4.11(EC) Report new instrumentation and field measuring technology for tidal currents

One of the challenges the tidal power industry faces, is the requirement of cost effective, reliable but highly accurate acquisition of flow data. Different methods are required , applications range over different spatial and temporal scales. This report assembles in the first sections, theoretical background information on acoustic Doppler Velocimetry and RADAR measurements. The use of existing expertise in field tests of marine vehicles is discussed next, followed by a discussion of issues relating to recreating field conditions in laboratory environments. The last three sections present practical applications of various methods performed in field conditions. While progress has been made over the last years, this overview highlights the challenges in full scale field measurements and knowledge gaps in the industry.

Repeal the HRA and Rely on the Common Law?

This piece contemplates whether the common law could fill the gaps in human rights protection if the UK's Human Rights Act 1998 were to be repealed. It looks at how the common law protected human rights before the Act came into force, what difference the Act has made, how the common law has become side-lined as a result, how in recent cases it has begun to play a more central role, and what more more needs to be done to develop it in ways which ensure that if the Human Rights Act were to be repealed it would not be particularly missed.

Management of polycythaemia vera: a critical review of current data

Polycythaemia vera (PV) is a chronic blood cancer; its clinical features are dominated by myeloproliferation (erythrocytosis, often leucocytosis and/or thrombocytosis) and a tendency for thrombosis and transformation to myelofibrosis or acute myeloid leukaemia. In the past 10 years the pathophysiology of this condition has been defined as JAK/STAT pathway activation, almost always due to mutations in JAK2 exons 12 or 14 (JAK2 V617F). In the same time period our understanding of the optimal management of PV has expanded, most recently culminating in the approval of JAK inhibitors for the treatment of PV patients who are resistant or intolerant to therapy with hydroxycarbamide. It has also been demonstrated that life expectancy for many patients with PV is not normal, nor is their quality of life. We critically explore these findings and discuss their impact. In addition, we highlight persisting gaps in our current management strategy; for example, what is the optimal first line cytoreductive therapy and, indeed, which patients need cytoreductive drugs.

Treatment of Unexplained Chronic Cough: CHEST Guideline and Expert Panel Report

Background: Unexplained chronic cough (UCC) causes significant quality of life impairment. There is a need to identify effective assessment and treatment approaches for UCC.

Methods: This systematic review of randomized controlled clinical trials asked: What is the efficacy of treatment compared to usual care on cough severity, cough frequency, and cough-related quality of life in patients with unexplained chronic cough (UCC)? Studies of adults and adolescents >12 years with a chronic cough of >8 weeks duration that was unexplained after systematic investigation and treatment were included and assessed for relevance and quality. Based upon the systematic review, guideline suggestions were developed and voted upon using CHEST organization methodology.

Results: 11 RCTs and 5 systematic reviews were included. The 11 RCTs reported data on 570 participants with chronic cough who received a variety of interventions. Study quality was high in 10 RCTs. The studies used a variety of descriptors and assessments to identify unexplained chronic cough. While gabapentin and morphine showed positive effects on cough-related quality of life, only gabapentin was supported as a treatment recommendation. Studies of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) suffered from intervention fidelity bias, and when this was addressed, ICS were not found to be effective for UCC. Esomeprazole was not effective for UCC without features of gastroesophageal acid reflux. Studies addressing non-acid gastroesophageal reflux were not identified. A multimodality speech pathology intervention improved cough severity.

Conclusions: The evidence supporting the diagnosis and management of UCC is limited. UCC requires further study to establish agreed terminology and the optimal methods of investigation using established criteria for intervention fidelity. Speech pathology based cough suppression is suggested as a treatment option for UCC. This guideline presents suggestions for diagnosis and treatment based on the best available evidence and identifies gaps in our knowledge and areas for future research.

