137,118 research outputs found
The Playground of the East
I lay down on the beach and looked dreamily away to where the deep blue of the sky blended to meet the blue-green of the ocean. The sun shone brightly on the golden sand about me while the brightly colored sea shells came and went with the ocean waves. The whole shore seemed secluded, but by noon it would be jammed with people bathing or basking in the sun. The shore would be a mass of red, yellow, blue, orange, green, and purple umbrella
The Portrayal of Girl Child in Ruskin Bond’s The Blue Umbrella
Ruskin Bond, Indian author of British decent, was born on 19 May 1935 at Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh. He was raised at Jamnagar (Gujarat), Shimla and Dehradun. He is a well-known Indian writer in English. He has written more than hundred short stories, six novels, three collection of verse and over thirty books for children. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children’s author and a top novelist. He received Sahitya Academy award for his book; Our Trees Still Grow at Dehra in 1992, and was honored with Padam Shree in 1999 for his lifetime contribution to Indian literature in English. He was awarded with Padam Bhusham in 2014. He has been writing for the last fifty years in different genre of literature. His stories and novels got wide publicity worldwide in India. Various directors produced films on his novels. He was also appreciated by various prizes and awards at national level. In 2005, the Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj made a film based on his popular novel for children, The Blue Umbrella. The movie won the National Award for best Children’s film. It is a fine specimen published in 1992. This novella has also been filmed in 2007. It is set in a small village of Garhwal, where a little highland girl, Binya lives. She trades her lucky leopard claw pendent with a picknicker lady for a pretty blue umbrella
Environment and culture shape both the colour lexicon and the genetics of colour perception
Many languages express 'blue' and 'green' under an umbrella term 'grue'. To explain this variation, it has been suggested that changes in eye physiology, due to UV-light incidence, can lead to abnormalities in blue-green color perception which causes the color lexicon to adapt. Here, we apply advanced statistics on a set of 142 populations to model how different factors shape the presence of a specific term for blue. In addition, we examined if the ontogenetic effect of UV-light on color perception generates a negative selection pressure against inherited abnormal red-green perception. We found the presence of a specific term for blue was influenced by UV incidence as well as several additional factors, including cultural complexity. Moreover, there was evidence that UV incidence was negatively related to abnormal red-green color perception. These results demonstrate that variation in languages can only be understood in the context of their cultural, biological, and physical environments
The c2d Spitzer Spectroscopic Survey of Ices Around Low-Mass Young Stellar Objects. IV. NH3 and CH3OH
NH3 and CH3OH are key molecules in astrochemical networks leading to the
formation of more complex N- and O-bearing molecules, such as CH3CN and
HCOOCH3. Despite a number of recent studies, little is known about their
abundances in the solid state. (...) In this work, we investigate the ~ 8-10
micron region in the Spitzer IRS (InfraRed Spectrograph) spectra of 41 low-mass
young stellar objects (YSOs). These data are part of a survey of interstellar
ices in a sample of low-mass YSOs studied in earlier papers in this series. We
used both an empirical and a local continuum method to correct for the
contribution from the 10 micron silicate absorption in the recorded spectra. In
addition, we conducted a systematic laboratory study of NH3- and
CH3OH-containing ices to help interpret the astronomical spectra. We clearly
detect a feature at ~9 micron in 24 low-mass YSOs. Within the uncertainty in
continuum determination, we identify this feature with the NH3 nu_2 umbrella
mode, and derive abundances with respect to water between ~2 and 15%.
Simultaneously, we also revisited the case of CH3OH ice by studying the nu_4
C-O stretch mode of this molecule at ~9.7 micron in 16 objects, yielding
abundances consistent with those derived by Boogert et al. 2008 (hereafter
paper I) based on a simultaneous 9.75 and 3.53 micron data analysis. Our study
indicates that NH3 is present primarily in H2O-rich ices, but that in some
cases, such ices are insufficient to explain the observed narrow FWHM. The
laboratory data point to CH3OH being in an almost pure methanol ice, or mixed
mainly with CO or CO2, consistent with its formation through hydrogenation on
grains. Finally, we use our derived NH3 abundances in combination with
previously published abundances of other solid N-bearing species to find that
up to 10-20 % of nitrogen is locked up in known ices.Comment: 31 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
A Hydrophobic Gate in an Ion Channel: The Closed State of the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor
The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) is the prototypic member of the
`Cys-loop' superfamily of ligand-gated ion channels which mediate synaptic
neurotransmission, and whose other members include receptors for glycine,
gamma-aminobutyric acid, and serotonin. Cryo-electron microscopy has yielded a
three dimensional structure of the nAChR in its closed state. However, the
exact nature and location of the channel gate remains uncertain. Although the
transmembrane pore is constricted close to its center, it is not completely
occluded. Rather, the pore has a central hydrophobic zone of radius about 3 A.
Model calculations suggest that such a constriction may form a hydrophobic
gate, preventing movement of ions through a channel. We present a detailed and
quantitative simulation study of the hydrophobic gating model of the nicotinic
receptor, in order to fully evaluate this hypothesis. We demonstrate that the
hydrophobic constriction of the nAChR pore indeed forms a closed gate.
Potential of mean force (PMF) calculations reveal that the constriction
presents a barrier of height ca. 10 kT to the permeation of sodium ions,
placing an upper bound on the closed channel conductance of 0.3 pS. Thus, a 3 A
radius hydrophobic pore can form a functional barrier to the permeation of a 1
A radius Na+ ion. Using a united atom force field for the protein instead of an
all atom one retains the qualitative features but results in differing
conductances, showing that the PMF is sensitive to the detailed molecular
interactions.Comment: Accepted by Physical Biology; includes a supplement and a
supplementary mpeg movie can be found at
http://sbcb.bioch.ox.ac.uk/oliver/download/Movies/watergate.mp
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