Distributed resource discovery using a context sensitive infrastructure

Distributed Resource Discovery in a World Wide Web environment using full-text indices will never scale. The distinct properties of WWW information (volume, rate of change, topical diversity) limits the scaleability of traditional approaches to distributed Resource Discovery. An approach combining metadata clustering and query routing can, on the other hand, be proven to scale much better. This paper presents the Content-Sensitive Infrastructure, which is a design building on these results. We also present an analytical framework for comparing scaleability of different distribution strategies

UK medical cannabis registry: a patient evaluation.

The UK Medical Cannabis Registry is the largest real world data platform for medical cannabis outcomes in the UK, providing insight into clinical outcomes and monitoring safety of this novel therapy. This study aims to assess the functionality and accessibility of the online data collection platform and patient priorities for future research. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data. For open-ended questions an inductive thematic analysis was performed. 600 responses were recorded. 554 (92.3%) patients had used the platform. 272 (90.4%) patients believed it was easy to input medications. 52 (8.67%) patients recorded an adverse event with 38 (73.1%) finding it easy to record. 535 (96.6%) patients had completed health questionnaires with 490 (91.6%) patients finding this easy to do. 553 (92.2%) patients agreed that contributing to the registry would impact the medical care of future patients. 'Assessing the impact of medical cannabis on quality of life generally' was the top research priority for 357 (59.3%) patients. This study demonstrates that most enrolled patients found the platform easy to use and believed they were positively impacting future medical cannabis patient care. Future patient research priorities included assessment of quality of life and condition-specific outcomes

Low-cost filter media for removal of hydrogensulphide from piggery biogas

The presence of elevated concentrations of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in piggery biogas is problematic due to its corrosiveness and toxicity. At small scale, the cost of using iron or carbon-based commercial filter media to remove H2S can act as a barrier to the uptake of on-farm biogas technology. To identify cost-effective, alternative options, this study tested and compared H2S removal by the commercial iron-oxide H2S scavenger (cg5) with the alternative solid media: granulated steel furnace slag (GSFS), red soil, compost, composted beef feedlot manure, granular activated carbon (GAC) and biochar. Experiments measured single-pass H2S removal from a pre-humidified standard gas (2000 ppm H2S in nitrogen) onto solid media contained in a cylindrical plastic column (DN 25 mm, depth 110–147 mm). The commercial medium (cg5) performed considerably better than the other media, achieving sulphur removal of 143 g S/kg medium at breakthrough (>10 ppm outlet H2S). A red soil was the most promising alternative medium (2–12 g S/kg medium at breakthrough). The crystalline structure of the iron-oxide minerals appeared to strongly influence the H2S removal capacity of the red soils, and pressure drop was generally high. Bulking with ground sugarcane mulch (SCM) was effective at reducing pressure drop. Interestingly, H2S removal with red soil improved when the soil was regenerated by exposure to air, followed by reuse in the column. Overall, red soil may be a suitable low-cost option, especially for polishing biogas after initial biological H2S removal

Autocatalytic plume pinch-off

A localized source of buoyancy flux in a non-reactive fluid medium creates a plume. The flux can be provided by either heat, a compositional difference between the fluid comprising the plume and its surroundings, or a combination of both. For autocatalytic plumes produced by the iodate-arsenous acid reaction, however, buoyancy is produced along the entire reacting interface between the plume and its surroundings. Buoyancy production at the moving interface drives fluid motion, which in turn generates flow that advects the reaction front. As a consequence of this interplay between fluid flow and chemical reaction, autocatalytic plumes exhibit a rich dynamics during their ascent through the reactant medium. One of the more interesting dynamical features is the production of an accelerating vortical plume head that in certain cases pinches-off and detaches from the upwelling conduit. After pinch-off, a new plume head forms in the conduit below, and this can lead to multiple generations of plume heads for a single plume initiation. We investigated the pinch-off process using both experimentation and simulation. Experiments were performed using various concentrations of glycerol, in which it was found that repeated pinch-off occurs exclusively in a specific concentration range. Autocatalytic plume simulations revealed that pinch-off is triggered by the appearance of accelerating flow in the plume conduit.Comment: 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys Rev E. See also http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/nonlinear/papers_chemwave.htm

Supporting undergraduate engineering student mental health.

