Review on the development of truly portable and in-situ capillary electrophoresis systems

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a technique which uses an electric field to separate a mixed sample into its constituents. Portable CE systems enable this powerful analysis technique to be used in the field. Many of the challenges for portable systems are similar to those of autonomous in-situ analysis and therefore portable systems may be considered a stepping stone towards autonomous in-situ analysis. CE is widely used for biological and chemical analysis and example applications include: water quality analysis; drug development and quality control; proteomics and DNA analysis; counter-terrorism (explosive material identification) and corrosion monitoring. The technique is often limited to laboratory use, since it requires large electric fields, sensitive detection systems and fluidic control systems. All of these place restrictions in terms of: size, weight, cost, choice of operating solutions, choice of fabrication materials, electrical power and lifetime. In this review we bring together and critique the work by researchers addressing these issues. We emphasize the importance of a holistic approach for portable and in-situ CE systems and discuss all the aspects of the design. We identify gaps in the literature which require attention for the realization of both truly portable and in-situ CE systems

Step By Step Project Evaluation Report

The Step-by-Step Project (SBS) was co-designed to address a common need identified by partners from four European Countries. Men are at greater risk of poor physical and mental health because of social isolation, loneliness and unemployment. SBS delivered a model of community engagement to empower men to move from poor health and/or isolation to healthy social participation or active engagement in the labour market. To achieve this, the SBS Model adapted the Men’s Sheds concept by developing a new, third-generation Men’s Sheds Delivery Model. This incorporated peer champion (health and employment focused) training and deployment within the Sheds and their communities, outreach with their communities and other organisations, and use of health technology for assessment of health status. Information videos have been created, explaining the SBS Model in English, French, and Dutch. The evaluation adopts a mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative evidence gathered), multi-discipline (physical, social, psychological and economic indicators of change) multi-level (evidence gathered from Shedders, Leaders, Trainers, Partners) approach. The objective is to provide evidence of “who” the SBS Project has engaged with (reach), “what” changes have occurred (effectiveness), document “where” diversity in SBS Shed delivery is observed (adoption), “how” change was achieved (implementation) and “if” change is likely to lead to long-term economic benefit (maintenance). This approach is based on the RE-AIM evaluation framework (Glasgow, 1999, 2019). Between September 2017 and November 2021, 101 Sheds were established with a total membership of approximately 2000 individuals from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Data collection for this evaluation started in May 2019 and ran until November 2021, and involved approximately 450 Shedders (Leaders, Champions and Members), 7 Champion trainers and 15 Project Partners. Economically, the SBS Model facilitated reduced expenditure on mental and physical healthcare, less public spending on welfare transfer payments and other support agencies, and up-skilling and greater self-esteem on reducing unemployment and enhanced productivity in the workplace

Step By Step Project Evaluation Report

The Step-by-Step Project (SBS) was co-designed to address a common need identified by partners from four European Countries. Men are at greater risk of poor physical and mental health because of social isolation, loneliness and unemployment. SBS delivered a model of community engagement to empower men to move from poor health and/or isolation to healthy social participation or active engagement in the labour market. To achieve this, the SBS Model adapted the Men’s Sheds concept by developing a new, third-generation Men’s Sheds Delivery Model. This incorporated peer champion (health and employment focused) training and deployment within the Sheds and their communities, outreach with their communities and other organisations, and use of health technology for assessment of health status. Information videos have been created, explaining the SBS Model in English, French, and Dutch. The evaluation adopts a mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative evidence gathered), multi-discipline (physical, social, psychological and economic indicators of change) multi-level (evidence gathered from Shedders, Leaders, Trainers, Partners) approach. The objective is to provide evidence of “who” the SBS Project has engaged with (reach), “what” changes have occurred (effectiveness), document “where” diversity in SBS Shed delivery is observed (adoption), “how” change was achieved (implementation) and “if” change is likely to lead to long-term economic benefit (maintenance). This approach is based on the RE-AIM evaluation framework (Glasgow, 1999, 2019). Between September 2017 and November 2021, 101 Sheds were established with a total membership of approximately 2000 individuals from Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Data collection for this evaluation started in May 2019 and ran until November 2021, and involved approximately 450 Shedders (Leaders, Champions and Members), 7 Champion trainers and 15 Project Partners. Economically, the SBS Model facilitated reduced expenditure on mental and physical healthcare, less public spending on welfare transfer payments and other support agencies, and up-skilling and greater self-esteem on reducing unemployment and enhanced productivity in the workplace

