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Let $A/\mathbb{Q}$ be a Jacobian variety and let $F$ be a totally real, tamely ramified, abelian number field. Given a character $\psi$ of $F/\mathbb{Q}$, Deligne's Period Conjecture asserts the algebraicity of the suitably normalised value $\mathcal{L}(A,\psi,1)$ at $z=1$ of the Hasse-Weil-Artin $L$-function of the $\psi$-twist of $A$. We formulate a conjecture regarding the integrality properties of the family of normalised $L$-values $(\mathcal{L}(A,\psi,1))_{\psi}$, and its relation to the Tate-Shafarevich group of $A$ over $F$. We numerically investigate our conjecture through $p$-adic congruence relations between these values., Comment: 24 pages

A spinal cord injury (SCI) is life-altering, resulting in neurological deficits and a multitude of secondary complications. South Africa holds one of the highest traumatic SCI incidence rates in the world, where the social need for SCI prevention and rehabilitation is immense. Robotic locomotor training (RLT) is a novel rehabilitation technique that may improve health and wellbeing after SCI. A systematic review was conducted across 27 studies and 308 participants to explore the systemic effects of RLT. This review demonstrated that RLT shows promise as a tool for improving neurological rehabilitation outcomes; providing individuals with a SCI the ability to walk safely while improving their walking performance, as well as potentially improving cardiovascular outcomes and psychosocial factors. However, the studies reviewed were non-controlled with small, heterogenous sample sizes. Further high-powered, randomised controlled trials, with homogenous samples, are required to investigate these effects. If widespread adoption of these new technologies is to occur, sound evidence demonstrating efficacy and long-term cost saving is required. This dissertation aimed to explore some of these under-researched areas in a sample of sixteen persons with incomplete tetraplegia. Areas of focus included, 1) rehabilitation feasibility, adherence, and research challenges in an under-resourced environment 2) cardiovascular functioning and adaptation to a rehabilitation programme, and 3) psychological well-being. We implemented two interventions, robotic locomotor training (RLT) and activity-based training (ABT), over a 24-week pilot randomised control trial. Adherence to the interventions was high (93.9 ± 6.2%). Challenges to the study's feasibility included: ethical approval, medical clearance, transport and limited human/financial resources. Cardiovascular parameters demonstrated that efficiency of exoskeleton walking improved during the intervention. RLT may be more effective than ABT in improving cardiac responses to orthostatic stress, with standing heart rate at 24-weeks being significantly lower in the RLT group (75.1 ± 15.0 beats/min) compared to the ABT group (95.6 ± 12.6 beats/min). Standing and RLT had similar effects on the parasympathetic nervous system, whilst both interventions were limited in their effect on brachial and ankle blood pressure. Despite experiencing past trauma, participants possessed psychological resources including resilience, self-efficacy and post-traumatic growth which contributed to high perceptions of quality of life. The use of an exoskeleton may have had a greater positive impact on subjective psychological well-being. Expectations of participants entering the study centred around regaining the ability to walk again, despite past experiences and medical advice suggesting otherwise. Hope aids in buffering against negative emotions, however, a thin line exists between supporting high expectations and confronting unrealistic hope. Initial high expectations of recovery decreased and became more realistic during the intervention. This dissertation demonstrates potential physiological and psychological benefits that RLT provides. Despite this potential, barriers exist in the use of RLT in low- and middle-income countries such as South Africa, primarily due to a lack of financial and human resources. The development of lower-cost exoskeletons would lessen the burden of conducting large-scale trials and increase the likelihood of adopting these innovative rehabilitation tools into current standard of care practices.

Parallel hardware accelerators, for example Graphics Processor Units, have limited on-chip memory capacity and off-chip bandwidth. Neural network workloads can generally be separated into the preparation (training) and usage (inference) of the network. The training of deep neural networks is especially hampered by memory limitations, as increasing model size (and thus memory) is a common technique to improve accuracy. Previous approaches have examined lossy compression and offloading to reduce activation memory consumption, the primary memory consumer for most models. However, prior works use techniques without utilizing the spatial properties of many neural networks. As well, there is no known relationship between the trained accuracy of a network, and the compression rate, leading to expensive searches for compression rates. In this dissertation, we begin by examining lossy spatial compression using JPEG for ACTivations (JPEG-ACT). JPEG-ACT uses custom-tuned error sensitivities to target machine perception and a hardware accelerator to offload compressed activation values during training. Using the JPEG-ACT accelerator results in an 8.5x memory reduction over uncompressed training and 2.3x performance versus the next-best offload accelerator. Following this, we examine the theoretical relationship between compression errors and accuracy. Prior approaches used expensive tuning to determine the compression/accuracy trade-off after training. Thus, in this dissertation, accuracy guarantees can be set before training, which have a lower runtime, and provide knowledge about how much accuracy is given up for compression. Compression is set using Activation Compression with Guaranteed Convergence (AC-GC) error bounds, with a performance overhead of 0.4% over compressed training. Combining these bounds with various compression methods results in 15.1x compression on average, with theoretical guarantees of convergence. These guarantees provide better potential for AC-GC to function well on current and yet-to-be-developed models. By reducing activation memory consumption, JPEG-ACT and AC-GC allow faster iteration through possible neural network models, advancing the field to new applications and better models.

