Convex hull method for the determination of vapour-liquid equilibria (VLE) phase diagrams for binary and ternary systems

Amieibibama Joseph wishes to thank Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) for their financial support which has made this research possible.Peer reviewedPostprin

Placenta growth factor and vascular endothelial growth factor B expression in the hypoxic lung

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chronic alveolar hypoxia, due to residence at high altitude or chronic obstructive lung diseases, leads to pulmonary hypertension, which may be further complicated by right heart failure, increasing morbidity and mortality. In the non-diseased lung, angiogenesis occurs in chronic hypoxia and may act in a protective, adaptive manner. To date, little is known about the behaviour of individual vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family ligands in hypoxia-induced pulmonary angiogenesis. The aim of this study was to examine the expression of placenta growth factor (PlGF) and VEGFB during the development of hypoxic pulmonary angiogenesis and their functional effects on the pulmonary endothelium.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Male Sprague Dawley rats were exposed to conditions of normoxia (21% O₂) or hypoxia (10% O₂) for 1-21 days. Stereological analysis of vascular structure, real-time PCR analysis of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), VEGFB, placenta growth factor (PlGF), VEGF receptor 1 (VEGFR1) and VEGFR2, immunohistochemistry and western blots were completed. The effects of VEGF ligands on human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells were determined using a wound-healing assay.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Typical vascular remodelling and angiogenesis were observed in the hypoxic lung. PlGF and VEGFB mRNA expression were significantly increased in the hypoxic lung. Immunohistochemical analysis showed reduced expression of VEGFB protein in hypoxia although PlGF protein was unchanged. The expression of VEGFA mRNA and protein was unchanged. <it>In vitro </it>PlGF at high concentration mimicked the wound-healing actions of VEGFA on pulmonary microvascular endothelial monolayers. Low concentrations of PlGF potentiated the wound-healing actions of VEGFA while higher concentrations of PlGF were without this effect. VEGFB inhibited the wound-healing actions of VEGFA while VEGFB and PlGF together were mutually antagonistic.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>VEGFB and PlGF can either inhibit or potentiate the actions of VEGFA, depending on their relative concentrations, which change in the hypoxic lung. Thus their actions <it>in vivo </it>depend on their specific concentrations within the microenvironment of the alveolar wall during the course of adaptation to pulmonary hypoxia.</p

The Epithelial Sodium Channel (ENaC) Establishes a Trafficking Vesicle Pool Responsible for Its Regulation

The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) is the rate-limiting step for sodium reabsorption across tight epithelia. Cyclic-AMP (cAMP) stimulation promotes ENaC trafficking to the apical surface to increase channel number and transcellular Na+ transport. Removal of corticosteroid supplementation in a cultured cortical collecting duct cell line reduced ENaC expression. Concurrently, the number of vesicles trafficked in response to cAMP stimulation, as measured by a change in membrane capacitance, also decreased. Stimulation with aldosterone restored both the basal and cAMP-stimulated ENaC activity and increased the number of exocytosed vesicles. Knocking down ENaC directly decreased both the cAMP-stimulated short-circuit current and capacitance response in the presence of aldosterone. However, constitutive apical recycling of the Immunoglobulin A receptor was unaffected by alterations in ENaC expression or trafficking. Fischer Rat Thyroid cells, transfected with α,β,γ-mENaC had a significantly greater membrane capacitance response to cAMP stimulation compared to non-ENaC controls. Finally, immunofluorescent labeling and quantitation revealed a smaller number of vesicles in cells where ENaC expression was reduced. These findings indicate that ENaC is not a passive passenger in regulated epithelial vesicle trafficking, but plays a role in establishing and maintaining the pool of vesicles that respond to cAMP stimulation. © 2012 Edinger et al

