Enzymatic transhalogenation of dendritic RGD peptide constructs with the fluorinase

We thank EPSRC and the Scottish Imaging Network (SINAPSE) for grants. DO’H thanks the Royal Society for a Wolfson Research Merit Award and ST is grateful to the John and Kathleen Watson Scholarship for financial support. We are grateful to Dr Catherine Botting and Dr Sally Shirran of the St Andrews Mass Spectrometry Service for MALDI-MS acquisitions. We also thank Dr Sally Pimlott of the University of Glasgow for the use of radiochemistry facilities. Open access via RSC Gold for Gold.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Slippage Effects of the Conservation Reserve Program: New Evidence from Satellite Imagery

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest land retirement program ever operated in the US. Since its inception in 1985, many researchers have studied the impacts of this program; however, only a few have analyzed how the CRP affects surrounding non–enrolled parcels. In this research I examine how the CRP may affect the conversion of non–cropped land to agriculture, a phenomenon referred to as “slippage” in the literature, and specifically addressed by Wu (2000) and Roberts and Bucholtz (2005). Building on these earlier studies, I empirically model slippage using data derived from satellite imagery that provides information on land cover changes between 1992 and 2001. The study area consists of 1,053 counties located in the Northern Plains, Corn Belt and Lake States regions. Results support the existence of slippage effects from the CRP, but they are more conservative than the ones found by Wu (2000). The evidence of slippage provided here is important information for planners, given that whether and how the CRP affects land use decisions in surrounding areas is key information for implementing conservation efforts more efficiently.CRP, Land use change, Satellite imagery, Slippage effect, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use, Q15, Q24,

Experiments on dynamic stiffness and damping of tapered bore seals

Stiffness and damping were measured in tapered bore ring seals with air as the sealed fluid. Excitation was provided by a known unbalance in the shaft which rotated in the test seals. Results were obtained for various seal supply pressures, clearances, unbalance amounts, and shaft speeds. Stiffness and damping varied little with unbalance level, indicating linearity of the seal. Greater variation was observed with speed and particularly supply pressure. A one-dimensional analysis predicted stiffness fairly well, but considerably overestimated damping

Making up for lost time: Forging new connections between health and community development

New trends in the today’s public health world are making an important case for bringing public health and community development efforts together. These include the changing nature of 21st century preventable disease, the increasing link between health disparities and place, and the early positive evidence from early adopters of combined health and development strategies. Read about specific examples of efforts from King County, Washington that are capitalizing on these changes and simultaneously advancing both health and community development.Community development ; Health

Animal Efficiency in an Intensive Beef Production System

A stochastic input distance function is estimated to analyse the efficiency with which physical characteristics of individual lot-fed beef cattle in Australia are combined with conventional inputs to produce a final product possessing defined quality attributes. High mean technical efficiency estimates are reported for all animals and by breed. All partial output elasticities with respect to inputs are of expected sign. Of four outputs included in the analysis, carcass weight and moisture retention in meat after cooking have highly significant coefficients of expected sign, but two meat quality variables have coefficients of unexpected sign indicating that they decline as inputs increase. Some evidence is detected of scope economies between moisture retention in meat and the inverse of meat compression.efficiency, intensive agriculture, scope economies, Livestock Production/Industries, Q12, C51,

Magnetic bearings-state of the art

Magnetic bearings have existed for many years, at least in theory. Earnshaw's theorem, formulated in 1842, concerns stability of magnetic suspensions, and states that not all axes of a bearing can be stable without some means of active control. In Beam's widely referenced experiments, a tiny (1/64 in diameter) rotor was rotated to the astonishing speed of 800,000 rps while it was suspended in a magnetic field. Despite a long history, magnetic bearings have only begun to see practical application since about 1980. The development that finally made magnetic bearings practical was solid state electronics, enabling power supplies and controls to be reduced in size to where they are now comparable in volume to the bearings themselves. An attempt is made to document the current (1991) state of the art of magnetic bearings. The referenced papers are large drawn from two conferences publications published in 1988 and 1990 respectively

Active vibration control for flexible rotor by optimal direct-output feedback control

Experimental research tests were performed to actively control the rotor vibrations of a flexible rotor mounted on flexible bearing supports. The active control method used in the tests is called optimal direct-output feedback control. This method uses four electrodynamic actuators to apply control forces directly to the bearing housings in order to achieve effective vibration control of the rotor. The force actuators are controlled by an analog controller that accepts rotor displacement as input. The controller is programmed with experimentally determined feedback coefficients; the output is a control signal to the force actuators. The tests showed that this active control method reduced the rotor resonance peaks due to unbalance from approximately 250 micrometers down to approximately 25 micrometers (essentially runout level). The tests were conducted over a speed range from 0 to 10,000 rpm; the rotor system had nine critical speeds within this speed range. The method was effective in significantly reducing the rotor vibration for all of the vibration modes and critical speeds

In-line metrology of functional surfaces with a focus on defect assessment on large area Roll to Roll substrates

This paper reports on the recent work carried out as part of the initial stages of the EU funded NanoMend project. The project seeks to develop integrated process inspection, cleaning, repair for nano-scale thin films on large area substrates. Flexible photovoltaic (PV) films based on CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide CuInxGa(1-x)Se2) have been reported to have light energy conversion efficiencies as high as 19%. CIGS based multi-layer flexible devices are fabricated on polymer film by the repeated deposition, and patterning, of thin layer materials using roll-to-roll processes (R2R), where the whole film is approximately 3μm thick prior to final encapsulation. The resultant films are lightweight and easily adaptable to building integration. Current wide scale implementation however is hampered by long term degradation of efficiency due to water ingress to the CIGS modules causing electrical shorts and efficiency drops. The present work reports on the use of areal surface metrology to correlate defect morphology with water vapour transmission rate (WVTR) through the protective barrier coatings

Ethical Issues: Communication

EssayNothing is more important to the welfare of patients, providers, and health care systems than effective patient centered communication. This occurs by having the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and organizational infrastructure to foster the comprehension and application of often-vast amounts of information. The first step in fostering patient centered communication is to encourage providers to understand their own health-related values and beliefs, recognizing that everyone may not share in those beliefs. Conflict may occur between providers and patients when difficult decisions are required at times of severe illness or at the end of life when there is miscommunication