Various government departments, together with volunteers today conducted a shoreline clean-up along the remote rocky beach in Kung Pui Wan, Tap Mun to remove two tonnes of refuse.

The Environmental Protection Department, the Food & Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) and the Marine Department participated in the operation.

The Inter-departmental Working Group on Marine Environmental Management said the beach, facing the windy and wavy sea, is not easily accessible by working vessels and the rough terrain connecting the rocky beach also increases the difficulty of routine cleaning work.

FEHD cleaners along with the volunteers packed the refuse and delivered it on foot to a nearby pier for temporary storage. FEHD staff then took the refuse to the Marine Department's collection vessel in batches for onward delivery to a rubbish collection point for centralised handling.

To minimise the risk of spreading COVID-19, the operation was carried out in groups of no more than four participants each. They maintained an appropriate distance from each other and paid heed to personal protection, including wearing masks.

The working group thanked the volunteers for taking part and called on the public to keep the countryside and shoreline clean during outings.

For information on clean shorelines, visit the Clean Shorelines facebook and Instagram pages.

(Brown University) A new study shows that coastal sea ice used by Arctic residents for hunting and fishing will be reduced as the planet warms.

Dorte B. Bekker-Jensen
Apr 1, 2020; 19:716-729
Technological Innovation and Resources

State-of-the-art proteomics-grade mass spectrometers can measure peptide precursors and their fragments with ppm mass accuracy at sequencing speeds of tens of peptides per second with attomolar sensitivity. Here we describe a compact and robust quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometer equipped with a front-end High Field Asymmetric Waveform Ion Mobility Spectrometry (FAIMS) Interface. The performance of the Orbitrap Exploris 480 mass spectrometer is evaluated in data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and data-independent acquisition (DIA) modes in combination with FAIMS. We demonstrate that different compensation voltages (CVs) for FAIMS are optimal for DDA and DIA, respectively. Combining DIA with FAIMS using single CVs, the instrument surpasses 2500 peptides identified per minute. This enables quantification of >5000 proteins with short online LC gradients delivered by the Evosep One LC system allowing acquisition of 60 samples per day. The raw sensitivity of the instrument is evaluated by analyzing 5 ng of a HeLa digest from which >1000 proteins were reproducibly identified with 5 min LC gradients using DIA-FAIMS. To demonstrate the versatility of the instrument, we recorded an organ-wide map of proteome expression across 12 rat tissues quantified by tandem mass tags and label-free quantification using DIA with FAIMS to a depth of >10,000 proteins.

1 June 2008 , Number 6

Dmitri Medvedev’s appearance at the G8 Summit in Hokkaido will be his first step on the wide international stage that Vladimir Putin occupied with such a swagger. Expectations of change will be high, but they are likely to be unrealistic at such an early stage in Medvedev’s presidency. Putin’s foreign policy legacy is a heavy one and he has made it clear that Medvedev will be no soft touch, but will his approach ultimately be more productive?

1 July 2008 , Number 3

Ahead of the French holiday rush for relaxation in warm waters, President Nicolas Sarkozy has flung himself into the Mediterranean policy pool. Not content with existing arrangements, plans and processes for dealing with those on the other shore, the President has built his very own scheme, now adopted by the European Union. But the tides have not been altogether kind.

Optic atrophy 1 (OPA1) is a dynamin protein that mediates mitochondrial fusion at the inner membrane. OPA1 is also necessary for maintaining the cristae and thus essential for supporting cellular energetics. OPA1 exists as membrane-anchored long form (L-OPA1) and short form (S-OPA1) that lacks the transmembrane region and is generated by cleavage of L-OPA1. Mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular stresses activate the inner membrane–associated zinc metallopeptidase OMA1 that cleaves L-OPA1, causing S-OPA1 accumulation. The prevailing notion has been that L-OPA1 is the functional form, whereas S-OPA1 is an inactive cleavage product in mammals, and that stress-induced OPA1 cleavage causes mitochondrial fragmentation and sensitizes cells to death. However, S-OPA1 contains all functional domains of dynamin proteins, suggesting that it has a physiological role. Indeed, we recently demonstrated that S-OPA1 can maintain cristae and energetics through its GTPase activity, despite lacking fusion activity. Here, applying oxidant insult that induces OPA1 cleavage, we show that cells unable to generate S-OPA1 are more sensitive to this stress under obligatory respiratory conditions, leading to necrotic death. These findings indicate that L-OPA1 and S-OPA1 differ in maintaining mitochondrial function. Mechanistically, we found that cells that exclusively express L-OPA1 generate more superoxide and are more sensitive to Ca2+-induced mitochondrial permeability transition, suggesting that S-OPA1, and not L-OPA1, protects against cellular stress. Importantly, silencing of OMA1 expression increased oxidant-induced cell death, indicating that stress-induced OPA1 cleavage supports cell survival. Our findings suggest that S-OPA1 generation by OPA1 cleavage is a survival mechanism in stressed cells.

There is a three-minute video about MathSciNet now available online on Vimeo. It is also available as part of a blog post from EBSCO, which mostly discusses Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month and the really neat book Living Proof: Stories … Continue reading →

This week we saw the release of the much awaited Yellowhammer documents from the government, documents which outline some of the risks involved with Britain’s sudden departure from the EU. The documents themselves outline that there are risks to the supply of medicines - but do not set out the detail of how those risks have been mitigated, and...

WITH THE productive sector experiencing a shortage of foreign exchange for the past two months, the Jamaican Manufacturers and Exporters Association, JMEA, says it has appealed to the Bank of Jamaica, BOJ, for direct access to US currency for three...

China has been Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009, and as commerce and investment have increased, so have flows of people in both directions. With an estimated 1 million to 2 million Chinese migrants across Africa, some countries have relaxed their short-term visa requirements in hopes of facilitating cultural and business exchanges. High levels of Chinese investment do not, however, correlate with more liberal visa policies, as this article explores.

Association staff and members of the ADA Advisory Task Force on Dental Practice Recovery are aware and working diligently in addressing members’ concerns over the limited availability of certain personal protective equipment items.

An unexpected rise in U.S. crude inventories offset fears of potential risk to Venezuelan crude supply because of possible U.S. sanctions.

A 29 years old female presented to us in the metabolic clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) on account of a week history of easy fatigability, weakness, and lower extremity muscle cramps associated with numbness and tingling sensation in the peri-oral area, fingers and toes. Two weeks prior to the onset of her presenting symptoms, she had visited a local pharmaceutical shop on account of a distressing epigastric discomfort and was subsequently placed on daily oral omeprazole 20mg daily for a month by a pharmacist. She had been on the omeprazole medication for two weeks before her present symptoms manifested. Her past medical history was not suggestive of hypoparathyroidism nor pancreatitis. She was married with three children and has an uneventful family, social and obstetric histories. On examination, she was a healthy well-oriented young female with positive Trousseau’s, Chvostek’s and epigastric tenderness signs. Further Laboratory evaluation revealed she had low plasma magnesium, low plasma albumin-corrected calcium, and low serum parathyroid hormone levels, while other laboratory parameters were essentially normal. A diagnosis of omeprazole-induced electrolyte disorders (hypomagnesaemia and hypocalcaemia) associated with hypoparathyroidism was made following the review of her clinical examination and laboratory findings. She was subsequently managed with oral magnesium supplements following the withdrawal of the omeprazole medication (replaced with oral ranitidine), monitored weekly, and full recovery was achieved after three weeks.

India is the world's largest source for immigrant physicians, and for Indian-trained doctors and nurses the allure of working abroad is strong despite an acute domestic shortage of health-care workers. Against this pull, the Indian government has enacted a number of policies to limit and regulate the emigration of health-care professionals, though these have been more ad hoc in nature and not part of a fully realized strategy.

A modern flavour twist on an old favourite. Enjoy!

Delicious steak with chimmi churri sauce

This recipe features on Foodie Tuesday, a weekly segment on 774 Drive at 3.30PM. It was shared by Phillippa Grogan, adapted from Phillippa's Home Baking written with Richard Cornish.

Despite a $6,100 teacher pay raise this spring, school districts report that they're starting the new academic year with nearly 500 teaching vacancies.

As teachers across the country grapple with the challenges that come with remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic, an elementary school teacher on Maryland’s Eastern Shore faces the added challenge of a lack of internet access at home. 

A suburban Indianapolis district is signing up teachers to drive school buses before and after their usual time in the classroom.

