Tech

Will you ever be able to charge your mobile device, car and even clothing with flexible solar cells? Researchers at Aalto University in Finland and Université de Montréal are studying whether the now-experimental technology could someday be mass-produced and commercialized, and some of the issues that have to be resolved, including the environmental impact.

For the electronic cells to be viable on an industrial scale, they would have to be made through roll-to-roll processing - that is, be churned out on rolls of flexible plastic or metal foil, the researchers say. Ink-jet printing would allow precise insertion of the dye and electrolyte components.

The problem of encapsulation

The encapsulation of a flexible cell also poses a major challenge. If encapsulation is insufficient, liquid electrolyte could leak out of the cell or impurities could seep in, considerably reducing the lifetime of the device.

'Flexible solar cells are usually made on metals or plastics, and both come with perils: a metal may corrode, and plastics may allow water and other impurities to permeate," said Dr. Kati Miettunen, a project manager at Aalto's Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems.

New innovations will also be needed to join the substrates together, since conventional techniques such as glass-frit bonding now used in flat-panel displays and other devices, are unsuitable for flexible cells.

The lifetime of devices as an issue

"Another prerequisite for commercialization is making the lifetime of devices adequate in relation to the energy that is embedded in the fabrication of the decices, so that the solar cells won't degrade before they have produced more energy than was used for making them," adds Jaana Vapaavuori, the new assistant professor of the chemistry department of Université de Montréal.

New discoveries using biomaterials, or a hybrid material with wood pulp as substrates for the cells, could pave the way forward, said Miettunen, who is working with UdeM's department of chemistry in her research. These materials' natural ability to filter out impurities would work well for solar cells.

In ethnically alike communities where poverty levels run high, anti-Muslim internet searches are strongly associated with pro-ISIS searches, according to a new analysis. This pattern, say the authors, suggests that counterterrorism policies targeting Muslims may do the opposite of what they intend, making these communities even more vulnerable to radicalization. Although the causal pathways of radicalization need further exploration, this study's results have important implications for the research of terrorism, ethnic discrimination, counterterrorism and immigration policies. The U.S. and Europe have recently experienced both an increase in terrorist attacks by first- and second-generation immigrants, and a parallel increase in anti-Muslim sentiment in these regions. Drivers of this prejudice have been difficult to determine, as studies that attempt to examine ethnic discrimination's influence on radicalism face many challenges; for example, would-be terrorists or people with anti-Muslim views are not likely to categorize themselves as such in research settings. In this new study, Christopher A. Bail and colleagues examined relevant internet search phrases on Google and other search engines - such as "How to join ISIS" - in 3,099 U.S. counties between 2014 and 2016. They used statistical models that control for various community-level factors - including population size, poverty, unemployment, community ethnic homogeneity, to name some - associated with radicalization and found that the level of anti-Muslim searches is the strongest predictor of subsequent pro-ISIS searches, followed by ethnic homogeneity, poverty rate and proportion of foreign-born residents. Although Bail et al. suggest future studies into the causal pathway are necessary, these findings shed new light on the interaction between anti-Muslim and pro-ISIS sentiment in western nations.

One of the main risk factors for non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), the most common cancer worldwide, is solar ultraviolet radiation. A new Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology study has found that different outdoor professions carry different risks for NMSC.

In the study of 563 participants (47% women) consisting of 348 outdoor workers (39% farmer, 35% gardener, 26% mountain guides) and 215 indoor workers, NMSC was diagnosed in 33.3% of mountain guides, 27.4% of farmers, 19.5% of gardeners and in 5.6% of indoor workers.

Significant differences were seen between the outdoor professions with mountain guides at the highest risk. Substantial differences between the professions were also seen in skin cancer screening rates (indoor worker 61.4%, mountain guides 57.8%, farmers 31.9%, gardeners 27.6%), daily ultraviolet radiation exposure during work, and protective behavior such as sunscreen use during work.

The findings suggest that tailoring prevention efforts to different professions based on their individual needs could help lower the global burden of NMSC.

"Altitude and number of hours working outside seem to make the difference," said lead author Dr. Alexander Zink, of the Technical University of Munich, in Germany. "Adjust your sun protection accordingly!"

A key recommendation in a new Canadian guideline on managing chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) is to screen all people born between 1945 and 1975 for the disease, a departure from previous guidelines. The guideline, which contains comprehensive recommendations for diagnosing and managing the disease in diverse patient populations, is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"The treatment recommendations in this guideline update are markedly changed from the previous Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver treatment guidelines because of multiple advances in the field since their publication," write Drs. Jordan Feld and Hemant Shah, Toronto Centre for Liver Disease and University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, with coauthors.

Chronic HCV is a major public health problem in Canada with serious health effects leading to premature death. In 2013, about 252 000 Canadians were infected with HCV. People born between 1945 and 1975 have the highest rates of HCV, although an estimated 70% of this group have not been tested.

The guideline, created by the Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver, is aimed at physicians and other health care professionals to help them manage adult patients with chronic HCV infection. "Simplification of treatment regimens and better tolerability allows for expansion of the treater pool to primary care providers in Canada," notes Hemant Shah. The guideline also contains quick-reference boxes and tables that describe who to test, suggested pre-HCV treatment workup, a list of Health Canada-approved direct-acting antivirals and recommended regimens for patients.

It differs significantly from a recent guideline from the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care published in April 2017, which recommended against screening people who are not at high-risk of infection. However, the guideline is broadly consistent with those from other societies in Europe and the United States.

The authors recommend birth cohort screening for people born between 1945 and 1975 based on high rates of HCV in this group, evidence showing cost-effectiveness of detection and recent lower prices for HCV therapy in Canada that make treating HCV less expensive than in the past. In most provinces and territories in Canada, every infected person can now access therapy for Hepatitis C.

"We advocate for screening this baby boomer cohort because HCV prevalence is highest in this age group (1.55%), accounting for an estimated 63% of all HCV infections in Canada. Between 45% and 70% of Canadians infected with HCV are unaware they have the disease, which can lead to liver disease and death. It seems evident that the current policy of screening based on risk factors has not worked," say the authors.

In a related commentary http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.170931, Drs. Jawad Ahmad and James Crismale, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, write "The updated Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver guideline takes an important step in continuing the fight against HCV in Canada, expanding screening indications to the baby boomer cohort and recommending curative therapy to all individuals affected by HCV."

University of Wyoming researchers are shedding light on a rare aquatic beetle native only to central Wyoming.

Lusha Tronstad, lead invertebrate zoologist with the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database, a service and research unit housed at UW, says the narrow-footed Hygrotus diving beetle has been petitioned for Endangered Species Act listing three times in the past 11 years by Wild Earth Guardians, an activist group.

"We have no idea how many there are," Tronstad says of the aquatic beetle she has studied since 2010. "We do know they have been found in 12 locations in central Wyoming and nowhere else in the world."

Tronstad was lead author of a paper, titled "Using Species Distribution Models to Guide Field Surveys for an Apparently Rare Aquatic Beetle," that was published June 4 (today) in the online version of the Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management and is expected to be in print later this month. The journal publishes manuscripts containing information from original research that contributes to basic wildlife science. Topics include investigations into the biology and ecology of wildlife and their habitats that have direct or indirect implications for wildlife management and conservation.

Kelsey Brown, a graduate student in UW's Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, and Mark Andersen, information systems and services coordinator for the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database, were co-authors of the paper.

Andersen created species distribution models, using such variables as how much sagebrush cover was available; soil conductivity, or how salty the soil is; air temperatures; and depth of groundwater at the sites.

"We used thesis models to predict suitable habitat for the beetles," Tronstad says. "Using model results, we surveyed new sites across the state and discovered the beetle at one new location."

This aquatic beetle was first discovered by Hugh Leech, a beetle expert, in 1964. Leech was driving along old Highway 85 near Midwest, according to Tronstad.

"He stopped and sampled Dugout Creek. Voila. He discovered a new species and published his work in 1966," Tronstad says.

The known range of the diving beetle, which also can fly, is in central Wyoming, in the Powder River Basin and one site in the Wind River Basin. A site near Kaycee is the newest location where these insects have been discovered. The sites are small, intermittent streams with disconnected pools and contain high concentrations of salt. These streams are in shortgrass prairie ecosystems that receive less than 400 millimeters of precipitation each year, much of which is snow during spring.

Roughly 2.5 millimeters long, they are predators, feeding on mayflies, midges and other types of insects. Males are distinguished by large biceps on their front legs. They hibernate in the winter and reproduce during the summer, says Tronstad, who has conducted annual surveys of eight of the 12 known sites since 2010.

Aquatic beetles were collected in 2010, 2011 and 2012 to estimate the current distribution of the diving beetle in Wyoming, Tronstad says. Three streams -- Dugout Creek, Dead Horse Creek and two locations in Cloud Creek -- in the Powder River Basin were surveyed in July 2010. Tronstad says the group monitored statewide in 2011 and 2012. The group visited 511 sites and collected invertebrates from 246 sites over two summers.

"I usually walk up and down the streams," Tronstad says of her summer research routine. "I sometimes find one stream where the beetle is living or a couple of streams."

And, how do these beetles survive in these streams, which have a high concentration of salt?

"My guess is they can outcompete other invertebrates in these harsh, intermittent streams because they're very, very salty," Tronstad surmises. "The salts in the water make it difficult for other invertebrates to survive. Salt dehydrates. We think they have special mechanisms to deal with the salt."

Models created predicted the diving beetles were more likely to be found in intermittent streams with a gentle gradient; shallow water table; variable precipitation patterns; high soil electrical conductivity; and in the warmest places in Wyoming.

"These streams will dry up into puddles during the summer," she explains. "If we didn't have any shallow groundwater in these intermittent streams, there probably wouldn't be any habitat for them."

Results suggest that maintaining the hydrologic integrity of prairie streams in Wyoming is vital to the conservation of the diving beetle, the paper says.

"What I will be doing next is looking at these finer variables to find out what is limiting their distribution," Tronstad says. "I will be collecting information on cattle grazing and oil and gas, and how that might affect the sites."

Researchers from North Carolina State University have created a new online service - ChemMaps - that allows users to interactively navigate the chemical space of over 8,000 drugs and 47,000 environmental compounds in 3D and real time. ChemMaps is designed to be a central resource for students and researchers who want to easily visualize and study complicated sets of chemical structures. The first release of the free-to-use website is available at http://www.chemmaps.com.

"The premise for ChemMaps was to make it the Google Maps of drugs," says Denis Fourches, assistant professor of chemistry at NC State. "It allows anyone using a computer or a tablet to easily browse and navigate the chemical space of marketed drugs in a 3D environment. We really wanted to make the graphic interface in ChemMaps relevant for a student or for a specialist in medicinal chemistry."

With ChemMaps, the chemicals look like stars - points of light scattered across the screen. Each star, or compound, is positioned in relationship to the others within the complex chemical space based on their structural properties. When a user clicks on a particular compound-star, several key characteristics of that chemical are displayed: its systematic name, brand name, chemical structure, medical indication, external identifiers, and other physical chemical properties.

