85 research outputs found
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Searching for life with rovers: exploration methods and science results from the 2004 field campaign of the “Life in the Atacama” project and applications to future Mars Missions
LITA develops and field tests a long-range automated rover and a science payload to search for microbial life in the Atacama. The Atacama's evolution provides a unique training ground for designing and testing exploration strategies and life detection methods for the search for life on Mars
Effect of Impurities on Pentacene Thin Film Growth for Field-Effect Transistors
Pentacenequinone (PnQ) impurities have been introduced into a pentacene
source material at number densities from 0.001 to 0.474 to quantify the
relative effects of impurity content and grain boundary structure on transport
in pentacene thin-film transistors. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and
electrical measurements of top-contact pentacene thin-film transistors have
been employed to directly correlate initial structure and final film
structures, with the device mobility as a function of added impurity content.
The results reveal a factor four decrease in mobility without significant
changes in film morphology for source PnQ number fractions below ~0.008. For
these low concentrations, the impurity thus directly influences transport,
either as homogeneously distributed defects or by concentration at the
otherwise-unchanged grain boundaries. For larger impurity concentrations, the
continuing strong decrease in mobility is correlated with decreasing grain
size, indicating an impurity-induced increase in the nucleation of grains
during early stages of film growth.Comment: 18 pages, 4 Figures, 1 Tabl
The application of ‘elite interviewing’ methodology in transdisciplinary research: A record of process and lessons learned during a 3-year pilot in urban planetary health research
This paper sets out the rationale and process for the interviewing methodology utilized during a 3-year research pilot, ‘Moving Health Upstream in Urban Development’ (UPSTREAM). The project had two primary aims: firstly, to attempt to value economically the health cost benefits associated with the quality of urban environments and secondly, to engage with those in control of urban development in the UK in order to determine what are the barriers to and opportunities for creating healthy urban environments, including those identified through the utilisation of economic valuation. Engagement at senior level with those who have most control over key facets of planning and development implementation—such as land disposal, investment, development delivery and planning permission—was central to the approach, which encompassed the adoption of ‘elite interviewing’, a method developed in the USA in the 1950s and used in the political sciences but relatively unutilized in the health and environmental sciences [1]. Two rounds of semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 15 senior decision-makers from the UK’s main urban development delivery agencies, both public and private. The ‘elite interviewing’ approach successfully enabled the UPSTREAM project to capture and analyse the information received from the interviewees, all of whom held influential or leadership posts in organisations that are important actors in the process of planning, developing and constructing the built environment in the UK. Having academic and practitioner research leads on an equal footing created some minor tensions, but it also appeared to strengthen the rigor of the approach through a broad knowledge of context ‘in-house’. This form of co-production at times challenged academic traditions in qualitative analysis, but it also appeared to build trust with interviewees and provided greater clarity of the real-world context under investigation. Findings from this study are written up in a separate paper
Super-silent FRET Sensor Enables Live Cell Imaging and Flow Cytometric Stratification of Intracellular Serine Protease Activity in Neutrophils
Abstract Serine proteases are released by neutrophils to act primarily as antimicrobial proteins but excessive and unbalanced serine protease activity results in serious host tissue damage. Here the synthesis of a novel chemical sensor based on a multi-branched fluorescence quencher is reported. It is super-silent, exhibiting no fluorescence until de-quenched by the exemplar serine protease human neutrophil elastase, rapidly enters human neutrophils, and is inhibited by serine protease inhibitors. This sensor allows live imaging of intracellular serine protease activity within human neutrophils and demonstrates that the unique combination of a multivalent scaffold combined with a FRET peptide represents a novel and efficient strategy to generate super-silent sensors that permit the visualisation of intracellular proteases and may enable point of care whole blood profiling of neutrophils
Genetic epidemiology of fecal egg excretion during Schistosoma mansoni infection in an endemic area in Minas Gerais, Brazil
Variabilidade genética em populações naturais de Ziziphus joazeiro Mart., por meio de marcadores moleculares RAPD
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CLASI: Coordinating Innovative Observations and Modeling to Improve Coastal Environmental Prediction Systems
Abstract The Coastal Land–Air–Sea Interaction (CLASI) project aims to develop new “coast-aware” atmospheric boundary and surface layer parameterizations that represent the complex land–sea transition region through innovative observational and numerical modeling studies. The CLASI field effort involves an extensive array of more than 40 land- and ocean-based moorings and towers deployed within varying coastal domains, including sandy, rocky, urban, and mountainous shorelines. Eight Air–Sea Interaction Spar (ASIS) buoys are positioned within the coastal and nearshore zone, the largest and most concentrated deployment of this unique, established measurement platform. Additionally, an array of novel nearshore buoys and a network of land-based surface flux towers are complemented by spatial sampling from aircraft, shore-based radars, drones, and satellites. CLASI also incorporates unique electromagnetic wave (EM) propagation measurements using a coherent array, drone receiver, and a marine radar to understand evaporation duct variability in the coastal zone. The goal of CLASI is to provide a rich dataset for validation of coupled, data assimilating large-eddy simulations (LES) and the Navy’s Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS). CLASI observes four distinct coastal regimes within Monterey Bay, California (MB). By coordinating observations with COAMPS and LES simulations, the CLASI efforts will result in enhanced understanding of coastal physical processes and their representation in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models tailored to the coastal transition region. CLASI will also render a rich dataset for model evaluation and testing in support of future improvements to operational forecast models
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