Narratives of Happiness in South Korea

Global Independent Study, Summer 2017 -- South Koreahttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138974/1/Hermiz_Poster.pd

US Light-Water Reactor spent fuel inventory-fissile distribution

Those conducting waste management studies to reduce the potential for a nuclear criticality accident in a future geological repository must examine the quantities and distribution of fissile isotopes that are present in discharged boiling-water reactor (BWR) and pressurized-water reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) scheduled for disposition. The major fissile isotopes present in LWR fuels that impact criticality safety are the nuclides, {sup 235}U, {sup 239}Pu, and {sup 24l}Pu. The sum of the quantities of these three nuclides, expressed as a percentage of the total amount of all U and Pu isotopes present in a batch of discharged fuel, determines the final enrichment of the fuel batch under consideration. The final enrichment provides an approximate measure of the nuclear criticality potential. As the final enrichment increases, the mass, geometry, or administrative controls that must be in place to prevent nuclear criticality become more stringent. Below an enrichment of about 0.7%, however, criticality is no longer a concern because the infinite multiplication factor for any heterogeneous or homogeneous mixture of fuel and water, even under conditions of optimum moderation, is less than unity. The current study examines the distribution of the final enrichment of the LWR SNF which was discharged through December 31, 1993, and which currently resides in the fuel storage pools of the various utilities or in one of several AFR facilities

High value of ecological information for river connectivity restoration

Context: Efficient restoration of longitudinal river connectivity relies on barrier mitigation prioritization tools that incorporate stream network spatial structure to maximize ecological benefits given limited resources. Typically, ecological bene 5 fits of barrier mitigation are measured using proxies such as the amount of accessible riverine habitat. Objectives We developed an optimization approach for barrier mitigation planning which directly incorporates the ecology of managed taxa, and applied it to an urbanizing salmonbearing watershed in Alaska. Methods: A novel river connectivity metric that exploits information on the distribution and movement of managed taxon was embedded into a barrier prioritization framework to identify optimal mitigation actions given limited restoration budgets. The value of ecological information on managed taxa was estimated by comparing costs to achieve restoration targets across alternative barrier prioritization approaches. Results: Barrier mitigation solutions informed by life history information outperformed those using only river connectivity proxies, demonstrating high value of ecological information for watershed restoration. In our study area, information on salmon ecology was typically valued at 0.8-1.2M USD in costs savings to achieve a given benefit level relative to solutions derived only from stream network information, equating to 16-28% of the restoration budget. Conclusions Investing in ecological studies may achieve win-win outcomes of improved understanding of aquatic ecology and greater watershed restoration efficiency

The Interplay Between Hydrogen Sulfide and Phytohormone Signaling Pathways Under Challenging Environments

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) serves as an important gaseous signaling molecule that is involved in intra- and intercellular signal transduction in plant–environment interactions. In plants, H2S is formed in sulfate/cysteine reduction pathways. The activation of endogenous H2S and its exogenous application has been found to be highly effective in ameliorating a wide variety of stress conditions in plants. The H2S interferes with the cellular redox regulatory network and prevents the degradation of proteins from oxidative stress via post-translational modifications (PTMs). H2S-mediated persulfidation allows the rapid response of proteins in signaling networks to environmental stimuli. In addition, regulatory crosstalk of H2S with other gaseous signals and plant growth regulators enable the activation of multiple signaling cascades that drive cellular adaptation. In this review, we summarize and discuss the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms of H2S-induced cellular adjustments and the interactions between H2S and various signaling pathways in plants, emphasizing the recent progress in our understanding of the effects of H2S on the PTMs of proteins. We also discuss future directions that would advance our understanding of H2S interactions to ultimately mitigate the impacts of environmental stresses in the plants

A guide to the identification of metabolites in NMR-based metabonomics/metabolomics experiments

Metabonomics/metabolomics is an important science for the understanding of biological systems and the prediction of their behaviour, through the profiling of metabolites. Two technologies are routinely used in order to analyse metabolite profiles in biological fluids: nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS), the latter typically with hyphenation to a chromatography system such as liquid chromatography (LC), in a configuration known as LC–MS. With both NMR and MS-based detection technologies, the identification of the metabolites in the biological sample remains a significant obstacle and bottleneck. This article provides guidance on methods for metabolite identification in biological fluids using NMR spectroscopy, and is illustrated with examples from recent studies on mice

Advances in structure elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry

The structural elucidation of small molecules using mass spectrometry plays an important role in modern life sciences and bioanalytical approaches. This review covers different soft and hard ionization techniques and figures of merit for modern mass spectrometers, such as mass resolving power, mass accuracy, isotopic abundance accuracy, accurate mass multiple-stage MS(n) capability, as well as hybrid mass spectrometric and orthogonal chromatographic approaches. The latter part discusses mass spectral data handling strategies, which includes background and noise subtraction, adduct formation and detection, charge state determination, accurate mass measurements, elemental composition determinations, and complex data-dependent setups with ion maps and ion trees. The importance of mass spectral library search algorithms for tandem mass spectra and multiple-stage MS(n) mass spectra as well as mass spectral tree libraries that combine multiple-stage mass spectra are outlined. The successive chapter discusses mass spectral fragmentation pathways, biotransformation reactions and drug metabolism studies, the mass spectral simulation and generation of in silico mass spectra, expert systems for mass spectral interpretation, and the use of computational chemistry to explain gas-phase phenomena. A single chapter discusses data handling for hyphenated approaches including mass spectral deconvolution for clean mass spectra, cheminformatics approaches and structure retention relationships, and retention index predictions for gas and liquid chromatography. The last section reviews the current state of electronic data sharing of mass spectra and discusses the importance of software development for the advancement of structure elucidation of small molecules