Assessing the potential for reopening a building stone quarry : Newbigging Sandstone Quarry, Fife

Newbigging Sandstone Quarry in Fife is one of a number of former quarries in the Burntisland- Aberdour district which exploited the pale-coloured Grange Sandstone from Lower Carboniferous rocks. The quarry supplied building stone from the late 19th century, working intermittently from 1914 until closure in 1937, and again when reopened in the 1970s to the 1990s. The stone was primarily used locally and to supply the nearby markets in the Scottish Central Belt. Historical evidence indicates that prior to sandstone extraction, the area was dominated by largescale quarrying and mining of limestone, and substantial sandstone quarrying is likely to have begun after the arrival of the main railway line in 1890. It is probable that removal of the sandstone was directly associated with limestone exploitation, and that the quarried sandstone was effectively a by-product of limestone production. Sandstone extraction was probably viable due to the existing limestone quarry infrastructure (workforce, equipment, transportation) and the high demand for building stone in Central Scotland in the late 19th century. The geology within Newbigging Sandstone Quarry is dominated by thick-bedded uniform sandstone with a wide joint spacing, well-suited for obtaining large blocks. However, a mudstone (shale) band is likely to be present within a few metres of the principal (north) face of the quarry, around which the sandstone bed thickness and quality is likely to decrease. The mudstone bed forms a plane sloping at a shallow angle to the north, so that expansion of the quarry in this direction is likely to encounter a considerable volume of poor quality stone. Additionally, an east-west trending fault is present approximately 100 metres north of the quarry face, which is also likely to be associated with poor quality (fractured) stone

Source, character and weathering style of building stone in Culzean Castle & Country Park, Ayrshire

This report describes an assessment of the source, character and weathering style of the building stone that has been used in Culzean Castle and other historic structures that lie within Culzean Castle & Country Park (CCCP), in Ayrshire. The assessment was conducted by the Building Stones team of the British Geological Survey (BGS) on behalf of National Trust for Scotland (NTS). The project was funded by Historic Scotland, and the work has been conducted under the Memorandum of Agreement (2011-2016) between Historic Scotland and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; as represented by BGS). The main building stone in CCCP structures is sandstone sourced locally from the Swanshaw Sandstone Formation. Descriptions of the quarries that are thought to have supplied the stone, and a brief assessment of the potential for obtaining new supplies of the same stone from these and other quarries, are presented in section 2 of this report. The results of a brief review of historical records of local quarrying activity and building history in CCCP are tabulated in an appendix and presented in section 3 as a ‘timeline’. The geological character of Swanshaw sandstone is described in section 4, and the main causes of weathering in sandstone are reviewed briefly in section 5. The character of weathering in the stonework of CCCP buildings, and some of the factors that are likely to be causing accelerated stone decay, are described in section 6. Recommendations for ‘best practice’ procedure in the long-term repair and maintenance of stonework in CCCP are presented in section 7. Key conclusions are summarised in section 8

Provenance of building stones in four 'galley castles' in Argyll

This report describes the outcomes of a project to assess the character and provenance of decorative stones in four ‘galley castles’ in Argyll. This includes a comparative investigation with a number of potential sources of sandstone and metamorphic rocks in Argyll and the surrounding region, which could have been quarried in the past

Pharmacist Outlooks on Prescribing Hormonal Contraception Following Statewide Scope of Practice Expansion

In an effort to increase access to contraception, the pharmacist scope of practice is being expanded to allow prescribing. While this is being accomplished in the United States by a variety of models, legislation that allows pharmacists to prescribe hormonal contraception under a statewide protocol is the most common. This study was designed to explore the outlooks of pharmacists regarding prescribing contraception in the period following the first state legislation and prior to statewide protocol development and availability. A qualitative study of community pharmacists in California using structured phone interviews explored their opinions regarding access to contraception in pharmacies and outlooks regarding prescribing. Data were analyzed using an inductive approach to identify themes. Among the thirty participants, the majority worked in a chain pharmacy. Themes were identified in five overarching domains: Pharmacist barriers, system barriers, patient issues, safety concerns, and pharmacist role. Most were unfamiliar with the new law, yet were interested in expanding access for patient benefit despite foreseeing challenges with implementing the service in community pharmacies. Barriers will need to be addressed and requisite training disseminated widely to facilitate successful implementation and thus improve access on a broad scale. Further research following protocol implementation is needed to understand service implementation, as well as patient utilization and satisfaction

