Automated Transit Networks (ATN): A Review of the State of the Industry and Prospects for the Future, MTI Report 12-31

The concept of Automated Transit Networks (ATN) - in which fully automated vehicles on exclusive, grade-separated guideways provide on-demand, primarily non-stop, origin-to-destination service over an area network – has been around since the 1950s. However, only a few systems are in current operation around the world. ATN does not appear “on the radar” of urban planners, transit professionals, or policy makers when it comes to designing solutions for current transit problems in urban areas. This study explains ATN technology, setting it in the larger context of Automated Guideway Transit (AGT); looks at the current status of ATN suppliers, the status of the ATN industry, and the prospects of a U.S.-based ATN industry; summarizes and organizes proceedings from the seven Podcar City conferences that have been held since 2006; documents the U.S./Sweden Memorandum of Understanding on Sustainable Transport; discusses how ATN could expand the coverage of existing transit systems; explains the opportunities and challenges in planning and funding ATN systems and approaches for procuring ATN systems; and concludes with a summary of the existing challenges and opportunities for ATN technology. The study is intended to be an informative tool for planners, urban designers, and those involved in public policy, especially for urban transit, to provide a reference for history and background on ATN, and to use for policy development and research

Bridging the gap of screening and scale up in CHO, hybridoma, HEK293 and other cell lines: Single use optimum growth flasks 30mL-5L flasks with transfer caps, and ports

Optimum Growth FlasksTM (patented) are a break through design to shake flasks, and the first in 100+ years. By using Optimum Growth FlasksTM users are able to grow 15mLs-3L of Cell Culture with the same scalability. The Optimum Growth FlasksTM have replaced disposable Fernbach Flasks and also small Wave® Bags (5L & 10L) in the larger sizes as production vessels. The Optimum Growth Flasks TM also give high viability cultures with a great use of space as shown by our data in CHO, Hybridoma, HEK293 and other Cell Lines. We have made a series of Transfer Caps (patented) available in all sizes allowing for the flasks to be used as seed culture for transfer to larger Optimum Growth FlasksTM , Cell Bags and Bioreactors. For cell line development we have introduced new Sampling Valves, and Transfer-Feed valves that allow for no unscrewing of caps for manipulations for Cell Development, and a carrier system for making it easier handling. We will show how to better grow to Higher Density, with high viability, and good product quality for the proteins and antibodies of interest

Decline of a rare moth at its last known English site : causes and lessons for conservation

The conditions required by rare species are often only approximately known. Monitoring such species over time can help refine management of their protected areas. We report population trends of a rare moth, the Dark Bordered Beauty Epione vespertaria (Linnaeus, 1767) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) at its last known English site on a protected lowland heath, and those of its host-plant, Salix repens (L.) (Malpighiales: Salicaceae). Between 2007 and 2014, adult moth density reduced by an average of 30-35% annually over the monitored area, and its range over the monitored area contracted in concert. By comparing data from before this decline (2005) with data taken in 2013, we show that the density of host-plants over the monitored area reduced three-fold overall, and ten-fold in the areas of highest host-plant density. In addition, plants were significantly smaller in 2013. In 2005, moth larvae tended to be found on plants that were significantly larger than average at the time. By 2013, far fewer plants were of an equivalent size. This suggests that the rapid decline of the moth population coincides with, and is likely driven by, changes in the hostplant population. Why the host-plant population has changed remains less certain, but fire, frost damage and grazing damage have probably contributed. It is likely that a reduction in grazing pressure in parts of the site would aid host-plant recovery, although grazing remains an important site management activity. Our work confirms the value of constant monitoring of rare or priority insect species, of the risks posed to species with few populations even when their populations are large, of the potential conflict between bespoke management for species and generic management of habitats, and hence the value of refining our knowledge of rare species' requirements so that their needs can be incorporated into the management of protected areas

Penalised Maximum Likelihood Simultaneous Longitudinal PET Image Reconstruction with Difference‐Image Priors

PurposeMany clinical contexts require the acquisition of multiple positron emission tomography (PET) scans of a single subject, for example to observe and quantify changes in functional behaviour in tumours after treatment in oncology. Typically, the datasets from each of these scans are reconstructed individually, without exploiting the similarities between them. We have recently shown that sharing information between longitudinal PET datasets by penalising voxel‐wise differences during image reconstruction can improve reconstructed images by reducing background noise and increasing the contrast‐to‐noise ratio of high activity lesions. Here we present two additional novel longitudinal difference‐image priors and evaluate their performance using 2D simulation studies and a 3D real dataset case study.MethodsWe have previously proposed a simultaneous difference‐image‐based penalised maximum likelihood (PML) longitudinal image reconstruction method that encourages sparse difference images (DS‐PML), and in this work we propose two further novel prior terms. The priors are designed to encourage longitudinal images with corresponding differences which have i) low entropy (DE‐PML), and ii) high sparsity in their spatial gradients (DTV‐PML). These two new priors and the originally proposed longitudinal prior were applied to 2D simulated treatment response [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) brain tumour datasets and compared to standard maximum likelihood expectation‐maximisation (MLEM) reconstructions. These 2D simulation studies explored the effects of penalty strengths, tumour behaviour, and inter‐scan coupling on reconstructed images. Finally, a real two‐scan longitudinal data series acquired from a head and neck cancer patient was reconstructed with the proposed methods and the results compared to standard reconstruction methods.ResultsUsing any of the three priors with an appropriate penalty strength produced images with noise levels equivalent to those seen when using standard reconstructions with increased counts levels. In tumour regions each method produces subtly different results in terms of preservation of tumour quantification and reconstruction root mean‐squared error (RMSE). In particular, in the two‐scan simulations, the DE‐PML method produced tumour means in close agreement with MLEM reconstructions, while the DTV‐PML method produced the lowest errors due to noise reduction within the tumour. Across a range of tumour responses and different numbers of scans, similar results were observed, with DTV‐PML producing the lowest errors of the three priors and DE‐PML producing the lowest bias. Similar improvements were observed in the reconstructions of the real longitudinal datasets, although imperfect alignment of the two PET images resulted in additional changes in the difference image that affected the performance of the proposed methods.ConclusionReconstruction of longitudinal datasets by penalising difference images between pairs of scans from a data series allows for noise reduction in all reconstructed images. An appropriate choice of penalty term and penalty strength allows for this noise reduction to be achieved while maintaining reconstruction performance in regions of change, either in terms of quantification of mean intensity via DE‐PML, or in terms of tumour RMSE via DTV‐PML. Overall, improving the image quality of longitudinal datasets via simultaneous reconstruction has the potential to improve upon currently used methods, allow dose reduction, or reduce scan time while maintaining image quality at current levels

