Wealth and Disability in Later Life: The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA)

We examined wealth inequalities in disability, taking into account the effect of both depression and social support among older English adults using data from 5,506 community-dwelling people aged 50 years and over from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Disability was measured as self-reported limitations in the Basic Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL). Depressive symptomatology was measured using the 8-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale. Social support was assessed by marital status and frequency of contact with friends, relatives or children. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to assess the role of social support and depressive symptoms on disability by total household wealth, which is a measure of accumulated assets over the course of life. Our findings showed that the poorest men with disability were more likely to live without a partner and have no weekly contact with children, family or friends compared to the wealthiest. Among women with disability, the poorest were more likely to report loneliness and have no partner while the wealthiest and the intermediate groups were more likely to be living with a partner. There was a strong inverse dose-response association between wealth and depressive symptoms among all participants with disability. This study shows a clear wealth gradient in disability among older English adults, especially for those with elevated depressive symptoms

Iridium to provenance ancient silver

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd Trace levels of iridium in ancient silver artefacts can provide information on the sources of silver-bearing ores as well as the technologies used to extract silver. A geographically and chronologically disparate legacy dataset, comprised of Near Eastern objects from the Sasanian and Byzantine Empires (1st Millennium AD) and coins circulating around the Mediterranean in the mid-1st Millennium BC, shows that Ag-Au-Ir log-ratio plots can help identify silver derived from the same mining areas, as well as broadly differentiating between the ore types exploited. Combining trace element and lead isotope analyses through the Pb crustal age of the ore, further delimits interpretations on the compositions and locations of silver ore sources. Furthermore, it is shown that silver artefacts of Near Eastern origin have exceptionally high iridium levels, suggesting a unique silver-bearing ore source, potentially in the Taurus mountain range of southern Anatolia. The wide range of crustal ages identified for ancient Greek coins and Near Eastern objects suggest that the addition of exogenous lead as a silver collector during smelting was common practice in the Near East as early as 475BCE. The practice of mixing silver from different sources has also been identified by triangulating the log-ratio subcomposition plots, Pb crustal ages of the ore from which the silver derived and absolute values of trace levels of gold and iridium in silver artefacts

Adaptability and Procedural Content Generation for Educational Escape Rooms

We present a literature review that aims to understand the role of the Educational Escape Room (EER) in improving the teaching, learning, and assessment processes through an EER design framework. The main subject is to identify the recent interventions in this field in the last five years. Our study focuses on understanding how it is possible to create an EER available to all students, namely visually challenged users. As a result of the implementation of new learning strategies that promote autonomous learning, a concern arose in adapting educational activities to each student's individual needs. To study the adaptability of each EER, we found the EER design framework essential to increase the student experience by promoting the consolidation of knowledge through narrative and level design. The results of our study show evidence of progress in students' performance while playing an EER, revealing that students' learning can be effective. Research on Procedural Content Generation (PCG) highlighted how important it is to implement adaptability in future studies of EERs. However, we found some limitations regarding the process of evaluating learning through the EERs, showing how important it is to study and implement learning analytics in future studies in this field

Homogeneously Bright, Flexible, and Foldable Lighting Devices with Functionalized Graphene Electrodes.

Alternating current electroluminescent technology allows the fabrication of large area, flat and flexible lights. Presently the maximum size of a continuous panel is limited by the high resistivity of available transparent electrode materials causing a visible gradient of brightness. Here, we demonstrate that the use of the best known transparent conductor FeCl3-intercalated few-layer graphene boosts the brightness of electroluminescent devices by 49% compared to pristine graphene. Intensity gradients observed for high aspect ratio devices are undetectable when using these highly conductive electrodes. Flat lights on polymer substrates are found to be resilient to repeated and flexural strains.S. Russo and M.F. Craciun acknoweldge financial support from EPSRC (Grant no. EP/J000396/1, EP/K017160/1, EP/K010050/1, EPG036101/1, EP/M001024/1, EPM002438/1) and from the Leverhulme Trust (Research grant title Quantum Drums)

A Very Rare Case of Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting in a Progeria Child

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome is a rare genetic disorder, characterized by progressive premature aging and early death in the first or second decade of life, usually secondary to cardiovascular events (myocardial infarction and stroke). We report a case of a 14-year-old boy with progeria syndrome and cardiac arrest due to myocardial infarction, who was submitted to an immediate coronary angiography which revealed left main stem and three-vessel coronary artery disease. A prompt double bypass coronary artery grafting surgery was performed, and, despite successful coronary reperfusion, the patient remained in coma and brain death was declared on fourth day after surgery.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fast and Highly Sensitive Ionic-Polymer-Gated WS2 -Graphene Photodetectors