This thesis was scanned from the print manuscript for digital preservation and is copyright the author. Researchers can access this thesis by asking their local university, institution or public library to make a request on their behalf. Monash staff and postgraduate students can use the link in the References field.

Recent research and reform efforts in science education have consistently stressed the importance of coherent science instruction, in which learning opportunities are connected and contextualized by meaningful phenomena, focus on a small set of core ideas over time, and generate a need-to-know about new ideas through a set of connected lessons. Yet, this type of instruction remains uncommon in schools. We argue that science teacher education has the potential to play a powerful role in promoting coherent science instruction in schools, but to reach this potential, science teacher education programs themselves must be coherent. Based on existing literature and our work in an international collaboration focused on effective practices in science teacher education, we identify key features of coherent science teacher education programs and present a new model that we refer to as the Science Teacher Education Programmatic Coherence (STEP-C) model. The STEP-C model illustrates how key elements of science teacher education are situated relative to each other, potentially serving as a powerful tool for program design. © 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Funding: This work was supported by the European Union Erasmus+ Programme under grant agreement #2017-1-DE03-KA201-035669.

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-cpc-10.1177_10556656211026859 for SHORT Syndrome: Systematic Appraisal of the Medical and Dental Phenotype by Suhaym Mubeen, Clara Gibson, Raiyan Mubeen, Sahar Mansour and Robert D. Evans in The Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal

Data set and analyses can be found here: https://github.com/jbruun/SEsimilarityIn a European project about formative assessment, Local Working Groups (LWGs) from six participating countries made use of a format for teacher-researcher collaboration. The activities in each LWG involved discussions and reflections about implementation of four assessment formats. A key aim was close collaboration between teachers and researchers to develop teachers’ formative assessment practices, which were partially evidenced with changes in attributes of self-efficacy. The research question was: to what extent do working with formative assessment strategies in collaboration with researchers and other teachers differentially affect individual self-efficacy beliefs of practicing teachers across different educational contexts? A 12-item teacher questionnaire, with items selected from a commonly used international instrument for science teaching self-efficacy, was distributed to the participating teachers before and after their work in the LWGs. A novel method of analysis using networks where participants from different LWGs were linked based on the similarities of their answers, revealed differences between empirically identified groups and larger super groups of participants. These analyses showed, for example, that one group of teachers perceived themselves to have knowledge about using formative assessment but did not have the skills to use it effectively. It is suggested that future research and development projects may use this new methodology to pinpoint groups, which seem to respond differently to interventions and modify guidance or instruction accordingly.

Biological computer-aided design and manufacturing (bioCAD/CAM) tools facilitate the design and build processes of engineering biological systems using iterative design-build-test-learn (DBTL) cycles. In this book chapter, we highlight some of the bioCAD/CAM tools developed and used at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), and Agile BioFoundry (ABF). We demonstrate the use of these bioCAD/CAM tools on a common workflow for designing and building a multigene pathway in a hierarchical fashion. Each tool presented in this book chapter is specifically tailored to support one or more specific steps in a workflow, can be integrated with the others into design and build workflows, and can be deployed at academic, government, or commercial entities.

Denne artikel giver et indblik i hvordan undervisere kan tilrettelægge og gennemføre undersøgelsesbaseret undervisning inden for naturfagene. Artiklen baserer sig på vores anvendelse af 6F-modellen i den naturfagsdidaktiske undervisning for kommende gymnasielærere vi er involveret i på Københavns Universitet. Vi beskriver udviklingen og brugen af 6F-modellen samt udfolder og didaktisk begrunder et konkret eksempel på et 6F-forløb målrettet fagene naturvidenskabeligt grundforløb og biologi. Med artiklen ønsker vi at øge kendskabet til 6F-modellen, dels for at kvalificere dialogen om undersøgelsesbaseret undervisning og dels for at udbrede anvendelsen af undersøgelsesbaseret undervisning i ungdomsuddannelserne.

