Effect of Reynolds numbers on flow past four square cylinders in an in-line square configuration for different gap spacings

In this paper two-dimensional (2-D) numerical investigation of flow past four square cylinders in an in-line square configuration are performed using the lattice Boltzmann method. The gap spacing g=s/d is set at 1, 3 and 6 and Reynolds number ranging from Re=60 to 175. We observed four distinct wake patterns: (i) a steady wake pattern (Re=60 and g=1) (ii) a stable shielding wake pattern (80≤Re≤175 and g=1) (iii) a wiggling shielding wake pattern (60≤Re≤175 and g=3) (iv) a vortex shedding wake pattern (60≤Re≤175 and g=6) At g=1, the Reynolds number is observed to have a strong effect on the wake patterns. It is also found that at g=1, the secondary cylinder interaction frequency significantly contributes for drag and lift coefficients signal. It is found that the primary vortex shedding frequency dominates the flow and the role of secondary cylinder interaction frequency almost vanish at g=6. It is observed that the jet between the gaps strongly influenced the wake interaction for different gap spacing and Reynolds number combination. To fully understand the wake transformations the details vorticity contour visualization, power spectra of lift coefficient signal and time signal analysis of drag and lift coefficients also presented in this paper.

The association between pterygium and conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence : The Norfolk Island Eye Study

Purpose: To investigate the association between conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence (UVAF), a biomarker of ocular ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure, and prevalent pterygium. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on Norfolk Island, South Pacific. All permanent residents aged ‡15 were invited to participate. Participants completed a sun exposure questionnaire and underwent autorefraction and slit lamp biomicroscope examination. Area of conjunctival UVAF (sum of temporal ⁄ nasal area in right and left eyes) was determined using computerized methods. Multivariate logistic and linear regression models were used to estimate the associations with pterygia and UVAF, respectively. Results: Of 641 participants, 70 people (10.9%) had pterygium in one or both eyes, and prevalence was higher in males (15.0% versus 7.7%, p = 0.003). Significant independent associations with pterygium in any eye were UVAF (per 10 mm2) [odds ratio (OR) 1.16, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.16–1.28, p = 0.002], tanning skin phenotype (OR 2.17,1.20–3.92, p = 0.010) and spending more than three-quarters of the day outside (OR 2.22, 1.20–4.09, p = 0.011). Increasing quartile of UVAF was associated with increased risk of pterygium following adjustment of age, sex and time outdoors (pTrend = 0.002). Independent associations with increasing UVAF (per 10 mm2) were decreasing age, time outdoors, skin type and male gender (all p < 0.001). UVAF area correlated well with the duration of outdoor activity (pTrend < 0.001). Conclusion: Pterygium occurs in approximately one-tenth of Norfolk Islanders. Increasing conjunctival UVAF is associated with prevalent pterygia, confirming earlier epidemiological, laboratory and ray-tracing studies that pterygia are associated with UVR. Protection from the sun should be encouraged to reduce the prevalence of pterygium in the community.

Interocular corneal symmetry in refractive error groups

Purpose: To examine between eye differences in corneal higher order aberrations and topographical characteristics in a range of refractive error groups. Methods: One hundred and seventy subjects were recruited including; 50 emmetropic isometropes, 48 myopic isometropes (spherical equivalent anisometropia ≤ 0.75 D), 50 myopic anisometropes (spherical equivalent anisometropia ≥ 1.00 D) and 22 keratoconics. The corneal topography of each eye was captured using the E300 videokeratoscope (Medmont, Victoria, Australia) and analyzed using custom written software. All left eye data were rotated about the vertical midline to account for enantiomorphism. Corneal height data were used to calculate the corneal wavefront error using a ray tracing procedure and fit with Zernike polynomials (up to and including the eighth radial order). The wavefront was centred on the line of sight by using the pupil offset value from the pupil detection function in the videokeratoscope. Refractive power maps were analysed to assess corneal sphero-cylindrical power vectors. Differences between the more myopic (or more advanced eye for keratoconics) and the less myopic (advanced) eye were examined. Results: Over a 6 mm diameter, the cornea of the more myopic eye was significantly steeper (refractive power vector M) compared to the fellow eye in both anisometropes (0.10 ± 0.27 D steeper, p = 0.01) and keratoconics (2.54 ± 2.32 D steeper, p < 0.001) while no significant interocular difference was observed for isometropic emmetropes (-0.03 ± 0.32 D) or isometropic myopes (0.02 ± 0.30 D) (both p > 0.05). In keratoconic eyes, the between eye difference in corneal refractive power was greatest inferiorly (associated with cone location). Similarly, in myopic anisometropes, the more myopic eye displayed a central region of significant inferior corneal steepening (0.15 ± 0.42 D steeper) relative to the fellow eye (p = 0.01). Significant interocular differences in higher order aberrations were only observed in the keratoconic group for; vertical trefoil C(3,-3), horizontal coma C(3,1) secondary astigmatism along 45 C(4, -2) (p < 0.05) and vertical coma C(3,-1) (p < 0.001). The interocular difference in vertical pupil decentration (relative to the corneal vertex normal) increased with between eye asymmetry in refraction (isometropia 0.00 ± 0.09, anisometropia 0.03 ± 0.15 and keratoconus 0.08 ± 0.16 mm) as did the interocular difference in corneal vertical coma C (3,-1) (isometropia -0.006 ± 0.142, anisometropia -0.037 ± 0.195 and keratoconus -1.243 ± 0.936 μm) but only reached statistical significance for pair-wise comparisons between the isometropic and keratoconic groups. Conclusions: There is a high degree of corneal symmetry between the fellow eyes of myopic and emmetropic isometropes. Interocular differences in corneal topography and higher order aberrations are more apparent in myopic anisometropes and keratoconics due to regional (primarily inferior) differences in topography and between eye differences in vertical pupil decentration relative to the corneal vertex normal. Interocular asymmetries in corneal optics appear to be associated with anisometropic refractive development.

