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Supplementary tables S1-S3. Supplementary Table S1: Institutional Tumor Genotyping Strategies. Supplementary Table S2: T790M Genotype by Modality. Supplementary Table S3: EGFR Primary Mutation Detection.

Purpose: The T790M gatekeeper mutation in the EGFR is acquired by some EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) as they become resistant to selective tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). As third-generation EGFR TKIs that overcome T790M-associated resistance become available, noninvasive approaches to T790M detection will become critical to guide management.Experimental Design: As part of a multi-institutional Stand-Up-To-Cancer collaboration, we performed an exploratory analysis of 40 patients with EGFR-mutant tumors progressing on EGFR TKI therapy. We compared the T790M genotype from tumor biopsies with analysis of simultaneously collected circulating tumor cells (CTC) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA).Results: T790M genotypes were successfully obtained in 30 (75%) tumor biopsies, 28 (70%) CTC samples, and 32 (80%) ctDNA samples. The resistance-associated mutation was detected in 47% to 50% of patients using each of the genotyping assays, with concordance among them ranging from 57% to 74%. Although CTC- and ctDNA-based genotyping were each unsuccessful in 20% to 30% of cases, the two assays together enabled genotyping in all patients with an available blood sample, and they identified the T790M mutation in 14 (35%) patients in whom the concurrent biopsy was negative or indeterminate.Conclusions: Discordant genotypes between tumor biopsy and blood-based analyses may result from technological differences, as well as sampling different tumor cell populations. The use of complementary approaches may provide the most complete assessment of each patient's cancer, which should be validated in predicting response to T790M-targeted inhibitors. Clin Cancer Res; 22(5); 1103–10. ©2015 AACR.

Significance Isolation of sufficient numbers of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer patients could provide an alternative to invasive tumor biopsies, providing multianalyte cell-based biomarkers that are not available from current plasma circulating tumor DNA sequencing. Given the average prevalence at one CTC per billion blood cells, very large blood volumes must be screened to provide enough CTCs for reliable clinical applications. By creating an ultrahigh-throughput magnetic sorter, we demonstrate the efficient removal of leukocytes from near whole blood volume equivalents. Combined with leukapheresis to initially concentrate blood mononuclear cells, this LPCTC-iChip platform will enable noninvasive sampling of cancer cells in sufficient numbers for clinical applications, ranging from real-time pharmacokinetic monitoring of drug response to tissue-of-origin determination in early-stage cancer screening., Circulating tumor cell (CTC)-based liquid biopsies provide unique opportunities for cancer diagnostics, treatment selection, and response monitoring, but even with advanced microfluidic technologies for rare cell detection the very low number of CTCs in standard 10-mL peripheral blood samples limits their clinical utility. Clinical leukapheresis can concentrate mononuclear cells from almost the entire blood volume, but such large numbers and concentrations of cells are incompatible with current rare cell enrichment technologies. Here, we describe an ultrahigh-throughput microfluidic chip, LPCTC-iChip, that rapidly sorts through an entire leukapheresis product of over 6 billion nucleated cells, increasing CTC isolation capacity by two orders of magnitude (86% recovery with 105 enrichment). Using soft iron-filled channels to act as magnetic microlenses, we intensify the field gradient within sorting channels. Increasing magnetic fields applied to inertially focused streams of cells effectively deplete massive numbers of magnetically labeled leukocytes within microfluidic channels. The negative depletion of antibody-tagged leukocytes enables isolation of potentially viable CTCs without bias for expression of specific tumor epitopes, making this platform applicable to all solid tumors. Thus, the initial enrichment by routine leukapheresis of mononuclear cells from very large blood volumes, followed by rapid flow, high-gradient magnetic sorting of untagged CTCs, provides a technology for noninvasive isolation of cancer cells in sufficient numbers for multiple clinical and experimental applications.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are extremely rare in the blood, yet they account for metastasis. Notably, it was reported that CTC clusters (CTCCs) can be 50-100 times more metastatic than single CTCs, making them particularly salient as a liquid biopsy target. Yet they can split apart and are even rarer, complicating their recovery. Isolation by filtration risks loss when clusters squeeze through filter pores over time, and release of captured clusters can be difficult. Deterministic lateral displacement is continuous but requires channels not much larger than clusters, leading to clogging. Spiral inertial focusing requires large blood dilution factors (or lysis). Here, we report a microfluidic chip that continuously isolates untouched CTC clusters from large volumes of minimally (or undiluted) whole blood. An array of 100 μm-wide channels first concentrates clusters in the blood, and then a similar array transfers them into a small volume of buffer. The microscope-slide-sized PDMS device isolates individually-spiked CTC clusters from >30 mL per hour of whole blood with 80% efficiency into enumeration (fluorescence imaging), and on-chip yield approaches 100% (high speed video). Median blood cell removal (in base-10 logs) is 4.2 for leukocytes, 5.5 for red blood cells, and 4.9 for platelets, leaving less than 0.01% of leukocytes alongside CTC clusters in the product. We also demonstrate that cluster configurations are preserved. Gentle, high throughput concentration and separation of circulating tumor cell clusters from large blood volumes will enable cluster-specific diagnostics and speed the generation of patient-specific CTC cluster lines.

