Definition of areas in city centres for transportation planning purposes

This paper describes briefly an investi­gation undertaken by the Department of Transport with the assistance of the National Institute for Transport and Road Research and officials in the Provinces and Local Authorities involved in urban transport planning. Through review of existing methods for defining central business districts it was found that there was no common approach amongst the various metropolitan areas. The study lead to recommended proce­dures to define a hierarchy of areas in city centres. Land values, which are readily available in local authority re­cords, are used as the main criteria. The procedures should give results which not only are comparable from city to city but also are related to transportation planning

Proximate factors underpinning receiver responses to deceptive false alarm calls in wild tufted capuchin monkeys: is it counterdeception?

Previous research demonstrates that tufted capuchin monkeys use terrestrial predator alarm calls in a functionally deceptive manner to distract conspecifics when feeding on contestable resources, although the success of this tactic is limited because listeners frequently ignore these calls when given in such situations. While this decreased response rate is suggestive of a counterstrategy to deception by receivers, the proximate factors underpinning the behavior are unclear. The current study aims to test if the decreased response rate to alarm calls in competitive contexts is better explained by the perception of subtle acoustic differences between predator-elicited and deceptive false alarms, or by receivers varying their responses based on the context in which the signal is received. This was tested by first examining the acoustic structure of predator-elicited and deceptive false alarms for any potentially perceptible acoustic differences, and second by comparing the responses of capuchins to playbacks of each of predator-elicited and false alarms, played back in noncompetitive contexts. The results indicate that deceptive false alarms and predator-elicited alarms show, at best, minimal acoustic differences based on the structural features measured. Likewise, playbacks of deceptive false alarms elicited antipredator reactions at the same rate as did predator-elicited alarms, although there was a nonsignificant tendency for false alarms to be more likely to elicit escape reactions. The lack of robust acoustic differences together with the high response rate to false alarms in noncompetitive contexts suggests that the context in which the signal is received best explains receiver responses. It remains unclear, however, if listeners ascribe different meanings to the calls based on context, or if they generally ignore all signals in competitive contexts. Whether or not the decreased response rate of receivers directly stems from the deceptive use of the calls cannot be determined until these latter possibilities are rigorously tested

Progress in treatment of ANCA-associated vasculitis.

Autoantibodies to neutrophil cytoplasmic antigen-associated vasculitis (AAV) is characterised by inflammation of blood vessels. The introduction of immunosuppressive therapy with glucocorticoids and cyclophosphamide transformed AAV from a fatal condition to a largely treatable condition. Over the past 30 years, considerable progress has been made refining immunosuppressive regimens with a focus on minimising toxicity. There is, however, a high unmet need in the treatment of AAV. A proportion of patients are refractory to current therapies; 50% experience a relapse within 5 years and treatment toxicity contributes to mortality and chronic disability. As knowledge of the pathogenesis of vasculitis grows, it is mirrored by the availability of biological agents, which herald a revolution in the treatment of vasculitis. Lymphocyte-targeted and cytokine-targeted agents have been evaluated for the treatment of AAV and are entering the routine therapeutic arena with the potential to improve patient outcomes. As rare diseases, treatment advances in vasculitis depend on international collaborative research networks both to establish an evidence base for newer agents and to develop recommendations for patient management

'Dressage Is Full of Queens!' Masculinity, Sexuality and Equestrian Sport

Attitudes towards sexuality are changing and levels of cultural homophobia decreasing, yet there remain very few openly gay men within sport. As a proving ground for heteromasculinity, sport has traditionally been a hostile environment for gay men. This article is based on an ethnographic study within a sporting subworld in which gay men do appear to be accepted: equestrian sport. Drawing on inclusive masculinity theory, equestrian sport is shown to offer an unusually tolerant environment for gay men in which heterosexual men of all ages demonstrate low levels of homophobia. Inclusive masculinity theory is a useful framework for exploring the changing nature of masculinities and this study demonstrates that gay men are becoming increasingly visible and accepted within once unreceptive locales, such as sport and rural communities. However, this more tolerant attitude is purchased at the expense of a subordinated feminine Other, perpetuating the dominance of men within competitive sport. © The Author(s) 2012

A Caenorhabditis elegans model of Yersinia infection: biofilm formation on a biotic surface.