To establish, and isolate, the influence of different chemical functional groups on the aggregation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, a series of triphenylene-based compounds were investigated using a combined experimental and computational approach. Containing alkoxy side chains of varying lengths or amide appendages, both with and without a terminating carboxylic acid, their aggregation structures, sizes, and kinetics in toluene were studied over several length scales, using a combination of dynamic light scattering and diffusion-ordered nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, complemented with molecular dynamics simulations. There is a strong correlation between molecular architecture and aggregation mechanisms: the addition of polar functional groups and heteroatoms resulted in compounds that are more prone to aggregation and form large, micrometer-sized clusters, while the increased steric hindrance imposed by alkoxy side chains led to stable nanometer-sized aggregates. These conclusions underline the strong structure-function relationship of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, such as asphaltenes, examined here over multiple length scales in a single solvent. We also demonstrate the importance of using complementary techniques to study the aggregation process of polyaromatic hydrocarbons that could form aggregates of various sizes over different time scales.

Cryptococcus neoformans is one of the leading causes of invasive fungal infection in humans worldwide. C. neoformans uses macrophages as a proliferative niche to increase infective burden and avoid immune surveillance. However, the specific mechanisms by which C. neoformans manipulates host immunity to promote its growth during infection remain ill-defined. Here we demonstrate that eicosanoid lipid mediators manipulated and/or produced by C. neoformans play a key role in regulating pathogenesis. C. neoformans is known to secrete several eicosanoids that are highly similar to those found in vertebrate hosts. Using eicosanoid deficient cryptococcal mutants Δplb1 and Δlac1, we demonstrate that prostaglandin E2 is required by C. neoformans for proliferation within macrophages and in vivo during infection. Genetic and pharmacological disruption of host PGE2 synthesis is not required for promotion of cryptococcal growth by eicosanoid production. We find that PGE2 must be dehydrogenated into 15-keto-PGE2 to promote fungal growth, a finding that implicated the host nuclear receptor PPAR

Understanding the biosynthesis of cofactors is fundamental to the life sciences, yet to date a few important pathways remain unresolved. One example is the redox cofactor pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ), which is critical for C1 metabolism in many microorganisms, a disproportionate number of which are opportunistic human pathogens. While the initial and final steps of PQQ biosynthesis, involving PqqD/E and PqqC, have been elucidated, the precise nature and order of the remaining transformations in the pathway are unknown. Here we show evidence that the remaining essential biosynthetic enzyme PqqB is an iron-dependent hydroxylase catalyzing oxygen-insertion reactions that are proposed to produce the quinone moiety of the mature PQQ cofactor. The demonstrated reactions of PqqB are unprecedented within the metallo β-lactamase protein family and expand the catalytic repertoire of nonheme iron hydroxylases. These new findings also generate a nearly complete description of the PQQ biosynthetic pathway.

Archaeologia Cambrensis, 152, 23-36

Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome is a chronic pelvic pain condition with no known etiology that affects millions of women and men in the United States. Current management can be aggressive for individuals who are refractory to less invasive options, often resulting in the use of opioid narcotics and/or surgical procedures under general anesthesia, with higher risks and side effects to patients. Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy is a noninvasive therapeutic strategy that is thought to reduce inflammation and pain via alteration of cellular function and microcirculation. This therapy has demonstrated efficacy in management of other chronic pain syndromes including fibromyalgia and chronic low back pain. Herein, we describe a case of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy for management of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome that resulted in decreases in pelvic pain, burning with bladder filling, and other nonpelvic pain symptoms. This case provides support for a formal clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy for the management of chronic pelvic pain in interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome.

This thesis is a narrative history of the Mount Ophir winery and vineyard at Rutherglen, Victoria from 1893 to its closure in 1955, with brief references to subsequent events including a brief revival in connection with the wine industry in the 1970s.Mount Ophir was acquired in 1893 by an English firm of wine merchants, P.B.Burgoyne & Co, who extended the building to its present dimensions by 1904. Burgoyne & Co's investment was large enough to enable them to bring significant economies of scale to Mount Ophir, and by obtaining fruit from a wide group of local growers as well as the estate vineyard, the firm was able to produce wine of consistent quality. Burgoyne & Co exported almost all of Mount Ophir's production to the United Kingdom, where they were one of the leading firms in the trade in Australian wines […]

Archaeologia Cambrensis, 155, 23-48

Some species are more equal than others. Robert T. Paine (American ecologist, 1933-2016) discovered that if you remove starfish - what he called a "keystone species" - from a tide pool, the complex ecosystem collapses. Without the predator starfish, mussels choke out other animals and plants. This phenomenon is general. Sea otters eat the sea urchins that eat the kelp that provides food and habitat for other species. On the vast Serengeti plains, wildebeest "mow" the grass, protecting habitat for many other species. Understanding the "rules" that govern the numbers and diversity of species in an ecosystem is essential to efficient and sustainable management. But those same rules apply to us. Free of predation, humans are swarming over the planet, choking out other species. We are the planetary mussels. What next? A "mussel-bound" world, or perhaps renewed microbial predation?

