The host galaxy and late-time evolution of the superluminous supernova PTF12dam

Superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) of Type Ic have a tendency to occur in faint host galaxies which are likely to have low mass and low metallicity. PTF12dam is one of the closest and best-studied superluminous explosions that has a broad and slowly fading light curve similar to SN 2007bi. Here we present new photometry and spectroscopy for PTF12dam from 200-500 d (rest frame) after peak and a detailed analysis of the host galaxy (SDSS J142446.21+461348.6 at z = 0.107). Using deep templates and image subtraction we show that the light curve can be fit with a magnetar model if escape of high-energy gamma rays is taken into account. The full bolometric light curve from -53 to +399 d (with respect to peak) cannot be fit satisfactorily with the pair-instability models. An alternative model of interaction with a dense circumstellar material (CSM) produces a good fit to the data although this requires a very large mass (˜13 M⊙) of hydrogen-free CSM. The host galaxy is a compact dwarf (physical size ˜1.9 kpc) and with Mg = -19.33 ± 0.10, it is the brightest nearby SLSN Ic host discovered so far. The host is a low-mass system (2.8 × 108 M⊙) with a star formation rate (5.0 M⊙ yr-1), which implies a very high specific star formation rate (17.9 Gyr-1). The remarkably strong nebular emission provide detections of the [O III] λ4363 and [O II] λλ7320, 7330auroral lines and an accurate oxygen abundance of 12 + log (O/H) = 8.05 ± 0.09. We show here that they are at the extreme end of the metallicity distribution of dwarf galaxies and propose that low metallicity is a requirement to produce these rare and peculiar SNe.

Progress towards improving chronologies for marine sediment records.

The North Atlantic has played a key role in abrupt climate changes due to the sensitivity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to the location and strength of deep water formation. It is crucial for modelling future climate change to understand the role of the AMOC in the rapid warming and gradual cooling cycles known as Dansgaard-Oescher (DO) events which are recorded in the Greenland ice cores. However, palaeoceanographic research into DO events has been hampered by the uncertainty in timing due largely to the lack of a precise chronological time frame for marine records. While tephrochronology provides links to the Greenland ice core records at a few points, radiocarbon remains the primary dating method for most marine cores. Due to variations in the atmospheric and oceanic 14C concentration, radiocarbon ages must be calibrated to provide calendric ages. The IntCal Working Group provides a global estimate of ocean 14C ages for calibration of marine radiocarbon dates, but the variability of the surface marine reservoir age in the North Atlantic particularly during Heinrich or DO events, makes calibration uncertain. In addition, the current Marine09 radiocarbon calibration beyond around 15 ka BP is largely based on 'tuning' to the Hulu Cave isotope record, so that the timing of events may not be entirely synchronous with the Greenland ice cores. The use of event-stratigraphy and independent chronological markers such as tephra provide the scope to improve marine radiocarbon reservoir age estimates particularly in the North Atlantic where a number of tephra horizons have been identified in both marine sediments and the Greenland ice cores. Quantification of timescale uncertainties is critical but statistical techniques which can take into account the differential dating between events can improve the precision. Such techniques should make it possible to develop specific marine calibration curves for selected regions.

Per-Flow State Management Technique for High-Speed Networks

Flow processing is a fundamental element of stateful traffic classification and it has been recognized as an essential factor for delivering today’s application-aware network operations and security services. The basic function within a flow processing engine is to search and maintain a flow table, create new flow entries if no entry matches and associate each entry with flow states and actions for future queries. Network state information on a per-flow basis must be managed in an efficient way to enable Ethernet frame transmissions at 40 Gbit/s (Gbps) and 100 Gbps in the near future. This paper presents a hardware solution of flow state management for implementing large-scale flow tables on popular computer memories using DDR3 SDRAMs. Working with a dedicated flow lookup table at over 90 million lookups per second, the proposed system is able to manage 512-bit state information at run time.

Architecture as Pedagogy: Alive and Kicking

This workshop draws on an emerging collaborative body of research by Lovett, Morrow and McClean that aims to understand architecture and its processes as a form of pedagogical practice: a civic pedagogy.

Architectural education can be valued not only as a process that delivers architecture-specific skills and knowledges, but also as a process that transforms people into critically active contributors to society. We are keen to examine how and where those skills are developed in architectural education and trace their existence and/or application within practice. We intend to examine whether some architectural and spatial practices are intrinsically pedagogical in their nature and how the level of involvement of clients, users and communities can mimic the project-based learning of architectural education – in particularly in the context of ‘live project learning’

1. This workshop begins with a brief discussion paper from Morrow that sets out the arguments behind why and how architecture can be understood as pedagogy. It will do so by presenting firstly the relationship between architectural practice and pedagogy, drawing out both contemporary and historical examples of architecture and architects acting pedagogically. It will also consider some other forms of creative practice that explicitly frame themselves pedagogically, and focus on participatory approaches in architectural practice that overlap with inclusive and live pedagogies, concluding with a draft and tentative abstracted pedagogical framework for architectural practice.