The research examines if reforms to Ireland's public employment services (Intreo) had an impact on exits from the Live Register.

Purpose: The T790M gatekeeper mutation in the EGFR is acquired by some EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) as they become resistant to selective tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). As third-generation EGFR TKIs that overcome T790M-associated resistance become available, noninvasive approaches to T790M detection will become critical to guide management. Experimental Design: As part of a multi-institutional Stand-Up-To-Cancer collaboration, we performed an exploratory analysis of 40 patients with EGFR-mutant tumors progressing on EGFR TKI therapy. We compared the T790M genotype from tumor biopsies with analysis of simultaneously collected circulating tumor cells (CTC) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). Results: T790M genotypes were successfully obtained in 30 (75%) tumor biopsies, 28 (70%) CTC samples, and 32 (80%) ctDNA samples. The resistance-associated mutation was detected in 47% to 50% of patients using each of the genotyping assays, with concordance among them ranging from 57% to 74%. Although CTC- and ctDNA-based genotyping were each unsuccessful in 20% to 30% of cases, the two assays together enabled genotyping in all patients with an available blood sample, and they identified the T790M mutation in 14 (35%) patients in whom the concurrent biopsy was negative or indeterminate. Conclusions: Discordant genotypes between tumor biopsy and blood-based analyses may result from technological differences, as well as sampling different tumor cell populations. The use of complementary approaches may provide the most complete assessment of each patient's cancer, which should be validated in predicting response to T790M-targeted inhibitors. Clin Cancer Res; 22(5); 1103–10. ©2015 AACR.

BACKGROUND: Reports on the incidence and causes of sudden cardiac death among young athletes have relied largely on estimated rates of participation and varied methods of reporting. We sought to investigate the incidence and causes of sudden cardiac death among adolescent soccer players in the United Kingdom. METHODS: From 1996 through 2016, we screened 11,168 adolescent athletes with a mean (±SD) age of 16.4±1.2 years (95% of whom were male) in the English Football Association (FA) cardiac screening program, which consisted of a health questionnaire, physical examination, electrocardiography, and echocardiography. The FA registry was interrogated to identify sudden cardiac deaths, which were confirmed with autopsy reports. RESULTS: During screening, 42 athletes (0.38%) were found to have cardiac disorders that are associated with sudden cardiac death. A further 225 athletes (2%) with congenital or valvular abnormalities were identified. After screening, there were 23 deaths from any cause, of which 8 (35%) were sudden deaths attributed to cardiac disease. Cardiomyopathy accounted for 7 of 8 sudden cardiac deaths (88%). Six athletes (75%) with sudden cardiac death had had normal cardiac screening results. The mean time between screening and sudden cardiac death was 6.8 years. On the basis of a total of 118,351 person-years, the incidence of sudden cardiac death among previously screened adolescent soccer players was 1 per 14,794 person-years (6.8 per 100,000 athletes). CONCLUSIONS: Diseases that are associated with sudden cardiac death were identified in 0.38% of adolescent soccer players in a cohort that underwent cardiovascular screening. The incidence of sudden cardiac death was 1 per 14,794 person-years, or 6.8 per 100,000 athletes; most of these deaths were due to cardiomyopathies that had not been detected on screening. (Funded by the English Football Association and others.).

This paper examines how changes to the social welfare system for lone parents, such as the tightening of eligibility criteria for One-Parent Family Payment and the introduction of Jobseeker's Transitional Payment, affected lone-parent incomes and work incentives. Our main contributions are threefold: we examine the cumulative effect of policy changes on the income of lone parents, and how changes to lone-parent-specific schemes affected income and work incentives, and quantify the extent to which childcare costs act as a labour market barrier for lone parents. Firstly, policy changes do not occur in a vacuum, therefore we assess how all policy from 2011 to 2018 a ffected lone-parent income. We find that changes to social welfare policy for lone parents resulted in income losses for employed lone parents, but had little effect on non-employed lone parents. All other changes over the period decreased the income of both employed and non-employed lone parents. We examine how these social welfare changes affected the work incentives . The reforms resulted in mor e lone parents having a greater financial incentive to be out of work, thus weakening the financial incentive to be in work. Finally, informed by an abundant literature regarding childcare costs as an obstacle to female labour supply, we highlight the impact of these costs on the incentive to be in work. We find that on accounting for childcare costs, being out of work becomes much more financially attractive for many lone parents. The availability of subsidies on childcare costs helps to reduce this disincentive, but even so, childcare costs represent a substantial barrier to lone-parent labour market participation.

