Olfoto: designing a smell-based interaction

We present a study into the use of smell for searching digi-tal photo collections. Many people now have large photo libraries on their computers and effective search tools are needed. Smell has a strong link to memory and emotion so may be a good way to cue recall when searching. Our study compared text and smell based tagging. For the first stage we generated a set of smell and tag names from user de-scriptions of photos, participants then used these to tag pho-tos, returning two weeks later to answer questions on their photos. Results showed that participants could tag effec-tively with text labels, as this is a common and familiar task. Performance with smells was lower but participants performed significantly above chance, with some partici-pants using smells well. This suggests that smell has poten-tial. Results also showed that some smells were consistently identified and useful, but some were not and highlighted issues with smell delivery devices. We also discuss some practical issues of using smell for interaction

Development of a Responsive Small Spacecraft

The development of a small spacecraft bus is presented. The approach applied seeks to respond to the requirements of potential users as represented by a large data base of payload missions, while minimizing cost. The development results in a general purpose spacecraft design that is responsive to a wide range of mission requirements, and provides a clear definition of capabilities and interfaces to facilitate user mission design

Exercise-induced respiratory muscle work: Effects on blood flow, fatigue and performance

This is the post print version of this article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below.In healthy subjects, heavy intensity endurance exercise places substantial demands on the respiratory muscles as breathing frequency, ventilation and the work of breathing rise over time. In the highly trained subject working at high absolute work rates, the ventilatory demand often causes varying degrees of expiratory flow limitation, sometimes accompanied by lung hyperinflation and, therefore, increased elastic work of breathing. Time-dependant increases in effort perceptions for both dyspnea and limb discomfort accompany these increased ventilatory demands. Similar responses to endurance exercise but at much lower exercise intensities also occur in patients with COPD and CHF. Note that these responses significantly influence exercise performance times in both health and disease. This effect was demonstrated by the marked reductions in the rate of rise of effort perceptions and the enhanced exercise performance times elicited by unloading the respiratory muscles using pressure support ventilation or proportional assist mechanical ventilation. In healthy fit subjects, unloading the inspiratory work of breathing by about one half increased performance by an average of 14% (Harms et al. 2000), and in CHF and COPD patients performance time more than doubled with respiratory muscle unloading (O’Donnell et al. 2001). Why are effort perceptions of limb discomfort markedly reduced and exercise performance increased when the respiratory muscles are unloaded? Our hypothesis is shown in Fig. 1

Rapid Mix Preparation of Bioinspired Nanoscale Hydroxyapatite for Biomedical Applications

Hydroxyapatite (HA) has been widely used as a medical ceramic due to its good biocompatibility and osteoconductivity. Recently there has been interest regarding the use of bioinspired nanoscale hydroxyapatite (nHA). However, biological apatite is known to be calcium-deficient and carbonate-substituted with a nanoscale platelet-like morphology. Bioinspired nHA has the potential to stimulate optimal bone tissue regeneration due to its similarity to bone and tooth enamel mineral. Many of the methods currently used to fabricate nHA both in the laboratory and commercially, involve lengthy processes and complex equipment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a rapid and reliable method to prepare high quality bioinspired nHA. The rapid mixing method developed was based upon an acid-base reaction involving calcium hydroxide and phosphoric acid. Briefly, a phosphoric acid solution was poured into a calcium hydroxide solution followed by stirring, washing and drying stages. Part of the batch was sintered at 1,000 °C for 2 h in order to investigate the products' high temperature stability. X-ray diffraction analysis showed the successful formation of HA, which showed thermal decomposition to β-tricalcium phosphate after high temperature processing, which is typical for calcium-deficient HA. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy showed the presence of carbonate groups in the precipitated product. The nHA particles had a low aspect ratio with approximate dimensions of 50 x 30 nm, close to the dimensions of biological apatite. The material was also calcium deficient with a Ca:P molar ratio of 1.63, which like biological apatite is lower than the stoichiometric HA ratio of 1.67. This new method is therefore a reliable and far more convenient process for the manufacture of bioinspired nHA, overcoming the need for lengthy titrations and complex equipment. The resulting bioinspired HA product is suitable for use in a wide variety of medical and consumer health applications

Reactive Inkjet Printing of Regenerated Silk Fibroin Films for Use as Dental Barrier Membranes

Current commercially available barrier membranes for oral surgery have yet to achieve a perfect design. Existing materials used are either non-resorbable and require a second surgery for their extraction, or alternatively are resorbable but suffer from poor structural integrity or degrade into acidic by-products. Silk has the potential to overcome these issues and has yet to be made into a commercially available dental barrier membrane. Reactive inkjet printing (RIJ) has recently been demonstrated to be a suitable method for assembling silk in its regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) form into different constructs. This paper will establish the properties of RSF solutions for RIJ and the suitability of RIJ for the construction of RSF barrier membranes. Printed RSF films were characterised by their crystallinity and surface properties, which were shown to be controllable via RIJ. RSF films degraded in either phosphate buffered saline or protease XIV solutions had degradation rates related to RSF crystallinity. RSF films were also printed with the inclusion of nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA). As reactive inkjet printing could control RSF crystallinity and hence its degradation rate, as well as offering the ability to incorporate bioactive nHA inclusions, reactive inkjet printing is deemed a suitable alternative method for RSF processing and the production of dental barrier membranes