To investigate Yersinia pathogenicity and the evolutionary divergence of the genus, the effect of pathogenic yersiniae on the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans was studied. Three strains of Yersinia pestis, including a strain lacking pMT1, caused blockage and death of C. elegans; one strain, lacking the haemin storage (hms) locus, caused no effect. Similarly, 15 strains of Yersinia enterocolitica caused no effect. Strains of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis showed different levels of pathogenicity. The majority of strains (76 %) caused no discernible effect; 5 % caused a weak infection, 9.5 % an intermediate infection, and 9.5 % a severe infection. There was no consistent relationship between serotype and severity of infection; nor was there any relationship between strains causing infection of C. elegans and those able to form a biofilm on an abiotic surface. Electron microscope and cytochemical examination of infected worms indicated that the infection phenotype is a result of biofilm formation on the head of the worm. Seven transposon mutants of Y. pseudotuberculosis strain YPIII pIB1 were completely or partially attenuated; mutated genes included genes encoding proteins involved in haemin storage and lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis. A screen of 15 defined C. elegans mutants identified four where mutation caused (complete) resistance to infection by Y. pseudotuberculosis YPIII pIB1. These mutants, srf-2, srf-3, srf-5 and the dauer pathway gene daf-1, also exhibit altered binding of lectins to the nematode surface. This suggests that biofilm formation on a biotic surface is an interactive process involving both bacterial and invertebrate control mechanisms

Light echoes reveal an unexpectedly cool Eta Carinae during its 19th-century Great Eruption

Eta Carinae (Eta Car) is one of the most massive binary stars in the Milky Way. It became the second-brightest star in the sky during its mid-19th century "Great Eruption," but then faded from view (with only naked-eye estimates of brightness). Its eruption is unique among known astronomical transients in that it exceeded the Eddington luminosity limit for 10 years. Because it is only 2.3 kpc away, spatially resolved studies of the nebula have constrained the ejected mass and velocity, indicating that in its 19th century eruption, Eta Car ejected more than 10 M_solar in an event that had 10% of the energy of a typical core-collapse supernova without destroying the star. Here we report the discovery of light echoes of Eta Carinae which appear to be from the 1838-1858 Great Eruption. Spectra of these light echoes show only absorption lines, which are blueshifted by -210 km/s, in good agreement with predicted expansion speeds. The light-echo spectra correlate best with those of G2-G5 supergiant spectra, which have effective temperatures of ~5000 K. In contrast to the class of extragalactic outbursts assumed to be analogs of Eta Car's Great Eruption, the effective temperature of its outburst is significantly cooler than allowed by standard opaque wind models. This indicates that other physical mechanisms like an energetic blast wave may have triggered and influenced the eruption.Comment: Accepted for publication by Nature; 4 pages, 4 figures, SI: 6 pages, 3 figures, 5 table

Investigating the physiology of viable but non-culturable bacteria by microfluidics and time-lapse microscopy.

This is the final version of the article. Available from BioMed Central via the DOI in this record.BACKGROUND: Clonal microbial populations often harbor rare phenotypic variants that are typically hidden within the majority of the remaining cells, but are crucial for the population's resilience to external perturbations. Persister and viable but non-culturable (VBNC) cells are two important clonal bacterial subpopulations that can survive antibiotic treatment. Both persister and VBNC cells pose a serious threat to human health. However, unlike persister cells, which quickly resume growth following drug removal, VBNC cells can remain non-growing for prolonged periods of time, thus eluding detection via traditional microbiological assays. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the formation of VBNC cells requires the characterization of the clonal population with single-cell resolution. A combination of microfluidics, time-lapse microscopy, and fluorescent reporter strains offers the perfect platform for investigating individual cells while manipulating their environment. METHODS: Here, we report a novel single-cell approach to investigate VBNC cells. We perform drug treatment, bacterial culturing, and live/dead staining in series by using transcriptional reporter strains and novel adaptations to the mother machine technology. Since we track each cell throughout the experiment, we are able to quantify the size, morphology and fluorescence that each VBNC cell displayed before, during and after drug treatment. RESULTS: We show that VBNC cells are not dead or dying cells but share similar phenotypic features with persister cells, suggesting a link between these two subpopulations, at least in the Escherichia coli strain under investigation. We strengthen this link by demonstrating that, before drug treatment, both persister and VBNC cells can be distinguished from the remainder of the population by their lower fluorescence when using a reporter strain for tnaC, encoding the leader peptide of the tnaCAB operon responsible for tryptophan metabolism. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrates the suitability of our approach for studying the physiology of non-growing cells in response to external perturbations. Our approach will allow the identification of novel biomarkers for the isolation of VBNC and persister cells and will open new opportunities to map the detailed biochemical makeup of these clonal subpopulations.This work was supported by a Royal Society Research Grant (RG140203), a Welcome Trust ISSF (WT097835/Z/11/Z) and a Start up Grant from the University of Exeter awarded to SP. AS acknowledges support from the BBSRC through a SWBio-DTP studentship (BB/M009122/1). JM was generously supported by a Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Award (WT097835MF). This work was partly supported by BBSRC award BB/1024631/1 to RWT