The formation and study of titanium, zirconium, and hafnium complexes

Research involves the preparation and characterization of a series of Ti, Zr, Hf, TiO, and HfO complexes using the poly(pyrazole) borates as ligands. The study will provide increased understanding of the decomposition of these coordination compounds which may lead to the production of molecular oxygen on the Moon from lunar materials such as ilmenite and rutile. The model compounds are investigated under reducing conditions of molecular hydrogen by use of a high temperature/pressure stainless steel autoclave reactor and by thermogravimetric analysis

Health Data and Privacy in the Digital Era

In 2010, the social networking site Facebook launched a platform allowing private companies to request users’ permission to access personal data. Few users were aware of the platform, which was integrated into Facebook’s terms of service. In 2014, Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based political consulting firm, developed a data-harvesting app. That app prompted Facebook users to provide psychological profiles, including responses such as “I get upset easily” and “I have frequent mood-swings” as part of a “research project.” The Facebook platform allowed users to share their friends’ data as well, enabling Cambridge Analytica to access tens of millions of personal profiles, identifying voters’ political preferences. The controversy revealed risks to identifiable health data posed by social media and web services companies’ practices. After the Cambridge Analytica controversy, Facebook suspended a project that aimed to link data about users’ medical conditions with information about their social networks. Individuals often reveal detailed, sensitive health information online. Through wearable devices, social media posts, traceable web searches, and online patient communities, users generate large volumes of health data. Although some individuals participate in online patient forums and wellness information sharing apps under their own names, others participate via pseudonyms, assuming their privacy is preserved. Many users believe their data will be shared only with those they designate

The evolution, distribution and diversity of endogenous circoviral elements in vertebrate genomes

Circoviruses (family Circoviridae) are small, non-enveloped viruses that have short, single-stranded DNA genomes. Circovirus sequences are frequently recovered in metagenomic investigations, indicating that these viruses are widespread, yet they remain relatively poorly understood. Endogenous circoviral elements (CVe) are DNA sequences derived from circoviruses that occur in vertebrate genomes. CVe are a useful source of information about the biology and evolution of circoviruses. In this study, we screened 362 vertebrate genome assemblies in silico to generate a catalog of CVe loci. We identified a total of 179 CVe sequences, most of which have not been reported previously. We show that these CVe loci reflect at least 19 distinct germline integration events. We determine the structure of CVe loci, identifying some that show evidence of potential functionalization. We also identify orthologous copies of CVe in snakes, fish, birds, and mammals, allowing us to add new calibrations to the timeline of circovirus evolution. Finally, we observed that some ancient CVe group robustly with contemporary circoviruses in phylogenies, with all sequences within these groups being derived from the same host class or order, implying a hitherto underappreciated stability in circovirus-host relationships. The openly available dataset constructed in this investigation provides new insights into circovirus evolution, and can be used to facilitate further studies of circoviruses and CVe

Using PROMs in healthcare. Who should be in the driving seat - policy makers, health professionals, methodologists or patients?

Editorial - No abstrac

Alternative glues for the production of ATLAS silicon strip modules for the Phase-II upgrade of the ATLAS Inner Detector

The Phase-II upgrade of the ATLAS detector for the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) includes the replacement of the current Inner Detector with an all-silicon tracker consisting of pixel and strip detectors. The current Phase-II detector layout requires the construction of 20,000 strip detector modules consisting of sensor, circuit boards and readout chips, which are connected mechanically using adhesives. The adhesive between readout chips and circuit board is a silver epoxy glue as was used in the current ATLAS SemiConductor Tracker (SCT). This glue has several disadvantages, which motivated the search for an alternative. This paper presents a study concerning the use of six ultra-violet (UV) cure glues and a glue pad for use in the assembly of silicon strip detector modules for the ATLAS upgrade. Trials were carried out to determine the ease of use, the thermal conduction and shear strength, thermal cycling, radiation hardness, corrosion resistance and shear strength tests. These investigations led to the exclusion of three UV cure glues as well as the glue pad. Three UV cure glues were found to be possible better alternatives. Results from electrical tests of first prototype modules constructed using these glues are presented.Comment: 23 pages, to be published in Journal of Instrumentatio

Serum profiling and biomarker discovery of rat mammary tumors using mass-coded abundance tags (MCAT)

Advances in Mass-spectrometry techniques allow for the rapid processing and evaluation of complex biological mixtures such as blood/serum. These samples represent a protein rich environment as well as a sentinel monitoring system of the entire organism. The central tenet of these studies is that changes in the microenvironment of a tissue, brought about by a disease process, will lead to sufficient changes in the protein and peptide pattern of the serum, such that the differences can be accurately detected and correctly associated with a particular disease state. Using mass-spectrometry approaches we have developed techniques that allow us to compare samples from tumor-free and tumor present serum samples simultaneously to find biomarkers that indicate the presence of cancer. To examine potentially important but less abundant proteins, ultrafiltration (UF) was used to eliminate the more abundant proteins and combine this with the non-isotopic peptide tags (S-methylthioacetimidate and S-methyl thiopropionimidate) described by Beardsley and Reilley (J. Proteome Res. 2: 15-21, 2003) to differentiate our samples. Use of these mass-coded abundance tags (MCAT) allows for simultaneous evaluation of serum samples from tumor present, and tumor free animals. Using an oa time-of-flight mass-spectrometer (Q-tof) with electrospray ionization we produce high quality spectrums to screen for peptides that have only one tag. Specificity of tagging increases the likelihood that the peptide resulted from a protein unique to either the control or conditioned state. Using the ms/ms function of the Q-tof we sequence the peptide and identify the parent protein. Specifically, our lab is using UF, MCAT and the Q-tof to evaluate rat models of chemically-induced tumors. By using animal models we overcome much of the variability that may exist in human serum samples due to differences in gender, diet and cancer initiation. We have shown that these systems allow for the identification of both small molecules such as Alpha S1 casein precursor (24 kDa) as well as proteins greater than the MCO such as Fibrinogen alpha/alpha E precursor and Coagulation factor 2 (86 and 70 kDa, respectively). With positive sequence identification we can now evaluate the tumors themselves to determine if the proteins are over-expressed in the tumor vs. normal tissues. Using this method of “bottom-up” analysis provides information on the nature and composition of our samples to more rapidly identify those proteins that are unique to the tumor state of the animals

Barriers to infection of human cells by feline leukemia virus: insights into resistance to zoonosis

The human genome displays a rich fossil record of past gamma-retrovirus infections, yet no current epidemic is evident, despite environmental exposure to viruses that infect human cells in vitro. Feline leukemia viruses (FeLVs) rank high on this list, but domestic or workplace exposure has not been associated with detectable serological responses. Non-specific inactivation of gamma-retroviruses by serum factors appears insufficient to explain these observations. To investigate further we explored the susceptibility of primary and established human cell lines to FeLV-B, the most likely zoonotic variant. Fully permissive infection was common in cancer-derived cell lines, but was also a feature of non-transformed keratinocytes and lung fibroblasts. Cells of haematopoietic origin were less generally permissive and formed discrete groups on the basis of high or low intracellular protein expression and virion release. Potent repression was observed in primary human blood mononuclear cells and a subset of leukemia cell lines. However, the early steps of reverse transcription and integration appear to be unimpaired in non-permissive cells. FeLV-B was subject to G->A hypermutation with a predominant APOBEC3G signature in partially permissive cells but was not mutated in permissive cells or in non-permissive cells that block secondary viral spread. Distinct cellular barriers that protect primary human blood cells are likely to be important in protection against zoonotic infection with FeLV