Effect of hydrogen bonding and complexation with metal ions on the fluorescence of luotonin A

Fluorescence characteristics of a biologically active natural alkaloid, luotonin A (LuA), were studied by steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic methods. The rate constant of the radiationless deactivation from the singlet-excited state diminished by more than one order of magnitude when the solvent polarity was changed from toluene to water. Dual emission was found in polyfluorinated alcohols of large hydrogen bond donating ability due to photoinitiated proton displacement along the hydrogen bond. In CH 2Cl2, LuA produced both 1:1 and 1:2 hydrogen-bonded complexes with hexafluoro-2-propanol (HFIP) in the ground state. Photoexcitation of the 1:2 complex led to protonated LuA, whose fluorescence appeared at a long wavelength. LuA served as a bidentate ligand forming 1:1 complexes with metal ions in acetonitrile. The stability of the complexes diminished in the series of Cd2+ > Zn2+ > Ag+, and upon competitive binding of water to the metal cations. The effect of chelate formation on the fluorescent properties was revealed. © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry and Owner Societies

Compensation for expropriated community farmland in Nigeria: An in-depth analysis of the laws and practices related to land expropriation for the lekki free trade zone in lagos

In Nigeria, the recurring impoverishment and other negative socioeconomic impacts endured by landholders affected by expropriation are well-documented and call into question the Land Use Act’s (LUA) effectiveness in protecting local land rights. The World Bank’s Land Governance Assessment Framework found that, in Nigeria, “a large number of acquisitions occurs without prompt and adequate compensation, thus leaving those losing land worse off, with no mechanism for independent appeal even though the land is often not utilized for a public purpose”. Such negative outcomes may be due to a number of factors, including corruption, limited capacity, and insufficient financing as well as Nigeria’s weak legal framework. According to a recent study of compensation procedures established in national laws of 50 countries, Nigeria’s compensation procedure lags behind many of the countries assessed because the LUA mostly fails to adopt international standards on the valuation of compensation. This article examines Nigerian expropriation and compensation procedures in more detail by combining both an in-depth legal analysis of Nigeria’s expropriation laws as well as survey and qualitative research that indicates, to some extent, how expropriation laws function in practice in Nigeria. Based on our legal assessment, surveys, and interviews with both government and private sector officials involved in the LFTZ, we found that the Nigerian government failed to comply with international standards on expropriation and compensation, both in terms of its laws and its practices in the LFTZ case. This article expands our conference paper written for the UN Economic Commission of Africa Conference on Land Policy in Africa, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in November of 2017. Under Nigeria’s LUA, affected landholders are not granted the right to participate in expropriation and compensation decision-making or otherwise be consulted on matters affecting their land and livelihoods. In 2004, the LUA enabled the Lagos State government to set aside 16,500 hectares of expropriated agricultural land from Lagos coastal communities to develop the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ). Following the expropriation, the Lagos State Government (LSG) and Lekki Worldwide Investment Limited signed a Memorandum of Understand (MOU) with nine affected communities in 2007. The MOU is a legally binding document that promises compensation, alternative land, jobs, healthcare, and educational opportunities to the communities affected by expropriation. However, our research suggests that the MOU has not been fully honored. According to a survey of 140 affected households conducted in August 2017, the government still had not paid sufficient compensation to all affected communities or had not yet provided them with suitable alternative land, jobs, equity shares and other entitlements promised by the MOU. While there are several reasons why the MOU has not been honored, this article mainly focuses on the failure of the LUA to establish binding obligations on government officials to compensation, resettle, and reconstruct the livelihoods of affected landholders. This article argues that the LUA must be reformed so that, whenever land is expropriated for development projects, the government and private sector entities (i.e., acquiring bodies) have a legal obligation to provide sufficient and prompt compensation, alternative land, jobs, equity shares, and other entitlements to affected landholders. Moreover, the LUA should obligate the government and acquiring bodies to follow a transparent and participatory process when expropriating land and compensating communities so that, if properly enforced, the reformed LUA can mitigate the risks commonly associated with expropriation, including landholder impoverishment, displacement, food insecurity, and conflict

Operational Semantics for Featherweight Lua

Lua is a small, embedded language to provide scripting in other languages. De- spite a clean, minimal syntax, it is still too complex for formal reasoning because of some syntactic sugar or specific syntax structures in Lua. This thesis develops Featherweight Lua (FWLua), following the tradition of lan- guages like Featherweight Java[1] and Featherweight JavaScript[2]. The goal is to develop a core of language features that, while remaining simple enough for formal reasoning, also remain faithful to the central characteristics of the language. Specifi- cally for Lua, the core features that are essential for our modeling include: ∙ First-class functions ∙ Tables as the central data construct ∙ Metatables that provide various “hooks” to change the behavior of tables To further validate this approach, we show how an extensive set of features from the full Lua programming language can be reduced to FWLua. Finally, we include a reference implementation written in Haskell as a tool for further testing and experimenting with the language. With this research, we provide a basis for future research into the Lua programming language

On practical applicability of the Jarzynski relation in statistical mechanics: a pedagogical example

We suggest and discuss a simple model of an ideal gas under the piston to gain an insight into the workings of the Jarzynski identity connecting the average exponential of the work over the non-equilibrium trajectories with the equilibrium free energy. We show that the Jarzynski identity is valid for our system due to the very rapid molecules belonging to the tail of the Maxwell distribution. For the most interesting extreme, when the system volume is large, while the piston is moving with large speed (compared to thermal velocity) for a very short time, the necessary number of independent experimental runs to obtain a reasonable approximation for the free energy from averaging the non-equilibrium work grows exponentially with the system size.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, submitted to JP

Advanced Conducting Project

Adoramus Te by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina; edited by Brian Marble -- Plaudant Aetheri by Ignaz Holzbauer; edited by Martin Banner -- Kyrie (from Mass No. 6 in E-flat Major ) by Franz Schubert -- Cantique de Jean Racine by Gabriel Faure; edited by H. Zipper -- The Lamb by John Travener -- Russian Picnic by Harvey Enders -- N\u27kosi Sikelel\u27I Afrika by Enoch Mankayi Sontonga; transcribed, edited and annotated by Nick Page and Joseph Shabalala -- Lua, Lua, Lua by Esther Scliar; edited by Daniel Fufino Afonso, Jr. -- Ching-A-Ring-Chaw by Aaron Copland; arranged by Irving Fine

Ensayo clínico de eficcacia y seguridad del uso del misoprostol versus legrado por aspiración endouterina (LUA) para el manejo del huevo muerto retenido y embarazo anembrionico menor pero igual a 12 semanas de gestión en mujeres que asistierón al servicio de la emergencia del Hospital Bertha Calderón Roque de la Ciudad de Managua, de Septiembre del 2012 a Enero del año 2013

El objetivo del presente estudio fue conocer como es la eficacia y seguridad uso de misoprostol en comparación con el legrado por aspiración endouterina (LUA) para el manejo del huevo muerto retenido y embarazo anembrionico menor o igual a 12 semanas de gestación, en mujeres que asisten al servicio de la emergencia del Hospital Escuela Bertha Calderón Roque de la Ciudad de Managua, en el periodo comprendido de Septiembre del 2012 a Enero del año 2013. Se llevó a cabo un estudio controlado tipo ensayo clínico aleatorizado, no ciego, con diseño de no inferioridad o equivalencia. Se formaron dos grupos: Grupo A (n=32), manejados con misoprostol vaginal (4 tabletas de 200 ug o 8 tabletas de 100ug en el fondo de saco posterior vaginal) dosis única en el huevo muerto retenido con una dosis más en caso de no evacuación a las 12h de la última dosis únicamente en embarazo anembrionico; Grupo B (N=30), manejados con aspiración manual endouterina (LUA). El comportamiento hemodinámico, la frecuencia de reacciones adversas y complicaciones, es similar entre el grupo de estudio (en el que se usó misoprostol) y el grupo control (en el que se aplicó LUA). Entre los resultados más importantes tenemos que la utilidad de la técnica (proporción de casos en los que se completa la evacuación de forma satisfactoria) es similar entre el grupo de estudio (en el que se usó misoprostol) y el grupo control (en el que se aplicó LUA). La intensidad del dolor percibido es menor el grupo de estudio (en el que se usó misoprostol) en comparación con el grupo control (en el que se aplicó LUA). El nivel de satisfacción desde la erspectiva de los pacientes, es mayor en grupo de pacientes que recibió misoprostol (grupo de estudio) en comparación con el grupo en el que se aplicó (LUA) (grupo control). Este estudio indica que el uso de misoprostol es igual de eficaz y seguro que el LUA, y que presentan características que podrían indicar una mayor aceptabilidad por parte del pacient