Bootstrap-Optimised Regularised Image Reconstruction for Emission Tomography

In emission tomography, iterative image reconstruction from noisy measured data usually results in noisy images, and so regularisation is often used to compensate for noise. However, in practice, an appropriate, automatic and precise specification of the strength of regularisation for image reconstruction from a given noisy measured dataset remains unresolved. Existing approaches are either empirical approximations with no guarantee of generalisation, or else are computationally intensive cross-validation methods requiring full reconstructions for a limited set of preselected regularisation strengths. In contrast, we propose a novel methodology embedded within iterative image reconstruction, using one or more bootstrapped replicates of the measured data for precise optimisation of the regularisation. The approach uses a conventional unregularised iterative update of a current image estimate from the noisy measured data, and then also uses the bootstrap replicate to obtain a bootstrap update of the current image estimate. The method then seeks the regularisation hyperparameters which, when applied to the bootstrap update of the image, lead to a best fit of the regularised bootstrap update to the conventional measured data update. This corresponds to estimating the degree of regularisation needed in order to map the noisy update to a model of the mean of an ensemble of noisy updates. For a given regularised objective function (e.g. penalised likelihood), no hyperparameter selection or tuning is required. The method is demonstrated for positron emission tomography (PET) data at different noise levels, and delivers near-optimal reconstructions (in terms of reconstruction error) without any knowledge of the ground truth, nor any form of training data

Financing Direct Democracy: Revisiting the Research on Campaign Spending and Citizen Initiatives

The conventional view in the direct democracy literature is that spending against a measure is more effective than spending in favor of a measure, but the empirical results underlying this conclusion have been questioned by recent research. We argue that the conventional finding is driven by the endogenous nature of campaign spending: initiative proponents spend more when their ballot measure is likely to fail. We address this endogeneity by using an instrumental variables approach to analyze a comprehensive dataset of ballot propositions in California from 1976 to 2004. We find that both support and opposition spending on citizen initiatives have strong, statistically significant, and countervailing effects. We confirm this finding by looking at time series data from early polling on a subset of these measures. Both analyses show that spending in favor of citizen initiatives substantially increases their chances of passage, just as opposition spending decreases this likelihood

Urinary MicroRNA Profiling in the Nephropathy of Type 1 Diabetes

Background: Patients with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) are particularly vulnerable to development of Diabetic nephropathy (DN) leading to End Stage Renal Disease. Hence a better understanding of the factors affecting kidney disease progression in T1D is urgently needed. In recent years microRNAs have emerged as important post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in many different health conditions. We hypothesized that urinary microRNA profile of patients will differ in the different stages of diabetic renal disease. Methods and Findings: We studied urine microRNA profiles with qPCR in 40 T1D with >20 year follow up 10 who never developed renal disease (N) matched against 10 patients who went on to develop overt nephropathy (DN), 10 patients with intermittent microalbuminuria (IMA) matched against 10 patients with persistent (PMA) microalbuminuria. A Bayesian procedure was used to normalize and convert raw signals to expression ratios. We applied formal statistical techniques to translate fold changes to profiles of microRNA targets which were then used to make inferences about biological pathways in the Gene Ontology and REACTOME structured vocabularies. A total of 27 microRNAs were found to be present at significantly different levels in different stages of untreated nephropathy. These microRNAs mapped to overlapping pathways pertaining to growth factor signaling and renal fibrosis known to be targeted in diabetic kidney disease. Conclusions: Urinary microRNA profiles differ across the different stages of diabetic nephropathy. Previous work using experimental, clinical chemistry or biopsy samples has demonstrated differential expression of many of these microRNAs in a variety of chronic renal conditions and diabetes. Combining expression ratios of microRNAs with formal inferences about their predicted mRNA targets and associated biological pathways may yield useful markers for early diagnosis and risk stratification of DN in T1D by inferring the alteration of renal molecular processes. © 2013 Argyropoulos et al

Recent structural insights into the function of copper nitrite reductases.

Copper nitrite reductases (CuNiR) carry out the first committed step of the denitrification pathway of the global nitrogen cycle, the reduction of nitrite (NO2(-)) to nitric oxide (NO). As such, they are of major agronomic and environmental importance. CuNiRs occur primarily in denitrifying soil bacteria which carry out the overall reduction of nitrate to dinitrogen. In this article, we review the insights gained into copper nitrite reductase (CuNiR) function from three dimensional structures. We particularly focus on developments over the last decade, including insights from serial femtosecond crystallography using X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) and from the recently discovered 3-domain CuNiRs