Sub-cellular localization of membrane proteins

In eukaryotes, numerous complex sub-cellular structures exist. The majority of these are delineated by membranes. Many proteins are trafficked to these in order to be able to carry out their correct physiological function. Assigning the sub-cellular location of a protein is of paramount importance to biologists in the elucidation of its role and in the refinement of knowledge of cellular processes by tracing certain activities to specific organelles. Membrane proteins are a key set of proteins as these form part of the boundary of the organelles and represent many important functions such as transporters, receptors, and trafficking. They are, however, some of the most challenging proteins to work with due to poor solubility, a wide concentration range within the cell and inaccessibility to many of the tools employed in proteomics studies. This review focuses on membrane proteins with particular emphasis on sub-cellular localization in terms of methodologies that can be used to determine the accurate location of membrane proteins to organelles. We also discuss what is known about the membrane protein cohorts of major organelles.

Making mangoes move

A landscape of mangoes most likely brings to mind a place in a tropical location. By the end of the nineteenth century that place could have been located on any continent in the world. Mangoes were found in geographic locations; in scientific institutions; as crop plants; and as a backyard trees. Here I trace the movement of mangoes Mangifera indica Linn., focusing on the transnational links formed through colonial botanic gardens in Australia. Botanic gardens were largely understood through their work in establishing economically successful plantation crops, such as sugar and tea. Mangoes were not a success crop of the age of botanic imperialism. Instead, mangoes were simply one species among the millions of plants that botanic gardens moved in addition to these well known commercial crops. Colonial science moved plants for a myriad of other types of reasons, for ornament, for curiosity, for lesser commercial purposes and for pure science. In each site the mango emerged, the discourses and technologies that traveled with it changed according to local needs. Indeed, rather than finding mangoes located in one place, tracing their movement demonstrates that this was an extended landscape connecting these things across time and space...

Theatre, social media and spectatorship : translating commentary, critique and controversy across media

The occasional ArtsHub article asking spectators to show respect for stage by switching all devices off notwithstanding, in the last few years we have witnessed an clear push to make more use of social media as a means by which spectators might respond to a performance across most theatre companies. Mainstage companies, as well as contemporary companies are asking us to turn on, tune in and tweet our impressions of a show to them, to each other, and to the masses – sometimes during the show, sometimes after the show, and sometimes without having seen the show. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between theatre, spectatorship and social media, tracing the transition from print platforms in which expert critics were responsible for determining audience response to today’s online platforms in which everybody is responsible for debating responses. Is the tendency to invite spectators to comment via social media before, during, or after a show the advance in audience engagement, entertainment and empowerment many hail it to be? Is it a return to a more democratised past in which theatres were active, interactive and at times downright rowdy, and the word of the published critic had yet to take over from the word of the average punter? Is it delivering distinctive shifts in theatre and theatrical meaning making? Or is it simply a good way to get spectators to write about a work they are no longer watching? An advance in the marketing of the work rather than an advance in the active, interactive aesthetic of the work? In this paper, I consider what the performance of spectatorship on social media tells us about theatre, spectatorship and meaning-making. I use initial findings about the distinctive dramaturgies, conflicts and powerplays that characterise debates about performance and performance culture on social media to reflect on the potentially productive relationship between theatre, social media, spectatorship, and meaning making. I suggest that the distinctive patterns of engagement displayed on social media platforms – including, in many cases, remediation rather than translation, adaptation or transformation of prior engagement practices – have a lot to tell us about how spectators and spectator groups negotiate for the power to provide the dominant interpretation of a work.