ISSUES OF RACE and of race relations have long been important in commentary on Flannery O'Connor but have become especially significant in recent years. After all, O'Connor lived in a section of the United States with the highest proportion of African Americans. Blacks had suffered much misery there, first as slaves and then, often, as poor and downtrodden persons subject to legal discrimination. It might have been tempting for O'Connor, as a relatively powerful white woman, to ignore racial matters and write mainly about her fellow whites. And indeed, some critics have claimed that this is essentially what she did. They argue that blacks in her fiction are mainly background characters, that O'Connor never created a major black figure or really tried to “get inside the heads” of black people. O'Connor herself claimed that she wrote most effectively about the people she knew best, conceding that she knew little about African Americans in any intimate ways. Yet her works repeatedly explore racial issues, often in ways suggesting sympathy for blacks, support for gradual integration, and, especially, contempt for deep-seated racism. O'Connor herself, however, has sometimes been accused of racist views. The N-word appears repeatedly in her fiction, making some of her works increasingly difficult to teach or read. Usually the word reflects the real speech of her era; avoiding it might have opened her to charges of whitewashing the uglier aspects of contemporary culture. In fact, sometimes O'Connor uses the word (especially, for instance, in “Revelation”) to mock and satirize blatant racism. Her black characters, although few in number and never central, are rarely treated with the comic disdain O'Connor reserves for racist whites. She saw deep racism as one more symptom of the pride and self-centeredness that she, as a devout Christian, considered humanity's greatest flaw. For her, racism both reflected and resulted from original sin. It would be easy to show how often she satirized racism and racists. Yet some commentators think O'Connor did not go far enough in championing equal rights for blacks. Some have even accused O'Connor herself of racism, especially in view of various remarks she made in published— and especially some unpublished—letters. Defenders suggest that such remarks were meant to shock or mock the sensibilities of pious liberals, including some of her closest friends.

FLANNERY O'CONNOR always contended that her work's value depended far less on its messages or meanings than on its artistry. A text had to succeed—first and foremost—as art before it could successfully affect a reader emotionally or intellectually. Badly written work, she felt, was not worth reading, no matter how virtuous or well-intentioned its “meaning.” Despite her own very strong Christianity (particularly her Catholicism), O'Connor disdained anything merely pious or drippingly saccharine, flaws she found in much “serious” religious writing of her time and flaws she deliberately opposed in her own style and methods. Ideas and sentiments alone, she believed, no matter how admirable, could not make “creative writing” real art. The true Christian artist, O'Connor thought, had to be an artist first and foremost, not a mere religious propagandist. Too many Christian writers, she believed, were, indeed, simple religious partisans, and O'Connor thought obvious religious dogma, tricked up in ineptly written works, did more harm than good. Unskilled “Christian literature,” in her opinion, was not only mocked by real artists but also corrupted the tastes of Christian readers. These views are hardly surprising: after all, O'Connor was learning her craft just when the so-called New Criticism began to dominate thought about creative writing. While working on her MFA, she owned a thoroughly marked-up copy of one bible of the New Criticism: Understanding Fiction , by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. This extraordinarily influential book followed the even more influential Understanding Poetry , also by Brooks and Warren. The New Critics (or “formalists”) believed that every word mattered, as did its precise placement in a carefully designed whole. O'Connor was a committed formalist. This fact hardly explains everything about her art, but it does explain much. Some of her best friends, best teachers, and staunchest advocates were not only New Critics but leading New Critics. These included Allen Tate and his wife, Caroline Gordon. Through them and such others as Andrew Lytle and John Crowe Ransom, O'Connor quickly became a member in very good standing in formalist circles. She valued the opinions of such people, and they valued her art.

The historians writing in the Carolingian Empire, with a few important exceptions, frequently ascribed events in recent history to God. Where they have been noticed at all, these statements of God’s agency have usually been explained as political propaganda, to demonstrate God’s favour towards the reigning dynasty. Alternatively, they have been explained by the legacy of late antique Christian historians, from which this language supposedly derived. This thesis aims to demonstrate that this language was a distinctive and innovative feature of the emerging tradition of Carolingian history writing and is best explained in religious terms. It argues that Carolingian historians reflected the emphasis on God’s agency found throughout contemporary culture and that they deliberately reshaped the Christian language bequeathed by their Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Frankish predecessors. It offers a text-by-text analysis of how God’s agency functioned within each major Carolingian history, to further show the versatility of this language over the period. Taken together, these texts suggest that Carolingian historians wanted to teach their audiences about God’s agency and its implications for their own beliefs, identities, and behaviour. As a result, these histories and their depictions of God’s agency can be seen as a distinctive contribution to Carolingian religious renewal. This thesis thus aims to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between religion, history, and culture in early medieval Europe., AHRC-Gledhill Studentship

AIMS: To estimate the short-term effectiveness, feasibility and acceptability of a smoking cessation intervention (the iQuit system) that consists of tailored printed and Short Message Service (SMS) text message self-help delivered as an adjunct to cessation support in primary care to inform the design of a definitive trial. DESIGN: A stratified two parallel-group randomized controlled trial comparing usual care (control) with usual care plus the iQuit system (intervention), delivered by primary care nurses/healthcare assistants who were blinded to the allocation sequence. SETTING: Thirty-two general practice (GP) surgeries in England, UK. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 602 smokers initiating smoking cessation support from their local GP surgery were randomized (control n = 303, intervention n = 299). MEASUREMENTS: Primary outcome was self-reported 2-week point prevalence abstinence at 8 weeks follow-up. Secondary smoking outcomes and feasibility and acceptability measures were collected at 4 weeks after quit date, 8 weeks and 6 months follow-up. FINDINGS: There were no significant between-group differences in the primary outcome [control 40.3%, iQuit 45.2%; odds ratio (OR) = 1.22, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.88-1.69] or in secondary short-term smoking outcomes. Six-month prolonged abstinence was significantly higher in the iQuit arm (control 8.9%, iQuit 15.1%; OR = 1.81, 95% CI = 1.09-3.01). iQuit support took on average 7.7 minutes (standard deviation = 4.0) to deliver and 18.9% (95% CI = 14.8-23.7%) of intervention participants discontinued the text message support during the programme. CONCLUSIONS: Tailored printed and text message self-help delivered alongside routine smoking cessation support in primary care does not significantly increase short-term abstinence, but may increase long-term abstinence and demonstrated feasibility and acceptability compared with routine cessation support alone.

Hydrogen bonding plays a role in the microphase separation behavior of many block copolymers, such as those used in lithography, where the stronger interactions due to H-bonding can lead to a smaller period for the self-assembled structures, allowing the production of higher resolution templates. However, current statistical thermodynamic models used in descriptions of microphase separation, such as the Flory-Huggins approach, do not take into account some important properties of hydrogen bonding, such as site specificity and cooperativity. In this combined theoretical and experimental study, a step is taken toward the development of a more complete theory of hydrogen bonding in polymers, using polyacrylamide as a model system. We begin by developing a set of association models to describe hydrogen bonding in amides. Both models with one association constant and two association constants are considered. This theory is used to fit IR spectroscopy data from acrylamide solutions in chloroform, thereby determining the model parameters. These parameters are then employed to calculate the scattering function of the disordered state of a diblock copolymer with one polyacrylamide block and one non-hydrogen-bonding block in the random phase approximation. It is then shown that the expression for the inverse scattering function with hydrogen bonding is the same as that without hydrogen bonding, but with the Flory-Huggins parameter χ replaced by an effective value χeff=χ+δχHB(f), where the hydrogen-bonding contribution δχHB depends on the volume fraction f of the hydrogen-bonding block. We find that models with two constants give better predictions of bond energy in the acrylamide dimer and more realistic asymptotic behavior of the association constants and δχHB in the limit of high temperatures.

Diffusion-ordered NMR spectroscopy (DOSY) is increasingly widely used for the analysis of mixtures by NMR spectroscopy, dispersing the signals of different species according to their diffusion coefficients. DOSY is used primarily to distinguish between the signals of different species, with the interpretation of the diffusion coefficients observed usually being purely qualitative, for example to deduce whether one species is bigger or smaller than another. In principle, the actual values of diffusion coefficient obtained carry important information about the sizes of different species and on interactions between species, but the relationship between diffusion coefficient and molecular mass is in general a very complex one. Here a recently proposed analytical relationship between diffusion coefficient and molecular mass for the restricted case of small organic molecules is tested against a wide range of data from the scientific literature and generalized to cover a range of solvents and temperatures.

Although guidelines are available for hereditary hemochromatosis, a high percentage of the recommendations within them are not shared between the different guidelines. Our main aim is to provide an objective, simple, brief, and practical set of recommendations about therapeutic aspects of HFE hemochromatosis for p.Cys282Tyr (C282Y/C282Y) homozygous genotype, based on the published scientific studies and guidelines, in a form that is reasonably comprehensible to patients and people without medical training. This final version was approved at the Hemochromatosis International meeting on 12th May 2017 in Los Angeles.

Digitisation of this thesis was sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

A macrocyclic receptor molecule containing two viologen species connected by conjugated terphenyl groups has been designed and synthesised. The single-crystal X-ray structure shows that the two viologen residues have a transannular N⋯N separation of ca. 7.4 Å. Thus, the internal cavity dimensions are suitable for the inclusion of π-electron-rich species. The macrocycle is redox active, and can accept electrons from suitable donor species including triethylamine, resulting in a dramatic colour change from pale yellow to dark green as a consequence of the formation of a paramagnetic bis(radical cationic) species. Cyclic voltammetry shows that the macrocycle can undergo two sequential and reversible reduction processes (E1/2 = −0.65 and −0.97 V vs. Fc/Fc+). DFT and TD-DFT studies accurately replicate the structure of the tetracationic macrocycle and the electronic absorption spectra of the three major redox states of the system. These calculations also showed that during electrochemical reduction, the unpaired electron density of the radical cations remained relatively localised within the heterocyclic rings. The ability of the macrocycle to form supramolecular complexes was confirmed by the formation of a pseudorotaxane with a guest molecule containing a π-electron-rich 1,5-dihydroxynaphthalene derivative. Threading and dethreading of the pseudorotaxane was fast on the NMR timescale, and the complex exhibited an association constant of 150 M−1 (±30 M−1) as calculated from 1H NMR titration studies.

We describe and then elaborate the model of trading zones first presented in Collins et al 2007, Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise. We believe this expanded version of the model includes some very important but previously overlooked ways for separate language communities to communicate. We illustrate the argument with examples., 9 pages, 1 Figure

Monitoring of runoff and erosion in farmers' fields and their impacts gives a better understanding of erosion. However, it is rare that monitoring at frequent intervals is done over a prolonged period. A part of the upper Wissey catchment in central Norfolk, eastern England was monitored for 10 years to assess the extent and frequency of erosion and runoff, their causes and impacts. Surface wash occurred more widely and more frequently than expected. Runoff and erosion took place a number of times in a year in a range of autumn- and spring-sown crops, and occurred dominantly down tractor wheelings or ruts left after harvesting potatoes or sugar beet under wet conditions. Over 10 years erosion affected about half the 105 fields monitored, often more than once. Erosion was more extensive in autumn-sown cereal fields, but often more severe and with greater off-field effects, for example muddy flooding of roads from spring-sown late harvested crops such as potatoes and sugar beet. Runoff from outdoor pig fields also flooded roads and houses. This study confirms other studies of the extent, frequency and severity of erosion in Britain, that rill erosion does not occur in every field in the landscape, that in the main, fields do not erode frequently and rates of erosion are generally small. Runoff and erosion within a field took place more frequently than had been suspected. Compaction and destruction of topsoil structure by machinery especially at harvest, or by outdoor pigs, is important in initiating runoff. Rates of erosion were generally very low and will not affect soil productivity adversely over the short-term. However, flooding of roads and property, and especially pollution of water courses by sediment, nutrients and pesticides are important off-field impacts and are the primary reason, over the short-term, for mitigating runoff and erosion. Monitoring such as this sheds light on the problems of modelling to predict risk of erosion based on erosion rates.

PqqB is an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of pyrroloquinoline quinone and a distal member of the metallo-β-lactamase (MBL) superfamily. PqqB lacks two residues in the conserved signature motif HxHxDH that makes up the key metal-chelating elements that can bind up to two metal ions at the active site of MBLs and other members of its superfamily. Here, we report crystal structures of PqqB bound to Mn2+, Mg2+, Cu2+, and Zn2+. These structures demonstrate that PqqB can still bind metal ions at the canonical MBL active site. The fact that PqqB can adapt its side chains to chelate a wide spectrum of metal ions with different coordination features on a uniform main chain scaffold demonstrates its metal-binding plasticity. This plasticity may provide insights into the structural basis of promiscuous activities found in ensembles of metal complexes within this superfamily. Furthermore, PqqB belongs to a small subclass of MBLs that contain an additional CxCxxC motif that binds a structural Zn2+. Our data support a key role for this motif in dimerization.

Colloids suspended in a binary solvent may, under suitable thermodynamic conditions, experience a wide variety of solvent-mediated interactions that can lead to colloidal phase transitions and aggregation phenomena. We present a simple mean-field theory, based on free-volume arguments, that describes the phase behaviour of colloids suspended in a near-critical binary solvent. The theory predicts rich phase behaviour: we find colloidal gas, liquid and crystal phases, a colloidal gas-liquid critical line and a colloidal solid-solid critical line. We compare our results with those of our recent simulation study of the same model in two dimensions. Our simple theory accounts for the main features of the phase diagrams found in simulations and sheds new light on the origin of colloidal aggregation lines in near-critical solvents.

