Be Unlimited (also traded as Be There or simply BE and latterly known legally as Sky Home Communications Limited) was an Internet service provider in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2014. Initially founded as an independent company by Boris Ivanovic and Dana Tobak in 2005, it was bought by Spanish group Telefónica Europe in 2006 before being sold on to BSkyB in March 2013 in an agreement which saw BSkyB buy the fixed telephone line and broadband business of Telefónica Europe which at the time traded under the O2 and BE brands. The deal saw BSkyB agree to pay £180 million initially, followed by a further £20 million after all customers had been transferred to Sky's existing business. The sale was subject to regulatory approval in April 2013, and was subsequently approved by the Office of Fair Trading on 16 May 2013.BE offered ADSL2+ broadband services through BT's telephone exchanges via Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), with advertised speeds of up to 16 Mbit/s downstream and 1.9 Mbit/s upstream, subject to Annex M enablement, line length and quality, making BE's network the fastest mainstream, and first ADSL2+ ISP in Britain during its nine-year existence. Although BE's services were initially only available in selected parts of London, Manchester and Birmingham, it underwent a programme of rapid expansion across the UK making it available in at least 1,256 of the UK's telephone exchanges by 2012.
High-throughput phenotyping robots are transforming crop sample collection methods to enable the efficient acquisition of high-quality samples. Currently, large high-clearance robots stand out in high-throughput wheat phenotyping with advantages like high precision and close-range observation. However, research on large high- clearance robots remains limited, especially in autonomous localization and trajectory tracking. To overcome this limitation, a large high-clearance robot system is built for high-throughput wheat phenotyping in this paper. The chassis height of the high-clearance robot reaches 1.6 meters, accommodating the full growth cycle height of wheat. In particular, the system is optimized for localization and trajectory tracking infield environments. An adaptive Kalman filtering-based GNSS/INS combined positioning algorithm is proposed to handle poor GNSS signals in occluded environments. Additionally, a fuzzy PID control strategy is proposed to adaptively adjust the PID parameters, reducing deviations caused by environmental disturbances. Finally, a human-computer system is developed to enable remote control of the robot and display its status information. The field experimental results show that: the remote control system is verified to have high performance through 400 sets of experiments; the average angular velocity error of left and right hub motors is 0.08 rad/s; the average position deviation of the proposed adaptive Kalman filtering algorithm is 0.225 m, and the average heading deviation is 0.308 degrees ; the mean lateral deviation and heading deviation of trajectory tracking controller based fuzzy PID are 0.076 m and 1.746 degrees , respectively. According to the experimental results, the aforementioned high-clearance robot system can provide strong support for the precise observation and efficient analysis of wheat phenotypic data.
INTRODUCTION:Ocular redness is common, can affect quality of life, and can be relieved by short-term use of topical adrenergic receptor (AR) agonists. Brimonidine tartrate ophthalmic solution 0.025% (LUMIFY® 0.025%) is the first α2-AR-selective agonist approved for ocular redness. The preservative benzalkonium chloride (BAK) maintains ophthalmic solution sterility, reducing the risk of ocular infections, but may cause symptoms of ocular surface disease (OSD) in some patients. A BAK-free formulation of LUMIFY 0.025% (BTOS-PF 0.025%) could offer a solution for BAK-sensitive patients. METHODS:This randomized, active-controlled, multicenter study aimed to establish non-inferior efficacy of BTOS-PF 0.025% to LUMIFY 0.025% and compare safety. Randomized participants received either formulation instilled as a single drop four times daily, for 4 weeks. The primary endpoint was investigator-assessed ocular redness at 5, 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240 min post-instillation at visit 1 (day 1). Eight hierarchical secondary endpoints included additional post-instillation timepoints at visit 1 and visits 2 and 3 (days 14 and 28), and participant-assessed redness. RESULTS:BTOS-PF 0.025% was statistically non-inferior to LUMIFY 0.025% for ocular redness reduction across the eight timepoints at visit 1. Efficacy for both formulations was seen as early as 1 min and up to 8 h post-instillation. BTOS-PF 0.025% performed similarly to LUMIFY 0.025% after 14 and 28 days, rebound redness rates were low and similar, and total clearance of ocular redness and participant-evaluated redness were similar. The safety profile of both formulations was similar, with no severe or serious ocular events. CONCLUSIONS:BTOS-PF 0.025% was non-inferior to LUMIFY 0.025% in reducing ocular redness in adults, was well-tolerated, and offers an alternative topical solution, without loss of efficacy or compromised safety, for patients who prefer a preservative-free formulation or are at increased risk of OSD. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05360784. Date of registration: 29 April 2022.
Relict vegetation of water-splashed petrifying rocks with calcareous tufa formation dominated by the fern Adiantum capillus-veneris and wetland bryophytes (phytosociological class Adiantetea ) was investigated in Georgia, Caucasus biodiversity hotspot. The study brings the first phytosociological data on this scarce community in the Caucasus based on a novel dataset of vegetation plot records. A classification analysis revealed two main vegetation communities. They are represented by the Caucasian community recorded in the Mtkvari River valley inside the Tbilisi city (E Georgia) and the Colchic community developed under the humid, warm-temperate climate of Colchis (W Georgia), one of the key refugia of Tertiary flora across W Eurasia. To compare newly recorded vegetation types and so far described associations of the Adiantetea class, we used a broader dataset of the analogous communities reported from Europe and surroundings. It associated the Caucasian community with the pan-Mediterranean association Eucladio-Adiantetum . It was characterized by subhalophytes (e.g. Samolus valerandi ), Eucladium verticillatum as a dominant bryophyte, and the absence of relict or endemic vascular plant species. The Colchic community represented a previously undescribed community. Therefore, we designated a new association Saxifrago cymbalariae-Adiantetum capilli-veneris delineated by the characteristic species of the Colchic-Caucasian territory (e.g. Hedera colchica , Saxifraga cymbalaria ) and Palustriella commutata as the dominant bryophyte. Both associations belong to the Mediterranean-Atlantic alliance Adiantion . Described communities require conservation attention for their rarity, refugial character and presence of relict and endemic species. Modifications of the hydrological regime and construction activities are among their most important potential threats.