Distribution of NMDA and AMPA receptor subunits at thalamo-amygdaloid dendritic spines

Synapses onto dendritic spines in the lateral amygdala formed by afferents from the auditory thalamus represent a site of plasticity in Pavlovian fear conditioning. Previous work has demonstrated that thalamic afferents synapse onto LA spines expressing glutamate receptor (GluR) subunits, but the GluR subunit distribution at the synapse and within the cytoplasm has not been characterized. Therefore, we performed a quantitative analysis for α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionate (AMPA) receptor subunits GluR2 and GluR3 and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor subunits NR1 and NR2B by combining anterograde labeling of thalamo-amygdaloid afferents with postembedding immunoelectron microscopy for the GluRs in adult rats. A high percentage of thalamo- amygdaloid spines was immunoreactive for GluR2 (80%), GluR3 (83%), and NR1 (83%), while a smaller proportion of spines expressed NR2B (59%). To compare across the various subunits, the cytoplasmic to synaptic ratios of GluRs were measured within thalamo-amygdaloid spines. Analyses revealed that the cytoplasmic pool of GluR2 receptors was twice as large compared to the GluR3, NR1, and NR2B subunits. Our data also show that in the adult brain, the NR2B subunit is expressed in the majority of in thalamo-amygdaloid spines and that within these spines, the various GluRs are differentially distributed between synaptic and non-synaptic sites. The prevalence of the NR2B subunit in thalamo-amygdaloid spines provides morphological evidence supporting its role in the fear conditioning circuit while the differential distribution of the GluR subtypes may reflect distinct roles for their involvement in this circuitry and synaptic plasticity.

Geographies/aerographies of contagion

In this paper I argue that geography, contagion, and the element of air have historically overlapped in interesting ways and that they continue to do so. By tracing metaphors of air, wind, miasma, and contagion through literary works that span nearly three centuries, I argue that the element of air tends to signify, in cultural expression, a more ambiguous, affective form of contagion that is also bound up with the spread of ideas and information.

A simple method for EPID-based in vivo dosimetry for radiotherapy treatments of head-and-neck cancers

This study used a homogeneous water-equivalent model of an electronic portal imaging device (EPID), contoured as a structure in a radiotherapy treatment plan, to produce reference dose images for comparison with in vivo EPID dosimetry images. Head and neck treatments were chosen as the focus of this study, due to the heterogeneous anatomies involved and the consequent difficulty of rapidly obtaining reliable reference dose images by other means. A phantom approximating the size and heterogeneity of a typical neck, with a maximum radiological thickness of 8.5 cm, was constructed for use in this study. This phantom was CT scanned and a simple treatment including five square test fields and one off-axis IMRT field was planned. In order to allow the treatment planning system to calculate dose in a model EPID positioned a distance downstream from the phantom to achieve a source-to-detector distance (SDD) of 150 cm, the CT images were padded with air and the phantom’s “body” contour was extended to encompass the EPID contour. Comparison of dose images obtained from treatment planning calculations and experimental irradiations showed good agreement, with more than 90% of points in all fields passing a gamma evaluation, at γ (3%, 3mm )Similar agreement was achieved when the phantom was over-written with air in the treatment plan and removed from the experimental beam, suggesting that water EPID model at 150 cm SDD is capable of providing accurate reference images for comparison with clinical IMRT treatment images, for patient anatomies with radiological thicknesses ranging from 0 up to approximately 9 cm. This methodology therefore has the potential to be used for in vivo dosimetry during treatments to tissues in the neck as well as the oral and nasal cavities, in the head-and-neck region.

Hidden innovation : Policy, industry and the creative sector

The term ‘two cultures’ was coined more than 50 years ago by scientist and novelist C.P. Snow to describe the divergence in the world views and methods of scientists and the creative sector. This divergence has meant that innovation systems and policies have focused for decades on science, engineering, technology and medicine and the industries that depend on them. The humanities, arts and social sciences have been bit players at best; their contributions hidden from research agendas, policy and program initiatives, and the public mind. But structural changes to advanced economies and societies have brought services industries and the creative sector to greater prominence as key contributors to innovation. Hidden Innovation peels back the veil, tracing the way innovation occurs through new forms of screen production enabled by social media platforms as well as in public broadcasting. It shows that creative workers are contributing fresh ideas across the economy and how creative cities debates need reframing. It traces how policies globally are beginning to catch up with the changing social and economic realities. In his new book, Cunningham argues that the innovation framework offers the best opportunity in decades to reassess and refresh the case for the public role of the humanities, particularly the media, cultural and communication studies disciplines.

Input from the amygdala to the rat nucleus accumbens : its relationship with tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactivity and identified neurons.