London : Smith, Elder, 1879.

Edinburgh : J. Dunn, 1826.

Edinburgh : W.P. Nimmo, [1867]

Idaho lawmakers were upset to learn that nearly $17 million dedicated to giving teachers in leadership positions and assistants bonuses hasn't been distributed.

The Mississippi education department will be the first to operate a teacher residency program, which aims to increase retention and diversity in the profession.

London (6 Pall Mall) : Messrs Moon, Boys & Graves ; Manchester : J.C. Grundy, July 2 1832.

London (Gt. Newport Street) : Published by John P. Thompson, Jan.y 1 1802.

A federal investigation of Chicago's failures to respond to sexual violence in schools raises troubling questions for school districts nationwide.

The very first case of corona-virus illness was recorded on 30 January 2020, in India and the number of infected cases, including the death toll, continues to rise. In this paper, we present short-term forecasts of COVID-19 for 28 Indian states and five union territories using real-time data from 30 January to 21 April 2020. Applying Holt's second-order exponential smoothing method and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, we generate 10-day ahead forecasts of the likely number of infected cases and deaths in India for 22 April to 1 May 2020. Our results show that the number of cumulative cases in India will rise to 36335.63 [PI 95% (30884.56, 42918.87)], concurrently the number of deaths may increase to 1099.38 [PI 95% (959.77, 1553.76)] by 1 May 2020. Further, we have divided the country into severity zones based on the cumulative cases. According to this analysis, Maharashtra is likely to be the most affected states with around 9787.24 [PI 95% (6949.81, 13757.06)] cumulative cases by 1 May 2020. However, Kerala and Karnataka are likely to shift from the red zone (i.e. highly affected) to the lesser affected region. On the other hand, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh will move to the red zone. These results mark the states where lockdown by 3 May 2020, can be loosened.

Ahmed Aziz Ezzat, Mikyoung Jun, Yu Ding.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 13, Number 3, 1484--1510.

Abstract:
Accurate short-term forecasts are indispensable for the integration of wind energy in power grids. On a wind farm, local wind conditions exhibit sizeable variations at a fine temporal resolution. Existing statistical models may capture the in-sample variations in wind behavior, but are often shortsighted to those occurring in the near future, that is, in the forecast horizon. The calibrated regime-switching method proposed in this paper introduces an action of regime dependent calibration on the predictand (here the wind speed variable), which helps correct the bias resulting from out-of-sample variations in wind behavior. This is achieved by modeling the calibration as a function of two elements: the wind regime at the time of the forecast (and the calibration is therefore regime dependent), and the runlength, which is the time elapsed since the last observed regime change. In addition to regime-switching dynamics, the proposed model also accounts for other features of wind fields: spatio-temporal dependencies, transport effect of wind and nonstationarity. Using one year of turbine-specific wind data, we show that the calibrated regime-switching method can offer a wide margin of improvement over existing forecasting methods in terms of both wind speed and power.

As the Montreal area continues to be the Canadian epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak, anyone showing symptoms of the virus is being asked to get tested.

There has been a marked change in volatility levels in the FX markets in recent weeks. At the start of...

The post Why FX Traders Are Looking at the Short and Long Term appeared first on OpenMarkets.

OPP are investigating a fatal crash that took place in Lakeshore Thursday night.

Mary Ellen Dalgleish, a poultry expert at Purity Feeds in Kamloops, B.C., believes the increased interest in backyard chickens follows concerns about food security when consumers saw grocery store shelves cleared out early in the COVID-19 pandemic in B.C.

After many challenges, the vision for a community centre becomes a reality.

Hope of Israel summer outreach team experiences opposition in Tiberius. However, it doesn't keep them from worshipping and sharing about Jesus.

Read about how a short term missions trip to a Muslim country changed a US pastor's life! Click to read more!

Veracruz, Mexico :: An overview of the various initiatives crewmembers have dispersed to while Logos Hope undergoes her annual maintenance.

Short Term Mission participants bring inspiration to Ukraine's churches for ministry amongst the aged and internally displaced people.

Within just a few weeks, the corona crisis has led to a collapse of over 90 percent of flight operations in the capital region. In light of this dramatic situation, the Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH (FBB) Executive Board concluded a works agreement ...