Currently, there are two main maps available. The DrugMap includes around 8,000 drugs (marketed, in development and withdrawn) and was prepared from the DrugBank database. The environmental map, or EnvMap, includes over 47,000 compounds (such as pesticides or flame retardants) of relevance for the National Institute of Environmental Health Studies (NIEHS) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was prepared from the Tox21, Toxcast, and other NIEHS databases.

The researchers plan to add features over time, including the ability for collaborators and companies to visualize and project proprietary sets of chemicals onto the ChemMaps. They also plan to make the maps even more interactive, easy to manipulate, and compatible with augmented and virtual reality devices.

"This is the first tool in the public domain that allows anyone, particularly non-experts in cheminformatics, to easily, visually and quickly access all this complex chemistry information in one place," Fourches says. "This tool could help researchers better understand the chemical neighborhood of a particular compound. In fact, this is critical for drug repurposing or chemical risk assessment."

The research appears in Bioinformatics. Dr. Alex Borrel, former NC State postdoctoral fellow currently at the NIEHS and first author of the paper, created the program. Fourches conceived ChemMaps and is corresponding author. Dr. Nicole Kleinstreuer, computational biologist at the NIEHS, also contributed to the work.

How do you put a 13-ton hat on a giant statue? That's what a team of researchers is trying to figure out with their study of Easter Island statues and the red hats that sit atop some of them.

"Lots of people have come up with ideas, but we are the first to come up with an idea that uses archaeological evidence," said Sean W. Hixon, graduate student in anthropology, Penn State.

Rapa Nui --Easter Island, Chile -- sits in the Southern Pacific Ocean more than 2,000 miles from Chile in South America. The island is about 15 miles long and 7.6 miles wide at its widest with an area of about 63 square miles. According to the researchers, the island was first inhabited in the 13th century by Polynesian travelers.

The statues, carved from volcanic tuff, came from one quarry on the island, while the hats, made of red scoria, came from a different quarry 7.5 miles away on the other side of the island.

Previous research by Carl P. Lipo, professor of anthropology, Binghamton University, and Terry Hunt, professor of anthropology and dean of the Honors College, University of Arizona, determined that the statues, which can be up to 33 feet tall and weigh 81 tons, were moved into place along well-prepared roads using a walking/rocking motion, similar to the way a refrigerator is moved.

"The statues were moved in a fashion using simple physics-based processes in a way that was elegant and remarkably effective," said Lipo.
Not all statues made it to their final locations, and the fallen and/or broken ones showed that, to move them, the statues were carved so they leaned forward and were later leveled off for final placement.

The hats, with diameters up to 6.5 feet and weighing 13 tons, might have been rolled across the island, but once they arrived at their intended statues, they still needed to be lifted onto the statues' heads. The islanders probably carved the hats cylindrically and rolled them to the statues before further carving the hats to attain the final shapes, which vary from cylindrical to conical and which usually have a smaller cylindrical projection on the top. Chips of red scoria are found in the platform of some of the statue hat combinations.

"We were interested in figuring out the method of hat transport and placement of the hats that best agrees with the archaeological record," said Hixon.

The researchers took multiple photographs of many Rapa Nui hats to see what attributes of the hats were the same throughout. Using photogrammetry and 3-D imaging, they created images of the hats with all their details.

"We assumed they were all transported and placed in the same way," said Hixon. "So we looked for features that were the same on all the hats and all the statues."

The only features they found the same were indentations at the bases of the hats, and these indentations fit the tops of the statues' heads. If the hats had been slid in place on top of the statues, then the soft stone ridges on the margin of the indentations would have been destroyed. So the islanders must have used some other method.

Previous researchers suggested that the statues and the hats were united before they were lifted in place, but the remnants of broken or abandoned statues, and other evidence for walking the statues, indicates this was not the approach used and that the hats were most likely raised to the top of standing statues.

Many of the hats left around the island are much larger than those placed on statues.

"The best explanation for the transport of the pukao (hats) from the quarry is by rolling the raw material to the location of the moai (statues)," said Lipo. "Once at the moai, the pukao were rolled up large ramps to the top of a standing statue using a parbuckling technique."
Parbuckling is a simple and efficient technique for rolling objects and is often used to right ships that have capsized. The center of a long rope is fixed to the top of a ramp and the two trailing ends are wrapped around the cylinder to be moved. The rope ends are then brought to the top where workers pull on the ropes to move the cylinder up the ramp.

Besides reducing the force needed to move the hats, this arrangement also makes it easier to stabilize the hat on the trip up because the hat typically will not roll back down the slope. The researchers report in the current issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, that 15 or fewer workers could move the largest preform hats up the ramps.

Once the hat was at the top of the ramp, it could not simply be pushed into place because of the ridges on the margin of the hat base indentation. Rather, the researchers believe that the hats were tipped up onto the statues.

First the hat would be modified to its final form, some including a second, smaller cylindrical piece on top.

The hats could be rotated 90 degrees and then levered up with small wooden levers to sit on the statue tops, or the ramp could be slightly to the side, so that rotation in the small space at the top of the ramp would be unnecessary. Then the hat would simply be levered and pivoted on edge and into place.

The ramps were then disassembled and became the wings of the platform surrounding the statues.

"This is the first time anyone has systematically explored the evidence for how the giant hats were placed on the top of the heads of the massive statues of Easter Island," said Lipo. "Our work combines cutting-edge 3-D modeling with artifact analysis and models drawn from physics to arrive at the best answer."

Disgust has long been recognised as an emotion which evolved to help our ancestors avoid infection, but now researchers have been able to show the human disgust system is likely to be structured around the people, practices and objects that pose disease risk.

