Since their discovery more than 15 years ago, the mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK) have been implicated in an ever-increasingly diverse array of pathways, including inflammatory signalling ...cascades. Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, are characterized by the perpetual production of inflammatory mediators. Research into the transduction pathway behind this over-production has highlighted the potential mediating role for the MAPKs and their related signalling components. This review highlights some of the research into the role for the MAPKs and their related signalling proteins in influencing the progression of IBD.
The hydrogen storage properties of MgH
2 are significantly enhanced by a proper engineering of the microstructure and surface. Magnesium powders are produced in a nanocrystalline form, which gives ...remarkable improvement of absorption/desorption kinetics. Ball milling, which is used for fabrication of nanocrystalline magnesium, improves both the morphology of the powders and the surface activity for hydrogenation. The hydriding properties are further enhanced by catalysis through nano-particles of Pd located on magnesium surface. Nanocrystalline magnesium with such a catalyst exhibits an outstanding hydrogenation performance: very fast kinetics, operation at lower temperatures than conventional magnesium and no need for activation.
We show how reducing structure, catalysis and atomic reactions to the nano-scale may be used in a systematic way to substantially enhance the hydrogenation properties of metal hydrides. We examine, ...with examples from a wide range of hydrides, the direct impact of nano-scale structure, subsequent improvements in kinetics through nano-scale solid state catalysis, the special properties of nano-composites, and the role played by nano-scale reactions.
To determine the incidence of surgically managed pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence in a population-based cohort, and to describe their clinical characteristics.
Our retrospective cohort ...study included all patients undergoing surgical treatment for prolapse and incontinence during 1995; all were members of Kaiser Permanente Northwest, which included 149,554 women age 20 or older. A standardized data-collection form was used to review all inpatient and outpatient charts of the 395 women identified. Variables examined included age, ethnicity, height, weight, vaginal parity, smoking history, medical history, and surgical history, including the preoperative evaluation, procedure performed, and details of all prior procedures. Analysis included calculation of age-specific and cumulative incidences and determination of the number of primary operations compared with repeat operations performed for prolapse or incontinence.
The age-specific incidence increased with advancing age. The lifetime risk of undergoing a single operation for prolapse or incontinence by age 80 was 11.1%. Most patients were older, postmenopausal, parous, and overweight. Nearly half were current or former smokers and one-fifth had chronic lung disease. Reoperation was common (29.2% of cases), and the time intervals between repeat procedures decreased with each successive repair.
Pelvic floor dysfunction is a major health issue for older women, as shown by the 11.1% lifetime risk of undergoing a single operation for pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence, as well as the large proportion of reoperations. Our results warrant further epidemiologic research in order to determine the etiology, natural history, and long-term treatment outcomes of these conditions.
Accurate seabed substrate maps are essential for marine management, as substrate is an important component of the habitat type and used as a proxy for the prevailing benthic community. The provision ...of substrate maps, however, is hampered by the excessive costs of at-sea observations and, consequently, the uncertainty associated with spatial models used to interpolate these observations to full-coverage maps. Here, we tested whether high-resolution distributions of bottom trawling activity, readily collected under EU law, could improve the accuracy of substrate interpolations. Fishing distributions contain indirect information of the substrate type, as targeted species often show habitat preferences and gear types are designed for particular substrates. For two study areas in the Danish North Sea, we demonstrate that including spatial distributions of bottom trawl fisheries in substrate interpolation models results in more accurate substrate predictions. This potentially opens a novel source of previously unused information for improved seabed substrate interpolation.
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•Seabed substrate maps are essential for sustainable marine management.•Most seabed maps are based on interpolating sparse data and have high uncertainty.•Different types of bottom trawling show consistent spatial patterns of activity.•Bottom trawl activity patterns hold information on substrate type distributions.•Substrate interpolation accuracy improved when bottom trawl patterns were included.
