An investigation of the grindability of two torrefied energy crops

The process of torrefaction alters the physical properties of biomass, reducing its fibrous tenacious nature. This could allow increased rates of co-milling and therefore co-firing in coal fired power stations, which in turn would enable a reduction in the amount of coal used and an increase in the use of sustainable fuels, without the need for additional plant. This paper presents an experimental investigation of the pulverisation behaviour of two torrefied energy crops, namely: willow and Miscanthus. A multifactorial method approach was adopted to investigate the three process parameters of temperature, residence time and particle size, producing fuels treated using four different torrefaction conditions. The untreated and torrefied fuels were subjected to standard fuel analysis techniques including ultimate analysis, proximate analysis and calorific value determination. The grindability of these fuels was then determined using a laboratory ball mill and by adapting the Hardgrove Grindability Index (HGI) test for hard coals. After grinding, two sets of results were obtained. Firstly a determination similar to the HGI test was made, measuring the proportion of sample passing through a 75 mu m sieve and plotting this on a calibrated HGI chart determined using four standard reference coals of known HGI values. Secondly the particle size distributions of the entire ground sample were measured and compared with the four standard reference coals. The standard fuel tests revealed that temperature was the most significant parameter in terms of mass loss, changes in elemental composition and energy content increase. The first grindability test results found that the untreated fuels and fuels treated at low temperatures showed very poor grindability behaviour. However, more severe torrefaction conditions caused the fuels to exhibit similar pulverisation properties as coals with low HGI values. Miscanthus was found to have a higher HGI value than willow. On examining the particle size distributions it was found that the particle size distributions of torrefied Miscanthus differed significantly from the untreated biomass and had comparable profiles to those of the standard reference coals with which they had similar HGI values. However, only the torrefied willow produced at the most severe conditions investigated exhibited this behaviour, and the HGI of torrefied willow was not generally a reliable indicator of grindability performance for this energy crop. Overall it was concluded that torrefied biomass can be successfully pulverised and that torrefied Miscanthus was easier to grind than torrefied willow

Mutation of Arabidopsis SPLICEOSOMAL TIMEKEEPER LOCUS1 Causes Circadian Clock Defects

The circadian clock plays a crucial role in coordinating plant metabolic and physiological functions with predictable environmental variables, such as dusk and dawn, while also modulating responses to biotic and abiotic challenges. Much of the initial characterization of the circadian system has focused on transcriptional initiation, but it is now apparent that considerable regulation is exerted after this key regulatory step. Transcript processing, protein stability, and cofactor availability have all been reported to influence circadian rhythms in a variety of species. We used a genetic screen to identify a mutation within a putative RNA binding protein (SPLICEOSOMAL TIMEKEEPER LOCUS1 [STIPL1]) that induces a long circadian period phenotype under constant conditions. STIPL1 is a homolog of the spliceosomal proteins TFP11 (Homo sapiens) and Ntr1p (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) involved in spliceosome disassembly. Analysis of general and alternative splicing using a high-resolution RT-PCR system revealed that mutation of this protein causes less efficient splicing of most but not all of the introns analyzed. In particular, the altered accumulation of circadian-associated transcripts may contribute to the observed mutant phenotype. Interestingly, mutation of a close homolog of STIPL1, STIP-LIKE2, does not cause a circadian phenotype, which suggests divergence in function between these family members. Our work highlights the importance of posttranscriptional control within the clock mechanism. © 2012 American Society of Plant Biologists. All rights reserved

The social burden of malaria: what are we measuring?

Definitions of the burden of malaria vary by public health discipline. Epidemiologists and economists commonly use a quantitative approach to measure risk factors and associate them with disease outcomes. In contrast, since burden is itself a cultural construct, an anthropologic perspective of the burden of disease considers the sociocultural context in which these risk factors exist. This broader concept of burden is rarely tackled, most likely stemming from a lack of understanding of what is meant by the term social burden. This report describes the concept from an anthropologic perspective. The aim is to provide a better understanding of the process through which social and cultural factors affect the biomedical burden of malaria. The consequences of adopting this perspective for public health in general and malaria interventions in particular are discussed

‘Holding onto trauma?’ The prevalence and predictors of PTSD, anxiety, and depression in police officers working with victims of child abuse, rape, and sexual exploitation

