Steffani’s Amor vien dal Destino:new answers to old questions

Steffani made an important contribution to the cultivation of Italian opera in north Germany. Amor vien dal Destino must have been composed at Hanover in the 1690s but was not performed until 1709, at Düsseldorf. Several questions arise. Was it meant for 1694, the only year during his period at Hanover when there was no opera at the court? If so, why was it not performed? Why was it not performed before 1709? Why was it then staged at Düsseldorf? Why and how was the opera revised for that production? Who were the singers involved? Answers emerge from consideration of the Düsseldorf wordbook (especially its preface), of the autograph score and a hitherto neglected manuscript copy in Hanover, and of the circumstances of the two courts concerned. If these answers are correct, they demonstrate a close relationship between the opera and its social and political context

Steffani’s Amor vien dal Destino:new answers to old questions

Steffani made an important contribution to the cultivation of Italian opera in north Germany. Amor vien dal Destino must have been composed at Hanover in the 1690s but was not performed until 1709, at Düsseldorf. Several questions arise. Was it meant for 1694, the only year during his period at Hanover when there was no opera at the court? If so, why was it not performed? Why was it not performed before 1709? Why was it then staged at Düsseldorf? Why and how was the opera revised for that production? Who were the singers involved? Answers emerge from consideration of the Düsseldorf wordbook (especially its preface), of the autograph score and a hitherto neglected manuscript copy in Hanover, and of the circumstances of the two courts concerned. If these answers are correct, they demonstrate a close relationship between the opera and its social and political context

Asymptotic Reduction of a Lithium-ion Pouch Cell Model

A three-dimensional model of a single-layer lithium-ion pouch cell is presented which couples conventional porous electrode theory describing cell electrochemical behaviour with an energy balance describing cell thermal behaviour. Asymptotic analysis of the model is carried out by exploiting the small aspect ratio typical of pouch cell designs. The analysis reveals the scaling that results in a distinguished limit, and highlights the role played by the electrical conductivities of the current collectors. The resulting model comprises a collection of one-dimensional models for the through-cell electrochemical behaviour which are coupled via two-dimensional problems for the Ohmic and thermal behaviour in the planar current collectors. A further limit is identified which reduces the problem to a single volume-averaged through-cell model, greatly reducing the computational complexity. Numerical simulations are presented which illustrate and validate the asymptotic results.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, submitted to SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics (08/05/2020

A Suite of Reduced-Order Models of a Single-Layer Lithium-ion Pouch Cell

For many practical applications, fully coupled three-dimensional models describing the behaviour of lithium-ion pouch cells are too computationally expensive. However, owing to the small aspect ratio of typical pouch cell designs, such models are well approximated by splitting the problem into a model for through-cell behaviour and a model for the transverse behaviour. In this paper, we combine different simplifications to through-cell and transverse models to develop a hierarchy of reduced-order pouch cell models. We give a critical numerical comparison of each of these models in both isothermal and thermal settings, and also study their performance on realistic drive cycle data. Finally, we make recommendations regarding model selection, taking into account the available computational resource and the quantities of interest in a particular study

Endocrine Active UV Filters: Developmental Toxicity and Exposure Through Breast Milk

Several UV filters exhibit endocrine activity. Evidence for transdermal passage and presence in the food chain (fish) suggests potential exposure of humans during development. Developmental toxicity was studied in rats for the estrogenic UV filters 4-methylbenzylidene camphor (4-MBC, 0.7, 7, 24, 47 mg/kg/day) and 3-benzylidene camphor (3-BC, 0.07, 0.24, 0.7, 2.4, 7 mg/kg/day) administered in chow to the parent generation before mating, during pregnancy and lactation, and to the offspring until adulthood. Neonates exhibited enhanced prostate growth after 4-MBC and altered uterine gene expression after both filters. 4-MBC and 3-BC delayed male puberty and affected reproductive organ weights of adult offspring. Interactions with the thyroid were noted. Expression and estrogen sensitivity of target genes and nuclear receptor coregulators were altered at mRNA and protein levels in adult uterus, prostate and brain. Female sexual behavior was affected by 4-MBC and 3-BC, estrous cycles by 3-BC. Classical endpoints exhibited LOAELs/NOAELs of 7/0.7 mg/kg/day for 4-MBC and 0.24/0.07 mg/kg/day for 3-BC. Molecular endpoints were affected by the lowest doses. In order to obtain information on human exposure, we conducted a monitoring study on human milk with three series of mother–child pairs (2004, 2005, 2006), with focus on cosmetic UV filters in relation to other endocrine disrupters. Methods for UV filter analysis followed the principles of European standardized methods for pesticide residue analysis (EN 15289). In cohorts 2004 and 2005, 78.8% of women reported use of product(s) containing cosmetic UV filters in a questionnaire, and 76.5% of milk samples contained these filters. Use of UV filters and concentration in human milk were significantly correlated. The results agree with the idea of transdermal passage of UV filters. They also indicate that it may be possible to reduce human exposure during critical periods such as pregnancy and lactation by transiently abstaining from use

Indole-containing arene-ruthenium complexes with broad spectrum activity against antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria are emerging and spreading globally, threatening our ability to treat common infectious diseases. The development of new classes of antibiotics able to kill or inhibit the growth of such AMR bacteria through novel mechanisms of action is therefore urgently needed. Here, a new family of indole-containing arene ruthenium organometallic compounds are screened against several bacterial species and drug resistant strains. The most active complex [(p-cym)Ru(O-cyclohexyl-1H-indole-2-carbothioate)Cl] (3) shows growth inhibition and bactericidal activity against different organisms (Acinetobacter baumannii, Mycobacterium abscessus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica serovar typhi and Escherichia coli), demonstrating broad-spectrum inhibitory activity. Importantly, this compound series exhibits low toxicity against human cells. Owing to the novelty of the antibiotic family, their moderate cytotoxicity, and their inhibitory activity against Gram positive, Gram negative and acid-fast, antibiotic resistant microorganisms, this series shows significant promise for further development

Proceedings of Abstracts, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science Research Conference 2022

© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. For further details please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Plenary by Prof. Timothy Foat, ‘Indoor dispersion at Dstl and its recent application to COVID-19 transmission’ is © Crown copyright (2022), Dstl. This material is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] present proceedings record the abstracts submitted and accepted for presentation at SPECS 2022, the second edition of the School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science Research Conference that took place online, the 12th April 2022

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts