Digital Commons Network^™

Confocal Raman Spectroscopic Imaging For In Vitro Monitoring Of Active Ingredient Penetration And Distribution In Reconstructed Human Epidermis Model, Lynda Miloudi, Franck Bonnier, Ali Tfayli, Florent Yvergnaux, Hugh Byrne, Igor Chourpa, Emilie Munnier

Articles

Topically applied Active Cosmetic Ingredients (ACI) or Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) efficacy is directly related to their efficiency of penetration in the skin. In vitro Reconstructed Human Epidermis (RHE) surrogate models offer in vivo like skin samples for transdermal studies. Using Delipidol®, an ACI currently used in the cosmetics industry, the capabilities to deliver accurate distribution maps and penetration profiles of this molecule by means of Confocal Raman spectroscopic Imaging have been demonstrated. Using a NCLS (Non negative constrained least squares) approach, contribution of specific molecules can be estimated at each point of spectral maps in order to deliver semi-quantitative …

Partitioning Of Adipose Lipid Metabolism By Altered Expression And Function Of Ppar Isoforms After Bariatric Surgery, C Jahansouz, H Xu, A V. Hertzel, Kristin Ewing

Articles

BACKGROUND:

Bariatric surgery remains the most effective treatment for reducing adiposity and eliminating type 2 diabetes; however, the mechanism(s) responsible have remained elusive. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR) encompass a family of nuclear hormone receptors that upon activation exert control of lipid metabolism, glucose regulation and inflammation. Their role in adipose tissue following bariatric surgery remains undefined.

RESULTS:

Within 7 days, bariatric surgery acutely drives a change in the activity and expression of PPARγ and PPARδ in subcutaneous adipose tissue thereby attenuating lipid storage, increasing lipolysis and potentiating lipid oxidation. This unique metabolic alteration leads to changes in downstream PPARγ/δ targets …

Towards A Digital Earth: Using Archetypes To Enable Knowledge Interoperability Within Geo-Observational Sensor Systems Design, Paul Stacey, Damon Berry

Articles

Earth System Science (ESS) observational data are often inadequately semantically enriched by geo-observational information systems in order to capture the true meaning of the associated data sets. Data models underpinning these information systems are often too rigid in their data representation to allow for the ever-changing and evolving nature of ESS domain concepts. This impoverished approach to observational data representation reduces the ability of multi-disciplinary practitioners to share information in a computable way.

Object oriented techniques typically employed to model data in a complex domain (with evolving domain concepts) can unnecessarily exclude domain specialists from the design process, invariably leading …

Social Care Students’ Learning In The Practice Placement In Ireland, Fiona Mcsweeney, David Williams

Articles

The practice placement is a central component of social care education, being seen as where students develop their practice skills, self-awareness and apply theoretical knowledge. This research reports on social care students’ experiences of their practice placements, in particular how learning was achieved and what helped learning. An interpretivist approach was used in line with the acceptance of the individuality of students’ experiences. A volunteer sample of seventeen students were interviewed individually at the end of their final year in college. The interview transcripts were thematically analysed. Four themes were identified: the need for a balance between autonomy and doing …

A High Sensitivity Temperature Sensor Based On Balloon-Shaped Bent Smf Structure With Its Original Polymer Coating, Ke Tian, Gerald Farrell, Elfed Lewis, Xianfan Wang, Haidong Liang, Pengfei Wang

Articles

A high sensitivity optical fibre temperature sensor is demonstrated based on a balloon-shaped bent single-mode (BSBS) fibre structure where the fibre retains its original protective polymer coating. The BSBS fibre structure can be simply realized by bending a coated straight singlemode fibre into the balloon shape using a section of silica capillary tube. By adjusting the bending radius of the balloon-shaped fibre section, a modal interferometer between the core mode and the coating mode can be effectively implemented at a suitable bending radius. Considering the intrinsically high thermo-optical coefficient and thermal expansion coefficient of the polymer coating, the BSBS fibre …

Nurturing ‘Buds Of Development’: From Outcomes To Opportunities In Early Childhood Practice, Noirin Hayes, Katarina Filipovic

Articles

The current future-focused, outcomes driven early childhood policy climate presents a danger that early years pedagogy will lose sight of the ‘present’ child. Increasingly policy support for early childhood education is built around an emphasis on preparing children for school and positioning it as a key element in enhancing society through preparing future citizens to become productive members of society. The measurable outcomes discourse, in emphasising product, renders invisible the critical contribution of the processes of everyday practice to children’s development. To challenge and counteract the strong outcome discourse early years professionals must have confidence in their pedagogy. However, research …

Efficacy Of Limonene Nano Coatings On Post-Harvest Shelf Life Of Strawberries, Rajiv Dhital, Nathalie Becerra-Mora, Dennis G. Watson, Punit Kohli, Ruplal Choudhary

Articles

Strawberries are highly demanded fruits because of their color, nutritional values and appearance. The aim of this study was to develop and characterize alginate and limonene liposomes as edible coating materials and to determine their efficacy in shelf life extension and maintaining quality parameters of ‘Chandler’ strawberries. Alginate solution (1.5% w/v) and Limonene liposomes prepared from 80% lecithin and 20% PDA were used as edible coating materials. Fungal decay percentage, total yeast and mold counts, headspace atmosphere analysis, total soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, total anthocyanin content and total phenolics were analyzed to assess fruit quality during 14 days at …

Muddy Waters: Refining The Way Forward For The “Sustainability Science” Of Socio-Hydrogeology, Paul Hynds, Shane Regan, Luisa Andrade, Simon Mooney, Kevin O'Malley, Stephanie Dipelino, Jean O'Dwyer

Articles

The trouble with groundwater is that despite its critical importance to global water supplies, it frequently attracts insufficient management attention relative to more visible surface water sources, irrespective of regional climate, socioeconomic profile, and regulatory environment. To this end, the recently defined sub-discipline of "socio-hydrogeology", an extension of socio-hydrology, seeks to translate and exchange knowledge with and between non-expert end-users, in addition to involving non-expert opinion and experience in hydrogeological investigations, thus emphasising a "bottom-up" methodology. It is widely acknowledged that issues pertaining to groundwater quality, groundwater quantity, climate change, and a poor general awareness and understanding of groundwater occurrence …

K-Means And Hierarchical Cluster Analysis As Segmentation Algorithms Of Ftir Hyperspectral Images Collected From Cutaneous Tissue, Cassio Lima, Luciana Correa, Hugh Byrne, Denise Zezell

Articles

Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a rapid and label-free analytical technique whose potential as a diagnostic tool has been well demonstrated. The combination of spectroscopy and microscopy technologies enable wide-field scanning of a sample, providing a hyperspectral image with tens of thousands of spectra in a few minutes. In order to increase the information content of FTIR images, different clustering algorithms have been proposed as segmentation methods. However, systematic comparative tests of these techniques are still missing. Thus, the present paper aims to compare the ability of K-means Cluster Analysis (KMCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) as clustering algorithms …

Indigenous Water Justice, Barbara Cosens

Articles

Indigenous Peoples are struggling for water justice across the globe. These struggles stem from centuries-long, ongoing colonial legacies and hold profound significance for Indigenous Peoples’ socioeconomic development, cultural identity, and political autonomy and external relations within nation-states. Ultimately, Indigenous Peoples’ right to self- determination is implicated. Growing out of a symposium hosted by the University of Colorado Law School and the Native American Rights Fund in June 2016, this Article expounds the concept of “indigenous water justice” and advocates for its realization in three major trans- boundary river basins: the Colorado (U.S./Mexico), Columbia (Canada/U.S.), and Murray-Darling (Australia). The Article begins …

Separation Of Trade Law Powers, Kathleen Claussen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Survivability Strategies For Emerging Wireless Networks With Data Mining Techniques: A Case Study With Netlogo And Rapidminer, Ivan Garcia-Magarino, Geraldine Gray, Raquel Lacuesta, Jaime Lloret

Articles

Emerging wireless networks have brought Internet and communications to more users and areas. Some of the most relevant emerging wireless technologies are Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, Long-Term Evolution Advanced, and ad hoc and mesh networks. An open challenge is to ensure the reliability and robustness of these networks when individual components fail. The survivability and performance of these networks can be especially relevant when emergencies arise in rural areas, for example supporting communications during a medical emergency. This can be done by anticipating failures and finding alternative solutions. This paper proposes using big data analytics techniques, such as decision …