Vigorous debate over the effectiveness of the fiscal adjustment programmes for the crisis-stricken countries in the eurozone has grown quite polarised. In this Forum, several experts use analytical, evidence-based approaches to gauge the effectiveness of these programmes. The role played by the estimates of the fiscal multipliers that the Commission, IMF and ECB used to structure the adjustment programmes is crucial to this debate. If these multipliers were underestimated, as the IMF itself claims, then the negative impact of the fiscal restructuring on already fragile economies would also have been underestimated. Several authors examine the available evidence to determine whether the adjustments programmes were flawed from the outset. Another contribution analyses the effectiveness of structural reforms when monetary policy rates are near the zero lower bound. A final paper uses a case study of Ireland’s recovery thus far to examine the actual effects that the programmes have had on the crisis-stricken countries’ economies.

SummaryThe effects of relative humidity (RH) immediately after harvest, and simulated harvest injury on the loss of fresh weight (FW) in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tubers during storage were studied over two years. Tubers were hand-harvested and, within 4 – 6 h, were placed in sealed, ventilated storage chambers at 13oC and 75, 85, or 95% RH for up to 1 week, with or without a simulated harvest injury (i.e., by abrasion or by excision of a small portion of the tuber surface). Tubers were weighed individually at the start of the trial and re-weighed 12, 24, 48, 72, or 168 h post-harvest. Tubers from the 168 h (1 week) evaluation were subsequently stored on a bench in a walk-in, refrigerated coldroom (109.7 m3) at ca. 88% RH, and were re-weighed 2 and 5 weeks after harvest. Mean total FW loss values 168 h after harvest were 1.2, 1.6, and 2.1% of the initial FW under 95, 85, or 75% RH, respectively. These differences were still apparent after a further 4 weeks in the coldroom. Thus, 5 weeks after harvest,...

The results of the enumeration of Costas arrays of order 29 are presented: except for 16 arrays out of a total of 164, all other arrays found are accounted for by the Golomb and Welch construction methods. These 16 arrays, however, cannot be considered to be new, as they were discovered in the past through a semi-empirical technique. The enumeration was performed on several computer clusters and required the equivalent of 366.55 years of single CPU time.

This paper proposes an architecture for the back-end of a federated national datastore for use by academic research communities, developed by the e-INIS (Irish National e-InfraStructure) project, and describes in detail one member of the federation, the regional datastore at Trinity College Dublin. It builds upon existing infrastructure and services, including Grid-Ireland, the National Grid Initiative and EGEE, Europe’s leading Grid infrastructure. It assumes users are in distinct research communities and that their data access patterns can be described via two properties, denoted as mutability and frequency-of-access. The architecture is for a back-end—individual academic communities are best qualified to define their own front-end services and user interfaces. The proposal is designed to facilitate front-end development by placing minimal restrictions on how the front-end is implemented and on the internal community security policies. The proposal also seeks to ensure that the communities are insulated from the back-end and from each other in order to ensure quality of service and to decouple their front-end implementation from site-specific back-end implementations.

How great an effect does the structure of income taxes have on female labour supply? This issue is investigated using a discrete-choice static labour supply model for married couples in Ireland. The model incorporates fixed costs of working and simultaneously explains participation decisions and preferred hours of work. The model is estimated using data from the 1994 wave of the Living in Ireland Survey. Simulations examine the labour supply effects of introducing greater independence in the tax treatment of married couples, compared with an income-splitting system, and alternative forms of tax cuts.

This correspondence presents the results of the enumeration of Costas arrays of order 27: all arrays found, except for one, are accounted for by the Golomb and Welch construction methods.

Ethylene is an effective potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) sprout inhibitor, but it often darkens fry colour. Trials were conducted over nine consecutive storage seasons to identify ethylene application methods which would mitigate darkening while retaining adequate sprout inhibition, using cv. Russet Burbank plus cvs Shepody, Asterix and Santana in some years. Tubers were stored for up to 35 weeks in closed chambers with ethylene gas delivered via the ventilation airstream. Exposure to continuous 4 μl l−1 ethylene after suberization and cooling were completed was designated the ethylene check. Alternative ethylene treatments included commencing exposure either before or after suberization was completed; gradually introducing the ethylene either by a concentration gradient of eight steps over 4 or 8 weeks or by increasing the duration of exposure from 6 to 24 h per day in four weekly steps; repeatedly interrupting exposure for several hours per day or for durations of 1 or more days; and warm storage. Selected ethylene treatment combinations were applied in each year, plus untreated controls, chlorpropham-treated (CIPC) checks and ethylene checks. Sprout growth, fry colour, loss of mass and disease incidence were evaluated at regular intervals. In all cultivars and all years, the ethylene check darkened fry colour more than the other treatments. Commencing before suberization ended, gradually introducing the ethylene by either concentration or time gradient and interrupting the exposure all reduced the negative effect of ethylene sprout inhibitor on fry colour. Continuous ethylene treatments inhibited sprout growth as effectively as CIPC, except at 13 °C storage. Interruptions of 18 h and 2 or more days reduced sprout inhibition. Regardless of cultivar variations, an early start using either a concentration or time-increment gradient had the least effect on fry colour while maintaining good sprout inhibition.

