Vibrational degrees of freedom in the Total Collision Energy DSMC chemistry model

The Total Collision Energy (TCE) model is used to simulate chemical reactions in the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method. Colliding particle pairs with total collision energy (translational plus internal energy) greater than an activation energy are accepted for reaction with a probability which depends on the amount of the collision energy in excess of the activation energy. Constants in the probability function are adjusted to match experimentally determined rates in an Arrhenius form under thermal equilibrium conditions. The model thus attempts to extrapolate equilibrium reaction rates to non-equilibrium conditions by using microscopic based information from colliding particle pairs. However, the number of active “degrees of freedom” (DOF) in the vibrational energy mode contributing to the total collision energy must be specified for each collision pair; various methods have been proposed for this. It is shown that the different calculation methods can alter the equilibrium reaction rate returned by the TCE model, and can have significant effects throughout non-equilibrium flow-fields. If we assume, as is usual, that all of the internal energy is available for the reaction, we consider that the most consistent and physically intuitive approach is to determine the number of active DOF from the local macroscopic temperatures in the cell

Simulation of unsteady flows by the DSMC Macroscopic Chemistry Method

In the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, a combination of statistical and deterministic procedures applied to a finite number of `simulator' particles are used to model rarefied gas-kinetic processes. In the Macroscopic Chemistry Method (MCM) for DSMC, chemical reactions are decoupled from the specific particle pairs selected for collisions. Information from all of the particles within a cell, not just those selected for collisions, is used to determine a reaction rate coefficient for that cell. Unlike particle-based methods, MCM can be used with any viscosity or non-reacting collision models and any non-reacting energy exchange models. It can be used to implement any reaction rate formulations, whether these be from experimental or theoretical studies. MCM has been previously validated for steady flow DSMC simulations. Here we show how MCM can be used to model chemical kinetics in DSMC simulations of unsteady flow. Results are compared with a collision-based chemistry procedure for two binary reactions in a 1-D unsteady shock-expansion tube simulation. Close agreement is demonstrated between the two methods for instantaneous, ensemble-averaged profiles of temperature, density and species mole fractions, as well as for the accumulated number of net reactions per cell

A smart building semantic platform to enable data re-use in energy analytics applications: the Data Clearing House

Systems in the built environment continuously emit time series data about resource usage (e.g., energy and water), embedded electrical generation/storage, status of equipment, patterns of building occupancy, and readings from IoT sensors. This presents opportunities for new analytics and supervisory control applications that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to energy demand, if the barrier of data heterogeneity can be overcome. Semantic models of buildings -- representing structure, integrated equipment, and the many internal connections -- can help achieve interoperable data re-use by describing overall context, in addition to metadata. In this paper, we describe the Data Clearing House (DCH), a semantic building platform that hosts sensor data, building models, and analytics applications. This fulfills the key phases in the lifecycle of semantic building data, which includes: cost-effective ingestion of Building Management System (BMS), IoT, metering and meteorological time series data from a wide range of open and proprietary systems; importing and validating semantic models of sites and buildings using the Brick Schema; interacting with a discovery API via a high-level domain-specific query language; and deploying applications to modelled buildings. Having onboarded multiple buildings belonging to our own organisation and external partners, we are able to comment on the challenges to success of this approach. As an example use-case of the semantic building platform, we describe a measurement and verification (M&V) application implementing the 'whole facility' (Option C) method of the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) for evaluating electrical metering data. This compares energy consumption between nominated baseline and analysis time periods, to quantify the energy savings achieved after implementing an intervention on a site.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for presentation at Climate Smart Engineering 2023 (CSE23

Cinacalcet reverses short QT Interval in familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia type 1