Cryptococcus neoformans is an opportunistic fungal pathogen and a leading cause of fungal-infection-related fatalities, especially in immunocompromised hosts. Several virulence factors are known to play a major role in the pathogenesis of cryptococcal infections, including the enzyme phospholipase B1 (Plb1). Compared to other well-studied Cryptococcus neoformans virulence factors such as the polysaccharide capsule and melanin production, very little is known about the contribution of Plb1 to cryptococcal virulence. Phospholipase B1 is a phospholipid-modifying enzyme that has been implicated in multiple stages of cryptococcal pathogenesis, including initiation and persistence of pulmonary infection and dissemination to the central nervous system, but the underlying reason for these phenotypes remains unknown. Here we demonstrate that a Δplb1 knockout strain of C. neoformans has a profound defect in intracellular growth within host macrophages. This defect is due to a combination of a 50% decrease in proliferation and a 2-fold increase in cryptococcal killing within the phagosome. In addition, we show for the first time that the Δplb1 strain undergoes a morphological change during in vitro and in vivo intracellular infection, resulting in a subpopulation of very large titan cells, which may arise as a result of the attenuated mutant's inability to cope within the macrophage.

In a recent article published in this journal, Atkinson and Morris explore the kinds of expertise and competence needed by ethnographic researchers. In doing so, they refer to the work of Collins and Evans and, in particular, the idea of interactional expertise, which they dismiss as largely unhelpful to their project. In this response, we show that the Atkinson and Morriss miss-represent this work in important ways and that, if these mistakes are corrected, interactional expertise provides a useful way of addressing the methodological concerns they identify.

Biosynthesis of the ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP), pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ), is initiated when precursor peptide, PqqA, is recognized and bound by the RiPP precursor peptide recognition element (RRE), PqqD, for presentation to the first enzyme in the pathway, PqqE. Unlike other RiPP-producing, post-ribosomal peptide synthesis (PRPS) pathways in which the RRE is a component domain of the first enzyme, PqqD is predominantly a separate scaffolding protein that forms a ternary complex with the precursor peptide and first tailoring enzyme. As PqqD is a stable, independent RRE, this makes the PQQ pathway an ideal PRPS model system for probing RRE interactions using NMR. Herein we present both the solution NMR structure of Methylobacterium extorquens PqqD, as well as results from 1H,15N-HSQC binding experiments that identify the PqqD residues involved in binding the precursor peptide, PqqA, and the enzyme, PqqE. The reported structural model for an independent RRE, along with the mapped binding surfaces, will inform future efforts to both understand and manipulate PRPS pathways.

Pyrolysis oil has been identified as a possible alternative fuel source, however widespread use is hindered by high acidity and water content. These negative characteristics can be mitigated by blending with, for example, biodiesel, marine gas oil and butanol. These blended samples can be unstable and often separate into two distinct phases. NMR spectroscopy is a well-established spectroscopic technique that is finding increasing application in the analysis of pyrolysis oil and blended fuels derived from it. Here, slice-selective NMR, where the NMR spectrum of only a thin slice of the total sample is acquired, is used to study, non-invasively, how the constituent components of blended biofuel samples are partitioned between the two layers. Understanding the outcome of the phase separation is an important step towards understanding why the blended oil samples separate, and may provide answers to mitigating and eventually solving the problem. The NMR method was successfully used to analyse a number of separated biofuel samples - typically separated into an oil layer, containing marine gas oil and biodiesel, above a bio-oil layer with a high water and butanol content.

The addition of co-solutes to aid the separation of signals from molecules of similar size in DOSY experiments - matrix-assisted DOSY - is a potentially powerful technique for mixture analysis. The additional signals introduced by a co-solute can however greatly complicate analysis. By suitable choice of sample conditions, the NMR peaks of a surfactant matrix can be suppressed, allowing the clear resolution of molecular species according to chemistry and structure, without extraneous interference.

Presentación realizada en: ATMOZ workshop at 11th RBCC-E, celebrado en El Arenosillo, Huelva, el 1 de junio de 2017.

