660 research outputs found
Service Thinking in Design of Complex Sustainment Solutions
No full textDecision Engineering SeriesDelivering contracted performance levels for service based on the sustainment of complex engineering systems is a necessary but not sufficient condition for user satisfaction. Service is received in a context that is shaped by the state of mind of the customer—perceptions, biases, memories, intentions and patterns of thinking. Service teams need to understand the “mind of the customer“, complementing the “voice of the customer” used in requirements development. The chapter considers how service solutions are designed and suggests that the state of mind of the customer needs greater consideration during solution development. The service team functions in the social dimension to understand the customer’s mind and harmonises the service solution. The dominant thinking style in social space is characterised as “service thinking“, complementing the system thinking style which dominates in the conceptual space of product-service systems.L.A. Wood and P.H. Taske
Cytochrome oxidase subunit VI of Trypanosoma brucei is imported without a cleaved presequence and is developmentally regulated at both RNA and protein levels
No full textMitochondrial respiration in the African trypanosome undergoes dramatic developmental stage regulation. This requires co-ordinated control of components encoded by both the nuclear genome and the kinetoplast, the unusual mitochondrial genome of these parasites. As a model for understanding the co-ordination of these genomes, we have examined the regulation and mitochondrial import of a nuclear-encoded component of the cytochrome oxidase complex, cytochrome oxidase subunit VI (COXVI). By generating transgenic trypanosomes expressing intact or mutant forms of this protein, we demonstrate that COXVI is not imported using a conventional cleaved presequence and show that sequences at the N-terminus of the protein are necessary for correct mitochondrial sorting. Analyses of endogenous and transgenic COXVI mRNA and protein expression in parasites undergoing developmental stage differentiation demonstrates a temporal order of control involving regulation in the abundance of, first, mRNA and then protein. This represents the first dissection of the regulation and import of a nuclear-encoded protein into the cytochrome oxidase complex in these organisms, which were among the earliest eukaryotes to possess a mitochondrion
Diets of seabirds and consequences of changes in food supply
No full textResearch conducted by members of the Working Group on Seabird Ecology, on issues most likely to be raised within the ICES community concerning the foraging ecology of seabirds and waders, and the potential interactions between these groups of birds and fisheries.
A review of issues related to seabird consumption of fish and shellfish stocks, discards and mariculture as well as the trophic role and ecology of seabirds and waders: G. L. Hunt, W. A. Montevecchi, and M. F. Leopold.
Consumption of pre-recruit fish by seabirds and the possible use of this as an indicator of fish stock recruitment: S. P. R. Greenstreet, P. H. Becker, R. T. Barrett, P. Fossum, and M. F. Leopold.
Variation in prey taken by seabirds: M. L. Tasker, C. J. Camphuysen, and P.Fossum.
Evaluation of the role of discards in supporting bird populations and their effects on the species composition of seabirds in the North Sea: S. Garthe, U. Walter, M. L. Tasker, P. H. Becker, G. Chapdelaine, and R. W. Furness.
Exploration of the short-and medium-term consequences of a reduction in the amounts of fish discarded: M. L. Tasker, P. H. Becker, and G. Chapdelaine
Evidence for decadal scale variations in seabird population ecology and links with the North Atlantic oscillation: J. B. Reid, P. H. Becker, and R. W. Furness.
A review of the causes, and consequences at the population level, of mass mortalities of seabirds : C. J. Camphuysen, P. J. Wright, M. Leopold, O. Hüppop, and J. B. Reid.
