CIE Software Check of luox.app

The University of Oxford has developed an open-access software platform known as luox, which incorporates elements of CIE publications for the calculation of certain quantities integrated from spectral data. Under the terms of a licence agreement between the University of Oxford and the CIE, the CIE has agreed to endorse the software following a black-box validation of the software. This is the report of that validation exercise, based on the work of an ad hoc task group of the CIE Board of Administration. The task group selected 43 spectrafrom various sources, 19 being spectra with 5 nm intervals and 24 being spectra with 1 nm intervals, and calculated luminance (illuminance), a-opic radiances (a-opic irradiances), a-opic equivalent daylight luminances (a-opic equivalent daylight illuminances), a-opic efficacies of luminous radiation, and chromaticity coordinates using both luox and a variety of other available reference calculation tools, both public and private. Tolerance intervals were established for each quantity, and the deviation between the test values from luox and thereference values were calculated for each spectrum. The results for all of these evaluations showed consistency between the test values and the reference values. Based on these results, the CIE approves the following statement concerning the luox software, as per the aforementioned licence agreement:“This software incorporates methods, formulae, spectral function calculations and spectra from the International Commission on Illumination (CIE). The CIE endorses this software having made a black-box evaluation of the software as of Feb. 11, 2021, finding that the software performs satisfactorily. This software is not a replacement for the CIE publications and works from which it is derived. The user is advised to consult the original publications and works for proper understanding of and calculation of the result of this software.

Full 0ℏω0\hbar\omega shell model calculation of the binding energies of the 1f7/21f_{7/2} nuclei

Binding energies and other global properties of nuclei in the middle of the $pf$ shell, such as M1, E2 and Gamow-Teller sum rules, have been obtained using a new Shell Model code (NATHAN) written in quasi-spin formalism and using a $j-j$-coupled basis. An extensive comparison is made with the recently available Shell Model Monte Carlo results using the effective interaction KB3. The binding energies for -nearly- all the $1f_{7/2}$ nuclei are compared with the measured (and extrapolated) results.Comment: 7 page

The Reduced Folate Carrier (SLC19A1) c.80G>A Polymorphism is associated with red cell folate concentrations among women

Low folate status may be a consequence of suboptimal intake, transport or cellular utilization of folate and, together with elevated homocysteine, is a recognized risk factor/marker for several human pathologies. As folate transport across cell membranes is mediated in part by the reduced folate carrier (RFC1), variants within this gene may influence disease risk via an effect on folate and/or homocysteine levels. The present study was undertaken to assess the association between the SLC19A1 (RFC1) c.80G>A polymorphism and folate/homocysteine concentrations in healthy young adults from Northern Ireland. The SLC19A1 c.80G>A polymorphism was not strongly associated with either serum folate or homocysteine concentrations in either men or women. However, in women, but not in men, this polymorphism explained 5% of the variation in red blood cell (RBC) folate levels (P=0.02). Relative to women with the SLC19A1 c.80GG genotype, women with the GA and AA genotypes had higher RBC folate concentrations. Consequently, compared to women with the SLC19A1 c.80AA and GA genotypes, women who are homozygous for the 80G allele may be at increased risk of having a child affected with a neural tube defect and of developing pathologies that have been associated with folate insufficiency, such as cardiovascular disease

Molecular design of controllable recombinant adeno‐associated virus (AAV) expression systems for enhanced vector production

Recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) is the leading vector for the delivery of gene therapies. However, low viral genome (VG) titers are common and the proportion of “full” capsids containing the therapeutic gene payload can be highly variable. The coordinated molecular design of plasmids encoding viral components and Helper functions remains a major challenge for rAAV manufacturing. Here we present the design of improved Rep/Cap and Helper plasmids for rAAV2/8 production, (i) a Rep/Cap expression vector harboring independently controllable rep and cap genes and (ii) an improved Helper plasmid harboring E4 gene deletion variants. First, an optimized Rep/Cap vector utilized a truncated p5 promoter, a p5 cis-regulatory element at the 3′ end in combination with a heterologous promoter to drive Cap expression and an additional copy of the rep52/40 gene to overexpress short Rep proteins. We demonstrate that Rep78 is essential for efficient rAAV2/8 production in HEK293 cells, and a higher ratio of short Rep to long Rep proteins enhances genome packaging. Second, we identified regulators and open reading frames within the Helper plasmid that contribute to increased rAAV2/8 production. While L4-33k/22k is integral to optimal production, the use of E4orf6–6/7 subset significantly enhanced VG titer. Together, an optimal combination of engineered Rep/Cap and Helper plasmid variants increased VG titer by 3.1-fold. This study demonstrates that configuring and controlling the expression of the different AAV genetic elements contributes toward high rAAV production and product quality (full/empty capsid ratio)

Visualising text co-occurrence networks

We present a tool for automatically generating a visual summary of unstructured text data retrieved from documents, web sites or social media feeds. Unlike tools such as word clouds, we are able to visualise structures and topic relationships occurring in a document. These relationships are determined by a unique approach to co-occurrence analysis. The algorithm applies a decaying function to the distance between word pairs found in the original text such that words regularly occurring close to each other score highly, but even words occurring some distance apart will make a small contribution to the overall co-occurrence score. This is in contrast to other algorithms which simply count adjacent words or use a sliding window of fixed size. We show, with examples, how the network generated can be presented in tree or graph format. The tree format allows for the user to interact with the visualisation and expand or contract the data to a preferred level of detail. The tool is available as a web application and can be viewed using any modern web browse

Abundances of the elements in the solar system

A review of the abundances and condensation temperatures of the elements and their nuclides in the solar nebula and in chondritic meteorites. Abundances of the elements in some neighboring stars are also discussed.Comment: 42 pages, 11 tables, 8 figures, chapter, In Landolt- B\"ornstein, New Series, Vol. VI/4B, Chap. 4.4, J.E. Tr\"umper (ed.), Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag, p. 560-63

Printing bio-hybrid materials for bioelectronic cardio-3D-cellular constructs

Conductive hydrogels are emerging as promising materials for bioelectronic applications as they minimise the mismatch between biological and electronic systems. We propose a strategy to bioprint bio-hybrid conductive bioinks based on decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes. These inks contained conductive features and morphology of the dECM fibres. Electrical stimulation (ES) was applied to bioprinted structures containing human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs). It was observed that in the absence of external ES, the conductive properties of the materials can improve the contractile behaviour of the hPSC-CMs and this effect is enhanced under the application of external ES. Genetic markers indicated a trend towards a more mature state of the cells with upregulated calcium handling proteins and downregulation of calcium channels involved in the generation of pacemaking currents. These results demonstrate the potential of our strategy to manufacture conductive hydrogels in complex geometries for actuating purposes

Measurement of the Bs0→J/ψKS0B_s^0\to J/\psi K_S^0 branching fraction

The $B_s^0\to J/\psi K_S^0$ branching fraction is measured in a data sample corresponding to 0.41$fb^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity collected with the LHCb detector at the LHC. This channel is sensitive to the penguin contributions affecting the sin2$\beta$ measurement from $B^0\to J/\psi K_S^0$ The time-integrated branching fraction is measured to be $BF(B_s^0\to J/\psi K_S^0)=(1.83\pm0.28)\times10^{-5}$. This is the most precise measurement to date

Model-independent search for CP violation in D0→K−K+π−π+ and D0→π−π+π+π− decays

A search for CP violation in the phase-space structures of D0 and View the MathML source decays to the final states K−K+π−π+ and π−π+π+π− is presented. The search is carried out with a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 collected in 2011 by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. For the K−K+π−π+ final state, the four-body phase space is divided into 32 bins, each bin with approximately 1800 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 9.1%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 6.5% observed. The phase space of the π−π+π+π− final state is partitioned into 128 bins, each bin with approximately 2500 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 41%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 5.5% observed. All results are consistent with the hypothesis of no CP violation at the current sensitivity