Risk evaluation for federally listed (roseate tern,piping plover) or candidate (red knot) bird species in offshore waters: A first step for managing the potential impacts of wind facility development on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf

With a worldwide increase in attention toward developing a reliance on renewable energy, there is a need to evaluate the effects of these facilities (solar, wind, hydropower) on ecosystems. We conduct a hazard and risk evaluation for three species of birds that are listed, or candidates for listing, as federally threatened or endangered in the US, and that might occur offshore on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (AOCS) where wind power facilities could be developed. Our objectives were to: 1) provide conceptual models for exposure for each species, and 2) examine potential exposure and hazards of roseate tern (Sterna dougallii) and piping plover (Charadrius melodus, both federally endangered in the US) and red knot (Calidris canutus rufa, candidate species) in the AOCS. We used a weight-of-evidence approach to evaluate information from a review of technical literature. We developed conceptual models to examine the relative vulnerability of each species as a function of life stage and cycle (breeding, staging, migratory, wintering). These methods are useful for conducting environmental assessments when empirical data are insufficient for a full risk assessment. We determined that 1) Roseate terns are likely to be exposed to risk during the migratory and breeding season when they occur in the AOCS, as well as while staging. 2) Piping plovers are not likely to be at risk during the breeding season, but may be at risk during spring or fall migrations. Risk to this species is likely to be low from turbines located far from land as this species migrates mainly along the coast. 3) Red knots are potentially exposed to some risk during migration, especially long-distance migrants whose migratory routes take them over the AOCS. More information is required on exact spatio-temporal migration routes, flight altitudes (especially during ascent and descent), and behavioral avoidance of turbines by birds to ascertain their risk.     

Agile Development in Practice: Lessons from the Trenches

In the twenty years since the agile approach to systems development was introduced, a wide range of organizations have adopted its principles. Despite numerous reports that highlight agile success stories, there are relatively few recent publications that provide practical guidance on the potential pitfalls and areas of risk related to agile. In response, this practice-oriented paper draws on 56 practitioner interviews to identify a series of “lessons learned” pertaining to agile adoption, tailoring, and use.     

Nanotopography‐Induced Unfolding of Fibrinogen Modulates Leukocyte Binding and Activation

Surface nanotopograpy has been recognized as an important regulator of cellular responses including those of immune cells, the latter being of particular importance for implantable materials since these can determine biomaterial fate. In this paper, evidence is provided that the scale of surface nanotopography modulates the conformation of attached serum proteins, which in turn controls immune cell adhesion and activation. Model surfaces of tailored nanotopography of heights of 16, 38, and 68 nm are created by covalent immobilization of gold nanoparticles to an oxazoline‐rich plasma polymer film. This strategy not only produces surfaces of tailored nanofeature density but allows control of the outermost surface chemistry. Circular dichroism spectroscopy and Mac‐1 positive THP‐1 monocytes studies demonstrate distinct protein unfolding patterns, which upregulate or downregulate the expression of proinflammatory cytokines and cells attachment. The findings presented in this paper shed light on the missing relationship between surface nanotopography, protein unfolding, and the immune response. On the other hand, this work demonstrates the possibility to use specifically tailored surface nanotoporaphy scales to modulate and achieve desired immune responses.     

A complete chronicle discovery approach: application to activity analysis

Discovering temporal patterns hidden in a sequence of events has applications in numerous areas like network failure analysis, customer behaviour analysis, web navigation pattern discovery, etc. In this article, we present an approach to the discovery of chronicles hidden in the interaction traces of a human activity with the intention of characterizing some interesting tasks. Chronicles are a special type of temporal patterns, where temporal orders of events are quantified with numerical bounds. The algorithm we present is the first existing chronicle discovery algorithm that is complete. It is a chronicle discovery framework that can be configured to behave exactly as non‐complete algorithms existing in litterature with no reduction of performance, but it can also be extended to other useful chronicle discovery problems like hybrid episode discovery. We show that the complete chronicle discovery problem has a very high complexity but we argue and illustrate that this high complexity is acceptable when the knowledge discovery process in which our algorithm takes part is real time and interactive. The platform Scheme Emerger, also presented in this paper, has been developed in order to implement the algorithm and to support graphically the real time and interactive chronicle discovery process.     

THE DETECTION OF LACTIC ACID BACTERIA

An examination of lactic acid bacteria involved in beer spoilage has demonstrated that many Pediococci and Lactobacilli are capable of growth on glucose media but incapable of growth on sucrose within 6 days. Some Lactobacilli are incapable of utilizing glucose for growth and are also unable to grow on media based on sucrose. All Lactobacilli studied which could not utilize glucose could utilize maltose. The results presented suggest that the use of a detection medium incorporating both glucose and maltose will result in increased ability to detect lactic acid bacteria.     

CYCLOPENT[bc]ACENAPHTHYLENE: A PUTATIVE INTERMEDIATE ON THE PATHWAY FOR THERMAL CYCLODEHYDROGENATION OF PHENANTHRENE

Phenanthrene, the archetypal “bay region” polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), loses two hydrogen atoms when subjected to flash vacuum pyrolysis (FVP) at 1100 °C and suffers a major skeletal rearrangement to form pyracylene (1), along with 1-, 3-, and 4-ethynylacenaphthylene (2, 3, and 4, respectively). Evidence is presented that implicates cyclopenta[bc]acenaphthylene (7) as a key intermediate on the reaction pathway from phenanthrene to these four C₁₄H₈ products.     

Testable embedded system firmware development: the out–in methodology

Reliability is of paramount importance to just about any embedded system firmware. This paper presents the out–in methodology (OIM), a new reliability-driven approach to developing such a system, which is intended to detect static and, more importantly, dynamic errors much faster than the usual firmware development methods. In this approach, the core functionality is developed together with an interface software that is used specifically for testing the core functionality. This paper describes the use of this approach in a real life situation and discusses the benefits, potential pitfalls, and other possible application areas.