Of no fixed form: The Irish Pavilion at Venice 2014 and beyond

This paper explores the theme of exhibiting architectural research through a particular example, the development of the Irish pavilion for the 14th architectural biennale, Venice 2014. Responding to Rem Koolhaas’s call to investigate the international absorption of modernity, the Irish pavilion became a research project that engaged with the development of the architectures of infrastructure in Ireland in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Central to this proposition was that infrastructure is simultaneously a technological and cultural construct, one that for Ireland occupied a critical position in the building of a new, independent post-colonial nation state, after 1921.

Presupposing infrastructure as consisting of both visible and invisible networks, the idea of a matrix become a central conceptual and visual tool in the curatorial and design process for the exhibition and pavilion. To begin with this was a two-dimensional grid used to identify and order what became described as a series of ten ‘infrastructural episodes’. These were determined chronologically across the decades between 1914 and 2014 and their spatial manifestations articulated in terms of scale: micro, meso and macro. At this point ten academics were approached as researchers. Their purpose was twofold, to establish the broader narratives around which the infrastructures developed and to scrutinise relevant archives for compelling visual material. Defining the meso scale as that of the building, the media unearthed was further filtered and edited according to a range of categories – filmic/image, territory, building detail, and model – which sought to communicate the relationship between the pieces of architecture and the larger systems to which they connect. New drawings realised by the design team further iterated these relationships, filling in gaps in the narrative by providing composite, strategic or detailed drawings.

Conceived as an open-ended and extendable matrix, the pavilion was influenced by a series of academic writings, curatorial practices, artworks and other installations including: Frederick Kiesler’s City of Space (1925), Eduardo Persico and Marcello Nizzoli’s Medaglio d’Oro room (1934), Sol Le Witt’s Incomplete Open Cubes (1974) and Rosalind Krauss’s seminal text ‘Grids’ (1979). A modular frame whose structural bays would each hold and present an ‘episode’, the pavilion became both a visual analogue of the unseen networks embodying infrastructural systems and a reflection on the predominance of framed structures within the buildings exhibited. Sharing the aspiration of adaptability of many of these schemes, its white-painted timber components are connected by easily-dismantled steel fixings. These and its modularity allow the structure to be both taken down and re-erected subsequently in different iterations. The pavilion itself is, therefore, imagined as essentially provisional and – as with infrastructure – as having no fixed form. Presenting archives and other material over time, the transparent nature of the space allowed these to overlap visually conveying the nested nature of infrastructural production. Pursuing a means to evoke the qualities of infrastructural space while conveying a historical narrative, the exhibition’s termination in the present is designed to provoke in the visitor, a perceptual extension of the matrix to engage with the future.

The importance of the gestation period for welfare of lambs: Maternal stressors and lamb vigour and wellbeing

The prenatal period is of critical importance in defining how individuals respond to their environment throughout life. Stress experienced by pregnant females has been shown to have detrimental effects on offspring behaviour, health and productivity. The sheep has been used extensively as a model species to inform human studies. However, in the farmed environment, the consequences for the lamb of the imposition of prenatal stresses upon the ewe have received much less attention. The stressors that pregnant ewes are most frequently exposed to include sub-optimal nutrition and those related to housing, husbandry and environment which may be either acute or chronic. A systematic review of the literature was adopted to identify material which had production-relevant maternal stressors and lamb outcomes. The current review focussed upon the lamb up to weaning around the age of 100 days and the results clearly demonstrate that stressors imposed upon the ewe have implications for offspring welfare and performance. Maternal under-nutrition (UN) in the last third of pregnancy consistently impaired lamb birth-weight and subsequent vigour and performance, while earlier UN had a variable effect on performance. Feeding the ewe above requirements did not have positive effects on lamb performance and welfare. Social and husbandry stressors such as transport, shearing, mixing and physiological treatments designed to mimic acute stress which would be considered disadvantageous for the ewe had positive or neutral effects for the lamb, highlighting a potential conflict between the welfare of the ewe and her lamb. This review also identified considerable gaps in knowledge, particularly in respect of the impact of disease upon the ewe during pregnancy and interactions between different stressors and the responses of ewe and lamb.

