Biocatalytic oxidase: Batch to continuous

The adoption of more efficient development strategies and manufacturing techniques will be essential for future success in the bio manufacturing sectors. Continuous operation of biocatalytic processes has the potential to offer many advantages over established batch process methodologies. There exist opportunities for improved process control; ease of scale up; minimizing of interruptions in production; reducing reactor size; and economic use of biocatalysts.     

Lack of Glutamate Receptor Subunit Expression Changes in Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus after Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury in a Rodent Model of Depression

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects over 69 million people annually worldwide, and those with pre-existing depression have worse recovery. The molecular mechanisms that may contribute to poor recovery after TBI with co-morbid depression have not been established. TBI and depression have many commonalities including volume changes, myelin disruption, changes in proliferation, and changes in glutamatergic signaling. We used a well-established animal model of depression, the Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rat, to elucidate changes after TBI that may influence the recovery trajectory. We compared the histological and molecular outcomes in the hippocampal dentate gyrus after experimental TBI using the lateral fluid percussion injury (LFPI) in the WKY and the parent Wistar (WIS) strain. We showed that WKY had exaggerated myelin loss after LFPI and baseline deficits in proliferation. In addition, we showed that while after LFPI WIS rats exhibited glutamate receptor subunit changes, namely increased GluN2B, the WKY rats failed to show such injury-related changes. These differential responses to LFPI helped to elucidate the molecular characteristics that influence poor recovery after TBI in those with pre-existing depression and may lead to targets for future therapeutic interventions.     

Public participation in soil surveys: lessons from a pilot study in England

In many countries there are policies in place that impact on soils, but very few legislative or policy tools specifically for the protection of soil. Recent EU legislative proposals on soil protection have been met with opposition on the grounds of excessive cost and resource demands. With the need for evidence based policy, and recognition that involving the public in environmental monitoring is an effective way of increasing understanding and commitment, there has been growing interest in soil surveys. In addition, it is accepted that the success of environmental policies depends greatly on how effectively scientists, regulators, stakeholders, and society communicate. This paper presents the Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) Soil and Earthworm Survey as an example of public participation in soil surveys that aims to integrate the above. It is demonstrated how such surveys generate data that can be used to prioritise soil assessment, in order to address some of the concerns and objections to soil protection policies. Lessons from this pilot study in England highlight that with strategic planning of civic participation activities, this approach can deliver improvements in the quality of the evidence collected and allow for effective public involvement in policymaking and implementation, on top of direct educational benefits.     

A bright future

“I'm very encouraged to see the current level of interest in renewables and hope that the firm policy directives that are increasingly coming from Government will translate into funding and local action,” says Dr Mary Archer, current president of the UK section of ISES. She explained to Nina Morgan how she believes that growing public awareness combined with government environmental targets will help promote the use and development of renewable energy sources in the UK.     

Ultra-low-noise indium-phosphide MMIC amplifiers for 85-115 GHz

This paper describes a high-performance indium-phosphide monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) amplifier, which has been developed for cooled application in ultra-low-noise imaging-array receivers. At 300 K, the four-stage amplifier exhibits more than 15-dB gain and better than 10-dB input and output return loss from 80 to 110 GHz. The room-temperature noise figure is typically 3.2 dB, measured between 90-98 GHz. When cooled to 15 K, the gain increases to more than 18 dB and the noise figure decreases to 0.5 dB. Only one design pass was required to obtain very good agreement between the predicted and measured characteristics of the circuit. The overall amplifier performance is comparable to the best ever reported for MMIC amplifiers in this frequency band     

The hard science of Rorschach research: What do we know and where do we go?

