The Oyster River Culvert Analysis Project

Studies have already detected intensification of precipitation events consistent with climate change projections. Communities may have a window of opportunity to prepare, but information sufficiently quantified and localized to support adaptation programs is sparse: published literature is typically characterized by general resilience building or regional vulnerability studies. The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC observed that adaptation can no longer be postponed pending the effective elimination of uncertainty. Methods must be developed that manage residual uncertainty, providing community leaders with decision-support information sufficient for implementing infrastructure adaptation programs. This study developed a local-scale and actionable protocol for maintaining historical risk levels for communities facing significant impacts from climate change and population growth. For a coastal watershed, the study assessed the capacity of the present stormwater infrastructure capacity for conveying expected peak flow resulting from climate change and population growth. The project transferred coupled-climate model projections to the culvert system, in a form understandable to planners, resource managers and decision-makers; applied standard civil engineering methods to reverse-engineer culverts to determine existing and required capacities; modeled the potential for LID methods to manage peak flow in lieu of, or combination with, drainage system upsizing; and estimated replacement costs using local and national construction cost data. The mid-21st century, most likely 25-year, 24-hour precipitation is estimated to be 35% greater than the TP-40 precipitation for the SRES A1b trajectory, and 64% greater than the TP-40 value for the SRES A1fi trajectory. 5% of culverts are already undersized for the TP-40 event to which they should have been designed. Under the most likely A1b trajectory, an additional 12% of culverts likely will be undersized, while under the most likely A1fi scenario, an additional 19% likely will be undersized. These conditions place people and property at greater risk than that historically acceptable from the TP-4025-year design storm. This risk level may be maintained by a long-term upgrade program, utilizing existing strategies to manage uncertainty and costs. At the upper-95% confidence limit for the A1fi 25-year event, 65% of culverts are adequately sized, and building the remaining 35%, and planned, culverts to thrice the cross-sectional area specified from TP-40 should provide adequate capacity through this event. Realizable LID methods can mitigate significant impacts from climate change and population growth, however effectiveness is limited for the more pessimistic climate change projections. Results indicate that uncertainty in coupled-climate model projections is not an impediment to adaptation. This study makes a significant contribution toward the generation of reliable and specific estimates of impacts from climate change, in support of programs to adapt civil infrastructures. This study promotes a solution to today\u27s arguably most significant challenge in civil infrastructure adaptation: translating the extensive corpus of adaptation theory and regional-scale impacts analyses into localscale action

Additive Manufacturing of Next Generation Electrical Machine Windings - Opportunities in Fusion Engineering?

More electric propulsion across automotive and aerospace has lead to a demand for significant improvement in thepower density of electrical machines. This has, in turn, triggered research into advanced manufacturing methods for higher performance magnet systems in machines. The application of Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF), a form of Additive Manufacture (AM), to the current carrying coils of the electromagnetic circuit of a machine has allowed several significant improvements to the design of these parts. One benefit which can be realised in this way is the tailoring of conductor form to the operating field and the alteration of conductor topolgy to reduce AC loss. Another advantage of these manufacturing techniques is the ability to introduce methods of direct cooling to the coil, including highly efficient heat exchangers derived from generative design techniques. It is significant that the electrical conductivity achieved is now equivalent to that of conventional drawn Cu wire. This paper hypothesises that the lessons learned in developing production methods for next generation, high performance components for electric machines might also find utility in the very demanding electromagnetic circuits found in magnetic confinement fusion. Potential benefits for the production of Cable-in-Conduit Conductor (CICC) superconducting (SC) bus-bar joints, or even larger elements of conductors are discussed. This is used to motivate future experimental studies of the mechanical and electrical performance of AM Cu at cryogenic temperatures as well as the further development of the manufacturing state of the art

Substrate-guided optimization of the syringolins yields potent proteasome inhibitors with activity against leukemia cell lines

Natural products that inhibit the proteasome have been fruitful starting points for the development of drug candidates. Those of the syringolin family have been underexploited in this context. Using the published model for substrate mimicry by the syringolins and knowledge about the substrate preferences of the proteolytic subunits of the human proteasome, we have designed, synthesized, and evaluated syringolin analogs. As some of our analogs inhibit the activity of the proteasome with second-order rate constants 5-fold greater than that of the methyl ester of syringolin B, we conclude that the substrate mimicry model for the syringolins is valid. The improvements in in vitro potency and the activities of particular analogs against leukemia cell lines are strong bases for further development of the syringolins as anti-cancer drugs.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant AI-16892

Investigation of the Effects of Growth Environment on the Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power of Selected Plant Species

Metabolism within the human body creates multiple oxidant by-products. These oxidants may cause cell injury, damage to DNA, and other complications leading to the development of chronic disease. Antioxidants are important dietary components which defend against oxidative damage by scavenging the oxidant by-products. Research has shown that diets rich in antioxidants offer protection against various chronic diseases. The goal of this research is to determine the effects of varying growing conditions on the production of antioxidants, and to ultimately find the best possible plant-growth environment for maximum production of antioxidants. Each plant was grown under three different environmental conditions; positive, negative, and control treatment. The positive treatment consisted of supplying water to field capacity with fertilizer, the negative treatment consisted supplying half of the water required to reach field capacity with no fertilizer, and the control treatment consisted of supplying water to field capacity with no fertilizer. Ferric reducing antioxidant levels were then determined. The ferric reducing antioxidant power evaluates antioxidant potential by reducing ferric iron (Fe3+) to its ferrous form (Fe2+). Addition of excess ferric ions result in the development of a Prussian blue color. The ferric reducing antioxidant power of the extracts was measured by reading the absorbance at 750 nm using a spectrophotometer. The ferric reducing antioxidant power assay was performed on extracts of red clover (Trifolium pratense), Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) and wild garlic (Allium vineale). The differing growing conditions resulted in variation in the production of antioxidants by the plants. The data obtained revealed that the plants grown under the negative treatment produced a significantly lower level of antioxidants when compared to the plants grown under the positive treatment. These results indicate that growing conditions can influence antioxidant production in plants