-in-class bifunctional fusion protein composed of the extracellular domain of the TGF-βRII receptor (a TGF-β “trap”) fused to a human immunoglobulin G1 monoclonal antibody that blocks PD-L1. Early clinical trials of bintrafusp alfa have shown promising results in patients with advanced cervical cancer.This work was funded by Merck (CrossRef Funder ID: 10.13039/100009945) and was previously part of an alliance between Merck and GlaxoSmithKline