This is the first time researchers have used the perspective of disease to break the emotion of disgust into its component parts, and identify six common categories triggering disgust - the others being skin conditions such as having lesions or boils, food that is rotting or has gone off and having an atypical appearance such as deformity.

The researchers say these findings could help to target public health messaging, for example to encourage handwashing with soap or to counter the stigma associated with sickness.

The study, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), surveyed more than 2,500 people online, listing 75 potentially 'disgusting' scenarios they might encounter, ranging from people with obvious signs of infection, pus-filled skin lesions and objects teeming with insects, to listening to sneezes and defecation in the open. Participants were asked to rate the strength of their disgust response to each scenario on a scale ranging from 'no disgust' to 'extreme disgust'.

Of all the scenarios presented, infected wounds producing pus were rated as the most disgusting. The violation of hygiene norms - such as having bad body odour, was also found to be particularly disgusting.

By analysing participants' responses, researchers were able to identify the six common categories of disgust, which each relate to regularly occurring types of infectious disease threat in our ancestral past. Historically for example, eating rotting food could have led to diseases like cholera, close contact with unhygienic people could have transmitted leprosy, promiscuous sexual practices could have put an individual at risk of syphilis and contact with open wounds could have led to the plague or smallpox infection.

The results confirm the 'parasite avoidance theory', in which disgust evolved in animals, encouraging them to adopt behaviours to reduce the risk of infection. This behaviour is replicated in humans where disgust signals us to act in specific ways, which minimise the risk of catching diseases.

Professor Val Curtis, senior author at LSHTM said: "Although we knew the emotion of disgust was good for us, here we've been able to build on that, showing that disgust is structured, recognising and responding to infection threats to protect us.

"This type of disease avoidance behaviour is increasingly evident in animals, and so leads us to believe it is evolutionarily very ancient.

"Increasing our understanding of disgust like this could provide new insights into the mechanisms of disease avoidance behaviour, and help us develop new methods to keep our environments, fellow animals and ourselves healthy."

Interestingly, the survey results showed that there were gender differences in reactions to the disgusting scenarios that were presented, with women rating every category more disgusting than men. This is consistent with the fact that men are known to indulge in riskier behaviour than women, on average[1]. The categories women in the study found most disgusting were risky sexual behaviour and animals carrying disease.

Before the study, the team predicted that types of disgust would correspond directly to categories of disease threat. However, they found that the types of disgust in the brain were more closely linked to the actions that people need to take to avoid disease - for example by not touching oozing skin lesions or approaching people with bad body odour. This corresponds to an evolutionary view of the emotions which are for action; emotions make us do things that put us in a better state with respect to our survival and reproduction.

Micheal de Barra, who co-led the research at LSHTM and now lectures Psychology at Brunel University London, said: "Although we only really came to understand how diseases transmit in the 19th century, it's clear from these results that people have an intuitive sense of what to avoid in their environment. Our long coevolution with disease has 'wired in' this intuitive sense of what can cause infection."

Researchers say the findings could be used to develop instruments for measuring disgust, to investigate how disgust might vary across cultures and to understand how moral disgust, for example, relates to disease disgust.

CHICAGO - In an international Phase II trial led by researchers at The University of Texas
MD Anderson Cancer Center, treatment with the oral FGFR inhibitor erdafitinib (ERDA) was well-tolerated and achieved a robust response for patients with metastatic urothelial, or urinary tract, cancers harboring mutations in the FGFR3 gene.

The targeted therapy also appeared effective in a subset of patients for whom immunotherapy had previously failed, suggesting ERDA may provide benefit for patients without further treatment options. The results, presented today at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting by principal investigator Arlene Siefker-Radtke, M.D., professor of Genitourinary Medical Oncology, also were granted the "Best of ASCO" designation.

"Given the limited treatment options for urothelial cancer, we still have a long way to go to benefit our patients. Having a therapy with a response rate around 40 percent, with the convenience of being an oral medication, certainly fits an unmet need," said Siefker-Radtke.

Urothelial cancers, which account for the vast majority of bladder cancers, arise in the urothelial cells that line the inside of the bladder, ureter and urethra. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 81,000 cases of bladder cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, with more than 17,000 deaths from the disease.

For several decades, standard of care for urothelial cancers has been chemotherapy with a cisplatin-based regimen, but five new checkpoint blockade inhibitors have been approved in recent years, explained Siefker-Radtke. However, the overall response (OR) rate, defined as percentage of patients with tumor shrinkage, is just 15 to 20 percent with these immunotherapies, she said.

Erdafitinib is an oral medication that blocks activity of all FGFR proteins, including FGFR3. Genetic alterations in FGFR3 can be found in approximately 15 to 20 percent of patients with metastatic bladder cancer and are thought to drive development of the disease. Further, tumors with FGFR3 mutations do not appear to display signs of immune activation, and there is growing evidence suggesting these tumors may not respond as well to immunotherapy, explained Siefker-Radtke.

For the international, open-label, Phase II trial, 99 patients were enrolled and treated with a median of five cycles of the optimized ERDA regimen, consisting of 8 mg daily for 28 days, with escalation to 9 mg allowed in the absence of significant adverse events. All patients had metastatic or surgically unresectable urothelial cancer with a verified mutation in FGFR3 or fusion in FGFR2 or FGFR3. Previous treatment with chemotherapy and/or immune checkpoint inhibitors was allowed.

Treatment-related adverse events were manageable, with just 10 percent of patients discontinuing treatment due to symptoms. There were no treatment-related deaths and no Grade 4 events. The most common adverse events were Grade 1 and 2, including hyperphosphatemia (high blood phosphate levels) (72 patients, Grade ?3 in 2 patients), stomatitis (inflammation of the mouth and lips) (54 patients, Grade ? 3 in 9 patients), and diarrhea (37 patients, Grade ? 3 in 4 patients).

