Successful conservation of brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Europe is associated with public acceptance of damages caused by bears. Recent increases in sheep depredation and beehive damage in central Austria resulted in the deaths of two bears there. Since bear numbers are low in most European populations, alternatives to the elimination of problem bears associated with damage incidents must be sought. The events described above led to the formation of the Bear Management Group responsible for designing a management plan for Austria that will outline procedures for dealing with bear damage and conservation strategies. This study provides an overview of the magnitude and seasonal patterns of brown bear damage in Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Norway, Sweden, and Austria. It also illustrates how bears are managed in European countries by comparing different management strategies for dealing with brown bear damage, describing how bear management is organized, determining which organizations are involved, and explaining which duties these fulfill. Bear damage data were obtained from interviews with wildlife managers, hunters, and farmers in Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Norway, Sweden, and Austria, and from official records of their bear management agencies. Most damage incidents involved sheep and beehives in all countries. All countries offered a more or less well functioning damage compensation program to farmers. Conservation success, especially for small bear populations, seemed to be related to a good compensation program and reducing damage to livestock and property. Possible improvements of management strategies to reduce damage and increase conservation success in theses countries were discussed The second part of this study was the assessment of the organizational structure of different bear management programs in Europe. Brown bear management in Europe included a broad spectrum of goals, ranging from no protection, to regulated hunting, to total protection. In each country, different organizations were involved in bear management, including private and governmental organizations. For each study country, I outlined which organizations were involved in bear management, determined if a management plan existed,described if and how hunting and damage compensation were structured, explained how each country dealt with problem bears, and finally, detailed what kind of management problems each country encountered. I tried to find management patterns for bear management in Europe, including advantages and disadvantages of each approach and their effectiveness within the countries they were applied. Methods included a content analysis of interviews with wildlife managers, farmers, and local people in each country.Results showed that two general types of management approaches could be identified. Romania, Sweden and Southern Slovenia took a conservationist approach, which was characterized by economic use of their bear population. All of these countries had viable bear populations. Romania and Southern Slovenia included an additional characteristic of feeding bears, which could be viewed as a utilitarian management scheme. The second management approach, which was classified as the preservationist approach, was observed in Norway, Italy, Northern Slovenia, and Austria. This management strategy was characterized by year-long protection of bears, low population numbers, and no feeding of bears. Further results of management differences in problem bear management, damage compensation, public education, and effectiveness of management approaches were summarized. The study provides a reference on bear management strategies in Europe. / Master of Science

In this study, we develop a method of life prediction of buried pipe using the concepts of a characteristic damage state and damage accumulation. A stress analysis corresponding to the different types of load during service with environmental effects, a moisture diffusion model, and a lifetime prediction analysis combining the above models has been constructed. The model uses an elasticity solution for axial-symmetric loading in the case of pressurized pipe, and an approximate non-linear solution for transverse loading due to soil pressure in the case of buried pipe. The axial-symmetric stress analysis has been constructed taking into account the moisture content and the temperature of each ply of the laminate. The moisture diffusion model takes into account the geometry of the laminate, the different diffusivity coefficients in each ply, and also the geometric changes due to ply failure. The failure mode and material behavior of the pipe has been investigated and identified according to Owens Corning data. Thus, the code that has been developed allows one to predict the time to failure of Owens Corning industrial pipes under any time-dependent profile of environmental and loading conditions. / Master of Science