Context: Familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia type 1 (FHH-1) defines an autosomal dominant disease, related to mutations in the CASR gene, with mild hypercalcemia in most cases. Cases of FHH-1 with a short QT interval have not been reported to date. Objective: Three family members presented with FHH-1 and short QT interval (< 360 ms), a condition that could lead to cardiac arrhythmias, and the effects of cinacalcet, an allosteric modulator of the CaSR, in rectifying the abnormal sensitivity of the mutant CaSR and in correcting the short QT interval were determined. Methods: CASR mutational analysis was performed by next-generation sequencing and functional consequences of the identified CaSR variant (p.Ile555Thr) and effects of cinacalcet were assessed in HEK293 cells expressing wild-type and variant CaSRs. A cinacalcet test consisting of administration of 30 mg cinacalcet (8am) followed by hourly measurement of serum calcium, phosphate, and PTH during 8 hours, and an ECG was performed. Results: The CaSR variant (p.Ile555Thr) was confirmed in all three FHH-1 patients and was shown to be associated with a loss of function that was ameliorated by cinacalcet. Cinacalcet decreased PTH by >50% within two hours, and decreases in serum calcium and increases in serum phosphate occurred within 8 hours, with rectification of the QT interval, which remained normal after 3 months of cinacalcet treatment. Conclusion: Our results indicate that FHH-1 patients should be assessed for a short QT interval, and a cinacalcet test used to select patients who are likely to benefit from this treatment

Mutations in Mll2, an H3K4 methyltransferase, result in insulin resistance and impaired glucose tolerance in mice.

We employed a random mutagenesis approach to identify novel monogenic determinants of type 2 diabetes. Here we show that haplo-insufficiency of the histone methyltransferase myeloid-lineage leukemia (Mll2/Wbp7) gene causes type 2 diabetes in the mouse. We have shown that mice heterozygous for two separate mutations in the SET domain of Mll2 or heterozygous Mll2 knockout mice were hyperglycaemic, hyperinsulinaemic and developed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Consistent with previous Mll2 knockout studies, mice homozygous for either ENU mutation (or compound heterozygotes) died during embryonic development at 9.5-14.5 days post coitum. Heterozygous deletion of Mll2 induced in the adult mouse results in a normal phenotype suggesting that changes in chromatin methylation during development result in the adult phenotype. Mll2 has been shown to regulate a small subset of genes, a number of which Neurod1, Enpp1, Slc27a2, and Plcxd1 are downregulated in adult mutant mice. Our results demonstrate that histone H3K4 methyltransferase Mll2 is a component of the genetic regulation necessary for glucose homeostasis, resulting in a specific disease pattern linking chromatin modification with causes and progression of type 2 diabetes, providing a basis for its further understanding at the molecular level

A novel cover material improves cooling energy and fertigation efficiency for glasshouse eggplant production

Glasshouses hold the potential to improve global food security, but high energy costs are an ongoing challenge in bringing them to the forefront of agriculture in warm climates. Here, the energy-saving potential of a ‘Smart Glass’ (SG), diffuse glass fitted with ULR-80 film which permits transmission of 85% of photosynthetically-active light and blocks heat-generating radiation, was characterised for a warm-climate glasshouse. Two consecutive 6-month trials of eggplant crops were grown in a high-tech glasshouse to compare SG to standard diffuse glass (control) in both cool and warm climate conditions. The SG reduced cooling energy use by 4.4% and fertigation demand by 29% in cooler months, and reduced cooling energy use by 4.4% and fertigation demand by 18% in warmer months. The SG did not significantly affect ventilation or heating energy use, but substantially reduced fruit yield. SG may be beneficial for reducing nutrient/water use alongside minor energy savings in commercial glasshouses. However, re-engineering the spectral characteristics of SG could improve eggplant fruit yield while maintaining reductions in energy, nutrient, and water use in the glasshouse

The Orphan G Protein-coupled Receptors GPR41 and GPR43 Are Activated by Propionate and Other Short Chain Carboxylic Acids

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Do mobile phone surfaces carry SARS-CoV-2 virus? A systematic review warranting the inclusion of a “6th” moment of hand hygiene in healthcare

