Scanning Electron Microscopy of a Soil Fungus Gliocladium roseum

The paper describes the ultra-structural features of cryofixed and critical point-dried sporing cultures of a soil fungus Gliocladium roseum. Features described are Acrostalagmus-like conidiophores with spore masses in mucoid balls borne at the tips of branchlets and penicillate heads with conidia massed in rope-like formations. A particular feature of the aerial hyphae and conidiophores is the presence of blister-like swellings on their walls. These observations help to accurately characterize the organism in taxonomic studies

Implementation of Sacrificial Support Structures for Hybrid Manufacturing of Thin Walls

Hybrid manufacturing enables a single machine to achieve the benefits of additive and subtractive manufacturing methods, allowing complex parts to be produced with less waste material and tight tolerances. One example of parts that have the potential to benefit from the use of hybrid manufacturing are those with thin walled features. Cutting forces can induce deflection in thin walls, which results in geometric error on the final part. Traditional thin wall machining uses the stiffer stock material to limit deflection by only machining at the current base of the wall. With hybrid manufacturing the feature is already near net shape prior to machining. This makes the production of thin walls more difficult as there is very little “stock” material to provide stiffness during machining. This work attempts to solve this problem by integrating sacrificial support structures to additively produced thin walls to increase their stiffness during machining. The supports are machined away while machining the thin wall itself. The angle, spacing, and height of these supports are varied in several experiments to observe the resulting geometric error and surface finish of these thin walls after machining. A comparison of time versus quality is then produced to determine the efficiency of changing the parameters of these support structures. The addition of these supports relative to the unsupported case provided a deflection reduction of around 0.2mm. Surface roughness is improved by approximately 1.5µm. Increasing values of support height correspond to reduced wall deflection. Similarly, decreasing values of support angle and support spacing improved geometric accuracy. Efficiency comparisons show that increases in print time correspond to rapidly diminishing gains in geometric accuracy but can continue to improve surface roughness.M.S

Nutritional and Phytochemical Content of High-Protein Crops

The authors acknowledge support from the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) via their strategic research and partnership programs.Peer reviewedPostprin

MicroRNA-155 regulates monocyte chemokine and chemokine receptor expression in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Objectives: To test the hypothesis that miR-155 regulates monocyte migratory potential via modulation of chemokine and chemokine receptor expression in rheumatoid arthritis (RA); and thereby is associated with disease activity. Methods: miR-155 copy-number in monocytes from peripheral blood (PB) of healthy (n=22), RA (n=24), and RA synovial fluid (SF; n=11) were assessed by real time- PCR using synthetic miR-155 as quantitative standard. To evaluate the functional impact of miR-155, human monocytes were transfected with control or miR-155 mimic and the effect on transcript levels, and production of chemokines was evaluated by TLDA and multiplex assays. A comparative study evaluated constitutive chemokine receptor expression in miR-155-/- and wild-type murine (CD115+Ly6C+Ly6G-) monocytes. Results: Compared with healthy monocytes, miR-155 copy-number was higher in RA PB and SF monocytes (PB p<0.01, and SF p<0.0001). MiR-155 copy-number in RA PB monocytes were higher in ACPA positive compared with ACPA negative patients (p=0.033) and correlated (95% C.I.) with DAS28 (ESR), R=0.728 (0.460, 0.874), with tender, R=0.631 (0.306, 0.824) and swollen, R=0.503 (0.125, 0.753) joint counts. Enforced-expression of miR-155 in RA monocytes stimulated the production of CCL3, CCL4, CCL5, CCL8; up-regulated CCR7 expression and down-regulated CCR2. Conversely, miR155-/- monocytes showed down-regulated CCR7 and upregulated CCR2 expression. Conclusions: Given the observed correlations with disease activity, these data provide strong evidence that miR-155 can contribute to RA pathogenesis by regulating chemokine production and pro-inflammatory chemokine receptor expression, thereby promoting inflammatory cell recruitment and retention in the RA synovium

Integration of a Coupled Fire-Atmosphere Model Into a Regional Air Quality Forecasting System for Wildfire Events