Pre-disaster damage predictions and post-disaster damage assessments are challenging because they result from complicated interactions between multiple drivers, including exposure to various hazards as well as differing levels of community resiliency. Certain societal characteristics, in particular, can greatly magnify the impact of a natural hazard, however they are frequently ignored in disaster management because they are difficult to incorporate into quantitative analyses. In order to more accurately identify areas of greatest need in the wake of a disaster, both the hazards and the vulnerabilities need to be carefully assessed since they have been shown to be positively correlated with damage patterns. This study evaluated the contribution of eight drivers of structural damage from Hurricane Mar'ia in Puerto Rico, leveraging machine learning algorithms to determine the role that societal factors played. Random Forest and Stochastic Gradient Boosting Trees algorithms analyzed a diverse set of data including wind, flooding, landslide, and vulnerability measures. These data trained models to predict the structural damage caused by Hurricane Mar'ia in Puerto Rico and the importance of each predictive feature was calculated. Results indicate that vulnerability measures are the leading predictors of damage in this case study, followed by wind, flood, and landslide measures. Each predictive variable exhibits unique, often nonlinear, relationships with damage. These results demonstrate that societal-driven vulnerabilities play critical roles in damage pattern analysis and that targeted, pre-disaster mitigation efforts should be enacted to reinforce household resiliency in socioeconomically vulnerable areas. Recovery programs may need to be reworked to focus on the highly impacted vulnerable populations to avoid the persistence, or potential enhancement, of preexisting social inequalities in the wake of a disaster. / Master of Science / Disasters are not entirely natural phenomena. Rather, they occur when natural hazards interact with the man-made environment and negatively impact society. Most risk and impact assessment studies focus on natural hazards (processes beyond human control) and do not incorporate the role of societal circumstances (within human agency). However, it has been shown that certain socioeconomic, demographic, and structural characteristics increase the severity of disaster impacts. These characteristics define the the susceptibility of a community to negative disaster impacts, known as vulnerability. This study quantifies the role of vulnerability via a case study of Hurricane Mar'ia. A variety of statistical modeling, known as machine learning, analyzed flood, wind, and landslide hazards along with the aforementioned vulnerabilities. These variables were correlated with a damage assessment database and the model calculated the strength of each variable's relationship with damage. Results indicate that vulnerability measures exhibit the strongest predictive correlations with the damage caused by Hurricane Mar'ia, followed by wind, flood, and landslide measures, respectively, suggesting that efforts to improve societal equality and improvements to infrastructure in vulnerable areas can mitigate the impacts of future hazardous events. In addition, societal information is critical to include in future risk and impact assessment efforts in order to prioritize areas of greatest need and allocate resources to those who would benefit from them most.

As part of the Composite Technology for Exploration (CTE) project at NASA, woven fabric composites are being investigated for their use in Space Launch System (SLS) hardware. Composites are more difficult to analyze than isotropic materials and require more complex methods for predicting failure. NASA is seeking a method for predicting the damage initiation and propagation of woven fabric composites in order to utilize these materials effectively in SLS hardware. This work focuses on notched woven fabric composites under tensile loading. An analytical model consisting of a macro-level failure criterion and damage propagation was developed and implemented in explicit finite element analysis to simulate woven composite materials. Several failure criteria and propagation models were investigated and compared. A response surface was used to better understand the effects of damage parameters on the failure load of a specimen. The model chosen to have best represented the physical specimen used the Tsai-Wu failure criterion. Additional physical tests are needed to further validate the model. / Master of Science / A composite material consists of two or more different materials that are joined together to form a new material with improved properties. Woven fabric composites weave strips of fibers and a bonding material into a pattern to increase the material’s ability to withstand loads in various directions. NASA is seeking a method to predict the conditions under which woven fabric composites will break. A greater understanding of the capabilities of woven fabric composites will help NASA improve the structures involved in space exploration. This work attempts to build an analytical model that can predict the loads under which a woven fabric composite will break in tension. Several different analytical theories were used to model a woven fabric composite and the results were compared with lab tests. One of the theories, the Tsai-Wu failure criterion, was selected as the best representation of the physical specimen. Further additional physical tests are necessary to further validate the analytical model.

Yes / When the 'CO-releasing molecule-3', CORM-3 (Ru(CO)3Cl(glycinate)), is dissolved in water it forms a range of ruthenium complexes. These are taken up by cells and bind to intracellular ligands, notably thiols such as cysteine and glutathione, where the Ru(II) reaches high intracellular concentrations. Here, we show that the Ru(II) ion also binds to DNA, at exposed guanosine N7 positions. It therefore has a similar cellular target to the anticancer drug cisplatin, but not identical, because Ru(II) shows no evidence of forming intramolecular crossbridges in the DNA. The reaction is slow, and with excess Ru, intermolecular DNA crossbridges are formed. The addition of CORM-3 to human colorectal cancer cells leads to strand breaks in the DNA, as assessed by the alkaline comet assay. DNA damage is inhibited by growth media containing amino acids, which bind to extracellular Ru and prevent its entry into cells. We conclude that the cytotoxicity of Ru(II) is different from that of platinum, making it a promising development target for cancer therapeutics.

No / Vitiligo occurs in Northern Europe in one of 200 people. The disease can cause significant psychological stress for the affected individual. These patients generate and accumulate massive amounts of H2O2- and peroxynitrite in the epidermal compartment. Consequently many proteins are oxidized or nitrated, leading in turn to partial or complete loss of functionality. Moreover, presence of DNA damage in the skin as well as in plasma has been shown, while apoptosis is not enhanced. Induction of DNA repair is associated with up-regulated functioning p53 protein. Considering possible genetic predisposition and /or spontaneous mutations, autoimmune reactions in the disease are put forward in the context of oxidative stress. In addition a review of recent and novel treatment modalities including the role of oxidative stress reduction and combined climatotherapy at the Dead Sea in a group are discussed.

Yes / Conference abstract

Yes / Exposure to DNA-damaging agents produces a range of stress-related responses. These change the expression of genes leading to mutations that cause cell cycle arrest, induction of apoptosis and cancer. We have examined the contribution of haploid and diploid DNA damage and genes involved in the regulation of the apoptotic process associated with exposure, The Comet assay was used to detect DNA damage and quantitative RT-PCR analysis (qPCR) to detect gene expression changes in lymphocytes and sperm in response to methyl methanesulfonate. In the Comet assay, cells were administered 0–1.2 mM of MMS at 37 °C for 30 min for lymphocytes and 32 °C for 60 min for sperm to obtain optimal survival for both cell types. In the Comet assay a significant increase in Olive tail moment (OTM) and % tail DNA indicated DNA damage at increasing concentrations compared to the control group. In the qPCR study, cells were treated for 4 h, and RNA was isolated at the end of the treatment. qPCR analysis of genes associated with DNA stress responses showed that TP53 and CDKN1A are upregulated, while BCL2 is downregulated compared with the control. Thus, MMS caused DNA damage in lymphocytes at increasing concentrations, but appeared not to have the same effect in sperm at the low concentrations. These results indicate that exposure to MMS increased DNA damage and triggered the apoptotic response by activating TP53, CDKN1A and BCL2. These findings of the processing of DNA damage in human lymphocytes and sperm should be taken into account when genotoxic alterations in both cell types are produced when monitoring human exposure. / Libyan Government

No / Nanotechnology has preceded nanotoxicology and little is known of the effects of nanoparticles in human systems, let alone in diseased individuals. Therefore, the effects of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles in peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with respiratory diseases [lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma] were compared with those in healthy Individuals, to determine differences in sensitivity to nanochemical insult. The Comet assay was performed according to recommended guidelines. The micronucleus assay and ras oncoprotein detection were conducted according to published standard methods. The results showed statistically significant concentration-dependent genotoxic effects of TiO2 NPs in both respiratory patient and control groups in the Comet assay. The TiO2 NPs caused DNA damage in a concentration dependent manner in both groups (respiratory and healthy controls) with the exception of the lowest TiO2 concentration (10 µg/ml) which did not induce significant damage in healthy controls (ns). When OTM data were used to compare the whole patient group and the control group, the patient group had more DNA damage (p > 0.001) with the exception of 10 µg/ml of TiO2 that caused less significant damage to patient lymphocytes (p < 0.05). Similarly, there was an increase in the pattern of cytogenetic damage measured in the MN assay without statistical significance except when compared to the negative control of healthy individuals. Furthermore, when modulation of ras p21 expression was investigated, regardless of TiO2 treatment, only lung cancer and COPD patients expressed measurable ras p21 levels. All results were achieved in the absence of cytotoxicity.

Yes / Brain tumours kill more children and adults under 40 than any other cancer, with approximately half of primary brain tumours being diagnosed as high-grade malignancies known as glioblastomas. Despite de-bulking surgery combined with chemo-/radiotherapy regimens, the mean survival for these patients is only around 15 months, with less than 10% surviving over 5 years. This dismal prognosis highlights the urgent need to develop novel agents to improve the treatment of these tumours. To address this need, we carried out a human kinome siRNA screen to identify potential drug targets that augment the effectiveness of temozolomide (TMZ)-the standard-of-care chemotherapeutic agent used to treat glioblastoma. From this we identified ERK5/MAPK7, which we subsequently validated using a range of siRNA and small molecule inhibitors within a panel of glioma cells. Mechanistically, we find that ERK5 promotes efficient repair of TMZ-induced DNA lesions to confer cell survival and clonogenic capacity. Finally, using several glioblastoma patient cohorts we provide target validation data for ERK5 as a novel drug target, revealing that heightened ERK5 expression at both the mRNA and protein level is associated with increased tumour grade and poorer patient survival. Collectively, these findings provide a foundation to develop clinically effective ERK5 targeting strategies in glioblastomas and establish much-needed enhancement of the therapeutic repertoire used to treat this currently incurable disease.