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• Transition and latest market share of electrified vehicles in the UK towards decarbonisation legislative targets. • Overview of electric motors construction for transport electrification, and their use of critical materials (CM) • Current REEs market, supply chain constraints, and potential alternative sources via circular economy strategies. • Highlighting the scope for REEs recycling and challenges associated with disassembly of end-of-life (EoL) e-machines. • Critical review of reported e-machine disassembly approaches, and various techniques for REEs recycling. Increasing concerns over climate change have led to global decarbonisation efforts, in the form of new legislation, to phase out the sale of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. As a result, the transition to electrified powertrain vehicles as the mode of transportation has never been greater. Electric motors (EMs), serving as the pivotal component of e-mobility, have gained much attention by policy makers and economic experts concerning the supply chain of raw materials needed for manufacturing. Permanent magnets (PMs), including rare earth elements (REEs), account for 40 to 60 % of the total EM cost. Given the importance of these materials to the e-mobility efforts, there has been a great impetus by leading economies to mitigate supply chain instability and mining operation constraints, by identifying and establishing a sustainable supply source through circular economy strategies. Although extensive studies on REEs recovery, via various techniques, have been undertaken by the research community, there remain underlying concerns over feed source, quality and technical challenges surrounding the retrieval of PM via a functional disassembly approach, all of which are yet to be elucidated. The present study serves to highlight state-of-the-art recycling of EMs from EoL electrified vehicles using a circular economy approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is an urgent need for an effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. Heterologous prime-boost regimens induce potent cellular immunity. MVA85A is a candidate TB vaccine. This phase I clinical trial was designed to evaluate whether alternating aerosol and intradermal vaccination routes would boost cellular immunity to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen 85A (Ag85A).Methods and Findings: Between December 2013 and January 2016, 36 bacille Calmette-Guérin-vaccinated, healthy UK adults were randomised equally between 3 groups to receive 2 MVA85A vaccinations 1 month apart using either heterologous (Group 1, aerosol-intradermal; Group 2, intradermal-aerosol) or homologous (Group 3, intradermal-intradermal) immunisation. Bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) were performed 7 days post-vaccination. Adverse events (AEs) and peripheral blood were collected for 6 months post-vaccination. The laboratory and bronchoscopy teams were blinded to treatment allocation. One participant was withdrawn and was replaced. Participants were aged 21-42 years, and 28/37 were female. In a per protocol analysis, aerosol delivery of MVA85A as a priming immunisation was well tolerated and highly immunogenic. Most AEs were mild local injection site reactions following intradermal vaccination. Transient systemic AEs occurred following vaccination by both routes and were most frequently mild. All respiratory AEs following primary aerosol MVA85A (Group 1) were mild. Boosting an intradermal MVA85A prime with an aerosolised MVA85A boost 1 month later (Group 2) resulted in transient moderate/severe respiratory and systemic AEs. There were no serious adverse events and no bronchoscopy-related complications. Only the intradermal-aerosol vaccination regimen (Group 2) resulted in modest, significant boosting of the cell-mediated immune response to Ag85A (p = 0.027; 95% CI: 28 to 630 spot forming cells per 1 × 106 peripheral blood mononuclear cells). All 3 regimens induced systemic cellular immune responses to the modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) vector. Serum antibodies to Ag85A and MVA were only induced after intradermal vaccination. Aerosolised MVA85A induced significantly higher levels of Ag85A lung mucosal CD4+ and CD8+ T cell cytokines compared to intradermal vaccination. Boosting with aerosol-inhaled MVA85A enhanced the intradermal primed responses in Group 2. The magnitude of BAL MVA-specific CD4+ T cell responses was lower than the Ag85A-specific responses. A limitation of the study is that while the intradermal-aerosol regimen induced the most potent cellular Ag85A immune responses, we did not boost the last 3 participants in this group because of the AE profile. Timing of bronchoscopies aimed to capture peak mucosal response; however, peak responses may have occurred outside of this time frame.Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first human randomised clinical trial to explore heterologous prime-boost regimes using aerosol and systemic routes of administration of a virally vectored vaccine. In this trial, the aerosol prime-intradermal boost regime was well tolerated, but intradermal prime-aerosol boost resulted in transient but significant respiratory AEs. Aerosol vaccination induced potent cellular Ag85A-specific mucosal and systemic immune responses. Whilst the implications of inducing potent mucosal and systemic immunity for protection are unclear, these findings are of relevance for the development of aerosolised vaccines for TB and other respiratory and mucosal pathogens.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01954563. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to assess the current level of demand responsiveness among domestic loads. The paper first studies different load profiles of domestic consumers which are composed of power consumption of end-use appliances. Afterwards, it differentiates those loads which could become responsive and evaluates the aggregated effect of these loads and the margin which could be derived from them. The area which has been considered is a residential area; consists of results have been demonstrated on a real residential network in southwest of the UK; small residential area in city of Bath. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This phase I trial evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of a candidate tuberculosis vaccination regimen, ChAdOx1 85A prime-MVA85A boost, previously demonstrated to be protective in animal studies, in healthy UK adults. We enrolled 42 healthy, BCG-vaccinated adults into 4 groups: low dose Starter Group (n = 6; ChAdOx1 85A alone), high dose groups; Group A (n = 12; ChAdOx1 85A), Group B (n = 12; ChAdOx1 85A prime – MVA85A boost) or Group C (n = 12; ChAdOx1 85A – ChAdOx1 85A prime – MVA85A boost). Safety was determined by collection of solicited and unsolicited vaccine-related adverse events (AEs). Immunogenicity was measured by antigen-specific ex-vivo IFN-γ ELISpot, IgG serum ELISA, and antigen-specific intracellular IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-2 and IL-17. AEs were mostly mild/moderate, with no Serious Adverse Events. ChAdOx1 85A induced Ag85A-specific ELISpot and intracellular cytokine CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, which were not boosted by a second dose, but were boosted with MVA85A. Polyfunctional CD4+ T cells (IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-2) and IFN-γ+, TNF-α+ CD8+ T cells were induced by ChAdOx1 85A and boosted by MVA85A. ChAdOx1 85A induced serum Ag85A IgG responses which were boosted by MVA85A. A ChAdOx1 85A prime – MVA85A boost is well tolerated and immunogenic in healthy UK adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]