Scientific computing on grid infrastructures has historically focused on processing vast workloads of independent single-core CPU jobs. Limitations of this approach, however, have motivated a shift towards parallel computing using message passing, multi-core CPUs and computational accelerators, including GPGPUs in particular. Application support for the use of GPGPUs in existing grid infrastructures is still lacking. A model is proposed for the orchestration of GPGPU-enabled applications based on commonly used frameworks such as CUDA and OpenCL. The model makes use of recent advances in remote GPGPU virtualisation, making it possible for an application to access GPGPUs installed on remote hosts. Each physical GPGPU is isolated, creating a pool of virtual GPGPUs that can be allocated independently to jobs. A proof-of-concept Grid supporting virtual GPGPUs has been implemented and tested. It will be shown that users can be provided with a simple yet flexible and powerful mechanism for specifying GPGPU requirements. Furthermore, vGPGPU provision can be fully integrated with existing grid middleware and services. Performance results suggest that improved resource utilisation can compensate for the overhead of remote GPGPU access.

Virtualisation of GPGPUs using PCI-Passthrough is limited to costly specialised hardware. API-Interception provides an alternative software-based approach to GPGPU virtualisation that has been shown to provide good performance and increased utilisation on High Performance and High Throughput Computing systems. Furthermore, user applications can transparently access many non-local GPGPU resources. However, current API-Interception implementations have either limited batch system support or none at all. This paper introduces a new multi-component system that supports multiple API-Interception implementations on several batch systems. The system consists of: (a) a factory component that produces lightweight Linux Containers using Docker, where each Container supports one or more API-Interception implementations and controls a single GPGPU; (b) a registry service that manages the Container resources; and, (c) a set of plugin scripts that bridge between the batch system and the registry. This paper also evaluates the performance of benchmarks on the prototype.

For many years, the accepted wisdom among potato storage researchers and industry personnel linked the accumulation of CO2 in the storage atmosphere to darkening of potato fry color. Dark fry color is undesirable in the potato processing industry, as consumers prefer light-colored finished products. Previous research to elucidate the effect of CO2 has presented conflicting results. In three consecutive years of storage trials, the effects of elevated CO2 concentrations, reduced O2 concentrations and ethylene gas on the fry color and sugar content of `Russet Burbank' potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tubers were evaluated. The potatoes were stored in modified atmosphere chambers and selected atmosphere mixtures were supplied from compressed gas cylinders. Four 3-week trials were conducted in 2002 and two 9-week trials were conducted in each of 2003 and 2004. Fry color and tuber sugars were assessed at the start of each trial and after several weeks of exposure to the treatment atmospheres. Compared with untreated controls, increased CO2 alone or in combination with decreased O2 had little or no effect on fry color or tuber sugars. During the second and third years, only selected treatments were repeated, with or without the addition of 0.5 μL·L–1 ethylene gas. Ethylene is known to affect potato fry color and reducing sugars. In three of four trials, tubers exposed to ethylene alone had darker fry color and higher reducing sugars compared with controls. Applied treatments had little or no effect on fry color and sugars in the fourth trial. Interestingly, in the same three of four trials, fry color of tubers exposed to both elevated CO2 and ethylene gas was not only darker than controls but also darker than tubers treated with ethylene alone. Similarly, reducing sugar concentrations were higher in tubers exposed to both ethylene and CO2 than with ethylene alone. No similar interaction between ethylene and oxygen concentration was observed. The results suggest a synergistic negative effect of trace ethylene and elevated CO2 on fry color, which may explain the apparently contradictory findings of some published research examining the effects of CO2 on potato fry color.

Ethylene effectively inhibits sprouting of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) during storage, but it often darkens fry color. The objective of the work described here was to determine if altering the concentration of ethylene applied would reduce the darkening while retaining adequate sprout inhibition. Trials were conducted over three consecutive years (1991–1992, 1992–1993, and 1993–1994). Tubers of cv Russet Burbank (ca 150–300 g) were stored at 9 C for 25 wk in closed chambers in a refrigerated room under continuous exposure to 0.4, 4, 40, or 400 µL L−1 ethylene gas delivered with the ventilation airstream (ca 0.5 air exchanges per h, for 6 h each day). Untreated control and chlorpropham-treated (CIPC) check tubers were stored under the same conditions but without ethylene supplementation. Sprout number, length, and biomass, fry color, loss of tuber mass, disease, and dry matter content were evaluated at 5-wk intervals. Dose-dependent effects (400>40>4>0.4 µL L−1) of ethylene on sprout growth and fry color were observed. The 400, 40, and 4 µL L−1 ethylene treatments inhibited sprout growth as effectively as CIPC, whereas in 0.4 µL L−1 ethylene sprouting was midway between CIPC and the untreated control. Sprout mass and maximum sprout length in all ethylene treatments were significantly lower (P

