Microscopia: Listening to the Invisible

Composition is often concerned with delving into intangible, unseen and internal worlds and watching and waiting for ideas to come into focus. This Reflection paper seeks to map my compositional journey from ‘micro’ to ‘macro’ during the creation of ‘Microscopia’- a piece which celebrates worlds that cannot be seen and yet affect us in minute ways. It explores the challenges I navigated in providing a sonic backdrop for footage of bacteria and mold by Genèvieve Anhoury in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is split into three parts, firstly examining the formation of ideas and inspirations behind the project. It then delves into looking at ‘de-composition’: breaking down the process of creating a three-minute orchestral piece and mock-up. Finally, it reflects more broadly on the struggles of composers during their composition process and simply surviving in the current challenging socio-economic climate.https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-scoring/1160/thumbnail.jp

2010 Annual Evidence Update on Critical Illness Rehabilitation

For this annual evidence update a detailed literature review was undertaken to retrieve any evidence published subsequent to the literature search which formed the basis for the NICE guideline. A total of 29 articles were selected for review and appraisal by a team of critical care practitioners. In this context it has to be noted that the evidence base on the subject is still relatively small. For the original guideline only 12 articles were selected as evidence which addressed the review questions. This evidence update intends to give an indication of encouraging trends within critical illness rehabilitation

Circulating anions usually associated with the Krebs cycle in patients with metabolic acidosis

Introduction: Acute metabolic acidosis of non-renal origin is usually a result of either lactic or ketoacidosis, both of which are associated with a high anion gap. There is increasing recognition, however, of a group of acidotic patients who have a large anion gap that is not explained by either keto- or lactic acidosis nor, in most cases, is inappropriate fluid resuscitation or ingestion of exogenous agents the cause. Methods: Plasma ultrafiltrate from patients with diabetic ketoacidosis, lactic acidosis, acidosis of unknown cause, normal anion gap metabolic acidosis, or acidosis as a result of base loss were examined enzymatically for the presence of low molecular weight anions including citrate, isocitrate, α-ketoglutarate, succinate, malate and d-lactate. The results obtained from the study groups were compared with those obtained from control plasma from normal volunteers. Results: In five patients with lactic acidosis, a significant increase in isocitrate (0.71 ± 0.35 mEq l-1), α-ketoglutarate (0.55 ± 0.35 mEq l-1), malate (0.59 ± 0.27 mEq l-1), and d-lactate (0.40 ± 0.51 mEq l-1) was observed. In 13 patients with diabetic ketoacidosis, significant increases in isocitrate (0.42 ± 0.35 mEq l-1), α-ketoglutarate (0.41 ± 0.16 mEq l-1), malate (0.23 ± 0.18 mEq l-1) and d-lactate (0.16 ± 0.07 mEq l-1) were seen. Neither citrate nor succinate levels were increased. Similar findings were also observed in a further five patients with high anion gap acidosis of unknown origin with increases in isocitrate (0.95 ± 0.88 mEq l-1), α-ketoglutarate (0.65 ± 0.20 mEq l-1), succinate (0.34 ± 0.13 mEq l-1), malate (0.49 ± 0.19 mEq l-1) and d-lactate (0.18 ± 0.14 mEq l-1) being observed but not in citrate concentration. In five patients with a normal anion gap acidosis, no increases were observed except a modest rise in d-lactate (0.17 ± 0.14 mEq l-1). Conclusion: The levels of certain low molecular weight anions usually associated with intermediary metabolism were found to be significantly elevated in the plasma ultrafiltrate obtained from patients with metabolic acidosis. Our results suggest that these hitherto unmeasured anions may significantly contribute to the generation of the anion gap in patients with lactic acidosis and acidosis of unknown aetiology and may be underestimated in diabetic ketoacidosis. These anions are not significantly elevated in patients with normal anion gap acidosis

Carcass composition and body fat depots of Galego Bragançano and crossbred lambs by Suffolk and Merino Precoce sire breeds

The main purpose of this work was to compare two breeds of improved rams (Suffolk and Merino Precoce) with the local Galego Bragancano breed for the prodtuction of crossbred slaughter lambs and to evaluate which cross was move adapted for meat production from the local breed in locations in the north-east of Portugal. The experiment was carried out over a 4-year period in three locations: (1) a farm with an intensive management; (2) an upland farm (400 to 600 m); and (3) a hill farm (above 800 m). Within each flock with 90 Galego Bragancano ewes, two rams of each of the sire breeds were used: Galego Bragancano, Suffolk and Merino Precoce. The lambs were slaughtered at 20 and 40 kg, to obtain the carcass weight range of 8 to 14 kg. The left sides of 151 carcasses were dissected into muscle, subcutaneous fat, intermuscular fat and bone. The lambs from location 1 had the highest carcass muscle proportion and the lowest carcass intermuscular fat proportion; their differences over locations 2 and 3 were 13 and 16 g/kg for muscle proportion and 11 and 19 g/kg for intermuscular fat proportion, respectively. The differences between breeds were relatively small and not significant. However the Suffolk crosses had less kidney, knob and channel fat than the other genotypes (5 and 12 g/kg less than Merino crosses and Bragancano, respectively). The Suffolk crosses tended to have less body fat

Combined visible and near-infrared OPA for wavelength scaling experiments in strong-field physics

We report the operation of an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) capable of producing gigawatt peak-power laser pulses with tunable wavelength in either the visible or near-infrared spectrum. The OPA has two distinct operation modes (i) generation of >350 uJ, sub 100 fs pulses, tunable between 1250 - 1550 nm; (ii) generation of >190 uJ, sub 150 fs pulses tunable between 490 - 530 nm. We have recorded high-order harmonic spectra over a wide range of driving wavelengths. This flexible source of femtosecond pulses presents a useful tool for exploring the wavelength-dependence of strong-field phenomena, in both the multi-photon and tunnel ionization regimes.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, This paper was published in Proceedings of SPIE 10088, Nonlinear Frequency Generation and Conversion: Materials and Devices XVI, doi 10.1117/12.225077

P1_4 Global Warming: Effects on LEO Satellites

Satellites in low Earth orbits are subject to drag forces from the Earth’s atmosphere, these forces deorbit the satellites over time. The effect of global warming on the rate at which a satellite will deorbit is investigated in this paper. It is found that, while a simplified model would predict a faster deorbit, this is not the case due to interactions at the molecular level

P1_3 The Double Pendulum and Lunar Seismometry

This paper aims to show that through the properties of the Laplace transformation into ‘s’ space, the coupled differential equations of the double pendulum, as shown in figure 1 [1] can be solved with relative ease and show interesting properties and applications of the system for variable values of gravity. These include lunar seismometry and consideration of similar experiments on other astronomical bodies