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In 1829 the Swan River Colony was established by Captain Stirling and England claimed the remaining western portion (New Holland) of the Australia continent up to the NSW border at 129° longitude. Eventually NSW was further reduced in area to create the State of South Australia (SA) and the Northern Territory (NT) that now share the common border with WA. It was not until 1921 that the two states of WA and SA agreed on a process to determine the accepted legal position of the Border. This agreement included the placing of two Cairns, the Kimberly Cairn and the Deacon Cairn, on the border at 129° longitude as determined from adjacent astronomical observations. These two cairns under the agreement now determine the physical location of the border today. In 2012, GPS surveys were carried out at both cairns to determine the accuracy of the two original surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) have been known of since 1922, but their carrier molecules remain unidentified to this day. We present a brief history of DIB observations, followed by a list of constraints any suggested origin must face, and finally a preview of current research for ultraviolet DIBs using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. We conclude that PAHs are consistent with all the listed constraints, but that PAHs may not be the only molecular species responsible for the DIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mine waters at the Reefton orogenic gold mine (active from 2007 to 2016) in southern New Zealand contained dissolved arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb) up to 5 mg/L during production of a sulfide concentrate that included arsenopyrite (FeAsS) and stibnite (Sb2S3). Ferric oxyhydroxide adsorption extracted As down to < 0.1 mg/L but dissolved Sb remained elevated due to adsorption competition with As. The Reefton sulfide concentrate was transported 700 km to the Macraes orogenic gold mine (active from 1990) for processing through a pressure oxidation autoclave at 225 °C. The Macraes ore has low Sb contents, so the temporary introduction of a Sb-rich component produced a short-term Sb signal in the autoclave system and tailings waters. Oxidation of stibnite occurred rapidly in the autoclave, in parallel with the As in the arsenopyrite, producing ferric antimonate (tentatively identified as As-bearing tripuhyite) and ferric arsenate (FeAsO4). Dissolved Sb in the Macraes tailings waters remained < 0.1 mg/L throughout the period of Reefton concentrate addition. The formation of tripuhyite in the high-temperature autoclave stabilised Sb in the Macraes tailings, so that dissolved Sb < As, in contrast to the low-temperature processes at Reefton where dissolved Sb > As. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the nursing and old age homes in Great Britain. Both Hampshire County Council and the Department of Health put in £20 million back in autumn 2002. The Forest Court nursing home in Calmore, near Southampton, includes 80 ensuite bedrooms spread over eight wings. The number of people in Great Britain aged 65 years and over is expected to increase by 25 percent in the next decade.

Data correction is probably the least favourite activity amongst users experimenting with small-angle X-ray scattering: if it is not done sufficiently well, this may become evident only during the data analysis stage, necessitating the repetition of the data corrections from scratch. A recommended comprehensive sequence of elementary data correction steps is presented here to alleviate the difficulties associated with data correction, both in the laboratory and at the synchrotron. When applied in the proposed order to the raw signals, the resulting absolute scattering cross section will provide a high degree of accuracy for a very wide range of samples, with its values accompanied by uncertainty estimates. The method can be applied without modification to any pinhole-collimated instruments with photon-counting direct-detection area detectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, which is created in July 2010 to ascertain all sources of funding for the care of older people in Great Britain. Nurses affiliated with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) emphasize the necessity of including the views of those in their ranks who are directly involved with providing care to older people. The composition of the Commission is mentioned.

A new national service would reduce the need for nurses to carry out continuing health assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author calls on senior nurses to show how hospitals which cut down their nursing staff will negatively impact patient health and safety in Great Britain. She says this comes in light of announcements by the National Health Services (NHS) of budget cuts of up to 20 billion pounds before 2014. Various hospitals announced a reduction in their nursing staff. The British Department of Health has been asked to provide guidance on how to reduce staff in a safe manner for patients.

Emergency care featured highly in this year's Nursing Standard annual nurse awards ceremony, as Frances Pickersgill and Tamsin Snow report. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we report the design and successful implementation of an ultra-low oxygen sample cell for use on the SAXS-WAXS (small-wide angle x-ray scattering) beamline I22 at DIAMOND. The rigorous exclusion of oxygen is found to require double jacketing with purge gas throughout the entire system, pipework, pumps, and the sample cell itself. This particularly includes a "double-window" arrangement at the sample location to accommodate the very tight geometrical restrictions of the sample position. The in situ cell design also requires the additional complexity of heating the sample/solution and real-time electrochemical measurements. We demonstrate the successful implementation of this arrangement with real-time in situ characterization of an iron foil corrosion evolving under the "sweet-scale environment," very anoxic conditions common, in particular, commercial situations. The formation of iron carbonate, siderite, rather than iron oxide, indicates that our system is oxygen free down very low levels (<35 ppb at 80 °C). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I07 operates two end stations, an ultra-high vacuum diffractometer used for surface crystallography and a multipurpose diffractometer that is used for surface scattering, diffraction, and reflectivity experiments on polymers and soft matter systems. Polymer and soft matter science at Diamond It is often overlooked that the simplest measurements can offer glimpses into the intricate morphologies of materials, including block copolymers, colloids, and liquid crystals. Polymer and soft matter research have played an integral part in the development of Diamond Light Source ever since the facility took its first users in 2007. Circular dichroism using UV wavelengths on B23 has been employed to characterize conformational and supramolecular structure of chiral entities from molecules such as drugs, -conjugated systems with optoelectronic properties, j-aggregates for plasmonic, liquid crystals forming twisted nematic phases, to polymers such as proteins, nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), carbohydrates, and nanocrystalline cellulose. [Extracted from the article]

Genomic analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is increasingly incorporated into the clinical management of patients with advanced cancer. Beyond tumor profiling, ctDNA analysis also can enable calculation of circulating tumor fraction (TF), which has previously been found to be prognostic. While most prognostic models in metastatic cancer are tumor type specific and require significant patient-level data, quantification of TF in ctDNA has the potential to serve as a pragmatic, tumor-agnostic prognostic tool. This study utilized a cohort of patients in a nationwide de-identified clinico-genomic database with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), metastatic breast cancer (mBC), advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (aNSCLC), or metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) undergoing liquid biopsy testing as part of routine care. TF was calculated based on single-nucleotide polymorphism aneuploidy across the genome. Clinical, disease, laboratory, and treatment data were captured from the electronic health record. Overall survival (OS) was evaluated by TF level while controlling for relevant covariables. A total of 1725 patients were included: 198 mCRPC, 402 mBC, 902 aNSCLC, and 223 mCRC. TF ≥10% was highly correlated with OS in univariable analyses for all cancer types: mCRPC [hazard ratio (HR) 3.3, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.04-5.34, P < 0.001], mBC (HR 2.4, 95% CI 1.71-3.37, P < 0.001), aNSCLC (HR 1.68, 95% CI 1.34-2.1, P < 0.001), and mCRC (HR 2.11, 95% CI 1.39-3.2, P < 0.001). Multivariable assessments of TF had similar point estimates and CIs, suggesting a consistent and independent association with survival. Exploratory analysis showed that TF remained consistently prognostic across a wide range of cutpoints. Plasma ctDNA TF is a pragmatic, independent prognostic biomarker across four advanced cancers with potential to guide clinical conversations around expected treatment outcomes. With further prospective validation, ctDNA TF could be incorporated into care paradigms to enable precision escalation and de-escalation of cancer therapy based on patient-level tumor biology. • Circulating TF is an independent prognostic factor for most common advanced cancer types in real-world settings. • Prospective interventional validation might enable rational escalation or de-escalation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]