A new imaging device, termed a “cryomacroscope”, is presented in this report. This device is designed to assist in exploring thermal and mechanical effects associated with large-scale vitrification and crystallization, with the current setup aimed at the range of 50 μm to 2 cm. The cryomacroscope is not intended as a substitute for the cryomicroscope, but as a complementary tool for the cryobiologist. A combination of cryomacroscopy and cryomicroscopy is suggested as a basis for multi-scale cryobiology studies. This report presents initial results on vitrification, crystallization, and fracture formation in the cryoprotectant cocktails DP6 and VS55. These results show some inconsistency in the tendency to form crystals, based on critical cooling and rewarming rates measured by means of a differential scanning calorimetric device (DSC) in parallel studies. This research is in its early stages, and comparative studies on biological materials are currently underway. Part II of this report (the companion paper) presents results for fracture formation in the cryoprotectant and discusses the mechanical stresses which promote these fractures. In conjunction with these reports, additional photos of cryomacroscopy of vitrification, crystallization, and fracture formation are available at http://www.me.cmu.edu/faculty1/rabin/CryomacroscopyImages01.htm.

A heterogeneous implementation of the current LCG2/EGEE grid computing software is supported in the Grid-Ireland infrastructure. The porting and testing of the current software version of LCG2 is presented for different flavours of Linux, namely Red Hat 7.3, Red Hat 9 and Fedora Core 2. The GridBench micro-benchmarks developed in CrossGrid are used to compare the different platforms.

The formation of ice crystals is known to be lethal to biological cells. The presence of cryoprotectants at high cooling rates suppresses crystallization and promotes vitrification, where vitrification is solidification by rapid elevation of the viscosity (vitreous, in Latin, means glass). All materials have a tendency to change volume with a change in temperature, where the rate at which the volume changes with respect to the temperature is defined as the thermophysical property of thermal expansion. In the presence of a non-uniform temperature distribution in a bulky specimen, when different regions of the material tend to expand differently, mechanical stress may develop. It has been demonstrated that this mechanical stress can easily lead to macro structural damage to the cryopreserved specimen. As part of an ongoing effort to characterize the mechanical behavior of biological tissues and solutions in the cryogenic temperature range, the current study focuses on mapping the thermal expansion effect of...

BACKGROUND Experimental data and a complementary biophysical model are presented to describe the dynamic response of a unicellular microalga to osmotic processes encountered during cryopreservation. METHOD OF APPROACH Chlorococcum texanum (C. texanum) were mounted on a cryoperfusion microscope stage and exposed sequentially to various solutions of sucrose and methanol. Transient volumetric excursions were determined by capturing images of cells in real time and utilizing image analysis software to calculate cell volumes. A biophysical model was applied to the data via inverse analysis in order to determine the plasma membrane permeability to water and to methanol. The data were also used to determine the elastic modulus of the cell wall and its effect on cell volume. A three-parameter (hydraulic conductivity (Lp), solute permeability; (omega), and reflection coefficient, (sigma)) membrane transport model was fit to data obtained during methanol perfusion to obtain constitutive property values. These results were compared with the property values obtained for a two coefficient (Lp and omega) model. RESULTS The three-parameter model gave a value for sigma not consistent with practical physical interpretation. Thus, the two-coefficient model is the preferred approach for describing simultaneous water and methanol transport. The rate of both water and methanol transport were strongly dependent on temperature over the measured temperature range (25 degrees C to -5 degrees C) and cells were appreciably more permeable to methanol than to water at all measured temperatures. CONCLUSION These results may explain in part why methanol is an effective cryoprotective agent for microalgae.

Nitrogen loss by leaching is a major problem, particularly with crops requiring large amounts of N fertilizer. We evaluated the effect of N fertilization and irrigation on residual soil nitrate following potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) harvests in the upper St-John River valley of New Brunswick, Canada. Soil nitrate contents were measured to a 0.90-m depth in three treatments of N fertilization (0, 100, and 250 kg N ha -1 ) at two on-farm sites in 1995, and in four treatments of N fertilization (0, 50, 100, and 250 kg N ha -1 ) at four sites for each of two years (1996 and 1997) with and without supplemental irrigation. Residual soil NO 3 -N content increased from 33 kg NO 3 -N ha -1 in the unfertilized check plots to 160 kg NO 3 -N ha -1 when 250 kg N ha -1 was applied. Across N treatments, residual soil NO 3- N contents ranged from 30 to 105 kg NO 3 -N ha -1 with irrigation and from 30 to 202 kg NO 3 -N ha -1 without irrigation. Residual soil NO 3 -N content within the surface 0.30 m was related (R 2 = 0.94) to the NO 3 -N content to a 0.90-m depth. Estimates of residual soil NO 3 -N content at the economically optimum nitrogen fertilizer application (N op ) ranged from 46 to 99 kg NO 3 -N ha -1 under irrigated conditions and from 62 to 260 kg NO 3 -N ha -1 under nonirrigated conditions, and were lower than the soil NO 3 -N content measured with 250 kg N ha -1 . We conclude that residual soil NO 3 -N after harvest can be maintained at a reasonable level (

Grids provide secure, utility-like access to a wide variety of large-scale, distributed computational and storage resources. In particular, the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) and Open Science Grid (OSG) have excelled in processing vast workloads of independent jobs for the research community.