The objective of this study was to assess feasibility of integrating a coupled fire-atmosphere model within an air-quality forecast system to create a multiscale air-quality modeling framework designed to simulate wildfire smoke. For this study, a coupled fire-atmosphere model, WRF-SFIRE, was integrated, one-way, with the AIRPACT air-quality modeling system. WRF-SFIRE resolved local meteorology, fire growth, the fire plume rise, and smoke dispersion, and provided AIRPACT with fire inputs. The WRF-SFIRE-forecasted fire area and the explicitly resolved vertical smoke distribution replaced the parameterized BlueSky fire inputs used by AIRPACT. The WRF-SFIRE/AIRPACT integrated framework was successfully tested for two separate wildfire events (2015 Cougar Creek and 2016 Pioneer fires). The execution time for the WRF-SFIRE simulations was \u3c3 h for a 48 h-long forecast, suggesting that integrating coupled fire-atmosphere simulations within the daily AIRPACT cycle is feasible. While the WRF-SFIRE forecasts realistically captured fire growth 2 days in advance, the largest improvements in the air quality simulations were associated with the wildfire plume rise. WRF-SFIRE-estimated plume tops were within 300-m of satellite-estimated plume top heights for both case studies analyzed in this study. Air quality simulations produced by AIRPACT with and without WRF-SFIRE inputs were evaluated with nearby PM2.5 measurement sites to assess the performance of our multiscale smoke modeling framework. The largest improvements when coupling WRF-SFIRE with AIRPACT were observed for the Cougar Creek Fire where model errors were reduced by ∼50%. For the second case (Pioneer fire), the most notable change with WRF-SFIRE coupling was that the probability of detection increased from 16 to 52%

Using the Car in a Fragile Rural Tourist Destination: A Social Representations Perspective

The visitor experience of place is inextricably linked to our ability to travel around an area at will, yet this mobility creates many problems especially in scenic rural areas of the UK. The study presented here attempts to unravel visitors’ experiences of mobility using Moscovici’s social representations approach. Travel diaries were employed to explore visitors’ transport choices and mobility patterns during the peak season in Purbeck, Dorset, UK. Analysis focuses on how such patterns reflect a social representation of mobility and the implications this has for visitor travel at destinations

Could the GRB-Supernovae GRB 031203 and XRF 060218 be Cosmic Twins?

The gamma-ray burst (GRB) / X-ray flash (XRF) events GRB 031203, discovered by INTEGRAL, and XRF 060218, discovered by Swift, represent two of only five GRB-SNe with optical spectroscopic confirmation of their SN components. Yet their observed high-energy properties offer a sharp contrast: While GRB 031203 was detected as a short 40-s burst with a spectrum peaking at E_peak > 190 keV, XRF 060218 was a T_90 ~ 2100-s long, smoothly-evolving burst with peak energy E_peak = 4.9 keV. At the same time, the properties of the two expanding dust-scattered X-ray halos observed in a fast-response XMM-Newton observation of GRB 031203 reveal that this event was accompanied by an "X-ray blast" with fluence comparable to or greater than that of the prompt gamma-ray event. Taking this observation as our starting point, we investigate the likely properties of the X-ray blast from GRB 031203 via detailed modeling of the XMM data, discovering a third halo due to scattering off a more distant dust sheet at d_3 = 9.94 +/- 0.39 kpc, and constraining the timing of the X-ray blast relative to the GRB trigger time to be t_0 = 11 +/- 417 s. Using our constraints, we compare the properties of GRB 031203 to those of other GRB-SNe in order to understand the likely nature of its X-ray blast, concluding that a bright X-ray flare, as in GRB 050502B, or shock breakout event, as in XRF 060218, provide the most likely explanations. In the latter case, we consider the added possibility that XRF 060218 may have manifested an episode of bright gamma-ray emission prior to the burst observed by Swift, in which case GRB 031203 and XRF 060218 would be "cosmic twin" explosions with nearly identical high-energy properties.Comment: MNRAS in press; 12 pages, 6 figures. v2: Expanded discussion of related papers and minor changes in response to referee repor