2. Lovett will examine practices of architectural operation that have a pedagogical approach, or which recognise within themselves an educational subtext/current. He is most interested in a 'liveness' beyond the 'Architectural Education' of university institutions. The presentation will question the scope for both spatial empowerment / agency and a greater understanding and awareness of the value of good design when operating as architects with participant-clients younger than 18, older than 25 or across varied parts of society. Positing that the learning might be greatest when there are no prescribed 'Learning Outcomes' and that such work might depend on risk-taking and playfulness, the presentation will be a curated showcase drawing on his own ongoing work.

Both brief presentations will inform the basis of the workshop’s discussion which hopes to draw on participants views and expereinces to enrich the research process. The intention is that the overall workshop will lead to a call for contributors and respondents to a forthcoming publication on ‘Architecture as Pedagogy’.

Framing Wrongs, Performing Rights in Northern Ireland: Toward a Butlerian Approach to Life in Abortion Strategising

Feminist strategising on abortion has been dominated by a “pro-choice” frame. Increasingly, however, pro-choice discourse is being viewed as inadequate to meet contemporary and complex feminist aims and analyses, in particular due to the individualising ontological framework upon which it appears to be based. The work of Judith Butler is one location where such concerns have been explored and an alternative approach based upon a renewed analysis of the concept of “life” has been asserted. Foregrounding the fundamental precariousness of intersubjective life and opening the socio-political conditions sustaining precarious life to democratic public engagement carries significant implications for feminist strategising for Butler, and envisages a reconceptualisation of debate on abortion. In this article Butler’s work on life will be combined with her theoretical tool of the frame to explore space which may exist within pro-choice strategising to potentially work towards such a renewed approach to life in social debate on abortion. This space may be used to rethink feminist strategising on abortion beyond pro-choice discourse, and presents an accessible starting point from which to do so. In carrying out this analysis insights will be drawn from feminist advocacy and activism in the contingent location of Northern Ireland where recent employment of a health frame and a rights frame demonstrate instances of pro-choice strategising which may be reiterated to shift feminist activism towards more radical engagement with life as a precarious social process demanding critical attention.

From the Right to Life to the Right to Livability: Radically Re-approaching ‘Life’ in Human Rights Politics

This article critically reflects on current mainstream debate on abortion in international human rights discourse and the conception of life underpinning it. The public health focus on access to safe abortion which has dominated this discourse can be detected as committed to a fundamentally liberal idea of bounded and individual subjecthood which mirrors the commitments of the liberal right to life more generally. However, feminist challenges to this frame seeking to advance wider access to reproductive freedoms appear equally underpinned by a liberal conception of life. It is asserted that feminists may offer a more radical challenge to the current impasse in international debate on abortion by engaging with the concept of livability which foregrounds life as an interdependent and conditioned process. The trope of the ‘right to livability’ developed in this article presents a means to reposition the relation between rights and life and facilitate such radical engagement which better attends to the socio-political conditions shaping our interdependent living and being.

Whole genome protein microarrays for serum profiling of immunodominant antigens of Bacillus anthracis

A commercial Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax) whole genome protein microarray has been used to identify immunogenic Anthrax proteins (IAP) using sera from groups of donors with (a) confirmed B. anthracis naturally acquired cutaneous infection, (b) confirmed B. anthracis intravenous drug use-acquired infection, (c) occupational exposure in a wool-sorters factory, (d) humans and rabbits vaccinated with the UK Anthrax protein vaccine and compared to naïve unexposed controls. Anti-IAP responses were observed for both IgG and IgA in the challenged groups; however the anti-IAP IgG response was more evident in the vaccinated group and the anti-IAP IgA response more evident in the B. anthracis-infected groups. Infected individuals appeared somewhat suppressed for their general IgG response, compared with other challenged groups. Immunogenic protein antigens were identified in all groups, some of which were shared between groups whilst others were specific for individual groups. The toxin proteins were immunodominant in all vaccinated, infected or other challenged groups. However, a number of other chromosomally-located and plasmid encoded open reading frame proteins were also recognized by infected or exposed groups in comparison to controls. Some of these antigens e.g., BA4182 are not recognized by vaccinated individuals, suggesting that there are proteins more specifically expressed by live Anthrax spores in vivo that are not currently found in the UK licensed Anthrax Vaccine (AVP). These may perhaps be preferentially expressed during infection and represent expression of alternative pathways in the B. anthracis "infectome." These may make highly attractive candidates for diagnostic and vaccine biomarker development as they may be more specifically associated with the infectious phase of the pathogen. A number of B. anthracis small hypothetical protein targets have been synthesized, tested in mouse immunogenicity studies and validated in parallel using human sera from the same study.