Supernova Cosmology and the ESSENCE project

The proper usage of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as distance indicators has revolutionized cosmology, and added a new dominant component to the energy density of the Universe, dark energy. Following the discovery and confirmation era, the currently ongoing SNe Ia surveys aim to determine the properties of the dark energy. ESSENCE is a five year ground-based supernova survey aimed at finding and characterizing 200 SNe Ia in the redshift domain z=[0.2-0.8]. The goal of the project is to put constraints on the equation of state parameter, w, of the dark energy with an accuracy of <10%. This paper presents these ongoing efforts in the context of the current developments in observational cosmology.Comment: Submitted to EPS1

South Georgia blue whales five decades after the end of whaling

Blue whales Balaenoptera musculus at South Georgia were heavily exploited during 20th century industrial whaling, to the point of local near-extirpation. Although legal whaling for blue whales ceased in the 1960s, and there were indications of blue whale recovery across the wider Southern Ocean area, blue whales were seldom seen in South Georgia waters in subsequent years. We collated 30 yr of data comprising opportunistic sightings, systematic visual and acoustic surveys and photo-identification to assess the current distribution of blue whales in the waters surrounding South Georgia. Over 34000 km of systematic survey data between 1998 and 2018 resulted in only a single blue whale sighting, although opportunistic sightings were reported over that time period. However, since 2018 there have been increases in both sightings of blue whales and detections of their vocalisations. A survey in 2020 comprising visual line transect surveys and directional frequency analysis and recording (DIFAR) sonobuoy deployments resulted in 58 blue whale sightings from 2430 km of visual effort, including the photo-identification of 23 individual blue whales. Blue whale vocalisations were detected on all 31 sonobuoys deployed (114 h). In total, 41 blue whales were photo-identified from South Georgia between 2011 and 2020, none of which matched the 517 whales in the current Antarctic catalogue. These recent data suggest that blue whales have started to return to South Georgia waters, but continued visual and acoustic surveys are required to monitor any future changes in their distribution and abundance

Implementation of U.K. Earth system models for CMIP6

We describe the scientific and technical implementation of two models for a core set of experiments contributing to the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). The models used are the physical atmosphere-land-ocean-sea ice model HadGEM3-GC3.1 and the Earth system model UKESM1 which adds a carbon-nitrogen cycle and atmospheric chemistry to HadGEM3-GC3.1. The model results are constrained by the external boundary conditions (forcing data) and initial conditions.We outline the scientific rationale and assumptions made in specifying these. Notable details of the implementation include an ozone redistribution scheme for prescribed ozone simulations (HadGEM3-GC3.1) to avoid inconsistencies with the model's thermal tropopause, and land use change in dynamic vegetation simulations (UKESM1) whose influence will be subject to potential biases in the simulation of background natural vegetation.We discuss the implications of these decisions for interpretation of the simulation results. These simulations are expensive in terms of human and CPU resources and will underpin many further experiments; we describe some of the technical steps taken to ensure their scientific robustness and reproducibility

A comprehensive large-scale assessment of fisheries bycatch risk to threatened seabird populations