This is the final version of the article. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The combination of graphene with semiconductor materials in heterostructure photodetectors enables amplified detection of femtowatt light signals using micrometer-scale electronic devices. Presently, long-lived charge traps limit the speed of such detectors, and impractical strategies, e.g., the use of large gate-voltage pulses, have been employed to achieve bandwidths suitable for applications such as video-frame-rate imaging. Here, atomically thin graphene-WS2 heterostructure photodetectors encapsulated in an ionic polymer are reported, which are uniquely able to operate at bandwidths up to 1.5 kHz whilst maintaining internal gain as large as 10(6) . Highly mobile ions and the nanometer-scale Debye length of the ionic polymer are used to screen charge traps and tune the Fermi level of the graphene over an unprecedented range at the interface with WS2 . Responsivity R = 10(6) A W(-1) and detectivity D* = 3.8 × 10(11) Jones are observed, approaching that of single-photon counters. The combination of both high responsivity and fast response times makes these photodetectors suitable for video-frame-rate imaging applications.J.D.M. acknowledges financial support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the United Kingdom, via the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Metamaterials (Grant No. EP/L015331/1 ). S.F.R acknowledges financial support from the Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq (HCED). S.R. and M.F.C. acknowledge financial support from EPSRC (Grant No. EP/J000396/1, EP/K017160/1, EP/K010050/1, EP/G036101/1, EP/M001024/1, and EP/M002438/1) and from Royal Society International Exchanges Scheme 2016/R1

Optimisation of enzyme cascades for chiral amino alcohol synthesis in aid of host cell integration using a statistical experimental design approach

Chiral amino alcohols are compounds of pharmaceutical interest as they are building blocks of sphingolipids, antibiotics, and antiviral glycosidase inhibitors. Due to the challenges of chemical synthesis we recently developed two TK-TAm reaction cascades using natural and low cost feedstocks as substrates: a recycling cascade comprising of 2 enzymes and a sequential 3-step enzyme cascade yielding 30% and 1% conversion, respectively. In order to improve the conversion yield and aid the future host strain engineering for whole cell biocatalysis, we used a combination of microscale experiments and statistical experimental design. For this we implemented a full factorial design to optimise pH, temperature and buffer type, followed by the application of Response Surface Methodology for the optimisation of substrates and enzymes concentrations. Using purified enzymes we achieved 60% conversion for the recycling cascade and 3-fold improvement using the sequential pathway. Based on the results, limiting steps and individual requirements for host cell metabolic integration were identified expanding the understanding of the cascades without implementing extensive optimisation modelling. Therefore, the approach described here is well suited for optimising reaction conditions as well as defining the relative enzyme expression levels required for construction of microbial cell factories

Strategy for managing industrial anaerobic sludge through the heterotrophic cultivation of chlorella sorokiniana: Effect of iron addition on biomass and lipid production

Microalgae provides an alternative for the valorization of industrial by-products, in which the nutritional content varies substantially and directly affects microalgae system performance. Herein, the heterotrophic cultivation of Chlorella sorokiniana was systematically studied, allowing us to detect a nutritional deficiency other than the carbon source through assessing the oxygen transfer rate for glucose or acetate fermentation. Consequently, a mathematical model of the iron co-limiting effect on heterotrophic microalgae was developed by exploring its ability to regulate the specific growth rate and yield. For instance, higher values of the specific growth rate (0.17 h−1 ) compared with those reported for the heterotrophic culture of Chlorella were obtained due to iron supplementation. Therefore, anaerobic sludge from an industrial wastewater treatment plant (a baker’s yeast company) was pretreated to obtain an extract as a media supplement for C. sorokiniana. According to the proposed model, the sludge extract allowed us to supplement iron values close to the growth activation concentration (KFe ~12 mg L−1). Therefore, a fed-batch strategy was evaluated on nitrogen-deprived cultures supplemented with the sludge extract to promote biomass formation and fatty acid synthesis. Our findings reveal that nitrogen and iron in sludge extract can supplement heterotrophic cultures of Chlorella and provide an alternative for the valorization of industrial anaerobic sludge

Multi-step biocatalytic strategies for chiral amino alcohol synthesis

Chiral amino alcohols are structural motifs present in sphingolipids, antibiotics, and antiviral glycosidase inhibitors. Their chemical synthesis presents several challenges in establishing at least two chiral centres. Here a de novo metabolic pathway using a transketolase enzyme coupled with a transaminase enzyme has been assembled. To synthesise this motif one of the strategies to obtain high conversions from the transaminase/transketolase cascade is the use of hydroxypyruvate (HPA) as a two-carbon donor for the transketolase reaction; although commercially available it is relatively expensive limiting application of the pathway on an industrial scale. Alternately, HPA can be synthesised but this introduces a further synthetic step. In this study two different biocatalytic strategies were developed for the synthesis of (2S,3R)-2-amino-1,3,4-butanetriol (ABT) without adding HPA into the reaction. Firstly, a sequential cascade of three enzymatic steps (two transaminases and one transketolase) for the synthesis of ABT from serine, pyruvate and glycolaldehyde as substrates. Secondly, a two-step recycling cascade where serine is used as donor to aminate erythrulose (catalysed by a transketolase) for the simultaneous synthesis of ABT and HPA. In order to test the novel pathways, three new transaminases are described, two ω-transaminases able to accept a broad range of amine acceptors with serine as amine donor; and an α-transaminase, which showed high affinity towards serine (KM: 18mM) using pyruvate as amine acceptor. After implementation of the above enzymes in the biocatalytic pathways proposed in this paper, the two-step recycling pathway was found to be the most promising for its integration with E. coli metabolism. It was more efficient (10-fold higher conversion), more sustainable and cost-effective (use of low cost natural substrates and only two enzymes), and the reaction could be performed in a one-pot system