As the final article in the Special Series on "The Utility of the Rorschach for Clinical Assessment," the authors provide an overview of this instrument's current status. They begin with a thorough review of global and focused meta-analyses, including an expanded analysis of K. C. H. Parker et al's (see record 1989-14153-001) data set, and conclude that Rorschach, MMPI, and IQ scales each produce roughly similar effect size magnitudes, although all tests have greater validity for some purposes than for others. Because this evidentiary foundation justifies addressing other issues, the authors build on contributions to the Special Series to identify 11 salient theoretical and empirical gaps in the Rorschach knowledge base and make recommendations for addressing these challenges to further the evolution of the Rorschach and document its strengths and inherent limitations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Towards a transformational approach to program verification

Although most typically used in other contexts, program transformations can simplify program verification by transforming a program containing complex language features into a semantically equivalent program containing only simpler language features. The proof of the transformed program can then be performed using a set of proof rules for only the simpler features. There are tradeoffs between the transformational approach and the standard approach to program verification with regard to proof understandability and compactness of programs and assertions, establishing soundness of the program verification method, and providing mechanized support for the method. The transformational approach has clear advantages in some of these aspects. This paper illustrates this transformational approach by considering proof rules for escape statements in iterative constructs, and discusses the tradeoffs with respect to its use. It also suggests how the approach can be applied to other language constructs, including some involving concurrency, and to solving some problems connected with the development of Hoare axiomatizations. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Colour stability during production of printed ocular prostheses

Ocular prostheses have been used for centuries to restore patient confidence, psychosocial relationships and to improve quality of life. Methodology for producing accurate prostheses has improved with technological discoveries. Recently, hand painting ocular prostheses has been the go-to method for creating life like prostheses. However, digital printing a print to envelope around an acrylic prosthesis has been shown to decrease treatment and rehabilitation times, whilst still producing high-definition ocular prostheses. Despite these improvements, little is known about the colour stability of digitally printed ocular prostheses. To better understand the colour stability of digital prostheses 30 samples simulating ocular prostheses were created, containing 10 with blue iris, 10 combination/green iris and 10 with sepia (brown) irises. Colour measurements were taken using a data spectrophotometer, from two defined points, the iris and sclera for both pre-polymerisation and post-polymerisation to assess colour variance. Colour coordinate data was gathered and was analysed using a one-way analysis of variance test and a paired t-test, both with alpha = 0.05. Significant colour variations were found for each iris colour and for the sclera. The sclera showed the largest colour variation with a ΔE of 4.75, followed by the brown irises, the green irises and then blue irises with ΔE values of 3.29, 2.47 and 1.82, respectively. This is a significant decrease compared to current hand painting methods which have an average colour variance of ΔE = 20. This shows a large increase in colour stability which can drastically improve patient satisfaction and quality of life.     

Superhydrophobic Self-Cleaning Membranes Made by Electrospinning

A superhydrophobic and photocatalytic composite fiber material is developed using polystyrene polydimethylsiloxane and graphitic nitride and then thoroughly characterized. SEM is used to determine the nanostructure of the fiber material, and the contact and sliding angles are measured to test the obtained fibers for their hydrophobicity. The degradation of methylene blue is used to monitor the photocatalytic activity of the created materials. This serves to create a self-cleaning surface where hydrophilic pollutants are repelled from the surface due to the low sliding angle; the lower-surface-tension pollutants resist wetting the surface and can be thoroughly washed off; and photocatalytical oxidation can degrade pollutants that fully wet the fabric, allowing the surface to recover.     

What's in a Decade? Transforming Faces Through Time

How can one visually characterize photographs of people over time? In this work, we describe the Faces Through Time dataset, which contains over a thousand portrait images per decade from the 1880s to the present day. Using our new dataset, we devise a framework for resynthesizing portrait images across time, imagining how a portrait taken during a particular decade might have looked like had it been taken in other decades. Our framework optimizes a family of per-decade generators that reveal subtle changes that differentiate decades—such as different hairstyles or makeup—while maintaining the identity of the input portrait. Experiments show that our method can more effectively resynthesizing portraits across time compared to state-of-the-art image-to-image translation methods, as well as attribute-based and language-guided portrait editing models. Our code and data will be available at facesthroughtime.github.io.