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Fracture toughness and compressive properties of cancellous bone at the head of the femur and relationships to non-invasive skeletal assessment measurements
No full textOsteoporosis defines a causal relationship between reduced bone density, reduced mechanical competence of the bone tissue of the sufferers and concomitantly an increased risk of fracture in life. The aims of the present study is: (1) to provide further evidence to support the use of Quantitative Ultrasound (QUS) results from peripheral sites to provide a prediction of the density of the proximal femur; and (2) to provide rational evidence for the well-proven ability of QUS to predict directly ‘risk of fracture’. 20 femoral heads were obtained from 15 Caucasian females and 5 Caucasian males undergoing emergency surgery for a fractured neck of femur. QUS investigations of the calcaneus, proximal phalanx, distal radius and mid-shaft tibia were undertaken on the donors with 72 h of surgery. 128 fracture toughness samples and 20 compression cores were manufactured and tested. Significant relationships were found between QUS parameters determined in vivo and the apparent density (g/cm3) of the tissue at the proximal femur and both the fracture toughness and strength determined in vitro from the same donor individual. In this study we relate QUS results obtained in vivo to the actual apparent density of bone tissue from the proximal femur, donated by the same individual, and the fracture toughness and compressive strength. The study demonstrates the ability of QUS investigations at peripheral sites to accurately predict the density of bone from the proximal femur and provides evidence to support the use of QUS to predict the ‘risk of fracture’ directly.<br/
Linking [M-3(III)] triangles with "double-headed" phenolic oximes
No full textStrapping two salicylaldoxime units together with aliphatic alpha,Omega-aminomethyl links in the 3-position gives ligands which allow the assembly of the polynuclear complexes [Fe7O2(OH)(6)(H(2)L1)(3)(py)(6)] (BF4)(5)center dot 6H(2)O center dot 14MeOH (1 center dot 6H(2)O center dot 14MeOH), [Fe6O(OH)(7)(H2L2)(3)](BF4)(3)center dot 4H(2)O center dot 9MeOH (2 center dot 4H(2)O center dot 9MeOH) and [Mn6O2(OH)(2)(H(2)L1)(3)(py)(4)(MeCN)(2)](BF4)(5)(NO3)center dot 3MeCN center dot H2O center dot 5py (3 center dot 3MeCN center dot H2O center dot 5py). In each case the metallic skeleton of the cluster is based on a trigonal prism in which two [(M3O)-O-III] triangles are tethered together via three helically twisted double-headed oximes. The latter are present as H2L2- in which the oximic and phenolic O-atoms are deprotonated and the amino N-atoms protonated, with the oxime moieties bridging across the edges of the metal triangles. Both the identity of the metal ion and the length of the straps connecting the salicylaldoxime units have a major impact on the nuclearity and topology of the resultant cluster, with, perhaps counter-intuitively, the longer straps producing the "smallest" molecules.</p
Tasker H. Bliss and the Creation of the Modern American Army, 1853-1930
No full textA commonplace observation among historians describes one or another historical period as a time of "transition" or a particular person as a "transitional figure." In the history of the United States Army, scholars apply those terms especially to the late- nineteenth century "Old Army." This categorization has helped create a shelf of biographies of some of the transitional figures of the era: Leonard Wood, John J. Pershing, Robert Lee Bullard, William Harding Carter, Henry Tureman Allen, Nelson Appleton Miles and John McCallister Schofield have all been the subject of excellent scholarly works. Tasker Howard Bliss has remained among the missing in that group, in spite of the important activities that marked his career and the wealth of source materials he left behind. Bliss belongs on that list because, like the others, his career demonstrates the changing nature of the U.S. Army between 1871 and 1917. Bliss served for the most part in administrative positions in the United States and in the American overseas empire. Seeing hardly any combat and spending only a few years commanding troops, Bliss contributed instead to the creation and development of the army's post-graduate educational system, and he was deeply involved in the Elihu Root reforms of the army and the War Department. Thus what makes his career especially noteworthy, more than many of the soldiers on that list of biographies, is that Bliss helped to create the changes that laid the foundations for the modern army. During the First World War, Bliss worked more closely with the Allied leadership than any other American with the possible exception of Edward M. House. President Woodrow Wilson named Bliss as one of the five commissioners leading the U.S. delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. In this position he influenced many members of the American delegation who would remain leaders in the foreign policy elite into the 1940s, and he helped to create the Council on Foreign Relations, an important organization for the foreign policy elite. For Frederick Palmer, the author of the family-authorized biography, the Great War and the Peace Conference were the climax of Bliss's career. A substantial modern scholarly literature exists on Bliss's service in the Great War and the Peace Conference, but none of those works present his earlier career in any detail. As a result, when planning this dissertation with the late Professor Russell F. Weigley, we decided to concentrate on Bliss's activities before 1917. Bliss helped shape the institutions the United States needed as it became a world power, and he trained some of the leaders who would exercise that power. He left a legacy of thoughtful consideration of the organizational, political and moral issues that the exercise of power posed for the United States. It was a life that still teaches us how to face the issues involved in the exercise of world power.Histor
Building MIII clusters with derivatised salicylaldoximes
No full textThis thesis describes the synthesis of a host of polynuclear iron complexes
synthesised with phenolic oxime ligands, fundamentally developing the coordination
chemistry of iron with these ligands. The metallic cores that occur within iron
phenolic oxime clusters were found to contain almost exclusively oxo-centred
triangles and oxo-centred tetrahedra. We found that we could alter the reaction
conditions or derivatise the ligands and develop these basic building blocks into
more elaborate arrays, exerting a degree of control over creating larger or smaller
clusters. Chapter one describes the syntheses, structures and magnetic properties of
new iron complexes alongside previously synthesised related complexes (4, 5, 8, 9
and 15) containing salicylaldoxime (saoH2) or derivatised salicylaldoximes (RsaoH2).