The effects of diesel exhaust pollution on floral volatiles and the consequences for honey bee olfaction

There is growing evidence of a substantial decline in pollinators within Europe and North America, most likely caused by multiple factors such as diseases, poor nutrition, habitat loss, insecticides, and environmental pollution. Diesel exhaust could be a contributing factor to this decline, since we found that diesel exhaust rapidly degrades floral volatiles, which honey bees require for flower recognition. In this study, we exposed eight of the most common floral volatiles to diesel exhaust in order to investigate whether it can affect volatile mediated plant-pollinator interaction. Exposure to diesel exhaust altered the blend of common flower volatiles significantly: myrcene was considerably reduced, β-ocimene became undetectable, and β-caryophyllene was transformed into its cis-isomer isocaryophyllene. Proboscis extension response (PER) assays showed that the alterations of the blend reduced the ability of honey bees to recognize it. The chemically reactive nitrogen oxides fraction of diesel exhaust gas was identified as capable of causing degradation of floral volatiles

Silver Microparticle-Enhanced Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

Enhanced emission was observed in the laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) atomic emission spectra of bacterial cells deposited upon a nitrocellulose filtration medium in the presence of one-micron silver microparticles. A deposition chamber was constructed that allowed a uniform coating of the filter with trace amounts of silver microparticles. Masses from 10 to 100 μg were deposited in a circular area of 52.18 mm2. A 30 s deposition time was used for all experiments resulting in a mass deposition of 39 μg ± 17 μg. This mass coverage on the filter provided for a single laser shot silver mass ablation of 3.3 ng per laser shot. LIBS spectra were acquired with single-shot 1064 nm laser pulses from specimens of E. coli, M. smegmatis, and E. cloacae deposited on both microparticle-coated filters and blank filters. An increase in emission intensity for all elements detected in the bacterial LIBS spectrum as well as the carbon emission which derives in part from the nitrocellulose filter medium was observed due to the ablation with silver microparticles relative to the intensity measured from the ablation of bacterial cells deposited on a blank filter. The ratio of emission intensity with microparticles to emission intensity without microparticles was measured to be 3.6 for phosphorus, 4.5 for magnesium, 5.3 for calcium, 4.0 for sodium, and 1.2 for carbon. An enhancement in LIBS emission intensity in the range of 1–10 was observed for all the spectra, with an average enhancement ratio of 4.3

Re-imagining the data collection and analysis research process by proposing a rapid qualitative data collection and analytic roadmap applied to the dynamic context of precision medicine

Our implementation science study focuses on implementing a new way of practice and offers methodological specificity about how to rapidly investigate an individually tailored precision medicine intervention. A qualitative study advancing a new methodology for speedily identifying barriers and enablers to implementation in the context of childhood cancer. Data were collected through rapid ethnography, coded using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, and analysed by Sentiment Analysis. Thirty-eight data collection events occurred during 14 multidisciplinary tumour board meetings, 14 curation meetings, and 10 informal conversations. Sentiment Analysis distilled Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research codes to reveal key barriers and enablers to implementation. A traffic light labelling system has been used to present levels of positivity and negativity (green for strong enablers and red for strong barriers), highlighting levels of concern regarding implementation. Within the intervention design characteristics, “Adaptability” was the strongest enabler and “Design quality and safety” the strongest barrier. Among the contextual factors: “Networks and communication” were the strongest enabler, and “Available resources” were the strongest barrier. Overall, there was a higher percentage of negative sentiment towards intervention design characteristics and contextual factors than positive sentiment, while more concerns were raised about intervention design factors than contextual factors. This study offers a rapid qualitative data collection and analytic methodological roadmap for establishing barriers and enablers to a paediatric precision medicine intervention