Both tyrosine hydroxylase-positive fibres from the mesolimbic dopamine system and amygdala projection fibres from the basolateral nucleus are known to terminate heavily in the nucleus accumbens. Caudal amygdala fibres travelling dorsally via the stria terminalis project densely to the nucleus accumbens shell, especially in the dopamine rich septal hook. The amygdala has been associated with the recognition of emotionally relevant stimuli while the mesolimbic dopamine system is implicated with reward mechanisms. There is behavioural and electrophysiological evidence that the amygdala input to the nucleus accumbens is modulated by the mesolimbic dopamine input, but it is not known how these pathways interact anatomically within the nucleus accumbens. Using a variety of neuroanatomical techniques including anterograde and retrograde tracing, immunocytochemistry and intracellular filling, we have demonstrated convergence of these inputs on to medium-sized spiny neurons. The terminals of the basolateral amygdala projection make asymmetrical synapses predominantly on the heads of spines which also receive on their necks or adjacent dendrites, symmetrical synaptic input from the mesolimbic dopamine system. Some of these neurons have also been identified as projection neurons, possibly to the ventral pallidum. We have shown a synaptic level how dopamine is positioned to modulate excitatory limbic input in the nucleus accumbens.

A population-specific HTR2B stop codon predisposes to severe impulsivity

Impulsivity, describing action without foresight, is an important feature of several psychiatric diseases, suicidality and violent behaviour. The complex origins of impulsivity hinder identification of the genes influencing it and the diseases with which it is associated. Here we perform exon-focused sequencing of impulsive individuals in a founder population, targeting fourteen genes belonging to the serotonin and dopamine domain. A stop codon in HTR2B was identified that is common (minor allele frequency > 1%) but exclusive to Finnish people. Expression of the gene in the human brain was assessed, as well as the molecular functionality of the stop codon, which was associated with psychiatric diseases marked by impulsivity in both population and family-based analyses. Knockout of Htr2b increased impulsive behaviours in mice, indicative of predictive validity. Our study shows the potential for identifying and tracing effects of rare alleles in complex behavioural phenotypes using founder populations, and indicates a role for HTR2B in impulsivity.

Quality assurance of aerial applications of larvicides for mosquito control : effects of granule and catch tray size on field monitoring programs

Aerial applications of granular insecticides are preferable because they can effectively penetrate vegetation, there is less drift, and no loss of product due to evaporation. We aimed to 1) assess the field efficacy ofVectoBac G to control Aedes vigilax (Skuse) in saltmarsh pools, 2) develop a stochastic-modeling procedure to monitor application quality, and 3) assess the distribution of VectoBac G after an aerial application. Because ground-based studies with Ae. vigilax immatures found that VectoBac G provided effective control below the recommended label rate of 7 kg/ha, we trialed a nominated aerial rate of 5 kg/ha as a case study. Our distribution pattern modeling method indicated that the variability in the number of VectoBac G particles captured in catch-trays was greater than expected for 5 kg/ha and that the widely accepted contour mapping approach to visualize the deposition pattern provided spurious results and therefore was not statistically appropriate. Based on the results of distribution pattern modeling, we calculated the catch tray size required to analyze the distribution of aerially applied granular formulations. The minimum catch tray size for products with large granules was 4 m2 for Altosid pellets and 2 m2 for VectoBac G. In contrast, the minimum catch-tray size for Altosid XRG, Aquabac G, and Altosand, with smaller granule sizes, was 1 m2. Little gain in precision would be made by increasing the catch-tray size further, when the increased workload and infrastructure is considered. Our improved methods for monitoring the distribution pattern of aerially applied granular insecticides can be adapted for use by both public health and agricultural contractors.

More than just friends? Facebook, disclosive ethics and the morality of technology

Social networking sites have become increasingly popular destinations for people wishing to chat, play games, make new friends or simply stay in touch. Furthermore, many organizations have been quick to grasp the potential they offer for marketing, recruitment and economic activities. Nevertheless, counterclaims depict such spaces as arenas where deception, social grooming and the posting of defamatory content flourish. Much research in this area has focused on the ends to which people deploy the technology, and the consequences arising, with a view to making policy recommendations and ethical interventions. In this paper, we argue that tracing where morality lies is more complex than these efforts suggest. Using the case of a popular social networking site, and concepts about the morality of technology, we disclose the ethics of Facebook as diffuse and multiple. In our conclusions we provide some reflections on the possibilities for action in light of this disclosure.

Clinically-based automatic implant fitting for shape optimization of fracture fixation plates

Complex bone contour and anatomical variations between individual bones complicate the process of deriving an implant shape that fits majority of the population. This thesis proposes an automatic fitting method for anatomically-precontoured plates based on clinical requirements, and investigated if 100% anatomical fit for a group of bone is achievable through manual bending of one plate shape. It was found that, for the plate used, 100% fit is impossible to achieve through manual bending alone. Rather, newly-developed shapes are also required to obtain anatomical fit in areas with more complex bone contour.