These are [Fe3O(OMe)(Ph-sao)2Cl2(py)3]·2MeOH (1·2MeOH),
[Fe3O(OMe)(Ph-sao)2Br2(py)3]·Et2O (2·Et2O), [Fe4(Ph-sao)4F4(py)4]·1.5MeOH
(3·1.5MeOH), [Fe6O2(OH)2(Et-sao)2(Et-saoH)2(O2CPh)6] (4),
[HNEt3]2[Fe6O2(OH)2(Et-sao)4(O2CPh(Me)2)6]·2MeCN (5·2MeCN),
[Fe6O2(O2CPh)10(3-tBut-5-NO2-sao)2(H2O)2]·2MeCN (6·2MeCN),
[Fe6O2(O2CCH2Ph)10(3-tBut-sao)2(H2O)2]·5MeCN (7·5MeCN),
{[Fe6Na3O(OH)4(Me-sao)6(OMe)3(H2O)3(MeOH)6]·MeOH}n (8·MeOH) and
[HNEt3]2[Fe12Na4O2(OH)8(sao)12(OMe)6(MeOH)10] (9). The predominant building
block appears to be the triangular [Fe3O(R-sao)3]+ species which can self-assemble
into more elaborate arrays depending on reaction conditions. The four hexanuclear
and two octanuclear complexes of formulae [Fe8O2(OMe)4(Mesao)
6Br4(py)4]·2Et2O·MeOH (10·2Et2O·MeOH), [Fe8O2(OMe)3.85(N3)4.15(Mesao)
6(py)2] (11), [Fe6O2(O2CPh-4-NO2)4(Me-sao)2(OMe)4Cl2(py)2] (12),
[Fe6O2(O2CPh-4-NO2)4(Et-sao)2(OMe)4Cl2(py)2]·2Et2O·MeOH (13·2Et2O·MeOH),
[HNEt3]2[Fe6O2(Me-sao)4(SO4)2(OMe)4(MeOH)2] (14) and [HNEt3]2[Fe6O2(Etsao)
4(SO4)2(OMe)4(MeOH)2] (15) all are built from series of edge-sharing [Fe4( μ4-
O)]10+ tetrahedra. Complexes 10 and 11 display a new μ4-coordination mode of the
oxime ligand and join a small group of Fe-phenolic oxime complexes with nuclearity
greater than six.
Chapter three then introduces co-ligands to the reaction scheme to compete
with the salicylaldoxime ligands for metal coordination sites. Five tetranuclear and
two nononuclear complexes are stabilised with salicylaldoxime (saoH2) or
derivatised salicylaldoximes (R-saoH2) in conjunction with either 1,4,7-
triazocyclononane (tacn), 2-hydroxymethyl pyridine (hmpH) or 2,6-pyridine
dimethanol (pdmH2), [Fe4O2(sao)4(tacn)2]·2MeOH (16·MeOH), [Fe4O2(Mesao)
4(tacn)2]·2MeCN (17·2MeCN), [Fe4O2(Et-sao)4(tacn)2]·MeOH (18·MeOH),
[Fe9NaO4(Et-sao)6(hmp)8]·3MeCN·Et2O (19·3MeCN·Et2O), [Fe4 (Etsao)
4(hmp)4]·Et-saoH2 (20·Et-saoH2), [Fe4(Ph-sao)4(hmp)4]·2MeCN (21·2MeCN)
[Fe9O3(sao)(pdm)6(N3)7(H2O)] (22).
