Explore the vast range of titles available.

Viral vector mediated gene therapy has become commonplace in clinical trials for a wide range of inherited disorders. Successful gene transfer depends on a number of factors, of which tissue tropism is among the most important. To date, definitive mapping of the spatial and temporal distribution of viral vectors in vivo has generally required postmortem examination of tissue. Here we present two methods for radiolabeling adeno-associated virus (AAV), one of the most commonly used viral vectors for gene therapy trials, and demonstrate their potential usefulness in the development of surrogate markers for vector delivery during the first week after administration. Specifically, we labeled adeno-associated virus serotype 10 expressing the coding sequences for the CLN2 gene implicated in late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis with iodine-124. Using direct (Iodogen) and indirect (modified Bolton-Hunter) methods, we observed the vector in the murine brain for up to one week using positron emission tomography. Capsid radioiodination of viral vectors enables non-invasive, whole body, in vivo evaluation of spatial and temporal vector distribution that should inform methods for efficacious gene therapy over a broad range of applications.

A high-T c superconducting (HTS) broadband Josephson detector has been developed and applied to millimetre wave (mm-wave) and terahertz (THz) imaging. The detector is based on a YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-x (YBCO) step-edge Josephson junction, which is coupled to a thin-film log-periodic antenna, designed for operation at 200–600 GHz, and a hemispheric silicon lens. The junction parameters have been optimised to achieve a high I c R n value so that the detector responds well to the specified frequencies at liquid nitrogen temperature (77 K). Images at ∼200 GHz and ∼600 GHz were acquired with the same detector; each demonstrated their unique properties. The results demonstrate the potential of achieving a cheaper, compact and portable multi-spectral imager based on a HTS detector.

Traditional Information Retrieval (IR) research has focussed on a single user interaction modality, where a user searches to satisfy an information need. Recent advances in web technologies and computer hardware have enabled multiple users to collaborate on many computer-supported tasks; therefore there is an increasing opportunity to support two or more users searching together at the same time in order to satisfy a shared information need, which we refer to as Synchronous Collaborative Information Retrieval. Synchronous Collaborative Information Retrieval (SCIR) represents a significant paradigmatic shift from traditional IR systems. In order to support an effective SCIR search new techniques are required to coordinate usersâ activities.  In this thesis we explore the effectiveness of two techniques on SCIR: division of labour and sharing of knowledge. By implementing an effective division of labour policy the search task can be divided across collaborating searchers, thereby avoiding any duplication of effort across the users. In addition, a sharing of knowledge policy refers to the process of passing relevant information across users, whereby group members can benefit from the discoveries of their collaborators. In order to explore these techniques we simulate two users searching together through an incremental relevance feedback system, whereby the ranked lists of documents returned to each user are modified in order to implement various division of labour and sharing of knowledge policies. In order to populate these simulations we extract data from the logs of interactive text search experiments from previous Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) workshops. These experiments represent the first simulations of SCIR to date and the first use of TREC logs in order to populate simulations.

THERE was a general consensus of opinion that the best day's cricket seen this year at Lord's was that of June 16th, the second day of the match, Gentlemen of England v. Australia. Having won the toss on the Saturday, the Gentlemen, losing six wickets for 72 runs, made a disastrous start, but a satisfactory recovery and totalled 177. W. G. Lowndes, the Hampshire Captain, scored a steady 44, F. R. Brown hit lustily for 31, and J. C. Clay played exceptionally well for 30.

I HAVE an uncanny facility for forecasting the approximate result of impending events as far as cricket and shooting are concerned. I do not say this in any boasting spirit, but merely state it as a fact. More often than not I am within five brace of a 200 or 250 brace partridge day, and sometimes even nearer. So it is with cricket.

UNDOUBTEDLY the Test Trial played at Lord's just before the opening of the first Test match at Nottingham, tended, like most matches of its kind, to confuse rather than enlighten the Selectors. The fourteen players warned to stand by at Nottingham were advised before the last day's play at Lord's. On that last day Valentine played an innings of such superlative merit that. had he produced it in the first innings, when he made 35, nothing that I can see could have kept him out of the selected fourteen.

MIDDLESEX failed by a bee's knee to get full marks against Sussex. The fact that they just did fail makes all the difference, and the cause of that failure provides ample food for reflection. Middlesex, thanks to Hendren (112), Hart (80), and a fine innings of 74 by George Newman, full of good drives, scored 399, and Sussex then made 264.

LAST year the Middlesex v. Gloucestershire match produced one of the best contests of the season, and this year's match was not far behind it in point of interest. The only real difference between the two matches was that last year Gloucestershire, having 391 to win, made 351, Hammond scoring a marvellous 178, while this year it was Middlesex who lost, by 60 runs.

ENOUGH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the Test match to last until its problems come up for official consideration; but a good story is recalled by the adverse reception accorded the team by the spectators. That it was regrettable is a criticism, I am sure, reciprocated by the majority of the Australian public. Jardine did his work and held his peace, and behaved all through a very trying time like a man and a gentleman, and deserves a good reception when he comes home.

The observation of a flare of radiation from the centre of an inactive galaxy fits a model of the tidal disruption of a helium-rich stellar core and its accretion onto a black hole of about three million solar masses. A flare for black holes Central supermassive black holes in distant galaxies are normally invisible to us, but sometimes their presence becomes evident in the form of flares produced by the tidal disruption of a star being accreted to the black hole. Such events are rare, and often we see only the later stages of the encounter — but here, Gezari et al . report detailed monitoring of an ultraviolet and optical flare from the nuclear region of an inactive galaxy at a redshift of 0.1696, which was first seen on 31 May 2010, peaked in July and was over by September. The observed continuum is cooler than expected for a simple accreting debris disk, but the well sampled rise and decline of the light curve follows the predicted mass-accretion rate. The black hole has about two million solar masses and the disrupted star had a helium-rich stellar core, as the authors deduced from the spectroscopic signature of ionized helium from the unbound debris. The flare of radiation from the tidal disruption and accretion of a star can be used as a marker for supermassive black holes that otherwise lie dormant and undetected in the centres of distant galaxies 1 . Previous candidate flares 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 have had declining light curves in good agreement with expectations, but with poor constraints on the time of disruption and the type of star disrupted, because the rising emission was not observed. Recently, two ‘relativistic’ candidate tidal disruption events were discovered, each of whose extreme X-ray luminosity and synchrotron radio emission were interpreted as the onset of emission from a relativistic jet 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 . Here we report a luminous ultraviolet–optical flare from the nuclear region of an inactive galaxy at a redshift of 0.1696. The observed continuum is cooler than expected for a simple accreting debris disk, but the well-sampled rise and decay of the light curve follow the predicted mass accretion rate and can be modelled to determine the time of disruption to an accuracy of two days. The black hole has a mass of about two million solar masses, modulo a factor dependent on the mass and radius of the star disrupted. On the basis of the spectroscopic signature of ionized helium from the unbound debris, we determine that the disrupted star was a helium-rich stellar core.