Soiling the seed : microenvironment and epithelial mesenchymal plasticity

In the past decade we have come to appreciate that the microenvironment has the potential for major influence on the cancer cell. An extreme case for this occurs when the cancer cell changes its environment in the context of metastasis, where this may in part underpin the altered biology of cells in metasases. Increasing evidence suggests that changes in the cellular microenvironment contribute to tumourigenesis and metastasis, but the molecular basis of these alterations is not well understood. Reactive stroma provides oncogenic signals to facilitate tumourigenesis and metastasis—co-implantation of normal human epithelial cells in vivo with irradiated, carcinogen treated, or cancer derived fibroblasts leads to the enhancement or formation of malignant tumours.

Discerning the timing and cause of historical mortality events in modern Porites from the Great Barrier Reef

The life history strategies of massive Porites corals make them a valuable resource not only as key providers of reef structure, but also as recorders of past environmental change. Yet recent documented evidence of an unprecedented increase in the frequency of mortality in Porites warrants investigation into the history of mortality and associated drivers. To achieve this, both an accurate chronology and an understanding of the life history strategies of Porites are necessary. Sixty-two individual Uranium–Thorium (U–Th) dates from 50 dead massive Porites colonies from the central inshore region of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) revealed the timing of mortality to have occurred predominantly over two main periods from 1989.2 ± 4.1 to 2001.4 ± 4.1, and from 2006.4 ± 1.8 to 2008.4 ± 2.2 A.D., with a small number of colonies dating earlier. Overall, the peak ages of mortality are significantly correlated with maximum sea-surface temperature anomalies. Despite potential sampling bias, the frequency of mortality increased dramatically post-1980. These observations are similar to the results reported for the Southern South China Sea. High resolution measurements of Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca obtained from a well preserved sample that died in 1994.6 ± 2.3 revealed that the time of death occurred at the peak of sea surface temperatures (SST) during the austral summer. In contrast, Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca analysis in two colonies dated to 2006.9 ± 3.0 and 2008.3 ± 2.0, suggest that both died after the austral winter. An increase in Sr/Ca ratios and the presence of low Mg-calcite cements (as determined by SEM and elemental ratio analysis) in one of the colonies was attributed to stressful conditions that may have persisted for some time prior to mortality. For both colonies, however, the timing of mortality coincides with the 4th and 6th largest flood events reported for the Burdekin River in the past 60 years, implying that factors associated with terrestrial runoff may have been responsible for mortality. Our results show that a combination of U–Th and elemental ratio geochemistry can potentially be used to precisely and accurately determine the timing and season of mortality in modern massive Porites corals. For reefs where long-term monitoring data are absent, the ability to reconstruct historical events in coral communities may prove useful to reef managers by providing some baseline knowledge on disturbance history and associated drivers.

The unfinished revolution : what is missing from the E&P industry’s move to “big data”

One cannot help but be impressed by the inroads that digital oilfield technologies have made into the exploration and production (E&P) industry in the past decade. Today’s production systems can be monitored by “smart” sensors that allow engineers to observe almost any aspect of performance in real time. Our understanding of how reservoirs are behaving has improved considerably since the dawn of this revolution, and the industry has been able to move away from point answers to more holistic “big picture” integrated solutions. Indeed, the industry has already reaped the rewards of many of these kinds of investments. Many billions of dollars of value have been delivered by this heightened awareness of what is going on within our assets and the world around them (Van Den Berg et al. 2010).

The 3rd Knowledge Cities World Summit Proceedings

FROM KCWS 2010 Ch airs and Summit Proceeding Ed ito rs ‘Knowledge’ is a resource, which relies on the past for a better future. In the 21st century, more than ever before, cities around the world depend on the knowledge of their citizens, their institutions and their firms and enterprises. The knowledge image, the human competence and the reputation of their public and private institutions and corporations profiles a city. It attracts investment, qualified labour and professionals, as well as students and researchers. And it creates local life spaces and professional milieus, which offer the quality of life to the citizens that are seeking to cope with the challenges of modern life in a competitive world. Integrating knowledge-based development in urban strategies and policies, beyond the provision of schools and locations for higher education, has become a new ambitious arena of city politics. Coming from theory to practice, and bringing together the manifold knowledge stakeholders in a city and preparing joint visions for the knowledge city is a new challenge for city managers, urban planners and leaders of the civic society . It requires visionary power, creativity, holistic thinking, the willingness to cooperate with all groups of the local civil society, and the capability to moderate communication processes to overcome conflicts and to develop joint action for a sustainable future. This timely Melbourne 2010 – The Third Knowledge City World Summit makes an important reminder that ‘knowledge’ is the key notion in the 21st Century development. Considering this notion, the summit aims to shed light on the multi-faceted dimensions and various scales of building the ‘knowledge city’ and on ‘knowledge-based development’ paradigms. At this summit, the theoretical and practical maturing of knowledge-based development paradigms will be advanced through the interplay between the world’s leading academic’s theories and the practical models and strategies of practitioners’ and policy makers’ drawn from around the world. As chairs of The Melbourne 2010 Summit, we have compiled this summit proceeding in order to disseminate the knowledge generated and shared in Melbourne with the wider research, governance, and practice communities. The papers in the proceedings reflect the broad range of contributions to the summit. They report on recent developments in planning and managing knowledge cities and ICT infrastructure, they assess the role of knowledge institutions in regional innovation systems and of the intellectual capital of cities and regions; they describe the evolution of knowledge-based approaches to urban development in differing cultural environments; they finally bridge the discourse on the knowledge city to other urban development paradigms such as the creative city, the ubiquitous city or the compact city. The diversity of papers presented shows how different scholars from planning cultures around the world interpret the knowledge dimension in urban and regional development. All papers of this proceeding have gone through a double-blind peer review process and been reviewed by our summit editorial review and advisory board members. We cordially thank the members of the Summit Proceeding Editorial Review and Advisory Board for their diligent work in the review of the papers. We hope the papers in this proceeding will inspire and make a significant contribution to the research, governance, and practice circles.