High Energy Physics experiments have successfully demonstrated that many-core devices such as GPUs can be used to accelerate critical algorithms in their software. There is now increasing community interest for many-core devices to be made available on the LHC Computing Grid infrastructure. Despite anticipated usage there is no standard method available to run many-core applications in distributed computing environments and before many-core resources are made available on the Grid a number of operational issues such as job scheduling and resource discovery will need to be addressed. The key challenges for Grid-enabling many-core devices will be discussed.

Biphasic transport of water and dimethyl sulfoxide (Me(2)SO), a common cryoprotective agent (CPA), in algal cells was induced and measured on a cryoperfusion stage. A two-step experimental protocol provided data for the volumetric response of Chlorococcum (C.) texanum to impermeable and permeable solutes. First, the cells were exposed to a 500-mOsm sucrose solution, causing immediate shrinkage of the cell to a minimum equilibrium volume. Then an isoosmotic 200-mOsm/300-mOsm CPA/sucrose solution was introduced to the cells, resulting in increased cell volume to a new equilibrium state. Experiments were conducted at temperatures between -3 and 23 degrees C. Cell volumes were measured off-line by computer analysis of video images. A network thermodynamic model was fit to the transient volume data to determine permeabilities of C. texanum to water and Me(2)SO over the full temperature range, and results were calculated with two numeric methods. Biphasic transport was found to be slower at colder temperatures, with water entering the cell faster than Me(2)SO. Experimental results were also compared with data from similar experiments using methanol (MeOH) as the CPA. MeOH influx was calculated to be a magnitude larger than that of water. Additionally, MeOH permeability was at least three orders of magnitude greater than Me(2)SO permeability, and the difference in these solute permeabilities increased as temperature decreased.

Estimation of optimum fertilizer rates is of interest because of growing economic and environmental concerns. Optimum fertilizer rates can be determined by fitting statistical models to yield data collected from N fertilizer experiments. We evaluated quadratic, exponential, and square root models describing the yield response of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) to six rates of N fertilization (0-250 kg N ha -1 ) with and without supplemental irrigation at four on-farm sites in each of three years (1995 to 1997) in New Brunswick, Canada. Economic optimum N rates (N op ) varied among sites and models. The proportion of variability (R 2 ) explained by the three models was similar. The quadratic model, however, calculated a greater N op value (175 kg N ha ') averaged over all sites than those calculated by the square root (123 kg N ha 1 ),and exponential (80 kg N ha -1 ) models. Regression residues of the quadratic model were closer to a normal distribution than those of the other two models, indicating a less systematic bias. Economic losses were greatest when the quadratic model was the most appropriate model, but the data were fitted to the exponential (loss of $204-240 ha -1 ; all values in Canadian dollars) or square root model (loss of $58-201 ha -1 ), We conclude that the quadratic model is the most appropriate for describing the potato yield response to N fertilizer and predicting N op for areas with a ratio of the cost of N fertilizer to the price of potatoes similar to that in Atlantic Canada.

Alternative sprout inhibitors were tested for their efficacy in retaining processing quality of potatoes during long term storage. Carvone, dimethylnaphthalene and ethylene were compared to the commercial standard, CIPC, (isopropyl N-(3-chlorophenyl) carbamate) and an air control, for their effects on sprout development, fry color and sugar content of potato tubers, during 25 weeks of storage at 9C. All treatments reduced sprouting although the amount of sprouting varied among treatments. At the end of the 25 week storage period, the amount of sprouting based on total sprout weight and maximum sprout length was, in order from least to most, CIPC, carvone, ethylene, DMN and air. Poorer processing quality due to darker fry color and higher levels of reducingsugars and sucrose accured in the ethylene-treated potatoes. If properly applied, these sprout inhibitors could be commercially acceptable, although each may have practical advantages and disadvantages.

It is well understood that the solidification of a solution results in a redistribution of solute in the liquid zone. For the freezing of suspensions of cells it is anticipated that accumulation of solute in the region leading a growing ice phase will cause an osmotic response in cells before the ice phase reaches the cells. To measure this phenomenon in a specific algal species, the volume changes in Chlorococcum texanum during freezing were studied using directional solidification cryomicroscopy. The relative cell volume was tracked continuously as a function of temperature and position as cells encountered the moving phase front. The loss of cell volume was measured in the liquid region containing concentrated solute ahead of the growing solid phase.