Data Management in the Long Tail: Science, Software, and Service

Scientists in all fields face challenges in managing and sustaining access to their research data. The larger and longer term the research project, the more likely that scientists are to have resources and dedicated staff to manage their technology and data, leaving those scientists whose work is based on smaller and shorter term projects at a disadvantage. The volume and variety of data to be managed varies by many factors, only two of which are the number of collaborators and length of the project. As part of an NSF project to conceptualize the Institute for Empowering Long Tail Research, we explored opportunities offered by Software as a Service (SaaS). These cloud-based services are popular in business because they reduce costs and labor for technology management, and are gaining ground in scientific environments for similar reasons. We studied three settings where scientists conduct research in small and medium-sized laboratories. Two were NSF Science and Technology Centers (CENS and C-DEBI) and the third was a workshop of natural reserve scientists and managers. These laboratories have highly diverse data and practices, make minimal use of standards for data or metadata, and lack resources for data management or sustaining access to their data, despite recognizing the need. We found that SaaS could address technical needs for basic document creation, analysis, and storage, but did not support the diverse and rapidly changing needs for sophisticated domain-specific tools and services. These are much more challenging knowledge infrastructure requirements that require long-term investments by multiple stakeholders.

Crop Updates 2009 - Cereals

This session covers twenty seven papers from different authors: PLENARY 1. Building soil carbon for productivity and implications for carbon accounting, Jeff Baldock, CSIRO Land and Water, Adelaide, SA 2. Fact or Fiction: Who is telling the truth and how to tell the difference, Doug Edmeades, agKnowledge Ltd, Hamilton 3. Four decades of crop sequence trials in Western Australia, Mark Seymour,Department of Agriculture and Food BREAK CROPS 4. 2008 Break Crops survey Report, Paul Carmody,Development Officer, Department of Agriculture and Food 5. Attitudes of Western Australian wheatbelt growers to ‘Break Crops’, Paul Carmody and Ian Pritchard, Development Officers, Department of Agriculture and Food 6. The value of organic nitrogen from lupins, Alan Meldrum, Pulse Australia 7.The area of break crops on farm: What farmers are doing compared to estimates based on maximising profit, Michael Robertson and Roger Lawes,CSIRO Floreat, Rob Sands,FARMANCO Farm Consultants, Peter White,Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, Felicity Byrne and Andrew Bathgate,Farming Systems Analysis CROP SPECIFIC Breeding 8. Identification of WALAB2014 as a potential albus lupin variety for northern agricultural region of Western Australia, Kedar Adhikari, Department of Agriculture and Food 9. Enhancement of black spot resistance in field pea, Kedar Adhikari, Tanveer Khan, Stuart Morgan and Alan Harris, Department of Agriculture and Food 10. Desi chickpea breeding: Evaluation of advanced line, Khan, TN1, Harris, A1, Gaur, P2, Siddique, KHM3, Clarke, H4, Turner, NC4, MacLeod, W1, Morgan, S1 1Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, 2International Crop Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), 3The University of Western Australia, 4Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture 11. Pulse Breeding Australia-Australian Field Pea Improvement Program (AFPIP), Ian Pritchard1, Chris Veitch1, Stuart Morgan1, Alan Harris1 and Tony Leonforte 2 1 Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, 2 Department off Primary Industries, Victoria Disease 12. Interaction between wheat varieties and fungicides to control stripe rust for grain and quality, Kith Jayasena, Geoff Thomas, Rob Loughman, Kazue Tanaka and Bill MacLeod, Department of Agriculture and Food 13. Findings of canola disease survey 2008 and its implications for better disease management in 2009, Ravjit Khangura, WJ MacLeod, P White, P Carmody and M Amjad, Department of Agriculture and Food 14. Combating wheat leaf diseases using genome sequencing and functional genomics, Richard Oliver, Australian Centre for Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens, Murdoch University 15. Distribution and survival of wheat curl mite (Aceria tosichella), vector of Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus, in the WA grainbelt during 2008, Dusty Severtson, Peter Mangano, John Botha and Brenda Coutts, Department of Agriculture and Food 16. Partial resistance to Stagonspora (Septoria) Partial resistance to Stagonospora (Septoria) nodorum blotch and response to fungicide in a severe epidemic scenario, Manisha Shankar1, Richard Oliver2, Kasia Rybak2and Rob Loughman1 1Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, 2Australian Centre for Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens, Murdoch University, Western Australia 17. Black pod syndrome in lupins can be reduced by regular insecticide sprays, Peter White and Michael Baker,Department of Agriculture and Food Variety performance 18. Incorporating new herbicide tolerant juncea canola into low rainfall cropping systems in Western Australia, Mohammad Amjad, Department of Agriculture and Food 19. Varietal differences in germ end staining of barley, Andrea Hills,Department of Agriculture and Food 20. Wheat variety performance in the Central Agricultural Region in 2008, Shahajahan Miyan, Department of Agriculture and Food 21. Barley variety identification using DNA fingerprinting, Peter Portmann, Agriconnect, Perth WA Dr Nicole Rice, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW Prof Robert Henry, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 22. Forecast disease resistance profile for the Western Australian barley crop over the next three years, Jeff J. Russell, Department of Agriculture and Food 23. Malting barley varieties differ in their flowering date and their response to changes in sowing date, BH Paynter and Jeff J. Russell,Department of Agriculture and Food 24. Market development for new barley varieties, Linda Price,Barley Australia 25. Response of wheat varieties to sowing time at Mt Barker, Katanning and Newdegate in 2008, Brenda Shackley and Vicki Scanlan,Department of Agriculture and Food 26. Flowering dates of wheat varieties in 2008 at three locations in Western Australia, Darshan Sharma, Brenda Shackley and Christine Zaicou-Kunesch, Department of Agriculture and Food 27. Agronomic responses of new wheat varieties in the norther agricultural region in 2008, Christine Zaicou-Kunesch, Department of Agriculture and Foo