Pre-Radiotherapy Dental Assessment of Head and Neck Oncology Patients: An Audit.

Objectives: Approximately 300 people are diagnosed with Head and Neck cancer annually in Northern Ireland. The management may include treatment by surgery or by chemotherapy and radiotherapy,
or a combination of modalities. Patients whose oral cavity, teeth, salivary glands and jaws that
will be affected by treatment, particularly radiotherapy should have a pre-treatment assessment. This should be done as early as possible to maximise the time available for dental management. However, this can be challenging owing to the complexities of cancer diagnosis, treatment planning and multidisciplinary management. At the Belfast Dental Hospital, a number of patients were referred post- radiotherapy with complications after not having received a pre-treatment assessment. The referrals for pre- treatment dental assessment were also late in patients’ multidisciplinary journey, limiting the time period
for dental input. The purpose of this audit was to examine the time period between dental assessment and commencement of radiotherapy and whether this was an adequate time frame for dental management. This audit will also examine the dental diseases present and the treatments required pre-radiotherapy. Methods: Data for this audit was collected over 4 months in 2012
by analysing the dental charts and referrals of new patients who were referred to and attended the dental head and neck oncology clinic. A standardised referral pro-forma was introduced from September 2013 to improve the referral process.
A re-audit was conducted over 4 months in 2014. Data was collected similarly as previous. The time period between dental assessment and commencement of radiotherapy was examined. The presence of dental disease and subsequent treatments required were also noted.
Results: 63 new patients were examined in the dental head and neck oncology clinic over 4 months in 2012. 48 (76.2%) were examined pre-radiotherapy. The average length of time between dental assessment and radiotherapy commencement was 11 days. A new standardised referral pro-forma was introduced in 2013. In the re-audit, 65 new patients were seen over 4 months in 2014.
60 (92.3%) patients were examined pre-radiotherapy. The average length of time between dental assessment and radiotherapy commencement was 18 days.
Conclusion: Given the high prevalence of pre-existing dental disease amongst head and neck cancer patients, prompt dental assessment and treatment is vital. Efforts aimed at improving the care pathway are on-going through the implementation of a mandatory referral pro-forma and a dedicated assessment clinic.

A large scale model experimental study of a tidal turbine in uniform steady flow

An experimental study measuring the performance and wake characteristics of a 1:10th scale horizontal axis turbine in steady uniform flow conditions is presented in this paper.
Large scale towing tests conducted in a lake were devised to model the performance of the tidal turbine and measure the wake produced. As a simplification of the marine environment, towing the turbine in a lake provides approximately steady, uniform inflow conditions. A 16m long x 6m wide catamaran was constructed for the test programme. This doubled as a towing rig and flow measurement platform, providing a fixed frame of reference for measurements in the wake of a horizontal axis tidal turbine. Velocity mapping was conducted using Acoustic Doppler Velocimeters.
The results indicate varying the inflow speed yielded little difference in the efficiency of the turbine or the wake velocity deficit characteristics provided the same tip speed ratio is used. Increasing the inflow velocity from 0.9 m/s to 1.2 m/s influenced the turbulent wake characteristics more markedly. The results also demonstrate that the flow field in the wake of a horizontal axis tidal turbine is strongly affected by the turbine support structure

Common Themes in Multi-block Structured Quad/Hex Mesh Generation

The automatic generation of structured multi-block quadrilateral (quad) and hexahedral (hex) meshes has been researched for many years without definitive success. The core problem in quad / hex mesh generation is the placement of mesh singularities to give the desired mesh orientation and distribution [1]. It is argued herein that existing approaches (medial axis, paving / plastering, cross / frame fields) are actually alternative views of the same concept. Using the information provided by the different approaches provides additional insight into the problem.