Electrical and network neuronal properties are preferentially disrupted in dorsal, but not ventral, medial entorhinal cortex in a mouse model of Tauopathy

The entorhinal cortex (EC) is one of the first areas to be disrupted in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia. The responsiveness of individual neurons to electrical and environmental stimuli varies along the dorsal-ventral axis of the medial EC (mEC) in a manner that suggests this topographical organization plays a key role in neural encoding of geometric space. We examined the cellular properties of layer II mEC stellate neurons (mEC-SCs) in rTg4510 mice, a rodent model of neurodegeneration. Dorsoventral gradients in certain intrinsic membrane properties, such as membrane capacitance and afterhyperpolarizations, were flattened in rTg4510 mEC-SCs, while other cellular gradients [e.g., input resistance (Ri), action potential properties] remained intact. Specifically, the intrinsic properties of rTg4510 mEC-SCs in dorsal aspects of the mEC were preferentially affected, such that action potential firing patterns in dorsal mEC-SCs were altered, while those in ventral mEC-SCs were unaffected. We also found that neuronal oscillations in the gamma frequency band (30-80 Hz) were preferentially disrupted in the dorsal mEC of rTg4510 slices, while those in ventral regions were comparatively preserved. These alterations corresponded to a flattened dorsoventral gradient in theta-gamma cross-frequency coupling of local field potentials recorded from the mEC of freely moving rTg4510 mice. These differences were not paralleled by changes to the dorsoventral gradient in parvalbumin staining or neurodegeneration. We propose that the selective disruption to dorsal mECs, and the resultant flattening of certain dorsoventral gradients, may contribute to disturbances in spatial information processing observed in this model of dementia. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The medial entorhinal cortex (mEC) plays a key role in spatial memory and is one of the first areas to express the pathological features of dementia. Neurons of the mEC are anatomically arranged to express functional dorsoventral gradients in a variety of neuronal properties, including grid cell firing field spacing, which is thought to encode geometric scale. We have investigated the effects of tau pathology on functional dorsoventral gradients in the mEC. Using electrophysiological approaches, we have shown that, in a transgenic mouse model of dementia, the functional properties of the dorsal mEC are preferentially disrupted, resulting in a flattening of some dorsoventral gradients. Our data suggest that neural signals arising in the mEC will have a reduced spatial content in dementia

Lifestyle factors, demographics and medications associated with depression risk in an international sample of people with multiple sclerosis

BACKGROUND: Depression is the most common co-morbidity for people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS); irrespective of disease severity, depression has the greatest impact on quality of life. An emerging paradigm in the treatment of depression is lifestyle medicine. There is significant potential to prevent and treat depression through modification of lifestyle risk factors for people with MS. This study sought to understand the association between lifestyle risk factors, medication and depression risk through the analysis of self-reported data from a large international sample of people with MS. METHODS: This cross-sectional analysis recruited a total of 2459 participants via Web 2.0 platforms. Survey data included socio-demographics; a range of lifestyle risk factors; medication; disease variables and depression risk using the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2). RESULTS: In total approximately one fifth (19.3%) of our sample screened positive for depression (PHQ-2 score ≥3). Several demographic factors were significantly associated with this depression risk in bivariate analysis. Regression analyses showed that poor diet, low levels of exercise, obesity, smoking, marked social isolation and taking interferon were associated with greater depression risk. Participants who supplemented with omega 3s, particularly flaxseed oil, had frequent fish consumption, supplemented with vitamin D, meditated, and had moderate alcohol consumption had significantly reduced depression risk. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates a significant association between modifiable lifestyle factors and depression risk. Planned longitudinal follow up may clarify causality. Clinicians and people with MS should be aware of the wide range of modifiable lifestyle factors that may reduce depression risk as part of a comprehensive secondary and tertiary preventive medical approach to managing MS