Research into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other common mental disorders (CMDs) in police officers is limited, with the majority of research predominately conducted outside the UK, and no study quantitively examining the role of social support in relation to the mental health of UK police officers working with victims of trauma. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the prevalence and predictors of PTSD and CMD in UK police officers who investigate rape, sexual exploitation, and child abuse, along with the potential protective role of social support. Participants were police officers (n = 353) within one police area, who completed self-report measures of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and social support. Results showed that 23% of officers had potentially clinical levels of PTSD, 26% had moderate to severe levels of anxiety and 35% had moderate to severe levels of depression. Female officers, those of constable rank, those working with victims of child abuse, and those with lowest levels of social support had poorer mental health. There was tentative evidence that social support statistically moderated the relationship between tenure and depression. These findings suggest the need for bespoke help for the sub-group of officers experiencing mental health problems and for further research into the potential protective role of social support

The relationship of body weight to response to endocrine therapy, steroid hormone receptors and survival of patients with advanced cancer of the breast.

High body weight is associated with increased production of oestrogens which may influence the clinical behaviour of breast cancer. We have examined the influence of body weight on the response to endocrine therapy, steroid hormone receptor content and survival in 227 women who either presented with or developed advanced cancer of the breast. One hundred and thirty-three (59%) patients presented with operable disease and 94 (41%) with locally advanced tumours. Two hundred (88%) were treated by tamoxifen and 27 (12%) by ovarian ablation. High body weight was correlated with advanced tumour stage (P = 0.002) and progesterone receptor (PR) positivity (P = 0.01), but not with the presence of oestrogen receptor (ER P = 0.21). The association between high body weight and PR positivity was particularly noticeable among ER positive tumours. There was no significant relationship between the nature of the response to therapy and weight (P = 0.57). There was no significant difference in survival from the start of endocrine therapy (P = 0.95), nor the time to progression of disease (P = 0.29) between patients above and below the median weight of 64 kg. Among the patients with operable disease, there was no difference in overall survival (P = 0.42), relapse free survival (P = 0.69), and survival from the start of endocrine therapy (P = 0.85) according to body weight

Temporal Evolution of Financial Market Correlations

We investigate financial market correlations using random matrix theory and principal component analysis. We use random matrix theory to demonstrate that correlation matrices of asset price changes contain structure that is incompatible with uncorrelated random price changes. We then identify the principal components of these correlation matrices and demonstrate that a small number of components accounts for a large proportion of the variability of the markets that we consider. We then characterize the time-evolving relationships between the different assets by investigating the correlations between the asset price time series and principal components. Using this approach, we uncover notable changes that occurred in financial markets and identify the assets that were significantly affected by these changes. We show in particular that there was an increase in the strength of the relationships between several different markets following the 2007--2008 credit and liquidity crisis.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E. v2 includes additional section

Broadening Responsibilities: Consideration Of The Potential To Broaden The Role Of Uniformed Fire Service Employees

What is this report about? This report, commissioned by the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services (NJC), aims to identify what impact, if any, firefighters can have on the delivery of emergency medical response and wider community health interventions in the UK. What are the overall conclusions? Appropriately trained and equipped firefighters co-responding1 to targeted, specific time critical medical events, such as cardiac arrest, can improve patient survival rates. The data also indicate that there is support from fire service staff – and a potential need from members of the public, particularly the elderly, isolated or vulnerable – to expand ‘wider work’. This includes winter warmth assessments, Safe and Well checks, community defibrillator training and client referrals when staff believe someone may have dementia, are vulnerable or even, for example, have substance dependencies such as an alcohol addiction. However, there is currently insufficient data to estimate the net benefit of this work

New approaches to object classification in synoptic sky surveys

Digital synoptic sky surveys pose several new object classification challenges. In surveys where real-time detection and classification of transient events is a science driver, there is a need for an effective elimination of instrument-related artifacts which can masquerade as transient sources in the detection pipeline, e.g., unremoved large cosmic rays, saturation trails, reflections, crosstalk artifacts, etc. We have implemented such an Artifact Filter, using a supervised neural network, for the real-time processing pipeline in the Palomar-Quest (PQ) survey. After the training phase, for each object it takes as input a set of measured morphological parameters and returns the probability of it being a real object. Despite the relatively low number of training cases for many kinds of artifacts, the overall artifact classification rate is around 90%, with no genuine transients misclassified during our real-time scans. Another question is how to assign an optimal star-galaxy classification in a multi-pass survey, where seeing and other conditions change between different epochs, potentially producing inconsistent classifications for the same object. We have implemented a star/galaxy multipass classifier that makes use of external and a priori knowledge to find the optimal classification from the individually derived ones. Both these techniques can be applied to other, similar surveys and data sets