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Large-scale sequencing identifies multiple genes and rare variants associated with Crohn’s disease susceptibility

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Dedicated finite element analysis for refractory composites

This thesis presents a material model that can simulate the behaviour of certain refractories used in steel-making. The constitutive equation is based on the principles of linear elasticity and isotropy but describes a non-linear mechanical response in tension with developing anisotropy. The mathematics of the model is firmly based on the physicality of the observed material behaviour, including the stable growth of microcracks. The residual stress that develops in some dual phase ceramics with thermal mismatch is estimated from the thermal properties of each phase and used to determine the change in the properties of the composite when undergoing damage as a result of cooling after firing and applied tensile stress. A crack orientation density function that can be plotted on the surface of a sphere is used with energy principles to ensure that the model is invariant to changes in the reference axes, while a simplification to ensure that matrices are always positive definite ensures computational robustness. A three dimensional, dual phase, thermal model is developed that was incorporated as a subroutine into a commercial finite element analysis package. It can be used to simulate the behaviour of real components subjected to thermal and mechanical load. Creep at high temperatures was modelled, somewhat crudely, by reducing (effectively to zero) the stiffness and load carrying capacity of material that was operating at temperatures above a critical value. The computer subroutine was validated analytically and against physical tests that were conducted at room temperature. The model's ability to simulate the observed features of the tests to a useful degree of accuracy with suitable material properties was demonstrated. An optimisation routine to enable the model to be calibrated quickly was developed.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Too big to share? Scaling up knowledge transfer workflows from little science to big science

As scientific data grow beyond available bandwidth capacity, data become difficult to transport for processing or sharing. Scientists who require hundreds of terabytes of data for large simulations, such as those in cosmology and turbulence, need large storage spaces and quick processing times to do their science. Cloud storage and high performance computing services enable these scientific communities to conduct research, but may constrain access to results. Datasets become scattered across locations, often described by competing metadata schema, which limits their discoverability and retrieval by other scientists. We report preliminary findings from a case study of an infrastructure being designed for use by multiple scientific disciplines. The infrastructure is intended to store original datasets, code used to conduct analysis, and resulting datasets in a common area available via web browser. Researchers will be able to share these components of their workflows by granting access to a virtual notebook. Although the notebook is not necessarily a permanent record of the research, it can be exported in many formats, referenced, and can support multiple simulations with multiple runs of parameters, all within a browser. The Jupyter (formerly iPython) notebooks will be configured and load tested to scale with the system in a special environment that will be maintained on the server. We are studying how these innovative tools and infrastructures are applied and adopted across disciplines. These new workflows to address the data size problem and to consolidate a researcher’s work into one virtual area may enable new forms of scientific collaboration. The benefits, costs, and tradeoffs of these workflows and tools will inform scientific practice and policy.Presented at FORCE 2016 Conferenc