A Conceptual Framework For Understanding The Biogeochemistry Of Dry Riverbeds Through The Lens Of Soil Science, Maria Isabel Arce, Clara Mendoza, Maria Almagro, Nuria Catalan, Anna M. Romani, Eugenia Marti, R. Gomez, Susana Bernal, Arnaud Foulquier, Michael Mutz, Rafael Marce, Annamaria Zoppini, Giulia Gionchetta, Gabriele Weigelhofer, R. Del Campo, Christopher T. Robinson, Alan Gilmer, Martin Rulik, Obrador Biel, Oleksandra Shumilova, Sanja Zlatanovic, Shai Arnon, Petr Baldrian, Gabriel Andreas Singer, Thibault Datry, Nikolaos Th Skoulikidis, Britta Tietjen, Daniel Von Schiller

Articles

Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) encompass fluvial ecosystems that eventually stop flowing and run dry at some point in space and time. During the dry phase, channels of IRES consist mainly of dry riverbeds (DRBs), prevalent yet widely unexplored ecotones between dry and wet phases that can strongly influence the biogeochemistry of fluvial networks. DRBs are often overlooked because they do not strictly belong to either domain of soil or freshwater science. Due to this dual character of DRBs, we suggest that concepts and knowledge from soil science can be used to expand the understanding of IRES biogeochemistry. Based …

High Sensitivity Temperature Sensor Based On Singlemode-No-Core- Singlemode Fibre Structure And Alcohol, Ke Tiana, Gerald Farrell, Xianfan Wang, Yifan Xin, Yanqiu Du, Wenlei Yang, Haidong Liang, Elfed Lewis, Pengfei Wang

Articles

A high sensitivity temperature sensor based on a singlemode-no-core-singlemode (SNCS) fibre structure and surrounded with alcohol within a silica capillary is described. In this investigation, no-core fibre (NCF) is used as the multimode waveguide and alcohol is chosen as the temperature sensitive medium. By packaging the alcohol solution with a short length of NCF enclosed within a silica capillary, the surrounding temperature can be detected by monitoring the variations of transmission loss at a specific wavelength. The theoretical analysis predicts this temperature sensor can provide high sensitivity, and the experimental results support this. The maximum temperature sensitivity of the sample …

Performance Indicators In Club Level Gaelic Football, Kevin Mcguigan, Mike Hughes, Denise Martin

Articles

Over 2000 Gaelic Football clubs compete annually for the honour of playing in the All-Ireland club finals in Croke Park in front of up to 30,000 people. There are no published performance data for club level Gaelic football, despite evidence of considerable performance analysis activity. This study aims to establish benchmark profiles for Senior, Intermediate and Junior grade club Gaelic football and investigate which variables are most closely associated with winning.

Data from all tiers of the Ulster club football championship of 2015 and 2016 (n = 48) were analysed using a range of validated operational definitions measuring 17 …

Nano–Bio Interactions: Nanomedicine And Nanotoxicology, Hugh Byrne, S. Mukherjee, Pratap C. Naha

Articles

The 21st century has truly become the age of nanotechnology. Nanomaterials, design strategies, and processing have already made a significant impact in areas of materials science and electronics, with many commercial applications already being available on the consumer market. However, the ability to manipulate material functions and interactions on a scale of tens of nanometers, e.g., biological subcellular organelles, may yet prove to have the most significant impact on human health and the environment.

Reactive Oxygen Species And Nitric Oxide Signaling In Bystander Cells, Kishore Kumar Jella, Roisin Moriarty, Brendan Mcclean, Hugh Byrne, Fiona Lyng

Articles

It is now well accepted that radiation induced bystander effects can occur in cells exposed to media from irradiated cells. The aim of this study was to follow the bystander cells in real time following addition of media from irradiated cells and to determine the effect of inhibiting these signals. A human keratinocyte cell line, HaCaT cells, was irradiated (0.005, 0.05 and 0.5 Gy) with γ irradiation, conditioned medium was harvested after one hour and added to recipient bystander cells. Reactive oxygen species, nitric oxide, Glutathione levels, caspase activation, cytotoxicity and cell viability was measured after the addition of irradiated …

A Simple Model For Cell Type Recognition Using 2d-Correlation Analysis Of Ftir Images From Breast Cancer Tissue, Mohamed H.M. Ali, Fazle Rakib, Khalid A. Al-Saad, Rafif Al-Saady, Fiona Lyng, Erik Goormaghtigh

Articles

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer after lung cancer. So far, in clinical practice, most cancer parameters originating from histopathology rely on the visualization by a pathologist of microscopic structures observed in stained tissue sections, including immunohistochemistry markers. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectroscopy provides a biochemical fingerprint of a biopsy sample and, together with advanced data analysis techniques, can accurately classify cell types. Yet, one of the challenges when dealing with FTIR imaging is the slow recording of the data. One cm2 tissue section requires several hours of image recording. We show in the present paper that …