Background Mobile phones, used in billions throughout the world, are high-touch devices subject to a dynamic contamination of microorganisms and rarely considered as a dynamic fomite to sanitise systematically. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic, arguably the most impactful pandemic of the 21st century with millions of deaths and disruption of all facets of modern life globally. Aim To perform a systematic review of the literature exploring SARS-CoV-2 presence as a contaminant on mobile phones. Methods A systematic search (PubMed and Google Scholar) of literature was undertaken from December 2019 to February 2023 identifying English language studies. Studies included in this review specifically identified or tested for the contamination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus or genome on mobile phones while studies SARS-CoV-2 testing for SARS-COV-2 in environments and/or other fomites samples than but not mobile phones were excluded. Results A total of 15 studies with reports of SARS-CoV-2 contamination on mobile phones between 2020-2023 were included. Amongst all studies, which encompassed ten countries, 511 mobile phones were evaluated for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 contamination and 45% (231/511) were positive for SARS-CoV-2. All studies were conducted in the hospital setting and two studies performed additional testing in residential isolation rooms and a patient’s house. Four studies (3 in 2020 and one in 2021) reported 0% contamination while two other studies (in 2020 and 2022) reported 100% of mobile phone contamination with SARS-COV-2. All other studies report mobile phones positive for the virus within a range of 4% to 77%. Conclusion A total of 45% of mobile phones are contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 virus. These devices might be an important fomite vector for viral dissemination worldwide. Competent health authorities are advised/recommended to start a global implementation of mobile phone decontamination by introducing regulations and protocols in public health and health care settings such as the 6th moment of hand washing

Convergence of marine megafauna movement patterns in coastal and open oceans

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115 (2018): 3072-3077, doi:10.1073/pnas.1716137115.The extent of increasing anthropogenic impacts on large marine vertebrates partly depends on the animals’ movement patterns. Effective conservation requires identification of the key drivers of movement including intrinsic properties and extrinsic constraints associated with the dynamic nature of the environments the animals inhabit. However, the relative importance of intrinsic versus extrinsic factors remains elusive. We analyse a global dataset of 2.8 million locations from > 2,600 tracked individuals across 50 marine vertebrates evolutionarily separated by millions of years and using different locomotion modes (fly, swim, walk/paddle). Strikingly, movement patterns show a remarkable convergence, being strongly conserved across species and independent of body length and mass, despite these traits ranging over 10 orders of magnitude among the species studied. This represents a fundamental difference between marine and terrestrial vertebrates not previously identified, likely linked to the reduced costs of locomotion in water. Movement patterns were primarily explained by the interaction between species-specific traits and the habitat(s) they move through, resulting in complex movement patterns when moving close to coasts compared to more predictable patterns when moving in open oceans. This distinct difference may be associated with greater complexity within coastal micro-habitats, highlighting a critical role of preferred habitat in shaping marine vertebrate global movements. Efforts to develop understanding of the characteristics of vertebrate movement should consider the habitat(s) through which they move to identify how movement patterns will alter with forecasted severe ocean changes, such as reduced Arctic sea ice cover, sea level rise and declining oxygen content.Workshops funding granted by the UWA Oceans Institute, AIMS, and KAUST. AMMS was supported by an ARC Grant DE170100841 and an IOMRC (UWA, AIMS, CSIRO) fellowship; JPR by MEDC (FPU program, Spain); DWS by UK NERC and Save Our Seas Foundation; NQ by FCT (Portugal); MMCM by a CAPES fellowship (Ministry of Education)

Preconditioning tDCS facilitates subsequent tDCS effect on skill acquisition in older adults.

Functional motor declines that often occur with advancing age-including reduced efficacy to learn new skills-can have a substantial impact on the quality of life. Recent studies using noninvasive brain stimulation indicate that priming the corticospinal system by lowering the threshold for the induction of long-term potentiation-like plasticity before skill training may facilitate subsequent skill learning. Here, we used "priming" protocol, in which we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applying the cathode over the primary motor cortex (M1) before the anode placed over M1 during unimanual isometric force control training (FORCEtraining). Older individuals who received tDCS with the cathode placed over M1 before tDCS with the anode placed over M1 concurrent with FORCEtraining showed greater skill improvement and corticospinal excitability increases following the tDCS/FORCEtraining protocol compared with both young and older individuals who did not receive the preceding tDCS with the cathode placed over M1. The results suggested that priming tDCS protocols may be used in clinical settings to improve motor function and thus maintain the functional independence of older adults