"ERDA treatment has been very tolerable. There have been few dose reductions, and most patients have been able to continue on treatment," said Siefker-Radtke. "Even with evidence of high phosphate levels or other toxicities, usually a period of just holding the drug was enough to reduce symptoms."

Treatment with ERDA met the primary objective with a 40 percent OR rate, including complete response, or tumor disappearance, in three percent of patients and partial response, or tumor shrinkage, in 37 percent. An additional 39 percent of patients had stable disease without progression. Preliminary data from the trial indicate a median overall survival of 13.8 months.

Among 22 patients who previously had been treated with checkpoint blockade inhibitors, ERDA treatment yielded an OR in 59 percent of patients.

"We will need confirmation in future studies, but there may be more benefit from an FGFR-targeted therapy in patients with an FGFR alteration as compared to immunotherapy," said Siefker-Radtke. "It's an exciting time, as we are heading into the field of personalized therapy for urothelial cancer."

A Phase III trial currently is underway to evaluate the efficacy of ERDA relative to chemotherapy or the checkpoint blockade inhibitor pembrolizumab in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer and FGFR3 mutations. Based on the Phase II study, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted a breakthrough therapy designation to ERDA earlier this year, which will expedite development and review of the drug for metastatic urothelial cancer.

New research from Northumbria University has revealed that metal-related pollution began in the Balkans more than 500 years before it appeared in western Europe, and persisted throughout the Dark Ages and Medieval Period, meaning the region played a far bigger role in mineral exploitation than previously believed.

The study provides a new perspective on both the timing and extent of metallurgy - the technique of extracting metal from ores prior to heating or working with metals to give them a desired shape - in the Balkans, and the associated economic change this brought to the region, such as the inception of the Metal Ages.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) today (Monday 28 May 2018).

The exploitation of mineral resources has a broad range of environmental impacts, including metal-contaminated wastewater and the release of microscopic chemical particles into the atmosphere from mining and smelting. As these particles settle on to the surface of a peat bog, an environment in which the sediment develops year on year, a clear history of the bog's development may be established.

Samples recovered from the Crveni Potok peat bog, located on the Serbia/Montenegro border, were geochemically examined by researchers from Northumbria's Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences alongside colleagues from the University of Montpellier and the Romanian Academy. They found the first clear evidence of metal pollution originating from lead in the region dating back to approximately 3600 BC.

The evidence is supported by a concurrent rise in charcoal concentration, which suggests an increase in biomass burning which is potentially related to a broad range of economic activities, including fuel production for metal smelting.

Previously, the oldest European environmental pollution dating to circa 3000 BC had been found in southern Spain, but the new data from Crveni Potok show that metal pollution was evident in this region of eastern Europe more than 500 years earlier. This evidence is the earliest documented in European environmental records and indicates environmental pollution from metallurgy at a time when Britons were still in the Stone Age. This confirms that the Balkans were not only the birthplace of metallurgy in Europe, but also of metallic pollution.

Furthermore, levels of lead pollution decreased dramatically in western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, a feature not observed in this Balkan record. This suggests that the region - which is metal rich - should be considered more of a major player in environmental metal pollution through Dark and Middle Ages than previously thought.

This contrast between eastern and western Europe indicates that while western Europe was in the 'Dark Ages' there was significant economic development in the Balkan area with high levels of metal environmental pollution throughout the Medieval period. This confirms the large extent and size of the metalworking industry in the Balkans during this era.

As part of his PhD research Jack Longman uncovered these findings supervised by Dr Vasile Ersek, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography in the University's Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences.

Dr Ersek explained: "Much of the focus in determining sources of ancient pollution has been on established sources such as the Romans or ancient Greeks, but these findings highlight the crucial role that the Balkan metallurgy has played in the economic development of the area.

"Metallurgy and mining is intimately linked to socioeconomic development, therefore improving our knowledge of how these resources were exploited in the past can help us understand better how societies developed over time. In this respect, the peat bog record from Crveni Potok provides a fascinating history of pollution from the early Bronze Age through to the Industrial Revolution."

Dr Longman added: "What is most interesting is that after the Roman Empire falls in the third and fourth centuries AD, lead pollution continues and even increases, indicating that the strong mining and smelting culture developed by the Romans was continued by the local population. This goes against the long-held view of barbaric hordes with little technological know-how ousting the Romans leading to the Dark Ages - as we term the 1,000 years following the Roman period. These Dark Ages may well have been true in much of western Europe, but in the Balkans, it seems that this period was, in fact, rather 'well-lit'."

For the last two years TTÜ Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Research Group led by Professor Hendrik Voll (currently holding the position of TTÜ Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs), with support from personal research funding (PUT, i.e. funding for high level research projects), has been seeking solutions for daylight and solar shading for nearly zero energy buildings in cold climates.

In accordance with the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (2010/31/EU/), all new buildings completed after 31 December 2020 must meet the requirements of nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB). Each EU Member State has the right to determine the precise criteria and principles for designing nZEBs. "The objective of our research project was to provide not only indicative, but fundamental and specific numerical principles for designing nZEBs, their facades, fenestration and solar shading, as well as for preventing the buildings from overheating," Professor Voll says.

The research project "Daylight and solar shading principles for nearly zero energy buildings in cold climates" was divided into three subtopics: the impact of insolation (direct solar access to premises ) on the building’s energy consumption and overheating was studied; the impact of static versus dynamic solar shading was analysed and the effect of simplified and detailed window models on the building’s energy consumption was investigated.