Experimental investigation of thermal inertia properties in hemp-lime concrete walls

Hemp-lime concrete is a sustainable alternative to standard building wall materials, with low associated embodied energy. It exhibits good hygric, acoustic and thermal properties, making it an exciting, sustainable building envelope material. When cast in temporary shuttering around a timber frame, it exhibits lower thermal conductivity than concrete, and consequently achieves low U-values in a primarily mono-material wall construction. Although cast relatively thick hemp-lime walls do not generally achieve the low U-values stipulated in building regulations. However assessment of its thermal performance through evaluation of its resistance to thermal transfer alone, underestimates its true thermal quality. The thermal inertia, or reluctance of the wall to change its temperature when exposed to changing environmental temperatures, also has a significant impact on the thermal quality of the wall, the thermal comfort of the interior space and energy consumption due to space heating. With a focus on energy reduction in buildings, regulations emphasise thermal resistance to heat transfer with only less focus on thermal inertia or storage benefits due to thermal mass. This paper investigates dynamic thermal responsiveness in hemp-lime concrete walls. It reports the influence of thermal conductivity, density and specific heat through analysis of steady state and transient heat transfer, in the walls. A novel hot-box design which isolates the conductive heat flow is used, and compared with tests in standard hot-boxes. Thermal diffusivity and effusivity are evaluated, using experimentally measured conductivity, based on analytical relationships. Experimental results evident that hemp-lime exhibits high thermal inertia. They show the thermal inertia characteristics compensate for any limitations in the thermal resistance of the construction material. When viewed together the thermal resistance and mass characteristics of hemp-lime are appropriate to maintain comfortable thermal indoor conditions and low energy operation.

Genome Expression Profiling-Based Identification and Administration Efficacy of Host-Directed Antimicrobial Drugs against Respiratory Infection by Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae

Therapies that are safe, effective, and not vulnerable to developing resistance are highly desirable to counteract bacterial infections. Host-directed therapeutics is an antimicrobial approach alternative to conventional antibiotics based on perturbing host pathways subverted by pathogens during their life cycle by using host-directed drugs. In this study, we identified and evaluated the efficacy of a panel of host-directed drugs against respiratory infection by nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi). NTHi is an opportunistic pathogen that is an important cause of exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We screened for host genes differentially expressed upon infection by the clinical isolate NTHi375 by analyzing cell whole-genome expression profiling and identified a repertoire of host target candidates that were pharmacologically modulated. Based on the proposed relationship between NTHi intracellular location and persistence, we hypothesized that drugs perturbing host pathways used by NTHi to enter epithelial cells could have antimicrobial potential against NTHi infection. Interfering drugs were tested for their effects on bacterial and cellular viability, on NTHi-epithelial cell interplay, and on mouse pulmonary infection. Glucocorticoids and statins lacked in vitro and/or in vivo efficacy. Conversely, the sirtuin-1 activator resveratrol showed a bactericidal effect against NTHi, and the PDE4 inhibitor rolipram showed therapeutic efficacy by lowering NTHi375 counts intracellularly and in the lungs of infected mice. PDE4 inhibition is currently prescribed in COPD, and resveratrol is an attractive geroprotector for COPD treatment. Together, these results expand our knowledge of NTHi-triggered host subversion and frame the antimicrobial potential of rolipram and resveratrol against NTHi respiratory infection.

A Novel Semi-Automated Method of Tracking Fetal Movements

We have designed software that can â€â€™look’’ at recorded ultrasound sequences. We analyzed fifteen video sequences representing recorded ultrasound scans of nine fetuses. Our method requires a small amount of user labelled pixels for processing the first frame. These initialize GrowCut 1 , a background removal algorithm, which was used for separating the fetus from its surrounding environment (segmentation). For each subsequent frame, user input is no longer necessary as some of the pixels will inherit labels from the previously processed frame. This results in our software’s ability to track movement. Two sonographers rated the results of our computer’s â€vision’ on a scale from 1 (poor fit) to 10 (excellent fit). They assessed tracking accuracy for the entire video as well as segmentation accuracy (the ability to identify fetus from non-fetus) for every 100th processed frame. There was no appreciable deterioration in the software’s ability to track the fetus over time. I

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.

High Performance Real-time Pre-Processing for Fixed-Complexity Sphere Decoder

Pre-processing (PP) of received symbol vector and channel matrices is an essential pre-requisite operation for Sphere Decoder (SD)-based detection of Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) wireless systems. PP is a highly complex operation, but relative to the total SD workload it represents a relatively small fraction of the overall computational cost of detecting an OFDM MIMO frame in standards such as 802.11n. Despite this, real-time PP architectures are highly inefficient, dominating the resource cost of real-time SD architectures. This paper resolves this issue. By reorganising the ordering and QR decomposition sub operations of PP, we describe a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based PP architecture for the Fixed Complexity Sphere Decoder (FSD) applied to 4 × 4 802.11n MIMO which reduces resource cost by 50% as compared to state-of-the-art solutions whilst maintaining real-time performance.