In order to investigate the response to climate changes in radial growth of Picea crassifolia at the lower tree line in the middle Qilian mountains in northwestern China, relationships of standardized chronologies of annual ring, earlywood and latewood widths with mean monthly temperature and total monthly precipitation were analyzed by ways of correlation and pointer year analyses. The results show that annual ring, earlywood and latewood widths are significantly negatively correlated with mean monthly temperature in June and July. Annual ring and earlywood widths are significantly and positively correlated with total monthly precipitation in March, May and June and negatively correlated with total monthly precipitation in September. Latewood width is less sensitive to climate changes than the width of earlywood and insignificantly sensitive to precipitation. The results of pointer year analysis revealed that when summer temperatures are higher than the mean summer temperature synchronization and the summer precipitation lower than mean summer precipitation synchronization, narrow annual rings are formed. Wide annual rings are formed when summer temperatures are lower than the mean summer temperature synchronization and summer precipitation higher than mean summer precipitation synchronization. The results indicate that more precipitation in the spring and summer is helpful for radial growth while warmer summer restricts radial growth of P. crassifolia at the lower tree line in the middle Qilian mountains.

We hypothesise that climate change, together with intensive agricultural systems, will increase the transfer of pollutants from land to water and impact on stream health. This study builds, for the first time, an integrated assessment of nutrient transfers, bringing together a) high-frequency data from the outlets of two surface water-dominated, headwater (~ 10 km²) agricultural catchments, b) event-by-event analysis of nutrient transfers, c) concentration duration curves for comparison with EU Water Framework Directive water quality targets, d) event analysis of location-specific, sub-daily rainfall projections (UKCP, 2009), and e) a linear model relating storm rainfall to phosphorus load. These components, in combination, bring innovation and new insight into the estimation of future phosphorus transfers, which was not available from individual components. The data demonstrated two features of particular concern for climate change impacts. Firstly, the bulk of the suspended sediment and total phosphorus (TP) load (greater than 90% and 80% respectively) was transferred during the highest discharge events. The linear model of rainfall-driven TP transfers estimated that, with the projected increase in winter rainfall (+ 8% to + 17% in the catchments by 2050s), annual event loads might increase by around 9% on average, if agricultural practices remain unchanged. Secondly, events following dry periods of several weeks, particularly in summer, were responsible for high concentrations of phosphorus, but relatively low loads. The high concentrations, associated with low flow, could become more frequent or last longer in the future, with a corresponding increase in the length of time that threshold concentrations (e.g. for water quality status) are exceeded. The results suggest that in order to build resilience in stream health and help mitigate potential increases in diffuse agricultural water pollution due to climate change, land management practices should target controllable risk factors, such as soil nutrient status, soil condition and crop cover.

Among other traditional and non-traditional additives, polymers have shown an efficient performance in the field and improved sustainability. Polyacrylamide (PAM) is one such additive that has demonstrated many advantages including a reduction in permeability, an increase in durability and the provision of strength characteristics. However, information about its effect on the improved geotechnical characteristics is very limited to the field performance monitoring. Therefore, a laboratory investigation was carried out to examine the basic and engineering behaviors of three types of soils treated with a PAM additive. The results showed an increase in dry density and unconfined compressive strength for all the soils. The results further demonstrated an increase in unsoaked CBR and a reduction in permeability for all stabilized samples.

The notion of interactional expertise is explained starting with its origins and discussing its many applications. Interactional expertise is the ability to understand a technical area purely be deeply immersed in its 'practice-language' without actually practising. One of its many applications is to explain how large sciences are managed., Comment: 39 pages, one table

"A dead child" said stalin "is a tragedy. Two million are a statistic." A single photograph of a beach riveted world attention, converting syrian refugees from statistics to tragedy. But the statistics remain. Three Canadian columnists have offered contrasting interpretations. Eric Reguly argues that a static and aging Europe needs more manpower to sustain its economy. Margaret Wente, however, observes the failure of integration of migrants in Sweden. Migrants are drawn by open borders and a generous welfare state, but do not fit an advanced, high-skill economy. Gwynne Dyer notes that current inflows, IF evenly distributed, are a tiny proportion of the overall European Union. But economic migrants from Africa are a much larger issue. Their numbers are effectively inexhaustible.

Background: Recent developments in games and sport teaching such as that of Teaching Games for Understanding, Play Practice and Game Sense suggest that they can make a significant contribution toward the development of tactical understanding, ability to read the game, decision-making and a general ‘sense of the game’, yet empirical research conducted on their application in sport coaching lags behind research on their application in physical education. This article redresses this oversight by drawing on a study that inquired into the impact that Game Sense has had on elite-level rugby coaches in Australia. Aims: The purpose of the study was to inquire into the ways in which elite-level rugby coaches interpret and used the Game Sense approach to coaching and to explore the reasons for this. Method: This study comprises four case studies on Australian rugby coaches who were working, or had worked at, provincial and/or national levels. Data were generated through noted observations and a series of extended, ...