The studies of the insolation, i.e. direct solar access to premises, indicate that the current requirements set for the minimum insolation hours (at least 2.5 hours of uninterrupted sunshine to the premises) are not justified in designing modern nZEBs. The research demonstrated that following these requirements increases the risk of overheating. The requirements should be based on daylight factor values (insolation characterises direct solar radiation, whereas a daylight factor characterises diffuse radiation, i.e. cloudy weather).

When analysing the different impact of static and dynamic solar shading on nZEBs, the research group developed a tool that the architects and engineers can easily use in software programs in order to facilitate reduction of heat losses already in the designing phase. Dynamic solar shadings (which, unlike static shadings, can be operated automatically as necessary) proved to be more efficient.
Hendrik Voll says, "We developed a calculation method for determining the portions of the façades of buildings that receive the required direct solar access in an urban environment . This allows you to determine which portion of the facade needs shading and which does not. In addition, this method can be used to determine whether to select vertical or horizontal shading.

As regards the third subtopic - window models in nZEBs - detailed window models should be preferred to simplified models. "Our study clearly illustrates the importance of different variables, such as accuracy of window models, construction costs, energy prices, interest rate and inflation. The lowest energy use was achieved with large quadruple windows and automated venetian blinds with an advanced control algorithm," says Voll.

The research project based scientists' recommendations to prefer dynamic solar shadings to static ones, detailed window models to standard windows and to design buildings based on the daylight factor, not the solar radiation criteria are taken into account in the EU construction requirements for nZEBs, which will come into force at the end of 2020.

Chicago, USA: Giving radiation therapy to the lymph nodes located behind the breast bone and above the collar bone to patients with early stage breast cancer improves overall survival without increasing side effects, and this effect continues for 15 years, researchers have found. Professor Philip Poortmans, head of the department of radiation oncology at the Institut Curie, Paris, France, will tell participants at the annual American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) congress next week (Monday, 4 June 2018) that these findings settle once and for all the question as to whether radiation therapy is beneficial for these patients.

Results from the international randomised trial, carried out by the European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and which involved 4004 patients with stage I to III breast cancer from 43 centres, are convincing, he says. "Our results make it clear that irradiating these lymph nodes gives a better patient outcome than giving radiation therapy to the breast/thoracic wall alone. Not only have we shown that such treatment has a beneficial effect on disease control, but it also improves breast-cancer related survival," he will tell the meeting.

Lymphatic drainage from breast cancer to the regional lymph nodes means that the cancer is more likely to spread to other parts of the body. This drainage follows two pathways. The best known is to the axilla (armpit), and these lymph nodes are usually treated by surgery and/or radiation therapy. The second pathway drains to the internal mammary (IM) lymph nodes behind the breast bone, and probably from there to those just above the collar bone, the medial supraclavicular (MS) nodes. Because of uncertainty about the effects of treatment in this area, and particularly concerns about the increased toxicity that might be caused by the irradiation of a larger area, until recently only about half of radiation oncology centres treated the IM-MS lymph nodes.

After a median follow-up of 15.7 years, the researchers found a significant reduction in deaths from breast cancer (16.0% in the treatment group vs. 19.8% in the control group), and in the return of breast cancer in patients who had received radiation to the IM-MS nodes (24.5% vs. 27.1%). A total of 1117 patients had died during the time. Overall survival was 73.2% in the IM-MS group and 70.8% in the control group. There was no increase in non-breast cancer related mortality in the first group and to date there has been no increased level of serious complications related to the treatment. There was no difference in the incidence of second cancers, cancer in the other breast, or deaths from cardiovascular disease between the two groups.

Patients at low risk of their cancer spreading outside the breast may be given less intensive systemic therapy in order to spare them side effects. In these cases, using IM-MS radiation therapy can improve their outcome by eradicating residual tumour cells in the breast/thoracic wall. For patients at high risk of metastases, who receive systemic therapy, the prospect of cure is also related to the chance of leaving residual tumour cells behind throughout the body. In these cases too, the ultimate outcome can be improved by using effective locoregional treatment to eradicate disease at the site where it is most likely to be present, the researchers say.

"The results of our trial, in which the patients received appropriate systemic treatments, contradict the existence of a 'competition' between locoregional and systemic treatments," says Prof Poortmans. "Because there is a rather positive interaction between these treatments, in many patients their combination will result in an enhancement of the combined benefits; in other words, one plus one can equal more than two."

The researchers intend to continue to follow these patients in the long term and are planning an average follow-up of 20 years. &laquo We want to look further at which patients are most likely to benefit from this treatment, and to identify the best techniques for doing it efficiently and safely, » says Prof Poortmans.

The researchers say that the rate of side effects was low, the vast majority were of low grade, and many of them were only temporary. &laquoIt is very important that we record all possible events, including recurrence and toxicity, and an even longer follow-up will also give us the opportunity to continue evaluating our patients in other areas, for example quality of life and wellbeing, » say Prof Poortmans

"Advances in radiation therapy techniques and new therapies, and earlier diagnosis may increase the benefit from IM-MS radiation treatment. But we believe that our trial has already given solid evidence of the benefits of radiation treatment of the IM-MS lymph nodes, and we hope that such treatment will stay where it is and become where it isn't standard clinical practice for selected patients with early stage breast cancer," he will conclude.

New research by academics at the University of East Anglia (UEA) reveals how well fearful facial expressions are perceived in peripheral vision.

Although human vision has the highest resolution when we look directly at something, we see a much wider view of the visual world in our lower resolution peripheral vision. In fact, detecting signals of potential danger in our periphery - especially moving ones - is something our visual system is well adapted for.