The effect of ethylene on tuber sprout growth and quality in potato (Solanum tuberosum L. `Russet Burbank') was tested in laboratory and commercial studies for 6 and 3 years, respectively, in comparison with untreated (laboratory study) and CIPC-treated tubers (laboratory and commercial studies). In both studies, ethylene was applied continuously at 166 μmol·m-3 for at least 25 weeks, beginning in early December (laboratory study) or early December to early January (commercial study). In the laboratory study, ethylene delayed the appearance of sprouts for 5 to 15 weeks, compared with untreated tubers. In the ethylene-treated tubers in both studies, sprouts appeared on many eyes but most of them remained very small (5 mm) appeared after 15 weeks but did not exceed 12 and 59 mm in the laboratory and commercial studies, respectively. Sprouts on ethylene-treated tubers were more easily detached up to 6 weeks after ethylene treatment ended, compared with untreated tubers. In both studies, ethylene treatment was not associated with decay, disorder or internal sprouting problems. In both studies, the Agtron fry color [or U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) color grade] of ethylene-treated tubers was darker than CIPC-treated tubers at almost all sampling times. Continuous exposure to ethylene was an effective sprout control agent but it produced a darker fry color, compared with CIPC-treated potatoes.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are shed into the bloodstream from primary and metastatic tumor deposits. Their isolation and analysis hold great promise for the early detection of invasive cancer and the management of advanced disease, but technological hurdles have limited their broad clinical utility. We describe an inertial focusing-enhanced microfluidic CTC capture platform, termed "CTC-iChip," that is capable of sorting rare CTCs from whole blood at 10(7) cells/s. Most importantly, the iChip is capable of isolating CTCs using strategies that are either dependent or independent of tumor membrane epitopes, and thus applicable to virtually all cancers. We specifically demonstrate the use of the iChip in an expanded set of both epithelial and nonepithelial cancers including lung, prostate, pancreas, breast, and melanoma. The sorting of CTCs as unfixed cells in solution allows for the application of high-quality clinically standardized morphological and immunohistochemical analyses, as well as RNA-based single-cell molecular characterization. The combination of an unbiased, broadly applicable, high-throughput, and automatable rare cell sorting technology with generally accepted molecular assays and cytology standards will enable the integration of CTC-based diagnostics into the clinical management of cancer.

The advent of the Great Recession and the widespread adoption of fiscal austerity policies have heightened concern about inequality and its effects. We examine how the distribution of income in Ireland has evolved over the years 2008 to 2013, using data from the CSO?s Survey on Income and Living Conditions. Snapshots of the income distribution show that the greatest falls in income were for the bottom decile (poorest 10 per cent). Longitudinal analysis shows that these sharp falls were not due to decreasing income for those remaining in the bottom decile, but to falling income among those with somewhat higher incomes. Most of those falling into the bottom decile came from the bottom one third of the income distribution.

Ireland is one of the countries most severely affected by the Great Recession. National income fell by more than 10 per cent between 2007 and 2012, as a result of the bursting of a remarkable property bubble, an exceptionally severe banking crisis, and deep fiscal adjustment. This paper examines the income distribution consequences of the recession, and identifies the impact of a broad range of austerity policies on the income distribution. The overall fall in income was just under 8 per cent between 2008 and 2011, but the greatest losses were strongly concentrated on the bottom and top deciles. Tax, welfare and public sector pay changes over the 2008 to 2011 period gave rise to lower than average losses for the bottom decile. Thus, the larger than average losses observed overall are not due to these policy changes; instead, the main driving factors are the direct effects of the recession itself. Policy changes do contribute to the larger than average losses at high income levels.

Ozone and 1,8-cineole were investigated as alternatives to isopropyl-n-(3-chloro-phenyl)carbamate (CIPC) to control sprout development of potato (Solatium tuberosum) tubers cv Russet Burbank during long-term storage. Sprout development was similar in ozone-treated and air-stored tubers, but both had much larger and more numerous sprouts than CIPC-treated tubers. Sucrose and reducing sugars in ozone-treated tubers were similar to levels in air-stored potatoes. Fry color was not different among potatoes stored in ozone, air and CIPC. Conversely, potatoes treated with 1,8-cineole did not produce any sprouts during the 25 week study. The fry color of tubers exposed to cineole was darker than either air-stored or CIPC-treated tubers. Sucrose and reducing sugar levels were higher in cineole-treated tubers than in tubers treated with CIPC.

Recent advances in hardware and software virtualisation capabilities have made it possible to customise hardware and software environments for a huge variety of applications. Grid infrastructures have capitalised on many of these advances, for example, through the use of grid-enabled virtual machines which provide well-known and trusted user services and environments. In particular, the StratusLab cloud distribution has greatly fac ilitated the creation of hybrid cloud/grid infrastructures. At the same time, we have seen a rapid increase in the utilisation of General Purpose Graphical Processing Units (GPGPUs) to handle massively data parallel workloads. There are significant technical difficulties in integrating GPGPUs as first-class grid-resources. Furthermore, the use of full GPGPU hardware pass-through to virtual machines, which could be used to overcome some of these challenges, has only had limited success. An alternative networkbased GPGPU virtualisation method has been shown to be more successful. We review these difficulties, and propose how both StratusLa b and network-based GPGPU virtualisation, such as rCUDA and Mosix VCL, may be used to ameliorate some of these issues.

The adduct between dimethylzinc and triethylamine has been used as a p-dopant source in the growth of GaAs and Al0.3Ga0.7As alloys by metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE). The dopling efficiency of this adduct in these alloys and in InP is lower than that of dimethyl zinc.

An important aspect of the impact of the economic crisis is how pay in the public sector responds – in the face not only of the evolution of pay in the private sector but also extreme pressure on public spending (of which pay is a very large proportion) as fiscal deficits soar. What are the effects on the income distribution of cutting public sector pay rates or alternative strategies to reduce the public sector pay bill? This chapter investigates these issues using data and a tax–benefit simulation model for Ireland, a country which faces a particularly severe fiscal crisis and where innovative measures have already been implemented to claw back pay from public sector workers in the guise of a ‘pension levy’, followed by a significant cut in nominal pay rates. The SWITCH (Simulating Welfare and Income Tax Changes) tax–benefit model first allows the distributional effects of these measures, which achieved a substantial reduction in the net public sector pay bill, to be teased out. The overall impact on the income distribution is assessed. This provides empirical evidence relevant to policy choices in relation to a key aspect of household income over which governments have direct influence, while at the same time illustrating methodologically how a tax–benefit model can serve as the base for such investigation.

The adducts between dimethylzinc and the nitrogen donors triethylamine, tetramethylmethylene diamine, and triethyltriazine have been used as p-dopant sources in the growth of InP and InGaAs by metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE). The liquid adducts demonstrated reproducible doping over the range 5 × 1015 to 1018 cm−3 with the precise doping range being variable, depending on the adduct vapour pressure. The p-doped InP and InGaAs layers had excellent surface morphology and no detrimental gas phase reactions were observed during layer growth.

The X-ray crystal structures of a series of group 12 metal alkyl adducts Me 2 M[Me 2 N(CH 2 ) 2 NMe 2 ] {M  Zn ( 1 ), Cd ( 2 )} and (Me 3 CCH 2 ) 2 M[Me 2 N(CH 2 ) 2 NMe 2 ] {M  Zn ( 3 ), Cd ( 4 )} have been determined. Each adduct exists as a mononuclear, molecular unit with pseudo-tetrahedral coordination at the metal centre. Compound 1 crystallizes in space group P 2 1 / a , a 13.868(3), b = 11.616(2) and c = 7.588(2) A, β = 94.83(2)°, compound 2 in space group Cmca , a = 11.196(2), b = 12.179(2) and c 17.969(3) A. Compounds 3 and 4 are isostructural in space group C 2 / c with the following unit cell dimensions for Zn {Cd}: a = 17.167(5) {17.604(5)}, b = 9.369(3) {9.484(3)}, and c = 12.916(3) {12.758(3)} A, β = 107.83(2) {106.07(2)}.° Compound 1 and the parent alkyl of 4 have been used successfully in the growth of thin films by metalloorganic chemical vapour deposition, 1 as a dopant in the growth of p-type GaAs, and [Me 3 CCH 2 ] 2 Cd as a Group 12 source in the growth of CdS.

Thin films of cubic In2Se3 have been grown by low-pressure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD) using the novel precursor In(Se2CNMe n-hexyl)3. The precursor was prepared from carbon diselenide and a modified experimental procedure for the synthesis of CSe2 is described. Films were grown on glass and InP(111) between 450 and 500°C, and characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy.

An important aspect of the impact of the economic crisis is how pay in the public sector responds – in the face not only of the evolution of pay in the private sector, but also extreme pressure on public spending (of which pay is a very large proportion) as fiscal deficits soar. What are the effects on the income distribution of cutting public sector pay rates or alternative strategies to reduce the public sector pay bill, and how does these vary depending on the evolution of pay in the private sector? This paper investigates these issues using data and a tax-benefit simulation for Ireland, a country which faces a particularly severe fiscal crisis and where innovative measures have already been implemented to claw back pay from public sector workers in the guise of a "pensions levy", followed most recently by a significant cut in nominal pay rates. The SWITCH tax-benefit model first allows the distributional effects of these measures, which achieved a substantial reduction in the net public sector pay bill, to be teased out. The overall impact on the income distribution, set against alternative scenarios for pay in the private sector, is assessed. This provides empirical evidence relevant to policy choices in relation to a key aspect of household income over which governments have direct influence, while at the same time illustrating methodologically how a tax-benefit model can serve as the base for such investigation.

Grid is an evolving and maturing architecture based on several well-established services, including amongst others, distributed computing, role and group management, distributed data management and Public Key Encryption systems Currently the largest scientific grid infrastructure is Enabling Grids e-Science (EGEE), comprised of approximately ∼250 sites, ∼50,000 CPUs and tens of petabytes of storage. Moreover, EGEE covers a large variety of scientific disciplines including Astrophysics. The scope of this work is to provide the keen astrophysicist with an introductory overview of the motivations for using Grid, and of the core production EGEE services and its supporting software and/or middleware (known by the name gLite). We present an overview of the available set of commands, tools and portals as used within these Grid communities. In addition, we present the current scheme for supporting MPI programs on these Grids.