Modelling Duqu 2.0 Malware using Attack Trees with Sequential Conjunction

In this paper we identify requirements for choosing a threat modelling formalisation for modelling sophisticated malware such as Duqu 2.0. We discuss the gaps in current formalisations and propose the use of Attack Trees with Sequential Conjunction when it comes to analysing complex attacks. The paper models Duqu 2.0 based on the latest information sourced from formal and informal sources. This paper provides a well structured model which can be used for future analysis of Duqu 2.0 and related attacks.

Board invited review:The importance of the gestation period for welfare of calves: Maternal stressors and difficult births

The prenatal period is of critical importance in defining how individuals respond to their environment throughout life. Stress experienced by pregnant females has been shown to have detrimental effects on offspring biology in humans and a variety of other species. It also is becoming increasingly apparent that prenatal events can have important consequences for the behavior, health, and productivity of offspring in farmed species. Pregnant cattle may experience many potentially important stressors, for instance, relating to their social environment, housing system and physical environment, interactions with humans and husbandry procedures, and their state of health. We examined the available literature to provide a review of the implications of prenatal stress for offspring welfare in cattle. The long-term effects of dystocia on cattle offspring also are reviewed. To ensure a transparent and repeatable selection process, a systematic review approach was adopted. The research literature clearly demonstrates that prenatal stress and difficult births in beef and dairy cattle both have implications for offspring welfare and performance. Common husbandry practices, such as transport, were shown to influence offspring biology and the importance of environmental variables, including thermal stress and drought, also were highlighted. Maternal disease during pregnancy was shown to negatively impact offspring welfare. Moreover, dystocia-affected calves suffer increased mortality and morbidity, decreased transfer of passive immunity, and important physiological and behavioral changes. This review also identified considerable gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the effects of prenatal stress in cattle. © 2012 American Society of Animal Science. All rights reserved.

Dublin 1916: theatre of revolt

At Easter 1916, Dublin city centre was one of a series of sites throughout Ireland where a rebellion was staged against British rule. It was a strategic failure, swiftly crushed by superior British forces. The event, however, subsequently took a central role in the mythology of modern Ireland.

The first visual representations were of the conflict’s aftermath: photographic journeys through landscapes of ruin. From the distance of the camera, we see none of the pockmarks of shell bursts, nor the etchings of machine guns. Instead, traces of life in the city seem to have been swept aside by an unseen hand: the passing of millennia or a violent action of nature. Architecture alone has witnessed and recorded its presence. Amongst the fragments, the shell of the General Post Office (G.P.O.) in Sackville Street is one of the few buildings still wholly recognizable. The remnants of its classical form, portico and pediment, columns and entablature seem to transcend its prosaic modern functions and allude to something more ancient. The bewilderment of city’s inhabitants is also recorded. Dubliners have become inquisitive tourists in streets which hitherto were the locus of everyday life. They wander around aimlessly in a landscape as alien and picturesque as Pompeii. This shift in perception was captured by the Irish poet W.B. Yeats who hinted that Dublin, purged of modern commercialism had transcended its petty inadequacies to revive a slumbering heroic past.

‘I have met them at the close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses [.]’
All is changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.’

His comments were prescient. Initially unpopular, the republican leaders, executed by the British, slowly became recast as heroic martyrs. Similarly, the spaces where their heroism was forged became venerated. The G.P.O. and Sackville Street, however, already had a republican history. It was originally conceived in the eighteenth century as part of a series of magnificent urban spaces to provide an arena of spectacle and self-celebration for the colonial Anglo-Irish and their vision of a Protestant republic. O’Connell/Sackville Street became the temporal, geographical and mythical hinge upon which two different versions of Irish republicanism waxed and waned. Its recasting after independence as a space of Catholic Nationalism bore testimony to its consistency in providing a backdrop for the production of ritual and myth. In the 1920s and 30s, as the nascent country, beset with economic stagnation and political tensions, turned to spectacle as a salve for it social problems, O’Connell Street and the G.P.O. provided its most sacred sites. Within the introduction of new myths, however, individual as well as national identities were created and consolidated. The emerging identity of modern Ireland became inextricably linked with that of one ambitious politician. His uses of the G.P.O. in particular revealed a perceptive understanding of the political uses of classical architecture and urban space.