Chapter four straps two salicylaldoxime units together in the 3-position, using
ligands with aliphatic a,W-aminomethyl links, allowing the assembly of the
polynuclear complexes [Fe7O2(OH)6(H2L1)3(py)6](BF4)5·6H2O·14MeOH
(23·6H2O·14MeOH), [Fe6O(OH)7(H2L2)3][(BF4)3]·4H2O·9MeOH
(24·4H2O·9MeOH) and
[Mn6O2(OH)2(H2L1)3(py)4(MeCN)2](BF4)5(NO3)·3MeCN·H2O·5py
(25·3MeCN·H2O·5py). In each case the metallic skeleton of the cluster is based on a
trigonal prism in which two [MIII
3O] triangles are tethered together via three helically
twisted double-headed oximes. The latter are present as H2L2- in which the oximic
and phenolic O-atoms are deprotonated and the amino N-atoms protonated, with the
oxime moieties bridging across the edges of the metal triangles. Both the identity of
the metal ion and the length of the straps connecting the salicylaldoxime units have a
major impact on the nuclearity and topology of the resultant cage, with, perhaps
counter-intuitively, the longer straps producing the “smallest” clusters
Dietary habits of female urban slum-dwellers in Mumbai
No full textRESEARCH QUESTION: Intakes of micronutrient-rich foods are low among women of child-bearing age living in slums. We investigated relationships between consumption of these foods and socio-demographic variables.METHODOLOGY: A 91-item Food Frequency Questionnaire was administered to women (n=1651) aged 16-40 yrs living in a Mumbai slum. We identified associations between categorical demographic variables and consumption frequency of these foods using chi-square tests. Associations with age and body mass index were investigated using one-way ANOVAs.RESULTS: A quarter of women ate fruit and green leafy vegetables < 3 times per week, Apart from in tea, median consumption of milk and milk products was < twice a week, 16% never consumed non-vegetarian foods. Median consumption of non-vegetarian foods was 4.5 times per week. Women employed in unskilled jobs and those whose husbands had skilled occupations ate green leafy vegetables more frequently. Participants educated to tertiary level consumed fruit and milk most frequently (p<0.05)
Enhanced mossy fiber sprouting and synapse formation in organotypic hippocampal cultures following transient domoic acid excitotoxicity
No full textWe have previously reported evidence of BDNF upregulation and increased neurogenesis in rat organotypic hippocampal slice cultures (OHSC) after a transient excitotoxic injury to the hippocampal CA1 area induced by low concentrations of the AMPA/kainate receptor agonist domoic acid (DOM). The changes observed in OHSC were consistent with observations in vivo, where low concentrations of DOM administered to rats during perinatal development caused increased BDNF and TrkB expression in the resulting adult animals. The in vivo low dose-DOM treatment also results in permanent alterations in hippocampal structure and function, including abnormal formation of dentate granule cell axons projecting to area CA3 (mossy fiber sprouting). Our objective in the current study is to determine if low concentrations of DOM induce mossy fiber sprouting and/or synaptogenesis in OHSC in order to facilitate future studies on the mechanisms of structural hippocampal plasticity induced by DOM. We report herein that application of a low concentration of DOM (2 μM) for 24 h followed by recovery induced a significant increase in the expression of the mossy fiber marker ZnT3 that progressed over time in culture. The DOM insult (2 μM, 24 h) also resulted in a significant upregulation of both the presynaptic marker synaptophysin and the postsynaptic marker PSD-95. All of the observed effects were fully antagonized by co-administration of the AMPA/kainate antagonists CNQX or NBQX but only partly by the NMDA antagonist CPP and not by the calcium channel blocker nifedipine. We conclude that exposure of OHSC to concentrations of DOM below those required to induce permanent neurotoxicity can induce a progressive change in hippocampal structure that can effectively model DOM effects in vivo
Actions and pharmacokinetic properties of the alpha 2-adrenergic agents, medetomidine and atipamezole, in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
No full textMedetomidine proved to be an effective sedative in rainbow trout but not an anaesthetic; its effects were antagonized by atipamezole. The clinical signs of medetomidine sedation were rapid settling to the bottom of the tank followed by progressive ataxia. The sedative effect was dose-dependent: at 1 mg/litre, 1 of 6 fish rested on its side after 10 min, whereas at 20 mg/litre all 6 rested on their sides. No loss of consciousness occurred. Atipamezole at 6 times the medetomidine concentration antagonized sedation. The average time before fish exposed to medetomidine alone showed avoidance reactions was 10 h, more than 5 times longer than the mean time in fish exposed to medetomidine and then atipamezole. During exposure to medetomidine (5 mg/litre) opercular movement rate decreased from 80/min to 20/min. The nature of opercular excursions also changed from being rapid and shallow to slow and deep. Respiratory movements increased after transfer to the bath containing atipamezole. Medetomidine had a marked effect upon skin colour, with fish becoming very pale a few min after exposure. Normal pigmentation was not restored until 4.5 days after exposure to medetomidine alone, but returned to normal after 10 min exposure to atipamezole solution. The half-life for medetomidine was 5.5 h and for atipamezole it was 8.6 h..RE: 14 ref.; RN: 86347-14-0; SC: 0I; ZA; VE; CA; BE; 0VSource type: Electronic(1
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