The research explored how accurate human participants are at two key processing stages of emotional face perception: detection, which refers to being able to tell there is an emotion present, and recognition, which refers to knowing which emotion, such as fear or happiness, is present.

While previous brain imaging research has implicated a special, more primitive, brain pathway in processing fear - an important emotion as it is a signal of potential danger nearby - other studies have shown that fear is not a well-recognised emotion.

Published in the journal PLOS ONE, this new study by researchers in UEA's School of Psychology for the first time investigated how recognition and detection of six basic emotions - happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger and surprise - changes when viewed centrally and up to 30 degrees in peripheral vision.

Lead author Dr Fraser Smith said: "A key finding of our study is that while fear is indeed not a well-recognised emotion in peripheral or central vision, unlike happiness or surprise for instance, it is a very well detected emotion even in our visual periphery. This suggests that these special brain mechanisms may be more concerned with emotion detection than recognition per se."

Dr Smith also said the findings were important given that difficulty in perceiving facial expressions is associated with conditions such as autism, psychosis, and schizophrenia.

"Being able to read facial expressions well is important in our daily lives in order to have successful social relationships," he said.

"We show that it is not just being able to recognise expressions that is important, but being able to detect them in the first place. This gives us a different picture of which underlying systems may be impaired, which has potential implications for treatment of conditions where perception of emotions is affected."

Co-author Dr Stephanie Rossit said: "Our work shows the importance of considering how different tasks may lead to different patterns of results with perception of emotion. It also shows the importance of considering how well facial expressions are recognised outside of central vision."

The study involved 14 participants who were shown images of faces expressing the six emotions and one neutral expression. For the recognition task, they had to decide which emotion was displayed, with the faces randomly presented centrally and to the left and right by 15 or 30 degrees. In the detection task, the participants had to decide whether the face displayed an emotion.

As well as fear being a better detected than recognised emotion, the results show that happiness and surprise are both recognised and detected well in peripheral vision, whereas others such as anger and sadness are not.

WASHINGTON - (June 1, 2018) - Psychiatric disorders, a common comorbidity of severe obesity, especially for youth, should not disqualify an adolescent with severe obesity from bariatric surgery. According to a study published in Pediatrics, identifying anxiety, depressive disorders, ADHD, and eating disorders, while still a crucial pre-surgical evaluation step, had no predictive value for how much post-surgical weight loss an adolescent would achieve.

This is the first study to look at a large, diverse sample of adolescent patients with severe obesity to understand the relationship between weight loss outcomes and pre-surgical psychiatric disorders. Some conventional wisdom held that these types of disorders could influence a patient's ability to adhere to the pre- and post-surgical guidelines and as a result might contraindicate surgical intervention.

"This procedure actually seems to be equally beneficial across ages, race/ethnicity and presence or absence of psychiatric disorders for weight loss," says Eleanor Mackey, Ph.D., lead author of the study and a psychologist with the Obesity Program's IDEAL clinic at Children's National Health System. "Unlike other interventions that may be influenced by cultural or socioeconomic factors, surgical intervention appears to offer all kids the same opportunity to succeed. Most important, there's no scientific basis for denying an adolescent this procedure based simply on the presence of a psychiatric disorder. This does not mean adolescents should not be evaluated and treated for these disorders, which themselves have a significant impact on functioning and quality of life, but in terms of weight loss after surgery, the presence of psychiatric disorders is not predictive of outcomes."

The researchers compared adolescents with severe obesity (body mass index greater than 120 percent of the 95th percentile) who underwent the laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy procedure at Children's National (169). Even after controlling for demographic factors in study participants, the findings were clear--there was no difference in outcome between those with diagnosed psychiatric disorders and those without at 3 and 12 months post-surgery.

Little prior research exists looking specifically at the characteristics of adolescents with obesity who respond favorably to surgery. Recent guidelines echo these findings, but often different programs or insurers have different criteria.

Children's National is one of only a few children's hospitals with accreditation from the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program of the American College of Surgeons and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery to offer bariatric surgery for adolescents with severe obesity. The extraordinary diversity of the patient population in Washington, D.C., which includes high rates of young people with obesity from a wide variety of backgrounds, allows the team to collect comprehensive information about successful interventions across age and demographic groups.

Future research will follow participants long term to continue building understanding of the relationship between post-surgical weight loss and these pre-existing psychiatric disorders.

Ny-Ålesund (Spitsbergen). Investigations of the atmosphere by means of unmanned mini-airplanes can contribute significantly to the investigation of the causes of Arctic climate change, as they provide an insight into ground-level air layers that are not monitored by other measuring stations. This is the conclusion drawn by a German research team from current measurements that have just taken place on Spitsbergen. It was possible to observe the formation of new particles in the air, which can later evolve to clouds and have an influence on climate change. It is still not understood in detail why the Arctic is warming more than twice as strong as other regions of the earth. The measurement campaign on Spitsbergen, which will run until the end of May, was the first joint deployment of mini research aircraft developed in Germany in a polar region.

During the last years the Arctic has increasingly become a focus of climate research, due to the fact that the climate changes observed so far in the Arctic have a much stronger impact than in other regions. The reasons are complex interactions between atmosphere, sea ice and ocean - difficult to quantify and to describe in models. In order to improve the understanding of the specific processes and interactions, more measurements have to be done on site. Yet only a few continuously measuring stations and mobile measurements with ships and aircrafts are available as a database to provide the necessary parameters for analysis and modelling.

Scientists from the Technical University of Braunschweig, the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research Leipzig and the Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen have been performing measurements with unmanned flight systems since mid-April in Ny-Ålesund on Spitsbergen, the northernmost village in the world. This project is supported by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research which also operates the French-German research base AWIPEV in Ny-Ålesund.

