The architecture of the High Performance Storage System (HPSS)

The rapid growth in the size of datasets has caused a serious imbalance in I/O and storage system performance and functionality relative to application requirements and the capabilities of other system components. The High Performance Storage System (HPSS) is a scalable, next-generation storage system that will meet the functionality and performance requirements or large-scale scientific and commercial computing environments. Our goal is to improve the performance and capacity of storage by two orders of magnitude or more over what is available in the general or mass marketplace today. We are also providing corresponding improvements in architecture and functionality. This paper describes the architecture and functionality of HPSS

Information Systems Enrollments: Can They Be Increased?

It is almost unbelievable that in this age of technology we are experiencing decreasing worldwide enrollments in Information Systems (IS) programs. Suddenly, within a year or two, enrollments decreased as much as 70-80 percent throughout the world. Industry is begging for more graduates with a business and technical background and is expecting an even greater shortage in the next few years. Despite reports of the outsourcing of technical positions, there is a growing demand for IS graduates. This paper presents an overview of the discussion, resulting from a panel at the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2007, of declining enrollments and some suggestions to reverse the trend. Two major themes, marketing and curriculum, emerged

Modelling the response of surface fuel to climate change across south-eastern Australia: consequences for future fire regimes

Geophysical Research Abstracts of EGU General Assembly 2014, held 27 April - 2 May, 2014 in Vienna, Austria

Lalakenis/All Directions : A Journey of Truth and Unity

"The catalogue offers visual documentation of the belongings that were gathered together and displayed in the Gallery during the Lalakenis exhibition, along with images from the two journeys that culminated in copper-breaking ceremonies: Awalaskenis I (February 2013) beginning in Quatsino and ending in Victoria, BC and Awalaskenis II (July 2014) which saw Beau Dick and 21 companions setting out from UBC for Ottawa." -- Publisher's website

Pragmatic evaluation of a coproduced physical activity referral scheme:a UK quasi-experimental study

Contains fulltext : 226129.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

UK Environmental Change Network stakeholder consultation

During the Environmental Change Network (ECN) site mangers meeting feedback on the role of UK-SCAPE funding was sought. Representatives from collaborating institutions did not restrict their comments to only the period of UK-SCAPE, as this program is a continuation of previous national capability funding. The stakeholders present appreciated the role of UKCEH through the processes of co-design, co-delivery and co-development in shaping the ECN. They further commented on the co-dependency conferred by the network for their institutions and sites. While several stakeholders noted that they could not benefit directly from UK-SCAPE funding they recognised that funding was required for coordination of the network in addition to collecting monitoring data. They highlighted the risk of failure of the network and the lost opportunities in terms of collaborative working and data delivery to the research community if funding is not maintained in the network

The UK Environmental Change Network datasets – integrated and co-located data for long-term environmental research (1993–2015)

Long-term datasets of integrated environmental variables, co-located together, are relatively rare. The UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) was launched in 1992 and provides the UK with its only long-term integrated environmental monitoring and research network for the assessment of the causes and consequences of environmental change. Measurements, covering a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological “driver” and “response” variables are made in close proximity at ECN terrestrial sites using protocols incorporating standard quality control procedures. This paper describes the datasets (there are 19 published ECN datasets) for these co-located measurements, containing over 20 years of data (1993–2015). The data and supporting documentation are freely available from the NERC Environmental Information Data Centre under the terms of the Open Government Licence (see paper for DOIs)

Dietary Supplementation with Soluble Plantain Non-Starch Polysaccharides Inhibits Intestinal Invasion of Salmonella Typhimurium in the Chicken

Soluble fibres (non-starch polysaccharides, NSP) from edible plants but particularly plantain banana (Musa spp.), have been shown in vitro and ex vivo to prevent various enteric pathogens from adhering to, or translocating across, the human intestinal epithelium, a property that we have termed contrabiotic. Here we report that dietary plantain fibre prevents invasion of the chicken intestinal mucosa by Salmonella. In vivo experiments were performed with chicks fed from hatch on a pellet diet containing soluble plantain NSP (0 to 200 mg/d) and orally infected with S.Typhimurium 4/74 at 8 d of age. Birds were sacrificed 3, 6 and 10 d post-infection. Bacteria were enumerated from liver, spleen and caecal contents. In vitro studies were performed using chicken caecal crypts and porcine intestinal epithelial cells infected with Salmonella enterica serovars following pre-treatment separately with soluble plantain NSP and acidic or neutral polysaccharide fractions of plantain NSP, each compared with saline vehicle. Bacterial adherence and invasion were assessed by gentamicin protection assay. In vivo dietary supplementation with plantain NSP 50 mg/d reduced invasion by S.Typhimurium, as reflected by viable bacterial counts from splenic tissue, by 98.9% (95% CI, 98.1–99.7; P<0.0001). In vitro studies confirmed that plantain NSP (5–10 mg/ml) inhibited adhesion of S.Typhimurium 4/74 to a porcine epithelial cell-line (73% mean inhibition (95% CI, 64–81); P<0.001) and to primary chick caecal crypts (82% mean inhibition (95% CI, 75–90); P<0.001). Adherence inhibition was shown to be mediated via an effect on the epithelial cells and Ussing chamber experiments with ex-vivo human ileal mucosa showed that this effect was associated with increased short circuit current but no change in electrical resistance. The inhibitory activity of plantain NSP lay mainly within the acidic/pectic (homogalacturonan-rich) component. Supplementation of chick feed with plantain NSP was well tolerated and shows promise as a simple approach for reducing invasive salmonellosis

Tumor infiltrating effector memory Antigen-Specific CD8+ T Cells predict response to immune checkpoint therapy

Immune checkpoint therapy (ICT) results in durable responses in individuals with some cancers, but not all patients respond to treatment. ICT improves CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) function, but changes in tumor antigen-specific CTLs post-ICT that correlate with successful responses have not been well characterized. Here, we studied murine tumor models with dichotomous responses to ICT. We tracked tumor antigen-specific CTL frequencies and phenotype before and after ICT in responding and non-responding animals. Tumor antigen-specific CTLs increased within tumor and draining lymph nodes after ICT, and exhibited an effector memory-like phenotype, expressing IL-7R (CD127), KLRG1, T-bet, and granzyme B. Responding tumors exhibited higher infiltration of effector memory tumor antigen-specific CTLs, but lower frequencies of regulatory T cells compared to non-responders. Tumor antigen-specific CTLs persisted in responding animals and formed memory responses against tumor antigens. Our results suggest that increased effector memory tumor antigen-specific CTLs, in the presence of reduced immunosuppression within tumors is part of a successful ICT response. Temporal and nuanced analysis of T cell subsets provides a potential new source of immune based biomarkers for response to ICT

Species-specific Typing of DNA Based on Palindrome Frequency Patterns

DNA in its natural, double-stranded form may contain palindromes, sequences which read the same from either side because they are identical to their reverse complement on the sister strand. Short palindromes are underrepresented in all kinds of genomes. The frequency distribution of short palindromes exhibits more than twice the inter-species variance of non-palindromic sequences, which renders palindromes optimally suited for the typing of DNA. Here, we show that based on palindrome frequency, DNA sequences can be discriminated to the level of species of origin. By plotting the ratios of actual occurrence to expectancy, we generate palindrome frequency patterns that allow to cluster different sequences of the same genome and to assign plasmids, and in some cases even viruses to their respective host genomes. This finding will be of use in the growing field of metagenomics