Toxicology Of Engineered Nanoparticles: Focus On Poly(Amidoamine) Dendrimers, Pratap Naha, Sourav Prasanna Mukherjee, Hugh Byrne

Articles

Engineered nanomaterials are increasingly being developed for paints, sunscreens, cosmetics, industrial lubricants, tyres, semiconductor devices, and also for biomedical applications such as in diagnostics, therapeutics, and contrast agents. As a result, nanomaterials are being manufactured, transported, and used in larger and larger quantities, and potential impacts on environmental and human health have been raised. Poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers are specifically suitable for biomedical applications. They are well-defined nanoscale molecules which contain a 2-carbon ethylenediamine core and primary amine groups at the surface. The systematically variable structural architecture and the large internal free volume make these dendrimers an attractive option for drug …

Improved Removal Of Blood Contamination From Thinprep Cervical Cytology Camples For Raman Spectroscopic Analysis, Damien Traynor, Shiyamala Duraipandian, C.Ara M. Martin, John J. O'Leary, Fiona Lyng

Articles

There is an unmet need for methods to help in the early detection of cervical precancer. Optical spectroscopy-based techniques, such as Raman spectroscopy, have shown great potential for diagnosis of different cancers, including cervical cancer. However, relatively few studies have been carried out on liquid-based cytology (LBC) pap test specimens and confounding factors, such as blood contamination, have been identified. Previous work reported a method to remove blood contamination before Raman spectroscopy by pretreatment of the slides with hydrogen peroxide. The aim of the present study was to extend this work to excessively bloody samples to see if these could …

Microdisk Resonator With Negative Thermal Optical Coefficient Polymer For Refractive Index Sensing With Thermal Stability, Tao Ma, Jinhui Yuan, Feng Li, Lei Sun, Zhe Kang, Binbin Yan, Qiang Wu, Xinzhu Sang, Heng Liu, Fang Wang, Bo Wu, Chongxiu Yu, Gerald Farrell

Articles

In this paper, we propose a microdisk resonator with negative thermal optical coefficient (TOC) polymer for refractive index (RI) sensing with thermal stability. The transmission characteristics and sensing performances by using quasi-TE01 and quasi-TM01 modes are simulated by a three-dimensional finite element method. The influences of the TOC, RI, and thickness of the polymer on the sensing performances are also investigated. The simulation results show that the RI sensitivity Sn and temperature sensitivity ST with different polymers are in the ranges of 25.1-26 nm/RIU and 67.3-75.2 pm/K for the quasi-TE01 mode, and 94.5-110.6 nm/RIU and 1.2-51.3 pm/K for the quasi-TM01 …

Civil War: A Board Game As Pedagogy And Critique, Hugh Mccabe

Articles

This paper describes the use of a board game, Civil War, as a learning experience in the context of a course on critical theory. Civil War was created by the Educational Games Company of Lebanon and is set during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. The game functions both as a pedagogical instrument, in that players learn about the situation in Lebanon while playing the game, but also as a form of critique, in that its makers are clearly using it as a means of articulating their lived experiences and challenging the dominant narratives around the conflict. We suggest that the …

Crimmigration In Gangland: Race, Crime, And Removal During The Prohibition Era, Geoffrey Heeren

Articles

In 1926, local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities in Chicago pursued a deportation drive ostensibly directed at gang members. However, the operation largely took the form of indiscriminate raids on immigrant neighborhoods of the city. Crimmigration in Gangland describes the largely forgotten 1926 deportation drive in Chicago as a means to augment the origin story for "crimmigration." Scholars up until now have mostly contended that the convergence of criminal and immigration law occurred in the 1980s as part of the War on Drugs, with crime serving as a proxy for race for policy makers unable to openly argue for …

Reconciliation Of Development And Ecosystems: The Ecology Of Governance In The International Columbia River Basin, Barbara Cosens

Articles

This article explores the emergence of formal and informal bridging organizations to facilitate solutions to water conflict at the scale of the water resource. This new approach to governance is of particular importance on rivers within or shared by countries in which water management is fragmented among national and sub-national levels of government as well as among governmental sectors. This article focuses on the Columbia River Basin, in the United States and Canada. Review of the Columbia River Treaty governing shared management of the river has opened a public dialogue on river governance. Treaty review coincides with change in both …