Yield and protein of wheat and durum in Brown Soil Zone as affected by long-term tillage system and crop rotation

Non-Peer ReviewedThree tillage-rotation experiments in the Brown soil zone showed that spring wheat and durum grain yield and protein were affected by tillage system, length of time in tillage system, crop sequence. During the initial 15 years of no-tillage (NT) monoculture wheat, grain yield and protein were equal or lower than minimum-till (MT) or conventional tillage (CT). These differences were attributed to reduced N availability with NT, likely from greater N immobilization (sequestration) in soil organic matter under NT. However, during the last several years, grain yield and protein with NT continuous wheat has been equal to higher than with MT practices. This may be due to improved management, specifically better control of foxtail barley and side banding of N at time of seeding, and/or simply a longer time in NT. When following non-cereal crop, spring wheat and durum had equal or higher yield and protein than wheat following wheat. In diversified rotations, the wheat or durum had highest yield under NT practices. Wheat on MT and NT fallow, with an extra 23 kg/ha fertilizer N applied, had higher grain protein than wheat on CT fallow but not higher grain yield. Durum grown on fallow after a pulse crop had higher yield and protein than that grown after fallow after durum

Hydrated lime matrix decreases ruminal biohydrogenation of flaxseed fatty acids

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential nutrients for humans, but dietary intake of these nutrients by many Americans is inadequate due to low consumption of omega-3-rich foods such as fish, walnuts, and flaxseed. In contrast, per capita consumption of red meat is relatively high, but these products normally contain only small amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. Feeding cattle diets that contain omega-3 fatty acids has consistently increased the proportion of the desirable fats that accumulate in beef. Unfortunately, the proportion of dietary omega-3 fats that are deposited into beef tissues is relatively low, because microorganisms within the rumen biohydrogenate the unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids extensively to produce the saturated fats that are characteristic of beef fat. Encapsulation of fats has been proposed as a method for improving efficiency of transfer of omega-3 fats into beef. Encapsulation processes apply a protective barrier on the surface of fats or fat-containing feeds, which theoretically decreases fats’ susceptibility to microbial biohydrogenation. Protective coatings must remain intact to retain their functionality, and physical damage to the coatings that occurs with normal handling can result in poor efficacy because the core material is exposed to microorganisms in the rumen. Embedding feed particles within a homogeneous protective matrix constitutes a potentially useful alternative to protective surface barriers. The matrix is created by mixing feed particles that are to be protected with a suitable matrix material that is resistant to microbial digestion and subsequently forming the mixture into pills. In cases where physical damage occurs, exposure of the core material is confined to the broken surface, and the remainder of the matrix retains its ruminal stability. The objective of this study was to determine if embedding flaxseed within a matrix of hydrated dolomitic lime could be used as a method to decrease biohydrogenation of polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids, thus improving efficiency of omega-3 fatty acids absorption into the bloodstream

Fenotipado proteómico de Líneas Celulares de Cáncer Humano

Comunicaciones a congreso

The contribution of qualitative behavioural assessment to appraisal of livestock welfare

Animal welfare is increasingly important for the Australian livestock industries, to maintain social licence to practice as well as ensuring market share overseas. Improvement of animal welfare in the livestock industries requires several important key steps. Paramount among these, objective measures are needed for welfare assessment that will enable comparison and contrast of welfare implications of husbandry procedures or housing options. Such measures need to be versatile (can be applied under a wide range of on- and off-farm situations), relevant (reveal aspects of the animal’s affective or physiological state that is relevant to their welfare), reliable (can be repeated with confidence in the results), relatively economic to apply, and they need to have broad acceptance by all stakeholders. Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA) is an integrated measure that characterises behaviour as a dynamic, expressive body language. QBA is a versatile tool requiring little specialist equipment suiting application to in situ assessments that enables comparative, hypothesis-driven evaluation of various industry-relevant practices. QBA is being increasingly used as part of animal welfare assessments in Europe, and although most other welfare assessment methods record ‘problems’ (e.g. lameness, injury scores, and so on), QBA can capture positive aspects of animal welfare (e.g. positively engaged with their environment, playfulness). In this viewpoint, we review the outcomes of recent QBA studies and discuss the potential application of QBA, in combination with other methods, as a welfare assessment tool for the Australian livestock industries

QCD sum rules and thermal properties of Charmonium in the vector channel

The thermal evolution of the hadronic parameters of charmonium in the vector channel, i.e. the J/psi resonance mass, coupling (leptonic decay constant), total width, and continuum threshold is analyzed in the framework of thermal Hilbert moment QCD sum rules. The continuum threshold $s_0$, as in other hadronic channels, decreases with increasing temperature until the PQCD threshold s_0 = 4, m_Q^2 is reached at T \simeq 1.22T_c (m_Q is the charm quark mass) and the J/psi mass is essentially constant in a wide range of temperatures. The other hadronic parameters behave in a very different way from those of light-light and heavy-light quark systems. The total width grows with temperature up to T \simeq 1.04T_c beyond which it decreases sharply with increasing T. The resonance coupling is also initially constant beginning to increase monotonically around T \simeq T_c. This behavior strongly suggests that the J/psi resonance might survive beyond the critical temperature for deconfinement, in agreement with lattice QCD results.Comment: 4 pages, two figures, contribution to QCD 10, Montpellier 28th June-2nd July 201