The culture within engineering education can lead to the normalization of stress, which has the potential to impact student mental health. In particular, there have been reports on the perceived stress of the engineering education environment, perceived difficulty of an engineering degree and an increasing body of quantitative and qualitative evidence highlighting mental health and wellbeing challenges experienced by engineering students. Further, engineering students are resistant to seeking professional help for their mental health, which has been proven reduce the potential for progression to more chronic or severe mental health disorders. Investigating the mental health and wellbeing of engineering students specifically is important due to a global lack of engineers and increased need for engineering graduates. While the reasons for this skills deficit are not clear, calls for education reform to address the problem have been growing for some time. Further, more engineers are leaving the sector internationally due to burnout and this can differentially impact female engineering professionals. Concerns are also being raised about the mental health of engineering professionals in the UK and beyond. The literature on mental health in engineering highlights the importance of shifting the narrative around prioritization of mental health in engineering. Through this workshop, we aim to provide engineering faculty with the tools to normalize discussions around mental health in the classroom and promote a culture of wellness in engineering. Through creating a culture that is supportive of mental health in the engineering classroom, we aim to create an engineering workforce that understands the importance of prioritization of mental health as they progress through their careers

More rapid reversal learning following overtraining in the rat is evidence that behavioural and cognitive flexibility are dissociable

The research was undertaken by SSD, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of a PhD degree under the joint supervision of VJB and DST and supported by The University of St Andrews (QR Block Grant).Cognitive flexibility is a term used to describe the brain processes underlying the phenomenon of adaptive change in behaviour in response to changed contingencies in the internal or external environment. Cognitive flexibility is often assessed in complex tasks measuring perceptual attentional shifting or response or task switching, but, arguably, reversal learning is a simple assay of cognitive flexibility. Reversal learning requires the detection of a changed outcome, the cessation of a previously-rewarded response and the selection of an alternative, previously-unrewarded, response. This study addressed the issue of the relationship between reversal learning and cognitive flexibility. In a single testing session, rats completed a series of 2-alternative forced-choice discriminations between digging bowls. The bowls differed according to both the medium within the bowl and the odor of the bowl. Having learned which cue (one of the odors or one of the digging media) indicated the food-baited bowl, half the rats were given additional trials of “over-training”. To test reversal learning, the meaning of the cues predictive of reward/non-reward was then switched. There was a robust effect of over-training, with over-trained rats performing reversal learning in fewer trials than rats trained to criterion only. The pattern of errors supported the hypothesis that more rapid reversing results from the formation of an attentional set. This is the same attentional mechanism that results in less rapid shifting or switching. We conclude that the behavioural flexibility demonstrated in reversal learning does not provide a scale on which cognitive flexibility can be measured.PostprintPeer reviewe

The WIMP Forest: Indirect Detection of a Chiral Square

The spectrum of photons arising from WIMP annihilation carries a detailed imprint of the structure of the dark sector. In particular, loop-level annihilations into a photon and another boson can in principle lead to a series of lines (a WIMP forest) at energies up to the WIMP mass. A specific model which illustrates this feature nicely is a theory of two universal extra dimensions compactified on a chiral square. Aside from the continuum emission, which is a generic prediction of most dark matter candidates, we find a "forest" of prominent annihilation lines that, after convolution with the angular resolution of current experiments, leads to a distinctive (2-bump plus continuum) spectrum, which may be visible in the near future with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (formerly known as GLAST).Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

A Case of Cholangitis Glandularis Proliferans and Cholangiocarcinoma of the Common Bile Duct

A case of Cholangitis Glandularis Proliferans (CAGP) in association with a cholangiocarcinoma of the common bile duct as described. This is the eighth case of CAGP described and the second association with cholangiocarcinoma

Canadian Arctic Tide Measurement Techniques and Results

About 10 years ago the Canadian Hydrographic Service recognized the need for a planned approach to completing tide and current surveys of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in order to meet the requirements of marine shipping and construction industries as well as the needs of environmental studies related to resource development. Therefore, a program of tidal surveys was begun which has resulted in a data base of tidal records covering most of the Archipelago. In this paper the problems faced by tidal surveyors and others working in the harsh Arctic environment are described and the variety of equipment and techniques developed for short, medium and long-term deployments are reported. The tidal characteristics throughout the Archipelago, determined primarily from these surveys, are briefly summarized. It was also recognized that there would be a need for real time tidal data by engineers, surveyors and mariners. Since the existing permanent tide gauges in the Arctic do not have this capability, a project was started in the early 1980’s to develop and construct a new permanent gauging system. The first of these gauges was constructed during the summer of 1985 and is described