Mid-Infrared Self-Similar Pulse Compression In A Tapered Tellurite Photonic Crystal Fiber And Its Application In Supercontinuum Generation, Feng Xu, Jinhui Yuan, Chao Mei, Feng Li, Zhe Kang, Binbin Yan, Xian Zhou, Qiang Wu, Kuiru Wang, Xinzhu Sang, Chongxiu Yu, Gerald Farrell

Articles

In this paper, we design a tapered tellurite photonic crystal fiber (TTPCF) with nonlinear coefficient increasing along the propagation direction, and demonstrate the mid-infrared self-similar pulse compression of the fundamental soliton in such a TTPCF. When the variation of group-velocity dispersion, higher-order dispersion, higher-order nonlinearity, and linear loss are considered, a 1 ps pulse at wavelength 2.5 μm can be compressed to 62.16 fs after a 1.63-m long propagation, along with the negligible pedestal, compression factor Fc of 16.09, and quality factor Qc of 83.16%. Then the compressed pulse is launched into another uniform tellurite PCF, where highly coherent and …

The Social, Educational, And Market Scenario For Nzeb In Europe, Evangelia Topriska, Maria Kolokotroni, Daniela Melandri, Simon Mcguinness, Andrei Ceclan, Georgios C. Christoforidis, Fazio Vittoria, Maria Hadjpannayi, Patrick Hendrick, Marija Kacarska, López Lopez, Kaj Leonhart Petersen, Jutta Steinbrecher

Articles

Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) are a significant part of the energy efficiency strategy of the European Union. As buildings represent approximately 40% of the final energy use in Europe, the reduction of their energy demand is key for a sustainable future. This paper takes a qualitative approach and presents data about professional and market barriers, as well as the educational market in relation to the implementation of nZEB policies for new and retrofit buildings in 11 European countries. Different levels of policy enactments and market penetration are reported and are generally found to be more advanced in western and …

Passive Self-Interference Suppression For Single Channel Full-Duplex Operation, Adam Narbudowicz, Giuseppe Ruvio, Max Ammann

Articles

Full duplex radios have become a topic of increased interest in the wireless communications community. As part of this development, many efforts were directed to passively decrease the self-interference level at the antenna outputs. However, in many proposed solutions transmission and reception occur through different propagation channels. This paper demonstrates and quantifies the negative impact of channel differentiation on pivotal applications of full-duplex radio, such as cognitive radio. Antenna designs used for self-interference suppression in full-duplex radio architectures are analyzed. In order to ensure that transmission and reception occur within the same propagation channel, the use of the envelope correlation …

When Attitudes Became Toys: Jasia Reichardt’S Play Orbit, Tim Stott

Articles

No abstract provided.

Maritime Spatial Planning Supported By Infrastructure For Spatial Information In Europe (Inspire), Andrej Abramic, Emanuele Bigagli, Vittorio Barale, Alberto Lorenzo-Alonso, Conor Norton

Articles

The implementation of Directive 2007/2/EC - INSPIRE can improve and actually strengthen the informationmanagement and data infrastructures needed for setting up Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) processes. Evidencefor this comes from three parallel analyses: links between the MSP Framework Directive and INSPIRE compo-nents and implementation; the availability of marine and maritime data through the INSPIRE Geo-Portal; andthe adequacy of using an INSPIRE data model for mapping maritime spatial plans. Thefirst item identifiesINSPIRE as a relevant instrument not only for data collection, but additionally for increasing transparency of theMSP processes, using already operational national and European data infrastructure. The marine/maritime dataavailability analysis …

Thermo-Optic Tuning Of A Packaged Whispering Gallery Mode Resonator Filled With Nematic Liquid Crystal, Vishnu Kavungal, Gerald Farrell, Qiang Wu, Arun Mallik, Yuliya Semenova

Articles

Thermo-optic tuning of whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in a nematic liquid crystal-filled thin-walled capillary tube resonator is reported. WGMs were excited by the evanescent field from a tapered optical fiber. Tapered optical fiber fabrication and reduction of wall thickness of the capillary tube was carried out by a ceramic micro-heater brushing technique. A simple and robust packaging technique is demonstrated to ensure stable and repeatable operation of the device. Tunability of WGMs with temperature was demonstrated with a sensitivity of 267.5 ± 2.5 pm/°C. The demonstrated thermo-optic method for WGMs tuning is potentially useful for many tunable photonic devices and …