1.Incidental mortality (bycatch) in fisheries remains the greatest threat to many large marine vertebrates and is a major barrier to fisheries sustainability. Robust assessments of bycatch risk are crucial for informing effective mitigation strategies, but are hampered by missing information on the distributions of key life‐history stages (adult breeders and non‐breeders, immatures and juveniles). 2.Using a comprehensive biologging dataset (1,692 tracks, 788 individuals) spanning all major life‐history stages, we assessed spatial overlap of four threatened seabird populations from South Georgia, with longline and trawl fisheries in the Southern Ocean. We generated monthly population‐level distributions, weighting each life‐history stage according to population age structure based on demographic models. Specifically, we determined where and when birds were at greatest potential bycatch risk, and from which fleets. 3.Overlap with both pelagic and demersal longline fisheries was highest for black‐browed albatrosses, then white‐chinned petrels, wandering and grey‐headed albatrosses, whereas overlap with trawl fisheries was highest for white‐chinned petrels. 4.Hotspots of fisheries overlap occurred in all major ocean basins, but particularly the south‐east and south‐west Atlantic Ocean (longline and trawl) and south‐west Indian Ocean (pelagic longline). Overlap was greatest with pelagic longline fleets in May–September, when fishing effort south of 25°S is highest, and with demersal and trawl fisheries in January–June. Overlap scores were dominated by particular fleets: pelagic longline—Japan, Taiwan; demersal longline and trawl—Argentina, Namibia, Falklands, South Africa; demersal longline—Convention for Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) waters, Chile, New Zealand. 5.Synthesis and applications. We provide a framework for calculating appropriately weighted population‐level distributions from biologging data, which we recommend for future fisheries bycatch risk assessments. Many regions of high spatial overlap corresponded with high seabird bycatch rates recorded by on‐board observers, indicating that our approach reliably mapped relative bycatch risk at large spatial scales. Implementation of effective bycatch mitigation in these high‐risk regions varies considerably. Although potential bycatch risk appears to have decreased since the early 2000s, albatross and petrel populations from South Georgia and elsewhere are still declining, emphasizing the need for much improved observer coverage and monitoring of compliance with bycatch regulations

Modelling a response as a function of high frequency count data: the association between physical activity and fat mass

We present a new statistical modelling approach where the response is a function of high frequency count data. Our application is about investigating the relationship between the health outcome fat mass and physical activity (PA) measured by accelerometer. The accelerometer quantifies the intensity of physical activity as counts per epoch over a given period of time. We use data from the Avon longitudinal study of parents and children (ALSPAC) where accelerometer data is available as a time series of accelerometer counts per minute over seven days for a subset of children. In order to compare accelerometer profiles between individuals and to reduce the high dimension a functional summary of the profiles is used. We use the histogram as a functional summary due to its simplicity, suitability and ease of interpretation. Our model is an extension of generalised regression of scalars on functions or signal regression. It allows also multi-dimensional functional predictors and additive non-linear predictors for metric covariates. The additive multidimensional functional predictors allow investigating specific questions about whether the effect of PA varies over its intensity, by gender, by time of day or by day of the week. The key feature of the model is that it utilises the full profile of measured PA without requiring cut-points defining intensity levels for light, moderate and vigorous activity. We show that the (not necessarily causal) effect of PA is not linear and not constant over the activity intensity. Also, there is little evidence to suggest that the effect of PA intensity varies by gender or whether it happens on weekdays or on weekends

Proteomic Profile of Reversible Protein Oxidation Using PROP, Purification of Reversibly Oxidized Proteins

Signal transduction pathways that are modulated by thiol oxidation events are beginning to be uncovered, but these discoveries are limited by the availability of relatively few analytical methods to examine protein oxidation compared to other signaling events such as protein phosphorylation. We report here the coupling of PROP, a method to purify reversibly oxidized proteins, with the proteomic identification of the purified mixture using mass spectrometry. A gene ontology (GO), KEGG enrichment and Wikipathways analysis of the identified proteins indicated a significant enrichment in proteins associated with both translation and mRNA splicing. This methodology also enabled the identification of some of the specific cysteine residue targets within identified proteins that are reversibly oxidized by hydrogen peroxide treatment of intact cells. From these identifications, we determined a potential consensus sequence motif associated with oxidized cysteine residues. Furthermore, because we identified proteins and specific sites of oxidation from both abundant proteins and from far less abundant signaling proteins (e.g. hepatoma derived growth factor, prostaglandin E synthase 3), the results suggest that the PROP procedure was efficient. Thus, this PROP-proteomics methodology offers a sensitive means to identify biologically relevant redox signaling events that occur within intact cells

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure