All atomic particles have a particular "spin," analogous to the rotation of the Earth about its axis. Simple as spin may sound, the quantum mechanical reality underlying it is complex and still poorly understood. Yet this mysterious quality and the statistics associated with it have vast practical importance to topics as wide-ranging as the stability of atoms and stars and magnetic resonance imaging. Originally published in 1974, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga's "The Story of Spin" is an accessible treatment of the subject, now available in English translation. Tomonaga relates the story of the pioneers of physics and their difficult journey toward an understanding of the nature of spin and its relationship to statistics. His discussion of spin should interest advanced scientists studying the foundations of modern physics, while his description of the little-known history of the Japanese physics community from the 1920s to the 1940s should be a useful resource for historians and philosophers of science.


Under what conditions will a bystander intervene to try to stop a violent attack by one person on another? It is generally believed that the greater the size of the crowd of bystanders, the less the chance that any of them will intervene. A complementary model is that social identity is critical as an explanatory variable. For example, when the bystander shares common social identity with the victim the probability of intervention is enhanced, other things being equal. However, it is generally not possible to study such hypotheses experimentally for practical and ethical reasons. Here we show that an experiment that depicts a violent incident at life-size in immersive virtual reality lends support to the social identity explanation. 40 male supporters of Arsenal Football Club in England were recruited for a two-factor between-groups experiment: the victim was either an Arsenal supporter or not (in-group/out-group), and looked towards the participant for help or not during the confrontation. The response variables were the numbers of verbal and physical interventions by the participant during the violent argument. The number of physical interventions had a significantly greater mean in the in-group condition compared to the out-group. The more that participants perceived that the Victim was looking to them for help the greater the number of interventions in the in-group but not in the out-group. These results are supported by standard statistical analysis of variance, with more detailed findings obtained by a symbolic regression procedure based on genetic programming. Verbal interventions made during their experience, and analysis of post-experiment interview data suggest that in-group members were more prone to confrontational intervention compared to the out-group who were more prone to make statements to try to diffuse the situation.


This book-the culmination of a truly collaborative international and highly interdisciplinary effort-brings together Japanese and American political scientists, nuclear engineers, historians, and physicists to examine the Fukushima accident from a new and broad perspective. It explains the complex interactions between nuclear safety risks (the causes and consequences of accidents) and nuclear security risks (the causes and consequences of sabotage or terrorist attacks), exposing the possible vulnerabilities all countries may have if they fail to learn from this accident.The book further analyzes the lessons of Fukushima in comparative perspective, focusing on the politics of safety and emergency preparedness. It first compares the different policies and procedures adopted by various nuclear facilities in Japan and then discusses the lessons learned-and not learned-after major nuclear accidents and incidents in other countries in the past. The book's editors conclude that learning lessons across nations has proven to be very difficult, and they propose new policies to improve global learning after nuclear accidents or attacks.


This paper discusses possible motivations to adopt cognitive computing-based solutions in the field of healthcare and surveys some recent experiences. From a very practical point of view, the use of cognitive computing techniques can provide machines with human-like reasoning capabilities, thus allowing them to face heavy uncertainties and to cope with problems whose solution may require computing intensive tasks. Moreover, empowered by reliable networking infrastructures and cloud environments, cognitive computing enables effective machine-learning techniques, resulting in the ability to find solutions on the basis of past experience, taking advantage from both errors and successful findings. Owing to these special features, it is perceptible that healthcare can greatly benefit from such a powerful technology. In fact, clinical diagnoses are frequently based on statistics and significant research advancements were accomplished through the recursive analysis of huge quantity of unstructured data such as in the case of X-ray images or computerized axial tomography scans. As another example, let us consider the problem of DNA sequence classification with the uncountable combinations that derive from such a complex structure.


The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) embodies a radical notion. By allowing any person to request any records for any reason, it was meant to open up government for all to see. Investigative journalists, watchdog groups, and concerned citizens would all jump at the chance to hold officials accountable and unearth secretive government actions. The numbers would seem to support a FOIA success story: after all, the government now consistently receives over 700,000 FOIA requests a year.
As it turns out, however, it is not journalists and nonprofits making hundreds of thousands of requests. In my previous article, FOIA, Inc., I documented how commercial requesters have dominated the FOIA landscape at some agencies, particularly large regulatory agencies, and how, in doing so, they have transformed FOIA into a sort of business subsidy to the potential detriment of those making requests to promote government oversight.
This Article reveals the experience at another group of agencies, particularly those focused on law enforcement and benefits provision. At these agencies, FOIA requests are dominated by individuals seeking records about themselves—their own medical files, their own immigration records, or their own investigation files, for example. In fact, these requesters—whom I call first-person FOIA requesters—are likely to vastly outnumber commercial requesters. At the Department of Homeland Security alone, more than 200,000 such requests are filed each year. Using original datasets and interviews with requesters, this article documents the extent and nature of first-person FOIA requesting at seven federal agencies. It also demonstrates how these requests may serve vital private interests of the requester, but largely do not serve the public's interest in knowing what its government is up to.
Not only do these accounts suggest that FOIA may be suffering under the weight of unintended uses, but also reveal how first-person requesters are often ill-served by being forced to use FOIA simply because no good alternative exists. Moreover, it reveals how agencies themselves may be duplicating their work and hindering their own objectives by requiring first-person information needs to be met through FOIA. Important conclusions follow from these insights. Agencies should seek strategies—some of which are suggested here—to meet first-person information needs head on by designing sensible processes for obtaining commonly needed personal information. Alleviating the need to resort to FOIA would provide benefits that inure to the individuals, the agency, and the public's interest in transparency.


Brown heartwood rot is commonly found in mature lemon groves in southwestern Arizona. Two basidiomycete fungi, Antrodia sinuosa and Coniophora eremophila, have been isolated from symptomatic trees. A major difference between the two pathogens is that Antrodia forms spore-producing fruiting bodies on infected wood within lemon groves, whereas fruiting on lemon wood infected by Coniophora has not been observed. A third fungus, a species of Nodulisporium, recently was recovered from small dead lemon tree branches with an internal white wood rot. Experiments were conducted to compare the severity of wood rot caused by each of these pathogens. The highest rates of wood decay for each pathogen occurred from May through October, when the mean length of wood decay columns for Antrodia, Coniophora and Nodulisporium was 183, 94 and 146 mm, respectively, and the mean air temperature was 29°C. In comparison, the mean length of wood decay columns from November through April for the same pathogens was 35, 18 and 38 mm, respectively, with a mean air temperature of 17°C. When inoculated with Antrodia, Coniophora or Nodulisporium, the length of wood decay columns on 40mm-diameter branches was 26, 38 and 24% larger, respectively, compared to wood decay on 10-mm-diameter branches. The length of wood decay columns on inoculated Lisbon lemon was always numerically greater than that on tested orange, grapefruit and tangelo trees. Compared to lemon, wood decay columns ranged from 45 (on grapefruit) to 62 %( on orange) shorter when inoculated with Antrodia, 52 (on orange) to 59% (on tangelo) for Coniophora and 20 (on tangelo) to 51% (on grapefruit) for Nodulisporium. Compared to non-treated branches, suppression of wood decay in the presence of a test fungicide ranged from 28 to 79% for Antrodia, 77 to 91% for Coniophora and 71 to 92% for Nodulisporium. For each pathogen, the lowest numerical degree of wood rot suppression occurred in the presence of trifloxystrobin (Flint), whereas the highest level of suppression was observed with propiconazole (Break). On greasewood, mesquite, Palo Verde and salt cedar, the length of wood decay columns ranged from 20 to 60 mm when inoculated with Antrodia, 1 to 63 mm for Coniophora and 24 to 90 mm for Nodulisporium. For all three wood-rotting fungi, resultant wood decay columns were always much greater on lemon compared to tested desert-dwelling plants. Current disease management strategies include minimizing branch fractures and other non-pruning wounds as well as periodic inspection of trees and removal of infected branches, including physical removal of all wood infected with Antrodia from the grove site. 1 The authors wish to sincerely thank the Arizona Citrus Research Council for supporting this project. This is the final report for project 2001-07 "Biology and Control of Lemon Tree Wood Rot Diseases". This is a part of 2002 Citrus and Deciduous Fruit and Nut Research Report, the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, index at http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/crops/az1303


For much of the twentieth century, industrialized nations addressed social problems, such as workers' compensation benefits and social welfare programs, in terms of spreading risk. But in recent years a new approach has emerged: using risk both as a way to conceive of and address social problems and as an incentive to reduce individual claims on collective resources. Embracing Risk explores this new approach from a variety of perspectives. The first part of the book focuses on the interplay between risk and insurance in various historical and social contexts. The second part examines how risk is used to govern fields outside the realm of insurance, from extreme sports to policing, mental health institutions, and international law. Offering an original approach to risk, insurance, and responsibility, the provocative and wide-ranging essays in Embracing Risk demonstrate that risk has moved well beyond its origins in the insurance trade to become a central organizing principle of social and cultural life.


Art criticism can be said to differ from art history, particularly as regards the processes employed in the two disciplines. Whereas art history is generally an academic, institutional discipline, entailing specialised and professional methodologies, criticism - or writing about new art - is seldom bound to academic requirements. Individual critics may use methodologies virtually indistinguishable from those of the art historian, but may also, and legitimately, eschew them. However, certain common methods or tools can be said to underlie art criticism.


Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is acknowledged as one of the greatest draftsmen of the 20th century. Picasso's Drawings, 1890-1921 follows the dazzling development of his drawing practice from the precocious academic exercises of his youth to his renewal of classicism in his virtuoso output of the early 1920s. A selection of more than seventy works on paper, with extended entries, highlights his stylistic experiments and techniques during this roughly thirty-year period, which begins and ends in a classical mode and encompasses his most radical innovations. An essay by Susan Grace Galassi provides a detailed study of Picasso's drawing practice and explores his interest in the Old Masters, and Marilyn McCully considers the early critical responses to Picasso's drawings. These discussions of Picasso's style, sources, and techniques demonstrate how drawing served as an essential means of invention and discovery for the artist. This book brings to the fore Picasso's engagement with artists of the past and the ways in which he perpetuated, competed with, and ultimately reinvented the practices of his artistic mentors on his own terms. Through emulation, allusion, dissection, and outright hijacking, Picasso continued the grand tradition of drawing in a revitalized form. This study reveals the extent to which the artist relied on drawing as a means of synthesizing past and present, tradition and innovation, to give his own art a bold and vigorous expression.


HOW TO IGNORE A CORRUPTION SCANDAL, KREMLIN STYLE. (By Peter Hobson. The
 Moscow Times, Dec. 10, 2015, p. 1. Complete text:) Aleksei Navalny has spent
 years publishing revelations of the ill-gotten luxuries of Russia's elite and
 seeing them ignored by authorities. But when the blogger and opposition politician's
 anticorruption fund unveiled an investigation linking colleagues of Russian
 Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to the bloodiest bandits of recent years [see Current Digest, Vol. 67, No.
 49, pp. 13-14], Navalny thought they would be forced to act. ... Published on Dec. 1, the investigation linked Chaika's deputy, Gennady Lopatin,
 and another prosecutor, Aleksei Staroverov, to the leaders of the Tsapok gang,
 who terrorized the town of Kushchevskaya in southern Russia through systematic
 rape and theft for more than a decade before their slaughtering of 12 people,
 including four children, forced authorities to intervene in 2010 [see Current Digest, Vol. 62, No.
 44-45, p. 17]. ... It also linked Chaika's son, Artyom, to the expropriation of a shipping company
 in the Far East whose director was allegedly strangled, and documented the apparent
 rigging of auctions for lucrative state contracts by Artyom's brother, Igor. The
 investigation showed how both Chaika's sons, who have amassed businesses and real
 estate worth millions of dollars, enjoyed the protection of prosecutors. ... It took the public by storm. Three million people watched a Russian-language film
 version of the investigation on YouTube in less than a week. But there were no
 mass firings or public investigation opened. Yury Chaika branded it an attempt
 to discredit him, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was not interested
 in the dealings of Chaika's "grown-up" sons, whose affairs he said had nothing
 to do with the prosecutor general. ... Two days after the investigation was published, [Russian] President Vladimir Putin
 made his traditional denouncement of corruption during his annual state of the
 nation address [see Current
 Digest, Vol. 67, No. 49, pp. 3-8]. Chaika watched calmly from the front of
 the audience as Putin asked the Prosecutor [General]'s Office to be vigilant. ... The reaction is a familiar one in Russia, where almost every member of the elite
 that emerged from the 1990s has had dealings with organized crime. News that
 officials are corrupt surprised few - particularly in the Kremlin. ... Moreover, Putin has made it a point never to react to outside pressure or cut
 loose members of his cabal. "Putin's mind is set: If he reacts (and fires Chaika
 - Ed.), that makes him vulnerable - not in the eyes of society, but in
 the eyes of his siloviki," a source close to the security services told
 The Moscow Times, using a word that refers to "strongmen" officials with roots
 in law enforcement. ... But the investigation did ruffle feathers in the Kremlin, according to two sources
 close to the security services. Even in Russia, associating with gangsters like
 the Tsapoks is a step too far, one source said. Also damaging are the connections
 amassed by Artyom Chaika in Switzerland, where Navalny's investigation revealed
 he bought several houses and a residence permit. Putin and his inner circle would
 see this as treason - particularly dangerous if it exposes insiders with sensitive
 information to foreign pressure at a time when the Kremlin's relations with the
 West have soured over Ukraine, the sources said. ... By Russian standards, the reaction to the investigation was big. The Kremlin,
 which ignores Navalny to the extent that it refuses to utter his name, felt forced
 to comment. Navalny's targets rarely respond to his findings, yet Chaika defended
 himself. Soon after the investigation came out, independent television channel
 Dozhd [Rain], which had helped Navalny gather evidence, was raided by prosecutors
 in what one source called a "knee-jerk" reaction to the scandal. ... Navalny told The Moscow Times he was surprised that so few people argued with or
 tried to smear his conclusions, and that so few people publicly defended Chaika. ... But that does not mean that things will change. State-run television is not giving
 airtime to the case, and headlines fade. "We're realistic people," Navalny said,
 and we know they won't fire anyone: "It would contradict the very basis of the regime." ... In a blog post following the publication, Navalny said the burden was now on the
 public to spread the word and [on] journalists to "obtain a reasonable reaction
 and reasonable answers." ... This will prove difficult. "Unlike American media, Russian media aren't used to
 catching their prey," Navalny told The Moscow Times. ... But Putin may do the job for them. Chaika could suffer the fate of his predecessor
 in the Prosecutor General's Office, Vladimir Ustinov, who was abruptly fired at
 Putin's request in 2006. No explanation for the sacking was ever given.


The monitoring, interpretation and prediction of gradual ground surface deformation are critical factors in the understanding of earth systems. In many parts of the world, particularly in coastal areas where resources are often easily transportable and where steep cliffs allow access to underlying strata, the patterns of natural ground surface deformation are complicated by mining or extraction activities. To accurately estimate the amount of sea-level rise and Its total affect on, for example, frequency of flooding or salt-water intrusion, the amount of ground surface deformation, either subsidence or uplift, need to be understood in great detail. Ground surface dynamics over an area of contemporary deep mining, IS investigated through two research objectives. A feasibility study of conventional InSAR and Persistent Scatterer InSAR (PSI) in a rural setting was carried out. Rural areas are generally avoided for the application of these techniques for the measurement of gradual ground surface deformation due to the lack of coherence between scenes. The results demonstrate that the new PSI technique significantly outperformed conventional InSAR m the detection of gradual ground surface deformation. However, limitations to the technique were identified in the low density and limited distribution of permanent scatterers. The behaviour of the deformation rate over time appears to be biased to a linear trend. Furthermore, in order to understand the link between underground mining activities and local ground surface response a data-driven model has been developed and evaluated. Based on different mining scenarios, this mode! IS able to estimate the total subsidence in a four dimensional space. It was found that local ground surface deformation can be forecasted accurately, based on an angle of draw and four variables. Five key indicators, which are the extent of die disturbed area, the total period of deformation, the peak rate, the moment of the peak rate and the total deformation, are relevant to understand the impact of underground excavations on the surface and to place it in a wider Earth system.


The Interfacial activity of Vitex doniana (VD) leaves extract as inhibitor has been studied on carbon steel corrosion in hydrochloric acid solution using weight loss, gasometry, electrochemical techniques and quantum chemical calculations. Increase in inhibition efficiency with increased inhibitor concentration which indicate that VD molecules acted by accumulating at metal/electrolyte interface. Weight loss results show that inhibition efficiency increased with increase in inhibitor concentration but decreased with increase in temperature indicating a physical adsorption. Data obtained from the potentiodynamic polarization scan revealed that the corrosion inhibitor shifted corrosion potentials to more negative potential indicating prominent cathodic protection. The impedance data showed a decrease in double layer capacitance and an increase in charge transfer resistance which suggests that electron migration was retarded in the bulk solution. The Nyquist and Bode plots of the test solutions were similar in both inhibited and free medium but contained capacitive and inductive loops. To assess the interaction of VD molecules with Fe(110) surface, quantum chemical calculations were performed to elucidate the molecular reactivity parameters of inhibitor molecules while molecular dynamics studied the binding properties of inhibitor molecules on metal surface. Local reactivity was estimated and discussed through condensed Fukui indices. Theoretical calculations were carried out using Dmol3 basis set for all atoms.


Abstract Asymmetric reduction of ketones is an important transformation in organic synthesis, because chiral carbinols are useful bioactive compounds. In this study, bioreduction of acetophenone (ACP) for production of enantiomerically pure (S)-1-phenyl-ethanol was investigated and freeze-dried carrots were used as a source of alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs). However, production of product was investigated systematically using response surface methodology (RSM). Before RSM, the effects of the initial substrate concentration, reaction time, temperature and pH on the bioreduction were studied. The best results for enantiomeric excesses (ee) and conversion (c) were obtained with >99% and 58%, respectively, for the reaction time 48 h, initial substrate concentration 1 mm, reaction temperature 33°C and pH 7. In the RSM, initial substrate concentration, concentration of plant cell, reaction time and stirring rate were chosen as independent variables. The predicted optimum conditions for a higher ee (>99%) and conversion (57.8%) were as follows: initial substrate concentration, 1 mm; concentration of plant cell, 25 g/l; reaction time, 52 h and stirring rate, 200 rpm. As a result of repeated experiments, the product was obtained as 0.6 mm at this optimum point and the values obtained demonstrated conformity with 0.578 mm value calculated by the model equation.


A sneak peek at up-and-coming trends in IT, a multidimensional vision for achieving business agility through agile architectures The Agile Architecture Revolution places IT trends into the context of Enterprise Architecture, reinventing Enterprise Architecture to support continuous business transformation. It focuses on the challenges of large organizations, while placing such organizations into the broader business ecosystem that includes small and midsize organizations as well as startups. * Organizes the important trends that are facing technology in businesses and public sector organizations today and over the next several years * Presents the five broad organizing principles called Supertrends: location independence, global cubicle, democratization of technology, deep interoperability, and complex systems engineering * Provides a new perspective on service-oriented architecture in conjunction with architectural approaches to cloud computing and mobile technologies that explain how organizations can achieve better business visibility through IT and enterprise architecture Laying out a multidimensional vision for achieving agile architectures, this book discusses the crisis points that promise sudden, transformative change, unraveling how organizations' spending on IT will continue to undergo radical change over the next ten years.


When a shoal of small fishes notices a predator, they typically change their collective shape and form a specific pattern. They do so efficiently (in parallel) and without collision. This motivates us to design algorithms with similar properties. In this paper, we study the problem of distributed pattern formation. A set of processes needs to move from a set of initial positions to a set of final positions. The processes are oblivious (no internal memory) and must preserve, at any time, a minimal distance between them. A naive solution would be to move the processes one by one, but this would have a poor time complexity. The difficulty here is to move the processes simultaneously in clearly delimited phases (as there is no internal memory), no matter how unfavorable the initial configuration may be. We solve this by treating the problem ``dimension by dimension'': the processes first form 1D trails, then gather into a 2D shape (this technique can be generalized to higher dimensions). We present an optimal algorithm which time complexity depends linearly on the radius of the smallest circle containing both initial and final positions. The algorithm is self-stabilizing, as the processes are oblivious and the initial positions are arbitrary.


The article is an analysis of the regulations regarding the reduction of pensions of former officers of the People's Republic of Poland's security services as an element of state politics of memory, presenting the Uniformed Services Pension Amendment Acts of 2009 and 2016 from the perspective of transitional justice.

Whilst investigating the admissibility of using such a retribution mechanism, the author draws attention to the purpose of this type of regulation. Reducing pensions has, in fact, two goals – a retrospective one and a prospective one. The retrospective goal is about administering historical justice by penalizing a specific group of people using various mechanisms (in this case administrative sanctions). In the prospective aspect, it is an element of institutionalizing memory and building a specific political narrative. As a consequence, apart from commemorative practices, it aims to produce and disseminate knowledge in public space, while clearly rejecting the past regime.

In relation to the Uniformed Services Pension Amendment Acts, while the Act of 2009 was to some extent aimed at the retrospective goal, the 2016 Act is primarily an element of politics of memory used by authorities to control the recollection of past events by explicitly condemning the previous system and all persons in any way related to it. For this reason, the author focuses on the mechanism of reducing pensions as one of the elements of politics of memory in Poland.


Background: Minimal invasive surgeries are carried out to benefit the patient with less pain, blood loss, mechanical ventilation and hospital stay; a smaller scar is not the aim. Minimal invasive cardiac surgeries are carried out via small sternotomy, small thoracotomy and via robotic arms. Subxiphoid route is a novel method and avoids sternotomy. Aim: This case series is an attempt to understand the anesthetic modifications required. Secondly, whether it is feasible to carry out subxiphoid coronary artery bypass surgery. Methods: Elective patients scheduled to undergo subxiphoid coronary artery bypass surgery were chosen. The surgeries were conducted under general anesthesia with left lung isolation via either endobronchial tube or bronchial blocker. Results: We conducted ten (seven males and 3 females) coronary artery bypass graft surgeries via subxiphoid technique. The mean EuroSCORE was 1.7 and the mean ejection fraction was 53.6. Eight patients underwent surgery via endobronchial tube, while, in the remaining two lung isolation was obtained using bronchial blocker. Mean blood loss intraoperatively was 300 ± 42 ml and postoperatively 2000 ± 95 ml. The pain score on the postoperative day ′0′ was 4.3 ± 0.6 and 2.3 ± 0.7 on the day of discharge. Length of stay in the hospital was 4.8 ± 0.9 days. There were no complications, blood transfusions, conversion to cardiopulmonary bypass. The modifications in the anesthetic and surgical techniques are, use of left lung isolation using either endobronchial tube or bronchial blocker, increased duration for conduit harvesting, grafting, requirement of transesophageal echocardiography monitoring in addition to hemodynamic monitoring. Other minor requirements are transcutaneous pacing and defibrillator pads, a wedge under the chest to ′lift′ up the chest, sparing right femoral artery and vein (to serve as vascular access) for an unlikely event of conversion to cardiopulmonary bypass. Any anesthesiologist wishing to start this technique must be aware of these modifications. Conclusions: Subxiphoid route is safe to carry out coronary artery bypass graft surgery using the minimal invasive cardiac surgery. It is reproducible and has undeniable benefits. We plan to conduct such surgeries in awake patients under thoracic epidural anesthesia thus making it even less invasive and amenable for fast tracking.


Interest in the Doha Round appears to be waning among those who should be its major stakeholders. While the negotiations are still interesting to trade policy professionals, the apparently endless negotiations and increasingly trivial nature of any progress that is announced – at least from the perspective of the business community and others in civil society with an interest in trade policy – may be detrimental to the future effectiveness of the WTO. While officials and trade policy professionals continue to suggest that it is business as usual at the negotiations, stakeholders are increasingly dissatisfied with this explanation. Those actively engaged in the process need to step back from the minutiae of the negotiations and consider the broader ramifications of the drawn-out negotiating process for the long-term effectiveness of multilateral trade institutions.


The tangent line is a central concept in many mathematics and science courses. In this paper we describe a model of students' thinking – concept images as well as ability in symbolic manipulation – about the tangent line of a curve as it has developed through students' experiences in Euclidean Geometry and Analysis courses. Data was collected through a questionnaire administered to 196 Year 12 students. Through Latent Class Analysis, the participants were classified in three hierarchical groups representing the transition from a Geometrical Global perspective on the tangent line to an Analytical Local perspective. In the light of this classification, and through qualitative explanations of the students' responses, we describe students' thinking about tangents in terms of seven factors. We confirm the model constituted by these seven factors through Confirmatory Factor Analysis.


Biogas is an alternative energy sources as a substitute for fossil fuels in household activities daily, but there are obstacles in the use of biogas, namely the difficulty of arranging a flame that is stable and fuel consumption relatively less efficient biogas. So it takes a design development system that will produce a burning stove produces biogas-fueled stove fits the purpose of research, on the other hand biogas stove should be simple, cheap production price, maximum efficiency and safe to use. Stages in the study include: desk assessment, creation of objective requirements design, manufacture conceptual and basic design, manufacture real stove. As for knowing the performance of the stove carried stove performance tests are: test flame stability and efficiency. The results showed that the efficiency of the biogas stove design results in only 31 percent higher than the efficiency of biogas stoves old design, while the fuel consumption of biogas stoves new design is 16 percent lower when compared with fuel consumption of biogas stoves old design. In terms of manufacture and ease of repair and maintenance of gas cookers new design is more easily repaired and easy to make and simple in form compared with the old design biogas stoves.


This article provides an original understanding of the behavior of a class of graph-oriented semi-supervised learning algorithms in the limit of large and numerous data. It is demonstrated that the intuition at the root of these methods collapses in this limit and that, as a result, most of them become inconsistent. Corrective measures and a new data-driven parametrization scheme are proposed along with a theoretical analysis of the asymptotic performances of the resulting approach. A surprisingly close behavior between theoretical performances on Gaussian mixture models and on real datasets is also illustrated throughout the article, thereby suggesting the importance of the proposed analysis for dealing with practical data. As a result, significant performance gains are observed on practical data classification using the proposed parametrization.


Novato, a newly observed fall in the San Francisco Bay area, is a shocked and brecciated L6 ordinary chondrite containing dark and light lithologies. We have investigated the U‐Pb isotope systematics of coarse Cl‐apatite grains of metamorphic origin in Novato with a large geometry ion microprobe. The U‐Pb systematics of Novato apatite reveals an upper intercept age of 4472 ± 31 Ma and lower intercept age of 473 ± 38 Ma. The upper intercept age is within error identical to the U‐Pb apatite age of 4452 ± 21 Ma measured in the Chelyabinsk LL5 chondrite. This age is interpreted to reflect a massive collisional resetting event due to a large impact associated with the peak arrival time at the primordial asteroid belt of ejecta debris from the Moon‐forming giant impact on Earth. The lower intercept age is consistent with the most precisely dated Ar‐Ar ages of 470 ± 6 Ma of shocked L chondrites, and the fossil meteorites and extraterrestrial chromite relicts found in Ordovician limestones with an age of 467.3 ± 1.6 Ma in Sweden and China. The lower intercept age reflects a major disturbance related to the catastrophic disruption of the L chondrite parent body most likely associated with the Gefion asteroid family, which produced an initially intense meteorite bombardment of the Earth in Ordovician period and reset and degassed at least approximately 35% of the L chondrite falls today. We predict that the 470 Ma impact event is likely to be found on the Moon and Mars, if not Mercury.


In response to the 2016 Hau debate "Anthropology and the study of contradictions," I suggest that the anthropological focus on people's (mutually opposing) dispositions opens more possibilities to capture power relations than the focus on propositions or utterances, proposed by some authors in this debate. I add to the debate an anthropological focus on the future, and I introduce the importance of ambivalence in the study of contradictions.


Piezoelectric energy harvesters are at the front of scientific research as enablers of renewable, sustainable energy for autonomous wireless sensor networks. Crucial for this disruptive technology is the achievable output power. Here we show, analytically, that the maximum output energy per unit volume, under a single sinusoidal excitation, is equal to 1/(4 − 2k2) × 1/2dgX2, where k2 is the electromechanical coupling coefficient, d and g are the piezoelectric charge and voltage coefficient, respectively, and X is the applied stress. The expression derived is validated by the experimentally measured output energy for a variety of piezoelectric materials over an unprecedented range of more than five orders of magnitude. As the prefactor 1/(4 − 2k2) varies only between 1/2 and 1/4 the figure of merit for piezoelectric materials for energy harvesters is not k2, as commonly accepted for vibrational harvesters, but dg. The figure of merit does not depend on the compliance, or Young's modulus. Hence we argue that commonly used brittle inorganic piezoelectric ceramics can be replaced by soft, mechanically flexible polymers and composite films, comprising inorganic piezoelectric materials embedded in a polymer matrix.


The main goal of this study is obtaining comprehensive and detailed information through a feasibility study for a confectionary factory located in Jeddah, which could answer the following question:
Will the idea of establishing a confectionary in Jeddah work and could we continue with this business idea?
The feasibility study will be divided by six main sections, which are: business strategy, marketing feasibility study, technical feasibility study, financial feasibility study, social and environmental feasibility study, and location and site feasibility study. In the marketing feasibility study all the needed information about supply and demand will be addressed. In addition, a detailed study on competitors is a major part of the marketing part. The technical feasibility study will help in identifying problems that could hinder the progress of our confectionary business and will list all the machinery needed for the business. The financial feasibility study will tell our investors and other important stakeholders as to identifying the resources that are essential for actual production and distribution purpose and for smooth running of our business and most importantly it will tell them wither the factory is going to make profits or not. After that, identification of best areas for the factory is going to be implemented in the location and site feasibility study. Finally, discussing the impact on the society and wither the factory is going to create jobs and it will also discuss the affect of the factory on the environment. For the more, the study will cover other areas, such as: Enterprise resource planning (ERP), Marketing and advertising, and Human resource planning. In order to do the study a primary and secondary research needed to be accomplished, more than three hundred surveys had been distributed for understanding the customers and for marketing purposes.


With the growing success of controlling malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, the incidence of fever due to malaria is in decline, whereas the proportion of patients with non-malaria febrile illness (NMFI) is increasing. Clinical diagnosis of NMFI is hampered by unspecific symptoms, but early diagnosis is a key factor for both better patient care and disease control. The aim of this study was to determine the arboviral aetiologies of NMFI in low resource settings, using a mobile laboratory based on recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) assays. The panel of tests for this study was expanded to five arboviruses: dengue virus (DENV), zika virus (ZIKV), yellow fever virus (YFV), chikungunya virus (CHIKV), and rift valley fever virus (RVFV). One hundred and four children aged between one month and 115 months were enrolled and screened. Three of the 104 blood samples of children <10 years presented at an outpatient clinic tested positive for DENV. The results were confirmed by RT-PCR, partial sequencing, and non-structural protein 1 (NS1) antigen capture by ELISA (Biorad, France). Phylogenetic analysis of the derived DENV-1 sequences clustered them with sequences of DENV-1 isolated from Guangzhou, China, in 2014. In conclusion, this mobile setup proved reliable for the rapid identification of the causative agent of NMFI, with results consistent with those obtained in the reference laboratory's settings.


The ninth Best Paper Award 2018 ceremony was held at Hilltop Hotel, Tokyo, September 26, 2018, attended by the winners and IJAT Editorial Committee members. At the same time, the third Best Review Award 2018 has been decided by IJAT Editorial Committee. The Best Paper was severely selected from among 93 papers published in Vol.11, 2017, and Best Review was selected from 15 reviews published from 2016 to 2018. The Best Paper Award winner was given a certificate with a nearly US$1,000 honorarium, and the Best Review Award winner was given a certificate with commemorative shield.
We congratulate the winners and sincerely wish for their future success.

The Best Paper Award 2018
Integrated Chatter Monitoring Based on Sensorless Cutting Force/Torque Estimation in Parallel Turning
by Yuki Yamada, Takashi Kadota, Shinya Sakata, Junji Tachibana, Kenichi Nakanishi, Manabu Sawada, and Yasuhiro Kakinuma
Int. J. of Automation Technology, Vol.11 No.2, pp. 215-225, March 2017

The Best Review Award 2018
"Industrie 4.0" and Smart Manufacturing – A Review of Research Issues and Application Examples
by Klaus-Dieter Thoben, Stefan Wiesner, and Thorsten Wuest
Int. J. of Automation Technology, Vol.11 No.1, pp. 4-16, January 2017


Abstract Members of the Etyidae and Feldmanniidae new family have unique arrangements of the spermatheca and gonopores that permit placement of each in different families and that differentiate each from all other brachyurans. Spermathecal openings are not always positioned along the sternal suture between sternites 7 and 8, suggesting that reproductive architecture within the Brachyura and what was formerly regarded as the Podotremata is considerably more diverse and disparate than previously thought. Etyidae and Feldmanniidae radiated in the early Cretaceous and survived into the Paleogene. New taxa include Steorrosia new genus, Bretonia new genus, Faksecarcinus new genus, and sixteen new combinations.


This paper presents a PhD program examining the formation and governance patterns of the social and spatial concentration of creative people and creative businesses in cities. It develops a typology for creative places, adding the terms 'scene' and 'quarter' to 'clusters', to fill in the literature gap of partial emphasis on the 'creative clusters' model as an organising mechanism for regional and urban policy. The framework is then applied to China, specifically to Hangzhou, a second-tier city in central eastern China that is ambitious to become a 'national cultural and creative industries centre'. Drawing on in-depth interviews with initiators, managers and creative professionals from three cases selected respectively for scene, quarter and cluster, together with extensive documentary analysis, the paper investigates the composition of actors, characteristics of the locality and the diversity of activities of the three places. The findings demonstrate a convergence of the three terms. Furthermore, in China, planning and government intervention is the key to the governance of creative places; spontaneous development processes exist, but these need a more tolerant environment, a greater diversity of cultural forms and more time to develop. Moreover, the main business development model is still real estate based: this model needs to incorporate more mature business models and an enhanced IP protection system. Finally, the business strategies need to be combined with a self-management model for the creative class, and a collaborative governance mechanism with other stakeholders such as government, real estate developers and education providers.


Post-disaster reconstruction management of urban areas requires timely information on the ground response microzonation to strong levels of ground shaking to minimize the rebuilt-environment vulnerability to future earthquakes. In this paper, a procedure is proposed to quantitatively estimate the severity of ground response in terms of peak ground acceleration, that is computed from macroseismic rating data, soil properties (acoustic impedance) and predominant frequency of shear waves at a site. The basic mathematical relationships are derived from properties of wave propagation in a homogeneous and isotropic media. We define a Macroseismic Intensity Scale IMS as the logarithm of the quantity of seismic energy that flows through a unit area normal to the direction of wave propagation in unit time. The derived constants that relate the IMS scale and peak acceleration agree well with coefficients derived from a linear regression between MSK macroseismic rating and peak ground acceleration for historical earthquakes recorded at a strong motion station, at IGP's former headquarters, since 1954. The procedure was applied to 3-October-1974 Lima macroseismic intensity data at places where there was geotechnical data and predominant ground frequency information. The observed and computed peak acceleration values, at nearby sites, agree well.


That international trade flows respond to changes in real exchange rates is beyond question. What is less clear is whether the measurement of real exchange rates matters for characterizing and predicting such responses. To identify the implications of choosing a given measure of the real exchange rate, I examine how the parameter estimates and the forecast performance of a given model vary in response to alternative measures of real exchange rates. I reject a given measure if its use (a) implies estimates inconsistent with economic theory; (b) contradicts the assumptions needed for statistical inference; (c) leads to systematic forecast errors; or (d) entails a loss of information relative to an alternative measure. Although the analysis rejects several measures of real exchange rates, it cannot identify a unique measure suitable for explaining U.S. trade: relative unit labor costs and relative consumer prices are equally suited for modeling and predicting U.S. trade.


Mutations in the gene for telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) are associated with diseases including dyskeratosis congenita, aplastic anemia, pulmonary fibrosis and cancer. Understanding the molecular basis of these telomerase-associated diseases requires dependable quantitative measurements of telomerase enzyme activity. Furthermore, recent findings that the human POT1-TPP1 chromosome end-binding protein complex stimulates telomerase activity and processivity provide incentive for testing variant telomerases in the presence of these factors. In the present work, we compare multiple disease-associated hTERT variants reconstituted with the RNA subunit hTR in two systems (rabbit reticulocyte lysates and human cell lines) with respect to telomerase enzymatic activity, processivity and activation by telomere proteins. Surprisingly, many of the previously reported disease-associated hTERT alleles give near-normal telomerase enzyme activity. It is possible that a small deficit in telomerase activity is sufficient to cause telomere shortening over many years. Alternatively, mutations may perturb functions such as the recruitment of telomerase to telomeres, which are essential in vivo but not revealed by simple enzyme assays.


The amount of timber being harvested from private lands in Utah increased significantly in the 1990's. In 1998, 61% of timber harvested in Utah was extracted from private lands, which make up 20% of the commercial forestland base (Silviculture Activities 1998, C.E. Keegan III et. al. 1995, Annual Mill Operating Survey 1999). This is due to many factors including federal harvest reductions and an increase in out-of-state operators looking for timber in Utah. The Iron County area is one of the few areas of the state that has a high percentage of private forestlands located within its borders. This area is also experiencing many forest health concerns including a spruce beetle epidemic and serious aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) mortality. These factors have resulted in an increased need and interest in harvesting timber from private lands. Because some of the more valuable and biologically diverse lands were homesteaded and are now held privately, these lands are of great value and concern to their owners and the public. If we are to protect these ecological resources, timber must be harvested from private lands in a sustainable manner. This points out the need to inform landowners so they understand all the factors associated with proper forest management before engaging in harvesting timber from their lands. To address this situation, Chad Reid, USU Extension Agent, Jim Bowns, SUU/USU Professor and Clint Reese, FFSL Area Forester, in cooperation with the Utah Forest Landowner Education program coordinated by Mike Kuhns, USU Forestry Extension Specialist, setup and held two workshops, three field trips and one lab to educate landowners about the situation and proper forest land management. Landowner evaluations of these programs show they were overwhelmingly successful. Detailed descriptions of the educational events and results from participant evaluations will be discussed. Figure 2. Question 1 and 2 results by activity


Expected impacts due to recently introduced CAP reforms can be felt beyond the agricultural sector affecting the entire regional economy. Employment levels will be affected within the farming sector and probably non-agricultural sector will feel the pinch too. Policies influencing employment levels attract the attention of the media and the public. Therefore, policy makers are more sensitive on employment issues than rural and agricultural policies as it is widely admitted that no vibrant regions in Europe can be envisioned without enhancing job opportunities. The influence of CAP reform on employment has not been thoroughly studied within a comprehensive approach, accounting for agricultural and non-agricultural effects and covering the diversity of EU rural regions. In this research work, five EU regions [Emilia Romagna (IT), East Wales (UK), Anatoliki Makedonia and Thraki (GR), Ostergotland (SWE) and Kassel (GER)] have been selected and studied to identify and measure CAP's effects on employment throughout the regional economy. A framework of three different approaches (Participatory Process/desk research, PMP, I-O) was developed and then applied to those five EU regions to trace out the current and anticipated employment effects of Pillar I and II. The main focus of this work is on consolidating results derived from different models, applied to five EU regions, to deduce valuable policy generalizations and to derive conclusions that guide policy makers on decisions related to regional and rural development. The results offer a comprehensive picture of the impacts of CAP reforms on regional economies and employment enriching the understanding of the range and diversity of contexts in which CAP is being applied.


This paper reports findings from a Fijian study that engaged secondary mathematics teachers in a two-day professional development workshop on the use of portfolios as an alternative means of assessing student learning in mathematics. Utilising an action research approach with a view to involve teachers as key
stakeholders in mathematics education, the professional development prompted a small group of secondary mathematics teachers to think about the mathematics content and processes which could not be assessed using written tests, and to develop assessments that would
reflect higher-order thinking in mathematics. While the majority of the teachers came up with ideas that were well suited for portfolio assessment, some participants faced minor difficulties in relating to real-world experiences and developing higher-order tasks. Teachers
were able to come up with teaching and learning activities that could be used for portfolio assessment. At the end of the workshop ten of the 12 teachers were interviewed to gain an insight into their experiences.
All of them stated explicitly that they had found the workshop very useful and rewarding because portfolios could provide an alternative way to assess student learning, and could possibly influence the way they taught mathematics.


Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many other social networking sites have now became an integrated part of our lives. These sites allow users to interact and share online content and connect with like-minded people. Its strengths are rapid dissemination and amplification of content. Social media tools can be some of the most rewarding and informative resources for science communicators, especially in a developing country like India, by generating public awareness of science, public understanding of science, scientific culture and science literacy. As individuals increasingly seek information online about science and technology issues, public communication of science via online platforms becomes an ever more important opportunity to facilitate dialogue between science and society. This study discusses whether the main aim is simply to reach a wide audience or to engage meaningfully with a smaller audience in a most trustworthy manner. It also discusses how to use social web as an effective communication tool in the Indian context. This will be based on primary data collected through interviews, survey and by rigorous analysis of collected data.


Background: Muscle wasting is a component of the diagnosis of cancer cachexia and has been associated with poor prognosis. However, recommended tools to measure sarcopenia are limited by poor sensitivity or the need to perform additional scans. We hypothesized that pectoralis muscle area (PMA) measured objectively on chest CT scan may be associated with overall survival (OS) in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: We evaluated 252 cases from a prospectively enrolling lung cancer cohort. Eligible cases had CT scans performed prior to the initiation of surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. PMA was measured in a semi-automated fashion while blinded to characteristics of the tumor, lung, and patient outcomes. Results: Men had a significantly greater PMA than women (37.59 vs. 26.19 cm2, P < 0.0001). In univariate analysis, PMA was associated with age and body mass index (BMI). A Cox proportional hazards model was constructed to account for confounders associated with survival. Lower pectoralis area (per cm2) at diagnosis was associated with an increased hazard of death of 2% (HRadj, 0.98; confidence interval, 0.96–0.99; P = 0.044) while adjusting for age, sex, smoking, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, histology, stage, chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, BMI, and ECOG performance status. Conclusions: Lower PMA measured from chest CT scans obtained at the time of diagnosis of NSCLC is associated with a worse OS. Impact: PMA may be a valuable CT biomarker for sarcopenia-associated lung cancer survival. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(1); 38–43. ©2016 AACR. See all the articles in this CEBP Focus section, "The Obesity Paradox in Cancer: Evidence and New Directions."


Polymer foams and void-containing polymer-film systems with internally charged voids combine large piezoelectricity with mechanical flexibility and elastic compliance. This new class of soft materials (often called ferro- or piezoelectrets) has attracted considerable attention from science and industry. It has been found that the voids can be internally charged by means of dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) under high electric fields. The charged voids can be considered as man-made macroscopic dipoles. Depending on the ferroelectret structure and the pressure of the internal gas, the voids may be highly compressible. Consequently, very large dipole-moment changes can be induced by mechanical or electrical stresses, leading to large piezoelectricity. DBD charging of the voids is a critical process for rendering polymer foams piezoelectric. Thus a comprehensive exploration of DBD charging is essential for the understanding and the optimization of piezoelectricity in ferroelectrets. Recent studies show that DBDs in the voids are triggered when the internal electric field reaches a threshold value according to Townsend's model of Paschen breakdown. During the DBDs, charges of opposite polarity are generated and trapped at the top and bottom internal surfaces of the gas-filled voids, respectively. The deposited charges induce an electric field opposite to the externally applied one and thus extinguish the DBDs. Back discharges may eventually be triggered when the external voltage is reduced or turned off. In order to optimize the efficiency of DBD charging, the geometry (in particular the height) of the voids, the type of gas and its pressure inside the voids are essential factors to be considered and to be optimized. In addition, the influence of the plasma treatment on the internal void surfaces during the DBDs should be taken into consideration.


Malaysia recovered from the Asian financial crisis swiftly after the imposition of capital controls in September 1998. The fact that Korea and Thailand recovered in parallel has been interpreted as suggesting that capital controls did not play a significant role in facilitating Malaysia's rebound. However, the financial crisis was deepening in Malaysia in the summer of 1998, while it had significantly eased up in Korea and Thailand. We employ a time-shifted differences-in-differences technique to exploit the differences in the timing of the crises. Compared to IMF programs, we find that the Malaysian policies produced faster economic recovery, smaller declines in employment and real wages, and more rapid turnaround in the stock market.


In this paper, the effect of heat treatment on the development of nanocrystallites in rapidly quenched Fe79Mo8Cu1B12 alloy is investigated. The surface morphology is examined using non-contact mode atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results are compared with those obtained by transmission Mössbauer spectroscopy (TMS), conversion electron Mössbauer spectrometry (CEMS) and x-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found that the sample is not fully amorphous even in the as-quenched state. Minor amounts of bcc-Fe grains were detected on the wheel side of the ribbon-shaped samples while no indications of the crystalline phase were observed in the bulk. The crystallization onset is observed after annealing at 410 °C, when bcc-Fe nanograins are quite well developed. More intense crystallization is evidenced after annealing at higher temperatures, when the content of the crystalline phase increases progressively. The second crystallization, not discussed in the present paper, is characterized by the occurrence of additional crystalline phases, and appears after annealing at 650 °C. We suggest a crystallization model assuming no drastic change in the size of the primarily formed bcc-Fe nanograins with temperature as proved by XRD. The increase in annealing temperature induces the formation of a higher number of crystalline particles, which form large irregular agglomerates (80–130 nm in height), in accordance with the AFM data.


This article reviews Police Research Series Paper 15, The Presentation of Police Evidence in Court (Stockdale and Gresham, 1995), and the role of police officers giving testimony in court. In particular, consideration is given to the recommendations made and subsequent developments, or lack thereof, in police literature and practice. Police officers are well prepared to manage the pre-trial investigation but still receive little preparation, or guidance from researchers, for performing as witnesses at court. Key factors in effectively presenting evidence are reviewed and directions outlined for building knowledge on preparing police officers to perform in court whilst upholding obligation to victims and the legal standard of public interest.


Epidemiological studies have shown an increased risk of ulcerative colitis (UC) in non-smokers and particularly recent ex-smokers. Patients with UC have an increased risk of pouchitis following ileal pouch-anal anastomosis, which may be a manifestation of the original disease susceptibility. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that smoking habit may influence the incidence of pouchitis. All patients with a functioning pouch > or = 12 months at one centre were assessed. Patients were excluded if (a) the original indication was not UC (n = 5), (b) the excised pouch showed histology diagnostic of Crohn's disease (n = 2), and (c) data were inadequate (n = 4). Smoking data were collected by questionnaire, or direct interview, or both. Ex-smokers were those who had stopped smoking < 7 years before colectomy. Non-smokers included ex-smokers who had stopped > 7 years before colectomy. Pouchitis was defined as an increase in stool frequency > 8/day with acute inflammation on biopsy specimen histology. Each presentation requiring treatment was regarded as an episode. For comparison smoking habit was assessed with regard to three other adverse outcomes - haemorrhage, sepsis, and pouch excision. Of 72 non-smokers (mean follow up 3.5 years) 18 had 46 episodes of pouchitis. Of 12 ex-smokers (mean follow up 3.3 years) four patients have had 14 episodes of pouchitis. Only one smoker from 17 has had a single episode of pouchitis. This shows that smokers have significantly less episodes of pouchitis compared with non-smokers (p = 0.0005) and ex-smokers (p = 0.05). There was no association of smoking habit with other adverse outcomes.


Laser spectroscopy based on nonlinear processes such as four wave mixing and laser-induced gratings or based on spontaneous Raman and Thomson scattering is widely used, from near IR to near UV, to probe reactive media. The bulk of this monograph is devoted to the application of these techniques to the specific area of plasma, combustion and hypersonic flow field. For each technique a brief description of the signal amplitude is given from which spectral and/or temporal evolution can be predicted as a function of temperature and pressure. Experimentally, the dependence of the signal on parameters such as temperature, pressure, gas composition, or the energy of pump and probe laser pulses have been investigated. Comparison of the experimental results with theoretical predictions allows us to accurately measure these parameters in situ. Therefore, temperature, velocity or number density of important species (major or minor) can be derived from the spectral or temporal content. The synchronization of pulsed laser with particular physical phenomena provides time evolution of the sample over a μs or ms duration, depending on the probed events, thanks to the time resolution (ns) of the lasers. Several examples are given. CARS is applied to a buoyant H2/air flame, a monodisperse droplet stream in combustion and a pulsed plasma in a methane/air flow. In each case, time and space evolution of temperature is recorded.
DFWM has proved particularly useful for probing NO, especially when spectral interference is overwhelming the LIF signal; LIF is used otherwise. Laser induced gratings are also valuable tools in some typical cases. Examples are given to illustrate their potential in measuring NO2 molecules in a flame and in measuring the temperature and velocity of a high speed flow. Finally, electron density can be inferred using Thomson scattering and an application in the pulsed plasma is presented.


Sickness absenteeism is a significant problem both for employees and for employers. Sometimes the discussion is more directed towards the economic consequences than the individual suffering caused by disabling diseases. Another relevant issue is the extra burden to supervisors and colleagues when lacking resources are being replaced. All of these factors have prompted many workplaces to create their own procedures to diminish lost worktime due to sick leaves.

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has published a model for sickness absenteeism (1). It presents two crucial steps in the process, the "absenteeism barrier" between work and taking sick leave, and the "reintegration barrier" between sick leave and return to work.

When an individual makes the decision of whether to take sick leave or to stay at work despite illness, the severity of the symptoms is only one factor in the decision-making process. In order to clarify this step, Johansson & Lundberg introduced an "illness flexibility model" (2), which was later expanded in an article by Hansson et al (3).

The negative consequences of absence for the disabled employee, colleagues, or customers, as well as the high level of adjustment latitude at work (providing opportunities for an employee to continue to work despite illness) might prevent sickness absence. In addition, incentives for staying at work (eg, perceived stimulation, social support) or at home (eg, time with relatives, more rewarding domestic activities) have an impact on the final decision. Finally, the decision might depend on the absence requirements, referring to the negative consequences of staying at work while ill (eg, fear of transmitting an infection or not being wanted at work).

The second step in the model for sickness absenteeism, "reintegration barrier", has been the focus of intense return-to-work research. In their recent review (4), Hlobil and his colleagues, confirmed that return-to-work interventions are equal or more effective than usual care regarding absence from work due to subacute low-back pain. The recommendation of the authors, as supported by Loisel in his editorial (5), was to open the "black box" of return-to-work interventions in order to understand which are the most important components to shorten work absenteeism.

The magnitude of the problem indicates that better policies and procedures are urgently needed to return temporarily or permanently disabled employees to work more safely and efficiently. This need has been addressed in the systematic review written by MacEachen and her co-workers (6) in the present issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health with its focus on the results of qualitative return-to-work research literature.

The same research group has also participated in the previously published systematic review of quantitative literature on workplace-based return-to-work interventions (7). According to this review, there is strong evidence that work disability duration is significantly reduced by work accommodation offers and contact between the health care provider and the workplace. Moderate evidence was found for the effectiveness of early contact with the worker by the workplace, ergonomic worksite visits, and the presence of a return-to-work coordinator.

The previous review of quantitative studies receives substantial support from the systematic review of MacEachen et al (6), which aims at a better understanding of the dimensions, processes, and practices of return to work. The qualitative methods used in the included studies focus on discovering the key elements of successful return-to-work interventions and, at the same time, on describing the related possibilities and threats. Instead of asking what should be done, they give extensive guidance on what could lead to the best return-to-work practices.

From the workplace point of view, both quantitative and qualitative information is needed. The former helps to invest in interventions that have proved to be effective. The latter deepens the insight into the various aspects of collaboration and social networks.

In the 13 eligible articles, the review found eight key concepts to be relevant in relation to successful return to work. It is evident that no intervention as such is successful without sufficient commitment of those involved. Consequently, the main finding of MacEachen et al is that "goodwill and trust" form the overarching condition to return-to-work arrangements. As intangible as these concepts are, the authors give some practical examples of their components, one of the most relevant being the willingness of the employer to invest time and effort in the return-to-work process (eg, organizing accommodating work).

Another finding that is relevant to reallife situations is the timing, nature, and contents of the contacts between various stakeholders in order to assist the absentee's earlier return to work. Contact of the workplace with the absent employee can include much encouragement, but it can also be perceived negatively if not properly planned and if performed by supervisors without sufficient training and support.

It has already been shown in everyday life that conveying relevant information on the employee's health condition from the physician to the workplace is really a challenge in order to facilitate adequate adjustment. Because MacEachen et al also show that individual workers can easily get lost in the complexity of various systems related to disability, the benefits of a return-to-work coordinator are easy to see. In countries like Finland, with its high coverage of occupational health services, the situation creates an ideal opportunity for occupational health professionals to play a crucial role as return-to-work coordinators.

MacEachen et al also discuss the role of unions and colleagues, as well as that of supervisors, in the return-to-work process, especially in relation to modified work. It seems that the same prerequisite of goodwill and trust among all stakeholders in the workplace is the key to successful collaboration. This situation is reflected by the attitude of other employees towards the disabled colleague with reduced workload, by the role of the supervisor in managing daily social relations and physical conditions in the work environment, and, finally, the ability of union representatives to participate constructively in return-to-work activities.

Finally, but not of the least importance, MacEachen et al list the organizational environment as one of the key elements. Once again, the goodwill and trust of the workplace are needed to maintain humane values, even in the midst of financial constraints. If the company wants to show social responsibility, the commitment must not change according to the market situation. In order to "walk the talk", practical procedures must be created to give credibility to the company's commitments. Goodwill and trust are reflected by the participation of all stakeholders in the process of creating the disability management system for the workplaces, and respecting each other's expectations and their fulfillment.

Most of the studies MacEachen et al included in their review originated from North America and Australia. In the future, more research is needed from other countries to verify the results in other social security systems. Another urgent need is to widen the scope of return-to-work interventions to disabling mental disorders, which were excluded by MacEachen et al.

The review by MacEachen et al offers scientific guidance on how to construct effective return-to-work practices in the workplace. When the conclusions of the review are considered, it can be presumed that the same key elements lowering the "reintegration barrier" also have an effect on the "absenteeism barrier" by modifying adjustment latitude, attendance incentives, and absence requirements through improved communication between different stakeholders. This improved communication reinforces the positive effect of evidence-based return-to-work practices on sickness absenteeism.

Once this kind of systematic evidence is available, one can only hope that all of the stakeholders at workplaces are made aware of these results and that evidence-based principles will be applied as widely as possible in practice.


Rationale: Telethonin (also known as titin-cap or t-cap) is a 19-kDa Z-disk protein with a unique &bgr;-sheet structure, hypothesized to assemble in a palindromic way with the N-terminal portion of titin and to constitute a signalosome participating in the process of cardiomechanosensing. In addition, a variety of telethonin mutations are associated with the development of several different diseases; however, little is known about the underlying molecular mechanisms and telethonin's in vivo function. Objective: Here we aim to investigate the role of telethonin in vivo and to identify molecular mechanisms underlying disease as a result of its mutation. Methods and Results: By using a variety of different genetically altered animal models and biophysical experiments we show that contrary to previous views, telethonin is not an indispensable component of the titin-anchoring system, nor is deletion of the gene or cardiac specific overexpression associated with a spontaneous cardiac phenotype. Rather, additional titin-anchorage sites, such as actin–titin cross-links via &agr;-actinin, are sufficient to maintain Z-disk stability despite the loss of telethonin. We demonstrate that a main novel function of telethonin is to modulate the turnover of the proapoptotic tumor suppressor p53 after biomechanical stress in the nuclear compartment, thus linking telethonin, a protein well known to be present at the Z-disk, directly to apoptosis ("mechanoptosis"). In addition, loss of telethonin mRNA and nuclear accumulation of this protein is associated with human heart failure, an effect that may contribute to enhanced rates of apoptosis found in these hearts. Conclusions: Telethonin knockout mice do not reveal defective heart development or heart function under basal conditions, but develop heart failure following biomechanical stress, owing at least in part to apoptosis of cardiomyocytes, an effect that may also play a role in human heart failure.


Introduction: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a malignancy with a very poor prognosis for which new treatment options are urgently needed. We have previously shown that dendritic cell (DC) immunotherapy provides a clinically feasible treatment option. In the current study, we set out to assess the immunological changes induced by DC immunotherapy in peripheral blood of MPM patients. Methods: Peripheral blood was collected from nine patients enrolled in a phase I dose escalation study, before and after treatment with DCs that were pulsed with an allogeneic tumor lysate preparation consisting of a mixture of five cultured mesothelioma cell lines. We used immune profiling by multiplex flow cytometry to characterize different populations of immune cells. In particular, we determined frequencies of T cell subsets that showed single and combinatorial expression of multiple markers that signify T cell activation, maturation and inhibition. Therapy-induced T cell reactivity was assessed in peptide/MHC multimer stainings using mesothelin as a prototypic target antigen with confirmed expression in the clinical tumor lysate preparation. T cell receptor (TCR) diversity was evaluated by TCRB gene PCR assays. Results: We observed an increase in the numbers of B cells, CD4 and CD8 T cells, but not NK cells at 6 weeks post-treatment. The increases in B and T lymphocytes were not accompanied by major changes in T cell reactivity toward mesothelin nor in TCRB diversity. Notably, we did observe enhanced proportions of CD4 T cells expressing HLA-DR, PD-1 (at 2 weeks after onset of treatment) and ICOS (6 weeks) and a CD8 T cell population expressing LAG3 (2 weeks). Discussion: DC immunotherapy using allogeneic tumor lysate resulted in enhanced frequencies of B cells and T cells in blood. We did not detect a skewed antigen-reactivity of peripheral CD8 T cells. Interestingly, frequencies of CD4 T cells expressing activation markers and PD-1 were increased. These findings indicate a systemic activation of the adaptive immune response and may guide future immune monitoring studies of DC therapies.


Cyclophosphamide is a nitrogen mustard alkylating agent from the oxazophorines group. The primary metabolite of cyclophosphamide (CP, 1), i.e . 4-hydroxy-CP 2, has high pharmacological activity, but it is a very unstable compound. During processing and storage of the dry powder formulation, a glassiness or stickiness could be acquired by the premix composition giving an unattractive material with inferior solubility characteristics and decreased potency. This deterioration was more pronounced if it exceeds normal storage temperature. In this present exertion sufficient data on cyclophosphamide characterization is provided and the sorption-desorption studies were performed to comprehend the hygroscopicity temperament of the drug. Cyclophosphamide was characterized using powder x-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetry. Characterization data lend a hand in identifying and understanding the physical properties of the drug. The water sorption-desorption profile provides key information related to the physical stability of solid forms, especially hydrates (Cyclophosphamide). We scrutinized the moisture uptake of samples at various relative humidity and temperatures using gravimetric methods and can fully characterize the drug. Sorption-desorption studies were performed using gravimetric vapour sorption technique and found the critical factors in storage and stability of the drug.


All current nanopore basecalling applications begin with the segmentation of raw signal into discrete events, which are ultimately processed into called bases. We propose the basecRAWller algorithm, a pair of unidirectional recurrent neural networks that enables the calling of DNA bases in real time directly from the rawest form of nanopore output. This shift in nanopore basecalling provides a number of advantages over current processing pipelines including: 1) streaming basecalling, 2) tunable ratio of insertions to deletions, and 3) potential for streaming detection of modified bases. Key to the streaming basecalling capability is sequence prediction at a delay of less than 1/100th of a second, allowing future signal to continuously modulate sequence prediction. BasecRAWller is computationally efficient enabling basecalling at speeds faster than current nanopore instrument measurement speeds on a single core. Further, basecalling can be paused and resumed without any change in the resulting predicted sequence, transforming the potential applications for dynamic read rejection capabilities. The basecRAWller algorithm provides an alternative approach to nanopore basecalling at comparable accuracy and provides the community with the capacity to train their own basecRAWller neural networks with minimal effort.


Relation Schema Induction (RSI) is the problem of identifying type signatures of arguments of relations from unlabeled text. Most of the previous work in this area have focused only on binary RSI, i.e., inducing only the subject and object type signatures per relation. However, in practice, many relations are high-order, i.e., they have more than two arguments and inducing type signatures of all arguments is necessary. For example, in the sports domain, inducing a schema win(WinningPlayer, OpponentPlayer, Tournament, Location) is more informative than inducing just win(WinningPlayer, OpponentPlayer). We refer to this problem as Higher-order Relation Schema Induction (HRSI). In this paper, we propose Tensor Factorization with Back-off and Aggregation (TFBA), a novel framework for the HRSI problem. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt at inducing higher-order relation schemata from unlabeled text. Using the experimental analysis on three real world datasets we show how TFBA helps in dealing with sparsity and induce higher-order schemata.


Igneous rocks record the direction of the Earth's magnetic field as they cool through their Curie temperature. The mafic magmas of the 8-km-thick Bushveld Complex of South Africa took 65 k.y. to be emplaced, 180 k.y. to solidify (to 900 °C), and a further 500 k.y. for the entire intrusion to cool below 580 °C, the Curie temperature of magnetite. Once solid, the cooling of this intrusion occurred mainly from the top downward, with slower cooling through its floor. As a result, the upper rocks cooled through their Curie temperature before those at the base; the portion 6 km below the upper contact was the last to reach the Curie temperature. Thus, the intrusion records a mainly top-down sequence of three paleomagnetic reversals starting with N (normal direction). The last two are also recorded from the base of the mafic sequence upward as it cooled through 580 °C later than the top. The lateral variations in thickness of the Bushveld Complex are important in this interpretation, because thinner sections cooled more quickly. Hence, reversals do not always correlate with stratigraphy. Specific reversals provide a cooling marker horizon that may crosscut the stratigraphic layering. The interpretation of the order and number of paleomagnetic reversals presented here differs from previous interpretations that envisage the oldest paleomagnetic directions to be recorded sequentially from the base upward, and has implications for the interpretation of paleomagnetic results from all thick intrusions, mafic and felsic.


The politics of life and death is explored from the perspective of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans frontieres [MSF]), an activist nongovernmental organization explicitly founded to respond to health crises on a global scale. Following the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, I underline key intersections between MSF's operations that express concern for human life in the midst of humanitarian disaster and the group's self-proclaimed ethic of engaged refusal. Adopting the analytic frame of biopolitics, I suggest that the actual practice of medical humanitarian organizations in crisis settings presents a fragmentary and uncertain form of such power, extended beyond stable sovereignty and deployed within a restricted temporal horizon.


SWAT is a GIS-based basin-scale model widely used for the characterization of hydrology and water quality of large, complex watersheds; however, SWAT has not been fully tested in watersheds with karst geomorphology and downstream reservoir-like embayment. In this study, SWAT was applied to test its ability to predict monthly streamflow dynamics for a 1,555 ha karst watershed, Chapel Branch Creek, which drains to a large embayment and is comprised of highly diverse land uses. SWAT was able to accurately simulate the monthly streamflow at a cave spring (CS) outlet draining mostly agricultural and forested lands and a golf course plus an unknown groundwater discharging area, only after adding known monthly subsurface inputs as a point source at that location. Monthly streamflows at two other locations, both with multiple land uses, were overpredicted when lower lake levels were prevalent as a result of surface water flow to groundwater (losing streams). The model underpredicted the flows during rising lake levels, likely due to high conductivity and also a deep percolation coefficient representing flow lost to shallow and deep groundwater. At the main watershed outlet, a wide section performing as a reservoir embayment (R-E), the model was able to more accurately simulate the measured mean monthly outflows. The R-E storage was estimated by using a daily water balance approach with upstream inflows, rainfall, and PET as inputs and using parameters obtained by bathymetric survey, LiDAR, and downstream lake level data. Results demonstrated the substantial influence of the karst features in the water balance, with conduit and diffuse flow as an explanation for the missing upstream flows appearing via subsurface conveyance to the downstream cave spring, thus providing a more accurate simulation at the embayment outlet. Results also highlighted the influences of downstream lake levels and karst voids/conduits on the watershed hydrologic balance. Simulation performance of hydrology could be improved with more accurate DEMs obtained from LiDAR for karst feature identification and related modification of SWAT parameters. This SWAT modeling effort may have implications on nutrient and sediment loading estimates for TMDL development and implementation in karst watersheds with large downstream embayments that have significant changes in water level due to adjoining lakes.


In this paper we propose a framework for validating software measurement. We start by defining a measurement structure model that identifies the elementary component of measures and the measurement process, and then consider five other models involved in measurement: unit definition models, instrumentation models, attribute relationship models, measurement protocols and entity population models. We consider a number of measures from the viewpoint of our measurement validation framework and identify a number of shortcomings; in particular we identify a number of problems with the construction of function points. We also compare our view of measurement validation with ideas presented by other researchers and identify a number of areas of disagreement. Finally, we suggest several rules that practitioners and researchers can use to avoid measurement problems, including the use of measurement vectors rather than artificially contrived scalars.


Approximately one-third of all terrestrial high-biodiversity sites straddle national land borders, yet few man-made boundaries are fixed, and international boundaries often alter over time or disappear altogether. This publication makes the compelling case for transboundary conservation approaches and promotes an array of innovative methods based on contemporary principles. It has been developed primarily to provide transboundary conservation managers with advice on how to work more effectively and how to address the challenges that are specific to transboundary conservation.


Abstract Purpose: To evaluate differences in key outcomes between younger and older women receiving the oral contraceptive oestradiol valerate/dienogest (E2V/DNG). Methods: We conducted a pooled post hoc analysis of primary data from 12 studies of E2V/DNG, stratified by age (≤25 [n = 1309] and >25 [n = 2132] years). Outcomes included safety, efficacy, bleeding profile and hormone-withdrawal-associated symptoms (HWAS). Bleeding and HWAS analyses are also presented for women aged ≤20 years (n = 362). Discontinuations were considered a proxy for patient satisfaction. Results: Results were generally similar for younger and older women. The percentage of women aged ≤25 and >25 years experiencing intracyclic bleeding did not differ between groups (13.4% and 12.8% at cycle 12, respectively), with similar results in women aged ≤20 years (12.7%, cycle 12). Rates of withdrawal bleeding were very similar in women aged ≤25 and >25 years (78.5% and 78.9%, respectively, cycle 12). We also found a similar adjusted Pearl index in the two age groups (0.45 vs 0.57, respectively), similar rates of AEs and HWAS and no difference in discontinuations. Conclusions: Women aged ≤25 and >25 years have a similar experience with an E2V/DNV oral contraceptive, supporting this as an appropriate contraceptive option in younger and older women.


Abstract While there is an extensive literature on predisposing, precipitating, coping, and perpetuating factors in those with chronic insomnia, very little work has been undertaken to evaluate these factors over the early developmental course of insomnia. The present aim was to determine whether several hypothesized factors in each domain (predisposing, precipitating, coping, and perpetuating), assessed during an episode of acute insomnia (AI), are related to its persistence or remission to normal sleep. Participants comprised n = 140 people with AI and n = 737 normal sleepers (NS) recruited from the general public. Participants completed measures assessing predisposing characteristics (personality traits, arousal predisposition, and insomnia vulnerability), precipitating events and outcomes (life events, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression), coping styles (thought control strategies and coping styles), and perpetuating factors (sleep preoccupation, pre-sleep arousal, dysfunctional beliefs, and fatigue). Additionally, insomnia status (from AI at baseline to its persistence or natural remission [NR]) was assessed 1 month later (n = 129). Baseline differences between NS and individuals with AI were observed in each domain with increasing age, lower openness to experience and conscientiousness, higher insomnia severity, levels of anxiety, and affective sleep preoccupation significantly predicting AI status. Further, a previous episode of insomnia, higher depression scores, and affective sleep preoccupation scores significantly predicted its persistence, as opposed to its NR. Results are discussed with reference to the conceptualization of insomnia and how the findings may influence the design of preventative interventions to circumvent the transition from acute to chronic insomnia.


Objective To explore whether increased adipocyte-derived serum fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4) predisposes to cardiac remodelling and left ventricular dysfunction in human obesity. Design Cross-sectional investigation. Setting Academic clinical research centre. Patients 108 overweight and obese non-diabetic women (body-mass index 33±5 kg/m²). Interventions None. Main outcome measures Relationship between serum FABP4 and abdominal adipose tissue quantified by MRI. Relationship between serum FABP4 and left ventricular morphology and function assessed by cardiac MRI. Results FABP4 was independently associated with visceral abdominal adipose tissue (β=0.34, p<0.01) and subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue (β=0.22, p<0.05). After stratification into serum FABP4 tertiles, left ventricular masses were 92±16 g, 86±13 g and 81±12 g in women with high, intermediate and low FABP4 concentrations (p<0.01), respectively. Longitudinal systolic function was reduced by 8% in women with intermediate and high versus low FABP4 concentrations (p<0.01), whereas ejection fraction did not differ among tertiles (p=0.5). In multivariate linear analysis FABP4 remained an independent predictor of left ventricular mass (β=0.17, p<0.05) and reduced longitudinal fractional shortening (β=0.21, p<0.05). Conclusions In overweight and obese women, FABP4 showed an independent association with parameters of left ventricular remodelling.


The aim of this study was to determine the influence of punch type (Jab, Cross, Lead Hook and Reverse Hook) and punch modality (Single maximal, 'In-synch' and 'Out of synch' combination) on punch speed and delivery time. Ten competition-standard volunteers performed punches with markers placed on their anatomical landmarks for 3D motion capture with an eight-camera optoelectronic system. Speed and duration between key moments were computed. There were significant differences in contact speed between punch types (F 2,18,84.87 = 105.76, p = 0.001) with Lead and Reverse Hooks developing greater speed than Jab and Cross. There were significant differences in contact speed between punch modalities (F 2,64,102.87 = 23.52, p = 0.001) with the Single maximal (M ± SD: 9.26 ± 2.09 m/s) higher than 'Out of synch' (7.49 ± 2.32 m/s), 'In-synch' left (8.01 ± 2.35 m/s) or right lead (7.97 ± 2.53 m/s). Delivery times were significantly lower for Jab and Cross than Hook. Times were significantly lower 'In-synch' than a Single maximal or 'Out of synch' combination mode. It is concluded that a defender may have more evasion-time than previously reported. This research could be of use to performers and coaches when considering training preparations.


Topic models have the potential to improve search and browsing by extracting useful semantic themes from web pages and other text documents. When learned topics are coherent and interpretable, they can be valuable for faceted browsing, results set diversity analysis, and document retrieval. However, when dealing with small collections or noisy text (e.g. web search result snippets or blog posts), learned topics can be less coherent, less interpretable, and less useful. To overcome this, we propose two methods to regularize the learning of topic models. Our regularizers work by creating a structured prior over words that reflect broad patterns in the external data. Using thirteen datasets we show that both regularizers improve topic coherence and interpretability while learning a faithful representation of the collection of interest. Overall, this work makes topic models more useful across a broader range of text data.


Background Obesity predisposes to heart failure and premature cardiovascular death, particularly in sedentary women. In animal models and in men with type 2 diabetes mellitus, impaired cardiac function is associated with myocardial triglyceride (MTG) accumulation. Lipotoxic injury from altered myocardial metabolism may be causative. Whether such association also exists in obese, non-diabetic women is unknown. Objective To explore the relation between MTG content, cardiac remodelling and cardiorespiratory fitness in obese, insulin-sensitive and insulin-resistant non-diabetic women. Design Cross-sectional investigation. Setting Academic clinical research centre. Patients 65 Overweight/obese and sedentary, but otherwise healthy women (body mass index 33±4 kg/m2; age 45±10 years). Interventions None. Main outcome measures Cardiac structure and function measured by cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging and MTG content of the interventricular septum by 1H MR spectroscopy. Additional outcomes were cardiopulmonary fitness and insulin sensitivity during oral glucose tolerance testing. Results Insulin resistance (composite insulin sensitivity index (C-ISI) <4.6) was present in 29 women. MTG content was higher (0.83±0.30 vs 0.61±0.23, p=0.002) and left ventricular diastolic (p<0.01), but not systolic function was reduced in women with insulin resistance compared with insulin-sensitive women. The remodelling index defined as left ventricular mass divided by end-diastolic volume was increased in women with impaired glucose tolerance (p=0.006). Furthermore, cardiopulmonary fitness was equal in both groups, but was inversely correlated with MTG (r=−0.28, p=0.02). Conclusions In overweight and obese women, insulin resistance is associated with increased MTG content, cardiac remodelling and reduced diastolic function. Clinical Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00956566.


The telomere is a DNA/protein structure required to maintain the ends of linear chromosomes. Usually the DNA component comprises a highly conserved tandemly repeated minisatellite sequence. In most plants the minisatellite sequence is typically present in several hundred copies at each chromosome end, and is extended primarily by telomerase, which adds telomere repeats to the 3' end. In the plant genus Allium, which contains around 700 species, there is an absence of typical telomeric DNA repeats. It is of great interest to determine what sequence or sequences have replaced the ancestral repeats and how they are lengthened. A range of molecular cloning methods were used to isolate candidate telomere sequences from the genomes of two diverged species, Allium cernuum and Allium cepa. I analyse several putative telomere sequences, isolated in this work and by others, but no proven candidate sequence has emerged. Nevertheless, one of those sequences, 35S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) encoding 35S rRNA, proved to have a structure that is previously not described for plants. I show that some units have a Ty1/copia retrotransposon fragment in the intergenic spacer region. Sequence analysis indicates that there was a single insertion followed by amplification, probably involving homogenisation mechanisms. Furthermore, I show high levels of rDNA length heterogeneity and rDNA unit divergence both within species and across the genus, respectively.


X-ray crystallography was employed to probe the mechanism of the enzyme 2ketopropyl coenzymeM oxidoreductase / carboxylase (2-KPCC). We were able to determine the enzyme structure in various catalytically relevant states, providing insights into substrate binding, intermediate stabilization, product formation and release. Structures of 2-KPCC were obtained with the substrate 2-ketopropyl coenzyme M (KCoM), product acetoacetate, 6-oxoheptanoic acid (OHA), 2-oxopropyl phosphonate (OPP), NADP and coenzymeM (CoM), the oxidized and reduced states. The binding sites for these ligands in relation to one another have led to important sights into the mechanism. CO2 binds at the base of a hydrophobic channel at the interface of a hydrophobic pocket and the substrate binding site. Acetoacetate binds at an alternate anion binding site, as revealed in the bicarbonate and CoM disulfide bound structures. The enolate intermediate can be stabilized by an Ala430 carbonyl stabilized water molecule as revealed in the OHA bound structure, at a site different from that in KCoM bound structure. Together, the structures reveal a mechanism of concerted attack of a CO2 molecule on the enolate intermediate formed by the nucleophilic attack of Cys82 on the C-S bond of KCoM. Acetoacetate is stabilized at the alternate anion binding site, with the concomitant formation of a mixed disulfide. A nucleophilic attack by a water molecule on the mixed disulfide, accompanied by a weakening of interactions between CoM and Arg residues due to charge sharing with the acetoacetate carboxyl group, aids the release of CoM acetoacetate. Decarboxylation of acetoacetate occurs at the alternate anion binding site with the release of carboxyl group perhaps as bicarbonate. Structural refinement at 1.39Å in conjunction with density functional theory (DFT) optimization has been applied to address undefined aspects of the active site Hcluster that could impact the mechanism of reversible H2 oxidation by [FeFe] hydrogenase from Clostridium pasterianum. The model with highly accurate positioning of the H-cluster atoms was used for sequential structural optimization. The results of this optimization challenge the established paradigm that the dithiolate ligand bridging the Fe atoms of the 2Fe H-subcluster is a dithiomethylammonium and supports the assignment of a dimethyl ether.