The European Spallation Source (ESS) is intended to become the most powerful spallation neutron source in the world and the flagship of neutron science in upcoming decades. The exceptionally high ...neutron flux will provide unique opportunities for scientific experiments but also set high requirements for the detectors. One of the most challenging aspects is the rate capability and in particular the peak instantaneous rate capability, i.e. the number of neutrons hitting the detector per channel or cm2 at the peak of the neutron pulse. The primary purpose of this paper is to estimate the incident rates that are anticipated for the BIFROST instrument planned for ESS, and also to demonstrate the use of powerful simulation tools for the correct interpretation of neutron transport in crystalline materials. A full simulation model of the instrument from source to detector position, implemented with the use of multiple simulation software packages, is presented. For a single detector tube, instantaneous incident rates with a maximum of 1.7 GHz for a Bragg peak from a single crystal and 0.3 MHz for a vanadium sample are found. This paper also includes the first application of a new pyrolytic graphite model and a comparison of different simulation tools to highlight their strengths and weaknesses.
The incident detector rates that are anticipated for the indirect‐geometry cold‐neutron spectrometer BIFROST at the European Spallation Source are estimated, and the use of powerful simulation tools for the correct interpretation of neutron transport in crystalline materials is demonstrated.
In this paper we show that sodium alanates may be used for reversible hydrogen storage, with the advantage of having high storage capacity combined with low cost. Both NaAlH
4
and Na
3
AlH
6
have ...been investigated for this application, and two complementary techniques have been used: improvement of the reaction kinetics by mechanical grinding, and chemical modification of the alloys. By these methods remarkable desorption/absorption kinetics are obtained. Sodium alanates so modified are capable of reversible hydrogen storage at the relatively low temperatures of around 80–140°C, with a capacity of between 2.5 and 3.0 wt.%. The hydrides have an even higher reversible capacity of about 4.5–5 wt.% when operated at temperatures around 150–180°C.
Mouthrot, or bacterial stomatitis, is a disease which mainly affects farmed Atlantic salmon, (Salmo salar, L.), smolts recently transferred into salt water in both British Columbia (BC), Canada, and ...Washington State, USA. It is a significant fish welfare issue which results in economic losses due to mortality and antibiotic treatments. The associated pathogen is Tenacibaculum maritimum, a bacterium which causes significant losses in many species of farmed fish worldwide. This bacterium has not been proven to be the causative agent of mouthrot in BC despite being isolated from affected Atlantic salmon. In this study, challenge experiments were performed to determine whether mouthrot could be induced with T. maritimum isolates collected from outbreaks in Western Canada and to attempt to develop a bath challenge model. A secondary objective was to use this model to test inactivated whole‐cell vaccines for T. maritimum in Atlantic salmon smolts. This study shows that T. maritimum is the causative agent of mouthrot and that the bacteria can readily transfer horizontally within the population. Although the whole‐cell oil‐adjuvanted vaccines produced an antibody response that was partially cross‐reactive with several of the T. maritimum isolates, the vaccines did not protect the fish under the study's conditions.
Direct dimethyl ether (DME) fuel cells suffer from poor DME–water miscibility and so far peak powers of only 20–40 mW cm−2 have been reported. Based on available literature on solubility of dimethyl ...ether (DME) in water at ambient pressure it was estimated that the maximum concentration of DME at 80 °C will be 300–600 times lower than the ratio 1 to 3 which is the stoichiometric ratio for full conversion to CO2. To overcome this dilution problem a high temperature polymer fuel cell was operated on DME–water vapor at ambient pressure and with air as oxidant. A peak power density of 67 mW cm−2 was measured at 200 °C. A series of performance curves at temperatures ranging from 150 to 250 °C showed a pronounced temperature effect on the performance. Comparison was made between performances as direct DME and direct methanol cells and the difference was not as large as normally seen with conventional liquid fed cells below 100 °C.
► A vapor fed direct DME fuel cell at 150–200 °C. ► Peak power density of 67 mW cm−2 at ambient pressure and with air as oxidant. ► High open circuit voltage of 0.77 V indicates limited crossover. ► Quantification of the DME solubility problem for a liquid fed direct DME fuel cell.
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