Language Experience Affects Grouping of Musical Instrument Sounds

Language experience clearly affects the perception of speech, but little is known about whether these differences in perception extend to non-speech sounds. In this study, we investigated rhythmic perception of non-linguistic sounds in speakers of French and German using a grouping task, in which complexity (variability in sounds, presence of pauses) was manipulated. In this task, participants grouped sequences of auditory chimeras formed from musical instruments. These chimeras mimic the complexity of speech without being speech. We found that, while showing the same overall grouping preferences, the German speakers showed stronger biases than the French speakers in grouping complex sequences. Sound variability reduced all participants' biases, resulting in the French group showing no grouping preference for the most variable sequences, though this reduction was attenuated by musical experience. In sum, this study demonstrates that linguistic experience, musical experience, and complexity affect rhythmic grouping of non-linguistic sounds and suggests that experience with acoustic cues in a meaningful context (language or music) is necessary for developing a robust grouping preference that survives acoustic variability.

Systematic review of tools to measure outcomes for young children with autism spectrum disorder

BACKGROUND: The needs of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are complex and this is reflected in the number and diversity of outcomes assessed and measurement tools used to collect evidence about children's progress. Relevant outcomes include improvement in core ASD impairments, such as communication, social awareness, sensory sensitivities and repetitiveness; skills such as social functioning and play; participation outcomes such as social inclusion; and parent and family impact.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the measurement properties of tools used to measure progress and outcomes in children with ASD up to the age of 6 years. To identify outcome areas regarded as important by people with ASD and parents.

METHODS: The MeASURe (Measurement in Autism Spectrum disorder Under Review) research collaboration included ASD experts and review methodologists. We undertook systematic review of tools used in ASD early intervention and observational studies from 1992 to 2013; systematic review, using the COSMIN checklist (Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments) of papers addressing the measurement properties of identified tools in children with ASD; and synthesis of evidence and gaps. The review design and process was informed throughout by consultation with stakeholders including parents, young people with ASD, clinicians and researchers.

RESULTS: The conceptual framework developed for the review was drawn from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, including the domains 'Impairments', 'Activity Level Indicators', 'Participation', and 'Family Measures'. In review 1, 10,154 papers were sifted - 3091 by full text - and data extracted from 184; in total, 131 tools were identified, excluding observational coding, study-specific measures and those not in English. In review 2, 2665 papers were sifted and data concerning measurement properties of 57 (43%) tools were extracted from 128 papers. Evidence for the measurement properties of the reviewed tools was combined with information about their accessibility and presentation. Twelve tools were identified as having the strongest supporting evidence, the majority measuring autism characteristics and problem behaviour. The patchy evidence and limited scope of outcomes measured mean these tools do not constitute a 'recommended battery' for use. In particular, there is little evidence that the identified tools would be good at detecting change in intervention studies. The obvious gaps in available outcome measurement include well-being and participation outcomes for children, and family quality-of-life outcomes, domains particularly valued by our informants (young people with ASD and parents).

CONCLUSIONS: This is the first systematic review of the quality and appropriateness of tools designed to monitor progress and outcomes of young children with ASD. Although it was not possible to recommend fully robust tools at this stage, the review consolidates what is known about the field and will act as a benchmark for future developments. With input from parents and other stakeholders, recommendations are made about priority targets for research.

FUTURE WORK: Priorities include development of a tool to measure child quality of life in ASD, and validation of a potential primary outcome tool for trials of early social communication intervention.

STUDY REGISTRATION: This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42012002223.

FUNDING: The National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment programme.