In the project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and entitled "Investigations into the small-scale vertical and horizontal variability of the atmospheric boundary layer aerosol with unmanned aerial systems", the correlation between small-scale air turbulence and the formation of the smallest airborne aerosol particles that can form from gases is investigated in particular. Since these small particles can grow and then scatter light and also influence the formation of clouds, they play a major role in the climate.

The first evaluations show different scenarios leading to the formation of new particles in the atmosphere: either the new formation takes place simultaneously in all investigated air layers between ground and 850 meters height or it begins in a certain air layer and continues from there. The second case cannot be observed from the initial with the fixed measuring stations in Ny-Ålesund and the nearby Zeppelin Mountain, which have been in continuous operation for many years, and is therefore an important finding for all the scientists involved.

"The measurements with unmanned aeroplanes represent a connection between the measurements at various sites in Ny-Ålesund and on the adjacent Zeppelin Mountain and thus close a knowledge gap on the distribution and transport processes in the atmosphere," explains Dr. Astrid Lampert of the Technical University of Braunschweig, who coordinated the measurement campaign.

The measurement campaign was the third major study by ALADINA (Application of Light-weight Aircraft for Detecting IN-situ Aerosol), an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) of the type "Carolo P360", which was developed at the Institute of Aerospace Systems at Braunschweig Technical University. ALADINA is a type of high-tech model aircraft: It has a wingspan of 3.6 metres, weighs 25 kilograms and can transport up to 3 kilograms of payload. The battery allows a flight time of up to 40 minutes and a speed of up to over 100 kilometres per hour.

The mini research aircraft has already been used several times in Germany - for example at the TROPOS measurement station Melpitz near Torgau. The special feature of this aircraft is especially its equipment with particle measuring devices, which were miniaturized at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig. Since commercially available devices would be too large and heavy for this application, the devices needed to be developed or considerably modified internally.

The University of Tübingen also used MASC (Multi-purpose Airborne Sensor Carrier) UAS as part of its Spitsbergen campaign. These UAS are specialized in the high-resolution measurement of atmospheric turbulence and turbulent transport of energy and impulses. Turbulence is an important process in particle formation processes. MASC have a flight time of one and a half hours in the Arctic and are increasingly used in wind energy research in Germany.

In order to understand the various processes that can induce particle formation, now a detailed analysis of the measurement data is necessary, which will be the scientist's main task for the next months.

Contact:

Dr. Astrid Lampert (Manager of measurement campaign)
Airborne Meteorology and Measurement Technology
Institute of Flight Guidance
TU Braunschweig
Phone: +49 531 3919 885
https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/iff/institut/mitarbeiter

Dr. Birgit Wehner
Experimental Aerosol and Cloud Microphysics
Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), Leipzig
Phone: +49 341 2717 7309
https://www.tropos.de/en/institute/about-us/employees/birgit-wehner/

Prof. Dr. habil. Jens Bange
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Center for Applied Geoscience (ZAG)
Phone: +49 7071 29 74 714
http://www.mnf.uni-tuebingen.de/fachbereiche/geowissenschaften/arbeitsgruppen/angewandte-geowissenschaften/forschungsbereich/umweltphysik/arbeitsgruppe/people.html

Links:

ALADINA (Application of Light-weight Aircraft for Detecting In situ Aerosol)

https://www.researchinsvalbard.no/project/8763

http://www.geo.uni-tuebingen.de/umphy
https://magazin.tu-braunschweig.de/pi-post/aladina-erforscht-klimahelfer-in-hundert-meter-hoehe/

https://www.tropos.de/aktuelles/messkampagnen/blogs-und-berichte/uav-russ-2014/

https://www.tropos.de/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/details/unbemannte-flugzeuge-helfen-feinstaub-zu-untersuchen/

AWIPEV Base: French - German Arctic Research Base at Ny-Ålesund / Spitsbergen

http://www.awipev.eu/

DFG Collaborative Research Centre "Arctic Amplification"

http://www.ac3-tr.de/

Publications:

Altstädter, B., Platis, A., Jähn, M., Baars, H., Lückerath, J., Held, A., Lampert, A., Bange, J., Hermann, M., and Wehner, B.: Airborne observations of newly formed boundary layer aerosol particles under cloudy conditions, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2017-1133 , in review, 2018.

The paper will be presented at the Polar 2018 conference in Davos, Switzerland on June 15-26, 2018.

The work is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under the project numbers LA 2907/5-1, WI 1449/22-1, BA 1988/14-1 and LA 2907/5-2, WI 1449/22-2, BA 1988/14-2.

Platis A., Altstädter B., Wehner B., Wildmann N., Lampert A., Hermann M., Birmilli W., and Bange J. (2016): An observational case study on the influence of atmospheric boundary-layer dynamics on new particle formation. Boundary-Layer Meteorol., 158, 67-92. http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10546-015-0084-y

Altstädter, B., Platis, A., Wehner, B., Scholtz, A., Wildmann, N., Hermann, M., Käthner, R., Baars, H., Bange, J., and Lampert, A. (2015): ALADINA - an unmanned research aircraft for observing vertical and horizontal distributions of ultrafine particles within the atmospheric boundary layer, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 1627-1639, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-1627-2015

Wildmann N., Hofsäß M., Weimer F., Joos A., and Bange J. (2014): MASC - A small Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) for Wind Energy Research. Advances in Science and Research, 11, 55-61. https://doi.org/10.5194/asr-11-55-2014

Journal

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

DOI

10.5194/acp-2017-1133